Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Do I Introduce Old Anime To Younger Fans?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5954 |
|
|||||||||||||
I find it intresting complex series like Cowboy Bebop and Trigun are beginner level but Gundam and Lupin are "seasoned" level |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Suena
Posts: 289 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Have genre/theme days. Show the first episodes of a couple of different shows that fit the genre. Why try to watch an entire series together right off the bat? Pick stuff that can be streamed online, and just show the first episode. If it gets a lot of positive feedback, show more another time. If it doesn't, at least they can go and finish watching the rest themselves.
And avoid comedy. Almost all anime comedy requires a lot of experience. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Posts Sometimes
Posts: 38 |
|
|||||||||||||
Wait, it's bad to tell anime newbies about shows they end up enjoying? And this is bad because they don't have the knowledge to enjoy them "properly"? I see that mindset all the time, but it's never made any sense to me. Obviously you should know your audience when you make recommendations, but if you think they might like something that isn't usually considered a "beginner" series, why not recommend it? |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
whiskeyii
 Posts: 2247 |
|
|||||||||||||
I think Ouran is one of the few shows that can work on multiple levels, both as a genre parody and as a fairly straight shooter. The stuff that gets played straight still works and is funny, it just gets funnier if you're already genre savvy. That said, yeah, no genre subversions. Leave the Madokas and Princess Tutus and Evangelions at home. I'd also leave behind any "this was the start of this genre" kind of shows. Most people aren't interested in that kind of show without being invested from the get-go, unless it still does something unique and interesting from a modern standpoint. My personal recommendation for easing folks back gently has got to be Nichijou, though. Five years past, so not so big as to elicit a "WTF is this style" reaction, but also low enough on most people's radars to still be a fun surprise. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Lord Oink
Posts: 876 |
|
|||||||||||||
Trigun and Cowboy Bebop are Adult Swim staples. Gundam and Lupin never caught on in America so in this case yep, they are more seasoned shows. Most of the anime I watch are shounen and shoujo, so I can say from experience it's annoying when someone tries to be elitist and 'educate' you about 'real' anime and view you like some kind of casual because you generally only watch shounen. It's more annoying when they use shows like Madoka, Kill la Kill, Sword Art Online or Bebop which are WAY more mainstream and casual in America than shows only available fansubbed like Pretty Cure. So someone telling me to branch out by listing flavor-of-the-month anime airing on Adult Swim while I'm combing through IRC bots for fansubs of obscure Japanese shounen and shoujo is really condensending. Just let people watch what they want. There's very little reason to go back and watch old anime when you have so much new stuff coming out every year, people are never going to be hurting for shows to watch |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5954 |
|
|||||||||||||
The original 1979 series with quality animation that was canceled in the middle of it's run never caught on Gundam Wing and G Gundam seem to be well liked given how many runs both had on Toonami.
Which is funny since most people here tend to be split on the quality of anything made within the last 10-15 year period when it was new and fresh at the time or anything current. Secondly people don't have a reason "not" to watch old anime simply because a bunch of new stuff is coming out. This seems frighteningly similar to how western Animation fans whine about newer stuff when comparing it to anything they watched from the 80's, 90's,or early 00's. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Juno016
 Posts: 2393 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Contrary to what people have been saying, Kill la Kill has so much energy that a lot of casual fans in my local club (which no longer exists because I left for Japan and they couldn't run it...) really, really liked it. And then Madoka... Going back to the college anime club, most of the members were casual, but they WERE college age and many had seen or at least knew about Sailor Moon. That was enough context to show Madoka to them. I showed it with a college professor who knew nothing about magical girls or much of anime outside of Miyazaki and even HE got into the discussion, except he compared it to subverting superheroes. It ended being well worth the time investment of 3 [weekly] meetings dedicated to showing 4 episodes at a time. People REALLY got into it. It may have more depth than they can pick up on, but it's still a roller coaster ride.
Not to mention, I ended up showing Madoka to the club I first mentioned and there was a kid in elementary school who stopped playing Minecraft on the computer (the club room shared space with the computer room) and just sat with us and was very, very interested. The kid was fricking smart as heck. I had seen the series about two dozen times from start to finish by then (now you know why I was so adamant to show it to other people) and he was pointing out visual symbols that I never had noticed before (i.e.-he pointed out a scene where the bugs on a lantern were in the shape of a skull, invoking creepy imagery, and even noticed how spoiler[Madoka's witch was growing bigger in each time loop.]). By the time I left for Japan, the kid was already a fan of Jojo, Monogatari (just Bakemono to start), Dennou Coil, and even Princess Tutu (even though he was a boy, he had no complaints). I wouldn't necessarily say that Madoka is a great beginner's anime to show people, but with the right verbal introduction and proper hype, you can make Madoka, as well as other heavy series, very much a favorite of new fans. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Spike Terra
 Subscriber Posts: 359 Location: Maryland |
|
|||||||||||||
I think your list is pretty good but I would bump up Noir to intermediate. Noir's ongoing theme and heavy reliance on dialogue might be a little intimidating to newcomers. As a personal preference, I would recommend Cazador de la Bruja for newcomers, if you want to recommend something from the "Girls with Guns" trilogy. That's mostly because it's my favorite of the three and I think Cazador is the easiest to follow. I think this article provided many good examples of how to introduce new anime to clubs. I have two suggestions that might help. 1: Don't be afraid to experiment after showing a couple of mainstream shows. Once you have an idea of what your club likes, you might want to try showing more lesser known shows to broaden their base. I recommend showing these shows as samples (like 1-2 episodes). 2: You might want to stay away from showing them many dialogue heavy shows. My past experiences have shown that shows like Blast of Tempest and Bakemonogatari tend to not stand up well in anime clubs. These shows are more suitable for watching either by yourself or with a small group. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
TheArsonAut
Posts: 29 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Aw man this is a good question. Long time reader first time responder.
What I would do is have them all watch Alien and Bladerunner, the movies. Simply because they are a point of reference for a lot of the popular culture and anime that would come out in the next 20 years. I would expect anyone in such a club to have experience with both of these. From there, it would have to be Bebop, wouldn't it? It's the Casablanca of anime. It's a simple point of reference. And then Neon Genesis Evangelion. And perhaps Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, then Paranoia Agent. Also stick The Castle of Cagliostro, Nausicaa, Totoro, Mononoke, Spirited Away in there. Perhaps Beautiful Dreamer, Ghost in the Shell, Akira. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. And in between all that definitely some Kurosawa. Ugetsu. You're all set. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||||||||||
|
They already know about, and presumably watch, One Piece? If we're talking about the United States here, that's already a good start. Even now, One Piece cannot crack the mainstream the way DBZ or Naruto can, or even Attack on Titan.
It was several years ago already, but I remember it being very hard in college to name an anime someone had heard of that wasn't DBZ, Naruto, Pokémon, Digimon, or Sailor Moon. Most of them also had the impression that all anime is for kids and were confused why I was into it. (You know, the "Aren't you too old for anime?" spiel.) I remember one of my classmates when I was studying in the hallway excitedly told me about how he had just gotten into Bleach. I decided to be in a for-fun class about cult shows, and to my surprise, I noticed there were anime on the list, and the first one the instructor showed was Paranoia Agent. (It was the episode "Double Lips.") Discussion after the screening mostly fell along the lines of, "I always thought anime was for kids, but this was really mature."
Another thing to consider is that older anime, especially before they were drawn digitally, will definitely look very dated, and that alone could be a turn-off for people for whom non-digital animation was before their time. My rule of thumb for any type of entertainment is to begin with something new and current, made within the last 5 years if possible, and THEN introduce older stuff if they are hungry for more.
That being said, if the intent is to create familiarity with what has been popular in anime, I'd say Episode 11 of Madoka is a perfectly good standalone episode whose only context needed is "Magical girls fight witches." (Or was it Episode 10? It's the one about Homura's backstory.) Or maybe it'd be better in a class like I mentioned above, where you can then throw the others discussion questions like "Based on this episode, can you determine the target audience of this show? Does it even have a target audience at all?" (Answer: Really cynical and jaded little girls.)
Definitely agree. Sounds like there is a roughly 15-year gap between the person who asked this question and the college students. Culture changes a lot within 15 years. The first anime I watched was, unsurprisingly, Dragon Ball Z. (Well, the first one I watched with the intent to watch it--my father watched stuff like Akira and Ghost in the Shell when I was little, but that was basically background noise.) I would not recommend Dragon Ball Z nowadays unless they're curious about why it was such a big phenomenon.
Huh, never even thought of that. That sounds like a good idea. Maybe even have people take turns in being the liaison.
It's not just anime. It's anything. Ask a big fan about something you want to get started in, and he or she will most likely ramble on and on for several minutes, then get mad for you not taking it all in. And they will tend to recommend the hardcore stuff they're currently into without thinking about (or ashamed by) the fact that they probably started with more beginner-friendly stuff.
The list seems to be based on accessibility to a non-viewer, which is totally independent of a story's complexity. You can make something be accessible AND complex, and you can make something inaccessible AND simple. It's the difference between Super Smash Bros. 4 (accessible and complex) and Tattoo Warriors (inaccessible yet simple). |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
noriah
Posts: 23 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Here's a great resource:
http://imgur.com/gallery/q9Xjv4p It's a flowchart for finding new series based on what other stuff they like. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
|
|||||||||||||
|
What I try to recommend to noobies is Anime that appeals to western tastes i.e. Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, BlackCat, Panty and Stocking, Hellsing Ultimate, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Attack on Titan, Blood Blockade Battlefront, and so on.
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
|
|||||||||||||
Poor chart for someone that wants newer fans to appreciate anime older than late 90's. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6869 Location: Kazune City |
|
|||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
|
|||||||||||||
What's more interesting is a chunk of the shows in seasoned are aimed at kids, while most in beginner are adult shows. Lupin should be basic anime course 101. -Stuart Smith |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group