Most people watched and enjoyed Sailor Moon, Pokemon and Dragonball Z when they were young. However, few have ever felt the need to dig deeper than these shows, but appearantly, those of you who read this did. My question is: why? I suspect there aren't many on this forum who only like CCS or TRC - most of us are into a whole lot of different manga and anime, and are actively searching for new Japanese animated series to read and watch. That's right: when asking for suggestions on what to go for, we ask specifically for manga and anime.
What does this form of art and storytelling have that cannot be matched by Western animation? I do not think anyone here watches any anime or read whatever manga they come across just because "everything Japanese is
so cool!" - there are too many genres for it to be possible to like everything or generalise, but there must be something, something all-embracing, that draws us to it, right? Otherwise we could just watch "normal" movies and read ditto books. Not that we don't do that as well, but you see where I'm going.
Me? I've always enjoyed watching animated movies, but as that, my Western standard, almost entirely equals Disney, I kept longing for, oh, I dunno... a deep plot, angst, non-fluffy endings. Which I could get plenty of by watching non-animated movies, but those were never as appealing to
look at. When I discovered that there actually existed mind-twisting and deep
animated movies out there, I was naturally thrilled.
So, basically my reason for being into the stuff is that it combines my love for animation with my love for weirdness. I have never been one for comics (which is strange, since I love to read/write
and to draw), but since anime often is based on manga, the latter one tends to be better, which has gotten me to read more and more manga. It's funny - when I think about it, almost all my favourite anime are not based on a manga.
However, there are other reasons as to why I am drawn to this. If you can bear with me generalising a bit, I would say that many Japanese series, despite Japan being such a gender conservative country, are quite open when it comes to gender, sexuality and suchlike, which I highly appreciate. And even though every mangaka has her or his unique artstyle, manga has quite another feel to it than, say, Spiderman.
More detailed and cleaner, at least often.
Sure, anime and manga have many drawbacks in comparission to other medias - again, I'm generalising - and I though that besides stating our reasons for liking it, be could have a discussion about the ups and downs with often occuring themes and events in it. Thoughts, people?
*waits in excitement to see if anyone lasts through this post*
