Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2008-05-30]
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Ralboon
 Posts: 43 |
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I think I'm starting to get burnt out on anime. The only problem there is that I don't know how to get that fire lit again.
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Lunk
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Eh, burnout?
It happened a few times - when you just don't have the mood for anime. But in the end, I always found something amazing (Higurashi the last time around), that just left me speechless. I've noticed one thing though - my taste has changed slightly every time I experienced a burnout. Along with getting older, I find I got tired of some shows (say stupid repetitive shounens? I still watch them, but I'm extremely picky). Also, fairly recently, I dropped my habit of watching through everything - I don't care about specials and DVD-only episodes (unless the show has really captured me), I often drop a whole show if I don't smell potential. I found, that I have higher standards (much, much, much higher than I used to have). Maybe that could be called a burnout itself in a way. About how many apisodes of anime I watch> I can usually tell if I will enjoy an anime with only reading what it will be about and looking at the art. Sometimes I watch an episode to be absolutely sure. I rarely drop a series halfway (because I only start anime that look really promising these days).[/i] |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I wouldn't exactly say I've had a burnout, but I have gone periods where I just wasn't really watching much. Then a new show would come along that sounded interesting and I was back again. I haven't really had a period like that since I started following the latest Japanese releases though (which started when NANA came out...before that I was only watching older stuff, obviously).
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ThatOneMan
Posts: 48 |
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Memorial Day weekend? Wasn't that last week... 
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skyesage
 Posts: 97 |
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Whoa we really agree on something! Truly, I can't stand Dominic Deegan OR Mookie, but maybe that's just me. How does it have anything to do with anime? Really.
Anyhow, an interesting column as always. I doubt I will check out any of those webcomics, but interesting to see that they exist. |
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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I actually think the "violent perverted action hero" is a rather common protagonist in anime, what with City Hunter, Lupin the Third (when written by Monkey Punch, anyway), Space Adventure Cobra, Bastard!, and most importantly Mad Bull 34 having heroes with strong penchants for violence and bazooms. But what makes Hellsing stand out is that all of those other titles I mentioned are somewhat old. Bastard! is probably the "newest" as it started in 1988. Continuing on a sort of off-topic thought I had in this week's Buried Treasure, I speculate that the "rugged and ultra-tough chick magnet" sort of shonen hero began to fall out of style over the last 20+ years as editors and manga authors discovered that girls would buy comics presumably targeted to boys if they just scaled back on that sort of thing. This is why I've taken to calling so much of these shonen titles "neo-shonen" instead, as it suggests that unlike their predecessors, appealing to female readers was a deliberate consideration. The exploits of the traditional shonen heroes like Kenshiro and Ryo Saeba are nowadays relegated to the seinen anthologies instead.
I was just going to email this next bit in since it's so long and related to next week's question, but what the heck:
I think this kind of ties in with the "burnout" question put forth for next week. In my eyes, nothing suggests a person is getting burned out on an interest more than the feeling of "I have to do this" or "I may as well do this" replacing that of "I want to do this." For people whose work relates to anime, they probably DO have to watch title after title of stuff they don't care about, so that feeling is natural. But what causes burnout among fans in general? As Chris Jericho once said, "you people have been lead to believe that mediocrity is excellence." How many fans do you know that will watch something that they think is "okay" or "decent" because it's the show everyone they know is watching and/or it's free to watch? I would say that a whole lot of people who watch TV, movies, anime etc. do so with the mindset that the majority of titles they watch is "good enough to watch but not buy." It's something just to have on. My dad watches poker on TV every day religiously, but I doubt he'd do so if it wasn't essentially free. I'm not trying to relate this to any sort of anime industry/fansub debate stuff; my point is that over time, people start watching stuff that's "good enough" to them rather than "good" to the point that eventually what dominates their viewing schedule is a lot of things they don't really like all that much. THAT is what leads to burnout. The solution to this is actually rather simple in concept--stop watching crappy shows--but the execution of it is generally unfeasible for most. After all, how do you know if something will be great, terrible, or bland without having seen it first? With so much media out there to consume, it's no wonder that so many said that anime series have 1-5 episodes to get them interested ("1" being the most common answer in my experience). Anime studios, especially Gonzo, are fully aware of this fact and routinely put tons of effort into those first few episodes to hook people before just haphazardly throwing together the rest. The end result is a plethora of shows that fail to live up to their interesting premises established at the start. Ever had that feeling? Get hit with that enough times, and you'll get burned out too. My personal solution for avoiding burnout is to severely restrict what I watch to shows that have been completed which other people with similar tastes to mine have recommended as being good. There's downsides to this. One, I've not seen most of the newer shonen--neo-shonen!--action series since they're so long and drawn out. Someone give me a list of which specific episodes of Bleach to watch and which to skip, so I can start watching it. Two, I'm always years behind the times. I'm actually watching quite a few shows this season as they come out, which isn't my normal routine. I'm putting a lot of faith in Macross Frontier not to burn me, which is saying a lot considering Kawamori went off the deep end years ago. And three, people get the idea that I think everything sucks. This is a vicious lie, as my podcast is almost entirely about stuff I like! Sure, lots of it is old stuff I already watched, but much like the sentient organism representing the town of Tomobiki at the end of Urusei Yatsura Movie 4 "Lum the Forever," I too can live on just the memories. Hey, at least I'm not burned out. |
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BunnyCupCakes
 Posts: 224 Location: The Sunshine State |
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I've never had a burn out
That doesn't mean I had obsessions 24/7 but I do cool off a bit sometimes because to be honest I don't really watch that much anime.Only what's on TV sadly. |
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loka
 Posts: 373 Location: Pittsburgh, PA |
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wow, Mistakes of Youth is great.
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asimpson2006
 Posts: 3151 Location: USA |
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I haven't had a burn out in a while, but I may be coming upon one soon. I usually just do something else for a while until my urge come back. Usually I watch TV, or watch a movie, or play some video games, or read a book to get me out of a slump.
I don't get burnouts very often, but I usually get times where I don't want to watch any anime at the moment. The last time this happened was a few weeks ago when I needed to finish the last DVD of School Rumble that I had. I watched like 5 minutes of it, then I didn't want to watch it at the moment. Another thing I like to do if I have a burnout is to watch something new. I found that can kick me back into gear. |
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Ambrogino
 Posts: 57 Location: York, England |
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I think Anime World Order makes an excellent point contributing burnout to shows failing to maintain their promise, which I definitely recognised as having been my case. I was heavily into anime when it was first being produced by Manga Video in the UK, but found that more and more stuff was starting off strong, and failing to maintain my interest towards the end. I stopped bothering to keep up with it, and only bothered to buy anything if I'd both heard fantastic things about it from friends who were still into anime and could find it dirt cheap.
I started to get back into anime about a year ago. I'd be lying if I said torrents didn't have a large impact on my willingness to try the medium again, but also the availability of more reasonably priced compete series boxed sets as opposed to £20 2-4 episode discs had a huge impact on getting me to return to buying rather than pirating. An addendum I would add to AWO's point is that many anime series, more than most other mediums, fail to maintain their initial standard not (solely) because of the ammount of effort and budget focused up front to hook watchers, but also because so many of them are tied to existing ongoing properties that they overtake. In long running series this creates filler arcs which viewers lose interest in, whilst in standard 13 or 26 episode series this either leads to a unsatisfying denouemont which attempts to tie everything together (badly) or leaves way too much unresolved. What brought me out of my non-anime funk was watching a few good shows which either stood-totally alone or had the manga come after, not before the show. Seeing stuff that ended well maintained my interest to try a few other shows, as I stopped being convinced I'd be let down again. It's an approach I would take to try and bring back in another burnt-out fan at any rate. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4624 |
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I'm a relatively neophyte anime fan in the grand scheme of things, but I think it's a similar practice that has led to me never experiencing anything close to burnout thus far. Over the three years or so I've been doing this, I've watched what's probably a very small number of titles when compared with your average fan, and a majority of those titles are those that I watched on TV or a legit streaming service. The majority of titles that represented my "branching-out" I watched as a part of discussion chats with a group of my friends, who were the ones doing the recommending. I can count on one hand the number of titles I've sought out and watched completely on my own without any external weekly force driving me to watch (and none of those have included currently-premiering shows). The end result of all this is that I know of literally dozens of titles that my friends have high praise for and that I would probably enjoy very much...yet I haven't watched a minute of them. I know I have a whole array of options available to me if I decide to get off my lazy butt and go watch them, so if I ever feel that what I'm watching on Adult Swim or discussing as a group isn't doing enough for me, I have a way of fulfilling my interests. |
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Cicatriz
 Posts: 66 Location: Reno, Nevada |
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I'm glad that they at least tend to hire fans for the PR/Marketing aspects of the companies. I'm about to go to college to major in that and if I can't find a position with Disney, maybe I'll go looking at some of the anime companies in LA [which, actually, are few and far between, I think? The only one that comes to mind is Bandai.] I can see where being a fan really isn't a requirement though. I'm sure they don't need fans to fill accounting jobs.
I think I'm in burnout stage right now. I follow a couple series . . . basically just Bleach and Sugar Sugar Rune. Besides that, I really don't read/watch anything at all right now. I think it's just because nothing that appeals to me has come out lately [Magical Girls seem to be a lost art.] It also might just be because of what you said a few weeks ago about these kinds of things happening during transitional periods . . . A graduate in a few days and with paying for college and finishing final projects, anime really is the last thing I have time for. |
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Prodigiosus
 Posts: 44 |
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I absolutely suffered from anime burnout, and it lasted about 5 years or so. I think it happaned because Blockbuster ran out of things to rent, and the quality seemed to get worse and worse the more I rented. I filled the void by watching live action movies (mostly from Japan and S. Korea) After the break, caught an anime on TV, and just got back into watching it.
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Lunk
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Well, that solution is nice enough I guess . . . but somehow, watching something as it is being released has it's own appeals too (Can you imagine how empty your life would be, without a brand new episode of Golgo waiting for you each week? ). And as I've said, you can usually tell, how good the show will be. Look at the character designs, notice characterization (is it there? how deep is it? how is it done?), the overall plot and then also if it entertains you. Sometimes it is impossible to tell that what started out with a fresh and interesting promise will turn into the most empty and predictable show. It happens. Also, about Gonzo - just don't watch Gonzo shows. I kinda loathe that studio and only watch stuff which has been recommended by a ton of people. (oh yes, if people will run to me, crying 'Blassreiter sucks balls!' and 'I did not expect Tower of Druaga to be a stupid, cheesy and plotless abortion of a fantasy trash!' I will only laugh knowing, that I was right in my approach) |
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darcerin
Posts: 330 |
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I just wanted to pop in and say I am ded of the cute from that picture. Answerman can do no wrong in my book as long as he keeps finding pictures like those. I think that's the main reason I read this article now!
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