I wouldn’t outwardly say that I hate anime but I definitely assume the worst when I hear a show is one. I automatically start thinking it’s going to be style over substance with unnecessarily long fight scenes, unrelatable characters, gross sexualization of female characters (if not child characters), and awkward dubs.
There are obviously exceptions to this. Serial Experiments Lain was my PFP here on Lemmy for a while and it’s one of my favorite shows ever. Within the past month I binged all of Chainsaw Man in two nights and thought it was great. But it was great in spite of the fact that it’s also an anime
Sorry, I know that this is a thread for people who dislike anime to voice their reasons, but do you mind some rec? Based on what you said, I feel like you’d enjoy Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood quite a bit:
- there’s a lot of substance in FMA:B in the theme, worldbuilding, character interactions.
- there are fight scenes but they never overstay their welcome. They don’t feel tiring like in Dragon Ball Z or similar.
- characters are relatable. For example, the two protags fuck it up big time, right at the start, and yet can you really blame them? You’d probably do the same in their situation.
- there’s practically no sexualisation of female characters. Arguably only one of the villains, but that’s done for characterisation and it would feel off otherwise, it isn’t there for fanservice.
[Note: I’m not recommending this to change your views or some crap like that, it’s just that as I was reading your list of issues I was thinking “true that… wait, FMA:B doesn’t do it!”]
may i recommend monster. its 76 eps and more a murder mystery with a hitchcock vibe.
edit - the dub is really good but a little harder to find…
Oversexualization. Panty shots, ass shots, boob physics, the same old jokes from the ‘80s about a guy “accidentally” groping a woman, guys peeping into a girls’ space, suggestive poses, barely-disguised fetishes (included, but not limited to, harems, incest and pedophilia).
It got to the point where a friend would recommend an anime, I’d watch it, and walk away halfway through the first or second episode because it was just unbearable. Friends would tell me to turn a blind eye, but why the fuck should I put up with sexualizing minors in a show? I’d rather spend my time doing something that doesn’t make me feel sick.
It also attracts the wrong kind of audience. Since the medium is so keen to produce oversexualized content, that’s all people look for and talk about. Any anime discussion thread degenerates into gross memes about “flat is justice”, “twincest is wincest”, people patting each other in the shoulder while calling the other “man of culture” for sharing their kinks, and shit like that. It’s so extenuating that, back when I was interested in the medium, I still actively refrained from interacting with fellow fans because I felt grossed out by them. Fun fact, I had a female classmate back in highschool who was interested in anime, and I thought that I could find common grounds with her, but no, it was the same thing, just reversed (she would only watch anime with sexualised boys).
The medium also forgot what its name stands for. I haven’t seen “animation” in “anime” in years. It’s just still frames and more still frames and whenever there’s an action sequence, the characters will constantly interrupt them to explain or think about the thing that I’m already watching and needs no explanation, or having flashback sequences, because it’s cheaper to animate. The fact that Ghost in the Shell and Akira from thirty years ago had better and more fluid animation than the shit they produce now is just sad.
I agree with you, but I have to say that sexualization in anime rarely comes as a surprise. Its usually clear from the very first second that an anime has zero substance beside fanservice.
I’d say there’s a right way to do sexualization and a wrong way, 99% of the time it’s done the wrong way. The wrong way would be all those panty shots, underskirts etc. But take a character like Faye from Cowboy Bebop, while her being all sexed up is part of her character, it does not take away from her position on the raster. She’s essentially a artifact of the 90’s rapid evolvement of western and eastern fashion. This is supported by the fact that she has a completely new outfit in almost every episode, an animation effort that you rarely see in modern anime. Furthermore the whole art style of Cowboy Bebop is very reminiscent of fashion illustration, meaning long legs and extremely thin bodies.
I’d say this is what led to the current fan service situation in the first place. People used to think “we can’t show somebody with this outfit on film, but we can on paper”. The supermodel lookalike characters have become a trope in 90’s anime and over the last 3 decades have been distilled to just their sexiness, not their actual cultural meaning.
100% agree with your points and would onley add that WHY THE FUCK would anyone draw a child and say that she is actualy 1000 years old. Almost all the top season anime was harem, pedophilia. Cant stand it, I cant even count how many good concepts were ruined by these sick “kinks”.
The sexualization is to a point where I genuinely think lower of someone if I find out they like anime. Barely closeted pedos, the lot of them.
While I don’t agree, I used to spend a lot of time on /r/OnePunchMan. OPN is kinda a gag anime in that it plays on many stereotypes to comedic effect. One of the main characters is a woman that is very petite and didn’t grow up, and is also one of the most powerful heroes - alongside her sister who…did grow up.
The reason I mention it is because that sub is 90% suggestive fan art of the girl that the show literally points out looks like a child. It’s a trope on the “sexualised minor” thing, but they’re fucking falling for it again! When you call them out for noncing, they argue “she has adult features” or “she’s in her twenties”.
I’m also an avid lurker of r/onepunchman and I have to say, Tatsumaki fanart is fairly tame compared to Fubuki. Fubuki is also used in the exact same way as Faye in Bebop. Her sexiness is the antithesis to the main characters general indifference. Her being on most of the mangas cover art sporting different outfits in each is another parallel to that. She’s essentially the artists creative outlet for fashion. As for Tatsumaki, Murata (the artist) himself, said that he doesn’t really like drawing petite women, but her appearance is in theme with the rest of the manga, being that the weak looking characters are usually the strongest.
Does her looking like that drive the sales up? Sure.
Does it taken away from the story? No.
That’s why the straight up rapey approach from Ugly Fuehrer during the Monster Association arc was so impactful, because beside her sexualized outfit she is usually treated respectfully by the other characters.
What i mean by “taking away from the story” is if another anime has a girl in a small skirt face a tentacle monster, oh jeez, I wonder what will happen next? This is a story that is being told 100s of times and doesn’t have to be told again. That I completely agree on.
I’d say One Punch Man, is a good example of how to use attractive characters to attract viewers, given that men and women are represented equally attractive and especially the men with a large variety of bodytypes. Saying that Tatsumaki is the only character looking like that and being sexed up is a bad thing should also imply that the Fat Guys superpower being able to eat everything, or Speed-O-Sonic the Twink Ninja wearing skinthight spandex is equally bad. It’s just packaging and appearance.
The problem is that most other anime’s/mangas have only packaging with not character behind it. The fact that people in the subreddit are mostly discussing power levels, possible theories, story implications, etc.instead of simply drooling over the women means that the characters and story is fleshed out enough that the fan service is beside the point. You usually won’t find whole communities like that for run of the mill echi series with zero dept.
I don’t think people straight up hate anime, nobody is going to pick up a remote and turn of the TV if they see somebody else watching it and angrily leave the room.
It’s just, for the most part (and this is also true for non-animated movies or series), you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.
There are only so many times you can tell the story of boring guy gets put in fantasy land and is not boring anymore, or mysterious things happen at school and the afterschool mystery club has to solve them.
So what do you do? You cling to what you know is good. Studios, directors, etc. If Miyazaki makes an anime movie you watch it, if Quentin Terentino makes an action movie you watch it. This is also partially why anime’s are less popular than mainstream movies and series. You can watch a movie solely because you like an actor/actress, regardless of whether they play the same character or somebody else. In anime, each new series has a new set of characters, so each time a new personal connection has to be built.
Other than that, a good measure of “is this worth my time?” is pop cultural representation. Rule of thumb, if an anime spawns memes, it’s usually half decent.
But just like with movies and series, there are timeless classics. Like, who hasn’t seen or at least heard of Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Trigun, Dragon Ball Z, etc… Even my parents know Pokemon. Those have been around for so long and been shown on mainstream western channels during prime time slots, that they were impossible to miss. I think people who aren’t familiar with those are just not that interested in motion picture as a whole, regardless how its presented.
I’d say without overeaching, anime’s can be put in just a few categories:
- Artistic, Philosophical, Experimental, Parodies: Those are your Miyazaki films, Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion, One Punch Man, Full Metal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, etc.
- Long running: Like, Pokemon, One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball, the Fate Series
- Trying to sell you something: Again Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gundam, Beyblade, etc.
- Mass produced trash: All the ones where the title spreads 3 lines and tells you 90% of the story
- Otaku soap operas: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the Monogatari series, Nagatoro, Komi-San
But those categories are not evenly spread in appeal, quality and quantity. While the first 2 categories have barely any presence but arguably the most cultural impact, the later ones have the most presence but are individually culturally insignificant. But quality is harder to judge than quantity is to see. So people tend to see the mass produced trash and ignore the good stuff that is being overshadowed. With classical film, a movies intention can usually be discerned with just one look, if for example a modern movie is black and white, its usually artistic. But looking at things like Evangelion, or the Ghost in the Shell Series, you couldn’t guess the deep philosophical implications on first glance. People tend to see cutesy anime art style and associate it with either the mass produced trash, or shows made for children. What makes a film/series good is the intention and execution, if it happens to be animated this usually doesn’t take away from the underlying message. See old animated Disney Movies - Lilo and Stich is about Family Values, Monetary Struggles, Loss and Friendship. Adult topics packed in a medium that both children and their parents can enjoy.
People tend to hate anime for the same reason they hate superhero movies, they see the overarching medium, but not the individual pieces. You can’t compare the significance of Iron Man 1 with Thor 2, or Infinity War with The Marvels, some of these movies are good in a vacuum, without the whole Cinematic Universe attached to them. Same goes for anime, some are simply good stories regardless of them being animated.
I can’t stand fight scenes where people are flying through the air at each other doing stupid poses and making sounds. They usually have some special power, and it’s all so meh.
I really liked Pantheon and then cringed when it resorted to that near their end. There’s lots of exceptions, like princess mononoke.
It’s weird that the Japan - the country which arguably had the most positive global influence on how fight scenes are filmed and choreographed in movies has had a complete devolution in fight scenes in animation.
Like look at this fight scene from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Look how calm and harmonic it is 99% of the time, followed by quick bursts of action.
Or this scene from Evangelion (1999), Bebop (1998), Hellsing (1999).
There are some memorable modern fights that push the envelope of animation in modern anime like, Madara Uchia from Naruto (2016), Mob Psycho 100 (2019) or Castlevainia (2021).
But overall modern anime fights are composed mostly of flying, still images screaming “HEYAAA”, internal monologues and 3D explosions.
I don’t but I hate anime that rely on awful tropes like exploiting underage girls or the typical sister incest stuff (I would say brother-sister but this also applies to sister-sister)
I also find powerfantasy isekais boring
The Isekai thing is so fucking played out, Its possibly the laziest writing trope ever.
Funnily the only Isekai that was somewhat interesting and realistic “Drifters” still doesn’t have a season 2. It’s basically powerful and influential political figures and warriors from random time periods get transported into a medieval fantasy world after their death. All I want is to see is WW2 anime Hitler take over a fantasy kingdom and get killed by Ninjas, is that to much to ask for? It’s realistic in the sense that the main characters are 10 minutes into a fantasy land with magic and beautiful nature and of course they’re already started making guns and bombs.
I disagree. It can be made good. Good examples are Overlord and jobless reincarnation.
Just because it can be done well doesnt mean it isn’t a shortcut around good writing for a LOT of these stories.
It hands the writer a blank cheque for exposition and worldbuilding because the main character needs to have everything explained to them or figure everything out and it excuses any form of set up as to the how and why the character is in this situation.
