Anime v. America shows?

[jigoku...ramen]

Originally Posted by MamoruUsagi

There's a lot of one hour long American drama shows that are really good

Beverly Hills, 90210

The O.C.

One Tree Hill

Dawson's Creek

Beverly Hills 90210

Felicity

Gilmore

Everwood

There's also really long book series

Sweet Valley

has 606 books, a great romance/drama book series following the casts for a long time, through romance, love, passion, sex, everything. Covers the cast for over 20 years.

The Bachelor is a romantic reality show, all the seasons were romantic and sweet.

5ive Days to Midnight was a mini-series.

I like romance/love story/fantasy/romance/drama series.

There's a lot more, too.

My GOD, I can't take all this sappy romance stuff without getting tired of it, and I am (somewhat) of a romance person. SOMEWHAT. I liked Hot Gimmick and Kare Kano, but those were sensual, not overly exaggerated;I could actually connect with them.
But really, this just depends on what you like.
As for me, HEROES. And maybe some Miami Ink and Foster's.
Seriously, not all reality shows are bad. Just watch the ones that are good, not brainless.
Overall though, I choose neither. I can't find anime that I can get really attatched to all the time, and the same with American shows.

[Vexx]

Raikage and hooliganj list the handful of shows I find worth spending an occasional evening to watch: CSI (las vegas, the rest miss the point), House, and I'm still trying to decide if I like Heroes or not. The new show "3 pounds" might be good - too new to tell yet. The Law&Order franchise has buried the airwaves and I just don't care anymore. Comedy pretty much reeks for me anymore --- very abusive, very potty, very old lame sex jokes. I'll watch the random NCIS for the guilty Abby fix.

The cartoons SouthPark, Simpsons, or Futurama seem light-hearted in comparison. Then there's a pile of stuff on PBS I watch, mostly news and documentaries (Frontline, Now, Foreign Exchange, News Hour, Nova, etc). Unfortunately, most of the show Mamoru lists.... to me seem like the worst aspects of "melodrama" where they'll do just about anything to the characters to keep you watching through the next commercial break.

So I do watch *some* american tv ... just not regularly and not a lot.
We watch movies .... over thanksgiving we did a LOTR marathon. The other day we watched "12 Monkeys" and last week we watched "Lucky Sleven".

I watch anime because it is refreshing to hear real civility in conversation (and believe me they're being rude in the anime compared to real japan), to watch people actually pulling together and sacrificing for each other, and because the anime I like actually has beginnings, character development, and the story *ends*. It is a bit hard to get used to the mix of comedy and tragedy one sees... I also just like the animated aspect of it ... the artist can communicate moods and atmosphere in animation that just gets lost in live action. At their best, they are "moving pictures" at their finest.
There is also the practical aspect -- its an entertaining way of practicing my listening skills in casual street Japanese.

[Kikaifan]

I'm an anime fan. My standards for it are way lower than television, I'm more accepting of its conventions, so I enjoy it more.

Plus I kind of gave up on television when Seinfeld ended and Jerry Orbach died.

[aduialion]

nice, i didnt read all of the responses but we got this thing goin,, and yes there r those good examples of well done american shows that have meaning and lasting plot, but also a good some retardation as someone put it

so im thinking out of the competitive nature of ratings, shows can take two directions, extreme retardation, or more depth that compels ppl to watch

or maybe a kind of mixture of idiot savant =P... and i shall call this the rainman hypothesis

[Bloodseeker]

Most of the shows that I like enough to follow are anime, so yeah, anime wins here, but that doesn't mean that American television in general sucks. 24, CSI, South Park, Family Guy... very few anime that I've seen match up to those shows. And that's not even counting movies like The Last Samurai and Gladiator or "real" shows like Chappelle's Show and UFC.

[Sheba]

I like to think that one is complementary to the other as far as the entertainment factor goes.
While I can laugh at the usual slapstick humor found in the usual anime, hardly any anime is really matching, for my tastes, the 'daring' humor that the Simpsons (at its peak) and South Park had.
As for more serious topics, I have yet to see an anime dealing with war that left me as hooked as "Tour of Duty", "Space:Above and Beyond" or "Band of Brothers" did.

[Mephisto2k]

Well, Japan is the world leading country for animation with more than 100 anime tv shows spawning each year. Where there is so much demend, it cant be all that crappy and there got to be at least something for every taste. In compareism the rather weak american cartoon industry does a pretty well job at least with its comedy shows (simpsons, southpark, family guy, drawn together).
Yet (even though my knowledge on this is limited since i dont live in america myself) America fails to spawn great realistic shows, with good realistic animation quality and deep developing plots.
In American theres also mostly live action tv show crap that goes agains all good taste, but still with lots of gems that are worth watching depending on taste.

Still all in all i think that the real great gems in the anime industry suprass american tv gems in quality (im not considering cinematic live action movies here).
Sure theres a lot of crappy anime too, but anime there are just certain anime shows that surpress everything.
And the since this is a thread in an anime forum it kinda obvious that most ppl here prefer anime.

[Vexx]

The "reality" shows (actually the most unrealistic shows imaginable complete with amateur overacting) and the "freak" shows (daytime talk profiling trashy or dysfunctional people) and the pseudo-news ('squeal, what is Britney doing now?' has replaced news journalism) have been the death of television quality --- basically getting closer to the "bread and circuses" the Roman Imperial elite provided to keep the masses distracted.

Anime can be simple distraction as well --- but I'm getting the sort of character-driven stories that I'm having trouble finding on my local stations.

[ImClueless]

This discussion is taking place in one of the english largest anime devoted forums (I think) so of course everyone who happens to post are biased. XD (Including me)

I would agree with everyone who said that there is a lot of trash and crap on TV. The number of "reality" shows and entertainment news shows just illustrates the depths to which network television has sunk. However, I still turn to TV to get my Sci-fi fix and any crime/medical mystery shows. Battlestar Galactica is one that I enjoy as well as CSI and NCIS. Also House is a badass . There are a few examples of shows like these in anime, but they tend to be overshadowed by the bishoujos. If a live action show is done well, it is always going to be better than an animated show for me.

[Aoie_Emesai]

Originally Posted by aduialion

First I'd say theres good and bad of both american tv shows, and anime series

but when it comes down to it anime can usually beat out some of the best american shows,

the thing with most tv shows is that theyre about 20 mins long for each episode, and that each episode is almost an entirely different story,

episode = something happens, crises, resolve (everything starts over for the next episode
and this cycle can be lasting for several seasons and its all just the same stuff over again with only tiny stories and messages

but for an anime series the episode is just a piece to the puzzle, and maybe yes there will be some short stories inside them (dbz word for that "saga"). by doing this i think the anime shows can tell a better story not confined to researching a conclusion every 20 minutes. It just creates a better message b/c the show is able to develop in w/e time frame it need to say its message. And they also know when to end, I've watchd shows ranging from 7 to 300 episodes

but ill still say theres good anime, bad anime, bad american shows, and better than bad american shows, even though i still watch

You must be watching some really bad series then. America has some exciting and emotional shows that are meant to move the heart or give reasons to live on. Now from time to time, there are movies and shows that are original to their name.

Cartoons like "The Fairylyodd Parents" revolves are Timmy and his fairyodd parents. The story has no definite end but it revloves around timmy and his faries. Every episode is like a day in his life, while some of may be interconnected, overall each has it's own theme: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Haloween, Valatines, Easter etc. It has a beginning pont, (meeting his faries), but it hasn't concluded. Obviously if you watched the cartoon, faires are for kids only, and they are here to make timmy happy. Meaning once he's old enough to a point or he's pleased with his life, they will dissappear.

The series "Surface" was my single favorite show till i started working (a lot) and i had to miss them, and i don't have tivo. Probbaly because it was a science fiction genre, it had too little attention, even though it was advertised heavily. Of course many of the shows on primetime now are comedy, those are intresting to watch since every single series has to be more original than it's predecessor.

At the end, isn't the taste of anime over american shows just all about personal views and likes? It's just like anime, there's some that you adore while others you avoid.

[aduialion]

Originally Posted by Aoie_Emesai

You must be watching some really bad series then. America has some exciting and emotional shows that are meant to move the heart or give reasons to live on. Now from time to time, there are movies and shows that are original to their name.

im not disagreeing with this,,, the very first thing of my topic,, "there are good and bad anime and good and bad american shows"

[Shinji103]

Nobody's going to mention Stargate SG-1? One of the best Amercian shows ever.

At least, up to season 9. Then it started to go a bit downhill. I still like SG-1 from season 9 and up, but i think it would have been best to end it at season 8, with a good ending.

[psycho bolt]

I would like to see some Amercian animators adapt some of the Japanese Anime style and story into the Amercian Cartoons.

[raikage]

Originally Posted by Shinji103

Nobody's going to mention Stargate SG-1? One of the best Amercian shows ever.

At least, up to season 9. Then it started to go a bit downhill. I still like SG-1 from season 9 and up, but i think it would have been best to end it at season 8, with a good ending.

Haven't seen it, but a good number of my friends like it.

Originally Posted by psycho bolt

I would like to see some Amercian animators adapt some of the Japanese Anime style and story into the Amercian Cartoons.

Avatar the Last Airbender. (I really need to get Netflix and start watching that.)
Didn't Puffy Amiyumi do the theme for Teen Titans?

It's not Japanese-anime style, but I liked the Batman animated series' use of film noir.

[Lyannea]

I like both.
In fact I like a lot of tv shows. I live in Québec where we produce nice shows that continue and actually have a stories. I don't like big dramas though. I also enjoy many american series. Prison Break, 24, Buffy (first 2 seasons mainly), Dawson Creek ( got into that dammit. the ending was crappy), Star Gate SG1, Star trek (watched many seasons, some get on my nerves), Cold Cases, etc...
I also like anime. Generally things that are not too popular or that dont last forever.

To me, each type of stories have their good and bad sides so I like everything

[Veritas]

Remember that producing television shows in America is expensive as hell. If you hit on a successful show in the States, there's no way you're going to end it in 13 episodes, so you get no cohesive stories or character development because the status quo has to remain the same until the show gets run into the ground. It's business.

Contrast this with Japan, where it's much cheaper to produce shows, so you can make 2 or 3 for the cost of one season of an American program. So you get more programs in general, with the same ratio of good stuff to bad stuff (1:9) that everything has, but it seems like there are better shows because there are more shows. For every LOST, there is a Haruhi, Higurashi, Simoun, and Mushishi. For every Smallville, there is a (insert 3 or 4 lame anime here, as I don't watch those so I can't suggest anything). Just has to do with that. Or something. Whatever. I'm tired.

[Eva_127]

I would probably choose anime, one of the only american shows I watch is Scrubs.

[felix]

Anime..

I like 'em more because I know the story is going somewhere..

Ameriacan shows are way too long.. the only anime that I know that goes on and on like them is Inuyasha.. I didn't like that show too much..
. . .

I don't mind if a show has a long-road-plot.. but when it get like in American shows, where it's just one tiny circular road with the plot spining round and round I drop..

Well some Tv shows are good.. for a while.. but I always drop them before they ever finish (if they ever do)

[solomon]

Originally Posted by Kikaifan

I'm an anime fan. My standards for it are way lower than television, I'm more accepting of its conventions, so I enjoy it more.

To some that would seem blasphemous but I have to agree. The fact is, compared to best of the best A LOT (but not all) of anime isn't worth comparison to fine filims or the strongest of american (Rome, some Bochco works, Roots) or british tv dramas (as far as BBC stuff I've seen little but they were REALLY well written mini series like I, Claudius). However, that doesn't mean it can't be fun with it's conventions. It all depends on differing standards/taste to an extent. I loved Honey and clover and Paradise Kiss, but i have an anime bias (normally towards studios or staff I trust and enjoy), I can't really be bothered with most hollywood romantic tv (and certain types of anime romance) because I can't relate to it or it's gimmicky beyond hell. In terms of their drama's though, they provide a strong varied alternative to the limited amount of fantasy or historical drama on American TV (Examples include Bebop, Planetes, Tomino's Gundam, Ayakashi Ayashi, FLAG). Plus my favorite shows normally have very large themes or social commentary (part of the reason why i think FMA is the king of all modern shonen manga), it reminds me of Norman Lear comedies of the seventies (All in the Family and such) in that it's entertaining yet topical in an intelligent and meaningful way. Not all entertainment needs to be like this but (IMHO) U.S. tv is far too empty headed, that's why i prefer the anime shows I watch.

[Gundam Zero Force]

even when there is a good tv show on . . . It never reaches the same level of enthusiam I get when I watch Anime . . . can't really explain it . . . maybe some of you understand what I mean