Oh, good lord. I was hoping that post of mine would never, ever see the light of day again. I really, really don’t know what I was on that day. Thanks for bringing up bad memories, Impz

well… thing is most narutards are mostly to blame (sorry naruto fans), but then again, it was just like this when dragonball became the thing to people of the previous generation. ~actually in the philippines, it was that and yuyu hakusho - a totally hacked up version of it. the thing is we can’t really blame any of them. most people would consider this as “my first anime” (mine was candy candy <3

anyway, people who first get into anime often assume that in order to be a true blue anime fan, they have to talk the talk and walk the walk, sprouting out random japanese phrases as if they were fluent and doing other random japanese stuff because they’re supposedly cool. (actually, i would consider myself guilty of this but i did it because i was trying to learn japanese not just to make an illusion i know it.)

by the way, i started out young but gave it up when i was 22. i thought it was high time that i became “normal”. i hated being normal because i felt like being such a fake. at least when i was 26 and returned to this lifestyle, i was happier and more real to myself.

but the thing that really really pisses me off about some people i know who know i’m an anime fanatic say that i shouldn’t be watching childish cartoons anymore becuase i’m 20++ when they would watch crappy soap operas with no real entertainment value and eat up the latest disney release because it’s so COOL - this is my country anyway.

Well, there certainly are arguments you could make… (not gonna make them here since I’m pretty sure it’s my opinion that anime doesn’t suck) but just as a “narutard” is not necessarily a great cross section of anime fans, the Internet At Large isn’t a great way to get a sampling of the best opinions the world or the US has to offer.

It’s mostly based in ignorance — and that’s a tough call. By its very nature, this kind of ignorance is hard to change because it’s willful or intentional ignorance. A lot of people who are now fans have similar stories to yours.

That’s why people are still so hung up on Akira. 20 years later, it’s still changing opinions. But even the praise of Western movie critics and theatrical releases in the States are no match for that willful ignorance and the mob mentality of a page of YouTube comments.

Which writer is this? I thought THAT is supposed to show the avatar of the writer. Anyway, the show you watch is LONELY HOUSEWIVES. Or Lusty Hornet. Or Lolita Hamburgers. Or Lord Hoffman. Or Lathering Hussy. Or Love Honey.

Pixel (Pixar I hope you mean) is not for kids. Anime is for otaku. Robbie Williams is a damn good seiyuu. He can do like 30 different accents and voices unlike the useless Japanese.

Needs a RAGE-O-METER.

As someone who can remember the days when Speed Racer first played on stations here in the US… *cough*

Yeah, people tend to write anime off purely on the look of anime as well as the fact that it’s a cartoon. Cartoons are for kids. Or at least that’s been the long-held conventional wisdom in the entertainment industry here in the US. I think it’s more of a problem with the general perception of animation in the industry more than anything else.

I have to say though that I think that the perception IS gradually changing. The Disney films (especially Pixar) always tend to add humor that is geared toward older members of the audience (like subtle contextual jokes and cultural references). More and more cartoons come out here in the US that are geared toward adults (Simpsons, etc.)

Eventually, people are going to see that anime isn’t all about the kiddie oriented (i.e. Pokemon) stuff. The cable channel Cartoon network is adding anime to their late weekend lineups that is geared toward the adult crowds.
Even though there are a lot of haters out there, I think that the perception toward anime is improving. After all, places that sell DVDs like Best Buy have opened up entire sections for anime.

You do have an interesting point about the East vs. West aspect… I hadn’t thought of that. After all, most anime does reference Japanese life and cultural values that are very foreign here. (I mean, I don’t think Americans are ever going to understand the fascination with school girl uniforms or underwear… As a female, I personally cringe.)

Ignorance is the main driving force for any such hate groups. There are some animes that do follow the above conventions however this is just a small portion of the thousands upon thousands of series. The great series like Ergo Proxy, Death Note, Mushishi all have their own respectable fan base. They explore the anime world to tell a story like none other.

@Drm: arr, headmaster of hatred and lulz. Will do, yes sire, will do.

@Kct: It’s measured to be 0.5 on the LULZ FOR MUDKIEDPZ scale.

@Anca: Wow, you sum up the hate I have of stupid people. Win.

@JC: Let me relate an example to you. I was watching Mushishi and a relative who is slightly above my age came in. She saw it and just said “why are you still watching cartoons?”. I rest my case.

I never elaborated on the east vs west case too much because it is a whole can of worms that I am not well equipped in my knowledge to discuss on. I personally believe that the many fetishes and culture displayed in anime is a cognitive dissonance to the western life.

If you ask me, that can be one of the resisting thoughts within western viewers. I feel strongly despite the amount of globalization that is happening, the amount of nationalism in the western countries is very strong. It’s hard to break down an existing culture from the outside.

over-indulgence is always unhealthy, whether it be anime, or any other obsession.

Most anime fans who over indulge are indeed scary. It is as though they have their own little world and they don’t open their doors to anyone else… but then again, anime is just misunderstood in most countries, I guess.

It also does not help whenever one would remember the infamous case of one Tsutomu Miyazaki who was also known as the Otaku Murderer (wikipedia, ann news) He was known to be a mild-mannered person during daytime and he was also known to be an anime fan. His infamous case gave the anime fans a really bad name.

There are lots of misconceptions as it has already been mentioned. It reaffirms the fact that there are people who love it and people who hate it… but like any other genre, you can always choose which ones appeal to your tastes.

80’s animation was mostly “kiddie” stuff. and you can’t blame anything animated to be labeled as such, especially from parents who grew up in the pre-colored TV days.

you can educate people… but then again, you can always choose to simply shrug them off.

@phuzy: I beg to disagree. I think that many of the current shows coming out of japan are tried and tested series just changed in a different format. That’s nothing wrong by the way, because many of them are done well. However, the biggest audience of anime are viewing the few series that are popular. It’s the long tail effect (check it on wiki)

@onizuka: Bruce Lee, i think.

@IKnight: Using Sun Tzu’s strategy, in order to convert the enemy, you have to know the enemy. It’s a deep down conspiracy to hunt them down and CONVERT THEM INTO NARUTARDS, WAHAHAHAHA. Seriously though, knowing what they are ignorant gives you a better understanding of what’s wrong. Of course there are people who hate for the sake of hating. Many are misguided.

@KaeBoo: Well said. The thing with the media is that it aims to show the sensational side of things. For every 1000 normal nice anime fans, you have one with a Death note book and aims to kill people. For every smart anime fan, you have a retarded person who is going to jump off a building thinking he is Naruto with rasengan.

Who cares about the nice things? The controversial, sensational news is the one that will earn them the money. Why do a citizen want to know about how good anime is? They prefer to know why a serial killer is killing people. OH, HE WATCHES VIOLENT SHIGURUI AND HIGARASHI. oh yes!

@Bluemist: I have a firm belief that animation is never going to be mainstream. If it is considered to be peripheral even in its land of creation, I cannot imagine it to be loved by any other country. That’s my view on it.

I am a closet otaku because of anime hater, most of my friends don’t know I still watch anime I mean since they think anime is for kids and all I guess a high schooler can’t watch it anymore. I mean they all watch family guy and south park which are all funny but they’re pretty f’ed up. I mean in family guy we see Cartman grind up parents and feed it to their child. However the media thinks the show teaches people lessons I mean wth? and instead they choose to attack us anime fans. Calling it vulgar which is because of overdose of fan service. Which I generally stay away from but I still get my share watching Code Geass, Macross, and such Yes I’m a mecha fan

I hate anime because it turned me into a depraved pedophile with several other demented fetishes.

ヽ(；´Д｀)ノ

Well, a couple of those reasons are pretty much true. Most anime fans are very obnoxious, at least the mainstream ones. Go ahead and wander over to the ANN forums or to an anime convention, you’ll find plenty. As for animation quality, the US does dominate Japan in quality. If you look at shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, etc. they just have better budget and techniques that result in higher quality. I mean, the last Simpsons move had a budget of $75 million. Now, a lot of that was voice talent and non-animation stuff, but there were tens of millions thrown into animation quality that wasn’t far removed from your average weekly episode.

If you do choose to watch the train wrecks like Dragonaut then yes there are a lot of those animes coming out recently. I never liked watching the overused and atypical animes that explore nothing new. However, this is true for any industry that tells stories. There will be good and there will be bad. This isn’t a justification to hate anime though. Hate is a strong resentment and I don’t think one can call it hate until they see both sides. I understand where some of these comments come from but then again there are those amazing animes that just make this world so much more interesting. Storytelling; don’t blame the medium if the content is bad.

If all anime had as good english voice acting as Cowboy Bebop, that would probably help.

As most people already know television aims to get as wide or large an audience as possible (for ad revenue), therefore the obsession with never ending ‘kiddy’ anime shows.

As far as 2d animation quality or style goes, I’d take Japanese animation any time for style, creativity or innovation.

Also one watching of Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen should be enough to refute all points in Impz post.

Some people refuse to eat eggs because it’s “chicken-shit”. Some suddenly refuse to drink milk because cow-titty-milk is gross. Some people even refuse to eat meat, will never watch anime, and thinks the world is made up by cotton candy.

They also say a good laugh makes you live longer. The aforementioned people makes me laugh alot <3

I like some animated US shows as well. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. I wouldn’t say it’s wasted money but I guess it depends on what you think quality is. But if they last more than a season, some people like them.

The Narutards will always bug me, as well as any fan that tries to convert.

nice summary of the hates there, but within the anime society, there’s much hype about “being otaku”, as well as look-downs towards anime-music as bad music as well as Figure buyers as perverts.

Actually, about 1/2 of what’s above is correct - most American animation (w/ the larger budget) ARE more impressive, some anime ARE stupid/immature/for children, some series ARE sexist, and some, I’m sure you know, ARE way too sexually graphic. It’s these things that drag the whole anime universe down. Although many claim that the epics: like your examples Lain or Simoun (actually, that series exploited females too) are profound and that other animations are no where near them, there’s still a handful of things that ruin the anime image. No matter how many examples of good anime there are out there, it doesn’t matter because they’ll always be just as many bad ones (that hurt your eyes when you view them)

the truth is I think most people do not hate anime at all and I think your topic is way off base.

The problem with anime for most people is not anime. Anime is way to diverse and there is something for everyone as far as anime is concerned

What people actually hate about anime is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The loser anime otaku, the model kit collecting, cosplay wearing fanboy who never grows up and lives in his moms basement. THe losers that even a prostitute would turn down. This is what people hate about anime.

This is what people really hate about anime.

Once the fanboy virus strikes a genre, people have a tendency to run. Being associated with geeks and nerds is the stink of death to most people and once any genre is infected with the geek virus. People will distance themselves from it like they would a hoare with leprosy

Anime is a victim of fanboism and thats the sad truth.

Just like Star Trek and Star Wars. and to some degree video games and many other genre’s the fanboy culture has taken route in anime

These fanatics are the true reason why people hate anime. Its not anime itself

In fact I remember when anime was not looked at that way

The time you could walk into a video store and purchase an anime and know one would care.

I rmember times when you could go to a night club and they would have anime running on tv xcreens while people danced on the dance floor

I remember when Hip-hop stars like Method Man, Redman, Rza and Cisco e.t.c said they liked anime

I remeber when a certain videostore was trying to be trendy and when they got there freshly new copy of urotusdoji decided they were going to have it run on there video screens all over the store not realizing that it was a hentai.

That last comment really did happen.

I remmber having conversations with guys and talking about chicks we were banging, shit we did that weekend and among other things anime.

Anime at one time used to be considered edgy!!!!!

But once the fanboys invaded it

everyone ran for the hills

and thats just sad!!!!!!

(Head boils up to more than 1000000000 degrees Celsius) Too bad if he doesn’t like anime. Not everything he says is right. Besides, I think American cartoons are more stupid than some anime shows, and some anime shows are more stupid than American cartoons, I MEAN it. Well, if he doesn’t like it, then it’s up to him.

I’m confused. Most anime is made for kids. Well, teenagers to be specific. People that freak out over that point need to get over themselves. It’s not just a western view point that watching anime is for geeks and kids . As for animation, if you’re talking frame rates western animation is undenibaly better than anime that’s a simple fact.

To Riex: Then why bother writing in this blog? Might as well make yourself another one and get along with life…Don’t see the point you are stiff writing in this blog and say that you hate anime…

Ermm, to RV and Risedawn, he is obviously being sarcastic about the haters and making a parody out of it. Chill. ^^

Sarcasm is lost when I have to point it out. Sigh, you two are a bit slow huh

“I didn’t come into any true anime viewing until my university at 21….I do not cosplay, cosplay events do not interest me, i don’t play much ero-games, i don’t have much merchandise, i don’t worship Japan, i could care less about meido cafes and I do not think japanese culture is superior. There’s many do not right there.”

*Checks to see if someone has made an unauthorized clone made of me*

OK, so I was 22 instead of 21 when I started watching, but still…

First, let’s be frank: Anime was started up in order to create CHEAP shows. Just compare the frame rate (about 5/6 fps is pretty good for anime, 24 fps is roughly the norm for Disney) and the fact that they basically copied Disney’s animation style and made it as cost effective as possible. So basically, early anime looked like some retarded Disney bootlegs. THis is why so much anime is based around comics. It’s just cheaper to basically copy comics frame by frame and add voice-overs, and some anime reflect this.
The entire reason ANime was created was effectively to appeal to Japanese people with ‘exotic’ people (as they have no real foreign/exotic actors because they’re the most homogenous nation in the world/racist pigs). It was essentially to appeal to fanboys in the first place.
People are somewhat justified in considering Anime trash. This isn’t to say that their entertainment is any better (*cough soaps *cough). There are only so many twists and plot devices you can invent before you start copying everyone else. In effect, once you’ve seen a few, you’ve seen them all (except once a blue moon when it’s GOOD).
I’ll be honest. I like anime. It can be a great medium for storytelling and there are some fantastic shows, but your head out of your ass before you start defending it.

I hope some one will read this coment, since I wanna talk about a related issue, that has been bothering me for some time.

Rather than these who only know anime through the naruturds and yaoi fangirls, I think the mine threat on anime fans are these who see themself as “true fans”, yet claim that “99% of all anime is crap”, opten accusing every show out there to be “generic” or “unoriginal”. It has been bothering me, why those who see themself as the “elite” or “most knowledgeable fans” are also the most judgmental and refer to anime as a contemptible thing.
And this approach only expands!

The reason it bother me so much is because I feel affected by these people. seeing this “99% of all anime is crap” posted over and over again affects you. I’m afraid that this phrase will affect me, and I will no longer be able to enjoy shows I enjoyed so far because I’ll constantly criticize them just as these people, and me enjoyment of anime will thanks to the expanding approach of seeing this shows as crap and the growing ridicule to them and anyone who enjoy them.

tl;dr sick of the ridicule criticism.

Anime IS considered kids’ stuff in Japan though. Even though there is a lot of violence and nudity it is still children who watch it.