Getting disillusioned

[Mordeth_Kai]

If this belongs somewhere else I apologize, I was originally going to put it in the two cents section but the rules and description didn't look like this belonged there. I'm a bit long winded, but there is a point if ya bear with me.

When I first started watching anime I thought everything I watched was epic and awesome. In those days dvd's were just starting to become common and we couldn't watch or share anime on the internet. I was also a broke kid and I never had friends with similar interests. As a result, anime was limited to what I could get my hands on (didn't have cable either so adult swim was a rarity), usually at a video store, and the rare occasions when a show would be on a free channel (never for long and never with the episodes in order). In those days, a complete anime season usually cost around $120 on VHS, or $20-30 per tape or dvd when those came out. Everything was overpriced and run by greedy bastards until piracy and the internet balanced it out for better or worse.

Becoming an adult, I suddenly had my own money to do with as I pleased and internet access for stuff that got streamed, I suddenly had choices and wealth of stuff to watch at my fingertips and I probably overindulged. When I started out I thought everything was great because I had nothing to compare it to, now I have everything compartmentalized by type. These days I don't enjoy anime as much as I used to because I now see gimicks that get overused by shows repeatedly, and half the time when checking out a series I don't make it past the first 1-5 episodes because I get annoyed.

The things these days that turn me off the most when I see them:

 

1: The use of still frames in action. By this I mean, instead of animating the action they show still frames and a few sound and visual effects to convey action happening, a prime example of abusing this would be Noir (I loved the series until this was pointed out, now I cant stand it). But all the mainstream series use it if you know what to look for, DBZ (Not as bad as most, and most I wouldn't call abuse as there are a lot of things DB/DBZ either invented or made big), bleach, naruto, inuyasha, etc.. This also includes limited animation, which is not as bad, and sometimes its done well, like someone shooting and you see a still frame of the person hit then suddenly there's a hole in them, or someone swinging a sword in a 360% arc and all you see is the streak representing the blade and a sliding still frame of the people hit, 90% of its use I would call crap but there are exceptions.

 

2. Unoriginal and/or repetitive plot. This can be found in any genre of anime, but the best example would be DBZ. DBZ is an example largely because it made many things popular that got re-used in a lot of other series that came later, the one I hate the most is boiling action down to numbers (DBZ its powerlevel, in Bleach its spirit energy, in Naruto its chakra (as many things as I would criticize in naruto, they at least broke the mold by not letting it be the only deciding factor in a fight, that is to say a weak person could defeat a stronger person using their head, I lost all respect for bleach when (cant figure out spoiler tags) ichigo hit another guy with his sword and it was deflected purely by his spirit energy)), the next is the signature of DBZ, hero loses a fight, goes off and trains then comes back suddenly stronger and wins (Bleach abuses the crap out of this, but so do a lot of shows), its a great element in small doses, but when a show keeps rehashing the same scenario it gets real old real fast and DBZ, as epic as it was, is more guilty than anyone of doing this.

 

3. Unoriginal and overused gimmicks/jokes/scenarios. In american television, somewhere in the past 15 years people cheating on eachother ceased to be the domain of sleezy soap operas and became a common and constant plot device of mainstream tv shows along with excusing it and trying to get the audience to sympathize with the unfaithful, in anime I see a lot of other things over and over again, especially in harem anime and comedy series that abuse fan service and find lame excuses to create pervy moments and show nudity. The first couple of times I laughed, but it gets old after a while, especially when you see the exact same scenario play itself out in 10 different series. When I was on a harem binge I watched 3 back to back series that I could not distinguish from eachother because even the plot was almost the same on top of all the gimmicks and jokes. I am not saying all harem anime is unoriginal, only that I've seen enough of it that I would call very few series good and most blatant perversion on the basis of "sex sells". An example of a great series would be Girls Bravo because what they did, they did well, but I couldn't give an example of a bad series, because it depends on where you start. When you have a lot of different series that when broken down are essentially the same thing, the worst is going to be the last you saw, if that makes any sense. Moral of the story, don't go on a harem anime binge, small doses are best

Maybe I'm becoming cynical, maybe I'm overly critical, or maybe I just need to lay off the anime for a while, but its gotten to the point where it feels like its all the same and I rejoice every time I see something truly original (or that is at least different from the things I've already seen). Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that anime is bad, not even the series I disliked or couldn't get into, or the ones I criticized (If I didn't enjoy DBZ, I wouldn't have watched it). I'm just disillusioned and don't know what to do.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Mordeth_Kai

[Koby]

It's why I went from watching 7-10 shows a season to just maybe picking up one. Last season I only picked up Log Horizon while this season I only picked up a sequel to an older show. Less and less are decent enought to watch and more and more are just generic plot rehashed with new characters with overabundance of ecchi fanservice.