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I started watching Gurren Lagann a few days back, and it was nothing like what I'd expected.
I knew very little about it. It had mechs, presumably some very big ones, and I think I'd read that by the end, they were slinging galaxies and universes as weapons (or is that a different franchise?).
Well..
Episode 5 had the main character being anally fisted by a toddler. A sentence I didn't expect to ever write, but here I am.
I thought the series would be relatively serious. Far from it. This is quintessential shonen slop. It does the opposite of taking itself seriously.
So many annoying tropes:
Powering up with the sheer human will
Nobody fights seriously, it's all half-assed
Simon, one of the main characters, is literally retarded. He is congenitally incapable of making good decisions.
Not quite as annoying is the sheer amount of fan-service. This is a profoundly horny show, and distactingly so. I'm a red-blooded young man, but I'm going through a dry spell of several months, the longest in over a decade, and it's hard to focus when there are voluptuous tits out on display. Nice tits though, very tasteful. Alas, I prefer sex to have some kind of resolution, the way typical anime does it is akin to paying for a strip show. Who wants to get a boner while being unable to do anything about it?
I'm not sure the series has any redeeming qualities, but I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet. But if continues frustrating me to this extent, I'll have to see if Macross or Gundam are any better.
And this, this is why I have no interest in anime.
I feel like that's a slight over-reaction. Anime is a rather all-encompassing term, it would be like saying, that's why I don't like movies, or music, because a single example wasn't to my taste. There's really good stuff out there, like Attack on Titan, Made in Abyss etc.
Of course, you live/lived in Japan, so you might be going off more than one example.
I have watched a whole bunch of anime off the recommendations of friends and unfortunately have to concur with @George_E_Hale: Anime in general sucks. Yes, even the classics. Even the ones which are known for their stories and themes.
I will admit to having a soft spot for Ghibli movies. Those are the exception, not the norm.
Bebop and GitS are not good, they have immaculate vibes but that’s about it. I think they’re mostly carried by nostalgia. If you thought that was the best anime had to offer then I wouldn’t blame you for writing it off.
Most of my absolute favorite Japanese stories come from VNs and JRPGs rather than anime/manga. Although I do think there are some great anime-original stories. But if you like Ghibli movies I may not be the best person to give you recommendations, based on the alignment of our tastes. The only Ghibli movie I think is really great is Mononoke.
Ha, Mononoke is one of the Ghibli movies I think is just okay. Different strokes I suppose.
I did watch Death Note too, which you recommended in the original anime thread; I didn't like that either (granted, I did prefer it to Bebop and GitS). Not because of the reasons offered up that it was "too disturbing and amoral", far from it, I quite like things that lean in that direction, rather it felt like there was a lot of missed potential with the characters.
This is true for Light in particular. He was painted as a hubristic megalomaniac who was in large part motivated by a desire to acquire power; it would have been much more entertaining had he been given a legible and consistent moral code which just happened to conflict with that of L. As it was, Light felt one-dimensional and it seemed more like you were supposed to be disgusted by him more than you were supposed to understand him. Which isn't good, considering how much time you spend with this character throughout the show's runtime. I even felt it cheapened the dynamic between him and L, which could have been so much more dynamic and interesting had their differing philosophies and moralities ever been given a chance to clash.
Also, to be blunt, every time Misa Amane appeared on screen I felt like strangling her to death. She was just so aggressively annoying to me.
Maybe I missed something, but Light was not motivated by just a desire for power, and especially at first the idea seems to be that he only wants the Death Note to kill criminals, but really doesn’t go after anyone else unless they’re trying to catch him or he needs to confuse L. It seems a bit more like the Death Note sort of takes over after a while in the sense that power goes to his head. I read Light mostly as a tragic story of huberis in which the power to destroy human life becomes the power to play God and remake everything into your vision of Justice.
L never came off that well in the story for me. It was just a guy who loved the mystery and found the whole thing to be a fascinating game. He had no moral reason to want to stop Light. He just wanted to catch Kira because it was a difficult case to solve.
Agreed that initially he does not start out like that. However as you say the Death Note starts taking over after a fairly short time, and turns him into someone who is portrayed as pretty straightforwardly evil. It makes for a less interesting character, in my opinion. I felt like the whole corruption arc was dealt with far better in Breaking Bad, in that Walt becomes less of a cartoon villain and even in the end once he's been fully Heisenberged is still willing to give up his wealth to save Hank, in spite of all his faults. Light on the other hand quickly becomes quite irredeemable rather early on.
I mean, correct; L does not have a strong moral inclination. Maybe I worded that poorly, it's just that I would have found their game of cat and mouse far more interesting and multilayered had they had any other deeper reason to participate outside of "I want to play god"/"I find solving mysteries fun". You could have given the audience an impression of their differing outlooks, shown how that informs their behaviour in real life and with other people, and once the show actually puts Light and L in the same room together there could have been an interesting demonstration of what happens when each of their ideals are challenged by that of the other. That's something I would really have wanted to see from the show, it feels like wasted potential that it did not materialise.
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