Forum - View topicUnpopular anime opinions.
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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Being that it's almost Easter and my avatar is a bunny, it's a perfect time to point out that the use of Judeo-Christian symbolism in anime is just another Western stylistic effect akin to how Asian imagery is used in a lot of Western-generated pop culture. These effects are in no way meant to support or express any type of Christian beliefs by the creators, and often do more of a mockery of them than anything else.
Christians who say they like Evangelion for the symbolism tend to just be a bit overzealous about it and should probably learn more about their own religion. Besides it's extremely improbable that an actual omnipotent, all-seeing, omnipresent deity exists, so stop waxing philosophical about your theistic leanings when watching anime, and enjoy them for what they are. |
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Boomerang Flash
 Posts: 1021 |
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It's somewhat fascinating to see the various definitions of "unpopular" used in this thread. I spot at least
1. Unpopular, as in the majority of anime fans would object to it upon hearing, e.g. "Madoka is forced drama," "GT isn't bad," "Cowboy Bebop is boring." 2. Unpopular, as in a large part of the vocal minority of frequent forum visitors would object to it upon hearing, e.g. "there's a place for both serious and light-hearted anime," "there are legitimate reasons to dismiss old anime." 3. Unpopular, as in controversial but widely held, e.g. "Evangelion isn't the end-all be all," "Moe is over-hated." 4. Unpopular, as in uncommon, e.g. "Not all DBZ filler is bad." To be quite honest, because it's difficult to gauge just what the majority opinions of the fandom are, using multiple definitions is expected. I am quite sure that I would classify some of the opinions in this thread into the wrong category because of how I've been exposed to the anime fandom. That being said, I'll list some unpopular opinions without categorizing them: - Translated titles are better than transliterated titles. Even if the original title is difficult to render into English, a translated title that approximates the meaning of the original conveys something about the series, while a transliterated title is gibberish to those who don't speak Japanese. Transliterated titles are only acceptable for record keeping purposes, e.g. encyclopedia entry before an official translation is given. - If the source material is also a visual medium (e.g. manga, video games, live action), then the anime adaptation should deviate significantly from the source material to avoid redundancy. It is impossible to recreate the original entirely in anime. Nor is it desirable--the original medium handles pacing in an entirely different manner than anime, best seen in almost any video game adaptation or shounen manga adaptation. The anime director should give the anime adaptation a strong dose of his vision. - It's more important for the villain to be effective rather than three dimensional. A generic evil overlord clad entirely in plate armor, with glowing eyes, and spikes all over who travels with dramatic wind blowing his cape all the time but who nevertheless has a coherent plan to conquer the world is far better than a villain with character development but whose goals are ill-defined, whose actions make little sense, and who is hardly seen. |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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A villain whose goals are ill-defined, does things that make no sense, and is hardly seen doesn't sound like a well developed villain at all. I found Perfect Blue to be unintentionally hilarious, and a mediocre movie by any standards. I also found Tokyo Godfather's to be depressing, nothing the parents do actually makes you think the baby is going to turn out alright since they are a complete mess. Evangelion is poorly written, with villains who are simply obstacles that have some of the worst dialogue I have ever seen. If you need to pause to think about what a character is saying during what is supposed to be a normal dialogue scene than you are writing the series wrong. It's also hard to claim it's a giant robot deconstruction when everyone has mental problems not just the pilots, and the pilots problems have nothing to do with piloting the giant robots, they where messed up before they even got into the cockpit. Summer Wars is crap, it's a well animated movie, that simply smashes together a bunch of scenes from other anime (in particular Our War Games) with a hypocritical attack on America (you can't claim that America's military has problem then turn around and compliment Japan's military history). The ending where people all over the world unite to help has no meaning when the movie spends the last hour insulting America's culture (through the adopted son who lived in Pittsburgh). |
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Boomerang Flash
Posts: 1021 |
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You equate "three dimensional" with "well developed." I do not. For villains, it is far more likely for their development in non-villainous aspects to come at the expense of quality rather than the other way. The villain's backstory and motivations are far less interesting than what he does currently. As I look at my post, I left out two words: "is hardly seen in action." |
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GDFan
 Posts: 254 Location: North of Boston |
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I get that you're a sub-snob elitist...good for you. What I don't understand is how pushing less hardcore fans away with ridiculous pricing could possibly be good for this market. Why would ANYTHING in this world "need" to be priced higher? Whatever you're taking solace in, your opinions are not equivalent to actual facts. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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Sure it exists in Western entertainment, even those aimed at adults, but villains only needing to be effective, serving to identify the hero, is part of American mainstream culture. We are happy enough to all agree that the villain is wrong and needs to be destroyed to uphold American interests of justice and superiority. Japan on the other hand likes to philosophize about the relationship between good and bad, that good isn't always pure and correct and evil isn't always deserving of destruction. You see cookie-cutter villains in spoofs and parodies, but generally almost all anime with villains have 3 dimensional ones with lots of character development and that is one of the things that sets anime apart from Western animation. |
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G-mofactor
 Posts: 797 Location: Atlantis to Interzone |
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I am most interested in the opinions of one anime fan to the next and their perception of the term otaku. It is quite treated differently between the East and the West, but it seems the more people embrace the term in the West. I notice that there is gap between those who respect the sub-cuture (or whatever you want to call it) and treats it the same as Japanese do, and those who seem to proclaim it as a title or status in their own perspective of what it means.
As an example, "Us Otakus have a common bond, like brothers and sisters, who likes all kind of animes. These arguments about which is better animes is stupid!" Most of the crowd reacted to the statement when the term otaku was herd, and did share an understanding to what what he said. So, even though I knew a good amount of the origins of the term Otaku - my observation led me to question what are the true opinions of those who call themselves otakus and those who don't from one another. Same goes with the term 'Weabbo' because there seems to be no clear reasons to why one is such. Is it just snot her substitution to 'newbie' or something else? I am puzzled to why one can call another a Weabbo when I too have heard the others to call him the same. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Weeaboo is supposed to be a specific insult, but like most words it's used incorrectly and has pretty much lost all meaning and pretty much means "anime fan" to most people. Anyone who actually still uses it as an insult tend to be very ignorant or just trolls.
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Boomerang Flash
Posts: 1021 |
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Otaku has two general meanings in the west:
1. An anime fan--someone who enjoys anime and seeks anime because they are anime. 2. An anime geek--someone who is immersed in anime and makes it his primary hobby, generally letting habits acquired from this hobby surface in everyday life (this is how the Japanese use the term). Weaboo is a pejorative for a Japanophile, but it's almost always used against anime fans (as opposed to, say, someone who is a samurai fan). It's usually used by someone who isn't an anime fan. |
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Animeking1108
Posts: 1244 |
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It's a common insult of dub-haters as well.
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G-mofactor
Posts: 797 Location: Atlantis to Interzone |
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Thank you for the clarification.
Thank you as well. This brings me to my second part of the issue. Since this connects as an insult to dub-haters, there is undoubtedly an opposing opinion between those who prefers dub or sub. Therefore, unpopularity of opinions should also connect to an unpopular remark (which in this case - an insult); it may also have contributed to the cause to make such an insult. So the topic such as "why sub is better, or why dub is better," for anime is a touchy subject due to statements or opinions based on facts; even if that one person thought to have the correct answer. There is where the unpopular opinion starts to brew and it starts with "Sub is better because _____." or "Dub is better because _____." These opinions does seem to be as touchy as the being called as an Otaku or Weaboo. Make an opinion and it would eventually push some buttons. So does one call someone else names due to an unpopular opinion? |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4080 |
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I hold the most unpopular opinion of all: Are dubs or subs are better? Yes.
Both are better, having the ability to watch either is the best but in order to have both, the show has to be dubbed in the first place. I don't get it. I have series that automatically plays the Japanese track and I have ones that play the dubbed track first but I don't have any that only play the dubbed or Japanese track. I choose for I have the power of choice. And to have that choice, to continue having that choice, I don't buy subbed only collections. {This one is quite unpopular though in order to promote the existence of dubs, it makes sense to only buy sets that have them. The fact that many of these complainers themselves seem to complain about reading fansubbers subtitles is pretty amusing. How much do they spend on those downloads/streams anyway?} Well, there's Robotech but that's a special case.
Apparently, the future doesn't sell much and ,as such, has a smaller audience. So it would have to have a ... higher selling price... Nein, nyet, non. This is a secondary market for anime; As long as it doesn't affect the Japanese market, what works works. According to this opinion, this market has to become the primary anime market or be treated as such. On the other hand, a few Japanese sets seem to be getting dubs now while even more have subtitles. And that's because the Japanese are importing the cheaper anime sets of the West so the Japanese want ... lower prices ... and they don't mind dubs... Those crazy Japanese people! Don't they know anime is supposed to be expensive and exclusionary? Actually, the American anime price has been decreasing and the per release content amount has been increasing since the advent of DVD technology. Even the special NIS sets and the standard Aniplex sets are cheaper {or at least comparable} to standard dub/sub VHS anime releases of the ninties. The dubbed only VHS release I bought of the Slayers back then cost as much as dubbed/subbed Madoka now {and, ironically, the Slayers 1,2,3 DVD}. The dubbed/subbed tapes of the entire series of the Slayers would have been ... Over... One Thousand!!!. So the future of anime is all in the past? That makes sense. |
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Quadraxis
 Posts: 54 Location: Holland |
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I figure I've got plenty of opinions that'll cause people to rage at me, both positive and negative. Well, here goes.
-Tengen Toppen Gurren Lagann is quite overrated. I mean, sure, the show is fun, but the anime looks it was made by Micheal Bay. It's all about giant robots, big explosions and skimpy-dressed girls shooting guns, yet people talk about it like it was really deep and thought-provoking. No, it's not, it really isn't. -Shojo aren't better written than 'male' shows. Alot of people seem to have to rather elitistic notion, but both types are pretty much the same in the end; there's both good shows and bad ones. Most shojos are crummy chick-flicks which are at the same level as a mindless action show, and there are dumb harem shows for both demographics. Sure, there's good ones among there, but overall, just as much as male-oriented ones. In the end, they're not superior in any way. -Kaichou wa Maid-Sama had a stupid Gary Stu as its male love interest. He was as creepy as Edward from Twilight too, so no, he's not one the best love interests evar, as some fangirls seem to think. -"-insert rage genre here- is the cancer that is killing anime!" No, it's not. There never has been something rotting anime from within, all they are, are just trends, which you may or may not like. Over time they will pass, and besides, there's always good shows around every season because there's always variety. -As some people have already pointed out, not being interested in old anime and preferring to watch newer ones coming out doesn't make you some kind of shallow idiot who 'isn't a real fan'. That's elitism at it's finest. And this is coming from someone who has watched a lot of old shows. -The manga isn't always better. Some manga purists always cry foul whenever an adaptation changes something from the original source or adds something, but hey, guess what, that's why it's an adaptation! Hell, some adaptations are better than the original. That's all I could think of at the moment, really. Staying away from the dub-sub debate, because as a non-native English speaker it's one foreign language versus another and I'm watching subtitles either way. |
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Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 363 Location: Finland |
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- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann works not only because it's well animated but also because it's really well written and has no fillers.
-Cowboy Bebop is a great series but it doesn't have the best soundtrack ever written. -Steve Blum sounds like Wolverine/poor man's Clint Eastwood instead of Spike. |
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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I've been expressing my unpopular opinions back when they were true:
- Admit it: You're just watching (pick one: Ghost/Shell, SE Lain, Akira) because they were recommended by fan buzz back when they were the only things on DVD. In 1998. - Admit it: You're just recommending (pick one: Cowboy Bebop, Witch Hunter Robin, Wolf's Rain) because of fan buzz from back when they were airing on Cartoon Network for free, for no strings attached, before streaming was invented. And from back when CN was sober, was interested in anime, and didn't want it to die from being forced to show all of the DBZ Buu saga. - Do you honestly--HONESTLY--believe a curious first-timer will instantly warm to anime from being assaulted by Evangelion for the very first time in his life, just because it's so "different"? 
That's like taking a friend who's visiting NYC because he "wants to get the flavor of the city", and making him run through Hell's Kitchen at 3am. - Theatrical movies are weird. They're supposed to be--The directors don't like doing television. Just because Sony US has never seen anime in their life, shows it to arthouse critics who've never seen anime in their life either, and/or can't get anything but a stand-alone import, does not in itself make Paprika, Metropolis or Perfect Blue mandatory viewing. - Although I don't condone their actions, y'know....I sort of don't blame Disney for being scared off by Princess Mononoke after only knowing Miyazaki for Kiki--To call that one "Bad timing" is the understatement of the millennium. I blame Tokuma for putting that one in the contract, though, they actually like that movie over there. Go figure. (I tend to refer to it as the Miyazaki version of Chaplin's "Woman of Paris": Yeah, okay, you can go against type and do tragedy, we're all impressed; now shaddup and do "Spirited Away". )
- I actually LIKE DBZ. Oh, I wouldn't buy season boxes of it, and it put the "Drag" in "Dragon ball", but Akira Toriyama is just naturally goofy. No matter how shonen-fight things get, the Z-fighters will still be a few marbles short. 
Er...huh? 
I don't recall any gratuitous America-bashing (at least not on a burning passive-aggressive Tenchi level), any more than just simple trope-guessing from afar. (Eg. Kaleido Star guessing that Miami is full of big overly-friendly teddy-bear cops.) Summer Wars was a parody on the net's growing corporate reliance on Facebook as the integrated be-all hub and purpose of the Internet--probably my own interpretation, seeing as I don't use it, and have been around long enough to make 90's AOL jokes about the poor naive/illiterate/lonely saps who brag about being on Twitter--which I'm guessing is a LOT more prevalent in Japan. Mostly on the cellphones, I'm guessing. And while I won't join in on the gratuitous Cowboy Bebop bashing (if you're wondering why everyone says you're "supposed" to watch it, see above), I'll admit it's a bit of a showy posturing drama-queen: It's trying SO hard to be atmospherically Noir and cynical, you just can't help being attracted to Faye or Ed, who don't care about "fate" or "old demons", they're just trying to get what they want.
(When someone once asked me about Outlaw Star, I recommended it as "Like Bebop, only not as Gratuitously Depressing".  )
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