Anime Dialogue

Has anyone ever noticed how consistently awful the dialogue in most mainstream Japanese anime is? I used to think it was a function of the translation, but after hearing dialogue from several different shows I've come to the conclusion that it's now more the rule than the exception in today's serialized Japanese cartoons.

I can pinpoint exactly what it is about the dialogue that bothers me, too: the seemingly inexhaustible need for exposition, either by a bad guy or by an ominous supporting character. At some point in the story, the bad guy/supporting character explains, in rather stilted English when the cartoon is dubbed, an important story point to the hero, who, it seems, cannot otherwise figure anything out for himself. This exposition is punctuated by some extremely pretentious and wholly unbelievable language which seems all the more absurd when enunciated by the voice 'actors' who are either the same awful ones used over and over or different people trained to speak in the same monotonous accent. I used to think most of the English dubbing was done in Canada, but now I think it's done in Asia by people vainly trying their hardest to speak like Westerners. My computer is not facing the TV, but when I'm on it I can tell if the channel on is Animax from both the stilted (Canadian? Japanese?) accents of the characters and their ludicrous English they're spouting.

This character monologuing undermines the individual shows and the genre in several ways; first it violates one of the first principles of storytelling: show, don't tell. Considering that the medium here is a visual one, the storytelling deficiency betrayed by such heavy reliance on this poor excuse for 'dialogue' is all the more glaring and the irony almost too bitter to endure.

Some of the truly great anime, like Akira, relied very little on dialogue except at crucial points in the story, and even then not so much. One seminal work, Ghost in the Shell, was heavy on exposition towards the end where the Puppet Master character explained everything to the Major, and kind of ground the narrative to a halt, but at least not before the movie had hurtled along at two hundred miles an hour with some of the most eye-popping action sequences ever animated. The funny thing is, I don't even know that dialogue that appears midway through the story for exposition is even a Japanese thing; I've seen Japanese cartoons that have gone without it, and although I've seen very few of the legendary Akira Kurosawa's films, I know they weren't really dialogue heavy, either.

There's a reason it's called anime, which incidentally isn't even a Japanese word; it's French, and loosely translated it means alive. The recent wave of dreck polluting Animax and some other channels featuring Japanese cartoons is anything but that.

Second, the reliance on consistently bad writing in lieu of action just goes to show how, just like the American shows they used to stand head and shoulders above, the makers of Japanese cartoons are not in the least bit above cutting corners and sacrificing the quality of their work in the process. Talking heads, after all, are a lot easier to animate than people fighting or running or jumping or doing anything else that could propel the story forward without hitting both the hero and the viewer over the head with some explanation of everything that's going on. It was bad enough when they had Gundam robots just floating around in space on their rocket boots or packs instead of running , throwing punches, swinging their lazer swords or whatever their weapons are. Now, they apparently can't even have people moving around; it's either too expensive or time-consuming, so they just have them stand around and talk most of the time.

I'm no anime connoisseur, but I am familiar with some of the best in the genre like the aforementioned Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo and some of the works of Hayao Miyazaki like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. That was stuff that was vibrant and alive and made full use of the imagery that was at their disposal. There, the only limits were the imaginations of the writers and animators. These days, apparently there are a lot more considerations weighing them down.

It's kind of absurd that in cannibalizing one of the oldest Japanese cartoons for the big screen, Speed Racer, the Wachowski Brothers have, based on the mostly negative reviews I've read, imported this penchant for expository dialogue in one of the scenes involving the hero listening to...you guessed it...a long monologue by the villain.

This is not what anime should be about, and if this truly is the future of the medium, I honestly hope it leads to its extinction, so that people with a real sense of imagination can take the reins and give us actual anime, not just cartoons.