I’ve made the point, maybe interminably, that I’m trying to look at at the anime and manga I write about for what they can teach us about story-telling or animation or whatever else happens to strike my fancy at the moment. This sometimes leads me to talk about certain series … Cowboy Bebop, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kill la Kill, Black Lagoon, Neon Genesis Evangelion … repeatedly.
That backhandedly implies that those are the only anime I’ve seen.
Um. No.
There are a couple classes – yes, entire classes – of anime I won’t end up talking about, and they tend to fall into three main groups
Anime I have nothing to say about.
There are lots of anime that are fairly standard narratives, that follow the narrative structure, that have characters that follow fairly standard patterns or form fairly standard relational patterns. It’s not that they’re bad; it’s just that they don’t illustrate anything useful that I can think of to talk about.
Right now in the DVD player I have Okami-San and her Seven Companions running. I like it. It’s funny. Lucy Christien as the announcer is so freaking funny I have a hard time bearing it.
But it’s a pretty basic story with pretty basic characters. Nothing I see in it says, “Wow, you need to talk about that.”
There are a lot of series that fall into this category. As of right now I like them, but I have nothing to say about them. They include series like:
Speed Grapher. Desert Punk. Terror in Resonance. Rin-Daughters of Mnenosyne. And You Thought There is Never Girl Online. East of Eden. Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul.
Liked them all. Might watch some of them again. Just have nothing to say about them.
Anime I Couldn’t Stand
If I couldn’t make myself watch the whole thing, I won’t inflict my ignorant opinions on you.
Emi from The Devil is Part -Timer. Ironically, I have some comments on Devil.
There are a several classes of anime of anime I just plain won’t put up with. I can’t bear relentless stupidity, like in Dagashi Kashi. Sweets that makes the female lead orgasm each time she tastes them? Um. No. Senran Kagura. Ninjas who look (and jiggle) like blow-up dolls? Um. No.
If it’s too stupid I won’t watch it, and if I can’t watch it, it’s not fair to comment on it. To be fair to myself, I made it all the way through Shimoneta. My tolerance for stupid is pretty good. But too stupid doesn’t cut it.
A second class I won’t watch and therefore can’t comment on: The supernatural. I think stuff with demons and such to be too gimmicky narratively. How do we solve any tension? Well, so-and-so is a demon.
Black Butler. It’s looks pretty good, but too many plots are solved by “Sebastian is a demon.” Stuff like Hellsing I won’t even look at, and if I won’t look at it it’s not fair to comment.
Anime I can’t make myself watch
The third class is totally ideosyncratic to me: there are just certain things I won’t watch no matter how good it is.
For instance, if it’s too bloody I won’t watch it.
That’s just me. It doesn’t necessarily reflect on the other qualities of the series. I just don’t like blood. I look away during blood tests. I stare at the ceiling when I’m donating.
There are gory series that sneak up on me. Elfen Lied…watched it, and have a post written on it. But for the most part when the blood spatter comes out I stop watching. Tokyo Ghoul falls in here, too. I like what it does in terms of character development, but I can’t make myself watch it.
Another class of shows that falls under this heading is the series that has been running for years and years.
There’s nothing wrong with a lot of these, although from a narrative standpoint they are almost all middle and no end. I watched Pokemon for years! Brock left. Brock came back. Misty relieved Ash of his virginity (off-screen). Whatever. Life is too short.
I watched the first eight episodes of Bleach. I liked them…I liked the characters and liked the way they coordinated. But I don’t have a year to watch Bleach and nothing else. I made it to episode 46 of Rurouni Kenshin and somewhere into the 30’s of Ranma 1/2. I liked them both, but man, life is too short.
So I may end up talking about a relatively small number of series, but that doesn’t mean I’m not watching other things. In fact, if you have suggestions for other things to watch, let me know. If it fits my criteria, I’ll put it on the list
Confessions of an Overage otaku 
I can understand your reasons for not talking about some anime, absolutely. One thing I do find interesting though is to read about why someone didn’t like a particular anime. I think there is potential for a good post. Just as you argue for why an anime is good and you break it down in pieces to show it I like to read arguments to why an anime is bad (or why you find it so). But that’s just me and I completely understand if you find it a waste of time to do it.
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I will call out what I see to be structural flaws in anime that I do like, like the lack of a meta-plot in Spice and Wolf, or the incomplete end of Cowboy Bebop, but there are also lots of shows out there that are watchable but nothing special. Desert Punk was fun, but I don’t see any lessons to be learned there 🙂
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That I can see. I meant more that if one sees an anime (or whatever media really) you dislike. Write a post about that. About why you see an issue with it and so on. That’s the kind of things I find interesting.
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