I do not like the animes.
I do not like them, bay12games.
I know it's from a foreign language but this is the strangest pronounciation of "animes" I've ever seen.
What, like, ann-ih-mays? Seems true to the original french.
Anyway, howzabout hating anime?
Other than the tropes, a disproportionately large amount of anime that I've seen any significant amount of is filled with things that are just downright strange and offputting. ...
I really can't watch anime that doesn't try to be more or less "normal". Something like Gundam Wing, for lack of a better example. The wacky expressions and freaky supernatural stuff aren't getting in the way of watching it for me.
This. For me it tends to be more thematic than visual, I suppose. The biggest thing that puts me off is "people not old enough to drink have super powers and emotional issues", which I understand is called "Shonen". Can't stand Naruto, Bleach, Dragonball Z, or most shows where someone gets blasted twelve feet into the ground and doesn't die. It seems you like you can't have an anime about young romance without everyone being super demon witch kawaii catgirls or something. I know there's robust counterexamples but it still covers a lot of anime and manga that is 'visible' in the public consciousness, doubly so to someone not already in the genre. It also bugs me when the show centers around actual fights between characters, which seem to be governed by arbitrary "power levels", whether implied or overt. It's just tedious to watch the heroes beat people up until some fruity, flamboyant villain shows and says "YOU CANNOT BEAT ME I HAVE MORE POWER LEVELS". I like to think it's a korean MMORPG, the villain bought all his powers in the cash shop but the heroes have to grind experience points until they're powerful enough to beat him/her/it. Pretty much all the anime I've liked has avoided these tropes in some way or another.
Cowboy Bebop: First anime I actually liked. People fight with guns, there's cool space ships (I do love me some space ship porn), there's lots of chicanery between characters, and they're...
humble, I guess. It's more interesting to watch characters who are trying to afford food and fuel than FIGHTING FOR THE ULTIMATE JUSTICE WITH MY COLORFUL GLOWING FISTS HWAAAHHHH! Also most people where clothes that could conceivably be practical. There's one girl in the main cast who doesn't but it actually fits her character, you don't get weird situations like "Why are all these pervy men staring at me? I just an innocent girl in a tiny thong on the tokyo sidewalk!" Another note: In this series, there are fights with normal, non-superpowered fisticuffs. This pleases me.
Gundam 0079: Has absurd giant toy robots, but other than that the character personalities seem more feasible than some anime. Nobody has super powers, except later in the series when they are actually reacting to super powers like "Oh my god, I have superpowers" and then the series has the common sense to end once that business is out in the open. Another series where fisticuffs occur. It seems to be an identifying factor for "Anime which has fighting and is still down-to-earth." Not much in the way of absurd fashion.
...what? I have a drivers license with that hair. At least it isn't blue or something. Nothing like these jive turkeys:
(Seriously, they are all scene girls, especially the men.)
Of note, Gundam Wing had too much silly anime-ness and super powers for me to stand. And there was a horse gundam, I liked how the older ones at least tried to pretend that their giant plastic robots were practical tools of war and not vessels for angst-driven superpowers or something. I also couldn't bring myself to get all the way through Macross, too much whiny school children crushing on eachother, ugh. Not going to write off Macross though; perhaps I just haven't gotten to the good part.
Geass: Similar story. Watching adult swim, Bleach is on, angsty teenagers are arguing about whose dragon penis is MORE POWERFUL and smashing rock formations with their perfectly smooth, glistening skin. And they have stupid hats. And they're so damn serious and
angsty and blugh. Switch to adult swim HD because it's in eastern time, Geass is on. Men in suits are trying to hurt each other with knives. One of them gets stabbed and bleeds because he doesn't have any superpowers. Watched the rest of the episode and there was a plot too, go figure.
Gurren Lagann: Okay, this is kind of a 180. There's quite a decent bit of weird anime tropes at work here, but absolutely nothing is taken seriously. Well, aside from the stupid princess. But anyhow the characters seem to get along in their adventure and their fights by the sheer growing power of their chutzpah and that makes them interesting. I'm searching for better words to say about what separates this show from silly mecha shows with super powers, because it's silly, there's mecha, and they're plainly driven by some innate, teenager-emotion-driven super powers. I'm going to tack "self awareness" up as the reason and let someone else explain it more eloquently.
Pumpkin scissors: Like the mundane aesthetic here. There's character interactions, normal guns, people have problems like "not enough food". Villain appears to be a powerful mary sue but rarely makes an appearance. Superpowers are present, like gundam, but generally worthy of awe that they exist at all and not in a constant penis contest of power levels. Probably the most obscure of all the anime I've watched by a longshot. Side note: With all this penis rhetoric, I've convinced myself that Goku is compensating for something. Still will not make DBZ interesting enough to watch an entire episode.
Trigun: Some more super power crap and character absurdity and power levels are present in this one, but I still liked it. Would have been awful if the show was about fighting, but it's not (RE: Main character does not like fighting). When Vash loses a fight because he's a coward, it's because he ran away from bullets, not because he didn't have enough angst to make his penis dragon more powerful or something. I guess what it comes down to is the plots are usually very much driven by character interaction. Still had to look past some weird things to really enjoy it, but it still meets the criteria of "There are fisticuffs and the plot isn't advanced by characters gaining power levels". While there's lots of absurd things that happen, the show still has (somewhat) mundane aesthetic. Once again, searching for some better words here. Still, might not have enjoyed this if I hadn't watched some other anime first and gotten a little more able to look past some of the sillier tropes.
So yeah. There's my pointless internet rant.
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Topic: No, I don't like anime... leave me alone. NEW AND IMPROVED! (Read 40494 times)