Too many anime?

[Sokar]

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

I found Sokar's statement pretty bold, saying that there are one to three "really good" anime every year. Give me a list of anime from the last 12 months and I could point out at least 20 that many people would call "really good" with good arguments even if I, personally, might hate them (the anime, not the people, there are already enough people out there who aren't able to distinguish between these concepts ). Because people's tastes are very different.

Oh, those are just numbers I randomly pulled out, it could be 0, could be 5, could be whatever. I used 1-3 just because it seems that there a few shows a season that are popular and generally accepted as good. Yes, it could be a case of good by popularity, but since we can't travel to the future to look at each series' impact and value it's the best measure we have. In the last year Death Note, Suzumiya Haruhi, and Code Geass were popular and generally considered to be good, with Haruhi in particular hyped to the level of God.

Anime, just like everything else, goes through periods of deconstruction, reconstruction, and stasis. Stasis is always going to be more common than deconstruction or reconstruction. The last great deconstruction work was probably Evangelion, where the mecha genre as a whole and a lot of stock anime characters got examined in a different light. Before you start shouting at me about your favorite series and how it totally changed everything, it's just an example, your favorite is great and original too, I use Evangelion because it's my favorite.

Right now anime is in stasis, the only thing different is the setting imo, while the themes are pretty much the same. Harem in particular is just the same freaking thing over and over again. Even the girls from different series blur together if you watch enough. You have the shy one, the genki one, the tom-boy one...etc. Every work can't be original, but there should be at least some originality once in a while. For example, I would love to see a harem anime where the girls don't love the male protagonist unconditionally and don't accept the other girls around him because they want him to be happy. The male protagonist instead needs to uses Death Note style devious plots within plots to manipulate the girls to be with him and put up with his apparent indecision, but really deep down inside he's just a pervert that wants to bang multiple girls. Could be funny, could be serious, but please let the protagonist be a playa instead of a wimp!

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Sokar

I would love to see a harem anime where the girls don't love the male protagonist unconditionally and don't accept the other girls around him because they want him to be happy. The male protagonist instead needs to uses Death Note style devious plots within plots to manipulate the girls to be with him and put up with his apparent indecision, but really deep down inside he's just a pervert that wants to bang multiple girls. Could be funny, could be serious, but please let the protagonist be a playa instead of a wimp!

I appoint you to the wonderful world of adult anime, because that's where you'll find your themes of resistance, rape, playa playin' and playa hatin'. But I do need to note even those themes were designed for the viewer to be entertained, much like moe-themed anime are.

[Sokar]

I want emotional manipulation of a harem of girls, not rape, rape, rape. If I see any more stupid rape=love hentai, I'm going to puke. The only thing close to what I described that I know of is School Days, and that was not manipulative enough for me. The point I'm trying to get is that for a harem of girls to unrequitedly love a guy, well, these girls must have a lot of self respect issues. People move on in real life, these harem girls never move on at all. Instead of them starting out that way, desconstruct this common theme by making them starting out strong, but make the protagonist, who is usually below average in every regard, extremely competent in the game of love. He uses seduction/manipulation to break down the girls self-respect and make them to be emotional dependent on him. I'm not focused on the banging part, that part when show on anime, or porn for that matter, is extremely repetitive. These are only so many positions you can do, but the emotional part is what interests me.

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by Sokar

... long ...

I think you underestimate the inhomogeneity of the anime fandom . Geass, Death Note, Haruhi were all very popular, definitely. In other words there's a significant minority that thinks they're very good. But I bet not even 50 percent of the regulars here would put any of those among their personal Top 3.

And that's why the argument that fansub groups sub to much crap nowadays does not fly. Because your crap is not my crap.

As for harem, they can be easily avoided if you want to avoid them.

I frankly don't see your stasis. Looking at my own Top 3 of recent anime, the interaction between the main characters in Seirei no Moribito, Spice and Wolf, and Lovely Complex didn't gave me in any way a feeling of same old, same old.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Sokar

I want emotional manipulation of a harem of girls, not rape, rape, rape. If I see any more stupid rape=love hentai, I'm going to puke. The only thing close to what I described that I know of is School Days, and that was not manipulative enough for me. The point I'm trying to get is that for a harem of girls to unrequitedly love a guy, well, these girls must have a lot of self respect issues. People move on in real life, these harem girls never move on at all. Instead of them starting out that way, desconstruct this common theme by making them starting out strong, but make the protagonist, who is usually below average in every regard, extremely competent in the game of love. He uses seduction/manipulation to break down the girls self-respect and make them to be emotional dependent on him. I'm not focused on the banging part, that part when show on anime, or porn for that matter, is extremely repetitive. These are only so many positions you can do, but the emotional part is what interests me.

Honestly, Sokar, as original as that would be, and as much as I agree with you that harem anime is painfully repititive, I'd feel downright dirty and slimey watching an anime like the one that you're suggesting here.

An anime protagonist that emotionally manipulates women for sex, and that's what the anime is all about?

Ugh.... at least Light Yagami actually has an understandable, and admirable, goal of wanting to wipe out crime as much as possible pushing him onwards.

No, the following are the unique elements that would save harem anime...

1) The harem male lead doesn't tolerate physical abuse from tsunderes. If they punch him, there's consequences to it (at the very least, the harem male lead should be shown harbouring hard feelings towards those who physically abuse him).

2) The harem male lead is more decisive, and actually makes a choice.

3) The tsundere doesn't always win.

[r-18]

never , never enough yeah there is crap but everyone will differ on which is good and which is crap. the more the merrier. bring it on.

[Alleluia_Cone]

The only thing I would like to add to this discussion is that I feel it is a little shortsighted to come up with generalities wherein short anime (13 or less episodes) are deemed 'inferior' to long anime (26 or more episodes). It really depends on the show, the quality it maintains, and what it sets out to accomplish. In my own experience, for example, I regard Paranoia Agent (13 episodes) and FLCL (6 episodes) as roughly equivalent to Monster (74 episodes) and Cowboy Bebop (26 episodes) in how it is that I like these series, even though they are not comparable to one another in length.

[Happy_Chip]

Originally Posted by Alleluia_Cone

The only thing I would like to add to this discussion is that I feel it is a little shortsighted to come up with generalities wherein short anime (13 or less episodes) are deemed 'inferior' to long anime (26 or more episodes). It really depends on the show, the quality it maintains, and what it sets out to accomplish. In my own experience, for example, I regard Paranoia Agent (13 episodes) and FLCL (6 episodes) as roughly equivalent to Monster (74 episodes) and Cowboy Bebop (26 episodes) in how it is that I like these series, even though they are not comparable to one another in length.

One thing that bugs me about longer series is, there are filler episodes - not just recaps to the series by that point, but side arcs that have nothing to do with the main plot, and then get bogged down. School Rumble for instance - I really liked that series, but it kept digressing into the lives of side characters, rather than offering any kind of further development of the main Tenma-Harima angle.

I suppose seeing the lives of the side characters isn't a bad thing (in SR some of the side arcs *were* quite entertaining IMO) - but I still feel like my chain is being yanked when they introduce a conflict, and rather than resolve it in some way, they simply drop it and move onto something else.