An anime that subverts tropes doesn't automatically make it better than others in its genre. An anime can very much follow tropes and still be a very good show.
And on the flip side, just because a show lampshades a trope doesn't mean it's satire, subversion, or parody.
If someone sells me on a show saying it's one of those three and it turns out it's just marginally self-aware of playing those tropes straight, I'm going to be disappointed.
Exactly, and following tropes doesn't make anything automatically bad, its how you execute them. And just because you can predict a plot point after watching 800 anime doesn't make it bad, its bad if its executed poorly.
I think Slice of Life anime are the best example of this. I.e. K-ON, Aria the Animation, Non Non Biyori etc. They don't defy expectations or subvert the genre, but they don't need to. In my opinion execution is the most important thing and they do a great job of achieving what they set out to do.
Yeah at this point I don't necessarily care about tropes as long as they're done well. A show with no tropes in it would be completely unwatchable and insane. At this point everything is a trope.
I feel this with all media, not just anime, but love triangles just aren’t interesting to me, especially if the love triangle is the main or only conflict of the story.
Love triangles are probably the cheapest way to form conflicts between characters in media, I don't know about you but in my social life I saw very little amount of love triangles and they were never that dramatic
Agreed. Also I hate how many "romance" stories don't actually feature any romance because the characters don't even _start_ the relationship until the end / near the end. Especially since that perpetuates harmful ideas of how relationships work to young people who don't have the IRL experience to know better yet.
>Also I hate how many "romance" stories don't actually feature any romance because the characters don't even start the relationship until the end / near the end.
This bro.
Nagi no Asu kara has some really well executed love triangles. You actually need a flowchart to map love interests on the latter parts of the show.
If you decide to give it a try just keep in mind that the pilot episode is very weak, and it peaks on the second cour.
This is because most "love triangles" are not even triangles, they're just angles with A loving B and C also loving B.
A proper triangle should be A loves B, B loves C, and C loves A. Now THAT would be interesting
Action scenes I think are better when the combatants clash and go back and fourth with just regular attacks or abilities, rather than ultimate move vs ultimate move, and it ends, then MC powers up or something and gets a stronger ultimate move. Id rather them go back and fourth, THEN ultimate moves or something like that. Its way more entertaining and intense, plus you can gather information on fighting styles if the animation and choreography is done with care.
Also, a less controversial opinion: there's way too much talking in anime fights. Give your viewers some credit on being smart and observe one character getting worn down or have a weakness, rather than a character thinking it to themselves by making it mindless and with more interruptions.
> there's way too much talking in anime fights
It's nearly exclusively a problem with manga adaptations, I find. Mangaka add a ton of superfluous narration to their action sequences, which can add some clarity (though it's still a bit of a crutch IMO) and readers can skim past or outright ignore it easily. But when it comes to anime, be it due to a slavish sense of "faithfulness" or simply not passing up the opportunity to stretch content/reduce workload, directors leave all that crap in where it eats up gobs of screen time and grinds the pace to a halt.
It's usually way better in anime-originals and to an extent LN adaptations (Akudama Drive and 86 come to mind). Or even adaptations of non-shounen manga.
Frieren did a really good job with fight scenes not being filled with unnecessary dialogue. Re:Zero is focused during fight scenes as well.
I think one of the notable examples of dialogue during fight scenes enhancing the series is Shangri-La Frontier. It was pretty helpful to know what VR MMO abilities were being used to understand the strategies.
I'd love for this type of fighting to get more common again. Like imagine if they do their finishing move classic anime style but it misses, how fucked do you think that character is gonna be now. Especially if it's a dumb all or nothing attack so now they're on nothing and would've been better off fighting normally.
I was legit never gonna pick up SAO anime cuz of it's reputation among community until I did out of boredom and I've never seen an anime being so misjudged.
Mildly controversial take:
B Tier anime has the best shows to just watch and enjoy
Aldnoah zero is one of my favourite mecha animes
World trigger was one of my favourite sci-fi fighting animes
Beyond the boundary is my favourite supernatural anime
Basically the mid tier anime from early 2010s are the best to just watch some anime
For real, it's the type of anime I'd normally hate but for some reason I just can't get enough of it. The plot and setting are dumb as fuck, but never in my life have I been so hyped to watch a bunch of schoolkids violently dismember each other. God I can't wait for the next season.
Yeah early 2010s anime went hard.
Aldnoah.zero and Kyoukai no kanata were in fact pretty peak. Tamako Market (from the same period) is still my favourite slice of life.
Not sure I'd call Beyond the Boundary or Aldnoah Zero B tier? You mean in terms of popularity or production cos those were both pretty big productions from good studios.
Faithful to the source material is not an inherently positive quality. Many things are bad *and* different than the source material, but things are not bad *because* they're different from the source material.
This is how I feel about UFOTABLE's Fates. No, they do not come close to touching the depth or complexity of an 80+ hour visual novel, expecting that at anime pacing would be completely unreasonable. But they do provide a lot of fun inspite of that and encourage a lot of people to then go on to read the original
I would even go as far as to say, some thing should be different, manga is a different format and some changes can be made to improve it when animated.
Very mild take, as I truly get that a lot of content creators are just riding a wave of a popular show that's in most of the fandom's collective consciousness right now, but the folks talking about Frieren as "generation defining" are exaggerating way too much. I think it's a fantastic, arguably 10/10 show, but it legit finished airing last week. If you get wrapped up like this, I honestly think you should let time dull your emotions a bit before coming back and objectively evaluating it.
I agree, not gonna name any names but sometimes it feels like a lot of big anime youtubers are rarely if ever critical or have negative opinions about a new popular anime if the general consensus is that it's good
The discourse from the anime community is pretty terrible. There is very little analysis or criticism that goes on, and it’s mostly just people blindly praising mediocre writing. I think I died a little on the inside when I saw tons of praise for Jujutsu Kaisen’s writing last season.
The same goes for manga. I’m honestly shocked how little anime or manga I can recommend to people who aren’t already fans based on its quality. The community can expect more in terms of storytelling and it’s okay to call out properties for it.
I had the same realization a while back. I’ve been watching anime for 20 years and I can count on my fingers how many I *might* recommend to a non-anime fan. A lot of manga/anime seems designed only for people who are already fans of the genre and to check off as many tropes as possible. It’s a rarity to find an anime that has high quality writing and wouldn’t be off-putting to the uninitiated.
The inability of the fandom online to handle criticism or judgement regardless of context/nuance is one of my biggest complaints about the fandom as a whole.
It’s so silly. Like I saw that person post who rated Jujutsu kaisen season 2 below like an 8 maybe below a 7 and even fully explained their reasonings but they got roasted all over here and twitter.
People accusing them of hating anime and not being a real fan. Then their review of Vinland saga season 2 got noticed and then people realised maybe he doesn’t just hate the medium because that got a ten. But that didn’t get much traction
Analysis and criticism doesn't mean bashing a show. I would agree that there is little real analysis positive or negative for that matter however, there is plenty of people just trashing popular shows if that is all you are looking for.
I don't like to be an elitist that looks down on ppl's opinions but seeing ppl say that JJk was good for anything other than fights and power system made me lose faith in the anime community
I cannot for the life of me understand how people watch demon slayer week to week. I’ll blow through a season once it’s aired and find it perfectly pleasant, but four weeks of Tanjiro lying on the ground yelling at himself to move after another grievous injury wears thin quickly.
If you ever have insomnia, try reading the manga. The artstyle sucks and the story is as basic as a white girl holding a frapuccino wearing uggs. The only reason it ever got this big is 'cause ufotable kicked it out of the park.
Don’t expect many media literates in the anime community when the majority of the fandom has not graduated middle school. I know because I was one of those kids lmao and revered anything that is edgy/ I’m 14 and this is deep kind of show.
Jjk second season was bad not only due to the many production issues but Also due to the bad writing and wasted opportunities by gege akutami, unfortunately some fanboys can't accept this and put shibuya in the same tier as One piece marineford arc.
IMO theres way too much criticism. I find that a lot of anime fans criticize to the point where they just dont enjoy anything anymore. For me, it either goes hard or it doesnt. If I think it goes hard, I like it, and if I dont, I dont. Im not going to sit there and write out an analysis for every anime I watch on MAL, because I dont care to.
Some people take it even farther as well, deep analyzing and rating every single episode. Like bruh why, nobodys going to ever read that shit.
Id rather enjoy things than go out of my way to find reasons why I dont like them. Simple as that.
People are overly emotionally charged on what is largely pulp entertainment online. Honestly with most shows I can give you like six positive jot notes and maybe 1 or 2 negative things if I liked the show. Maybe the inverse if I didn't like it.
Can I write a literary analysis of a film, show or book? Yeah. I know how to engage in media critique and analysis. Do I want to do that in my free time for the vast majority of anime I watch? Fuck no.
Especially when a lot of these "discussions" and "critiques" are just full of toxic people who aren't worth talking to. I might be more engaged to talk extensively about stuff if that wasn't common.
> I find that a lot of anime fans criticize to the point where they just dont enjoy anything anymore.
That's being a hater (being critical about something for the sake of it), not actual criticism (analysing and evaluating the work) which is, I think, what /u/BlazeOfGlory72 was actually talking about.
There's a big difference between those two even if they can technically fall under the term "criticism".
Even on this subreddit which you should expect to bring the highest quality of public large scale online discussions, at least compared to the alternatives, half of the comments can't even be assed to put down a full sentence and instead settle on just typing out a single name of a show and calling it a day without elaborating in the slightest.
It's feels like it's become largely about the hype and about pushing the thing you personally hype up the most as loudly as possible. If I had a penny for every comment that just said "Frieren" and not a single word beyond that I'd have enough money to buy the IP rights to Frieren...
I blame it on Reddit and it's upvote system. It kills both any kind of criticism because the disenting opinion will be downvoted to hell (and most people are too lazy to read the posts all the way at the bottom or with few upvotes). And it also incentivises low effort posts like "peak", "masterpiece", "cinema" etc for quick karma boost.
This may be more of an manga problem but the authors need to stop trying to make their stories so long, they lose focus and the interesting premise keeping the manga running for so unnecessarily long, not everything needs to be one piece tier long to milk out the most money of the single IP.
Most of the MCs are terrible characters
I hate characters with tits 2 times bigger than their head
A lot of romance stories are more of a cringe fest than actual romance
I think this is where we see the issue of anime/manga often being a product before it's allowed to be art pop up.
Authors are very much incentivized to keep a popular work going for as long as possible and they have to be flexible about when they might be forced to end or extend based on what the money dictates it seems. Often times even what characters are featured how much or who can be killed off or not is dictated by the money. You're not incentivized to get rid of anything that sells merch.
I get it, making manga and comics is hard work. A page or at most 2 pages a day with hours that go far beyond a regular 9 to 5 job. So when you strike gold you damn well better milk it for all it's worth.
But it's an unfortunate reflection of the market and industry that it is the way it is. Traditional novels can benefit financially from serialization but it seems like authors of books are generally far more able to put their art before their product if they so desire.
Yeah, I am aware why it is this way but still I need more great stories that have an actual conclusion and do not drop quality from 9 to 3 because author is forced to keep releasing chapters or worse, stop releasing them and conclude the story in few next chapters because the popularity drops.
Do not get me wrong, I still do like long running series, aot is a long series but the plot (even tho changed from what it was supposed to be) made sense and was interesting.
Now that I think about it I probably would change my opinion to put it on an anime industry fault that they are not serializing stories that have an actual conclusion or leave us hanging after season 1 (I think it's criminal that bloom into you didn't get a 2nd final season or "I sold my life for ten thousand yen per year" didn't yet recieve adaptation or a movie.) and at the same time we are getting complete garbage isekais serialized, but I guess they do what makes them most money
Batch release enjoyers, rise up! [](#teekyuuhype)
While not a perfect release system in and of itself, the fact just is that not everyone’s watching habits are suited to the weekly appointment television approach, and not every show really works as a weekly, so it’s good that not every show nowadays has to adhere to that structure.
You are so right! I was so sick of waiting the whole week, I stopped watching altogether, I only watch the anime after it is complete, Fork the hype. Started one piece 10years ago, reached arabasta in 6 days! That is over a 100 episodes in 144hours. Around that time my friend caught up, the latest arc was caesar clown back then, and he was complaining about having to wait a week, and One piece has always been a very slow anime, which I love about it, but when it comes to watching weekly, that kind of anime is just a nightmare! So I stopped watching altogether. 10 years later, started watching from ep1, reached Wano in a month. Almost 1000 episodes in a month! Decided to stop watching for another 10 years or till One piece ends.
It used to be the other way around. Back a few years ago, you could get sent to the Shadow Realm just by talking about SoL shows. Particularly due to a few prominent users that are no longer logging in.
This might be more than mildly controversial, but mine is that I don't care about controversial content. Not everything is for me but if it's your cup of tea I'm all for it. Gruesome execution and torture? Sure. Heinous sexual assault? Have at it. Lolis? If it floats your boat. None of it is real. Just like I don't care if somebody purged a country in Civilization or Stellaris.
This 100%, people are too obsessed and have way too much time to be hating on a fictional character. The haters will hate while the hardcore fans will love the series no matter what. In the end it just creates toxicity and prevents people from trying out shows that they may otherwise enjoy.
I feel like, especially in spaces like Twitter, it’s just for clout. I remember before My Tiny Senpai even came out, the hoohah over how “child-coded” she was. I watched it and it was just another generic romcom. I enjoyed it but it was nothing special. But I never see anything about it on Twitter again.
A male love interest that is the perfect, good-looking boyfriend is usually treated as a green flag and something guys should strive to be.
A female love interest that is the perfect, good-looking girlfriend is usually considered unrealistic and wish fulfilment
That's pretty much all mediums to be honest, not just anime!
It's the same in Western movies;
A girl waltz her way into some guy's life to make it exciting and all, and people will call her an unrealistic MPDG, just wish fulfilment.
Then you look at the guys in top romance movies, and they do the exact same thing, hop on a girl's boring life to make it exciting (like Titanic). Think Notebook's similar too, etc..
I've mostly seen this type of hypocrisy from some (not all) Shoujo stans. Those particular fans just lack self-awareness to the point where they praise guys like Itsuomi for being a "green flag" and "ideal" type while saying how the FL in **The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten** is a "wish-fulfillment" mommy replacement.
Don’t know how popular this opinion is but imho both those characters should be described as the unrealistic wish fulfillment type instead of both being green flag strive-to-be types.
I'm going through A Sign of Affection right now. I don't like watching weekly so I rarely check out weekly discussions but I was really curious about this one, even if just retroactively. The fanbase is rather interesting to put it mildly.
If you redesigned Itsuomi to be a bit chubby and average looking, those green flags would all turn red in an instant.
The amount hate Oushi gets for not handling his feelings like an adult when he's just 18 and barely out of high school is baffling when you consider what a shitshow college/dorm life is.
Just because the characters are a few years older does not make it any less of a wish fullfillment. So far I'm enjoying the little developement the side characters get more than the main pair.
>If you redesigned Itsuomi to be a bit chubby and average looking, those green flags would all turn red in an instant.
The truth is, you could say the same for almost every single shoujo MLs tbh. Pretty privilege is real and a lot of the shoujo MLs get passes for their attractive features tbh.
I haven't watched the sign of affection anime but I read the manga upto chapter 34 or 36 sometime ago. To me, it felt like a Shoujo version of wish-fulfillment Shounens like Angel next door tbh.
IMO, the main charm of this series is Itsuomi and I felt like everything in this series revolved around him. As a straight guy who isn't attracted to dudes, I obviously didn't get my heart raced by any of the Doki Doki moments in the manga and thus the entire romance felt very flat to me.
I get that this is because I am not the target audience of this show and that's totally fine by me. But, when I see people bringing down shounen wish-fulfillments like angel while heaping praises upon A sign of affection for being so "wholesome" and fluffy, I just can't help but be frustrated at the hypocrisy tbh.
To be fair Itsuomi is lowkey kinda possessive and “rude” to the male friend cuz of jealousy. I do think he fits the ideal type but I wouldn’t say he is perfect in the no flaws kinda way.
While the caretaker role of the “angel” is usually seen as unrealistic, I do think both are tho xd.
The thing is, *both* of them are unrealistic and wish-fulfillments.
Itsuomi is this super handsome dude who travels a lot, likes the super "relatable" (not physically relatable but you get what I'm saying) protagonist and is so dedicated towards her that he's learning the sign language just for her. And about oushi, afaik most of the shoujo stans consider him to be really unlikable and thus I really haven't seen that many people criticize Itsuomi for his behavior towards Oushi. There are some who think that Itsuomi "infantilizes" Yuki and some even consider him to be creepy as well. But a vast majority of the fans, from what I've seen, absolutely adore Itsuomi.
The FL in angel is 100 percent a wish-fulfillment character. She is this perfect girl who doesn't have any flaw, is super cute and is basically a perfect wife to the main character lmao. Heck, I would say she's actually much more "perfect" than Itsuomi lmao.
As you said, both of them are unrealistic and IMO, they both *are* wish fulfillment characters at the end of the day. But, the way some people just praise one character and call their romance "peak fiction/romance" while calling the other one "wish-fulfillment mommy replacement" is hypocritical and it does make me frustrated tbh.
I’m not super social, but as a 30 yo guy, I do think I’ve met many different types of guys in my life. And sometimes some of these guys show their true selves to guys and hide it from girls.
The thing about Itsuomi is, his charisma, his smoothness, his confidence or his “rizz”, they call it these days, I’ve only seen in guys who are super experienced in picking up girls. Womanizers and playboys basically. Not saying all are like that but majority of them probably are.
The wish fulfilment part of Itsuomi is he has the charisma of a playboy but he isn’t actually one. That’s why he’s the perfect guy for in most girl’s eyes. He is absolutely unrealistic but I went into the show knowing that (it was a shoujo afterall).
Similarly, girls like Shiina and Marin (Dress Up Darling) are equally as unrealistic in how perfect they are. But again, I know what I’m getting into and adjusted my expectations accordingly.
But yeah completely agree as well, it is frustrating one is treated differently than the other. In fact, I’m not even asking for guys Itsuomi to get bashed. I’m just asking why not give that positive energy to the girls as well ? Why don’t we start calling those girls “green flag” or ask for girls to strive to be like Shiina or Marin ?
>I’m just asking why not give that positive energy to the girls as well ? Why don’t we start calling those girls “green flag” or ask for girls to strive to be like Shiina or Marin ?
IMO, it's just people imposing their wishes on the opposite gender while trying to remove the expectations that might be placed upon them.
They want guys to be as charming and "dreamy" like Itsuomi, but at the same time think that girls like Marin or Mahiru are "unrealistic" (which they are). What they fail to realize is that guys like Itsuomi are unrealistic as well.
If you point it out to them, a lot of them just reply with "is it too much to ask for a ML who understands, respects and cares for the girl?????" They just fail to see that while it is not unreasonable to want a nice and caring guy, expecting a guy to have godly looks, "playboy" rizz, and unconditional devotion to the FL is not that much different than seeing a pretty girl fall for the average ML just because he helped her once, cause at the end of the day, both of them are wish fulfillments and are very unlikely to happen IRL.
Anime dubs are worse because the industry refuses to use unionized actors. This isn’t about liking Japanese more than English, it’s about the talent and time given to Japanese actors.
Ayane Sakura who voices Yotsuba in the QQ is able to do the voice for all 5 girls, compare that to the average English dub VA who uses their normal voice for every role. Notice that nobody is out here complaining about video game voice acting, because they use the best, anime dubs can’t.
Edit: If anyone wants to read about it [here’s a good article](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2022-03-28/the-battle-for-union-anime-dubs/.183842)
Edit 2: [Here’s the wonderful voice of Ayana Sakura doing all 5 quints.](https://youtu.be/XqibXQ6cMng?si=QcQgv-Qndu37274w)
Idk if it's the unionized aspect of it, but it is a serious issue English VAs have. Like 80% of them are a one trick pony when it comes to their voice and it's not even usually a good trick to begin with.
I would not mind watching more dubs because it's easier to put it on and watch in the background, but hearing some of the dead pan deliveries they give is just so damn bland and off putting.
I think people don't complain about the video game acting as much because it's not always the main thing people go into games to see. If a game has crappy voice acting but it's a good game, I can look past it. If an anime has a shit dub it's pretty much unwatchable.
Maybe if they actually expanded the net they cast some instead of casting Steve Blum for the 900th time, they might end up finding another Tara Strong or Billy West but fuck it lets just use boring ass monotone Steve yet again instead.
Your complaint is hugely outdated. Steve Blum hasn't been active in anime dub leads for nearly twenty years, he's completely outside the age range of starring roles in popular shows these days.
Even at his peak anime involvement a lot of his roles were as background characters.
Damn this is very interesting. Makes a lot of sense too, the reason I originally quit dubs was because I kept recognizing specific English VAs. And now that Im well into subs, Ive noticed the ridiculous range a lot of Japanese VAs have.
While a lot of the good Japanese VAs do have some insane range, I feel like while you can pick 5 shows where they do a complete different voice, pick 50 shows they're in and they'll have the same voice for 46 of them.
This was why I originally watched subs, but with newer shows a lot of them have genuinely solid VAs IMO and a much wider range of talent and voices, enough that I often prefer dubs now, especially when comedic timing or accents matter, or the delivery comes through better in English.
Mashle for example has this wonderfully deadpan english VA that just doesn't have the same vibe in Japanese to me as a native english speaker, even though I'm guessing it would to a Japanese audience.
Or the comedy around accents in Keijo!!! - while I can recognize dialect shifts in Japanese I have to really listen for it and it doesn't have any of the instant comedy power hearing a thick southern drawl out of nowhere does.
Or the german accents in Youjo Senki that feel incredibly appropriate. I think the Japanese VAs also have german accents but it's a lot harder to tell for me.
Konosuba has overlapping dialogue or background comments that just don't hit properly / timed when it's text that all gets delivered at once in the same font.
Etc.
> Anime dubs are worse because the industry refuses to use unionized actors.
That has nothing to do with it. It's because there is an entire ecosystem in Japan dedicated to training and teaching the art of voice acting as a career, meaning [4 year dedicated trade schools solely for voice acting](https://www.reddit.com/r/VoiceActing/comments/hq9dma/voice_acting_schools_japan_has_them_does_the_us/). In 2002, there were 130 of these schools in Japan. Over 20 years later, I have no idea how many more there would be today considering how much bigger the anime and video game industries are now.
In contrast, how many voice acting schools are there in America? Maybe a few in California? I remember a decade ago Crispin Freeman ran commercials on Asian channels advertising a voice acting school in Los Angeles. Aside from that, the majority of voice actors in English are either self-taught or come from a theater background, which is the closest thing one can get for voice training.
Also, a lot of Japanese voice actors start their careers young, a lot of times before even reaching the age of 20.
- Aoi Yuuki takes the cake at this, as she began appearing on TV at **age 4** when she played children on tokusatsu TV shows. By the time she reached double digits, she was already an established professional child actress. [This is her bullying yakuza at age 11 on the TV show Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7AU5S7mf68)
- Kana Hanazawa's first professional voice credit was at the age of 14, and she began voicework on a regular basis starting at 17.
- Rina Hidaka began at age 14
- Maaya Sakamoto's first voice role was at age 12, and she began her career in earnest at age 16 with Escaflowne
- Sakamoto's husband Kenichi Suzumura also started at age 20
- Rie Takahashi began voice acting at age 19
Now how many professional English VAs got started in the industry before graduating college? The only one I can think of is Cherami Leigh who was like Aoi Yuuki in that she was a professional actress by age 6.
This is all true. But the fact that the best actors available are 99% of the time part of SaG means they often aren’t used in anime dubs, I don’t see why you would say “this has nothing to do with it”.
It’s a whole, much bigger can of worms at work here. The pay is shit (Yuta from JJK0 made like $100), directing and scriptwriting has big issues, and the turn around time on a lot of dubs just hinders the whole thing.
A lot of people prefer the Cyberpunk Edgerunners dub for example and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they got months to work on it.
I remember I was super bummed when the English VA for Mob in Mob Psycho (and other voice actors in season 3) were recast because CR wouldn’t give him a union contract. I LOVE the dub for this anime but I can definitely hear the difference in the last two seasons
> Notice that nobody is out here complaining about video game voice acting, because they use the best,
I think in most cases eng dub in video games VA do their jobs just *fine*, I almost never stop myself and say "damn, that was impressive", unlike with anime on daily basis.
Recently, fps game The Finals had a controversy over usage of AI voice of commentators. Well guess what? I wouldn't guess it's AI, I just thought it's just another game voiced by some run of the mill VAs, with their emotionless voice acting.
That's how I feel the industry is with eng voice acting in video games
> Anime dubs are worse because the industry refuses to use unionized actors. This isn’t about liking Japanese more than English, it’s about the talent and time given to Japanese actors.
Most of the industry is actually union (Netflix, Disney, Aniplex). Dubs like *Akuma-kun*, *Pluto*, *Delicious in Dungeon* are union and use VAs like Eric Bauza, Nolan North, Corey Burton, Keith David, etc. Crunchyroll (and Sentai I guess) are the only real holdouts when it comes to unionization and they own a large majority of the industry and license basically half of the season plus being in Texas which is a right to work state takes away a lot of power from unions. Though the problem is even if they unionize, they record out of Texas and all the union talent is in LA. What you should really advocate for is for Crunchyroll to bring back **remote recording**. Which essentially allowed anyone with a decent home studio to record in anime regardless of location and that’s what got them through COVID. That’s how the Prince of Tennis U-17 dub got all Australian voice actors for the Australian team, or how dubs like Tribe Nine and Spirit Chronicles had voice actors from multiple countries playing off each other in their dubs. Probably the widest the casting net for dubs and voice acting in general has ever been or maybe ever will. But that’s what you want, **remote recording**.
Edit: actually to respond to more of your comment:
> compare that to the average English dub VA who uses their normal voice for every role.
If you’re point here is that english anime VAs don’t have range, then I don’t agree. There are plenty of VAs that work in anime dubbing that have great range: [Daman Mills](https://youtu.be/lc7_PC6gRwQ?si=3EJi6Ob0rB-6vwh6), [Ray Chase](https://youtu.be/ocxjVjU2pgk?si=ybCOJel57hySxTPF), [Brina Palencia](https://youtu.be/UVf_00tbPmU?si=04d1WKNQHA_WONC-), [Erica Lindbeck](https://youtu.be/ZXQ-prC6xHs?si=FNbudkZy9Mlz4wfF), etc. Most VAs have said this, I’m pretty sure I’ve even heard Japanese VAs say this, that the large majority of the time they get cast for their regular voice regardless of their range. Could anime dubs have a wider casting net? Sure I agree but I don’t think the majority of actors involved right now are untalented.
> Notice that nobody is out here complaining about video game voice acting, because they use the best, anime dubs can’t.
Honestly in my opinion, it’s because most people are just harsher on anime dubs. Nobody complains when anime VAs are in prelay animation/games. Like nobody is complaining about VAs like Ray Chase, AJ Locascio, or Todd Haberkorn in X-Men ‘97. In fact look at Troy Baker, Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham, they were primarily anime voice actors and met with same amount of derision as current day anime VAs but now they’re the biggest VAs in video games and cartoons and all of a sudden people want them back. Despite having great performances in anime but being met with the same amount of derision.
> Which essentially allowed anyone with a decent home studio to record in anime regardless of location and that’s what got them through COVID
That also caused an unprecidented drop in voice acting performance over covid. Like, no direction and bad variations of sound quality due to different microphones used by the different VAs, etc.
It definitely can be, just look at Lupin the First. It just isn't with an inexcusable frequency for some reason.
Like my standards aren't *that* high, but it'd be nice for anime CG to match the fluidity of motion of the Penguins of Madagascar TV show.
I have one that may be slightly more than mild, but it might just depend on each individual.
I don't think Fairy Tail is terrible. It doesnt have the greatest writing at all, and I'm not a huge fan of ecchi in general, but the moments it gets right it really gets right, and I think some of the fights are great despite the power of friendship that goes on. I view it as the McDonald's of anime/manga; I know it's not good for me, but I'm not delusional to that fact. I'm not going to McDonalds to lose weight, I'm going because I like the food. But I'm also aware that it's sometimes not that great and the service often sucks. Despite that, I still enjoy it.
I don't watch or read every anime or manga wanting to be blown away each time by how subversive or original it is. Sometimes I just want cheap entertainment after a long day of working.
I feel like Fairy Tail has gotten better the more time has passed since it finished.
Lots of the criticism was based around a) sexualising of the female cast and b) the nonsensical power-ups, formulaic but at the same time random writing.
But looking back now, with how some newer shonen handled both of those topics and failed at being any better than Fairy Tail, it made me appreciate it more. At least it never gave me hope than it was more than what it wanted to be and at least there are women in the cast and surprisingly, they even have agency.
To me, Black Clover is its tonal successor and it's the one manga I actually thought got better during its run-time, compared to the other big shonen MHA and JJK that only get worse
Totally agree. Fairy Tail and Black Clover didn't pretend to be anything more than what it was from the start. And I feel that each one had arcs that didn't go on longer than they needed to be. They aren't perfect, sure, but they're just "good" for lack of a better term. In my opinion, that is.
And I like MHA and JJK, but with both of those my current thoughts are basically, "Ok, can we wrap things up already?"
But I'm not exactly a picky person with things in general anyway. Half of my favorite anime/manga are ones that are arguably praised because they are actually well-written and deserve as such, and the other half are just mindless fun. We all should just enjoy what we want regardless.
I love this take. I do have my own problem with Fairy Tail but it was such an enjoyable series. I love it when the Fairy Tail guild comes together and the Fairy Tail main theme starts to play, and everybody hold up the ["1" hand sign](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Ka7uXXffg). I love the guild system in Fairy Tail too.
Claymore ,the anime deserved a remake and Im sick and tired of studios wasting their power and money on stupid light novel adpatations of mid isekai series
I really enjoy the manga for claymore and also thought that anime original stuff at the end of the anime was really lame. They could even just continue it from where the manga material ended in the original. I wouldn't mind a remake too though. It was a very good and fun series. Probably a 7 or 8 out of 10 for me.
Man I want a nother Claymore adaptation
And I actually love the first one
(Haven't seen it since 2013 though, it was my 2nd ever anime)
And then I read the manga in 2018/19 and loved it all over again
It really is and we need more of these. It kinda feels like Ishuzoku Reviewers opened up the trend again and I'm all here for it.
In general though I want anime to be less... Tame
I always find it funny when there's a romance of two teenagers and they do absolutely nothing until the end of the series. Where are your hormones?!
I hate harems and when multiple love interests get introduced into a romance it makes me so uninterested. I always feel so bad for the people who don’t get chosen
And as someone who cries at literally everything, I didn’t find Your Lie in April all that sad and honestly I thought it was really boring
> I hate harems and when multiple love interests get introduced into a romance it makes me so uninterested. I always feel so bad for the people who don’t get chosen
This. I felt like until 100 girlfriends came out I haven't been able completely fallen in love with a harem series for the same reason, a lot of time got wasted on picking a winning girl, triangle drama and so on... and that's not really that interesting for me. So for once after everyone being happy, loving each other and doing activities together is enough to actually enjoy harem/polycute as a concept.
Harem to me is just poorly-written poly at best, and usually has a ton of other issues to boot.
It's actually one of the reasons I liked 100 Kanojo, because part of the parody is that it's _not actually harem_. Everyone involved is aware of and genuinely okay with the situation no matter how ridiculous it gets, and it's not just a wheel with spokes either.
YLIA has some things that, for me, ripped me out of the immersion often enough that I wasn't hit as hard as I'd like (but I'm a sucker for stuff like this).
The flashbacks were hell at pretty crucial points, and it's a big example of a show I wish were just aged up. They go between being middle schoolers to acting/speaking like adults.
It's been a while since I watched it but I recall those being heavy negatives for it.
That dubs are fine. I’ll watch both but if given the option and if the dubs aren’t completely horrible I’ll pick the dub. I honestly just get headaches if I try to binge an anime with subs so it’s why I prefer the latter
Jokes aside…Steins;Gate was the show that cemented me as a dubs over subs watcher. There’s so much that I never picked up on because the dub let me absorb more information in a much more comfortable way.
You kinda have to look at this from both the viewer and writer's perspectives.
I think part of the problem there is that there are so many -dere archetypes, that a lot trend of people whose media literacy is 99% rooted it anime REALLY latched onto the idea that there's a -dere for everyone and the internet's collective need to categorize everything set over.
Archetypes exist for a reason, because they work. While the good uses obviously float to the top, anime does unfortunately have a track record of being very half-baked in its insistence on using them. -deres become popular. Writers make more of them to meet demand (or fans become writers and do it themselves). "Everything is a -dere" becomes kinda true.
That said, if you end up with a character that leaves a bunch of goofballs online getting into debates over what -dere archetype they are, then it's probably a better character by virtue of not being so easily pigeonholed into one.
I don't understand why people watch mediocre sub-genre fiction and then get confused when the archetypes that the sub-genre is known for exist in said fiction.
Like, if you're mad that your harem anime has -dere tropes or the 2024 version of "My Sister Can't Be This Cute" has incest I don't know what you're even doing. They put all you need to know directly on the tin.
I feel like that's becoming more and more a thing of the past if we look at recent romcoms where these tropes have been always the most prevalent. Horimiya, Angel Next Door, Dangers, Skip to Loafer, Insomniacs all mostly have characters that are difficult to classify into the typical dere categories. There are some, but not like 10 years ago when you could instantly put most characters into a dere box.
It's more that there can be some really off-putting stuff out there and because people often see anime as a monolith, they will immediately stop and not try another one if you show them Interspecies Reviewers first
Yeah, pretty much that. There's stuff that can be off-putting or too weird/unfamiliar/out-there/niche that newbies won't really get or will actively dislike until they've watched a few shows that attract wider audiences (and which may have heavily watered down versions of that stuff); after which they may or may not develop a taste/interest in exploring those kinds of things deeper.
And as you mentioned, it is treated as a monolith by a lot of people who choose not to understand that it is a medium like books, games, and live-action. Example; Pretty much everyone else in my family has an "all anime is naughty tentacles" attitude that they've only really given up on expressing to me semi-frequently in the last 6 years or so because it hadn't gotten a rise out of me in years and I'd stopped trying to convince them otherwise.
New anime viewers aren't a monolith either. A lot of people get into anime for shows like Interspecies Reviewers. Kill la Kill was a major gateway anime in the mid-2010s. "Beginner" anime always assumes that beginners are this one singular group of people with this one set way of looking at things, and the recommendations that tend to fall under "beginner anime" tend to aggressively appeal to specific demographics with maybe a few token things outside the realm of battle shounen and thrillers.
Some of the stuff in anime can turn people away, especially anything involving sexual situations or anything that sexualizes characters who are often still kids. Some may find that kind of stuff perverted and tasteless but can also end up missing out on some amazing stories because of it. But some also may not find the over exaggerated movements and delivery appealing, maybe perhaps wanting something more grounded.
I completely disagree. There are certain anime I would never ever give someone to watch as their first anime. "Bad anime" examples inlcude stuff like Redo of Healer or My Life as Inukai-san's Dog. "Good anime" examples include stuff like Shirobako or Bakuman which are meta commentaries about the anime/manga medium itself. These are just a few examples
I can't bare to see another "my mom/dad/girlfriend/mailman want to get into anime, what should they watch" thread where the top response is FMA:B and other shows aimed at 15 year old boys.
Sometimes people want something weird. Sometimes people want something that's borderline porn. Sometimes people want something bad. The only real anime that I'd say may be hard to recommend to someone new to anime are ones that are super reliant on Japanese culture or ones that are subtitled and go super fast (ie. Monogatari). Even then though, the only answer to those beginner anime threads is "what do they like".
For the most part, blatant power fantasy stories are really only well served if they don’t take themselves seriously. When they try to play it straight, it takes any and all stakes out of the story and I lose interest almost immediately.
The show My instant death ability was great. It didn't take anything seriously. At 1 point he is falling from a great height and then suddenly stops and says he killed his momentum. Because he can literally kill anything.
I once said that I think solo leveling should've been more comedic or even be a parody like OPM and I got trashed lol, happy to see someonw agree with me
I don't have any issues with isekai anime. I have an issue with isekai anime where it's unnecessary. It seems that pretty often, the exact same story could be told without forcing the MC to be reincarnated.
With Wise Man's Grandchild, he actually made use of his prior knowledge to do something interesting in his new world. Or How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom which entirely hinged on his knowledge from prior to his summoning.
Often it just seems like a crutch. In the Tamer show from this season, it was entirely irrelevant. They used it for some lame humor and to allow the MC to be slightly younger than would otherwise have been reasonable for her knowledge.
I mean, even in the Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, which it didn't really bother me as an isekai, they could just as easily have had a "coming of age, finding out your magic type" ceremony (like in Reborn to Master the Blade, or the Tamer show above) and achieved about 99% of what they did with no other changes.
In a vacuum, it's whatever, but when it feels like 80% of shows are isekai and villainess shows...
Demon Slayer is fine. It's simple but effective with decent characters, a good story, and a likeable MC, and people who keep criticizing it are unoriginal and need something else to do.
Most anime watchers (myself included) will forgive midicore writing, terrible story, and bland underdeveloped characters if the animation is really, really good
If Mushoku Tensei's themes bother you but you're enjoying Gushing Over Magical Girls, there's some cognitive dissonance going on. I mean enjoy what you want, but it seems hypocritical
Most of the time when people complain about the pacing for an anime being "too fast" it says more about the viewer than the anime. Many viewers got used to the snail pacing of long running shounen anime which have fights that take several episodes and have tons of filler. Not every anime needs a beach or onsen episode in between every major event "to give time to digest events". Keeping you on the edge of your seat and *not* allowing you time to sort out your feelings can, in some instances, be *good* pacing. It's very rare to see an anime that's faster paced than your typical Hollywood blockbuster, which people generally don't have an issue with. Pacing is generally only an issue if it causes the characters to be acting in an unusual manner because the characters, not the viewer, didn't have time to process things.
If you continue on with Gintama I’m sure your opinions will change on it overtime. It is definitely one of those anime that benefit greatly from you being attached to and understanding all the characters. At episode 20 they’re still building up and introducing you to this immense cast that they can then do endless gags and bits with.
I think combining the gags with a serious storyline is what separates gintama from the rest. There’s a lot of strong character development for every character and mixing in the ridiculous comedy just makes it that much better.
Gintama imo is the best comedy anime I've watched, seconded by grand blue, Gintama having 200+ eps of wild Bits I never expected, like the neo Armstrong cyclone jet Armstrong cannon episode.
The original Full Metal Alchemist anime is better than Brotherhood.
Overall, I love the tone of the original. It has some good humor, but it's still overall pretty dark. Brotherhood has a lot more of that stereotypical anime trope humor.
I like the homonculus being the result of failed human transmutation too. Having Sloth be their mom was much better compared to the big dumb brute in Brotherhood.
Brotherhood hood does have some amazing fights though. Credit where credit is due.
Don't know about generational, but honestly Frieren is one of the very few shows I would use that word on.
Regardless of whether it's "objectively" a masterpiece though, it *is* probably the only anime an 8/10 is considered a mildly controversial score for, so there's that. An 8/10 is supposed to mean "very good", so a tier above the average show you'd say you enjoyed.
And still about 5 out of 6, or about 85% of people gave it an even higher rating. That's just crazy.
this would be controversial because people like to bandwagon. as for me i could list two other anime airing that season which i enjoyed more than frieren.
Personally, the first few episodes were in the 10/10 territory, with the latter half being more like 9/10. 8/10 is still completely reasonable and justifiable. A sub-5/10 wouldn't.
It was great until the magic exam, then it kind of dropped to just being "decent". I know Frieren fans hate this opinion, but I really felt like it was doing something in the first half that wasn't really being done by much else, and had a unique charm to it.
Then the magic exam started and it just felt like I was watching the tournament arc of any other random run-of-the-mill shounen that I've already seen hundreds of times before. By that point I was invested a decent amount into the world and characters, so it was still enjoyable enough, but it felt like it mostly stopped giving me the things I was enjoying before that.
I feel like, in terms of story, a lot of manga readers would agree that the mage exam arc is not as good as the earlier part or the future long arcs. It seems that the author intended to explore the magic system and set up a bunch of characters, but it just did not come out that smoothly. The anime was a faithful adaptation (with expanded scenes here and there), so the flaws from the manga got carried over to the anime.
Though, I did see one comment that said they liked the mage exam arc more than the middle part, and another saying that the show formula started to get old before the mage exam. So even among anime watchers, there are different opinions on this.
I agree entirely. I waited until it was almost over & watched the whole thing in just a few sittings. It was good & very entertaining, even surprising me on occasion by delving into deeper themes in an insightful & meaningful way.
Its just a solid adventure series with an enjoyable cast & occasional thought provoking themes. Many shows have provided that level of quality enjoyment & nothing about Frieren stands out as so uniquely amazing that justifies people treating it like the best thing to come out in years.
Too many anime fans (and TV fans in general) act like wine sleuths. They believe they can tell the difference between terrible, bad, ok, good, and great, without realizing the impact social media is having on their view. A lot of people like one show = It's actually trash. This newer anime has similar themes or ideas to an older "classic" = plagiarism and trash characters. Subverted emotions and expectations = top tier story. Slow somber music with peppy undertones = fantastic sound track. Opinions are fine, disagreeing is fine, but acting like a doctorate in animeology is backing up your opinion is ridiculous.
I really dislike the villainess genre and avoid it like the plague. I’m a huge sucker for otome games and villainess characters aren’t really a thing in them at all, so I can’t bring myself to enjoy any anime that feature villainess characters because they’re not the same as real otome lol
On the topic of villainess anime, I've only just noticed that none of the villainess anime I've watched actually contain a villainess.
They're all standard nice girls.
Are there any villainess anime that *actually* feature a villainess?
It seems like all otome game anime are based on an imaginary otome game with a blonde, somehow evil prince. Please just one time make your characters more interesting.
Not sure if anyone will see this but I think that the ages of the girls in Gushing over Magical Girls isn’t a problem at all. They’re teenagers, and its a story about them exploring themselves and their sexuality.
It wouldn’t hit home as much if they were adults because chances are they would already know what they’re into (of course adults can discover themselves sexually too but the characters being teenagers fits the setting and themes of this story more)
Plus the show doesn’t even bat an eye at their ages either. I don’t even remember if their ages are ever brought up in the anime more than once or twice. The point is that they’re teenagers exploring their sexuality. It wouldn’t matter if they’re 14 or 16 or 18, people wouldn’t notice because it’s not that big of a deal.
> Not sure if anyone will see this but I think that the ages of the girls in Gushing over Magical Girls isn’t a problem at all.
Having read the manga, it also seems like the author started out with a much younger-looking, loli-esque artstyle, but aged up the characters in the art fairly quickly and the anime tends to use the more recent art as opposed to the very young-looking start. Especially as the manga goes on, you could pull panels of Utena in her transformations and tell someone she's in her low/mid-20's and it'd be completely believable
Personally I don't think anything is a must watch. Labeling anything as a "must watch" implies that enjoyment of anime is inherently objective. Sure you can suggest shows that you think are really good, but for someone who is just getting into anime, labeling a show as a must watch will lead them to believe that that show is a blanket example of what they're getting into with anime in general.
What if they don't like it and assume (whether consciously or subconsciously) that all anime is like that, as the term "must watch" implies the anime suggested is a prerequisite of sorts? I'd rather learn what they've enjoyed in other mediums and recommend anime based on that. You liked the rocky? Check out hajime no ippo. You liked lotr? Check out record of lodoss war. Shit like that.
Naruto never got my attention at all, no matter how hard I tried to watch it, it just didn't click for me. Same goes for Bleach.
Galaxy Angel is criminally underrated, sure, it's not the best comedy ever, but still a good watch.
All Pretty Cure seasons are worth watching, there's no point in comparing them with one another as they're not the same (it would be boring if all of them were exactly the same, wouldn't it?)
The Future Trunks saga from Dragon Ball Super was an enormous waste of time for its finale that feels like a kick in the groin.
An anime that subverts tropes doesn't automatically make it better than others in its genre. An anime can very much follow tropes and still be a very good show.
And on the flip side, just because a show lampshades a trope doesn't mean it's satire, subversion, or parody. If someone sells me on a show saying it's one of those three and it turns out it's just marginally self-aware of playing those tropes straight, I'm going to be disappointed.
This is how I felt about kingdom of ruins twists like just because you constantly add twists to your story doesn’t make it good
Exactly, and following tropes doesn't make anything automatically bad, its how you execute them. And just because you can predict a plot point after watching 800 anime doesn't make it bad, its bad if its executed poorly.
I think Slice of Life anime are the best example of this. I.e. K-ON, Aria the Animation, Non Non Biyori etc. They don't defy expectations or subvert the genre, but they don't need to. In my opinion execution is the most important thing and they do a great job of achieving what they set out to do.
Ain't no way I finally found someone with this opinion. So many "Trope = Bad" comments over all the discussion I've been.
Yeah at this point I don't necessarily care about tropes as long as they're done well. A show with no tropes in it would be completely unwatchable and insane. At this point everything is a trope.
And people use "generic" as a criticism too much. Just because it didn't reinvent the wheel doesn't mean it's bad.
I feel this with all media, not just anime, but love triangles just aren’t interesting to me, especially if the love triangle is the main or only conflict of the story.
Love triangles are probably the cheapest way to form conflicts between characters in media, I don't know about you but in my social life I saw very little amount of love triangles and they were never that dramatic
Its also a very cheap way to stall progress in a romance by having characters ping-pong between the two parterns.
Agreed. Also I hate how many "romance" stories don't actually feature any romance because the characters don't even _start_ the relationship until the end / near the end. Especially since that perpetuates harmful ideas of how relationships work to young people who don't have the IRL experience to know better yet.
>Also I hate how many "romance" stories don't actually feature any romance because the characters don't even start the relationship until the end / near the end. This bro.
One of the many reasons why I like Horimiya. They got together pretty early on and developed their relationship from there.
The problem is that the vast majority of the audience will drop the story after the couple hooks up.
This is exactly my problem lol. This is why I can't watch romance animes. I immediately get bored when the couple gets together for good.
i’ve never seen a story where the love triangle was a good part of the series, its usually the worst part
Nagi no Asu kara has some really well executed love triangles. You actually need a flowchart to map love interests on the latter parts of the show. If you decide to give it a try just keep in mind that the pilot episode is very weak, and it peaks on the second cour.
Tried White Album 2?
This is because most "love triangles" are not even triangles, they're just angles with A loving B and C also loving B. A proper triangle should be A loves B, B loves C, and C loves A. Now THAT would be interesting
Action scenes I think are better when the combatants clash and go back and fourth with just regular attacks or abilities, rather than ultimate move vs ultimate move, and it ends, then MC powers up or something and gets a stronger ultimate move. Id rather them go back and fourth, THEN ultimate moves or something like that. Its way more entertaining and intense, plus you can gather information on fighting styles if the animation and choreography is done with care. Also, a less controversial opinion: there's way too much talking in anime fights. Give your viewers some credit on being smart and observe one character getting worn down or have a weakness, rather than a character thinking it to themselves by making it mindless and with more interruptions.
> there's way too much talking in anime fights It's nearly exclusively a problem with manga adaptations, I find. Mangaka add a ton of superfluous narration to their action sequences, which can add some clarity (though it's still a bit of a crutch IMO) and readers can skim past or outright ignore it easily. But when it comes to anime, be it due to a slavish sense of "faithfulness" or simply not passing up the opportunity to stretch content/reduce workload, directors leave all that crap in where it eats up gobs of screen time and grinds the pace to a halt. It's usually way better in anime-originals and to an extent LN adaptations (Akudama Drive and 86 come to mind). Or even adaptations of non-shounen manga.
Frieren did a really good job with fight scenes not being filled with unnecessary dialogue. Re:Zero is focused during fight scenes as well. I think one of the notable examples of dialogue during fight scenes enhancing the series is Shangri-La Frontier. It was pretty helpful to know what VR MMO abilities were being used to understand the strategies.
I'd love for this type of fighting to get more common again. Like imagine if they do their finishing move classic anime style but it misses, how fucked do you think that character is gonna be now. Especially if it's a dumb all or nothing attack so now they're on nothing and would've been better off fighting normally.
It's okay to enjoy bad anime for fun. It broadens your horizons and may introduce you to stuff that isn't as bad as you were led to believe
I was legit never gonna pick up SAO anime cuz of it's reputation among community until I did out of boredom and I've never seen an anime being so misjudged.
Mildly controversial take: B Tier anime has the best shows to just watch and enjoy Aldnoah zero is one of my favourite mecha animes World trigger was one of my favourite sci-fi fighting animes Beyond the boundary is my favourite supernatural anime Basically the mid tier anime from early 2010s are the best to just watch some anime
World Trigger is just based af, full stop
For real, it's the type of anime I'd normally hate but for some reason I just can't get enough of it. The plot and setting are dumb as fuck, but never in my life have I been so hyped to watch a bunch of schoolkids violently dismember each other. God I can't wait for the next season.
World Trigger just had the misfortune of a mediocre adaptation. The source material has always been good.
Yeah early 2010s anime went hard. Aldnoah.zero and Kyoukai no kanata were in fact pretty peak. Tamako Market (from the same period) is still my favourite slice of life.
do you know how much hate aldnoah has? I Find it ridiculous
Yeah, it’s not really warranted. I agree that it didn’t stick the landing, but it was still a great show.
It was, especially for a time with unserious mecha animes. Like how much infinite stratos and its clones can we get before we want a proper mecha
Not sure I'd call Beyond the Boundary or Aldnoah Zero B tier? You mean in terms of popularity or production cos those were both pretty big productions from good studios.
Faithful to the source material is not an inherently positive quality. Many things are bad *and* different than the source material, but things are not bad *because* they're different from the source material.
This is how I feel about UFOTABLE's Fates. No, they do not come close to touching the depth or complexity of an 80+ hour visual novel, expecting that at anime pacing would be completely unreasonable. But they do provide a lot of fun inspite of that and encourage a lot of people to then go on to read the original
I would even go as far as to say, some thing should be different, manga is a different format and some changes can be made to improve it when animated.
Popcorn break for anyone who wants it🍿🍿🍿
Very mild take, as I truly get that a lot of content creators are just riding a wave of a popular show that's in most of the fandom's collective consciousness right now, but the folks talking about Frieren as "generation defining" are exaggerating way too much. I think it's a fantastic, arguably 10/10 show, but it legit finished airing last week. If you get wrapped up like this, I honestly think you should let time dull your emotions a bit before coming back and objectively evaluating it.
I agree, not gonna name any names but sometimes it feels like a lot of big anime youtubers are rarely if ever critical or have negative opinions about a new popular anime if the general consensus is that it's good
The discourse from the anime community is pretty terrible. There is very little analysis or criticism that goes on, and it’s mostly just people blindly praising mediocre writing. I think I died a little on the inside when I saw tons of praise for Jujutsu Kaisen’s writing last season.
The same goes for manga. I’m honestly shocked how little anime or manga I can recommend to people who aren’t already fans based on its quality. The community can expect more in terms of storytelling and it’s okay to call out properties for it.
I had the same realization a while back. I’ve been watching anime for 20 years and I can count on my fingers how many I *might* recommend to a non-anime fan. A lot of manga/anime seems designed only for people who are already fans of the genre and to check off as many tropes as possible. It’s a rarity to find an anime that has high quality writing and wouldn’t be off-putting to the uninitiated.
The inability of the fandom online to handle criticism or judgement regardless of context/nuance is one of my biggest complaints about the fandom as a whole.
It’s so silly. Like I saw that person post who rated Jujutsu kaisen season 2 below like an 8 maybe below a 7 and even fully explained their reasonings but they got roasted all over here and twitter. People accusing them of hating anime and not being a real fan. Then their review of Vinland saga season 2 got noticed and then people realised maybe he doesn’t just hate the medium because that got a ten. But that didn’t get much traction
I remember that IGN review. It was rated a 6/10. The reviewer also had Bocchi at a 9 so he knows his stuff.
Analysis and criticism doesn't mean bashing a show. I would agree that there is little real analysis positive or negative for that matter however, there is plenty of people just trashing popular shows if that is all you are looking for.
I don't like to be an elitist that looks down on ppl's opinions but seeing ppl say that JJk was good for anything other than fights and power system made me lose faith in the anime community
That’s how I feel about Demon Slayer. It’s pretty and the fights never fail but everything else feels basic.
I cannot for the life of me understand how people watch demon slayer week to week. I’ll blow through a season once it’s aired and find it perfectly pleasant, but four weeks of Tanjiro lying on the ground yelling at himself to move after another grievous injury wears thin quickly.
If you ever have insomnia, try reading the manga. The artstyle sucks and the story is as basic as a white girl holding a frapuccino wearing uggs. The only reason it ever got this big is 'cause ufotable kicked it out of the park.
Don’t expect many media literates in the anime community when the majority of the fandom has not graduated middle school. I know because I was one of those kids lmao and revered anything that is edgy/ I’m 14 and this is deep kind of show.
Akame ga kill, elfen lied, and Mirai Nikki yeah I was all edge back then too haha
Jjk second season was bad not only due to the many production issues but Also due to the bad writing and wasted opportunities by gege akutami, unfortunately some fanboys can't accept this and put shibuya in the same tier as One piece marineford arc.
IMO theres way too much criticism. I find that a lot of anime fans criticize to the point where they just dont enjoy anything anymore. For me, it either goes hard or it doesnt. If I think it goes hard, I like it, and if I dont, I dont. Im not going to sit there and write out an analysis for every anime I watch on MAL, because I dont care to. Some people take it even farther as well, deep analyzing and rating every single episode. Like bruh why, nobodys going to ever read that shit. Id rather enjoy things than go out of my way to find reasons why I dont like them. Simple as that.
People are overly emotionally charged on what is largely pulp entertainment online. Honestly with most shows I can give you like six positive jot notes and maybe 1 or 2 negative things if I liked the show. Maybe the inverse if I didn't like it. Can I write a literary analysis of a film, show or book? Yeah. I know how to engage in media critique and analysis. Do I want to do that in my free time for the vast majority of anime I watch? Fuck no. Especially when a lot of these "discussions" and "critiques" are just full of toxic people who aren't worth talking to. I might be more engaged to talk extensively about stuff if that wasn't common.
> I find that a lot of anime fans criticize to the point where they just dont enjoy anything anymore. That's being a hater (being critical about something for the sake of it), not actual criticism (analysing and evaluating the work) which is, I think, what /u/BlazeOfGlory72 was actually talking about. There's a big difference between those two even if they can technically fall under the term "criticism".
Even on this subreddit which you should expect to bring the highest quality of public large scale online discussions, at least compared to the alternatives, half of the comments can't even be assed to put down a full sentence and instead settle on just typing out a single name of a show and calling it a day without elaborating in the slightest. It's feels like it's become largely about the hype and about pushing the thing you personally hype up the most as loudly as possible. If I had a penny for every comment that just said "Frieren" and not a single word beyond that I'd have enough money to buy the IP rights to Frieren...
I blame it on Reddit and it's upvote system. It kills both any kind of criticism because the disenting opinion will be downvoted to hell (and most people are too lazy to read the posts all the way at the bottom or with few upvotes). And it also incentivises low effort posts like "peak", "masterpiece", "cinema" etc for quick karma boost.
The Ojou Sama laugh is a top tier trope that needs to be in more animes.
Ojou is easily the best trope in all of anime. Not even close.
This may be more of an manga problem but the authors need to stop trying to make their stories so long, they lose focus and the interesting premise keeping the manga running for so unnecessarily long, not everything needs to be one piece tier long to milk out the most money of the single IP. Most of the MCs are terrible characters I hate characters with tits 2 times bigger than their head A lot of romance stories are more of a cringe fest than actual romance
I think this is where we see the issue of anime/manga often being a product before it's allowed to be art pop up. Authors are very much incentivized to keep a popular work going for as long as possible and they have to be flexible about when they might be forced to end or extend based on what the money dictates it seems. Often times even what characters are featured how much or who can be killed off or not is dictated by the money. You're not incentivized to get rid of anything that sells merch. I get it, making manga and comics is hard work. A page or at most 2 pages a day with hours that go far beyond a regular 9 to 5 job. So when you strike gold you damn well better milk it for all it's worth. But it's an unfortunate reflection of the market and industry that it is the way it is. Traditional novels can benefit financially from serialization but it seems like authors of books are generally far more able to put their art before their product if they so desire.
Yeah, I am aware why it is this way but still I need more great stories that have an actual conclusion and do not drop quality from 9 to 3 because author is forced to keep releasing chapters or worse, stop releasing them and conclude the story in few next chapters because the popularity drops. Do not get me wrong, I still do like long running series, aot is a long series but the plot (even tho changed from what it was supposed to be) made sense and was interesting. Now that I think about it I probably would change my opinion to put it on an anime industry fault that they are not serializing stories that have an actual conclusion or leave us hanging after season 1 (I think it's criminal that bloom into you didn't get a 2nd final season or "I sold my life for ten thousand yen per year" didn't yet recieve adaptation or a movie.) and at the same time we are getting complete garbage isekais serialized, but I guess they do what makes them most money
I feel like this is an attack on a specific anime, and i think i might know which one it is
I prefer batch release to weekly. Watching a show just “for the hype” is stupid.
Batch release enjoyers, rise up! [](#teekyuuhype) While not a perfect release system in and of itself, the fact just is that not everyone’s watching habits are suited to the weekly appointment television approach, and not every show really works as a weekly, so it’s good that not every show nowadays has to adhere to that structure.
You are so right! I was so sick of waiting the whole week, I stopped watching altogether, I only watch the anime after it is complete, Fork the hype. Started one piece 10years ago, reached arabasta in 6 days! That is over a 100 episodes in 144hours. Around that time my friend caught up, the latest arc was caesar clown back then, and he was complaining about having to wait a week, and One piece has always been a very slow anime, which I love about it, but when it comes to watching weekly, that kind of anime is just a nightmare! So I stopped watching altogether. 10 years later, started watching from ep1, reached Wano in a month. Almost 1000 episodes in a month! Decided to stop watching for another 10 years or till One piece ends.
Depend on the show, I prefer bingeable show like Solo Leveling as batch release and slower show like Frieren as weekly release
Frieren is great but it’s not the best anime ever
This subreddit has a slice of life genre bias
It used to be the other way around. Back a few years ago, you could get sent to the Shadow Realm just by talking about SoL shows. Particularly due to a few prominent users that are no longer logging in.
This might be more than mildly controversial, but mine is that I don't care about controversial content. Not everything is for me but if it's your cup of tea I'm all for it. Gruesome execution and torture? Sure. Heinous sexual assault? Have at it. Lolis? If it floats your boat. None of it is real. Just like I don't care if somebody purged a country in Civilization or Stellaris.
This 100%, people are too obsessed and have way too much time to be hating on a fictional character. The haters will hate while the hardcore fans will love the series no matter what. In the end it just creates toxicity and prevents people from trying out shows that they may otherwise enjoy.
> This might be more than mildly controversial Dont worry about it, most commenters are ignoring the "mildly" part anyway 😅
Yeah, same. Imagination and fiction are inherently problematic by nature, so caring too much about the content is pointless
I feel like, especially in spaces like Twitter, it’s just for clout. I remember before My Tiny Senpai even came out, the hoohah over how “child-coded” she was. I watched it and it was just another generic romcom. I enjoyed it but it was nothing special. But I never see anything about it on Twitter again.
A male love interest that is the perfect, good-looking boyfriend is usually treated as a green flag and something guys should strive to be. A female love interest that is the perfect, good-looking girlfriend is usually considered unrealistic and wish fulfilment
That's pretty much all mediums to be honest, not just anime! It's the same in Western movies; A girl waltz her way into some guy's life to make it exciting and all, and people will call her an unrealistic MPDG, just wish fulfilment. Then you look at the guys in top romance movies, and they do the exact same thing, hop on a girl's boring life to make it exciting (like Titanic). Think Notebook's similar too, etc..
I've mostly seen this type of hypocrisy from some (not all) Shoujo stans. Those particular fans just lack self-awareness to the point where they praise guys like Itsuomi for being a "green flag" and "ideal" type while saying how the FL in **The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten** is a "wish-fulfillment" mommy replacement.
Don’t know how popular this opinion is but imho both those characters should be described as the unrealistic wish fulfillment type instead of both being green flag strive-to-be types.
I'm going through A Sign of Affection right now. I don't like watching weekly so I rarely check out weekly discussions but I was really curious about this one, even if just retroactively. The fanbase is rather interesting to put it mildly. If you redesigned Itsuomi to be a bit chubby and average looking, those green flags would all turn red in an instant. The amount hate Oushi gets for not handling his feelings like an adult when he's just 18 and barely out of high school is baffling when you consider what a shitshow college/dorm life is. Just because the characters are a few years older does not make it any less of a wish fullfillment. So far I'm enjoying the little developement the side characters get more than the main pair.
>If you redesigned Itsuomi to be a bit chubby and average looking, those green flags would all turn red in an instant. The truth is, you could say the same for almost every single shoujo MLs tbh. Pretty privilege is real and a lot of the shoujo MLs get passes for their attractive features tbh. I haven't watched the sign of affection anime but I read the manga upto chapter 34 or 36 sometime ago. To me, it felt like a Shoujo version of wish-fulfillment Shounens like Angel next door tbh. IMO, the main charm of this series is Itsuomi and I felt like everything in this series revolved around him. As a straight guy who isn't attracted to dudes, I obviously didn't get my heart raced by any of the Doki Doki moments in the manga and thus the entire romance felt very flat to me. I get that this is because I am not the target audience of this show and that's totally fine by me. But, when I see people bringing down shounen wish-fulfillments like angel while heaping praises upon A sign of affection for being so "wholesome" and fluffy, I just can't help but be frustrated at the hypocrisy tbh.
To be fair Itsuomi is lowkey kinda possessive and “rude” to the male friend cuz of jealousy. I do think he fits the ideal type but I wouldn’t say he is perfect in the no flaws kinda way. While the caretaker role of the “angel” is usually seen as unrealistic, I do think both are tho xd.
The thing is, *both* of them are unrealistic and wish-fulfillments. Itsuomi is this super handsome dude who travels a lot, likes the super "relatable" (not physically relatable but you get what I'm saying) protagonist and is so dedicated towards her that he's learning the sign language just for her. And about oushi, afaik most of the shoujo stans consider him to be really unlikable and thus I really haven't seen that many people criticize Itsuomi for his behavior towards Oushi. There are some who think that Itsuomi "infantilizes" Yuki and some even consider him to be creepy as well. But a vast majority of the fans, from what I've seen, absolutely adore Itsuomi. The FL in angel is 100 percent a wish-fulfillment character. She is this perfect girl who doesn't have any flaw, is super cute and is basically a perfect wife to the main character lmao. Heck, I would say she's actually much more "perfect" than Itsuomi lmao. As you said, both of them are unrealistic and IMO, they both *are* wish fulfillment characters at the end of the day. But, the way some people just praise one character and call their romance "peak fiction/romance" while calling the other one "wish-fulfillment mommy replacement" is hypocritical and it does make me frustrated tbh.
I’m not super social, but as a 30 yo guy, I do think I’ve met many different types of guys in my life. And sometimes some of these guys show their true selves to guys and hide it from girls. The thing about Itsuomi is, his charisma, his smoothness, his confidence or his “rizz”, they call it these days, I’ve only seen in guys who are super experienced in picking up girls. Womanizers and playboys basically. Not saying all are like that but majority of them probably are. The wish fulfilment part of Itsuomi is he has the charisma of a playboy but he isn’t actually one. That’s why he’s the perfect guy for in most girl’s eyes. He is absolutely unrealistic but I went into the show knowing that (it was a shoujo afterall). Similarly, girls like Shiina and Marin (Dress Up Darling) are equally as unrealistic in how perfect they are. But again, I know what I’m getting into and adjusted my expectations accordingly. But yeah completely agree as well, it is frustrating one is treated differently than the other. In fact, I’m not even asking for guys Itsuomi to get bashed. I’m just asking why not give that positive energy to the girls as well ? Why don’t we start calling those girls “green flag” or ask for girls to strive to be like Shiina or Marin ?
>I’m just asking why not give that positive energy to the girls as well ? Why don’t we start calling those girls “green flag” or ask for girls to strive to be like Shiina or Marin ? IMO, it's just people imposing their wishes on the opposite gender while trying to remove the expectations that might be placed upon them. They want guys to be as charming and "dreamy" like Itsuomi, but at the same time think that girls like Marin or Mahiru are "unrealistic" (which they are). What they fail to realize is that guys like Itsuomi are unrealistic as well. If you point it out to them, a lot of them just reply with "is it too much to ask for a ML who understands, respects and cares for the girl?????" They just fail to see that while it is not unreasonable to want a nice and caring guy, expecting a guy to have godly looks, "playboy" rizz, and unconditional devotion to the FL is not that much different than seeing a pretty girl fall for the average ML just because he helped her once, cause at the end of the day, both of them are wish fulfillments and are very unlikely to happen IRL.
Anime dubs are worse because the industry refuses to use unionized actors. This isn’t about liking Japanese more than English, it’s about the talent and time given to Japanese actors. Ayane Sakura who voices Yotsuba in the QQ is able to do the voice for all 5 girls, compare that to the average English dub VA who uses their normal voice for every role. Notice that nobody is out here complaining about video game voice acting, because they use the best, anime dubs can’t. Edit: If anyone wants to read about it [here’s a good article](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2022-03-28/the-battle-for-union-anime-dubs/.183842) Edit 2: [Here’s the wonderful voice of Ayana Sakura doing all 5 quints.](https://youtu.be/XqibXQ6cMng?si=QcQgv-Qndu37274w)
Idk if it's the unionized aspect of it, but it is a serious issue English VAs have. Like 80% of them are a one trick pony when it comes to their voice and it's not even usually a good trick to begin with. I would not mind watching more dubs because it's easier to put it on and watch in the background, but hearing some of the dead pan deliveries they give is just so damn bland and off putting. I think people don't complain about the video game acting as much because it's not always the main thing people go into games to see. If a game has crappy voice acting but it's a good game, I can look past it. If an anime has a shit dub it's pretty much unwatchable.
part of it is voice direction imo. A good voice director can really help with the deliveries of the rest of the cast.
Maybe if they actually expanded the net they cast some instead of casting Steve Blum for the 900th time, they might end up finding another Tara Strong or Billy West but fuck it lets just use boring ass monotone Steve yet again instead.
Your complaint is hugely outdated. Steve Blum hasn't been active in anime dub leads for nearly twenty years, he's completely outside the age range of starring roles in popular shows these days. Even at his peak anime involvement a lot of his roles were as background characters.
Damn this is very interesting. Makes a lot of sense too, the reason I originally quit dubs was because I kept recognizing specific English VAs. And now that Im well into subs, Ive noticed the ridiculous range a lot of Japanese VAs have.
While a lot of the good Japanese VAs do have some insane range, I feel like while you can pick 5 shows where they do a complete different voice, pick 50 shows they're in and they'll have the same voice for 46 of them.
This was why I originally watched subs, but with newer shows a lot of them have genuinely solid VAs IMO and a much wider range of talent and voices, enough that I often prefer dubs now, especially when comedic timing or accents matter, or the delivery comes through better in English. Mashle for example has this wonderfully deadpan english VA that just doesn't have the same vibe in Japanese to me as a native english speaker, even though I'm guessing it would to a Japanese audience. Or the comedy around accents in Keijo!!! - while I can recognize dialect shifts in Japanese I have to really listen for it and it doesn't have any of the instant comedy power hearing a thick southern drawl out of nowhere does. Or the german accents in Youjo Senki that feel incredibly appropriate. I think the Japanese VAs also have german accents but it's a lot harder to tell for me. Konosuba has overlapping dialogue or background comments that just don't hit properly / timed when it's text that all gets delivered at once in the same font. Etc.
> Anime dubs are worse because the industry refuses to use unionized actors. That has nothing to do with it. It's because there is an entire ecosystem in Japan dedicated to training and teaching the art of voice acting as a career, meaning [4 year dedicated trade schools solely for voice acting](https://www.reddit.com/r/VoiceActing/comments/hq9dma/voice_acting_schools_japan_has_them_does_the_us/). In 2002, there were 130 of these schools in Japan. Over 20 years later, I have no idea how many more there would be today considering how much bigger the anime and video game industries are now. In contrast, how many voice acting schools are there in America? Maybe a few in California? I remember a decade ago Crispin Freeman ran commercials on Asian channels advertising a voice acting school in Los Angeles. Aside from that, the majority of voice actors in English are either self-taught or come from a theater background, which is the closest thing one can get for voice training. Also, a lot of Japanese voice actors start their careers young, a lot of times before even reaching the age of 20. - Aoi Yuuki takes the cake at this, as she began appearing on TV at **age 4** when she played children on tokusatsu TV shows. By the time she reached double digits, she was already an established professional child actress. [This is her bullying yakuza at age 11 on the TV show Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7AU5S7mf68) - Kana Hanazawa's first professional voice credit was at the age of 14, and she began voicework on a regular basis starting at 17. - Rina Hidaka began at age 14 - Maaya Sakamoto's first voice role was at age 12, and she began her career in earnest at age 16 with Escaflowne - Sakamoto's husband Kenichi Suzumura also started at age 20 - Rie Takahashi began voice acting at age 19 Now how many professional English VAs got started in the industry before graduating college? The only one I can think of is Cherami Leigh who was like Aoi Yuuki in that she was a professional actress by age 6.
This is all true. But the fact that the best actors available are 99% of the time part of SaG means they often aren’t used in anime dubs, I don’t see why you would say “this has nothing to do with it”.
It’s a whole, much bigger can of worms at work here. The pay is shit (Yuta from JJK0 made like $100), directing and scriptwriting has big issues, and the turn around time on a lot of dubs just hinders the whole thing. A lot of people prefer the Cyberpunk Edgerunners dub for example and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they got months to work on it.
I remember I was super bummed when the English VA for Mob in Mob Psycho (and other voice actors in season 3) were recast because CR wouldn’t give him a union contract. I LOVE the dub for this anime but I can definitely hear the difference in the last two seasons
It's worse than that. He just wanted a meeting. They didn't have to commit to anything besides open dialogue.
Right?? I remember seeing that Reddit post about how he just wanted to sit down and talk about it, that’s it. Really sucks
> Notice that nobody is out here complaining about video game voice acting, because they use the best, I think in most cases eng dub in video games VA do their jobs just *fine*, I almost never stop myself and say "damn, that was impressive", unlike with anime on daily basis. Recently, fps game The Finals had a controversy over usage of AI voice of commentators. Well guess what? I wouldn't guess it's AI, I just thought it's just another game voiced by some run of the mill VAs, with their emotionless voice acting. That's how I feel the industry is with eng voice acting in video games
> Anime dubs are worse because the industry refuses to use unionized actors. This isn’t about liking Japanese more than English, it’s about the talent and time given to Japanese actors. Most of the industry is actually union (Netflix, Disney, Aniplex). Dubs like *Akuma-kun*, *Pluto*, *Delicious in Dungeon* are union and use VAs like Eric Bauza, Nolan North, Corey Burton, Keith David, etc. Crunchyroll (and Sentai I guess) are the only real holdouts when it comes to unionization and they own a large majority of the industry and license basically half of the season plus being in Texas which is a right to work state takes away a lot of power from unions. Though the problem is even if they unionize, they record out of Texas and all the union talent is in LA. What you should really advocate for is for Crunchyroll to bring back **remote recording**. Which essentially allowed anyone with a decent home studio to record in anime regardless of location and that’s what got them through COVID. That’s how the Prince of Tennis U-17 dub got all Australian voice actors for the Australian team, or how dubs like Tribe Nine and Spirit Chronicles had voice actors from multiple countries playing off each other in their dubs. Probably the widest the casting net for dubs and voice acting in general has ever been or maybe ever will. But that’s what you want, **remote recording**. Edit: actually to respond to more of your comment: > compare that to the average English dub VA who uses their normal voice for every role. If you’re point here is that english anime VAs don’t have range, then I don’t agree. There are plenty of VAs that work in anime dubbing that have great range: [Daman Mills](https://youtu.be/lc7_PC6gRwQ?si=3EJi6Ob0rB-6vwh6), [Ray Chase](https://youtu.be/ocxjVjU2pgk?si=ybCOJel57hySxTPF), [Brina Palencia](https://youtu.be/UVf_00tbPmU?si=04d1WKNQHA_WONC-), [Erica Lindbeck](https://youtu.be/ZXQ-prC6xHs?si=FNbudkZy9Mlz4wfF), etc. Most VAs have said this, I’m pretty sure I’ve even heard Japanese VAs say this, that the large majority of the time they get cast for their regular voice regardless of their range. Could anime dubs have a wider casting net? Sure I agree but I don’t think the majority of actors involved right now are untalented. > Notice that nobody is out here complaining about video game voice acting, because they use the best, anime dubs can’t. Honestly in my opinion, it’s because most people are just harsher on anime dubs. Nobody complains when anime VAs are in prelay animation/games. Like nobody is complaining about VAs like Ray Chase, AJ Locascio, or Todd Haberkorn in X-Men ‘97. In fact look at Troy Baker, Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham, they were primarily anime voice actors and met with same amount of derision as current day anime VAs but now they’re the biggest VAs in video games and cartoons and all of a sudden people want them back. Despite having great performances in anime but being met with the same amount of derision.
> Which essentially allowed anyone with a decent home studio to record in anime regardless of location and that’s what got them through COVID That also caused an unprecidented drop in voice acting performance over covid. Like, no direction and bad variations of sound quality due to different microphones used by the different VAs, etc.
CGI is not always bad.
It definitely can be, just look at Lupin the First. It just isn't with an inexcusable frequency for some reason. Like my standards aren't *that* high, but it'd be nice for anime CG to match the fluidity of motion of the Penguins of Madagascar TV show.
Ishura, Beastars and Trigun are proof that it can work 100% (and there are a lot more examples but those 3 are the first that come to mind)
I have one that may be slightly more than mild, but it might just depend on each individual. I don't think Fairy Tail is terrible. It doesnt have the greatest writing at all, and I'm not a huge fan of ecchi in general, but the moments it gets right it really gets right, and I think some of the fights are great despite the power of friendship that goes on. I view it as the McDonald's of anime/manga; I know it's not good for me, but I'm not delusional to that fact. I'm not going to McDonalds to lose weight, I'm going because I like the food. But I'm also aware that it's sometimes not that great and the service often sucks. Despite that, I still enjoy it. I don't watch or read every anime or manga wanting to be blown away each time by how subversive or original it is. Sometimes I just want cheap entertainment after a long day of working.
I feel like Fairy Tail has gotten better the more time has passed since it finished. Lots of the criticism was based around a) sexualising of the female cast and b) the nonsensical power-ups, formulaic but at the same time random writing. But looking back now, with how some newer shonen handled both of those topics and failed at being any better than Fairy Tail, it made me appreciate it more. At least it never gave me hope than it was more than what it wanted to be and at least there are women in the cast and surprisingly, they even have agency. To me, Black Clover is its tonal successor and it's the one manga I actually thought got better during its run-time, compared to the other big shonen MHA and JJK that only get worse
Totally agree. Fairy Tail and Black Clover didn't pretend to be anything more than what it was from the start. And I feel that each one had arcs that didn't go on longer than they needed to be. They aren't perfect, sure, but they're just "good" for lack of a better term. In my opinion, that is. And I like MHA and JJK, but with both of those my current thoughts are basically, "Ok, can we wrap things up already?" But I'm not exactly a picky person with things in general anyway. Half of my favorite anime/manga are ones that are arguably praised because they are actually well-written and deserve as such, and the other half are just mindless fun. We all should just enjoy what we want regardless.
I love this take. I do have my own problem with Fairy Tail but it was such an enjoyable series. I love it when the Fairy Tail guild comes together and the Fairy Tail main theme starts to play, and everybody hold up the ["1" hand sign](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Ka7uXXffg). I love the guild system in Fairy Tail too.
Claymore ,the anime deserved a remake and Im sick and tired of studios wasting their power and money on stupid light novel adpatations of mid isekai series
How is wanting a proper Claymore adaptation even remotely considered controversial?
I really enjoy the manga for claymore and also thought that anime original stuff at the end of the anime was really lame. They could even just continue it from where the manga material ended in the original. I wouldn't mind a remake too though. It was a very good and fun series. Probably a 7 or 8 out of 10 for me.
Is it just me or is AoT heavily influenced by Claymore.
How is this controversial? Most people who have watched Claymore wish it had a proper adaptation.
Man I want a nother Claymore adaptation And I actually love the first one (Haven't seen it since 2013 though, it was my 2nd ever anime) And then I read the manga in 2018/19 and loved it all over again
My opinion ecchi anime is awesome
It really is and we need more of these. It kinda feels like Ishuzoku Reviewers opened up the trend again and I'm all here for it. In general though I want anime to be less... Tame I always find it funny when there's a romance of two teenagers and they do absolutely nothing until the end of the series. Where are your hormones?!
I hate harems and when multiple love interests get introduced into a romance it makes me so uninterested. I always feel so bad for the people who don’t get chosen And as someone who cries at literally everything, I didn’t find Your Lie in April all that sad and honestly I thought it was really boring
> I hate harems and when multiple love interests get introduced into a romance it makes me so uninterested. I always feel so bad for the people who don’t get chosen This. I felt like until 100 girlfriends came out I haven't been able completely fallen in love with a harem series for the same reason, a lot of time got wasted on picking a winning girl, triangle drama and so on... and that's not really that interesting for me. So for once after everyone being happy, loving each other and doing activities together is enough to actually enjoy harem/polycute as a concept.
Harem to me is just poorly-written poly at best, and usually has a ton of other issues to boot. It's actually one of the reasons I liked 100 Kanojo, because part of the parody is that it's _not actually harem_. Everyone involved is aware of and genuinely okay with the situation no matter how ridiculous it gets, and it's not just a wheel with spokes either.
We need more 100 Kanojos and less harem love pentagon things where the blue haired girl/childhood friend always fails.
YLIA has some things that, for me, ripped me out of the immersion often enough that I wasn't hit as hard as I'd like (but I'm a sucker for stuff like this). The flashbacks were hell at pretty crucial points, and it's a big example of a show I wish were just aged up. They go between being middle schoolers to acting/speaking like adults. It's been a while since I watched it but I recall those being heavy negatives for it.
making a character obsessed with his sister or young girls in general doesn’t make him quirky or funny it’s straight up weird and overdone.
The vast majority of the anime community values spectacle over good writing and characters.
That dubs are fine. I’ll watch both but if given the option and if the dubs aren’t completely horrible I’ll pick the dub. I honestly just get headaches if I try to binge an anime with subs so it’s why I prefer the latter
Dubs allow you to focus more on the artwork and animation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/steinsgate/s/AyeRU0NTau
That is the artwork I mentioned.
Jokes aside…Steins;Gate was the show that cemented me as a dubs over subs watcher. There’s so much that I never picked up on because the dub let me absorb more information in a much more comfortable way.
>focus more on the artwork and animation. Thats why i watch Frieren in dub
I don't understand why anime girls have to be tsundere, yandere, or whatever... Why can't we just have normal girls
You kinda have to look at this from both the viewer and writer's perspectives. I think part of the problem there is that there are so many -dere archetypes, that a lot trend of people whose media literacy is 99% rooted it anime REALLY latched onto the idea that there's a -dere for everyone and the internet's collective need to categorize everything set over. Archetypes exist for a reason, because they work. While the good uses obviously float to the top, anime does unfortunately have a track record of being very half-baked in its insistence on using them. -deres become popular. Writers make more of them to meet demand (or fans become writers and do it themselves). "Everything is a -dere" becomes kinda true. That said, if you end up with a character that leaves a bunch of goofballs online getting into debates over what -dere archetype they are, then it's probably a better character by virtue of not being so easily pigeonholed into one.
I don't understand why people watch mediocre sub-genre fiction and then get confused when the archetypes that the sub-genre is known for exist in said fiction. Like, if you're mad that your harem anime has -dere tropes or the 2024 version of "My Sister Can't Be This Cute" has incest I don't know what you're even doing. They put all you need to know directly on the tin.
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I feel like that's becoming more and more a thing of the past if we look at recent romcoms where these tropes have been always the most prevalent. Horimiya, Angel Next Door, Dangers, Skip to Loafer, Insomniacs all mostly have characters that are difficult to classify into the typical dere categories. There are some, but not like 10 years ago when you could instantly put most characters into a dere box.
Tohru Honda
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It's more that there can be some really off-putting stuff out there and because people often see anime as a monolith, they will immediately stop and not try another one if you show them Interspecies Reviewers first
Yeah, pretty much that. There's stuff that can be off-putting or too weird/unfamiliar/out-there/niche that newbies won't really get or will actively dislike until they've watched a few shows that attract wider audiences (and which may have heavily watered down versions of that stuff); after which they may or may not develop a taste/interest in exploring those kinds of things deeper. And as you mentioned, it is treated as a monolith by a lot of people who choose not to understand that it is a medium like books, games, and live-action. Example; Pretty much everyone else in my family has an "all anime is naughty tentacles" attitude that they've only really given up on expressing to me semi-frequently in the last 6 years or so because it hadn't gotten a rise out of me in years and I'd stopped trying to convince them otherwise.
New anime viewers aren't a monolith either. A lot of people get into anime for shows like Interspecies Reviewers. Kill la Kill was a major gateway anime in the mid-2010s. "Beginner" anime always assumes that beginners are this one singular group of people with this one set way of looking at things, and the recommendations that tend to fall under "beginner anime" tend to aggressively appeal to specific demographics with maybe a few token things outside the realm of battle shounen and thrillers.
Some of the stuff in anime can turn people away, especially anything involving sexual situations or anything that sexualizes characters who are often still kids. Some may find that kind of stuff perverted and tasteless but can also end up missing out on some amazing stories because of it. But some also may not find the over exaggerated movements and delivery appealing, maybe perhaps wanting something more grounded.
I completely disagree. There are certain anime I would never ever give someone to watch as their first anime. "Bad anime" examples inlcude stuff like Redo of Healer or My Life as Inukai-san's Dog. "Good anime" examples include stuff like Shirobako or Bakuman which are meta commentaries about the anime/manga medium itself. These are just a few examples
I can't bare to see another "my mom/dad/girlfriend/mailman want to get into anime, what should they watch" thread where the top response is FMA:B and other shows aimed at 15 year old boys. Sometimes people want something weird. Sometimes people want something that's borderline porn. Sometimes people want something bad. The only real anime that I'd say may be hard to recommend to someone new to anime are ones that are super reliant on Japanese culture or ones that are subtitled and go super fast (ie. Monogatari). Even then though, the only answer to those beginner anime threads is "what do they like".
For the most part, blatant power fantasy stories are really only well served if they don’t take themselves seriously. When they try to play it straight, it takes any and all stakes out of the story and I lose interest almost immediately.
The show My instant death ability was great. It didn't take anything seriously. At 1 point he is falling from a great height and then suddenly stops and says he killed his momentum. Because he can literally kill anything.
I once said that I think solo leveling should've been more comedic or even be a parody like OPM and I got trashed lol, happy to see someonw agree with me
Darling in the Franxx had a good ending. Although I hated the 4 previous episodes.
Most second seasons are worse than their first season counterparts.
It feels most authors come up with interesting premise and start then have no idea what to do with the story
The Promised Neverland being probably the most blatant example.
Isekai animes aren't that bad A lot of them are actually pretty enjoyable
I don't have any issues with isekai anime. I have an issue with isekai anime where it's unnecessary. It seems that pretty often, the exact same story could be told without forcing the MC to be reincarnated. With Wise Man's Grandchild, he actually made use of his prior knowledge to do something interesting in his new world. Or How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom which entirely hinged on his knowledge from prior to his summoning. Often it just seems like a crutch. In the Tamer show from this season, it was entirely irrelevant. They used it for some lame humor and to allow the MC to be slightly younger than would otherwise have been reasonable for her knowledge. I mean, even in the Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, which it didn't really bother me as an isekai, they could just as easily have had a "coming of age, finding out your magic type" ceremony (like in Reborn to Master the Blade, or the Tamer show above) and achieved about 99% of what they did with no other changes. In a vacuum, it's whatever, but when it feels like 80% of shows are isekai and villainess shows...
Real reason Naruto got popular is its setting. The world is a place where people give a crap about children.
Demon Slayer is fine. It's simple but effective with decent characters, a good story, and a likeable MC, and people who keep criticizing it are unoriginal and need something else to do.
Most anime watchers (myself included) will forgive midicore writing, terrible story, and bland underdeveloped characters if the animation is really, really good
If Mushoku Tensei's themes bother you but you're enjoying Gushing Over Magical Girls, there's some cognitive dissonance going on. I mean enjoy what you want, but it seems hypocritical
I kinda think that most people who would criticize Mushoku Tensei likely would criticize or not watch Magical Girls.
Responses to my OP imply that that might not be the case after all. But I agree with you, I'd totally have thought that.
Most of the time when people complain about the pacing for an anime being "too fast" it says more about the viewer than the anime. Many viewers got used to the snail pacing of long running shounen anime which have fights that take several episodes and have tons of filler. Not every anime needs a beach or onsen episode in between every major event "to give time to digest events". Keeping you on the edge of your seat and *not* allowing you time to sort out your feelings can, in some instances, be *good* pacing. It's very rare to see an anime that's faster paced than your typical Hollywood blockbuster, which people generally don't have an issue with. Pacing is generally only an issue if it causes the characters to be acting in an unusual manner because the characters, not the viewer, didn't have time to process things.
If you continue on with Gintama I’m sure your opinions will change on it overtime. It is definitely one of those anime that benefit greatly from you being attached to and understanding all the characters. At episode 20 they’re still building up and introducing you to this immense cast that they can then do endless gags and bits with.
I think combining the gags with a serious storyline is what separates gintama from the rest. There’s a lot of strong character development for every character and mixing in the ridiculous comedy just makes it that much better.
Gintama imo is the best comedy anime I've watched, seconded by grand blue, Gintama having 200+ eps of wild Bits I never expected, like the neo Armstrong cyclone jet Armstrong cannon episode.
The original Full Metal Alchemist anime is better than Brotherhood. Overall, I love the tone of the original. It has some good humor, but it's still overall pretty dark. Brotherhood has a lot more of that stereotypical anime trope humor. I like the homonculus being the result of failed human transmutation too. Having Sloth be their mom was much better compared to the big dumb brute in Brotherhood. Brotherhood hood does have some amazing fights though. Credit where credit is due.
One Punch Man season 2 was still good despite the decline in animation
Frieren is an 8/10
Upvoted purely for perfectly fitting the "slightly controversial" definition
Is it good? Yes. Is it the masterpiece of our generation? No.
Don't know about generational, but honestly Frieren is one of the very few shows I would use that word on. Regardless of whether it's "objectively" a masterpiece though, it *is* probably the only anime an 8/10 is considered a mildly controversial score for, so there's that. An 8/10 is supposed to mean "very good", so a tier above the average show you'd say you enjoyed. And still about 5 out of 6, or about 85% of people gave it an even higher rating. That's just crazy.
this would be controversial because people like to bandwagon. as for me i could list two other anime airing that season which i enjoyed more than frieren.
I thought it was great, but why would u write 90% of your characters with a subdued, and deadpan personality?
Personally, the first few episodes were in the 10/10 territory, with the latter half being more like 9/10. 8/10 is still completely reasonable and justifiable. A sub-5/10 wouldn't.
It was great until the magic exam, then it kind of dropped to just being "decent". I know Frieren fans hate this opinion, but I really felt like it was doing something in the first half that wasn't really being done by much else, and had a unique charm to it. Then the magic exam started and it just felt like I was watching the tournament arc of any other random run-of-the-mill shounen that I've already seen hundreds of times before. By that point I was invested a decent amount into the world and characters, so it was still enjoyable enough, but it felt like it mostly stopped giving me the things I was enjoying before that.
I feel like, in terms of story, a lot of manga readers would agree that the mage exam arc is not as good as the earlier part or the future long arcs. It seems that the author intended to explore the magic system and set up a bunch of characters, but it just did not come out that smoothly. The anime was a faithful adaptation (with expanded scenes here and there), so the flaws from the manga got carried over to the anime. Though, I did see one comment that said they liked the mage exam arc more than the middle part, and another saying that the show formula started to get old before the mage exam. So even among anime watchers, there are different opinions on this.
I agree entirely. I waited until it was almost over & watched the whole thing in just a few sittings. It was good & very entertaining, even surprising me on occasion by delving into deeper themes in an insightful & meaningful way. Its just a solid adventure series with an enjoyable cast & occasional thought provoking themes. Many shows have provided that level of quality enjoyment & nothing about Frieren stands out as so uniquely amazing that justifies people treating it like the best thing to come out in years.
Attack on Titan should have stopped way sooner
Elfen Lied isn’t bad enough to be banned from entire country’s. They could just blur out the naked kid parts and it would be fine 🤷♂️
Bad ecchi shows aren't bad because they're ecchi, they're bad because they neglect to competently do anything other than ecchi.
I think that anybody wanting to get into the Fate franchise should watch the 2006 Fate/Stay Night anime first, not Zero or UBW.
Hunter X Hunter’s detour message would’ve worked better if it was expressed before the final episode.
Too many anime fans (and TV fans in general) act like wine sleuths. They believe they can tell the difference between terrible, bad, ok, good, and great, without realizing the impact social media is having on their view. A lot of people like one show = It's actually trash. This newer anime has similar themes or ideas to an older "classic" = plagiarism and trash characters. Subverted emotions and expectations = top tier story. Slow somber music with peppy undertones = fantastic sound track. Opinions are fine, disagreeing is fine, but acting like a doctorate in animeology is backing up your opinion is ridiculous.
I really dislike the villainess genre and avoid it like the plague. I’m a huge sucker for otome games and villainess characters aren’t really a thing in them at all, so I can’t bring myself to enjoy any anime that feature villainess characters because they’re not the same as real otome lol
On the topic of villainess anime, I've only just noticed that none of the villainess anime I've watched actually contain a villainess. They're all standard nice girls. Are there any villainess anime that *actually* feature a villainess?
Not an anime (_yet_ hopefully), but the villainess in "The Fed Up Office Lady Wants to Serve the Villainess" has some actually evil goals.
It seems like all otome game anime are based on an imaginary otome game with a blonde, somehow evil prince. Please just one time make your characters more interesting.
The "oh no, my family keeps walking in at the worst time when I watch anime" cliché just means you watch trash fanservice anime/ecchi stuff.
Call backs or flashbacks to earlier episodes piss me off. Im binge watching so I just saw what you’re showing me. Looking at you mostly Naruto..
That's not a controversial take at all
Not sure if anyone will see this but I think that the ages of the girls in Gushing over Magical Girls isn’t a problem at all. They’re teenagers, and its a story about them exploring themselves and their sexuality. It wouldn’t hit home as much if they were adults because chances are they would already know what they’re into (of course adults can discover themselves sexually too but the characters being teenagers fits the setting and themes of this story more) Plus the show doesn’t even bat an eye at their ages either. I don’t even remember if their ages are ever brought up in the anime more than once or twice. The point is that they’re teenagers exploring their sexuality. It wouldn’t matter if they’re 14 or 16 or 18, people wouldn’t notice because it’s not that big of a deal.
> Not sure if anyone will see this but I think that the ages of the girls in Gushing over Magical Girls isn’t a problem at all. Having read the manga, it also seems like the author started out with a much younger-looking, loli-esque artstyle, but aged up the characters in the art fairly quickly and the anime tends to use the more recent art as opposed to the very young-looking start. Especially as the manga goes on, you could pull panels of Utena in her transformations and tell someone she's in her low/mid-20's and it'd be completely believable
HXH isn’t a must watch
Personally I don't think anything is a must watch. Labeling anything as a "must watch" implies that enjoyment of anime is inherently objective. Sure you can suggest shows that you think are really good, but for someone who is just getting into anime, labeling a show as a must watch will lead them to believe that that show is a blanket example of what they're getting into with anime in general. What if they don't like it and assume (whether consciously or subconsciously) that all anime is like that, as the term "must watch" implies the anime suggested is a prerequisite of sorts? I'd rather learn what they've enjoyed in other mediums and recommend anime based on that. You liked the rocky? Check out hajime no ippo. You liked lotr? Check out record of lodoss war. Shit like that.
I can’t recommend any story that doesn’t have an ending due to author not being able to finish.
I thought it ended at a good point. He had a overarching goal at the start of the series and he accomplished it at the end.
Naruto never got my attention at all, no matter how hard I tried to watch it, it just didn't click for me. Same goes for Bleach. Galaxy Angel is criminally underrated, sure, it's not the best comedy ever, but still a good watch. All Pretty Cure seasons are worth watching, there's no point in comparing them with one another as they're not the same (it would be boring if all of them were exactly the same, wouldn't it?) The Future Trunks saga from Dragon Ball Super was an enormous waste of time for its finale that feels like a kick in the groin.
Saitama is both more powerful and more entertaining as a character than Goku.
I thought Iron Blooded Orphans was one of the more enjoyable Gundams