AnimeSuki Forums

kj1980 · 2016-04-01, 13:08

Eventually, with real life issues, you reach a point where you only start watching 1-2 anime per season.

SeijiSensei · 2016-04-01, 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I think every older person believes the young'uns have it so much easier. Those in the baby-boomer generation would no doubt have their fair share of gripes about me and my fellow Gen X whippersnappers.

Nah, you're okay. It's the rest of your generation that I can't stand

ccesarano · 2016-04-07, 16:19

Read the first post (oh man, almost ten years old? Talk about beating a dead horse you didn't realize has already been pulverized by crowds of people before you), and the last two pages, so forgive me if I repeat things already said.

In terms of the first post, it seems there's a cross between saying "growing out of anime" and "anime is repeating the same thing over and over". These two are technically different concepts, and honestly, all media is guilty of the latter. Tropes become tropes because everyone becomes influenced by narratives that came before. In time, those tropes will be fresh and new to a younger generation. When my niece was about three or four we took her to see How to Train Your Dragon in theaters. As the dragon Toothless was being chained up, I felt no dire sense of drama. I knew exactly what would happen because it was a common story-beat from my childhood and beyond. Yet suddenly in the darkness I hear my niece yelp "Oh no! Toothless!", a moment that made me smile. Ah, to be so innocent of story-telling as to be utterly surprised again!

But the frequency in which a real surprise comes around is uncommon. Think about why the original Alien was such a huge success. Not only did the trailer give nothing away, but the constantly changing life-cycle of the xenomorph and manner in which it burst free from Cain was unexpected. The film promised constant surprise, and that is one of the many reasons it became such a huge success. But there was more to it than just that surprise.

Phenomenal works are uncommon, and the older you get, the less likely you are to run into it (and for a lot of people, the older you get, the more you want something comfortable and familiar). But there's always that starting point where you are introduced to something for the first time, and the experience becomes iconic.

When I was a kid, my family rented Transformers and Robotech VHS tapes from the local library. Technically these shows were off TV by time I was old enough to be a fan (or at least, as far back as I can remember), but Robotech stuck with me because it wasn't at all like other kids television. It had drama, it had an on-going storyline, and it had character development. I didn't realize that I loved this stuff, and if anyone were to ask me I'd probably say I liked the robots and Zentraedi. But the idea of having a real story in place, one that didn't condescend to me as a child, made Robotech special. A few years later my brother and I would get sucked into Ronin Warriors, and I'd love it for the same reasons. By middle school I was even getting interested in Sailor Moon. I was a little embarrassed to enjoy it, but I liked the fact that it had a continuous story and character growth in an industry otherwise dedicated to making episodes as rerun friendly as possible. Continuity was anathema to American children's shows (unless your name was Beast Wars: Transformers or, to a lesser extent, Mighty Max) and every episode needed to end in the status quo.

By time I was getting into Sailor Moon, I learned through my older brother that we were watching Japanese Animation. He was in high school, and he started renting and borrowing films from other people like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Record of Lodoss War, Ranma 1/2, Iria, and of course, Neon Genesis Evangelion. For me, the best time to be into anime was the mid-to-late 90's, because I got to watch those for the first time, got to see the original Street Fighter anime film, and discovered Vision of Escaflowne and Trigun before either was localized to the US.

The common thread to what got me into anime was an emphasis on story-telling and genre fiction. Lots of sci-fi and fantasy, and often told with a deeper theme than the television I was used to. Anime was downright smarter than what I was used to. Which, I think, is why those that got into anime in the 90's have a very grumpy-old-man outlook towards new stuff. Open up Crunchyroll, Hulu, or Netflix's anime selection, and very little looks to carry that Western-friendly classic-genre aesthetic that some of the favorites had. Even thinking back on how stylized Evangelion was, it still had a visual fidelity that felt more real than the bubble-gum filter of so much modern anime.

What we failed to realize was two-fold. The first being that we were getting years of great anime condensed into a short time-frame. After all, we were experiencing Akira, which was at least ten years old at the time (older than that, if I recall?), at the same time as Ghost in the Shell (which even that was older than when we first got to see it).

So to try and bring a point to all of this, what I'm ultimately saying is 1) my impression of anime was set at a young and impressionable time, and 2) I was seeing only a small sampling of the medium (and also conveniently forgetting trash like Baoh and... demon hunter? City...monster...? I dunno, opening had a sex scene where the chick's boob became a demon mouth that ate a dude's arm). It's kind of like when you remember the old SNES or Playstation 1 days as being some sort of golden age of gaming because you didn't get to own or play a lot of games, but that small sampling of hits you did own and play over and over were so amazing that you forget or disregard all the trash you never bought or paid attention to on the shelves (but I got to learn about while working at GameStop in high school).

By late high school and early College, anime was changing. More shows were now being shown on Cartoon Network (where Cowboy Bebop made a strong impression, but Outlaw Star did nothing for me). Then broadband and torrents started to become a thing, I joined my College's anime club, and suddenly I was introduced to all this moe stuff and, while I dug Dragon Ball Z a lot, I began to discover that the "fighting anime" as I called it was a pretty well-worn genre with the likes of Naruto and Bleach. I started to fall out of anime because instead of getting a constant stream of new and exciting, I was getting a lot of stuff I didn't care about.

Now, this isn't to say that anime hasn't changed, as the economic and social climate of Japan has shifted to where anime is almost exclusively catering to the Otaku market (as was mentioned towards the bottom of the previous page). However, I'm now finding anime to enjoy because I'm more aware of the conditions in which I was introduced and have more patience to wait for the really great stuff (while acknowledging that it'll take me a lot more to become wow'ed as I am more familiar with the tropes).

So to summarize in TL;DR format, anecdotally speaking, I think it's not so much that you "grow out of" anime, but it loses that brand new luster, especially as at first you have so much excellence to catch up on in retrospect, but as it releases you have a lot to sift through before finding the good. You now become a cultivator or part of the filtration process, and not everyone has the patience for that.

That's my thoughts on it, at least.

GDiddy · 2016-04-09, 23:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by kj1980

Eventually, with real life issues, you reach a point where you only start watching 1-2 anime per season.

This is me right now.

I can keep up with maybe about three or four shows if I spaced it out during the week. And even anymore that's iffy

2016-04-07, 16:19	Link #543
ccesarano Member Join Date: Apr 2016 Location: Pennsylvania, USA Age: 38	Read the first post (oh man, almost ten years old? Talk about beating a dead horse you didn't realize has already been pulverized by crowds of people before you), and the last two pages, so forgive me if I repeat things already said. In terms of the first post, it seems there's a cross between saying "growing out of anime" and "anime is repeating the same thing over and over". These two are technically different concepts, and honestly, all media is guilty of the latter. Tropes become tropes because everyone becomes influenced by narratives that came before. In time, those tropes will be fresh and new to a younger generation. When my niece was about three or four we took her to see How to Train Your Dragon in theaters. As the dragon Toothless was being chained up, I felt no dire sense of drama. I knew exactly what would happen because it was a common story-beat from my childhood and beyond. Yet suddenly in the darkness I hear my niece yelp "Oh no! Toothless!", a moment that made me smile. Ah, to be so innocent of story-telling as to be utterly surprised again! But the frequency in which a real surprise comes around is uncommon. Think about why the original Alien was such a huge success. Not only did the trailer give nothing away, but the constantly changing life-cycle of the xenomorph and manner in which it burst free from Cain was unexpected. The film promised constant surprise, and that is one of the many reasons it became such a huge success. But there was more to it than just that surprise. Phenomenal works are uncommon, and the older you get, the less likely you are to run into it (and for a lot of people, the older you get, the more you want something comfortable and familiar). But there's always that starting point where you are introduced to something for the first time, and the experience becomes iconic. When I was a kid, my family rented Transformers and Robotech VHS tapes from the local library. Technically these shows were off TV by time I was old enough to be a fan (or at least, as far back as I can remember), but Robotech stuck with me because it wasn't at all like other kids television. It had drama, it had an on-going storyline, and it had character development. I didn't realize that I loved this stuff, and if anyone were to ask me I'd probably say I liked the robots and Zentraedi. But the idea of having a real story in place, one that didn't condescend to me as a child, made Robotech special. A few years later my brother and I would get sucked into Ronin Warriors, and I'd love it for the same reasons. By middle school I was even getting interested in Sailor Moon. I was a little embarrassed to enjoy it, but I liked the fact that it had a continuous story and character growth in an industry otherwise dedicated to making episodes as rerun friendly as possible. Continuity was anathema to American children's shows (unless your name was Beast Wars: Transformers or, to a lesser extent, Mighty Max) and every episode needed to end in the status quo. By time I was getting into Sailor Moon, I learned through my older brother that we were watching Japanese Animation. He was in high school, and he started renting and borrowing films from other people like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Record of Lodoss War, Ranma 1/2, Iria, and of course, Neon Genesis Evangelion. For me, the best time to be into anime was the mid-to-late 90's, because I got to watch those for the first time, got to see the original Street Fighter anime film, and discovered Vision of Escaflowne and Trigun before either was localized to the US. The common thread to what got me into anime was an emphasis on story-telling and genre fiction. Lots of sci-fi and fantasy, and often told with a deeper theme than the television I was used to. Anime was downright smarter than what I was used to. Which, I think, is why those that got into anime in the 90's have a very grumpy-old-man outlook towards new stuff. Open up Crunchyroll, Hulu, or Netflix's anime selection, and very little looks to carry that Western-friendly classic-genre aesthetic that some of the favorites had. Even thinking back on how stylized Evangelion was, it still had a visual fidelity that felt more real than the bubble-gum filter of so much modern anime. What we failed to realize was two-fold. The first being that we were getting years of great anime condensed into a short time-frame. After all, we were experiencing Akira, which was at least ten years old at the time (older than that, if I recall?), at the same time as Ghost in the Shell (which even that was older than when we first got to see it). So to try and bring a point to all of this, what I'm ultimately saying is 1) my impression of anime was set at a young and impressionable time, and 2) I was seeing only a small sampling of the medium (and also conveniently forgetting trash like Baoh and... demon hunter? City...monster...? I dunno, opening had a sex scene where the chick's boob became a demon mouth that ate a dude's arm). It's kind of like when you remember the old SNES or Playstation 1 days as being some sort of golden age of gaming because you didn't get to own or play a lot of games, but that small sampling of hits you did own and play over and over were so amazing that you forget or disregard all the trash you never bought or paid attention to on the shelves (but I got to learn about while working at GameStop in high school). By late high school and early College, anime was changing. More shows were now being shown on Cartoon Network (where Cowboy Bebop made a strong impression, but Outlaw Star did nothing for me). Then broadband and torrents started to become a thing, I joined my College's anime club, and suddenly I was introduced to all this moe stuff and, while I dug Dragon Ball Z a lot, I began to discover that the "fighting anime" as I called it was a pretty well-worn genre with the likes of Naruto and Bleach. I started to fall out of anime because instead of getting a constant stream of new and exciting, I was getting a lot of stuff I didn't care about. Now, this isn't to say that anime hasn't changed, as the economic and social climate of Japan has shifted to where anime is almost exclusively catering to the Otaku market (as was mentioned towards the bottom of the previous page). However, I'm now finding anime to enjoy because I'm more aware of the conditions in which I was introduced and have more patience to wait for the really great stuff (while acknowledging that it'll take me a lot more to become wow'ed as I am more familiar with the tropes). So to summarize in TL;DR format, anecdotally speaking, I think it's not so much that you "grow out of" anime, but it loses that brand new luster, especially as at first you have so much excellence to catch up on in retrospect, but as it releases you have a lot to sift through before finding the good. You now become a cultivator or part of the filtration process, and not everyone has the patience for that. That's my thoughts on it, at least. __________________ I type words and blurt blurbs.

2016-04-01, 13:08	Link #541
kj1980 Gomen asobase desuwa! Join Date: Nov 2003 Age: 43	Eventually, with real life issues, you reach a point where you only start watching 1-2 anime per season.