Can DBZ be mistaken for an entirely American cartoon?

[floofychan333]

I could honestly understand somebody not knowing DBZ is Japanese at all. The art style is so distinguishable from the classic "anime" art style that I could see people thinking it was drawn by Americans. Plus, the Faulconer score and even most of the Kikuchi score in Z sound like they could've easily been written by American composers.
I personally think that the OGDB couldn't be mistaken for American because the music often sounds like traditional Chinese/Japanese music. And with all honesty, watching later DBZ with the Japanese subs kind of feels weird because it looks so American.

[Hellspawn28]

Compare to shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show and even the newest Transformers cartoon, I don't see how DBZ can be mistaken for an American cartoon. The art style is so different looking compare to American animated shows now. Maybe in the 90's and early-mid 2000's it could have. The trend to copy the art style of Japanese animated shows died out since Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Boondocks ended a while ago. Other shows like Perfect Hair Forever and Code Lyoko are pretty much forgotten by most people.

[LordCrumb]

American animation is widely different, even in the age of computer driven animation. When American animation studios try and replicate an Anime style, it fails big time imo.

American animation:



Japanese Animation:

[precita]

Not at all.

Even in the 90's and 2000's when anime was "new" a lot of people knew it wasn't an American cartoon. DBZ and Pokemon, etc. all looked vastly different to the shows airing on KidsWb, Cartoon Network, Fox, etc. at the time

[Nejishiki]

American animation
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Japanese animation
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Not to pick fights, but we shouldn't generalize animation. It's a creative process where its direction can be truly limitless. Some productions are going for a specific visual to express ideas while others may be mimicking another inspiration from foreign concepts to themselves. We can only judge each work by itself and whether it accomplished its goals effectively. That's not to take away one's personal feelings on how you would react to it, but I want to encourage context instead of claiming one region of Earth only creates animations a certain way. Art is the wild, wild west of media and variety is more than welcome, even if cultural themes are normally prevalent.

[Hellspawn28]

Not at all.

Even in the 90's and 2000's when anime was "new" a lot of people knew it wasn't an American cartoon. DBZ and Pokemon, etc. all looked vastly different to the shows airing on KidsWb, Cartoon Network, Fox, etc. at the time

Megas XLR and Teen Titans air around 2003-2004 back when Toonami was still airing all three DB shows and they where often to be mistaken as anime despite being western produce shows. The Boondocks and Avatar: The Last Airbender still gets mistaken as anime. Now these days, no one tries to copy the Japanese anime and manga art style.

[nite_jay]

Megas XLR and Teen Titans air around 2003-2004 back when Toonami was still airing all three DB shows and they where often to be mistaken as anime despite being western produce shows. The Boondocks and Avatar: The Last Airbender still gets mistaken as anime. Now these days, no one tries to copy the Japanese anime and manga art style.

I sure as hell couldn't mistake the Boondocks for an anime.

[404FILENOTFOUND]

I don't think so, can't speak for anybody else, but I had this "feeling" for me going on with shows and I can just tell a difference if they were produced in the US or not. For example, the way live action shows from the UK looked compared to the US, the camera looked like it was from old 80s sitcoms with UK shows while US shows looked like I was watching a movie, you feel me?

[sintzu]

If someone is already familiar with Japanese anime then I doubt it.

[SaiyanGod117]

When I was a kid I thought every anime was a cartoon.

[Zephyr]

You look at the English speaking North American fanbase, and a lot of them seem to be mistaking it for such.

[Lord Beerus]

No way. The art-style of Dragon Ball Z war far too expressive and outlandish to seem like an american cartoon.

[Polyphase Avatron]

When I was a kid I thought every anime was a cartoon.

Technically they are.

[dario03]

You look at the English speaking North American fanbase, and a lot of them seem to be mistaking it for such.

Look where? That wasn't what I saw at all. I was into DBZ when it was new and at its peek in the US and just about everybody knew it was Japanese. Even people that didn't watch it, knew it was a big Japanese cartoon like Pokémon.

[Kunzait_83]

I could honestly understand somebody not knowing DBZ is Japanese at all. The art style is so distinguishable from the classic "anime" art style that I could see people thinking it was drawn by Americans.

This is from a 70s anime.



This is from an 80s anime.



This is from a 90s anime.



This is from a 2000s anime.



This is from a manga.



There's no such thing as a "traditional" anime (or manga) art style, and never has been. Anime & manga have taken on an unbelievable number of visual styles and motifs over the years. The only thing that unites them together is that they're animation/comics from Japan. Anything and everything else beyond that is 100% fair game to take on any number of different forms.

The reason that people in the U.S. think that there's a rigidly set, defined art style to anime is because most U.S. fans today have a VERY narrow and limited (and very mainstream/child oriented) palette of anime that they know anything about and/or pay any real attention to.

Plus, the Faulconer score and even most of the Kikuchi score in Z sound like they could've easily been written by American composers.
I personally think that the OGDB couldn't be mistaken for American because the music often sounds like traditional Chinese/Japanese music.

Kikuchi's original DB and Z scores are EXACTLY the same. 100% identical in style and tone. And yes, they are UNMISTAKABLY of a very, VERY Chinese aesthetic.

Nothing about Dragon Ball can in any way even vaguely be mistaken for "American". There's certainly a lot of Japanese flourish to it, but more than anything else it takes a LOT of its aesthetic from Chinese works. Its a Chinese theme filtered through a Japanese lens. VERY occasionally an American work will make itself blatantly apparent (Terminator most notably), but those instances are relatively few and far between.

It overall looks, sounds, moves, and acts NOTHING like what you'd find in American animation: CERTAINLY not back in the 80s or 90s by ANY remote stretch.

[MCDaveG]

You can mistake everything for anything. Do you think I knew as an 8 year old kid that the Pokemon on my game boy was Japanese?
No, until I've been told by various promo stuff that came alongside the anime later.

So depends. But in the world of internet, everybody searches for stuff he likes, so I doubt anyone can mistake anything nowadays.
Unless you're a little kid or ignorant

[dangerouslover]

Compare to shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show and even the newest Transformers cartoon, I don't see how DBZ can be mistaken for an American cartoon. The art style is so different looking compare to American animated shows now. Maybe in the 90's and early-mid 2000's it could have. The trend to copy the art style of Japanese animated shows died out since Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Boondocks ended a while ago. Other shows like Perfect Hair Forever and Code Lyoko are pretty much forgotten by most people.

Not to sound rude, but these kind of comments make me question logic. Dragon Ball Z didn't debut in the same year as Adventure Time, Regular Show, nor the new Transformers. It also had already ended in America by the time both the Avatar and Boondocks debuted. I mean to be honest, Family Guy wasn't even that popular back then. The only shows we had around the time of DBZ in America were shows like Johnny Quest, Beast Wars, Voltron Reruns, Code Name Kids Next Door, Spider-Man the Animated Series, and X-Men just to name a few. Speaking of which, if you're an American in the 90s when internet wasn't as advanced as it is today then you'd probably never really bother using google or at the time AskJeeves to find out stuff like "Where was Dragon Ball Z made". Instead you'd just see that Dragon Ball Z features a lot of similarities with the Comic Book style cartoons that we saw on Fox Kids and ABC Family. So in the debut era of Dragon Ball Z, it's very easy to relate DBZ to being an American tv show.

[Hellspawn28]

The TC made it sound like if DBZ can be mistaken for a American cartoon now. Which is why I use those recent shows as example.

[Xeztin]

As a 6 or 7 year old watching the dub in the early 2000's I had a feeling it wasn't like the other cartoons like Teen Titans. I knew it was older, but wasn't real sure about it being Japanese until I started noticing untranslated words like the shops names and stuff so I ended up researching it later. I never knew it came from a comic book either, but DBZ did stick out as being very different. We always thought the words like on the orange Gi's were just cool symbols before hand. Now a days with the new generation growing up with all this tech, and those stupid cartoons they air now, I'd say it's near impossible to not know the show wasn't made in america. Back then DBZ stuck out but at the same time blended in with Teen Titans, Avatar etc...

[Super Sonic]

I wouldn't say mistaken as one, but a lot of guys I know watch it like one. Quite a few of my otaku friends turn their anime senses off for DBZ, and watch it like they watch an American cartoon. For guys wondering what I mean, many anime fans in the US watch Anime, especially English dubs differently than they watch US cartoons. For example, with an anime dub they might make comments about the voice acting or comparing to other actors, whereas a US cartoon, they won't think about it and just enjoy.