What makes anime stand out from other content for you?

How they are utilizing the power of direction to make the scene happen, and how direction is so important that it is more important than sakuga animation (even though it is welcome obviously) because when having poor/mediocore direction then these high quality scenes will be underdelivered, for example look at how latter half of my hero academia heavily suffers from poor direction and how they did not captured well that gritty feel and harsh reality of war where people actually dies in the manga visually whereas in the anime it just feels like extended simulation class for UA students training. But whenever the direction is utilized it is always make the scene automatically movie quality/breathaking even with limited animation how they are using lighthing colors color palette to portay the scene in animation, careful music placement, cinematography/photography that is incredible, like look at how breataking those scenes are from the upcoming movie remake of the manga canon arc for the 20th anniversary of gintama anime or this. Direction is such an underrated topic in anime community but how very important the topic is.

Better call saul is the closest to my favorite series ever gintama, how profound the story is and exqusite character writing that do not even feel like they are characters but are very human, incredible direction and performance.

I mean it's just better at making animated content than anyone else. There isn't anything inherent about anime, that makes it more special than that for me. I really love animation and comic art styles, and there just isn't really any other country, that has invested into those spaces, like Japan did. If the Western animation/comic space wasn't so constrained, good chance I wouldn't be as big of a fan.

Warhammer 40k, obvious from my profile. Changed it to reflect how important of an IP it is for me....people already know I like anime on here, don't need to remind them, might as well throw out other stuff, and see if I can find fans of similar interests. I read a lot of 40k books (almost at the Siege for the Heresy and I read a lot of modern 40k too), play a lot of games etc...it's about as important, probably more important than franchises like Gundam (and I care a lot about Gundam). I am pretty invested into it. There are a few books, if adapted into anime, that would be in my top 25 list for favorite anime of all time. It's a pretty pulpy universe, however, it is good pulp, which is all you can really ask for in the end.

Lord of the Rings and Star Wars pre Disney are also more important than anime for me. I mean I have a general list of very important media on my MAL page. I really love anime however, it wouldn't make up most of my personal "most important media" of all time list, maybe outside of my top 6, Legend of the Galactic Heroes would definitely be in that list, somewhere in my top 5, so it's not like I don't rate some anime incredibly highly. Still shows like Band of Brothers, films like the OG Ben-Hur are more important to me, mainly because I grew up with them, or they impacted my psyche more than any other anime.

As I think I have stated in other threads, I do really care about this medium, since I grew up with it, and I do genuinely have many favorites, that are as important as anything else, however, compared to many fans, at least on here, I don't see anime as "special" and rather it's just another entertainment medium, I engage with. I also don't see why it "needs" to be special either. Ultimately I don't think anime, story wise, largely does anything actually that innovative (Iyashikei is like the one genre/concept that is unique I will give you), however, is that really a flaw? Like does it need to stand out or be "special"?

Better storylines and characters, the artstyles looks better than most western cartoons, and I dislike live action stuff in general, especially ones that are based off of anime.

There are western cartoons that I like that is almost anime-like though, like the original Teen Titans, the 90s animated Batman/Superman/Justice League series, and the Original Ben 10.

I also think Harry Potter will greatly benefit from having an anime adaptation instead of another live action series since they already have the movies, which aren't even that old to begin with.

@BilboBaggins365 Maybe it's survivorship bias, but I hardly know anyone who likes Star Wars after Disney. Maybe exept animated part.

I mean there are ST fans, I don't get them however, there are lots. Andor was supposedly good too, I will get around to it at some point. It is up my alley and I liked Rogue One (much better than the ST) and there were a few entries, in the new canon that weren't bad (before I lost all interest) like Lost Stars (Disney had a manga artist commissioned for an adaptation of it). You probably can easily fit it into the old EU if you ignore some of the later chapters.

SW has a lot of issues, frankly franchises like 40k I find are more narratively consistent (the fact the narrative is loose helps) and anime like Legend of the Galactic Heroes frankly is better than anything SW has ever done, and that includes a ton of great EU stories, that I treasure dearly. Gundam also I think is generally more consistent than SW too, however, the childhood nostalgia, wonder and imagination are still there, and that isn't ever going away. Which is fine, I am okay where the franchise is, I still have the original films and the EU.

Still it is kinda funny as I got more into franchises like Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek just other anime space opera stuff, (need to get around to Babylon 5), the more flaws I see with SW's writing. Frankly the universe, even in the EU, wasn't used as effectively as it could have been.....which still is kinda disappointing when looking back on it.

@BilboBaggins365 Well, again, maybe I've become too old and cynical and SW has lost its charm for me, but somewhere after episode 3 I just stopped being so excited about it all. Just like I stopped feeling the magic of Marvel after Endgame. This all happened somewhere in the mid-10s, when the medium as a whole was starting to resemble a pale shadow of its best years. Or maybe it was just when I finally got old.

@RobertBobert I mean I still enjoy the KOTOR games, I still enjoy some of the novels and comics, however, yeah I have gotten away from it a lot. Honestly TLJ sucking kinda was a good thing in a sense, cause it prompted me to get into Gundam, get more into 40k, get into a whole bunch of other sci fi works....so it worked out.

Usually way more interesting scenarios, world building, and characters than western media. In general I feel like it has better and more memorable music too

Stargate

@NS2D Are you talking about that sci-fi franchise that grew out of a nostalgic movie with Kurt Russell and "that guy from The Crying Game"?

@RobertBobert Yes. I like the original movie too but my favorites in the franchise are the tv series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis

@NS2D The series came out at a time when I was really into Western media, but for some reason I'm still only familiar with the movie. I heard that Kevin Sorbo from my other favorite show played in it, but they said he was a diva behind the scenes.

@RobertBobert While SG-1 was a direct sequel to the movie from 1994 it had completely different actors for the reoccurring characters and different writers and directors. I don't know which character that person played but for example two main characters played by Kurt Russel and James Spader in the movie were replaced by Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks for the tv series

Stargate SG-1 went on for 10 seasons and had 2 sequel movies (1997–2008), the spinoff series Stargate Atlantis went on for 5 seasons (2004–2009), and the latest series Stargate Universe only got 2 seasons before it got cancelled back in 2011

@NS2D Looks like I was wrong, he played in Andromeda. But anyway, if I ever feel like it, should I start the first season right after the movie?

@RobertBobert Yeah the first season of SG-1 takes place 1 year after the movie and follows up on the characters and events that happened there

Japan is so great, everything they make is better, also I have yellow fever. Sugoi, Japan!

They just output way more animation, for broader audiences. At least they used to. I am aware western animation kinda picked up in the last decades, but I am way too lazy to go check that. Also, as a french, I was basically raised with anime since the youngest age. Hit me when western animation produces Utena, NGE, and GitS equivalents.