Are questions about how to make anime and manga off-topic?

Question

I spotted this question — What software is used for making anime? — and would love to answer it, but I'm not convinced it's gelling with the other questions asked so far. Moreover, I know there's a Graphic Design SE that may be more appropriate for these types of questions. So are questions about how to make anime and manga off-topic?

Answer 1

I believe they should be off-topic. They're, as you said, better suited to Graphic Design and are more about the animation process (not unique to anime) rather than the medium itself.

Answer 2

As per my comment on What software is used for making anime? and on OP:

• The question should be about real knowledge of Japanese production internals.
• The question must have nothing to do with "may Adobe After Effects be good for" kind of speculation. Speculation is bad. Speculation is what makes these questions 'off-topic'.
• The question should not be about software.
• The question must be focused tightly on the knowledge of how Japanese actually make anime, not on how they might.
• The question has no place on Video Production, nor on Japanese Language, and definitely not on Graphic Design. Western artists and craftspeople don't work in Japan, and most of them probably have no clue how Japanese actually make anime. They are no experts in Japanese internals, and western internals are not interesting in anime production.
• There is a real question hidden there about Japanese commons of anime production that could be very special and quite distinct from anything else. Personally, I very seldom read or watch western-style, but love manga and anime. It's for a reason: Japanese are so much more advanced in them. Just like their seiyuu are of much, much higher quality and thus the seiyuu training internals would be equally interesting as the anime production internals.

Strictly throw away all speculation about any method or tool. Throw away all western stuff. Focus on actual Japanese production.

And then it is on-topic, and only on topic here.

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Edit:

Questions like How are visual novels written? [closed] would be very interesting and on-topic if they would ask how Japanese actually create manga, anime and visual novels.

The problem is that instead they ask how these things could be created. But that is not interesting and is off-topic, because it results in speculation and advice that doesn't explain how actual Japanese achieve their generally very high quality. It is true that any general western software, graphic design or AV expert could give speculative ideas about how "some kind of animation" could be made. They would make actual facts about western methods, but most of them could only give speculations about Japanese methods on other SE sites.

But if these questions are re-worded to focus only on actual Japanese production method knowledge, then it makes them a very interesting and on-topic question.

Answer 3

I strongly disagree to banish this kind of interesting and smart questions from Anime & Manga. At a question like that, the right answer is to back in topic by listing software used in a specific anime as an example. I'm thinking about Hoshi no Koe, the first self-producted anime by Makoto Shinkai: in the booklet, software he used back in early 2000 are listed: Photoshop 5 (2D), Lightwave 6.5 (CGI), Commotion DV3, Adobe After Effects 4.0. Is this information irrelevant? Are question about techniques a taboo?

Note: this was previously a comment, moved here after Aarthi suggestion above.