Anime...What's the big deal?

[Dussicar]

When I was in high school, my friends and I used to rent and watch japanese animation. Our favourites were Akira and Vampire hunter D. We also watched others like Bubblegum chrisis, Macross, and even Appleseed(ugh).
But, nowadays, the anime I see on TV looks like total shit. I have a 9 year old nephew that lives with me, and this is all he watches on the tube all saturday. I can barely stomache this garbage. I enter the living room while my nephew is waching some trashy anime show about some stupid pack of kids fighting some stupid monster-zebra-donkey hybrid. I then leave the room for an hour or more only to come back and see that a new show is on. What is it about, you ask? Well, its about....A STUPID PACK OF KIDS FIGHTING SOME STUPID MONSTER-ZEBRA-DONKEY HYBRID!!!
To add insult to injury, after the commecials come on, you'd figure you'd catch a break, right? NOPE! Now, you get to see adds, selling the pack of stupid kids action figures(sold seperately) and their arch fiend: Monster-zebra-donkey hybrid.

OH, CHRIST!

Look, I know there are a lot of people on this site that love this sort of stuff. SO, I'm asking those anime fans out there to tell me why YOU like this stuff...Because, I'm sorry, I just don't get it.

 

[AphroditeRabbit]

*Busts out laughing!!* I wish I knew which anime you were talking about...

 

[nessonite1]

Me too! I totally want to see it now!

 

[Dussicar]

Basically, I was just giving an archetype. Most of this stuff looks the same to me.

What exactly constitutes being anime these days?

 

[AphroditeRabbit]

Well there's alot of "anime" that's american made, and may look slightly like it...but I can guarantee it doesn't have the same feel!

 

[piano_er1]

HAHAHAHAHA I TOTALLY AGREE!!!

Jesus TITTY-FCUKING CHRIST, the amount of A-GRADE CRAP anime shows on tv in the morning are just atrocious! So many different cartoons have jumped on the Pokemon monster fighting/creating/catching/whatever the fcuk bandwagon. My personal hated favourites are Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, Bey Blade and Metabots. More like Yu-Gi-Oh for GOD'S SAKE TURN IT OFF.

 

[RottingLies]

I think he's about Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh and Digimon and other mainstream pre-teen and kiddie Anime that has become and is still popular with american kids today and even with some teens as well.

 

[Dussicar]

Well there's alot of "anime" that's american made, and may look slightly like it...but I can guarantee it doesn't have the same feel!

Well, the American made ones are a bit easier to pick out for me. Most times I can tell the diffrence. The teen titans theme song, sung with a japanese accent till cracks me up to no end.

But, I can still tell which are made in japan. Regardless. It still makes no sense to me, no matter which continent it's from.

 

[AphroditeRabbit]

-laughs- Americans (even the ones who study Japan nonstop) can't ever have a full grasp of the culture. Same goes for any culture studying another I think. So I can definitely tell Japans vs Americans...sorry...I'm horrible at describing what I mean!

 

[Dussicar]

I think he's about Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh and Digimon and other mainstream pre-teen and kiddie Anime that has become and is still popular with american kids today and even with some teens as well.

YEP! That is what kind of feel for this post, I was trying to establish. It's all the same. No matter what you watch, no matter which show it is, it always plays out the same.

 

[nessonite1]

I hate American anime. Not because Im some stuck up anime purist cause Im not...but it really just sucks. It mimicks anime on the surface but lacks the substance of real anime.
As for the Yu Gi Oh type of cartoons...that stuff has been around forever. Cartoons made to sell toys is not an anime phenomenon. American cartoons are guilty of the same thing, and they suck just as much.

 

[Dussicar]

Ah, the good old days. When both japanese and american animation had their banner movies.

JAPAN:
Akira
Vampire hunter D

U.S.A.:
Starchaser:legend of orin
Fire and ice

 

[AphroditeRabbit]

Not that I don't love watching anime for the action scenes and actually feeling more into it...but it always seemed that the written/ drawn works always had a better effect on me anyway, even if it was a bad anime.

 

[Dussicar]

Not that I don't love watching anime for the action scenes and actually feeling more into it...but it always seemed that the written/ drawn works always had a better effect on me anyway, even if it was a bad anime.

Yes. I have to agree. The art styling(especially the backgrounds) can have a sense of style. I just wish they'd spend a little of that time coming up with some better stories.
Though, I try to take my nephew away from this stuff by playing good old fashioned games and other activities, there is always going to be downtime. This is where I get worried. However, he seems to not want to watch a lot of this stuff lately. But the reason why I'm bringing up the subject of my nephew out of the blue, AR, is something you just mentioned. The action scenes. Or dare I say, the violence.
These shows seem to be blazing a trail for new standards of violence. God. If I were to watch this stuff in Highschool I'd be in heaven. This stuff would rock!
But, with a child in the house who is the primary audiance. Suddenly it dosen't seem cool anymore. It scares me.

So, not only do we have a pack of shows on with no mental value at all, but, they're incredibly violent too.


*sigh* Maybe I can talk him into watching barney again.

 

[RottingLies]

I will take horror movies ANY DAY over Anime 😀

 

[Dussicar]

I will take horror movies ANY DAY over Anime 😀

I second the motion.

 

[RottingLies]

I second the motion.

See my Kiefer Sutherland siggy up above^^ from The Lost Boys (my favorite vampire movie i have watched it like 10 times or more)

 

[nessonite1]

from The Lost Boys (my favorite vampire movie

You dont say? I couldnt tell by your massive signature and it being plastered all over every one of your accounts! That needs to be made a bit smaller, btrw. Its way bigger than the limit for siggy pics.

 

[RottingLies]

You dont say? I couldnt tell by your massive signature and it being plastered all over every one of your accounts! That needs to be made a bit smaller, btrw. Its way bigger than the limit for siggy pics.

Say what? what did i say? 🙄

ok well then if i knew how to re-size pictures and siggys i would! but i don't! so....

 

[AphxA1]

Well i buy anime on dvd so i can avoid the badly translated anime. However, some of the anime on adult swim is pretty good actually. I can give you some examples of dark anime if your not into the cute, and lovable "pocket monster" anime. There much more out there. You can try animecornerstore.com for a great online store.

Hellsing
Blood: the last vampire
Vampire hunter d: blood lust(remake of vampire hunter d)

 

[german]

Anime has taken classic cartoons i use to love when i was a lil child and turned them into lost causes. For example the original Teen age mutant ninja turtles; god bless that show, introduced me to tickling and you cant forget the original Transformers.
Now (with tear in eye) this anime phase has taken to classic franchises and has turned them into headache creating flashing story lines.

 

[morgandee]

Did you see the Japanese animated version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? That is god-awful rubbish and totally ruined TMNT

I mean, what the hell, they transform into robot things and fly in space

http://www.scary-crayon.com/spectare/tmntova1/

Please, Japan, stop doing this to us, we already have suffered enough of your culture shock

 

[AphxA1]

Looks better than the one they have on fox five, saturday mornings. Its based off the dark horse comic, or so I have heard.

 

[Jaynin]

*scratches head* The problem is with the things you see on American or other television. These are rubbish and to be quite frank, they look the same because they cull what they can market to kids out of the innumerable Japanese anime shows. The American line of thinking is that animated stuff is for younger kids and so forth, so they take the shows that are geared toward that nature.

Before we debate too much, though, anime is generally the name given to the Japanese style of animation. Just to define terms. Now, in Japan, animated shows are not just for kids. Many more people watch them, and to a much older age. How do I know this? Well, my Japanese professor (one of them) is in her 40s or so, and she watches anime and browses Nintendo.com every morning before class. It's a difference in culture. And, because an older audience is going to be watching, there are animes which are geared to a more mature audience.

However, you won't find these anywhere on American television (except for perhaps a few on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim; Fullmetal Alchemist is pretty good) because, as I said before, our culture's view of animated shows is that they are for a younger audience. If you want any anime geared for a more mature audience, you will have to buy it.

And, cartoons are not anime.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

You have to remember something about these shows: They are edited. And not just edited a little bit, but chopped, sliced, and diced. Take Yu-Gi-Oh for instance. I recently had the opportunity to see an unedited episode, and looking back on the Americanized version of it, it was as if I was comparing black and white. I am totally serious. Unedited Yu-Gi-Oh is actually mature, in a fashion. It is NOTHING like the edited version they push here in the states. For now, if you want good, relatively unedited Anime, watch Adult Swim. That is as close as it gets (Other than Anime Unleashed and Action's showings, which are relatively unedited, as with Anime Unleashed, or uncut, as with Action.) to the original without buying DVDs.

America has a strict outlook on media, and censors quite a bit. You'd be surprised at the offering of all sorts of media, not just anime or even television, offered around the globe.