[Mulboyne]

Daily Telegraph: Why anime is being spirited away
The global reputation of Japan's anime industry has never been higher, and at first glance it would appear to be in rude health...Yet Japan's animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Industry experts say that not only is there a dearth of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit.
...More and more animation work is now outsourced to cheaper countries such as South Korea, China and India. This has led to a hollowing out of talent in Japan and the end of the in-house production system, where people mastered each element of the process as they worked their way up from the bottom....Clements believes that the soul of anime is at stake. "Anime is, by definition, from Japan, but it's only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be anime becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes anime appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."

[Samurai_Jerk]

rude health

I can figure out what that means from the context but I've never heard that expression before. Is that a british thing?

[Charles]

"Anime is, by definition, from Japan, but it's only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be anime becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes anime appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."

Actually, Anime is from France, film animation was invented by Emile Reynaud in 1888. Which is why they use the French term "anime" rather than a Japanese word.

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo via Yahoo: New anime 'Appleseed' may revolutionize industry
The upcoming release of the Japanese sci-fi anime "Appleseed" in the U.S. market might revolutionize the animated film industry around the world, at least on a technical level. The "3-D Live Anime" based on a cult comic book written by Shiro Masamune is one of the first to use the cutting-edge digital animation technology called "toon shading" that blends 3-D computer graphics with 2-D cel-style images. "Appleseed" opens in theaters in the United States on Jan. 14 through Geneon Entertainment.
...The Japanese film industry has made 3-D animated films before but there were no hits at the international box office. "Appleseed" certainly has the potential to break out of that mold and elevate animation to a new level.

[vince]

I never could stand that mouth-moving anime stuff anyway...

And why go to the trouble of making 3D animation if you are going to flatten it with toon shading

the cutting-edge digital animation technology called "toon shading"

to make it look like 2D animation??
("cutting edge" my ass!)

Animation technique has been going downhill since Hanna-Barbera in the fifties ...