High five for The Crow image.
Imagine Rakan applying Calling Your Attacks to doing paperwork.~Anarchy Rakan for the hell of it COMMISSION THIS BRIDGE!~EHKNot really a stupid reason actually an entirely justified reason but I want to mention it. Being deaf, and needing to read lips in order understand what people are saying.
As for stupid reasons I've heard "I'm too old" a lot, or "it's childish/for children."
Rarely active, try DA/Tumblr Avatar by pippanaffie.deviantart.com![]()
I forget how they explained it but it made senses when they explained it.
I think it involved something to do with it being hard to find good subtitles and actually wanting to buy the shows and support the creators, and it being to much of a hassle at that point.
This included western cartoons as well, as it was an ATHF conversation that started the discussion.
edited 21st Mar '11 9:51:03 AM by Vyctorian
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STILL. You can see a very similar theme here: "This stuff is unquestionably action-packed, dark, and mostly appeals to men". There is nothing light or fluffy or even attractive about any of those images. They're just supposed to be "badass", right? And they're always adults or in their late teens. All the characters look really tough and unapproachable. Anime and manga is a surreal world where cute and badass meet each other, characters can be any age and have any appearance: a girl from shoujo manga can look completely different from a girl from shounen manga, etc. The situations range from fighting evil to figuring out the best recipe for gourmet food. COME ON. MANGA HAS WAY MORE VARIATION THAN AMERICAN GRAPHIC NOVELS.
In that they all have human forms?
Yes, as opposed to all the little girls and boys that make up the vast majority of anime and manga.
Sandman and The Umbrella Academy
So long as it's between the ages of 10 and 18 and "bishonen"
In other words, the plot and filler.
They're comics, not "graphic novels".
Out of my comic collection:
That's just stuff from my limited collection of comics.
Are anime and manga all the same thing? No. Are American comics? No. Stop being a hypocrite. This entire argument could've been avoided, had you given examples as to why anime isn't all the same thing, as opposed to pointing the finger at other things.
edited 21st Mar '11 12:57:11 PM by NULLcHiLD27
How many of those comics are famous though? How many could be named by the general populous of America? Besides Spider-Man and maybe Walking Dead most of those comics are niche and known in circles like TV Tropes and groups focused on comic books, you can have the greatest most original work ever but it means squat if people don't know about it.
I am a Hero is a great manga that is much better then the "psychological" crap that's currently in with the manga and anime crowd right now, but it means little to point it out as the paragon of manga considering how obscure it is.
I'm not pointing any of those out as "paragons" of comics, nor am I referencing them because of their popularity.
Simply pointing out the fallacy in his argument and pointing out that it would've been far more productive of him to name examples of anime/manga that prove it's not "all the same", instead of trashing something else by saying the exact same thing about comics.
/threadhop
When I tried to show my friend Death Note, he summed up the plot as a person writing names in a notebook and a creepy guy.
I should have made him read it throughly.
EDIT: I read the Umbrella Academy. It was very interesting.
edited 21st Mar '11 1:16:56 PM by chihuahua0
Trigun- A show featuring mostly adults in a space western about a cyborg who has to stop his crazy brother's plan involving ancient spaceships.
I am a Hero- A story following a guy with a mental disease from one of the author's previous works, also mainly focusing on adults.
Claymore- Dark Fantasy show featuring all adult non-moe women who kill each other with weird powers.
Toriko- Manly man ultra chef catches weird animals to make great meals.
Berserk- Dark fantasy about an adult guy who runs seeks refuge from the demonic forces chasing him.
Gantz- Dead people forced to kill aliens in a constant game of life and death.
Sakigake Otokojuku- About a school of ultra-manly delinquents.
Vagabond- Story of how Miyamoto Musashi came to be.
Crimson Spell- Two adult men go on a journey to break a curse.
Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru- About college students and karate.
Defense Devil- A "devil lawyer" trying to prove sinners innocent in order to collect their "dark matter" so he can return to hell.
Liar Game- College student forced to play a game where a hundred million yen is at stake.
Shigurui- Story of two samurai, one missing an arm and the other blind, fighting a duel with real swords and how they got there.
Some very, very condensed descriptions of some manga.
I feel that comics that don't fit in the same general area of what we stereotype as the "typical American comic book i.e. superheroes" are usually pigeon-holed as "graphic novels" instead. Whereas in fact they're the exact same thing. The supposed lack of variety in American comic books comes from the way we like to pigeonhole works, not any actual lack of variety in "American comics".
^All of those are targeted towards shonen/seinen demographics though; not exactly the best selection to demonstrate variety. In any case, I find that listing descriptions of different anime/manga in an attempt to prove variety is sort of misguided just due to the simple fact that there are so many different kinds of anime/manga. Imagine trying to list all the different plots of novels out there in an attempt to showcase the variety of literature. Impossible, right?
Perhaps listing genres and subgenres might be a more useful way of doing it? I don't know.
^That reminds me that I really need to check out Toriko. My little sister keeps bugging me to read it, and apparently my brother and my cousin both really like it as well. It sounds like a fun manga, from your description.
edited 21st Mar '11 1:52:24 PM by Anarchy
They mostly feature older characters and all have pretty different premises, how is a "devil lawyer", a school full of delinquents, and a chef not demonstrate variety? The person said most anime and manga have little boys and girls as the protagonists so I went and found manga that had older characters, I could do a run-through of the josei and shoujo sections but I also wanted to cite series that were also a bit more well known, so I went through the popularity ranking on mangareader and it happened to be that josei and shoujo didn't show frequently above 150 which is where I stopped.
Ninja: Yeah that makes more sense, but the sections for josei, shounen, shoujo, and seinen all seem pretty even with a good case of overlap.
edited 21st Mar '11 1:59:56 PM by WORLDTree
You didn't really need to, I edited in potholes for Sturgeon's Law and Hypocritical Humor on that one "counter-argument".
I think it just comes from people not bothering to look into them. Same with anime and genres of music and games, etc. If you only have a surface view of it, it's most likely gonna look all the same.
edited 21st Mar '11 2:14:12 PM by NULLcHiLD27
HERE I think is the biggest difficulty with getting into comics.
From personal experience *, here is why I decided that manga is the better choice...
1) It is literally impossible to get into a mainstream comic nowadays due to how insanely old they are. All the different stories. All the weird crossovers, so many one-shot characters, branches, discontinuities, etc. is quite frankly, daunting for anyone looking for the full experience. I hate half-assing when I look at something, with manga, I find the first chapter, download or buy, and then I read it from chapter 1 to the end. Comics? Impossible.
2) Issue 1 of batman costs an arm and a leg...I refuse to get into anything unless I see it's first chapter...
3) Quite frankly, the lack of advertising/external draw. The best comics have to draw in new readers are those relatively successful Marvel movies. And DC's Bat Man. GOOD animated series based on the comics are far and few in between...and why did they replace the ONLY cool member of the Fantastic Four with Rob The Robot for?!
Contrast with mangas...they have anime adaptations of several different series to get new readers interested, magazines, games, etc. Though the games based on anime aren't exactly great...the reverse is a lot more successful.
4) Accessibility. Comics are a lot harder to find online. Legally or otherwise.
5) Aesthetics
tl;dr - Ridiculously hard to follow due to so many branches and crossovers and etc. compared to manga, ridiculously hard to acquire issue 1's, lack of external draw compared to mangas, accessibility, uglier artworks.
PS-point 3 especially rings true for the non-mainstream comics. If it's not something popular, it's chances of getting advertised in any significant way is even less than the mainstream one already is. Whereas niche mangas can get animated as long as a studio sees potential.
edited 21st Mar '11 4:00:53 PM by Signed
"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."I had trouble getting into what little I read of Western comics for similar reasons as Signed.
On 1...The continuity issue thing apparently isn't as huge as a problem as it seems at times. You can find what amount to one shot stories that are fun to read. Superman: Secret Identity was a very fun thing to read even though I had never read a single issue of Superman before that for example. Still it's absolutely horrifying how huge and long lasting the big names are. I was incredibly hesitant to go anywhere near the comics because of this. I mean sure some of the manga I like are long, but they haven't been going since the 40's...
Finding comics online legally or otherwise is a bit more difficult than finding manga in my experience, but I've been able to find torrents for things though. Whole series. I've read through a good portion of Teen Titans first and second series runs because of this. I won't do this with everything though. Like Hellboy. Hellboy must be purchased. Absolutely must. It's the Dragon Quest of Western comics for me.
Adaptations are a big part of how I find things when it comes to comics from the East and West. While I will pick up the random thing every now and again many of the comics I read I first watched an adaptation of. Advertisement is an issue for me as well. I don't hang out with too many comic book fans or talk with those I know about Western comics so I don't hear of things very often. Since meeting some I've gained a list of things to look into though.
Aesthetics are certainly an issue as well. Much of the art I accept as pretty, but really feel drawn to. Things that have drawn me heavily based on art are Hell Boy, Re Gifters, Arkham Asylum A Serious House On Serious Earth, Bone, and Tank Girl (still haven't read it but the art is ooooh). I'll still read things that don't really draw me in art wise (Teen Titans and Watchmen are good examples), but I won't make spur of the moment pick ups with ones that don't. Re Gifters was entirely spur of the moment "Ooooh the art...". As was Arkham. That cover is...wow.
edited 21st Mar '11 4:20:35 PM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahBest ones I've seen were Justice League Unlimited, Batman The Animated Series, The Maxx, and The Spectacular Spider Man (Although all three had very different styles and structure).
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.Four isn't a totally big number though.
Theres a lot more animated works of manga series than there is for comics. And even IF Sturgeon's Law comes into play, the sheer amount being made means there will still be a considerable amount of entertaining series to keep one busy.
That said, I have noticed that anime does suffer from a reverse-Sturgeon's Law as well...there are the good series(just like comics to their fans), a large number of series that just aren't meant for me, so forgettable for me(just like comics to their fans), and just like how theres 1% gem in Sturgeon's Law, anime has 1% of ****ing horribly crappy shit(I have yet to see stuff like those for comics).
edited 21st Mar '11 6:12:49 PM by Signed
"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."Similar to Signed's #1 issue, the reason why I like manga over comics is that manga has better continuity via having only one author, while the most popular comics have switched between writers several times, so Continuity Snarl is to be expected.
The Boondocks is NOT anime. It's also an adaptation of a Western comic.
edited 21st Mar '11 6:48:05 PM by Scardoll
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.I coulda sworn it was involved with Mad House or Gonzo or whatever...since it reminded me of one of their crappier works.
Alright then, replace Boon Docks with...something else similar to the other potholes.
"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

"It all looks the same".
1. yeah, not really. 2. DISNEY CHARACTERS, ANYONE? AMERICAN COMICS!?
lol
Pretty much the only good excuse I've heard is "my ex loved it and it reminds me of him so I can't stand it".
Okay........that's understandable.
edited 20th Mar '11 7:33:35 PM by Chiibi