Forum - View topicAnime: The stereotypes
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e[LP]e
Posts: 11 Location: In a litle land, east of the leg of Europe |
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Here I'm asking you guys what are the basic things people think about when they hear the word anime.
Reading the dictionary topic, I came to the conclusion that anime is animation which is higlly detailed and the story usually uses adult and ocult themes. Cartoons for adults, in short. Painfully ironic, isn't it. So I asked some people what they think about anime, and I got these: -large and detailed eyes. This came in about a 100% probability, from Sailormoon and Pokemon. My sister said becouse they look cute. If that's the case then the desired formula for anime would be: Ocult and adult themes + cute = anime X_x Speaking truthfully, knowing the reason of the above statement, I found that it doesn't bother me, as much as I thought it would. Maybe the eyes seem to be some sort of singniture that anime uses. -Mecha This came out of the cyberpunk gengre and the whole large robots theme.Though, I noticed, there are not a lot of people that reffer cyberpunk with that. People told me they reffer it to hi-tech, hackers, and most suprisingly, philosophy about man and machine. -Nudity, sex. This could be the reason, why many people dissmiss anime. A lot of people told they didn't like the nude scences in Ghost in the shell, saying it was completly unnesecery. In way, I agree. As for the rape scenes, there should be a limit, if it is really artistic impression, or mastrubation material. Last edited by e[LP]e on Fri Sep 05, 2003 12:22 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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MelancholyDevil
 Posts: 311 Location: Louisiana |
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The reason the eyes in anime are big is because the japanese belive that the eyes are the window to your soul. At least, that's what I heard. |
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SkullKnight
 Posts: 317 Location: Deep South |
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I think the stereotypes is attributed to the way its presented.
For example, two days ago on "the quad (very big courtyard sort of)" All the clubs setup tables to try to recruit new members. All the clubs were fairly decent in terms of their banners, and material displayed EXCEPT the anime club. I was disappointed. It was not anime's fault it were the people behind the desk. They were disorganized and didn't properly present enough variety. Also on a personal note: I value professionalism greatly. They had none. |
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Emerje
 Posts: 7548 Location: Maine |
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Actually it's simply because they find large eyes to be more expressive. They can show a larger variety of emotions than smaller/normal eyes can. Of course they got this concept from early cartoons like those from Disney or MGM, but it deffinatly works well and thankfully stuck. Emerje |
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Lupin_333
 Posts: 136 Location: Houston, TX |
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My most favorite stereotype to shatter is the one that states that all otaku are obsessive nerdy smelly types. At my school, all my friends who are into anime are either the smart popular types or the athletic popular types, sometimes even both. All the people that are against anime vocally at my school are the stoners, the angsty insecure preppy types, and the weird kid that used to sit behind me in my Language class outlining his veins on his arm with a pencil while making fun of me for reading an Initial D graphic novel. (Tokyopop gone off and edited names, boy whatcha gonna do, ACT A FOO'
 )
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RantingOtaku
Posts: 219 Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada |
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seems oh so familiar, and so very true... now that I think back to highschool, I laugh at people like that, becuase I'll be the one making 6figures+ a year, while they will either be in prison or hooked on drugs more so than before 
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4662 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Quite frankly, I find the new stereotype you get in mainstream newspaper articles about anime written post-Spirited Away Oscar win, making anime fandom out to be some sort of sophisticated, highbrow, intellectual hobby, far more annoying than I ever found the old "robots, girls with big eyes and bigger boobs, & guns" stereotype to be.
Sure, some people only like the more "artsy" and "deep" stuff, and I'm not knocking them if that's what they like, but when the newspaper writers make broad generalizations about why people get into anime, lately, they either seem to downplay the equally valid reason that some people are into anime because it's entertaining and fun, or they just ignore it entirely, and, somehow, the articles they write suck all the fun out of anime and make it seem downright pretentious. So, as my own tiny little way of combatting the newer stereotype, in my sig in the RottenTomatoes.com forum (where I'm Kiyone), I added a quote from a mini-review I did somewhere on that board (their search function sucks) of Project A-ko, still one of my favourite anime films: "This movie is proof that not all anime films are insightful, haunting, poetic, elegaic, or philisophical with deep subtexts on the nature of existence, asking what makes us human. Some anime films are about schoolgirls with powers and big robots and spaceships and panties and wacky mayhem." |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
 Posts: 3817 Location: Montreal |
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Actually you could replace "Some anime films" by "Most anime films". I'll be the first to acknowledge that most anime is just meant as pure entertainment.
I think this intellectual stereotype is simply due to the fact that the most vocal fans of anime also tend to be the ones that have the more "refined" tastes. For that reason, the face of anime fandom that is presented to the world tends to be skewed towards the "artsy" and "deep" stuff as you put it. I you think about it, it's only a matter of experience. The biggest fans are the ones who have seen a lot of anime. And when you've seen a lot of anime, you tend to get tired of the girls-n-guns recipe (or harem, or young-boy-in-a-mecha...) So you move to more elaborate titles. It's the film critic syndrome: because you like anime so much you watch a lot of it and you talk about it a lot, but because you watch so much your perspective becomes different from the general public. |
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king_micah
 Posts: 994 Location: OSU |
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Being a poser intellectual is fun, and profitable too.
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Tenchi
Posts: 4662 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Well, all I'm saying is that I've been "around the block" quite a few times as an anime fan too, watching subtitled anime since 1994, and the bulk of my collection is still the fun stuff. I've watched plenty of the deeper anime that floors a lot of people, and I even own some of those "deeper" series and I do like them to some degree, but, in all honesty, for the most part, the enjoyment I get from Urusei Yatsura, Kimagure Orange Road, Tenchi Muyo, You're Under Arrest, Sailor Moon, Adventures of the Mini-Goddess and the more fun episodes of Patlabor is worth more to me than whatever thoughts the thought-provoking anime might provoke... with a handful of exceptions, like Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, the Patlabor films (which I like, but I like the fun episodes of the TV/OVA series even more), and, of course, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou... and I'd love to get my hands on a copy of Twilight Q... well, I guess when it comes to the more "artsy" stuff, I have somewhat offbeat tastes compared to the critics...
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nyana
 Posts: 93 |
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Well, I don't know what kind of school you attend, but the stereotype that all otaku are obsessive nerdy smelly is not a simple stereotype but a sad reality. You only need to attend an anime expo to see that the majority of anime fans are the type of people who would seem to love living their fantasies and lives through anime. Thats not a stereotype but a mere fact. |
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Lupin_333
Posts: 136 Location: Houston, TX |
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I go to a public school in a really small town. There are some nerdy "otaku", but sadly they are the people who think the only good anime is Yu-Gi-Oh, you know, the ones that think that all anime has violence and stuff and that the American Yu-Gi-Oh is heavily censored and stuff. I hang out with all the indie-film dorks (except we're not really dorks), so pretty much everyone I hang out with has at least seen Evangelion or Akira or Bebop or something.
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RantingOtaku
Posts: 219 Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada |
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[quote="nyana"]
WRONG! most people look at me and see a 'jock' type, but I'm not at all, just a really built otaku, as are any other one that I know... wandering through a 'fat-camp' does not count as school or sad reality. |
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nyana
Posts: 93 |
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Perhaps you missed the part where I said the "majority" of otakus and not all. |
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RantingOtaku
Posts: 219 Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada |
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actually I did
 was browsing the forums in my CISCO class in a small window on one of the older monitors, my bad, srry for coming across as an ass
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