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Does Anime Get A Pass For Being Original?

taizuke

Member
Compared to the West, there seems to be a new anime every six months, give or take.

The West when it comes to Hollywood seems to be rehashing, remaking, or rebooting almost anything from the past. Not to mention making sequels or prequels.

However, Japan often makes a lot of new content and for the sake of the argument let's focus the subject on anime.

But, i'd argue that anime relies on a lot of existing and popular genres. So, while the IP maybe new, is it really original?

P.S. My bad. Mods please put this in the off topic section.
 
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Sentenza

Member
1- What the fuck are you talking about?

2- What this has to do with games?

3- There are DOZENS of new anime every season, not one every six months. What do you mean?

4- While SOME anime could be good, or more rarely even genuinely great, to criticize Hollywood for "unoriginal content" and recycled ideas while praising anime as a whole has to be a entirely new level of delusion.
 
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ProtoByte

Member
A lot of it gets adapted from manga, which is cheap to make, so the medium can't take full credit for being "original" - ignoring the fact that a lot of new anime is wholly unoriginal. Other than that, a lot of that new stuff is useless fluff or outright bad, and the production pipelines that facilitate that volume of output at highly variable levels of qualify do not treat its workers well, at all.
 

Sentenza

Member
A lot of it gets adapted from manga, which is cheap to make, so the medium can't take full credit for being "original"
That's old school.
These days most series are adapted from light novels... Which are even cheaper to make and can (somehow) gain immense popularity with even lower standards of quality.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
B712B4A618493E7D626446EB817B76AB6FA73280
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Anime is varied, so much that as an anime fan you just don't like everything that "looks anime", just like Metal music genre.

There are tons of new anime each quarter (season) and there's always one genre dominating for which there are good and bad stories, there are fans, haters, etc. Inside anime fans communities.

Anime is so big that it's just so different going from one story to the other and even i have ditched series for looking too "light novel-y" but ended up being amazing after I watched it of recommendation.

The reason why anime is so popular is because there's always something for someone. You like serious and crude stories? Recently Home Hero ended and was amazing for more grounded, dark and serious stories fans, you barely ever get any female contact? Probably next Idol Master or Pretty Cure is for you (lol jk... Well, maybe not, idk).

Anime is not a monolith type of thing, think of it as metal, not because someone loves Slayer it means they will like Cradle of Filth or Epica... Hell even within same subgenre they can vary a lot.
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
The anime creates more original stories, more artistic details, more realistic, interesting stories... Something that they would never do in the West.
 

taizuke

Member
2- What this has to do with games?

3- There are DOZENS of new anime every season, not one every six months. What do you mean?

4- While SOME anime could be good, or more rarely even genuinely great, to criticize Hollywood for "unoriginal content" and recycled ideas while praising anime as a whole has to be a entirely new level of delusion.

2. My bad. Made a mistake creating the topic in the wrong section.

3. I was under the impression that anime releases more often. That's another L on me.

4. I am not praising anime. I'm actually not giving it credit because like Hollywood it relies on a lot of existing genres. That's why I pass the question on to all of you if anyone agrees or disagrees
 
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killatopak

Member
Animation can be original in the east because there are no limits to animation.

In the west, most are live action or CGI. What's the limitation of those? Money. Well doesn't anime cost too? Well it is magnitudes higher than anime and when you invest that much, business takes over creativity. That's why movies are formulaic and riddled with sequels and remakes.

Why don't people animate in the west? This notion that animation can only be for children has seeped deeply. In fact, even in CGI 95% are purely marketed towards kids. Anime on the other hand has a HUGE range of audience in terms of age.
 

Chastten

Banned
There are, on average, over 50 new anime airing each season (=3 months)

Right now, and for the better part of the past 10 years, almost half of those shows is some form of Isekai. No, most anime aren't original, or even good. Most of it is filler and everyone knows it.

However, each year there are a couple of standouts that will be remembered as being truly great. Last year, we had My Dress-Up Darling, Summertime Render and Spy x Family,

No idea what all this has to do with gaming, but whatever.
 
Let's just say it's waaaaaay better than western entertainment. The thing I love about anime, is that there's a variety of genres aimed at all type of age groups. If you want mature adult stuff, there's animes that you can watch. Berserk, Attack On Titan, Made In Abyss, etc. Same with manga. They usually don't censor like western entertainment does. I love the look of 2d art and characters. Even though 3D is becoming a bigger thing to use in Anime. I find the quality to be much more good and reading the descriptions of the anime that's coming out each season is helpful in making my decisions on what I want to watch. Also watching an anime and finishing a season and knowing it's based off a manga helps too. Since I tend to look up the manga and read it. For example, Berserk, Naruto and Dr Stone

Not to mention no political BS, just focused on telling good stories and tends to do "Diverse" characters much better than Western Entertainment does. Nowadays with the West it's mostly preachy crap and that's a massive turn off at times
 
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taizuke

Member
There are also a lot of reboots in anime.

What are some of those reboots? The most recent one I can think off is Trigun: Stampede.

Anime can get away with it since a new one only comes out every 6 months or so

Did I just became a meme?

Not to mention no political BS, just focused on telling good stories and tends to do "Diverse" characters much better than Western Entertainment does. Nowadays with the West it's mostly preachy crap and that's a massive turn off at times

100% agree.
 
100% agree.

Also anime and manga has more fan in other countries than western entertainment does. It's funny how Western Entertainment is getting beat by the Japanese in this regard especially. I don't care if a character looks like me, as long as the character is written well, and the plot is good, I'm down.

It's funny seeing these Western Entertainment companies trying to sabotage these anime studios too. It always blows up in their face.
 
Are you kidding? Anime has the exact same problem. If anything, it's worse. Every season it's the same shit over and over again.

The reasons are the same. Making shit is getting more expensive, so studios would rather play it safe and adapt yet another isekai with a stupid gimmick than pick up something that's actually interesting.
 
Are you kidding? Anime has the exact same problem. If anything, it's worse. Every season it's the same shit over and over again.

The reasons are the same. Making shit is getting more expensive, so studios would rather play it safe and adapt yet another isekai with a stupid gimmick than pick up something that's actually interesting.

I tend to read lot of manga, so I read a bunch of genres. So the anime issue regarding that isn't an issue
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
There are, on average, over 50 new anime airing each season (=3 months)

Right now, and for the better part of the past 10 years, almost half of those shows is some form of Isekai. No, most anime aren't original, or even good. Most of it is filler and everyone knows it.

However, each year there are a couple of standouts that will be remembered as being truly great. Last year, we had My Dress-Up Darling, Summertime Render and Spy x Family,

No idea what all this has to do with gaming, but whatever.
There are more than a couple... Just this past season (next season starts next week) we had:
- Oshi no Ko
- Kimetsu no Yaiba 3rd season
- Home Hero
- Gundam Witch from Mercury (2nd part/season, idk)
- One Piece keeps breaking internet with Wano arc
- Skip and Loafer
- Dr. Stone 3rd season
- Mashle (classical shonen, like those that they barely do these days)
- Vinland Saga 2nd season (considered best anime of the year, I'm yet to watch it)
- New Pokemon anime... It's legit good and not bs like the one we had for 25 years prior. But you gotta watch it on pirate sites since it won't come as original form to america with all changes they always do to Pokemon and it's not airing weekly too, it will come later, some day.

That's from the top of my head. There were stinkers like that one called "Kamikatsu" that oversexualizes the "goddess that looks like a little girl" and has one of the worst CGIs ever but weren't the most popular by far.
 
There are more than a couple... Just this past season (next season starts next week) we had:
- Oshi no Ko
- Kimetsu no Yaiba 3rd season
- Home Hero
- Gundam Witch from Mercury (2nd part/season, idk)
- One Piece keeps breaking internet with Wano arc
- Skip and Loafer
- Dr. Stone 3rd season
- Mashle (classical shonen, like those that they barely do these days)
- Vinland Saga 2nd season (considered best anime of the year, I'm yet to watch it)
- New Pokemon anime... It's legit good and not bs like the one we had for 25 years prior. But you gotta watch it on pirate sites since it won't come as original form to america with all changes they always do to Pokemon and it's not airing weekly too, it will come later, some day.

That's from the top of my head. There were stinkers like that one called "Kamikatsu" that oversexualizes the "goddess that looks like a little girl" and has one of the worst CGIs ever but weren't the most popular by far.

Glad they oversexulizes the girls just to trigger you
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Glad they oversexulizes the girls just to trigger you
LOL you liked it? I have a friend that does but that's not my thing, my problem is not the girl but the other character that is obsessed with her, nasty af to me... I don't have anything against that humor as long as it's relegated to some series you know you can't take seriously, and that are known for that type of content though, as in Kamikatsu, I'll know I won't watch it and can move on easily.
 

Doom85

Member
Are you kidding? Anime has the exact same problem. If anything, it's worse. Every season it's the same shit over and over again.

The reasons are the same. Making shit is getting more expensive, so studios would rather play it safe and adapt yet another isekai with a stupid gimmick than pick up something that's actually interesting.


An isekai doesn’t show up until #16, and technically not until #18 since the Konosuba spinoff takes place before Kazuma got isekai’d.

There‘s a shit ton of options in anime practically every season. Pretending it’s all isekai is like driving past a ton of great restaurants, stopping at Sonic’s and getting a burger, and then after barely being able to finish that garbage, proceed to complain that eating out sucks. Like, come on.
 
LOL you liked it? I have a friend that does but that's not my thing, my problem is not the girl but the other character that is obsessed with her, nasty af to me... I don't have anything against that humor as long as it's relegated to some series you know you can't take seriously, and that are known for that type of content though, as in Kamikatsu, I'll know I won't watch it and can move on easily.

Which anime you complaining about? I'm interested in watching it, I might like it. That stuff doesn't bother me though lol
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Which anime you complaining about? I'm interested in watching it, I might like it. That stuff doesn't bother me though lol
It's called Kamikatsu. You'll probably like it, the anime is far from serious but it crosses some border regarding that type of humor that made me abandon it in ep. 3 I think.

The anime is cheap af, the CGI is horrible and brought polemic haha. But as it avanced, it seemed like it was actually intentional because it's very absurd humor in general.
 
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Mistake

Member
There are a few bangers each season, but most of it has been isekai (other world) trash these days. I think having more stuff in production just increases the chances of getting something decent
 

NahaNago

Member
But, i'd argue that anime relies on a lot of existing and popular genres. So, while the IP maybe new, is it really original?
Isn't that how a lot of fiction is created these days? It's all about how you twist it into something unique. An anime would twist a zombie into something weird like how to survive being a zombie girl in a video game or apocalypse but the west would be like how do you survive the zombie apocalypse again. Both are zombies just with a unique twist.
 
This would be like me comparing the best, most creative works of Hollywood directors to Shonen anime and claiming that all of anime isn’t creative because I only watch shonen shows.
 

Scotty W

Gold Member
The Japanese and Western markets break down very differently.

I live in Japan and Japanese people have done a better job of keeping the reading habit than the west. It is very common to see people of all ages reading manga in public.

Film and TV is huge, but the budget is small compared to the west.

So there is a comparatively bigger demand for this stuff, which feeds into the anime industry.

One thing about Japanese storytelling is a tendency of not being able to stop. Have you ever seen a complete Genji? It is massive. The same could be said of numerous anime series. This, coupled with their willingness to pull from foreign traditions leads to zaniness.
 
One thing about Japanese storytelling is a tendency of not being able to stop. Have you ever seen a complete Genji? It is massive. The same could be said of numerous anime series. This, coupled with their willingness to pull from foreign traditions leads to zaniness.

Superhero comics would like to have a word with you.
 

Teletraan1

Banned
Anime has just about any genre Hollywood does. The "its all isekai" take is pretty lazy and less true than "all Hollywood pumps out is cape movies". Popular genres get abused in every industry. Most anime seasons have something for just about anyone if you are open to it.

They also aren't beating you over the head with weirdo politics like western media if you watch subs, they mostly save that for the dubs. Most of the shit out of the west has the feel that they fed a woman's studies course into chatgpt and asked for random scripts.
 
I'm not so much into anime as I am to Japanese role playing games. I love them and I find them pretty original in some sense. One thing I especially like is that most modern jrpgs do not try to emulate Tolkien.

I just wish more of them had and more consistent ongoing universe. So many jrpgs have sequels that are not related to the previous game, like Final Fantasy.

JRPG that breaks that mold is the Legend of Heroes/Kiseki series. It's truly an epic game series with lots and lots of three dimensional characters.
 

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
There's not a lot of original anime anymore and anime is full of Isekai power fantasy garbage.

I check Chartfag every season and I'm lucky if there's 3 things I'd be willing to watch.
 
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