Forum - View topicIs anime humor an acquired taste?
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18248 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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That's entirely enough of that, too, you two.
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theloudnes
Posts: 8 |
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Funny thing is, I have read everything posted. And I didn't want to say anything negative because I know it will spark up negativity in the thread. But, to be blunt -
Recommendations like - Sgt Frog - I saw it. It was stupid. Azumanga Daioh - Absolutely bored me to death. Welcome to the NHK - I didn't find it funny, so much more pathetic that someone can live their life like a recluse like that. Gintama - I understand it purposely has no plot and with that randomness of it, that's what supposedly makes it "funny", but I'm no longer a 5th grader. Shows I saw recently that I found funny - Ai Mai Mi Cromartie High School Shin-Chan |
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Mister Ryan Andrews
 Posts: 219 |
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Am I the only one who noticed the goalpost moving of 'most comedy is about a guy walkin in on a girl changing and she punches him' to 'most comedy is fanservice based'. That's a totally different thing and a more encompassing umbrella. A hypocritical one too given sexual humor is everywhere in American media as well. Everywhere except kids shows obviously which I guess is the main difference. Kids anime can have tons of sexual fanservice humor but western kids shows can't acknowledge sex so that's a difference there, but I'm not sure what the argument even is about anymore at this rate.
Regarding Shin-chan. I assume you mean the dub which is odd because Funimation added in a crap ton of sexual humor and jokes to it from what I remember so I figured you'd hate it. The original is actually far more tame and sterile.. outside Shin waving his butt and penis around anyway 
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Wow, when you use a completely made up quote with no real basis in anything he said instead of an actual direct quote like I did, his point does seem highly unreasonable. Thanks for pointing that out to me Eric. That was really helpful. See, this is why this whole line of discussion is really dumb. It's just become a big, pointless exercise in people getting defensive because he doesn't like what they like, and going out of their way to interpret his comments in the worst possible light in order to find a problem with them. And then of course, more recently, going on the offensive by changing the subject to some supposed issue with the person's conduct instead of their actual point.
Equating "Fanservice based humor" with "all sexual humor in general" is five times as much of a leap as the one you're describing. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4102 |
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... Yeah, I can't argue with that one. Sgt. Frog, I slumped through six episodes of the dub but it started to get actually funny with Carrie Savage's Angel Mois and I enjoyed the rest of the season with that mentality infusing the rest of the cast. In the dub and just the dub. Unfortunately for Funimation, it didn't inspire me to move on to further seasons of the same thing. The problem with the original Japanese one? Its humor boils down to silly situations used without irony or even a point, Sunrise product placement and People from Osaka sound funny and it shames people not from Osaka to sound like that. Maybe you need a Tokyo accent to appreciate that sort of humor? Yeah, fine. The dub made that episode into a satire on American stand-up, the "shock" variety. Azumanga Daioh - the title is so generic it's pretty much just "this is the author's manga" manga. Still part of the "people from Osaka sound funny and are idiots" school of comedy. I own it but I didn't buy it for the comedy, I have it for the absolute sentiment it occasionally shows. Yukari is funny, though. Welcome to the NHK - Black comedy of the NEET generation. Like Genshiken, it's only funny because it's not you, I mean because it's true and not you. No, he got better, Genshiken has no "outsiders" so it's a world were everyone's accepted. In effect, neither series is true or relatable and I like both more for their dramatic attributes than their comedy. Recent shows that I've found funny: Servant X Service. The working sitcom of anime {ironically not Working!, yet from the same author}, as long as you can get past the pink rabbit. The Stony Cat and the Hentai Prince. Deadpan comedy, eat your heart out. The Devil is a Part Timer! Silly with a plot and well developed characters. Well, most of them at least. I thought Non Non Biyori had one hilarious character, one funny character and two deadweights. Beautiful show, not much of a comedy without Renge; It's like the producers wanted to make Yotsuba and ! but couldn't secure the rights. D Frag occasionally gets it right but there's too much "straight man reacting to odd girls by yelling loudly". I've seen comparisons to Seitokai Yakuindomo but that one gets layered when the odd ones playing off of each other. In D Frag, I can't imagine the girls without their straight man. I'm still on the fence about No Rin; I'll have to rewatch it but I'm leaning towards "funny". |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18248 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Can't fault you for thinking that, because it is stupid. But I found it funny anyway.
Not an unusual reaction, actually. People generally either love it (I know some professional writers that place it amongst the best of all anime comedies) or find it "meh." Same goes for any other title in the "cute girls doing cute things for comedy" subgenre.
Although there is some humor in it, it was never intended to be a laugh fest. As another post said, its humor runs very black.
Again, not an unusual reaction. I didn't find it to be especially funny, either. One title that is widely-acknowledged as one of the great anime comedies is Excel Saga. It throws so many jokes, of so many different types, at the viewer that half of them can miss (and there are a fair number of Japanese-specific puns and cultural references) and it's still quite funny, regardless of whether you're particularly knowledgeable about anime or not. If you've seen the mostly-serious Full Metal Panic! then its second series Fumoffu? is quite funny. (And really, as long as you know the show's basic premise and who the characters are, you still might find it quite funny even without having seen the original first.) |
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yuna49
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That's more of a sociological observation than a comment on the humor in this show. NHK confronts a growing, and disturbing trend among young Japanese, particularly young Japanese men. Perhaps it's hard to see the satire when you are unaware of the context. I liked NHK much more for its character studies than for its surface humor. This was especially true for Hitomi, but also for Satou and Kaoru as well. On the other hand, I've characterized Misaki elsewhere as a spoiler[loony stalker dressed as a moe cutie]. Cultural context also matters for Azumanga Daioh. Many school comedies like that show or School Rumble have a strong streak of sentimentality about high school. For many Japanese, high school and college represent the last bastions of personal freedom before they enter the repressive Japanese workplace. Sentimentality is a common feature in anime, especially anime about adult life like Bartender. Another good example in the high-school context is Chihayafuru. Humor always exists within a cultural and social context. It sounds to me like you have problems with the Japanese context. If so, it's not surprising that you'll have trouble appreciating the humor in Japanese anime. I still think you should stop watching shows about high school and adolescents and focus on more adult fare. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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There is nothing wrong with saying why you do not like something. The problems usually start with negative comments and insults about other people who do like the show. It seems to me that you are not doing that so there should be no problems. People were trying to point out that there is a lot of anime humor that is not the same as what you said that you do not like. If you do not like the other shows that were mentioned that is fine. It is just a matter of personal taste, and in my case it definitely was an acquired taste. I have realized that I need to mention something that definitely influences my opinions. That is that I never see anything until it has a physical release in the US. That is important for two reasons. The first reason is that it keeps me from having any personal experience with current shows. In other words I am definitely behind the times, probably by at least a year. The other reason is that I usually listen to the dub if there is one. So for some shows a lot of the humor that I get comes from the dub and is not really "anime" humor. An extreme example would be Ghost Stories, which was not originally a comedy, I think. I do not think that this type of pure "gag dub" is very common, but the same thing does happen to a lesser degree in other dubs. With Sgt. Frog a lot of the jokes were in the dub, but I think that it also retained a lot of the original humor. I enjoyed both types. Some of my other favorites are K-On!, which is not a comedy but does have a lot of humor, Lucky Star which has some satirical references to otaku, Hidamari Sketch (which is not dubbed, and "Honeycomb" is probably the most recent comedy that I have seen, and it is not really very recent I guess), Angel Beats (which did have a fair amount of humor, including some episodes that were just comedy), and Maid Sama (which was not dubbed), and School Rumble. I think that those had most of the anime humor intact, but I am not certain. Perhaps somebody who is familiar with the original scripts and the dubs could comment. I seem to have rambled on for quite a while, but I wanted to give some context to my comments. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23883 |
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There's a lot of anime comedy that I find quite funny. Sure, lots of over-used tropes, too. What strikes me is that virtually every anime title has some comedy in it (no comment on whether the comedy is effective or not, simply pointing out that the attempt is there). It's very rare to come across a title where there isn't even an effort made for some sort of comedy.
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theloudnes
Posts: 8 |
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I tried watching Excel Saga once. The problem was, that show reference a lot of events in Japan that only the Japanese or people who know extensively about Japan would know about. So, to me, a lot of the jokes fell on deaf ears because I had no idea what they were talking about.
Let me try to be more specific in the shows that I watch for comedy and maybe it could help shed some light on Japanese shows that could compare. I'm a big fan of South Park and Family Guy. The satire and black comedy, I find humorous. Some people talked about Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. I looked it up and one of the descriptions on Wikipedia was black comedy. So maybe I will enjoy that show if it is comparable to South Park and Family Guy. I found the Shin-Chan Funimation dub hilarious. Things like, for example, Action Bastard's enema beam I found super funny. Just the fact that something was called an enema beam was so out there, and I think that's what makes it funny to me. Things you wouldn't expect to be made into jokes are made into jokes. And looking it up on Wikipedia, black comedy is one of it's descriptions. Of course there were cultural jokes that I didn't understand about Shin-Chan(like the father begging the mother for a raise), but that's a different topic. Trying to understand this further, I think black comedy is a recurring theme in a lot of the shows that I enjoy. Shows that employ cynicism in their humor. I think I need more shows like this. |
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ChibiKangaroo
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Wait a minute, we are in a thread ostensibly criticizing Japanese anime humor for being stale and repetitive, and someone is saying Sgt. Frog is stupid? I have found Sgt. Frog to be a highly refreshing and self-aware satire of a lot of Japanese humor. Sure, not every episode is a certified hit, but there are MANY more hits than misses in my opinion. If you are someone who is highly critical of Japanese humor, Sgt. Frog (along with, perhaps, Shin Chan) should be your go-to show.
On the topic of Japanese humor, I do agree with the original poster that much of it is excessively stale. Since the glory days of Seinfeld, a lot of Western (and particularly American) humor these days has followed in that mold of focusing more on satirizing current culture and institutions (such as family, interpersonal relationships, government, corporations, non-profits/charities, and of course Hollywood). The reason that formula has become so successful is that, since it is simply imitating life, there is constantly new material to work with. From old mainstays like The Simpsons and Family Guy, to more intermediate and new stuff like Boondocks and Regular Show, american animated comedy has gradually transitioned to social/cultural satire as its primary source material. Likewise, a lot of recent live action Western comedy has followed this (I could probably summarize this simply by pointing at the highly successful "The Office," which essentially became the more modern template after which much of recent Western comedy has modeled itself). As has been previously discussed, Japanese humor has not made this transition. It has remained much more formulaic, relying heavily on predictable sight gags and "plays on words" that have been recycled a million times over. That's not to say that some of it isn't funny. I have had many times where I found a particular portion of Japanese humor to be funny. However, I don't really focus on watching anime comedy because most of it does feel stale to me. And P.S. - I certainly agree with Theron that Japanese humor should NOT be criticized for under using the "straight man" concept. SO much of Japanese humor absolutely requires the straight man, whether we are talking about tsundere stuff, zany off-the-wall antics, romcom fan service stuff and/or other otaku pandering (otaku characters are ALWAYS offset with a straight man), "stupidity" humor (i.e. characters reacting strongly to a specific character acting so stupidly or ignorantly), "plays on words," and other such formulas. If anything, the criticism should probably be over-use of the straight man, though perhaps it can be said that the straight man concept is present in pretty much all comedy these days to some degree or another. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15511 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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@ theloudnes
SZS is indeed major dark comedy anime. Although at the same time a large amount of their jokes are around a lot about Japanese culture, but if you are actually having trouble with understanding their culture this might just be something to look at just to learn about it. Some things may not make sense, but you should find yourself understanding things you might not have before, and there are plenty of jokes that should not be too difficult. And just a quick addition, Lucky Star is also a very good choice for learning about Japanese modern culture, I am trying to remember if there are dark comedic moments. But I see Lucky Star compared to Seinfeld, which I personally hate for being obnoxious, but LS is more cute. As for other Black Comedy. Mayhaps even Haiyore Nyaruko-san, hey it is a "romantic comedy" about eldritch abominations, although it has a number of sexual components, they rarely fit into the same pattern of others, instead being a mockery. And for some reason I feel compelled to mention Potemayo, which has a super cute exterior and generally can calm the heart with cuteness, but can also being surprisingly black with cute things go feral, blood and other things you may not expect, without the ecchi walk ins and such. |
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EricJ2
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Again, the joke of the beach-comedy episode--ie., about how many embarrassing situations can the Stupid Frog get Natsumi in whether she wants to be or not, especially when she's trying to look cute for Saburo--was not making fun of Osakans. It was comically exploiting the cultural association with Osakan comedy duos, and putting her in the embarrassing position that if one is turned into an Osakan, one will immediately become a comedy-duo genius. (Rather like the "Englishmen turned into Scotsmen" sketch from Monty Python, or the idea that if one is hit by a French ray, one will immediately become bored, start wearing a beret and talk about Jerry Lewis, which would not be something you'd want to happen in the middle of a date.) Osaka is considered "west" of civilized southeast-Japan Tokyo, and when the ray is turned too far west...oops, now she's West-ern, and making standup jokes in an American accent! (With a little nationalistic poke about how they don't get American jokes any more than we get what's so dang funny about Osakan pun-play and paper-fan hitting.) Chaos on top of chaos. And the joke is EXACTLY the same with Azumanga Daioh: They hear the new student is from Osaka, and expect her to be the colorful, overconfident, wise-mouthed Osakan cultural stereotype. (Tomo even rehearses her "comedy duo" overreactions, and crashes into half a dozen desks.) And the joke, of course, is that sweet, out-of-it Osaka is about as UN-Osakan as you can get, even despite her accent. Osakans, for example, have a trademark reputation for jaywalking in traffic, just in case you didn't get the joke about Osaka's mind wandering at the street corner and "Oh dear, I missed the walk signal, I'll have to wait..."
And leaving aside the fact that we were told in literature class not to use "stupid" or "boring" in critical assessments, as they don't really SAY anything-- There's another example of a bad Shin-chan dub Funi socked the show with because they thought they were clever, and knee-jerk first-timers who didn't know the difference saying "Is this what everyone's watching? This sucks!"
You're supposed to, it's a "dramedy" about a "social problem", and they're FAR from sympathetic toward it.
So, we complain that humor is all about horny guys getting punched by tsundere girls in their underwear, we watch a show where the humor is decidedly dry, quirky, dialogue-based and comic-strip style, and it's "boring"? I smell malcontent. More specifically, I smell "Troll trying to pull his burning credibility out of the fire at the last second--'Okay, I watched something else and responded to the thread, lil' babies freakin' happy now??'--and trying to shoehorn it back into his original one-post premise, as that was all he had for a vaudeville act. But, that's just my interpretation. 
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18248 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Not anything I was ever told in Lit class. Besides, I have always understood "stupid" in reference to humor to mean either "using no creativity" or "depending on characters either being or acting stupid." That is NOT at all the same as saying it's not funny.
And I think you're grossly overreacting here. He is far from the first person I've ever heard refer to AD as "boring," and having watched the whole thing, I can certainly see how some would find it boring. Although I did like the series and (usually) found it funny, I am not a big fan of that style of humor, either. |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11315 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Word of advice: people have started reporting you for some of your comments in this thread. And I ask that you try less so to "interpret" things (in addition to throwing people's opinions under a steamroller to prove something) and not worry so much about whether they agree/disagree/misinterpret/reinterpret things differently from you. The term "acquired tastes" kinda' implies that everyone's opinion will vary by default, anyway. So there's no need to start ranting/belittling people for it. |
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