Oh goodie, a place for me to give my view on anime!
When it comes down to the bases of people surrounding anime outsiders see it boiled down to two things, they see one group filled with the teen to twenty something, feux hipster, optimistic anime obsessives who can't go a single post without typing "desu" or "d(^-^)b" and another group filled with the pre-pube to teenager, feux gangsta, hardcore anime haters who can't go a single post without misspelling something or punching in "Holla holla get dolla".
But if you spend as much time on the internet and surrounded by people who practically fit these bills as I do you come to realize a few things. ANIME SHOULD NOT BE HELD UP AS SOME GODLY, UNTOUCHABLE
STYLE OF ANIMATION WHICH ONLY THOSE WITH "REAL TASTE" APPRECIATE. Bar the art style, country of origin and subsequent cultural differences (which in part only contributes to a minor proportion of the themes, plot, setting and characters) there really is no difference between cartoons (
for want of a better word, but even still, it's the old "calling games games" debate so why bother with this disclaimer) coming from the east and those coming from the west. I've heard it said that anime generally has better storylines than western cartoons as well as more "mature" themes but we have to take some things into consideration, films like "Waltz with bashir" have proved that well done dramatised animation isn't exclusively limited to what part of the world it's made in, the high demand from the west, coupled with how much support their is for the production of all kinds of anime, means that alot of anime is made year after year and the writers of anime work hard at giving anime well developed characters and over-arching plots because it comes up somewhat short everywhere else: the actual animation has always been traditionally stiff as a cost-cutting measure (For accentuated expressions like outburts they repeat a few key frames of the character flailing their arms and jumping on some flashy background whilst yelling, when characters in anime talk they usually stand stock still and have their mouth open and close), the voice-acting has never been anything to write home about (neither subs nor dubs) and the quality of how everything generally looks is entirely subjective.
The criticisms of anime usually focus on a few key points:
*Characters look too androgynous
*The fanbase is not something you'd want to associate yourself with
*They're always very stereotypical, often repeating themes like enormous robots, swords and tits
*They're too "out there" to appreciate when coming from experience with specifically western animations
But see, the validity (we'll talk about it) of these arguments is often lost in their presentation, often pulled off in such a way that those presenting it seem like racists who only appreciate action films and crude humour. The androgynous, well, they often do to a certain degree and sometimes attempts to compensate leave us with women smuggling argument melons in their pink super cute dresses and men who eat steroids and growth hormones for breakfast before putting on their samurai bodybuilder old-spice guy outfits, but just because they do doesn't mean you can't appreciate it, it's like refusing to watch futurama because half the characters have eyes the size of baseballs and single tone skin. The fanbase argument, if we go back to my original outsiders statement that's more of a false stereotype than anything else (as is the other stereotype of a group I mentioned). Mind you the validity of the stereotype, well, it's like...gun owners, ask someone to draw a gun owner (and not be a smartass by simply drawing someone holding a gun) and they'll probably give you some six foot good old boy who's spent a few too many nights in the trenches holding an M60 whilst wearing a truckers cap and an NRA shirt underneath a Marty Mcfly jacket. One too many "misfires" and pro-gun rally leaders and suddenly regular people who might only own a small gun for self-defense or the occasional shoot with friends must all fit that afforementioned bill, only in the case of anime's fanbase the image is thanks to a few too many of
these and
these and suddenly people who might only watch one series of anime on and off must be fat losers who would have sex with Haruhi suzisomethingorrather at the first opportunity. They're often very stereotypical and repeat themselves, yes, this is pretty much an undeniable rule of thumb by now with only very few exceptions, but that seems to be half the appeal of anime for western audiences, which is surprisingly contradictory of the claim that anime is always far more mature than western animation. The argument that anime's a bit too outlandish for some people to get into, yeah it sort of is, not necessarily in the cultural differences but moreso in the characters, plots, themes and standards of anime running hugely different to that of other animation. But going beyond your comfort zone and trying something a bit different is a risk/reward scenario and sometimes despite the risk of being far too wierded out to enjoy yourself or having something really push some moral or...sometimes hygienic boundaries it's best to delve right into something that seems strange and unfamiliar.
Now, how is all this valid? The OP's argument seems now just accentuated (to a point of almost being silly) valid claims presented in a bad way (See, I adressed that) and is questionable though nonetheless valid. But the arguments of most people here are bassically living by that uppercase sentence I posted and are seeing this guys argument as...well, the outsiders view, responding in such a way that what they're going against is "HURR LOLZ ANIME R GAY HOLLA HOLLA" and in turn making themselves pretty much fit the bill of the outsider's opinion, and finding any level-headed middle ground comments (or ones that aren't seeming pretentious and know-it-all...or hypocritical...) is like finding an A cup in an anime.
When it comes down to it I don't watch anime, and that's on the rare occasion that I actually do, just for the fact that it's anime (read the upper case sentence again right now before y'all otakus are gonna get flamey on my ass), I'll only watch it because it sounds like it would be a good show or film in general, I watched steamboy because I like steampunk and I needed inspiration for a jetpack design and it was great, I once watched Nauseous (HURR HURR HURR) in the valley of wind mostly because it was anime and my friendship with a stereotypically otaku (
I swear on my goat's grave I hate that word with a passion) mate was just beginning and it sucked. I figure this sounds logical but I see people who have lists longer than the river Nile with what anime they watch and harddrives packed with nothing but it, how could that much anime possibly be of such appeal that you are completely devoted to each series and that you'd have such things?
EDIT: It's kind of funny that 99% of posters here have anime usernames or avatars (or even both if you're feeling romantic).
