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By the japanese definition it is. It isnt by the bastardized western definition of it.
It’s not “bastardized”, it’s what “Anime” means in English (and arguably every non-Japanese language). It’s a way to differentiate them, like here in Italy we call US cartoons “cartoons” instead of the Italian word for it.
Because people decide to colloqiually change what it means in context, but the problem is, most people cant even agree on a definition of what is and isnt anime because there usually exist some counter example to show that that focused definition is incorrect.
For example, if someone defined it by being animated in japan, Batman the animated series, would be considered anime due to it being animated by Sunrise (which shares the same art style to The Big O, an Anime). Its a borrowed word whose definition was changed from the original definition because people are too lazy to say japanese animation. You them go through the rabbit hole of what would you call animation studios that are purely outsourced.
While other countries animated studios already have their own word for their animation (Aeni for Korea, Donghua for China), the choice for japans is breaking its original meaning.
I think most of the anime community agrees on more or less MAL’s definition: “An animated work created in Japan for the Japanese market”.
Sure, there’s animation studios that outsource a lot, but it’s usually just inbetweens, rarely Key Animation. Directors, screenwriters and other positions are almost always Japanese.
Has exceptions, where some anime like Cyberpunk Edgerunners is primarily designed for westerners, and published on a western companies streaming service(netflix). Is Edgerunners not anime?. Like i said, there are always exceptions to more strict definitions that arent the japanese one. Keep in mind, thr average japanese person hasnt even remotely played or heard of cyberpunk 2077. Japans pc business isa growing market by still severely smaller than other asian countries, and home console adoption in japan is low. (And abysmally low if you count xbox in japan) Cp2077 is also not on the switch.
Then you have examples that are not as favorable in japan and run because they are extremely popular outside of japan like Vinland Saga. Is Vinland not anime because the target audience is mostly people outside of japan at this point.
CP2077 even won GOTY in IGN Japan. And yes, Pc and Xbox aren’t that common, but PS4 is extremely widespread. It was definitely a success in Japan as well.
And both Edgerunners and Vinland Saga launched with a Japanese Dub on Japanese platforms. They might’ve bet more on the oversea market to get the budget back, but they were still made as products to be watched in Japan, unlike Batman, My Last Day or other “borderline” cases.
Ps4 adoption in japan is lower than the vita(around the time where marketing was relevant) vita is at 6m sales, ps4 is at 9m now, but at the time of marketing, was about the same.
Let alone, the experience of 2077 on the base ps4/xbox to be abysmal. The practical size of the userbase that would be even able to play the game is extremely low.
Theres a HUGE reason why the head of playstation decisions is from the American branch and not the japanese one.
That’s because Japan is pretty much the only country where the Vita sold well. More than a third of its sales are in Japan.
And they even mention in that article that despite the launch issues on ps4, the game was well-received.
Plus it doesn’t even really matter since Edgerunners has been announced 5/6 months before the game was even released, so the actual reception in Japan was probably not a factor in distribution.
Its not a factor... because it wasnt the target audience. It has dubs because thats what they have access to on hand and that some people would enjoy it in japanese. But the target audience was definitely western.
But that other stuff didn’t get dubbed. Dubbing is a choice, and not a cheap one, especially in Japan. They even got KENN and Aoi Yuuki for the lead roles, it wasn’t some second-thought dub “just because”.
The MAL definition has been tested for years and has proven to be pretty effective (most other sites have a similar one afaik), the biggest detractors are the ones who think stuff like ATLA or RWBY (main series) should be considered anime just because of the style, but they’re generally ignored in database matters.
having a dub is just a choice, like having any american cartoon having a japanese dub is a choice (e.g if you've ever heard japanese dub of spongebob or king of the hill for example). It's a choice that trigger made because they were targetting people who watch anime, but not necessarily for japanese people. as the end target regardless was westerners.
Studio Trigger has history of targeting the western audience for its random projects. Take for example Little witch academia main and side projects were all kickstarters(over japanese alternatives). One of the side projects was a VR game, something a lot of Japanese people do not have their hands on.