The other day, my friend and I had a very interesting conversation on American manga and English dubs. We both agreed that American manga was greatly under appreciated. Japanese anime is an art form, I believe, and I fully support American manga-ka. Most people don’t know that Japanese anime began as an imitation of Disney animation. The large eyes depicted in Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse helped to influence Japanese animators to create legendary characters like Astro Boy.

I’m very bothered by people who feel that original characters or manga-ka who aren't Japanese (or Korean) aren’t manga-ka. If an American artist wants to draw in the anime-style, and they do it well, then why should they not? Some of my friends have said that American manga-ka don’t draw as well as Japanese manga-ka. I think that every manga-ka has a particular style of drawing and that every variation in drawing is what gives the style its individuality. If some people think that that these variations made by American manga-ka make the art poor, I think it is wrong.

I also think that the price of American manga is a little ridiculous. Although charging $9.99 for Japanese manga is at least understandable (although a pain) because of translation fees, I think that for American manga-ka to become successfully accepted the price of American-made manga needs to be reduced.

While TV surfing today, I found out that Brittney Spears released a music video that was animated in the anime style. The music video is actually pretty good. Although I’m not necessarily a fan of Britney Spears, I like the anime music video trend. The video is called Break the Ice for anyone who wanted to know. It looks like it might be a continuing series like Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555. Interstella 5555 is super-special-awesome anime done by Toei animation to one of Daft Punk’s CDs. It’s incredible! Below is my all time favorite song from Interstella 5555, ‘Harder, better, faster, stronger.’

Hoped you liked it! Up next: Dubbing.

Someone commented that they wanted to see the Brittney Spears video, so here it is:

and if that didn't work, heres the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL9K2_NQEd8