The degeneration of anime, amvs, media...

[OmniStrata]

Some people I've spoken to, Zarxrax and my wife most recently, are telling me that ALL the new anime coming out is sucking hard... Now before I make like an idiot and type *discuss*, here's what I've been thinking...

I'll honestly say, 'original' anime never was, has, or ever will exist, much like other forms of television, media and movies. NOTHING IS ORIGINAL ANYMORE PEOPLE! IT'S CALLED GENRE!

Cliche's run rampant in today's anime and there doesn't seem to be anything to say or do to stop it. At this rate, it seems *to me* that only hentai can now pull off something worth watching these days *heh heh*

My wife claims that today's anime character design has become more childish and too 'simple' for her tastes. *she likes Ronin Warriors, Sailor Moon, Naruto, mind you... dur* She makes this claim 'against' Haruhi - which in my opinion was 'yesterday's' anime...

I personally believe anime is NOT devolving but rather EVOLVing into something that can't be considered 'a way to make more profit'. If that were so, anime with a nice budget to burn like Black Lagoon, Claymore, and Clannad would never be a consideration

*note, high budget anime rarely has re-caps, recycled footages, flashbacks, still frames galore, etc. you'll know what they are*

I'm seeing more new anime come up that don't NEED 100+ eps to succeed. *thank God*. Death note is one of the longer series I can stomach cause it makes the heart pump figuring out this EPIC game of chess the characters are using against each other.

Claymore, definitely not a kid's show with character depth that's quite tough to swim through. *Clare is such a gigantic mystery to unravel that she can and does make up the series*

Over Drive - ok, it's a Biker's anime but we've had Racing, Swimming, Basketball, FUCK EVEN TENNIS!!! Why not go biker? *I can't remember any other anime with that as the driving mechanism, so to speak...

Lucky Star - ok wth is this? It's not School Rumble or Azumanga, but it's NOT Gokusen or GTO either. Original? It's based on high school life. Of course not, but you can't help but wonder WTH IS THIS?!

Touka Gettan - if you were to look up the definition of EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL 'modern' anime character designs THIS SHOW is the first in the dictionary. The fact that there's virtual incest going on with lots of molestation doesn't hurt it even in the slightest. Being a spin-off of popular hentai *Moonlight Lady* can only HELP it's reputation. Playing the show backwards gives it a Haruhi feeling which makes me want to watch the show AGAIN backwards to figure out what the fuck is going on. *that and the characters are all hot as magma*

Older anime was based loosely off of known myths and legandary fantasies. Tenchi and Journey to the West being strong candidates for this, but today's anime uses more original ideas to drive their mechanics.

High school life like a soap opera / sitcom? Only Boys be WAYY BACK WHEN pulled it off *and quite perfectly too I must say*

Princess Resurrection - Vamp Babes, with chainsaws. Ok, show me something even REMOTELY similar... :\

I believe that anime is getting better as time rolls on and I'm finding less and less time to do something productive and instead watch many MANY episodes of anime that gets released slow as fark backlogged digisubs who WON'T FEED MY FIX for good entertainment fast enough...

*huff puff*

thanks for listening and I really want to know if you're going to continue watching anime and editing amvs due to this? or even DESPITE this...



I'm obviously gonna continue watching but editing amvs is getting tougher and more annoying for me to do... :\

[OmniStrata]

I forgot to mention in a quick response about amvs, MADS, etc.

Seems that with lots of higher end people retiring from amvs [I'll miss them], this seems to be the year to 'quit' making amvs lol...

From the newer amvs coming out, less and less of them are starting to catch my eye and the new people coming in, sadly in my opinion, are not able to fill the 'holes' that are being left behind.

99% of amvs, Mads, etc. are turning out to be crap, is it worth it hunting those 1% diamonds in the rough?

[I say yes, when I can't find good amvs, I wait till VCAs, they usually turn out the good stuff at least ^_^. I used to trust the top 10% but after some manipulative gags occuring there, I've decided to stop, unfortunately]

[post-it]

MADs have always made me curious;
1) curious how they can make such a clean encode with such a small file container.
2) curious on how they can make what I encode see very out-of-focus >_< I hate that!.

Anime's also made me curious:
Sugar ( the tiny fairy )
I' my me' Strawberry Egg's
Angelic Layer
Suzumiya Haruhi
Maids of Hanaukyo
... what made the curiousity was, "what's next!" ( yeah, the silliness of these situation. )
for a reference, " VanDread " ... a guy awakens himself out of a 40 year sleep and finds himself defending Girls who want Nothing to do with him ( except Dita ) with the Captain of the ship being his older sister ! ? ! ? .... ? -- I mean, come-on, That Ain't Right! hehe

yeah, anime has changed.

AMV's MAD's TV Series -- its no longer "what can I make you believe is possible" but now its "whose life sucks more ...." ... I know things will improve.

at least I hope things will get better

[Lyrs]

I think your wife needs some romancing, by which I mean Romeo X Juliet. We all know anime watchers don't get laid. Anyway, there are cliches and whatever, but if she digs a little closer, she'll find some gems. Also, seeing as she's probably read the book before, the comparing and contrasting in itself is an enjoyable task.

Anyway, I mentioned RxJ since no one has yet.

[BasharOfTheAges]

**insert statistics about how much anime reaches us now vs 10 years ago because of the digisub movment and how there's always been tons of crap in the mix but anime companies have only reciently seen how much money they can make and are now liscensing said crap en masse here**

[ZephyrStar]

I can sorta agree...I tend to like shows that generally people don't like, but I am getting really tired of the cliches.

School life shows especially...whatever happened to stuff like Kare Kano? We need more of that kinda stuff...and so many shows simply ignore stuff that happens in real school life. Either that or they go the complete....dunno what to call it......pop culture route? (Nana/Bokura ga Ita) Don't get me wrong, great shows, but just not my taste in human relationships...I wanna slap half the characters

Rarely do we have shows that make you think anymore. And I know that's kindof a retarded statement considering I also find

I'll honestly say, 'original' anime never was, has, or ever will exist, much like other forms of television, media and movies. NOTHING IS ORIGINAL ANYMORE PEOPLE! IT'S CALLED GENRE!

to be true. But rarely are people exploring the generes in a new way. I wanna see some steampunk (was sorely dissapointed with Last Exile in the end) or maybe some western style (Trigun was good, but meh, Grenadier was good, but boobs :O)

*shrugs* I could talk about this crap for hours in terms of what I might do differently, and ways to move away from the cliches, but then I'd be giving away half the ideas I have for scripts >_>

And yes, Haruhi is good, and yes it is also overrated.

And yes, Lucky Star is made of wtf, but if you don't take it too seriously it's a riot.

:3

[OmniStrata]

wtf factor CAN make things funny [Lucky Star], but I couldn't bring myself to laugh at the Japanese culture *in jokes*.

Romeo x Juliet sounds like an awesome suggestion. But so much other anime, I tend to let the good stuff 'slip through the cracks' so to speak...

Seems the replies are 'for' evolution in anime. I don't think Haruhi is THAT overrated because I see a LOT more people trying to get attention as Naruto and DBZ fans more [far more] than anyone who wants to hump God... [er Haruhi]

Anyways...

Is there anyone here who's considering STOPPING watching anime/amvs cause they've 'outgrown' them and such? [Kevin Caldwell's words so to speak]

[Lyrs]

Saying that you've "outgrown" anime is paramount to saying you've "outgrown" music or that you've outgrown reading, etc. It's a form of media like many others and the choice to experience it is more or less a factor of your own priorities. If you have to work to support a family or yourself, odds are you'll "outgrow" late-night shows, reading, writing, internet distractions, any number of other possible hobbies and activities.

[Esrhan]

You just have to turn a blind eye to all that junk that comes from there and only pick the ones you'll most likely enjoy watching, like Monster, Hellsing OVA and... umm... my list of new, good anime needs some work. I'll give you that. Overall though, it applies to AMVs as well. Just a matter of ignoring most of them and only going for the good ones.

[post-it]

hmmm .. stop watching .... I know the way we all started watching Anime was by how someone else discribed the series to us and then WE chose to download it / or not!

I think how freely Anime is available to us today side-steps how we used get "the word" on a series being good/bad as compared to just downloading it and judging it for ourselve makes all the difference in the world -- to me!
( i.e. thru different web pages, I saw pictures and breif comantary on what different people thought of a show. its focus, humour, if the girls were cute or just plain "dizzy" )
The first episodes I downloaded were from those web pages:
1) toto's clip-board episode of Sailor Moon -- it was silly waiting for pictures to download
Other series were simular but I was soo verrrrrrrrry happy to find a web site that actually had downloadable Video Episodes that I through the dog in our bedroom and walked the wife ( she never forgave me for that erps ) as my modem started downloading VanDread Episode 01 subbed Wide Screen and later Canidate for Goddess subbed ^___________^ ... I was hooked

As time went on, the Underground Boards started to appear; sharing Videos on streamload .. blah blah . blah blah

then ... those boards all stopped ... scilence .... EEEK! ... which brings us to today.

if you know where to look, you can find the RAW's to sub or just watch other subs.

For me, it was those message boards that made the difference in Anime and sharing chit-chat on opinions and sometimes getting other MODs in troubles was also fun - hehe

I don't think its the Animes that have really lost my interest ... its the lack of companionship that used to be there ... at those meeting places ... and the people, whome we never met yet understood their likes and dislikes ... those memories ... are what I miss ... the most ....