Poll: Problems With Anime?

[Sicram]

All of it ('cept the "none" option of course). Let's also not forget the overkill on everything, as in, effing big sword, their "ultimate powahs", physical abilities in some cases, the moaning, the screaming, the faces (seriously, everything else is superdetailed and the face looks so crap?) and let's also not forget the drama. Oh yeah, it was in the options already, I guess something that is alrady overexaggurated can't be mentioned too often.

Also, often way too young protagonists, add 10 years or somesuch and some things they do might almost might some kind of vague sense.

 

[Thaius]

Honestly, I find pretty much all arguments against anime to be completely invalid. Some of them are sufficient for people not to like it, but none are sufficient for someone to say it's actually bad.

Awful (English) Voice Acting -
I watch it with subtitles. It's that easy. This is no good reason to dislike it.

Weird Stories -
Sometimes, yes. Oftentimes, no. The most popular ones are really no more strange than typical sci-fi/fantasy stuff that's made anywhere else. This is such a generalization, it's ridiculous.

Just Do -
Do I need to explain why this is an invalid reason?

Angst -
This is often misunderstood. What many people take for "angst" in anime is really a combination of two things. For one, the Japanese like emotional conflict. It's something we in America could take a hint from. The second is that, unlike storytelling conventions elsewhere, Japanese appreciate talking and exposition regarding the conflict. They will not settle for a few subtle hints to tell you a character is struggling with something, the character will say it. They will talk about it like we talk to a close friend in a time of need. This is not angst, it's simply a different culture's way of telling emotional stories.

The People Who are Obsessed with it Turn Me Off -
I rather strongly believe that it's incredibly stupid to dislike something just because annoying people like it. Getting annoyed at fans can be understandable, but that says absolutely nothing about the quality of the thing of which they are fans. Seriously, this is common sense.

Oversexualization -
Some of it, yeah. So don't watch it. There's a ton of really, really, REALLY good anime with little to no fanservice. Watch that. It's usually better anyway.

Now if someone wants to way it's just "not their thing," that's fine. It's usually (not always, but usually) motivated by extremely poor artistic/filmic theory and appreciation, but it's valid. But even then, say it's not your thing. Don't go saying it's objectively terrible.

Also, it's important to note that "anime" is not a genre. Not all anime is the same: we're talking about an entire medium here. Especially in Japan, considering they're one of the few countries with enough artistic sensibility to understand the potential and ability of animation; here in the States our idea of animation has been so dulled by simple comedy like Loony Tunes and torturously mindless drivel like Spongebob that we can't comprehend the idea that animation could be used to tell a serious, emotional, dramatic story. And that's a shame. But anyway, "anime" is simply a foreign sub-medium of film. One can generally dislike sci-fi, romance, or crime genres, but to say that one generally dislikes "anime" as a whole simply displays lack of experience with the medium and appreciation for good film.

 

[Broderick]

Well if you think about it, all of the options above can be used to describe any show, regardless of the country it comes from. To me though...I would think, and this is coming from a huge anime fan, its probably the super obsessed people that unforunately we have to deal with. I can understand some people get a bit excited, but when you are about to get in a fist fight with someone because you think a certain anime character is better than another, then is when its just bad.

Oversexualization is bad too, but for the most part a lot of the better quality anime does not push boobs in your face all the time. Needless to say, things like High school of the dead, while its shameless, its also pretty amusing(except that bathroom scene, you know the one).

Drama isnt too bad as long as you stay away from most "high school" anime types,as well as robot animes, although it does creep in to other genres of anime as well, like unfortunately one piece(the whitebeard/navy battle arc specificly, it almost seemed that they were shoving drama down our necks. I mean seriously, half that time luffy is just screaming "ACE!" over and over, yes we get you want to save your brother).

Some of the most famous cult animes have really odd stories, so really, I think it adds "originality" points, like Fooly cooly, or .hack, i mean who would have thought that an anime about a boy with a portal in his head, and an anime about an MMO gone crazy, would have been not just good, but great?

Finally, voice acting. Its really hit and miss for me, I mean DBZ had decent english voice acting, but have you ever heard the kai voice acter for goku in japanese? The guy sounds like he is freaking 12, it sounds so awkward with a character like goku(besides his chidlike qualities). Like I said though, its hit and miss, FMA had great english voice acters, Spice and wolf was good as well. Nowadays english dubs are increasing in quality, but I prefer the japanese for the most part. There are just certain things with the japanese voiceovers that dont translate well into english(or any other language for that matter), like word jokes (hm...like that fact that the word for god is also the word for paper, it would be very hard to translate a joke regarding those words into english).

Sorry for my mass wall of txt but those are my 30 cents.

 

[Okuu_Fusion]

Fanservice is what I find to be the biggest problem... Now, not all fan service, I do like Tsundere + kneesock fanservice... But, mostly everything else, can really kill a series for me... Or at least derail me from watching that series for several months... Still haven't finished HOTD no thanks to that 'bullet-time' incident...

Nitpicking, another problem for me are seagulls...

Whenever an episode of anything occurs that involves the beach... I guarantee you that 85% of the time, there will be a cut to a seagull flying off towards the ocean...

This for no reason pisses me off so much...

 

[moretimethansense]

My biggest issue? It's hard to find on Netflix's instant queue, which make it really hard to watch (I've been trying to get into it for a while) without using a shady site and/or pirating it.

You could use crunchyroll
http://www.crunchyroll.com/
I'ts a legal site that pays for licences through advertising or if you prefer payed memberships the slection isn't phnominal but they have some good things on there,
I'd recomend Time of Eve

On topic: The only problem with anime in my opinion is that some dubs are terrible, most are poor and only a relative few are good, that and many things get censored or otherwise changed when officially translated due to cultural differance, Funimation are quite good at avoiding this (at least in the DVDs) though they still sometimes are guilty of censoship eg
Dance in the Vampire Bund, how did you not realise that you'd have to censor it sideways for gods sake.

 

[Kris015]

The awfully weird things they do sometimes.

I mean, just look at bleach's: (i don't remember the exact words, but it was something like this) "OMG THAT WAS SO CUTE YOU ATE A BREAD AND NOW YOU HAVE CRUMBLES AROUND YOUR MOUTH"

And Death Note's: "AND THEN I'LL TAKE THIS CHIP... AND EAT IT!"

These put me off a bit. Bleach is the worst of the two i've seen.
Oh, and then there's Dragon Ball, pretty awesome. Best anime i've seen. EVER.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

The weeaboos
The blind haters
The oversexualization
Sexism on all sides
Awful dubs
Too much dialogue/flashbacks
Angst
Also, a lot of character archetypes and conventions really get my goat. For example, the tsundere girl abusing the given protagonist and it being played for laughs(try that scene gender-swapped), the honorable sword-dude who is always so awesome he can insta-kill people with guns due to "TRAAAINIIIING", the whole harem anime thing and much more.

Mind you, I still like quite a few animes, I just take 'em all with a small mountain of salt, as I would with any television show, especially animation.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Pretty much all of the above. Though one thing I don't think anime should be faulted on is "weird storylines" because to me that's sort of a redeeming factor. Though a bigger problem I see in anime is that they have generic storylines. So many of them are like the "Avatar" to something else's "Pocahontas."

One thing I don't like however, is weird characters. And by this I don't mean characters with weird traits, I mean characters that are established to be sane yet act in ways that no human being on the planet would ever act, and there are a fucking LOT of these.

Another thing I'm not a fan of is the art style. Ok, congrats japan, you've learned how to draw a decent pair of cartoon tits, and if I want weird porn that doesn't look like some low budget B movie, I guess that's the only alternative. Now let's try making your shit actually INTERESTING TO LOOK AT. It seems like almost every single anime looks pretty much the same, and aside from the overblown fight scenes, the characters usually do the absolute minimum amount of movement. Watch a scene in an anime where the characters are just standing there and talking, and compare that to a similar scene in Ren and Stimpy and you'll see what I mean.

Also, the weebs, man. The fucking weebs. That is a fanbase I want to stay as far away from as possible.

 

[Valkyrie101]

The general silliness of it all. All of the boring, exaggerated character stereotypes stop me from taking it seriously.

 

[Tsunimo]

I used to hate the voice acting.
Then I decided to watch subbed instead.
Then I found good anime.
Then I got to liking Manga better than anime.
Now I try to read everything backwards.

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

The Weeaboos. They piss me off.

And as personal preference, I dislike the dissonance between the money action shots and the almost static conversations.

What's a weeaboo? I hate asking for internet terms, it makes me feel like a noob, but still.

Mostly the terrible English dubs. But other than that, I hate the super serious ones that throw in stupid, pointless jokes all the time. Which often ruin the mood. (See: Bleach -_-)

 

[The Stonker]

I'm a huge anime fan, and I hate the anime with gratuitous breast shots, stupid amounts of poorly done action and the like (aka the anime that somehow gets popular outside of Japan).

Yes, me too! Because it's quite amazing that these breast shot anime's are well, they aren't that popular in Japan.
But I love anime as well, the only thing I hate is when they try to implement crappy English into their speech.
Plus, Yubisaki's milk tea.....That's just wrong.
Really, pick it up and start reading it, it has everything you desire!
Incest,pedophilia,overdramatized relationships and old people.
Yuck, seriously, don't.

 

[kouriichi]

It tends to be the dowm hill tumble they take after the second season.

I mean, i loved the anime Bleach..... Until they got halfway into the second season. It just feels like they start to run out of ideas. Every episode devoles to both fighters saying, "I guess i can stop holding back" and then screaming for 5 minutes. ((being followed with 10 minutes of people thinking to themselfs about how strong theyer opponent is))

Sure, some animes avoid this, but then they tend to turn to angsty. Like with Inuyasha. It just got bogged down. With the angst and constant drama. ((not to mention them fighting, beating, and letting Naraku escape every other episode))

I have very little problem with the "Weeaboos" or the "ani-fags" as people call them, and i dont see myself as one of them. It just tends to be what the animes devolve into that stops me from watching them all together.

The few that really stood out to me were "Sunabôzu" ((aka Desert Punk)) and Cromartie High School ((aka crazy people getting into completely avoidable situations)). Its rare for any anime to grip me these days ((or for me to even rofl alittle)), but both of these were extreamly original, and was above par. If i had to suggest any animes to people, these would be a couple of the first i listed.

 

[minarri]

The voices. They annoy me so much. Female characters and child characters tend to be the worst.

I have the same problem with Western cartoons to a (only slightly) lesser extent.

 

[Bonecrusher]

I really don't understand why people try to force on themselves "to hate the anime".

hey come on...
look, I hate American Dad and Family Guy, but this doesn't mean all the americah cartoons are bad. There were and there are good shows as well, Spawn, Batman, Spider-Man etc...

So, why people watch a really weird anime and then starts a hate campaign to all the anime... this really confuses me.

There are lots of types for anime. One studio may draw childish characters, but other may draw with more serious style. Or some anime may have amazing soundtrack, another one may have an awesome story...

Try not to be that much prejudiced and biased against the world...

Some anime are good (FlCl, Cowboy Bebop), some are bad (Naruto, DBZ)

Naruto is a bad anime? Wow, this is really weird.

IMHO, Naruto is the best anime that currently on air.
Why: It has interesting and different range of characters, it has beautifully prepared fight animations, it has detailed backstory, and still holds realism as much as it can.
I don't like "EPIIIICCCXXXX!!" type of cartoons, whether it is japanese anime or american show... I don't want people walking around with wings, exploding planets, jumping across stars... American comic and cartoon makers also do weird things like that.
I admit, long and repetitive flashback scenes in the pre-shippuuden episodes. But I still rewatch them, and become awe in the detail of the show...
Shippuuden episodes are another story, their stories become deeper with less flashback.

By the way, my favorite anime are: Rurouni Kenshin, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Akira, Ghost In The Shell, Hellsing and Naruto

 

[Summerstorm]

The only problem with animes is (as with EVERYTHING) that 90% of it is crap *g*. Hard to filter the good ones out at times.

 

[Timmaaaah]

Repitition. Seriously, you'd think the characters would remember something that's been said over an over again for the past few episodes. It gets annoying. Also, the retardedness that seems to infect every single anime, even the good ones, is the characters not doing the OBVIOUS thing. Also the characters always seem to have the same reaction to something every time it happens, in spite of the fact that they've been through that situation over and over again and by now they should have figured it out

 

[Admiral Stukov]

Overzealous fans trying to get me to watch their favorite.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Err.... All of the above? Seriously, all of those thing make me dislike it, but if I had to pick, it would be the creepy Weeboos constantly parading it as better than anything the west has ever produced.

EDIT: Oh yeah! And idiots who will not shut up about it being a "medium".