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Old or New Anime series?


Geano

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Hi guys I was wondering on something, and wanted to talk about this topic.

What kinda anime to dose every gravitate to. Do you like older 90s early 2000s anime, or newer series from 2014 to present.

In my case I am on both sides of the spectrum. I love the newer series, and spring/summer 2018 for anime has been amazing. Though I also really like classics like dbz, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Yugioh DM. What about you guys.

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12 minutes ago, ArchieKun said:

Hi guys I was wondering on something, and wanted to talk about this topic.

What kinda anime to dose every gravitate to. Do you like older 90s early 2000s anime, or newer series from 2014 to present.

In my case I am on both sides of the spectrum. I love the newer series, and spring/summer 2018 for anime has been amazing. Though I also really like classics like dbz, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Yugioh DM. What about you guys.

classic's are fine, i.e YGO days, digimons, pokemons and the such (so like 90's, if im not mistaken) are fine, they were afterall the seed to my anime life

but as time passed, i think i somewhat prefer 2014-present anime artstyle, that is to say only artstyle (unless budget cuts happens, looking at you ore no twintails)

the story, well it can depend, sometimes the story feels recycled from another anime, which makes it "ehh", sometimes its unique(did i really forget how to spell unique >.>)

but one thing's for sure for me, classics are neat on story, present date animes' please's my artstyle anime-love

so to sum it up with a TLDR; (even though its not even long), originals are the best in story, current anime's artstyles are the best (sometimes story too~)

tho' this is all from my PoV/personal opinion...did i just share my opinion online ?! oh god im gonna be thrown to the trash

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Hmmm. I guess I tend to like more modern animes or ones that are drawn in a more modern style. Animations that are HD and smooth are beautiful to me and usually serve to elevate my whole experience. Subjectively, I am not too into older styles like Sailor Moon or Inuyasha, but those that I watched during childhood are still enjoyable to me just because of the nostalgia factor. I still love YuGiOh for example. Idk, I guess the bottom line for me is that if the art is attractive to me, I tend to watch it but am open to watching older ones that are tried and true. :) 

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Just now, alupacard said:

Hmmm. I guess I tend to like more modern animes or ones that are drawn in a more modern style. Animations that are HD and smooth are beautiful to me and usually serve to elevate my whole experience. Subjectively, I am not too into older styles like Sailor Moon or Inuyasha, but those that I watched during childhood are still enjoyable to me just because of the nostalgia factor. I still love YuGiOh for example. Idk, I guess the bottom line for me is that if the art is attractive to me, I tend to watch it but am open to watching older ones that are tried and true. :) 

Agreed 100%

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1 hour ago, XII360 said:

classic's are fine, i.e YGO days, digimons, pokemons and the such (so like 90's, if im not mistaken) are fine, they were afterall the seed to my anime life

but as time passed, i think i somewhat prefer 2014-present anime artstyle, that is to say only artstyle (unless budget cuts happens, looking at you ore no twintails)

the story, well it can depend, sometimes the story feels recycled from another anime, which makes it "ehh", sometimes its unique(did i really forget how to spell unique >.>)

but one thing's for sure for me, classics are neat on story, present date animes' please's my artstyle anime-love

so to sum it up with a TLDR; (even though its not even long), originals are the best in story, current anime's artstyles are the best (sometimes story too~)

tho' this is all from my PoV/personal opinion...did i just share my opinion online ?! oh god im gonna be thrown to the trash

I like how you layed that out. I would agree with you completely. While 90s anime is what started me off, and there will always be gems like DBZ, Yugioh, and Yu Yu Hakusho out there I tend to favor the newer stuff. I said in my first post that 2014 was kinda the cut off in terms of areas. This is just when I notice the big shift in art style along with theme, and direction most anime takes. There is odiously plenty of amazing anime series from 2012 for example, and even going back to 08. One from 08 that I feel was one of the ;era hevy conflict focused of the era was Shakugan no Shana. It was kinda mix of magical, and Shonen which I really liked. Plus it was on the tail end of the long running series era.

1 hour ago, alupacard said:

Hmmm. I guess I tend to like more modern animes or ones that are drawn in a more modern style. Animations that are HD and smooth are beautiful to me and usually serve to elevate my whole experience. Subjectively, I am not too into older styles like Sailor Moon or Inuyasha, but those that I watched during childhood are still enjoyable to me just because of the nostalgia factor. I still love YuGiOh for example. Idk, I guess the bottom line for me is that if the art is attractive to me, I tend to watch it but am open to watching older ones that are tried and true. :) 

What anime art style from the more recent stuff would you say is your favorite then?

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I suppose I'm the odd cat out.  I admit I have a certain fondness for 1970s anime....  Quite a few gems came out in that era.  You have the Leiji Universe, the first Gundam, Lupin, Gatchaman , Cyborg 009 and so many more.  These are all great anime and to me they have stood the test of time.  Part of that is the fact that back then anime was hand-drawn frame by frame (and it wasn't cheapened by using repeating transformation scenes like Sailor Moon is oh so famous for).  It's beautiful and the effort and passion of the artists is evident when you watch it. 

 

In fact, I have had problems trying to go back to watching older anime from the 90s.  Tenchi (his voice didn't used to annoy me...), Sailor Moon (too many transformation scenes), Trigun (Somehow I didn't remember him screaming quite so much...) and then a lot of plots back then were episodic too...  It isn't all of them but I have to lower my expectations sometimes lol...  I still have my favorites from that era that actually stood the test of time really well

 

Modern anime I generally enjoy all around.  They are smooth and the ones I watch are well written.  I might have transitioned into different genres from the 90s too to help with the issues I had (in the 90s I was pretty stuck with whatever was on tv).  Still, 1970s was where it was all at.  That was the era to start watching anime for sure :)

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25 minutes ago, ArchieKun said:

I like how you layed that out. I would agree with you completely. While 90s anime is what started me off, and there will always be gems like DBZ, Yugioh, and Yu Yu Hakusho out there I tend to favor the newer stuff. I said in my first post that 2014 was kinda the cut off in terms of areas. This is just when I notice the big shift in art style along with theme, and direction most anime takes. There is odiously plenty of amazing anime series from 2012 for example, and even going back to 08. One from 08 that I feel was one of the ;era hevy conflict focused of the era was Shakugan no Shana. It was kinda mix of magical, and Shonen which I really liked. Plus it was on the tail end of the long running series era.

yea, anime toke the "moe" factor, and up'ed it up, multiplied by my love life, thats still zero 100, and thus the birth of kawaii factor-focus happened, (aside from isekai-themed ones)

i mean, images about happy, sugar life, open at own risk, though not spoiler-ish 

 

Happy-Sugar-Life-4.jpg

she looks cute and innocent right ? wrong

 

Happy-Sugar-Life-750x420-750x424.png

shes gonna f*cking kill us all, and i love this >.>, cant wait to binge watch it

 

though, i think, to be fair, elfen lied somewhat did this too...only, more grotesque and supernatural-ish ?, but the main point im saying is, they started focusing on moe-factor !

 

edit: another example would be, ore no twintails, it was hella hyped, mainly due to tail red being so god damn cute in one episode,

just one episode was what it toke to be a insta-hit >.>

the worst, or best part (depens on you're preferrence), is that tail reds really a guy...a hot cute guy >.>

 

Edited by XII360
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One thing that has changed throughout the ages especially in the 2010s, and going strong for the 2020s is the aditude as well as stigma surrounding anime. It has become far far more widly accepted even from people that do not really get into it. This is shown  in a lot of dubs that get released. Even though I do not care for dubs they do have a place, and some people like them. One thing they are good for though seems to be gauging where the industry is headed outside Japan. it is also a good way to see how the camunity reacts to it as weell. One thing I focus on when trying to get an idea of this is the amount of censorship in the dub, or outside Japan manga release. Nowa days you rarely see censorship of anime. This is why I favor the newer more modern series.

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There's certainly plenty to like in the 1990-2000 era.. Princess Mononoke, Cowboy Bebop, Whisper of the Heart, Kiki's, Trigun, Lain, etc.  But there's a lot to like since 2000 too.   .. Your Name, Clannad/After Story, Spirited Away, the Monogatari series, Your Lie in April....   Before that was Nausicaa, Totoro.. (I could go on, but I don't want to start showing my age :D )  Different eras, different styles, appeals to different demographics, sure, but I wouldn't want to have to do without any of it, and I'm not about to attempt to say which was "better".

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I have favorites in differents eras, like Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Your Lie in April, so I do not really have too much of a preference, as I just care about getting something good.

However, when I watch anime, I mostly pay attention to new ones, as those might have something older series do not have.

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53 minutes ago, efaardvark said:

There's certainly plenty to like in the 1990-2000 era.. Princess Mononoke, Cowboy Bebop, Whisper of the Heart, Kiki's, Trigun, Lain, etc.  But there's a lot to like since 2000 too.   .. Your Name, Clannad/After Story, Spirited Away, the Monogatari series, Your Lie in April....   Before that was Nausicaa, Totoro.. (I could go on, but I don't want to start showing my age :D )  Different eras, different styles, appeals to different demographics, sure, but I wouldn't want to have to do without any of it, and I'm not about to attempt to say which was "better".

Your Lie in April  is very good series. My partner had me watch it. I was hesitant at first, but I certainly see the attractiveness to it.

 

10 minutes ago, brycec said:

I have favorites in differents eras, like Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Your Lie in April, so I do not really have too much of a preference, as I just care about getting something good.

However, when I watch anime, I mostly pay attention to new ones, as those might have something older series do not have.

Same I have largely been paying more attention to the newer one's on my own, but my partner, and I just finished Rave Master which is a bit older being the predecessor to Fairy Tail.

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4 minutes ago, ArchieKun said:

my partner, and I just finished Rave Master which is a bit older being the predecessor to Fairy Tail.

I remember seeing Rave Master on television, though I did not see it all the way through until I got it on iTunes.

Sadly, the true conclusion is manga exclusive.

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5 minutes ago, brycec said:

I remember seeing Rave Master on television, though I did not see it all the way through until I got it on iTunes.

Sadly, the true conclusion is manga exclusive.

Ya Rave Master was guilty of just stopping abruptly like many series in anime terms with a much longer manga.

 

So what dose everyone think of Fairy Tail? I ask because like Naruto it has stood test of time, and literally changed as time passed all be it not at the same magnitude being a bit shorter.

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@ArchieKun  I felt it had the standard cast of personalities. Different setting, different names, but really the same stuff (it always makes money).  I did not find it original but my best friend loves Scarlet. I watched maybe 10 episodes then dropped it. The genre itself just isn't my cup of tea these days. In my youth, yes. In my withering 30's? Nope.I wasn't into Naruto either if that tells you anything...but my best friend was. Guess if you were a Naruto fan you'd enjoy FT.

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23 minutes ago, ArchieKun said:

So what dose everyone think of Fairy Tail? I ask because like Naruto it has stood test of time, and literally changed as time passed all be it not at the same magnitude being a bit shorter.

I liked Fairy Tail in the early episodes, but, after a while, it felt like it was going on too long, just like One Piece. Only difference is that One Piece is still going, and Fairy Tail is finally over.

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29 minutes ago, Beocat said:

@ArchieKun  I felt it had the standard cast of personalities. Different setting, different names, but really the same stuff (it always makes money).  I did not find it original but my best friend loves Scarlet. I watched maybe 10 episodes then dropped it. The genre itself just isn't my cup of tea these days. In my youth, yes. In my withering 30's? Nope.I wasn't into Naruto either if that tells you anything...but my best friend was. Guess if you were a Naruto fan you'd enjoy FT.

Fair enough, I rather enjoyed it. Fairy Tail being one of the few mainstram series I enjoy. Though I get where your cumming from.

22 minutes ago, brycec said:

I liked Fairy Tail in the early episodes, but, after a while, it felt like it was going on too long, just like One Piece. Only difference is that One Piece is still going, and Fairy Tail is finally over.

For me I liked the first 6 seasons. Those were the earlier more funny ones with more charm. Season 7 is where things went down hill.

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Hmmm, tough question, IMO.

As far as art style is concerned, I'd say it depends on the anime. There are beatiful anime from all eras, and awful looking ones, I think. One of my favourites is Cowboy Bebop - there's just something about the art style that just fits it perfectly, the colours and the drawings, and I wouldn't want to see it made with modern technology. Overall, I don't have any specifiy era that I prefer here.

Animation is a bit different, though - but still depends in the individual anime. Animtions, if the budged is right, simply looks better on modern anime, in general and that's partly due to the possibilities of modern production. Especially pre 2000s anime reused many animtions which tends to look rediculous...

Story... thats's tough. While many older anime (pre 90s/80s) liked to usethe "fight the evil empire", "rescue the damsel in distress" and "you are the chosen hero" (yes, there are many exceptions and also many modern examples for these ideas) premise mixed with certain clichés, modern stories like to incorporate some kind of moral ambiguity, explore deeper meanings, etc... (again, there are exceptions for all cases but I think these things are popular currently) - overall, even if the same concepts over time get reiterated, (for example the lone otaku with his own harem of babes, or the genious character somehow getting entangled into some war, and the stories build upon these premises tend to be similar and can get boring over time) there simply is more variety today, generally speaking. But then again, I don't know that many 70s, 80s anime...

 

Quote

So what dose everyone think of Fairy Tail? I ask because like Naruto it has stood test of time, and literally changed as time passed all be it not at the same magnitude being a bit shorter.

I liked the first episodes but after some time it just feels like the same thing is happening over and over again, just one uping the epic attacks. I agree, that naruto stood the test of time, although I didn't like the Great War arch - IMO many pacing and story-telling mistales were made. But both, Naruto Classic and Shippuden, changed not too much and not too little, a good example of a long running anime.

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Maybe a year ago at this point, if not longer, I wrote a list about 10 things that need to be changed in anime, and most of them were addressed towards recent anime. Not just because I want to see anime improve as it goes on, but also because the stereotypes of older anime, even ones as far back as Gigantor, are more tolerable to me than current/modern anime. Not that all current/modern anime are bad, but there are a lot of them that are not nearly as good as they should be, mostly because they rely too much on things that were just small parts of anime past. The things that were only slightly annoying in the past, like the constant perfect main protagonist, have become more rampant, and things like that make modern anime more annoying than older ones. So yeah, I prefer older anime to new anime.  

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10 hours ago, leinwandname said:

Hmmm, tough question, IMO.

As far as art style is concerned, I'd say it depends on the anime. There are beatiful anime from all eras, and awful looking ones, I think. One of my favourites is Cowboy Bebop - there's just something about the art style that just fits it perfectly, the colours and the drawings, and I wouldn't want to see it made with modern technology. Overall, I don't have any specifiy era that I prefer here.

Animation is a bit different, though - but still depends in the individual anime. Animtions, if the budged is right, simply looks better on modern anime, in general and that's partly due to the possibilities of modern production. Especially pre 2000s anime reused many animtions which tends to look rediculous...

Story... thats's tough. While many older anime (pre 90s/80s) liked to usethe "fight the evil empire", "rescue the damsel in distress" and "you are the chosen hero" (yes, there are many exceptions and also many modern examples for these ideas) premise mixed with certain clichés, modern stories like to incorporate some kind of moral ambiguity, explore deeper meanings, etc... (again, there are exceptions for all cases but I think these things are popular currently) - overall, even if the same concepts over time get reiterated, (for example the lone otaku with his own harem of babes, or the genious character somehow getting entangled into some war, and the stories build upon these premises tend to be similar and can get boring over time) there simply is more variety today, generally speaking. But then again, I don't know that many 70s, 80s anime...

 

 

Very well outline. I love how you explained this. I fully agree on how silly the 90s was in its habbit of reusing animations even though this was a big thing of not just anime, but even western cartoons of the era.

10 hours ago, RepentantSky said:

Maybe a year ago at this point, if not longer, I wrote a list about 10 things that need to be changed in anime, and most of them were addressed towards recent anime. Not just because I want to see anime improve as it goes on, but also because the stereotypes of older anime, even ones as far back as Gigantor, are more tolerable to me than current/modern anime. Not that all current/modern anime are bad, but there are a lot of them that are not nearly as good as they should be, mostly because they rely too much on things that were just small parts of anime past. The things that were only slightly annoying in the past, like the constant perfect main protagonist, have become more rampant, and things like that make modern anime more annoying than older ones. So yeah, I prefer older anime to new anime.  

I think I see what you're touching on here. The rate of anime being produced has more then increased 10 times since the early 2000s therefore much like rest of the media industry gotta wide through the crap to find the gems. This in my mind is largely true, but for me I am far less judgemental of anime then I am western animation, or tv series.

 

I too would like to see this list.

Edited by ArchieKun
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Due to the fact that we're seasonal watchers, we tend to watch whatever is new, so the vast majority of our anime knowledge is based around the last 5ish years. Despite that, we've notice that we have a great love for the first half of the 2000s. Shows like Princess Tutu, Scrapped Princess, Planetes, Diebuster, and Beck are all long time favourite of ours. The second half was good too, but we don't think as good as the first half of the 2000s. Some of the real stand ups were Bartender, Dennou Coil, Gurren Laggn, Baccano, and Sword of the Stranger.

So basically, our favourite period is the 2000s, tending towards the former half.

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10. Making every setting a high school or having high school aged characters and cast. This one is at the bottom of the list for a few reasons, namely that sometimes, that setting works, such as in the recently started Yokai Apartment or Koi to Uso, or even, Attack on Titan. One of the reasons the high school setting can be seen as problematic though, is because a lot of anime fans have aged, and aren't just about watching kids all the time. The final issue with the constant High School setting, is that people like me, aka well-functioning adults, can only buy into kids handling their issues as well as, if not better than we can so many times before it's seen as unbelievable and hard to buy into. The reason this one is at the bottom of the list though, is because I get it, I used to watch kids in a high school setting and hope to myself "I hope I'm like that in high school" but seeing as that was 20 years or so ago, I'd like to see a few more anime out there that are aimed towards adults like myself, and not just by using gore to make it mature, which is an issue I'll get into later. 

 

9. Overly sexual high school students. This one kind of plays into the last one, and the argument against it only makes so much sense. That being that because Japan has different laws about the age of consent than a lot of the world, so they can sexualize teens because they are of age, at least in most cases, and often ones that aren't are pretty shunned or at least ignored anyways. The problem with the focus on it though, is that a lot of Japan's market for anime isn't living in Japan, and that not every anime is going to bring in new kids at an age where that would be appropriate. Not to mention that it also stands as a reminder that Japan seems to forget that it's audience has aged, as I mentioned in the last entry, and they could be seen as perverse for liking an anime that has this problem, even if they aren't meant to. With anime out there like Full Metal Alchemist and Free! This is a two way road, as there is a lot of sexulizing of the male characters in those shows as well, and that needs to meet it's end. There's anime made for that purpose out there already, let people watch that if they want sexyiness in their anime.

 

8. Using the same dialogue for the first few episodes of an anime. I mentioned this one before elsewhere, back before editing this list, but I'll say it again, I can usually watch the first few episodes of an anime and understand pretty much everything that's going on without subs of any kind or quality, because they use the same tired lines. Japan has tried to counter this by creating lingo for each anime that does it, that only applies to that anime, but it doesn't help. This new lingo could be used to talk about a weapon. or a special life giving something the plot will claim to revolve around (though let's be honest, a lot of the time anime just goes with calling weapons Ragnarok, and life giving elements Yggdrasil) or whatever the case may be. Point is, a lot of anime start the same way, and as such, use the same tired lines that most long term fans or in some cases, people who have just watched a lot of anime, already know, thus making the first few episodes of an anime moot and/or uninteresting. There's a couple of ways to open an anime, but a lot of them are still using the same basic lines, and it's time to re-vamp the set-up episodes for a series. 

 

7. Combining Fantasy with the real world, and not innovating it. This is a more recent problem with anime, as a few of these will be, but it's become one of the biggest. Anime fans all know that Re:Zero was popular, but they don't need at least two versions of the same kind of anime for each following season. The Summer 2017 season had at least three of these anime, and that was almost directly after Re:Zero, so it felt as rushed as it was. Alice to Zoruko was close to being that as well, but changed up the formula by focusing on the real world instead of the fantastical one, and even then the fantastical world isn't exactly a typical 15th to 18th century setting, so commonly found in these anime but is instead more like a Alice in Wonderland setting. It can be done right. Most that use it though, are trying more to create another version of Re:Zero, and it's simply not going to be as easy as they'd like to believe nor is it going to be interesting. Variety is the spice of life, not some cheap knock-offs.

 

6. Making characters eyes look more and more fake. Okay so, this is also a recent one, and an odd one to explain. Back when ufotable wasn't the well known animating team that it is, they made an anime called Manabi Straight, where the characters had eyes similar to what you might see in one of their current or more recent shows and they were praised for the look, so they thought to keep making characters with eyes like that more often, and getting praised for the anime has a whole not either because of, or despite the characters eyes. The problem is though, that anime eyes were just starting to become more believable around that time in other anime, which is something a lot of fans wanted, and now they've taken a turn for the worst. Foreshadowing is a wonderful tool that often makes people want to look back and see if they missed something after a major plot revelation has been made, and eyes looking at someone, something or that are simply used for a facial reaction to an event, is a great tool for foreshadowing. However, you can't really do that with a character who's practically got no emotion coming from their eyes, and with the unrealistic eyes being what they are, that part of storytelling can be lost. Even without that, the fact that no one looks human anymore because their eyes are so alien in appearance, can also make it hard to connect to a character, and that is frustrating to see.

 

5. Stop the Harems, all of them. This is a trope that at a time was once compelling, used to make anime romantic drama's more enticing for fans, but as of late, both Japanese anime and anime style games have used it as a way to simply push one note characters towards a Mary Sue sort of protagonist who acts all flustered about the situation to show they have a good or innocent side, and they are often treated as though that's the best way to get that across which, is foolish. They had ways to do it before the Harem idea was used, and a lot of people weren't tired of those. But hey, gotta get that sexy in there for all those lonely anime fans on prom night right? All Mighty No.9 jokes aside, the point of the Harem has long since been lost, and it's time to drop that trope, because it's going nowhere fast, and is a pathetic way to write a character that we may be asked to care about later. Also, as a final note, a character should never just be made at the expense of being meaningful for the main character, and should always have a point.

 

4. Stop assuming 99 percent of relationships are straight. To be fair, there is at least one anime I saw a trailer for recently that I thunk was part of the Summer 2017 anime season that clearly had two men in a relationship, but then again, it looks like it's a typical high school drama in every other sense, and I already mentioned the problem with that. Plus, there was only one of those types of anime these that I'm aware of for that season. and three anime out there trying to be Re:Zero? No thank you, that's not the kind of anime world I want to be a part of. It doesn't matter if it's Yuri, Yaoi, or hey, for the sake of being really compelling, a new anime genre where the main character is Bi and has a hard time choosing between someone of the opposite gender or of the same gender. A love triangle like that could make for some amazing story telling. It needs to happen more often, and in doing so, it might be a way to force anime as a medium to be taken more seriously by those who treat like it's still for kids.

 

3. Making action scenes look like they were directed by Hollywood. For those in the know even a little bit about current Hollywood, a lot of movie action scenes are shot with shaky cams and a lot of jump cuts, making it cheap to produce, and less harmful to actors and stuntmen, but ultimately hard for viewers to follow, and as such has been a point of contention among fans for the last several years. Japan has recently started picking this up with some of their action scenes, only they've changed it to make it even worse, because the action scenes that do this, don't use either jump cuts or shaky cam (at least not all the time), but instead just cut out the action bit of the scene entirely while placing in sounds that make it appear to the ears that action is happening. To be fair, some of the anime where this happens are simply taking ideas from action anime of the 70's and 80's but it's not either of those decades anymore, and it needs to stop before it becomes as common a practice in anime, as it is in Hollywood. If you're going to show me action, show me action, don't try to fool me into thinking it's their when it's not. 

 

2. Gore for the sake of gore. It might seem odd to have something like this so high on the list, but hear me out. For the longest time, pointless amounts of gore has been seen as a way to try and make people take something seriously that might not have been otherwise. It's treated basically like a kid trying to play adult and everyone laughing at them either internally or in the case of the internet, externally. An anime, a TV show, or anything like that, isn't always going to be treated with greater respect simply because of it's rating. Violence needs to have a place, and that place needs to be within the service of the story the violence is happening around. I've seen anime out there that say, "we're going to blow this person's head up because we can, or this person is going to get cut into tiny pieces and we'll show the brains, internal organs and all other matter of human mess as the focus of that because that'll make it so people take our show seriously." No, it doesn't, if violence feels out of place and doesn't serve the story, it's pointless, and there are many anime out there, where this is the case. If you want to show me someone getting blown up, do it, but make sure there's a reason for it.

 

1. Using the same voices all the time. We're practically going full circle here as in the 8th entry, I suggested we stop using the same lines all the time. In that entry I said that it's possible to watch the first few episodes of an anime without subs because the lines are the same almost all the time, but making that even worse, is the fact that those lines are often said by the same sounding voice, even if the actor is different. Japan has been notorious about using the same voices since all the way back in during Gigantor's time and there some people who like it when people always have the same kind of voices, because to them it's more about the characters as opposed to how they sound, and that's totally fair. However, as someone who has watched hundreds of anime over the years, I can honestly say I stopped caring about who voiced who, and instead am more interested in what they sound like because I've already heard those lines a thousand times and would like them to sound different please. Japan seems to think that having about 7 voices for men, and 5 for women is enough, but with literally hundreds, if not thousands of actors out there, it does feel like people who are trained to voice act, only really are taught how to imitate, and while that does take a certain level of skill, I'd like to hear more Maka's and Natsu's out there, people who have different voices, and who can sell those voices to anyone. Making a show pop is about a lot of things, but to me, one of the things that prevent that from happening, is everyone sounding the same. 

 

@Beocat and @ArchieKun I found the list I made and edited it and fixed grammatical errors and the like so that it makes more sense, but if you still want to see the old thread, you can do here: 

 

Edited by RepentantSky
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I'll watch whatever is good, regardless of the time it came out.

What defines "good" you may ask?

Well, 2 things define good, but just know that overall, being "good" is when a show does what it wants to do, and does it well.

A show that wants to be deep, and well written, with good characters, and all that jazz, can only be defined as good if it pulls those things off. Anime like ef: a tale of memories, 3-Gatsu no Lion, Kuzu no Honkai, and so on. If a show that primarily tries to do these things to be that kind of show, FAILS to do those things well, the show will most likely become a bad, unenjoyable show. A run of the mill harem for example. Sure, the purpose is to admire all the cute girls and self-insert over the boring main character, but almost all of these harems also introduce a plot that never gets anywhere near completion, which is near unforgivable in my books. BUT, I have no issue at all with the idea of harems. If a show were to pop up that happened to be a harem, but took itself seriously and actually had well thought out characters and they interacted well, among other things, I would absolutely without a shred of doubt toss it into this category.

So what about the other side of the spectrum? The enjoyable shows. These are almost reversed in a way. Enjoyable shows can be classified as good so long as they're enjoyable. Doesn't matter how it does it, if it does what it's trying to do really well, good to go! Examples being Kill la Kill, Gurren Lagann, Symphogear, and maybe Diebuster. Cross Ange is actually a great example of terribly made but fun to watch. Allow me to look at harems once again though. Most never try to be anything more than fanservice and cute girls, this is true. But even with such a simple premise, most shows manage to mess it up in any number of ways. Cliffhangers, boring characters, overused comedy, you name it, all of this amounts to an unenjoyable experience. I'd never look at a harem and judge it for its story or character complexity, but what it does try to do is simply done badly. Not to mention an almost guaranteed cliffhanger. Because you know, the best way to get enjoyment out of the story I've set out to experience is to not get the end of it!

To simplify things a bit:

Well Written

  • Done well > Fun Time > Enjoyable
  • Done Badly > Not a Fun Time> Unenjoyable

Enjoyable

  • Fun Time > Enjoyable (Regardless of how well it's written)
  • Not a Fun Time > Unenjoyable (Regardless of how well it's written)

A well written show becomes a fun, enjoyable piece of entertainment by properly having well written stuff within it, while an enjoyable show skips the quality check entirely and runs on sheer entertainmentfuel. Of course, while this method isn't exactly perfect, I'm not blind either. If a show is great but it just wasn't my cup of tea, I won't call it bad, I'll accept that I didn't like it and move on. That being said, I won't simply call a show "not my cup of tea" if it's actually terribly made. There are even rarer examples of anime that I absolutely respect 100%, and would recommend to anyone, but didn't actually enjoy. In This Corner of the World is one of these things. And as stated, I highly suggest you give it a watch.

If it seems like I got off track there, no, I genuinely don't have a particular preference for when shows come out. Art is a bonus to me, and unless it's absolutely BRUTAL, I won't even pay attention to it. All that matters is the story.

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