Anime

5) None, and I wish all Anime would suddenly disappear from reality.

Good luck with that.

Are you serious about wanting anime dead? If so why?

GameFissure.

P.S. - The numbering system begins with 1 my friend... not 5.

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Original post by Yann L 5) None, and I wish all Anime would suddenly disappear from reality.

+73

Definately suprising... I thought there would be atleast a few fans :S.

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Original post by GameFissure Definately suprising... I thought there would be atleast a few fans :S.

How did you come to that conclusion?

I have no ill will towards anime, but it's not my cup of tea. I like the animation style, but for some reason, in anime "plot complexity" seems to be confused with "mish-mash of metaphorical nonsense". Sure, martial arts and giant fighting robots are cool, but once someone gets reborn as a glowing angel child or the "subtle" religious symbolism is being beat into you like a stigmata then I have to pass on the show.

Now I was never really a huge anime fan, but my friends cirtainly were so I got exposed to it.
While It tends to get some negative stereotypes attached to it and, just like any form of media, there is plenty of crap ...
There are also some really excellent works that shouldn't be ignored just because of the stigma shows like "Naruto" and "Dragonball Z" have attached to the medium.

===

I've always felt Cowboy Bebop was an excellent show.
And of course, Miyazaki's should not be missed by anyone, anime fan or not.


But what I really have enjoyed about some anime are those who have used the medium of animation to explore some dark psychological themes, such as depression, in very artistic and fantasticaly abstract ways.
The works of Satoshi Kon are a good example of this:
His short "Paranoia Agent" series is very good, but my favorite is perhaps the film "Paprika".

Paprika is a film I would recommend to anybody, if you allow it to pull you in it could very well change the way you think about anime.
Paprika Summary & Trailer

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Original post by capn_midnight Quote: Original post by GameFissure Definately suprising... I thought there would be atleast a few fans :S. How did you come to that conclusion?

Game Dev'ers are most likely programmers -> Programmers are nerds -> nerds are into Anime.

I'm not fan of Anime either. Basically everything I hate about Metal Gear Solid 2's story can be found in a lot of anime.

There's a pretty big cultural barrier that prevents me from liking anime. Here are some prime examples:
Yamato Nadeshiko.
Values Dissonance.
What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome?
What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic?
(WARNING: only click those if you're prepared to waste hours due to the Wikipedia Effect)

I believe one of the main parts to good story telling is subtlety. So much of the anime (or Japanese anything) I've seen consists of people running around being awesome and/or being bludgeoned with how deep they're trying to be. Worst of all, so much of it reeks of marketing of Japanese businessmen who took one too many hits of acid.

I will give Anime credit that it tries it's damndest to be creative.

Don't watch much. The last I watched was The Light Promised in Our Early Days, which I felt lost what it could've been in the sci-fi aspects. Vexille had an interesting concept, but didn't really convince me it was plausible. Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle were beautiful enough, but it wasn't enough to carry those movies for me. Same for Steamboy. I don't know what they were lacking, but they were...

My favorites are FLCL and Grave of the Fireflies. Grave of the Fireflies still haunts me. I love the world created in Spirited Away. I remember enjoying the sense and romance of flying in Macross Plus, but it's been a while. Paprika made me want to get up and join the parade; enjoyed it like King of Hearts. Evangelion holds a special place as what originally got me to watch anime.

Not "anime", but I loved the style of Persepolis, and it was also interesting as autobiography. The Triplets of Belleville... I don't really know what to say about The Triplets, but it makes me smile. And, when talking about animation, you have to mention Disney, my favorites being Beauty and the Beast and Lion King, before they added more songs, anyway.

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Original post by brent_w I've always felt Cowboy Bebop was an excellent show.

Agreed, good story, intresting characters and top animation; the way the fight sequences flowed seemed so natural.

For my part you can also include the following in series/films I've enjoyed;
- FLCL (watched it in one sitting, came away with my brain going 'wait..wut?)
- Trigun
- Full Metal Alchemist
- Full Metal Panic
- Samurai Champloo
- Trinity Blood
- Hellsing
- Gundam Seed
- neon genesis evangelion (the final ep of that really DID turn my brain to cheese)
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Vexille
- Vampire Hunter D (both of them, I think Bloodlust was one of the first Anime I watched)
- Blood The Last Vampire

I think that covers it..

I'm currently watching my way through Bleach with Ergo Proxy on my 'to watch' list.

There are definitely anime fans around here they just weren't the first people to see this thread ;)

I will say though, you really got to start watching series that aren't several hundred episode long whore-outs. I liked Naruto and Bleach too, and I still give them a glance now and then, but all good stories should have an end. Naruto's infamous giant stretch of shitty filler episodes is the stuff of legends. Awful, awful legends of horrible, horrible things. Shippuuden has been pretty mediocre all around and there's still too much freaking filler. A few episodes recently were suddenly really good though... wonder if they switched directors?

Based on your list I would recommend (a bunch of action oriented stuff):

Full Metal Alchemist
Cowboy Bebop
Code Geass
Samurai Champloo
Claymore
Black Lagoon
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Trigun

Yeah, some people don't get anime at all. Cultural differences, personality conflicts, misconceptions, odd expectations or snobbery... there are both good and bad reasons not to like it. I think they're missing out, but what can you do? Everyone can't like everything.

Probably:
1) Digimon
2) Pokemon

I used to watch those all the time. They were awesome. I haven't seen any other Anime stuff. Not a fan of the art style.

I follow Bleach regularly -- that's it though. One originally-good-but-now-severely-dragged-out storyline at a time is enough.

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Original post by GameFissure Are you serious about wanting anime dead? If so why?

Since it's rather unlikely that some kind of reality warping vortex will kill all Anime in the near future, no, I don't want it dead. I just don't like it.

I don't like the art style, the animation, the over-the-top exaggerated movements and camera paths, the stupid dialogues. I don't find the typical storylines attractive either. I don't see martial arts with a glorified coolness tag attached, but as simple pragmatic self defense technique which comes in handy if you don't happen to have a gun around when attacked. I think giant fighting robots are retarded, not cool. And I don't see anything particularly attractive about Japanese culture in general.

In other words, that stuff isn't for me.

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Original post by phantom ...list...

Whoa. You watched all that ? How long is each series usually ?

I think the music is fun, but that's about it. The rest is just boring and annoying.

Bobobo Bobobobo, and Perfect Hair Forever.

I liked Death Note a lot. And what I have seen of Full Metal Alchemist has been interesting. Other than that I haven't been much of a fan of Anime.

And speaking of TV Tropes, there's also article on how 90% of anything is crud.
Sturgeons Law

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Original post by Yann L Whoa. You watched all that ? How long is each series usually ?

Anime series usually come in two flavors: half length and full length. Half lengths are usually 12 or 13 episodes, full lengths are usually 24 to 26. Each episode averages around 25 minutes. I'd estimate about two thirds of the series that make it to the US are full lengths. There are some major outliers in this (Dragonball comes to mind), but even second seasons of anime shows tend to get a new name, even if that name happens to be closely related to the old one. For example: the ever popular Z addition to a title.

About three or four years ago, I calculated that I *owned* just over 20,000 minutes of anime. My brother at the time had a dub review column and so would get free screener discs from American anime companies, and so I was able to watch considerably more than that. I've cut back a bit since then. I probably only watched nine or ten series last year.

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Original post by Lazy Foo Quote: Original post by capn_midnight Quote: Original post by GameFissure Definately suprising... I thought there would be atleast a few fans :S. How did you come to that conclusion? Game Dev'ers are most likely programmers ->

acceptable

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Programmers are nerds ->

speak for yourself, nerd

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nerds are into Anime.

again, speak for yourself.