Hot takes

[Viviana Santos]

Yu Yu Hakusho is the best shounen.. up until the Dark Tournament arc.

I Think Hunter x Hunter is better than Yu Yu Hakusho but i agree that it peaked at the Dark Tournament arc.

 

[Gorse]

I still remember the Harem era

HOT TAKE: I liked this era. :’( I’d take a billion Highschool DxD-style battle harems over one more episode of BUGGERING AROUND IN A FANTASY WORLD… WITH MY AUNT!!!?????

 

[Gamma]

Definitely. But it's generally easier to dislike a current trend than an old one simply because it's current. I wasn't alive in Japan during the late 70s/early 80s so I don't need to see a trillion mecha shows plastered everywhere in the same way. For me, it's not the setting/isekai ruleset in and of itself that makes it boring (because every subgenre definitely has something good), it's mainly how they're written.

Fair. There are probably modern Isekai that are well written and does something good with the ideas but are buried between the sea of mediocre slop that paint this kind of story in a bad light.

Yu Yu Hakusho is the best shounen.. up until the Dark Tournament arc.

- Another hot take: The Three Kings arc is probably my favorite

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

I liked this era. :’(

Me too, it was peak waifuism.

 

[Bonkers225]

Evangelion was hot garbage

 

[Stookymalarkey]

I don't watch much Anime, but I've noticed that more and more of them are adaptations of Light Novels instead of original concepts and I think that's much to its detriment. It's safe (adapting something that's popular) but it's also very bland since they all chance the same trends instead of making stories that make proper use of the visual medium. It's like the circle of mediocrity.

 

[ciro64]

My gripe with anime is how many of them relies on a "And then" narrative without real substance to it. That being said, there are a few anime that I like and almost all of them are modern.

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

but I've noticed that more and more of them are adaptations of Light Novels instead

Adaptations of VNs, games or Mangas used to be more common.

Anime is mostly used as a marketing ploy for the original material, and since now LNs are what make dough, the publishers are more inclined to turn them into anime.

 

[Tonberry]

There are probably modern Isekai that are well written and does something good with the ideas but are buried between the sea of mediocre slop

Probably. It likely doesn't help when it's generally more difficult to find interesting stuff as a westerner unless you're extremely in-the-know, so we just see stuff like Shield Hero on the front page of a streaming service and think that's all there is. I'm guilty of that too, but I still have issues not pertaining to the setting itself.

more and more of them are adaptations of Light Novels instead of original concepts

This being one of the main ones, for me.

Anime is mostly used as a marketing ploy for the original material

That's also true.
It's a gigantic medium, so it can be tough to differentiate on what's more of a tie-in, and what's more of a wholly original work (both of which can be good or bad, obviously).

I prefer reading mangas in general over watching an anime adaptation (since I'm an animation enthusiast, not necessarily a consumer of cartoons in that sense), but that's because I like reading all kinds of comics.

 

[Stookymalarkey]

My gripe with anime is how many of them relies on a "And then" narrative without real substance to it. That being said, there are a few anime that I like and almost all of them are modern.

It's a problem I believe is related to what I brought up: over-reliance on Light Novels. Those stories tend to get milked to death, so of course they end up meandering and direction-less.

 

[Tonberry]

It's a problem I believe is related to what I brought up: over-reliance on Light Novels. Those stories tend to get milked to death, so of course they end up meandering and direction-less.

I agree with you, but still I wish the Light Novel format was more popular in the west (meaning not only as imported japanese works). It feels like a neat way to work. Like novellas mixed occasional artwork.

I suppose they are similar to pulp novels in a way, but that's a dead format unfortunately :(

 

[Gorse]

Evangelion was hot garbage

I know, I hate it too — it always seemed like a fat lot of pseudo-intellectual post-modern deconstructive insufferably-pretentious garbage made by an egotistical idiot to me. Small wonder it was an inspiration on Undertale.

 

[PrismRed]

Personal thing, before I judge an anime, I look at the staff and casts first, if I don't like what I see I won't even bother to take a look at the synopsis.

 

[Tonberry]

I know, I hate it too — it always seemed like a fat lot of pseudo-intellectual post-modern deconstructive insufferably-pretentious garbage made by an egotistical idiot to me. Small wonder it was an inspiration on Undertale.

THERE'S the Gorse I know and love!

Evangelion is one of those shows I've avoided because I know I'd probably be disappointed. Not because of my own expectations, but by how people elevate it. Just like *gasp* Undertale???

 

[dropsmegamega]

Evangelion was the only good thing Gainax made

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

I do like Panty & Stocking, it being so different, and making fun of western media was what appealed to me, besides that, i liked Gurren Lagann and Medaka Box, i don't really care about the other things Gainax did.

 

[miguk miguk]

I don't watch much Anime, but I've noticed that more and more of them are adaptations of Light Novels instead of original concepts and I think that's much to its detriment. It's safe (adapting something that's popular) but it's also very bland since they all chance the same trends instead of making stories that make proper use of the visual medium. It's like the circle of mediocrity.

It actually started off pretty well. Welcome to the NHK was actually a really good novel that was at risk of disappearing into obscurity if it ① hadn't become the catalyst for the surge in light novel popularity and ② hadn't been adapted into a manga and anime. That goes double for the English edition, which is now out of print and really hard to find. And the anime was in some ways an improvement over the novel, making Yamazaki into a more likable character, extending the story with more characters and events well, and developing the characters' a bit more. (I will admit that I'm on the fence as to which had the better ending, as the novel does bittersweet extremely well while the anime does very well at creating a hopeful ending.)

But it has gotten a bit ridiculous more recently. Way too many anime are getting into that inane title gore trend. Everything is called something like "My ability to fight the dark lord and save the world from the coming choco-pocalypse is no match for my mom's ability to be so sexy and skilled at cooking curry tonkatsu that the dark lord wants to be my father and buy me a Nintendo Switch for my birthday."

 

[Viviana Santos]

Code Geass is absolute TRASH.

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Code Geass is absolute TRASH.

Although i do like the Code Geass, i do say that it tries too hard to be Gundam, and it doesn't do enough with the war to actually have a real impact rather than be shocking just cause.

 

[Viviana Santos]

Turn A Gundam is by far the best Gundam show in my opinion, I understand people who think Zeta is better but I love Turn A.

 

[SolemnlyDoc]

Attack on Titan sucks.

The characters are soulless robots with only the goal of pushing the plot in the direction needed for the story to continue, and having very little depth outside of that. The half-baked character relationships are a fatal flaw with AoT's character writing. There's never enough effort and time put into establishing the relationships between characters and why they'd actually care about each other. When you watch the scene where Hannes dies, you think "that's the drunk guy Eren knew as a kid and interacted with a couple times, so it's emotional and impactful for Eren to see him die", not "Damn, we will never get to see these two interact again on screen" which would make you feel the same loss the protagonist feels.

Most character arcs are just the character's flaw being established, and then one or two scenes showing them overcoming that flaw and becoming a different person. It's very cheap. The way character arcs are written never changes from season 1 to season 4, and most characters only have one arc at best.

Characters like Levi or Mikasa are bland, one note, and would be forgettable if not for their plot armor and fight scenes. Levi is just a generic shonen badass and one of the characters that doesn't even change from start to finish, not even undergoing the show's usual rushed character arc. Mikasa has the complexity of milk toast and the personality of water. So many opportunities for her to develop and grow, yet she remained stagnant and one-dimensional.

Most of the pre-timeskip worldbuilding is retconned via plot twists and doesn't matter after the timeskip. It's almost a different story entirely. The Survey Corps feels like it's set dressing and mostly an afterthought.

The crux of the narrative post-timeskip is focused on the morality of the Rumbling, yet there's not a single attempt to help the viewer sympathize with the outside world. There's no real in-universe reason for the viewer to side with the Marleyians. The outside world is so cartoonishly evil and shallow that the Rumbling is the only logical option, but then the story wants you to feel bad when a bunch of nameless NPCs are stomped on at the end.

The plot is an edgelord fest that doesn't hold up under scrutiny, which is why the fanbase hated the ending. Once they had confirmation that there would be no more plot twists to give the narrative more depth than a puddle, they hated it. The plot doesn't make sense because it's so focused on "recontextualizing everything" with every subsequent plot twist, that it's lost all identity. The entire show the viewer is made to believe that this is a post apocalyptic world with giant cannibal monsters, and by season 4 we transition to a WW2 allegory with terrible political writing and themes that are executed with zero tact or nuance.

It doesn't matter if it was foreshadowed, you don't go from giant zombie slasher to wannabe-game of thrones in the span of 60 episodes. The author tried writing two entirely different stories using the exact same characters and world, which is why the series has no identity outside of "plot twist after plot twist" and "edgy gore." It's also just a blatant ripoff of Eternal Champions, where the protagonist Erekose is given the "god powers" of his world and is part of the race Eldren, which were exiled and excommunicated from the rest of the world because of terrible things that they did in the past. And now in the present day, the world hates the Eldren and wants them gone, and Erekose has to find a way to protect his race from extinction using his "god powers."

 

[dropsmegamega]

I do like Panty & Stocking, it being so different, and making fun of western media was what appealed to me, besides that, i liked Gurren Lagann and Medaka Box, i don't really care about the other things Gainax did.

I think most of these fall into the "wacky and random for the sake of it" type anime that really isn't my thing, principally since a big chunk of then seem to rely mostly on shock value instead of being actually funny or interesting imo. That being said I did like the Cutie Honey live action...........

 

[Tonberry]

Whoever decided that the girls' bodies in MHA had to be bimboified for the anime adaptation must be punished by crushing.

I'm so happy it didn't happen to Dungeon Meshi.

 

[Viviana Santos]

Attack on Titan sucks.

The characters are soulless robots with only the goal of pushing the plot in the direction needed for the story to continue, and having very little depth outside of that. The half-baked character relationships are a fatal flaw with AoT's character writing. There's never enough effort and time put into establishing the relationships between characters and why they'd actually care about each other. When you watch the scene where Hannes dies, you think "that's the drunk guy Eren knew as a kid and interacted with a couple times, so it's emotional and impactful for Eren to see him die", not "Damn, we will never get to see these two interact again on screen" which would make you feel the same loss the protagonist feels.

Most character arcs are just the character's flaw being established, and then one or two scenes showing them overcoming that flaw and becoming a different person. It's very cheap. The way character arcs are written never changes from season 1 to season 4, and most characters only have one arc at best.

Characters like Levi or Mikasa are bland, one note, and would be forgettable if not for their plot armor and fight scenes. Levi is just a generic shonen badass and one of the characters that doesn't even change from start to finish, not even undergoing the show's usual rushed character arc. Mikasa has the complexity of milk toast and the personality of water. So many opportunities for her to develop and grow, yet she remained stagnant and one-dimensional.

Most of the pre-timeskip worldbuilding is retconned via plot twists and doesn't matter after the timeskip. It's almost a different story entirely. The Survey Corps feels like it's set dressing and mostly an afterthought.

The crux of the narrative post-timeskip is focused on the morality of the Rumbling, yet there's not a single attempt to help the viewer sympathize with the outside world. There's no real in-universe reason for the viewer to side with the Marleyians. The outside world is so cartoonishly evil and shallow that the Rumbling is the only logical option, but then the story wants you to feel bad when a bunch of nameless NPCs are stomped on at the end.

The plot is an edgelord fest that doesn't hold up under scrutiny, which is why the fanbase hated the ending. Once they had confirmation that there would be no more plot twists to give the narrative more depth than a puddle, they hated it. The plot doesn't make sense because it's so focused on "recontextualizing everything" with every subsequent plot twist, that it's lost all identity. The entire show the viewer is made to believe that this is a post apocalyptic world with giant cannibal monsters, and by season 4 we transition to a WW2 allegory with terrible political writing and themes that are executed with zero tact or nuance.

It doesn't matter if it was foreshadowed, you don't go from giant zombie slasher to wannabe-game of thrones in the span of 60 episodes. The author tried writing two entirely different stories using the exact same characters and world, which is why the series has no identity outside of "plot twist after plot twist" and "edgy gore." It's also just a blatant ripoff of Eternal Champions, where the protagonist Erekose is given the "god powers" of his world and is part of the race Eldren, which were exiled and excommunicated from the rest of the world because of terrible things that they did in the past. And now in the present day, the world hates the Eldren and wants them gone, and Erekose has to find a way to protect his race from extinction using his "god powers."

Isayama-sama I kneel

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Attack on Titan sucks.

I never watched pass season 1.

After reading your post, it feels like i dodged a bullet.