What I love about anime.

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Vishnu

New member
So in the spirit of positivity, I thought I'd follow up my previous thread with something highlighting all the many many reasons that I will adore an anime show or movie and there are a bunch and I invite anyone else to join the love-in.

I think the first thing that I love is the fact that because it comes from a different cultural background, anime is very often based on a different set of stories than western stuff. Japaneese culture has different folk tales and myths which define the culture and these are evident in anime in the same way that the story of Arthur and his knights can be evidenced in Justice League. It brings a freshness of perspective to a story that feels new to me, coming from a different culture, even if the idea may be very old.

I love that anime isn't the least bit restricted to telling a certain kind of story. There's stuff aimed at kinRAB, young adults or just general audiences and because there's nothing against displaying blood, violence and sexuality, it opens up a whole medium for more mature storys that have heavy fantasy elements. Fantasy and Sci-Fi stuff really begs for animation because you don't need to go to the lengths to explain everything as you sort of have to in live action. A good example would be Star Trek. Love it to death, but if they didn't have to actually make thier technollogy realised in a live action setting, imagine how much of the tedious expository techno babble could simply be substituted with gizmos and gadgets that can be visibly explained instead of verbally. Actually, I've never thought about it but Star Trek would make an absolutely killer sci-fi anime.

The same goes for fantasy too, anime isn't the least bit restricted in allowing the characters to have any kind of magical powers, so the need to suspend your disbelief in watching it isn't even an issue. It can be increadibly jarring when watching a live action show and the characters suddenly need to hurl a fireball that just looks SOOOooooo fake and incongruous with the suroundings, but anime doesn't have that problem and there's no culture stigma that says animation has to either be comedic or be for children.

This is sort of my primary complaint when they make Live Action adaptations for popular anime, I just think... But... Why, it works so PERFECTLY as animation.

Finally, oh, let's go with giant robots. Yeah, they're usually impractical and I find myself thinking 'Why design a space-fighter that looks like a person, how is that in any way practical?!' but then flashy stuff starts exploding with the laser guns and the energy sworRAB and I'm like, 'You know what, I forgive all. This is like Jedis fighting IN GIANT MECHAS! This is awesome, brain, just, go take five for a minute until this fight's over'.

So, anyone who wants to add to this, be my guest!
 
Money. I don't like it either but that's the reason.

The main reason I like anime is that romance in any form can be properly explored and developed within it. It's something that I'd like to see in more animated mediums. Now truthfully, I know that there seems to be a habit of not settling these relationships by the end of their series' but I think even still, the romance being there and not icky or anything is something I always like.

Oh, and Giant Robots.
 
Now if only it were possible to somehow reconcile those two concepts... *thinks*... No... No, it's probably best not to actually... Actually, it's probably been unsuccessfully attempted before... Yeah...

On a seriousness note, a lot of live action shows that have to unexpectedly cancel have exactly the same problem of leaving romantic relationships unresolved so, that's probably trancendant of all media that's produced for T.V.
 
I guess what I like about it is there's a lot more people in Japan who realize animation can be a capable medium for storytelling. That seems to be a rarity outside of Japan. Even toy-selling shows like Bakugan have an actual storyline in them and character development, which I find nice. The variety also doesn't hurt it either, even if I'm not into the more popular genres at the moment (like giant robots or 'moe').
 
Thing is, from a story telling perspective, super powered humans typically lack the scale for truely epic "world in the balance sort of battle". I mean, look at Mobile Suit Gundam and tell me the show would've been better off with tanks or fighter jets or powered armor.

Plus, it allows for some genuine stylization to the battle scenes. I mean, does anyone have any idea how boring modern corabat is? Not that it's supposed to be fun, but it's hard to get any drama out of fighter jets blowing up targets well out of visual range.
 
Oh absolutely. That's why I love it, because it's awesome. I mean, for my own personal prefrence, I like my giant robots more along the lines of the Gundam or the Patlabour where the giant robot is used more as a device for quickly establishing something in the not too distant future to tell a war story, rather than say, the Gurren Lagan, Evangelion style where the giant mecha are magical, unique and generally fight mosters of the week, but there's no denying the epicness of the giant robots. It's one of very few things that CAN actually be used to make my rational brain shut off and go for a smoke while the child in me gibbers at the awesomeness happening on screen.
 
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