I didn't make any animation that I'd call Japanese anime, but for the past year in my animation course I've made at least five 1 minute short animations, and a whole bunch of animations 30 seconds and below.
We were to experiment as much as we can therefore we've done everything from traditional hand drawn, stop motion, claymation, wipe board, paper flipping to computer animation like Flash and Maya.
You can create awesome animation with any medium, its all a matter of technique, time and effort. If we're talking about animation quality here, even at an amateur level, I'm sure with the the right technique and drawing skills, one can do a good animation. But animation is never easy, be it traditional or computer animation.
Here's an example that was shown in my class, a completely independent production written and animated by a single animator. It was one of the most outstanding work for an independent animation competition in Japan.
Fumiko's Confession:
In my opinion one of the best points of this animation are the camera work and perspective. He cleverly used perspectives for the still backgrounds through out the entire animation. For the buildings that move past rapidly in the middle portion of the animation, he made them in 3D. I really think its the entire setting, the backgrounds that make this animation interesting. You can almost call this a 'background driven' story lol, the girl literally is forced to move by the terrain.
But yes, the plot, a good story should have a good plot. What is story and what is plot?
The story of Fumiko's Confession is as its title suggest, Fumiko wants to confess to the guy she likes. The plot? Fumiko's confession failed, so she ran away with a burst of emotions and ends up flying through the town and straight into the guy he likes at the bottom of the hill.
Its a simple story, simple is always good. Don't think too much for a story, especially since we're talking about amateur level work here, even if its professional its not always good to have complicated story lines.
Think of a story you want to tell, make it simple. Then think of how you can make it interesting, think of what others have done before for your type of story, then don't do it in those ways. Do your story in a way that nobody has done before. But then again thinking of a story and writing it is always difficult.
Alternatively, or actually a better way, is to think of a message that you want to tell. Then write a story that tells the message. The story and its plot is not the message. For example, the newspaper says that recently there has been a number of murders at night in the neighbourhood, this is the story. The message is, we should be careful at night and keep the kids at home.
I guess I'll say this much for now, its becoming quite a big post lol. Maybe the message for this post is that animation is hard to do, but it can be done if you know what to do.