Anime. What's your opinion on it?

[Luko]

Tried watching a few different ones, didn't like it at all, definitely not my cup of tea.

I mean Death Note is supposed to be brilliant but I just get annoyed at the style and therefore don't enjoy it one bit.

This is pretty much where I am on it. I've had some good friends seriously recommend certain anime to me, saying it's right up my alley. Based on their description it sounds true enough so I give it a shot. I very rarely make it through one episode without saying out loud "Why the fuck are they screaming again?" or "Why is he thinking outloud while everyone else stands still and waits for his thoughts to finish?"

It's just... well it's not for me. Action sequences are good, though. I youtube those once in a while. Decent without context.

[Jester Joe]

This is pretty much where I am on it. I've had some good friends seriously recommend certain anime to me, saying it's right up my alley. Based on their description it sounds true enough so I give it a shot. I very rarely make it through one episode without saying out loud "Why the fuck are they screaming again?" or "Why is he thinking outloud while everyone else stands still and waits for his thoughts to finish?"

It's just... well it's not for me. Action sequences are good, though. I youtube those once in a while. Decent without context.

What the heck kind of suggestions are they giving even that people are screaming in the first episode

[Tulune]

Like most things, some is ok, a few are fantastic, most are tripe. It's the blithering fanatics that turn people away from it.

[Shiny212]

I'm going to concentrate on this part, because I unabashedly admit to little knowledge in drawing technique.

This brings us to a question then: what do you consider a reasonable rate of change for an art style? The majority of the series I linked in my pictures were produced post-2000. The only two that predate that are the second picture of the girl (1985) and the yellow-haired man (1990s). Number five also stood out, a result of it being a purposeful homage to Astroboy (1960s). Incidentally, these were the ones people have picked out and commented on, even while still identifying them as anime.

If we want to go further backward, anime technically starts in 1917, but the 1950s is probably a better decade to start with. Hakujaden and Ribon no Kishi are examples from this era, and I would argue don't bear a great deal of similarity to current anime; the former draws more on traditional Eastern styles and the latter would be easily confused for Disney (which is not a coincidence).

So would it be fair to say that, at least in this 70 year time frame, the art style has evolved to some degree?

The image of "Hakujaden" was indeed not what most people would consider anime even:O It looked very inspired by early Disney yes. What I mean by changing styles, introducing more variety as time passes, breaking barriers, originality etc, is a willingness to step outside the framework of anime that is quite frankly never see. All anime chooses to adhere to strict principles with very little wiggleroom. Not only in narrative form, dialogue and animation, but especially perhaps human character design. The distinctive large eyes/ multiple reflective highlights, small noses and mouths, with minimal lines.

[Deleted]

Mhm, what deplorable hole on the internet "taught" you these factoids? Complete falsehoods. Especially hilarious that you'd claim an american comic-book hero, THE american comic-book hero is derived from anime. And please, join conspiracy.net before starting up another asinine debate about The Lion King's would be anime origins. It's all been debunked if you'd bother looking.

I'm not going to bother with the rest, prove your nonsense claims or be exposed as a liar.

Where the fuck did i ever say Superman is from Japan WHERE ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZjbNhLODKU

[Chrysia]

This is pretty much where I am on it. I've had some good friends seriously recommend certain anime to me, saying it's right up my alley. Based on their description it sounds true enough so I give it a shot. I very rarely make it through one episode without saying out loud "Why the fuck are they screaming again?" or "Why is he thinking outloud while everyone else stands still and waits for his thoughts to finish?"

It's just... well it's not for me. Action sequences are good, though. I youtube those once in a while. Decent without context.

Anime is heavily influenced by Kabuki/Greek theater, with exaggerated emotions and asides used to reveal the thoughts of key characters.

[unfilteredJW]

It's like any other form of media: it's a sea of absolute shit that has some small oasises that are just fucking amazing.

[wonderlust]

Voted "I like some of it, but much of it is fucking weird".

I grew up on what would be considered "shounen" anime. DBZ, Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Saint Seiya were my jam.
Some of those shows aged well; others didn't. I'm not sure I could really enjoy them nowadays, but I'm fully aware that I'm not their target audience anymore.

Some anime I've watched and some manga I've read were fucking masterpieces. Evangelion, Haruhi, Ghost in the Shell and Nausicaa are some examples I can think of.

But so much of "newer" anime I've tried to watch is absolute garbage. I 100% understand the "Anime was a mistake" misquote from Miyazaki. The medium has started consuming itself, instead of taking inspiration from the outside world, something which is reflected both in the lower quality of newer material, and perhaps even in the extremely close-minded mentality of so many anime fans.

[dacoolist]

I've loved anime since Robotech aired on cartoon network in the mid 90's. I love a metric fuck ton of anime - the weirdest being FLCL or Fooly Cooly. People who hate anime can gtfo haha <3

[Chrysia]

Voted "I like some of it, but much of it is fucking weird".

I grew up on what would be considered "shounen" anime. DBZ, Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Saint Seiya were my jam.
Some of those shows aged well; others didn't. I'm not sure I could really enjoy them nowadays, but I'm fully aware that I'm not their target audience anymore.

Some anime I've watched and some manga I've read were fucking masterpieces. Evangelion, Haruhi, Ghost in the Shell and Nausicaa are some examples I can think of.

But so much of "newer" anime I've tried to watch is absolute garbage. I 100% understand the "Anime was a mistake" misquote from Miyazaki. The medium has started consuming itself, instead of taking inspiration from the outside world, something which is reflected both in the lower quality of newer material, and perhaps even in the extremely close-minded mentality of so many anime fans.

You made the actual point Miyazaki was making in that last paragraph there. It's not that Anime was a mistake, it was Anime's shift in focus from being about the world, no matter how fancifully portrayed, to being made to please otaku that was a mistake.

[Deleted]

I have to agree that the massive rise in what look like to be rather cheaply made Light Novel adaptations appearing in the currently airing section every season is of utmost concern. It's almost as if the studios are just throwing shit at the wall and see what sticks; pump out as many different IPs as you can and start milking the one that sells best and forget the rest ever happened. It's easier to not watch any of them and come back a year or two later and ask if any of them were good and watch it on 100% legally obtained Blu Ray.

But I guess that last part goes for anything, really.

[Neichus]

The image of "Hakujaden" was indeed not what most people would consider anime even:O It looked very inspired by early Disney yes

So I can take that as a, "Yes, in a 70 year time frame, the art style has evolved to some degree"?

What I mean by changing styles, introducing more variety as time passes, breaking barriers, originality etc, is a willingness to step outside the framework of anime that is quite frankly never see. All anime chooses to adhere to strict principles with very little wiggleroom. Not only in narrative form, dialogue and animation, but especially perhaps human character design. The distinctive large eyes/ multiple reflective highlights, small noses and mouths, with minimal lines.

This part of the answer, however, seems ill-informed. To be clear, I'm not debating with you that "anime" is usually recognizable, indicating that it must have something in common with itself. It has a marketed style that is recognized and copied the world over. But you go further, claiming that anime never fails to conform to "large eyes/multiple reflective highlights/small noses and mouths/minimal lines." A quick collection of pictures demonstrates (new set, all post-2000) that to be not the case (the last one, Gankutsuou, needs to be seen in motion).

I'm not trying to trap you on a technicality. I'm happy to agree with you that most anime fall within a narrower margin than what I linked above. But I do contend that it is inaccurate to say that anime cannot be exploratory in human design, and that similar examples can be made for narrative form, dialogue, and animation.

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You made the actual point Miyazaki was making in that last paragraph there. It's not that Anime was a mistake, it was Anime's shift in focus from being about the world, no matter how fancifully portrayed, to being made to please otaku that was a mistake.

And to catch up with the posters above, I agree with this. But capitalism doesn't favor experimentation in art, and that's that.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

It isn't any different from other TV shows, some of it is good and some of it is garbage.

[Video Games]

Honestly I think anime can end once we get ngnl season 2. That is all that is needed.

[Tennis]

Honestly I think anime can end once we get ngnl season 2. That is all that is needed.

I tried watching it but wasn't a fan of the sister.

Only thing I'm somewhat looking forward to is Code Geass Season 3.
Maybe Seven Deadly Sins as well.

[Video Games]

How would they even do that, considering how S1 ended? They jumped way too far ahead, imo.

I just want it to exist

I tried watching it but wasn't a fan of the sister.

Only thing I'm somewhat looking forward to is Code Geass Season 3.
Maybe Seven Deadly Sins as well.

But the word game in episode 5.

[Shiny212]

So I can take that as a, "Yes, in a 70 year time frame, the art style has evolved to some degree"?



This part of the answer, however, seems ill-informed. To be clear, I'm not debating with you that "anime" is usually recognizable, indicating that it must have something in common with itself. It has a marketed style that is recognized and copied the world over. But you go further, claiming that anime never fails to conform to "large eyes/multiple reflective highlights/small noses and mouths/minimal lines." A quick collection of pictures demonstrates (new set, all post-2000) that to be not the case (the last one, Gankutsuou, needs to be seen in motion).

I'm not trying to trap you on a technicality. I'm happy to agree with you that most anime fall within a narrower margin than what I linked above. But I do contend that it is inaccurate to say that anime cannot be exploratory in human design, and that similar examples can be made for narrative form, dialogue, and animation.

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And to catch up with the posters above, I agree with this. But capitalism doesn't favor experimentation in art, and that's that.

You must be willing yourself not to see what's right before your eyes. Your "quick collection" shows exactly what I described, all the humans either have large eyes, reflective highlights, small noses and mouths with minimally denoted lines. Couple of those images look different though, one is highly abstract and the first one looks like it's captured mid-animation, during which anime tends to sometimes morph the characters into extreme exaggeration where they don't really look like themselves for a few frames.

Old woman from spirited away, notice the huge eyes and the multiple reflective highlights throughout the image.

Kaiba, big eyes, barely a nose and mouth.

Tekkon Kinrett, eyes tiny, but mouth and nose nigh invisible.

Tsumiki no Ie looks fairly abstract to me so I'll grant you that, it's hardly a norm within anime.

AKu no Hana, mouth - nose where is it.

Redline, realistic as far as anime goes, but get a load of those eyes.

Gankutsuou, classic eyes, nose and mouth.

And to be clear, when I mentioned a couple of the things I see trend throughout anime, it's just that, a couple out of many.


And I seriously do contend that anime is not exploratory in human design, sure they often create anomalous weirdoes and/or monsterlike characters to supplement their cast, but there's nearly always human characters that adhere to the anime formula like it's scripture. And to me it's such a strange thing to do, since anime character's don't look realistic, why adhere to the same damn style template over and over again?

For animation it's extremely easy to see the likeness, even without deeper knowledge of animation. For one thing it all operates in less frames animated than western animation, limited movement, many frames spent on extensive monologues where the story is explained, not shown. It's oftentimes done to save time and money for sure, but it's folly to say it doesn't come at the expense of quality. Extensive use of narration, dialogue is not organic or natural, but once again filled with arbitrary pseudo-monologues for the purposes of extreme shameless exposition and plot resolution.

[Millhi]

Older anime was also full of stuff that was absolute garbage. The difference today is that you're not very likely to hear anything about the garbage stuff and will only hear about the "golden oldies." Newer anime are more prevalent and easier to see/find so you see so much more of it to judge.

Yep, whereas you might have gotten 5 shows fansubbed out of 20 in a season now you have pretty much 50-70 shows a season where 95% are available to watch outside of Japan.
Not that it's healthy, the amount of animators stayed the same while the amount of shows tripled.

[Puupi]

Zero tolerance.

[Deleted]

I find it absolutely retarded and can't for the life of me understand why anyone would like it. But hey, whatever makes people happy.