Why do so many people obsess over anime?
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OVER 9000!?!?grimsprice said:
I dunno to be honest, I like Lucky Star so much 'cause its random, but cute ^^
Although I don't actually watch that much anime
specially not nowadays.
While the ones you mentioned in the original post are certainly considered classics (much in the same way that "Brave New World" and "A Separate Peace" are), I personally don't care much for any of them, other than perhaps on an artistic level.
I think the attraction to anime to many is the vast array of genres that they cover with cartoons. Unlike American cartoons that were originally targeted toward adults and then focused entirely on children and finally became mentally challenged in their content (Family Guy), anime actually tried to hit every conceivable market and age group. While there are quite a few cookie cutter anime series out there, they were able to create some fantastic stories and ideas. When I first started watching it, I watched the same ones as the OP. A friend, however, introduced me to El Hazard and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I started watching other comedies and some of the dramas and found that I enjoyed them as well.
It's something out of the ordinary and that bears a bit of an attraction as well.
I think the attraction to anime to many is the vast array of genres that they cover with cartoons. Unlike American cartoons that were originally targeted toward adults and then focused entirely on children and finally became mentally challenged in their content (Family Guy), anime actually tried to hit every conceivable market and age group. While there are quite a few cookie cutter anime series out there, they were able to create some fantastic stories and ideas. When I first started watching it, I watched the same ones as the OP. A friend, however, introduced me to El Hazard and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I started watching other comedies and some of the dramas and found that I enjoyed them as well.
It's something out of the ordinary and that bears a bit of an attraction as well.
I USED to. I was a fan for 10 years. I liked it because it was original, gritty, & extremely nerdy. But now it has that "sell out" feeling to it.
It's become horribly cliche, too mainstreme, the kind of people I hate who used to tease me for watching this stuff are now watching it, 90% of the fans are either embarassing/tasteless noobs or 4Chan trolls, & the conventions just aren't fun anymore. I've reverted to watching American webtoons & nostolgic preY2K cartoons for my animation fix (prefurably of the vulgar/violent/gross comedy variety) & reading Batman/X-men for comics.
I guess the last GOOD anime I saw was a mystery/action/comedy called "Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro." It was like a violent parody of Beetlejuice with a little "Petshop of Horrors" blended in.
It's become horribly cliche, too mainstreme, the kind of people I hate who used to tease me for watching this stuff are now watching it, 90% of the fans are either embarassing/tasteless noobs or 4Chan trolls, & the conventions just aren't fun anymore. I've reverted to watching American webtoons & nostolgic preY2K cartoons for my animation fix (prefurably of the vulgar/violent/gross comedy variety) & reading Batman/X-men for comics.
I guess the last GOOD anime I saw was a mystery/action/comedy called "Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro." It was like a violent parody of Beetlejuice with a little "Petshop of Horrors" blended in.
I like anime for the same reason I'd like any other kind of show. I like it for the same reason I like books and movies. (Although I hate most movies.) I don't obsess over all of it, and I've never met anyone who did. I've always just assumed that the people who enjoy shows like Magical Girl Romance Lollipop or Vampire Ninjas Fight Zombies with Gore and Explosions just have lower standards than I do.
Well it depends on when your talking about.Continuum said:
I was "always" aware of Anime to some extent. My interest mostly being an extension of a general interest in science fiction and fantasy. For a very long time, Anime dealt with concepts that just weren't touched upon in a visual medium, and you'd only read about in novels and such. This is not to say that it was deeply intellectual, but it could be very interesting. The idea of following through on the sex and violence was also kind of cool when in comparison most American works of animation, and even comics, shied away from actually killing no matter how much sense it might make.
For me I think the big "divide" in the hobby came with the US release of "Neon Genesis Evangelion", which also happened to coincide with titles like "Blue Seed". Indeed I think some anime publications even use Evangelion (the biggest of the bunch) as the dividing line. After that we saw a lot of decent stuff come to the US, but also a lot of companies seeing a fad beginning to shovel crud into the US marketplace for a quick buck. Too much stuff lead to increased attention, and censorship of titles.
Right now I still kind of like Anime, but find it actually to be a pain to seperate the crud from the decent stuff. Also where I feel only the best stuff made it to the US, I currently think we mostly get the dregs of anime, while it seems the Japanese increasingly make an effort to keep the best stuff "Japan only" (which goes into a whole differant rant).
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As far as why it's such a big deal, the proliferation and gradual mainstreaming of Anime in the US increasingly brought the everyman into it, and a lot of them began to gobble up the junk. Sort of like how gaming became more profitable when it became less intellectual and elitist, but it also dumbed down, and you see a lot of people pining for the old days.
With the everyman being involved, have come a lot of wierd ideas like the idea that because they have a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy anime and a healthy comics market (mostly intended for teens in both cases) that Japan is some kind of mecca for nerds and gamers. I've even heard people try and suggest that "normal" Japanese people would rather read Manga than a newspaper or whatever. How these perceptions got started is beyond me, though admittedly I did some some wierd ideas when I was first trying to breach the culture wall myself.
Plus when fandom goes to the everyman, you don't just have obsessives, but wierd obsessives increasingly involved.
I don't think the issue so much is "everyone's obsession with Anime" but really the fact that instead of having a few people mostly keeping to themselves you have so many odd people sounding off about it and their wierd theories that those people become extremely noticible.
>>>----Therumancer--->
I think it's Americans than mostly do it, finding it cathartic to find violent content, sexual images or adult themes in cartoons, cartoons being something that is "for children" in America.
I think this has lead them to believe that "Japanese people are revolutionary", but really, the Japanese just look at cartoons as another form of entertainment, that's why there's no real stigma about sexual content, violent content or adult themes in animated entertainment over there.
I think this has lead them to believe that "Japanese people are revolutionary", but really, the Japanese just look at cartoons as another form of entertainment, that's why there's no real stigma about sexual content, violent content or adult themes in animated entertainment over there.
Yeah I could definitely understand that. It's basically a more mature form of visual, animated entertainment as opposed to normal cartoons. I saw Perfect Blue so I think I know what you're getting at. It was a psychological-thriller. Akira was quite in depth and complex aswell.Therumancer said:
The obsession is just from the fact that Japan understands how to make good animation. While America is obsessing over Spongebob (a.k.a. stupid, mindless crap) and Family Guy (a truly immature show which is only capable of humor if it involves sex), Japan is creating serious, emotional, and dramatic film with their animation. And those of us who can recognize animation as more than America has made it really enjoy seeing animation taken to the dramatic heights it can go to.
I could write an essay on the subject if I wanted to, but I think I explained it pretty earlier in this older thread:
I could write an essay on the subject if I wanted to, but I think I explained it pretty earlier in this older thread:
Thaius said:
I would guess that anime provides the combination of a cartoon, a sitcom, and a gun sword that some people are looking for.
I liked that one too for about half the season. Unfortunately it jumps the shark in a typical Shonen Jump fashion: by bringing in a character who is too damn powerful to exist in the show's universe as cannon. However I did enjoy a lot before they focused on who would turn out to be the primary antagonist.likalaruku said:
This is really saying something considering the main character is a demon, but Sai just took all the rules of the universe and broke them. Shapeshifting, super-strength, nigh invulnerability and the whole weird death claw thing. I went on for a few more episodes where they took emphasis away from Sai, but then I just couldn't keep watching.
Usually I'll go off things friends recommend, or I'll just stumble across references on the internet (lately from TV tropes) and I'll just look it up on Youtube. It's been working so far leading me to look up:
-Code Geass (season 1)
-D.Gray Man(is there anyone who can explain the significance of the title?)
and Lucky Star(which I just found incredibly boring).
Granted season 2 of Code Geass was terrible, and D.Gray Man looks like it will stretch itself endlessly like other Shonen Jump animes, but still it's more anime than I used to watch.
OT: It's just another form of media, don't look too much into it.
Ditto, I had the same experience. Anime was a way for me to escape fitting in with people I hated in high school, plus I hated my parents, wanted to leave America and become Japanese. Ha, I can't believe how crazy I was. Then in college, I went to study in Japan and found out that Japanese people are dicks too, but they are really good at hiding it and can't say shit to your face because they're pussies. Instead, they're just really good at hiding racism and pretending to like foreigners.likalaruku said:
It's no wonder that they think Americans are wierd either - Every American kid who goes to Japan to study or teach English is somewhat "Otaku" or "nerdy" or looking for a way out of their society to be accepted somewhere else. Every American guy in my Japanese class just wanted to sleep with Japanese girls, that was their only motivation.
And sure, I got into Japanese because of Dragon Ball Z and Nintendo games, but the glory days of these things are gone. Anime has become too mainstream and cliche. Nintendo is... well look at the Wii. Japan's population is declining sharply because the people are socially awkward and have wierd attitudes about sex and kids. Plus they would rather work in small offices all day than fornicate.
This psudo Anime obsessed religion should be on its way out soon. There is good anime, but not enough anymore to glorify the genre.
You could say that about anything, really.ResiEvalJohn said:
Almost all art forms result in massive amounts of rubbish being made and somewhere in all that rubbish, diamonds lurk.
Continuum said:
Hmmm, well to be honest Akira never really impressed me that much to be honest. For the time the animation was impressive however. Perfect Blue was just 'okay' and to me is mostly noteworthy for being one of the first attempts to do something like that. Not having been a Selena fan (hispanic singer killed by the head of her fanclub, which I believe the entire movie was an analogy to) I thought it was very mediocre.
To be honest for me, I don't think most anime ever struck me as being really "mature". It was more the concepts involved that I found interesting in most cases. For example take something like the original release of "Burn Up W" (which sold on VHS tapes with one 30 minute episode for 30 bucks... crazy I know). The thing was basically a vaguely similar to "police academy", except set in a cyberpunk type future, and full of a ton of T&A. It however got into concepts involving virtual reality and such that just generally didn't see much use in the US (this was pre-Matrix). It involved concepts like the kidnapping of an artificial intelligence that was a virtual reality hooker, and an organization using something similar to Shadowruns "Virtual Drugs" to addict and control people in positions
of power. The OAV was (much) later relaunched and developed into a full 26 episode series down the line which explored some of these things further. There is no way I am going to sit down and say a series tha includes moments like a group of moron terrorists making as one of their demands that a woman bungee jump naked out of a helicopter in front of the building they are holding people hostage in for their amusement is in any way, shape, or form deep
or mature.
Aside from science fiction you also had stuff with supernatural elements where you had demons and monsters that acted like demons and monsters, and the kinds of satanic trappings and such that just wouldn't be allowed in anything other than a full fledged horror movie.
Then of course there was the stuff that was just purely crazy. Like when Neon Genesis Evangelion came out, one of the things that stuck in my mind other than the religiously themed plotline, was that instead of giant robots you had them basically using giant clones controlled by cybernetics implanted in them, and then people riding inside the cybernetic implants to control them. Even with the biotechnology I've read about and seen in other series (anime and otherwise) I don't remember ever seeing something quite like that.