For me, it's two things.
1. Complaining about the style: Whether that be how the animation looks, how the mouth moves, how they "don't like reading their shows", or even things like "adult subject matter", "cartoons should swear or have blood", or "animation shouldn't have heavy content". Pretty much, if it's not Micky Mouse, it's not animation. Constantly complaining about the style is something that is a big problem for me. and a lot of casual viewers don't give a lot of it a chance because it's in a world they're not willing to explore. Reminds me of a grandmother listening to rock music and going "oh, no, this isn't music."
2. Not understanding "just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's bad." I see so many anime viewers - mainly people in their late teens and early twenties - granted, I am twenty-four, but I was a literature student for five years, so I feel I may get a pass here - in this constant argument about how since they didn't like an anime, that automatically makes it a horrible anime and it shouldn't exist. The fact that they can't distinguish the difference between opinion to reality honestly makes me mad. A lot of the time, they can't accept that they can't like something - and therefore you shouldn't either - and yet it's still good. From an art or literature point of view, reviewing, you have to sometimes set aside your enjoyment and look at things from a style point of view. As an example, I'll use the 1998 Akira as an example. Someone could say they hated it because they didn't like it for one reason, and they didn't even finish it. First, finish it to validate your opinion. And even if you didn't like it, that doesn't make it factually bad - Akira is regarded factually as one of the best-animated works ever made, over fifty different colors were invented in animation for it, and its stunning musical score and animation were all hand-drawn, and it was the anime that got anime into the west in the first place - therefore, it's good. You're entirely validated to have your opinion on that it wasn't your cup of tea, but you can't factually say it's bad.
This, then leads to a whole bunch of arguments and bullying in the community of anime of "wow, you like this? You suck. Anyone who likes this sucks." I always loved MAL for meeting a few people and actually being able to talk about what makes the anime good or bad, but a lot of these newcomers just can't accept the difference between opinion and fact, and then just start bullying and hating each other for no reason. They think it's fun.
All in all, summarized, it boils down to the fact that they complain constantly and bully, coming into a group they know nothing about and acting like it's theirs. Anime is an art, and people just need to talk and discuss instead of complaining and hating on everyone.
Sorry for the rant, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. |