Forum - View topicThings about anime these days that just absolutely frustrates you?
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Soundmonkey44
 Posts: 1243 |
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The Fanbase. Nuff said.
But seriously at times it does seem the vast majority of the modern anime fanbase/community (along with modern gamers) are just completely insufferable. Other then that, I guess all the pandering, yeah its always been there one way or another, just seems...a lot more prominent these days, yea know. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4391 Location: New York |
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I can't agree enough about some elements of the fanbase being insufferable. But the same applies to any fanbase. Yes it's easy to condemn all fans after arguing with (true story) an autistic conspiracy minded fan who thinks Nielsen is controlled by the GOP as part of an effort to quell any foreign programs (I wish I was making this up) but it isn't representative of all fans.
Still, somedays the worse fans make me want to reach through my computer and slap people. Or send phone spiders through their phones. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLaQnrJSp9g |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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I think that I've hocked thoughts relevant to this question here and here in replay another one, but I'll give this a go.
I don’t really like framing my grievances against anime fandom in terms of ‘how it used to be’ because the past is a foreign country which one can imagine anything of, but also because it gives some people a way to distract from whether something is bad or not with hemming and hawing over whether things have always been that way. What is bad is bad regardless of whether it is new or old. Even so, there are a few things that I don’t like that I think are relatively new developments. (Sexual) Fanservice: Anime has always been exploitative, but I think that this has changed over time. To brush this complaint away by noting that there has always been tawdry fanservice in anime is akin to brushing away complaints about your neighbor owning an automatic shotgun because matchlocks existed five hundred-odd years ago. Sexual fanservice certainly isn’t new, but it has changed; what we have now today are high-capacity, large caliber, highly specialized titillation devices that are a far cry from what we started with. It’s nasty, it’s revolting and, most perfectly worst of all, it’s not sexy. It's not the joy of sex; it's the creepiness of the guy in the corner who keeps leering right at the nearest women while breathing so loudly that an iron lung would ask him to quiet down. Boobs: This is really an extension of my complaint against fanservice, because it’s the central mechanism for it. Idealized, bare bosoms have long been in anime, but what we often see now are breasts of size, shape and consistency far more exaggerated, removed from their inspiration and focused toward a particular taste than what was available in the past. Modern anime sometimes offer us boobs that are incomprehensibly large, especially in proportion to the scrawny body that they’re attached to, have shapes that nature couldn’t conceive, bounce according to laws of physics that would baffle an unparallel genius whose intellect combined Hawking with Newton and that seem to in fact be bean bags. I find the result unsettling, confusing and disgusting. That's not what boobs should be. The Fandom Fanservice Association:If fanservice is the high-powered assault rifle full of jacketed hollow-points of anime, then these people are its NRA. I must admit, that some people are almost, to my mind, maniacally devoted to female characters that satisfy their prurient interest, who goddamned well better be nude is a perspective that it’s impossible for me to empathize with. Ours being a fandom where criticizing sexual fanservice could be considered controversial and where some people feel obliged to reassure that they don’t hate all fanservice is baffling to me. There is a vast, sometimes astounding array of things that have been animated; there are things with interesting stories, provocative ideas, distinctive visual styles and other virtues, yet boobs are what you go to war for? I suppose I could do without this whole damned war and the other 'side' could have as easily have started it, but this is not something worth fighting for! My friends, forgive me, but it is beyond me! The Cult of the Japanese Otaku: These kind tend to overlap with the FFA, but aren’t necessarily the same. They are, however, in a way more depressing. These are people to whom the collective will of the Japanese otaku audience is the absolute, incontrovertible definitive word on right and wrong, good and bad, success and failure in anime. This isn’t even derived from any analysis of their preferences, but from sales figures. These folks will wield how well something sold against any criticism or praise of anything. If it sucked you thought that it sucked, they’ll reply with how much it exceeded the Manabi Line by. If you suggest that some element of an anime is questionable, distasteful or outright wrong, they’ll reply that it’s what Japanese otaku want. Whatever the criticism or complaint, they have an amoral, nihilistic reply at the ready, offering only the faintest, rarest hints of artistic or philosophical judgment. They are also tend to treat being anime, being Japanese as the point and an end in itself, snarling with fierce condescension at anything from the unclean west that might borrow from, be inspired by or even just incidentally resemble it as ‘fake’, suddenly piling on moral weight here that they abhor elsewhere. Whether they mean it this way or not, these people end up wanting to keep anime in pillow forts and tree houses that icky western things aren’t allowed in. Like the Little Rascals, but with worse acne. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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I can see why people would follow what the otaku buy, it directly influences what the market will produce in the future. Of course using it to defend or deride tastes or opinions is stupid, but it's none the less important to note what sold like mad or just failed. I'm sure we all have favorite shows that sold in the three digit range, and shows we abhor that did five – it's no real indication of quality, just what the otaku want more of, or the fujoshi: some of their favorites do very well despite others in the same genre.
As for the tits, I get it. That sort of stuff can be repugnant to look at constantly when they were really that size in anime before aside from gag characters (Naga). But, I like it, and I do want to see more of it. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Indeed, fanservice is always nice. Keep in mind we're outsiders to Japanese culture, so it's only 'weird' and 'deviant' to other cultures. Stuff like Lucy from Fairy Tail getting her clothes ripped and shown in the nude, or getting put in a skimpy cat-girl hooker outfit so she can bounce around is totally normal for a children's show in Japan. So it's not a big deal to them at all, it's a much more laid back and open culture.
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Surrender Artist
Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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Hey, look, it's Charlton Heston! You were great in The Ten Commandments. Can I get your autograph?
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6533 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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Are you serious? Japan has a reputation for being a repressed, closed culture. |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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I'm speaking in terms of fanservice/sexuality in their programming.
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4391 Location: New York |
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You know, there are actually laws in Japan to censor pornography, particularly sexual organs. When asked about it, a censor said it was part of their "culture of shame." The debate about fanservice (not so much the content itself) annoys me in just how psychotic fans and haters can act. The only thing worse than a zealot in the fanservice debate are probably Toonami fans. As for the stuff itself, definite case by case basis with me. |
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TrailOfDead
Posts: 198 |
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it's not like cultural criticism about the industry only comes from the West. there are plenty of voices within Japan speaking out about anime's portrayal of women, among other things. the industry ignores them, but that doesn't mean the rest of us should. |
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EricDent
 Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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I can agree on the unnecessary cover art front.
Especially with that new cover for Ai Yori Aoshi. Though to be fair the older Geneon covers (which are reversible) had a bit more skin... There are still reversible covers, it's just used a bit less often (the SAVE titles in particular are great, so you don't have to look at those garish green letters). The thing that I never understand is the recent trend of people getting "burnt out" on anime. I know there is a lot more to view, however you DON'T have to watch all of it. Like any good thing, anime is best in moderation. I guess that's why after almost 30 years of anime fandom, I have never gotten so tired of anime that I gave up on it. I also do not get the whole "dropping" thing. I mean if you take the time to find these shows while they are airing (or shortly after) then why not see it through to the end? As for the boob issue, if you think stuff from this era is bad, you really need to see Eiken...yeah maybe not. I do not want to scar you for life. Let's just say that even the tiniest girl on that show had freaking boulders in their tops. That's what the breasts in that show looked like. |
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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Anime without cover-art fan service is like cake without frosting.
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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And so those mournful yet immutable words echo evermore: "Thank goodness for those black bars! Without them I would have been offended."
If mental scarring by such a work is a considerable risk for new audiences, then I shall say only this: The power of gradual desensitisation ought not be underestimated. |
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Soundmonkey44
Posts: 1243 |
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Another thing that bothers me, radicals/elitists on both sides of the fence. people who say that an anime isn't worth buying if its a sub-only release, as well as the people that say "der..ALL dubs are garbage, and evil and what not"
Both of these people need a good beating with a wet fish. And back to the sexuality/fanservice thing for abit, I think its just a bit sad more then anything, I know sex sells, but it seems most anime over the past 7-8 years or so has focused more on pandering over telling a genuinely good story and developing their charcters. And yes I too feel sorry for the women/groups in Japan that are ignored when they try to make their voice heard of the over-objectifictation of women in anime & manga. Speaking of which, 1-dimensional characters in works can also be quite annoying, genaric bishi boys in shojo manga, and mindless sluts in ecchi series easily get on my nerves. |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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'Plenty of voices' is a fairly vague and unreliable when determining overall culture. I imagine 'plenty of voices' also complain about this in other countries as well given news articles and blogs I've seen on it. What we can say is when I visited Japan I went to a public bath house where we were all naked and while it may have been a bit different/weird at first, clearly everyone there had no problem with it, not to mention what is acceptable to show in children's anime over there. It's really not a big deal there over. It's always been like that in anime (people seem to conveniently forget all the sex and boobs in Dragonball and other 80s/90s kids shows) and it's not really going to change any time soon. |
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