How is this approved into the anime database, but not with 'Scott Pilgrim Takes Off' and 'Pacific Rim: The Black'?

Thats because Terminator is a japanese production. All the other animes named here are not. Thats also the reason why Dead Space and Dantes Inferno are not in the database.

@Briareoss

You said "all the other animes" which disproved your point.

@JoeChip Why? Just because MAL thinks there not real animes doesn't mean there not animes. I'm talking from THEIR perspective. By the way I'm not making a point. I'm stating facts.

@Briareoss I'll take the word of the most popular Anime database over other Anime databases especially AL.

OP, I don't get it, if they added it, y'all complain, if they don't added it, y'all complain too, why do you want? Imagine getting salty just becuase a series wasn't added to the site, you know it doesn't prevent you from watching it?

@Nurguburu Look kiddo, I'm just telling you WHY this anime is NOT in the MAL database ok? MAL not putting it in THEIR database because it is NOT A JAPANESE production. Just read the freakin guidlines it will tell you. Those are facts and nothing to argue about.

@Briareoss

Ternmi,nator is a japanese Amerrican joint production btw. It was developed by an American

@JoeChip and is still produced by Production IG right? Production IG is japanses right? right? riiight!

@Briareoss

It was animated not produced bt y Productyion IG

@Briareoss

It was animated not produced bt y Productyion IG

@JoeChip Yes it was, because Skydance just fronted them the idea to make this show. And the minute they gave it into production IG hands it became a japanese production. But look kiddo, I'm the wrong one to bark at. YOU got a problem with certain animes not being on here? Then talk to a MAL admin. Not me. Say everything you said to him and see if he agrees.

You can follow the discussion in this thread: Add “terminator zero” Netflix anime please!

Skimming it, the main reasoning seems to be that there's one director credited and he is Japanese. Also, most of the key staff are Japanese, with the exception of the script and the music.

@perseii

By that logic Tekkonkinkreet shouldn't be on the database, as it's by an American director.

MAL mods just like being picky for some reason.

Besides, there are tons of anime that have Western collaborators or writers involved, doesn't make them Japanese animation.

Abel Gongora, who directed Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, is Spanish but lives in Japan and has worked on various notable shows including Star Wars Visions. Thomas Romain is another, a Frenchman who worked on Space Dandy.

It's just so f*cking weird to sort art not by content, but by where the guy making it is from. Like, I'm European, how long would I need to live in Japan before I am "able" to direct an anime? Is this like the bloody US elections, or what? This is all just insane and is unironically slightly drifting into racist argumentation.

@Lucianael you are in a site of anime, which separates japanese animation from animation of other countries, even when both are animation; therefore, what you say is very ironic.

@aburame_ernesto but it doesn't though. Link Click is Chinese, and so is Heaven Official's Blessing. MAL is not about Japanese animation but about you guessed it, anime, it is kind of in the name. While "anime" might have once meant the same as "Japanese animation", it doesn't anymore, nowadays "anime" is a distinct style of visual animated storytelling not bound to any place or people.

@Lucianael "anime" isn't a visual style, anime it's just animation from japanese creators. Every country have his idiosyncrasy and his way to see the world and capture it in art; the same way that the european cinema it's different to the north american cinema, the same thing happens with the japanese animation and the animation from the rest of the world. This isn't just about a visual style, the anime isn't even have a defining visual style, there are lot of productions with different styles

I want to butt in, but as i'm quite lazy, i'll just answer that one : Link Click is not an Anime, but a Donghua.
While these 2 words design works of animation, they specifically target works of their own countries.

... they are. It's not because there is a lot of people who are wrong that they are less so. They can not care about the actual definitions, but if they do not follow them, they are the ones in the wrong, period.

@aburame_ernesto culture isn't bound by borders but by people, you can make a film in the style of a traditional French film, even when you live in Korea. People are not going to call it a "French film" because it is directly associated by name with its country of production, the same however isn't true of anime. Let us take Avatar: The Last Airbender as an example, even though it is entirely produced in the US, a lot of people still call it anime, because it shares a lot of style, themes and elements of storytelling. I'm neither from Japan nor do I live there, but if we were to ignore my lack of knowledge, skill and funding, there is nothing stopping me from directing or animating an anime. I already used this example, but Link Click is an anime, so is Castlevania. "Anime" has in fact become a style and not just a descriptor of where a show was animated. If you think it is important to restate boarders and make this about nations instead of art, you should be careful, this can go into quite a nationalist/racist direction.

@Lucianael Avatar and Castlevania doesn't have any of anime; his narrative and all composition it's something that a japanese creator never would do. You have a very superficial idea of "what is anime", to you if i make something like Scooby-Doo but with "anime designs" that it's a anime? Like i said, this isn't about racism, but every country has his idiosyncrasy and that makes that the way that they produce art it's different, you can't change that. It's about the artistic language from every culture. If you see things like Castlevania and Avatar and you think that it can be animes, then you don't understand about the artistic language that the japanese have.
And anime never was an style, anime it's just a word used for japanese animation; like i said, there are a lot of anime with different styles. With that way of thinking, to you Belladonna of Sadness is less anime than Avatar.

@aburame_ernesto We are just using two different systems of naming things right now. If anime is a classifier of Japanese animation, then Belladonna of Sadness clearly counts and Avatar obviously doesn't. I don't particularly like that system though, because culture is NOT shaped by nations but by the people, Avatar was very much designed to be anime-like. I haven't seen Belladonna of Sadness, but from briefly looking at a trailer, I don't think it tries to be "anime". People have particular influences when they create art and in this case, that influence is clearly not the traditional kind of anime, popularized by shows like Astro Boy, Dragon Ball, One Piece and Attack on Titan. All of them more all less share the same artistic vision when it comes to style, diverting from that isn't a bad thing and because of that, I would be perfectly fine with calling Belladonna of Sadness by another descriptor than anime. But I am not the person that has the final authority over things like this, there is actually a much simpler answer. Things have the name we call them by, if people call it anime, then it is anime, if they don't, it isn't. If you were to ask people who do not know the origins of particular animated shows, what they would categorize them as would be what matters. If they were to call avatar an anime, that would be completely fine, because that is the style the creators choose, and it is the style people recognized it by.

So in conclusion, anime is anime, and western cartoons are western cartoons, even if they are made in Japan.

Even if you think, that this is not the way most people view anime, I hope we can at least agree, that it would be the better one.

@Lucianael Well, sorry to disappoint you, but Belladonna of Sadness it's more anime than Avatar, because it have the artistic language of most animated productions from Japan. Like i said, you just have a very superficial idea of what is anime.
And your last statement, aside of being wrong, its very contradictory. You said that ANYTHING it's anime just if people want to call it that way, but then proceed to say tahat "anime is anime, and western cartoons are western cartoon", but by your logic, if i want to call a western cartoon as "anime", then it's anime.
I tell you, you would save yourself a lot of troubles if you just use "anime" as a word only for japanese animation and stop trying to force the tag of anime to shows from other countries; if you want you can just call them "anime style" or somethin like that, and anyway, i dont see why most people want to call "anime" to foreigns animations, like if they can't watch those shows unless if them are under the tag of "anime"

@aburame_ernesto I'm gonna go through this is steps.

"Well, sorry to disappoint you, but Belladonna of Sadness it's more anime than Avatar, because it have the artistic language of most animated productions from Japan."

I literally haven't seen the movie, I can't tell you anything about Japanese story telling and how it is being applied there, all I know is that the trailer makes it look like, it does not try to be "anime".

"And your last statement, aside of being wrong, its very contradictory. You said that ANYTHING it's anime just if people want to call it that way, but then proceed to say tahat "anime is anime, and western cartoons are western cartoon", but by your logic, if i want to call a western cartoon as "anime", then it's anime."

I really don't understand what you are talking about here. My point was that anime is anime, because that is what people call it and western cartoons are western cartoons, because people call them "western cartoons". I don't know if you just missed that, but I literally wrote "western cartoons are western cartoons, even if they are made in Japan"

"I tell you, you would save yourself a lot of troubles if you just use "anime" as a word only for japanese animation and stop trying to force the tag of anime to shows from other countries"

This is the same logic as saying "why would you oppose the Nazis, doing that is tough, you could save yourself a lot of trouble by not doing that". This is an extreme example, just to illustrate my point, I am not Anne Frank and this is not in any way as serious of a matter. My point is simply, that accepting a worse system is always easier than challenging it, in the hopes of creating a better one.

"if you want you can just call them "anime style" or somethin like that, and anyway, i dont see why most people want to call "anime" to foreigns animations, like if they can't watch those shows unless if them are under the tag of "anime""

This might be a bit tough to understand, but... because it is more accurate. I'm going to make this very easy for you, there is this show called Death Note, don't know if you've heard of it. Death Note is an anime, I hope we can agree on that. Now, I want you to imagine the following scenario: Madhouse one day reveals that Death Note was actually entirely produced by a European animation studio that Madhouse had hired. The director, scriptwriter, composer, everyone working on it turned out to be a Europeans who never visited Japan, none of them even speak the language. Would that change anything about the fact, that Death Note is an anime? Just to reiterate, in this scenario, Death Note is still the exact same show you've watched and enjoyed and called an anime for years, nothing is different, the only change is that now you know, that guys from Europe made it. Are you seriously going to start calling DEATH NOTE a European cartoon, or can we agree that this show IS an anime?

@Lucianael "I literally haven't seen the movie, I can't tell you anything about Japanese story telling and how it is being applied there, all I know is that the trailer makes it look like, it does not try to be "anime"." This proves what i was saying: you just have a superficial appreciation of anime, like something that it's just visual.
And like i say, if people just start to call western cartoons as anime, then for your logic them are anime. What it's the point then even in have the word anime? Just call all animation.
What i was trying to say by "you would save yourself a lot of troubles if you just use "anime" as a word only for japanese animation" it's that you wouldn't need to use such tangled and contradictory arguments to justify your ideas. My first language isn't English, so some words could sound weird and no as intended.
You are using as argument a situation that doesn't exist; there is no point in discussing something like that

@aburame_ernesto I agree with you, you seem to be unable to comprehend these arguments in their English form, so there indeed is very little reason for me to continue to try. Take it for what you will, you probably care little for what I say, but those arguments are perfectly logical, and you just didn't understand them. I don't hold this against you, like you said, English isn't your first language and even if it was, not everyone can understand everything, just accept that this is a discussion you are not capable of having, and we can move on with our lives. If I sound like a dick to you right now, I really understand that, but I also don't want to say something like "We both made mistakes and this isn't going anywhere, so let's just stop", even if your English isn't the best, I am going to treat you with enough respect to not just lie. There most certainly are things that you could talk to me about, which I would be entirely unable to understand, but this is the other way around, and you should at least acknowledge, that if you are unable to understand someone's logic due to your own shortcomings, that probably invalidates your position. Again, this isn't a problem, if we were talking about Belladonna of Sadness then we would have this whole situation the other way around because I don't have the necessary knowledge to hold that debate. In this case though, you consistently misunderstood my points and were not able to give a functional counter perspective, this is a subject you are, at least right now, not able to tackle. Nonetheless, I had fun chatting about this, and hope the same goes for you. Have a good one. ^^

@Lucianael I didn't say that i can't understand english, i understand perfectly; i say i cant express myself as i want, so for that reason you dont understand some of my statements as i intended. I can understand what you are saying, and like i say, you are wrong. But yourself showed that you don't have enough knowledge about anime; you don't see things like Belladonna of Sadness, and for what your list shows, you didn't even see anime from before the 90 (just for some movies), so this all discussion it's kinda pointless; you have a very reduced vision of what anime is

@aburame_ernesto this* is only tangentially related to the topic we are discussing though, and does not limit my ability to understand that dividing shows by their artistic intent and perception is way more valuable than by the country they are from.
*(this = the limited amount of anime I've watched)

It's just so f*cking weird to sort art not by content, but by where the guy making it is from. Like, I'm European, how long would I need to live in Japan before I am "able" to direct an anime? Is this like the bloody US elections, or what? This is all just insane and is unironically slightly drifting into racist argumentation.

@Lucianael https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=141101


If you went to work for a Japanese animation company and worked on projects that were produced by Japanase producers it would be anime, even if you yourself are EU.
Maybe you don't like the database rules, but it's better than using subjective terms such as I feel like this fits for this database instead of defined rules.

If one keeps going with allowing more and more, why not add other animation, you could always just keep going and adding live action and classic lit books (instead of just manga and LN) and so on and so forth. That is however outside the scope of this database.
MyAnimeList database doesn't just have anime, but it does have a list of rules for what fits. Ofcourse with joint production the rules get more iffy, but unless you're fine with adding a lot more than intended you have to draw the line somewhere

@henwens ...yes.

Anime is still an art form though. I understand that MAL uses guidelines as to what counts as anime and what doesn't, but by their own definition, Scott Pilgrim would be an anime. Iffy edge cases exist no matter what rules or way of categorizing art you use, animation is a transformative medium, people will always challenge norms and that is a good thing. BUT, if you actually value art and what it represents, you would never draw that line to be the boarder of a nation. "Anime" is far more than just a term used to describe Japanese animation, it has become a style, whether you like it or not, and a style can be reproduced and build up on by anyone, no matter where they live. MAL as a database for "anime" worked fine for a long time, due to few joined productions and overall little to no debate over what counted as anime, but as we see more and more with every passing year, these guidelines just don't work any longer. Anime once meant nothing but Japanese animation, but that just isn't accurate anymore, now that it has become a global phenomenon and has inspired so many animators and creatives all over the world, it can't be categorized by where it is from. This was always a broken system, but just recently did we start to see why, only now do people begin to understand why the old way just doesn't work. If you believe in artistic values in any way whatsoever, you would need to oppose the idea, that it can be divided by boarders. Yes, if you shut yourself off from the rest of the world, you can develop art exclusive to your culture, but we aren't in the Edo Period anymore, everyone knows anime, and because of that, everyone can learn to make it.