Forum - View topicAnswerman - What If I No Longer Like My Old Favorite Shows?
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Joshua Zarate
Posts: 2061 |
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I’ve luckily avoided this problem pretty much altogether with Americans cartoons. I loved watching the shows that used to air on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network such as Jimmy Neutron, Ed, Edd, & Eddy, Courage The Cowardly Dog, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, etc. as a kid. After many years, I still really enjoy watching them today. For anime, I’ve avoided this problem only mostly. There are still some shows that I’ve watched getting into anime that I would look at them now and wonder, “How in the world did I manage to finish this?” I think I would also be the type of person who would love some things more after watching it more than once, but I unfortunately only have so much time in my schedule for that type of thing. I also feel like my tastes are continuing to expand and that I’m becoming more patient for shows in varying genres instead of less. Is that weird?
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ninjamitsuki
 Posts: 592 Location: Anywhere (Thanks, technology) |
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I rewatched Digimon Tamers last year and I have to say I appreciate it even more now that I'm older.
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doomydoomdoom
 Posts: 278 Location: Michigan, USA |
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To be honest I've had this problem with a lot of stuff, not just in anime. The last time I saw Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was probably in the 90s, but I cannot and will not get the DVDs. It just looks so childish to me now. Same for shows like the old Nicktoons (Rocko, Real Monsters, Rugrats, etc.) Goosebumps, Law & Order, Miami Vice, and others I enjoyed as a kid. Shows like The X Files have held up a bit more. With anime it's actually kind of the reverse. I was bored to death and hated Akira the first time I saw it, when I was about 12 years old. When I watched it again in my late teens I loved it and now count it as the classic others do. I've even been tempted to revisit shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion which I saw as an 11 year old and was completely confused by; it was actually the second anime I ever watched. I saw all episodes plus End of Eva once, and only once. I'd probably understand it a lot better now.
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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There is nothing wrong with enjoying bad shows
It becomes an issue when you defend bad shows as being better than they really were. |
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Nodz
Posts: 524 |
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I noticed that people usually wear their "nostalgia goggles" with old dubs (english, french, spanish...), because it's what they grew up with.
Lots of these dubs are absolute trash because they changed so much dialogues, contain a tons of mistakes, are full of censorship or the voices are garbage (they don't fit the characters, a comedian dubs several characters...), but people remember them fondly. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16939 |
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As has been said several times already, things change. Your tastes change. Your perceptions change. Times change. You grow older and your values change depending what stage of life you're in (as in single, married, family, retired, etc). All of these factors, and more, can over time change your opinions on things you used to like. Also things you might have disliked. I used to hate onions but now have them with almost everything I cook. I used to hate pop music but now love me some J-Pop and K-pop. Also classic pop from the 80's.
If you no longer like shows you used to....so what? Anyone who would demand you turn in your "anime card" as a fan because you might not like old shows you used to, even "classics" everyone should like according to popular opinion, should go sit on a cactus and spin. Change is not inherently good or bad. In this context you're not less of a fan if your tastes change over time. If you don't enjoy them as much now it also does not diminish the enjoyment you got in the past when you do did enjoy them more. Those are fond and positive memories and even if you might not like the show as much now it doesn't change the happiness you got from it in the past. Enjoy what you like while you do enjoy it and don't worry if you might like it 10 or 20 years from now.
What constitutes a "bad show" is subjective person to person. You may not agree with them but it is hardly an "issue" if a fan defends a show they enjoy. They are allowed to like it just as you re allowed to not like it. |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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While there are some things that I've grown away from, I'd say overall my tastes have broadened over the years rather than narrowed. Among what I'm currently watching, I don't think teenage me would have watched stuff Card Captor Sakura or After the Rain and a number of other titles - not to say that I've moved on from the kinds of shows I watched then. I do think my tastes have reached an equilibrium in the last couple years, but that's because there are few genres I won't at least try.
I haven't really rewatched many shows from back when I was just getting into anime, as I prefer to watch something I haven't seen. I'm not too concerned about many of the titles I saw when I was first getting into anime, as most came from that golden age of anime on Adult Swim @Top Gun referred to (though I'll have to rewatch s-CRY-ed to see how it holds up as I haven't seen it seen freshman year of college). I had been rewatching LoGH as it had been coming out on HIDIVE, but I wasn't really worried about that one either. I have been thinking of going back to some of my more nostalgic titles that I haven't seen in years but there is always something I haven't seen that inevitable pops into my backlog.
While I haven't seen DBZ in many years and I don't think it would hold up, I've liked Super more than I expected, particularly after the first two arcs, and especially in the current arc, so maybe Z wouldn't be as far off than I think, at least the Kai version. |
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catandmouse
Posts: 213 |
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I think this happened to me more with manga than anime. Honestly speaking though, I have not gone back to revisit many of the old anime I watched in my teen years so I can't conclusive say, but I do know that a lot of the manga that used to catch my attention back in my younger years I won't touch with a ten foot pole now. I've realized I'm a character driven person, if I like the character/s I will probably enjoy the story.
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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For the most part, anything I watched and loved as a kid, I will leave as memories of liking watching something. Maybe I'll still like the show if I watch it now, but odds are I won't, so I won't take my chances. There are exceptions; I never really stopped periodically re-watching and loving the original Star Wars trilogy, and I've never not enjoyed watching the old Looney Tunes cartoons. Of course, in the latter case my dad was watching them as a kid, so they'd already stood the test of time by that point. (They also weren't aimed just at kids, which is the big problem with a lot of kid's shows; it tends to be the ones made with both child and adult audiences in mind that are actually really good.)
And of course, there's quite a few anime in my DVD collection that I bought early-ish in my fandom that I look at these days and think "why the hell did I like that?"
Certainly been there, done that. As a notable example, when I was in Year 7 or 8 at school, they showed us Lawrence of Arabia, which I thought was boring at the time. Watching it later as an adult, it's one of my favourite movies of all time. Early in my time as an anime fan I watched a few episodes of Utena and wasn't impressed, but 10 or so years later I decided to give a second chance to a bunch of things I'd previous dismissed and loved it. |
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2025 |
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Every work of art should be consumed with proper context, and that may vary for different people. If I watch a movie or show I used to enjoy when I was younger, I go in fully embracing the nostalgia fest I’m getting into. If I’m watching a show for kids, I watch and embrace it as a children’s show. I would never watch Scooby-Doo, and think about comparing it to Stranger Things or whatever.
But it is always amazing when a show I used to watch is still something amazing. Both Dexter’s Laboratory and Powerpuff Girls (the original of course) are incredibly intelligently written, with a creative sense of adult humor. I also enjoy Courage the Cowardly Dog and Johnny Bravo unironically. Rugrats is very well-made too, at least the earlier seasons. With anime, it seems Dragon Ball Z is the one connection to my childhood that is wholly uncompromised. When I watch it now, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing so for nostalgia, but just because I never actually stopped enjoying it in the first place, even if I recognize the obvious flaws in the storytelling. Yu Yu Hakusho holds up well too, and it seems Revolutionary Girl Utena got BETTER, even if it’s not quite as wondrous as it was when I was 12. Sailor Moon hasn’t aged as well, but it’s still enjoyable. Tokyo Mew Mew doesn’t hold up as well as I would like. Yu-Gi-Oh! turned into pure camp with age, for better or worse. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I'm pretty much in this camp. I got into anime in the mid-2000s actually through specifically Ghibli, and only ventured beyond that when I realized that what I liked wasn't Ghibli, specifically, but this whole dang thing called anime. Then I jumped into classics like Akira and Ghost in the Shell through Netflix, then later Death Note, Elfen Lied, and all that edgy dark sh*t. I just slowly continued to expand my taste from there. I've gone back and watched Death Note and Elfen Lied, all of the Ghibli Films, essentially everything that I started out with, and while I might enjoy something like Elfen Lied for slightly different reasons now, it's still just as entertaining, even if in a more pulpy-trashy way, and none of them have really disappointed me. Meanwhile, I never dreamed of watching something like K-ON back then, yet here I am watching half a dozen cute girl shows this season and enjoying every single one, while also catching up on stuff like Apocrypha, Drifters, and Juuni Taisen, and enjoying those as well. |
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Hitokiri Kenshin
Posts: 291 |
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Know the feeling of things changing when you get older. When I was in pre-school used to love Silverhawks, but when it was on CN during my senior year of high school, didn't like it so much, while was still enjoying ThunderCats. Also while I still love Animaniacs, and now get some of the more mature jokes that were snuck in, the Great Wakkorotti cartoons aren't as funny to me as they were in 5th grade. Then again, belching is funnier when you're a kid.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4584 |
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s-CRY-ed is probably not what anyone should consider a genuinely "good" show, but dear lord it is ridiculously entertaining, or at least the dub is. ("What the...my balls aren't there!") Most of the anime-watching friends I made way back in the [as] days still unironically love the hell out of it. Also Straight Cougar is pretty much the best character from anything ever. 
Last edited by Top Gun on Tue Feb 13, 2018 12:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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writerpatrick
 Posts: 672 Location: Canada |
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I don't think I'll ever tire of Ghost in the Shell, although having watched the episodes so many times I don't actually feel like re-watching them. But there's just too much anime available now that I haven't watched that I don't have time for reruns.
Very few of the pre-90s cartoons hold up to re-watching. Sometimes you watched bad cartoons and TV shows because there just wasn't anything else on to watch. Scooby Doo was probably the best cartoon for at least an entire decade. |
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CandisWhite
Posts: 282 |
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You see little to value in the early 90's animation renaissance of the children's tv landscape? Not Talespin for its gorgeous scenery, majestic soundtrack, and charming writing? Not Animaniacs for refining what Tiny Toons sort of tried to be (an homage to classic Termite Terrace work) and its great comedic timing ("Tactless, yet rude" "Have I ever lied to you?" 'You said keno was legal in Burbank; You said Magilla Gorilla was a woman; You said...'), its wonderful original-score for-every-episode soundtrack? Not Batman TAS for writing, music, performances, for its serious subject matter done with intelligence and still held well within the appropriateness for its 8-11 year old demographic ( One of THE templates for that)? Animaniacs tripping with some bad writing, especially later, and Gargoyles descending into bad comic book storylines {save for that ending arc (3rd season? What 3rd season?)} do not negate the amazing work that was put out by those series' teams. As a fellow P-D Warrior, I draw my own collection blade and defend great art when it it is challenged. Calling the early 90's a wasteland, whilst veering out of Street Sharks territory into Tom Ruegger National Park, is the same as calling the 60's music scene a wasteland, and then citing The Beatles as examples why. |
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They do, however, remember "Cool, there was an X-Men series?"
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