Forum - View topicWhy we all love anime so much.
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frentymon
Forums Superstar
 Posts: 2362 Location: San Francisco |
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Same goes for anime. Recently we've been fed tons of repetitious crap and shows that seem to be maid purely to earn a fast buck. ...Well, until this season, but my point is, in the sense that there's good stuff and tons of bad stuff out there, anime and American media aren't any different.
I feel the same way. Any justification I make as to why I like anime can be countered easily (i.e. "I like the style" counters with "the style can vary greatly from show to show and there's no true 'anime' style", etc.), so I just accept that I love anime because I just do. |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3881 Location: New York state. |
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Let's see: dating sim spinoffs, sequels to popular anime titles, titles filled with oodles of fan service, stuff taking advantage of the moe anime craze. I imagine this should be some or most of what you are talking about considering I haven't paid as much attention to many of the latest titles coming out of Japan. |
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elgato8569
Posts: 1 |
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That sure is a common question, yet we rarely get a concrete answer. I loved cartoons as a kid. I didn't even know the word anime when I was a kid, I thought that every anime was a cartoon; I'm hispanic born in El Salvador, so the word I'm thinking of is a bit different. I think that the first anime I ever watched was either Mazinger Z or Knights of the Zodiac, I don't quite remember. What I do remember is that I enjoyed them a lot. I wasn't into anime that much since I didn't have access to cable tv back there and had to wait for the programs to come out in regular tv. Now I'm 22 and I love anime more than ever before. I'm currently attending college right now, so I can't really spend as much time and money in anime, but when heard of a new anime, I do a throughly check on it and if it's good, then I'll go ahead and watch it.
In the end, I love anime because I find it to be a good stress reliever; even in the darkest anime or manga, they throw in a couple of funny lines to make you laugh. Also, it depends on what kind of anime you watch or you enjoy watching. You can enjoy anime even more depending of the type of things that interest you. By the way, I often hear people say that anime is just for kids, that is so wrong. There are those series meant for kids that can still be enjoyed by adults, and there are series that are strictly for adults (ex: Elfen Lied). I don't think this will help you answer your question that much, but at least those are my thoughts, or rather, my personal experience with anime. |
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Kuroineko
 Posts: 23 Location: In a very cloudy ditch. |
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Even your opinion on anime helps. (One of the only two words I remember in spanish[other then counting up to 3] is gato. I feel proud) |
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Paranoia Phantom
 Posts: 33 |
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You could theorize form several points of view. For one, it's an alternate reality in which one may escape form the troubles of modern day society. On the other hand, just as any hobby, you simply enjoy it's company. I think anime is a significant joy, but to each his own I guess.
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living_puppet
 Posts: 13 |
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Well, I like it because it allows me to use my imagination. I guess that's the simplest answer. With animation you're not limited to real world physics, sets, special effects, or real people...so creators can show things that wouldn't otherwise be practical. You can create any kind of character to fit the story. Often I find I can't connect to characters in big Hollywood movies if the actors are too famous - I'll see the celebrity first, and the character second.
So why Japanese animation in particular... I like the different styles of art, and the variety of stories being told. The majority of animation made here in America seems to be either intended for young children (Disney, etc), or comedy (Family Guy, Simpsons, etc). So I suppose anime fills a gap. Not unlike manga - our comics are still pretty much dominated by superhero stories. It's an opportunity to see something a little different. I also like how a lot of anime series are shorter and tend to be more self contained. I know there are some long running series as well. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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I can tell ya why I like anime. I'm very sure why I'm "drawn" to it.
1. I've been obsessed with movies and books since I was a little kid. I love fiction, or even fascinating nonfiction that's told in a storylike way. I just love storytelling in general, and I plan on working in film once I graduate as an editor or cinematographer, doing freelance screenwriting and short film contests on the side in the hopes of "making it big" as a writer or director. So if there are more creative ways of storytelling out there, like anime, of course I'm going to glomp onto them. 2. I LOVE animation. I'm just predisposed to it. I always preferred watching cartoons as a kid to whatever sitcom was on Disney Channel. Even my live-action tastes were more broad. (I watched All That and Kenan and Kel...why isn't there anything that cute and silly nowadays? Why it always gotta be cheap angst and fart jokes?) I'm also of the opinion that the majority of animated films (American example here) are better than the majority of live-action films because SO much tedium goes into them that the creators have more incentive and more opportunity to carve out their story precisely and whittle down the chaff. Every action or reaction is carefully crafted, and every element from the set and props to the characters and effects has to be hand-created. No haphazard space-filling or "relying on star quality." Since I love animation, I'm overjoyed to see it go in directions that are new or different and who's doing that now? Not America, with the exception of geniuses like Brad Bird and Lasseter. Japan is handling that challenge. 3. I'm a very social person, so if I like something that I can't share, I grow out of it. (When the video game industry shifted online en masse and I still had no internet, I stopped playing videogames...I read less classic novels when I got out of elementary school because prepubescent kids were less open to Jack London, Kipling, and Golding and more interested in romance/sci fi novels.) But anime had become a social hobby for me as of high school and I've never grown weary of it. My anime interest exploded from "whatever was on Toonami and WB" to "what was on [adultswim]" to "what was on store shelves" to "what was on the internet and fresh from Japan" (I'm still iffy about that last one. Stuff needs to age properly first, and I don't want to be a "pirate" if it's art!) And I could share it with people? There were loads more anime fans? Huzzah! 
So that's it for me. I love visual storytelling, I love animation, and there are people around me (for now) to share it with. |
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Mr Adventure
 Posts: 1598 |
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Because it is an excelent source of Sci-fi/Action/Adventure fiction that I so crave. Most of my favorite sci-fi films/tv series are Animes. And American animation just doesn't seem to do action/adventure in a muture manner any more.
So basically, its not so much that I like "anime" its just that anime provides the shows and movies that fit my fiction tastes. |
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frentymon
Forums Superstar
Posts: 2362 Location: San Francisco |
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Well there's definitely a ton of poor adaptations of dating sims and crappy moe pandering shows (not that they're all bad, just a great number of them are), but in the past year and a half there's also been many sorry attempts at action/mecha series (looking at you Gonzo), horrible shoujo, weak "I want to be stronger" type shounen, bad slice-of-life, lifeless attempts at philosophy, and pretty much any other genre or type of anime out there. While there's probably a little more than average of bad series in the categories you listed above (although I'd disagree on sequels), there's been bad shows everywhere recently. |
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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Well, it works for me as I can find the time to get caught up on older anime, not to mention R1 will hopefully focus on the good new titles and ignore the garbage. This year's (especially August-December) DVD releases been hard on my wallet, I'll be grateful for a slow period (as long as it doesn't overstay its welcome, of course).
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EricDent
 Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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In my case I have allways been interested in the Japanese culture.
Once I saw that Japanese cartoons (or anime) were totally different than what the USA or the rest of the world was making, I was instantly hooked for life. Now of course this probably stemed from the interest in Samurai, Ninja (those cool '80s Ninja movies), and of course everybodys favorite giant monster Godzilla. Why I like them so much? It is because through them I can get a feeling for what it must be like to actually live in Japan, which might be a cool thing or a bad thing depending on which show you watch. IMO the comedy portion of anime is so much funnier than any crappy American sit-com or comedy movie. The only thing that comes close to the sheer fun of the comedy animes, are the British comedy shows. |
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konkonsn
 Posts: 172 Location: Illinois |
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Pretty much it's the animation. I don't like things that look realistic. I was a fan of American comics just a bit, but since finding Japanese animation, I have less tolerance for the superhero body style. Likewise, I have less of interest in anime that has the more realistic body types. I like bishounen and bishoujo or the extremely ridiculous muscles and animals.
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Elfen12
 Posts: 479 Location: Bay Area |
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Wow such a basic yet very interesting topic. I think for me, it's becuase... well there are a bunch of reasons. My first reason would be becuase i still have this yearning for watching animation but not in the childish (just run wiht me here, some other cartoons are great still, but stiill i needed this promotion of maturity in the shows) form that i used to watch, and anime does that for me quite well.
Then there is the content of the shows. When i first heard about anime, i was like "what the fack, they make Cartoons (controversial) like that?!". I thought it was so interseting that they did that. I also like them becuase of the deepness of some of them. They could easily just simply not put that aspect in them, so i like how many of the minds behind the makers of anime producers are quite well put together ( i know my saying that makes it sound like they're robots but what i mean is that they're rather philosophical). I very much appreciate they put out such shows like that, it has made life a bit more interesting ( i talk about it as if it's only yesterday but it ain't). Another reason why i enjoy anime so much is becuase it makes me think like anime. I'll look at things differnetly, and i'll get many of my values from many of the more deep shows, it's really somethin' else. I like the uniqueness of some of the plotlines, it also really throws something new at you each time, which is probably part of the reason i'll never stop watching it. Becuase i know that when ever i really try to find a show out there, i'll always find a differnet one. Whereas on TV, many of the shows are practically the same show, told by differnet people who think differnetly. That kind of seems like it's the case more and more as time goes on in the entertainment industry. It's getin' kind of old, and anime puts a new taste on the word "Entertainment". Thats more or less it. -Elfen12- |
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einhorn303
 Posts: 1180 |
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The reason I love anime is, in my opinion, the one thing that truly sets it apart from other mediums. There are plenty of books with excellent stories, plenty of Western comics and classic films with breathtaking art and aesthetic value. But there is one thing only anime has...moe and lolicon appeal. That's what makes anime truly unique as a medium to me, and what attracts me to it.
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Love&RockPeace
Posts: 1 |
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Anime: Why I love it?
I personally don't know the answer to that question, myself. Hm, if I can give it a simple answer, BECAUSE ED'S IN IT! MWAHAHA.. (Referencing Fullmetal Alchemist.) Alright, on a serious scale of things.. I acknowledge myself as a crazy person, and others do too. Mainly this is because I am contrary to the ordinary. I don't like reality shows and I generally have a great dislike for live-action shows, I don't know why. Anime is just something that you can just simply watch when you're bored or want to watch. And there are a bunch of anime out there, so you can probably find an anime that would be interesting. Unlike those reality shows, which is always the same thing; character goes to school/college/work, gets mocked/mocks people, insert applause here, character runs off into the distance. Okay, that's only counting a few shows. But would you rather watch Hannah Montana, or anime? Yes, exactly. Let's not have our ears bleed; let's watch what we love. Exactly what I'm thinking.. Geez, that's a lot of thinking.. -Brains are now fried~!- |
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