Why the hate for anime? (Y da hat 4 anime?)

[Ferret]

I think (philosophical cap on) that anime is not like real life so what we see is "twisted reality" where good always prevails. Where as Western non anime looks a lot more like real life, and good always wins in the end. Also Anime is foreign and thus very very scary.

Also in my personal opinion Anime is quite cool, some is odd in my personal view but I don't expect to understand everything. Akira is good,

Spoiler

I can handle the child people and the excessive (hardly) but the creepy body thingy ugh, thats one of the few things that REALY gets me

. Pokemon is like our version of...uhm something but it isn't that bad.

 

[beta-ray]

I got nothing against anime, just the .... damn, I can't remember the word for it. The trappings?

hehe which is funny since as an avatar you have a autobot (cybertron) mark... Of course the transformers has a mixed origin of American and Japanese (and nowadays with Simon Furman, British)...

Specifically, I prefer cartoons where the people look as realistic as possible. So I tend to dislike cartoons were people have huge eyes, weirdly drawn lips, ridiculous hair, etc.

Darn that leaves out Futurama and Dexter's Lab, two of my favorite shows...

Have you seen Patlabor 2 and Jin-Roh? While not photorealistic, the characters have many naturalistic features...

But I got nothing against Japanese Anime, though. Robotech, for instance, is one of my favorite shows (And fortunately, the only thing on the above list that it suffers from is giving the characters ridiculous hair). Meanwhile, Teen Titans is busy apeing the most annoying aspects of anime.

That's cool, I liked Robotech enough (would have preferred it not to be connected and hated the voices)... I can tolerate the Teen Titans, but understand where you are coming from.

All-in-all, I'll take a Justice League, Batman: The Animated Series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and Robotech, over a Dragonball Z any day.

While I agree I find it funny that JL and Batman character designs are no more "realistic" than most Japanese animation (and several episodes of Batman were done by Japanese prodution companies). They just have smaller eyes. I also liked Batman Beyond, which had severl "trappings" of Japanese animation... and a scene from the pilot that ripped off Akira directly (though I have heard them disavow any liking to it).

 

[Caspian Moon Prince]

The idea that animation is only for kids in the US is a dated idea, in my book. Having a number of smallish kids in my house, I see a fair amount of cartoons, animated movies, etc. and I can promise you that there is tons of stuff that goes over the heads of kids. Luckily so, as some of it is actually inappropriate for kids, for that matter (just saw Shrek 2 last night; Pinocchio wearing a woman's thong comes to mind). One of our SpongeBob DVDs has a scene with Nosferatu, featuring some clips from the silent movie. Wanna guess how many of my kids get that joke?

The latest wave of animation from the US is stuff that works at multiple levels. Kids can enjoy it, but it's not just for kids. A kid's movie is only so successful unless their parents can enjoy it too. The line between a movie like Shrek and a movie like the Princess Bride is getting fainter and thinner all the time.

Ah, but the demographic these shows and movies are aimed at is the kids. Yeah, they throw in a few "over-the-head" of children references so that the parents might like it, or at least stomach it. I'll tell you why they do this. So the parents will take the kids to see the movie more than once and be more likely to buy the video. Until the day that animated movies are made that are targeted towards older demographics...US animation will mostly be nothing but for kids. There are a few shows(such as South Park and King of the Hill), but few have anything resembling a cohesive story.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Hardcore anime fans sneer at people who watch dubbed anime (believing fansubs to be the only true way to watch anime), lust after 14-year-old Rei Ayanami or any other underaged anime girl, spend hundreds of dollars on anime merchandise every month and then complain about how hard it is to pay rent, insert Japanese words and phrases into everyday conversation, religiously watch shows intended for adolescent girls despite being a grown man, and have large collections of anime porn that involves tentacles or girls with male genitalia.

I have to admit this stuff creeps me out a bit. My only real gripe with "Anime" as an entertainment subculture is the way its creeping into other areas. I like realistic art and I can deal with the stylized art of anime when its in anime but when it starts to creep into other areas, I get annoyed.

 

[fba827]

I see a lot of people here getting all moany and doomsaying about anime, as if Japanese culture was personally responsible for you having less fun in your life. Is it just that lots of people here have hard-ons for Hanna-Barbera cartoons? Or are they just angry that Pokemon made more money than Maigc for a while?

Really, I mean, I know art preferences vary, and heck, I tend to dislike amateur art (especially in game books), but anime is just a different style, which generally favors less photorealism than European-derived Western art. Eastern art styles tend to be a little more flashy, a little more over the top, and for some reason there are a lot of people who just, it seems, hate that.

I can't understand it? What's so horrible?

I simply don't like the animation style... too much over the top (facial expressions, etc.). Having said that, I often _love_ the story or plot lines.. they often are epic in feel and I like that. Some of them have bad / corny dialogue though -- odd translations perhaps.... so, i try to get into them to see the overaching plots/stories... but between the animation style and the dialogue, sometimes i just can't get that far into it. -- just my own opinion.

 

[Kesh]

I think, in my opinion, it boils down to this metaphor.

Think about paintings. Now, there's a baseline here: you apply paint to some medium to create a statement and/or artwork. However, there's so many ways of doing so: realist, surreal, cubist, abstract, etc.

I can understand when people say, "I can't stand cubism. It doesn't make any sense, it's just grossly distorted. An attention-grabber. It's not art, it's laziness." I can also understand when someone says, "Realism is a cop-out. You're just copying what's in front of you! Where's the challenge in that?" Or even, "I've heard some people think spraypainting a picture on a wall is art. BS! It's graffiti, nothing more! Defacing public property, spraying toxic chemicals all over the place... it's a real menace. They should lock all those losers up."

What would boggle my mind is if someone said, "I hate paintings! Those damn splatters on walls are a waste of time, and trying to painstakingly copy that lighthouse on canvas is even worse. And those art snobs! God, I can't stand them! All that talk about 'negative space' and interrupting normal conversations to point out an interesting 'subject'. And don't get me started on those lewd Renaissance guys. There's really something wrong with those people."

 

[Greatwyrm]

I don't have any problem with anime in and of itself. I like animation in general. I've even seen a fair amount of anime I like. I just don't like how some shows can't make up their mind what genre the story is. Sometimes it's like the writers are just rolling on a chart.

"Okay, we've got a 12 yr old with a big robot and we add... (roll) (roll) (roll) demons! Start writing."

Kinda makes me wonder if many of the plots come from some kind of Iron Anime Writer (tm) competition gone wrong.

 

[trancejeremy]

I really like shows like Trigun and Cowboy Bebop where the main characters are mostly adults.

But the ones where the main characters are schoolkids is a bit weird. Of course, I didn't like Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the same reason.

 

[Green Knight]

hehe which is funny since as an avatar you have a autobot (cybertron) mark... Of course the transformers has a mixed origin of American and Japanese (and nowadays with Simon Furman, British)...

Yeah, they started out as two different Japanese toy robot lines. Microman, and I forgot the other. They were combined into the Transformers line by Hasbro, which also provided the backstory for them (Cybertron, Autobots and Decepticons, etc). Doesn't matter, though, because the original Transformers cartoon didn't exhibit any of those anime conventions, either. Spike didn't have wild, spiky hair, giant sweat drops didn't form on Optimus Prime's face when he got nervous, Megatron didn't call out attacks, Starscream didn't strike a pose before he was about to attack someone, etc.

Darn that leaves out Futurama and Dexter's Lab, two of my favorite shows...

I don't see it. Their hair looks normal to me. Fry obviously doesn't put all that much effort into combing it. And Dexter's Lab, I watch that on occasion, but he doesn't have that crazy anime hair. Go here to see what I mean. Specifically, the guy in the back, Trowa. I liked Gundam Wing, and I liked his character, but damn, I found his haircut annoying. I managed to ignore it and enjoy the series, though. All in all, that's a minor complaint. It becomes magnified only when combined with all those other anime elements. Besides, that's a minor example. I've seen much worse.

Have you seen Patlabor 2 and Jin-Roh? While not photorealistic, the characters have many naturalistic features...

Never heard of them.

That's cool, I liked Robotech enough (would have preferred it not to be connected and hated the voices)...

The voices were fine to me. Loved the series, though. Especially Macross. Didn't much care for the Robotech Masters, and I never saw New Generation. So I'll probably have to agree that it's best that they were never connected, though that may change once I get a chance to see New Generation, and how they worked it into the Macross universe. Macross, however, was fantastic. I was ecstatic when I got the DVD set last Christmas.

I can tolerate the Teen Titans, but understand where you are coming from.

Personally, I only tolerate it because they're the Teen Titans. And even then, they're pushing me so far. Like I said, before, I can tolerate little things like the crazy hair. But Teen Titans makes an effort at throwing every anime convention into the pot as often as possible, and it gets really annoying after a while. The Slade episodes are the only real saving grace for the series (I REALLY wish he was called Deathstroke or The Terminator).

While I agree I find it funny that JL and Batman character designs are no more "realistic" than most Japanese animation (and several episodes of Batman were done by Japanese prodution companies).

This ...

... certainly looks a lot more realistic then this.

They just have smaller eyes.

And tend to have normal hair. And they don't draw some ridiculous looking lips, which some shows do on occasion. I was looking at the end of Duel Masters the other day, waiting for Justice League to come on, and they had some short fat guy with this oval drawn around his lips. It looked weird as hell.

I also liked Batman Beyond, which had severl "trappings" of Japanese animation... and a scene from the pilot that ripped off Akira directly (though I have heard them disavow any liking to it).

Certainly nothing noticable. Terry McGuiness didn't have crazy spiky hair that stuck out on one side, giant sweat drops didn't form on his face when he was caught sleeping in class, he didn't call out attacks, he didn't have any friends with ridiculously drawn lips to make them look silly, and when he jumped in the air they didn't throw up colored banners and confetti behind him.

 

[dreaded_beast]

I'm an anime fan.

I have no problem with people who like or don't like anime. We all have different opinions/tastes. What I don't like is when differences in opinions/tastes lead to personal attacks and verbal abuse, as if a particular opinion/taste is superior to another.

That being said, I believe anime is something you either like or don't like.

It's like asking someone,

"Why do you like vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate?"

There is no clear cut answer. It's all a matter of taste.