Anime losers meet headphone geeks!

[andrzejpw]

Wodgy describes perfectly my distaste for anime, much more eloquently that I would care to do now. To be completely honest, it's more the many American Anime fans I can't stand (admittedly, not all of them). My view on anime fans has been greatly influenced by the ANIME AND MANGA CLUB from high school. I think my distaste for them can be best summed up in the following images.

I think the file name of that image describes the situation quite well.

I'm not even going to talk about furries.

 

[Apostle]

Anime is an acquired taste. If one's only exposure to anime shows has been via the cartoon network or rented dvds, both with horrible american dubs, then I would hate anime too, the english voice actors just don't have the emotion of the original ones.

I've sampled tons of anime both from downloaded subs and old tv shows, and after all these years I conclude: Berserk. Best. Anime. Ever. (And the manga's even better).

Lain with her cans!

 

[Jahn]

Hey now, not everyone cosplays or dives to the depths of fanboy/fangirlism! Just because you know a life-sized body pillow of Sailor Moon exists doesn't mean you want one you know! On the other hand if that high school club keeps bugging you to join and dress up as a ninja because you're asian, well I think at that point you can slap em around. But don't blame the rest of us anime lovers!

 

[Kirosia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jahn Hey now, not everyone cosplays or dives to the depths of fanboy/fangirlism! Just because you know a life-sized body pillow of Sailor Moon exists doesn't mean you want one you know! On the other hand if that high school club keeps bugging you to join and dress up as a ninja because you're asian, well I think at that point you can slap em around. But don't blame the rest of us anime lovers!

that's friggin' hilarious.

Just to clarify, to me, there's a difference between anime/asian media lovers and scary obsessed fanboys/girls. The latter is what most of us dislike.

On another note, I have been asked if I know kung fu (always kung fu, never tae kwon do or jujitsu or anything) about 5 million times. I stopped saying no along time ago.

Do a few hand maneuvers and weird yells, and watch em go "Aw!!". They'll fear and respect you for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

 

[tiberian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia that's friggin' hilarious. Just to clarify, to me, there's a difference between anime/asian media lovers and scary obsessed fanboys/girls. The latter is what most of us dislike. On another note, I have been asked if I know kung fu (always kung fu, never tae kwon do or jujitsu or anything) about 5 million times. I stopped saying no along time ago. Do a few hand maneuvers and weird yells, and watch em go "Aw!!". They'll fear and respect you for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

actually americans know really little about asia.
real life experience:
'where are you from'
'hong kong'
'is hong kong part of japan?'
along with other funny stuff...

 

[noir]

How should i start, seeing the many anime-haters in here. I am watching anime myself from youngest age (around 20 years ago) and haven't really stopped. I mean 5 years back, noone would bash you because you watched anime. Why?
No one knew what anime was. Most people still don't. Nowadays anime is spreading to western regions widely with all positive and negative impacts (except for France, where anime is known for over 20 years and where all major controverses/debates have already happened)

As someone said, lots of anime are bad... but there are also a few pearls in between.
And those pearls are what make me believe in anime. I don't watch ecchi or shonen anime, but i like those with more "adult" content, and i don't mean hentai.

i wholeheartedly agree with what saint.panda said before:
Quote:

Anyway, in my opinion, anime culture is one good display of the polarized Japanese society, polarized by many extremes, probably more than the big majority of other countries, certainly more than European countries as far as I can tell. It acts as a ventilation and compensation for things unfulfilled in real life and despite its less than ideal founding reasons, or rather especially due to these reasons the result is often art of the highest order of magnitude. Maybe as an analogy, the Greek society, which has brought us so many great tragedies and philosophic jewels, was marked by a people which was often very depressive in nature

I love watching greek tragedies, and they influence my thinking lots. And as ridiculous as it may sound, i value my favorite anime as much as i value those tragedies; they bring me human values closer, and show me the "what if this escalated" scenarios.

I never said i like all anime... many are meant for children, puberting teens (green green *cough*) or weird phantasizing.

But the ones i value are those that, imo, pushed me further in myself... for instance evangelion (there's a shinji in everyone of us), Now and then here and there, SaiKano, Kenshin OVA, Lain, Hotaru no Haka... the list is long. I understand that anime is not everyone's thing, but please don't give us that "anime sucks anyway" attitude... imo that's at least as bad as fanboydom.

 

[chadbang]

I just wanna know where i can find one of those Sailor Moon pillows...

 

[saint.panda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia On another note, I have been asked if I know kung fu (always kung fu, never tae kwon do or jujitsu or anything) about 5 million times. I stopped saying no along time ago. Do a few hand maneuvers and weird yells, and watch em go "Aw!!". They'll fear and respect you for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

When people ask me whether I do KungFu, and some of my best friends have asked me that, I just tell them that it is a misconception to think that all Asians do that sort of thing. I tell them that in my country, the kids don't have time to do that because they are so occupied with work and keeping up with their studies. However, it is true that they are all badass table tennis players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy I have to say I agree for the most part with Minya. I don't like anime largely because I find it aesthetically unappealing. The choppy animation looks cheap, and the fetishized characters (impossibly large eyes and women with implausibly large breasts and huge, curvy bottoms, all atypical characteristics for ethnic Japanese) bother me. Technology, particularly vehicles and weapons, are equally fetishized -- this just seems to me a kind of transparent, semi-Freudian transferred penis fetish. The human relationships are caricatures; there's always an overt sense of male dominance except for the occasional archetypal Amazon woman. (This is, incidentally, what probably attracts geeky men who are held in little esteem by women in real life to the genre.) That said, I have enjoyed a couple anime films that don't fit the problem areas identified above. "My Neighbor Totoro" was great because the animation was smooth and bright, the characters realistic, and the animation was used to create something that wouldn't be possible with live action. Aside from anime, I also don't really care for a lot of Japanese culture. Their art films are terrible; I can't stand the Japanese "cinema verite" concept where the pacing of the film is slowed down to match real life. I've walked out of Japanese art film festivals because I was falling asleep. Also, so much of Japanese culture seems constructed to denigrate women. Teenage girls are fetishized, selling their underwear to adults, while 30 year old women are considered failures if they haven't found a husband, and sometimes take to wearing little school backpacks and sucking on lollipops to pretend to be younger and make themselves more appealing. In Japanese "adult" films, the women are expected to be crying and feigning pain and resistance, and too often the girls are depicted as being young schoolgirls. I just don't like the vibes this kind of thing projects, and it seems to me fairly common across a wide axis of Japanese culture. Again, men who rarely have power or the eye of women in real life may find a culture where female disempowerment is fetishized appealing.

I think the Freudian penis fetish is a really universal tool and could be applied to practically anything if wanted. Further, weapons certainly are not a Japanese thing only. But your assertation on anime in general is excellent as there's always the same scheme and a general tendency towards male oppression, also in general society. One reason for the "younger girls" tendency could be attributed to the fact that the typical high school student simply cannot experience what is shown to them through the media, which anime is part of hence completing the vicious cycle. The experience of competition and pressure starts with choosing the best kindergarten or even earlier. I cannot imagine the amount of work Japanes school children have to go through and how the cycle of harder and harder work continues in business life. There is a special term in Japanese which denotes the act of dying at the workplace. Also, due to the strong bond between company and employee, the company becomse the new familty as men often prefer or have to prefer going to dinner with collegues rather than ther wives. There have been accounts of widows who, after their husbands' deaths at work, openly admitted that somehow they could not feel grief beacause they never saw each other and because they received a huge pension from their husbands' companies. It's understandable but this sort of separation between men and women is frightening.
About Japanese culture, I've never seen it but I guess that the cinema verite is only one part of Japanese culture, as is Anime. There are more facets to Japanese culture such as literature as presented by Haruki Murakami or Banana Yoshimoto for the younger generation, jazz music and of course culinary art (at its best).

 

[Kirosia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiberian actually americans know really little about asia. real life experience: 'where are you from' 'hong kong' 'is hong kong part of japan?' along with other funny stuff...

You don't have to tell me. At least people have heard of you guys. I tell people I'm cambodian, they have no f**kin clue. If they do, it's the crazy Khmer rouge or gangster stuff. Funny story, my old female psyc teacher said her friend refused to go eat at a restaurant in the asian ghetto area here cause he was afraid of the "ninjas" that will try to kill him or something. No joke. If he sees asian kids across the street he freak outs. She finally got him to eat there, but he's still a wuss and acts all jittery. (the guy's an adult BTW)

MAny americans for some reason think we all look alike. They'll say "I have an asian friend that looks just like you", and when I see them, there's no resemblance at all. Althought the weirder ones seem to think all asian people are attractive, even the butt ugly ones. I don't get it. So if anyone here is asian and finds themselves somewhat unattractive, just go to a anime convention or some s**t like that. The fanboys/girls will be all over you.

EDIT: As for the american cosplayers, they freak me out. The japanese ones at least do it justice. I've played final fantasy, and I don't recall there being a duck with stupid glasses. Mayber there was, I don't know. And is that a white guy covered in black make-up pretending to be Barrett? That's just f'ed up.

 

[Jahn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chadbang I just wanna know where i can find one of those Sailor Moon pillows...

just for fun i typed "anime body pillow" into google and got a ton of disturbing hits. but here is one that isn't even anime, that i found most disturbing...


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6717610/?GT1=5936

 

[viator122]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia MAny americans for some reason think we all look alike. They'll say "I have an asian friend that looks just like you", and when I see them, there's no resemblance at all.

Ok, but let's be fair here. If I were to go to, say, Japan, I bet I'd get the same kind of responses.

Also, lots of Asian people seem to get upset/insulted if you can't tell where they're from. "How could you think I'm Vietnamese? I'm Laotian, dumbass." In Laos, no one would be able to tell if my background is Irish, English, German, Swedish, Dutch or whatever.

 

[minya]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek minya: Those "anime" faces are fun to use, and pretty cute. I use them. Am I stupid?

yep

(you asked)

 

[MartinJ]

So an entire genre is hated now? And the only ones allowed (or accepted) to like a certain entertainment has to come from its region?

I don't find great joy in Anime but I have seen some humorous Anime shows which are funny.

What are the so called bad aspects that Animes bring? The only bad thing I can see are those that take it too seriously, but anything taken too seriously is a bad thing.

Soon you will not be allowed to listen to a band because you don't come from the Bands town.

 

[chadbang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jahn just for fun i typed "anime body pillow" into google and got a ton of disturbing hits. but here is one that isn't even anime, that i found most disturbing... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6717610/?GT1=5936

Hehehe. Pretty sad.

 

[raif]

Man I thought the anime hatred thing was limited to the comic book sector. It is humorous to see how wide spread this is now, back when I was in high school the usual response to my professed love of anime was "what's anime?"

Anyways here is my take on anime, lifted from another forum I visit sometimes. You can ignore the comic book references as they don't really add or detract to the point.


Quote:

Originally Posted by raif Personally I am a huge fan of anime(not manga, though). I love the cartoony style mixed with overly detailed backgrounds and accessories. Of course I got out of the whole comic thing quite a few years ago when madureira was about as manga as it got. From what I see now, it feels like any other American Fad. 1. At first only a handful like it 2. then it gains broader acceptance 3. then it becomes chic 4. then "everybody" does it 5. then "everybody" hates it 6. then comes the best part, the good aspects of the format stick around helping to move the medium forward. If ask me, there are positive and negatives. The biggest negative will always be the almighty $$$ and the way it drives the medium, but Image and speculators ruined that a decade ago.(OMG I am getting old) As for the positives. Everybody hated Image by the end, but look how they pushed quality standards and creator rights. I feel that once we get out of Stage 4/5(see above) some positive aspects of the manga invasion will remain. My guess would be more emphasis on relationships, everyday activities, and other storytelling intricacies that are sometimes less developed in "traditional" american comics.(IMO)

No offense, but judging by the subtext of the comments I have read, I sense there are more than a few of the "4" and "5" people in this thread right now.