Why is anime so terrible?

[MacGuffin]

But then again, I suppose anime is like foreign food; it's appeal isn't for everyone.

I love sushi.

Japanese culture is fantastic, but anime is a whiff.

 

[Qlip]

I love sushi.

Japanese culture is fantastic, but anime is a whiff.

Well for you, specially, Mac, I recommend FLCL. It'll confirm everything you think about in anime, in style. Poison to heal poison.

 

[Savage Idealist]

I love sushi.

Japanese culture is fantastic, but anime is a whiff.

If you want to think all anime is whiff then I really have no way to convince you otherwise; I have my opinions on anime as do yours.

Also, Japanese culture is indeed fantastic.

 

[MacGuffin]

Well for you, specially, Mac, I recommend FLCL. It'll confirm everything you think about in anime, in style. Poison to heal poison.

FLCL - Femurs Laugh Crazily Loud?

 

[Haphazard]

FLCL makes no sense. That's its appeal. Also, it's only six episodes long, so there's not much wasted if you don't like it.

 

[rhinosaur]

Fruit Lion Claps Loudly

Watching the above clip of anime I feel like I've already seen it a thousand times, despite having never seen it before.

 

[Fluffywolf]

If you think you hate anime, try watching Excel Saga first (ALL 26 EPISODES!). Then come back and hate anime rightfully so.

It took me the better part of a year to finish watching it, because I was so exhausted by it after every 2 or 3 episodes, I shelved it for quite some time before watching it again. But I had to finish watching it, because, well, you just don't really know what's going to happen in that series.

Except that whatever is going to happen is ten kinds of crazy with mental on top.

 

[Eric B]

I always thought it was a very monotonous design. I remembered Speed Racer when I was really young, and watched mostly American stuff afterwards. In the late 70's and 80's, anime became popular among the kids, and I just was never into it. The stuff like Speed Racer was very limited in animation (and this is even spoofed on Dexter), while the more serious action-adventure wasn't cartooney at all (and this is what has greatly shaped modern stuff, like the WB produced new JLA stuff. Hard to digest growing up on Hanna Barber's "Superfriends").

It looked like it was all drawn by the same person, and enter the internet age, I find out that it basically did have a common designer. Manga creator Osamu Tezuka.

I did like the opening and closing music of Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers. Brings me back to a more carefree time. That was in a time when new cartoons were only one network Sat. morning, and weren't being syndicated (He-Man and GI Joe are what kicked that back off a few years later), so they looked like new shows on the independent station on weekdays, and I didn't realize they were just newly dubbed shows that were a few years old already.

 

[MacGuffin]

I suddenly have the urge to wander into threads and ramble on about Sailor Moon.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

I thought FLCL was awesome. Really more of a movie than a series, though.

 

[Crescent Fresh]

Has anyone seen X/1999?

That's a very awesome anime (or OVA) derived from the book by Clamp.


What's FLCL btw?

Oh, and I don't understand the appeal of Naruto.

 

[Sunny Ghost]

I find anime unremarkable. I neither relate to the emphatic hate nor emphatic love that is felt for it. I don't know how it became so polarizing. It seems to have an average rate of quality comparable to western work.

I'd agree with that notion. I treat it just like any other genre from any other country. People don't go around saying, "I love hollywood films!" I also wouldn't bash the genre as a whole. There are indeed some very good pieces of anime. But I treat them like individual films.

"Akira" is an amazing film, in my opinion, that just so happens to be a Japanese anime. And by the same animator, "Memories" is astonishing as well.

I like a bit of Miyazaki's films, too.

----------------------------------------
I know I said genre, but I wanted to correct this. Anime is certainly not one genre. The point I was trying to get across, but failed to do so, is that treating Japanese anime as one genre is like treating American Hollywood films as one genre. Which is a wholly inappropriate way to go at it. Just as we have Hollywood filmmaking, the Japanese have animation that was fueled by lack of budgeting for special effects. With animation, you can do so much more. So, because of that, you have a whole world of different genres, different types of stories, different perspectives, depending upon the storyteller. So yes, there are some good ones and some bad ones. Just like Hollywood can produce some duds and some cinematic masterpieces.

 

[Viridian]

I know I said genre, but I wanted to correct this. Anime is certainly not one genre. The point I was trying to get across, but failed to do so, is that treating Japanese anime as one genre is like treating American Hollywood films as one genre. Which is a wholly inappropriate way to go at it. Just as we have Hollywood filmmaking, the Japanese have animation that was fueled by lack of budgeting for special effects. With animation, you can do so much more. So, because of that, you have a whole world of different genres, different types of stories, different perspectives, depending upon the storyteller. So yes, there are some good ones and some bad ones. Just like Hollywood can produce some duds and some cinematic masterpieces.

+1000000000

The same could be said of comic books and cartoons in general. Though in their case it's more of a perception of them as "childish". The Japanese at least seem to have experimented with animation beyond a younger demographic to a greater extent than other countries.

 

[MacGuffin]

No, it's a genre. You can play a 5 second clip and everyone will know it's anime. You can't do that with a Hollywood film vs. a French film vs. a Japanese live action film.

Nice try fanboys!


<---- LOOK AT THAT SHIT!

 

[Kierva]

I find it cute.

I think the annoyingly long intros are redundant.

 

[Sunny Ghost]

No, it's a genre. You can play a 5 second clip and everyone will know it's anime. You can't do that with a Hollywood film vs. a French film vs. a Japanese live action film.

Nice try fanboys!


<---- LOOK AT THAT SHIT!

Did you watch the two trailers I posted? Not all Japanese animators draw in a similar style. Nor do they aim for a similar audience. Just like we have pop culture, they have a pop culture animation style, and I think that is what most people assume anime to be like. They don't all get angry with squiggly lines above their heads or happy with moon eyes.

 

[MacGuffin]

Did you watch the two trailers I posted? Not all Japanese animators draw in a similar style. Nor do they aim for a similar audience. Just like we have pop culture, they have a pop culture animation style, and I think that is what most people assume anime to be like. They don't all get angry with squiggly lines above their heads or happy with moon eyes.

Are you seriously trying to say Akira isn't recognizably anime? It's one of the landmark anime films. It's practically the definition of anime.

 

[Haphazard]

And you play a black and white film and everyone knows in a second that it's in black and white. You can play a five second clip of a science fiction film and you may not be able to tell if it's science fiction.

Style =/= Genre.

 

[MacGuffin]

And you play a black and white film and everyone knows in a second that it's in black and white. You can play a five second clip of a science fiction film and you may not be able to tell if it's science fiction.

Style =/= Genre.

You can play a 5 second clip of a black & white film and tell it's in black & white.

You can play a 5 second clip of an animation film and tell it's animation.

You can play a 5 second clip of a Pixar film and tell it's Pixar.

You can play a 5 second clip of anime and tell it's anime.

Anime is genre.

 

[Haphazard]

Do you consider, say, the epistolary novel a genre?