Poll: How many on the Escapist dislike anime?

[sketch_zeppelin]

I vote dislike...which pains me. I actually love Anime as consept. i grew up with anime like Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D. Anime that had mabey a couple of hours at most to tell its story. So your given fairly tight stories and lots of really good action.

These days most animes are series and the japaness have a bad habit of recycling stories and packing in tons of filler and unnescary explination. And people let them get away with it because they remeber to stick one "bad ass" fight scene in every 5 or so episodes. It doesn't impress me so i've shy'd away from anime.

I'm well aware that there is some genuinly good anime out there (bebop, beaserk, afro samuria, most of studio Gibli's work) but 99% of it is shit.

 

[maninahat]

I won't go so far as to say I dislike it; there are anime shows I do like, but for everyone I do, there are dozens more generic ones.

What annoys me the most (apart from the often wasted potential in many shows) is how anime fans will always try and maintain anime is mature and for adults, despite it often being very puerile when it comes to depicting violence, sex etc. It is clearly all aimed at teenagers who just think they are mature - the same teenagers who somehow think Sucker Punch is deep.

Naruto is for children. Get over it.

 

[Kiyotaki]

I suppose that anime is like a video game, some are good little are REALLY good and most are bad.

 

[RatRace123]

I don't really dislike it, but I don't particularly like it either. Just never found an anime that's appealed to me.

 

[VARIABLE]

I was into Escaflowne and Tank Police back in the day. Death Note is pretty decent too. But for the most part anime has a cultural barrier I can get past. The behavior and logic of anime characters don't make sense to me and neither do most of the anime worlds they inhabit (Spirited Away is a prime example). Violence and nudity in a cartoon isn't really enough to get me to watch a particular series. I need story and characters, and because of the cultural divide, I steer clear of most of it.

 

[seanwtfgamer]

So you don't like it then.

 

[Double A]

I saw Gurren Lagann, FMA (both), and Hetalia all the way through and loved them. I also watched the Funimation dub of One Piece until I got bored. However, I found FLCL to be not my taste.

It depends on the show, just like with western animation. Anime doesn't seem to be just one genre.

 

[Flac00]

I like it but haven't watched much of it.

I have watched HSOTD and Gurren Lagann and liked both. I intend to watch Trigun next as Cowboy Bebop wasn't great for the first 2-3 episodes.

This probably shows my lack of knowledge on anime: I have absolutely no idea what you just said.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Briefly: "No. I really don't like anime in general."

I could rant endlessly about the inumerable amounts of garbage I've been exposed to, but it wouldn't amount to much for discussion.

In short: Like most forms of fiction, it has the potential for greatness, yet is clogged to the seams with mediocre/marketable dog shit stirred into a giant cliche pot. It has popular, well-received staples, overhyped pretentious "classics", and a load of mediocre mass-market garbage.

Most of my exposure comes indirectly; osmosis from what my friends watch/like, and they already know full-well what I don't like. So they make a habit of "torturing" me with it. (though it is fun to riff on; currently, late-night on the weekends, "Mimes vs Furries", aka "Kekkashi" or such comes on and it is just GOD-AWFUL).

Among my friends, the most popular anime are what I can only describe as "magic karate fight" shows. The ones in which the premise is "To become the strongest there is" usually with the undertones of that bullshit "Evolution dictates it". Nevermind that most of those shows feature these uselessly long monologues where one magic warrior talks non-stop to another magic warrior about how they're going to beat/kill them.

If I want to watch a show where someone yammers on for 10-20 minutes about what they're going to do to someone/something and how they're going to do it, I'll just watch fucking C-SPAN.

 

[New Frontiersman]

You should have put a neutral option, I can't say I like or dislike the media as a whole, just as I can't say I like or dislike music, movies, or video games as a whole. Just like any other media, there are some examples that interest me and some that don't fit my tastes.

 

[a ginger491]

It's not that I don't like anime it's that the majority of it that I know of is total crap.
A few have been quite enjoyable for me though, including Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Akira,Death Note, and Full metal Alchemist

 

[Chemical Alia]

Huzzah for hating an entire form of media!

They're just cartoons. It's hardly a separate medium from any other style of animation. Not everybody has to enjoy or appreciate cartoons. If you want to assign some special extra value or significance to them, good for you, but don't expect everyone to.

Aaaaand that's the exact argument they use against gaming. "It's just a game."

I don't know what argument you're talking about, but games are "just games." Video games aren't for everybody, and if they're not your thing, you can pursue other interests for entertainment.

 

[nothingspringstomind]

I fell in love from an early age.

My first foray was Robotech (I know, i know, technically just Macross, but butchered.) I remember seeing a trailer for it on a little known cartoon channel in the U.K.

The trailer had; Fighter jets that turned into robots, massive space battles, a futuristic aircraft carrier that turned into a robot, a man dying on screen and a woman grieving him on screen and massive alien blokes with cybernetics all over their faces.

A world away from all the saturday morning "wholesome" tripe i'd seen up until that point. (Except for the Batman animated show, that was epic.)

 

[Zyxzy]

That's like asking if I like "movies" or "books. There are some I do like(still need to see Lain...) and others I don't(bah, Naruto).

 

[Alcamonic]

I have nothing against anime.
Too me it's just another form of series or movies, sure a lot of them I probably don't like, but that goes for all forms of medium.

 

[SilentCom]

I'm not really a fan of anime although there are some shows that I like. You probably need an in between answer in the poll.

 

[Rawker]

I like some anime, but I can see why some people like it. There are a lot of stereotypes about it that they kind of play into, but I think it's if done right it can be awesome.

 

[Gennadios]

I'm not altogether against Animu, but there's alot more shit floating around that bowl than fans are willing to admit, probably because they lack standards.

 

[Thistlehart]

Voted Like. Though there are several tropes that grate on my nerves (named attacks, transformation sequences, fight audiences with too much to say, etc.) I thoroughly enjoy most shows. My current favorite is Baccano followed closely by Utaware Rumono.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I am a big fan of animation techniques. I am mostly indifferent to the art medium, most of it does not interest me. A few shows and OVAs, sure I like, but the grand majority put me off with bad voice acting (both English and Japanese), animation ranging from average to abysmal, an certain techniques like Face Faults or flashing beam backgrounds that annoy me.