Unpopular Opinions You Hold About Anime

[gunswordfist]

i just remember loving the song at the end.

[LumRanmaYasha]

As I mentioned before, I watched Barefoot Gen yesterday. Apparently most people find it a hard movie to sit through. As for me... I was definitely sad at certain parts, and it's sobering to see the many graphic, horrific consequences of one of mankind's worst creations and events in human history, but there was never a point where it was too much for me. In fact, I had the urge to rewatch the movie immediately after finishing it, and take everything all in again. It's not like I'm desensitized to graphic violence/imagery and stuff, since I can get rather squeamish at body horror and imagery pretty easily. If the movie was in live-action, it might have been a more uncomfortable experience for me, but having seen it I can't say I found it as soul-crushing and hard to watch as most.

Also, having watched Grave of the Fireflies yesterday as well, between the two, I personally enjoyed Barefoot Gen a little bit more. I think they are both excellent movies, mind you, but BG, while less subtle in handling it's subject matter, conveys a more personal, palpable sense of humanity for me through the balance of it's humor and bleakness, despair and hope, whereas, though I found them and their story interesting, I wasn't quite as invested in the characters of GotF on an emotional level. However, I will admit GotF is technically superior to BG with much greater directing and a more polished story behind it. Either way, though, I think both are fascinating films with their own strengths and weaknesses, and around equal in quality and enjoyment.

[LumRanmaYasha]

A lot of these are mostly manga-related, but I've thought of a couple more I've had recently....

- In general I prefer manga to anime.

- Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches is the best shonen manga comedy currently-running and the best manga currently-running title Crunchyroll's manga service has to offer to boot.

- The twist in Fuuka was handled well and the story has been solid since then and continues to be an engaging read.

- The Seven Deadly Sins' new arc is shaping up pretty interestingly, a few small parts like the power levels thing aside.

- One Piece is still fine for the most part, but it no longer produces the most consistently good content in Jump on a week to week basis. That honor probably goes to Shokugeki no Soma, though I favor Assassination Classroom more and it's the Jump series I look the most forward to reading these days.

- Enrico Pucci is the best main antagonist in JoJo's.

- Jolyne Joestar is the best JoJo.

- Vento Aureo > Stardust Crusaders.

- This isn't really an unpopular opinion more so a "very few people have actually read the source material" kind of thing, but the Barefoot Gen manga is much superior to the film and far more powerful in it's execution.

- The Akira manga is also superior to the film.

- Ditto for the Nausicaa manga.

- ....Actually, most manga are better than their anime adaptions so never mind.

-  I prefer the Revenge arc over the Kyoto arc in Rurouni Kenshin.

- FMP! Fumoffu is solid, but not something I'd consider among "one of the funniest anime ever," as I've seen some people call it.

- The "farmville" arcs in both Vagabond and Vinland Saga are excellent and in fact the best arc in the latter so far.

- REAL is Takehiko Inoue's best work.

- Buddha is Osamu Tezuka's best work.

- Silver Spoon is Hiromu Arakawa's best work.

- Lum the Forever is the second best Urusei Yatsura movie after Beautiful Dreamer.

- Always My Darling is honestly a pretty good and really funny 10th anniversary special, terrible misrepresentations of Lum and Ataru's characterizations aside.

- The endings for UY and Ranma 1/2 are absolutely perfect for their respective series.

- The Wind Rises is by far my favorite of Miyazaki's/Studio Ghibli's films.

- My favorite version of "Smile Bomb" is the one used for the Three Kings arc.

- Toonami losing three hours isn't great, but I hardly see a reason to fuss about it. They were only using those slots for reruns anyway.

- Toonami's current lineup isn't really any better or worse than it was in it's supposed glory days. It's always been a mixed bag shows-wise and the current lineup is no different. The packaging/bumps, however, I think are pretty exceptional and as far as that goes I think they're better than ever.

That's all I can think of for now that isn't "this series is overrated/underrated" or "this is better than this" and whatever.

[Spark Of Spirit]

-  I prefer the Revenge arc over the Kyoto arc in Rurouni Kenshin.

You're not alone. The Kyoto arc is 10/10 material, but the Revenge arc is massively underrated probably due to the fact it wasn't animated. If only they would give Kenshin a new anime without all the filler and having the manga's ending, I think the arc would get more respect. As it is, it's excellent.

- The endings for UY and Ranma 1/2 are absolutely perfect for their respective series.

What about MI?

- My favorite version of "Smile Bomb" is the one used for the Three Kings arc.

The second and third openings I've always liked better than the first. It just encapsulates more of what makes the show great.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

-I find the Remembrance arc to be the single greatest part of Rurouni Kenshin. As for Revenge and Kyoto, I love both, but Kyoto had a much better climax. You can't really argue that point considering that Watsuki literally just threw in an extra set if minions out of nowhere to give the other characters some lackluster final fights which did absolutely nothing for their character arcs or tge story. It was just filler. Kenshin's physical and thematic second battle with Enishi was all that we needed in the first place.

-School Rumble just didn't do anything for me. It was amusing, but never really made me laugh or care about the characters. I feel the same about Amagi Brilliant Park and Space Dandy, really. I just don't get what's so funny about them.

-Magi, to be perfectly honest, was never really great outside of the Magnostadt arc. It takes the easy way out of too many situations, and when it cones to tge political aspects, it's usually ever black and white (except for, once again, the Magnostadt arc), and ASOIAF has really spoiled me when it comes to politics and character development in fantasy stories.

-I've been bored of One Piece for years, now. The great arcs are still great, but the latest stuff is mostly just a drag.

-I'm already bored of My Hero Academy. It's a generic battle shonen now. That....really didn't take long.

-I've been bored of modern battle shonen for quite a while now.

-Despite my faults with its lack of dramatic tension, as a historical manga I found Chenggis Khan to be a very interesting read and would like to read more purely historical manga in the future.

[Spark Of Spirit]

-I've been bored of modern battle shonen for quite a while now.

I find it harder for me to get into modern battle shonen because they all follow the same formula of one on one fights, tournaments (or tournaments disguised as plots), training arcs, and power up after power up. The same dumb hero, the same angsty rival, the same useless token girl character, and the same bland enemy that is basically Aizen.

Whatever happened to battles coming because of turns in the plot like Yu Yu Hakusho, Trigun, or Rurouni Kenshin?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Most modern battle shonen are just one of two things:

-Interesting worlds with great concepts yet hardly do anything interesting with them and/or don't have interesting enough characters to support them and give you sonething to get really invested in (Magi, My Hero Academy, World Trigger, etc.)

-Generic safe crap that gets just enough ratings to keep it running and getting the mangaka a steady weekly paycheck

[LumRanmaYasha]

- The endings for UY and Ranma 1/2 are absolutely perfect for their respective series.

What about MI?

It's not really an unpopular opinion to love the ending for MI.  FTR, it's actually my favorite ending in any anime/manga period.

Although, to be fair, most of the really dedicated Urusei Yatsura fans do appreciate the ending of that series well and love it tons. I've just seen a lot of people not really the the subtlety behind the final words spoken in the series and just take them at surface value, which is completely missing the point. In Japan it's actually considered one of THE most iconic and important moments in the entire series, so it's certainly not unpopular to love it there.

As far as the Ranma ending goes, for some reason people seem to completely miss how it was essentially an intentional troll ending. Takahashi basically shows hints of how the characters eventually will eventually end up in the future, but then reveals that for the moment things will still go on as normal. Considering Ranma never took any of it's romantic subplots seriously and always was a slapstick comedy of errors, that ending suits it much more than a "everyone gets paired up and lives happily ever after" kind of deal would.

- My favorite version of "Smile Bomb" is the one used for the Three Kings arc.

The second and third openings I've always liked better than the first. It just encapsulates more of what makes the show great.

I agree.

-I find the Remembrance arc to be the single greatest part of Rurouni Kenshin. As for Revenge and Kyoto, I love both, but Kyoto had a much better climax. You can't really argue that point considering that Watsuki literally just threw in an extra set if minions out of nowhere to give the other characters some lackluster final fights which did absolutely nothing for their character arcs or tge story. It was just filler. Kenshin's physical and thematic second battle with Enishi was all that we needed in the first place.

I didn't really mind those Shu-shin battles, myself, and they didn't significantly weaken the flow of the arc or the impact of the Kenshin v. Enishi fight for me either.

-School Rumble just didn't do anything for me. It was amusing, but never really made me laugh or care about the characters. I feel the same about Amagi Brilliant Park and Space Dandy, really. I just don't get what's so funny about them.

-I'm already bored of My Hero Academy. It's a generic battle shonen now. That....really didn't take long.

I disagree. 

Well, actually I do agree with you on Amagi, since I never found it laugh out loud hilarious or as endearing/great as others here did even by the end. It's solid, but the humor wasn't particularly anything I haven't seen done better elsewhere.

-I've been bored of modern battle shonen for quite a while now.

I consider battle-shonen the most overrated genre in all of anime/manga.

Though I seem to appreciate some currently running titles more than you do, for whatever reason.

-Interesting worlds with great concepts yet hardly do anything interesting with them and/or don't have interesting enough characters to support them and give you sonething to get really invested in (Magi, My Hero Academy, World Trigger, etc.)

I honestly think those series are perfectly "interesting" and have good characters and good storylines. I can't say I find any of those series are at fault of those criticisms. I respect that they just don't appeal to you on a character or story level, for the reasons you've given. But to claim they are exemplary of the poor state of the battle-shonen genre, though, is something I don't really "get," because from purely an objective standpoint, I'd call them pretty well-done overall.

[gunswordfist]

there's nothing wrong with toonami having reruns seeing as that's the only time the shows get rerunned for the entire week. toonami losing 3 hours is terrible.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I think the doctor is looking for the same thing as me. He's not looking for a battle manga, he's looking for a manga that just happens to have battles as conflicts in the story which arise because of how the plot is structured. A battle manga essentially exists only to show off powers and explosions, not story or character development.

In that aspect Bakuman is closer to what we want than Hitman Reborn.

[gunswordfist]

i am just looking for battle manga.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I think the doctor is looking for the same thing as me. He's not looking for a battle manga, he's looking for a manga that just happens to have battles as conflicts in the story which arise because of how the plot is structured. A battle manga essentially exists only to show off powers and explosions, not story or character development.

In that aspect Bakuman is closer to what we want than Hitman Reborn.

I agree. I've never cared for pure "fighting series" myself. That's the entire reason why I didn't watch any action cartoons until for the longest time as a kid. Fighting for fighting's sake and mindless action does not and has never appealed to me.

As far as the series E-K has mentioned, though, I would call Magi, My Hero Academia, and World Trigger very character and story-driven series that are as how you've described, and not just battle-oriented series. Unlike, say, Bleach or Naruto, where I feel you can remove most of the fights and lose nothing of value, I would say the most of the fights demonstrated in those series so far have been purposeful and effective in progressing the story instead of just being there for the sake of it. Those series also have had consistent and well-done character and story development. I wouldn't say they've been exceptional and strongly endearing to me to a level where I'd consider them anywhere near favorite-level, but they've been well-written and well-done enough to make me appreciate and enjoy them. And both WT and MHA have had a very strong emphasis on team-based and strategic battles, which I find sets them apart from other contemporaries in the genre. I don't think these series are at fault at being "generic battle-shonen manga" so much as not appealing to the good doctor strongly on a character or story level, which is perfectly fine, but something I can't consider as valid criticisms of those series on any objective level myself.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I think the doctor is looking for the same thing as me. He's not looking for a battle manga, he's looking for a manga that just happens to have battles as conflicts in the story which arise because of how the plot is structured. A battle manga essentially exists only to show off powers and explosions, not story or character development.

In that aspect Bakuman is closer to what we want than Hitman Reborn.

I agree. I've never cared for "fighting series" myself. That's the entire reason why I didn't watch any action cartoons until I was ten. Fighting for fighting's sake and mindless action does not appeal to me.

As far as the series E-K has mentioned, though, I would call Magi, My Hero Academia, and World Trigger very character and story-driven series that are as how you've described, and not just battle-oriented series. Unlike, say, Bleach or Naruto, where I feel you can remove most of the fights and lose nothing of value, I would say the most of the fights demonstrated in those series so far have been purposeful and effective in progressing the story instead of just being there for the sake of it. Those series also have had consistent and well-done character and story development. I wouldn't say they've been exceptional and strongly endearing to me to a level where I'd consider them anywhere near favorite-level, but they've done enough to make me a "fan" of them. And both WT and MHA have had a very strong emphasis on team-based and strategic battles, which I find sets them apart from other contemporaries in the genre. I don't think these series are at fault at being "generic battle manga" so much as not appealing to the good doctor strongly on a character or story level, which is perfectly fine, but I simply can't accept as valid criticisms of those series on any objective level myself.

Well, I'm not as picky as the good doctor is, so I'm willing to give those series a chance should I have the time to delve into them. Magi has been on my list for awhile and I think it's on Netflix so I might just give it a go.

I think a lot of the problems came from Dragon Ball's popularity. Some people saw the Frieza battle and wanted to see it over and over again, other people saw the rest of the Namek saga (and everything leading up to it) and took inspiration from that instead. It's why I like Chapter Black so much (as well as the rest of YYH) since its the twists and turns that lead to the battles and confrontations. It's not about battles that exist in a vacuum of story and characters.

[LumRanmaYasha]

It is unfortunate how the whole battle-shonen structure has basically been molded after the Namek arc. Lots of various grunt characters that the heroes fight, each one stronger than the last, until the big showdown with the big bad who's by far the strongest of the lot in a uber long battle that's dragged for the sake of "epicness." You know what happened in the story of Bleach last year? Ichigo came back from the Soul King's Palace and then goes back again. That's it. That's all that happens. Everything else was just meaningless fights between a bunch of characters that don't impact the story or the heroes or the villains plans at all. They are just fights for the sake of having fights because all the heroes have to beat some mook before Ichigo can finally take down the big bad, just because. It's the epitome of everything that is wrong with the common battle-shonen arc structure.

And yeah, what I love about the Chapter Black arc of YYH, as well as Hunter X Hunter and most parts of JoJo's ftr, is that fights don't just happen randomly, but as part of the natural progression of the story. I also have always loved how most of the enemies are not always stronger than the heroes in a traditional sense, but can use their powers in interesting ways to provide a legitimate threat to them regardless, and there's often a lot of tension in figuring out how to outwit them and exploit the weaknesses of their abilities, rather than overpower them with a super strong punch or something. I also just love how most of the "fights" in those series aren't so much fights in the traditional sense of two people beating each other into submission. I'll never forget the first time I saw Kurama's word game with Kaito and I went "THIS! This is what I've always wanted to see! Why isn't there more of THIS!" There's a reason why that episode is still my favorite in the series. Unconventional fights are also actually what drew me to Bobobo as a kid, since many of it's "fights" took bizarre and amusing turns (one "fight" in the series basically involves Jelly Jiggler getting a dog to choose between him and a piece of yogurt gum. The gum doesn't have sentience, special powers, or talk or move or anything. It's just a piece of gum. Jelly Jiggler loses.) 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I should clarify that I wasn't highlighting those 3 series as examples of the poor state of the genre. Read again what I wrote:

There are 2 types of battle shonen these days, for me:

-Ones with interesting worlds and concepts that fail to capitalize on doing anything interesting with them.
-Generic safe crap

I specifically listed those 3 series because I found that they had much better set-ups than most modern shonen, but in one way or another disappointed me by not living up to tgeir potential.

Now, to be fair, I haven't been caught up with World Trigger, so maybe that gas improved since I left off, but I can fairly comment on the other two:

Magi: Remember how in the Magnostadt arc they discovered that non-magic citizens were being imprisoned underground to symphony energy from them for their defensive barrier, BUT were kept oblivious to that and actually kept happy for their lives by as much food and drink as they wanted? It posed a moral dilemma for Aladdin and his group, as this seemed clearly wrong, but if those people knew no other lifestyle and were content with the way that they lived, and helped contribute to the safety of thousands more above ground, was it really any more right to change that? Of course you know that Aladdin will still be against it, but the dilemma is still there, and it's brilliant.

I want more of that! I'm sick of situations that are one-sided, have an easy answer and a clear way out. Good drama cones from true dilemmas, and the effect it has on shaping the characters around it. When we got to the part where Alibaba returned to Balbadd only to see that the Kou Empire had brought its slavery system there, yet had the city running better than it ever had been before, that was super interesting. Alibaba doesn't want slavery, but in order to gain back his right to rule the conquered city and restore it, he has to agree to a marriage alliance with the Kou empire, and even if he does and removes slavery, there's the fear that the city will just go back to an even worse class-based system and leave it just as bad as before. I was looking forward to seeing where this went, but then we got a long flash-back arc that had nothing to do with this. While I didn't particularly care for it, I accepted its importance to the overall story. But then when I thought that we'd go back to Alibaba's really interesting story, but sonething else really stupid and much less interesting took center stage. I'll let you fill in the blank for me.

Then I read a fantasy novel called A Dance With Dragons, and got that exact kind of story that I wanted to see, and that's when it realky hit me that I just don't care for modern battle shonen in general. Most are more about easy solutions via fights than about interesting dilemmas and evolving characters. I'm not criticizing the genre for not being that, but am saying that I just don't want to read what mist battle shonen are trying to be. In tge case of Magi, though, I was let down, because it was capable of so much more.

My Hero Academy: As a comedy manga I was enjoying it. Now that it focuses more on traditional battles, character archetypes, and predictable speeches about what it means to be a hero and stick to ideals, I just don't find it to be particularly interesting outside of some occasional comedy.

I'm really just burned out on the formula, and currently my interest in fiction lie elsewhere. That's why I'm just not into this genre nearly as much as I used to be.