[OT] Why is Anime so popular???

[Utrecht]

As a fairly serious question, I have been wondering why is anime as an overall medium so popular???

I ask this because so much of what is available -either at the store or on television - seems well, bad. Sure there are exceptions like Ghost in the Machine, Kiki's Delivery Service, etc...... but it almost seems like if a "cartoon" has the word anime, or uses an anime style that it must be good.

Now I acknowledge that I might be curmodgoney here - but the more I see of anime, the more dissatisfied I get. Sure some of it is marketed for children like Yu-Gi-Oh or even *shudder* Dragonball Z - and can understand that this is drek, but even older stuff seems well bad. For example, the Recond of Lodoss War or Robotech - if taken with a critical, neutral eye are pretty bad - or at least not good.

So I am curious why is animie so popular - is it the kewlness or is there something that I am no longer seeing?????

 

[blackshirt5]

Because a lot of it is pretty good actually. Personal faves are the Fatal Fury Trilogy, Demon City Shinjuku, Fist of the North Star, Record of Lodoss Wars, and Saint Seiya.

Although I will agree with you that a lot of the stuff that gets mainstreamed here is drek, I LOVE Yu-gi-oh.

 

[Dragongirl]

I have no idea. I have tried to watch several anime movies and they just don't do anything for me. I do have a friend that really loves it though.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It creates it's own little circular world of self-references and it's own styles (not unlike D&D in it's way. )

I'm not a big Robotech fan, but it seems to speak to a certain space-drama queen.

I'm not a fan at all of Dragon Ball Z, but I've known people who very much enjoy watching the repetative battles...

I guess Anime, like any art form, can be seperated into the "easily digestable stuff" that many people enjoy on a purely grinning level. It's like reading a D&D novel, or watching an Earnest movie, or probably a good chunk of comic books, or a schlocky action movie. It's fun, but it doesn't exactly have artistic or cultural merit.

And then there's the more artsy stuff. The Escaflowne movie is a wonderous symphony of art and music. Similarly, Cowboy Bebop speaks to a jaded future (also with superb music -- Yokko Kanno did the music for these, and I'm a HUGE fan. ). You get things like Grave of the Fireflies, or Metropolis that's dimensional, mutlifaceted, and wondrous. Anime does things to protagonists and reality that live action could never duplicate (or at least not inexpensively. ). It's wondrous fantasy that no other art form can easily duplicate -- cartoons made art.

Of course, there's a lot of derivative and soap-opera-y type material. A lot of it's not really easily digestible unless you want to get into the mythos (Robotech is a perfect example, but stuff like Gundam or Kenshin fall into the category).

And like I said, I'm not a HUGE anime fan, and I know this. ^_^

If you're looking for artistic merit, don't nessecarily look for the things the fans love. Because sometimes, an anime with giant city-crushing robots will fare very well just because it has giant city-crushing robots, just like a book involving a certain epic-level FR Wizard will sell well just because it has that dude in it.

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

Record of Lodoss War not Good?

*tries not to swallow tongue*

Seriously you jest?

This is one of the anime series i truly like!

As for your actual question... i can't say why anime is so popular... It usually has good visuals, improbable female bodies, etc. But the anime "style" has become much more popular with the shows you've mentioned (as well as Pokemon, bleh)... i doubt it could be considered "true" anime...

Maybe at the beginning, anime being somewhat "underground", it was cool to actually like anime.

hey, what's this? *wanders off*

Maitre D

 

[Dinkeldog]

And of course we're going to remember not to call the people that like anime elitist snobs or the people that don't idiots that wouldn't know art if it bit them. We're also not going to discuss whether or not they're "cartoons".

That's all.

Discuss.

 

[Leopold]

try watching some of the more serious animes: Neon Genesis Evangelion, akira, Spriggan. These have more in common with hollywood action movies than the DBZ/Pokemon cartoons. These are chock full of quality drawings who look, live, and breathe like real actors and you can just get yourself lost in it and almost think these people are real as the story line is that..damn...good.

try watching some of the above series or even cowboy bebop, hellsing, or lodoss war and you'll be pleasantly amazed.

 

[blackshirt5]

OK, just re-read your post. You dislike Lodoss, but yet you like Kiki's Delivery Service ? *Shrugs* No accounting for taste, I guess.

 

[Regdar]

And of course we're going to remember not to call the people that like anime elitist snobs or the people that don't idiots that wouldn't know art if it bit them. We're also not going to discuss whether or not they're "cartoons".

That's all.

Discuss.

Bah Dink you're such an Elitist, idiot...

 

[mmu1]

Like a lot of things, Anime intially probably became popular because for a long time, it wasn't mainstream, and a lot of the things it deals with have natural geek appeal. Quality had very little to do with, since like just about any entertainment produced in large volume, 95% of it is crap.

Still, given the sheer volume of it, that means there's actually a lot of very good anime out there - mainly feature films, though, since the production values tend to really take a nosedive on most series.