Dub purists need to stop gatekeeping donghua

I keep seeing people in threads say that Chinese anime donghua doesn't count as real anime because it's not from Japan. That's ridiculous, like saying a movie isn't a movie if it wasn't shot in Hollywood. I've watched about 30 episodes of The Daily Life of the Immortal King this month and the animation style is literally the same as any shonen from Japan. Why does the country of origin matter more than the actual content?

2 comments

2 Comments

ray_mitchell1mo ago

Gatekeeping is dumb but let's be real here. If I showed you a random clip of Demon Slayer and a random clip of Link Click you'd notice the difference in a second. Japanese anime has a distinct look in how they handle movement and facial expressions. Donghua tends to have that 3D CG feel way more often even in shows that aren't full CG. Immortal King is decent but it's got that stiff digital look that Japanese 2D animation doesn't have. Country matters less than the actual production style and history behind it.

abbychen1mo ago

My buddy tried to get me into Attack on Titan and I watched like five episodes before falling asleep. Then a week later I binge watched the entire first season of Scissor Seven in one night and didn't even notice it was Chinese until someone pointed it out. Reminds me of that time I argued with a guy about whether ramen from a food truck counts as real ramen because he said it had to come from a specific region in Japan. We stood there arguing for twenty minutes while his noodles got cold and I still think he was wrong.