6 ms·

Growing up, i was a lot like you. The stories, artwork and animation in a lot of those darker, more adult animes blew my mind. I remember the first time I saw A

Growing up, i was a lot like you. The stories, artwork and animation in a lot of those darker, more adult animes blew my mind. I remember the first time I saw Akira, like you when I was probably way too young, My mind just couldn't even really grasp what i was watching. I'd never seen anything like that before. I ended up somehow watching a dubbed version of ninja scroll that came on TV some time after that and i was pretty hooked. I find though, I can't get into newer anime, or a lot of newer animation in general these days. I really miss the old style of animation and artwork, both western and Japanese. Every series or movie had its own unique style, some of the artwork was so fantastic and just mind blowing. Some of the landscapes and scenery created in older animation could take you to some of the most amazing or terrifying or strange places you couldn't even imagine. I find a lot of animation to look generic and overproduced these days and in general, the format's become fairly formulaic and nothing really stands out as special in the ways a lot of those older animes did. Don't get me wrong, i have seen some fantastic modern animation. I was speaking more in general. I keep hoping that we'll have this Renaissance of artists who want to go back to the traditional ways just to break this new mold animation seems to have gotten itself stuck in.

Jtsummers 6y ago
Getting into anime in the US in the early 00s via friends who got into it in the mid-to-late 90s, there was a lot of filtering that had already happened here in the US. So something sort of missed was the realization that Sturgeon's Law (ninety percent of everything is crap) still applied to anime. It's just that in the US most of what had made it here was generally the better quality by some measure (better animation quality, better story, better characters, etc.). Not universally, crap still made it through, but it wasn't 90% crap. Fast forward to today, you have access to the full gamut of anime series and movies. Completely unfiltered by others unless you specifically only watch things that others (that you have some trust in or similar taste to) have watched and promote. And thanks to legit streaming services and less than legit streaming services and torrents, you can much more easily be one of the first people in the US to watch something so it's now much easier to find the crap if you don't specifically go through the filtering process of time or critics or peer group taste and recommendations.
- grawprog 6y ago
  In Canada it was a little different than the US. We had some early animes that were actually dubbed up here you guys didn't have. We also had a totally different version of Dragonball up here originally. I noticed back then too, watching different dubbed versions of different animes, the censoring would be different depending on whether it was American or not. We also didn't really get much funimation stuff until later on, which as far as i know, whatever you think about their early work, was pretty fundamental in popularizing anime in the west. Honestly, back then most of the anime I watched were fan translations of varying qualities I found on file sharing programs i watched because I found them recommended on websites. Once I found out the anime we got here was often heavily altered compared to its original form, I kinda just focused on what was recommended online. My friends weren't really into anime or anything so it wasn't really something I could get peer recommendations on or anything. I never really got into a lot of those popular ones of the time. I just kept searching out the weird obscure stuff that never made it here. These days though, there's so much, I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin. I guess the last 'anime' I watched was Castlevania, but I'm not even sure if I would have classed that as anime back in the day.
honkycat 6y ago
It went digital and they got cheaper, I agree 100%.

Jtsummers 6y ago

Getting into anime in the US in the early 00s via friends who got into it in the mid-to-late 90s, there was a lot of filtering that had already happened here in the US. So something sort of missed was the realization that Sturgeon's Law (ninety percent of everything is crap) still applied to anime. It's just that in the US most of what had made it here was generally the better quality by some measure (better animation quality, better story, better characters, etc.). Not universally, crap still made it through, but it wasn't 90% crap. Fast forward to today, you have access to the full gamut of anime series and movies. Completely unfiltered by others unless you specifically only watch things that others (that you have some trust in or similar taste to) have watched and promote. And thanks to legit streaming services and less than legit streaming services and torrents, you can much more easily be one of the first people in the US to watch something so it's now much easier to find the crap if you don't specifically go through the filtering process of time or critics or peer group taste and recommendations.

grawprog 6y ago
In Canada it was a little different than the US. We had some early animes that were actually dubbed up here you guys didn't have. We also had a totally different version of Dragonball up here originally. I noticed back then too, watching different dubbed versions of different animes, the censoring would be different depending on whether it was American or not. We also didn't really get much funimation stuff until later on, which as far as i know, whatever you think about their early work, was pretty fundamental in popularizing anime in the west. Honestly, back then most of the anime I watched were fan translations of varying qualities I found on file sharing programs i watched because I found them recommended on websites. Once I found out the anime we got here was often heavily altered compared to its original form, I kinda just focused on what was recommended online. My friends weren't really into anime or anything so it wasn't really something I could get peer recommendations on or anything. I never really got into a lot of those popular ones of the time. I just kept searching out the weird obscure stuff that never made it here. These days though, there's so much, I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin. I guess the last 'anime' I watched was Castlevania, but I'm not even sure if I would have classed that as anime back in the day.

honkycat 6y ago

It went digital and they got cheaper, I agree 100%.