Anime and Manga

I would have to agree with you, especially on the whole "eyes" part. As well, I can't really say that anime will shake off this stereotype anytime soon. Most people are familiar with the saturday morning variety and, I guess, atest that to every other anime. If people looked hard enough, which isn't really hard if you think about it, there is so much more then just the "saturday morning variety." But hey, I guess we all can't be interested in such things.

Design wise, that "lol big eyes and etc" point may be right, but let's face it: that's the most common style of the anime / manga design. You'll rarely see exceptions.

I'd worry when people begin to stereotype anime as "lol harem" or "lol robots" or "lol cartoon porn".

When people hear anime they all go like POKEMON!!!!!! gotta catch em all gotta catch em all!!!!!

welcome to the beginning of time, fact = 2/3 of anime watchers are males, and we have a healthy libido mind you. nuff said, on subject wise, take it with a pinch of salt.

hmm well i q, WHAT THE HELL U MEAN THE AUDIENCE FOR ANIME IS US UK?? its like made by jap for jap, but there are ppl who enjoy watching anime and it has slipped over to US UK, if it was targeted for US/UK dont u think that they would have made a few more anime series based in those countries not just japan all the time??

welcome to the beginning of time, fact = 2/3 of anime watchers are males, and we have a healthy libido mind you. nuff said, on subject wise, take it with a pinch of salt.

i dont agree that 2/3 anime watchers are male, it would be around that but not exactly... think about the dubbers (voice actresses for the job, they have to enjoy what they are doing to actually do this job) and since most of the animes have 50%+ women in it more to the 75% i think, its like hard for just 2/3 anime watches just to be male

Anime is newer stereotip

oh...me and my friend had a discussion similar to this..we were talking that the series naruto was quite sterotypes since they made naruto looks like a while kid since his hair was yellow...also that naruto was the strongest one in there...we argue that they made it base on white people since after all whites are stronger than races....is this similar to what ur saying?

let's face it, half of why we love anime is the style of animation. and there are so many different styles out there now that those of us who are interested can pick and choose. but when you look at most of the mainstream stuff, the very popular stuff (love hina comes to mind) less clothing = a better audience. and anime has, from the beginning, meant fanservice. and not all of that fanservice is designed to appeal to the male audience. i have to disagree with the 2/3 figure that was thrown out, because look at the preponderance of shonen ai and yaoi animes out there. and where before shonen jump was one of the only compiled anime magazines in north america, shojo beat has arrived on the scene. but for girls, the bishonen are at least as much a reason to watch anime as the bouncing breasts of the anime female are for men. i think the stereotype is deserved, for mainstream, popular anime. i'm not saying that's right. there's plenty of fantastic stuff out there that owes nothing to those conventions, but the average person who doesn't watch is not going to see it. unfortunately.

most of the time when people are like, "hey, I watch anime," at school, people are still asking, "oh, so you watch Yugioh/Pokemon/DBZ?" I never really shakes off for some reason, but around here that's not really a misconception anymore as the president of our japanese pop-culture club *SHIVER* still watches Pokemon and Yugioh closely. *SHIVER* that club ruined my LIFE.

Good question. I know I certainly get a lot of "what? you actually like that junk?" kind of comments from those unenlightened fools who do not know of anime's true nature. But I do agree that there is a good quantity of bad anime floating around. Like any genre, it has some lousy moments.

To answer the question, though, I think that there are plenty of stereotypes in anime, yes. But I don't think all anime is stereotyped. Let's compare it to Hollywood (which I generally loathe, but it does have its moments): Hollywood has a whole schload of stereotyped and boring things that follow the same old formula. But, on occasion, you get something good. I'd venture to say that with anime, I have seen more originality than in all of Hollywood and I like it much better. Sure, it has its cliches. But you gotta keep your audience interested, right?

And hey, what's wrong with a little fanservice? ...or a lot ;-)

oh...me and my friend had a discussion similar to this..we were talking that the series naruto was quite sterotypes since they made naruto looks like a while kid since his hair was yellow...also that naruto was the strongest one in there...we argue that they made it base on white people since after all whites are stronger than races....is this similar to what ur saying?

Anime rarely has caucasian characters in them unless if it's specified they're caucasians - and it's not only caucasian but other ethnic groups as well. You have to keep in mind that these characters are suppose to be Japanese - different hair colours like green, purple, blue, yellow, etc. allows the audience to easily differeniate between different characters and make them a lot more individualized and colourful. In certain cases like Peach Girl - it even gives a reason why the main character's hair is light. When an anime puts in a caucasian character they will often have an English sounding name and it is very obvious, ex. Tsukikage Ran - the white foreigner was a huge blond girl. Miao, Ran's sidekick is obviously stererotypical portrayed as Chinese. The big eyes in anime is just an adoption of Disney early cartoons. So Naruto is not based on a white kid - he is Japanese...

Anyways, fanservice is stereotypical of a lot of shonen anime - it comes with that type of anime. However not all anime has that kind of fanservice - it just depends on what you want to watch. Most mainstream people never even heard of anime and those who have tend to think it either Pokemon or Hentai.

What could be stereotype? Almost people think big eyes, monsters, mini dresses (sometime porn), cutie characters and simple storyline. So, all about stereotypes have a exceptions. The ssize of the eye is good if this have 3/4 or 1/2 of size of the mouth. So, lot of animation: The Twelve Kingdoms, Ghost in the Shell, Otogizoushi, Blame, Gankutsuoh, etc... About monsters... It's depend of story of the animation. Examples: Infinite Ryvius, Last Exile, Love Hina... Mini dress, I think most of battle and adventures anime appear this stereotype, but have exceptions: The Twelve Kingdoms (adventure, shoujo anime), Now and Then, Here and There (adventure, shounen manga), Rozen Meiden (shoujo anime), etc... Cutie characters (kind Cerbels of the Card Captor Sakura or Pikachu of the Pocket Monsters) is commom to children animation (to 6 years old to... 12 years). So have so much anime, and because this I won't put here. About storyline... Inuyasha's storyline is very simple (They have to search and colect the shikon-no-kakera - I remember Card Captor Sakura is kind similar), Love Hina, Shingetsutan Tsuki-hime, Jungle wa Itsumo Hale noti Guu, etc... So haw many complex storyline anime exist? It's so simple, I will give some more examples: The Twelve Kingdoms (Juuni Kokki - politic theme), Ghost in the Shell - Stand Complex Alone (about terrorism, individualism, politic - you have to watch the Ttikoma's conversation), Ghost in the Shell - 2nd GIG (about construction of the hero), Now and Then, Here and There (anti-war), Neon Genesis Evangelion ( introspection, religion), Paranoia Agent (paranoia, psychologic of the type of the people), etc...

So I put some good or bad animes but have more and more examples. But to watch this good animation you have to do download. I think won't be play in tv. And must watch in japanese orriginal form with subtitle because some scenes is cut.

welcome to the beginning of time, fact = 2/3 of anime watchers are males, and we have a healthy libido mind you. nuff said, on subject wise, take it with a pinch of salt.

HA!HA!HA! Not a bad sum up to tell the truth. Of course that was more true back in the day. Nowadays I don't think the % is quite the same, as well as the ideas out there. Man has the market grown considerably in the last 4 years. Before is was tough to get anime from overseas but now that is has become so popluar in the west, well......were making the trekkies and StarWars fan look pathetic. :P

I am interested to see the future for this. SO! when you got a formula that works Run With It I Say. Hell, I'd admit it, as a guy, the girl formula actually makes make some animes worth watching and the ones I like even better. Of course the Breast thing has become sooooo standerd in my mind that I didn't even really notice it anymore untill I came across this topic :P

well, i have some friend who have no clue about anime but they think it is like really kiddy and really weird. but I have some other friends that think that it is all like WTF type thing (if that makes snice) I know alot of girls that like anime that I like(ex: ghost in the shell and Evangelion)

So I think it is a mix bag type thing.

well, people who stereotype it dont really know it. They may have seen like Pokemon or those types of shows. They think its all like that. And big boobs...i just think they're lookin for some cartoon sex man!!

My Mother Sterotypes Anime Watchers As Nerds Which Pisses Me Off. We Are Now Nerds We All Are Different People From Freak To Snoby Peoplw And The One Thing That We All Have In Common Is The Love Of Anime Nomatter How Dumb Or How Awesome We Still Love Them.

welcome to the beginning of time, fact = 2/3 of anime watchers are males, and we have a healthy libido mind you. nuff said, on subject wise, take it with a pinch of salt.

You just pulled that 2/3 out of your ass; IMHO LOL. There no expectations for people who thinks anime=Hentai. We just have to bear with it.

I don't hear the 'big boobs' part of the stereotype usually. Only the people I know that actually watch anime expect that. People who don't watch it -- well I haven't actually encountered many people who know the term. The one kid I know who knows the term, but doesn't watch any, associates it with crazy robots and fighting and stuff.

Well, the people around me who don't watch anime and have no clue how it looks like or whatever, they just say something like " What you watch anime!!!??" and they like freak out and exaggerate or say " anime is gay" or soemething like that, so I just don't talk about anime around those kind of people

[quote=Omnidevil]welcome to the beginning of time, fact = 2/3 of anime watchers are males, and we have a healthy libido mind you. nuff said, on subject wise, take it with a pinch of salt.

You just pulled that 2/3 out of your ass; IMHO LOL. There no expectations for people who thinks anime=Hentai. We just have to bear with it.

it is true, i pulled the magic number. but of course, most mainstream has the better audience from stereotypical ecchi/hentai = wins because of that, the market is dominated by such products. Of course, even when the anime itself is deep and meaningful, I can hardly see one that doesn't have the least bit of *extra spice* in it. Even greats like GITS, Eureka7, classics like Macross (before the censure happened), has all been influenced. Expectations wise, I believe in the major market demand for the *extra spice* is normal and is what justifies the stereotyping of anime. Like you said, bear with it lol.