I personally hold that this question does not have a clear yes or no. It is often subjective, in my opinion and what I may have found to be art in an anime, you might not have.

Thanks for letting me comment. I find this website interesting and look forward to spending more time on it. :)

As for Ray’s line, I’ll let him clarify that himself.

So uh, the otaku community says it’s not art, it’s a popular opinion. So yeah, popular opinions /do/ have something to do with “it”…?
 

@CriticalDesign – My colleague’s assertion about normative definitions being socially correct notwithstanding, these are not merely opinions. Because the artistic experience is in the mind, how we think of art is crucial to our appreciation of it.

Also, I’m sorry you’re having trouble. I’ll see if we can look into conflicts with Opera.

This kind of discussion is painful, because it’s just a battle of opinions. When a definition is treated as arbitrary, a debate focused on it is just redundant.

My opinion? Anime’s just a form of media created with the intention of appealing to an audience in some form. AKA : art.

It’s not like a painting has to have a backstory, characters and plot devices to be art. The same goes with music. So why not animation?

*Shrug*. It’s difficult to argue with an opinion.

Also, if it matters, I’m now having trouble posting here using the Opera browser, which is frustrating.

Anime (and manga) are born through creative skill and imagination, even the most banal porn product is, now matter how little of the aforementioned qualities are required.
Anime (and manga) are visual forms of expression.
Lastly, if art is to elicit emotion, you can see that anime (and manga) aim to do just that.

I can’t help but conclude that yes, anime – and manga – definitely are Art.

rollchan – I really think it’s okay to say that.  Which is what my lengthy explanations above boil down to.

But to contrast (or maybe to add on to it) each and every story therein is a product of creative fiction. Yes, fiction. Well, what’s it all about?

But anyway, we’re talking about art here, right? And not about what anime is all about.

In a sense, I couldn’t agree more (at least for me) that Anime is absolutely art in its entirety. Hentai, anyone? LOL! For me, everything drawn is art. Regardless if whether the drawing sucks or not.

I look at it in a perspective, in a way that it was drawn and also by its content which has been discussed here.

To quip, moritheil with his Alien9 article talks about his negative impressions of the story, and how it was presented in such a way. It seems the story didn’t suit him with that one, but, that’s the art in it. Well for me, I did enjoyed the whole story of it and would want to re-watch the anime again.

Yet, then again, its just me on how I view things in such a way. :)

There will be intentions and pretensions from both the creator and the responder (taking note of Mike’s reference to “reader response” theory).

In the media business (inclusive of marketing and advertising), “Art Departments” were renamed as “Creative Departments,” with “Art Directors” being re-titled as “Creative Directors.”

I’m sure the effort and dedication to the craft of making media inspires many of its participants (including its audience) to occasionally relate to it as art. However, I do feel that it is better for all involved not to begin with “I’m making art/they’re making art,” as opposed to “the finished work can <i>be</i> art” – without having to generalize for all works in the medium.

I personally feel more comfortable establishing individual works in innumerable media as art/artistic rather than making definitive statements on how each medium itself is art.

I think at best these broad categories are to be understood as statistically valid generalizations, not as absolute fact.  Someone says a shovel is a consumer product, not art, but then a Dadaist buys one and puts it on display as a commentary on the state of art.  Then it’s art.  So I caution the reader against leaving with the absolute, simplified concept that some things are always art, and some things are never art: it’s better to say “generally not” and “generally so.” 

Ray brought up that the vast majority of anime is not, as you said, the Studio Ghibli sort, and in that context, I made the statement that even so, we should be careful to avoid the blanket statement that anime is categorically not art, because that implies that it is never art.  I think you agree with this on some level, because you acknowledge the existence of Ghibli and their sort of work as art.  I do go further than you in that I think it’s possible to have an artistic experience without relying on something that sceams, “Hey this is art” the way that Ghibli does.

Your method of definition above (“Art is what everyone thinks of when they think of art”) is fine for economic or sociological purposes where a line must be drawn. Of course it would be madness to get into a discussion of “what is art” when your boss wants to know “how much money did people spend on art this year?” However it doesn’t work well for fundamental questions, just like the sociological definition of a Christian as someone who goes to a Christian church is okay for a census but far off the mark of the original theological concept, and useless in a theological discussion. When we honestly ask, “What is art, really,” I consider that a fundamental question and respond on that level.