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Answerman - Why Don't I Find Anime Comedies Funny?


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Clarste



Joined: 06 Feb 2012
Posts: 424
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 3:57 am Reply with quote
MajorZero wrote:
I'm not sure if japanese audience will understand concepts of stand-up comedy or satire.


Japanese satire exists, it's just not usually in anime because the anime-watchers just aren't the target audience for it.

Ultimately, anime is mostly made for children and otaku, neither of which would appreciate satire or other subtler forms of humor very much.
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Ninjajake12



Joined: 04 Aug 2015
Posts: 118
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 4:00 am Reply with quote
Good thing humor is subjective, eh?

I tend to laugh at, well, almost everything under the sun. I have a crazy, broad sense of humor. My humor are for TV shows on the fringe of being cancelled every episode (too many examples to name).

However, when supposed 'funny' shows pop up, I find them totally unfunny and unoriginal...yet they're mega hits. If we're using examples (of American TV shows), I find Impractical Jokers hilarious. Some of my friends and family find it irritating. They find shows like South Park or Modern Family hilarious, whereas I could live without. It's all simply subjective. I can't help but crack up at An Idiot Abroad, while many others simply don't understand the humor. It doesn't mean the creators don't know humor, but it also means that you aren't a humorless person.

I think comparing South Park to anime comedy is a little...out there. South Park is edgy, rough, political, dark, and addresses current events and hot topics. Japan would never allow that type of comedy to exist on TV. It's simply a cultural difference. The edgiest anime I've ever seen (aside from Gintama) would probably be Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita...but there aren't too many of those genres of anime lying around.

I tend to like humor that can range from word puns to slapstick comedy. Gintama happens to be my favorite anime, whereas most of my friends really don't understand it.
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Lili-Hime



Joined: 05 Jun 2014
Posts: 569
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:18 am Reply with quote
EricJ2 wrote:

If you liked the "oil" episode, get ready for the school and summer episodes after the late Ep. 20's or so...

Sorry my friend, I missed your comment buried under the other stoof i this thread. I actually am into the 30's or so now and yes.. it keeps getting better and better!! One of my favorite series ever I really could tell when Oshii came in though and the sense of humor changed a little. I mostly like Ranma for the dub jokes but I admit it does get way too repititive and always stop somewhere in season 4. I can see myself going way further with UY though. At the very least I've seen beautiful dreamer 10 times.

Also this thread just... wow. On a side note though its amusing to see a couple users who have argued against the "PC police" ruining everything get so upset when someone calls Japanese or Asian humor primitive. I guess being anti-PC only applies when talking about issues that don't effect them, like women's rights.
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Kreion



Joined: 02 Jan 2013
Posts: 332
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:27 am Reply with quote
Ninjajake12 wrote:
Good thing humor is subjective, eh?

I tend to laugh at, well, almost everything under the sun. I have a crazy, broad sense of humor. My humor are for TV shows on the fringe of being cancelled every episode (too many examples to name).

However, when supposed 'funny' shows pop up, I find them totally unfunny and unoriginal...yet they're mega hits. If we're using examples (of American TV shows), I find Impractical Jokers hilarious. Some of my friends and family find it irritating. They find shows like South Park or Modern Family hilarious, whereas I could live without. It's all simply subjective. I can't help but crack up at An Idiot Abroad, while many others simply don't understand the humor. It doesn't mean the creators don't know humor, but it also means that you aren't a humorless person.

I think comparing South Park to anime comedy is a little...out there. South Park is edgy, rough, political, dark, and addresses current events and hot topics. Japan would never allow that type of comedy to exist on TV. It's simply a cultural difference. The edgiest anime I've ever seen (aside from Gintama) would probably be Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita...but there aren't too many of those genres of anime lying around.

I tend to like humor that can range from word puns to slapstick comedy. Gintama happens to be my favorite anime, whereas most of my friends really don't understand it.


I don't think that's necessarily true because shows like sayonara zetsubou sensei exist which is basically a commentary on modern Japan. A lot of humorous anime use an extremely ott world to make their messages and comments less obvious. I would agree that there are less satirical humour in Japan but it certainly exists and exists in anime too.

I mean there aren't that many 'edgy' cartoons beside south park, the ones that are tend to not run for too long.
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Jonny Mendes



Joined: 17 Oct 2014
Posts: 997
Location: Europe
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:58 am Reply with quote
Comedy is so subjective. I can't even tell that is about cultural differences between countries.

For example i find older American cartoons like the Tex Avery, Hanna-Barbera, and Disney short cartoons incredible funny and find the modern Simpsons, Beavis and Butt-head, South Park, Family Guy not funny at all.

In my opinion anime comedies are allot more funny than the modern American comedy cartoons. But that is a subjective opinion.
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Northlander



Joined: 10 Feb 2009
Posts: 900
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 7:30 am Reply with quote
Comedy, like just about everything else, is definitely a subjective thing. And even during the 20 years (give and take) I've been a fan, my tastes has definitely shuffled and changed a lot. For instance, I used to find high-octane comedies funny, but now they're just giving me a headache. I've come to enjoy good natured laughs recently in lieu of the more stabby, vaguely mean-spirited ones I might've liked before. (For instance, someone mentioned Baka to Test in this thread -- I watched some of that show, and I was all "yeah, OK, this is... not very funny, but I guess I could see why other people might enjoy this". Then I got to the episode where one of the girls in the show took one of the guys on a date, and tazed him whenever he tried running away, and then I was all "............WHAT?!" (And I KNOW there are people out there who found that funny.)

Azumanga Daioh has been mentioned; I'm currently rewatching that one after having it rest on my shelves for nearly ten years unwatched, and... well, I still actually find it funny for the most part, but some aspects to it have lost its funnybone within me, like just about everything centered around Osaka and her spaced-out...edness. Cromartie High School is still qutie amusing, though, and I'd like to add "Daily Lives of High School Boys to this list as a show that has had me laughing regularly. Detroit Metal City too, even if some of its jokes are a bit near the border of what I consider inappropriate. ^^;;
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jymmy



Joined: 11 Nov 2011
Posts: 1244
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 7:32 am Reply with quote
Plenty of anime comedy I dislike, like Shimoneta or everything from Key/Visual Arts, plenty I've really enjoyed, like Joshiraku or Azumanga Daioh (great anime, but the manga manga is on another level, comedy-wise).

I think where a lot of series are flawed is that instead of subverting expectations, you can see the joke telegraphed a mile away (see also: every incidence of the insipid "MC walks in and sees female changing" gag). Another observation I frequently have is that the jokes don't bear relationship to the characters, as though they were plucked from a bag of jokes and just said. I actually find kids' shows frequently do this well; I've found shows like Precure and PriPara frequently laugh-out-loud funny – I don't find the humour in Pokémon particularly good, but it's still well grounded in the characters themselves.
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LiteKnite



Joined: 04 Jul 2015
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 9:46 am Reply with quote
Can it get any more adult than "Bulma, your balls are missing!"
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Purpadude



Joined: 09 Nov 2014
Posts: 14
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 10:51 am Reply with quote
The question was maybe a bit narrow, but I think it's opened up some good discussion on the kinds of humour available in anime.

Personally, I like a lot of wit and repartee in my comedies, so I enjoy the heavily scripted jokes and pop culture references of Community, over the pseudo-real observation comedy of Parks and Rec or The Office.

The anime I find funniest tend to have priorities above or alongside their humour. A pure comedy show usually doesn't interest me. I enjoyed the uncomfortable edge of Welcome to the N.H.K., the character banter of Steins;Gate or OreGairu, and the dramatic suspense-horror of Prison School. Those could get some pretty serious laughs out of me, on a regular basis.

I also enjoy a few anime satires, like Ouran Highschool Hostclub, Martian Successor Nadessico, and recently One Punch Man. It helps that those shows have some real criticism in them, and hit a wider ranger of moods than just humour. Zetsubo Sensei is high on my list of shows to try. If anyone has similar suggestions, I'll take them.

But ... when it comes to comedies like Azumanga Daioh, Cromartie High, or Nichijou, I have trouble sitting through a single episode. And I know these shows are the best examples of their genre. A straight series of gags, however well constructed, seems to do nothing for me.

The Ghost Stories Dub gets an honourable mention. As does FLCL, which uses nonsense and confusion to build a great coming of age story.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 10:58 am Reply with quote
I don't know and to me, comedy is comedy; What I've found funny, I still find funny.

I don't find One Punch Man funny though. I get the jokes but I have a long relationship superhero comics so a hero who's thing is that he kills every villain he meets- effortlessly, that's the "joke"- just makes me wonder why bother with elaborate villains and their design if the creator's just going to kill them off without a return appearance; Where's Doc Doom's umpteenth return when you least/most expect him?. But I think this is because it's more part of Japan's masked hero/costume villain "one and done" tradition only with smoke and fake punches replaced with literal gut busting gore.

The whole thing is weird to me though because I love all the parts of what I just wrote but the way they're combined just leaves me cold. I love the dark comedy gore of studios like Troma or straight up horror or classic comic book hero villain battles, slapstick to splatstick of classic Raimi and Jackson or satire of all those things combined. But without pain or acknowledging death, I'm thinking human context here, the heroes are as much monsters as the rest, if the people they kill are monsters or if they're just as much victims as the people they kill - it'd be funny if it was morbid, ironic, satirical or straight up apologetic- so it's empty to me.

Sure, I can laugh at a rabbit puppet covered in blood rip up our heroes, "look at the bones!", but when the heroes are the killer rabbit, I need to hear why they're chewing on people's necks and not just be amazed or amused at watching them do it- effortlessly.

If it's a satire of the ultimate wish fulfillment power fantasy then why bury it under all the death? Death isn't just cheap in this world, it comes in bulk. It's both meaningless and drawn out and messy for either side.

There's so many ways to do this, I find it baffling that the creators choose just to do it- effortlessly. "It's funny because he's funny looking, it's funny because it's over the top and matter of fact, it's funny because it's purposely not funny, it's funny because they reference funny works..."

Hold on a minute...

It's Family Guy? No wonder I'm in over my head here.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 12:34 pm Reply with quote
Lili-Hime wrote:
Wow this thread went downhill pretty fast. How did we get to talking about cultural marxism again?


At the point in every thread where people who don't really know what everyone else is talking about and don't have specific examples to use want to participate anyway to feel important, grab one abstract observation in the middle of a sentence, and literalize it by saying "Well, that's the problem with society, you know!", when everyone else is discussing Gintama episodes. Somebody's a bit out of the loop. Rolling Eyes

Mikeski wrote:
Oy, anything but the shouty guy.
Give me character comedy. Give me some slapstick. Give me fourth-wall breaks. Give me crazy references. Just gag the shouty narrator guy and drag him offstage. And waterboard him, that'd be hilarious.


In the case of R. Bruce Elliott dubbing the wacky Bullwinkle-esque Narrator with a new "hip/snarky/random" emphasis in Funi's Sgt. Frog dub, let's start with the waterboarding and move on to the electrodes. Mad
Although the Narrator was actually funny in the original Japanese--Like said Bullwinkle narrator, he's a part of the crazy ensemble, and even tries to be a part of it, in several episodes. Pompous Dramatic Narration has been a part of Japanese storytelling culture since the days of kabuki drama and silent films, so it's more "satirical" to have a narrator who's embarrassingly not as dramatic as he wants to be, and, yes, interrupts with the obvious, even if the obvious might tend to spoil the dramatic tone a bit.
(For British readers, substitute the US "Bullwinkle" references with Isembard Sinclair from "Danger Mouse": "Tune in for another great load of...for another exciting thrill-packed adventure!")

Lili-Hime wrote:

Sorry my friend, I missed your comment buried under the other stoof i this thread. I actually am into the 30's or so now and yes.. it keeps getting better and better!! One of my favorite series ever I really could tell when Oshii came in though and the sense of humor changed a little. I mostly like Ranma for the dub jokes but I admit it does get way too repititive and always stop somewhere in season 4. I can see myself going way further with UY though. At the very least I've seen beautiful dreamer 10 times.


Also, Oshii moved on about halfway (about three or four cours in, after the epic two-part "season finale"), so the series takes on an even different tone when Maison Ikkoku's Kazuo Yamazaki took over. (You can tell from Yamazaki's Movie 3, "Remember My Love".) And like Ikkoku, the series begins mixing a sort of fairytale sentimentality with the crazy gags, and the Lum/Ataru relationship becomes a little more Tracy & Hepburn where we know by now they like each other, they're just too busy trying to one-up outwit each other to admit it.
Like you say, it just gets better and better, and after S1, you can definitely say it gets better. Smile
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_Faust



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 1:31 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
"How about we STICK together, eh?"

There is no good solution that will both make the viewer laugh AND be an accurate translation.


Personally, I would've gone with:
"Look at this stick I found! It's stick-tacular!"
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Crisha
Moderator


Joined: 21 Apr 2010
Posts: 4290
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 1:54 pm Reply with quote
Whelp, time for a major thread clean-up. No one should be surprised when I start deleting the off-topic posts.

Needless to say, time to stop the off-topic debate, everyone. Please report posts in the future that you feel are not appropriate so that the mods can review them. Thanks.
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CoreSignal



Joined: 04 Sep 2014
Posts: 727
Location: California, USA
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 2:45 pm Reply with quote
I have to agree with Justin here, I've tried anime comedies in the past and every now and then but for the most part there's only been two or three anime shows I've actually found funny like Welcome to the NHK and GTO.

Ninjajake12 wrote:
I think comparing South Park to anime comedy is a little...out there. South Park is edgy, rough, political, dark, and addresses current events and hot topics. Japan would never allow that type of comedy to exist on TV. It's simply a cultural difference. The edgiest anime I've ever seen (aside from Gintama) would probably be Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita...but there aren't too many of those genres of anime lying around.

I'm not a huge South Park fan, but I do like the show and that type of dark, edgy humor. And true, there's not much anime out there that has kind of humor, which is probably why I don't find the majority of anime comedies funny. Same as Justin, part of why I like Welcome to the NHK is because it does have that type of edgy humor. I like sexual humor as well, which why I like GTO and also how GTO's humor mixes in a bit of social commentary as well. Ironically, I found JSS/Humanity has Declined to be just ok. The show seems to have that kind of humor I'm looking for, and while I'll think it's a clever show, I only found parts of the funny and not the whole thing, oh well. Interestingly enough, I think you get more of that edgy NHK/GTO type of humor in manga than in anime. Maybe there's more of an audience for it.


Purpadude wrote:
Personally, I like a lot of wit and repartee in my comedies, so I enjoy the heavily scripted jokes and pop culture references of Community, over the pseudo-real observation comedy of Parks and Rec or The Office.

The anime I find funniest tend to have priorities above or alongside their humour. A pure comedy show usually doesn't interest me. I enjoyed the uncomfortable edge of Welcome to the N.H.K., the character banter of Steins;Gate or OreGairu, and the dramatic suspense-horror of Prison School. Those could get some pretty serious laughs out of me, on a regular basis.

Me too, it's tough for me to just watch a straight comedy show, I also prefer humor as part of show rather than the main thing. I also like witty writing in my humor as well. Zetsubo Sensei sounds like my kind of humor so I'll probably give it a shot. In any case, I hope we get more anime comedies that emphasizes witty banter.
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 7578
Location: Wales
PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 3:09 pm Reply with quote
mewpudding101 wrote:
Justin, isn't the pun you're looking for "sutekki" and "suteki"? Sutikku doesn't make much sense.

Reading the article brought to mind someone in another show (Kannagi?) finding the phrase "suteki no sutikku" (or something similar) to be hilarious, and I was wondering it is was a reference that I missed, not having seen Fushigi Yuugi.
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