Why don't people like anime?

[Drakmeire]

I used to hate anime, but that's only because all I saw of it was 4kids' horrible butcherings of great shows.my friend showed me Gantz and I was hooked.
oh and if you don't give anime a shot PATTY WILL MURDER YOUR GIRAFFE!!!!!!
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also, you really can't hate ALL anime, that's like saying "Movies suck" or "every book ever written is awful" you can't hate an entire medium.

 

[Nouw]

I have heard this a lot on forums and irl, but I find it hard to understand. I can see older adults not liking it because they think its a kids' cartoon, but I know teenagers who understand the subject matter and still don't like anime. Disregarding hentai, what are your reasons for not liking anime?

Oversized swords, not to mention when they're covered in bandages.... what the fuck?

huge spiky hair, people don't look like that in real life nor will they ever.

Facial expressions

Loads of cliche crap, like "with enough will power to fight for my friends and home I can defeat someone who was trained, is a veteran at what he does and knows what he's doing even though I'm straight from the most safest place ever", c'mon, doesn't happen in real life and it isn't a good message to send to kids, just like Cinderella (i.e. don't do anything, if your being oppressed just take it and a fairy god mother will come in and make everything all right).

Its a cartoon.....

Shitty character dialogue, the characters always seem pretty cut & paste along with the dialogue.

I smell generalization, and people are allowed to be unrealistic but I seem where you're coming from.

 

[Drakmeire]

I have heard this a lot on forums and irl, but I find it hard to understand. I can see older adults not liking it because they think its a kids' cartoon, but I know teenagers who understand the subject matter and still don't like anime. Disregarding hentai, what are your reasons for not liking anime?

Oversized swords, not to mention when they're covered in bandages.... what the fuck?

huge spiky hair, people don't look like that in real life nor will they ever.

Facial expressions

Loads of cliche crap, like "with enough will power to fight for my friends and home I can defeat someone who was trained, is a veteran at what he does and knows what he's doing even though I'm straight from the most safest place ever", c'mon, doesn't happen in real life and it isn't a good message to send to kids, just like Cinderella (i.e. don't do anything, if your being oppressed just take it and a fairy god mother will come in and make everything all right).

Its a cartoon.....

Shitty character dialogue, the characters always seem pretty cut & paste along with the dialogue.

giant swords aren't realistic?
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WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW!??!?!!?
and I'm under the impression that you have only watched dubbed 4kids anime, which has been heavily altered from the source material.
As a jumping off point, I suggest Fullmetal Alchemist which focuses on a fairly normal main character who has powers but had to suffer greatly to get them. It's a very mature and heartwarming tale at times.

 

[Zetablade]

I don't like anime, and it's mainly because I don't watch it. I don't go out of my way to find the mature complex stuff, my only experience with it comes from occasionally stumbling on episodes of Naruto aired on Cartoon Network, I usually watched a minute of it before changing the channel in disgust.

Probably not the best representation for decent anime, believe it.

Ha ha ha! I see what you did there!

 

[kaveradeo]

I have heard this a lot on forums and irl, but I find it hard to understand. I can see older adults not liking it because they think its a kids' cartoon, but I know teenagers who understand the subject matter and still don't like anime. Disregarding hentai, what are your reasons for not liking anime?

they racist and think america = god.

 

[Caradinist]

It's not bad, i just don't like some of the fans. They the worst sometimes.

In fact, I think i can give it a second chance.

 

[Electrogecko]

The same reason people don't like video games- they're insecure.
Most of the people on this site like anime or give each anime show a fair chance.

 

[theSovietConnection]

I don't mind some of it, in fact, it's never really been anime that's been my problem, it's the majority/most vocal of the god damn fanbase that I loathe. Oddly enough, the biggest problem I have with them is the antithesis of this thread- why don't you give Western animation a chance? It goes both ways, and I really wish that more people would give more Western animation a chance, before it is killed off by lack of interest.

 

[inkheart_artist]

Well, you're demonstrating why I dislike anime nerds. When I tell them I don't like something they like, they somehow think my opinion is mistaken or uninformed. How can so many people interested in one genre of animation not understand difference of opinion? It started as a growing disinterest but after so many shitstormy arguments that I've come to almost hate the genre entirely.

Now, there was a time when I did enjoy anime but I grew bored of it when it began to come apparent that intelligent, mature, and genuinely unique stories were the anomaly, not the norm. With many of my friends being into this stuff I see it from time to time and all I see differing from story to story seems to be setting and powers/weapon. Its always the same characters doing the same things with the same cookie cutter personalities and angst, the same childish sense of humor and sexuality. Not to mention the art style is stagnant, bland, and extremely unoriginal (I was into it while they were in this realistic stint in the 80s and 90s, now all i see is BIGGER EYES, MORE GLOSS)and what is the aversion to drawing male characters? Seriously, it seems that nowadays they just draw a bunch of female characters and throw darts to decide which ones are male.

There are a few that I have enjoyed: many Studio Ghibli films, a lot of the work of the late Satoshi Kon, Cowboy Bebop, Azumanga Daioh, and there is a small warm spot for FLCL, but like I said, these seem to be far outside of the norm. Anyway, stop bugging people that don't like your games and cartoons, its annoying and they like you less for it.

 

[yamitami]

I think the main problem isn't the anime itself but the annoying Japanophile fans who won't shut up about how anime is inherently better than the animation from any other country. They ruin it for everyone.

The main problem, I think, is that both the annoying bits of fandom and the people who hate it on principle are defining anime as a single thing when it's not. It's just animation that happened to come from Japan. I really like Fullmetal Alchemist and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles, among others, but that's because I like the STORY and to a lesser extend the art style. There are plenty of anime I'm meh about and plenty I hate, because they're not all the same.

 

[yamitami]

I don't mind some of it, in fact, it's never really been anime that's been my problem, it's the majority/most vocal of the god damn fanbase that I loathe. Oddly enough, the biggest problem I have with them is the antithesis of this thread- why don't you give Western animation a chance? It goes both ways, and I really wish that more people would give more Western animation a chance, before it is killed off by lack of interest.

If American studios would stop producing badly drawn and written crap like what's all over Cartoon Network then the interest would be there on its own. In the era of Animaniacs US bred cartoons could be funny and smart and communicate on various levels. Now it's almost all the likes of Aqua Teen and the Squidbillies, which is enough to make anyone look across the ocean for relief.

 

[zidine100]

[I
Thank God someone else here agrees with me
I was getting my flame shield out

The whole "look at any other media" point there Rakakka doesnt hold mate so grats on making yourself look like an idiot
For example, I'll pick another random media form. Music...For the music choice I shall pick Megadeth

a) I wouldnt like to sleep with a member of Megadeth, nor do I post threads about it = 0
b) Last time I checked, Megadeth are just normal people and thuscould not take down something 50 times their size = 0
c)They dont all look the same either = 0
d) Im not sure how they treat women but seeing as how Dave Mustayne is married I assume he treats her properly = 0

There we go. A big fat 0 for everything there
Anime would get a point for each bloody one

while i hate to say this Megadeth is not a form of media (as you in turn are generizing all anime to have a fair comparison you must generalize all music) , they are produce media but they are not a media by themself, from what i understood from his post this was the generalization of the media itself not just specific examples, which kind of renders your post somewhat moot here.

im going to argue against some of these points (a, come on.... you can easily rule this one out if were generalizing a media form, have you seen the women you have to choose from in the music industry, and its more oppenly talked about to be quite honest, to the point where people have calenders and posters in there room and openly admit to wanting to sleep with them in general conversation) and (c, you could argue this one here with pop and emo bands looking nearly identical half the damn time and since the industry is flooded with them, well you see where this is going, but ill give you that one as all bands dont in fact look the same in general, just these genres tend to look... well you get the point, (note this is more of a rage against pop and emo bands, not really anything to do with this discussion, to reiterate, you have c)) and (d you see how women are depicted on average in music nowadays, yeh you see my point about that.)

B) If i might interject, they have the power of metal behind them... obviously they can defeat any foe. (that parts a joke), i hate to state the obvious, when do musicions fight monsters, isn't this along the lines of comparing a fps and a racing game on its shooting mechanics? or a better example comparing a tomato and a orange for its tomato content,i hate to say this but b in itself is quite unsound in comparision to the media of music. (note this isnt in defence or in favour of anime here, just saying if were generalizing to all media forms, how is this even relevant)


so that 2 out of the 4 you discussed in relation to the music industry, i removed b out of a sheer flawed comparison, which in turn still equates to a reasonable argument against anime in comparison to music.

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

Because everyone thinks that it's all like Strike Witches and hentai. And everything else is Naruto.
Weeaboos don't help matters either.

 

[Blue Musician]

I like it, but I haven't seen much, and some animes that I have seen I have consider them wastes of my time. But some others, like NGE, RahXephon, Serial Experiments Lain, Hellsing Ultimate, Elfen Lied, Darker than Black and some others I have really enjoyed, and I am sure there are plenty more.
The same can be said about videogames, actually.
The only thing I really don't like are TV series. I have enjoyed the series The Street by the BBC and Futurama, but apart from that I haven't really liked anything else. But we'll see later, I do hope there is something truly interesting.

 

[smithy_2045]

Because it's crap?

 

[MadeinHell]

Well people usually don't like animé because they just don't like it.

Everyone has a different taste and that's all...

 

[Jodah]

Same reason I hate Conan O'Brian while everyone in my age range seems to idolize the ground he walks on. People are allowed to dislike things for no explainable reason.

 

[Troodon]

I tried to get into it repeatedly, in fact at one point there was a even cute girl involved who really wanted me to like it, but I gave it six attempts and I just couldn't do it.

 

[ServebotFrank]

I'm just too embarrassed to say I actually like anime but alot of the anime is horrible.

 

[Tylmarande]

I dunno if this has been said before (too many posts for me to do a quick read through) but part of it is probably because people don't understand part of what's going on in most Anime. It's one thing if an anime is set in a completely different world/universe or set in a time in the Past (since important Cultural information and references are usually explained or Set up during the course of the show), but for the ones that take place in a more realistic world (ones that are set in say, a modern High School in Japan, for example) it becomes harder to understand what's going on due to cultural references (FLCL is the perfect example of this because it was literally filled with cultural Jokes). People who watch Anime and Read Manga frequently don't really have this problem because we're used to seeing some of the Cultural Cliche's that are often used in mangas, so I suppose it would also boil down to how much Anime they watched before they declared that they hated all of it.

If you didn't want to try to make heads or tails of the confusing mess above: People won't like what they can't understand / relate to in any way. That's why SOME people don't like it at least.