Animesque

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Seto Kaiba: Avatar: The Last Airbender isn't anime! 4Kids Exec: It might as well be. —Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series, Episode 47

Many animated shows produced around the world could fairly comfortably be called Anime, but for the technicality of not being Japanese in origin (although a fight over whether or not they flat-out are anime is starting to erupt). These Animesque (or faux-anime) works are given different names based on the region of origin - for example, USA-created anime-influenced animation is generally termed Amerime or Americanime (which can also refer to the entire continent), and Franime is used for French examples. Most of those shows are even listed in the "Anime" section at Fanfiction.net, which is separate from said site's "Cartoons" section.

Such animation usually employs Japanese Visual Arts Tropes. Some of these are merely 'co-productions' between Japan and other countries, predominantly France and Canada. Other shows bridge the gap between 'Western Animation' styles and that of Anime, while still others, particularly that of the Saturday morning variety, simply use a form of it as an excuse to use the limited animation 'all get out' card; the plots and direction of the show are otherwise a standard Saturday Morning Cartoon.

Though most of these works are created by and primarily shown in the United States, many shows may also involve Eurasian production studios. Also, most Western Animation is technically animated by Asian studios because of cost efficiency. This is especially true of South Korean animation studios (and the occasional studio in China or Taiwan), which are used by both American and Japanese companies for these reasons. When the shows were produced and/or primarily funded by Western 'sources' but has a distinct Eastern style, then they can be called 'Animesque'.

"Amerimanga" or "original English-language manga" is also common in book-stores. Thanks to Tokyo Pop's marketing campaign and mass picking up of American manga works, the company has become synonymous with the term, although some purists tend to have a critical opinion of them if they use the more gimmicky aspects of the medium, and some of their releases don't even look particularly like "manga", just plain old black-and-white Indie comics labeled as manga.

Interestingly, this is a case of a 'full-circle' evolution as the anime style was inspired by classical American theatrical animation of the 30s and 40s (for example, the big eyes of anime characters were taken straight from Bambi, or the old Fleischer shorts, such as Betty Boop) and now Western Animation could be seen as returning the favor... or it could be seen as a continuation of the 19th-century Japonisme movement.

Western animation and comics adopted some Tropes from anime and manga, including:

• Anime Face Faults (also known as orz), along with elements such as Scary Shiny Glasses, the sweat drop, etc.
• Increased use of Japanese references, from names to cultural elements, with the 'obvious' expectation that viewers will find them familiar (or at least interesting).
• Use of genres typically found in Anime, like Humongous Mecha, Magical Girls etc.
• Camera Angles and various narrative devices such as Eyedscreen and still motion action scenes.

Some, though, go a bit too far:

• Panel in right-to-left order rather than left-to-right.
• Speech bubbles shaped to accommodate Japanese text, but filled with Latin letters. Especially noticeable when the bubble is tall and narrow, (perfect for katakana or kanji, not so much for polysyllabic English words) or large and square (Meant to accommodate a single, large Japanese sign or four in a 2x2 configuration, but too tall for monosyllabic English words, like "yes", which is longer than it is tall.)

Compare Disneyesque.

Examples of Animesque include:

Note: Anime series are animesque by definition. Please do not list them.

Straight Examples

Animation - Asia

• The infamous Beauty and Warrior, while very similar to the Japanese style, was actually made in Indonesia.
• Korean animation is usually done in a style akin to the western (in fact some western shows have their animation done in Korea, like Family Guy), but often adopt facial expressions and other things more commonly associated with Japanese animation. Aachi and Ssipak is such an example, in which the animation looks more like a twisted Nicktoon but where characters can be seen nose bleeding and (specially in the case of the bad guys, which already resemble something out of a Japanese children cartoon) in "chibi" forms.

Animation - Europe

• Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes and Code Lyoko, both produced in France by MoonScoop. Code Lyoko includes a Japanese girl as one of the main characters, perhaps as a way of acknowledging its anime influences.
• Totally Spies!, Martin Mystery, Team Galaxy, The Amazing Spiez, Gormiti: The Lords of Nature Return and Redakai, all produced by the French company Marathon Media.
  • Martin Mystery also has Canadian production cooperation, a fact made blindingly clear to YTV viewers where all Canadian content is pointed out with a little flag logo just to show that the network is following the CanCon rules. Funnily enough, YTV sometimes puts that flag on actual anime shows that are dubbed by Vancouver-based Ocean Group, specifically Dragonball Z. CanCon is a little complicated.
• A.T.O.M. (Alpha Teens On Machines)
• W.I.T.C.H., originally French animation of an Italian "Manga".
• Shuriken School
• Skyland, another Canadian/European production is a totally 3D-rendered Motion Capture cel shaded anime lookalike. Which causes an odd effect when you see a making of bit where it's rendered very realistically... and then made more cartoony as the realistic render is cel-shaded to make it look like anime.
• The Monster Allergy cartoon, based on an Italian comic book.
• Wakfu. Hanging a big lampshade on it in episode 22 of season 2, with a fight scene music being a song in Gratuitous Japanese worthy of any Shonen Anime. (Remember that it's a French series.)
• Winx Club
• Watch My Chops (a.k.a. Corneil and Bernie), which otherwise has nothing in common with anime, utilizes sweat drops, face faults and clearly anime-influenced Limited Animation.
• Metajets is another Canadian-distributed cartoon with blatant animesque style, not to mention the premise itself being more familiar to anime than Western Animation.
• Pocoyo is a Spanish CG animated series with heavy influences from Akira Toriyama's work in Doctor Slump.
• Jelly Jamm, another Spanish CG animated series with staff members from Pocoyo has a very animesque style too. It even uses some Japanese Written Sound Effects in some scenes.
• Many European co-productions with Japan.
  • Older Than They Think: Maya the Bee, a Germano-Japanese co-production from 1975. To be honest, it WAS animated in Japan. In the seventies, Germans and Japanese did quite a few animated series for children together.
  • The entire output of the Spanish studio BRB International during the 80's were created in Spain and animated in Japan by Nippon Animation: Ruy El Pequeño Cid, Tom Sawyer, Futbol en Accion, D'Artacan y los Tres Mosqueperros (a.k.a. Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds), La Vuelta Al Mundo de Willy Fog (a/k.a. Around the World with Willy Fog), etc.
  • Two other old examples: although they are often counted as genuine anime, The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31 were Franco-Japanese co-productions.
  • Cybersix, based on an Argentinian comic, made by a Canada-France co-production, and animated by Telecom Animation Film/TMS.
  • Oban Star Racers, produced by Sav! The World Productions. For this one too, the animation and music were actually done in Japan.
  • Clementine was a French-Japanese production from the eighties. Some people that get a look at it today mistake it for an anime because of the style and because the eponymous girl wears what it seems to be a seifuku, but sailor dresses for girls weren't that uncommon in Western countries before being associated with Japanese culture.

Animation - U.S.A.

• That Dude in the Suede managed to list 11 of those.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic continues this precedent set by the G3.5 cartoons, with even bigger eyes and smaller snouts (but less human-like qualities for the ponies). It's particularly noticeable with the Magical Girl theme of the second episode, the use of Quivering Eyes and Speed Stripes, and the n_n expression the characters often get when they smile. Doesn't go further than that, though.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender is usually described as "Asian-influenced". It also seems to have a higher amount of "cred" since it uses the more cinematic, narrative, Miyazakian form of "anime"-style animation and art-style. Today, it's usually bunched in with anime as a whole. Although calling the show an anime in certain places is liable to get you considerably flamed, either by rabid Avatards, or by purists who hate most non-Japanese "animation". One reason it pulls it off so well is that its animation studios, DR Movie and JM Animation, worked primarily on anime, including many higher production ones. Also, one of the supervising directors, Oh Seung-hyun, studied for a year under Shoji Kawamori.
  • Sequel Series The Legend of Korra follows suit.
• The Boondocks also uses stylistic Watanabe-based animation, chiefly because Aaron McGruder is One of Us. Also most of the animation studios that worked on this show are in Korea (however, Madhouse in Japan did do a bit of work on this show as well). There's an Easter Egg homage to Samurai Champloo in the the second opening. The first one is a Shout-Out to Cowboy Bebop. So in other words they're both shout-outs to Cowboy Bebop. They even devoted an entire episode to both Samurai Champloo's "Baseball Blues" and Shaolin Soccer ("The Red Ball", Season 3).
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go, with an old-school super sentai Tokusatsu flavor.
• Even more so, Ben 10 from the same company.
• And speaking of Puffy AmiYumi... Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi.
• By extension, Transformers Animated, by many of the same people. It helps that one of the co-owners of the property is a Japanese company, and all three of its animation studios are Japanese.
  • Several of the previous Transformers series have been actual anime.
• Kappa Mikey. Everyone save the title character is drawn in a limited-animation anime style (due mostly to the fact that the show is set in Japan -- therefore everyone there is Japanese and must be drawn in a Japanese style, except the title character who is, wouldn't you know, American and is drawn in a much simpler fashion). In the same heir as Teen Titans, it pulls no punches when it comes to Facefaults and thinly veiled parodies. This is played for laughs in one scene when everyone gets a big-head facefault except Mikey, being drawn in American style. He holds his breath in an attempt to copy them, fails, then mumbles, "Show-offs."
• Three Delivery is an anime-influenced series by Animation Collective.
• Xiaolin Showdown uses Asian-influenced themes and window-dressing and uses visual gags commonly found in anime. The character designs, however, are distinctly western.
• What do you get when executives take the Looney Tunes cast and use them for a pseudo-anime superhero show? Loonatics Unleashed.
• The DCU:
  • The DCAU, they slowly acquired more asian influenced artistic design. Batman the Animated Series had a couple of nods to The Castleof Cagliostro, but, overall, the art style was closer to old Fleischer cartoons. Batman Beyond borrowed the setting, a futuristic city overrun by gangs, and a recurring theme of Bio Augmentation from Akira. Some of Justice League's action sequences were Dragon Ball-esque earth-shattering fights.
  • Teen Titans has all the "quirks" of Japanese animation (sweatdrops, "chibi" forms, etc.), and even sported a title theme by J-pop band PuffyAmiYumi. Taking it even further, all the quirky filler episodes even had it sung in Japanese. Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, where the Titans went to Tokyo, contained parodies and references to everything from Kodansha comics and weird Japanese commercials to Japanese art.
  • The Batman, either went overboard or used this as an excuse for cost-cutting. Every episode included suit-up sequences and a fight scene represented by Sailor Moon-esque stills. Batman also had a Giant Mecha, and so did The Ventriloquist, a villain who normally just has a wooden dummy and a Split Personality disorder.
  • Batman Gotham Knight was created by multiple Anime studios, but was primarily made for an American audience, and distributed by an American company. The stories were American made but the actual animation was directed by several famous anime directors. Each segment also uses a different animation style.
• The Animatrix, did the same (but did it first), and even had one made by Shinichiro Watanabe. Notably, "Kid's Story" was done by a Japanese company (the same one that did Kill Bills anime sequence) but set in an American high school; considering how different schools in Japan are, some were surprised how accurately designed it was.
• Dexters Laboratory's creator, Genndy Tartakovsky, has openly stated the influence of anime on his work. This shows. A lot.
  • Two episodes of Dexter's Laboratory actually portray the style outright. The first being the Godzilla homage ep. (which originally was the first series finale) that draw the Japan nation in anime style. The second using a very flamboyant villain who was taking over imagination land.
  • Also the Speed Racer spoof episode "Mock Five", making jokes upon everything from the dub's infamously fast speech to the low amount of animation frames to the still shots upon tense moments.
• Similarly, The Powerpuff Girls. Which was eventually taken to its logical conclusion with Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z.
• As another Genndy Tartakovsky production, Sym-Bionic Titan also has many anime influences.
• Halo Legends is following The Animatrix and Batman: Gotham Knight's footsteps, having several Japanese animation studios animating different segments.
• The upcoming Red vs. Blue: Animated uses a beautiful and extremely fluid animesque style.
• Trollz is this, with speed lines, animesque eyes, and the girls being magical.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot. There's even an episode that has Jenny lose her language OS disc after a trip to Japan, leaving her only able to speak Japanese for almost its entirety. It helps that her voice actress is Japanese.
• Megas XLR, which combines something obstinately Japanese (the Giant Mecha genre) with something obstinately American (New Jersey and muscle cars).
• Star Wars the Clone Wars has sometimes been described as "anime" (notably by the man himself). Considering the show runner was one of the lead writers for Avatar: The Last Airbender, this is not quite as strange as it first appears to be.
• Invader Zim is very popular among anime fans and somewhat animesque; the Megadoomer was even a (miniature, squat, practically chibified) EVA with invisibility, and an entire sequence of the Christmas Episode was a practically shot-for-shot remake of a scene from End Of Evangelion.
• The 4Kids! Entertainment cartoon Chaotic is an interesting example of this. Although the first season uses simplistic-looking flash animation, the second season changes completely, using a style that is clearly based off of anime.
• Speaking of 4Kids! Entertainment, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 had shades of this, it was particularly Animesque in terms of of storytelling but many of the action scenes had a clear anime influence. The opening sequence even has a Shout-Out to Akira. This actually got more pronounced as the series went on and the "Back to the Sewer" season dropped all pretense whatsoever.
• When X-Men was dubbed and localized for Japan, new openings and eyecatches were animated that evoke all sorts of anime-related tropes: Anime Theme Songs, Speed Stripes, even a Beam-O-War between Professor X and Magneto. See for yourself.
• Before Korea became the go-to place for outsourcing animation, many older shows were handled by Japan and carry their touch as a result. Several get used as examples of how cartoons were great before anime came along.
  • Examples (not already mentioned by other entries in this article) include Inhumanoids, Sky Commanders, Dino Riders, Dinosaucers, Jem, Here Come The Littles, etc.
  • Even when the character designs remain distinctly western, the shapes of shadows, motion habits, light effects, and other elements can stand out to long time anime fans. Since all of these figure most prominently in intro sequences, there was a time when it was harder to spot ones that weren't animesque.
  • The Rankin/Bass Productions shows Thundercats, Silverhawks, and TigerSharks. The opening sequences, and how much better they are than the rest of the show, are a dead giveaway. The cast is pure American comic book style, yet how they were handled make these some of the most Animesque shots in existence.
  • Thundercats 2011 touts its look and animation by Japan's Studio 4°C as major selling points.
  • Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: The show's plots, voice acting, and some of its design work was done in New York. Most of the show's work was done in Japan by TMS. The Japanese animation really shows in "A-level" episodes like "New Frontier".
  • M.A.S.K.: Inverted. Produced by an American company and dubbed in English in the U.S., but otherwise wholly-made by a trio of uncredited Japanese studios.
  • Mighty Orbots and Bionic Six were both American/Japanese coproductions as well, which both were chief directed by legendary Japanese director Ozamu Dezaki.
  • Various DiC Entertainment series including Inspector Gadget, Heathcliff and The Catillac Cats and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. Aside from moving like '80s anime, it became especially visible in Gadget any time the characters were shaded.
  • The DiC series of Care Bears has been described as being rather animesque, and in fact it really looks like some of the children and adults are drawn in this style. (There is even an episode where a character is shown wearing a Sailor Fuku.) This was one of the examples of a co-production with Japanese animators, and there were even parts where they Did Not Do the Research and showed newspapers with scribbles that seem to indicate it being written like Japanese newspapers.
    • Popples, another cartoon based on an American Greetings property (and also made by DIC!) is this. Notable examples include the children having Japanese style backpacks, the "Vi Vi" magazine in "A Hair-Raising Experience" having Japanese writing on it, and Party making dot eyes after being shocked by a radio in "Pop Goes The Radio".
  • The Real Ghostbusters. The characters practically switched styles depending on whether or not they were shaded. Then you had things like Stay Puft's Anime expressions in the opening, and even a Face Fault during the old promo.
  • Mummies Alive. At least, whenever it could afford decent rendering.
  • Swat Kats is notable in being Animesque before anime became popular (or even widely known) in the US. Also has some of the most fluid animation and action scenes you'll find in 90s cartoons. This is probably because it was (for the most part) animated by Mook, which also worked on Eureka Seven, Gungrave, and Read or Die and also co-made the aforementioned Transforms Animated.
  • Speaking of Mook, Jonny Quest the Real Adventures and early 2000s Scooby Doo movies where Velma looks more like an anime Meganekko.
  • The intro number and five episode "first season" that jump-started Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 look noticeably different from most of what follows.
  • Gargoyles. One of the more obvious ones having its share of Japanese directors.
  • About 1/3 of the episodes of both Batman the Animated Series and Superman the Animated Series. Especially noticeable in episodes where the director is one of theirs, with a side bonus of animation bumps.
  • TMS having also worked on DuckTales (1987), Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Animaniacs, and countless others... which means the trope occasionally snuck into shows modeled after the classics.
  • The Ruby Spears Mega Man cartoon took a Japanese license, redrew it American style, and had it animated in Japan. What's more, the redesigns were based on some sketches that Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune happened to have done in his spare time. It boggles the mind, don't it?
  • Each season of Captain N the Game Master was outsourced to a different studio. The second went to Japan, meaning Mega Man has been through this twice. Said season did stand out, though, with better drawn episodes like The Legend of Zelda crossover.
  • G.I. Joe Sigma Six. All American heroes animated in Japan and badly edited for the US. Few remember the show but its Merchandise-Driven like the Dragonhawk are much sought after.
  • Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light: Knights of the Magical Light.
  • Centurions, showing some of Sunrise's influence.
  • Works by the American-Japanese studio Jetlag Productions, which included Conan the Adventurer.
  • The New Adventures of He-Man had some pretty clear anime influence in its opening, but some episodes actually had sweat droping and other signature anime quirks!
  • The Pirates of Dark Water would weave in and out due to having Tama Productions among its studios. The pilot miniseries had a little extra work by Madhouse.
• G.I. Joe: Resolute, a Darker and Edgier incarnation written by Warren Ellis, animated by Titmouse Inc. channeling Madhouse, and voiced by four people. Given the lavish budget of the live-action cartoon, fans wonder how much it cost to make this miniseries and if it can be repeated.
• Peter Chung of Aeon Flux fame. Having a mix of European and anime influences, he was involved in several Animesque cartoons, including the intro sequence to TMNT. Japan would later have him bring a western flavor to things like Reign: The Conqueror and the intro to Party 7.
• The final episode of the sixth Futurama season features three stories animated in a different style, including anime.
• Storm Hawks, most notable in the hair and eyes.
• Some fans whom had watched The Mr. Men Show felt it was this way.
• Transformers Prime, like Animated, has some anime influences in the overall aesthetic of the show... largely because it's an attempt at blending Animated with the Michael Bay films.
• Maryoku Yummy: Just by it's name you would think it's Japanese, but it was actually made in America and based on the Edo period of art, most characters have Japanese names, and the characters make anime eyes sometimes. For example, in Doggone Dog, Fudan says "PLEAAASE?" while making anime eyes, in Cinderyoku, Maryoku does the same eyes while saying "THE PRINCE!", and sometimes, the characters do the >_< emotion sometimes.

Animation - Other

• Bolivar el Heroe, a film from Colombia, attempts this trope... and falls flat on its face.
• Rollbots
• My Life Me

Arts

• Ur-example: Japonisme. Although long before anime, back in the 1860s, Japanese Ukiyo-e prints heavily inspired Western artists of the time. Notably, Van Gogh actually painted two of Hiroshige's works.

Comic Books: OEL Manga

• Adam Warren drew OEL Manga years before it became the cool thing to do—or had a name. One of his contemporaries in that sense is Lea Hernandez.
  • The title character of Empowered hangs a lampshade on this in a meta-text panel from Vol. 1.
• X-Men was actually drawn by manga creator Kia Asamiya for a brief time in 2002. As well, the art of Joe Madureira, who drew the book from 1994 to 1997, is heavily manga-influenced.
• The Marvel Adventures version of Power Pack by Gurihiru Studios. Like with most other Japanese artists hired to draw American comics, it is just as much an example of them matching our style even in pacing and storytelling.
• Ditto the art of Runaways. But looks less animesque as Art Evolution goes.
• Marvel Mangaverse, anyone? Although the actual level of manga-like qualities varied wildly from title to title.
  • And the new Shounen and Shoujo X-Men OEL manga.
• Ninja High School was drawn and written by Ben Dunn, an admitted anime and manga addict, and pretty much spoofed and/or parodied anything and everything in the genres that it could get away with in its early days. Since then, it's settled down into an actual overarching plot, but the parody elements (as well as the art style) remain woven integrally in.
• Gold Digger, another Antarctic Press title by Fred Perry, has an art style heavily influenced by anime/manga, but the artist himself tends to keep the proportions within the art consistent and avoids the common visual gags for the most part. Also, while references creep in from anime that Fred's seen, they're kept company by an equal number of pop culture references from the Western world as well.
  • However, his webcomic Levelup, based around his exploits playing the game Final Fantasy XI has a number of obvious references to specific anime. The anime that is most notably an influence to the style of the comic is Azumanga Daioh.
• TokyoPop tends to publish a great deal of OEL Manga, though some of their titles (I Luv Halloween...) doesn't bear even the slightest resemblance to any common Japanese art style and are really just black-and-white indie comics with the word "manga" on the spine. Others, like Drama Con, Steady Beat and Bizenghast, do a much better job at presenting unique and recognizable art that still comes off as manga-esque.
  • This came full circle when Felipe Smith, one of TokyoPop's authors, had some work of his published in the Afternoon 2 magazine in Japan.
  • Drama Con is an interesting example, as it's a story that takes place at an anime convention. Right down to the distinctly manga-inspired art style, it's a celebration of its cultural influences. Many of those "cultural influences" are lampshaded in the comic itself.
  • Return to Labyrinth and Legends of The Dark Crystal.
  • A [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica - Echoes of New Caprica manga, if you can believe it. One of the stories is a Zarek-centric one by Richard Hatch.
  • While Seven Seas Entertainment was founded specifically to produce original English Language manga. They've since expanded to have some actual Japanese manga translations.
• One early example of American graphic novel influenced by manga is Wendy and Richard Pini's Elf Quest.
• The Doorstopper It Takes a Wizard is drawn in manga-style despite not being a "Manga" in definition. (It's even placed in the manga section.)
• Manga being quite popular in France since a good time already (Japanese things have been cool in France for over a century), several authors on the Franco Belgian Comics market (which is extremely prolific) are strongly influenced by anime and manga. Their style is sometimes called "manfra" or "franga". Here's a few notable names:
  • Algésiras -- Candélabres
  • Christophe Arleston -- Lord of Burger, Lanfeust Quest
  • Marc Bati -- Cristal Majeur, Altor
  • Bruno Bellamy -- Sylfeline, Showergate
  • Philippe Cardona -- Sentai School, Magical JanKen Pon
  • Kevin Hérault -- HK
  • Reno Lemaire -- Dreamland
  • Patricia LyFoung -- La Rose écarlate
  • Florent Maudoux -- Freaks' Squeele
  • Moonkey -- DYS
  • Patrick Sobral -- Les Légendaires, La Belle et la Bête
  • Vanyda -- L'immeuble d'en face, Celle... que je ne suis pas
• Rockin Raven is very deliberately based on the manga style.
• Most non-Japanese Asian artists also developed a manga-style artwork. Several Malaysian cartoonists like Kaoru (Liew Yee Teng), Benny Wong, Jakalll, Pac, Norman "Juice" Noh, Xanseviera (Haryati Mohd Ehsan) and Keith are examples.
• Also common in Indonesia. Particularly Julian's Archi & Meidy series and Ekyu's Chiaroscuro. Some are high-quality mangas (Archi & Meidy is a physics-teaching manga written by a physics professor), some are Affectionate Parody, some are blatant ripoffs of other mangas like Fushigi Yuugi...
• The art style of Dark Wraith of Shannara, Del Rey's first foray into comic publishing, was meant to emulate manga, but had Western-style panel layout.
• The OEL adaptation of Sherrilyn Kenyon's The Dark Hunters: Written by an American, drawn and lettered by Americans, reads and looks like a typical American indie comic, is formatted in a right-to-left page format. Who do they think they're fooling? Good comic otherwise.
• The Dreaming is a comic that is drawn in manga-style by a Chinese-Australian author named Queenie Chan. It's even published by TokyoPop, and is considered one of the first non-Japanese manga series that they published. (Since it was actually published in Australia, and Queenie has said that she was inspired by a few Australian Horror movies about boarding schools and Urban Legends)
• Please note that if you look in the "manga" section of your local bookstore, you'll find that a portion of them will actually be Korean in origin.
• Dork Diaries looks rather animesque, but it's more to give the idea of a girl who is an artist doodling in her diary, and her drawings are actually quite detailed.
• Although Eisner-nominated artist Mark Crilley's (Akiko, Miki Falls) style has always had manga influences, he specifically credits Takeshi Obata's artwork as a source of inspiration for his latest work, Brodys Ghost.
• Incarnate, authored by the son of Gene Simmons, which crossed a line by straight-up tracing issues of Bleach and other artworks.
• For some reason or another, Batman is made a fairly frequent example. Gotham Knight is mentioned above, but there's also Batman: Death Mask by Yoshinori Natsume, Batman: Child of Dreams by Kia Asamiya, and a story in Batman: Black & White by none other than Katsuhiro Otomo himself. Of course, they are written and drawn by actual mangakas.
• Randy Queen's Darkchylde briefly flirted with this in Manga Darkchylde—a reimagining of the book's story starring a much younger version of Ariel Chylde. Despite the title, the art wasn't especially manga-incluenced, though you could argue the story was.
• Ape Entertainment's Scarlet Veronica seems to deliberately attempt to blur the line between western comic art and manga art. Typically resembling Thick Line Animation, characters facefault, sweatdrop, and even go chibi as the situation requires.
• Here, some very early examples of anime-inspired comics are discussed -- most of them bad. Shuriken actually enjoyed some modest popularity in its day, and may have helped the spread of the trend.
• Becky Cloonan's work in Demo draws primarily from older indie comics, but steps into this territory for at least two issues—issue #3 (Emmy) and issue #10 (Damaged) both seem heavily manga-influenced. By the second series she seems to have grown fond of the style.
• Chynna Clugston's Blue Monday. The cover of the first volume even has the lead lounging in a giant bowl of ramen!
• During the early 00s, there was a sci-fi re-imagining of Vampirella called "Vampi" that was done in a heavy anime style.
• Welcome to Tranquility features an Art Shift to this style in the back-up that gives the skinny on background character Mangacide, an extreme Occidental Otaku.
• British comics publisher Self Made Hero produces manga-style adaptations of William Shakespeare's works.
• DC now publishes Ame-Comi Girls, a series based off the popular Anime-inspired toyline. The series stars Manga-styled redesigns of characters such as Wonder Woman and Batgirl.
• UDON Entertainment, best known for Street Fighter and official art for most Capcom projects since 2005. Dozens of artists, most of them Canadian, all of them with clearly manga-inspired styles.

Film

• While the Robotech movie The Shadow Chronicles is made from original footage, the anime aesthetic of the original series remains. The animation itself is from Korean studio DR Movie, which has worked on anime such as—appropriately -- Macross Plus.
• The cult classic Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland. An adventurous, higher budget co-production with Japan, the style often fell into full anime mode including the sound effects. Unfortunately it bombed while Pokémon, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, and other low-budget series caught on overseas. An apt metaphor for the end of a dream, the failure helped cement the niche, low budget nature of Japanese animation and all it influenced. If it's any consolation, that movie wasn't even very good, not to mention a total nightmare to create. Even Hayao Miyazaki said that working on Little Nemo was one of his worst experiences in his entire professional career.
• The late 1970s Rankin Bass animated film versions of The Hobbit and The Return of the King. In fairness, the animators were Japanese and seemed to make up the majority of the non-vocal credits. Many of the animators involved were later part of Studio Ghibli.
• The Last Unicorn, another Rankin Bass production made by future members of Studio Ghibli, definitely has a resemblance to the anime style. The Unicorn's human form could easily be mistaken for a Sailor Senshi.
• Inverted with Dawn of the Seeker, which was an actual Japanese animated movie commissioned and written by an American video game studio, producing a very Western-looking anime.
• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, being partly animated in Japan, and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker being entirely so and actively channeling Akira. Mask of the Phantasm even includes a short shot-for-shot recreation of a sequence from The Castleof Cagliostro.
• Transformers: The Movie. Glaringly Animesque visuals by Studio Toei made even more noticeable by the TV series switching from Toei to AKOM immediately afterward.
• Technotise Edit I Ja is clearly anime-influenced in both style and subject matter, the first Serbian film to be so.
• Ever since The Little Mermaid was released into theaters in the late 1980s, at the same time anime was beginning to show up in the United States, many of Disney's recent films are starting to incorporate anime-influenced elements into their character designs, particularly the size and shape of their eyes. Just compare Snow White's eyes with those of Tiana's!
• The movie version of Speed Racer was described as "the first live-action anime", and it certainly fits, with Speed clearly a Hot-Blooded hero, the mecha-like Car Fu, and even Speed Lines! A parody of Fist of the North Star also appears in the show.
  • Even though it clearly isn't the first live-action anime. That honor would belong to the entire genre of Tokusatsu.
• The story of O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill Volume One had a portion which was an anime-style cartoon homaging—of course—anime. This was animated by Production I.G, but it still counts since Tarantino wrote it.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is extremely geeky and uses lots of anime and manga literary devices and tropes, which only fans of anime and manga would get. The whole premise is a parody of Hot-Blooded shonen like Dragonball Z. Scott Pilgrim uses many devices from Tokusatsu as well. The most notable one has to be that when Ramona's evil exes die, they explode into coins.
• Sucker Punch is very obviously influenced by anime. Particularly Baby Doll's world, which is practically crawling with huge samurai, her outfit is a midriff baring Sailor Fuku, and she wields a katana.

Literature

• Broken Sky by Chris Wooding draws heavily on anime, giving the characters Japanese-sounding names like Kia and Ryushi. The author stated on his website that the books are indeed inspired by anime, and the novels have manga-style covers, character designs and illustrations.

Live-Action TV

• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide is a live-action series filled with Anime Character Types in a very American Middle School setting.
• Between Stephanie's male fans and pink hair, and the cartoony world, non-fans have mistakenly assumed that LazyTown is Japanese or influenced by anime.
• Super Sentai and Power Rangers, though the degree varies depending on the season.
  • Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger airs at Otaku O'Clock and has heroes with Anime Hair molded into their helmets, and female characters are constantly subjected to Panty Shot upon Panty Shot.
  • Bachsfundo/ King Mondo of Chouriki Sentai Ohranger / Power Rangers Zeo has Cross-Popping Veins on his face.
  • Many consider Mighty Morphin Power Rangers conditioning for the anime genre breaking out in America because of its Japanese origin; retaining Shonen traits such as a Hot Blooded Hero, a Humongous Mecha/ Combining Mecha, and even leaving in the Japanese symbols and designs of the monsters.
  • Gekisou Sentai Carranger is a parody of Super Sentai, in the same manner that Kinnikuman parodied Ultraman. Power Rangers Turbo lessened this effect by attempting a serious adaptation, but still showed up traces of it in an inversion of the Gag Dub.
  • Engine Sentai Go-onger has a gaggle of Bishonen heroes, Chibi mecha designs, and a cuddly Robot Buddy. Power Rangers RPM again adapted it into a serious story, but its story highly resembles Akira. Dr. K is essentially a Gender Flip of L from Death Note.
  • Samurai Sentai Shinkenger resembles a samurai anime of The Seventies crossed over with a Sentai series. Power Rangers Samurai did a Shot for Shot Remake approach. This leaves in the Rangers being represented by Anime Character Types, visors on the helmets being Kanji symbols, a Hot Blooded Hero, and even a Lethal Chef in Mia. The new Shogun Mode even borders on Scary Impractical Armor.

Music Videos

• As a rapper, Kanye West is very openly influenced by anime in his works. Most notably, the cover for his hit single "Stronger" was designed by J-Pop artist Takashi Murakami and even paid homage to Akira within its music video. The scenes in the video (fairly obviously filmed in Tokyo) are also uncannily similar to the song's segment in anime Interstella 5555, which "tells" its story entirely through the music of Daft Punk.
• Don't forget his fellow CRS mate Lupe Fiasco.
  • "Lupe steal like Lupin the Third", anyone? A few of his songs in his most recent album The Cool reference various anime and manga as well.
  • In his song "Gold Watch", he lets you know just HOW much he loves Asia with lines like, "I am American mentally with Japanese tendencies..." and "... keep a wiininja hanging".
  • Also, Lupe produced a band called Japanese Cartoon.
  • When Lupe gave a rundown of his house for a magazine (well, it's really an apartment), there's a picture of him doing a stance, and he also has a bent sword because he bent it when some people disgraced it. Here's that pic. The sword is number 9, and the ninja is 6.
• A music video for "First Squad/Первый Отряд" by a Russian group called Legalize is done in this style. Of course, it helps that it's a tie-in for an actual anime, being produced by an actual Japanese studio.
• The video clip for the song "Peut-être toi" by French singer Mylène Farmer.
• Britney Spears' video for "Break the Ice"—a clear homage to Ghost in the Shell.
• Matthew Sweet and the video for his song "Girlfriend," which uses footage from Urusei Yatsura.
• Duran Duran made a video for "Careless Memories" that is a love-letter to ink and paint.
• "Gomenasai" from t.A.T.u..
• The official video clip for Madonna's "Give Me All Your Luvin'" features cheerleaders wearing Anime-style masks and clothes similar to Sailor Fuku.
• The animated music video for the DyE song "Fantasy". However, watch at your own risk and absolutely NSFW.

Newspaper Comics

• The Boondocks has been using an animesque artstyle since its newspaper comics strip days. This is because creator Aaron McGruder says that anime presents the feeling of live-action while still being animation. It also allowed him to get away with Only Six Faces by differentiating only the hairdos and skin tone of a lot of the younger characters.
• Those weird TokyoPop "manga" that were once in the LA Times' Sunday papers. One came complete with a crybaby Naruto lookalike (the stripes on his face are caused by the tracks of his tears wearing grooves into his skin).
• The newspaper strip My Cage has many of its female characters drawn in an animesque style, though everything else is pretty western. Notable for the fact that its syndicate made a big honking deal about how it will appeal to "manga fans". Yeah... you just keep telling yourselves that...

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000
  • The Tau are said to be designed to appeal to anime fans. The reception was and still is mixed. This may have less to do with Japanese influence, which is largely present only in their rather Macross-inspired Battlesuit designs and more to do with their perception as a "good" race by many players in a setting famed for its GRIM DARKNESS. The Tau philosophy is also as much or more Japanese than it is Chinese, specifically WWII-era "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" expansionism. The "mecha" design of their battlesuits, vehicles, and power armour is clearly of Japanese pop-culture origin, with a substantial aquatic-form influence.
  • The Eldar, however, are more Japanese-inspired. Although the post-Rogue Trader Eldar were explicitly based on organic forms, with an increasely heavy Art Nouveau influence as the designs evolved. Currently their designs reflect a more medieval Japanese design.
• The 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons supplement, the Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords tends to draw flack for being "too anime", to the point that certain snarky Image Board posters refer to it as "The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic" - though some fans of the book call it that too.
• Exalted is heavily inspired by western mythology, eastern mythology, and of course anime.
• Cthulhu Tech is Call of Cthulhu In Space! With ANIME!! Basic examples include the Engels, Humongous Mecha that demand severe amounts of mental stress to be operated, or the shapeshifting Body Horror super-warriors called Tagers, who are meant to fight other shapeshifters called Dhohanoids. Not only that, but the two-wave alien invasion of Earth in the backstory reads identically to the one for Robotech, swapping the Mi-Go for the Robotech Masters and the Nazzadi for the Zentraedi.
• Big Eyes, Small Mouth is an open-ended anime RPG, made in Canada. There were a few series-specific books, in case you wanted to roleplay Tenchi Muyo! for some reason, and you could certainly ignore its anime theme and use it for just about anything, but the main appeal behind the game is in roleplaying your own anime series.
• The supplement Mecha and Manga for the Mutants and Masterminds roleplaying game provides rules for playing anime-styled games, with tons of nods throughout to various existing anime and manga.
• The original card game Magi Nation was like this, before it got bought out and Ruined FOREVER due to a dumning-down and change in art style.
• Magic the Gathering
  • Notably averted in the Japan-themed Kamigawa block, which seemed to go more for an art style reminiscent of traditional Japanese art instead of anime.
  • Played straight however with the newest Chandra, the Firebrand and Jace, Memory Adept. Double points in that there was a special edition version of their original cards drawn by a manga artist released sometime before.

Toys

• Certain Neopets look suspiciously like Pokémon, the PetPets even more so.
• The pets of Littlest Pet Shop have been redrawn as chibified critters; however, the designs wandered out of "cute" and into "grotesque", with most of the Pets looking like jowely, baggy-eyed mutants trying to look cute. Case in point: this drooped-joweled monstrosity.
• Bratz dolls certainly have an animesque look about them, and ran a series of dolls with a modern Japanese theme, sold as "Bratz Tokyo-A-Go-Go"
  • The only anime character the Bratz really resemble is Mr. Anago, though if they were also voiced by Norio Wakamoto it would be awesome.
• LEGO Exo-Force was LEGO's take on this trope and the Humongous Mecha, replete with very exaggerated Shonen Hair, random kanji slapped everywhere, typical Japanese names, and a heavy dose of anime and mecha-genre tropes.
• Some Monster High merchandise depicts the characters in an anime style.
• Tech Deck finger skateboards have a line called Hook-ups, which has bee featuring animesque characters and even ones ripped right from actual series for at least a decade now.
• Some toy licenses pass through Japanese sculptors, gaining the traits of Anime merchandise.
  • Most Transformers. While we create the concept drawings,^[context?] Takara's side has to come up with the parts, their shapes, and how they ultimately interlock to make the transformations possible. It can lead to complaints when a robot mode "looks too much like a Gundam."
  • Yujin and Takara Tomy have produced Disney figurines in the style of countless anime mini-figure series. Put them side by side and they blend together.
  • Kotobukiya has done figures for several American licenses over the years including comics. While the faces remain American styled, the anatomy, detail, and composition often resemble anime PCV statues more than our own merchandise.
  • And then you have their Marvel Comics and DC Comics Bishoujo figures that intentionally evoke this trope, being based on Shunya Yamashita's illustrations. Some Marvel examples here.
• DC's Ame-Comi Heroine figures. In contrast to Kaiyodo's Bishoujo line above, the series radically alters the characters' outfits and even gender bends a few male ones. How well they succeeded in capturing anime style depends on who you ask.
• Some of the recent Squinkies have taken on an anime style; it's even noted on their official product page.
• This French toyline known as Pin Y Pon.

Video Games

• Phantom Dust was made by Microsoft to sell in Asian countries, then ported back into America later. The theme, character design, and plot all mimic common Anime and Manga attributes. It was (un)surprisingly much more popular in America than in Japan.
• Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, an early FPS from Monolith (the first to use their Lith Tech technology actually), heavily influenced by mecha anime.
• Also, the little-known Tsunami 2265, a third person shooter aboard mechas produced in Italy. The female lead looks a lot like Motoko Kusanagi.
• Oni is heavily influenced by Ghost in The Shell.
• Fusion Fall redesigns the Cartoon Network characters appearing in the game with an animesque look. Some are questionable, but others... definitely lack detractors, at any rate. (The redesigned Dexter seems to have a lot of female fans, for example.)
• Puzzle Quest also uses anime-like style for its characters.
• Both Pizza Frenzy and Burger Rush puzzle games (especially the latter) from Gamehouse.
• Drawn to Life. Despite all appearances, it had no Japanese involvement in development. 5th Cell seems to be an animesque company. Aside from Drawn to Life, they always made Lock's Quest and D.N.A., both pretty anime-like (Lock's Quest's cover, in particular, makes it hard to believe that it isn't a JRPG).
• Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ, a game from Spain! One of the main characters is from a Japanese folk tale (Momotaro).
• Shantae
• Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes
• The art in the various Artix Entertainment games (Dragon Fable, Mechquest, and the newer parts of Adventure Quest) is heavily anime-influenced, and they're absolutely full of anime Shout Outs if there was any doubt remaining. Mechquest is even about Humongous Mecha and has Expy versions of the EVA series. Pony vs. Pony: Battle is Magic, being an Affectionate Parody of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, qualifies out of principle.
• Spectrobes counts due to its dual nature of production, being jointly made by Jupiter and Buena Vista games. From its main character being a Captain Ersatz of another certain red Badass Longcoat with a sword arm to having cutscenes rendered similar to another jupiter game, The World Ends With You, it fits.
• We Cheer
• Sigma Star Saga
• The early Xbox RPG Sudeki.
• Then there are American-licensed games handled by Japanese developers that would play the trope straight—familiar western characters now with clearly Japanese influence. Can be intentionally invoked in cover art to appeal to their local audience. Konami and Capcom have many classics under their belt that fall on either side.
  • Capcom has had a long relationship with Marvel characters in general, starting with the purely Marvel brawlers X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes, and the Beat'Em Up Marvel Super Heroes War Of The Gems. Aside from shouting attack names and using blatantly Japanese fighting game mechanics, the Marvel characters are generally faithful. Except the Sentinel, redesigned from a giant, muscled humanoid to a more mechanical look according to their tastes.
  • The Alien vs. Predator arcade game, possibly the best Beat'Em Up ever and much more enjoyable than the movies. You had Predators delivering Shoryukens alongside a cyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ninja girl.
  • The two Dungeons & Dragons Arcade games Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara. Having anime girls run through an official D&D campaign setting sounds like an instruction manual for angering fans. Instead the games are well-respected for being faithful to their staggering source material.
  • Once the graphics and sound allowed it, the Japanese influence behind Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games became more obvious. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles in Time had the characters scream in Japanese whenever their foot caught on fire, while bosses like the Shredder looked and moved like they should be in a Japanese fighting game. Tournament Fighters didn't even bother hiding the art style.
  • The X-Men arcade game seems perfectly American styled except a few goofy Engrish phrases. Until you used Wolverine and Colossus's mutant powers, anyway.
  • The only playable Back to The Future game until late 2010. It is an animesque oddity, but it dared to defy a common problem.
  • The SNES and Turbo CD ports of western gaming archetype, Dungeon Master. Namely the added cinematics.
    • The Sega Saturn only sequel, Dungeon Master Nexus, kicked up both the realtime 3D and Animesque. Sadly it was never released outside Japan.
  • Ultima's NES ports by Pony Canyon, Exodus and Quest of the Avatar. The games were streamlined to be playable with NES controls, receiving menus and Super-Deformed sprites akin to old school jRPGs.
• Shadow Warrior (pseudo-sequel to Duke Nukem 3D using the same engine) renders any female seen (either in person or as a picture) in such a style despite 1:The rest of the game being styled after a Hong Kong action flick 2:predating the majority of Anime's fame and popularity in the US with a 1997 release date.
• One Must Fall 2097, a fighting game produced by Epic Games in 1994, well before anime had a large fan base in the US, had its characters drawn in this style.
• Likewise Epic's Zone 66 featured an quasi-anime intro.
• Death Rally has this, most notably with female drivers, while shades wearing male drivers (including Duke Nukem) are hardly animesque.
• Jak and Daxter, although the only noticeably "animesque" thing in it is the character design.
• Black Sigil, whose battle system has a very strong Chrono Trigger vibe to it. It's basically nostalgia fodder for SNES JRP Gs.
• All of the cutscenes in Mirrors Edge are done in an animesque style.
• Crash Bandicoot
  • All of the cutscenes in Mind over Mutants are all done in a different art style and in the "Fists of Orange Fury" cutscene, it is very animesque.
  • The Trophy Girls in Crash Team Racing qualify to some extent, especially Megumi.
• Idolcraft is a Western freeware take on the same concept as The Idolmaster, where the main character attempts to manage the career of a number of Idol Singers.
• The Caverns of Hammerfest contains a few animesque traits, what with the blurred-feet running animation for Igor and the little dance he might do after you idle—the latter being is a homage to Hare Nochi Guu.
• Tecmo Super Bowl, an NES game, used anime-style cutscenes after big plays. The Attract Mode Animation gives a general flavor.
• Skullgirls has this artstyle present for all characters save for Peacock, who is drawn and animated in a '30s-esque rubberhose cartoon style.
• OpenArena, mainly visible in it's models and it's attempt to steer away from the norm of grimdark, gritty first person shooters.
• Somewhat incongruously for a Western RPG, the elves in Dragon Age II have got an overhaul to look more like their Japanese counterparts, with long pointy ears, huge eyes, smoothed-out facial features and skinny bodies, including the token White-Haired Pretty Boy Anti-Hero companion.
• Asura's Wrath, with manga style recaps, and is episodic like an actual anime, Eyecatch's included.
• X-Com: UFO Defense has an animesque intro, but the game's graphics were rather realistic for the period.
  • Spiritual successor Rebelstar: Tactical Command used the trope more fully, featuring anime-style character images and cut scenes.

Visual Novels

• The vast majority of Western-written Visual Novels are at least somewhat trying to emulate the look, feel, and tropes of Japanese works. How successful they are varies.
• Partially subverted with Don't Take It Personally Babe, it Just Ain't Your Story. While it is a Western-made visual novel, its background CG art and character sprites are used ready-made from a Japanese designer that specifically makes them available for amateur visual novels. On the other hand, their AmieConnect avatar pictures and event CGs are drawn by a western artist in animesque style, but with still a heavy western feel. The transition is actually slightly jarring.

Web Comics

• Megatokyo is the archetypal example of this trope in the world of webcomics, even going so far as to take place in Tokyo and be a fantasy/dating sim storyline. The comic has become one gigantic deconstruction of just about every anime-sub-genre, complete with a (recently revealed) disaffected Magical Girl who can't really use her powers the way she thinks a magical girl should (meaning, like Sailor Moon).
• Mechagical Girl Lisa A.N.T.. Even though Ida Kirkegaard is Danish, the drawings are something like distorted manga-style drawings.
• In Ronin Galaxy the cover art resembles anime, and the actual pages are made to look like a manga, despite being read from left to right like a western comic.
• Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, Grim Tales from Down Below, and Sugar Bits (created by Bleedman) are heavily influenced by anime, in their art and storytelling.
  • Invader Zim: Manifest Doom, another webcomic published by SNAFU Comics, has an animesque touch.
  • A lot of what SNAFU Comics puts out falls under this category.
• Another good example would be Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan-comic, which has its human characters drawn in a manga style.
• Grey Is actually describes itself as a manga and reads from left to right even though its written in English
• Van Von Hunter, Sokora Refugees, and Red String are manga-inspired webcomics that were eventually published by major American manga companies (TokyoPop and Dark Horse). However, Sokora Refugees appears to have been taken off the 'net.
• Chugworth Academy and Boss Noodle by Dave Cheung are definitely anime influenced, seeing as they are so risqué...
• No Need for Bushido parodies elements from anime/manga set in feudal era Japan.
• Clone Manga is a collective of Dan Kim's anime influenced webcomics, one of which is Nanas Everyday Life.
• Sodium Eyes takes notes of many anime clichés.
• Aki Chans Life is purposefully modeled after Doujinshi, despite being an obviously Western webcomic, to the point where all the panels are read right-to-left.
• Earthsong is a Fantasy Webcomics with manga inspiration.
• Monsterful: a Slice of Life Webcomics of a monster-only world that shows a moderate manga influence, but it's well balanced with western influences and completes the circle with multiple video-game and internet references from both Eastern and Western markets.
• The Beast Legion is very Anime/Manga inspired.
• Unicorn Jelly and Pastel Defender Heliotrope have a unique but clearly SD take on its art.
• Another example would be Panty Brigade.
• Leet Street Boys is about a band based on a group of Otaku, done in anime style.
• Project 0 is usually described as an American Manga. Written by a duo of brothers and takes a lot of the more cinematic and dynamic aspects of manga from a visual perspective, but not in terms of anime clichés and sweatdrops.
• Blue Sky counts as another.
• The Road to Eden
• Picatrix is another webcomic with a heavy manga influence.
• Misfile has a major manga-esque influence, with scarcely a strip going by without a super deform, chibi or the omnipresent Egregious sweat drop making an appearance. Even Rumisiel's T-shirt gets one of those at one point.
• A Miracle of Science Lampshaded its influences by citing them in The Rant and stealing their onomatopoeia.
• Tom Siddell, author and artist of Gunnerkrigg Court, cites the Battle Angel Alita and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind mangas as artistic influences, alongside Western comics like Hellboy and Tank Girl. He incorporates elements from all of them into his own art.
• Some anime-like designs are used for the Sluggy Freelance storyline "GOFOTRON Champion of the Cosmos", with Riff even describing one of the alien species they encounter as "blue, anime-looking people."
• Animesque style isn't reserved to English-language webcomics. Here's a popular French example: Maliki. With one strip directly referencing its many influences, several of them from anime.
• Gorgeous Princess Creamy Beamy is a parody of Magical Girl anime, and drawn in an anime-influenced style even though the author is American.
• Dominic Deegan's style has been described as being on the cheap end of animeshun.
• Collar 6 and its Spiritual Predeccessor Crimson Latex both fall well within this trope.
• Shadownova is drawn with a somewhat Animesque style. The author is heavily influenced by anime and manga.
• Demon Candy Parallel is drawn in a Yonkoma fashion.
• Star of Destiny's art style is heavily influenced by mange and anime. The comic is even read from right to left like manga, which the writer of it has deemed enough to label it a "webmanga".
• Angel Moxie is another webcomic heavily influenced by the Magical Girl genre, and using the Yonkoma format.
• Overlord of Ravenfell is stylistically influenced by older CLAMP manga and Yoko Matsushita, so definitely falls in this trope.
• Seekers
• Anime News Nina. It even says it in the title.
• Heartcore. The author has listed Slayers as a major inspiration, and it most definetly shows.
• Rain. There's plenty of anime tropes, the author and the protagonist are otaku... not Japanese.
• Ghastly's Ghastly Comic gleefully parodies the Ecchi/Hentai genre, especially the Naughty Tentacles trope. The art style itself becomes more and more Animesque (and better-looking) along with Art Evolution.
• School of Mages is drawn in a manga style, and it is even read from right to left.
• The Lounge has considerable manga influence, both in artistic style as well as the art gags and tropes common to manga.
• Cross Heart is a manga, except it was written by a Spanish author, originally in Spanish and English, and published for free on Deviant ART.
• Ninth Elsewhere has some anime influence, probably because one of the authors lived in Japan for a time while working on it.
• Closed Gate: Heavily relies on manga-influenced artwork, although the cast consists mainly of anthropomorphized characters.
• Roommates and its SpinOffs Girls Next Door and Down the Street (the latter to a lesser extent) have a lot of manga influences.
• Bedlam Genesis is done in this style.
• El Goonish Shive is not all-out animesque, but remembers its roots and waves tothem, often using Anime/Manga tropes (and character types). As an excuse to occasionally have fun with the ones use of which is harder to justify (like Calling Your Attacks), EGS also got "Anime Style Martial Arts" and a Japanese family from early on.
• Eerie Cuties and its spin-offs are about halfway there - they aren't overt anime style, but use Anime/Manga tropes and style elements like Cross-Popping Veins or Chibi-mode panels now and then. EC also turned B&W not long before it got a spin-off, but that was a matter of performance.
  • Magick Chicks, also parodies/deconstructs Magical Girl genre.
  • Dangerously Chloe also involves a fairly devious re-spin of "Ah! My Goddess" style Magical Girlfriend/Harem Anime plot.
• Vampire Cheerleaders/Paranormal Mystery Squad are a strange case, in that while neither drawn in anime style nor using Anime themes and tools often (other than Fan Service subset), these use right-to-left panels and are in B&W.
  • Aoi House, however, makes up for this so enthusiastically that average level of the whole 'verse raises into distinct Animesque-ness.

Parodies

Comic Books

• The Ghost Rider villain Skinbender. Er... not for the faint of heart.
• French comic Sentai School is a spoof of many Japanese series (either anime or live-action, and mostly from the '80s) well-known in France.
• Issue 14 of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror features "Murder, He Wrote", a parody of Death Note drawn in a manga style.
• Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series bears some artistic and formatting similarities to manga style, but its short parody deserves special mention. Volume 4, "Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together", ends with a reading guide as one would find in a right-to-left book. "STOP. This is the BACK of the book. What do you think you're doing?"

Fan Works

• It isn't uncommon for fan-artists fond of the Animesque style to use it even when depicting non-Japanese series.
• Here's an example that work surprisingly well despite the extreme Art Shift: The Order of the Stick Manga Style. (Note that the fan-artist is Chinese.) (As of October 2022, the images on that page were not available.)
• Another good example: Tiffany Aching if The Wee Free Men was directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
• South Park not only parodies Anime often, but the Japanese fanbase (or those who are just fans of Japanese anime) often portray the characters as such in fanart and fanfiction, which doesn't please other parts of the fandom.
• The Japanese fanbase of Happy Tree Friends also does this, although it isn't as common that people bash it.
• A simple Google search will turn up a virtually unlimited supply of animesque Harry Potter fan art.And the occasional video.

Film

• Manga, anime, and bad dubbing are affectionately(?) parodied in the 2008 animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who! while Horton, an elephant, imagines he's a heroic ninja (the result looks a lot like Teen Titans).
• Spoofed in the movie Super Troopers with the really cheap-looking "Afghanistanimation" cartoons produced by the Taliban.
• Most Fruitful Yuki, a Show Within a Show in the movie Juno.

Live-Action TV

• Episode 1 of The Hard Times of RJ Berger has an animated flashback in which Natsumi is drawn in anime form and talks in Japanese (with English subtitles).

Video Games

• Princess Robot Bubblegum, the name of the fictitious anime show in Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, which parodies Japanese Media Tropes (especially Shônen and Shôjo clichés).
• Guitar Hero III depicts Japanese fangirls this way. Also subverted in that the rest of the cutscenes are a mix between this and Western-style.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner's 20X6, featuring anime versions of the main cast, like Strong Bad as Stinkoman and Homestar as Stinkoman's sidekick 1-Up.
• Angelicate Avenue, by Alli Kat Nya.
• Girlchan in Paradise, by Egoraptor.
• Neko Sugar Girls might be an example.
• Many of the early Bionicle web animations had shades of this. The character models were very faithful to the sets, but they would occasionally include things like Sweat Drops, Blush Stickers, and stylized motion-blur backgrounds for action sequences.

Web Comics

• Unwinder's Tall Comics features a Show Within a Show, Tokyo Delta Jetlag D, an Affectionate Parody of widgety shonen series, and of bad fansubs.
• Ghastlys Ghastly Comic, besides being wholy animesque itself, features a Hentai parody of Scooby Doo with this page and the two following. Warning -- NSFW.

"Man! Is there anything the Japanese don't know how to make better?"

• Another non-english example is Raruto, a Naruto spoof webdoujin that originated in Spanish.
• One panel of Rusty and Co go this route thanks to a Belt of Genre Changing.

Western Animation

• Perfect Hair Forever: An unavoidable consequence, of course, of being a Shonen anime parody, complete with non sequitur Fan Service. Taking it a step further than that, Adult Swim even once aired it done up like an old-style VHS (and low-quality) Fan Sub for the April Fools' Day weekend.
• Robot Chicken: A puppet Stop Motion & Sketch Comedy that satirizes many Japanese Anime shows such as Sailor Moon, Pokémon, Voltron, Akira, Speed Racer, Dragonball Z, Inuyasha, Shokushu Goukan, Japanese Hentai, Ranma ½, and Final Fantasy, plus American cartoons such as Teen Titans.
• Cow and Chicken: the Japanese in this Got Milk ad.
• Before they were unceremoniously canceled, the last episode of Clerks: The Animated Series ended with a direct parody of out-sourced animation in general, poking fun at Korean animation studios. Any story this episode had was completely tossed out the window.
• South Park gleefully subverts this trope on a handful of occasions.
  • Most notably, "Good Times with Weapons", where the boys acquire ninja weapons and subsequently get a massive art upgrade into Street Fighter-esque badassery. (The song "Let's Fighting Love" is more or less about how the song makes no sense, especially the Gratuitous English parts.)
  • And "Chinpokomon", in which the boys' craze over a Pokémon-style hobby turns their eyes into arches when they smile and causes them to spout Japanese gibberish with glee. Bonus points: The creators speak Japanese so it really is gibberish.
• Johnny Bravo once had Johnny watching "Clam League 9000", a spoof of Pokémon with a hint of Dragonball Z.
• ReBoot presented a game that simultaneously spoofed both Dragonball Z and Pokémon -- at the same time.
• One of the several The Fairly OddParents made-for-TV movies has Timmy and Vicki surfing through the dimension of television with magical remotes, creating parodies of numerous classical cartoons, two of which for anime. The first is for Speed Racer's often-joked fast voice acting in the dub. The second is another Dragonball Z spoof with a show titled Maho Mushi, portraying a (to Americans) violent fighting tournament and a multitude of beam attacks, and Vicky was dressed like Piccolo. At one point, Cosmo accidentally blasts two holes into sides of the arena. (At least he wasn't Majin...) Though the remote controlled giant mecha were still out of place.
• Johnny Test parodied both the Pokémon anime and games a few times.
• Dexter's Laboratory
  • The series is rather Animesque on its own, but that didn't stop it from doing a complete and full parody of Speed Racer—right down to the style and plot line. Except DeeDee, who didn't get the joke and was animated (largely) normally.
  • In the first series finale, "Last But Not Beast", the students at the Japanese school Dexter transfers to own a mecha. Also, the teacher there had pink hair and blue eyes.
  • In a revived season episode, the villain Hukouchou looks like an evil bishounen. Long hair, icy blue eyes, pointy ears, and so on.
• The Phineas and Ferb special, "Summer Belongs to You", had a short musical segement that took place in Japan and caused all the characters to turn into some strange looking anime style all while doing a parody of Caramelldansen. The singers were in Sailor Fuku too.
• The animated Mad has a segment called "Grey's in Anime".
• In "Batman's Strangest Cases", an episode of Batman the Brave And The Bold, one segment is an Affectionate Parody of the '60s Batman manga by Jiro Kuwata. The sequence is in sepia tones, has extremely limited animation and out-of-synch "English dubbing", and is a gentle jab at '60s anime like Gigantor.
• Miisutaa Supakaaru (Mr. Sparkle), the Japanese Homer Simpson from The Simpsons. He's actually an amalgation of two Japanese companies whose logos are a fish and a lightbulb, respectively.
• This concept was parodied twice in Garfield and Friends first in "Invasion Of The Big Robots" where Garfield winds up in a Voltron-esqe show, and in "The Clash of the Titans" where Garfield and Odie team up with the X-Men expies The Power Squad.

Inversions

Several Japanese series have inverted this trope by going for a western look. Since American cartoons generally require several times the production money for their higher frame rates, there are limiting factors that keep it to surface aesthetics rather than the actual motion. The limits are easier to get around in comics and video games. If they use English, expect it to be as good as our Japanese. Also Inverted by Japanese video games in their art style and other choices.

General

• The character designs of Japanese artist Susumu Matsushita are often very Western-looking, with round eyes and sometimes cartoony proportions. He also happened to do the artwork for Maximo.

Anime and Manga

• Bambi and her Pink Gun is so visually influenced by the aesthetics of American comics that only the onomatopoeia give it away as an original Japanese creation.
• The Big O is the result of Japanese animators involved with Batman the Animated Series running with the influence. Look for the Batmobile in the backgrounds.
• The first ending sequence to the 2003 anime version of Fullmetal Alchemist is done in Mike Mignola's style.
• Gainax does with Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt—it takes most of its art style from Western animation (looking a lot like The Powerpuff Girls).
  • One episode parodying Transformers goes maximum '80s.
• Dead Leaves
• King of Bandit Jing, especially the second manga series.
• The original Lupin III manga by Monkey Punch was heavily influenced by Mad Magazine, and the art style definitely shows. The anime... not so much.
• One Piece. The deformations of faces pushed to the limits Looney Tunes-style are probably the most prominent factor. Not to mention Luffy's powers, which are like something taken out of a Tex Avery cartoon.
• Fairy Tail has a similar art style to One Piece but then that would be a case of an anime imitating a western-influenced anime.
• Soul Eater looks like the unholy child of anime and Tim Burton.
• Tiger and Bunny is made to resemble Western comic books and superhero shows.
• Trigun's designs and especially manga incarnation are heavily influenced by McFarlane.
• Turn a Gundam's mechanical designs by Syd Mead.
• Usavich
• One episode of Excel Saga includes a rapidfire sequence in which the show's art style morphs through several Western styles in quick succession, including classic super heroes and The Simpsons.

Video Games

• Several Nintendo franchises have a very Western feel to them. Namely Super Mario Bros. For instance, the main character is a plumber with a large nose and moustache and a heavy Italian accent; the use of anime tropes in the series is rather rare aside from subtle graphical elements; and the minimal audible spoken dialogue by any of the characters (in any language) is in English.
• Metroid has always aimed for an American comic book look with the atmosphere from Hollywood sci-fi, though several games post-Fusion showed more Japanese influence.
• F-Zero takes place in a comic book future. Captain Falcon himself being an homage.
• Star FOX takes cues from Western Cartoon Characters animals and space operas.
• While it firmly belongs to the JRPG genre, the EarthBound series is also heavily influenced by old-school sci-fi, newspaper comics, and other Western media.
• Sega did the same with Sonic the Hedgehog and various others.
• Viewtiful Joe is an Affectionate Parody of both comic book superheroes and Tokusatsu.
• Capcom's old mascot Captain Commando is likewise an Affectionate Parody of American superheroes. The company has long walked a middle ground between styles, taking it to a natural conclusion.
• Darkstalkers and its crazy cartoon violence. It looked and moved more like a cartoon than the actual American TV show.
• Parappa the Rapper. Makes sense, as the series artist, Rodney Greenblat, is actually American.
• No More Heroes
• The main character in Professor Layton, as with many others.