From the little bit of anime that I’ve seen, I think the problem here (some people liking it vs. some people not liking it) is mainly just an age thing.
Anime = teen soap operas. Simple plots, kid protagonists, first love, first kiss, first sex (first rape), etc. I watched the movie “Death Note†just to get a taste, and it was Disney fare with sex and violence. The adult characters in the movie were all pushed out of the way as ineffectual and just served as background coloring, and a bunch of teen/young adult characters were all put in charge with the justification that “Well, they’re exceptional kids, so let’s let put them in charge.†It’s a Disney justification: Empower the kiddie characters, and the kiddies in the audience will watch and fall in love with them.
The Death Note movie was dreadful, but there was no reason for me personally to resent it: It was a teen movie for teens. I just wasn’t the target audience.
I think resentment arises when teens try to carry their favorite teen characters into adult conversations and insist that their favorite teen anime character has something to say about adult life. Or conversely, I think resentment arises when adults try to share in the fun of teen entertainment and then get repulsed when they find they can’t get into it. Some adults take it poorly when they’re reminded that they’re no longer kids and really can’t enjoy kiddie forms of entertainment anymore.
This message board has a lot of college-age members, so you get a lot of cross-over: Some older teens still clinging to their love for anime characters, as well as some young or even older adults who are smarting because they can’t join in the excitement for this teen genre. Hence the hate.
Some anime is good quality, and some of it is poor quality. But ultimately the bottom line is that teens are the target audience. Might as well be arguing about Justin Bieber (who already came up at least once in this thread) or Spongebob Squarepants.
