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The Flip-Side
Posted By EthaNox On September 23, 2011
The Flip-Side
Well folks, I’m going to admit that I haven’t been in touch with anime as of late, at least not to the extent I used to be. It probably has to do with the long list of complaints I’ve built against the medium (anime), a list that I can promise you will only grow in size as time goes by.
This is not exactly an apology
Sure, there have been some really good shows as of late that beat the stigma that I put on modern anime; a stigma that’s caused by the tide of Moe Anime and titles that have trivialized nudity and fanservice to the point where it feels old. I guess it’s kind of like having the same meal served across several restaurants with only a slight variation in spice. But the truth is that many titles mean many fans, both old and young.
I have found it easier to find people out in the streets that have a passion for this. People with whom you may argue about the merits of one show over another or about the characters and merchandise you both like. I made an article like this several months ago, where I explained why Anime has gone mainstream and why it’s good it did. This is not about that.
This is about the merits that come with the wave of titles and the modernization of the media. The new fanservicey and pervy titles are great fodder for relaxed conversations and even stupid animes can be good for a laugh or to turn off your brain.
Sure, there are titles like Seikon no Qwaser that sound like a bad joke, almost as if the creative team behind the original manga had said “Let’s make a story that has boobs as its center piece and let’s throw in some Anime styled Catholicism to be edgy,” only to be interrupted by someone saying “Oh, don’t forget the androgynous lead female character with latent lesbian tendencies and the unresolving love interest plot that we’ll drag on forever!” Some of these new shows really seem to have been made with an anime plot generator, but hey, people like them.
Saying that anime has gotten mainstream and better known is a wonderful thing for me. Brainless and derivative shows serve to fill in the gaps left by the better ones, even making it so that they seem better!
We can read manga online, watch anime online, find great fansubs, and have whatever sweet anime merchandise we want at our fingertips! So let’s enjoy it for all it’s worth and remember that for all we know a down-on-its-luck studio may end up making a killing with fanservice based shows, only to blow us away with a great title.
In closing…
We already got videogames as art to be taken as a serious phrase, let’s make it so people see anime as more than “strange cartoons.” Even the fanservice has a place in that, get a friend hooked and show him or her how anime is not all about giant robots, moody and angsty teenagers or gratuitous cleavage. It’s about all that and much more.
