Because most people on the forum go ape s*$t when you mention anime.

No they don't???

ook ook ack ack. ooga booga

one piece???? at least watch a GOOD anime...

hey guys is there a list of animes you can watch and still be a coolguy. Like the anime for coolguys list. Is Ghost in the Shell still cool? No but seriously I mean stuff like that was big before anime got mainstream and I can see where it has CROSSOVER appeal or whatever that word is. Most anime is just so entrenched in its own idiosyncratic stuff I mean comic books or whatever are the same way why's Superman's hair all wavy like that is he elvis #2 I don't get it or like stuff with women is uncomfortable in anime like constantly but so is Wonder Woman's costume but it's american pop culture and nobody takes it seriously. I'm also convinced that a bunch of anime people are like not really judging it against all media/pop culture like maybe someone's seen Lupin 3rd but not heard of James Bond or whatever he's closest to in Western pop culture. I dunno I'm convinced it's like a cult like somebody can have RED HAIR and they've been brainwashed into being really wowed by this. Or they're all secretly into anime porn even the ones who say they're not it just reminds me of like a boy band or something people who have proportionally like negative talent it actually takes below average talent to sing that way but they're hawt omg. It also reminds me of stuff like soap operas and I was like I sort of wish I could get into soap operas because I'm sort of jealous of their ability to be enthralled with such bad writing and acting and stuff (like soap operas are on that same level of awfulness where it almost becomes its own aesthetic like the anime aesthetic) and then I remembered soap operas are only watched for omg hawt too right?

No Ragnar, soap operas are watched purely out of habit.  I watch The Young and the Restless on a semi-often basis (frankly you can miss a week or two and not really miss anything) only because my mom started watching it when she was 17 and it first aired, and so I grew up watching it and it was just sort of a THING that existed in the back of my head always.  I'm used to watching it when my mom comes home, and I actually think that I'll end up watching it when I move out too, just because I guess it becomes one of those habitual comfort things.

The thing about it is, soap operas are nothing but daily cliffhangers.  You can never get a sense of completeness out of a soap opera EVER.  Every episode makes sure to give you a reason to watch the next one, or else there'd be no reason to watch any of them.  The writing is shoddy, the plotlines make no sense and if you actually have been paying attention for the last 30 or whatever years you can see huge gaping holes in their stories.  But, if tomorrow you get to see who killed so-and-so but you don't get to see how the other guy does in his trial until the next day, and this cycle continues, then you will never feel like anything is finished and if that bothers you you are therefore forced to keep up with it forever.

At the same time, I think like you said it has its own weird awful aesthetic.  It's almost like a sort of kitsch value, the tackiness and that SOAP OPERA FEELING sort of give it a weird vibe of its own.  Here's a bunch of people living in some town in Wisconsin or whatever and every other person has an evil doppelgänger that shows up on occasion to try to kill them.  It's like a weird fantastic bizarro fantasy world where people are constantly stealing each others' faces via plastic surgery, and that is pretty damn great to think about in those terms.

What the fuck does this have to do with anime?  I don't know.  The only animes I really like watching are ones that are pretty unforgivable.  Go watch some Rose of Versailles everyone.  Please.  Oscarruuuuuu~

I have no idea what you're talking about concerning GW but you seem really confused about criticism in general. I don't know why it's so hard for some people to understand. do you really experience nothing like this irl

I don't know how to respond to the rest of that post. brainwashing man we are not 15 just ignore all these posts, no one's making fun of you and no one cares what you personally like it doesn't matter. if people wanna talk about some anime aesthetic and that for some reason sounds offensive to you, you could ignore it or explain why they're wrong instead of getting frustrated and bent out of shape bc someone doesn't like the thing you l;ike

i keep telling myself that one of these days i'll watch some of the original macross and i've never got round to it

Mongoloid who are you even talking to?  Ragnar?  Because he was basically saying it was the same for a LOT of things, not just anime (did...did you actually READ it???  or did you just read the words brainwashing and anime porn and get angry?)

I'm pretty sure this topic has entirely been people who like animes or just don't care, what are you getting angry about???

aminé

hey guys is there a list of animes you can watch and still be a coolguy. Like the anime for coolguys list. Is Ghost in the Shell still cool?

I got your coolguy anime list right here (in alphabetical order):

Beck
Cowboy Bebop

Yup, I'm pretty sure that covers them all.

I got your coolguy anime list right here (in alphabetical order):

Beck
Cowboy Bebop

Yup, I'm pretty sure that covers them all.

Where is hellsing on that list?

BTW watching heroman witch isn't sp bad.

ragnar if you want to know if manga is any worth plunging into, here's a real-easy way to test it out: go to OneManga.com and choose any of the updated series from the list (bear the embarrassing names). check few first pages.
ok start go, fill me up with what you found! pay extra attention to girls/women in those first pages and in how they are represented

also honestly without any attacking/making fun, your last post is kinda confusing Mongoloid so you could/could you clear it up

do you think what you get from the shows/books/movies is any more valuable to you than what stay at home moms and whoever gets out of soaps? how about kids books? sports? music?

I was actually sort of semi-defending anime stuff because I think it's no different than a soap opera or whatever like their taste in it is just as legitimate and I think anything like this has a certain FEEL on at least a basic level, I at least sort of still like anime better in principle than random CGI superhero movie of the week because at least anime has a familiar feel to go back to, random superhero movie almost always feels like they're just throwing shit all over the place and maybe if they're feeling ambitious attempt to make some half-assed commentary on Iraq etc. I really can't see it as a film style people will REVISIT, make homages/parodies of like the campy old Batman TV show. Anime/soap operas are at least complete enough you can whip up a witty enough parody of one of them. oh yeah Simn City did have a pretty good feel to it it was like the worst thing ever made as far as story/themes but it did have an aesthetic like a lot of NOIR-y feel to it it was like film noir the fuck. I am honestly interested in this shit like putting random shit in there for the sake of completeness if soap operas didn't have the cheesy music would people feel distressed/confused? If anime didn't do the sweatdrop thing or draw the eyes with exact ISO-9001 proportions would people march to the streets in protest? Why was it so godawful when Sub-Zero was just a dude in that one Mortal Kombat game and not generic faceless ninja? If the box of mashed potatoes didn't have mysterious floating spoon scooping the potatoes and holding it to your face and use the word 'home' combined with some other word like 'style' and/or mention that it comes from Idaho would people figure well maybe there's breadfruit in there and not potatoes after all. Do people have some internal measure/sixth sense of how good Idaho potatoes are compared to shitty potatoes from other states? But yeah I do think it's like minor brainwashing, and like false or easily exploitable feelings in these sorts of things. Sort of Pavlovian imo
I also love in electronic music circles how some guy had supposedly scientifically deducted that the waveform of the amen break http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break equals the golden ratio in some way and not just that it's been overused so much it just kind of 'sounds' like a hip-hop/drum and bass record even if you know nothing about making those varieties of music it's a very easy/exploitable way to get the same feel. I'm waiting for someone to find the golden ratio in anime face

oh yeah I do think stuff like Dragon Ball Z/Naruto that's about 16490 episodes long and somehow ends each episode on a cliffhanger is like soap operas for straight teenage males

and by completeness I didn't mean like fulfilling MY LIFE IS COMPLETE I meant like consistent internal logic or whatever that term is

also a lot of videogames are probably like this the creator of Dragon Warrior admitted in an interview he's a gambler and when he designed the game he wanted it to feel like a slot machine. So yeah I think a lot of stuff exploits whatever can be exploited emotionally in people/is just a little like crack

Edit: 'cracky'

Edit: j.j. abrams

Edit: but yeah I think anime draws a lot of flack because it's ridiculously unsubtle compared to j.j.abrams etc. people took a while to figure out his tropes anime is like a CODEX of it's own symbols/ready-made characters/plotlines. You can almost see the seams of the 2 or 3 character types as you're watching it. But plenty of stuff is just as cheap it's just more compleximicated/more difficult to figure out the structure. I would say anime and soap operas are neck in neck for which one more blatantly flaunts its plot devices

Edit: throws random insane expectation of people out there - all directors should make one movie and then quit the business fucking coen brothers have been making the same movie for 30 years too bad if you like them

speaking of the whole watching soap operas for kitsch value is there a sizable portion of people who watch anime for the same reason? I dunno the internet also makes it seem like everyone ever is pretty hardcore about it like we're ironic about it but I don't think most of GW watches anime anymore is there anybody who watches it ironically and... still wants to watch anime

also yeah when somebody says anime I assume they mean naruto or something I watched a couple of movies at some point (was probably over a thousand years ago already) I could honestly probably get into a anime movie still but anime series piss me off like it's LIKE a soap opera but yeah our budget is kind of short and sometimes only the mouths move sry. Basically most anime is fucking ruined even if you think the idea is bad to begin with I would've genuinely been interested in a short to-the-point version of Dragon Ball Z like 20 episodes and like actually had frames of animation and cinematography and genuine excitement. I mean essentially Dragon Ball Z looked like a comic book given the illusion of movement even if there were a lot of shots and animation not in the comic it almost seems like somebody filmed the panels of a comic book and called it cartoon. Like sorry Japan do you even understand the point of making a cartoon

but yeah I really do think it's a 'feel' sort of thing, where it's appealing because nothing quite feels like an anime like there is so much stuff they could improve nowadays - aren't all anime voices still super-squeaky/whiney I would think they could find less cheesy voice actors now but it's left in as an integral part of the style... or something

but yeah I was also just trying to piss people off it's hot and all I have to do right now is like post on GW or be hot

Edit: I definitely stand by that though most animes look like a fun appealing idea at the very least for kids but done in the most watered-down style humanly possible Dragon Ball Z was like really fucking weird with that whole plot where Vegeta and what's his face made a couple of stops before Earth and each episode was actually something different and seemed fairly well-done but then like I'd say 200 episodes they were on that other planet with Frieza and it was like green shit everywhere for 200 episodes it was literally a palette swap of Earth how does this not seem cheap at all. I stand by my original opinion that is the shittiest bullshit ever