Anime

[WoogieMonster]

@ BlackSnake

I Agree. It's like I mentioned before, and as Vagrant reiterated, a lot of Americans have made a blanket judgment based only on what they see on the Cartoon Network.

 

@ Kresselack

I can not explain the actions or mentality of someone who takes fanship to that extreme of being an annoyance to other people. Football fans that scream and yell at the television, race fans that paint the number 3 on the back of their trucks, anybody that owns a fathead poster and anime nerds that pester you to see your character while typing in internet-retard-speak. They're all quite pathetic to me as they make entire groups of people look bad, but what can you do?

 

People like that are like going to the beach and seeing a super hot girl with really ugly feet. Try as you might to just ignore them, in the back of your mind you know they're still there, and it's annoying. But rather than making the judgment that the beach sucks, just grab your cooler and walk to a different part of the beach, you're certain to find an area where all the girls have pedicures... or in this case, where all the fans are still sane.

[Vagrant0]

I never cought on with the craze, because I saw a lot of repetition. For example, there is a person looking moody on a cliffside pondering about something, such as "what is my destiny or meaning in life", or why is this lad feeling ashamed of women finding him fancy, and then feeling uncomfortabe.

This is a very stereotypical vision of anime seen often but it is not an acurate depiction. This is like saying all mexicans like burritos after seeing a comercial about burritos. Like many things anime has many different variations. Some have an emo/gothic style to them, some have a techno/popculture style, some have deep storylines, some have mindless violence, some are funny, and some are plain strange. Like many things it's all a matter of what your taste is.

Unlike most western shows, Anime tends to be rather interconnected, even across companies. Many of the situations being shown in very similar ways may be an actual attempt to reference that eariler scene in another anime... This can be done for many different reasons ranging from parody, self-parody, establishing a character as a familiar type, or paying hommage to an earlier series which influenced the wrtier of the anime. You also have to considder another aspect, many anime within a particular genre, like shonen (young boys) use and reuse character designs and concepts because that is what that audience wants... For instance main characters with spiky hair, or more recently, main characters who are moody for no reason. Within the broad scope of anime, this makes it easier to determine shows with better writting and character design from shows which are poorly written/conceived. By re-using the same kind of character motif for minor characters, the anime doesn't need to spend a whole lot of time explaining them, and they can simply be taken as is.

 

You should keep in mind, that within a season, as many as 9 or 10 new series may be made. Think of it like like later 80's/early 90's FOX sitcoms, except is continuous, there are alot of them being made, and although some have potential, only a few get picked up later, and most never get seen outside the primary audience. Of those that get picked up in the US, most are only the really popular series, and the key demographic is between the ages of 6 and 12. Only a few exceptions, like Death Note, Ghost in the Shell, which are aimed at an older audience ever get the following to be brought over.

 

Finally, remember, the first key difference I mentioned about anime was depth of characters and story. For an audience to stick with a series for the whole season, it has to present characters who change over time, and present a story which has a definate beginning, middle, and end. As a result many anime within a certain genre tend to retell the same stories, or mix in the same characters, which can, to some, make one series within a genre look very similar to other series in the same genre. However it's really the minor differences and twists which make one series better than the other. It was said once, I forgot where, that there are only about a dozen or so really unique stories which people keep on telling and retelling, sometimes the settings are changed, sometimes there are different characters, but the very basic story remains essentially the same. This is true of movies, books, television shows, and anime. When you have a chance, take a look around your local bookstore, find a genre, like mystery, and chances are that out of 5 books randomly selected from different authors, that atleast 2 of them will have the same basic story just changed settings, characters, and events. Hence "The Butler did it"...

 

Actually, if you look, there is a wider variety of anime available these days compared to the past. 5 or 10 years ago about all you saw on the market were either ultra-violent, kiddy, or sexually explicit anime. Much of the reason for this was because watching anime was something which was religated to college dorms more than broadcast television. Those kinds of shows were being bought, so those kinds of shows were about all that was getting liscensed. The change happened not because of Adult swim, but because of illegal copying and distribution of unliscensed anime over the internet. People could download episodes of a series they never heard of, and see what they were missing. Several shows like DBZ, Naruto, and Bleach were really only brought to light because there were people talking about them online. Although they were still popular in their own right, because there were so many people in a given market who were fans of the series, the companies involved precieved less risk in liscensing the series for distribution. Although they probably wouldn't admit it, an illegal act saved them the trouble of doing market research and introducing a series to customers. This is a unique feature about anime since it can often be determined how well a series will do in any market by looking at who is downloading illegal copies of that anime. Although in some cases the anime which is liscensed gets changed in some way, even those who had downloaded the series illegally often buy the series once released simply so that they can re-watch it whenever they want. These illegal downloads also allow people to preview a series before spending $20-40+ on a single season. As a result, you can probably find a fairly wide range of titles and genres at your local video store available for purchase or rent. The best way to understand anime is to experience those aspects of it which aren't normally available.

 

Even if you don't like the series, the characters, or the story, you can still often appreciate the artwork in an anime. Unlike in western animation, backgrounds can often be crazy detailed and complex. Next time you watch one of those shows, take a look at what else is being shown and actually think about what you are seeing, you may be quite a bit suprised. If the scene isn't a straight pan, considder how much time and effort would have to go into something like that, and considder that that sort of feat is done on a weekly basis. Half the reason why I watch anime is to take note of how buildings and structures get drawn, and redrawn from different angles. Although some of the buildings are real, ofen what is shown is entirely fictional, making the whole process even more amazing.