WizarDru
Adventurer
Not sure why you think Spongebob is a 'gross-out' cartoon, honestly. It's a darned funny show that can be enjoyed by parents and kids at the same time...a worthy achievement, IMHO. I see Spongebob as the Warner Brothers of today (especially once you appreciate exactly how many cultural references were in the original cartoons...a majority of which are forgotten today).s/LaSH said:
Anyhow, we were talking about anime.
First, I know of (including myself) at least a dozen anime fans over the age of 30, and I've met plenty more in my travels, so I think that Epametheus needs to broaden his social circles a tad.
I've been an anime fan for almost 25 years, now. I can easily understand how someone wouldn't like it, especially given the sudden and dramatic proliferation of it during the last five years, with some of the newer fans extolling its virtues as obnoxiously as possible.
Hearing all about how terrible anime fans, of course, reminds me to bring THIS up again.
I understand what Teflon Billy is saying, and as much as it bothers some anime fans, he's correct, to a point. Anime, like any art form, shares certain tropes and conventions that it uses as part of it's collective language. Some folks just aren't going to like them, and that's just a matter of personal taste.
However, I will take issue with the idea that all anime (and often by extension, all manga) are the same. Many of the conventions that have been listed above do not apply equally to all anime, and lumping them together is the equivalent of saying that all american action films have the 'african american handicapped hacker' character, that all government agencies are corrupt and evil at their heart and that police officers always eat at donut shops instead of guarding the populace. It sounds a tad silly, because it IS a tad silly.
Many of the comic elements of anime that americans find irritating or out-of-place are received much differently in Europe. Consider something like Daniel Torres' Triton, where serious sci-fi noir coexists with occasional comic overtones. However, to assume that all anime features those comic elements is off-base, as much as it would to assume that something like Enki Belial's "Hunting Party" would feature the same cartoony sidekicks of Triton.
A show and manga like Beserk! or Fist of the Northstar rarely features such elements, except to lighten the otherwise heavy mood. Note that the anime version of Berserk! totally lacks one of the comic relief characters of the series, Puck. A comedy action show like Inuyasha switches gears depending on the context, so that one moment it will feature slapstick, but those elements disappear when someone's life is on the line. A show like DBZ, who's roots are in the original DB, a comedy manga where the fighitng eventually obscured the silliness, has a much looser interpetation. Something like Kare Kano goes entirely into the 'silly' phase, while a show like Master Keaton has no fantastic elements at all, not even the silly ones.
My point being simply that anime is a wide category, and manga far more so, regardless of the emphasis placed on it by US audiences. That doesn't mean that many shows don't have them, quite the opposite. Personally, I enjoy the goofy comedy sequences in Full Metal Panic as much as I do the hard bitten mercenary combats...but to each his own.
Psion, I would recommend Master Keaton as a show you might enjoy. It's very low key, and most episodes are self-contained (although as time passes, you get to know more of Keaton's life and personality through his adventures). You might think a series about an insurance investigator would be uninteresting...and you may think so after the fact, but I'd give it a try. I'd recommend a show like Gantz (about people who may be recently dead being forced to exterminate aliens living among us in what may be a usually lethal game to it's overlords), but it's not out DVD yet.
You may or may not like Hellsing, which is very stylish, but sometimes the plot has it's weak points. I never much cared for Evangelion, and tend to think that Ghost in the Shell is overrated, and forced to bear a weight by many fans that it's shoulders simply can't bear. I much rather preferred RahXephon for it's story, and it's emphasis on the characters instead of the robot battles. And for the fact that it has a good ending, something some anime series don't always get right.
You might also enjoy Witch Hunter Robin, if you watch it with subtitles (the dub appears to be unusually bad, especially given the group). A very low key, slower-paced series that focuses much more on the characters of an organization that hunts 'witches' and the world they travel in. There is action, but it's not an action show, by my measure.
One of the reasons, I think, that anime has become so popular is that it manages to approach a lot of genre material in a more mature fashion than most american animated fare. I've only seen a few U.S. produced animated shows that approach the same degree of sophistication as some shows.
Obviously, another appeal is that the content is much less restricted...and yes, I'm talking boobs, cursing and mature themes. How maturely those elements are applied varies widely...and when you consider the primary target audience for most anime is the teen-aged male, you can guess how some shows address it. They don't call it 'fan service' for nothing.
The real problem for prospective viewers, now, I think, is that it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff...and tastes vary so dramatically, it's hard to determine what to watch, for some folks. I liked Generator Gawl, for example, but I know it wasn't terribly original or popular, per se. I loved Giant Robo (the newest version), but it may have been too cartoony or camp for some folks. Some folks think that Ghost in the Shell was genius, and others thought it was just OK or pretentious. Just like any other form of entertainment, each person has their own preferences. Whether finding anime you like is worth your time is a personal question for each person to answer for themselves.
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