So this guy is over 900 years old, and he doesn’t even try to glimpse her panties? I’m sorry, that’s just bad craftsmanship.
I’ve heard that Doctor Who is actually pretty popular in Japan.
A lot of Japanese television is just Western shows (mostly American) dubbed into Japanese. There are also plenty of Japanese-produced dramas, talk shows, and game shows. But when I was living in Japan about 10 years ago I only occasionally saw anything animated on television, and what there was all seemed family friendly (e.g. Chibi Maruko-chan). This isn’t to deny that the tentacle rape stuff exists, but it is non-mainstream even in Japan.
And then we have this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3qZYUPi2Y (Doctor Who Anime!)
Which is actually pretty well done, I particularly like the American soldiers VS Daleks in the tower block. (starts at 06:35 on the video)
The thing that bugs me in this thread is that I just don’t understand hating something for superficial reasons, any more than I understand liking something for superficial reasons. When I hate something, I hate it for deep seated fundamental flaws, not that I find something about it annoying. If I do have a visceral negative reaction to something, I see that as a flaw in myself. For example, I hate scary movies. Why? Not because scary movies are bad, but because I have problems with fear. I don’t find fear entertaining.
So, even as someone who doesn’t like anime all that much, I feel the need to defend against superficial reasoning. Because, when you get right down to it, superficiality is just a type of ignorance, and my instinct is to fight ignorance. And when giving you more information doesn’t change your opinion, that’s just as frustrating as when telling someone about how, say, Uri Gellar bends spoons and they continue to think the guy has supernatural powers.
It would just make more sense to me if you guys just didn’t care for anime instead of actively disliking it. I understand not caring for things you don’t know about. I understand hating things you know well. I don’t understand judging a book by its cover.
I don’t think most people in this thread have feelings that go beyond “I don’t care for it.” people are allowed to not like things. I also don’t see any distinction between “I don’t care for it” and “I dislike it.”
Superficiality, in the form of aesthetics, is a key component of visual arts, especially animation.
I’m supposed to think I’m flawed because I don’t think a particular subset of animation is pretty?
What if I tell you that I don’t really like white cars? Should I be in shock therapy for that?
Meh, anime worlds are rarely ‘real’ worlds. A spirit can be sealed in a suit of armor via a blood sigil and you want me to be thrown by mouth movements? Please. If the story’s interesting, I can forgive a lot. Frankly, western animation can be just as cliched and clunky. Bob’s Burger’s sure isn’t winning any awards in aesthetics.
That being said, I don’t particularly care if someone doesn’t like anime. I don’t like a lot of it so why should they. I’m sure they love something I think is irredeemably stupid, too.
This is an awesome post. What’s lacking is an actual list of the assumptions of what deserves loving detail, what is expressed with a line or two, what gets exaggerated, and what gets ignored in anime; and I’d love **gaffa **to give his list for Western animation.
I get the feeling it would boil down to a similar conflict when asking people what’s more important in music: lyrics or rhythm/melody.
I bought Haibane Renmai based solely on the dvd cover art. I’m very glad I did because I’ve watched it several times and deiscover new things each time.
Here’s the cover of the version I bought.
That was beuatiful.
This for me. It’s all about the story. I do love cartoons so I enjoy the animation aspect.
There is just so much anime out there and so many genres within anime and it’s so expensive that I just go with a few series and then buy all the legally available dvds.
Right now I’m stuck on a couple of series, like One Piece, because I’m waiting for dvds of newer episodes to come out legally.
This sounds good, but it might fall apart if you actually try expressing what these supposedly universal differences are. Most likely there would be counterexamples to all your claims, if you made any.
I also think you would have to dislike all Japanese media, such as Zatoichi or Yojimbo, to be consistent. Is that the case? And then you might have to strongly consider disliking, say, Kill Bill or The Man With No Name trilogy. It’s gonna be tough on you eventually having to dislike so many things.
My favorite two animated shows right now are Archer and Gravity Falls. There isn’t anything I’ve seen in anime that is like those. But that is a far cry from proving a clear universal distinction.
What? You say you don’t really like white cars? No problem: I take a pastafarian stance on these issues.
No? You’re saying that really don’t like white cars? You really really dislike them? You have strong feelings about white cars?
That might be an issue. Having strong opinions about things that don’t matter all that much -or superficialities- is a cause for concern. Which I think is what BigT was discussing. Flipping 2 words can make all the difference.
FWIW, it’s my understanding that jsgoddess doesn’t really care for anime in the non-fanatical sense. It’s all good!
BigT: “If I do have a visceral negative reaction to something, I see that as a flaw in myself.”
I basically share the same take: I’ve occasionally had strong visceral responses to room decorations and I distrusted those feelings to the point of finding them disturbing, a character flaw. I mean sheesh, it’s just a decoration! Others may embrace these sorts of responses: this is a personal code for me, not one I push relentlessly on others.
I though gaffa gave some pretty decent reasons why anime grates on him. I can sympathize as my tastes are in some ways mirror images of his. I know that the animation in Cinderella is awesome -it is!- but it’s hard for me to get past the black and white characterization, treacly music (I exaggerate a little, unfairly), and …oh I dunno: it’s been years since I’ve viewed it. And of course I concede that there’s plenty of Western animation made more recently with decent production values, less melodrama and greater wit.
Props to BwanaBob for his melody/lyric analogy.
My approach is to rent maybe 3-4 DVDs per month from animelane.com. I choose series mostly using reviews from THEM. In my eyes this habit makes me an anime freakazoid, though there’s a lot I haven’t seen.
Yeah, I made a post a while ago about the same thing in a My Little Pony thread
I don’t care if you dislike anime, whatever, no big deal. Yeah, a lot of anime fans are annoying too, I get that. And unlike a few others I certainly think there are overarching trends in anime that may lead someone to dislike most of it. (And for people who mentioned the lack of satisfying resolutions to the stories, preferring to leave it more open ended or incomprehensible, I understand that that’s an East Asian storytelling thing that goes back for a long, long time). I just think the “big eyes” criticism is somewhat bizarre.
ETA: I mentioned Strike Witches in that post. That show is the epitome of sexualizing 14 year olds. It’s disturbing. The story was interesting enough that my ex forced me to watch all 13 episodes, but I was considering calling the FBI and admitting to possession of child pornography afterwards. Christ.
I used to like anime, but now its getting old. Perhaps because I’ve seen so many cliches used over and over again, the over-use of many facial expressions (Teardrop, lens glare off glasses, popped forehead vein, etc). I notice there’s also an inability for many anime fans to be honestly critical of the stuff they like, to them, if it came from Japan, its solid gold. This tends to lead to a downward spiral in what someone thinks is ‘good’ since they’re not really being honest with what is legitimately unoriginal drek.
I used to hear a lot of weeaboos complain about how american voice actors are ‘inferior’ sounding, and while I know almost zero Japanese, I noticed that Japanese OVAs tend to follow a really narrow range of voice ‘types’, rather than using the unique sound of that particular voice actor. So in a lot of comedies/dramas you’ll always seem to get the same grab bag of Dramatic Male Voice, Effeminite Male Voice, Matronly Female Voice, Squeaky Annoying Little Girl Voice. It started to get old, particularly with how blind many anime fans are to it.
Look, I don’t have a problem with someone liking something they themselves admit is cheesy/cheap/unoriginal. But friggin’ own up to it sometimes! People who like campy B-movies can ADMIT the acting/special effects/script is bad- they like it in spite of/because of this. But a lot of anime fans think that anime is state of the art, far superior to anything anybody else has ever done since cavemen were scrawling on rock faces (no doubt according to weeaboos Japanese cavemen had a leg up at this point too :rolleyes: )
The super-otaku really, really get annoying. Though there is also a flipside of people that I hate just as much who say anybody who likes anime at all, or prefers subs (I usually like dubs, but some are truly terrible or miscast) are fat, loserly, basement dwelling weirdos. But I digress.
I view Japanese animation like I view any animation. I’ll happily watch a show from anywhere if it’s good (or fun enough to offset it’s badness. I still have a totally unjustifiable soft spot for Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z). I think I even watched a couple German cartoons at some point. I’m biased towards animation, which makes me a loser to some*. However, I don’t see anime or any other cartoon style as superior. There are various pros and cons to everything – different tropes are abused, different animation shortcuts, habits, and styles are played with. There have been great things and absolute shit from Japan and America both – and their flaws vary from incredibly poor animation to paper thin plots and terrible writing. I don’t find any production worth discounting just because it’s from country A or B.
- Side note: Please don’t mention you like anime to an average Japanese person if you’re an adult. This is a really bad idea. Well, okay, you’re a foreigner so it probably won’t be too bad, but Japan isn’t the land of Everyone Loves Anime – considering they’ve had high visibility politicians getting support for basically calling anybody who likes anime at all part of the source of society’s myriad ills.
Don’t forget that Japanese voice acting is generally all SUPER HAMMY and overdone. HOWEVER. Many, many American dubs have all of the same flaws - in fact, if I had to guess, I think they do it on purpose, in an effort to sound more like the original dialogue. But somehow, for me, it works better in Japanese. Maybe that’s because I can’t understand (most) of the dialogue. Maybe it’s because things just sound cooler in Japanese (sortof like how everything is funnier with a British accent). But the dubs I like are the ones that sound the least like the original material, most of the time. Every once in a while, you get one that improves on the original material. But in general, if I have to listen to a squeaky girl and a bishonen, I don’t want to hear English voice actors trying to do what works in Japanese… because it doesn’t work in English. And that, my friends, is why I never suggest anyone watch a dub.
For many years I’d heard American anime fans claim that in Japan everyone watches cartoons, there are many mainstream cartoons made for adult audiences, etc., but when I was actually living there it seemed obvious that this was less true of Japan than it was of the US. Mainstream animation was for children or families. There didn’t even seem to be a Japanese equivalent of, say, The Simpsons – a popular, primetime animated show on network television that adults without kids can openly enjoy without fear of seeming childish, dorky, or perverted.
So who’s the intended audience for the more violent or racy anime series that are popular with American fans? In Japan these seem to be regarded by the general public as being made for, in the words of one woman I knew when I lived there, “14 year old boys who don’t have a girlfriend…and will never have a girlfriend.” I’m sure this isn’t always true, but like **Jragon **says, it’s the kind of reaction an adult anime fan should expect in Japan.
However, if you like Disney movies that’s fine. The Japanese love Disney.
Everyone’s eyes are monstrous huge. Hair is freaky-looking. And nobody has any LIPS!
Just popping in to say not all anime looks the same.
Compare Mononoke with, say, Sword Art Online.
Though styles like Mononoke is rather rare.
I just think the art style that appears in anime is typical of Eastern culture where facial features and gestures tend to get over-dramatize, such as how the Japanese artists portrayed the first western ships that came to their shores.
