Snark or not, I didn’t explicitly insult him. And I did answer one of his (very easily researchable) requests for info. Bebop and Ghost are animes he had mentioned being interested in and wanting to know what the “first episodes” were. Duh! How hard was that to find out?
It’s a “cop out” to send someone some links where they could do some basic research on the very topic they mentioned being interested in???
I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I’m interested in something, I tend to do a little basic google-fu on my own to acquaint myself with the subject before asking someone else to do my research for me.
Possibly. But anime is such a gigantic field that, as other people and yourself have said, it’s like saying “Recommend me some movies!” I’d want to know what genre he loves and hates…but I can still start with some that have some mass appeal. Yes, you did that, but your comments about what a link was were pretty obnoxious.
That being said neither your response or the comment about “Deal with it” really encourages prospective fans. As Maggie the Ocelot says:
“The main thing that annoys me about anime is people who are into anime.”
True 'dat. I’ve never seen a particular genre that attracts such cranky fans, really. I ask about entertainment all the time on the boards. It’s a better and more fun and interactive way to find out about what you might like than just reading descriptions of it.
It’s a hobby that seems, for no particular reason, to also attract more than it’s fare share of derision - if you’re an avid mountain biker, you don’t have to put up with so many people asking why you enjoy your hobby. So perhaps it’s fair that people end up being a little defensive when they keep having to deal with what seem like willfully ignorant statements like “It all looks like pokemon” or bafflingly irrational complaints like “I can’t stand the gasping” (In all seriousness, I’m not even sure what these people are talking about.).
That said, yes, I’m not particularly proud of the associates I inherit as a result of being a fan of being an anime fan. On the other hand, I’m not really proud of the associates I get from a lot of my hobbies. On the third hand, I actually have a hard time thinking of non-outdoors activities that would get me associates that I would be proud to associate with, so no serious losses there after all.
As you can tell, however, we’re not all jerks. Some of us have in fact volunteered a game attempt at some general recommendations, since that’s what was asked for.
But this thread was the opposite, people asking those of us who don’t like it to explain. If you don’t like people talking about what they don’t like about Japanese animation, why in the world would you open this thread?
Yes, you have, and no, you are not all jerks. We, I guess, since I am somewhat of a fan, too, but I wouldn’t list it amongst my chief interests (years go by sometimes between watchings).
There will always be irrational complaints and dislikes to anything. I could name any event, any hobby, and a section of people will have completely irrational dislikes to it. Why engage them? They’re not interested, so there’s the door (politely). This thread was made to ask why they didn’t like it.
But some people can be gently corrected if what they are saying is totally wrong.
Truer words were never said! Every hobby I have has weirdos inherent in it.
With all due respect, my post did list a some anime I had seen in the past. I find that in terms of IMDB, with the anime shows I have seen, it is painfully lacking, if it even had any entries for them at all. This is the IMDB entry for one of the shows that I listed as watching Do note that it says season 1 1980, lists 1 season, but in the title of the page the date listed is 1977.
Further, when I looked in the past it gave the US dates instead of the original Japanese dates, so if something was shown out of order here, how would you know. Additionally someone with just passing knowledge of Star Blazers wouldn’t necessarily know that the Japanese version is Space Battleship Yamato.
I gave the example of Star Blazers as why it would be confusing to find the first episode as it isn’t listed as Season 1, Season 2 just Star Blazers Quest For Iscandar, Star Blazers Comet Empire, Star Blazers Bolar Wars.
Another show I watched growing up was Grandizer This entry has a bit more information, but still very lacking, gives three different names for the show and mentions that only 27 episodes out of 74 were translated for the US.
I know at least one of the shows that ran in Force Five is not in IMDB at all.
So, in terms of anime, I have found in the past that IMDB is a poor place to look.
The same issue would be for amazon…they don’t give release date of the move or show itself…they give the release date of the DVD.
IMDB is not really strong on anime, especially anime TV series. Wikipedia covers them much better. Anime News Network is another reasonably good source of information, but the one that I go to to find out what anime are really about is TV Tropes.
Every single one I have seen rely heavily on the same style. They have more in common with Voltron than Fantasia. I have not seen one that I mistaked for anything other than anime. Of course there is some Western animation which tries to emulate the style such as Avatar. For a kids show Avatar was OK but the animation style did annoy me. Goofy reaction shots right out of Speed Racer etc. Show me something that does not use the same cliches and style as all the others and maybe I’ll like it.
Arriety really? Half a second of the trailer I saw in the theater I thought “Disney is doing anime?” You might or might not like it but it looked and felt like typical anime. I’ll check out the rest, I don’t reconize the names of most of them.
Are you going to claim that there aren’t cliches, styles, themes than run through many if not most of anime? The gasping, stupid over-reaction shots, infantalized characters (even the ones supposed to be adults). Many have been listed here there is no need for me to state them all again. Are you saying that isn’t prevelant? I know they are not all the same but most share enough of the same style to make me dislike them.
I looked up some criticism of anime and one quote from another board summed it up pretty well. To someone already invested in anime, the stylistic differences are more pronounced. To someone on the outside (such as OP and myself) the general lack of clear distinction between anime art styles can be off-putting and make it harder to get into. The fact that you can look at and anime and instantly know it’s an anime is indicative of this. It uses a specific set of motifs and styles, and rarely alters them in a clearly distinctive way.
You like the motifs and styles. I don’t. I don’t see that changing. I can certainly see the diffences between different examples of anime. But they all retain a certain style that is anime. It is that quality that makes them instantly recognizable as anime. It is that style I don’t like. And I have tried to watch. I don’t like it.
Are you saying that there aren’t cliches, styles, and themes that run through ANY media? It doesn’t mean it’s all “the same” or even that it LOOKS the same. Do all Hollywood movies “look the same” to you?
To be quite truthful, I’m unprepared to “deny” the “gasping, stupid, over reaction shots.” because I literally CANNOT remember such a thing in any decent anime that I have seen. Maybe I just don’t notice them because frankly, they don’t seem like a big deal unless you decide they’re a big deal. And I can say with a great degree of firmness that no, they don’t all have “infantalized”[sic] characters. Are they “prevalent”? Certainly, in some subsections of the medium. In much the same way that, say, American action movies have many “prevalent” characteristics. It does not, however, mean that it applies globally by any stretch of the imagination.
Can you look at an American comic and immediately tell it’s a comic book? Is this offputting? Does it all look the same? I don’t even have any interest in the medium and I can tell you immediately that the answer is no, even though a lot of it features certain stylistic choices. I feel the same way about Japanese animation.
What if you took the “description” above and dropped in ANY creative medium?
I’m not criticizing your taste, I’m criticizing your criticism. I really don’t care what you like or don’t like, but it aggravates me to see something varied and diverse dismissed as “oh, it’s all the same”.
