Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
I'm not saying that animation is only for kids but personally I'm the sort of person who's never found anime interesting. I had an ex girlfriend who was really into it who would try & make me watch it and I just found them to be unengaging, cheaply made and boring. To be honest I had more enjoyment watching a Pixar movie with my nephew.
As for comic books / graphic novels, well I thought they were stupid even when I was a kid, especially Marvel comics. I've just never seen the appeal of superheroes. There's always been a part of me that thinks it's all rather pathetic when I've seen fully grown men going all gooey over a Spiderman comic.
I've seen a other graphic novels and to be honest I find the whole comic book medium a bit boring and no matter how adult the story. It still feels like a book that's been dumbed down for people who can't handle a proper novel.
Feel free to tear me apart.
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No need to tear you apart - you're perfectly correct. As much as I said, say, Hellsing and Black Lagoon were great (And they are), they're not highbrow. Black Lagoon is occasionaly thought provoking, but its creator is clearly a great fan of 80's action flicks, and as such the show is at times a love letter to Girls Guns and Swearing.
Hellsing on the other hand is very much a case of forcing the viewer into a position where the content of the plot and the characters reactions and interactions obtain some level of gravitas - There's no deep, underlying sub plot o anything like that, but it is a very effectively made show in terms of, like I say, positioning the viewer where they need to be in the setting.
The thing is, most anime fans are teenagers, and typically, nerdy ones.
I would consider myself quite capable, for example, of explaining to you exactly why Freakazoid is a fantastic cartoon, cancelled before its time because its content skewed demographics - As I mentioned, its humour often relies on reference to things that children simply know nothing about.
Fillmore has the same problem - Its entire concept is basically "Lets put a 70's buddy cop show into a high school setting and sell it to kids" - The result is actually very good fun and immensely enjoyable - But, again, all of the ENDURING value of the show is lost on anyone who isn't culturally aware of what a buddy cop show is and does.
Explaining these things to you is in no way difficult to me, but the shows I'm talking about were aimed at people ten years younger than I am. Can they explain these things to you in the relevant detail? Absolutely not.
So when anime is "advised" to people, its a veritable minefield of completely bull**** advice, written by people who don't understand how to correctly analyse a thing that may genuinely have some fantastic qualities. Most people, having gotten into it as if it were a "cool" and "Different" thing due to its associations with japanese culture, end up overwhelmed by everything and lose perspective, end up just recommending what they like - Which might not be what you're looking for.
Ultimately, I do believe there is animation out there, both in the form of japanese anime, and NOT in that form, which is sufficiently well done and well figured out to be appealing, as much to you as to me.
I just don't believe that stuff is what typically floats the boat of anyone so immature as to recommend "Anime" rather than "How about THIS, particular anime, which I have looked at and believe you would enjoy".
A lot of it also, is knowing how to enjoy the thing. Children don't understand the pleasure of owning and listening to a vinyl record - many of them never will know that pleasure. But some of them will LEARN that pleasure and its all a matter of being told what to listen for in a lot of cases.
Same with anime/animation. I enjoy a ton of anime pretty much on the basis that it ISN'T clever. Some I enjoy from a perspective where they're fun BECAUSE they're incredibly stupid. Others still, I enjoy because they're stupid, but put across some, if not particularly sutble, good messages about their characters and their positive and negative traits.
When someone says they don't like animation, to me I see that person like most of you would see someone who said "I don't like music" - Its clear, obvious even, that SOME music must exist that they enjoy. There's just too much of it out there for someone to hate all of it! They just haven't ever thought about it or looked for it or been shown it directly.
The parallel goes even further - What if that person who says "I don't like music" is introduced to music by a poor teacher, or by someone who is unrepentantly nasty about how much they should like it? Well, that's going to reinforce their view rather than change it. It does damage to any effort that may occur to bring that person into the beauty of what music is and does.
Unfortunately, most anime fans are simply poor teachers, and because they love it so much, they get bitchy and defensive when someone doesn't immediately love it - Which puts people off even more. Which is a shame.
The one thing I *will* say is to remember that animation of all kinds is more than just "anime", despite the threadstarter's obvious inclinations.
I mean, this is animation, no more or less than Anime is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8sLcvWG1M4
So are Tim Burton films, which, like or hate him, are enduring classics, or if the film itself isn't, certainly his style is recognised and influential.
Alternatively, perhaps look at some of the stuff that's a little more genre-blurring. The Big O, for example, which, sadly, was cancelled before its 3rd series (Meaning its ending creates more questions than it could ever answer), but nevertheless shows a very good awareness of stuff like character dynamics, and a keen line of what there is to tell, and not tell, a viewer - its very good with suspense, and its writing/voice acting is rather excellent.