Forum - View topicCould anime lose quality?
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BfEaByOeP
 Posts: 12 Location: My house. |
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When I was channel surfing and reading the thread about how long anime will last, I stopped on TNN which was showing "proffessional" wrestling. I began thinking, how long will it take anime to become cheesey and it's only mission to attract viewers. Reassuring myself that anime is just starting to become big in the US and that this event is far from now; I wondered what will it be like when anime becomes ratings hungry? What kind of shows would they air? I mentioned it earlier, Anime Survivor. I would actually like to see this but not for the reasons I'm speaking of now.
Another question to ponder. With the recent boost in programming for gay people. How long do you think it will take for anime to start targeting the gay community to gain viewers and what do you think the shows would be about? |
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che_guevara
Posts: 102 Location: Near Boston |
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Anime will never face these problems in Japan, since it is already very big in Japan, and everyone watches it. Besides, the competition between producers and titles in Japan has been going on for decades, it's nothing new.
When it comes to the US, I think cheap and bad anime is already being shown to attract viewers. Pokemon, Digimon, and others are bad anime targeted at a very easily influenced audience. Only purpose: to make money. That's whydubbed anime are losing quality, and currently, adult swim is the only block that actually shows high quality anime, without creating Trading Card Games and other stupidities. And even Adult Swim dubs. (The dubbing of Cowboy Bebop episode 12 was excessive). Answering your second question: it seems like some Yaoi (shonen-ai) titles have already succeeded in attracting a fairly large audience. Gravitation is an example. |
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ChichiriMuyo
Posts: 201 |
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che... for a second there I was thinking your post was going to be intelligent and well formed, then I hit the second paragraph. Let me just list the issues I have with your post and my reasons why I disagree.
These are childrens shows, and they serve their demographic quite well. The often teach lessons about friendship and similar things that children should be taught, and aren't for you are someone your age. They are surrounded by a huge marketing blitz, but that doesnt mean they are without merit.
You're the only person I've ever heard say that. According to almost everyone the opposite is actually true. Perhaps you missed out on the early dubs from streamline or even before that.
apparently you dislike .hack//sign, rurouni kenshin (no marketing blitz, but you never know), and many other non-adult swim anime. thats fine if you do, but just because a block is aimed at your demographic (14-17 year old males, or those with the equivalent mindset) doesnt mean its the only anime programming that features high quality titles. Also, you cannot escape the marketing of toys and such if you wish to watch anime. In Japan most anime have their success graded on how well their toy lines sell over their ratings (though im sure both are quite important). If you'd like to point out any anime that you do think is good I'm sure I can find at least a line of toys related to it, if not more. Now, back to the real question. Personally I feel anime is in a transitional point. Fanservice has been very popular in Japan lately, so in a way you can say the quality has already dropped. Truth be told, however, the only thing that determines how meritorious an anime is would be if people like it or not. If you think the story telling now is at an all-time high you should really go back and look at a lot of the better anime that came out in the past. If you think its at a low, looks at the crap they put out in the past. Overall the level of storytelling wont go up or down. There will always be a genius out there making good anime and someone who makes lame anime to make some yen off of the latest trend. The quality of anime here can only go up until we've finally caught up to the Japanese (we're so close at times its scary, and so far at times its scarier). The popularity of anime here can only increase the quality of the us releases and cant really harm the Japanese releases at all... unless of course peopel waste their money on fanservice anime so much here that the Japanese think they can make a lot of money off of making more. |
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kendo rage
Posts: 12 Location: Scotland |
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With anime being as high profile as it currently is, then more and more people will switch on to anime. This of course means that new interest will be aroused amongst the younger age groups. As such audience rates will increase naturally without the advent of 'mass-marketing' and such like. But anime may be produced specifically for targetting a certain audience. These kinds of shows may become more prevalent in the future, especially if audience figures begin to fall.
In order to attract more viewers, anime must do what it has been doing for years, and that is to churn out high quality and entertaining series. You must remember that for each poor series out there, there is going to be a series of pure genius. Finding them is the usual problem!! It may get to the point in the future when someone makes a stunning series which is perfect in everyway. If this 'perfect' anime ever exists, then you can be assured that someone will think, 'If we copy this idea, we can make a fortune', this will give rise to a number of series which will follow very closely the format of this hypothetical perfect anime. If this happens, then there will be an over-saturation of the genre, and viewers will begin to lose interest. Hence, the only way for anime to perpetuate itself throughout the future is to be fresh and original, whilst still providing entertaining series and movies. It's not an easy task, but I, for one, have confidence in the industry to produce bigger and better series. |
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cyrax777
 Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
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Becouse of the Internet people are noticing how there is such a big load of crap out there for anime. Truth is there always was it just wasnt getting fansubbed or licsenced like it is now.
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android00
 Posts: 62 Location: In the middle of the Pacific by Japan and Korea |
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Just like good music, good anime never gets cheesy. No offense to anyone, but that wrestling stuff was always cheesy and stupid. Usually if something gets cheesy, it was usually stupid all along.
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10539 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Hmm, I would agree with the first half of yoru statement Android00, but not the second half. I agree that good anime will never get cheesy, and I expect to continue seing good anime. Witht he eventual retirement of Hayao Miyazaki (whenever that doe finally happen), the anime world will lose one of its biggest talents, but there will always be new people who shine through and create works of art. Take a look at Satoshi Kon who's been in the industry for 7 years now, has created 3 films, all 3 masterpieces. He's actually relatively "new blood." There will be more people like Miyazaki, Kon, Oshii and Takahata. But, there is already, and always has been a lot of "anime cheese." With the current growing international popularity of anime I expect their to be more and more cheese. Sales of anime in Japan haven't grown significantly in the past 5 years, in fact they spent a couple years dropping before recently starting to grow again, yet despite this, there is mroe new anime being produced right now then ever before. Many people at the top of the industry have expressed concern that there is too much anime, and not enough room in the (Japanese) market for all of it. When you look at entirely random statistics, if one out of every 10 anime are good, you'd expect there to be twice as many good anime if production increases by 100%. But that's far from the case, the people who have created anime's masterpieces are all lovers of anime, and they would be creating anime regardless of the market, and they'd take their time to do it right regardless of pressure to create more. The increaseing production is a result of investment bringing more people into the industry for financial reasons. People whoa re there for money, not for love of anime, and people who will rush production in order to make a quicker buck. These people will not be creatign a lot of masterpieces. What's worse, is that potential masterpieces may be ruined by the rush, if a really good script, or a really good director ends up in the employ of investors who are interested in nothing but money, production of what could have been a masterpiece will be rushed... it might not be cheese, but it won't be as good as it can be. Fortunately, cream does tend to rise to the top, so I expect that people in that position (potentially great directors) will end up at the right companies. And I expect that there will alsways be investors who, while profit oriented, are also lovers of the medium, the investors will invest in companies like I.G or new counterparts geared towards making good anime. So there you have it, what I think the growing popularity of anime will do to the medium, in short, there will be more crap, but there will still be the masterpieces as well.
The recent boost for gay programming is occuring in North America. Most parts of Asia are still a few years behind Europe and North America in acceptance of homosecuality. While international markets are cause for the creation of new anime, that new anime is still being produced with Japan in mind. No anime company will create a show entirely for the North American market, think of all the titles that were recently created "for" the North American market, Big O 2, IGP, Superior Deffender, Parasyte Dolls, etc... Despite the huge influence of teh North American market, the producers of these shows still hope to sell then in Japan. So I don't expect North America's trends to significantly affect anime in this case. This isn't however to say that gay anime in non-existent, we all knwo that not to be the case (ANN's even reviewed some of it), but so far, most gay anime has been created for a female market. Heterosexual women who get all hot watching guys kiss. This also isn't to say that Japan (and the rest of Asia) are completely closed to quality programming about homosexuality. There have been numerous programs created about homosexuality in Hong Kong and Japan, but for the most part these have been artisitic in their outlook and not geared towards catering to and making cash off of the homosexual community. So, no I don't think it will have any effect. -t |
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Nuriko-chan
 Posts: 192 Location: Konan |
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Could somebody PLEASE tell me what everyone's problem with yao and shonen-ai is? I think all of this "targeting the gay community" stuff is getting old. I mean, why don't we target the black community? The native american communtiy? Gay people are people too, and can like anime without there being gay people in it. I mean, I'm a straight female, but that doesn't mean I'll refuse to watch an anime without straight males. I mean, really, gay people aren't just mindless creatures that search endlessly for media involving other gay people. Shonen-ai and yaoi mainly exists for straight females that are interested in seeing two males kiss or whatever else may happen in those series(trust me, I can give plenty of examples). Please give the gay people some more credit.
I agree with ChichiriMuyo on the things about Pokemon, Digimon, and the like, but it is true that they're seriously out to make money, but Yu-Gi-Oh is the worst on that. I mean, I was in the store recently and saw some Yu-Gi-Oh relating soap and stuff called "The Dirt Dueler". Please, that is just pathetic. Enough is enough. MAKE IT STOP!!! |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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"Could somebody PLEASE tell me what everyone's problem with yao and shonen-ai is? I think all of this "targeting the gay community" stuff is getting old. I mean, why don't we target the black community? The native american communtiy? Gay people are people too, and can like anime without there being gay people in it. I mean, I'm a straight female, but that doesn't mean I'll refuse to watch an anime without straight males. I mean, really, gay people aren't just mindless creatures that search endlessly for media involving other gay people. Shonen-ai and yaoi mainly exists for straight females that are interested in seeing two males kiss or whatever else may happen in those series(trust me, I can give plenty of examples). Please give the gay people some more credit."
Okay, here's the problem. The yaoi situation doesn't help gay individuals one bit. Vocal Yaoi-haters are little more than homophobes. Others who lack any understanding of yaoi think it's porn for gay people, when most gay people I know won't touch it with a ten-foot pole because they, like most other people with normal sexual appetites, don't get off on cartoons. Many yaoi fangirls are somehow under the delusion that they're helping the gay community. I submit to you that they are not, and neither is yaoi. While "mainstream" (read: hundreds of thousands of fangirls) acceptance of yaoi and shounen-ai would help homosexual expressions of love gain at least aesthetic cutural acceptance, shounen-ai and yaoi are, I believe, exploitative. You're watching yaoi because you get aroused by watching men kiss, and a whole variety of other things. It's no different from laughing at a stereotype of an Arabian or some other culture. Gay men in yaoi and shounen ai are typically characterized as sex-hungry men who care little for anything beyond physical pleasure; it's as degrading to gay men as porn is to women. Getting off on something does not mean you understand or respect it; I'd venture to say that it shows a serious amount of disrespect, given that yaoi is basically still treated as fetish porn. If homosexuals are to achieve true acceptance in this country, then simply the image of two men kissing can't be considered something 'out of the ordinary' or fetishistic. A cult of rabid girls who fetishize degrading depictions of gay men doesn't help anything. If fangirls really want to give gay people 'credit', they need to stop treating them like circus animals for their amusement. Gay people DO want to see themselves portrayed in films and television, but as they really are; normal people, just like anyone else. Extreme representations one way or the other don't help anything, and that includes yaoi. So as long as we have 10,000 fangirls screaming and fetishizing about gay porn, we're a long ways away from total mainstream acceptance of homosexuality. -Zac |
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GATSU
Posts: 16417 |
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Zac: "Gay people DO want to see themselves portrayed in films and television, but as they really are; normal people, just like anyone else."
You sure about that? I don't see GLAAD rallying enough around stereotypical crap like the Birdcage. I mean Hollywood tries to make gay people look as stupidly as UPN portrays black people, but neither minority group seems to care as long as they get representation in the media. |
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mufurc
 Posts: 612 |
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Well, I wouldn't go as far as making this generalization... but it's true that most yaoi features stereotypes, and by its very nature its whole point is sex, and "yaoi" (by this I mean the hardcore stuff, let's not get into definitions) is not much more than porn - with a little twist that it's by women for women (so it's not so attractive for men, by default). Male x male stuff in anime/manga has never ever been meant to advocate the rights of gay people. Shounen ai was created decades ago as a purely aesthetic thing; and yaoi never aimed to be anything more than simple fun. Most gay men I know that know about yaoi either don't care about it, or think it's just harmless fun. Some yaoi fans simply take the male x male topic too seriously, and think that liking yaoi automatically makes one responsible for advocating the rights of gay men, and label anyone who doesn't like yaoi a homophobe. It's probably never occured to them that many straight people don't like yaoi&stuff not because they're homophobes, but because it's simply not their thing, just as there are many people who don't really care about hentai or fanservice or porn or whatever. By the way, I do love male x male in anime/manga. I just don't try to see into it something that it doesn't contain, or try to make a political statement with it. (Btw, I wonder why many yaoi fans who think they're supporting the gay community with their hobby are squeamish about yuri. Does it mean they're interested in the rights of homosexual men, but not in those of lesbians? [/sarcasm]) |
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RantingOtaku
Posts: 219 Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada |
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true, even when Pokemon etc came out, and my bro was young enough to enjoy it, he still would rather sit and watch armitage, eva, patlabor with me (maybe he's just odd?) but hey, at least the internet is also opening peoples eyes to the world of anime, alot of the one's I've seen, I would have never heard of if it wasn't for the internet. Plus fansubbers are more well known now, and once the companies here in north america see how popular a show is becoming among us fans, they may decide to liscence it afterall instead of not doing so (like they may have planned) sorry if this didn't make much sense, it's late at night for me 
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