You must log in or register to comment.
People get too obssessed with it
I used to get Cartoon Network as a kid. I watched Outlaw Star and really enjoyed it. However, in one of the later episodes they crowbarred in a topless jacuzzi scene for no reason.
That sums up my anime experience.
I watched Dragon Ball Z and a bit of Gundam Wing but never really enjoyed them.
I bump into Dragon Ball Z fans occasionally and they’re pushing 35 and have themed pillows etc. I think that is mad but I’ve met more than one person like that.
I have no themed things in my house nor would in buy any.
P.S. I enjoyed Samurai Jack and often say “Long ago in a different land” randomly to my partner.
Any recommendations based on the above?
So you hate it because of tits?
crowbarred in
I think when they said that, the implication was that there was no need for such. I.e. it interrupted the flow of the story and didn’t add anything useful, other than perhaps pandering to a certain crowd.
It was like corporate said “You’ve gone 6 episodes and we haven’t seen the antagonists tits. Spin the wheel… Add a hot tub to their space ship and have a bath scene for no reason.”
Try Noir. It’s a crime thriller about a pair of assassins who stumble into a conspiracy. Never tries to be sexy even though the leads are women in their early twenties. Has a bit of that Samurai Jack energy where there often isn’t much dialogue and it’s carried by action and the musical score. Also never went past cult classic status so you’re not likely to run into creepy fans. Or any fans, really.
I’ve always felt like anime requires a huge time investment to enjoy it; so I’ve always avoided it.
Chiming in as someone who actually owns a few different anime on DVD/blu-ray.
My whole thing is that I like good media. Anime is a medium. There’s good anime out there. As many have already said, those’re few and far between because the vast majority of people working in the medium seem determined to pigeonhole it as genre trash and perv shit.
I kinda stopped watching anime early in my 20s. The late 00s into the 10s seemed like the absolute worst period of time for worthwhile anime being made. I’ve sat through a few more current big-name ones since then and shit hasn’t improved.
So yeah, I don’t hate anime as a medium, I just hate like 99% of the medium’s content
I can’t put my finger on it. I keep trying to watch it, but it always loses my interest. The plots sound amazing but there’s something in the style that pushes me away.
I never got into it and people online make it seem cringy. I know there’s probably good stuff out there but weebs are just so weird to me. Love Studio Ghibli and Akira. And used to love Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon - but as an adult never got into the shows.
I am a massive anime watcher and I have this problem too. I used to binge watch a lot of shows, but as I’ve grown older I find I can’t project myself onto the characters anymore and I can’t relate to any of them. There is a severe drought of adult-targeted shows that aren’t pornographic or tragedy/horror in nature. It’s like adults are not interesting unless they are sexed up or murdered.
A lot of the good stuff has already been adapted (most anime are adaptations of some form of light novel or comic book), so in the past few years the production studios have been scraping the bottom of the barrel just to release something. It has resulted in a higher than average set of subpar works every season (3 months, 12 or 13 episodes).
I hadn’t made this connection, but you hit the nail on the head. I’m a little past the point where I’m identifying with the local high school bully victim. In my own analysis, I concluded that much of the problem with the vast majority of modern anime is what comes across as very awkward pacing. At least that’s the way it seems from an American point of view such as my own, I can’t speak for anyone else. I see that theme across many many series that I’m unable to finish after starting. I feel like 10, 15, 20 years ago it was it was very different, in terms of the stories that were told, how they were told, and how they were paced. And plotting was either more universal, or more accessible to a western audience than I feel much of what is put out today is.
Same. I have very cautiously taken some recommendations from my brother and liked them. But for every one I liked, there were 100 I didn’t and the online weirdos who got way too intense about them.
I love how all the comments have caveats. Maybe that’s just the Lemmy demographic.
I’ve got a weird relationship with anime. Never really watched it as a kid, except for pokemon.
Two of my best friends were weebs in high school, so I got into some there, went to some cons with them after graduation. I’d binge with college friends pretty regularly, but it’s never really been something I seek out on my own for some reason. I guess I’m a social watcher.
My taste is odd for it, too. It’s mostly about gems in the rough and based on vibes. A lot just doesn’t hit, and I can’t always tell why some things do.
I wouldn’t outwardly say that I hate anime but I definitely assume the worst when I hear a show is one. I automatically start thinking it’s going to be style over substance with unnecessarily long fight scenes, unrelatable characters, gross sexualization of female characters (if not child characters), and awkward dubs.
There are obviously exceptions to this. Serial Experiments Lain was my PFP here on Lemmy for a while and it’s one of my favorite shows ever. Within the past month I binged all of Chainsaw Man in two nights and thought it was great. But it was great in spite of the fact that it’s also an anime
Sorry, I know that this is a thread for people who dislike anime to voice their reasons, but do you mind some rec? Based on what you said, I feel like you’d enjoy Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood quite a bit:
- there’s a lot of substance in FMA:B in the theme, worldbuilding, character interactions.
- there are fight scenes but they never overstay their welcome. They don’t feel tiring like in Dragon Ball Z or similar.
- characters are relatable. For example, the two protags fuck it up big time, right at the start, and yet can you really blame them? You’d probably do the same in their situation.
- there’s practically no sexualisation of female characters. Arguably only one of the villains, but that’s done for characterisation and it would feel off otherwise, it isn’t there for fanservice.
[Note: I’m not recommending this to change your views or some crap like that, it’s just that as I was reading your list of issues I was thinking “true that… wait, FMA:B doesn’t do it!”]
To be fair,
spoiler
How else would you portray Lust if not hyper-sexualized?
+1 for FMA: Brotherhood though, that shit slaps and given the above commenter’s statement I also think they’d like it
may i recommend monster. its 76 eps and more a murder mystery with a hitchcock vibe.
edit - the dub is really good but a little harder to find…
Monster is so fucking good.
Because most of it uses overly simplistic characters. There’s no depth to them. They’re good because they’re good, they’re bad because they’re bad.
No nuance!
The stories are overly simplistic too.
Not all of them are like this, but enough of them are that I’m just tired of the genre.
I disagree with you but you answered the question, so take your upvote.
Still, anime is just a medium, and there is wide variety of content, some with simplistic characters, and some without.
Oh for sure, there’s some really great ones that don’t fit my generalisation.
The problem is that too many do fit it. And all the biggest ones seem to.
Anyways, you’re right.
I have to agree with you. That is a very common trope in anime, sometimes they deserve it but most of the time they are Mary Sues, and it rankles me.
That being said, it’s escapism, it’s fun, it’s like, what would I envision heaven to be like.
That being said, I do wish writers would focus more on having actual problems to solve and that there would be real stakes in the storyline for the main characters to overcome where there is a real risk of loss.
Being OP is super fun for one season but when season 2 rolls around it’s not fun anymore.
To be honest, that sounds exactly like american comics/films.
Why is he bad? Because he hates everything!!
Kill him, he’s bad!!
He’s good. Why? He killed guy that is bad!
Etc.
Gotta pander to the masses and exhausted people I guess.
Yep, there are a ton of those too.
Most western cartoons are self contained episodes tho, while there is a general recurring antagonist, the conflict has to arise, develop and be resolved within the same episode. Very rarely you get multi episode arcs. Sometimes you get overarching storylines as a driving force that span whole seasons, but the main conflicts remain episodic. Spongebob is still working in the Crusty Crab by the end of the show, Kim Possible is still fighting Dr.Draken and Shego by the end of the series, Homer is still working in a Nuclear Powerplant, etc…
Anime is different in that regard because the story is laid out from start to finish usually over the course of 10-20 episodes. Whether the story has actual substance is a different question. But the thing is, anime can get away with an episode were nothing happens as long as it drives the plot towards a conclusion. But a children’s cartoon where for a full episode nothing interesting happens usually won’t even leave the storyboard.
That’s why “filler episodes” are usually an eastern anime instead if a western cartoon trope.
i love One Punch Man because it exists to make fun of this exact story style.
Not in the “hate” camp, but I’m very picky with anime. I recognize it’s a wide genre with tons of legitimately great productions.
There’s a lot of anime stuff that just irritates me for reasons I’ve not been able to put into words other than “it makes me cringe from embarrassment.” Female characters that are less an interesting or fun character and more like an endless void of cutesy vibes and nothing more, the anime pratfalls to punctuate a joke, weird creepy stuff towards women, laughably edgy characters, changing art styles to something tonally clashing for comedic effect (only example I know off the top of my head is in Hellsing Ultimate, which I’ll admit I’ve only seen in the form of the abridged series), overtly blatant fan service, all the characters being teenagers, etc. Tropes like these tend to irritate me to the point of getting in the way of my enjoyment of a show and it kills a lot of anime for me.
Motherfucker preach!
I like some Anime because I get bored with Hollywood, and I really just want something different, I hate most anime because the 16yo boy who is thrust into the role of the hero surrounded by attractive half naked women with huge tits and is constantly embarrassed but yet somehow manages to constantly save the day because reasons is even more played out than the NCIS writing room.
It’s like… I feel like I have to look up if there’s any weird stuff before I can get into any of it. Like I love fma (brotherhood ftw) and really enjoyed Death Note and some Netflix shows. But I couldn’t finish sword art online. I should have known when an early episode introduced a little girl voice trope character… Who was almost immediately attacked by tentacles.
Sex stuff doesn’t bother me (laughed my ass off at the wild food war competition show) but the kid stuff is fucking weird. And it’s common enough that I stick to other media mostly
They are actually 10,000 years old but just happen to have a young body. It’s not a sleazy conceit at all.
Hmm 👀
Didn’t think I needed an /s on that statement but maybe I did!
Honestly I do like anime but I have to turn a blind eye to the creepy/ecchi shit in order to enjoy some shows. It’s just a fucked up part of Japanese culture. A bit like how Ignition Remix is still a banger even though R Kelly is a monster.
That’s true! Any recommendations?
Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Berserk (1997), Hunter x Hunter (2011), Ghost in the Shell (movie), Akira (movie), pretty much all of Studio Ghilbi.
Apart from EVA those are fairly good for keeping the creepiness to a minimum. I think Berserk at least contextualises it as being part of a brutal universe in a GoT kind of way.
Kill La Kill is probably the creepiest one I’d still say was good but it crosses the line a few times tbh.
love NGE. So weird. But wonderful too
I’ve tried cowboy bebop twice. About five episodes. I know something is wrong with me. Next time I get sick I’ll try again.
Never heard of Berserk
Read some of hxh in shonen jump. Wow. Totally forgot I bought like a dozen of those over a decade ago. It seemed a little silly with the power levels of it’s the one i remember. I actually tried the show but lost interest when they were in a big tournament and started discovering they had like powers? Or that they could power up? Felt goofy. Should I stick it out?
Ghost in the shell - been meaning to check this out
Akira? The live action big eyed thing? I don’t remember hating that movie. But I don’t remember much at all it
Studio Ghilbi is fun. I really wish I saw my neighbor Totoro before I was a grown ass man so I felt the magic more lol. I actually haven’t seen anything others but they have rave reviews. Occasionally my local theater shows the films and I’ve been trying to see the wolf howling castle or whatever it’s called
Yeah - Context matters.
Is Kill la kill the one my friend watches with the talking clothes? Cause I can’t, my dude. Hahaha
Forgot to mention I enjoyed AOT. Saw one punch but thought it was too meta for me. My friend said it’s good because it plays on tropes. But idk. Sucks cause I LOVE that artist. He drew a series called Eyeshield 21 about a Japanese (American) football team. It was funny as hell but my goodness, that art is incredible. Yusuke Murata
Ugh I’m gonna post some. It’s just so gah damn beautiful
https://images.app.goo.gl/b31vLUCwFtBn1Ena8
https://images.app.goo.gl/DJqQWvaxRf6wefNK6
https://images.app.goo.gl/tDcgXkqtBnR8GKGq6
https://images.app.goo.gl/irLVMeak8w1QgE158
What were we talking about
Is regular ignition even a thing?
I guess we just grew up and Japan still mostly treats and creates anime as media for kids and teenagers, not unlike how cartoons are still mostly “for kids”.
I don’t “hate” anime, like many people here, but some stuff just doesn’t entertain me anymore. I’m too old to find Dragon Ball Z and every other similar shonen even minimally entertaining. Hell, I was probably too old for that shit back when I was 19, I remember checking Bleach and giving up on episode 7 or whatever, though I think it was Naruto that “woke me up” when I was 16, I was watching it but wasn’t enjoying it for quite a while, until I just dropped it around ep 120, “this shit ain’t going nowhere”.
I’ve only watched Evangelion the first time during covid years, and it was clear it was two stories in one: the one they wanted to tell, which was kinda interesting, and their struggles with budget and how that affected the product.
The thing is that the anime that reaches mass appeal is meant for the masses, much like movies with mass appeal are the ones that require you to shut down your brain. The last 2 anime that I watched, enjoyed and wouldn’t mind watching again are Legend of Galactic Heroes and Taxi Driver, both are low on nonsense and bullshit.
More often than not, it’s just better to read the manga, when the anime’s based on one. Slam Dunk is a much better read than watching the anime, plus you end up knowing about the author’s other work, Vagabond, which is amazing.
as media for kids and teenagers
You clearly have never seen Animes from the “Seinen” genre.
Usually pretty dark or adult topics. You will notice it at some points in the story.
My current favorite is Oshi no ko which goes a bit behind the media industry and actually does show a fair bit of young adult topics (e.g. murder, intent to murder/revenge, child PTSD among other more lighthearted topics to keep it from being a depression show), Tokyo Ghoul would also fall into the seinen category.
For movies I liked Akira (an older movie) with the cyberpunk theme, Your Name,I read Bleach until the characters convinced me to stop reading the manga after the last two arcs.
How can you care for the heroes if they’re breaking the rules and getting themselves in trouble for it while also being disproportionate?
Then I read Sankarea: Undying Love on Azuki which seemed fine at first but then things went off the rails and the heroine ended up bathing with a girl explicitly younger than her. Yeesh.
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.
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 don’t hate it, it’s not very good.
