Why I Don’t Like Anime, Manga and Most Japanese Pop Cultural Imports
(Caution: Some links are not work safe)
Skippy’s List is a great place to talk about military things, and I really have no military background to discuss those things so I tend to stick with the other main theme, nerdy/geeky stuff. Although I am a big dork in my own right, there are some areas of geekdom that I just can’t wrap my brain around.
I have never really sat down and discussed, or even given much thought to why I find anime so deeply annoying, but somehow this seems like the forum to explore these thoughts and possibly recover a buried memory of ritual abuse at the hands of hentai fetishists.
First off, I would like to say that I can not think of a single thing from modern Japanese culture, i.e. post World War II, that is cool. There are many things from this time period that border on being cool, and float around the periphery of cool, the best example I know of for this is Godzilla. Godzilla is pretty damned cool; he is a giant monster that destroys cities and kills thousands. But there is a certain cheese factor that won’t quite rub off of Godzilla. It is not the bad rubber suit; I can get past that. But in later movies, when he became a protector of Japan and teamed up with other monsters like Rodan and Mothra and fought things like Mechagodzilla… well, if you can’t see my point, you might as well stop reading now.
I think that is part of what gets me about a lot of anime, it just gets overdone. Which brings me to my chief annoyance with anime, the eyes. Whats up with the big eyes? I probably wouldn’t mind it so much if damned near every drawing, sketch, and animation that came out of Japan didn’t look like this, but they all do. Not to mention the tiny, almost none existent nose, and the sometimes oversized, sometimes undersized mouth mouth. I can not fully express how much I hate this style of drawing, but I’ll give it a try.
I understand that the eyes are supposedly representative of the “round eyes” of westerners, but it has become overdone. If I were to guess at the ideal western eye and facial expression that the Japanese seem to be striving for, I think it is either Carol Channing, or my favorite droog, Alex, receiving his treatment in ‘A Clockwork Orange.‘
My next beef is the hair. I would have to say at least 50% of all anime characters need to drag a comb through their hair. Much like the characters in ‘Battle of The Planets‘ when they were not in costume. I remember three things about that show, a spaceship, birdlike costumes, and they all had permanent bedhead.
And besides the bad bedhead looks, there are the hairstyles I like to call the “WTF-do’s” which ‘Dragon Ball Z‘ is the handsdown master of. These are hairstyles so bad that they are only rivaled in real life by Yahoo Serious and Carrot Top. (Speaking of which, what is up with Carrot Top? I think he is slowly becoming a real life anime character.)
(I would like to apologize for all of the photo links in the above paragraph, but in finding examples of what I was talking about, I realized how much I love Google image search).
My final question is why does it all have to be so damned cutesy? What little anime I have watched and actually enjoyed for the story was diminished by the unnecessary insertion of gratuitous cuteness. Did there really have to be some floating whatsit to interupt what was a decent story? Why must there be a squinty-eyed big mouthed character for comic relief that is anything but funny? (This is the portion for anime fans to say, “You are not talking about ‘x-character in this movie’ or ‘y-character in that show’ are you,” and I respond with “Yes, that is exactly what I am talking about,” because I guarantee your list will be larger than anything I can come up with on my own. Please include photo links.)
Oh, I almost forgot to bring this full circle, back to Hentai. As soon as I ask myself, “is there anyone out there seriously whacking off to this and getting off,” a voice in the back of my head loudly interrupts and says, “YES! YES THEY ARE! MORE THAN YOU WOULD IMAGINE!” With that thought, all I can do is sit in awe (or possibly fear) of the diversity of human sexual expression.
I am not sure where I am going with this, or if I have even explained myself well, but I do know this… unless you are eight years old, Pokemon sucks.
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April 29th, 2008 at 8:18 am
I’m going to grant you most of your points. But I would like to just point out very basic counter arguments.
1) Early anime was largely influenced by western animation such as Betty Boop and Disney. That’s where the big eyes come from.
2) Hair… yeah, I’ll admit that there is no real counter argument for that. You just get used to it.
3) Cutesy appeals to the younger crowd. To be fair though, there are many dark anime titles and series that are far from cutesy.
Hentai… everyone has their own way of going about it.
And you’re right, Pokemon sucks.
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April 29th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I will give you most of your points. But we have lots of crap in the US too. American Idol anyone?
You got to cherry pick the stuff you like. Same goes for Anime.
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April 29th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Meh, I dunno. What bothers me is more the utter obsession people have with it. I mean, I can understand why people enjoy it. Some people like it for the Japanese culture that comes with it, and other people just enjoy it. Okay. But, well…
http://i26.tinypic.com/a9u550.jpg
I rest my case.
And yes, Pokemon was awful from the beginning, and let’s just say it’s in free fall, with no sign of hitting terminal velocity just yet…
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PFC McCay reply on April 29th, 2008 1:26 pm:
I have to make the point that while it’s definitely influenced by Anime, that particular character is from a Video Game.
(Final Fantasy VII to be precise…)
Have to agree with Cantih below and Porch above. It’s kind of a hit or miss thing. There ARE lots of great stuff that’s not cutesy, and is actually rather dark, along with a great story.
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April 29th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I can deal with certain elements of anime, but it always has pissed me off for one simple reason: what should have been a great hack and slash turns either turns into a tribute to all things homo erotic (Final Fantasy) or features a useless stuffed animal type character. For the love of God, why?
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tsukinofaerii reply on April 29th, 2008 7:13 pm:
You can blame the fans for that. Usually great hack-and-slash shows shows are lacking in the homoerotic subtext (I’ll give you all of Final Fantasy—it oozes subtext), but you know us yaoi fans… we’ll find the subtext anywhere and everywhere.
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April 29th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Not all anime is cutesy kid stuff or porn.
Try out Ghost in the Shell, Black Lagoon, Ergo Proxy, and Elfin Lied. Id also suggest Death Note, but it does have an x-character you complain of.
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April 29th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Hey! I like Anime.
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April 29th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Anime has the cutesy moments for the same reason that sitcoms have the “AAAAAAAWWWWWWWH” moments – it’s a half-assed appeal to female viewers.
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April 29th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Ok, one cool thing out of Japan (and I’m not even entirely sure it is Japan)… Katamari Damacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katamari
By far one of the best, “blow your mind boring nothing better to do so entirely addictive” game for Playstation. How can rolling around a ball that is uber sticky and picks up cows be fun, you ask? Oh… I said that same thing once… and it is, indeed, crack.
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April 29th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
While I am a fan of manga’s, I do admit they have huge flaws. Like fight scenes that take ten episodes for the people to power up, launch a three second attack that is easily thwarted, and then the process starts over….and the hours of the constant “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HA!” yelling
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April 29th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
1) Large eyes, I think, are usually supposed to be “child like” and are used in children’s or girls shows. More serious or mature anime tends to show narrower eyes. Noses are honestly just easier to draw small and soft for certain “feels”, especially on girls and children. You’ll notice adults in anime usually have more defined noses.
2) Since messy hair is in and has been for a while, you can hardly complain. I’ve seen perfectly American men spend an hour trying for that “just rolled out of bed” look. (Though DBZ does leave something to be desired for hair styles, yeesh.) It does take it to an extreme, but DBZ is a poor example.
3) Hentai = Porn. (Well, literally “perverted”.)Over here it’s picked up a fetish-y sort of flavor (tentacles), but at its heart that’s all it is. So unless someone can somehow make a case for America not producing our own…?
Onto the cutsey… If you’re looking at anything that comes to America and is translated for TV… well, there’s your problem! America tends to adopt anime and aim it at children, which means most people don’t see most anime, just the stuff the networks think is okay for little Johnny and Susie. If there’s anything good, it’s brutally killed and the corpse hung out there for all the fans to see. 90% of that is shoujo—that is, aimed at girls and probably drama-comedy-romance in some way. The rest is like Pokemon: so bad and child-friendly that it bombed in Japan. (Yes, they re-package their crap and send it here, where it sells. What does THAT say about American taste?)
Obligatory Rec List: You want non-cutesy, check out Hellsing or Angel Sanctuary (this one’s disturbing). For older stuff, the original Transformers is a favorite, and so is anything Gundam. (Warning: Gundam Wing was designed for girls, and thus can be said to risk cutesy-ness. There are large eyes.) Rurouni Kenshin is definitely cute, but also a pretty awesome almost-historical drama. With swords. Wolf’s Rain, Vampire Hunter D, Grave of the Fireflies, Initial D… For pure crack comedy, Ranma 1/2, but that’s crack, like I said. Yes, there are cute animals. Also topless chicks. And more crack comedy. Ranma’s an experience of it’s own.
Hell, even some of the cutesy stuff has some awesome artwork, even if you hate the story. (CLAMP, anyone?) Nothing you find on American TV is going to be non-cutesy in some way or another, not even late at night. (I died a little inside when they put Inu Yasha on Adult Swim.) I also recommend watching in subtitle, because bad dubbing can make your ears bleed.
In conclusion… don’t judge all anime by what you see on TV, anymore than you’d just American cartoons by what you’re seeing on Saturday morning. (Would you put Heavy Metal or even Bugs Bunny in the same category as Kim Possible?)
[/insanity]
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Michiel reply on April 30th, 2008 1:03 am:
1. Don’t care. I hate anime style of art.
2. The messy hair in anime did not start when messy styles became popular, but has been around since at least the 1970’s. Anime probably inspired the messy hair look in real life, which is reason enough to not like anime.
3. The only animated porn out of the west I know of is “Fritz the Cat”, and although I am sure there are more examples, somehow all the animated porn I see is from Japan.
4. Cutesy sucks, period.
5. Subtitles suck for animation. Subtitles suck period. It is a visual medium, I want to see it, not read it. That is how I saw Akira, which was an ok movie, but it would have been nice to see the movie, since my friend that made me watch it was raving about the visuals.
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April 29th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
A more accurate reason for the big eyes is that in Japan, that’s where people look for nonverbal expression. Whereas American/Europeans look at the whole face, and why our animation tends to be more realistically proportioned.
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April 29th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Amen brother testify!
I gotta agree most Japanese animangatai [or whatever its called] annoys the hell outta me
Ive watched maybe 3 things i found i liked but i wouldnt say im a fan of the entire thing. I think its the people who do like it that scare me more.
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April 29th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Just to prove what a dork I am. The formatting of your page is messed up. The tag that ends your ad banner is missing. It’s causing the post to think it belongs inside the ad banner and not to the left of it. so it’s pretty. :D
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April 30th, 2008 at 12:11 am
what i want to know is why when i say “i don’t like anime” anime geeks feel immediately compelled to say “oh you’ll like THIS one, just try it”.
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Michiel reply on April 30th, 2008 1:12 am:
What is funny, Tony, is I knew this is exactly what would happen if I posted this, I would suddenly get lots of recommendations for things I’ll never watch. The whole point was I don’t get it. And I have seen some of the recommended viewing.
I know it is not ALL big eyed and cutesy, but I still hate that style of artwork… period… even when it is not big eyed and cutesy. I don’t dig the anime aesthetic, but the anime fans just cant accept it.
Maybe someday, a guest writer will rag on Star Trek, and I will totally respond with recommended viewing, and explain why all alien races are merely a new forehead appliance.
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April 30th, 2008 at 12:17 am
As to fans of anime and manga, there’s not much differance in their mentality in comparision to your average Star Wars and Star Trek fan (Though I don’t think any anime fans have come up with any thing like Klingon =)). It boils down to the simple fact that each fan has their own level of divotion and reason why their like anime and manga.
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Michiel reply on April 30th, 2008 12:41 am:
Anime fans in the US do not need to come up with thier own version of Klingon, they have Japanese to serve that purpose.
The only thing I will give them, is that at least Japanese is actually useful in the world… but only in Japan.
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April 30th, 2008 at 3:29 am
meh…I have to agree with you on the cutesy and hairstyle stuff…that is way overboard…although I do have to say that there are some stuff that will catch my eye…mostly robotech/macross….then again…I prefered old school stuff anyways
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April 30th, 2008 at 4:09 am
If you don’t like anime and have no desire to give some of the better shows a chance… then nothing can be done for you and you’re just going to miss out on some great shows.
To me thats like saying “I don’t like C-130’s so I’m not going to hop a C-130 and go to Wake Island for a week and drink and chill on the beach”!
Some of it can be annoying, like Wake Island… but there is a lot of good Anime out there that has nothing to do with being cute.
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Michiel reply on April 30th, 2008 4:24 am:
Annoy me with anime once, shame on you. Annoy me with anime for the 20th time, shame on me.
I guess what I am trying to say is “once bored, twice shy.”
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April 30th, 2008 at 5:54 am
Michiel, I am another one in agreement with you here. I have tried to give anime a shot (Ghost In The Shell, Akira, Gundam, Sailor Moon…no, wait..not really on that last one..HONEST!) and don’t get it (big eyes, cutesy, et al). I just don’t get it at all. Perhaps if I lived in Japan for 10 years I might. But, really, I have more important things to do.
The only exceptions for me are Speed Racer and, the aforementioned, Battle Of The Planets mainly for nostalgic reasons as those two were part of my after-school entertainment whilst growing up. I imagine that some anime zealots would not consider those two to be “true” anime. But…whatever.
Odd side note on this. My friends and I used to play BOTP in my backyard; complete with towels tied around our necks and baseball hats (with bills decorated with clear plastic sheets) upon our heads. Being the slightly overweight one of the group, I always got pegged to be Tiny. Our Phoenix? A picnic table. This was before my parents purchased an Atari. :)
Keep up the good work, Michiel.
M9FJ
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April 30th, 2008 at 7:04 am
I don’t see the point in knocking things that I don’t understand, but obviously YMMV.
1. The large eyes don’t have anything to do with Western “round eyes”. Anime began back when large-screen televisions were few and far between. If you look at early period manga, you’ll find normal-sized eyes. But when small television screens forced anime artists (who were also manga artists) to use larger eyes so that viewers could capture the expressions, the style transferred to manga as well.
2. The funky hair is derived from manga, most of which was originally printed in black and white. It helped readers to tell characters apart, as well as sometimes providing visual, symbolic clues as to a character’s personality. Try finding two characters with the same hairstyle on the same anime show… you probably won’t be able to.
3. Cute sells. Pretty sells. Go figure.
4. Hentai is porn. Porn knows no boundaries. Some people are sick puppies. Again, go figure.
5. Yes, Pokemon is for 8 year-olds. And you think Barney and Teletubbies are for a mature audience?
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April 30th, 2008 at 7:15 am
The argument as old as time itself….. okay so its only as old as the American anime movement. It is funny how one person says they dislike anime and twenty fanboys immediately crawl out of the woodwork to expound upon the wonders of an entertainment form/genre/? that will save the world and your soul.
Personally I never really got the whole fanboy culture whether it be for anime, a gaming console or a type of PC. I like what I like and I dislike some other things. You like what you like and that is just fine with me. Maybe one day the rabid fanboys will figure out that they drive off more people by trying to convert them than they will ever change the views of with their constant proselytizing.
Guess what fanboys? We are all individuals and just because someone does not share your interests does not mean…… And my train of thought just derailed. Oh well, anyone who stumbles across me in a forum is more than welcome to strike up a discussion, regardless of subject, just don’t take it personal if my views are opposed to yours. BTW I agree with the earlier statement on the subject of subs vs. dubs. My take is that if wanted to read I would have walked over to my bookshelves instead of my DVD racks, just as much gets lost in translation in subs as in dubs but at least I get to see everything including visual cues when I can understand the spoken language. This applies to all visual media.
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Michiel reply on April 30th, 2008 7:26 am:
SKD Wrote, “Maybe one day the rabid fanboys will figure out that they drive off more people by trying to convert them than they will ever change the views of with their constant proselytizing.”
I agree, and feel the same way about any religion that seeks converts, (I’m not naming names, but you know who you are), including the Cult of Anime.
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Tony reply on May 1st, 2008 12:06 am:
agreed,
i do my share of geek stuff, warhammer, some online games, etc. i make it known to my friends that i’m into that stuff and then if they express and interest i will gladly share my knowledge of geekery. but to beat people over the head with things they’re not interested in is to pretty much make sure they will never take an interest in them.
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April 30th, 2008 at 11:26 am
try Robotech
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May 1st, 2008 at 3:00 am
Well, I disagree in most points you made. But it’s your opinion and I respect that. Not everything is for everyone.
I wouldn’t like to force into watching something you don’t like. But people like it because… those reasons you said you didn’t like it.
Sure, there are anime fans that like anime for other reason, but those ARE the main reason.
I dislike real time action, and realistically proportioned characters. But that’s just me.
I could easily point out many things I dislike about wester style artwork, especially those prominent in the 2000’s-Today, but I’d rather not go into that. Because just as someone said that 20 anime geeks will crawl from under a rock and eat you, the would happen with ANYTHING. western shows like american idol. Music genres, especially metal.
It’s all about people’s taste. You don’t need to understand it, it just happens.
Try to understand why girls like annoying dolls like Bratz, and Barbie.
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May 1st, 2008 at 6:02 am
I couldn’t agree more. not only do most anime plots seem much the same to me (although this may be because i can’t stand to watch more than five minutes of it), but the style is incredibly annoying. yes, i understand there are reasons why the eyes are so big and the hair so funky, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Personally I would much prefer a more realistic animation, although the whole animation thing puts me off a bit. Even when some of my friends draw anime I hate it. However, when I show them more realistic drawings they immediatly shudder and say they don’t like it because it looks real. Which rather defeats the point of drawing it from my perspective
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May 1st, 2008 at 6:06 am
OK, I wasn’t going to post, but I have to defend Death Note. I know who you’re thinking of for the x-character – Ryuk, right? He’s not. Really, really, he’s not. He’s not cutesy, he’s only occasionally funny (and just as often depressing), he provides a link back to the Shinigami world, he provides a sensible means of exposition for Light’s thoughts (since a human confident is obviously impossible), and a significant proportion of the show’s plot would be impossible without him. *Deep breath*
In fact, speaking as someone who has only watched three anime series, I’d say Death Note is pretty much the antithesis of everything Skippy’s written.
Oh, and if hentai scares you? Google “furry hentai”! (Warning: NSFW and NSFHumanity.)
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Michiel reply on May 1st, 2008 6:15 am:
First off, I have never seen or heard of the movie you mentioned, but I am sure the character fits. As I said in the post, I know you people can come up with a much larger list than I can.
Also, I’m not Skippy. Skippy likes anime.
Furry hentai… wow, is there anything furries can’t make even worse?
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SKD reply on May 1st, 2008 8:59 am:
Hey… Don’t go bangin on the furries, they might like it.
;P
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May 1st, 2008 at 6:13 am
Before anyone goes to try and harp on me for this, I am NOT trying to convince anyone to like Anime. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes. Period. That’s the way things are. However:
1. Not gonna mention the eye thing, people already pretty much covered that.
2. The hair actually came about as a way to recognize characters. All anime characters are drawn the exact same way. They’re carbon copies. The only thing that differentiates one character from the next is hair style. If you cover up the hair, you will realize that all anime characters have the exact same face. And in manga, which are usually black and white, the only way to tell characters apart is by their hair because they’re so cookie-cutter.
3. Yes, cute does sell. However, most of the anime we see here in the states is a far cry from what they see in Japan. Take Yu-gi-oh, for instance. Cutesy card-game-based show, right? Wrong. In the manga, Yugi goes around killing people before the card stuff even gets introduced. Just straight up kills them. I wouldn’t necessarily call that cute. It’s been bastardized for the American audiences; stripped down to its bare bones and then given to us. After all, American parents don’t want their children seeing a teenager killing his fellow students for being rude.
4. Someone mentioned it earlier: The word “hentai” means “porn” or “perverted” in the Japanese tongue. That whole phenomenon started because of the censorship laws in Japan. No pubic hair, no clitoris, no head of the penis can be shown on television or in film. So artists started drawing hentai, where they don’t have to draw pubic hair or clitorises, and the tentacle thing came about because a phallically shaped monster doesn’t have a head on its tentacles to censor. Beyond that, it’s fair game to them.
A lot of hentai has actually been censored, but it’s pretty easy to get rid of the digitizing in this technological era, so we don’t ever notice with the stuff that comes over here. If you look in the right places, though, you can find stuff that still has the mosaic over the naughty bits.
And before anyone goes on about how they’ve seen hentai that had the stuff that was supposed to be censored, that stuff was added in afterwards when it came here, or the hentai itself was made strictly for an American audience where censorship laws don’t apply.
There. That’s my two cents. I’m sorry you had a bad experience with anime because there are some really good ones out there, but everyone has stuff they don’t like. Either way, keep writing and entertaining the masses.
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May 1st, 2008 at 11:42 am
Just tell me if you’ve watched Miyazaki films, and I’ll leave you alone. If you haven’t, I encourage you to watch just one. If you don’t like it, cool. Miyazaki films aren’t the normal bedhead real cutesy kind of anime movies. Just… don’t watch The Cat Returns as your first one because then you’ll be wanting to try LSD for a pace of normalcy through it.
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May 1st, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Ok so you hate anime created for small children and pre pubescents, along with pornographic animations. Amazingly enough there exists anime that isn’t cutesy, doesn’t have big eyes, and doesn’t have retardo hair.
Just like America actually has television outside of the abomination that is reality shows, Japan has anime that doesn’t have these things you have an issue with.
Although I have to admit after having to live with an exchange student and deal with her friends for a while, they’re pretty tacky dressers(And the females are extremely inconsiderate and vane creatures…)
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September 2nd, 2010 at 4:34 am
try watching fullmetal alchemist and your opinion will change.You will never say you hate fullmetal alchemist.If you still hate anime after this then you’re a bastard who doesn’t like anything!You can say I ‘m selfish but I’m just protecting the only thing that cheered me when I was down.
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November 16th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Guess what? American animated characters have big eyes too–Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life, Kablam, PowerPuff Girls, Ren and Stimpy, Roger Rabbit, The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Mario Brothers, Garfield and Friends, Fairly Oddparents, Danny Phantom, and the entire arsenal of Disney and Warner Brothers characters. It’s much easier to find anime characters with realistic looking eyes than American characters that have realistic eyes. Usually the eviler or older characters have smaller eyes. I don’t see what everyone’s complaining about.
Anime also has quite a wide variety of genres and combinations of genres. Want fantasy/drama/slice-of-life? Anime’s got it. Adaptation of classic literature with a sci-fi twist? They’ve got it. Action with emphasis on human relationships? Oh yeah. Fantasy dealing with economics and politics? Yep. Not all of it’s cutesy–I don’t even watch cutesy stuff. There’s plenty of mature stuff that doesn’t even have violence, sex, or profanity.
I’m not telling anybody to watch anything. I just want you to know that anime is not as narrowly defined as some people think.
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Michiel reply on December 21st, 2010 10:42 pm:
“I just want you to know that anime is not as narrowly defined as some people think.”
Yes it is.
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May 3rd, 2011 at 4:40 am
I can’t get over the fact that every single face in anime is identical. I knew that without ever having to cover the hair. It sticks out like a sore thumb and distracts me all to hell. Another thing that bugs me is the “little school girl long legs up to her chin with french maid short skirts porn” way most of the female characters are drawn. It’s so reminiscent of kiddie porn that my stomach gets all tied up in a knot and queasy.
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March 10th, 2014 at 8:04 am
Oh come on, Space Battleship Yamato (AKA StarBlazers) ain’t too bad. Neither is Galaxy Express 999 or its spin off Galaxy Railways (STEAM TRAINS IN SPACE!!!)
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March 10th, 2014 at 11:19 am
I forgot. Girls und Panzer. A world where tank battles are done for school pride, like football. All tanks are WWI/WWII vintage tanks. Talk about loving detail! Every nut, bolt, and rivet is drawn where they would be on a real tank. I think that they got recordings of the real tank that they used in the show.
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