Forum - View topicComedy in anime.
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Jessica1988
Posts: 4 |
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I've thought about this, and I want to ask you guys.
Do you guys still find anime funny? I personally don't, and my reason is simple - The jokes are repetitive. How many times do you see a joke about some stupid violence - hitting someone randomly, or a joke about boobs, or just a spam of cliches throughout the entire series. I mean, I think anime has gone WAY downhill when it comes to comedy. I have gotten to the point where I leave American shows for comedy, and I get my action and drama, etc., from anime. What do you guys think? Do you guys still like anime comedy, or is it repetitive to you? Everytime I see a repetitive joke... honestly... I facepalm. It's gotten to that point. And I facepalm a lot, so that should tell you the amount of repetitive jokes I see in anime. [EDIT: Changed your thread title to make it a little more specific. -TK] |
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MadShadow42
 Posts: 56 |
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It varies with the show, honestly. You have to take Sturgeon's Law into consideration: 90% of everything is crap. Many, many anime do indeed copy basic jokes that stopped being funny years ago. There are a lot of basic concepts that the medium has adopted: automatically equating "weird" to funny, or maybe the characters' reaction itself is the joke. Visual gags, slapstick, and other forms of humor tend to be dumbed down by people who see it done well, laugh, think "we could do that" and completely miss the crucial factor known as execution.
That said, there are still plenty of anime that genuinely make me laugh, and generally they succeed at this through genuine finesse and a master touch, avoiding the usual cliches that piss me off, and tend to have something going for them aside from comedy. For older examples, I need look no further than Great Teacher Onizuka, FLCL, Slayers and Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Ouran Highschool Host Club has a good sense of comedic timing as well, and the limited amount of Midori Days, School Rumble and Sergeant Frog I've seen also managed to get a few good chuckles out of me. As for more recent examples, The World God Only Knows has an Ouran-esque talent for skillfully parodying its genre and I've heard good things about Squid Girl, but the shows that made me laugh the hardest during their comedic moments were in fact not primarily comedies: Princess Jellyfish and Space Brothers. Those are just a few pointers, and your mileage may vary, but I'm pretty sure that for every ten bad comedies there'll be one or two good ones out there, you just have to know where to look. Last edited by MadShadow42 on Tue Dec 04, 2012 1:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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getchman
 He started itPosts: 9129 Location: New Hampshire |
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[EDIT: Reason, please. -TK]
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5131 |
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I really cannot answer your question since the only anime I saw that sticks in my mind is The World God Only Knows. I know that you did not ask for advice, but have you checked out this thread?
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EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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No, it was always like this. You just have watched too much of that. If they don't entertain you any more you just need a break. Sometimes lifetime, because it's no point to force yourself to watch entertainment that you don't enjoy.
As you've told, joke told too many times isn't funny any more. That's why comedies usually suck at all. Not only in anime (although it's badly hurt by producers conservative attitude and narrow targeting) but by entertainment industry in general. IMHO it works like this- most of popculture try, with better or worse effect, make money out of the popular trends. While most of said popcultural chicles are based on topic, the comedy is all about execution of said topic. You can write vampire love novel better or equal to Twilight, but you won't copy Monthy Python or Tarantino. It seems obvious for everyone except producers who still try to milk the cow, by copying already told jokes. It's especially visibly in anime, since it's quite small pool and you can see all things that are on top in relatively short time. |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7989 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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I generally have a preference for more serious stuff so I don't watch as much comedy as other people. I only watch them occasionally, so I guess I don't get tired of them. Personally, if you are tired of the same old jokes I would say go watch a Shaft comedy, like Natsu no Aarashi or And Yet the Town Moves which aren't typical comedies.
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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Exactly--When I first discovered anime, it was through comedy (UY, Dirty Pair), and what attracted me was that the national cultural sense of humor for the "reserved" Japanese was for mega-chaos, silly incongruity, loud over-reactions and embarrassment. (Much like we first reacted when we saw Monty Python come from the stiff-upper-lip British.)
And even then, if we're talking about a current-generation fan who doesn't remember anything before the Millennium, I can understand the frustration with boobs and nosebleeds-- Apart from Frog, there hasn't really BEEN a good funny 90's old-skool comedy for my dollars in the 00's-10's since Azumanga Daioh went out of print. Back in the 90's gold rush, we had a string of all the classics, with Urusei Yatsura just coming out in the US, Ranma 1/2 being the go-to series for mainstream first-timers, we thought no one could ever dub Kodocha, and is anyone here geezer enough to remember putting Dragon Half and Shinesman on their all-time must-see lists? Funi's now bringing back the Slayers and Tenchi Universe franchises, just because the licenses were rescuable, and it's an archive of the days when anime was aimed for a mainstream manga-reading audience. Nowadays, anime's own self-image has marginalized itself to "horny otaku", and if we don't get geek jokes, we get panty shots. I've wanted to go back to American comedies, but unfortunately, the same thing seems to have happened over here, too: Literate, dialogue-oriented stage-style comfort-food ensemble sitcoms like Cheers and Frasier seem to have been pushed out by post-Seinfeld nastiness and laugh-tracked fantasy-alibis for guys to act like doltish, no-future high-school-misogynist manchildren into their thirties, on "Two and a Half Men" and "How I Met Your Mother". So, like I dig up the Tenchi reruns on anime, I just dig up the Dick Van Dyke Show reruns on Netflix. 
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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I love comedy anime of all types for a variety of reasons.. Recent shows I loved were Sket Dance, Gintama, Oreimo, Mitsudomoe, Rock Lee Full Power Ninden, and various other. I'm a fan of the Japanese boke/tsukkomi humor and their culture take on a alot of things, like seeing an over the top gaijin parody always makes me laugh. This also applies to shows not primarily comedy too, like Sailor Moon, which had some great comedy scenes and reaction faces from the cast.
I forget who said it, but I agree with the view of "a good comedy can make you laugh, but a great comedy can make you cry". Shows like Sket Dance or Mitsudomoe which don't just throw comedy at you but also develop their characters and plotlines and tread in depressing emotional territory (like any of the main character's pasts in Sket Dance which make you stop and say "This is supposed to be a comedy show...") are what I adore about anime comedies. The actual sense of a timeline (seeing characters in Sket Dance age and actually graduate, for example) and development is what draws me into them. Watching Hitoha from Mitsudomoe go from a shy introvert to opening up little by little each episode until the season finale which has a great resolution for her quest to make friends and be more social was great, and only makes you appreciate the characters more. Characters you can not only laugh with, but also cry, feel sad, and empathize with. It's a nice sense of balance and depth I find lacking in western comedies. The comedy cartoons that airs on Nickelodeon, or Fox don't really don't make you feel that way about the characters, and it's something I appreciate with all the anime comedy I watch and enjoy. Even children anime comedies can go from laughing to crying with plotlines like a friend being spoiler[diagnosed with cancer and having to watch her get steadily weaker and weaker from chemo until eventually she loses her battle and passes away]. It's those sad moments that make you appreciate all the happy and fun times you had with them and the characters as a whole. Something I find translates and is reflective of real life very much, telling you to enjoy things while you can because you never know what tomorrow might bring. It's a nice level of depth I don't really see anywhere else and something I love about anime in general.
Did you really just try to say Tenchi wasn't a 'horny otaku' thing? And do Naga's massive joke breasts or any of the other fanservice junk in Slayers mean nothing? Let alone Keroro Gunso which pimps out Natsume every other episode as a fanservice icon? Sounds like you got a bad case of rose-tinted glasses if you think those shows are anything different from the 'horny otaku' stuff you criticize. Though I dislike that statement as it implies sex is some kind of 'dirty' 'taboo' thing we should kept hidden and unmentioned, and not a natural part of humanity that should be free range to talk or joke about just as much as anything else. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Pretty sure it's always been low. Almost all of those jokes and instances you can name probably came from Urusei Yatsura in one capacity or another. While that show absolutely has hysterical moments, the beat-into-the-ground humor no longer works. Also, you assert that it's gone way downhill, please cite examples that reinforce this idea. Most importantly, older comedies/anime with comedic moments you believe to be better. One of the best anime comedies I've seen in a while, with the major focus on actually being comedic was Joshiraku. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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Oh hell, yes. During the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, I laughed so hard I cried! That's just one example but for a current series, Little Buster's perfectly-timed jokes can make me LOL as well. Visual gags, audio gags, slapstick, dry humor, ecchi humor, random WTF moments, cynical humor, Japanese language puns... Comedy has so much variety, I find it hard to get stale. I don't really care for repetitive jokes in the same episode but they work for different series just fine.
Uh.......are you sure you aren't talking about seinen Key anime, there? o_O What "children" anime ever did THAT!? Last edited by Chiibi on Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:30 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Not all anime comedies fall into the traditional memes. I enjoy the more off-beat shows like Oh! Edo Rocket, Level E, Higepiyo, Moyashimon, and Welcome to the NHK!. Then there are shows like Baccano! and Kurenai that mix comedy and drama. Hyouge Mono displays a wry sense of humor despite its setting in the bloody Sengoku Period.
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EricJ
Posts: 876 |
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Qv. Kodocha. (Or what, are we going to complain about the NY arc now, too?  )
If you mean Universe, yes. Eww, don't tell me you watch those OVA's... 
FMM, all of the Slayers OVA series (vs. TV) means nothng. 
(...Ohh, so YOU'RE that guy! Y'know, we were just giggling over the "Natsumi's in her swimsuit, it's filth!" posts over on another thread, couldn't remember who it was? And yep, looks like it was the same reply, verbatim, too.) |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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2012 has been a good year for Anime Comedy. Binbogami ga! and Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos were both hilarious. So yeah, I definitely still find Anime to be funny. A lot of the awful tropes (like walking in someone changing) are still around in lesser shows, but the answer to that is to not watch them and stick to the better ones.
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dragoneyes001
 Posts: 873 |
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truly depends what kind of comedy the anime sets forth,slapstick,situation,jokes,word....etc..
not all of the funniest anime are actually comedies they simply add comedic parts. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15536 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I guess some parts of comedy just get repeated until they only go through the motions already set. I have gotten furstrated when I have seen the set up of a joke I have seen so much in the short 5 years of watching anime.
But anime is almost always introducubg something new into the mix that keeps the entire genre from going stale. Nyaruko-san turned the entire ecchi/harem genre on it's head, and used Lovecraft as a source of jokes. There was even a walk in scene in the first episode, not the way you would expect either. Daily Lives of Highschool Boys averted to mostly being about guys, and guys doing guy things, it is funny how it felt real somehow, amd wjem tjey dod have girls they were often a pretty big aversion of how they normally are. They were signs that anime are aware of its problem, and will shove them on a stick so that you can laugh at the medium. I will try to think of something else interesting, oh the already mentioned Mitsudomoe. A possible gag at the loli genre where the character are drawn in a way that makes them look like hamsters and there absolutly no loli service, this despite gags ranging from pornography to alleged pedophilia. And some of the most hillariously gross humour I have seen. In the harem comedy you will typically get a lot of the same jokes, but look a bit and you can find the good comedies. |
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