Comment on Anime Recommendations
mrmaplebar@fedia.io 4 hours agoIt’s easy to say “you just have to find the good anime, here’s an example” and then discounting the fact that it’s basically one out of 1,000.
Ok, sure... But like, how is this different from any other kind of media? What's the ratio of good movies and TV shows to bad ones? What's the ratio of good music and video games to bad ones?
I would love to tell people to skip the generic stuff and latest flavor of the season anime for masterpieces and cult classics like Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Metropolis, Ping Pong the Animation, Redline, etc., but people will still opt to watch a show about a catgirl with a nicotine addiction and use that as their north star for understanding the medium. (Not seriously judging Chainsmoker Cat, because I haven't seen it and don't know much about it.)
The point being that there is no shortage of good, high-quality anime spanning 50+ years for people who care to seek it out. I've been watching anime for decades and I'm still seeing discovering classic shows and awesome movies that I haven't seen before. So yeah, go watch the good ones and skip the bad ones.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Much, much higher, if we’re talking about creepy tropes.
Plenty of TV and cinema is bad, but thats different than the specific creepiness we are discussing.
Additionally, popular, high profile, critically acclaimed anime seems to suffer from this too. Not universally, but when I tried to get into anime it was hard to avoid.
mrmaplebar@fedia.io 3 hours ago
To be honest, I think it's hard to have this discussion in the abstract, because a lot of it comes down to what that "specific level of creepy" means, both on the individual level and culturally. I think to what degree sex, violence, drug use, antisocial behavior, etc., are acceptable in media depends a lot on the context.
Many, or rather most, of the popular manga/anime series out there are shonen shows, primarily targeting the tastes and sensibilities of adolescent boys, so I think to some degree sexual content and violence are to be expected.
What's more, I think America is generally more sensitive to sexual content in media than Japan, while Japan is probably more sensitive to stuff like drug use... so there is a cultural aspect to it as well of course.