(Rhymes doesn't it?)
I was asked this question today. Not the first time i was asked this question and i doubt it would be the last. But honestly, for the first time ever, i could not answer the question.
Not because i
didnt want to. But because i couldn't.
I replied, "yes and no"
To better understand my reasons for my reply, one must know of my relationship with japanese anime. If you just want to cut to the chase then scroll down
*****************************
*Begin mellow
synthesizer music and cue background fog*
SAMUEL AND ANIME. A brief history.
My first
bursh with
anime was in the form of a video tape my great grandfather left to me. In it was a show about a young white lion and his animal friends fighting against a bunch of evil baboons and a toxic cloud monster.(I would, years later, discover this show to be "
Kimba the White Lion". Created by the same guy who made
Astro Boy.). Taro the Dragon Boy was another
anime that caught my attention when i was young. I remember it was a holiday special back during the time of
SBC 12.
I would say my first
anime i watched
voluntarily was Transformers: Headmasters on a
malaysian channel, but back then, cartoons were cartoons and this show was no different from He-Man in the eyes of my young self.
Fast foward to 1999. The big 90s animation boom was over. Award winning shows like Batman: The Animated Series, Johnny Quest, Exo-Squad and many others came and went by without me paying much attention to them. Back then my idea of animated TV was that they were supposed to be FUNNY(like Looney toons and Freakazoid). Exo-Squad and Batman was just too serious for my taste, so i let them pass me by(a decision i REGRET years later and till this day. But thank goodness for DVDs.)
I was in sec 2. And pokemon was all the rage. I stuck around for at least 20 episodes until it got boring. Also, until i discovered the other anime lurking around the channels. Most of them was in chinese so i left them be, being terrible in chinese myself, i passed on Digimon, Shin Chan, Doraemon, Lupin III and a number of others.
Then along came "Magic Knight Rayearth" showing on the (back then) newly established Kids Central at 5.30pm on weekdays.
It was english, imported from USA(wait wait, i'll go into this soon). But the storyline was a fantasy one thus doing away with any cultural constraints. 3 school girls accidentally get transported to a fantasy world where they get involved with the local magical war.
So what was Samuel doing watching a girl's anime?? Honestly it was the acting. I could not differtiate the acting in this show, from the acting in live action TV shows. Emotions were, a first time for me, portrayed so realistically by 2D animated characters. They smiled, they cried, the laughed and they sighed. All of it, believable and easy to relate to. Coupled with the fantasy elements, some humour and a easy to understand story, I was officially hooked.
Oh, did i mention there were giant Robots in this show?
There, see the giant robots??
Anyway, from this show i moved on other anime on TV. Very limited selection back then. I just watched whatever came my way. Magic Knight Rayearth ended and along came DRAGONBALL Z.
Oh bugger.............................
Despite the my friends' claims that it was possibly the greatest thing created since......erm.......the last greates thing created, i just could NOT bring myself to sit through another episode of that long drawn out, boring, silly, absurd, "Im charging my power to a new level", Brain rotting, "No, how can i defeat the new enemy?!?!", mind numbing PIECE OF GARBAGE!!
I do not care how influenctial it was or how much merchandise it generated. The campy 60s Batman and Robin was influential and generated a lot of merchandise. Yet you dont see many ppl claiming it was the jewel of TV history.
So, go away, dragonball Z.
Sailormoon was another one but i avoided it like a plague. Aside from it being the "barbie doll" of TV animation(as a guy i would not be caught dead watching it), the ridiculous formula each episode followed was..........ridiculous(and i have no idea to this day why POWER RANGERS copied that formula).
So the early 2000s came and i lost interest in anime due to a number of factors.
1) I discovered the original Japanese audio of anime(Particularly Magic Knight Rayearth itself). And it put me off. Compared to what i heard on MAgic Knight Rayearth's english voice track, the japanese voices were.........
Well, the girl voices for one were a whole octave higher than what my ears could take. And the overall acting feel was just.......not real. It felt like a stage play and not a real life senario with real people. The acting was just so over the top, emotions were overly exaggerated to the point of *pain*, and i just could not relate to the characters in the same way i did when i first watched it.(DO NOT flame me for this. I'll go more into my language preference later.)
2) Cardcaptor Sakura, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, Detective Conan, etc. Channel I was on the rise with its own line of anime. BUT THEY WERE ALL VOICED BY LOCALS. YEs. Believe it. Locals. The accents in the voices are SINGAPOREAN!!!!!!!
OH THE HORROR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111!!!!!1111!!! WTFROFLMAOBBQ!!!!!!
Need proof??(youtube doesnt seem to have) well i got a VCD. it came free with a comic. Need proof? come see me for it.
Aside from the very singaporean voices, other shows were "Hamtaro" which i kinda liked just cos the hamsters were REAL CUTE.
However, Compared to the smooth animation and clever writing in shows like Justice League and Gargoyles, the anime on TV fell flat.
It was in Polytechnic that saw a huge resurgence of my interest in anime. Thanks to a few close friends, i was hooked once again. I discovered the various deeply philosophical pre-2000 "Gundam" Series,
and the humourous yet heart string tugging "Love Hina
",
Many others came my way and i embraced them. Lapping them up like a thirsty dog.
From the feudal fantasy styled Inuyasha, to horror genre like Hellsing and Vampire Hunter D.
From comedy like Azumanga Daioh to SciFi like Vandread and Full Metal Panic.
I came to an internal consensus about the voices at this time. A stand which i always bring up in many an anime discussion.
So long as the characters are
- non-japanese
- have hair colour other than black or brown
- have non-japanese names
I will listen to them in english. For it would be beyond WEIRD to have a blond, blue eyed man named "Vash" or "Edward Alric" rattle off perfect japanese would it not? Similarly, it would be weird for one named "Kagurazaki" or "Megumi" to sound like a texan or mid-westerner.
Things happen, things change. I grew not to hate anime, but the fans of anime. So stuck up in their own little worlds. Refusing to see the logic or reason. To them all anime was gold. They could never accept anyone calling their anime anything less than "good".
They could not accept anime in anything other than japanese(this led to many heated confrontations online between me and those of like mind, and the fans i hated)
They could not accept that for every great anime, there was 10 pieces of crap anime. THey could not accept that a woman named "Victoria" with blong hair, blue eyes, living in LONDON, wearing UK police uniform can speak any other language aside from Kansai accent japanese.
I hated their blatant disregard for logic. Their stubborn ways.
I hated their habits.
Oh and dont get me started on cosplay.
My dear, you are NOT beautiful, and do NOT look like a japanese school girl character from whatever anime. PLEEZE, refrain from making a mockery of japanese culture!!! And stop acting cute.
ITs not cute.
Its embarrassing. Stuff like that makes me embarrassed to call myself an anime fan.
Either find a character you resemble and dress like the character, or dont even bother. You fit yourself to the parameters of the charater in any form of costume acting, not the other way around.
Ok, anti-singapore-cosplay rant over. I got nothing against the foreign cosplayers. Many of them do take their thing very seriously and the effort and time invested in it shows.
So, after a lonnnnnnngggggg history. Back to the question at hand
***********************************************************************
I said, yes and no.
I like anime, and i dont like anime.
I love Ghost in the Shell, i hate Naruto. I like Akira, I hate Bleach. I like Zeta Gundam, I hate Gundam Seed.
So do i like or dislike anime??
Official statement: I like GOOD animated shows.
Country of origin, i heck care.
If it is a good show, i like it.
I like Justice League as much as i like Trigun
I like Heavy Metal(the movie) as much as i like Ninja Scroll
I hate powerpuff girls as much as i hate Naruto
I hate Robotboy as much as i hate Ouran Host Club.
So long as the show
- exibits a high standard of narrative and storytelling
- has implied thought provoking themes that are not presented blatantly "in-your-face"(a problem many japanese anime face but i shall have another post dedicated to this)
- balances art detail with quality and smoothness of animation
- balances style with realism
- easy to follow, understand and follow-up
I consider them good. Awards also are a good indicator for films dont just win awards for no reason.
I came to the realisation as to why i liked anime so much at first. It was a skewed perception. I was recieving all the gems all at once, making me think that anime in general was GREAT. But once the bottle of sweet wine is finished, you are left with the barrels of vinegar.
A great anime movie or series seem to be a once in a blue moon thing nowadays. The most recent being "Sky Crawlers".
Other than that, we have mediocre, formulaic anime series flooding the market on a monthly basis.
When will those people grow up and appreciate anime in its entireity? To appreciate a rose, one must respect the thorns. To get the diamond, one must dive into the mud. Without mud there can be no diamond.
To appreciate the good while at least acknowledging the bad.
