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

[MDSnowman]

What I found really entertaining was Read or Die. Only three episodes and I loved every second of it.

 

[Epametheus]

There's actually a 26 ep TV series of that, too. Starts with a different cast (one of whom is a major character in the manga) and converges with the OVA storyline about halfway through.

 

[Psion]

Then, I'll add Tenchi Muyo(the original OAV, not the series or Tenchi in Tokyo) and Dominion Tank Police.

Now I've seen ads about Tenchi Muyo. The living ship thing looked cool, but there was some squad of girls swooning over him thing that gave me this (ungood) Sailor Moon vibe.

I also spied a Final Fantasy anime at Target, but I was too afraid to pick it up. Does it do my beloved game series justice? Or are my fears founded?

 

[MDSnowman]

Now I've seen ads about Tenchi Muyo. The living ship thing looked cool, but there was some squad of girls swooning over him thing that gave me this (ungood) Sailor Moon vibe.

Well the fact they swoon over him and he doesn't seem interested in any of them opens the door for Hijinks.

 

[Caspian Moon Prince]

Now I've seen ads about Tenchi Muyo. The living ship thing looked cool, but there was some squad of girls swooning over him thing that gave me this (ungood) Sailor Moon vibe.

You might not like it then. It isn't like Sailor Moon(which is a fav of mine), it is just a light-hearted comedy with some great action.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

Part of the "hate" is a real age gap I can see -- I can't think of anyone I know who's 30 or older that actually likes anime; everyone I know that likes it distinctly falls below that line, even if only by a few years.

I'm 32 years old and I like a good chunk of anime just fine. It's just like anything else out there--90% is either complete fluff or total junk, and the other 10% is either okay or even really good. I work for a major video distributor and I'm considered the anime 'specialist' there, which definitely has its perks. I get screeners and samples from nearly all of the anime studios here in the States so I get to see a sizable portion of the stuff. I certainly wouldn't consider myself an anime super-fan, or an 'otaku,' but I do enjoy quite a bit of anime.

 

[HellHound]

I dislike a majority of it. But there is some that I simply LOVE.

I'm a cyberpunk junky, so the titles shouldn't come as much of a surprise -

my fave: Ghost in the Shell.

Honestly, whenever I hear people complaining about anime, I watch it again, and decide that people are too busy placing labels on the whole style instead of individual works within it.

"episodic format" - nope
"open-ended stories" - somewhat, as there is definitely more to the story than what is in the movie
"the squeaky high voices" - nope
"the stupid hair" - not that I noticed
"the melodrama" - well, it is about finding the line between humanity and machine within ones self, so ok.
"the way tears are drawn" - ??
"the shapes of the people" - right...
"the way that they freeze frame yet the art twitches" - mmm... don't think so
"all of the movement lines" - have to watch it again, but I don't think this is much of an offender
"the big scenes where the hero is shown in an action pose while the scenery moves" - nope
"the melodrama" - again?
"the undefined powers of characters" - no, they have pretty defined limits
"the humor" - not a lot in this one
"the sex" - okay, nude full conversion cyborg in the opening scenes
"and the fact that it's the "in thing"." - guilty

 

[Impeesa]

I'd just like to say that some of the fence-sitters here need to watch Macross Plus, Cowboy Bebop, and maybe Grave of the Fireflies. Thinking that crappy tentacle-rape hentai you saw once represents the artistic boundaries of anime is like saying that cheap porn you rented last week speaks for all North American cinema.

--Impeesa--

 

[Pants]

Now I've seen ads about Tenchi Muyo. The living ship thing looked cool, but there was some squad of girls swooning over him thing that gave me this (ungood) Sailor Moon vibe.

Now your mentioning an entire genre of anime right there, one that I find annoying and way overdone in anything more than very small doses. But, hey that's taste for you.

I like anime. I started to like it when I was getting sick of the kiddy nature of american animation. I especially never liked half of the squiggly drawn shows on Nickelodeon that were all the rage when I got into Anime. I also disliked the constant barrage of gross out crap that was infecting animation, along with the extremely episodic quality of it all. There were some good American shows that I liked, such as Batman, Exo-Squad, Spiderman, and X-Men to name a few, but i was always bothered by how everyone seemed to skirt the more mature issues in the shows. When a helicopter crashed, everyone managed to get out in time, tanks crashing would only knock the pilots out and that sort of crap.

Then I watched anime, starting with DBZ. Yes, DBZ. I started watching in the later Freeza episodes, so death was being thrown around rather casually. The fighting was over-the-top and nothing like I had ever seen before. Basically, I began to watch anime because it was more mature. Not all of it mind you, but the stuff I did watch, didn't skirt around some issues like American shows did.

I really enjoy Berserk, Hellsing, Wolf's Rain, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Inu Yasha. Berserk is about as far from typical anime as you can get and Cowboy Bebop is probably about as western as you're going to get.

Now, I don't mind people who 'hate' anime, I don't like people who use 'anime' as a catch-all term for everything they do hate. Example:
"I hate the anime art in 3rd edition!"

1st of all, this person has two things going wrong for him. He's ignorant and he's an idiot, plus he probably has no clue about what anime art actually is. Not all anime is spikey-goth-dungeon/spike/leather fetish stuff that everyone seems to associate with 3rd edition (I don't, but it's another handy catch-all term), thus the comment is foolish. Ignorance annoys me, even when its so blatant. I don't really mind if your 'hate of 3rd edition art knows no limit,' but don't try to justify it by saying its anime. It's not. Some of it is inspired by anime, just like some 1st edition stuff looked like superhero comic book drawings (Jeff Dee, I'm looking at you), but I don't here anyone complaining about a superhero muscle fetish of 1st edition, mainly because such a claim is ignorant and foolish.

That is all.
Thank you.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

I like Lodoss War, Vampire Hunter D, Akira, and Princess Mononoke.
Ninja Scroll was merely okay.
I am trying out some Slayers right now, and I am ambivalent so far.
Robotech made me snooze. I am pretty cool on the big mecha genre as a whole.

If anyone out there, given my above preferences, would like to recommend some more, I am all ears. How's this new "rune soldier" or whatever it is?

I recommend 'The Castle of Cagliostro', supposedly one of Steven Spielberg's fave movies, and was done by Hayao Miyazaki, the same fellow who did Princess Mononoke among others. It's rather over the top in an Indiana Jone-ish sort of way and a few of his tv episodes and movies have been released as well (as Lupin III probably).

There's also 'Ushio and Tora' about a demon hunting kid (Ushio) with a magic spear (the Beast Spear) and his 'pet' demon who looks like tiger (Tora) but unfortunately there's only 5 or 6 episodes.

Samurai Jack. I especially recommend the episodes with the Scotsman.

Ruroni Kenshin, Yuyu Hakusho and Inuyasha might be worth looking into if a bit slow in spots. Cowboy Bebop is quite good as well. I was rather fond of Bubblegum Crisis (the original not the recent remake) but it might be a case of 'the older I get, the better it was' syndrome.