What's the appeal on Anime (Japanese Animation)?

@LibrorumProhibitorum: Indeed as in Kuroko no Basket.

@LiquidPrince: That scene doesn't do anything for me, the animation isn't even particularly great. But oh well, opinions!

Then again, I'd like Nozomu Abe (a key animator really good at making stuff blow up nicely) to work on every action anime to ever exist, so what do I know.

WARNING: Heavy Madoka Magika and Toaru Kagaku no Railgun spoilers in that video. Oh, and some Toaru Majutsu no Index ones as well.

@LibrorumProhibitorum said:

@Cloudenvy said:

@LiquidPrince: I got like 40 episodes in or so before letting it go, I then turned to the manga and that didn't do much better. It might turn into the best anime in the world 150 episodes in, but I'm not interested in forcing myself through that much.

I'll just stick to my weird basketball, Arabian Nights and Nisio Isin shounens for the time being!

Weird basketball as in Kuroko no Basket?

@Cloudenvy said:

@LibrorumProhibitorum: Indeed as in Kuroko no Basket.

@LiquidPrince: That scene doesn't do anything for me, the animation isn't even particularly great. But oh well, opinions!

Then again, I'd like Nozomu Abe (a key animator really good at making stuff blow up nicely) to work on every action anime to ever exist, so what do I know.

WARNING: Heavy Madoka Magika and Toaru Kagaku no Railgun spoilers in that video. Oh, and some Toaru Majutsu no Index ones as well.

Probably because you're watching it out of context. Anyways, the video you posted. Sekirei. Cool.

@Turambar: Yeeeeah, Bleach is not his greatest work. Though he was action director on Madoka, so all is forgiven!

@Turambar: Hey, I'm no fan of Bleach, either, but it sounds like consistent income for him and I can't blame a brother for making his living off of what he does best for a popular, long-running series! Anyway, all his other work far outweighs that whatever negative context that comes with Bleach.

I never realized he worked on And Yet the Town Moves. That was among the slice-of-life shows I could actually appreciate because its quirkiness was so endearing.

@dcgc said:

@sickVisionz said:

@dcgc said:

@ZeForgotten said:

Not really that big of a mystery. It's the same thing that makes other movies or TV shows appealing to others.

But from what I've seen, all of today's popular anime feels the same as the "School Days" one. I still don't understand what's the appeal to these themes. Is it because people who enjoy anime just watch everything, since it has the same drawing/animation style? I just can't grasp it, that kind of anime just feels creepy.

? You just said you hadn't seen a single episode of some of the most popular modern series but now you're sure that everything is like School Days. Me am confused.

I may not have seen an episode but I sure saw several clips on YT of the current popular animes that I said I didn't comprehend. That's why I thought that the core idea or premise, or even some oddities such as close shots on some girl's panties or teens with big busted boobs, in some of these animes were weird and didn't add or improve anything to their story or to the quality of the anime itself. Because these animes are really popular and have a large and growing audience, I wanted to understand what was its appeal overall).

My intention was not to troll people, if that's what most of the users thought.

I've seen school days and it is certainly not a typical harem/slice of life style anime. It changes themes a couple episodes in and becomes something different.

@Turambar said:

@FluxWaveZ said:

The original Kanon was absolutely infamous for absurd quality.

Oh god I only watched the remake and I heard things about the original adaptation but I never knew it looked like that.

I'm glad I watched KyoAni's Kanon. Otherwise I never would have become acquainted with those Key adaptations I like so much. Out of all the visual novel adaptations out there, I think Key's are the best.

@EquitasInvictus: Oh hey, thanks for reminding me that KyoAni isn't doing Little Busters! you jerk!

@Cloudenvy: What?! That's news to me, too!

Is it P.A. Works?

@EquitasInvictus: I wish...It's J.C Staff.

*breaks down again*

I can´t say what is the appeal but I saw you mentioned Death Note. Go and watch the first 2 episodes. There is your answer.

@Cloudenvy: Oh man. I bet there's a Hitler Downfall-parody video for that, that sounds rage-inducing!

I can't say I'm that angry, though, since I actually liked Shana/Index/Railgun and their second season adaptation of Hayate the Combat Butler. I can see why people are up in arms, though, their animation quality is far from what P.A. Works and KyoAni can pull.

Why is the assumption that since Naruto and shit is popular, every anime is like Naruto? I literally do not understand where people get these retarded statements beyond refusing to do research on their own. Basically, what I'm getting at is: stop being an idiot and research this shit on your own. I did, and found I love hard scifi anime.

anime is not just one genre, just like many people have said here. you just have look into each genre to find out which ones you like.

@Napalm: Well, in this case the OP didn't even use the Naruto generalization. He referred to a series that should never have been seen as his first anime. I mean if I watched School Days first I probably would have been traumatized and turned off. It took a lot of seeing my share of good and bad anime to at least appreciate School Days in a guilty pleasure sense long enough to actually be entertained by its "nice boat" ending.

@EquitasInvictus said:

@DonChipotle: The only sports-related anime I've ever watched was Cross Game, but I enjoyed it immensely and would place it among my favorites.

I guess I'll have to check Major out, considering I've heard so much about it and I do enjoy baseball in general. Never thought I'd appreciate sports anime, but with Cross Game I am definitely open to watch more.

I've seen several sports-related anime, and would definitely say Cross Game was the best one I've seen. Too many focus on a protagonist that is too much of a wuss that lacks confidence at the drop of a hat, or they go the route of crazy, supernatural abilities, or both. I think the worst offender is Eyeshield 21.

@EquitasInvictus: You should've seen it, forums were falling apart left and right when it was announced.

I can't say that the fact that it's J.C Staff angers me much compared to them putting a man with EXTREMELY little directing experience on the project, something that Little Busters! does absolutely not need considering how the story plays out. On the animation thing: Ironically J.C Staff produced a lot of backgrounds for Hanasaku Iroha which was absolutely gorgeous, so they probably could produce stuff like that if they weren't busy doing 6 shows per season ; ).

@EquitasInvictus: I'm not even talking about that. Anime is an entire genre and style. You have subgenres geared towards all sorts of very specific things. The assumption that all anime is this one specific, stupid thing is fucking absurd.

@Sergio said:

@EquitasInvictus said:

@DonChipotle: The only sports-related anime I've ever watched was Cross Game, but I enjoyed it immensely and would place it among my favorites.

I guess I'll have to check Major out, considering I've heard so much about it and I do enjoy baseball in general. Never thought I'd appreciate sports anime, but with Cross Game I am definitely open to watch more.

I've seen several sports-related anime, and would definitely say Cross Game was the best one I've seen. Too many focus on a protagonist that is too much of a wuss that lacks confidence at the drop of a hat, or they go the route of crazy, supernatural abilities, or both. I think the worst offender is Eyeshield 21.

You should definitely watch Major. The protagonist is anything but a wuss and pretty much every other character constantly calls him out on his arrogance and general lack of caring about other's feelings. While it may seem 'supernatural' that this guy can get as far as he does in the baseball world with his limited ability, the show goes out of its way to justify it.

Forgive me if this has been brought up already, but my main problem with anime is that it's often not animated. Especially some mainstream stuff like Bleach and Naruto. I've watched a couple of episodes of these animes, and almost nothing actually happens in them. It's always a shot of a guy standing still, looking at something. Often the camera is at their back, so their mouths don't even have to be shown moving while they talk. The mouth is usually the thing that's only animated because sometimes their face is showing when they talk. Noting else is moving. They're not gesturing with their hands, just a mouth moving on a still picture of some dudes and a background. Sometimes the wind is blowing to at least make their clothes move in the breeze a little bit.

Sometimes there are fight scenes...which aren't really animated either. So there's a guy fighting a monster with a sword, except he's standing a distance from the monster. To fight the monster, he swings his blade, which shoots a beam at the monster and attacks it... which doesn't require the person to move at all. The only thing shown is a close up of the blade being swung on one on of those color "anime action" backgrounds, and then a close up of a tentacle being cut off by a beam. So, in this "action-packed" fight scene, nothing actually ends up moving, and it's boring as hell.

I understand that there may be some legit reasons for this other than lazy animators. Maybe their budget is low, or maybe they're trying to capture the feel of the original manga...but this is ANIME, so it should be ANIMATED.

Not to say that all anime is like this. One night I was watching Adult Swim, watching an episode of Naruto, then Bleach. Yawn, nothing happened. Then Fullmetal Alchemist came on, and it was a world of difference. Characters were actually moving around and stuff.

This is why I prefer stand-alone anime movies over serialized anime. Stuff from like Studio Ghibli and Madhouse animate beautifully, and even if the story is bunk, it's at least pleasing to look at. Even watching "western" cartoons, they at least do stuff like move their hands around while talking, and background characters animate in some way. It's not just a static image with a two-frame mouth opening and closing. And stuff like Avatar The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra are great (though some of my friends, who are Bleach and Naruto fans, bizarrely have little interest in actually watching Avatar. I don't really get it).

...this post was way longer than I intended it to be.

@Cloudenvy: Really? I would've attributed Hanasaku Iroha to P.A. Works entirely had I not heard that! I haven't played any visual novels that got adapted to know how they're supposed to translate to anime and what is required to successfully pull out an adaptation, though, so I'm not going to worry until I've seen it.

The only visual novels I've played are the Akabeisoft2 ones since they don't have adaptations. Oh -- but I've read Planetarian at the peak of my interest in Key and absolutely loved it (that's technically my first visual novel too even though it doesn't really "play" like one), that's probably what got me to understand the better qualities of visual novel storytelling.

another one of these topics?

If you like anime, cool, me to. If not whatever.

A lot of anime is shit but a lot of tv/book/movies/music are shit so I don't see why anime gets a bad wrap.

@EquitasInvictus: I'll restrain myself so I don't start recommending visual novels left and right here.

Saying much more would probably spoil Little Busters' but there are specific parts that will probably be very hard to adapt into anime without making the whole "story" obvious as hell.

Also; Hell yes Planetarian.

@Cloneslayer: Because it's easy to bash something you know almost nothing about.

we should just make a discuss anime topic so as not to fill the board with people asking what the deal wit anime

I think anime is (like all cartoons) a really diverse medium where everyone from young children to jaded adults looking for something "edgy" can find something they like.

I wouldn't judge an anime based on one out-of-context clip, though. Sometimes something makes more sense when you watch the entire episode (or season, or movie...)

@Animasta: @Cloudenvy:

Sorry guys but @LiquidPrince is right, if you make it 50 ep into one piece and don't want to see these characters to the end of there journey you

A-Don't like long anime series or

B-Have no soul

Also, very important: get a list of the filler episodes and skip em. This will make your experience much more enjoyable

@pyrodactyl: Well, I can like long series.

Oh, no soul you say? that'd probably explain it.

@Animasta said:

We should just make a discuss anime topic so as not to fill the board with people asking what the deal wit anime

I definitely agree with you. That way, the forums won't be as clogged up. It might as well be pinned too.

@Cloudenvy: I blogged about Sharin no Kuni a while ago; I really wish that got an adaptation. Actually, I wish G-Senjou no Maou would get adapted too. Why doesn't anyone want to adapt anything akabeisoft2?

More importantly, why won't anyone adapt Planetarian?! Oh, but I digress, I'm really getting off topic now.

@Animasta You're probably right, this is turning into a general anime discussion that would warrant its own thread. I have a bad feeling that a dedicated thread would get derailed by trolls or worse (sonic_the_hedgehog) but if we managed to dodge that bullet here despite a quick cameo of sonic-spinoff a dedicated thread could work.

@pyrodactyl: Most series don't even get to ep. 50 and this gets awesome after that? No thank you.

@EquitasInvictus said:

@Animasta You're probably right, this is turning into a general anime discussion that would warrant its own thread. I have a bad feeling that a dedicated thread would get derailed by trolls or worse (sonic_the_hedgehog) but if we managed to dodge that bullet here despite a quick cameo of sonic-spinoff a dedicated thread could work.

I agree, but this thread derailed to the right track is still better than a dedicated thread derailed to the wrong track.

@Animasta Looks like someone took your suggestion to heard, since there is now a thread.

I guess people can move conversations there. I'll try to help keep that thread alive without inviting trolls as long as everyone else here is cool with that thread too. I so no reason to not give a shot as long as the mods don't have problems with it.

@AlexanderSheen: The thread was made so I'd just give it a shot until sonic_the_hedgehog shows up or something instead of letting it become a haven for trolls.

@EquitasInvictus: No clue about Akabeisoft, I'm honestly surprised that no one has tried to make a G-senjou no Maou adaptation. I guess we'll just get Key and shitty, low budget eroge adaptations for the rest of our lives!

And someone should adapt Planetarian! though that'll never happen. Man, this whole discussion became depressing all of a sudden.

@Cloudenvy: Great characters with complex motivations and backstories (not just the main cast but minor charcters and vilains).

Great action. Simple but compeling overarching story with more potential than any other. Unrivaled sens of continuity.

I guess you can hate some things for no aparent reason and despite their quality. For exemple, I hate DOTA, LOL and other MOBAs because, let's face it, they're made by the devil.

@Bigheart711: I forget; do stickied threads show up in the front page? If that's the case, I think everyone would win because this getting stickied in off-topic won't bother anyone, in theory. So no one would have the right to complain about these kinds of threads anymore.

Although... someone made a thread and yet we're still here.

@Cloudenvy: As long as there are still animation studios out there, there's always hope!

EDIT: Never mind! I'll stop posting on this thread now.

@EquitasInvictus: Some stickied threads (mainly recent ones) are on the front page, but it's a good idea for said thread to be pinned via Off-Topic because there won't be any other repeat threads about this sort of topic. I don't think it would bother much of anyone either, post-flagging aside.

@Cloudenvy: The reason no one has tried to make an adaptation of an Akabeisoft eroge, is because of Akabeisoft.

@AlexanderSheen said:

@pyrodactyl: Most series don't even get to ep. 50 and this gets awesome after that? No thank you.

No, it's awesome from the beginning. This is one of those shows that just gets better and better and better.

@AlexanderSheen said:

@pyrodactyl: Most series don't even get to ep. 50 and this gets awesome after that? No thank you.

No, it's awesome from the beginning. This is one of those shows that just gets better and better and better.

@Turambar said:

@FluxWaveZ said:

The original Kanon was absolutely infamous for absurd quality.

Oh god I only watched the remake and I heard things about the original adaptation but I never knew it looked like that.

I'm glad I watched KyoAni's Kanon. Otherwise I never would have become acquainted with those Key adaptations I like so much. Out of all the visual novel adaptations out there, I think Key's are the best.

@Turambar said:

@LiquidPrince said:

@AlexanderSheen said:

@pyrodactyl: Most series don't even get to ep. 50 and this gets awesome after that? No thank you.

No, it's awesome from the beginning. This is one of those shows that just gets better and better and better.

Different strokes for different folks. I've seen it and want nothing to do with it. The animation style is completely off putting.

Honestly Oda's art is some of the best in all of anime. Every character looks completely distinct as opposed to most anime's where it's essentially the same face with different hair.

@Turambar said:

@LiquidPrince said:

@AlexanderSheen said:

@pyrodactyl: Most series don't even get to ep. 50 and this gets awesome after that? No thank you.

No, it's awesome from the beginning. This is one of those shows that just gets better and better and better.

Different strokes for different folks. I've seen it and want nothing to do with it. The animation style is completely off putting.

Honestly Oda's art is some of the best in all of anime. Every character looks completely distinct as opposed to most anime's where it's essentially the same face with different hair.

@Turambar: You're talking as if it's an established fact that Oda's design is ugly. You're in the low minority on that one.

@Turambar: You're talking as if it's an established fact that Oda's design is ugly. You're in the low minority on that one.

@Turambar: Actually, that was a completely different post you made. I've only read your last post, and anyone would assume that you're speaking for everyone when you called it ugly.

@Turambar: Actually, that was a completely different post you made. I've only read your last post, and anyone would assume that you're speaking for everyone when you called it ugly.

I'm guessing most people go to anime for cheap and/or quick entertainment. Then again, there are also many viewers that just get absorbed into this anime/japanese setting that most of those teen drama animes portray. I guess I can't really say what's the appeal for the anime masses, but I've tried giving anime a chance.

Dropped way more shows than those I actually enjoyed. And the only anime I have enjoyed these past few years are only FMA: brotherhood and somewhat dragged through Fate/Zero just to finish it.