I’m generally picky about how I spend large amounts of time. As an adolescent I watched like 700 episodes of One Piece but I eventually gave up. At this point I can’t be bothered with any Shonen; they’re the equivalent of junk food. Even Mob Psycho 100 started getting tiresome in season 3.
I’ve never appreciated bishoujo/harem garbage; I had coworkers that watched it regularly and it was very off-putting. They are horny and delusional, pretending there is substance.
But I still think there’s a lot of solid art in manga/anime. I tend to look for popular seinen manga that turned into anime, like Akira, Berserk, Monster, Ghost in the Shell, Death Note, One Punch Man. But even some of those end up going downhill or failing to evolve out of the “edgy and violent” stage, e.g. Attack on Titan.
Clearly the garbage is what makes money, which is a huge shame.
And AFAIK Hayao Miyazaki does not like to be associated with the Anime genre and would prefer being grouped with the likes of Disney. And I think that’s quite appropriate.
You might enjoy Oshi no ko.
.I actually wasnt aware of OPM being seinen. Felt like a good paced shonen and slap-stick humorI’ll check it out.
Not sure how definitive that OPM classification is, but I see OPM as a seinen that deconstructs shonen via satire. It presents the absurdity of the superhero endgame with a troubled god-like protagonist. It also redefines what it means to be a hero in a realistic and inspiring way (via Mumen Rider).
Makes sense. Maybe I didnt pick up the subtle hints.
I did see the action and a bit of satire but not that much.
Oversexualization. Panty shots, ass shots, boob physics, the same old jokes from the ‘80s about a guy “accidentally” groping a woman, guys peeping into a girls’ space, suggestive poses, barely-disguised fetishes (included, but not limited to, harems, incest and pedophilia).
It got to the point where a friend would recommend an anime, I’d watch it, and walk away halfway through the first or second episode because it was just unbearable. Friends would tell me to turn a blind eye, but why the fuck should I put up with sexualizing minors in a show? I’d rather spend my time doing something that doesn’t make me feel sick.
It also attracts the wrong kind of audience. Since the medium is so keen to produce oversexualized content, that’s all people look for and talk about. Any anime discussion thread degenerates into gross memes about “flat is justice”, “twincest is wincest”, people patting each other in the shoulder while calling the other “man of culture” for sharing their kinks, and shit like that. It’s so extenuating that, back when I was interested in the medium, I still actively refrained from interacting with fellow fans because I felt grossed out by them. Fun fact, I had a female classmate back in highschool who was interested in anime, and I thought that I could find common grounds with her, but no, it was the same thing, just reversed (she would only watch anime with sexualised boys).
The medium also forgot what its name stands for. I haven’t seen “animation” in “anime” in years. It’s just still frames and more still frames and whenever there’s an action sequence, the characters will constantly interrupt them to explain or think about the thing that I’m already watching and needs no explanation, or having flashback sequences, because it’s cheaper to animate. The fact that Ghost in the Shell and Akira from thirty years ago had better and more fluid animation than the shit they produce now is just sad.
The sexualization is to a point where I genuinely think lower of someone if I find out they like anime. Barely closeted pedos, the lot of them.
While I don’t agree, I used to spend a lot of time on /r/OnePunchMan. OPN is kinda a gag anime in that it plays on many stereotypes to comedic effect. One of the main characters is a woman that is very petite and didn’t grow up, and is also one of the most powerful heroes - alongside her sister who…did grow up.
The reason I mention it is because that sub is 90% suggestive fan art of the girl that the show literally points out looks like a child. It’s a trope on the “sexualised minor” thing, but they’re fucking falling for it again! When you call them out for noncing, they argue “she has adult features” or “she’s in her twenties”.
I’m also an avid lurker of r/onepunchman and I have to say, Tatsumaki fanart is fairly tame compared to Fubuki. Fubuki is also used in the exact same way as Faye in Bebop. Her sexiness is the antithesis to the main characters general indifference. Her being on most of the mangas cover art sporting different outfits in each is another parallel to that. She’s essentially the artists creative outlet for fashion. As for Tatsumaki, Murata (the artist) himself, said that he doesn’t really like drawing petite women, but her appearance is in theme with the rest of the manga, being that the weak looking characters are usually the strongest.
Does her looking like that drive the sales up? Sure.
Does it taken away from the story? No.
That’s why the straight up rapey approach from Ugly Fuehrer during the Monster Association arc was so impactful, because beside her sexualized outfit she is usually treated respectfully by the other characters.
What i mean by “taking away from the story” is if another anime has a girl in a small skirt face a tentacle monster, oh jeez, I wonder what will happen next? This is a story that is being told 100s of times and doesn’t have to be told again. That I completely agree on.
I’d say One Punch Man, is a good example of how to use attractive characters to attract viewers, given that men and women are represented equally attractive and especially the men with a large variety of bodytypes. Saying that Tatsumaki is the only character looking like that and being sexed up is a bad thing should also imply that the Fat Guys superpower being able to eat everything, or Speed-O-Sonic the Twink Ninja wearing skinthight spandex is equally bad. It’s just packaging and appearance.
The problem is that most other anime’s/mangas have only packaging with not character behind it. The fact that people in the subreddit are mostly discussing power levels, possible theories, story implications, etc.instead of simply drooling over the women means that the characters and story is fleshed out enough that the fan service is beside the point. You usually won’t find whole communities like that for run of the mill echi series with zero dept.
If you’d like to give it a shot, I’ve found bocchi the rock to be a wonderful story about an introverted high schooler looking to join a band to meet people that has pretty much no sexualization at all.
I agree with you, but I have to say that sexualization in anime rarely comes as a surprise. Its usually clear from the very first second that an anime has zero substance beside fanservice.
I’d say there’s a right way to do sexualization and a wrong way, 99% of the time it’s done the wrong way. The wrong way would be all those panty shots, underskirts etc. But take a character like Faye from Cowboy Bebop, while her being all sexed up is part of her character, it does not take away from her position on the raster. She’s essentially a artifact of the 90’s rapid evolvement of western and eastern fashion. This is supported by the fact that she has a completely new outfit in almost every episode, an animation effort that you rarely see in modern anime. Furthermore the whole art style of Cowboy Bebop is very reminiscent of fashion illustration, meaning long legs and extremely thin bodies.
I’d say this is what led to the current fan service situation in the first place. People used to think “we can’t show somebody with this outfit on film, but we can on paper”. The supermodel lookalike characters have become a trope in 90’s anime and over the last 3 decades have been distilled to just their sexiness, not their actual cultural meaning.
100% agree with your points and would onley add that WHY THE FUCK would anyone draw a child and say that she is actualy 1000 years old. Almost all the top season anime was harem, pedophilia. Cant stand it, I cant even count how many good concepts were ruined by these sick “kinks”.
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Hate is a strong word. But I have never really cared for it. The content I have watched felt like it was the trillby wearing “um actually” kid writing his own edgey story. And something about the yelling outbursts I have seen a few times make me want to curl up and die.
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I don’t think people straight up hate anime, nobody is going to pick up a remote and turn of the TV if they see somebody else watching it and angrily leave the room.
It’s just, for the most part (and this is also true for non-animated movies or series), you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.
There are only so many times you can tell the story of boring guy gets put in fantasy land and is not boring anymore, or mysterious things happen at school and the afterschool mystery club has to solve them.
So what do you do? You cling to what you know is good. Studios, directors, etc. If Miyazaki makes an anime movie you watch it, if Quentin Terentino makes an action movie you watch it. This is also partially why anime’s are less popular than mainstream movies and series. You can watch a movie solely because you like an actor/actress, regardless of whether they play the same character or somebody else. In anime, each new series has a new set of characters, so each time a new personal connection has to be built.
Other than that, a good measure of “is this worth my time?” is pop cultural representation. Rule of thumb, if an anime spawns memes, it’s usually half decent.
But just like with movies and series, there are timeless classics. Like, who hasn’t seen or at least heard of Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Trigun, Dragon Ball Z, etc… Even my parents know Pokemon. Those have been around for so long and been shown on mainstream western channels during prime time slots, that they were impossible to miss. I think people who aren’t familiar with those are just not that interested in motion picture as a whole, regardless how its presented.
I’d say without overeaching, anime’s can be put in just a few categories:
- Artistic, Philosophical, Experimental, Parodies: Those are your Miyazaki films, Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion, One Punch Man, Full Metal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, etc.
- Long running: Like, Pokemon, One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball, the Fate Series
- Trying to sell you something: Again Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gundam, Beyblade, etc.
- Mass produced trash: All the ones where the title spreads 3 lines and tells you 90% of the story
- Otaku soap operas: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the Monogatari series, Nagatoro, Komi-San
But those categories are not evenly spread in appeal, quality and quantity. While the first 2 categories have barely any presence but arguably the most cultural impact, the later ones have the most presence but are individually culturally insignificant. But quality is harder to judge than quantity is to see. So people tend to see the mass produced trash and ignore the good stuff that is being overshadowed. With classical film, a movies intention can usually be discerned with just one look, if for example a modern movie is black and white, its usually artistic. But looking at things like Evangelion, or the Ghost in the Shell Series, you couldn’t guess the deep philosophical implications on first glance. People tend to see cutesy anime art style and associate it with either the mass produced trash, or shows made for children. What makes a film/series good is the intention and execution, if it happens to be animated this usually doesn’t take away from the underlying message. See old animated Disney Movies - Lilo and Stich is about Family Values, Monetary Struggles, Loss and Friendship. Adult topics packed in a medium that both children and their parents can enjoy.
People tend to hate anime for the same reason they hate superhero movies, they see the overarching medium, but not the individual pieces. You can’t compare the significance of Iron Man 1 with Thor 2, or Infinity War with The Marvels, some of these movies are good in a vacuum, without the whole Cinematic Universe attached to them. Same goes for anime, some are simply good stories regardless of them being animated.
This needs to be higher up. Really well put
Thank you.
If you draw women like children, and then give them high pitched voices, like children, and have them act girlish and foolish like pre-teen girls, and then sexualize them…There is something very very fucking wrong with you. Anime “purists” can deny it all they want, but it’s inherently tied in/related to fake waifu girlfriends and lonely neckbeards drawing naked waifus all over DeviantArt.
It’s skeevy as shit and I refuse to pretend otherwise.
I think it depends on the genre you watch of Anime. Watch berserker (if you can stomach it, cuz it’s really fucked up in a different way) or the new terminator zero anime on Netflix. There’s also a ton of other anime like that as well.
Edit: I’m sorry for the lack of tl; dr. There’s a general drop off of quality, weird social media garbage, a lot of systemic problems, etc. What I’m trying to say here is hard to summarize
Aside from the fact that it’s mass produced garbage, I can actually say that I’m old enough to have experienced a period of anime where the production values, writing, and dialogue weren’t exactly terrible.
I think a good example of my gripe with anime today is watching something like Fate Zero and then following that up with Heaven’s Feel. The distinct drop in quality between those 2 adaptations is pretty stark.
The original Yu-Gi-Oh anime was absolutely wild. It’s dumb in a uniquely entertaining fashion. There were so many sequels that were produced for Yu-Gi-Oh and every single one of them was completely terrible.
Watching Tenchi Muyo’s OVA part 1 and part 2 was fairly enjoyable. Part 3 is so much worse for seemingly no good reason.
The third Tenchi Muyo film was abjectly terrible. It’s quite possibly one of the worst films that has ever been made.
FLCL season 1 was legendary. Season 2 and 3 were substantially worse.
The new Evangelion films weren’t exactly great.
Even as far back as Pokemon season 1, that season was pretty okay. Almost everything past the first 2 seasons were… really bad…
There have been some bad adaptions for Berserk that have been mentioned from time to time.
Dragonball Super is weird. Nobody really seems to like Super. Even people who watch Super regularly treat it as some kind of Frankenstein monster.
Gundam has been pretty consistently not good for well over a decade. Gundam Wing was pretty insane. It started off with some super questionable writing and poor voice acting, and then it ended off being probably the best thing Gundam has ever been. And everything that followed was… not very good…
Naruto was followed by Boruto. It’s pretty bad. A large chunk of the 2nd half of Naruto was just not good.
I’ve seen people defend Hunter X Hunter’s Chimera Ant arc so brazenly. And still, it’s genuinely not good. Which is amazing, because almost everything prior to that arc was crazy good.
To be fair, a lot of these problems stem from the fact that the work being adapted is also consistently worse. It’s not just anime. A lot of this coincides with the same drop in quality in the manga industry as well.
The nearly universal drop in quality across the anime and manga industries has been… frustrating…
Even more frustrating is the overwhelming number of fake reviews, shilling, bot spam, etc that are meant to hide negative reviews about anime and pretty much anything involving Japanese media.
The amount of weird shit that gets posted to review sites and social media in order to hide the general negativity towards the anime industry is just gross and weird.
Another poster, Ace T’Ken, brought up a lot of specifics about the problems with anime in general. It’s a pretty good write-up, imo.
My take is, I think that these problems are more “noticeable” in modern anime. But, almost all anime have these kinds of problems to one degree or another, new and old.
It’s pretty systemic. I still think that these issues became a lot more noticeable coinciding with a general drop in quality across the whole industry.
I would like to say, it’s not like I dislike anime “inherently”. But, there’s just so much bad anime.
I wouldn’t say I hate it, but I can’t watch it.
I used to love it. I was obsessed in the early 2000’s. Then I went to college for animation, and learning about how that all works absolutely ruined all enjoyment for anime.
Youre mistaking indifference for hatred.
I just don’t like soap operas, whatever the form. My kid does though.
Considering most anime is low effort schlock that contains episodic plots that get nowhere (and even linear narratives tend to progress at the speed of molasses), if somebody tells me they “like anime” without elaborating, I think less of them then if they told me they “like music.”
I don’t hate it but I think a lot of japanese anime and video-games have an awful pacing that make it so boring for me. The stories make too much time to move on. So slow.
I have tried a lot of anime (Myazaki, the titan’s thingy…) and videogames because fans don’t stop talking about it but it’s just not my cup of tea.
Not enough propane or propane accessories (except for King of the Hill, best anime ever).
Do you prefer the dub or sub of propane genesis evangelion?
I would pay good money for an alternate dub track of KOTH by a voiceover cast with strong Japanese accents, reading Japanglish approximations of the original script with same inflections they’d use if it was a standard anime.
Boomhauer alone would be a fucking blast.
Not quite your ask, but there’s a Japanese dub floating around somewhere…There are a few links in the comments.
Unfortunately boomhauer didn’t carry over well.
This is close enough. Thank you!
Because they don’t understand it and claim it’s all the same. That’s like saying “I don’t like dramas.”
Your comment reminded me of this very old meme
So you’re saying that everyone that dislikes anime “just doesn’t get it” ? That’s a pretty silly take.
I’ve watched about 100 different shows and all kinds of anime genres over many years but I stopped because I can’t do it anymore
Most Anime shows suffer from the same issues. Personally The 2 most difficult things to deal with in are:
- Incredibly frustrating dialogue
I hate how characters speak in an extremely unrealistic and cringy way. It throws me off every time and I can’t connect with the characters. It doesn’t need to be realistic dialogue of course. I just think that anime is very far removed from acceptable dialogue, even for a show
- Shows never go beyond their basic tropes
Edgy anime is edgy and then nothing else. Every slice of life is just that and nothing else. Everything is extremely formulaic and you’re just left with the characters. And the characters are unidimensional. Please add some substance to the plot. Create more human and imperfect characters. Every character represents a trope and has no more nuance than that. The clumsy character is just clumsy. The bully character is just a bully. The main character is either the smartest or the most powerful being in the universe. EVERY TIME.
Seinen anime is a bit better regarding this last point. but it’s still too much. I can’t sit through an episode without cringing several times. Especially over the dialogue
Americans fetishizing Japanese culture is gross enough without the awful, verbose, melodramatic storytelling. Also the Japanese language is fucking hard and I’m not particularly interested in learning it. I’d watch the fuck out of Korean anime if their storytelling wasn’t just as thick, though.