One of the better arguments made for not liking anime. Luckily the OP has actually watched the stuff instead of dismissing it off hand.
The problem here isn't he aesthetic, but the degree with which it runs the same old thing into the ground. I enjoyed a few anime in my time but it was almost never because it was anime. The story lines, characters, and action got me interested. But every goddamn anime (especially made within the last 10 years) does have the same old fucking cliches that I don't think can be played off as "oh well there's cliches in other things too". It's in pretty much everything and I'm not breaking any news by saying that. If it's an anime, it almost has to have that these days and when you've grown sick and tired of it, then there's nothing you can do but stop watching it.
It feel like the obligatory nature of how anime is stuffed with these same cliches is an indication of a larger culture issue with Japan. I feel like Western versions of animation, comics, and games have a lot of crap and cliches but also variety. Unless they came from the same studio, property, or group of hands, it's likely not going to look the same. And yes there are exceptions in both games (luckily much more now that the Japanese games market is expanding and dissolving that problem slowly) and anime but it's not overwhelming. Japan can and needs to do better than this. Give it a decade or two. It happened within anime from the initial jump to today's style and hopefully it will jump again.
" All of the excitement over Super Street Fighter IV kind of got to me and I thought about getting it, but then I re-installed SFIV, couldn't beat the third guy in Arcade mode in Easy mode, tried a tutorial and ended up having to look up how to complete it online, and then uninstalled, reminded that the developers of these games hate new players with a passion unparalleled by anything ever. I know I should write it off, but hey, maybe someday there will be some kind of beginner's friendly incarnation of this game... "
Can I say this happened to be almost exactly the time I tried to get into it. And it bums me out because I dumped mad time into Soul Cailbur and way more than that into Mortal Kombat. I've played a fighting game or two when I could and man would I love to get back into some more Mortal Kombat.
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