I feel like I am losing my god damn mind. We have western companies talking about getting into creating and producing anime. Just that sentence alone is all I should have to say because it's an absurdly stupid statement. It's like I need to sit here and explain to certain people what anime actually is. For anyone stumbling across this post who isn't familiar at all with anime, all the term refers to is Japanese animation. It's not a specific style, it's not a genre, it's just a term we westerners use to describe animation that comes from a specific part of the world.
There is no shortage of shows that take inspiration from the Japanese style of animation, Teen Titans and Avatar the Last Airbender being prominent examples. But these shows aren't considered to be anime, they are still western cartoons. You kind of have it with a few shows paid for by western streaming services but produced entirely in Japan, but these are still not referred to as Western Anime, they are just anime.
It reminds me of one of the reasons I hated going to Los Angeles a few years back, and that is the idea that there are a bunch of corporate suits out there that just don't understand what it is they are taking advantage of, in this case, it is using Graffiti art as an advertisement. Those graffiti arts and styles were used and made known in large part as a bit of a statement against corporations and laws. An art-form that grew in part as a fuck you to these various corporations was looked at as some kind of hip new thing, and then they turned around and used various graffiti style's to paint ads on their building. It was so off the mark it was kind of insulting.
The same thing is happening here, we have people here seeing the popularity of anime and going 'I'll make my own Anime', and either not realizing or not caring how stupid that statement is. Just make the cartoons you want to make, and do what you can to make them good. Yeah, take inspiration from anime, that is entirely fine. Megas XLR and Teen Titans were some of my favorite cartoons growing up, and they did just that. But the moment you are trying to tell me what you are making is 'Anime' you're telling me you don't know what you're talking about, and you're more interested in chasing trends than you are creating something good.