Anime General Discussion

Serious_Much wrote:In my opinion x men was actually pretty good.. Especially first class, the new cast they got is pretty impressive.

Yeah death note would make a fun film trilogy probably.. Sadly noone is gonna finance that though.

I'm not saying that you can't make a good live action film with superpowers, just that it's costly and even then you can't match the absurd possibilities that can be reached in animation. From a pure "how this power is used" standpoint, animation can do more creative directions.

I thought all of the xmen movies were at least decent (that I saw), and liked some of them.

I still think the 90's animated Batman series is the best iteration, despite several good recent movies as well. There's something to the Batman mystique itself that can't quite be captured by actors, and the animated series captured it well and put him in some impressive storylines. In many ways it paved the way for the recent movies being good instead of that lulzy garbage like Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.

yeah.. on the clooney batman bat nipples is all I have to say. Shocking, but absolutely hilarious films if you're into laughing at awfulness

Reaperfan wrote:Both mediums have their strengths, and I agree that live action is better for drama pieces.  There's so much that instinctively goes into reading emotions that a real human face can better tell a character moment than anything animated.  When it comes to world settings and action scenes though, animation is usually stronger as it's only limited by the imagination of the artist.  Real life, even with sets and CGI, would have a hard time making things like the witch worlds in Madoka Magica feel aesthetically appropriate.

Latitoast wrote:Just finished Toradora!

I'm thinking about watching K-on! next, but I dunno

Anyone got anything?

And yeah, I do prefer highschool anime to actiony mech anime with explosions

What'd you think of Toradora?  I still haven't gotten around to it myself but I've been curious into trying it out.

As for K-ON! if you're into lighthearted high school stuff I'd say definitely give it a shot.  It's basically what defined the moe genre.  I've only just seen the first season though, so I can't say much about the second season.

It was good, I'd definitely recommend it, I want to type more about it but then I'd spoil it

Anybody else keeping up with the new series this season? There's some promising stuff going on.

Coppelion, Outbreak Company, Beyond the Boundary, and Kill la Kill all are already looking awesome even with just two episodes with a few others like Log Horizon or the Blazblue anime showing promise as well.

About Kill la Kill:

why even watch kill la kill ep 2 when i have the gifs of every moment of the show on tumblr

— syrup (@syrupf) October 11, 2013

WhatDoesThePendantDo? wrote:About Kill la Kill: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>why even watch kill la kill ep 2 when i have the gifs of every moment of the show on tumblr</p>— syrup (@syrupf) <a href="https://twitter.com/syrupf/statuses/388484993028083712">October 11, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I don't get it

I think that person means that people are so taken with the anime that they are making gifs of everything so you can actually watch the entire episode with the gifs people put up online because damn near every moment is gifed.

So you all should check out Fextralife.  I did a thing and am looking for feedback to make future things better

Edit: http://fextralife.com/fate-zero-review/

A big thank you to uncle Serious for putting this in for me

Reaperfan wrote:So you all should check out Fextralife.  I did a thing and am looking for feedback to make future things better

I'll be on the lookout for it the next time I visit. I'm assuming it is anime-related?

you should hae linked it in!

I can do it for you though if I find the article

Edit: It's now linked into reaper's post

Serious_Much wrote:you should hae linked it in!

I can do it for you though if I find the article

Edit: It's now linked into reaper's post

Thanks, on break at work right now and posting from my phone, so putting in links is rather tough

haha I hear you. Copying and pasting stuff on phone is a massive pain when it's at all long.

Anyways I put an extensive comment on your article

Serious_Much wrote:haha I hear you. Copying and pasting stuff on phone is a massive pain when it's at all long.

Anyways I put an extensive comment on your article

I put a response to your comment in the article, too! Is is wrong to be commenting on my own article, though?

I dunno, I reckon it's fine if you're replying to comments probably

I found this... and it's worth noting.. that it has a live actor in part of it's opening.



I have no clue what it is about.. and I'm not sure I really care to know.

The opening to Desert Punk is ENTIRELY live-action.

Hey guys, I did another thing!

This one I got kinda wordy on and I'm not sure if I got too detailed or not. Either way, lemme know what you think (preferably in the comments over there, not in this thread )

Okay, so there's still no dicussion here.  Guess I'll do my "post a meme and pray" thing

Effectively called "Anime Guy Problems" :

WTF IS THIS NONSENSE.

Well I think it's probably talking about general society, rather than nerdy/geeky people

Serious_Much wrote:Well I think it's probably talking about general society, rather than nerdy/geeky people

Nah, I'm pretty sure it's targeting anime watchers, not general society nor nerds/geeks..

Sounds like a very stereotyped and uninterested generalization of anime character design.

Haha, it depends on the anime whether a girlfriend might have a legit grievance.  Asking someone to wear something themed on something they're not interested in is also questionable...I know there are some things I wouldn't want to go around dressed in.

However, part of that argument makes no sense.  Anime characters have the necessary trait of being completely non-existant outside of media.  There's simply no way that a person could go out and start dating an anime character (at least...not rationally), and they carry no serious emotional competition or threat.  When compared to, say, routinely having lunch with an attractive co-worker, going out on the town with a group of people including someone who just happens to be single and interested, it just doesn't hold up as a serious threat based on the APPEARANCE of the characters lol.  It'd be like getting pissed off at her over thinking a character on True Blood is attractive or something...only technically speaking that's (extremely marginally) worse because that actor actually exists, and the physical form is actually possible.

In a world/culture that is struggling to be open about more controversial things, media portrayals of this crap just push people in the wrong direction, creating social stigma needlessly.  There's nothing inherently bad about anime, and unlike other ways to "out" oneself it doesn't even necessarily result in a declaration of disagreement on important viewpoints!  The only reason I don't bring it up in public much is the same reason I don't bring up football in the middle of a conversation with others who have never mentioned it or bringing up video games to someone who has never held a controller.  Those avenues really don't result in any desireable banter or progression.

That said, I do understand the general bias against anime that goes in a very formulaic and predictable course, it's the same justifiable bias that is levied against any media that goes in a formulaic and predictable course.  Some genres are more guilty of this than others, of course.  Fighting, harem, many dailly-school-life, and "protagonist who is weak but chosen to be superpowered, usually by some unobservable decree/prophecy" are the most typical offenders (even being chosen by chance is a more plausible plot line!  Jeebus).  The reason some anime become so popular is that they manage excellent plots that avoid the pitfalls of series generally found in their mold (though I struggle to come up with a good harem example of this).  

It's one of the reasons I really like Hunter X Hunter (mild, non-specific spoilers):

Spoiler:

Note the 'she accepts that you're a grown man who's still into comic books...' bit. This implies that comic books are inherently a childish thing in the first place. I beg to differ on that. My experience and view is that while most comic books, American, European and Asian, are poor pieces, there are those like Watchmen, which was considered one of the best books of the 1900s, let alone comics.
On overly sexual media; cheerleaders at sports events. The first time I went to DragonCon, the only panel I managed to attend was 'Self-Defense for Otakus'. The speaker admitted to using parallels in sports a lot, largely because it was so easy to parallel trends and behaviors in sports with manga, anime and otakus. Extreme violence? Nearly every major sport was originally a type of war game, besides boxing and wrestling. Overly sexual women? Cheerleaders, fans taking of their shirts and so on. Ultra-nerds spending oodles of money on shows, collectibles and gear? Costly front-seat tickets, team clothing and hats, big 'fingers', signed balls and hats and whatnot, and so on.
There is to consider that when manga and anime was first being transported to the US, the types that were crossing the Pacific were almost exclusively the dark, ultra-violent or extremely erotic-to-outright-hentai pieces or series because that's all that Americans were buying. That set a stigma on them in America that, while not founded on lies, is only a piece of a much larger media.

There is to consider that when manga and anime was first being transported to the US, the types that were crossing the Pacific were almost exclusively the dark, ultra-violent or extremely erotic-to-outright-hentai pieces or series because that's all that Americans were buying. That set a stigma on them in America that, while not founded on lies, is only a piece of a much larger media.

IMO this was actually a feedback loop from the start, forged before anime had any presence here at all by US social structure/culture. With cartoons being considered kid's fare here dating back to virtually all of our history, the only people who would make serious purchases in foreign animated media were those willing to ignore social pressure and either have an open mind or a mind amenable to the types of media that were ultimately purchased. My guess is that there was some desire just to have a contrast from media readily available here as well.

Of course, it's worth noting that anime itself has changed extensively over the years. It wasn't in the 1960's and 1970's what it is today. A quick look at anime websites show very few works pre-90's compared to what we see in the 90's and later. I never looked into the timing of its rise in popularity in Japan though, so I'm not sure here. Certainly, anime has attracted far more talent (and milking of stale ideas to spam it, following the pattern of basically all entertainment) as it has grown in popularity.

Also, it's much like video games, which I believe I touched on earlier in the thread. It's FAR more accepted today than 15 years ago. US social stigma is largely against things that are unpopular/"weird" to the "average" person in the general sense. The west has put out some very dark, mind-**** messed up stuff that can at least rival most anime, but that kind of gets glossed over in the "anime is weird" arguments made by people dismissing it before giving it a fair shake .