LouNeko

Funnily the only Isekai that was somewhat interesting and realistic "Drifters" still doesn't have a season 2. It's basically powerful and influential political figures and warriors from random time periods get transported into a medieval fantasy world after their death. All I want is to see is WW2 anime Hitler take over a fantasy kingdom and get killed by Ninjas, is that to much to ask for? It's realistic in the sense that the main characters are 10 minutes into a fantasy land with magic and beautiful nature and of course they're already started making guns and bombs.

Most western cartoons are self contained episodes tho, while there is a general recurring antagonist, the conflict has to arise, develop and be resolved within the same episode. Very rarely you get multi episode arcs. Sometimes you get overarching storylines as a driving force that span whole seasons, but the main conflicts remain episodic. Spongebob is still working in the Crusty Crab by the end of the show, Kim Possible is still fighting Dr.Draken and Shego by the end of the series, Homer is still working in a Nuclear Powerplant, etc..

Anime is different in that regard because the story is laid out from start to finish usually over the course of 10-20 episodes. Whether the story has actual substance is a different question. But the thing is, anime can get away with an episode were nothing happens as long as it drives the plot towards a conclusion. But a children's cartoon where for a full episode nothing interesting happens usually won't even leave the storyboard.

That's why "filler episodes" are usually an eastern anime instead if a western cartoon trope.

I'm also an avid lurker of r/onepunchman and I have to say, Tatsumaki fanart is fairly tame compared to Fubuki. Fubuki is also used in the exact same way as Faye in Bebop. Her sexiness is the antithesis to the main characters general indifference. Her being on most of the mangas cover art sporting different outfits in each is another parallel to that. She's essentially the artists creative outlet for fashion. As for Tatsumaki, Murata (the artist) himself, said that he doesn't really like drawing petite women, but her appearance is in theme with the rest of the manga, being that the weak looking characters are usually the strongest.

Does her looking like that drive the sales up? Sure.

Does it taken away from the story? No.

That's why the straight up rapey approach from Ugly Fuehrer during the Monster Association arc was so impactful, because beside her sexualized outfit she is usually treated respectfully by the other characters.

What i mean by "taking away from the story" is if another anime has a girl in a small skirt face a tentacle monster, oh jeez, I wonder what will happen next? This is a story that is being told 100s of times and doesn't have to be told again. That I completely agree on.

I'd say One Punch Man, is a good example of how to use attractive characters to attract viewers, given that men and women are represented equally attractive and especially the men with a large variety of bodytypes. Saying that Tatsumaki is the only character looking like that and being sexed up is a bad thing should also imply that the Fat Guys superpower being able to eat everything, or Speed-O-Sonic the Twink Ninja wearing skinthight spandex is equally bad. It's just packaging and appearance.

The problem is that most other anime's/mangas have only packaging with not character behind it. The fact that people in the subreddit are mostly discussing power levels, possible theories, story implications, etc.instead of simply drooling over the women means that the characters and story is fleshed out enough that the fan service is beside the point. You usually won't find whole communities like that for run of the mill echi series with zero dept.

It's weird that the Japan - the country which arguably had the most positive global influence on how fight scenes are filmed and choreographed in movies has had a complete devolution in fight scenes in animation.

Like look at this fight scene from Ghost in the Shell (1995). Look how calm and harmonic it is 99% of the time, followed by quick bursts of action.

Or this scene from Evangelion (1999), Bebop (1998), Hellsing (1999).

There are some memorable modern fights that push the envelope of animation in modern anime like, Madara Uchia from Naruto (2016), Mob Psycho 100 (2019) or Castlevainia (2021).

But overall modern anime fights are composed mostly of flying, still images screaming "HEYAAA", internal monologues and 3D explosions.

I agree with you, but I have to say that sexualization in anime rarely comes as a surprise. Its usually clear from the very first second that an anime has zero substance beside fanservice.

I'd say there's a right way to do sexualization and a wrong way, 99% of the time it's done the wrong way. The wrong way would be all those panty shots, underskirts etc. But take a character like Faye from Cowboy Bebop, while her being all sexed up is part of her character, it does not take away from her position on the raster. She's essentially a artifact of the 90's rapid evolvement of western and eastern fashion. This is supported by the fact that she has a completely new outfit in almost every episode, an animation effort that you rarely see in modern anime. Furthermore the whole art style of Cowboy Bebop is very reminiscent of fashion illustration, meaning long legs and extremely thin bodies.

I'd say this is what led to the current fan service situation in the first place. People used to think "we can't show somebody with this outfit on film, but we can on paper". The supermodel lookalike characters have become a trope in 90's anime and over the last 3 decades have been distilled to just their sexiness, not their actual cultural meaning.

I don't think people straight up hate anime, nobody is going to pick up a remote and turn of the TV if they see somebody else watching it and angrily leave the room.

It's just, for the most part (and this is also true for non-animated movies or series), you've seen one you've seen them all.

There are only so many times you can tell the story of boring guy gets put in fantasy land and is not boring anymore, or mysterious things happen at school and the afterschool mystery club has to solve them.

So what do you do? You cling to what you know is good. Studios, directors, etc. If Miyazaki makes an anime movie you watch it, if Quentin Terentino makes an action movie you watch it. This is also partially why anime's are less popular than mainstream movies and series. You can watch a movie solely because you like an actor/actress, regardless of whether they play the same character or somebody else. In anime, each new series has a new set of characters, so each time a new personal connection has to be built.

Other than that, a good measure of "is this worth my time?" is pop cultural representation. Rule of thumb, if an anime spawns memes, it's usually half decent.

But just like with movies and series, there are timeless classics. Like, who hasn't seen or at least heard of Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Trigun, Dragon Ball Z, etc.. Even my parents know Pokemon. Those have been around for so long and been shown on mainstream western channels during prime time slots, that they were impossible to miss. I think people who aren't familiar with those are just not that interested in motion picture as a whole, regardless how its presented.

I'd say without overeaching, anime's can be put in just a few categories:

• Artistic, Philosophical, Experimental, Parodies: Those are your Miyazaki films, Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion, One Punch Man, Full Metal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, etc.

• Long running: Like, Pokemon, One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball, the Fate Series

• Trying to sell you something: Again Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gundam, Beyblade, etc.

• Mass produced trash: All the ones where the title spreads 3 lines and tells you 90% of the story

• Otaku soap operas: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the Monogatari series, Nagatoro, Komi-San

But those categories are not evenly spread in appeal, quality and quantity. While the first 2 categories have barely any presence but arguably the most cultural impact, the later ones have the most presence but are individually culturally insignificant. But quality is harder to judge than quantity is to see. So people tend to see the mass produced trash and ignore the good stuff that is being overshadowed. With classical film, a movies intention can usually be discerned with just one look, if for example a modern movie is black and white, its usually artistic. But looking at things like Evangelion, or the Ghost in the Shell Series, you couldn't guess the deep philosophical implications on first glance. People tend to see cutesy anime art style and associate it with either the mass produced trash, or shows made for children. What makes a film/series good is the intention and execution, if it happens to be animated this usually doesn't take away from the underlying message. See old animated Disney Movies - Lilo and Stich is about Family Values, Monetary Struggles, Loss and Friendship. Adult topics packed in a medium that both children and their parents can enjoy.

People tend to hate anime for the same reason they hate superhero movies, they see the overarching medium, but not the individual pieces. You can't compare the significance of Iron Man 1 with Thor 2, or Infinity War with The Marvels, some of these movies are good in a vacuum, without the whole Cinematic Universe attached to them. Same goes for anime, some are simply good stories regardless of them being animated.

I love you.

That's literally the funniest thing I've seen all week on Lemmy.

As somebody who watches this whole US election circus from the outside, it seems to be like Americans treat the election like fantasy football, except at the end of the day if you player gets injured somebody has to go out there and break the dudes legs for real.

No, see, I made all my money by inheriting it, and because I'm rich and wealthy that means that god must love me, and therefore I must be a good person inherently. People are poor because god doesn't love them, therefore they must be bad people. Duh. /s

The scary thing is you can never be certain if this is AI Generated, or just Welch.

How was that even an upgrade, they removed 2 maps, tanked the performance, increased the matchmaking time tenfold, reduced server performance, screwed up the ranking system, increased skin prices and introduced countless new bugs and crashes. If anything this was a huge downgrade.

They should've left Hunt the way it is and released Hunt 2, but they didn't have the balls because they knew nobody would play that shit. I guess releasing good old fashioned sequels to multiplayer games is bad for business, especially if you're such an incompetent dev. No, the new school way is to shitify you game in the name of a next gen update, and straight up deny everybody the ability to play the old version, see Overwatch, CS:GO, Squad, Warzone and now Hunt.

And don't come at me for saying Crytek is incompetent. Incompetent is the most polite thing they can be called. What they'be done is straight up malicious. You know how I know? Because you could sit me down, 8 hours a day 5 days a week, and my whole job for months would be nothing but to come up with the most dogshit UI possible, and I couldn't even come close to what they've decided to release. They must've had a whole TEAM of "experts" working 24/7 on that.

I swear I wish Steam would introduce a new rule. 2 hour refund window resets after every major parch, just to put the devs and publishers on a leash, when it comes to fucking up the product people have already paid for.

Nah, I'd say do the reverse, ban digital advertising. Keep IRL ads as they are today.