Anime still blows
Posted by madaardvark on May 23, 2009
I just saw an ad on Adult Swim for their anime Saturdays and that 20 second hyper-flash clip collection they called a commercial reminded me, in just that brief amount of time, that anime is ridiculously asinine. I used to watch it back in the day because I thought the overblown emotional reactions of every character, and the total lack of consequences for them, was one of the most hilarious things I had ever seen. Why this shit-fest became something respected was beyond me. That is, until emo music got popular, then I realized that this concept is pretty attractive to repressed selfish assholes who only care about their own problems or how the problems of others directly affect them. Blame an internet society, or a lack of beauty and truth in art, or a media concerned with sensationalism over substance, or Joe Quesada for shitting on how comic books are interpreted, both contemporary and classic. I saw the last five minutes of the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon today, and in the end, Peter Parker almost missed a high school dance where he was supposed to meet Mary Jane, not his actual high-school sweetheart, Gwen Stacy, who Spider-Man accidentally killed later in their relationship. THAT’S RIGHT. Spider-Man killed her. People like to remember Green Goblin being to blame, but that’s only part of the story. It was Spidey’s own arrogance that did it, and HELLS BELLS that was an important part of Spider-Man’s history AS WELL AS comic history. Misunderstanding that, or ‘reinterpreting’ that idea misses the point entirely. We like to see heroes stomp in with no regard for anything other than winning the day, but there was a time when they actually gave a shit about innocent bystanders and BLAMED THEMSELVES when they failed. Add that complaint to the reasons why Batman Begins blew baboon balls, while we’re at it.
Mark said
Gotta agree – anime sucks big time.
FKM said
…You’ve never seen good anime. Watch some of the not kiddie shit that doesn’t air on TV. Specifically, watch Elfen Lied. We’ll see how bad anime blows after you see that.
madaardvark said
FKM said
June 9, 2009 at 1:34 pm e
…You’ve never seen good anime. Watch some of the not kiddie shit that doesn’t air on TV. Specifically, watch Elfen Lied. We’ll see how bad anime blows after you see that.
I am responding to this in a new post because my reply started to get VERY long.
Iniquitous Sciuridae said
Why do people keep defending anime with making intelligent people watch more of it? It sucks for many reasons; NO, and I mean N O amount of *more* anime is going to change it. Watching more anime, like your Elfin Lied hot mess, only adds to the data that anime is terrible. You might like certain things but separate yourself, please, from aesthetic analysis. What I would like to see, is an anime fan use a phrase like: “I agree, it’s pretty much crap. I did, however, see this one called Elfin Lied and I thought it was really interesting.” But instead we get these lumped sort of arguments where apparently there’s some sort of secret anime underground of ‘good’ anime, which only supports the argument made by Aardvark here that apologetics suggests problematics. When you respond apologetically or antagonistically to someone’s empirical observation, you’ve just lost the argument.
Adrian said
Whoever posted that last comment has seriously broken logic, and attempts to cover that up with big, long intellectual words. For one, it is a very narrow “empirical” observation. Would you read a children’s book and assume all books are picture books about little red riding hood? While it is completely agreeable many anime titles have immature and predictable traits, anime is a form of media; it encompasses children’s tales, adult, thrillers, horrors, you name it. Judging a form by what you see on a television network is not by any mean comprehensive. What is wrong with being “apolegetically” responding? When someone attacks a form with such little insight and close-minded opinion, it is natural to defend. Isn’t that what happens in a debate? Might I also note, most of this “observation” named specific examples from American shows, not Japanese anime.
Marbin said
Also IS you said something that made me go what the heck. Why would an anime fan say “I agree, it’s pretty much crap”? Then they wouldn’t truly be a fan.
Kari_Light said
People watch anime for differant reasons. Some to get a laugh, others to watch someone who has more problems and trouble in their life than they do. There are so many kinds of anime out there, that it is just wrong to label it all as stupid. I’m suprised you haven’t said the same things about Harry Potter or Star Wars because a lot of the same stuff happens in those movies and books. Sure some of the shows are complete crap, but not all of them. All of you who say your intellgent and shouldn’t have to watch anime are the idiots. I mean some of the stuff I’ve watched is like a slighty more sophisticated version of Barney. The best anime comes in movies though, not the TV shows. Some movies I’ve seen, they’re almost real from how they’re drawn. My mother agrees with me, and let me tell you, this dosen’t happen often. I had one of my friends who never watched anime before, or read it, watch one of these movies and she fell in love with the movie, wanted to borrow it but never gave it back. If you haven’t seen all of anime, not just what people tell you, I mean all of it, than you can’t say it all sucks. Get a life and stop the stupid hissy fit you’re having.
madaardvark said
If you have been watching the threads on this post and the other one, you would see that I have already addressed these points. This is the ‘you haven’t seen [blank]‘ argument again, doubled by suggesting I have to see ‘all of it’ in order to make a judgment. Also, if you had read my first post, you would see that I do, indeed, say these things about Harry Potter, and I can say these things about the Star Wars prequels. If you want to convince me that there are better things out there, you will have to do better than stories of personal experience. They’re like ghost stories: unverifiable personal events based on limited experience, perspective, and knowledge that do not erase the evidence against them. All you have shown me is that your mother and friend have no better taste or critical thinking skills than you do.
Kari_Light said
Alright, you can bad mouth me and even my mother, but bad mouthing about my friends especially when you’ve never met them is what shows how shallow minded YOU are. If you say this kind of stuff, it leads me to believe that you either have a very low regard for friends, or just not any care for anyone but yourself. I don’t care about what has been said before, you just seem like a downright, smart ass jerk. You always have to be right and never seem to have anything good to say about anything. Is there actually any TV show you do like?? I pity you’re friends, if you have any. You must be really rude to them.
madaardvark said
I am an arrogant jerk. This is absolutely true. However, it does not have any bearing on the validity of my argument.