Last Airbender: The whole character designs almost scream out anime. The whole setting of the show is more eastern than western (even if rather chinese than japanese). It's really what would come out if americans produce something similar to japanese animations.
Simply having a show set in an Asian world doesn't mean much, especially since the major problem with Avatar was they got pretty much everything about that world wrong, from mixing up Japanese and Chinese traditions to mispronouncing the names. The characters themselves act very American, not Asian. They're purely American archetypes and develop as you would expect from American archetypes. If the Asian setting was so important, then shows like Fullmetal Alchemist wouldn't be much like anime, but it is. Because despite the western setting, the writing in Fullmetal Alchemist is still very mcuh Asian.
A good example is the sibling duo of Katara and Sokka. They quarrel and argue a lot, with usually the brother, Sokka in this case, being humbled and put in his place, which is a very common dynamic of siblings in American cartoons. Siblings in anime tend to be much more closely tied, as there is a much bigger importance of family in general in Asian culture; especially of elders. Most sibling dynamics in anime tend to be very close with very little outright pointless quarreling; any quarreling is usually a major plot focus; such as if one of the siblings is evil working for the villain, or it's a drama about their relationship. But even in those instances, you can see the bonds they share which i something you never find in Western cartoons. For an example of the first, the recent chapters of Naruto, as well as their fight a couple hundred chapters back, especially shows that even if Sasuke and Itachi are enemies, they're still brothers. For the second, Kirino and Kyousuke in Oreimo. Kyousuke grins and bears his sister's attitude because she's his sister and he will do anything for her.
This is especially a very common trope in shounen anime, such as Jounouchi and Shizuka in Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Luffy and Ace in One Piece, Sasuke and Itachi in Naruto, Yoh and Hao in Shaman King, Edward and Alphonse in Fullmetal Alchemist, and so forth. It's where the whole onii-chan/onee-san dynamic comes from, and I can't think of many western siblings who I could see using those words or share that kind of bond. Helga and Olga in Hey Arnold, Bart and Lisa from The Simpsons, Meg and Chris from Family Guy, and etcetera are all too different and not very close.
Toph is another good example. Little girls in American cartoons tend to be very loud. annoying, and brash, which is what Toph was like. If they're a little sister, their sole purpose seems to be making their older siblings lives a living hell: see pretty much every sitcom on American television from Drake and Josh to Roseanne. Contrary, little girls in anime tend to be portrayed as either very cute and innocent, or if it's a more otaku anime, tsundere, and sexualized. Toph is more in line with Blitzy from the 80s cartoon Botsmaster, or Sari from Transformers Animated: annoying, loud, somewhat tomboyish, and always looking for trouble; a very western exeuction of little girls.
You can see it in Thundercats as well: Lion-O, Tigra, Cheetara and all them embody very clear American archetypes and portrayals than they would if it was an anime. There's so many examples you could list of Western sensibilties and writing in these shows. Any attempt at copying an art style isn't going to change the basic roots that these shows are written by westerners, and simply having some generic 'anime influence' art style isn't enough to say it's 'close' to anime. This is why most anime rip-offs fail, they never dive into the actual culture or dynamics of Japanese animation; and they're always American cartoons with a bland art style.
Note: As with everything, I'm sure you could name maybe one or two exceptions, but it doesn't change the fact there's clear different views on these subjects between the western and eastern cultures. The exception proves the rule, as they say. |