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Anime: Thoughts with Cyrus

Cyrus here, 

     Periodically I find that I cannot resist the occasional anime here and there. Dragonball, DBZ, 8 man, Gatchaman force (G-Force), Rouroni Kenshin, Trigun, Bleach, Naruto, Digimon, Yugioh (to an extent), the occasional Voltron, G-Gundam, ronin warriors, and more have worked special places into my nostalgia center over the years.      There are some things in anime that have always bugged me however!

This is a list of things in anime that bug me.

1. Anime intro having superior art style or animation to the actual show.

I understand that an intro is supposed to suck you in and get your attention, but to me it is the same effect as using CGI cutscenes to represent a video game. That ship doesn't sail with me.

2. Lengthy cutscene transformations overused. 

We all love a good power up! We also love it when the protagonist gives it his all to gather enough strength to achieve the next level when he is struggling. However, using the same animation every single time he or she does it seems a bit lazy and more of a method to pad out time than to show of a flashy evolution.   If I was a bad guy, I would slap the snot out of the hero mid-transformation until he submitted. 

I am not a stranger to the concept of action time where the said evolution is actually instant but to the viewer is shown in its full glory, but it would not hurt to make it actually instant more often to show the viewer that!

3. The golden rule of anime: calling out your attack!

More often than any other anime trope, is the famous move-names.

The significance of knowing what the hell the hero or villain did by naming their power attacks is a staple of anime and has even become part of western culture to an extent!

Would it not make more sense to call out the name of the attack....AFTER using it? It is a shining red beacon of "Hey, I'm charging my best attack, please stand there and take it like a man so we can display how powerful we are compared to eachother okay?"

If I was a villain and I heard a hero calling out the name of an attack... you can bet your ass that the second syllable he uttered would be "GURLK!" This goes double for the villains who are already all-knowing of their adversary and know the attack being announced!

Naming your attack is important for the sake of sounding cool and letting them know what hit them... but naming it afterwards would be far more effective. If the attack actually REQUIRES you to shout out its name to use it, I consider that a tremendous design flaw.

4. Taking turns when the fate of existence is in the balance.

Here you have a whole group of bad guys or good guys playing 'bench warmer' until somebody either dies, fails, or stands out. The fate of the world or whatever hangs in the balance but the issue of pride and fair fights still somehow remains as the prime directive that is honored by good and evil alike.

Hello, bad guys don't need any rules but the ones they make! Why not just crowd pummel the strongest hero, then swat his weaker teamates like flies?

I understand the principles of a fair fight and the rules of engagement, but when a hero is trying to save the day or the villain is going all or nothing, there needs to be more weight on the battle besides "who is the stronger one" all the time. If the issue is severe enough, all of each respective side should be in a nonstop throwdown until one side is slain.

Anime logic:  ideal and cool as it is, it is terribly impractical.

5. Hero's trump card: sizing the enemy up.

We all know this one is for show. A hero tries to engage a clearly superior enemy while remaining in base form instead of going full power and turning his foe into a living mop.

The logic: Usually "I want to see how strong I have become" assuming he can take his or her now stronger base form and pit it against his enemy who finds the hero retarded (for good reason) for not opening with the strongest form and attack.  This careless move usually causes the protagonist and often his friends to become injured by the villain who cannot take the hero seriously for being so naive.

If you want to see how strong you have become, pit your strongest self against the foe, and if you lose, find a way to become stronger or adapt your fighting style to counter the foe!

Writers will sometimes slip in a reason the hero doesn't go all out on the villain like "Well the hero hasn't recovered enough to use that power" or they establish some sort of conditional cooldown which later becomes negated when a stronger power is found.

I think this is one reason I like Naruto despite the horrendous fillers; It isn't a power-game and requires tactics more than simple power. The foes are usually out of the heroes league and often have to be countered with a degree of strategy outside of "punch or slash at it till it falls down and surrenders".

6. Drama time! : Somebody has to die, luckily...it isn't you!

Killing off a character is often used for emotional motivation to make the hero stronger or to build team camaraderie. Typically it follows one of a few paths however.

A. The disposable: A former villain who has become hero or a weaker friend who the fanbase could care less about usually who is given one or two episodes of story to flesh him out just enough to try to make you care that he was a good person before he is killed off. (Sometimes just to be a good sport the writer uses some contrived reason to bring the fallen comrade back in the end to shut angry fans up)

       B. The Hero is Saiyan or something:  The main character is killed off as if on cue, usually taken out in a punk fashion that would have never killed him or her under any other condition. The hero then comes back from the dead using some sort of plot device, gimmick, spell, or journeys in the afterlife until they have received an important message which helps them grow in power.. then as if they were Jesus, the spring back to life, far more powerful than when they died... with no training or upgrades required in some cases! Vegeta would be proud. (I'll let you decide which one!)

      C. The sacrificial helper: A newfound tag along character who is often strong, cool, awesome and you want to see his power work with the main characters, but he is promptly killed in the blaze of glory. He sacrifices himself and his power to aid the protagonist in escape or a brief power boost to turn the tides. This character is more often than not a major power-player and possibly former foe who could help the hero win easily...if he didn't fail to dodge the blinding death beam of "Oh, you liked this guy? I'll let him become good too! PSYCHE!!" before being vaporized. (This guy is often either resurrected in the end to shut fans up, or is there as a spirit to help)

      D. The coma death: A close friend of the hero is disabled for an indefinite amount of time until the hero saves the day. This friend is often assumed to be dead, which invigorates the hero to not hold back. (In some cases, this friend was just unconscious or under some spell-like coma)  

7. The most badass character getting the least screentime.

Every anime has at least one. Some guy who insanely strong, cool, and probably a bit touched in the head when it comes to ideals and perspectives. This guy or girl could have their own damn show and we would all watch it without hesitation, but there is never enough. You want a good example? Kenpachi Zaraki from Bleach! The guy is a lunatic, but so interesting to watch in action as he takes down foes. Sometimes he is bored with them and destroys them in a single stab or blow, sometimes he goes ballistic and destroys a small country trying to fight his foe to test his strength to its limit!

These characters usually either have a very cryptic background to make them more interesting, or they give just enough of their origin to give you some basic premise, but never enough to delve into the mind of the character.

They are cool and you want to see them more, but you won't. Sometimes they get a multi-part subplot, but it ends up overshadowed by the main story as they fade into obscurity until the final battle. 8. American? Japanese? Asian? Neutral? The big debate! This has been an artistic debate between Akasen and I, but part of me thinks that Japanese characters in anime should be more properly portrayed artistically. The skin color is wrong, the facial shapes and styles aren't even close, and the hair colors are awesome but not as common.

I suppose this is one reason I respect Akira, because it felt like it was trying damn hard to capture the feel of Japan in animated form. 

Anime characters often seem too "White", and while that makes some white people who watch it feel awesome, I feel it is a missed opportunity. The white skin and colored hair is supposed to represent a form of neutrality I am told, but if that's the case, why not make a whole fake city and world for them to live in as well? To make things even more strange, elders in anime usually look more like asian elders than white elders, despite the skin color. I honestly wish there was some more racial diversity in anime, but fantasy is fantasy and I do not wish to incur the wrath of the otaku.

In many cases, it is established that the hero or villain can sense the other at some point... so by that logic they should know that the other is fine beyond the dust. So why not nuke the enemy until they no longer sense them?

I would also love to state the fact that with all these exotic moves anime characters present, nobody has ever considered something cool like slashing the dust cloud away or blasting it away with a circumference blast? I for one would be like "Stop hiding in the dust and let's see the results" before abolishing the dust.

9. The unspoken rule of power! When a character has just learned a new power or ability... how do they know how to control it, what it's name is, and how to use it with zero experience firsthand?

The writers of these stories leave it up to the viewer to decipher that the character has suddenly gained full knowledge and clarity to this newfound power the moment they understand it. Instant mastery! If only real life had anything that worked that way! 

The absurdity of this is that the character has seemingly mastered full use of a new ability they have only discovered just moments ago..and in some cases made up, yet the move never fails and is usually far more effective than the moves they have trained and mastered previously!

Symbolic or not, I would much like to see the hero have to learn control of his newfound ability in combat while bumbling with it a few times before they get the hang of it... it is just more interesting that way.

If you were given super powers and special moves instantly, you would have to practice with them a bit before putting them to full use! Some trial and error is part of the growing and learning process.

I'm aware these are possibly tropes, but they are little things consistent in animes that has bugged me over the years.

Got more to share or comments?