If something is bad, its still bad regardless of how much better it is than the alternatives. Its like saying diarrhea is cool because its better than constipation.
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If something is bad, its still bad regardless of how much better it is than the alternatives. Its like saying diarrhea is cool because its better than constipation.
Diarrhea is only bad because we know what it's like to not have diarrhea (that sounds really friggin silly but it makes a point). There is a "good" alternative, you see what I'm saying? If there is no "good" alternative to anime as entertainment, how can anyone make that comparison?
basically it'll just boil down to people asking for anime to be perfect in their own personal ways, because if you're not using real alternatives, what other measure do you use? Perfection? If that's the case everything might as well be crap.
EDIT: of course, I'm not saying nothing is better than anime. I'm just saying there needs to be real things to compare something to to evaluate how good or bad it is.
I was actually just trying to say that the idea that "anime has always had a larger proportion of shite series than most other media" is bull, like Kodos and a few other people were saying before. Western animators aren't even neccisarly worse, but there is a really massive ammount of brilliant anime out there that never gets a second look-in, thus possibly skewing people's opinions. It's the kind of stuff which would just never get funding outside of japan, to boot.
Was trying to keep it short 'cause I know I have a tendency to babble is all, sorry. >_>
WHERE THE FUCK IS GITS IN OP
Cultural differences probably play a lot into it. Western television is known for taking itself far too seriously and anime often times does not take itself seriously enough, so people think it's "childish".
Cype: Yeah but that's not whats happening here. As far as writing and animation goes we have a lot to compare anime to.
Anyway I dont watch much anime but I read a metric buttload of manga and I can say with utmost confidence that the vast majority is shit, but that's fine because in a weird way the stuff that is good tends to be really good.
I'm afraid to list any anime I watched when I was younger in fear that it doesn't hold up. Off the top of my head I was seriously in love with ira and armitage the third.
:I
I really hope at least one of you picked up on the fact that I clearified such a thing wasn't the arguement I was making at all.
Anime does have an extremely poor standard these days, but I felt obliged to make this thread because it wasn't as if everything people like about it is pure nostalgia. Anime used to go places that american animation still dares to tread even nowadays, and that's why it's still worthwhile even if you just like the oldies.
What I am definately not saying is that western comics are purely rubbish in comparision. I have shelves lined with Jean Giraud (Moebius), Brian Wood, and Frank Miller. I used to watch Cyber Six, the Tick, and the Batman animation all the time...
But there is just a certain point when you can't help but feel a little insulted when somebody says anime always had a higher percentage of shit than american stuff, yet if you scratch just past the surface, and take two series of similar themes and niches from the same era you basically end up with this more often than not;
(West) (Battletech. Yes, this was popular. I liked it when I was a kid. :P)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-_-8D8R4CU
(East) (Armoured Hunter Mellowlink.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyUkeXEnSzQ
Generally, I'll side with Sturgeon's Law; 90% of anything and everything is shit.
The reason anime today seems to have such a higher rate of crap to not-crap, I think, probably just has less to do with the actual ratio changing, and more to do with the fact more anime gets localized or otherwise brought to the attention of Western audiences, and because more anime, in total, is being made (I think?).
That reasoning would have been fine before fan translations became such a big thing but now I can find translations of really obscure stuff as well as popular stuff.