Disliking Anime Characteristics

[Garrett Jax]

Just a little curious...

Is there anything about the way anime is made that you don't like?

What prompts this question is a co-worker who, like me, enjoys anime. The thing is, he can't stand the larger than normal eyes. Which I found odd since many (not all) anime have characters drawn with large eyes.

I suppose everyone has something they don't like about the style of animation... For me I guess it would be when characters get super deformed. But that's just me. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[golthin]

[ QUOTE ]
Juraian Knight said:
Just a little curious...

Is there anything about the way anime is made that you don't like?

What prompts this question is a co-worker who, like me, enjoys anime. The thing is, he can't stand the larger than normal eyes. Which I found odd since many (not all) anime have characters drawn with large eyes.

I suppose everyone has something they don't like about the style of animation... For me I guess it would be when characters get super deformed. But that's just me. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
Only thing I dislike is spineless guys that can't make their mind to chose a girl or admit their feelins /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif, thought it is fun to see them squirm.

[aquapermanence]

Knowing that anime tends to be made on the cheap, I don't expect constant fluid full-motion action from TV titles. Still, there are times that I'm watching a show and something just screams cheapness at me--be it poorly integrated CG, overuse of speed-lines or non-distinct backgrounds during an action scene, or too much recycled footage. The other thing that bothers me a lot has to do with visual direction--when too many shots are close-ups of a character's face, it takes me out of the show. I am a strong believer in the notion that animated characters ought to be shown interacting with their environment; if they're going to take a talking-heads approach, I might as well be reading a book or listening to the radio.

[meryl]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Knowing that anime tends to be made on the cheap, I don't expect constant fluid full-motion action from TV titles. Still, there are times that I'm watching a show and something just screams cheapness at me--be it poorly integrated CG, overuse of speed-lines or non-distinct backgrounds during an action scene, or too much recycled footage. The other thing that bothers me a lot has to do with visual direction--when too many shots are close-ups of a character's face, it takes me out of the show. I am a strong believer in the notion that animated characters ought to be shown interacting with their environment; if they're going to take a talking-heads approach, I might as well be reading a book or listening to the radio.

[/ QUOTE ]

Along those lines, I would say the pan-and-scan shots, where they're working from a still drawing and just panning across it rather than animating it.

[ManOfLaManga]

Yes, I agree on disliking the large eyes, because it is still the majority of shows that have that design. I think most Americans find it offputting and strange. Also agreeing with the other poster who mentions those times when animation seems cheap due to lack of movement - but that said, good storylines and the other features that make anime stand out often will make up for that.

ManOfLaManga

[Mateo_home]

Hmm... I must be the only one that doesn't care about character designs with large eyes.

But yeah, one thing I dislike about anime is where you can easily notice a cheap shot in the production. Even though it's understandable the production team doesn't have a high budget. Oh, and another would have to be spelling errors. I know English isn't Japan's native language, so it's forgiveable. But still....

EDIT: fixing my own hypocracy in spelling. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Suwako Moriya]

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
Only thing I dislike is spineless guys that can't make their mind to chose a girl or admit their feelins /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif, thought it is fun to see them squirm.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah come on be understanding since in several of these shows the girls are abusive and jealous jerks. Although you would think the guy would eventually say "I'll go with the girl that actually has a heart".

[indigo0086]

personally, I don't like the majority of anime being taken from manga. Not because I don't like manga, but there's just too many of them. I also don't like how many of them have "manga highlight scene" where they don't even animate entirely and just do a pan and scan of a colored sketch of the manga.

[Isuzu Inugami]

[ QUOTE ]
RiskyMatt said:

EDIT: fixing my own hypocracy in spelling. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

It's "hypocrisy." /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

But staying on topic, I hate obvious still drawaings used for action sequences. Like when a character attacks, and suddenly we get a nice manga-esque panel of him launching a punch, speed-lines and all. Talk about the budget running out! Also, I can't stand when a character takes a defensive stance with a sword and it rattles, ka-chak!. Swords don't rattle, unless something is coming loose, in which case using that sword will probably get you killed!

[indigo0086]

[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
Also, I can't stand when a character takes a defensive stance with a sword and it rattles, ka-chak!. Swords don't rattle, unless something is coming loose, in which case using that sword will probably get you killed!

[/ QUOTE ]

I was going to say the same thing, I'm like, "were those samurai swords made in bangladesh?"

[Ty]

[ QUOTE ]
golthin said:
Only thing I dislike is spineless guys that can't make their mind to chose a girl or admit their feelins /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif, thought it is fun to see them squirm.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why Kimi ga Nozomu Eien is so great. They get that whole shebang done and outta the way all in the very first episode. It sets itself up like your typical high school drama/harem anime then wraps up what would have been 12 episodes of "working up to ask her out" progress in a single ep. /images/graemlins/happy.gif Of course, then the main guy goes all emo for the rest of the series, but that's another issue......

[meganly_chan]

I am a little tired of the "running in place" stuff, where nobody else is moving AT ALL. I understand budget, but after awhile it gets to you.

[quenelf]

[ QUOTE ]
Juraian Knight said:
Is there anything about the way anime is made that you don't like?

What prompts this question is a co-worker who, like me, enjoys anime. The thing is, he can't stand the larger than normal eyes. Which I found odd since many (not all) anime have characters drawn with large eyes.


[/ QUOTE ]

I ***love*** the big eyes. Bigger the better, to a point anyhow /images/graemlins/happy.gif

What gets to me is fanservice. Particularly those shots where somebody falls over and you can see their panties, which is a total cliché. It'd be OK if it wasn't so transparent (the intentions behind it, not the underwear). Fanservice really turns me off a show. (And I don't object to it in the context of the right scene of the story either... just when it's used constantly for no good reason other than 'oh, we haven't seen anyone's panties yet this episode, she'd better fall over now'.)

On a related topic, I abhor maids. Ugh. No.

The other thing I dislike you don't see much now, thanks to the advent of digital anime reducing cost of proper animation and providing lots of nice effects to make it less obvious when they do still have to cheap out... but those scenes where it just pans across a painting with nothing moving even though it should be. You know, like there's a busy market, lots of people talking, sound effects a-go-go... but, er, everything is actually frozen in place. I don't mind if there's only a few things animated but there should be *something*. I'm watching animation, not an art gallery /images/graemlins/happy.gif

(Still pans are OK if the thing they're panning over ought to be still, like just the wall of a building or something. As long as they don't take too long over it.)

--quen

[Lego]

You would like Emma quen. They actually animated the people walking around and etc. To bad they ran out of funding for the other 24 episodes /images/graemlins/cry00000.gif

[Mateo_home]

[ QUOTE ]
Shimauma said:
It's "hypocrisy." /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

But staying on topic, I hate obvious still drawaings used for action sequences. Like when a character attacks, and suddenly we get a nice manga-esque panel of him launching a punch, speed-lines and all. Talk about the budget running out! Also, I can't stand when a character takes a defensive stance with a sword and it rattles, ka-chak!. Swords don't rattle, unless something is coming loose, in which case using that sword will probably get you killed!

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

Yeah, still shots are a pain. But it's more a pain when there's no breeze animation on the character (i.e. Hair, skirt, Trench Coat, etc. not moving)

[Garrett Jax]

It appears that the still imagery of backgrounds and background characters are annoying to quite a few of us.

You know it's kind of funny, because when I was growing up with my childhood toons like Scooby Doo and all, I would often wonder,... "Why isn't anybody else moving except the person who's talking?" I had no idea that one little irksome characteristic of animation would carry over into my adult life and my enjoyment of anime.

So yeah,... I agree that more background and background characters should be in some state of movement even if they aren't part of the main story.

I guess it's only natural to expect some kind of movement /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Lego said:
You would like Emma quen.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seconded. Emma's a maid show that's actually about a maid who cleans a house. As opposed to, say, a maid who lives with some dork and fights monsters.

[Phobia]

After years of watching anime, what really grates on my nerves is the "Ano girl". You know, the girl who's in love but can never get her words out, stammering out lines like: "Ano...eto...ah...ano". Of course, her eyes are always downcast, and if she actually steals a glance at the object of her (often unrequited) affections, she grows beet red and becomes even more incoherent. Just about every other anime has an "Ano girl". Maybe it's just me, but I no longer find the stereotype even mildly funny.

Another petpeeve is the overused dialogue spoken by just about every hero in a shonen show, i.e.:
"I won't lose to you" , "I'll never forgive you" , "I'll protect X" , "I'm hungry" , "You'll have to train for another (X) years before you can hope to beat me" , "You must get stronger" etc.

Ah, I feel much better now; it's good to vent./images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[fantasydewdrop]

I hate when a show gears up to have a kick ass fight scene, but then doesn't actually show you the fight. Either the fight is off screen and you hear it in the background, or they cut to a black screen with little effects and noises, then come back in after the fight is over. Sure, cutting to a black screen and animating the sword slashes can be dramatic and cool once in a while, but for every time someone swings a sword? Annoying.

Oh, and when a character is running and the background noticeably repeats. Especially if it's not seamless.

I like the bigish anime eyes usually, but when they get too big, it starts to get scarey. Like in Fruits Basket. Their eyes are so huge! I guess with the Sohmas, you can chalk it up to inbreeding, but why are Tohru's so big? o.o

Has anyone else noticed this one weird thing about the Sorceror Hunters opening theme? You know that shot where it's of the badguy, and it zooms out, holds for a second, and the wind ruffles his hair and cape collar? Well, if you look at the center or bottom right of the screen when that happens, it looks like that guy's head jiggles in a VERY un-natural way, yet when you focus on his head it looks perfectly fine. Weird.

I'm annoyed by the lack of twirling in magical boy transformation scenes. They always just glitter or something lame like that. Hell, Tuxedo Mask has a full twirly transform scene, but they only used it once that I know of. Every other time he just glitters. It's not fair.

Why do characters feel the need to shout the name of physical based attacks? Does yelling "Punch of doom!" really help the attack out? Does it unlock a secret power boost or something? I can understand why magic/power based attacks need it perfectly fine, but really, "round house kick! rocket punch!"???

Post attack of doom!

[Suwako Moriya]

My main gripe is the idea of the only being in existence. I hate anime where the main character is the only capable fighter and every other fighter only exists to make him look good. Mainly by getting their ass kicked so he can look extremely impressive as he easily defeats everyone.

I can understand the main character being the most useful. I can accept that. I just want the feeling the other characters actually matter to the story. As well as the fact that characters who are meant to be warriors actually contribute something to the battle besides "I'll get my ass kicked so you can look good".

In other words I'm not expecting a nine year old girl in a wheel chair to suddenly jump out of the wheel chair, lift a giant monster by the tail, toss him into the sun and save the Universe. However say you have a 17 year old female highly trained in the martial arts. I would like to see her able to contribute to the battle and be useful. Instead of suddenly getting her ass kicked just because she's lack an uber plot device power that the main has.

Heck the said character doesn't even has to defeat the enemy. It could be a case of the main character defeats the villain, but he is able to because the other character used a special force field to protect the main character. If that makes any sense.

[Njr Scrawl]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
Knowing that anime tends to be made on the cheap, I don't expect constant fluid full-motion action from TV titles. Still, there are times that I'm watching a show and something just screams cheapness at me--be it poorly integrated CG, overuse of speed-lines or non-distinct backgrounds during an action scene, or too much recycled footage. The other thing that bothers me a lot has to do with visual direction--when too many shots are close-ups of a character's face, it takes me out of the show. I am a strong believer in the notion that animated characters ought to be shown interacting with their environment; if they're going to take a talking-heads approach, I might as well be reading a book or listening to the radio.

[/ QUOTE ]

Change in character design, or drop in general quality, especially in important episodes. Most obvious are the island episodes of Nadia, but Rurouni Kenshin had downs & ups. In Kyoto arc all the characters became drawn scrawnier & less detailed. Picked up in Meiji arc, but I rather it had been the other way round.

I'd have liked Maison Ikkoku not to have gone so Ranma in style 1/2 to 2/3 through.

The other thing is eye pupils in CG animation. They don't seem to widen & go back, but always seem to stay too small. Eye movement is not as good either. Motoko has too fixed a stare in SAC.

[osakaboy]

There is one kind of anime characteristics that always turn me off a particular series and this even forced me to abandon my favorite series. What I’m talking about is the eternally violent, jealous, female main characters in most anime series. For some weird reason these walking PMS factories are the center of countless anime series and admiration of even more male following, even if these violent chicks have almost no redeeming values. What anime fan finds these chicks appealing at all? Are they closet masochists who beg for more abuse?
Why can’t studios make realistic character that is not pit-bulls in a dress or doormats that aims to please everyone (Aoi-chan from Ai Yori Aoshi).

The poster child for this group of female dogs is Akane Tendo from the Ranma1/2 series. The series used to be my favorite until Akane starts to get on my nerve more and more. She became the first anime character I’ve grown to hate and ultimately led to my abandonment of the whole series, since she is such a central character. Ending every argument with a mallet or jumping to conclusions on a whim does NOT lead to a likable character. Akane Tendo gave a new meaning to gullible and useless since she can’t cook worth a damn (JUST TASTE THE DAMN THING BEFORE YOU SERVE) and token damsel in distress (Gets kidnapped in every other episode) after Kagome in Inuyasha. Another example is of these type of characters is Chidori from Full Metal Panic. That girl deserve a bitch slap in the highest order. As you can tell I’m a Tessa fan /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

[perigee]

[ QUOTE ]
osakaboy said:
Why can’t studios make realistic character that is not pit-bulls in a dress or doormats that aims to please everyone (Aoi-chan from Ai Yori Aoshi).

[/ QUOTE ]
I take exception to your characterization of Aoi Sakuraba as a quote-doormat-unquote She is, in fact, a strong-minded character, caring and devoted to those she loves. As heir to a business empire with enormous wealth and power at her command, she doesn't need to personally attend the needs of her tenants. She does so by choice and affection, just as she ardently defends her love for Kaoru in front of her parents without reservation. I'll take that kind of love over the self-centered, narcissistic behavior of so many other anime love interests.

[osakaboy]

Hmm... You make a good argument. I guess I forgot to note on the scene where Aoi defy her parents and continue to see Kaoru near the end of the first season. Aoi may not be a complete doormat in which she aims to please EVERYONE, but with anything concerning Kaoru she will bend over backward in pleasing him. I just want to point out Aoi may be just a little TOO devoted with Kaoru in which it borders in obsessive. Maybe because of my Western mentality but being the center of another person whole being is just a bit daunting, thats all.