lisnoire said: burntlettuce said: --Now that I have recovered my breath from laughing . . . . No. But I will say that I have been disappointed with a lot of the anime released over the last year and an half or so. Spring 2012 looks like it may have a little more to offer those of us with more "mature" tastes. Also don't get so "sophisticated" that you make the great the enemy of the good.Has anyone else gone through a similar change in taste as they grow older? Lol I was waiting for your post here. I wanted to see your opinion =P .. I like that message: "Don't get so sophisticated that you make the great the enemy of the good." My personal opinion is that you can't really be too mature for something like anime. In your post it seems that you dislike animation as a medium in general. This isn't because you're too mature, it's just because it doesn't fit your current tastes. Gaining maturity would suggest, as others have said, that you went from watching purely Shounen when you were younger to watching deep psychological anime or action/gore, etc. That being said, I have also gone through phases where I no longer enjoy anime. For me, it takes a couple months and then I'm right back to watching again. So maybe the same will happen in your case. Who knows ^_^ Also: JoshSalas said: SeraVerte said: Also, maturity is a variable that does not change with age. You're either born with self control or not. lol LOL.. oh man... quality quality post. |
miereneronaile said: Calling yourself mature is probably a good sign that you arent, actually. Not that I am, so perhaps I am to immature to decide if people are mature. In fact, that is most likely the case. Still, calling yourself mature seems silly to me. |
| Maybe take a break from watching anime for a while |
| As some people already said, we are not here to discuss your motivations if you just got tired of anime, but trying to explain it as a sign of "maturity" not only looks terribly pretentious but can be pointed as surprisingly immature. I always like to say that it requires more maturity to sit and enjoy a kid/teen show when you are an adult than anything else. That is, people who rant against Disney movies and compare them with the philosophical depth of some anime (say, Serial experiments Lain or Cowboy Bebop) always look to me as if they didn't know in which mood they should watch either show, and therefore lacking or limiting their critical ability. But these considerations aside, it is true that like 95% of any medium (uh, not only anime, see Hollywood movies), tends to be easy and pandering, but that doesn't make it bad or less enjoyable and even if it did there is still a 5% to enjoy. The more difficult it gets to find a worthy anime, the bigger the reward is. You seem to be tired of typical anime. Have you tried short films? Experimental animation? Authors like Koji Yamamura, Yoji Kuri, Kunio Kato, Masaaki Yuasa, Kihachiro Kawamoto? |
jal90Mar 27, 2012 2:46 AM
| I don't think this is being "too mature for anime", more like you simply lost interest on anime. Maturity has nothing to do with it, since I know plenty of people who are on their 30's, married and even with children but still enjoy watching anime. |
| There are probably plenty anime that you haven't watched that you will enjoy. Watch something different that hasn't got clichés or those things that annoy you. Of course it might be the case that you're completely off to anything, and if that's so, then so be it. |
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fantomu said: Watch something different that hasn't got clichés or those things that annoy you. That's easier said than done. There's simply no way to know all of the techniques used in a story you haven't seen yet. You can read descriptions and gleam information about the content of an anime but that won't tell you everything. |
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Anime_Name said: fantomu said: Watch something different that hasn't got clichés or those things that annoy you. That's easier said than done. There's simply no way to know all of the techniques used in a story you haven't seen yet. You can read descriptions and gleam information about the content of an anime but that won't tell you everything. Yeah, that's a drawback. |
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| Index is fucking awful so it's not surprise that you got upset while watching it. Really, you just need to pick anime better and watch shows that suit your taste instead of watching things like Index that are simply popular. I'd suggest either getting into manga instead since it's a lot less cartoony and stylized, or just taking a break for a year or two. Maybe you'll get interested in anime again. If not, oh well. You will probably find another hobby to take its place anyways. And yeah, it has nothing to do with maturity. You can be mature as can be and enjoy even the most childish of anime. |
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| As you said you are "mature" you probably aren't. Anyway the fact is your tastes have changed and you no longer enjoy what you once did, it happens to everyone. |
| Well, obviously, experience is more important than maturity here, as the more you see of any given type of show, the more you'll see the similarities and the reused plot devices and as such, you might lose your interest. But I can't say animation as a medium has a problem. Sure, you'll never have those intriguing and subtle facial expressions that live action can have, but then again, it's not like you see this to a very great extent in live action anyways, more obvious emotional expressions tend to be the most pronounced and important, and anime can reproduce those just fine. Though i have seen some cases with more subtle facial expressions being portrayed effectively as well. Other than that, anime is only really constricted by the animation budget, which is obviously why most TV anime look pretty cheap. Sure, things look artificial, but if given enough money and good enough art to base it on, I'm sure it could have just as much visual depth as live action. |
| For me, I didn't exactly get "too mature" for anime, I got too mature for the GROUP I watched anime with. I incorrectly assumed it was anime I was out growing and ended up taking a break from it for a few years. There were, of course, other factors involved in my decision to drop anime but the group I was in was the main reason. If you're anything like me, you will come back in a few years and re-discover everything. Trust me, watch that crap on mainstream American television for a few years and a lot of anime becomes ART! The only changes that I have noticed is certain brands of "funny" only serve to annoy me, and I don't like the "cutsie" stuff at ALL anymore. LOL I'm also more into the supernatural stuff but considering my life, NOT surprising. In case your curious and too lazy to check my profile, I'm 31 and married. Hopefully gonna become a mommy this year :3 I tend to drift from one form of media entertainment to another. Don't be surprised if I dissapear for a few months to go play heavilly modded skyrim. |
sisgoodMar 27, 2012 12:02 PM
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| I suggest that you just quit trying to find meaning and depth in anime and just move on. That is, not to say that there is no meaning or depth, but your eyes are clouded with bitterness, and nothing is fresh or interesting to you anymore. That is not a strange thing to happen. I personally stopped watching anime (and stopped reading comic books and even fiction books) for about 11 years. It did not make sense for me to investigate fantasy realms when there was so much about the physical world that I wanted to investigate and explore. You should do this too. Get out into the world. Take a road trip. Spend lots and lots of time in libraries, reading non-fiction. Learn to name all the stars on sight. Learn about medicine and philosophy and electronics. Find something that engages you and thrills you. Find a way to make a decent livable salary. Find happiness within yourself. Spread that happiness to others. Find someone to love. Then once you are engaged (not necessarily marriagewise, more engaged in life) try anime again. See if you can regain appreciation for the artform. See if you find that you feel like it has been something you have been missing all these years. Perhaps it inspires you, or entertains you then. Perhaps it seems even more childish to you than it does now. Either way, the only way to figure out what is right for you is to branch out. |
| "I don't like this anymore, so I'm more mature than everyone in the world ranging from 5-85 who actually enjoys it." is what I got out of your post. There isn't much that hasn't been said here. The cause is not an increase in maturity, and generalizing something as diverse as anime isn't a good indicator of maturity either. Either your tastes have changed, or you're just being a cynical asshole and won't enjoy anything until you stop being such a critic. Anime ranges from kiddie stuff and shounen to deep stories engaging for even adults. My advice is that you stop watching stuff made for kids (or just shitty anime, sounds like that's your problem) and move on to something more suited to your level of "maturity". Read what Smashwagon said. More life advice than I would have ever planned on giving on a post like this, but worth a read. |
MasanoriMar 27, 2012 12:21 PM
| @OP It sounds like you are just getting tired of anime. Move onto something else then. There's no need to make a full thread explaining your fallout with it. Geez, imagine if everyone made a thread when they started getting bored of anime.. |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
Vanisher said: Mature isn't the correct word. yes, maybe consciously aware of cliches and flaws of shounen shows would have been better to say. Or perhaps just " turned picky" |
fantomu said: --Naw. Not a drawback. Just exploration. You do a little research, it looks interesting, you give it a fare number of episodes, it doesn't do it for you, you drop it and move on. Sometimes you find something "gourmet", sometimes it is just "good food', sometimes it is highly processed fast food crap."Anime_Name said: fantomu said: Watch something different that hasn't got clichés or those things that annoy you. That's easier said than done. There's simply no way to know all of the techniques used in a story you haven't seen yet. You can read descriptions and gleam information about the content of an anime but that won't tell you everything. Yeah, that's a drawback. traed said: --Nothing wrong with being "picky."Vanisher said: Mature isn't the correct word. yes, maybe consciously aware of cliches and flaws of shounen shows would have been better to say. Or perhaps just " turned picky" Also kudos to smashwagon and Masanori and Baman |
lisnoireMar 27, 2012 1:02 PM
| -animeS - The plural of anime is anime. More than one deer is still deer. There is no damn "s". -epic |ˈepik| noun•a work portraying heroic deeds/adventures covering an long period of time - adjective • heroic/grand in scale or character Active Military, Prior Service, and Veteran's Anime Club http://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=25937&time=1299710079 |
smashwagon said: I suggest that you just quit trying to find meaning and depth in anime and just move on. That is, not to say that there is no meaning or depth, but your eyes are clouded with bitterness, and nothing is fresh or interesting to you anymore. That is not a strange thing to happen. I personally stopped watching anime (and stopped reading comic books and even fiction books) for about 11 years. It did not make sense for me to investigate fantasy realms when there was so much about the physical world that I wanted to investigate and explore. You should do this too. Get out into the world. Take a road trip. Spend lots and lots of time in libraries, reading non-fiction. Learn to name all the stars on sight. Learn about medicine and philosophy and electronics. Find something that engages you and thrills you. Find a way to make a decent livable salary. Find happiness within yourself. Spread that happiness to others. Find someone to love. Then once you are engaged (not necessarily marriagewise, more engaged in life) try anime again. See if you can regain appreciation for the artform. See if you find that you feel like it has been something you have been missing all these years. Perhaps it inspires you, or entertains you then. Perhaps it seems even more childish to you than it does now. Either way, the only way to figure out what is right for you is to branch out. To be honest Ive actually learned about some philosophies and sciences from anime. Not in full i just learned the general idea and once its mentioned i investigate about it more. There are many ways to learn is what im saying. There is no hard fast rule on how to live life and no real order but of course your suggestion couldnt really hurt. |
| Your problem is called over-saturation. You have completed over 200 animes so it's only natural to lose interest.By now you are familiar with everything this medium has to offer,good and bad;and therefore the positive aspects don't surprise you anymore and the negative ones only annoy you more. Add the fact that you've grown older,you've accumulated some life experience and expanded your cultural horizons.This way your taste has evolved and it can no longer be satisfied by series aimed at younger people,like most animes are. You're right in pointing out that animation may not be able to convey a story properly ( but this applies to animation in general,not only to anime),however there are cases when animation is more suited then any other medium. And there are some stories you wouldn't get to see if the possibility to animate them wouldn't exist ,because adapting them into movie or a tv show would be to expensive. |
| I would make some lame, condescending comment about you watching the wrong kind of anime, but, this being an anime list website, one look at your profile shows that you've seen all of my favorites. I doubt it has anything to do with being "too mature," though. I can see how you may have grown out of generic ecchi/comedy/romance anime, but can you honestly say that a "mature" person can't enjoy the likes of Evangelion, Death Note, Berserk, and Code Geass? I think you may just have a classic case of "seen too much anime." In other words, you've become overexposed to the medium, so the paradigms of most anime have become glaringly obvious and lost their appeal to you. How long have you been watching anime, anyway? It may be that you just need to take a break. The same thing happened to me, and I moved on to live action shows for a while--I'm just getting back into anime now, actually. It's also possible that you just need to see a few more anime that could be considered "outside of the norm." You could try something like Noein or Tekkon Kinkreet. Big O and Planetes may be good to watch as well, but I haven't seen them yet. |
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burntlettuce said: I find it hard to write this topic without sounding a little condescending, and for that I apologize. I've noticed, over the past eight or so months that I cannot watch anime anymore. I've tired to, I have. However, as of late I find myself not being able to watch anime anymore. Quite frankly when I go and sit down and watch a show I find myself getting frustrated more often than not. Most recent example I have is when I tried to watch Index, it was the line "will you accompany me to hell" and this line just got me so aggravated by the fact that I know that this is not meant for me to watch. It's cliche and meant to draw in the attention of younger audiences. Now, most will say "yeah its shounen duh" and normally I would agree but this incident was the catalyst of a whole new way of thinking for me. As I continued to think about anime the more I realized that I've grown too mature for most of it, as a medium in whole. It has nothing to do with age (As you can see by my profile I am quite young), but rather an awakening of a new sense of taste. I began thinking about all I have seen over the past five or so years of my viewing of anime and realizing that most of it I would not like now. Even the brilliant LoGH I would have trouble viewing at this point. This was when I realized that it was the medium of anime, or rather animation that I have grown out of. It's too clunky of a means to tell a story, and rather districts from the plot at hand than adds to it (In my humble opinion of course). There is a depth that can not be achieved with anime. I then realized, it's because everything feels so artificial, so fake. The facial expression, the vibrant colors, and the over-westernized facial expressions take so much away from sometimes brilliant stories (More often just hurts an already poor tale). Has anyone else gone through a similar change in taste as they grow older? Anime just like all other cartoons all round the world are geared towards different age groups. Some of if its for very little kids, some of its for tweens, some of its for teens,some of geared towards adults and some of its geared towards a general audience,some of its even aimed at specific genders. So if you are watching something that seems too immature for you to watch then perhaps you are watching the wrong anime. I like cartoons in general but I do not watch my little pony or Clifford the big red Dog just like I do not watch princess tutu, digimon, Pokemon, Yugioh, princess Yuigi, bottle fairy or some other show whose target audience is kids. |
ezikialrageMar 27, 2012 1:49 PM
| Ezikiaglrage, Digimon has a lot of mature aspects to it actually near the ends of the series (except for Frontier that was almost purely kiddy crap) dealing with deaths and deep psychological issues so i wouldnt shrug that off as for kids only although the majority of the show is. ActualGLoRY said: They werent really hating they just said they dont watch stuff targeted for kids. MLP is targeted for kids. I watch it too though of course x3Don't be hating on My Little Pony. |
| I´ve had the same conflict a few months ago... But then i found this site and found peope with over 30 years that still watch anime. It's not like "Anime is for childs" becouse Anime is basically the series of japan instead the sit-coms that happens in north america or soap operas that happen in South america. Anime is my life. Is not like you've stopped to love it, jou just need to see other animes. May be not the longer ones, but the short ones with REAL content. @KeiranShikari You have over 700 animes an you say is crap??.... You are fan-boy and don't even know it. |
Zaraquiel99 said: I´ve had the same conflict a few months ago... But then i found this site and found peope with over 30 years that still watch anime. . I once saw a 60 to 70 something year old art teacher that was on an anime site and had just gotten into anime. |
lisnoire said: Also kudos to smashwagon and Masanori and Baman You took the two best posters I found on this topic and put my name in with them. That made me feel special. Thank you XD |
| I love it when people decide that whenever they're not feeling a certain something after a while, it means they're "growing out of it" or are too "mature for it" especially when it's an incredibly variable medium of entertainment Pretty good indicator of who's retarded and who's not |
| I'm too mature for dicks. |
| I think people in this thread are criticizing him too much about using the word mature. I think it's a fine reason to say you've grown out of anime. Some of the points the OP raised are legitimately fine points. Stuff like about how anime is MOSTLY targeted for teens. Obviously people who are older will be more likely to not be interested in the majority of what the medium have to offer. This has nothing to do with the fact that in general the majority of stuff in every media are crap. This has to do with the fundamental basic characteristic of the industry and how it mostly target teens, rather than adults. What I don't agree with is blaming the entire industry as a poor medium for mature works. I think this isn't true, because we have some very nice mature works for adults only as the usual teen viewer will not appreciate what the anime have to offer. When I say adults I probably mean anime fans who have kept with anime throughout their childhood, not some completely new guy who opened TV and was pulled in by Ghost in the shell or something. In general that would be very rare cases. On the other hand, the other issue he raises is that there could be better media to express a greater depth. This is debatable. The most mature works can probably be written in books to overlook the somewhat eccentric art style of anime or displayed with real actors so we see some legitimately realistic emotions than some of the awkward expressions we see in anime. But this is what most people have said: it's simply a change in taste, not really anything to do with personal growth. So, like people have said already, this sounds like another case where people have reached the wall, so to speak, in terms of watching anime. Just drop out a few months, years, decades, maybe, and when you feel nostalgia again, visit this medium again. I had a brief hiatus for about 1 and a half years. After I watched Steins;gate, damn, my interest returns with a bang. |
TachiiMar 28, 2012 6:29 AM
| You are right, of course, Tachii. Difficult to ignore, though when the title is.... Too Mature For Anime. implying...to some people that still watch anime, that they are not... burntlettuce is burnt out of anime. As many of you had said, hiatus is in order. |
| I don't think I'll ever get "too mature for anime" I mean, the first one I watched was Inuyasha or Cardcaptor Sakura a long time ago. Even after all these years I still enjoy to watch anime, lol. |
| 「レミ咲が今日のティータイム。」- RemiSaku ga kyou no tea time! |
| If anything over the years I've come to enjoy anime more; now since my workload's so high it provides me with a little light relief. :) I think it's also because I watch less, so when I do watch it I really value it. xD I find myself able to switch from watching serious documentaries to watching crazy light-hearted anime without finding it weird at all. Similarly, I listen to so much classical music that a little bit of J-Pop now and again really makes me peppy. I can see myself as an 80 year old woman watching Cardcaptor Sakura back to herself and beaming in her rocking chair. |
curiouser and curiouser :) |
| Good points, tachii, but I don't think the problem is that the OP has grown mature for a certain style of anime, but rather, that he is trying to make points by associating a percent to the whole medium. Talking about anime is like talking about music or films or comics. The word itself means nothing more or less than "Japanese animation" and therefore making general statements about it is completely useless. There is not a limit of depth or originality. Does most anime target at teens? Well, it does. But selling this "most" as "the whole" is what makes the point of the OP too extreme, driving therefore to these answers. That is why, on the other hand, I gave him some recommendations of experimental authors who are also part of anime, and whose style is not in any way close to the cliché tropes. But you don't have to go through these half-unknown names, what about Satoshi Kon? Isao Takahata? Authors doing anime for adult audiences who follow their own thread. Only Yesterday is not less mature than any classic drama. Perfect Blue or Paprika are about as attractive for the teen audience because of their structure and use of violence and imagery as uncomfortable because of their ambiguity. And if I go with those mentioned before there are things like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8SkyHmhuxA Which is also anime, as far as I know. Another point you comment from his post is that he considers that anime can't get more deep or emotional than a certain level. I know there are people who can't look at an animated character in the same way they look at a real actor. I don't share it but I know people like these. The problem is that this complaint comes from a regular anime watcher, and if the experience one gets after devoting years of their life to watching anime is that it can't and will never equal the involvement that a life action show gives, then I must say I find it really sad. |
jal90Mar 28, 2012 12:05 PM
LuckyMango said: nikolas_dmx said: Depends of the anime. I am definitely too mature for Pokemon and Yu GI Oh GX (which by the way really sucked)! its not that your "too mature". that wouldn't be the correct word. There are plenty of adults that like pokemon out there but that doesnt mean there not mature. its more of your taste of anime changing through the years. I know ive said that i disliked animes with lolicon characters. But over the years ive come to adapt. Now im usually fine watching those ones. Yes my friend, you have a point there and I do agree with what you've wrote, but I think you too have to agree that there is not much that someone over 20-something will find will find interesting in anime like Pokemon. Its hardly about taste. Its about content and the way its provided. Some shows are just made for children. |
nikolas_dmx said: Yes my friend, you have a point there and I do agree with what you've wrote, but I think you too have to agree that there is not much that someone over 20-something will find will find interesting in anime like Pokemon. Its hardly about taste. Its about content and the way its provided. Some shows are just made for children. I know plenty 20 somethings that are obsessed with pokemon |
| Just because you've become too much of a critic and a nitpicker doesn't make you "mature" in the slightest. If you need something oh so professionally sophisticated for your needs, pick up a dictionary and don't come on here claiming that you're mature for not liking anime anymore. |
| Dont touch me I'm in despair. |
| So, there are several users in this thread that have said, "Anime is shit." Did they forget that this thread is in a forum....an anime forum....on a website....an anime website...titled "myanimelist.net." Seriously, what are you even doing here? Its called being a douche. You like anime, stop lying behind a screen. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here. |
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Vanisher said: Mature isn't the correct word. ^I agree with this^ As you (the OP) seems to understand, animation is a medium, not a genre and I don't believe that maturity would cause you to outgrow a medium. I say this as a 30 year old, gainfully employed, college educated, married woman who didn't start watching anime until I was in my mid 20's. I studied film in college (and I currently work in a related industry) and I was drawn to anime because of its limitless possibilities for storytelling. If you could imagine it, someone could draw it. A change in tastes might cause you dislike animation as a medium, but it wouldn't be tied to maturity as there are certainly some very mature genres and topics addressed in an animated format that don't necessarily employ traditional visuals (limiting myself to Japanese animation, the Aoi Bungaku Series, Paprika and the Sweat Punch shorts come to mind, but L’Illusionniste came out recently from the EU market and also fits this bill.) Dismissing animation in the context you described would be like dismissing live action television altogether because you find that you no longer enjoy the shows airing between 1pm and 7pm. The world of animation is rather limitless and it sounds like maybe you just haven't explored far enough and that you're tired of trying. That's fine, but it would be wrong to somehow insinuate that people who continue to watch and enjoy animation as a medium might somehow be less mature because of it. |
Dinamet7Mar 28, 2012 1:45 PM
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| Yeah its a normal process the more anime you watch the higher the probability that another anime has similar ideas and plot lines, seeing high school students can only entertain so much. I myself barely watch anime anymore reading manga consumes less time and is more practical but that will also run out in a not too distant future I predict. Dinamet7 said: Vanisher said: Mature isn't the correct word. ^I agree with this^ As you (the OP) seems to understand, animation is a medium, not a genre and I don't believe that ..... People get offended by the word and I don't see why maybe the OP didn't word it well but there's generally a maturation of tastes, you don't watch the same kind of entertainment you did 5 years ago, to some people it may mean a different thing than to others to some it may mean to stop watching high school kids and start watching, I don't know, Josei, and to others it may mean to drop anime completely I still watch an episode from time to time but I don't really care for any of it, there's maybe a movie a year which may interest me same TV shows... and so forth so forth. |
LJohnMar 28, 2012 1:51 PM
| You know, I actually found anime to be very radical for me when I first started watching it and not in a good way. Since then, I've found shows that felt like they were insulting my intelligence but that applies to every form of storytelling period. |
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| I created the same thread, years ago. I hadn't watched Genshiken or NHK. LotGH IS slow. I found it too slow and on-holded it, first time through, even though I liked it. Seeing the obvious isn't the same as maturing beyond animation. Your thread title is incorrect: what you're too mature for, according to your post, is MAINSTREAM shounen/shoujo anime that are restricted by a lack of imagination and age-restricted restraints. (Which is rather odd when your #1 is One Piece - which would be like me having Naruto as my #1 - but that's neither here nor there.) It's perfectly natural for an adult to outgrow content aimed at children--often with school settings. What gets put TV and lasts on TV will always be what sells best; not that which has the most worth. The majority of anime would be viewed as trash by most critics, as a consequence--especially with the level of perversion used to sell anime to the loser elite of Japan that cannot distinguish between 3D and 2D. When you reach the point where you cringe at the sight of cliches and dialogue such as the line you quoted, you need to look outside the box; see what's seen far less than the most popular. Then, when you've covered all bases as far as anime goes, you switch over to manga--a medium with psychological thrills and violence that just wouldn't work on TV without lots of cuts and censering. And then - when you've made sure to read what has little chance of being animated - you can say you're too mature for Japanese cartoons and comics. I'm tired of moe school girls. Thus, I can no longer motivate myself to watch many TV series; my preference being short OVAs or movies that I can swalllow in one bite. But THERE ARE still some anime of interest coming out. Jormungand is right around the corner, as is Fate Zero's second season--a rare survival anime that's free of the VN harem bullshit that weighed stay/night down. PS: There's nothing faker in this world than acting. How are the animated faces of non-existent people any less real than actual people attempting to wear the mask of another? |
AironicallyHumanMar 29, 2012 8:42 AM
AironicallyHuman said: I created the same thread, years ago. I hadn't watched Genshiken or NHK. Your thread title is incorrect: what you're too mature for, according to your post, is MAINSTREAM shounen/shoujo anime that are restricted by a lack of imagination and age-restricted restraints. (Which is rather odd when your #1 is One Piece - which would be like me having Naruto as my #1 - but that's neither here nor there.) It's perfectly natural for an adult to outgrow content aimed at children--often with school settings. The poster already stated that it is not a single demographic that he has outgrown, he says openly that it is animation as a whole and even mentions a specific non-shonen title to preemptively steer the conversation away from "shonen is for kids" arguments like yours. |
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| I'm so mature that I realized that I'm not too mature for anything. Boom. Did I just blow your mind or what? On a serious note, though: people's tastes change with time, and I suppose that could be called "maturing". If you don't find anime to be enjoyable anymore, than that may be due to your tastes "maturing" to a point where they don't include anime. However, just because your tastes, having matured, no longer include anime, does not mean that liking anime is immature, or that not liking anime is mature. Think about it like this: I didn't like the taste of beer when I was younger. I thought it was gross and bitter and only drank it because I liked the buzz. Nowadays, I like me a good, strong, bitter beer. Some beer is moose-piss but most beer is a fine drink that I enjoy immensely. My tastes, having matured, now include beer. But I know plenty of people whose opinion on beer only grew worse as they aged. Their tastes, having matured, did not include beer. Maturation does not always equal maturity, if that makes sense. Just because one's tastes have matured to include some things and exclude others does not mean that another person's tastes must also follow the same path. I didn't like anime as a child, or a teen, or a young adult. Only recently have my tastes "matured" to the point where I can enjoy anime. I think it is a fine medium to explore certain ideas and stories that may be impossible or hard to explore in other mediums. Some things fit in books and movies (live action) and television, that wouldn't fit in anime, and some things (to me) fit in anime that wouldn't fit in movies, television and books. Some anime that I've watched is terrible. Some is alright but I can't get into it. Some I enjoy, but are nothing special. Some has been enjoyable and to a certain degree, special. A rare few have left me feeling like: "Damn, that was really good." And one or two of them have changed how I view myself and my world. Have my tastes matured? Sure, everyone's tastes mature. Have I matured? Sure, everyone matures. Am I a mature person? That is for other people to decide, because only they have the outside perspective. There are old men with grand-kids who love reading comic-books. There are young idiots that love reading Shakespeare and listening to Beethoven. Different strokes for different folks. If you don't like anime any more, than find something else that you enjoy. Or perhaps look for new anime and maybe you will realize that it's not anime you dislike, but certain animes (what is the plural of anime?). I don't think one can be "too mature" to like anime. edit: for another example, my mother is an extremely "mature" woman. She started raising her six brothers and sisters when she was about seven years old. She got them out of bed, walked them to school, cooked their food, washed their clothes, helped them with homework, met with teachers, did all the shopping, etc. and did it all with abusive parents. She had a kid at nineteen and had to drop out of college and raise him and my other brothers and me, and did a damn fine job of it if I do say so myself. She is now over fifty and I can't think of anyone who is more "mature" or realistic about the world. My mom absolutely loves cheesy Sci-Fi movies. I'm talking about the ones on the Sci-Fi channel, those terrible ones that have horrible acting and a budget of two peanuts. She eats em up and then re-watches them. She also loves reading cheesy romance novels. Some people may see that as a sign of immaturity, but I see it as having different tastes. She's not immature because she likes cheesy, "immature" things, she just happens to enjoy cheesy, "immature" things. I don't know why, because I couldn't handle three seconds of any of it, but there it is. I am certainly not more mature than her though. |
StopDropAndBowlMar 29, 2012 8:57 AM
| Let's go bowling. |
| -- LotGH is slow and clunky. It isn't representative of the medium as a whole. And there are MANY fast-paced, somewhat rushed movies/OVAs. -- The majority of what's animated is childish due to non-childish manga not typically being sellers. That much is obvious. But there are still some adult titles that slip through the school setting gap. -- Someone who's read less than half of the manga I have has little right to complain about being too mature. I don't want to offend the OP but ignorance, rather than maturity, strikes me as the problem. I believe I was pretty clear: my opening sentence of my first post highlights that I made the same mistake as the OP. He needs to either search harder or read more manga. Moaning solves nothing. |
| Your opening sentence and ensuing opinions do highlight part of the OP's problem but you also willfully ignore crucial differences that make it clear his problem is not the same one you have. |
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| Why, forgot how much anime fans love to attack others. Yes my wording for my title was poor, I am aware of this. I never meant to imply that I thought people who watched anime were immature, I even state that this is only my opinion. I was simply trying to state that my taste had, in what society would call, matured to the point where I could not enjoy anime (Animated things in general). One poster put it in nice perspective for me, though. Something along the lines of "nothing more fake that watching people where masks and try to act as someone else". I thank the people who were actually mature, took the time to read my topic and provide a well thought out response, rather than overreacting to my poorly written title. This thread has definitely given me a decent amount to think about. |
burntlettuce said: This thread has definitely given me a decent amount to think about. Glad to hear it OP. But for what it's worth, I think animation is a very easy medium to burn yourself out on completely. My advice would be to not make a point of watching anime. Don't deliberately isolate yourself, just leave it go. I think it was Lewis Carroll or CS Lewis who wrote something like "Real maturity comes with the ability to think like a child". And I can't deny that part of the reason I watch a lot of animated things is because it reminds me of my childhood, even if it involves people butchering each other. But in the same way that there are Disney movies that touch me in a way very, very few live action movies do, there are anime that really make me forget I'm watching moving scribbles. |
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