So not that long ago I really hated all forms of anime, japanamation, manga, whatever...but I think I've changed my opinion- and I want yours as well.
I've come to find that Pokemon, yugio (or whatever it is), and other cartoon anime are a sham and a detriment to little kids (and sadly adults) worldwide. Not only are story lines based around card games and other market powered forms of entertainment, but the animation too has caused Americans to accept a lack of quality in their cartoons. It's a money scheme designed to remove the work from making money. Yeah, we all need things to collect (well that's a different argument, but obviously people do), but why not something that was crafted with handwork (like those models that people battle with). My good friend is in love with DBZ...and I've seen episodes...HOW DUMB CAN YOU GET?? I feel like a bunch of idiots couldn't relate to anything else but a bunch of gay looking cartoons that partake in adventures that involve striped action backgrounds, baron wastelands, and repeatedly awful fight scenes that involve balls of glowing energy manifesting themselves from unknown sources that pack an apparent lack of damage effect *gasp* so they got together and said it was cool so they would feel good about themselves. Ok, that's probably just me- the masses of people that are so into the games create a cult culture, and I think people just enjoy being a part of something...not really the thing that brought them together...in this case, when it comes down to what they're using to connect, they're just being used by big business and not admiting it.
HOWEVER, I recently downloaded Ghost in a Shell (thank you WellCookedFeatus) and was amazed...I had convinced myself that I would hate it, but I found that the movie (and many other movies animated in the same fashion) cannot be stereotyped by bad story and lack of effort. I discovered that new creative and exciting themes, styles, and story lines were explored. I'm not sure what it's called, maybe anime, but I am now a fan of the genre.
So now I've broken the Asian animation down into the two groups: crap, and awesome...cartoon, and animation. What do you guys think...I'm bound to find some protestors.

You love some you hate some.

two words: cowboy bebop


and of course some of it sucks. is there any medium where everything made is great? like all things, the quality can vary. some is well made, some is a crappy knock off.
duh!

Are Japanese really as crazy as they imply they are with the way there cartoons present themselves?

I hope not...they've got some crazy porno tho, those asians are twisted sometimes

Yeah, they really are sick. They have Hello Kitty dildos.

DBZ rules...it is a simple show where the characters actually move on and grow up to have families. Also you have not witnessed anime's crazy side untill you have seen hentei( aka anime porn), that stuff seriously puts american porn to shame. I accidently downloaded one called Ogenki clinic and whoa-ho it was rather..um..interesting, i have also heard of hentei such as "mystery of necronomicon".


If you wanna see amazing anime you must, MUST , try Cowboy Bebop and movies such as Ninja Scroll, Perfect Blue( amazing), Akira, and Armitage III among many others.


Hope you try them out and have fun:cool: ;)

Don't fool yourself, the japanese live the way any country would if you let its population live out their sexual dreams.

*head in hands* It's hentai! not hentei, but whatever.
Just like there are books about every subject imaginable, there are anime of every subject and quality out there. The medium cannot be lumped together in one category as either sucking or ruling hardcore. While I personally do not watch DBZ, I also can not say it sucks since it is the most popular cartoon in the world ever.

Dragonball and its related projects are interesting because I agree that episode-by-episode it's really boring to anyone not watching it regularly. But would you read only two pages of a book and claim the whole thing to be a bad story? Would you argue with Dickens? ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...." Fuck off, Charlie, which was it?!)

I agree that the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, and such are mere vehicles without much of a plot, but I spied at least six religions sublimated in DB/DBZ, and as far as I know I've only seen a third of what's available at most.

DBZ suffers problems that Americans especially have a hard time with: it's too long between things blowing up, and the hero is just too goody-goody.

Cowboy Bebop is one of the best I've seen on television; I generally prefer Anime that doesn't rely on oversexing the audience. You can be dazzling without being sexual; you can tell stories without being visually dazzling.

I generally think that what upsets most people about some particular media entity that they don't like is that a popular icon is invented by someone who doesn't think the same way as the individual. Politics, soap operas, Ellen DeGeneres ... Americans have a history of it. I can't even remember the name of the anime I watched several years ago whose most interesting scene was the delivery of hundreds of four-foot tall little girls to a prison barge to be raped by thousands of seven-foot tall convicts. I worked for Hollywood Video at the time; it was one of our most popular anime rentals.

To the other, if anyone finds a decent, viewable copy of Battle Angel, you'll see a truly good film. It absolutely blew my mind.

Think of an anime that had a brief vogue in the US--Aeon Flux. I actually prefered the speechless shorts I used to catch on MTV; I also found during the speaking episodes that some of the best scenes, the most communicative, had little or no dialogue. Trevor's "Let her go ... let her go ..." as Aeon kills herself in order to save herself is one of the best speaking lines, but I'm still struck nearly senseless by a scene involving a young boy, an amputee, watching his friends play in the street near the border zone.

But most of the people I know who watched it watched because there was a chick in a leather G-string killing a whole bunch of shit. (I still laugh now and then about the thumbtack scene in the speechless short episodes.)

(And I forget which series it was, but I recall watching an anime in which a rival newscaster had an orgasm after spiking her competitor with a laxative; she came right as the rival shit herself on camera. You know, I'm all for kinky sexualities, but if you actually have to make a cartoon in order to live out your fantasies, you're just not getting out enough. I'm quite sure that I could find a woman willing to shit for sexual pleasure if I actually tried; and given the porn that comes out of Japan, I wonder why such animators and writers cannot manage to fend for themselves ....)

My favorite anime, to this day, is the now-ancient Star Blazers. Sure it's just a bunch of footage recut and reordered for each episode, but there's a story there that owned a generation in my area; we watched it every day before going to school.

:m:,
Tiassa :cool:

Well Tiassa you make interesting points but i do have to point put one thing.

You know, I'm all for kinky sexualities, but if you actually have to make a cartoon in order to live out your fantasies, you're just not getting out enough. I'm quite sure that I could find a woman willing to shit for sexual pleasure if I actually tried; and given the porn that comes out of Japan, I wonder why such animators and writers cannot manage to fend for themselves ...

I don't think they do it because they are horny, it is because there is a big demand for this stuff. Think about it, if they really were so pathetic and horny why make a whole cartoon about it, just rent porn or make some live porn. Making a cartoon isn't easy and to make one just for pleasure is pointless. They are made because it sells.



But most of the people I know who watched it watched because there was a chick in a leather G-string killing a whole bunch of shit. (I still laugh now and then about the thumbtack scene in the speechless short episodes.)

I actually found that show to very intelligent and daring and it'll be hard to believe but i never found her g-string attractive..too bony i guess.

Cowboy Bebop is one of the best I've seen on television; I generally prefer Anime that doesn't rely on oversexing the audience. You can be dazzling without being sexual; you can tell stories without being visually dazzling.

Are you suggesting that show wasn't visually dazzling...on the contrary that show had THE best direction i have seen in a Anime to date. It's amazing how much they pulled off with the budget they had for that show...the action sequences in that show are top notch and easily rival any John Woo film.

Originally posted by sargentlard

I actually found that show to very intelligent and daring and it'll be hard to believe but i never found her g-string attractive..too bony i guess.


Yeah, that girl was nasty. :)

Never did catch the show. I saw snippets of it occasionally on MTV, but never whole episodes... Maybe I should do some research... *Fires up Gnutella* :D

Actually I enjoy DBZ, infact you should do some research on it, it is based on advanced genetic, and astrodynamic principals

Originally posted by ChildOfTheMind
Actually I enjoy DBZ, infact you should do some research on it, it is based on advanced genetic, and astrodynamic principals


What?? no it isn't, it's just the same plot used over and over again with damn good action sequences thrown in it. There's nothing scientific about that show...hell it breaks every law of physics combined.

The basic thrown down is this - Happy- evil dude come- DBZ guys get defeated for a while - Goku comes- Goku kicks villain ass for a while - Villain always finds way to get stronger - villain kicks Goku's ass for a while - others try to help but sorly lack strength - Goku through some turn of events become amazingly strong- beats crap out of villain - happy again.


That show however has numerous plot holes and confusing moments but damn that show is fun too watch. You have to credit that show for making anime cool in America along with Akira. Since that show gained so much fame Cartoon Network has decided to give a lot of other anime's a chance.

I think I've always had a mindset about cartoons, and this one (dbz) goes outside those lines for me...Knowing that one should always be open minded I struggled to find a way to support my argument without fooling myself...and the truth is it's a matter of opinion and it's hard to say you're wrong...so I have to explain why I'm right. I've always believed that cartoons were a way to convey a story with the aid of visuals in order to enhance the story, or help tell it in a way words cannot. Because I've thought the visual part of cartoons was suppose to say something about the story, or help channel the story in a specific way, I found DBZ to be lacking or pointing in a direction that gives the story less credit...yeah long sentence, whatever. Trying not to step on any toes I reasoned that, like sargentlard pointed out, DBZ is a cartoon geared to your primal enjoyment- battle, fighting, courage, relationships, yadda. While you can pretend it has deeper meaning, the story is only there so that you can see cartoon battle scenes. The underdevelopment of the scenery and characters tells me little emphasis is placed on these parts of the cartoon. tiassa points out that the cartoon tries to tell a story without worrying about the cartoon part of it...and why is that? In this case you can only appreciate the story because the visuals are shit. I believe if you break the story down you won't find much more than battles and reasons to fight. While it may deliver entertainment, it cannot be respected as a good cartoon because of its serious lack in visual and story development. Any two bit can put a story together about people struggling or fighting to survive, but I don't see how this is very original (original perhaps only in the sense that no one else except pokemon has thought of mass producing crappy cartoons). Cartoons like DBZ are wildly popular because they have the right qualities that people who only care about getting a shot of action and a feeling of belonging to something larger than them. But that's all they have. It's a car with only what you need to get from place to place. It does the job, but you don't have a roof or windows. There has to be a distinction between anime that is made to make a profit and feed on geek culture and anime that tells a story worth listening to. Ok ok, listen to DBZ, but understand there is better out there.

oh yeah, and their cartoon porn is pretty good stuff..I think they're live stuff is really sick tho! good lord

...Flux it baby!