Is anime on the way out?

Watch Grave of the Fireflies and see how it matches up cinematically.

Shit is like a kick in the stomach. Even Ebert loves it and included it on his list of greatest movies of all time. Akira too.

Gatsby is one of my favorite books btw.
 
:rolleyes:How can anime not have the intricacies of acting, cinematography and a good plot? Please explain it to me.

You actually need a live breathing person to act, commonly called an actor. Otherwise it's a programmed animation. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

So an anime can't have any intricate acting, it only has it's cinematography and plot to hold it up. Animation for me is far worse than acting. So you have to find me an anime that with only cinematography and a plot trumps a medium that can use cinematography, plot AND acting.

Watch Grave of the Fireflies and see how it matches up cinematically.

Shit is like a kick in the stomach. Even Ebert loves it and included it on his list of greatest movies of all time. Akira too.

Gatsby is one of my favorite books btw.

Sure will take a look seeing u're another fellow gatsby fan!!
 
You actually need a live breathing person to act, commonly called an actor. Otherwise it's a programmed animation. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

So an anime can't have any intricate acting, it only has it's cinematography and plot to hold it up. Animation for me is far worse than acting. So you have to find me an anime that with only cinematography and a plot trumps a medium that can use cinematography, plot AND acting.



Sure will take a look seeing u're another fellow gatsby fan!!

It's called voice acting, which is brought out by the animation and vice versa.
 
It's called voice acting, which is brought out by the animation and vice versa.

lol the fact that you can even equate that voice acting + animation = acting, is laughable.

But I know you don't believe that, I know you're not foolish enough to think a rendered image with a voice clipped on top is as emotionally powerful as seeing a great actor work. And if you do, you have no appreciation for acting.

Then by all means watch twillight.
 
i finally got caught up on naruto. this blows. i keep waiting for them to go back to sasuke and orochimaru and kishimoto refuses.
 
lol the fact that you can even equate that voice acting + animation = acting, is laughable.

But I know you don't believe that, I know you're not foolish enough to think a rendered image with a voice clipped on top is as emotionally powerful as seeing a great actor work. And if you do, you have no appreciation for acting.

Then by all means watch twillight.

Okay, so it seems that you're saying that the majority of anime has some qualities that make it somewhat juvenile. That's diverging quite a bit from your original assertions that if you watch any anime you're a "manboy'.
 
I find myself watching less and less anime now. It seems like there's this massive over saturation of high school fan service filled genres and less and less good series coming out. Back in 2007 we had the likes of Death Note and Code Geas coming out. In 2012 the best thing was probably Highschool of the Dead, something which sums up what happened to the genre as a whole, but in a funny way. And I mean that, I didn't find anything better in 2012 than a zombie spoof.

I don't think I'm alone on this thinking something is wrong. Anime companies have been shutting down one after the other and I understand the industry in Japan had to request a grant from the government. The greats are retiring, sadly we lost Satoshi Kon to cancer, Miyazaki retired. These can only be considered a huge loss to the industry especially since no one is stepping up to replace them.

The new Ghibli is rubbish, Earthsea was rubbish and that Borrower's copy cat was lame. Ponyo was superb but only because Miyazaki came back for one more shot. There's this horrible over saturation of the industry taking place with endless highschool dramas and movie spinoffs of TV series taking over anything. That's kind of always been there but it seems like these problems have multiplied drastically. At least a few years ago there'd be some excellent movies mixed in. I haven't seen an anime movie that's been "up there" in a good while. Everything is just a quick cash and grab for these companies nowdays. The anime industry is running out of great innovators and now the shlock is rising to the top taking over everything.



I don't think the quality of anime has gotten worse in my honest opinion, there are still some really decent anime series out there - that are in the high school genre & there are plenty of interesting new anime series that are on their way out - off the top of my head in recent years; Kimi Ni Todoke, Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, Beezlebub (which I found hilarious) etc etc etc there are some that are obviously mixes of other genres like To aru Majutsu No Index - I could name quite a few anime series that I'm a fan of that are of recent years & quite a few that are in the high school genre.


I do agree though that of late there seems to be an influx of anime that are centered around the high school genre - some aren't that great, some are decent, some are great, just like with any genre.


I partly get where your coming from - I can remember a whole lot more anime series being good that are pre 2008 - when we had series like Code Geass, Death Note, D.Gray-Man, Clannad, Toradora!, Rosario + Vampire, Kenichi the mightiest disciple, fullmetal alchemist brotherhood, full metal panic etc etc.


I think the biggest reason why anime is suffering is because the industry as a whole hasn't changed with the times - in the past - or the golden era, anime companies use to make their money primarily from rental shops (like blockbusters in the uk) & to a lesser extent a combination of licencing to national & international broadcasters depending on the shows popularity & in some instances on merchandise. But since the DVD market effectively collapsed along with the DVD rental market - so did the main source of revenue for production companies - the anime industry since then has been dropping off bit by bit & has never really recovered.

The issue with the anime industry is the same at the moment & the reason why quite a few anime production companies have been going defunct - it's mainly to do with the finance - many anime series require huge amounts of capital investment - I read somewhere the usual cost per episode is $150k-$300k. The problem solely lies with financial models - production houses have difficulty in making a return on the amount of capital they invest - it's as simple as that really.

So the longer the anime series the greater the amount of investment is needed & the greater the risk that they may not make any profit or even a return on their investment - this is why if you've noticed many anime series tend to only last 13 episodes whereas those that by chance do make a return, might get 26 episodes - the high-school genre imo is purposely chosen because most high-school genre based anime's don't have more than 13 episodes in story content - so it pretty much fits the bill ---------- most decent anime series need much more than 13 episodes - imagine if code geass, death note or the like had only been 13 episodes - any good anime series needs you to identify with the characters & like the story - that's hard to do when it's only 13 episodes - hence why you might feel the way you do.


There is much more to it than that obviously, but I don't really want to be sitting here for hours explaining it so: http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/feature/2012-03-05

If your really interested - the above link from anime news network explains the crisis the anime industry is in at the moment - which is what I was briefly talking about - it also explains how production companies raise capital, avenues they use to make profit etc ect about the whole process & why the anime industry is in decline.

In short I think the anime industry salvation will probably be the internet but most production companies really haven't known how to make enough on the internet to at least cover costs & make some profit - at the moment what they are doing is making them more money but even that is barely much ---- advertising revenue is limited, anime DVDs are more expensive than usual DVDs so only not many are purchased, many watch anime for free on the internet - subscription seems the most logical choice but not everyone is willing to pay to watch anime they could watch for free & not everyone may be able to afford it.
 
You do realize that Issac Asimov novels were widely considered pot-boiler scifi, correct? They aren't generally regarded as exemplars of high brow literature. And Brave New World is just another utopian scifi book.

The Great Gatsby is considered a classic (undeservedly in my view - but that's besides the point) precisely because it is so prosaic. It deals with life "as found" in the nineteen-teens/twenties.

Pot boiler sci fi that impacted the genre quite a bit, and pose some very interesting questions of the problems if we were to actually have robots and their ai. I never claimed that they were high brow either but they still manage to kick the living donkey shit out of animes and mangas imo and I still stand by my point.
 
Okay, so it seems that you're saying that the majority of anime has some qualities that make it somewhat juvenile. That's diverging quite a bit from your original assertions that if you watch any anime you're a "manboy'.

Juvenile/childish, a lot is childish but some of the mature pieces you guys claim are juvenile imo.

Well if you're a man that enjoys childish things, then yeah u kinda still are a man boy. Nothing necessarily wrong with it.
 
lol the fact that you can even equate that voice acting + animation = acting, is laughable.

But I know you don't believe that, I know you're not foolish enough to think a rendered image with a voice clipped on top is as emotionally powerful as seeing a great actor work. And if you do, you have no appreciation for acting.

Then by all means watch twillight.



A good voice acting performance, with good animation, is just as good as any live action movie.
 
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I don't think the quality of anime has gotten worse in my honest opinion, there are still some really decent anime series out there - that are in the high school genre & there are plenty of interesting new anime series that are on their way out - off the top of my head in recent years; Kimi Ni Todoke, Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, Beezlebub (which I found hilarious) etc etc etc there are some that are obviously mixes of other genres like To aru Majutsu No Index - I could name quite a few anime series that I'm a fan of that are of recent years & quite a few that are in the high school genre.


I do agree though that of late there seems to be an influx of anime that are centered around the high school genre - some aren't that great, some are decent, some are great, just like with any genre.


I partly get where your coming from - I can remember a whole lot more anime series being good that are pre 2008 - when we had series like Code Geass, Death Note, D.Gray-Man, Clannad, Toradora!, Rosario + Vampire, Kenichi the mightiest disciple, fullmetal alchemist brotherhood, full metal panic etc etc.


I think the biggest reason why anime is suffering is because the industry as a whole hasn't changed with the times - in the past - or the golden era, anime companies use to make their money primarily from rental shops (like blockbusters in the uk) & to a lesser extent a combination of licencing to national & international broadcasters depending on the shows popularity & in some instances on merchandise. But since the DVD market effectively collapsed along with the DVD rental market - so did the main source of revenue for production companies - the anime industry since then has been dropping off bit by bit & has never really recovered.

The issue with the anime industry is the same at the moment & the reason why quite a few anime production companies have been going defunct - it's mainly to do with the finance - many anime series require huge amounts of capital investment - I read somewhere the usual cost per episode is $150k-$300k. The problem solely lies with financial models - production houses have difficulty in making a return on the amount of capital they invest - it's as simple as that really.

So the longer the anime series the greater the amount of investment is needed & the greater the risk that they may not make any profit or even a return on their investment - this is why if you've noticed many anime series tend to only last 13 episodes whereas those that by chance do make a return, might get 26 episodes - the high-school genre imo is purposely chosen because most high-school genre based anime's don't have more than 13 episodes in story content - so it pretty much fits the bill ---------- most decent anime series need much more than 13 episodes - imagine if code geass, death note or the like had only been 13 episodes - any good anime series needs you to identify with the characters & like the story - that's hard to do when it's only 13 episodes - hence why you might feel the way you do.


There is much more to it than that obviously, but I don't really want to be sitting here for hours explaining it so: http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/feature/2012-03-05

If your really interested - the above link from anime news network explains the crisis the anime industry is in at the moment - which is what I was briefly talking about - it also explains how production companies raise capital, avenues they use to make profit etc ect about the whole process & why the anime industry is in decline.

In short I think the anime industry salvation will probably be the internet but most production companies really haven't known how to make enough on the internet to at least cover costs & make some profit - at the moment what they are doing is making them more money but even that is barely much ---- advertising revenue is limited, anime DVDs are more expensive than usual DVDs so only not many are purchased, many watch anime for free on the internet - subscription seems the most logical choice but not everyone is willing to pay to watch anime they could watch for free & not everyone may be able to afford it.

Really interesting post.

However I have to pick one part which is kind of beside the point, I think Death Note would have been better kept shorter. It looked like they were just trying to extend the length of the show after THAT THING happened. Near and Mello were terrible ideas.
 
Juvenile/childish, a lot is childish but some of the mature pieces you guys claim are juvenile imo.

Well if you're a man that enjoys childish things, then yeah u kinda still are a man boy. Nothing necessarily wrong with it.

Don't you realize how closed-minded and reductionist this is? I've haven't read Gatsby yet, but my favorite books are "The Razor's Edge" and "Of Human Bondage", but I'm a manboy because I like to sometimes turn my brain off and watch some mindless action?

Just for the sake of argument. If there was a person, that had served in the military, been deployed to war, has traditional 'man' skills such as carpentry, mechanical skills, etc. But happens to like anime, he would be a "manboy", in your mind?
 
It is childish in many ways, the fact that you cannot comprehend that it is childish astounds me. It does have its mature episodes but overall it's a tongue in cheek anime with funny characters and cool worlds. And with horrid killer blobs created from a festering and rotting crab stuck in a freezer. That's pretty fucking childish.

The possibility of a abandoned kid named Ed surviving earth in the state it was in


not to mention her hacking, #unrealistic

You do no understand what childish means. I mean there's been plenty of movies with unrealistic hacking in it, that doesn't make it childish....just unrealistic.


as for the bolded part, Please explain yourself. Because it seems to me that when you don't like an idea and think its stupid/unrealistic you label it as childish.
 
I'm also convinced this woodkid is trolling.

comparing Manga to books? that's retarded, ofcourse a book has the possibility for more depth. That doesn't make Manga childish. You come to these obscene conclusions.
 
Don't you realize how closed-minded and reductionist this is? I've haven't read Gatsby yet, but my favorite books are "The Razor's Edge" and "Of Human Bondage", but I'm a manboy because I like to sometimes turn my brain off and watch some mindless action?

Just for the sake of argument. If there was a person, that had served in the military, been deployed to war, has traditional 'man' skills such as carpentry, mechanical skills, etc. But happens to like anime, he would be a "manboy", in your mind?

If he watches animes mostly then yeah he's a manboy, a very scary trained killer manboy though
 
I'm also convinced this woodkid is trolling.

comparing Manga to books? that's retarded, ofcourse a book has the possibility for more depth. That doesn't make Manga childish. You come to these obscene conclusions.

He seem like a smart guy, but he's way off the mark here. You can't just discount every other interest a person has, and make a blanket generalization like he is. So, I think you might be correct about the trolling.
 
I'm also convinced this woodkid is trolling.

comparing Manga to books? that's retarded, ofcourse a book has the possibility for more depth. That doesn't make Manga childish. You come to these obscene conclusions.

If you were convinced u wudnt have responded now would you?

A depth that is lacking in manga and anime, a depth that cinema captures but anime does not for me anyways. And i bet for many others as well.
 
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