What Exactly Constitutes “Original Anime”?
Sora no Woto is one of a new breed of anime originals.
While discussing the new Anime no Chikara timeslot, Omo from Omonomono noted that it’s a little difficult to come up with a decent list of anime originals that are both critically acclaimed and popular. Omo brought up Gainax‘s Evangelion and Gurren-Lagann, and the subsequent comments mentioned titles like Code Geass, My-HiME and Cowboy Bebop. My own attempt to respond to this post ended up in frustration when I quickly realized that Omo is quite right… successful anime originals are a rarity. (Above image found on Moe Imouto; link slightly NSFW.)
My thoughts turned to the likes of Cowboy Bebop and Dennou Coil, but I was upended when I looked them up on Wikipedia, only to find that, quite surprisingly, the Cowboy Bebop manga predated the anime by almost six month, and the Dennoi Coil light novel was first released a few weeks before the anime premiered. The Cart Driver‘s Scamp and Wakaranai‘s Washi pointed out to me, over Twitter, that those anime and other titles like Angel Beats, Le Chevalier D’Eon and Macross Frontier, where the anime was released shortly after a studio-sanctioned print adaptation, were cross-media releases, and therefore should be counted as anime originals. The reasoning is that it is the anime that was conceived by the studio first, and the other releases are multi-media promotional tools. As a criteria, this both concerns and confuses me, because there’s an innate ambiguity about it, where there really should be none.
One of the problems I have is that we must accept what the studios have to say on the matter, which is complicated when they (often) don’t say anything at all. We must accept that the other adaptations were made to promote the anime, but, given how much more profitable manga tends to be over anime, who’s to say that it isn’t the other way around? That’s certainly the case with most manga-to-anime adaptations… the weak, inconclusive endings in particular are among the large number of reasons why they’ve garnered a reputation for often being embellished commercials for the source material.
Most categorizations in anime are largely open to interpretation. Debates still rage on regarding the definition of moe. But this is something, IMO, that should be a lot more clear cut. What I want to see is an authoritative and unambiguous framework of criteria for deciding what is and isn’t “original anime”, one which is clear-cut and that we can all agree on. For better or worse, it falls to the fans to decide this (and my sneaking suspicion is that the majority don’t really care about a clear-cut definition).
Perhaps the first place to look is an institution that deals with discerning between original and adapted works on a regular basis: the Oscars. Eligibility for the “Best Original Screenplay” award is given as, to quote Wikipedia
script(s) not based upon previously published material.
Even outside the screenplay awards, the Academy is renowned for being incredibly anal about what constitutes originality, as evidenced by the fact that Jonny Greenwood‘s soundtrack for There Will Be Blood was snubbed for the “Best Original Music Score” award in 2007, because of a technicality – one of the songs had also appeared in a film that Greenwood scored previously. It might be anal, but it’s unambiguous, which is why I think it makes for an appropriate starting point for developing a set of criteria for deciding what’s original anime and what’s adapted.
If there were a way to take the ambiguity and confusion out of cross-media releases, I’d be happy to accept them as anime originals. An anime like True Tears adds another dimension of confusion to the matter. With the bare exception of the title, it shares exactly nothing with the visual novel it was based on, yet the studio that developed the game, La’cryma, is still credited by P.A. Works as the creators of the original source. In this case, I think you pretty much must say that True Tears is an adaptation, because that’s what the two studios involved have seemingly agreed on, which is counter-intuitive because what the audience sees while watching the anime is blatantly original.
Washi was also adamant that Haibane Renmei counts as an original anime, and here’s where I strongly disagree, to the point that I don’t think there’s any ambiguity at all. While ABe Yoshitoshi was heavily involved in the creative process of the anime (he wrote the script), he first published Haibane Renmei as a doujin series four years before the anime aired. The doujin was short-lived because it was quickly picked up as an anime series (and the rest was history), but it remains that the characters and setting (but not so much the story) are not anime-original creations. Haibane Renmei, the anime, is an adaptation and I don’t see why ABe‘s status as an amateur writer when he conceived its characters and first published its setting has any bearing on its status. Higurashi and Tsukihime are both recognized, with little controversy, as adaptations; both were based on doujin visual novels. The only other argument that I could see for why Haibane Renmei is an anime original is that, ignoring the characters and settings, the plot was written almost exclusively for the anime. But, by this reasoning, wouldn’t Tsukihime‘s strongest critics say the same thing about it? Tsukihime is seen as a failed adaptation, but it’s still an adaptation, and by this reasoning, you could argue that a lot of fan-fiction, which often transplants existing characters into new plotlines, is original. Quite clearly, this is ridiculous.
I think this is where we need to have a frank and open discussion about what exactly constitutes “original anime”, in the hope that we might be able to come up with a standardized set of criteria that everyone can agree to. This isn’t (and shouldn’t be) about disrespecting anime writers, this is about clarifying a situation which isn’t as straightforward as most people would have thought. If anything, this is another example of how anime is, in many regards, a different medium to other motion-picture storytelling mediums.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that a part of me want to include such things as Shinbo’s adapatation of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei to Miyazaki’s adaptation of novels as “anime originals” since they are so deviant from their source materials that they can be considered as their own original product. However, I know that this argument would never fly, so I’m not going to seriously pursue it.
I suppose a better way would be to look at it is financially. Anime originals are products that have titles, characters and/or marketable goods (giant robots) that has not seen any previous market exposure. Like the name “Nike” or “Google”, the name of each anime/character/marketable goods can be be seen as its own brand and so long as no one else has waved the same flag, it can be considered “original”.
As for Washi’s argument on Haibane Renmei, I can see where he comes from. From what I’ve seen of the doujinshi (I think I’ve seen them all), these are pretty much a series of 4 frame gag stories about Rakka getting her hair stuck on her Halo or something as trivial. To go from this to what Haibane Renmei became, it’s not absurd to contend that the anime may be original.
Hm, yeah, it’s a tricky argument. The cross-promotion titles are particularly difficult to define because, as you write, it’s impossible to discern intent of release without the studios saying, “We originally conceived this as an anime, and then the manga/light novel/etc. came later”.
Just to give a tricky example: It has been well-documented that 2001: A Space Odyssey was intended as a joint venture between Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and that the film and book were intended to be released at the same time (and then Kubrick undercut Clarke by releasing the movie earlier lol). If these were both original projects, would it not be useful to label the whole as an original work? Or would the inevitable differences between novel and film throw a wrench into that? (Which is the question behind the whole Cowboy Bebop/Dennou Coil example, and one which I am not entirely sure I can answer lol.)
(2001 is technically not an original project, since Kubrick and Clarke expanded on ideas from one of Clarke’s short stories, but the differences between the original story and 2001 are massive.)
As for Haibane Renmei, I would label it a very loose adaptation, but an adaptation nonetheless. And, frankly (and if I am taking Washi’s comment out of context, I apologize), I don’t see why the label of “adaptation” would in any way demean the creative contributions of the writers/animators/directors/etc. to the project. To me, an “adaptation” implies that someone else will put his or her own spin on an existing work or scenario — there will be differences, and those differences can often create something entirely different.
For example, my favorite movie — Dr. Strangelove — is an adaptation of Peter George’s Red Alert, but it strikes such a completely different tone (dark comedy rather than straight nuclear drama) that it could be considered something completely different. It is still an adaptation, but Kubrick and Terry Southern looked at the times and adapted the story into something different.
In other news, I apparently have a hard-on for the word “different”. I need to learn to edit my comments before submitting them. :p
The notion of “adapting” a work has many intricacies, but coming from my own adaptation experience from writing, reading, and professional input, an adaptation strives to replicate one or more central elements of a particular source into another separate “standalone” entity. These elements are, within the context of their respective medium (film, manga) original. As such, the elements can be characters, a very specific atmosphere, a special location, a concept. etc. And in “striving” to replicate, to adapt, the adaptors are indicating intention. Without these two criteria, intention and a central element, I would not call a work an adaptation. It would be an original that has been “inspired” by X, or is imitative, or derivative. True Tears would be an adaptation. Classification is annoying for cross-media releases, especially if a studio is silent. But in Cowboy Bebop and Dennou Coil’s case, I think we are safe to assume that producing an anime is significantly more work and time than a light novel or short manga.
Coming up with a clear-cut criteria for something like this gives me a headache, but I personally make a distinction between the term ‘original anime’ and ‘anime original’. I would say Gankutsuou is an original anime, but not an anime original. Same for Dennou Coil.
The fact that so many of the people responding to your question need to split hairs with the titles they choose is kind of indicative of how few anime really are original works. Nobody can rattle off title after title, and instead everything needs to be qualified with some statement.
Isn’t the lack of anime originals just how anime has been made since the beginning? Like, Tezuka adapts a bunch of his manga(s), establishes tenuous commercial viability, and everyone has been copying that model since. Animation is just too expensive to let every Joe and Jane with a unique idea to make a show. There is no such thing as an indie scene in anime.
To elaborate what I was saying, the barrier of entry to making animation is too high. Except for Makoto Shinkai or those Gainax dudes, the phenomenon of building a little studio out of a garage with friends doesn’t happen in anime like it does with film, music, or video games.
Video games are a good medium to compare anime with. Both are about the same age in terms of commercial development, but those who hold the creative power in each couldn’t be more different. Where there are many avenues for up and coming game designers to show their talent and, maybe more importantly, be financially rewarded for doing so, the creative power of anime is held by only the few at the top. Manga and novels are were all the young creative talent is farmed from, so it seems to me anime will always the dependent of other creative mediums.
@Shadowmage
Ponyo is an interesting case. The influences from The Little Mermaid are fairly obvious, but the characters themselves are new and original and the story is self-contained. How much credit did Miyazaki give to Hans Christian Anderson? I can’t remember. Maybe the status of “originality” depends on how much credit the creators give to other sources. SZS definitely is an adaptation. The first series may be slightly different, but subsequent seasons were very loyal in terms on content, if not in style.
@Shinmaru
It’d be much clearer if studios were far more forthright about the entire creative process, and were clear about who came up with what, and for which purposes. It might be a bit fuzzy, but we actually know the history behind 2001, so we can make a decision based on a fair amount of knowledge. The True Tears case, ironically enough, is probably one of the clearer of all the cases discussed, because it was clear that the game studio was credited with the source, while the anime studio was credited with the adaptation. That an essentially original script was used was beside the point. It’s interesting, because P.A. Works must have decided that it was more profitable to use the True Tears title. They could have taken their script, named it something new, like “Angsty Teens”, and marketed it as an original work. The lush animation, original script and magnitude of the names involved in creating it evidences that quite a bit of money was thrown at it. So the decision to market it as a visual novel adaptation (with a twist) certainly must have been a conscious one. (Oh yeah, and there should be an “edit” button for the first five minutes after you post your comment.)
@Tamashii
So that makes them original? I think that’s a reasonable set of criteria for discerning what’s “anime original”, but again, it relies on the studios being clear with their intention. In the cases where they are, there’s very little controversy. Maybe it’s impossible to have a clear-cut set of criteria without the studio’s involvement. Maybe the only way to be unambiguous about this is for the studios to be completely clear about the intention of their work. Let’s face it, no one’s going to call an “Anime no Chikara” series an adaptation.
@gaguri
Originality from the creative point of view is a whole different kettle of crustaceans. In that case, there is going to be a significant gray area, as people have different ideas about what constitutes originality. One of my pet hates is when people claim that true originality has been dead of a long time in an attempt to excuse blatantly derivative works. But that’s beside the point in this argument. Originality from a technical point of view should have a clear-cut, unambiguous definition. Well, that’s what I thought before writing this post. Now I’m not so sure.
@jpmeyer
A lot of the arguments kinda smack of rationalization, don’t they. “It’s an original work if…” If, what? If you face north and hold your nose at 3PM? I want to work some of the ambiguity out of the concept of “anime original”, because it’s a technical concept, and I don’t think there should be a huge amount of ambiguity at all, except in the really bizarre cases like 2001, which Shinmaru already mentioned.
@kadian1364
I like the fact that the entry barriers for video games (and visual novels specifically) have decreased enormously over the years. I’ve already mentioned Higurashi and Tsukihime; Ryukishi07 and Nasu are two of the bigger examples of people who made their bones by starting out on the doujin scene. Shinkai is an exceptional case, and it’s amazing to think that his earlier works were almost entirely produced on his Mac. You have to be so driven and talented to do what Shinkai has done, and perhaps we’ll never see anime-makers going through the path he took on a regular basis, the same way guys like Ryukishi07 and Nasu strike it big by starting out as incredibly ambitious amateurs. I think you’re right though… if there were some way to lower the entry barrier, we’d probably get a lot more original (and, arguably, inspired) anime.
I’m biased. I just use the legal definition. It’s not a line that some will be happy with (myself included) but it’s a line that cuts clearer than most (yet it still has some grey areas).
Haibane Renmei’s case is clearly not an adaptation because the pre-existing work is more along the lines of a teaser or solicitation. And most original works, regardless if we see it or not, have teasers/prototypes/solicitations. It makes even more sense since it’s all ABe’s properties anyways.
At the same time if someone makes Cencoroll the real-deal-tv-series, I wouldn’t call it an adaptation of the 30-minute OAV. However in that case the legal picture could be possibly tainted.
True Tears would be an adaptation, even if it’s nothing like the game, simply because it borrowed some setting elements and is a part of the franchise. Of course, the content is entirely off the hook, but it points out the bigger problem about original anime projects: Sometimes original works are excellent, and yet often, as compared to true adaptations, this is not the case. How can Japan come up with a system to give enough flexibility in such a way to allow good original anime to exist when they have to break out, and when not to?
Another good example (also a Junji Nishimura show) is Simoun. And yet another is (although a real adaptation this time) Kimikiss Pure Rouge. That guy is doing something right! Do we count an anime conjured from the thin air (ie., Umi Monogatari) as an adaptation? Yeah, because it is. But what in the pachinko hell. Is it even meaningful anymore?
The meaningful way to discuss the adaptation thing is to simply stick to the source. Did the anime creator consult the manga/game/etc to create their work? If so, how? Is there something adaptive going on or not?
Here’s a silly question: Why the need for a clear cut definition? As you pointed out, fans probably wont give a shit one way or the other. So, we’d be doing this for our own purposes?
As for my thoughts, jpmeyer might be making the most succinct comment by stating that the lack of originality might be the cause. That isn’t to say that there isn’t anything original depicted in anime (gaguri’s anime original vs. original anime argument), but that it becomes really hard to know whether there was any source material on anything.
I think we should take each title in a case-by-case basis, extrapolating as much information as we have available and mkaing a good guess. If we have no evidence that shows like Angel Beats are unoriginal anime productions, then we shouldn’t assume they aren’t. I hate the, as you mentioned, “anal” notion of disincluding a worthwhile project just because of some ambiguous loophole. So, in my opinion, Haibane Renmei, dspite having a few published doujins before the anime, shouldn’t be looked at as an unoriginal work, especially if the original author is involved. We’re not talking about the same circumstance of Douglas Adams writing his famous novels and then doing the screenplay version. Even if it’s the original writer, it’s still an adaptation of his own work. But that’s not what we have here with ABe.
I don’t know. Just throw out a title and let’s all rage over it.
>> As you pointed out, fans probably wont give a shit one way or the other.
Well, in adaptations, they do. Que the whine of people complaining it’s better/worse/different/ruining of the manga.
Yeah, but that’s fans being faggots; faggots who could seriously influence and tarnish the legitimacy of an original work. See TTGL episode 4 reactions and the shitstorm caused by both episode 8 and the finale of So-Ra-No-Wo-To for reference.
I also question the utility of this enterprise. TIF is correct when he says that fans won’t care either way, but that is not why I question the purpose of this exercise. I believe that, objectively, we should focus on the anime as an end product, and not the process through which it was created. I understand this teleological view of anime ignores important “historical” principles (ie, the production process, the original work, et cetera), but perhaps this is for the better. I will probably write a longer article of this point later, because I can’t really think of any good justifications for this paradigm yet.
At the same time, while TIF calls whining by fans “faggotry”, I believe comparisons to the original work are valid. I don’t mean that we should whine and complain about small nuances (“OMG! KONATA’S UNIFORM IS THE WRONG COLOR RAAAAAAAEG”), but rather, we should look to see how well the adaptation captures the spirit of the original (or, in the case of True Tears or Ga Rei -Zero-), how the director’s heterodox interpretation of the work matches up with the vision of the original creators. Either case does not require a need to define “original anime production.”
Personally, I will define “anime original” as a work which was conceived primarily for the medium. My definition isn’t about chronology. If the Angel Beats manga came before the Angel Beats anime started airing, the show would still be an anime original, because it was a production tailored for the medium. An adaptation would be a work that was made to fit the medium from another one.
Now, there are obviously grey-area cases. Most prominently, Black Rock Shooter blurs the line between anime original and an adaptation. Even though the anime is based off of the Hatsune Miku song by Supercell, I still consider it an anime original. The background and characters may have been borrowed from the song, and the song may serve as a broad, guiding background for the series, the details of the plot, et cetera, are all decisively original and tailored for the medium. The difference here is intent: The anime is not a translation of the song into the anime medium; it is an anime which borrows the song’s imagery.
By this rubric, True Tears would be an anime original, which I am comfortable with. Haibane Renmei would be an adaptation, for it is an attempt to translate ABe’s doujinshi into the anime medium. Strike Witches, too, would be an anime original: the characters are all based off of designs by Shimada Humikane, but the plot and the characters’ personalities, I recall, were determined by Gonzo and the Strike Witches production team.
SK, you probably knew that I was planning an article on anime originals too. Now that we have had a procedural debate about what constitutes an anime original, perhaps my article will be strengthened by this debate.
@omo
For all it’s flaws and technicalities, one of the ideal things about the legal definition is that it tries to minimize the gray regions. So, I don’t think it’s a bad framework to work in by any stretch of the imagination. While I’m willing to pay that anime originals can have teasers in other mediums, I’m still not convinced that that was what ABe’s Haibane Renmei doujin was. I mean, only he’d know whether he intended to develop it into a full doujin series later on, but it’d surprise me if he knew from the get-go that Haibane Renmei would be picked up and developed into an anime. IMO, any definition of “original” needs to incorporate a distinction across mediums. This is probably where the legal definition falls a bit short… it’s really good at discerning between people and institutions, which means we can say that if one studio is taking elements from someone else’s work for adaptation, then it’s clearly not original. It’s not so good at making the distinction when one person carries on his work into another medium. IMO, this is an adaptation, but here the legal definition can’t see the difference.
@TIF
In all honesty, it’s because the lack of a clear cut definition in this case annoys me. It’s a technical concept, so I don’t really see why there needs to be such a big gray area. Adding to what omo said, the rise of Anime no Chikara and the changing attitudes of directors like Nishimura and Kasai towards adaptations means that anime originals are going to become much more prevalent and important in the future (hopefully). So, if it isn’t already, it’s going to become a relevant issue.
@Akira
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I’m guessing that one of the ambitions with Anime no Chikara is the promotion of anime originals, with the hope that this is a relatively untapped well of creativity. Manga-to-anime adaptations have been a staple for years, and they’re certainly not going anywhere, but perhaps the thinking is that there’s not too much more creativity to extracted from this route of adaptation, and the next stage of innovation in anime is going to come from animating completely new stories… more frequently. So, while the end product is the most important aspect, I wouldn’t say the creative process is irrelevant… it’s the path through which the end product is made and by changing and adjusting the barriers, rules and limitations, there’s going to be an influence on the type of anime that we see. I don’t agree with your definition, and I think the difference is that we’re coming at the gray region from different sides. My opinion probably tends towards the thinking that the questionables should be deemed “adaptations” by default, and it seems that your opinion is that they’re mostly “original” by default. So far, I’m liking omo’s definition as the best compromise, but I still think the distinction between mediums needs to be made… even when the original creator is heavily involved in the second medium. (Oh yeah, and I saw that article… I haven’t read it, and I wasn’t sure if it was in draft hell or not. I look forward to it, if it’s coming soon.
Akira’s method is far too self-contradictory to be satisfying, and I find that lacking any definition whatsoever is equally unsatisfying. On that note, let me respond to Akira and TIF’s comments.
First, in regards to Akira. To argue that the anime itself is the end product is to potentially exclude the original goal of the creators and planners for the entire franchise to be the end product, not just the anime series itself. We certainly have reason for isolating it as such, particularly since such a method would simplify the discussion by virtue of ceteris paribus. However, this runs the risk of excluding what could be considered the true object of analysis: the franchise itself.
Azuma Hiroki specifically discussed the topic of franchises in his book when he discussed moe and simulacra recycling, arguing that part of the widespread recycling and use of material in the anime world was partially a result of trying to sell entire franchises, and not just animes. A historically over-cited example of this is Evangelion. Furthermore, a necessary consequence of this argument is to consider the creation of “originals” not merely from what’s produced and the time it is produced, but by what original concept the end product was meant to be experienced as. If we ignore the multimedia products further intended for release along with the Evangelion anime (which had an ending designed to promote the franchise), it’s arguable that we’re ignoring a fundamental aspect of creator intent.
In response to TIF: using a case by case basis for determining originality is impossible without even a working definition. We find the definition first, and go from there. However, I think you and gaguri are onto something when you both mentioned a certain lack of completely original ideas in anime. My intuition about this situation seems to be different from yours though; precisely because there is a lack of originality, we must therefore construe a somewhat strict definition of originality so as to remove as much recycled material as possible. Of course, the downside to this is a possible lack of original anime. I’m completely fine with that, though.
That being said, I think that original anime should be strictly defined as: having an underlying concept or name not stemming (for the most part) from previous work by others in any medium, and the end goal of the first project was to produce an anime for the sole purpose of producing an anime. The most important aspect of this definition is the conjunction: both parts must equally be satisfied. Let me demonstrate the reason for this.
Haibane Renmei, for example, would not be an original anime because it fails to meet the 2nd requirement. It was not originally intended as an anime. Therefore, it’s not an anime original. However, it does pass the first part. The original conception of Haibane was a doujin work, but the ideas in it are arguably original by virtue that the creator came up with it on his own. Granted, I have never seen Haibane Renmei, but you can see how this definition works.
True Tears fails the test by virtue of its franchise and name, despite only being superficially similar to its predecessor; the anime serves as part of a franchise designed to promote the game. Thus, both parts of the conjunction are violated.
Of course, this is a severely limiting definition of “original anime” — one that I’m relatively fine using. It also does not exclude “originality” in anime adaptions. For example, I would argue that True Tears is no adaption, yet it is not original. It sits in a sort of creative purgatory half-way between original and not, which I think is categorically safe. In the franchise and multimedia happy anime industry today, I think that it is arguably preferable to acknowledge a lack of original products without necessarily holding the belief that there lacks originality in general.
The definition of an anime original is really a two part question, both parts which have been already brought up. The first is the question “Why do we need to define this term?” The second is the question of the definition itself.
The reason why I think it’s a two part question is because the definition can be largely influenced by how we are going to use it. As an example, which I believe will be the main use of the term “anime original”, most of us would probably start questioning whether anime originals spark creativity or promote the industry in ways that adaptations don’t. In such a comparison we are already considering anime originals to have some form of original content that might make it superior. As such, we are already considering the original content of anime originals to be a distinct part which we want to emphasize.
With this given frame of why and how we are going to use it, I would argue that the legalese definitions Sorrow-kun and Kylaran are arguing for, while completely valid and clear, don’t quite cover the spirit of what we would consider an “anime original.” The definition would probably cut Evangelion the anime from this category because the manga was published first (I think. If not, I’ve been living in a lie this entire time.). Nevertheless, I think most people would be hard pressed to argue that it was first conceived and envisioned as anything other than an anime. Most people would also consider it to have had original content that doesn’t really draw from the manga but rather ran parallel and even acted as the canon to the manga’s derivative storyline. Do we consider this an anime original? My instinct says yes, although a definition that could encompass this is still out of reach. Akira and TIF’s approaches follow this spirit but, as Kylaran pointed out, are too situational and work too loosely on a case by case basis to derive a definition that we can use generally.
In the end, maybe it should be considered simply everything that falls outside the realm of adaptation, although in that situation, again, the definition lies on the word adaptation. There goes that circular problem of gray areas again.
[...] credit where it is due: This post germinated after reading this entry on Behind the Nihon Review [...]