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[Africa]

Anime makes me want to poke my eyes out.

Except for Spirited Away, that was an excellent movie. Of course it lacked all the main things that I hate about anime.

The Boondocks is fairly anime-influenced, but it's also pretty awesome. In terms of its look, that is.

[Jay]

I can't say I'm a fan.

Every single one I've ever seen set a specific age group as their target.
Okay, sure.  So why in hell is it so impossibly childish?
Cater to the actual group you're targeting, damn it.

[Footkerchief]

Anyway. Just want to lend my voice to the crowd. Anime has good and bad stuff, like everything else. Most of it will be bad. A lot of it will be really bad. Same as with every other media.
And this is from somebody who isn't into Anime (or cartoons in general for that matter) at all.

See, I think it's a cop to just say "hey, there's crappy anime like all media" and just leave it at that.  The essence of anime is low production values, that's how it began and that's how its industry has always thought about it.  The high-quality productions are the exception to the rule, and it does say a lot that Dai wrote scripts for almost all of those exceptions.  That's what he's complaining about, that the industry is increasingly focused on a mass-production, low-investment strategy of taking whatever series scored big last season, mix around a few character templates and easy scripts, and have a Chinese studio crank out five seasons worth of episodes in six months and call it a day.

I think it's more the widespread emphasis on pedophilia and the near-ubiquitous depicition of women as sex objects.

[Levi]

I think it's more the widespread emphasis on pedophilia

This in particular sometimes really bothers me about anime.  If anime is representative of the Japanese I'd be terrified to be a child in Japan.

[FuzzyZergling]

I'd say it's really just a cultural difference.

[Mindmaker]

I think it's more the widespread emphasis on pedophilia

This in particular sometimes really bothers me about anime.  If anime is representative of the Japanese I'd be terrified to be a child in Japan.

That's a controversial topic.
Some say that anime/manga culture (especially lolicon/shotacon) encourages pedophilia, others say it has the opposite effect.
It's gotten quite political already.

I doubt it's worse than in our western world.
Might look at some statistics later.

[Grakelin]

Eh, you're not alone. I never got anime or mangas either, and a lot of my friends are really into them. One key aspect of my indifference to them is that in real life you can tell two people apart without looking at their outlandish hairstyle.

Yeah, this is a big problem with Eastern animation. It's like all their characters look the same.

Not like Western classics like Betty & Veronica, Maggie & Lisa, or Jane & Judy Jetson, who have all kinds of differences besides hairstyle.

[Flying Dice]

Honestly the largest problem I have with anime is the same I have with games and movie; you have to wade through a pile of poorly-produced, poorly acted garbage to find the good stuff. Which is also why I pretty much stopped watching anime and turned to manga, as that draws quality only from the artist(s) and writer, without the need for voice actors who fit the roles and can give a good performance, and without the budget restrictions that lead to things like massive overuse of stock footage.

As for the whole thing with lolicon/shotacon, part of that is attributable to cultural differences, in that each culture has different taboos, and frankly, I don't think that judging the entire medium on the basis of the most perverse or poorly produced examples of it is any more justifiable than judging cinema by commenting on 80's porn or Vin Diesel films. (And if you really look at it, there is at least as much a subculture of pedophilia in the West, although it isn't nearly as open. As Mindmaker posted, it is questionable if having it more out in the open encourages or discourages it. Also, 'widespread'? This is the problem with trying to pass judgement on anything without understanding it. I've watched quite a few series and read more, and I have only seen one non-joking reference to pedophilia, and it turned out to be a subversion [The scene late in the Gantz manga where the middle-aged man claims that he helped Tae because he was a lolicon, but later admits that it was because she resembled his dead daughter]. Perhaps the problem is that I tend to avoid the poorly-produced rubbish...)

 If you don't like anime, fine, I'm not about to bug you to try to get you to like it any more than I'd try to get my grandmother to play CoD. However, also, if you refuse to watch anime or read manga, you aren't really capable of evaluating it, for the same reason that I'm not the right person to ask about Country-Western music; it isn't in my realm of interest, I have little or no knowledge of it, and I tend to ignore it when people don't try to push it in my face. Posting a thread about how you don't like something because of reasons a, b, and c, and then going on to say that you've barely been exposed to it is in the vein of complaining about shows you don't watch; if you really don't want to be bugged about it, don't post saying that you don't like/"get" it, and don't want to, as that just invites a circular debate that has zero net gain, and will likely result in, for obvious reasons, people trying to convince you that you're wrong for one reason or another.

[SalmonGod]

I'm pretty sure the Japanese have different perspectives on sexuality in general than the western world.  Stuff that may appear criminal to us may only be questionable to them.  This is a cultural issue where trying to apply absolutes to a vastly different context is of course going to result in demonization.  Also keep in mind that they've been a very rapidly changing culture for some time, of which radical testing of boundaries by artists is a common symptom.

Considering how oustandingly well they conduct themselves in most other respects that are not so debatable, I don't think it's fair to hammer this point too harshly.

[Vector]

Yeah, but on the other hand, they basically have a specialized word in their vocabulary for men who sexually attack women on trains.

Unfortunately, I really have a hard time saying "different culture!  Different culture, bros!" on that one.

[Bohandas]

(most)Anime really just bores me. Especially the ones with REALLY poor animating. You know, still scene with mouth randomly moving to represent talking, that kind of bad.

To be fair, some of that is due to bad voice acting in dubbed English versions.

[SalmonGod]

I'm aware that there's a recognized fetish for sort of anonymous train fondling, and see no reason to demonize a fetish so long as it's not forced on the unwilling.  I'm going to assume that the word was created via recognition of that fetish.  If there is a widespread problem of real abuse on trains, then that's a different issue.  They have specialized words for all kinds of bizarre fetishes, some of which aren't even realistic... so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one until given reason not to.

[Interus]

(most)Anime really just bores me. Especially the ones with REALLY poor animating. You know, still scene with mouth randomly moving to represent talking, that kind of bad.

To be fair, some of that is due to bad voice acting in dubbed English versions.

I'm reminded of an anime I watched recently, that I thought was pretty good actually.  But there was one scene where sometimes a character's entire jaw would move,and other times, only his mouth would.  This was mostly extremely noticeable because he had a little chinbeard thing, and his mouth would partially cover the top of it at times.  Though the fact that his jawline wouldn't move at all when his full face was drawn, but would when he was in profile didn't help much.

[Vector]

If there is a widespread problem of real abuse on trains, then that's a different issue.

Yes.  As far as I know, anyway, but yes, Japan is (in my humble opinion) not a safe place to be a woman for that reason and many others.

[Max White]

Guess I will just leave this here.

NOT HELPING MAX!