Question for anime fans

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I'm a VERY huge anime fan and I have a question. Do you find it hard to watch anything else other than anime?
I for one, find it very hard to get into anything live action. It's getting to the point where I do not watch anything live action, everything I watch is anime only, I don't know why this is.

i love anime and live action.
i really dig live action japanese movies...i have a couple favorites... battle royale, pyrokinesis,
and a couple of japanese series..... one liter of tears, majo no jouken, hikari to tomo ni


not to get off topic, but

hikari to tomo ni

is actually about a japanese autistic boy, it also has a manga too. the manga came first though.

When I was a teenager, I couldn't bring myself to watch anything else besides anime. Live-action and Western animation just didn't interest me. But during last year, I decided to take a break from anime and began to enjoy live-action movies such as those starring Johnny Depp (particularly his work with Tim Burton) and the live-action TV show Doctor Who. The key to enjoying them was that they reminded me of anime, because they featured things like characters in iconic costumes and strong fantasy elements.

And starting last month, I have become obsessed with the Western cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It also reminds me of anime, because the characters are drawn with big, shiny eyes and there are some "magical girl" elements to it, particularly in the season premiere episodes. (There are rumors floating around that Friendship is Magic was supposed to be a show with an ongoing storyline, but the executives forced it into having self-contained episodes.)

But when all is said and done, I still prefer good ol' anime to any other medium. I even love to draw anime-style even though I am capable of drawing in other styles.

I used to like anime. Then it was pointed out to me how pathetic the animation actually is. I can't stand to watch it now that I'm aware how little effort they put into most of them. Keep an eye out the next time you watch. Very little actually happens on screen. For example during conversations most anime faces will be basically blank with just the mouth opening and closing as they talk (same animation no matter what the words are - lazy). It's very hard for me to watch that stuff and not be irritated and bored by it.

I'm picky with live-action too. Luckily there are quite a few good shows going around at the moment that I can get into.

I think I'm one of the few anime fans who actually has a varied interest and will watch other things like live action and American animation. I guess it's because I've always been so picky, I do like anime but I'm very picky about what I like and won't watch just any anime. I'm the same way with other TV shows and movies.

My main interest is anime, but I also loved Batman: Under the Red Hood and various western animated cartoons, especially Pixar's. I also respect Avatar: The Last Airbender for trying to take a more serious, anime-like approach to western cartoons, but I didn't get into it myself. As for live-action. . . It never really captured my imagination with some obvious exceptions such as Star Wars (my previous obsession), The Lord of the Rings (though I read the first book before watching the movies, and The Hobbit afterwards), Back to the Future (though I've only seen the first one), etc.

I didn't realise people would actually side with one to the exclusion of the other. No idea why people do this.


PS: Live action is awesome. Or at least some of it is.

To tell the truth, I've never really felt that way. In fact, if anything, I'm more prejudiced to live TV shows. I probably am not an anime fan, technically, as I dabble in anime and manga, but my main fixations are mostly with live action shows.

I mostly like anime, I have had trouble really focusing on other things, I would say that the only live action tv show that has really kept my interest would be Supernatural, probably because of my interest in myth and legends. As for live action movies, many do not interest me too much, except anything to do with vampires, or AvP (that includes their own) movies, or good fantasy will hold me.

Avatar cartoon is good, and I got Invader Zim recently which is great and one of the few that held me, though recently I had my eyes opened up to some DC cartoons, I picked up things in them that I would not have picked up if I was still a kid.

@ The_Perfect_Storm
How old were the shows you were watching, because that is definetly not true with a lot of them, I know some of the older ones would just have a freeze frame background, and in some ways have characters off screen while they were speaking to save animation. But it has improved, like in Haruhi if you look for that stuff you will notice faces change (including head size for movement of mouth), and you might notice them doing other movements and people the background just doing their normal business. And for showy animation there is anything recent by SHAFT, if anything you might complain that they put too much effort into creating interesting animation. Even JC doing a good job at doing something when not really anything is hapening.

Look the bottom line is that the animation aspect of a lot of anime sucks. The people in charge are not motivated to produce quality animation. They cut corners wherever possible. Evidently a lot of people don't mind but I can't stand to watch something that is obviously terrible.

That's not to say that all anime does a poor job of it. In my experience it's mostly just the tv shows. When they produce movies and OVAs the quality tends to go up.

@Tollorin: They are not simply "doing the best they can with limited resources". I have no idea why you have said that "further limited animation" is an artform. Cutting corners doesn't make them better... I don't know who Hanna Barbera is and I would never ask 20-30 year old French Canadian people what their favorite cartoon was back in the day.

Your other claims include:

1. anime has more detailed drawings and better aesthetic compared to American animation.
2. Japanese animators are better at portraying movement.

My response to 1 is that I agree with you to a point. The kind of animation I usually see on TV from America is terrible. It's often horrible to look at. What's worse is lately they seem to be copying anime (similar style, and obviously cutting corners much like anime; e.g. shows like 6teen). On the other hand when it comes to films I believe the Americans do aesthetic/detail much better than the Japanese. Stuff like The Lion King, Bambi etc.

In response to 2, I don't think the Japanese are better with movement at all. When you watch an anime you can see how badly animated it is. Even some of the ugliest American cartoons have better animation (except the cheap anime knockoffs).

Talking about anime movies, I heard that there is a recent surge of anime studios saying that it is easier to make something into a movie rather than have it as a season. I know that it was one of the reasons for the Sora no Otoshimono movie, and possibly for the Hayate movie. Both I want to see, must look for the Hayate movie soon, and that K-ON! had a midnight release, apparently rare. Personally I prefer the series though to the movies.

You can be surprised by the amount of effort.
I don't see how these can be considered worse animated than Lion King or Bambi?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXM5ndtuMSA[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDq54iZhezQ[/youtube]

I'm not saying it's all bad. There are definitely examples of good animation out there. In my experience, opening themes often get special treatment too (for example, the opening theme in Fullmetal Alchemist probably had the best fight scenes in the whole show).

In any case, compare the facial expressions going on during conversations in the lion king with those of most anime characters.

It's difficult to say that nothing is happening in your Angel Beats video, however you will notice that whenever things revert to conversations there is very little movement (mostly just mouths opening/shutting).

At 0:10 you can see that they have looped the girl walking, and then zoomed in on random bits of the loop to drag it out even more.

At 0:19 when she gets shot, screen focuses on her face for more talking. Nothing but the mouth moves. 2 frames repeated over and over. E.g. o O o O o O (best I could do in text..)

At 0:26 the characters move into a pose of absolute stillness so that they can continue their conversation.

At 0:41 cuts to the guys face instead of focusing on the battle, so he can talk whilst moving his eyes left and right (more simple movements).

The scene at 1:53 with all the mechanics(?) isn't even animated. It's just one image and the screen scrolls over it.

I admit this kind of stuff is on a small scale in this video.

Watch what goes on in the first few minutes of this. Look how basic it is.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uslmnRStEhA[/youtube]

Obviously things pick up during action scenes. Unfortunately most of the dialogue outside of those is hard for me to sit through.

You have convinced me to at least try some of the newest shows. It's 2011! There might be something out there for me.

One I'm really looking forward to next year is Berserk.