Least favorite movies...

[Ryukage]

Aww.. What's the matter.. Does itty bitty Ryukage not want to admit that some cartoons can be watched and enjoyed by males? Awwwwww.. How sweet.. He's trying to be all grown up and manly.

As Esseb pointed out (thank you, Esseb), I'm a huge fan of good animation.  I watch more anime than live-action, and I also quite liked Titan A.E. and a number of other Don Bluth films.  I just can't stand Disney.

How can you say every animated Disney movie is dumb? Have you watched them all?

Most of them.  Saw every one of their fairy-tale movies from Snow White on through to Beauty and the Beast, and quite a lot of their live-action productions as well.  I may have enjoyed them as a kid, or I may have just thought I was supposed to enjoy them, but at this point in time I find them trite, predictable, and rather stupid.

Do you have any idea how much work went into each film (Except for the latest, crappy-ass ones) Pinocchio, Robin Hood, Black Cauldron, Aladdin.. All of em' well done animated films.

Putting a lot of work into a dumb idea doesn't make it any less dumb.  I might make an exception for Black Cauldron -- I only remember that I've seen it, not anything about it (I thought it was Don Bluth).  The rest of the movies on your list: stupid.

And how dare you say Pixar's films are dumb.. Again.. Have you WATCHED any of them? IMO.. The only dumb Pixar movie was Bugs Life.. But Finding Nemo.. and Monsters Inc.. Wow.. If you can't like those films you must be one very depressing individual..

Saw Toy Story.  Dumb.  A movie about fish?  Dumb.  Movie about a human lost in monster world? Been done a zillion times, dumb every time.  Shrek?  Maybe I just hate Mike Myers.

BTW.. What does your signature mean? Were you born in 1996? Cause your profile says you're 23...

Well I wasn't born performing ninjutsu.  The Ninja Warrior Ryukage
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My signature (and the text under my avatar as well) are obvious references to the REAL ULTIMATE POWER homepage.  Because I'm a ninja.  (OK, not really, but this is the internet.  Here CJ can be an anthropomorphic superhero puma, Andail can be an elf, and I can be a ninja. Because that's what makes the internet great.)



As a general reply on the subject of anime:

From the titles that have been cited, I'm wondering how many of the people here have even seen enough anime to have an informed opinion.  Mononoke?  Sprited Away?  Probably great films (haven't seen them -- not my cup of tea), but there's more to anime than Miyazaki.  Pokemon?  Sailor Moon?  Aimed at kids and teenage girls.

Someone said anime has lots of guys that look like girls.  First of all, how is this any different from the zillions of movies staring Ben Afleck, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or Johnny Depp?  Not that I'd recommend any of their movies, but the point is that an abundance of bishounen (pretty boys) is not a strictly Japanese phenomenon.  Second, ever seen Golgo 13?  Yotoden?  M.D. Geist?  Roujin Z?  The Peacock King?  If you watch shoujou (anime aimed at teenage girls) you'll see a lot a bishounen.  Watch anime aimed at a more mature audience, and this perception vanishes.

Someone also complained about frenetic non-stop hyper-action.  This is a trait of shounen (teenage boys) anime, and sometimes of shoujou (shoujou tends to depend more on elaborate, dance-like attack motions that in real life would allow an enemy to go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, read a newspaper, and still have time to punch the heroine in the face before she finished making her attack).  Personally, I like action-packed anime like Yu Yu Hakusho, Project A-ko, Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, and Shadow Skill.  But there's no more of that in anime than in any other country's films.  No one in their right mind would accuse Witch Hunter Robin, Galaxy Express 999, or Darkside Blues of being "action-packed."

More than one person has said they don't like anime because of it's conventions.  I ask: what conventions?  As has already been pointed out, anime is a medium, not a genre.  There are shoujou conventions, shounen conventions, hentai conventions (mmm, tentacles), mecha conventions, and other genre conventions.  Akira Toriyama is a genre unto himself, with unique conventions of his own.  But there is no such thing as anime conventions.  There's even an entire wing of art films with the express intent of breaking conventions.  Anime runs the whole gamut from kids shows like Hamtaro and Tama and Friends to hardcore porn like Urotsudokuji (I may have mangled that title) and Rei-Rei, and most of the conventions are the same as any other country's shows aimed at the same demographic.  I think there's even a few anime sitcoms.

In my experience, anyone who says they don't like anime has simply been watching the wrong anime.

Though they don't make good counterexamples to the above compaints, lemme list a few more good ones for those with open minds: Excel Saga, Lupin III, Demon City Shinjuku, Ronin Warriors (aka Yoroiden Samurai Troopers), Patlabor, The Slayers, Record of Lodoss War, Plastic Little, Ariel, Detonator Orgun, Gunsmith Cats, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenchi Muyo (the original OAVs are good, the TV series maybe not so good, and Tenchi in Tokyo is downright atrocious), and Devil Hunter Yohko.  Watch all the movies and TV shows I've mentioned in this post, and then you'll have an informed opinion on anime.  Don't worry too much that my list is biased, I've mentioned some anime in here that I dislike right along with the ones I like.  I've even mentioned a few that I haven't even seen myself.

But wasn't this the bash dumb movies thread?

[Nacho]

I agree with some points, I specially like Akira Toriyama's work and Lupin III... I can't talk about the other titles, but if Ryu says they're good they'll surelly be...

But there was a certain period (early 90ies) where we were flooded by japanese trash, and I can perfectly understand too that LGM had enough of that.

[Blackthorne]

Anime sucks, and I don't need a reason why! :o

[Kinoko]

Honestly, if you don't like any of it, that's fine. Noone saying you HAVE to like it (at least, I'm not), but just don't complain about it in general if you haven't seen more than a lot of the crappy titles that get released outside of Japan and then dubbed into sickeningly poor english.

I've been watching anime for half of my life and I can tell you a million titles more that I hate rather than those that I like or love. As has been pointed out, 'anime' just can't be called a genre in itself. It's not like saying "I hate Disney movies" or "I hate Pixar's movies". It's like saying, "I hate Korean movies" and even though of course Japan has a great film industry outside of animation, it's a huge bitch of a chunk out of the industry.

I agree that Witch Hunter Robin is just fucking awful >_< I love a lot of shoujo though, Marmalade Boy, Kimagure Orange Road and Yawara are some of my all-time favourites

Personally, I don't think I can imagine ANYONE hating Kochikame... especially the movie.

I can almost agree with Ryukage about hating Disney. I certainly do, especially these days. Then I remember growing up with Donald Duck and Sword in the Stone and I have to remind myself that I used to love it once. I can't believe Disney still parades Mickey Mouse around ... how many children under the age of 15 today will even know who the hell he is? I also don't give a flying crap for bloody Nemo. I do have a lot of love for Pixar but it's technical love instead of that nice gooey "I love all of your films" love ^_^ I think Toy Story 1 was all I've ever actually liked of theirs, and only because of the extra characters. God, would someone please put Woody and his little bitch in a blender?

I recently saw the Ring (Japanese) for the first time and surprisingly, I liked it. The problem with that is that I -hate- horror movies, PARTICULARLY Japanese horror movies which are without a doubt usually the scariest in the world. I'm the most sensitive scaredy cat you could find, so the fact that I watched it and remained fine says something about just how scary it was. It was more like a good crime solving movie... I was kind of disappointed about it, given the amount of hype around it years back. I thought it would be one of the scariest movies ever.

While I'm on the subject... and I haven't seen it, but didn't the American version actually put a big 'ring' on the video in the movie? Pah They have to make everything so bloody literal and obvious.

[Las Naranjas]

Whereas Ringu merely devoted half it's running time to explanatory dialogues between the two main characters...

[DGMacphee]

I do agree with a lot of the sentiments about anime expressed here. But I do have some points to contribute.

I do like Disney films, particularly the older ones. I find it ironic that Ryukage says, "In my experience, anyone who says they don't like anime has simply been watching the wrong anime." When you look at that staement isolated on it's only (which it is), you wonder if you could also say, "anyone who says they don't like Disney films has simply been watching the wrong Disney films."

I've seen a lot of Disney shorts in my time. I've seen the classic stuff like 'Steamboat Willie'. They're great. A piece of history. In fact, if you want to see a true piece of art check out the Disney version of 'Noah's Ark'. The film was a stop-motion film made entriely out of odds and ends, like pipecleaners, corks, cotton, etc. Or have a gander at 'Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom', which is a film that deals with musical theory. Or even one of my faves, 'Donald in Mathmagic Land'.

And don't forget Disney's documentaries. For example, 'Men Against the Arctic' or 'The Living Desert'.

That why I think it's hypocritical to blast Disney films on the basis of some of the feature films and then become defensive when someone says they don't like anime based on the few shows or movies they've watched.

I hate Disney now, mainly because Eisnerhas fucked it up. But back in the past day, it produced a lot of decent stuff.

However, I'm hanging out to see their latest major short film 'Destino', which was produced by Roy E. Disney and co-written by Salvador Dali. It was a project that was in the making for several decades and they released it last year. Roy Disney, however, has attacked Eisner's handling of Disney and the whole story can be read here: http://www.savedisney.com/

That's why I think it's a little ignorant to quickly condemn Disney and at the same time praise anime.

Sure, I like anime and have seen a lot of titles. Some I like. Some I don't. I prefer the more "touchy-feely" stuff that deals with relationships and people's feelings and so forth. I recently saw a series called Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (The Eternity You Desire), which interested me a lot (Ironically, it was based on a hentai game but they toned it down for TV). I liked Eva. And I like Miyazaki's stuff. The game 'Seasons of Sakura' is one of my fave adventure games for reasons you'll find scattered around this board. But there's some shows I don't like, but I've been a big supporter of the aforementioned Sturgeon's Law.

There's stuff about Disney I like and there's stuff I don't like. Likewise, there's stuff about anime I like and stuff I don't like.

But I think people shouldn't dismiss the whole of either genre on the basis of a few films.

As for Pixar, I love their films. I think their characters are probably the most expressive 3D creations I've seen. I found them more realistic than the blank, emotionless faces of the Final Fantasy movie. But that's just my opinion.

And as for the whole debate on whether anime is a genre or whatever, I tend to think that Western culture has placed it into a genre (which is fine by me cause it helps me find anime quicker in the DVD store). But, I am aware of the cultural differences and the conventions. People have said they hate a lot of the conventions. However, the conventions are based on Japanese culture. And sometimes it's difficult to understand different cultures because we rely so heavily on our own.

[Rave]

Well, I think that sums it up pretty much in once neat little package. I think everyon has pretty much have a vote and made their case on where the stand on Disney and Amine. I think arguments have been established on both sides but now people are starting to repeat whats already been said...and I think thats a sign that we should move on. I vote for a motion of "Lets drop it now" and continue with the topic of the thread. If people disagree, I suggest that we at least edit the title of the thread to "Bitching about Anime and Disney" as to not confuse people just joining in.