I hace come to terms with anime

[Canadian Briton]

I haven't. No anime on UK television D:

 

[Jonluw]

then there was this other violence with little girls thing called elfin lied which just sucked,

Would you care to specify what, exactly, you didn't like about Elfen lied? I'm curious.

Not to speak for the OP, I can relate my experiences with Elfen Lied, and why I did not care for it.

It opened up as something on par with Eva; some unstoppable killing machine was unleashed, and it had to be stopped. I was totally on board. Mixed in with the first episode, was some klutz girl. She was like so many I had seen before in many anime tropes, and I was rolling my eyes at the abuse of this meme. Meme rules dictated that she survived the engadgment with the enemy, while everyone capable around her dies, even though she should have died. Then, the unimagineable; she was killed, and it was gory.

Having witnessed the anime just murder an anime-meme, essentually breaking the law on anime memes, I wanted very much to keep watching, and enjoy the series. But as I watched, I grew bored, and depressed with the show. It was more painful to watch, than enjoy. The series tried to build suspense in lack luster ways. Its plot direction weaved around like a drunk on a winding highway. The main character bobbed back and forth between protagonist and villain. Other similar characters to the main cat-lady were abused, and tortured in their roles.

I gave up when the plot started to stagnate. I think it was some scene on the bridge when a secretary for that corperate CEO guy got hurt (last part I remember). I swapped it out for something immediately more cheery, and remembered that I was watching these shows to be entertained, and enjoy the experience.

Elfin Lied killed my joy, and was plain depressing to watch, on top of its bad narrative.

By 'main character', do you mean Lucy or Kohta?

Spoiler: Spoilers and stuff

Lucy does after all have a split personality, so if you're talking about her, the 'bobbing back and forth' is completely justified. If you had gotten to the bridge scene (with the girl in the wheelchair), you were really close to the end, and should have bothered to seen it through, as things are explained later on. I don't really understand what you mean with the plot direction weaving around. It seemed pretty consistent to me.

From your post, it seems that you didn't enjoy the series because it was sad (Nothing wrong with that. Personal tastes and all that junk). But one of the common denominators in a lot of the greatest stories in history is that they are sad. Clannad was *this* far from making me cry like a baby, and watching it sort of hurt, but I still regard it as (one of) the best stories I have witnessed, regardless of medium.

Elfen lied was interesting and deep; something I find admirable in an anime when the medium is so clogged up with stuff like Naruto and Bleach. There's nothing wrong with watching a series for enjoyment and fun's sake, but while I liked Harry Potter, I would still consider The great Gatsby to be a better book, if you know what I'm saying.

 

[Valiance]

It's like television: mostly polished turd with some gold nuggets mixed in.

This is true of almost any medium - Books, movies, games as well.

I admire you for being open-minded. I too hated everything that could possibly have anything to do with Anime, and sort of labeled it as something very strange. The only times I had watched any was on accident on Toonami, like DBZ was on after ReBoot...I was younger, and I assumed anyone who enjoyed anime that wasn't "mainstream" was either obsessed with Japanese culture or didn't have many friends. At the time, that bothered me.

Eventually, I think I saw Cowboy Bebop or Trigun, not sure which, and I started up thinking "Hm, this isn't so bad."

Nowadays, like most mediums, there's the occasional Anime I enjoy. I wouldn't say I'm crazy about it, but I'm much less likely to shun something simply because it has different animation.

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

When I was younger I always got up extremely late to watch the late night G4 programing witch featured lots of anime. This was when G4 was about gaming, so it was like 5 years ago, I was about 12-13.
I can remember three of them.
"The Last Exile" Really liked that.
"RahXephon" Only saw the ending and had no idea what happened (Every one dies I think, but the world resets... maybe?)
"R.O.D TV" (Read or Die). I know it was based off a manga or something, watched a couple of episodes, but never really got into it.

Then there is Ghost in the Shell, every one knows that one. And Cowboy Pebop (Which I was spoiled with the ending).

So ya any one ever heard of those G4 ones?

 

[Queen Michael]

Glad to see you've learned to like anime. Alwys nice to have more of us. (Though I'm more of a manga fan, I won't say no to some good anime once in a while.)

 

[tehroc]

Avatar=not anime. Samurai C isn't even what I'd call a good example of classic anime. Saying Elfen Lied sucked? Wow, you have no idea what you're talking about. One of the top 20 best, easily.

Avatar has the art style and story telling of anime. As for Elfen Lied, That is your opinion.

When most people agree on something, it becomes fact. I won't put a number on it, but to say it isn't good is just plain wrong. You can dislike it, but that doesn't make it bad.

Um no opinions will always be opinions not matter how many you have.

 

[Life_Is_A_Mess]

You should really see the Samurai Champloo series. One of the funniest I've ever seen.

 

[SeanTheSheep]

Avatar=not anime. Samurai C isn't even what I'd call a good example of classic anime. Saying Elfen Lied sucked? Wow, you have no idea what you're talking about. One of the top 20 best, easily.

Avatar has the art style and story telling of anime. As for Elfen Lied, That is your opinion.

When most people agree on something, it becomes fact. I won't put a number on it, but to say it isn't good is just plain wrong. You can dislike it, but that doesn't make it bad.

Opinion is always opinion. If it's the opinion held by a vast majority of people, then it becomes the popular opinion.
No you can't put a number on it, but to say something isn't good is just plain your opinion. You can dislike it, that just makes it bad in your own opinion.

OT: I'm not really sure what the purpose of this post is...
Is it to inform us of your opinion on the anime you have watched? There isn't a whole lot of discussion value here to be honest. Personally, I quite enjoyed Elfen Lied, though it was fairly violent and... *ahem* "fanservice heavy", whch may not have been your thing, but neither was it mine, though the story kept me going. I haven't watched much anime, but the little I've seen has been quite good.
I'd recommend giving Full Metal Alchemist a try, but I can't make any garuntees, considering you didn't enjoy quite a few critically aclaimed animes.

 

[Sunrider]

Elfen Lied is more or less "sacred" in the eyes of anime junkies out there. Creating an anime thread is like bashing Iron Maiden at a metal party (which is something I have experience of doing, being a Maiden-hater).
The thing is, it isn't THAT GOOD. It's decent at best, and made just to appeal to people who like nudity and excessive violence. Take away those two elements, and Elfen Lied would fall flat.
That said, I do like it. Guess I fall into the nudity-and-violence junkie category too. =)

 

[ArMartinez02]

any1 here has seen high school of the dead?

High School of the Dead would be the last thing I'd show to a potential anime fan.

ahh c'mon, u kno that show is good =P

 

[Gigano]

Well, always good to see that no medium is all good or all bad. They pretty much all tend to have their rare gems - not all of which one will even subjectively like - as well as a ton of "meh" and quite a bit of bad stuff.

The more mediums one traverses, the larger the chance to find the gems one appreciate in each. And given how much shite is clogging up every medium, I'd say that keeping an open mind towards all of them is pretty important if you want nothing but quality.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I think the only anime I ever liked was Pokemon. But then, I was a kid.

 

[Miumaru]

People who do not like anime usually just generalize. Only people who can hate ALL anime without being ignorant would have to hate it for being animated.

So people are not allowed to hate anime?

Its like saying you hate black people cause they all like rap and talk in ebonics. A good portion does, but not all. I wouldnt force someone to watch every anime till the find something they like, but too often do I see people making a big deal of anime when they just assume its all the same. I know my mom thinks all anime are crappy soap operas, and it annoys me.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

There's this little thing I should start calling the "Law of Kickass against Bullshit" that goes like this: For every kickass thing out there, there's a trillion bullshit out there.

What I'm trying to say is there are genuinly good animes but they are overshadowed by the rabidly popular and equally shitty ones. Examples include everything ever directed by Hayao Miyazaki (most especially Meitantei Holmes), Devil May Cry and Parappa TV.

 

[HeySeansOnline]

All anime haters have that one show that teach anime is a good genre, technically my first series run was Evangelion, but i didn't really appreciate anime until Trigun.