I don't see why there's so much angst against the style of art here, since that in fact is the argument in question. So what if they're cartoons; humans are born to use symbols from infancy. It only makes sense that we communicate through art rather than entirely through live-action films and shows.

I happen to prefer the anime-style of cartoons over the non-anime. I mean, what do we have that qualifies for non-anime? Spongebob, Dora the Explorer, The Simpsons.... these are just ugly. Hell, when I was a kid we at least had some decent animation going on (Gargoyles, Darkwing Duck...you just can't beat this stuff). There are varying degrees of artistic style in anime and many suck, but there are gems among them. I personally liked the style behind shows like Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo (taking care of the first two that everyone else has covered), Hikaru no Go, The Candidate for Goddess, Get Backers, etc.

As for anime storylines, it seems to me that the better anime are usually the shorter anime. Cowboy Bebop had 20-something episodes, if I recall correctly. Hikaru no Go was at 60-something. The two exceptions to this are that I like/d DragonBall Z and Naruto, and I'll cover those next.

I liked DragonBall Z for quite some time when it first hit the US (and then when it hit over here again at around the Pokemon-age). Whether it was because it was just the first anime I had seen or because I was young, I can't say; I might not even enjoy it if I were to watch it today (heck, I don't even like it after the Cell Games). As for Naruto, I can't stand the anime. It's dreadful. But I do like the manga, and I've stayed up to date with it since I started reading.

Danial.Beta wrote:

Besides a few very rare exceptions, anime is horribly generic and boring, but the same could be said about American TV shows. How many sitcoms do we need about a fat ugly white guy marrying a hot chick and having 2-3 kids.

They don't even have to be white; I watch one such sitcom occasionally, where we have George Lopez...married to a hot chick...with 2 kids.

Fizz, I can hate something on any level I frelling well choose. I hate country music for a whole host of reasons, but they're no more superficial than my beef with anime. It doesn't really matter how well-crafted the song is, how cleverly lyriced, how immaculately performed, if it's still got the hallmarks of country. I'd still change the radio station when it came on and rail against it. If I ever was forced to listen to it all the way through the best I could say would be, "Well, it'd be a good song if it wasn't frelling country."

The artwork in anime is not a superficial quality; it is intrinsic to the genre, chosen by the creators as the format used to present the story. That some anime exaggerates that signature style and some does not, does not mean I'm wrong to hate the style itself. If my beef was only with the typical plots in anime, you'd be right to call me on throwing out the baby with the bathwater, because I'd be utterly dismissing stuff I might like on the basis of the other stuff I hate.

But my problem is not story issues (as such), but the drawing style itself. It is off-putting to me in the extreme. I'm dismissing Cowboy Bebop for the very thing it has in common with other anime. There is no way I could ever love Cowboy Bebop as-is because the art would irritate me, even if it was a masterpiece in every other respect. I'm not rejecting the story; I'm rejecting having to see it in anime form.

Why in the world do you think it's horrible to dismiss something based on the fact that it grates on one's nerves? If my favorite books had spelling errors every third word, they wouldn't have ended up being my favorite books. What anime creators do is not "superficial"; it's a part of the style of their genre. I have no prejudice against the story. But even if the story is as great as you say, it's like a Mustang convertible painted hot pink with pea green splotches. I can't think of a song I love that I wouldn't completely hate as a country cover. It's the same frickin' thing. Good gads man.

Lummox : "Anime sucks. I'd follow that up with "in my opinion" but it's just not; it's fact."

Fizz : "Also, the point at which you start asserting your opinion as absolute fact is the point at which you go steeper and steeper into the pit of dumbassery."

I know you're irritated Lummox, but slinging stuff like, "It's not just that it's not my preference. It's that it's BAD, point blank. This is fact. Regardless of what your preferences are, this is BAD and you should feel BAD for liking it." is just flame bait. Granted, this would have been flame bait either way, but at least you'd still have ground to stand on if you'd avoided pushing your preferences on anyone reading the post (ironically, the very thing I assume drove you to make this post in the first place.)

Country music... I can't stand most of it, personally. In fact, I'd say 95% of it sounds like the exact same guy is singing it in that same grab-my-gun-my-girl-and-my-truck voice that makes me want to grab-my-gun-my-head-and-pull-trigger. However, there are some exceptions that I like, and I'd say that they don't sound like your typical country song. In fact, I think a lot of them are by Johnny Cash.

Keeth wrote:

Look for Hunter X Hunter.

I remember a few years ago when one of my friends was telling me that this was basically the best anime, ever. He's one of your typical White Asian-Americans (by that, he's the white guy obsessed with everything Asian), so I'd trust his opinion on it, but frankly I just never felt compelled enough to check it out. I might look into it sometime, though.

Kunark wrote:

I've noticed the best animes have under 30 episodes, or close to around that. The ones that are made to keep going on and on and on are the crappy commercial ones like DBZ. I don't have a problem with an anime being long, I just really hate filler episodes.

I'd say under 80, because it doesn't disqualify Hikaru no Go, which ended at 75 episodes and a couple of OVAs. Get Backers had 49 episodes. Hunter x Hunter (which I still haven't checked into, but seems to be liked well enough), is at 62 and going.

Edit: Ack, I feel bad about this, but I actually forgot two of my favorites! Gundam Wing at 49 episodes, and Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X which just barely missed the 80 episode mark I stated above with its 95 episodes. While I'm at it, I might as well throw in Outlaw Star and Trigun, and Lupin III, which were all short as well. I also really like Case Closed, which is an exception to any episode limit, since it's at 500+ (still going!) episodes in Japan (only a fraction were dubbed for the English-run, though).

Jesus christ, nobody saw Tank Girl?

Earnest movies suck, but I love them. =)

Lummox JR wrote:

Fizz, I can hate something on any level I frelling well choose.

I'm not saying you can't. What I am saying is that if it's for something that does not affect the very point of the show, song, etc., then it's rather dumb, unless the something has enough of an effect to completely distract you from the point (like being painted hot pink and neon green and gives children siezures).

The artwork in anime is not a superficial quality; it is intrinsic to the genre, chosen by the creators as the format used to present the story. That some anime exaggerates that signature style and some does not, does not mean I'm wrong to hate the style itself.

Then hate the style! Hate it all you want. Hate it so much you cut yourself to relieve the stress and pain. But to hate every aspect of the anime just because of the fucking artwork is still absolutely stupid.

But my problem is not story issues (as such), but the drawing style itself. It is off-putting to me in the extreme. I'm dismissing Cowboy Bebop for the very thing it has in common with other anime. There is no way I could ever love Cowboy Bebop as-is because the art would irritate me, even if it was a masterpiece in every other respect. I'm not rejecting the story; I'm rejecting having to see it in anime form.

I'm still not sure how you can hold up this stance and still say it doesn't apply to another of series of shows or movies that follow a similiar design, like live-action films. In Chatterse you said that they don't have so much control over the actors, but it's still about the same as anime. If someone is making an anime film, they can only change a character so much while still fitting in the bounds of anime, and the same can be said for live action films. Both make a concious decision to use that style, whereas a live action film could be done in CGI, clayimation, or just be voices with irrelevant squiggles done overtop the entire movie. Yet, somehow, you see these two things as entirely different topics that are only indirectly related.

Why in the world do you think it's horrible to dismiss something based on the fact that it grates on one's nerves? If my favorite books had spelling errors every third word, they wouldn't have ended up being my favorite books.

Because that automatically degrates the quality of the overall story or meaning or what have you. That's comparable to the (voice) actors in a movie or TV show mispronounce every third word. What you're doing is like saying you hate that book because the cover has strange looking artwork like this.

What anime creators do is not "superficial"; it's a part of the style of their genre. I have no prejudice against the story. But even if the story is as great as you say, it's like a Mustang convertible painted hot pink with pea green splotches. I can't think of a song I love that I wouldn't completely hate as a country cover. It's the same frickin' thing. Good gads man.

Then you and I are just two entirely different people (though I've known this for quite some time). I hate almost all country music, and rap music as well, but I'm still able to find a few songs I can stand, and a couple I actually like. I don't dismiss an entire genre based on arbitrary "rules" of what it is, though I will certainly be resistant to listening to it at first.

And you still lose a lot of points for asserting opinion as fact.

You know, I bet if I posted an article on how much anime sucks, my blog would get lots of attention too.

Oh okay. Well I'll just post a random quote from the internet to stir the flames of Lummox JR's debateful blog post.

jimloomis has something to say on anime, which seems to be a popular thing for Google to link to since evidently a lot of other people link to it as well (including some pro-anime forums that like to bash it). I figure if it was good for inciting riots there, it'll work here, too!

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I hate it because its made for the masses. Its one of the cheapest animation processes in existance. More time and work goes into the animation of a 2 minute Popeye short than a 2 hour anime movie. There is hardly any stylistic difference either, its hard to tell who made what.

On top of all of this, many of the shows tend to copy each other. I've seen more Gundam rip-offs than Geico commercials.

Anime is also an outlet for the recreation of perverted fantasy. I believe that anime is one of the few styles of animation that caters to the pornography industry.

Anime also plagues art sites much like deviantart. Anime that is produced by young teenagers is almost always reproduced garbage, and hardly ever original. I'm very open about art and what it is to most people, but something that is so mass produced can't be something that is artistically motivated.

Calling anime art, is much like calling the 'music' of the Backstreet Boys music. The Backstreet Boys wrote music (or atleast their producers wrote music) from a formula. A + B = 9 million 14 year old girls buying albums, merch, and concert tickets for a group of semi-good looking 20 somethings.

Anime is corporate 'art', and I appreciate it as such. The day I can watch Dragonball Z and actually see a good fight instead of waiting through 40 episodes of power level comparisons, I might consider anime fun to watch.

"Oh my his power level is so high oh my, I don't know if I can fight him within the next 35 episodes wuuuuaaahhh!" (A bead of sweat makes its way down the villians face as his jaw remains gaping. Neon pink and green lines stream vertically in the background.)
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But personally, I prefer moobody's comment on the same thread:

Frankly, it's not the anime that annoys me, it's the rabid, sugar-sucking, Red-Bull-soaked-braindeads that are so obsessed with it that they lose all touch of reality and make fools of themselves.

Lets see what that stirs up.

Lummox JR wrote:

As to the purpose of this post: It wasn't to continue the debate started in Chatters last night

I wasn't saying you were. It was simply a snide reply I made for no true reason.

Fizz pushed an untenable point and left when it he was tried of failing to defend it.

Actually, there wasn't any sort of mixed message when I said I was tired and had homework to do. I was in fact tired and I did in fact have homework to do. I simple left at that point as it was an opportuine time: the discussion had become stagnate and was going nowhere at all.

(His point being, apparently, "You're wrong to dislike a genre for what I consider to be a trivial reason and I'm going to make you admit it's trivial and that you shouldn't dislike the genre for that reason alone.")

I wouldn't say "trivial" so much as "fucking stupid", "shallow and superficial", and similiar terms.

To me that exit is a forfeit, but you could generously call it a draw.

At the point we were at it's useless to define the end result of the argument on win, lose, or draw because it was no longer an argument. I can't argue with someone who thinks that their opinion is infallible fact no matter how hard I try. Unfortunately, you seem to feel that every opinion you hold is infallible fact, meaning that one can't actually argue with you. The most they can hope for is that they give you information and you give it more than a split second and a passing glance without dismissing it for no real reason.

I didn't post to keep that going, but rather to put a preemptive strike on all such further conversations.

You also apparently made it to spout more stupid lines about why you are right and no one else can be when it's about something that is inherently incapable of being correct.

This wasn't the first time I've been fed the "You haven't seen the right anime" line, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Fizz's complaint seems to be some misplaced indignance that a particular story will go unappreciated because I hate its presentation.

Looking back, I can't figure out why I brought up Bebop so much, as it was rather useless. I just can't even begin to comprehend how someone who likes to write finds the bloody artwork more important than the story. It's like a philosopher hating Nietzsche for his moustache and not his philosophy.

I hate fish and I can't eat mayo without gagging. So if I say I hate tuna fish, that's the end of that story. If a world-class chef came by and whipped up the greatest tuna fish sandwich of all time, a mastery of flavors and textures and presentation, it may well be celebrated for generations by lovers of tuna fish but I won't take one single bite. So you can't tell me that some dude's tuna fish recipe is the one that will finally get me eating the stuff, even if just for one sandwich.

The biggest problem with this argument is that there is not any sort of underlying theme or story with the fish. It's just a fucking fish! It swims, it get caught, it dies, and someone cooks it. End. The same can't be said for music or books or movies or anime (yes, even anime, no matter how bewildered you may be).