[OT] Why is Anime so popular???

[Black Omega]

Actually, as I heard it, the age of consent was 14, not 13, and a few years ago it was changed to 18. I could have heard wrong, but I'm pretty sure thats the case. Of course, the rule in Japan is "if its not public, its not a problem" so the jailbait comment remains very true, but that doesn't necessarily make it awful. Japan is just more open about sex and sexuality. Just because younger girls can and do become sexually active there doesn't necessarily mean its rape or molestation.

According to interpol.int the age is 13, though local laws might change that for specific areas.

fans of anime here in America often have to deal with it being warped and changed from how it was,

I can understand many of the changes. There are significant cultural differences. I thought that was a big reason why the Final Fantasy movie didn't do well.

On the other hand, other changes, like DBZ, are just done to completely change the anime's target audience.

 

[Alzrius]

I can understand many of the changes. There are significant cultural differences. I thought that was a big reason why the Final Fantasy movie didn't do well.

I disagree on the changes. Americentrocism shouldn't be promoted. Let's learn about other cultures, not mangle what they do to fit our worldview.

Ironically though, the Final Fantasy movie was an American production, made in America, for Americans. There were no cultural differences to change. It didn't do so well simply because it didn't live up to peoples' expectations of what a Final Fantasy production should be.

 

[hong]

MSTied Lodoss War

ANYway.

Has anyone seen or done an MST3k job on Lodoss War?

Frikkin' po-faced series. Give me a dragon slave any day.

 

[Kilmore]

Okay, in defense of Lodoss Wars, I'll relate a few things I remember from hearing the man responsible, Ryu Mizuno, speak in Chicago.

Yes, Lodoss is very D&D based. Mr. Mizuno apparently had a lot to do with bringing RPG's over to Japan, and in fact, the convention he spoke at was the second US convention he'd been to, the first being a fan at GenCon sometime in the mid 80's.

Lodoss Wars is taken from a series of books that Mizuno wrote based on his D&D game. At this time, western style fantasy had not taken root in Japan yet, so he was a pioneer of the genre over there.

He really likes the Celtic / Tolkien thing and deliberately took things in that direction rather than making it more freeform fantasy like Slayers.

And his elves has the real long ears because they were designed for the anime by an artist who usually works on Gundams, and they usually have antennae on the sides of their heads.


That said, I find myself in the rare position of agreeing with Hong. DragonSlaving Lina from Slayers rocks!

 

[Sixchan]

Re: MSTied Lodoss War

ANYway.

Has anyone seen or done an MST3k job on Lodoss War?

Frikkin' po-faced series. Give me a dragon slave any day.

This is the reason I think that they should continue to make some bad anime (and bad, lemony fanfiction of good anime). No matter how bad an anime is, you'll almost always feel better after reading an MST of it.

 

[Utrecht]

this can lead to various controveries (such as the highly popular and successful DBZ being dumped on by other anime fans for no real reason. It's a great anime with over a decade of history, yet people continue to rag on it without even bothering to explain why).

Actually I can understand why DBZ is dumped on. The couple of times that I have attempted to watch it I as completely turned off by the animation. It looked and felt rushed... Because of that, I never seriously bothered to get into the "plot" (Which simply seemed to be words spliced together to get to the next fight scene)

 

[Numion]

I have to say that I don't like anime very much. Seemed kinda stupid how things were drawn, like yelling humans look just... really lame. And there seems to be a lot of (prolonged) yelling.

It seems though that I've been too quick judge; out of interest I checked out an episode of Cowboy Bebop (with a name like that it's bound to suck, right?, and my prejudices have (once again ) been proven right).

It didn't suck.

It was intriguing, though I didn't get everything in it. just goes to show that it pays to try new things once in a while. Now I've DLed episodes 15- something, because those were only ones available. Are those any good?

But you can't argue that some people don't watch it for the petite woman figures that are clothed like hookers.

 

[Alzrius]

Actually I can understand why DBZ is dumped on. The couple of times that I have attempted to watch it I as completely turned off by the animation. It looked and felt rushed... Because of that, I never seriously bothered to get into the "plot" (Which simply seemed to be words spliced together to get to the next fight scene)

I disagree. As you go on the animation is incredibly smooth, and it wasn't rushed since it was made after the manga, so they knew exactly what they were doing. And you're synopsis of the plot is...well...wrong. A big thing people rag about is the "meaningless" fights, but that isn't true at all. There is depth and reasons why the battles happen, most people just don't seem to want to look into that at all, being put off by the fact the fights take so long to finish and are so high-powered.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Dragonball Z really deserves credit for a lot of things. Cartoon Network calls it the best action cartoon of all time, and you'd be really hard pressed to find one that's even in the same league. Everyone knows that action sells. But action is still pretty hard to do; many, many shows and movies try, but very few can pull it off the way Dragonball Z does, time and time and time again.

The plots may not be deep, but they're definitely there. The characters even >gasp< grow and change over time. The show also doesn't take itself too seriously. And if you consider Goku and the others to be super-heroes (why not? they have super-powers, they fight evil), then Goku is probably the world's premiere Asian super-hero (there sure aren't any major ones in American comics).

 

[Sixchan]

I can understand why people like DBZ, but just once, just once, I'd like someone to attack during a speech or when Goku's charging up his spirit-bomb attack or whatever. And I mean aside from the very cool scene where you meet Future Trunks and he picks up the Earth destroying ball of energy and gloats until Frieza sends a tiny pellet of energy into the giant ball to destroy it. Coolest scene ever in DBZ. I wish there was more of it.