What anime/manga are you following right now?

[Amelia]

I hate Naruto at first but I tried to watch it once. It's not that bad. It's quite good.

No, I haven't. OK. *takes note*

[Saint Nightroad]

I hate Naruto at first but I tried to watch it once. It's not that bad. It's quite good.

No, I haven't. OK. *takes note*

Naruto is one of the worst animes ever made. Obnoxious characters, overly drawn out fighting scenes, over-reliance on fanservice, pathetic voice acting, and a bad story just plain don't help it. Were I being generous, I'ld call it mediocre. And that would make sense, because mainstream things are often mediocre. That's no coincidence, because most people are mediocre. Birds of a feather, y'know.

And yes, I do have the right to bash it. It was one of the first animes I've ever watched. I went up to the Naruto vs. Gayman Sasuke fight, even watching some of that awful filler arc, and then watched 30 episodes of the Shippuden before being enlightened to some actually decent animes.

Well, you should very much watch Princess Mononoke. It's got a charming art style, a beautiful OST, and a likeably eccentric cast. Not enough fighting in my opinion, but it's mostly an adventure story.

[Florete]

Naruto is one of the worst animes ever made. Obnoxious characters, overly drawn out fighting scenes, over-reliance on fanservice, pathetic voice acting, and a bad story just plain don't help it. Were I being generous, I'ld call it mediocre. And that would make sense, because mainstream things are often mediocre. That's no coincidence, because most people are mediocre. Birds of a feather, y'know.

Sounds like a bad case of It's Popular, Now it Sucks.

Obnoxious characters? A few, but some are pretty awesome. Gaara is one of my favorite characters of all time. Kakashi is badass. Naruto himself is the only one I'd describe as "obnoxious."

Overly drawn out fight scenes? Sure, they're long, but some people like it that way. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Over-reliance on fanservice? Where? Have you never seen an ecchi anime? Code Geass? Sure, Tsunade exists, but that alone is not even close to "over-reliance on fanservice."

Pathetic voice acting? Well, since you watched 30 episodes of Shippuden, I can assume you saw it in Japanese. Do you know Japanese? If not, you have no room to judge the voice acting.

Bad story? Filler is annoying, yes, but the rest of it is generally pretty good. The Chunin exams are what really got me into the show. I'm not far into Shippuden so I can't comment on that.

And yes, I do have the right to bash it. It was one of the first animes I've ever watched. I went up to the Naruto vs. Gayman Sasuke fight, even watching some of that awful filler arc, and then watched 30 episodes of the Shippuden before being enlightened to some actually decent animes.

I am in the same position, yet I do not find it any worse today than I did back then.

Naruto probably is overrated to some extent, but to call it one of the worst ever made is overdoing it. Stuff doesn't get popular if it's that bad.

Well, you should very much watch Princess Mononoke. It's got a charming art style, a beautiful OST, and a likeably eccentric cast. Not enough fighting in my opinion, but it's mostly an adventure story.

Amazingly enough, I could not stand Princess Mononoke. I literally had to force myself to finish it.

[Defeatist Elitist]

Naruto probably is overrated to some extent, but to call it one of the worst ever made is overdoing it. Stuff doesn't get popular if it's that bad.

Now, I'm not saying I agree totally with what bro over there was saying, buuuuuuuuuuut.

Lots of things are popular that are bad. In fact, a lot of the time that is a hallmark of badness. Or whatever. As an example, I'll take books. Many of what are considered the greatest books of all time have never been read by the majority of the populace, and never will be read. Conversely, many popular book series, such as Twilight, are atrocious. This is the same with movies, shows, etc. Avatar is ridiculously popular, and it's pretty much just Special Effects porn. It's certainly not good by any sane standard.

I guess the thing that happens is that the average person is estranged from a lot of the better things. Basically, if it doesn't really make you think, and doesn't have any REALLY incredible characters, or storyline, it probably isn't GOOD.

[Florete]

Lots of things are popular that are bad. In fact, a lot of the time that is a hallmark of badness.

You disappoint me. You fit that trope to a T. If something is truly bad, it shouldn't be able to gain popularity. If a lot of people like it, that means it has some merit to it, even if the audience is very specific.

Avatar is ridiculously popular, and it's pretty much just Special Effects porn. It's certainly not good by any sane standard.

You are the first person I have met to say Avatar is not good, and I know a lot of people who have seen it. I personally thought it was great, even if not as much as most people.

Basically, if it doesn't really make you think, and doesn't have any REALLY incredible characters, or storyline, it probably isn't GOOD.

There is no real way to define "good." Why should something have to make me think to be good? What if I just want good action scenes, or comedy, or something on that level? What really makes something good is if it is enjoyable. I don't care how complex the plot or characters are if I have to force myself through a work of fiction.

[Nightmare]

If something is truly bad, it shouldn't be able to gain popularity. If a lot of people like it, that means it has some merit to it, even if the audience is very specific.

Actually, I think what R'evan means is that people are sheep and they will like/follow something just because it's popular. Or at least, that's what I got from it. So something that may be average/bad can easily become popular if people with low standards (which is most people) like it, and the rest will just follow.

And also, if there is no actual way to define what's "good," then there should be no way to define what's bad, either. It's all just personal preference in the end. Though I do believe God Hand is objectively great.

[Hatari]

Cowboy Bebop - can't watch it...I've tried 5+ times, can't make it past the 5th episode. I think because it jumps around that it drives me batty. Loved Samuari Champloo (which everyone says is just Bebop in anicent Japan).

Trinity Blood - I absolutely love this anime. It has beautiful artwork and a good storyline. Too bad the creator died before finishing it and left it to a friend.

Hellsing (OVA) - Since I've seen the TV Show as well. I can't really compare, since the OVA is basically following the manga better. Either way, It's way more bloody and profane than the T.V. show. OVA 2...Jan...all I'm saying..."Death by mf konami" one of the best lines ever...

Claymore - Another of the best animes I have ever seen. Bloody.

Samuari Champloo - One of my all time favorites. I watch it over and over again.

Basilisk - If you like naruto, check this out, but beware it's rated for mature audiences. There is a lot of bloody and some sexual situations in it, but it has good ninja fights.

Let's see what else I have in my collection,

Whoever said Saiunkoku Monogatri gets a cookie. That's a great anime. Very little to no blood. Romance-y but it's very underlying. Good history lesson too. Really love this.

I can name more, just need to go look into my shelf.

[Saint Nightroad]

Sounds like a bad case of It's Popular, Now it Sucks.

Obnoxious characters? A few, but some are pretty awesome. Gaara is one of my favorite characters of all time. Kakashi is badass. Naruto himself is the only one I'd describe as "obnoxious."

Overly drawn out fight scenes? Sure, they're long, but some people like it that way. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Over-reliance on fanservice? Where? Have you never seen an ecchi anime? Code Geass? Sure, Tsunade exists, but that alone is not even close to "over-reliance on fanservice."

Pathetic voice acting? Well, since you watched 30 episodes of Shippuden, I can assume you saw it in Japanese. Do you know Japanese? If not, you have no room to judge the voice acting.

Bad story? Filler is annoying, yes, but the rest of it is generally pretty good. The Chunin exams are what really got me into the show. I'm not far into Shippuden so I can't comment on that.

I am in the same position, yet I do not find it any worse today than I did back then.

Naruto probably is overrated to some extent, but to call it one of the worst ever made is overdoing it. Stuff doesn't get popular if it's that bad.

Amazingly enough, I could not stand Princess Mononoke. I literally had to force myself to finish it.

Annoying characters: try the whole cast minus Shikamaru, Gaara, Kakashi, Neji, and Diadora, plus a few others here and there. I pity those characters because they are perfectly good but trapped in something that epitomizes mediocrity.

Yes, overly drawn out fights are bad. When half or more of a fight scene is talking, something is wrong.

The majority of Naruto females are fanservice and nothing more. Hinata? Nothing but Naruto's stalker meant to egg on the anime couple fans... and her waterfall scene? Oh God. Sakura... pretty much the same thing. Let us not forget Naruto's sexy jutsu. That's such a glaring example of it it's rediculous. Then there is Tsunade's (disgusting) existence. One of the few girls in the series I'ld call respectable is Gaara's sister (name escapes me). She's tough, doesn't give in to constant crushing (though she is in one of the most likely relationships in the series, though I'll forgive this because it's not emphasized much in the series and it's with Shikamaru, who is one of my favorite character in the show, and one of my favorite anime characters), and has a likeable personality. Admittedly, they do like to show off her legs a good bit, but I am not complaining *whistles*. The most blatant example of fanservice actually comes from Sasuke. He was made pretty much solely to appeal to fangirls as he shows in every Naruto poll by winning 1st place thanks to the fangirls voting for him. The show even acknowledges his knack for attracting fangirls by making not only Sakura and Ino, but just about every girl in school fall for him. Code Geass is not reliant on its fanservice... it just includes a lot of it. It is perfectly capable of standing as a great anime without it, because it will always be popular for it's phychological elements, mech fighting, and main character.

I was referring to both the sub and the dub. Naruto himself has some of the worst voice acting ever. His dub voice is, not surprisingly, a fat woman. BELIEVE IT! Oh and that brings me to another point... awful dialogue. When a character says "Believe it!" every five seconds, he loses all likeability.

And yes, stuff can be popular if its bad. Look at Twilight. Were I feeling generous, I'ld call Naruto mediocre, which it is, if not worse. People have a tendency of liking the mediocre. Look at Halo, any of the big 3 animes (Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach), and any MMO minus Guild Wars (yes, I'm calling World of Warcraft a mediocre MMO). It's these things that have the highest popularity of their respective fields. It's not because they actually have any respectability, but because they include generic elements that people love. Halo has it's constantly armored personality-less invinceable man with guns, for example.

Now not everything popular is bad... some things are popular because they are good. The Fire Emblem series is one example relevant to this forum. While I would certainly not say it has a lot of mainstream popularity... it is definitely a well-respected and fairly popular series among (non-casual) gamers.

Edited February 7, 2010 by Saint Nightroad

[uguu]

>One Piece

>One of the "big three"

The only place where One Piece has a sizable fanbase is Japan. And it's actually pretty good

But let's be serious now, when it comes to anime things don't tend to be too heavily overrated unless they're a crappy moe anime, and, when you look at Naruto or Bleach, they have as many haters as they do 'fanboys/fangirls'. And you always see One Piece being coupled with them even though they're far from similar 8E. From what I've seen, most people who criticize Naruto/Bleach haven't even watched much of it or just except one of them to be exactly like the other (I wouldn't compare Bleach to Naruto myself).

And Twilight? I don't know, I've only actually seen like 2 people who actually like it.

As for Halo, no one cares about the main character. They just care about playing the game. For some reason I can't help but think you've never watched One Piece/Bleach or played WoW/Halo.

Also, *gasp* Fire Emblem, an SRPG, not having a notable sized fanbase!? Why I'd never!?

[Saint Nightroad]

>One Piece

>One of the "big three"

The only place where One Piece has a sizable fanbase is Japan. And it's actually pretty good

But let's be serious now, when it comes to anime things don't tend to be too heavily overrated unless they're a crappy moe anime, and, when you look at Naruto or Bleach, they have as many haters as they do 'fanboys/fangirls'. And you always see One Piece being coupled with them even though they're far from similar 8E. From what I've seen, most people who criticize Naruto/Bleach haven't even watched much of it or just except one of them to be exactly like the other (I wouldn't compare Bleach to Naruto myself).

And Twilight? I don't know, I've only actually seen like 2 people who actually like it.

As for Halo, no one cares about the main character. They just care about playing the game. For some reason I can't help but think you've never watched One Piece/Bleach or played WoW/Halo.

Actually I have played Halo. Its a functional but generic and rather mediocre shooter. Fun to play with your friends when you can but not worth being a hardcore player. And you'ld be surprised. A lot of people care about the main character, believe it or not. I can hardly count the number of retarded fanboys who have put him on the same pedastal as Chuck Norris. Haven't played WoW because it's supposed to be just like every other MMO out there, except now I'm paying money every month for it. Thanks to this, I can really only criticize its obvious and inherent grind-based nature and how it intentionally raped the story laid out by Warcraft 3.

Naruto, watched it and hated it. One Piece, tried to watch it and suffered vomiting and violent convulsions I hated it so much. Bleach, haven't watched it, because, as a large number of my online friends and acquaintances, who are usually very knowledgeable about these things, have told me... it's just as mediocre and filler filled as any of the other mainstream anime giants.

As for Twilight, it's mainly based around attracting fangirls. It's nothing but softcore written porn involving sparkly vampires and generic characters that anyone with half a brain can see through unfortunately, most teenage girls don't have half a brain, as Twilight has proven.

[Defeatist Elitist]

Actually, I think what R'evan means is that people are sheep and they will like/follow something just because it's popular. Or at least, that's what I got from it. So something that may be average/bad can easily become popular if people with low standards (which is most people) like it, and the rest will just follow.

And also, if there is no actual way to define what's "good," then there should be no way to define what's bad, either. It's all just personal preference in the end. Though I do believe God Hand is objectively great.

Yeah, me and Fox settled this dispute over MSN.

And yes, stuff can be popular if its bad. Look at Twilight. Were I feeling generous, I'ld call Naruto mediocre, which it is, if not worse. People have a tendency of liking the mediocre. Look at Halo, any of the big 3 animes (Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach), and any MMO minus Guild Wars (yes, I'm calling World of Warcraft a mediocre MMO). It's these things that have the highest popularity of their respective fields. It's not because they actually have any respectability, but because they include generic elements that people love. Halo has it's constantly armored personality-less invinceable man with guns, for example.

Now not everything popular is bad... some things are popular because they are good. The Fire Emblem series is one example relevant to this forum. While I would certainly not say it has a lot of mainstream popularity... it is definitely a well-respected and fairly popular series among (non-casual) gamers.

Sure, Halo is not a shining beacon of FPS awesomeness, but considering the popularity of games such as TF2, CS:S, Half Life 2, etc, which kind of ARE, your model still does not stand up. Also, WoW has got to be one of, if not the, best MMO ever made. Now, I don't really play WoW, although I have played it in the past. I just can't get into it, but I cannot get into any MMOs. It doesn't change the fact that WoW has a very enjoyable formula for play, and is constantly updated, improved and balanced.

[Hatari]

I won't watch one-piece. Way too cartoony...i mean come on...a pirate with stretchy arms?! O.O really...

[Balcerzak]

I feel the above image is not only hilarious, but strangely relevant to the topic near at hand. I too have to fall into the "One Piece is really quite good" crowd. Arlong Park Arc and Arabasta Arc were easily some of the most well done arcs in any anime I have seen, much less the "shounen fightan" subgenre. The character interactions were very moving, touching, and emotional, even despite the fact that One Piece does tend to suffer from "No one ever actually dies" syndrome.

Hatari, don't let the apparent "cartoony"-ness of the apparent premise fool you. While indeed there are lots of things played for laughs in One Piece, it has more than its fair share of intense drama moments to balance out with it.

Edited February 8, 2010 by Balcerzak

[Hatari]

I love that image! It's totally true. I liked DBZ, bleach, naruto until it got wayy too long.

I'll try one-piece again someday. It's just soo...cartoony, isn't there an non-cartoony version of it. That is full of blood and gore?

I heard somewhere that the cartoon version was edited for kids.

[Balcerzak]

I love that image! It's totally true. I liked DBZ, bleach, naruto until it got wayy too long.

I'll try one-piece again someday. It's just soo...cartoony, isn't there an non-cartoony version of it. That is full of blood and gore?

I heard somewhere that the cartoon version was edited for kids.

Oh, yes. One Piece definitely has lots of blood (I wouldn't go so far as to say gore, reserving that instead for things on the level of Elfen Lied or Gantz). The dubbed version released by 4kids was a pathetically butchered shell of the original Japanese series. From what I recall when Funimation took over things were very much improved, but I stick to subtitled myself.

[Hatari]

Subtitled definitely. What is 4kids?

How is Gantz, I've heard that is massively profane and mature only.

[Florete]

Subtitled definitely. What is 4kids?

Terrible. They are part of the reason sub vs dub wars still exist.

The only thing that turns me off from One Piece is the length. I don't really feel like catching up on 430 episodes. I did read 18 volumes of the manga though, so I might consider catching up on that or just jumping into the anime from where I left off.

Also, I've been watching Darker than BLACK lately and it's pretty cool. Nothing spectacular yet, but worth watching.

[Hatari]

Ah, yeah I'm a subs person myself. FMA is the only anime so far that I can stand watching dubbed. Everything else sounds too...weird.

Kenshin is great subbed (even if Kenshin's VA is a girl), but dubbed...he's horrible...

[Florete]

Ah, yeah I'm a subs person myself. FMA is the only anime so far that I can stand watching dubbed. Everything else sounds too...weird.

Kenshin is great subbed (even if Kenshin's VA is a girl), but dubbed...he's horrible...

Do not get me started on a sub vs dub argument. I've been in more than one and a Fire Emblem forum is not where I want to see one started. I'm only warning you because I'm very sensitive about this subject.

[Hatari]

Ah, sorry.

Any reason for the sensitivity? Usually people are in the uncut vs. edited debates along with the sub vs dub debate

[Florete]

Ah, sorry.

Any reason for the sensitivity? Usually people are in the uncut vs. edited debates along with the sub vs dub debate

Uncut vs edited is usually part of sub vs dub, not separate, at least from what I've seen.

I'm sensitive because I like English dubs and always have, probably always will, yet it's so common these days to see things like "All dubs suck!" and "Original Japanese is always better!" which just pisses me off because neither one is true. Sure, some of them do suck, and I can name them, but they are very rare these days. I got so frustrated one night that I just started writing down all the stupidity I've seen from dub haters and it turned into a 1,500 word essay complete with links to TvTropes.

Just remember that I have absolutely no issue with people who prefer the subbed anime over English dubbed. All that I get angry about is people who say the English dubs suck without a second thought.

[Saint Nightroad]

Ah, yeah I'm a subs person myself. FMA is the only anime so far that I can stand watching dubbed. Everything else sounds too...weird.

Kenshin is great subbed (even if Kenshin's VA is a girl), but dubbed...he's horrible...

Umm... Kenshin's subbed voice is one of the worst subbed voices ever... his dub voice is brillaint and fitting. I don't know what the Hell you were watching if you got any other impression.

[Lux Aeterna]

Kuroshitsuji, which some of you may know as Black Butler.

So far I'm on episode 2. There are 24 in total.

If you like dark humor, this is a great anime for it.

[Ercdouken]

Recently started watching Strawberry Panic. What? WHAT!?!

[CGV]

So I've had some time to spare and I've been reading these last few pages of.... stuff....

Instead of bringing back up all that shit, I'd just to like to say that pretty much any anime can be made into a picture like the one about DBZ, Naruto, Bleach and One Piece. In an anime, especially one as long as those four, isn't it about the journey and what happens along the way? Not just looking at the beginning and end (or as those 4 where it is right now)

One other thing surprised me... How the HELL could someone that watches anime not have ever heard of 4Kids!? (no offense, btw)