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[Tawa]

On an entirely different note... I looked up "jokes" on Google Images today.

Minions. Minions and Indian Facebook memes as far as the eye can see.

[Yoink]

Seeing as this's the first I'm hearing of it (in any appreciable amount), why do you hate anime so much, Yoink?

Well, the art is invariably terrible. Most anime also involves overly excitable characters, poor dialogue/acting and a marked lack of style, but I doubt all anime shares those problems.

The thing I "hate", though, is simply how inexplicably popular it is. Same goes for manga. Where are the redeeming qualities, here? Generally even with artwork I don't like, I can find some redeeming features (or at least gain an understanding of why others like it) by looking at it objectively.
With anime and manga, this is not the case. Why don't these people read any of the thousands of excellent comic series being published all the time? Why do they stick with books that all look the same (and read back-to-front, smh)? It boggles my mind to think that reading manga has seemingly become a more popular, less-niche pastime than reading actual comics... but then, that may be just a perception engendered by the tendency of manga/anime fans to go all out and base their entire lives around their appreciation for the things, as though they're some kind of religion.

I also have an intense dislike of Gravity Falls, Adventure Time/whatever that spinoff of it is called and *shudder* Steven Universe. There are probably a bunch of others I'm forgetting. It's not like I just dislike animation in a Japanese or anything. Heck, I love a lot of old-school Japanese martial arts films and tokusatsu.


@Reelya: that Ergo Proxy screen still looks to be squarely set in the same style as every other anime. Honestly, whenever this discussion comes up and people bombard me with examples of "different-looking anime" in the hopes of proving that I am a silly clueless gaijin basing my entire opinion off a handful of pleb-tier titles, it's all still in the same style I dislike. *shrug*

On an entirely different note... I looked up "jokes" on Google Images today.

Minions. Minions and Indian Facebook memes as far as the eye can see.

Gross. :-/

[Reelya]

With anime and manga, this is not the case. Why don't these people read any of the thousands of excellent comic series being published all the time?

Because that's almost all wall-to-wall superhero bullshit. If you want a different genre then America basically doesn't provide it.

What if I wanted to read a sports comic about regular people competing in teams? Does that even exist in America? You have to read a manga to get that. Or something like Kimi ni Todoke. Western comics are only going to appeal to a certain group because they only have an extremely limited range of genres. People are getting into manga because you can jump around to different genres easily. I've done this on the anime thread but it's relevant here:
https://myanimelist.net/news/52706613
Top 10 mangas in Japan last week

#1 : sports drama/comedy (volleyball)
#2 : supernatural / action
#3 : College life comedy
#4 : Slife of life / drama
#5 : romantic comedy (adult female demographic)
#6 : romantic comedy (teen female demographic)
#7 : sci-fi / ecchi / harem
#8 : comedy / samurai
#9 : supernatural / action
#10:romantic comedy (teen female demographic)

So, this last week only 2 out of the top 10 manga in Japan were typical things that revolve around battles / fighting. Whereas the top 300 comics in America are wall-to-wall fighting and super battles. If you think super battles are lame, why would you read an American comic? You have to delve deep into the underground of America to find anything different, yet in Japan, non-violent comics are mainstream top-sellers.

[Yoink]

WTF are you talking about?! I thought you were from Australia?
When was the last time you stepped foot in a comic store? DC, Marvel and other sanitised, superhero-centric trash does still command a lot of shelf space, but the superhero comic is otherwise definitely out of vogue.
I certainly don't read superhero comics (apart from the occasional, more thought-provoking take on the genre such as Invincible), or well, I didn't when I was collecting comics - that's a vice I haven't really indulged in much for a while.

But I still make occasional forays into comic shops and I can assure you, there is a great deal of comic goodness on offer that doesn't come within sniffing distance of any lame-ass cape-clad superhero creeps.
Check out Image, they're most definitely my favourite publisher and their output involves a wide variety of topics and themes. Admittedly, I can't remember seeing any comics about "regular people competing in teams", but that could well be because the subject doesn't interest me and thus isn't something that would catch my eye... and you also have to admit, that is a rather niche basis for a story.


Edit: oh, you sneakily edited your post. Wow anime plotlines sound as godawful as the art uh, there are plenty of "western" comics that don't revolve around combat/battles.
One of my favourite titles for a while was Drumhellar, which you could certainly describe as "supernatural comedy" or even romance.
I picked up an Image previews magazine the other day (recommended purchase actually, it's a pretty awesome magazine with a good glimpse into the comics world, especially for someone who's been out of the loop for some time as I have) and whilst the series displayed on the cover was something along the lines of a supernatural fantasy beat-'em-up with monsters, comedy and swords (still no superheroes to speak of!), the other series featured in the issue, with several pages of interviews and a preview devoted to it, was more of a romance.

My favourite comic of all time (in fact, my missing a few issues and falling behind in it was the main/whole reason I stopped buying comics regularly - I'm still waiting for the next collected volume of it) is Stray Bullets, which is a rather bleak... I don't know, crime drama? Romance? Black comedy? Coming-of-age story?... Yeah, I'd say the last one possibly fits best.
Definitely not any flashy, action-packed heroic silliness.

...Man, now I'm getting all sad about my recent lack of comics and up-to-dateness.

[Reelya]

Yeah I'm in Australia, but that's irrelevant since Australia has a pittance of a local industry. That's not what people are buying. This is the top 1000 selling western titles for 2016:

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2016.html

Basically there's hardly anything in there that's not combat-related stuff. That's what's different between the manga scene and comics scene. Oh, you can get Walking Dead or Star Wars comics instead of superheroes now. Great improvement there. Much wider range of topics.

Point stands: what the West imports from Japan is largely dictated by western tastes, which is Superhero stuff, but augmented with a bit of Star Wars and Zombie stuff now. What sells well in the West is those 1000 titles shown in the above link. Basically 100% for adolescent males. What sells well in Japan is completely different, it's a 50/50 split between male and female interests. That's why people read it. Manga spans the entire spectrum of genres from romance, horror, action, drama, sci-fi, whereas US style comics are a definite subset of available genres.

Western comics (the popular ones) are stuck in the 15-25 y/o male adolescent mindset. Women in Japan are big manga readers because they produce things women want to read. Whereas in America if they wanted to appeal to women they'd make a female superhero with slightly smaller tits than normal.

[wierd]

I am going to cross-post this in the ameripol thread...

It's official, the world is corrupt, and needs to end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9qv8RSreIM

As far as I can tell, it is a real product.

What is this, I don't even, I could have gone my entire life and never seen this product, and been happier for it.

[Tiruin]

I am going to cross-post this in the ameripol thread...

It's official, the world is corrupt, and needs to end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9qv8RSreIM

As far as I can tell, it is a real product.

What is this, I don't even, I could have gone my entire life and never seen this product, and been happier for it.

Pushing his narcissism up by a lot
Really wonder why the note that he pretty much has that isn't that widely known.

...Also that is just a teddy bear with yellow fuzz on the top and a strapped on tie, and exuberant marketing.
Please do not judge 98%+ of the world by freely produced products :<

[Yoink]

Edit: oh, you sneakily edited your post. Wow anime plotlines sound as godawful as the art uh, there are plenty of "western" comics that don't revolve around combat/battles.
One of my favourite titles for a while was Drumhellar, which you could certainly describe as "supernatural comedy" or even romance.
I picked up an Image previews magazine the other day (recommended purchase actually, it's a pretty awesome magazine with a good glimpse into the comics world, especially for someone who's been out of the loop for some time as I have) and whilst the series displayed on the cover was something along the lines of a supernatural fantasy beat-'em-up with monsters, comedy and swords (still no superheroes to speak of!), the other series featured in the issue, with several pages of interviews and a preview devoted to it, was more of a romance.

My favourite comic of all time (in fact, my missing a few issues and falling behind in it was the main/whole reason I stopped buying comics regularly - I'm still waiting for the next collected volume of it) is Stray Bullets, which is a rather bleak... I don't know, crime drama? Romance? Black comedy? Coming-of-age story?... Yeah, I'd say the last one possibly fits best.
Definitely not any flashy, action-packed heroic silliness.

...Man, now I'm getting all sad about my recent lack of comics and up-to-dateness.

I think most of this "range of topics" you're harping on about is mainly due to the fact that manga is so easy to churn out, and that its fans seem to happily lap up the same tired old story that's been done countless times before, whereas with proper comics -  with the exception of superhero bs - there's a need to always be doing something fresh and different so that the big publishers can justify the amount of expense involved in getting artists, writers, colourists, letterers and a bunch of other people involved, both on the artistic and logistical side of comic-making.

Also... I have to take a moment to laugh, here.
You're honestly arguing that manga is superior to comics? Oh man. XD I mean, at least when you were talking about anime you at least had a shaky leg to stand on, since there isn't really much in the way of Western animation to compare it to (apart from the occasional piece of gold like BoJack or Super jail), but on the book-bound side of things there is an absolute abundance of high quality comics.

There is truly no competition, there, I'm afraid.


Edit: and if you're really arguing that any western comic that doesn't involve superheroes doesn't count because "no-one buys it", well, I ask again, when did you last set foot in a comic store?
Why do they devote so many packed shelves to more superhero-adverse studios like Image and Darkhorse and whatever the others are called (forgive me, I have been kind of out of the loop for a while) if there isn't a big market for their stuff?
Hell, half the comic stores I go to don't even bother with a manga section, or if they do it'll amount to a couple of lonely racks in a corner, safely sequestered from the proper comics. Minotaur is an obvious exception, but despite the distasteful prominence of weeb trash there it's still a pretty great store.

[wierd]

The notion that corporate america considers this a good thing to market, astounds me.

The flagrant devotion to mammon over reason... I just dont even.


I put it about on par with making a plushy version of Duterte, that makes light of his abuses of power, encouraging people to "own a piece of history".
Perhaps a nazi themed playmobile.

[Reelya]

Also... I have to take a moment to laugh, here.
You're honestly arguing that manga is superior to comics? Oh man. XD I mean, at least when you were talking about anime you at least had a shaky leg to stand on, since there isn't really much in the way of Western animation to compare it to (apart from the occasional piece of gold like BoJack or Super jail), but on the book-bound side of things there is an absolute abundance of high quality comics.

Glossy art is one thing. Range of topics and emotions is another. For example, a manga like Yokohama Kadaisho Kikou would never get published in the West. Completely different to anything else and what they would publish.

Or Mushishi. Mushishi isn't a tired old story like anything else. You just don't care enough to even check out what's out there.

[wierd]

Mushishi is all over the place though.

There's also some very interesting series that were made that are "VERY japanese", and totally NOT the normal fare, like Mononoke. A manga version was also released, according to wikipedia.

[Tiruin]

The notion that corporate america considers this a good thing to market, astounds me.

The flagrant devotion to mammon over reason... I just dont even.


I put it about on par with making a plushy version of Duterte, that makes light of his abuses of power, encouraging people to "own a piece of history".
Perhaps a nazi themed playmobile.

I love you wierd
...But...maybe corporate america would only send all that to the ones who want to buy it o_O doesn't seem like its promoting anything else than an implied idea, although where the profits go seem to be just back to the company.

Mushishi is all over the place though.

There's also some very interesting series that were made that are "VERY japanese", and totally NOT the normal fare, like Mononoke. A manga version was also released, according to wikipedia.

I'll never know what happened to PRINCESS MONONOKE and the entire awesome world Miyazaki made. That link cued it in memory.

[Yoink]

Holy crap, that Trumpy Bear thing is amazing .

Sorry, we cannot accept returns of intentionally damaged bears.

Oh man, is tormenting Trumpy Bear going to become the modern-day version of burning the flag?? Hahaha.

@Reelya: I get the feeling you haven't cared enough to check out the examples I gave of western comics providing a "range of topics and emotions" either, so I guess we're square.
In fact it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall, here - you aren't exactly rebutting my points at all, just repeating your own. *shrug* Probably enough of a derail in here, anyway. Maybe I should revive my old comics thread.

[Reelya]

Let me suggest some google searchs to see what good manga artwork is considered to be.

Google "kingdom manga".
Google "Vinland Saga manga"
Google "Vagabond manga"

That's the standard in Japan for action series, and I just picked these more or less at random, so they'd be far from the best out there.

NOTE: But you didn't name any series that you suggest I check out. How can I compare if you don't name anything?

"there is an absolute abundance of high quality comics".

That's just an empty assertion without any examples given.

[overseer05-15]

Wait I just got back after a few hours and something about Yoink's arguement really confuses me...
Where the hell did you find a comic shop? The only place near me that sells comics is a book store, and they only have about half a shelf on superhero trash. I didn't even know devoted comic book shops still existed.