I think a part of the reason anime can be so weird is also that the medium of animation seems to invite weirdness in an upfront sort of way that live action doesn't. I also think that animation puts a comfortable distance between the content of the show and reality so that viewers are less likely to feel confronted by seeing weird shit if it's drawn as opposed to if it's filmed.
I think 'weird' is used as a concept to warn people against getting too invested in things that aren't 'real' or part of their job or directly useful to the workings of society. You wouldn't criticise a chef who rambles to you about the inner workings of his craft for being weird, because it's his job to know it and it proves his prestige. Heck, you wouldn't call someone making anime 'weird' because at least this is their personal expression that they put work into. Calling anime FANS weird comes from them getting attached to something societally useless that isn't part of their job. So people get off-put by that because it seems a waste of time and energy.
I'm a veterinarian. Here in my city (in south america), the amount of cats/dogs named Tanjirou/Nezuko are spectacularly high. That not only tells me about the widely known influence of Kimetsu, but also anime in general.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I’m working on a video about anime parodies. Yeah. Artists are just weird. David Lynch just died. He was the king of the weirdos. But we don’t think about our weirdos that way. American comics are pretty weird even if you just look at the “normal” superhero stuff closely enough. But most Americans have never heard of R. Crumb or Ralph Bakshi who both made art weirder in their own image in ways most people don’t notice until someone points it out to them. Anime is only as weird as our ability to reference a different culture. The number of people who know what a Yokai or ki are has gone up exponentially. If they see it in a game it won’t even faze them. But when everyone was talking about how weird the first episode of Dandadan was I was thinking this is a joke Rick and Morty would make. It’s the context that gets people.
I think the weirdness of anime and manga was made possible, financially. That's where otaku came from, a shared media environment of artists and consumers, who themselves become the next generation of artists. It's sort of like how furries weren't really a thing until furry-themed magazines started getting published, and enthusiasts wanted to meet up at convention centers and talk about it. I really think that if there hadn't been money to make in the furry fandom, there wouldn't be a furry fandom.
This is obviously a very multi faceted, nebulous kind of subject but id like to add that the perception of anime weirdness atleast in america comes down to these faux puritan sensibilities americans think they have, especially about sexuality/sexual imagery of any kind. My own mother has called me a pedo adjacent creep for liking anime multiple times, but her favorite movie is fast times at ridgemont high which has an opening scene of a 16 year old girl getting fucked in a baseball dugout. Im sure I dont have to explain the absurd contradictory nature of this. Basically in America If you like Calvin and Hobbes youre fine, but if you like reading Azumanga Daioh youre a diddler.
I'm new-ish to the whole animaga scene compared to a lot of my peers. They were in it with Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Naruto and I got into it right before pandemic started. I'm also not from US and they never described it as weird to me. I've been pitched many many mangas to read by them and none of it was because it was weird but rather "holly shit this is such a good story holly shit I'm losing my goddamn mind and you should try too!!!" My perception as an outsider of was that the fans were always very invested and intense with it for reasons that were nebulous to me. It's a cartoon, why are you losing your mind for a cartoon? Needless to say my friends were very amused when after years of pestering I finally got into a manga called... Tokyo Ghoul, and oh boy did it blow my fucking mind. The way I was talking about it was exactly the way they were about fans of their own favorite mangas and they kept telling me how I was surprized people are so invested in cartoons (they had a lot of fun with me lol) I don't think it is weird per se but I think the way stories are told in manga can be a different way stories are told in western counties (not better or worse just different) I think there's not a lot of cynicism in these stories or when it is even cynical the narrative itself is but the characters are always very earnest in their reactions and portrayals. So you believe them. I think the overall weirdness is just that. From the outside it sounds like something simple, like you've seen this before why are people making a big deal out of it. And while you're outside you can't actually grasp how different the overall approach to the storytelling is. It's a mismatch of a) how are people reacting to mangas, b) how you imagine art/stories overall are from your general experience. Anyway. That's my 2 cents at least.
Idk girl, I always thought a sponge living in a pineapple under the sea was weird as a kid so by that point, yugi's hair from yugioh wasn't that far off from any other cartoon weirdness since, you're right, everything is weird within context. It also struck me as weird in terms of design sense in animation, the "eyes are the window to the soul" and thus the more big, bright-eyed designs were seen as ideal to you basic everyday art teacher. Oh but when it came to anime eyes, they went "no, not like that." I clocked that strange tendency/hypocrisy under just another example of Americans not liking anything that isn't understandable/within the context of their own execution even when tackling the exact same things/ideas.
About anime being considered “weird” in Japan: it should be noticed that while you’re correct on the Otaku oriented stuff, 13 out of 20 of the highest grossing movies in Japan are anime movies en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan So yes, while anime as a whole is still weird in Japan, the normie stuff hits very hard here.
completely unrelated comment to the video. but i recently read a webnovel and i’m not sure how i feel about it, it’s called cockatiel x chameleon (trigger warning for gore, characters arguing about lolicon in the context of the story, every racial slur you can think of, and poor handling of irl tragedies, would not reccomend this to most people with eyes) and it’s on ao3. i looked up the author on tumblr and apparently one of the characters was inspired by… you???? of all people??? but i couldn’t see much similarities personally. it’s about an office worker who becomes obsessed with a hentai artist, but then the hentai artist is still in love with his ex who just got a job working for disney…
Hi trixie I’m a long time fan of yours just wanted to ask is Eva still your favorite anime? Also do you think you’d ever make an updated top 27 anime video?
As a very outside the Box Christian I find Anime weird precisely because of how it feels more like The Gospel then mainstream Christianity does. There has in fact been a rise of Christian Anime fans on TH-cam lately, but what shows they lead with are completely different form mine, which I listed in a new post on my Blog at the start of February.
Explain why Star Wars is successful. It’s obvious. It’s weird enough to be excepted into the mainstream. When here anime is weird. Weird in what way. I think attack on titan is mainstream weird. I haven’t seen Dandadan but the idea that dude lost his balls or something and has to get it back. It’s mainstream weird. It’s weird but not so out there weird to me.
Another trait of Star Wars (the original trilogy, at least) is that its attributes ultimately a love letter to what were popular tropes and stories present within films from and close to its respective era. The trilogy presented itself in a cloak of weirdness while simultaneously revealing itself to be familiar.
I think a part of the reason anime can be so weird is also that the medium of animation seems to invite weirdness in an upfront sort of way that live action doesn't. I also think that animation puts a comfortable distance between the content of the show and reality so that viewers are less likely to feel confronted by seeing weird shit if it's drawn as opposed to if it's filmed.
"there arent a lot of people who love both anime and america as much as I do"
that's it, thats the presedential campaign slogan
Y'know, there's actually a channel called Anime America. 🤣
I think 'weird' is used as a concept to warn people against getting too invested in things that aren't 'real' or part of their job or directly useful to the workings of society.
You wouldn't criticise a chef who rambles to you about the inner workings of his craft for being weird, because it's his job to know it and it proves his prestige.
Heck, you wouldn't call someone making anime 'weird' because at least this is their personal expression that they put work into.
Calling anime FANS weird comes from them getting attached to something societally useless that isn't part of their job. So people get off-put by that because it seems a waste of time and energy.
But of course, that too can become a job.
I'm a veterinarian. Here in my city (in south america), the amount of cats/dogs named Tanjirou/Nezuko are spectacularly high. That not only tells me about the widely known influence of Kimetsu, but also anime in general.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I’m working on a video about anime parodies. Yeah. Artists are just weird. David Lynch just died. He was the king of the weirdos. But we don’t think about our weirdos that way. American comics are pretty weird even if you just look at the “normal” superhero stuff closely enough. But most Americans have never heard of R. Crumb or Ralph Bakshi who both made art weirder in their own image in ways most people don’t notice until someone points it out to them. Anime is only as weird as our ability to reference a different culture. The number of people who know what a Yokai or ki are has gone up exponentially. If they see it in a game it won’t even faze them.
But when everyone was talking about how weird the first episode of Dandadan was I was thinking this is a joke Rick and Morty would make. It’s the context that gets people.
Interesting. At this point, I just don't care if something is seen as weird since many "normal" things are weird too.
I think the weirdness of anime and manga was made possible, financially. That's where otaku came from, a shared media environment of artists and consumers, who themselves become the next generation of artists. It's sort of like how furries weren't really a thing until furry-themed magazines started getting published, and enthusiasts wanted to meet up at convention centers and talk about it. I really think that if there hadn't been money to make in the furry fandom, there wouldn't be a furry fandom.
This is obviously a very multi faceted, nebulous kind of subject but id like to add that the perception of anime weirdness atleast in america comes down to these faux puritan sensibilities americans think they have, especially about sexuality/sexual imagery of any kind. My own mother has called me a pedo adjacent creep for liking anime multiple times, but her favorite movie is fast times at ridgemont high which has an opening scene of a 16 year old girl getting fucked in a baseball dugout. Im sure I dont have to explain the absurd contradictory nature of this. Basically in America If you like Calvin and Hobbes youre fine, but if you like reading Azumanga Daioh youre a diddler.
I'm new-ish to the whole animaga scene compared to a lot of my peers. They were in it with Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Naruto and I got into it right before pandemic started. I'm also not from US and they never described it as weird to me. I've been pitched many many mangas to read by them and none of it was because it was weird but rather "holly shit this is such a good story holly shit I'm losing my goddamn mind and you should try too!!!" My perception as an outsider of was that the fans were always very invested and intense with it for reasons that were nebulous to me. It's a cartoon, why are you losing your mind for a cartoon?
Needless to say my friends were very amused when after years of pestering I finally got into a manga called... Tokyo Ghoul, and oh boy did it blow my fucking mind. The way I was talking about it was exactly the way they were about fans of their own favorite mangas and they kept telling me how I was surprized people are so invested in cartoons (they had a lot of fun with me lol)
I don't think it is weird per se but I think the way stories are told in manga can be a different way stories are told in western counties (not better or worse just different) I think there's not a lot of cynicism in these stories or when it is even cynical the narrative itself is but the characters are always very earnest in their reactions and portrayals. So you believe them. I think the overall weirdness is just that. From the outside it sounds like something simple, like you've seen this before why are people making a big deal out of it. And while you're outside you can't actually grasp how different the overall approach to the storytelling is. It's a mismatch of a) how are people reacting to mangas, b) how you imagine art/stories overall are from your general experience.
Anyway. That's my 2 cents at least.
Idk girl, I always thought a sponge living in a pineapple under the sea was weird as a kid so by that point, yugi's hair from yugioh wasn't that far off from any other cartoon weirdness since, you're right, everything is weird within context. It also struck me as weird in terms of design sense in animation, the "eyes are the window to the soul" and thus the more big, bright-eyed designs were seen as ideal to you basic everyday art teacher. Oh but when it came to anime eyes, they went "no, not like that." I clocked that strange tendency/hypocrisy under just another example of Americans not liking anything that isn't understandable/within the context of their own execution even when tackling the exact same things/ideas.
About anime being considered “weird” in Japan: it should be noticed that while you’re correct on the Otaku oriented stuff, 13 out of 20 of the highest grossing movies in Japan are anime movies
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan
So yes, while anime as a whole is still weird in Japan, the normie stuff hits very hard here.
completely unrelated comment to the video. but i recently read a webnovel and i’m not sure how i feel about it, it’s called cockatiel x chameleon (trigger warning for gore, characters arguing about lolicon in the context of the story, every racial slur you can think of, and poor handling of irl tragedies, would not reccomend this to most people with eyes) and it’s on ao3. i looked up the author on tumblr and apparently one of the characters was inspired by… you???? of all people??? but i couldn’t see much similarities personally. it’s about an office worker who becomes obsessed with a hentai artist, but then the hentai artist is still in love with his ex who just got a job working for disney…
Love this video style. Keep it up!
0:32
most countries do Not have 300 million people but they have less than that
so that is one of the many reasons why America matters.
yep, we dont actually like america, were just english speaking cause of the invitability of economics
Hi trixie I’m a long time fan of yours just wanted to ask is Eva still your favorite anime? Also do you think you’d ever make an updated top 27 anime video?
Eva probably isn't my #1 but an updated faves list would be intriguing
What do you think about animation from other countries like Mars Express or Watership Down? Or the upcoming animation from Bong Joon-ho?
As a very outside the Box Christian I find Anime weird precisely because of how it feels more like The Gospel then mainstream Christianity does. There has in fact been a rise of Christian Anime fans on TH-cam lately, but what shows they lead with are completely different form mine, which I listed in a new post on my Blog at the start of February.
Ever read the Beneath the Tangles blog?
@@WeWatchAnime1 Yeah I check them out from time to time, they're way better then the recent TH-camrs I was just thinking.
next video: why is anime gay?
anime fans arent ready to admit this
NOOOO shut up shut up! I can handle being weird but I can't be weird AND gay! Shut up!
Explain why Star Wars is successful. It’s obvious. It’s weird enough to be excepted into the mainstream. When here anime is weird. Weird in what way. I think attack on titan is mainstream weird. I haven’t seen Dandadan but the idea that dude lost his balls or something and has to get it back. It’s mainstream weird. It’s weird but not so out there weird to me.
Another trait of Star Wars (the original trilogy, at least) is that its attributes ultimately a love letter to what were popular tropes and stories present within films from and close to its respective era. The trilogy presented itself in a cloak of weirdness while simultaneously revealing itself to be familiar.
Can/should white people enjoy anime?
Chat are they serious? ^
white people should only be watching friends and seinfeld on repeat for eternity
Yes and also yes.