- Update 10/9 -
Yeah, I admit it, I'm completely addicted to Clannad again because of the anime series. It's been about a year since I played the game on PC (even though I only understood half of it due to my weak Japanese), but thanks to Baka-Tsuki for translating it, I'm playing through the game again.
I'll watch any show of any genre as long as it can keep me entertained. If forced to choose, I'd say my favorite genres are comedy and action. Not-so-favorites are mecha (trying to cut back on these).
(Update 2/19 : I said before that I didn't like romance animes much, but then I realized that I said it because there are so many bad romance animes out there. I actually do enjoy romance genre and almost all of my favorite animes have some element of romance in them. I guess that means I enjoy romance genre only when it has something else fitted in like comedy or action. A good example would be Clannad, which is currently [and will probably continue to be] my favorite anime/game of all time. It has a lot of romance in it sure, but it's predominantly drama and has a bit of comedy on the side.)
Probably the only reasons for me to drop a show is if:
#1 There are scenes so embarassingly bad that I find myself turning away from the screen.
#2 Characters in the show doing stupid things... (Stupid things may vary. Some are entertaining while others eats up time in the show. Kinda hard to explain.)
Update : I think I grasped a bit of what I mean by "stupid things" after reflecting upon it a bit. I think it is basically things that serve no purpose to the storyline or an action that can't be justified. Maybe something that's meant to be funny but is completely not counts as well.
#3 Fraction of an episode used to show flash-backs/recap. These are completely unnecessary. If the flash-backs for character development are used correctly, it shouldn't take more than 60 seconds max. A big example of this is Naruto from episode 50 to maybe 150 where they showed 5-10 minute long flash backs which weren't shortened and was directly cut from previous episodes.
#4 Fillers...(Gotta love those.) The definition of fillers varies. If it's not part of the original story (manga/game/novel) but is actually fun to watch, you can label it as an Anime Exclusive Episode. The fillers I'm talking about are those episodes that feels like someone thought it up and put it on paper in like 5 minutes. After that they cut corners with the animation (in some episodes of Bleach, the characters don't move fluidly when they're running) and throw it up on the time block so they can score some extra time to work on the regular episodes or let the manga get ahead of the anime a little.
I'll almost always stick with a show unless something listed above is found inside of it. Many people complain about how the character development isn't good, the story's bad, or (this is the funniest one) that the artwork's bad.
You can't conclude whether the character development or the story is bad until you watch 75%+ of the episodes. There are shows out there that starts out slow but ends very well. The other thing that people complain about is artwork. Most of the time people will look at an art style they're not used to/unfamiliar with and call it "bad artwork". (Shows I've heard people complain about include Lucky Star, Welcome to the NHK, One Piece) That kind of art style combined with the story is suppose to achieve an effect. If you watch through the show, the artwork stays consistent.
A real example of bad artwork would be the filler episodes of Naruto, where in some scenes, the characters are mis-proportioned or distorted.
With that said...
My favorite studios are J.C. Staff (Shana, Zero no Tsukaima) and Kyoto Animation (Suzumiya Haruhi, Kanon 2006, Clannad).
Updated 3/8 My Favorite animes are...
RANK ZERO :: Code Geass :: A lot could be said about this series, as it as lots of action, romance, drama, and politics in it. I'm going to say this right now, if you like any of the following: action, drama, anime, mecha, people losing their minds after getting omgwtf-"ORENJI"-pwnt, they you have to watch this series. I really like it when they write a story where the main character is arguably "evil", and I've never liked an "evil" character this much since...well...ever. Fukuyama Jun does an amazing job voicing each of the "faces" of Lelouch; and of course you'd need a good voice actor to play a character like Lelouch since one of his most valuable assets is his talent for deception. I also like how they wrote it so the "good" guy is actually a huge hypocrite. Well...it's not really that I hate Suzaku, since all of his anger towards Lelouch are driven by the death of Euphemia...but what makes me WANT to hate him is that he's blaming the wrong person. The hidden plot in this story (at least this is what I think it is) is that the Emperor killed off one of his wives so that the son that came from the both of them (which has an incredible amount of potential but isn't one of the more favored sons) will get angry enough at his father to want revenge, which will cause him to break off with him, gain power on his own, surpass all his siblings, and eventually inherit the empire (because the emperor strongly believes in the idea of natural selection and loves it so huggy wuggy much). If Suzaku has anyone to blame for Euphemia's death, it should be the guy he works for...which is kinda ironic if you think about it.
#1 CLANNAD : It really pisses me off how people go and calls this a harem. First of all, most of the paths in Clannad involves Tomoya going out with just 1 person, ignoring the rest (the only path where he was romantically involved with more than 1 person was the Fujibayashi Kyou/Ryou paths). The only reason the anime does it like this is because they have to show all the characters in a mix path story with the limited episodes. It would be possible to show all the paths the way they actually are by organizing the episodes the way they do it in Higurashi no naku koro ni, but I really don't see that happening. Anyways...this series is mostly (if not completely) about family. Examples would include...
Furukawa Nagisa: Tomoya making up with his father after Ushio was born, or Nagisa dying when giving birth and Tomoya became more and more like his father.
Fujibayashi Kyou: Kyou had an internal conflict because she liked the same guy that her little sister liked (Tomoya), and was suppressing those feelings for the sake of her sister.
Sakagami Tomoyo: Both Tomoya and Tomoyo grew up with a cold family. Tomoyo's main goal at school was to save the cherry blossom trees her brother loved. (Her brother got hit by a car on purpose to keep the family together, and saw the cherry blossoms when he was on rehab.)
Ichinose Kotomi: Her parents died on a business trip after Kotomi had a fight with them, and she wished she could apologize to them. Tomoya acted as emotional support when she was depressed. Kotomi and Tomoya were actually childhood friends, but Tomoya completely forgot about it. (Kanon Kawasumi Mai anyone?)
Ibuki Fuuko: Ironic situation where Fuuko tries to make Kouko (her older sister) happy by getting people to go to the wedding ceremony (as a spirit while her real self was in a coma...Tsukimiya Ayu anyone?); Kouko on the other hand didn't want to get married while her younger sister was in this condition, because it'd be like abandoning her to pursue happiness.
#2 True Tears : The new comer of the 2008 that has nothing in common with True Tears the visual novel instantly became my 2nd favorite anime of all time. There are so many good things about this anime that I don't have enough time to list them all. Aside from beautiful animation, I think that the bgm and the camera angles are what make this series so enjoyable to watch.
The set-up might make this seem like a harem since there are three main heroines and they all seem to have feelings for the male lead, but the definition of the word harem really gets thrown around these days. Even though the original definition being "a group of women associated with one man" does technically count True Tears as a harem, Shinichiro only showed real feelings for one of them, was confused about the second, and downright rejected the third. If any series where there's a "group of women" (more than 2) who are related to the main character in any way (associated with one man; the word associated is used, but it didn't give a specific type of association), then about 95-99% of all anime are harems.
Went a bit off topic there, but anyways... The great thing is that there are other guys involved in this too to mix things up a bit. The love *insert shape with many many many sides here* consists of Shinichiro liking Hiromi, Noe liking Shinichiro, Jun "liking" Noe (sister complex...or maybe even more than that), Hiromi lying about liking Jun to push off accusations about her liking Shinichiro, Nobuse liking Aiko, and Aiko liking Shinichiro as well.
This is one of the most well constructed, if not best, romance series with 12 episodes.
Comments available in my anime list for other animes I've watched. Go read them if you don't have a life. (Seriously...you'd have to be bored out of your skull to bother reading them.)
Random Thought:
Why couldn't people manage anime related goods shops better...? They should be trying to appeal to all three types of customers.
#1. The ones who are either watching animes 1 or 2 years old through Eng. dubbed dvd's. They should keep 2-3 of each figures and even more for popular old series. (i.e. Rurouni Kenshin, Love Hina, Full metal Alchemist, etc)
#2. The ones who are watching dubbed animes that are currently being aired. This makes up probably 60-70% of the anime watchers in the U.S., and the stores I see are mainly focusing their marketing on this group. The problem is that dubbed animes being aired on U.S. T.V. are for kids or at most teenagers (i.e. Naruto, Bleach), and the viewers are usually too young to buy anything themselves.
#3. The ones who watch anime in real time (as in watching currently aired anime as they air in Japan through torrents). Even though this is a rather small percentage of the anime watching nation, these are the ones who would be willing to buy and are on the look-out for new products from the anime they're currently watching (i.e. a person who has watched Code Geass season 1 and is currently waiting for season 2 is very likely to buy a 1/35 Lancelot model when he sees it for $25 at an anime store if he likes the series very much). It's not exactly hard to import new figures like...I don't know...1 month after they come out in Japan.
The point is, the anime stores where I live only have Naruto and Bleach stuff and maybe some old figures, but nothing recent. The newest products they have are at least a year old. I don't understand why none of the anime stores around here stock products from Shana, Clannad, Air, Kanon, Code Geass, Gurren Lagann, etc.
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