Mob Psycho.
Just couldn’t get into it.
Violet Evergarden. It stinks of “Born sexy yesterday”.
City: The Animation for me. I really wanted to like it and the animation style is great, but I just didn’t find it very funny.
Relatable. Never really expected to see another person who thinks the same
For me? Frieren.
I am still gonna try two more episodes, but episode one was boring and underwhelming to me. Not that anime needs to have action, because I also like slow films (one of my favorites being Rear Window), but episode 1 of Frieren did not hold my attention that well.
At the end I said out loud “this is what everyone is hyping about?”
Maybe I change my mind by episode 3, but if not I guess I will just have to leave my enjoyment of it to the memes.
Frieren was an upper mid anime for me.
took me till episode 3 till I was hooked. But for me it was Steins Gate. Tried it 4 times over 6 years or so, never got beyond episode 2.
Relatable. I guess I’m just not into time travel
Understandable. I have dropped Steins;Gate before too.
Personally, I find that it only started getting good in the second half (i.e. episode 13 and beyond).
I loved Frieren, but I get that it’s not for everyone. It is a story about grieving, building relationships, passing wisdom on to a next generation. Because of that I think it appeals to people that have experienced loss and are older.
I’ll take “99% of Shonen” for $500, Alex.
I’ve been feeling this way, too. Most shows with dumbass teenage main characters are a pass for me, nowadays. I think it’s mainly because I’m getting older and they aren’t very relatable anymore.
Eh, I might getting older but the old stuff still hits better. Sure there will be a genuinely good show here or there, but standards have never been lower and slop has never been this popular.
What is it with all the short-tempered screaming MCs in shonen?
It just seems like most Shonen have the same plot line of “the power of self confidence and friendship saves the day!” And it’s just so trite at this point to me. And that isn’t to say that Shonen can’t have a good plotline. But it’s usually some other genre with a sprinkling of Shonen.
That being said, there really is no accounting for taste. It’s the most popular genre for a reason after all.
Cause you aren’t the audience.
I honestly wish Japan would split their genres a lil more. Shonen feels like such a default “anime” genre, and yeah most of it is just generic drivel. Then something actually wild and interesting comes along like DanDaDan or Gachiakata or SANDA, but you basically have to find them through word of mouth or knowing the animation studios.
The pirate cut of Naruto is good. All filler removed, some edits and subtitle changes to make it in line with the manga.
You still may not like it but that’s what came to my mind for quality shonen.
Could I get a lil more info as to where to find this? I’ve long held the opinion that I would actually enjoy Naruto if there was a recut of it similar to One Pace. The big thing that causes me to bounce off it is the anime’s love of flashbacks.
Nyaa, I think it’s the yellow flash cut. Sort by size or seeds it’ll be near the top
Damn, even this isn’t quite what I was looking for.
I know the reason is to save costs, but holy fucking shit the anime just loves repeating scenes huh? I think the most egregious is the flashbacks to stuff already shown in the same episode, it’s like there’s only 8 minutes of actual content in a 22 minute episode. Part of the strength of One Pace is that a lot of those repeated scenes are completely cut out, which condenses a couple of episodes into one.
At some point we will get a good abridged
That’s surprising to hear but okay
Is it? Shonen is a revolving door of tropes, you’d be hard pressed to find a shonen anime that actually shakes the formula up.
Personally I dont like shonen much either, but I don’t understand this argument of tropes=bad.
Just because something has a lot of tropes doesn’t mean it is bad. Tropes are tropes for a reason: it clearly means these are popular or highly liked/relatable vessels for storytelling. Not every story needs to be novel and invent new storytelling methods to be a good story. Sometimes, people just want more of the same.
The Hero’s Journey is a perfect example. Many, many stories follow this trope. And among those, some of the best stories of all time, including The Hobbit, The Odyssey, Dante’s Inferno, Beowulf, Treasure Island, etc. Literal masterpieces, peak storytelling. Just because there are other stories, or even a lot of stories, that follow the Hero’s Journey trope doesn’t make the ones I listed bad, nor does it automatically make every story that follows the trope bad either.
It isn’t necessarily that tropes are bad, it’s more like once you’ve seen a trope you can recognize the pattern and once you recognize the pattern you can more or less determine what’s going to happen.
Is the Hero’s Journey a bad trope? Not at all, as you’ve said — some of my most beloved stories are structured around the Hero’s Journey. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Redwall, but all of the books in that ‘world’ by Brian Jacques are very close to my heart. It’s also part of why I understand that once you’ve experienced at least one or two good Hero’s Journey’s — you’ve more or less experienced them all.
Is it wrong to be entertained by them anyway? No, I hope you don’t think I’m saying that.
I didn’t think you said that, I was mentioning this argument as one I don’t understand because recognizing a trope or predicting a story is an unusual and IMO “invalid” reason to not like something, and your comment seemed similar at first. I hear this a lot from a family member of mine who is anti-anime but also has a severe case of the Sonic the Hedgehog autism.
He says “once you watch one anime, you’ve seen them all because they all have the same tropes.” Which just doesn’t make sense to me. Just because you read The Hobbit doesn’t mean you don’t have to read Dante’s Inferno or Beowulf anymore. Its like the only thing he watches is the trope rather than the actual story being told, or the world/characters of the story.
Initially, I chalked it up to probably some “side-effect” (not the exact word I would use but I cannot think of a proper word for it)of autism, but then I walked in on him just casually watching Totally Spies and Naruto. And I asked him why he watches those and not other anime I suggest, and he just said “because these are peak and your recommends are trash.” Like, is Cowboy Bebop or Trigun (the original) trash? Compared to Naruto? Really? And I know he is not the only person that talks like this.
I wish I could understand, but I probably never will.
So Cowboy Bebop is not a shonen.
It’s a seinenApparently it isn’t a seinen, but it would be if it started as manga. Trigun is a little odd because it shifted from shonen to seinen somewhere along its publication history.I point that out because seinen/josei compared to shonen/shojo is more or less the equivalent of young adult fiction to children’s fiction.
Children’s fiction is supposed to be easy to understand. It should be filled with trope’s, kids can’t really empathize with things that are more complicated. Or maybe they’re at an age where they can but maybe shouldn’t, i.e. show with themes of suicide for an already teetering on depressed teenager.
All that to say that I think your family members perspective is… severely limited. Not watching Trigun because you’d rather rewatch Naruto is 100% their choice but… it’s a pretty stupid way to live your life.
“Pff, why would I watch these ninjas do magic? I can just watch space wizards do magic and fight with lightsabers. Naruto is trash, Star Wars is peak.” Or something.
Edit: I’m completely wrong about Bebop, it is not a seinen because it never started as a manga. Apparently that is an important distinction. I think if it had started as a manga, it would be a seinen.
I can count on one hand the number of Shonen anime that I’ve enjoyed. There’s been a few that were a “X” + shonen. But it had to be like…a 75/25 split.
Parasyte, Tokyo ghoul and your lie in april
Notable absence of Cowboy Bebop,
3,2,1 Let’s Jam…
Because absolutely nobody dislikes Cowboy Bebop. It’s, like, the perfect anime.
I never cared for it.
But I don’t dislike it, I’m just indifferent.
So you’re still correct.
I never cared for Cowboy Bebop.
It insists upon itself
Cowboy Bebop can care for itself. I’m just tagging along because their soundtracks are better than mine
That’s attack on titan for me. Never could get into it.
I was the same. Watched the first season as soon as it came out and thought “It’s a little murder-porny but I’m kind of intrigued to see where the plot goes.” Then after the first season the plot got worse instead and I lost interest. People seem to love it though.
You never got into it even a single time?!! Surprising to hear but okay 😶🌫️
The original run was brilliant. Then the new seasons came out, and it just doesn’t feel the same.
The art style was stabbing my eyes back then. I could not do the thick line character outlines in the setting they chose. If they had a different background art style it could have worked for me but that was not happening.
One Piece.
I feel like I might have gotten into it if I started watching it when I was 10. But I didn’t.
It’s complicated, cause there is a good story there, you just won’t see it until like 100 episodes into the show. Really slow start to it. Also doesn’t help that alot of the early seasons are pretty dated now in animation style, and there’s a ton of filler and recaps. I can’t even watch the show myself, but I’ve been reading it since the beginning.
Hoping they go through one day when the show’s done and make a condensed & updated version. You could probably remove half of the episodes as it is, no joke.
For those interested, “One Pace” is a fan edit that removes a lot of recap and shit. I just got my GF caught up not too long ago using one pace and I think it is the way to go if you insist on watching it and not reading it. One pace isn’t caught up, but it will get you through a lot of it.
I just wanna know when the furry character shows up (the cat looking thing with the pink hat; Chopper, I think is his name?). That character is what made me wanna see the show in the first place and I have no idea what season they’re introduced in.
Very early on, they’ll be in season 2 of the Netflix live action remake. Episode 81 of the anime.
I typically tell people to watch through Arlong Park. If you aren’t interested in it by that arc, it’s just not for you.
for real. it’s just…not good, as a new adult viewer.
I’m sure plenty of people feel the same about DBZ, but I saw my first episodes as a young teen and loved it.
Neon Genesis Evangelion for me. The original ending where everyone was clapping around Shinji was so weird. It’s at its best when it’s about giant robots fighting the angels but gets really strange once the characters are out of the cockpit.
I like Evangelion specifically because most of it wasn’t intended to have a meaning. Anno just put it in the show because he thought it looked/sounded cool.
This is similar to why I like games from Hideo Kojima. Its just filled with stuff he thought is cool. It doesn’t always have to have a meaning or explanation.
Metal Gear Solid really clicked for me even though it had some strange shit going on with it too. Maybe because the tone and pacing was handled pretty well. The Patriots, Les Enfants Terribles, and even Revolver Ocelot’s arm possession just fit the narrative quite nicely.
To me it always felt like people were trying to justify the plot and setting as some sort of grandiose idea, when it’s just a shit idea with random words and images.
It’s angels, that why they explode into crosses, also the children experience trauma, that’s why the mechs…
Fuck off. I’ve watched deep dives of episodes, with frames explained down to pixels, and it’s still random shit for the sake of shock, nothing more.
I dont wanna be mean but you might enjoy this.
It beats NGE’s convoluted story so thanks.
When you’re done with that marathon of a video (based on post timestamps I’d guess you’re about halfway through it now), you might enjoy Brilliant Century Duck Crisis
Explanation
Regular Show is a (brilliant, IMO) western cartoon that eventually did an anime parody episode that started with parodying the NGE opening - which is what I’ve linked above. The plot of Regular Show builds up slowly so I wouldn’t actually recommend jumping in with this episode as I’m not sure it would make much sense… but I couldn’t resist linking it anyway, sorry.
BOKURA WA BABY DUCKS! :::.
My Hero Academia. I got too annoyed by the main character.
I got too annoyed because they couldn’t shut up about what “One For All” is. They kept repeating that god damn flashback over and over…
MHA is praised as peak? In what universe?
I thought people liked it, or maybe there just loud.
Lol
Homestuck
One Piece
I love the universe and characters to bits, and still keep up with the manga.
But at some point the anime became utterly unwatchable for me.
Even the admittedly amazing recent improvement in animation, is ruined by the sfx work.
I heard One Pace fixes the pacing, I just haven’t had the drive to start it over.
One Pace is certainly the best way to watch it.
But the pacing isn’t the only issue that crops up over the series.
I’ll contend that pre-TS legitimately can stand with the absolute best of the genre, but recommending OP to people feels like a trap. It’s like “hey here’s 500 episodes of peak to get you hooked, now you get to watch 500+ episodes of mid because you just wanna know how it ends.”
The pacing dropping to 1ch = 1ep ruined it for me. And yeah, not a fan of the sfx use we keep seeing specially in Zoro fights.
I’ve found I usually don’t like the ones with the most fans, for whatever reason. Specifically I don’t tend to like ones in high school settings or ones where the author just really enjoys murdering characters in gruesome ways. That really limits my options.
Let me guess… you watched Angel Beats or Danganronpa and didn’t like it?
While there is a lot of school themed anime, there are plenty of scifi and fantasy themed anime as well. Options become less limited the farther back in time you go, because the 80s and 90s seem to have more scifi and fantasy than school themes, as they were more popular at that time. Unless you like slice of life, in shich case you have like, three shows tops and they’re all from the last 4 years.
That’s how I feel about Akira. It’s just really boring to me dunno why.
