Mass Effect 3’s James Vega was a surprising hit among fans despite looking more than a little like a snub-nosed monkey (or maybe just this Monkey). So, naturally, he’s getting his own star vehicle in the form of a direct-to-DVD animation that publisher FUNimation is… sigh, insisting on calling an “anime.”
Let’s get something straight here: yes, anime is a Japanese word for any and all animation. In English, however, it’s pretty strictly applied to animation that is produced if not also natively animated in Japan. (Like American animation, a lot of anime is actually outsourced to South Korea. Globalism!)
There has, naturally, been a trend in recent years to cash in on the popularity of Japanese animation by creating faux-anime styled series that usually, if you know anything about the actual nuts-and-bolts of animation, are about as “anime” as McDonald’s is “gourmet cuisine.” And the wealthier of these anime cash-in vehicles do go to Japan for their production, as is the case here, but the directorial oversight and cashflow still originates in the West. Does that make it anime? If that’s so, I’d like to nominate Transformers: The Movie as the best anime to come out of the 1980s. Sorry, Akira.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Sadly for Jimmy Vega fans, the Paragon Lost animation has been delayed until December 28, too late to be a stocking stuffer but possibly just in time to ring in the new year. You can still preorder yours, so get on that, Lola.
Via @MassEffectAnime.
