I'm an omnivorous viewer, so I watch pretty much any genre with the exception of sports anime and shounen fighting anime. Right now, I'm watching a fair number of sports anime (4 titles), so even that restriction isn't very strong. There are some genres that I like more than others, like comedies, shows with well-fleshed out science fiction and fantasy universes and well-detailed wars. However, I'm also a lot more critical of these kinds of shows as well, and I tend to be unforgiving in the errors of execution. This is especially true of comedy as there are a lot of styles that I'm not too fond of (especially comedy that's overly reliant on parody or that has forced gag elements or that have inappropriate comic timing). That sort of leaves drama as a perennial favorite as I'm a lot less critical of these kinds of shows. I prefer to think of "shoujo" more as a style of storytelling than as a genre, but I tent to prefer shoujo-esque shows over most other styles.
The exception to all of the above are SHAFT shows. Nowadays, these get an automatic thumbs-down from me as I find all of their recent works unwatchable.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Vexx
Humor and rom-com are preferred. Used to find date-sim adaptations interesting but now only if they rework the material substantially (e.g. convert to a triangle (Canvas 2), convert to a straight couple romance (Lamune), convert to an ensemble (KKPR)). The simplistic "serial adventure choose the girl" I find far too lacking anymore.
|
There's a lot of truth to this. Simply speaking, the visual novel games are structurally very different from anime, and any production that doesn't take this into account is sort of doomed to mediocrity. As such, it's the works that take the pains to adapt their work so that it functions well with the new medium. In particular, the distilling of multiple story paths into a single branching storyline with the odd side story works much better than trying to portray all of the major elements of all of the paths. The latter usually just leads to muddled storytelling without delivering the payoffs that the stories deserve.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Vexx
Romances based on light novels (e.g. Toradora) or manga (e.g. Lov*Com) tend to fare better with me.
The humor can either be 'manzai'-rific (L*S, PPD, GA Art, etc) or 'slice-o-life' (ARIA, AzuDa, Kanamemo, etc).
|
In a similar fashion, I tend to prefer anime either based on novels or that are original works than those based on games or manga. In the case of novel adaptations, this offers the creators a chance to deviate much more in order to accomodate the new format, which generally makes for a smoother transition. Novels are often better written and more open to experimentation than manga or games as well - that they are less prone to the character-archetype trap is a bonus.