Even though my tastes in anime tend to gravitate to the popular and mostly well received titles, there are still quite a few I like that the majority of the fandom thinks are bad, in other words, their flaws far outweigh anything good about them. Froggykun on Fantastic Memes wrote a great post on this issue that inspired me to offer my opinion – why flawed anime are worthwhile and why we shouldn’t feel ashamed to like them…
The measure of a good anime
A few weeks ago, Bradley from Those Damn Cartoons! wrote a post of the same name as this one in which he discussed what he feels constitutes a “good” anime (using The Idolmaster anime as an example). I agree that his measurement is a viable one that many of us don’t think about, and I felt like expanding on it in a post of my own…
The overrated anime
Even someone like me who’s easy to please when it comes to anime, and can enjoy most series that I feel are at least mediocre, comes across a few that I see as overrated. It’s part of human nature that anything that becomes very popular will also invoke a lot of people to claim that it’s overrated, anime fandom being no different…
Finding the appeal (and plot) of plot-less anime
The argument that’s often made against anime classified as slice-of-life and iyashi-kei is that “nothing happens.” In other words, the shows are plot-less, which to some makes them boring and stupid. As someone who enjoys these kinds of anime as much as anime in any other genre, I’m going to examine why this is so…
How “real” should anime characters be?
As fans, we often praise anime for its realism – how it gives its characters human emotions that are easy to relate to and presents its stories and settings in very believable ways no matter how fantastical they are. But if you think about it, do anime characters really act that much like real people? A recent post by Myna got me thinking more about this…
Anime and Japan’s culture of “cuteness”
Something that’s always fascinated me since I’ve been able to follow Japan’s anime fandom in real time thanks to the advancement of the Internet, is the proliferation of “cuteness” in the country – not just in all genres of anime, but in real life Japanese society as well. And what’s even more interesting to me is how this acceptance of cuteness can’t help but carry on to American anime fans…
The two types of friendship in anime
We all know that friendship is a common theme in all kinds of anime, from its more preachy examples in kids anime to its more subtle ones in otaku-aimed anime. But although “friend” is the term in English for these cases, in Japanese there’s actually more than one word to describe friends…
My top 10 anime endings
*Notice: For some strange reason, commenting on my blog was not working from roughly 1pm yesterday to 1pm today (PST). If you left a comment on the blog during that time, your comment has been lost. I sincerely apologize for this – I don’t know how it happened, but luckily my fellow blogger chikorita157 was able to fix it. Commenting should be back to normal now but please let me know if you experience any problems.*
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I recently counted down my top 10 anime openings, so now it’s time to move on to endings, as difficult as it was…
1,500 words in defense of moe
I’ve tackled the moe debate indirectly in previous posts, but I haven’t yet went head on with it. So here I go, a post of 1,500 words about why moe does not deserve the negative treatment that many Western anime fans give it…