Anime Popularity

[Murlin]

As people might have guessed from my Avatars I'm a huge fan of Anime, and I think you're knowledge of as well as view on drawn animations are still a bit old-fashioned:
Drawn animation's aren't necessarily children's entertainment, I've seen drawn animations of more mature subjects like concentration camps in world war II, would you say it is disturbing that these were drawn out in the same fashion shows like Spongebob or mickey mouse were drawn out?
Cartoon's are just animations whose target audience is mainly composed of younger children, Anime does not in general target one demographic group, it most often depends on the Anime itself. Sadly indeed there is a vast majority of people who watch soulless fan-service/sex Anime that kill of any form of entertainment, but there's also a lot of live-action porn out there, personally I prefer to watch Anime that actually has a good story, action, and some good drawing to offer and not just panty shots or people f*cking each other.
The reason that Europeans or United States Citizens don't make porn or mature shows in cartoon style is mainly because the belief still is that simple animation is for kids and live-action for adults, but the question is if it will always stay that way.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

Well its kinda the spirit of this times. I personally Just Cant like Anime (with very very few exceptions, eg Series i watched as a kid like Thundercats, Transformers etc And yes the so much loved/hated Death Note. The only New Anime Series i Could watch without the spontanous urge to vomit. I personally cant stand that flashy stroboscobic idiotic Guy of pure Awesomeness fights bad guy of awesomeness for 20 minutes (animated with 5 pictures , 4 different mouths the famous " ^^ " and a lot of flashlights) kinda thing the popular series are about. Dumb and Boring.
There are for sure some more clever made adult series ( my boss told me something like, The fewer episodes the bigger the chance for quality, Which kinda makes sense to me)
But i just cant stand it.

 

[Nihilism_Is_Bliss]

hmm, i don't see anime as being cartoony. and i see the fact we barely get any anime on tv as a good thing, all we get oherwise is american-ified shit.
no matter where you are, 90% of people who will watch anime seriously will watch internet fansubs cos otherwise...well, it sucks.

and in response to your question, i don't really know why i love anime, i guess i always have since i was a kid, but i dunno...there are many more watchable anime series than shows we see on tv i watch tons of anime series, and my tv watching solely consists of the occasional scrubs episode

 

[Cherry Cola]

It's rather obvious, there's common ground.

You play videogames to fulfill fantasies real life won't allow. You watch anime to vicariously live fantasy worlds and scenarios real life won't allow.

I find it kind of obvious that there would be overlap.

No, you DON'T play videogames to fulfill fantasies real life won't allow. You play videogames because they are a form of entertainment, like movies or music. You watch Anime because it has a way of telling stories and action that common movies don't do. It has nothing to do with watching something because real life won't allow it.

 

[Syntax Error]

I just think these forums should have an anime subforum.

I'm sure it'd get plenty of attention.

There's already an anime group. Isn't that enough?

 

[Doktor Merkwurdigliebe]

I LOOOOVE Hellsing OVA.
But generally I'm rather neutral towards it, what I don't like is:
1)That it's omnipresent, you won't find a modern cartoon character that is not a horribly disfigured mutant, which seems quite normal for the standards in anime/manga.
2)Its' fans(not all of course, but the most retarded seem to be the most...active on the internet). This is the only true reason to hate japanese animation. Every single anime fanclub ever I have ever seen usually consisted of Worlds Most Unwanted with so many different kinds of issues, that I could write a book about it.

 

[Doug]

Now, I'm not saying anime is bad, but I just find it strange why almost every gamer I know loves anime when frankly, I find it kind of disturbing. At this point I would like to point out that I am not talking about children's cartoons such as Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, nor am I talking about creepy japanese porn, I'm talking about M-rated stuff.

Same here - about the only piece of 'anime' I've seen that hasn't featured 4 year olds with giantitic breasts has been that "Spirited Away", which is sort of the Japanese version of Alice in wonder land in a few ways, although its its own story and tells a tale well - alittle bit to far on the childrens story side of things to be an instant recommend, but its something worth seeing at least once.

Is the main character a little girl whose parents get turned into pigs? Coz I totally remember something like that when I was like 8.

Yup, thats the one - and given it was out in 2001, its the right year for you according to your profile date... ya young embro (*grumble, grumble, old man muttering*). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_Away

 

[Kollega]

Lately as I have been browsing the Escapist I've noticed an enormous amount of anime threads

Now, I'm not saying anime is bad, but I just find it strange why almost every gamer I know loves anime when frankly, I find it kind of disturbing.

Well,i don't like anime at all.

Think of it this way: Your watching an episode of Spongebob Squarepants and Spongebob and a customer are in a heated argument at the local Krusty Krab when all of a sudden Spongebob pulls out a rather large revolver and blows the customer's head to peices.

Come to think of it,this would be awesome.

In seriousness,Tom & Jerry is also rather violent cartoon. So are Looney Tunes. So is every single thing they show on Adult Swim. Yes,ludicrous cartoon violence can be very disturbing,but it also can be rather hilarious.

Personaly,i find humans being exploded in a shower of gibs and blood much more acceptable than when a canary throws a cat under an incoming train. It's probably because animals are easier to sympathize with.

 

[Terramax]

Now, I'm not saying anime is bad, but I just find it strange why almost every gamer I know loves anime when frankly, I find it kind of disturbing.

You're not the only one. I loved anime when I found it during the late 90's, back when it was clever and innovative. Then pokemon/ digimon and the internet destroyed it. It became too popular, so whilst before only the good animes treakled it to the west, the floodgate opened allowing all the crap anime to pour in.

And then there's the anime porn you could find on the net. Yes, many animes were pornographic before, but the net just threw it sky high.

Animes now have no decent stories or ideas. Even the creators of Evangelion are saying how banel the industry has become.

Is the main character a little girl whose parents get turned into pigs? Coz I totally remember something like that when I was like 8.

Yes... wait, you must only be 13 or so, right? That was only out about 5 years back.

 

[DuplicateValue]

hmm, i don't see anime as being cartoony. and i see the fact we barely get any anime on tv as a good thing, all we get oherwise is american-ified shit.

I agree.

The only anime on tv where I live is Naruto on Jetix, and Cowboy Bebop which is shown at 4am(!) on Showcase.

 

[A random person]

TV Tropes wants a word with the OP [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnimationAgeGhetto].

Actually, I always saw this forum as rather harsh on anime. The recent anime thread surge is just an odd occurrence.
As for why I like anime, I like some of the tropes, the art style, and that it's generally where you find story-based animation with an ongoing plot (not that western animation can't, just look at the TV Tropes link). I've also developed a fondness for its internet fandom; a lot of the interesting things I find online tend to involve anime somehow.

Anime is not a genre like comedy or horror. It is a medium, like film or videogames. Think of it that way and maybe you'll get past the 'creepy feeling' you get.

Thank you for not making the common mistake of calling it a genre.

 

[BaldursBananaSoap]

So I guess you don't watch Family Guy or South Park? Cartoons kill each other all the time.

 

[MrTub]

I've actually started watching 'Death note' cause people recommended it in this thread, and I find it quite good but a bit odd but thanks to people that recommended it!

 

[Hohenheim]

I advise everyone to watch Full Metal Alchemist. The story is breathtaking.

 

[Del-Toro]

I like it because despite everything it's rarely as asinine as western television, case in point: any television show marketing to teens and tweens, also, Gray's Anatomy, I fucking hate the show. I've hated anime before too, but even with the dubbing and occasional flamboyantcy(flamboyant does NOT mean gay, look it up) it still makes up for it having some characters I can sympathise with or are at least 3 dimensional;the shy, innocent little orphan girl with a guilt complex will, at one point, have her background fleshed out. Some plots that are reasonably well though out even dreadful premises are made to work by those crazy Japs, I will give them that much (then again they have wasted great premises, I'm looking at you Shattered Angels). Oh, and mecha, I'm not particularly picky about the size, the comparatively small little things of AppleSeed were no less awesome the the gargantuans of Gundam.


I'm such a nerd....

 

[Caliostro]

No, you DON'T play videogames to fulfill fantasies real life won't allow. You play videogames because they are a form of entertainment, like movies or music. You watch Anime because it has a way of telling stories and action that common movies don't do. It has nothing to do with watching something because real life won't allow it.

Ok.

Why do you play a videogame about shooting people or driving a car at 100 mph down oncoming traffic instead of doing it in real life? What was the last game you saw and loved that perfectly replicated real life down to every detail?

Check-mate.

 

[Cherry Cola]

No, you DON'T play videogames to fulfill fantasies real life won't allow. You play videogames because they are a form of entertainment, like movies or music. You watch Anime because it has a way of telling stories and action that common movies don't do. It has nothing to do with watching something because real life won't allow it.

Ok.

Why do you play a videogame about shooting people or driving a car at 100 mph down oncoming traffic instead of doing it in real life? What was the last game you saw and loved that perfectly replicated real life down to every detail?

Check-mate.

I play videogames because it's fun. Videogames are NOTHING like real life except the concept of shooting people, in videogames you're just pressing buttons. It's a blend of graphics, gameplay and story that creates an immersion set to distract you from that fact, it's not a simulation for killing people.

If you say "I want to shoot people, but I can't so instead I'll do it in a videogame because that will satisfy my urge to kill" then you probably have a mental condition.

It's fun to shoot people IN A VIDEO GAME, it's fun to drive 100 mph IN A VIDEO GAME. They are not things I would consider fun in real life. Videogames makes things like shooting people fun through its simplicity.

We all play videogames because they are fun. If I play a shooter with really crappy controls, I would hate that game, even if it would be the most realistic game ever made. If you say that you play videogames to fulfill fantasies real life won't allow, then you're basically saying that you would play any kind of game, no matter how shitty it was in gameplay, as long as it had good graphics and guns.

We play games because they are fun. A game can be fun without fulfilling fantasies real life won't allow, but a game that fulfills your fantasies can still be bad. Hence, the description of playing games because they fulfill fantasies is faulty.

 

[Dooly95]

Just on the people screaming bloody murder to anime being called cartoons - guys, anime is a cartoon. It's short for animation; the Japanese have just coined it to mean different meanings to what cartoons mean here.

The problem is that 'cartoon' has specific connotations that, when applied to anime, make it seem like something it's not.

Also, there are a lot of "anime" that would fall under what we'd classify as cartoons, so don't get all riled up whenever people equate anime = cartoons = little kids.

It's a factually incorrect equation.

So you go off trying to tell every single person otherwise to what they believe. Good luck with that, by the way. While you're at it, go on and tell people that your religion (or lack of one) is the only one that's right.

You can all list anime that won't fall under the connotations of cartoons, but I'm just trying to point out that there are two sides of a coin.

 

[Seldon2639]

It's not "special", and I think that the "nerdy okatu" stereotype is something that alienates gamers from society, and from other gamers. I enjoy both video games and anime, as well as film, television, books, and music. The form of the medium isn't as important as the content.

There's great anime (Full Metal Panic; that's Panic), and there's terrible anime (Gundam Wing). There's great television (The West Wing) and terrible television (My Mother The Car). I think that there is a tendency to see people who like anime as being obsessive, screaming, inane, twits. I think there's a tendency to apply to all of anime the schema we learned from the first few animes we were exposed to as kids: simple, low-production quality, screaming sky, terrible voice acting.

Plenty of people see "anime" as one entire genre, and the problem is that it isn't. Of course, that problem isn't mitigated by the howling hordes of Narutards out there, or the shrieking girls at any convention, or the arguments about whether the name actually is "Arucard".

By the way, it's not "Arucard":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VjSfnhCNm8

 

[Caliostro]

I play videogames because it's fun. Videogames are NOTHING like real life except the concept of shooting people, in videogames you're just pressing buttons. It's a blend of graphics, gameplay and story that creates an immersion set to distract you from that fact, it's not a simulation for killing people.

If you say "I want to shoot people, but I can't so instead I'll do it in a videogame because that will satisfy my urge to kill" then you probably have a mental condition.

It's fun to shoot people IN A VIDEO GAME, it's fun to drive 100 mph IN A VIDEO GAME. They are not things I would consider fun in real life. Videogames makes things like shooting people fun through its simplicity.

We all play videogames because they are fun. If I play a shooter with really crappy controls, I would hate that game, even if it would be the most realistic game ever made. If you say that you play videogames to fulfill fantasies real life won't allow, then you're basically saying that you would play any kind of game, no matter how shitty it was in gameplay, as long as it had good graphics and guns.

We play games because they are fun. A game can be fun without fulfilling fantasies real life won't allow, but a game that fulfills your fantasies can still be bad. Hence, the description of playing games because they fulfill fantasies is faulty.

I love how you're just proving me right, but you're too thick to get it.

"We wanna do stuff! But we don't like the consequences it has in real life! But it's fun in game because it doesn't have those consequences!", "I like doing these things in game, but not in real life!", "I'm living experiences vicariously through a game that I otherwise wouldn't in real life!".

Do me a favor and facepalm for me too ok?