Forum - View topicWho sucked out the FEELIIIN'?!?
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LordByronius
ANN Columnist
 Posts: 861 Location: Philippe for America! He is five. |
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Folks, I am burned out on anime.
I discovered it last night as I went to a midnight cult theater that was showing a print of Blood: The Last Vampire. I love that movie, and it was great to finally see it blown up in beautiful 35mm with full Dolby Digital sound. As I came home, though, I thought about all of the anime TV shows and OAVs out there that friends of mine have been practically pleading me to watch. .hack//Sign, Witch Hunter Robin, et al. They give me reasons as to why they are so great, and I'd probably agree with them, but I cannot, for the life of me, muster the energy necessary to either retrieve or much less watch any of these shows. Cripes, the new Gainax show has been making the digisub rounds for a while. I love Gainax. I've got a DSL connection, and if I could possibly teach myself how to use an IRC client I could get them with hardly any effort. But, I can't. I am still eagerly and fervently awaiting the local release of Spirited Away, the Bebop movie, and Millenium Actress. God, how I want to see Millenium Actress. For all of these recent and not-so recent TV shows, though, I am completely indifferent. I have compiled the following hypothoses as to why this would be happening: 1) A complicated plot involving the resurrection of the corpse of Ernesto "Che" Guevara. 2) "Personal Issues." 3) The fact that anime just might be as bad as it sounds nowadays. 4) I am finding other forms of animation a lot more diverse and interesting at this point. 5) Ikaruga. 6) Annoying fans. So come along, crusty old fanboys of america. Do you, too, feel disenfranchised from all this new anime? Because I seem to, and it's SO LONELY HERE IN THIS CAVE. |
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ultrabot
Posts: 130 |
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i dont see your #1 as being a real problem, che was my homie in a past life
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Cassandra
 Posts: 1356 Location: Birdsboro, PA |
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I don't really watch any of the "newer" series just because there is so much "older" stuff I want to see and dernit, there's only so many hours in a day!! I very rarely download anything fansubbed even though I have a DSL. (If anything, a friend of ours downloads stuff and we end up seeing it at his house....but those are few and far between - Ebichu, Read or Die, some Di Gi Charat...I downloaded a few episodes from 2 series: Hyper Police, which they announced the licensed to two days after I downloaded the first 5 episodes, and Kodomo No Omocha, which I haven't even watched yet.)
It's not that I'm not interested in any of the newer series. It's just that: 1. I have SO many other series that I want to see and buy the DVDs for....I just don't have the time to watch downloaded stuff. 2. I'm REALLY against downloading licensed titles. Of the downloaded stuff I saw, it was all before the license was announced. I'm not gonna waste my time downloading a series for the license to be announced a day later. (Although I am very happy that Hyper Police got licensed, I was rather upset at the timing of the whole thing.  )
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Case
Posts: 1016 |
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Mainstream-itis? Annoying fans, more availability of lesser-known (and lower quality) series, lack of interest in series recommended by other people, feeling of being disenfranchised... all end results of anime's increasing popularity. You might ask Scot Bontrager, the webmaster of Sailormoon.Org, about it. He openly admits to not liking anime much anymore for generally that same reason; especially the annoying fans part. (Only to be expected from someone who has worked on such a large Sailor Moon message board site for so long, I suppose.) Happily, I have no idea what that feels like. I am a totally oblivious rabid fanboy. Good thing, too, considering that going to class and working and eating and sleeping and watching/writing about anime seems to be the only things I ever do anymore. If my interest faded, I don't think I'd know what to do with myself. Heheh... I remember Scot saying the same thing about himself and his website a while bad. Sad state of affairs, really. 
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TheAngstyKiller
Posts: 26 |
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Yep, it's probably all the mainstream-itis. Half the people you talk to on the street refer to anime as DBZ, Sailor Moon, or Pokemon. You may think it's a bad thing, but I consider it a blessing. Reasons being:
1) I will never have to bear of sight of seeing Escaflowne on a skateboard. (At the same time, I curse Shaman King for giving the skateboard artists more to mutilate. Keep it with the funky lettering, anime and extreme sports don't mix.) 2) I will never have someone cut into my conversations about why everyone in Initial D is drawn so ugly. 3) I can walk in three weeks later into Suncoast knowing the DVD I've been putting off for three weeks will still be there 
After watching what must've accounted to 1 year's time of anime, I'm pretty much tired of some of the themes they use in the shows, and to me, half of the stuff they air now is considered cliche. What I really want to see is the rookie 14-year-old pilot getting beaten up or killed by someone older and more experienced. The progidy kid is just a marketing ploy; I want see an anime targetted towards older fans where the kid makes a grand entrance into a mech he never pilots and promptly gets his guts splattered across space 
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Neilworms
 Posts: 155 Location: Chicago IL |
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I have solved this ailment by trying to seek out unusual anime that seem interesting. At the very least I'd recommend that you try to seek out everything by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Also, look for more obscure names, take for instance Sadayuki Murai (co-writer Millenium Actress, writer Perfect Blue, a couple eps of Cowboy Bebop), one of the shows that he wrote, Boogiepop Phantom is quite interesting so far. (I have 3 dvds of it)
Begin Rant! :) (I hope I'm not too offensive to the people on this forum :) ) Personaly I am no longer an anime fan. I am a fan of well made sophisticated animation (most of which comes from Japan, if you look hard enough). I can think of few animated films outside of Japan that even come close to compairison to the greatest anime. Of course anime is just like everything else, 90% is crap, the other 10% is excellent and well-crafted. Fans do really annoy me. They talk about how sophisticated 'Dragon Ball Z' is, and how 'totally original' Love Hina is (even though I've seen the same Shounen Harem thing done so many times, it has become idiotic, formulaic and stupid) and yet haven't seen the truly sophisticated works (thanks in part to a certain company with a mouse as its mascot) like <I>Only Yesterday</I>, or even one of LordByronius' favorite movies (thanks to over ambitious Japanese Producers) <I>Memories</I>. Just venting a bit, I hope I meant no harm :wink: . Byronius, I think you're probably going to end up just like me, trying hard to look for obscure series that sound interesting (I use WinMx to find some stuff, not IRC) and pretty much ignoring every series that the uber-fans say is excellent, yet to me seem very formulaic and idiotic. Keep searching, good stuff is out there, it just takes some work to find it. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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You're all wrong.
Byronius, you're burned out. Plain and simple. Happens to everyone after a certain period of time. You'll never be the 'same' anime fan again; but in time you'll return to anime and find that it's just as entertaining now as it was years ago. I burned out really badly about a year ago, and this past July I just found it again. Now, as a reborn 'fan', I don't do most of the stuff I used to. I don't buy anime merchandise, I don't obsess over anything, I don't have any anime posters on my walls or toys on my desktop. I watch anime because I enjoy it (and it's a career choice for me. I'd better like this stuff, or else I'm out of a job.). I don't bring it up in casual conversation with people I don't really know. A lot of the new stuff that's coming out now - .hack://SIGN, Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai, even CLAMP's much-maligned Chobits, are all entertaining shows. If you start watching anime with a more critical eye - look for the message the show is trying to send and what themes and values the show is trying to push - I think you'll find anime a lot more entertaining. If it's just fluff, then.. well, there's nothing you can do. Watching stuff as a passive fanboy viewer, just digesting and not analyzing, gets pretty boring and useless after a while anyway. But anyway, give it time. In about 10-12 months you'll turn around and start watching anime again. You'll be substantially less fanboyish, too. -Ex-burn out, Zac |
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Gai Super Napalm
 Posts: 148 Location: Hoboken, NJ |
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I was burned out too, after I watched about 10 million series in the span of a few months. The cure?
Watch Hana Yori Dango. Much like what Zac said, you'll come back to anime far less obsessed than you were before, if and when you do. My posters are still on the walls but thats because I'm too lazy to ever take em down. Anyway having been one myself, and now being different, I can't stand people who are like "dude watch this watch this"; because I will invariably dislike the show. Similarly; I dislike heavily the two shows you mentioned. I don't buy the "philosophic material" excuse, because almost all anime is just pap anyway. Theres as much garbage over there as there is here. I decided to say screw it all and just watch whatever was fun, whatever was relaxing, or whatever I just guiltily enjoyed. I like a whole slew of shows that have no redeeming philosophical material; no political commentary; no dark stories or even quality animation. They are just *fun*. One Piece is fun, Shaman King is fun.. Kodocha is fun.. Inu Yasha, despite being depressingly formulaic and stupid; even Inu Yasha is fun. So I'll watch it; If I can watch like 50 eps of some kid playing Go, then I can watch some dog man with a sword, right? If you watch anime for some redeeming intellectual quality, you best get back to the books and fast, because there just isn't any there. Anime fandom, especially its american fandom, is filled with people who could be clinically assessed as unconcious due to lack of a functioning brain. They will blindly watch anything with pretty animation or flashy effects; and because they enjoy themselves while doing it, I don't really hold it against them. There are too many people who hold stuff against eachother here; I mean, I like love hina. It has nice bright colors, good music, characters I can relate to and laugh at, and situations that amuse me. I don't care where it came from or whether or not it suits your sophisticated taste, when I watched it, I had a good time. Same thing with Ten Naru. Bouncing cheeks never cease to amuse me. |
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SuperSkylineGTR
 Posts: 471 Location: Chicago, IL |
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[quote="Zac"]
You're all wrong. Byronius, you're burned out. Plain and simple. Happens to everyone after a certain period of time. You'll never be the 'same' anime fan again; but in time you'll return to anime and find that it's just as entertaining now as it was years ago. -Ex-burn out, Zac [/quote] Right on, Zac. It happens LB, it happened to me too. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Inu-Yasha bores the living snot out of me. Similarly, I enjoyed Chobits (assuming that's one of the series you said you disliked) because it had bright colors, good animation, likable characters, amusing situations (and two totally badass gothic cyberpunk types at the end.) AND it was making a woefully muddled statement about humans and technology and women that I could nitpick at and deconstruct (Look for ANN's upcoming Chobits feature.). What can I say, I'm a film student. I can't watch anything without analyzing it, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Anime is just as ripe for analysis as anything else. Now, don't get me wrong.. there's no point in analyzing something like Azumanga Daioh or One Piece.. but any show that takes itself even remotely seriously is attempting to foist some sort of value system on the viewer, and that bears further investigation, in my mind.
I don't hate the 'dude, watch this!' types, because I know what they're heading for. Burnout City, Population Them. They'll get there soon enough and they'll wind up like me. A whole generation of otaku has already gone through this transformation; many of us found girlfriends (usually fangirls going through the same transformation) and have since returned to enjoying anime, just not obsessing over it. I've known Byronius for a while, and he never seemed obsessive to me; but I think all anime fans go through burnout/disillusionment at one point, regardless of how high their personal level of activity in the hobby was. Generally afterwards, the fan will be substantially less irritating and more likely to lead a normal life. |
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Case
Posts: 1016 |
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Wow. This thread is actually touching on some deep stuff. And from an idle comment on getting bored with watching anime, no less.
Wow. Hats off to LordByronius for pulling a revelation out of his ass, and to Zac for making it make sense. 
Boy, now I feel like a moron... |
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GATSU
Posts: 15549 |
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I just avoid new shows and keep up with older shows unless I can rent the new stuff on dvd. I've actually ended up checking out more Japanese movies than animated ones in the last two years-probably because of Battle Royale. I'm actually getting more burned out on videogames myself...
Personally, I'd recommend you check out more manga or just read different comics and or regular books in general. Tezuka's Phoenix and Soryo's Mars gave me a euphoric feeling I hadn't felt since I first saw Akira. And Crumb's been keeping me entertained on the American comic side. (I wanna read some Maus eventually.) |
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Ataru
 Posts: 2327 Location: Missouri (Strikeman) |
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I had one of "those" about every other week.
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GATSU
Posts: 15549 |
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Sh*t! I'm feelin it too. I'll probably stick to movies and oavs for a while, and only those which have supplements. (Such as Harmageddon SE. :) )
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Gai Super Napalm
Posts: 148 Location: Hoboken, NJ |
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Watch FLCL ^_^ |
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