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.
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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.