[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So do you think that writing quality is completely unimportant to the quality of an anime show?

No, I'm saying that the script, where it exists, must serve the animation and not the other way round.

This is something, I realise, that is lost on most anime fans, but it's something that most animators are keenly aware of. I was made aware of it only after extensive conversation with a childhood friend who is a producer at his own animation studio, one of only a handful in Singapore that survived past its foundation years.

What is the point of having a brilliant screenplay if it doesn't allow animators to do something special with it? You might as well create a live-action drama. Why bother with animation?

If you listen to interviews with professional animators, you'll frequently find them coming unconsciously to the same point. Mamoru Hosoda could have made a movie about a hardworking single mother bringing up two kids. But why should such a story be an animated movie and not a live drama? What would be the special quality that makes it viable for animation and no other medium? After mulling over it, he finally struck on the idea to cast the children as half-human, half-wolves. Hence, Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki.

Think also about the movies of Satoshi Kon. Most of them are great stories in their own right, but what makes them special as animation? They're special because Kon used animation to blur the lines between reality and fantasy without breaking the suspension of disbelief — a strength of animation that still isn't fully possible in live-action films, because there will always come a point when your mind will automatically recognise visual spectacles that are too good to be real.

To be sure, this isn't a new point. I've been trying to drive home this message time and again. If you enjoy anime simply for its stories, you need to ask why you bother with animation. You might as well read a book or a manga. After all, most fans will always say that the literary source provides the better story.

So, yes indeed, why experience a story in animated form? It can't be just for the story. It's for the animation. It's for the chance to witness a group of creators attempting to bring imagination to life, free from the boundaries that constrain live-action acting.

Hence, I say again: Where anime and animation is concerned, the script serves the animation, and not the other way round. If the animation is horrid, no amount of good writing will save it as an animation project.