By Rachel on October 12, 2007
We’re always talking about the love we share for anime in these polls. But what about the stuff we don’t like? I severely dislike moe in all its forms but aside from that I don’t have anything against anything else featured in anime.
My gripes are with bad stories, crappy animation, poor voice casts, etc., but everyone has gripes with those. I couldn’t care less about cat girls, robots and lolitas in anime-when used in moderation. Same goes for fanservice.
Moe, however, if it were up to me, would no longer be allowed in the house that anime built. If I could outlaw one thing in anime, it would be moe.
The Anime Blog Poll
How about you? What’s the one thing, no matter how big or how small, that you would outlaw in anime? Would you ban all non-bishie men? Toss out all girls C-cup and under? Buh-bye, tsundere? Sayonara, kittens? So long, mechs? What’s the one thing you would outlaw in anime?
Answer in the comments below!
Posted in Polls | Tagged Anime, anime poll, fanservice, moe, poll, tsundere
I was exposed to anime as a child while living in Germany after watching the Japanese version of Hans Christian Anderson’s the Little Mermaid. In high school, a classmate in art brought in Akira as an example of Japanese art. I wasn’t very impressed with anime at the time, but my re-exposure to it in 2000 thanks to Escaflowne had me hooked for life.After sorting out what I liked about anime (great stories, beautiful animation and epic battles) and disliked about anime (big boobs, angst-y 15 year-old kids, most mecha, sports stories and style-over-substance), I got into it with a vengeance.I do love almost all aspects of Japanese culture and try to be involved with it as much as possible. I have no problem admitting that I incorporate a lot of Japanese trends and traditions into my life as I modify them and make them my own. Anime is a big part of that, along with all the sub-cultures, past and present.
I would say moe as well
Cute looking characters are fine, but I hate when it’s supposed to be the main selling point for a series.
I would have to say the nude transformation scenes in magical-girl series. Do we really need to see all of their clothes flying off for them to magically change into their fighting outfit? I felt so dirty after watching the first episode of the original Nanaho series. Heck, I felt dirty after the OP of Nanaho…
Second would probably be any female character with breasts above a D-cup… I’d probably even argue for a c-cup.
I mean, I had just gotten done telling my wife (again) that anime wasn’t Japanese porn, when I loaded up Dragonaut -The Resonance- only to be greeted about halfway through the series with these women who had breasts bigger than their heads, and there was one character where each breast was nearly twice as big as her head. And of course, that was happening just as the wife was walking behind me on the way to the kitchen to get a drink. So I got a snide, “Not porn, huh?”
Personally, moe characters don’t bother me, provided as i-k said that the entire series isn’t just a vehicle to display their character designs.
Do we really need to see all of their clothes flying off for them to magically change into their fighting outfit?
Uhm, let me think about iiiiiit…. YES!
Being a newbie to the genre(s), I don’t have a good answer to the question. I just wanted to say that I googled “moe” for a definition. 2 hours later I realized that I was still linking through anime/manga terminology and explanations of Japanese subculture. Wow! Interesting stuff.
The intentionally uninteresting male lead designed specifically to not get in the way of the otaku male’s affection of their favorite female character.
@Dwight – Don’t get me wrong, I have no complaints about the female form, and don’t cringe when there’s fan-service or what not, provided that the characters are adults, or you know, legal age, but Nanaho was a 4th grader.
Sure, there was no sexualization involved, but still… it’s like those shorts that have writing on the butt. Personally, I read everything, if my eyes happen to find words, I read it. It’s just how I am. And it disturbs me that I can’t walk down the mall without reading the word “Sexy” or “Hawt” on the butts of middle-schoolers.
@i-k, cute characters don’t bother me as much as the darker aspects of moe, which would be the helpless, emotionally defunct women who fall apart and drop to the floor whenever anything rough happens. Screw that noise.
@Kidan, I don’t like magical girl anime partially because of the transformation scenes and partially because of the repetition inherent to those shows.
Humungo boobs actually elicit pity from me. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, but I would think that anything that has boobs that big has to be in constant pain. However it’s all a part of the fantasy that anime builds. Personally, anything bigger than a D-cup makes me queasy in tandem with the empathic feeling of pity; Lumps that size look like the junk in lava lamps with the way they move.
@Dwight Wannabe, sorry I didn’t give a definition for moe! I’m usually pretty good about that. There are so many different facets of moe, it’s hard to define with any authority what moe really is. Behavior is one aspect, and so is personality and appearance. I loathe moe because of the way some anime depicts female characters as weak and helpless in order to make clueless otaku feel more empowered (or whatever moe does for certain fanboys).
@super rats, hmm, I’m interested in what you’re saying but could you please elaborate and maybe give an example? Uninteresting male lead….hmmm,*ponders*…
@Kidan, it’s like those shorts that have writing on the butt. gahhh! I hate those! I hate it when they disappear into the Forbidden Crack of Doom. One girl was wearing them, and I know it said SIUC (Southern Illinois University at Carbondale) but the “I” had gone someplace…else, leaving it to read “SUC” And you’re right, one can’t help but read the writing on the booty, how can one not?
“Nanaho was a 4th grader”
Pffffffffft-t-t-t!
Can I borrow a wet wipe to clean the coffee off my monitor?
Note to Self: Dwight, shut your pie hole when visiting blogs with topics you don’t understand.
Lolicon. I could seriously do without having to see pre-teen girls in blatant contexts of sexualization. Personally, I’m a firm believer of “to each his own…as long as it doesn’t affect me”, but the flood of pedo-pandering in almost every title these days are really starting to drive me away from anime in general.
What Sagacious C. said. Given the news, it bothers me that the entertainment is subtly supporting this.
I can’t say I’m a big fan of moe, but the thousands and thousands of fans it command is somewhat mind boggling indeed.
Fanservice is annoying when I show ppl a certain anime and they dismiss it as pr0n.
If I had to banish anything from anime forever, it would be the clueless guys that are at the center of most harem anime. A large percentage of the male protagonists in harem type anime have no redeeming qualities to them other than their utter stupidity and ignorance when it comes to dealing with girls and women.
In most harem anime the guy is surrounded by a large number of super hot gals all of them practically throwing themselves at him. Other than their weird attraction towards the loser guy there’s no reason they shouldn’t have better boyfriends than the object of their affection.
I don’t want to hear anyone say, “but those girls have problems too” , for the most part all the girls chasing the guy are very good looking and kind hearted, they could do much better. I’ll paraphrase and edit a quote about women “if the ***** is good enough a man will change his God for that woman” Maybe harem anime is just a wish fulfillment exercise for shut in geeks who would pass out if they ever had to talk to a real girl, with the anime telling them that even you can get a hot girl.
I shudder at the thought of being reborn as a 18-20 year old guy running a girl’s boarding house like in Love Hina, hell I’d never want to leave. Before anyone jumps on me, I thought Love Hina was a pretty good anime, Keitaro did have some redeeming qualities to him, and I thought the anime was very funny.
I really don’t mind moe when it is the sort of moe described by Ken Akamatsu, Love Hina’s creator. His description of moe is like having a protective almost cherishing feeling towards the object of moe, never a sexual or lustful feeling. The best example of this that I can come up with is Nobue’s (from Strawberry Marshmallow) feelings towards the four younger girls, it’s not sexual, she knows that there gonna change soon, but she enjoys their carefree, innocent nature while it lasts. Nabue smokes, drinks, and acts badly but in the girls she sees what she was once, and knows that soon they’ll be like her, so in the meantime she relives her lost innocence through them.
Now for the maho shojo transformation sequences, I feel they are absolutely necessary to the storyline. The transformation sequences symbolize the profound nature of the change occurring at that moment, the girls are striped bare of their present nature, infused with tremendous magical power, and then re-clad with clothes fitting their new magical nature. Also most magic girls are just that, girls, or females just leaving girlhood behind, so the transformation also symbolizes the power of the change from girl to woman, because most magic girls transform into sightly older versions of themselves.
Well that enough of my caffeine inducted anime ramblings for now.
@Rachel – I can understand some repetition in a weekly series, and I can even understand the concept of the transformation sequence itself, but I don’t see the point for the nudity within that sequence. The same thing can be done by highlighting the body in white light or something. *shrugs*
However it’s all a part of the fantasy that anime builds.
maybe there’s just something wrong with me, but huge, obscenely oversized breasts just don’t really do anything for me…
@Dwight –
Dwight, shut your pie hole when visiting blogs with topics you don’t understand.
Now, now, don’t be that way, we all had to start in the culture somewhere.
@Chris – heh, I can definitely understand that, but how much of that is the fact that those harem-fics are aimed at guys like that?
Now for the maho shojo transformation sequences, I feel they are absolutely necessary to the storyline.
And I agree that they’re necessary for the storyline, but as I said above, the same thing could be done without the overt, obvious nudity found in Nanaho…
Im ok with just about anything but filler episodes ruin my day… ugh
I’m ok with moe, fan service, a bit of ecchi – even with the age-inappropriate sexualization referenced above (I look at this the same way I looked at the “teenagers” in Beverly Hills 90210, one of which I think was hitting 30 at the time: they’re playing a part, not they ARE the part).
My big pet peeve with anime is mecha fights that look like you’re shaking a drawer full of random Transformer pieces. I shouldn’t have to wait for the dialog after the fight to know who won.
And yes, you can abuse me for watching 90210…what can I say, it was the 90’s…
I’d go with outlawing recap episodes. I’m looking at you, Wolf’s Rain!
Since there are other posters with my name, I guess I’ll start adding my last name.
I’m not sure I would banish anything, for the simple fact that even the most trite and annoying genre or convention can be reworked into something amazing in the right hands. All you need are smart and innovative people. I guess, in that sense, if I did banish anything, it would be artists and storytellers happy to play it safe and adhere to convention/expectations/$$$/etc.
@ Sagacious C, I agree with you on the lolicon but I thankfully watch very few anime with any hint of lolicon, otherwise, I’d be miffed too.
@blauereiter, it is indeed mind boggling how so many men, and I’m sure, some women demand moe. I don’t know why men think that in order to have a protective feeling for a woman, that she should be in a weak and vulnerable position. I don’t think that speaks as much to wanting to cherish someone as perhaps to know that they’re in a dominant position to either cherish and protect or, otherwise…
@BustahWolf99, It’d be interesting to know why some people consider a pantyshot or jiggly boobs porn. I mean, that’s what fanservice is. Personally, I’d ask if they’d ever seen porn and why they’d consider a fanservice heavy anime porn.
@Chris, Aha! Now I know what super rats was talking about: Thanks for clearing that up!
Once again, maybe this is because I’m a girl, but I don’t think I could ever have protective or cherishing feelings towards a highly moe character. I’d be more apt to push her in front of a school bus than protect her. She’d be too much of a nuisance. I’d be more likely to protect someone who actually has brain cells and is having a weak moment than the stereotypical moe girl. Darwinism; gotta love it.
@Andrew, filler episodes and recap episodes should never have been invented.
@McE, so crappy mecha fight scenes ruin your day? Or is it the zero dialog in the fight scenes?
@David, Wolf’s Rain owes us an entire DVD for that!
@Chris Nelson, I’m all for creative license and freedom of speech, but we’re talking pet peeves that we could live without. C’mon, there’s gotta be something that gets your goat.
Okay, lessee:
* Lolicon
* Fanservice
* Cosplay
* Catgirls/Foxgirls
* Ecchi
Every time somebody adds some salacious new topic I trigger alarms in the IT room housing the company firewall whilst I research it.
Awesome.
The two most important things I’ve learned as a result of this thread is 1. the definition of the word Hentai and 2. the creeping realization that I might be one.
@Dwight Wannabe, yes welcome to our world, mwhahahah! Actually, I’m reminded that we fans whom have been into anime longer, take for granted the terminology and phrases used in the fandom. You have my apologies for not linking to, or setting a definition for, certain words. Not everyone who visits the site is going to be old hat at anime ^^.
Okay, then how about ever-shrieking characters and too cutesy narratives? Those get on my nerves.
No, it’s cool. I’m the newbie. I understand that’s why God made Google.
Don’t dumb down the level of discourse for my sake. It’ll bring me up to speed faster if I hear you talking the argot like veteran pirates.
Besides, all the research has lead to interesting tangents I would not have otherwise seen.
@Chris Nelson, yay! I personally loathe overly loud characters as well, but also, overly optimistic and clueless idealists too.
In fighting animes such as Naruto or Bleach the crapload of dialogue before even one punch is thrown, and then even more dialogue, is something I personally hate and would like removed. Sure, it develops the plot/story/episode, but I’d like to see someone getting whooped before that small time-line of 30 minutes is used up.