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So recently I was bored enough I soldiered through a full watch of Attack on Titan. Years ago I kind of bounced off this series around the time of the 'big reveal' annoyed about what felt like a out of the blue plot twist that was not well established and completely changed the nature of the series. So for a couple years I just ignored Attack on Titan.

But now, having binged the whole series, and honestly having knowledge of the reveal that makes a lot of the earlier episodes of the show (which are directly based on manga panels) I was really really fething stupid. On a rewatch/reread, the 'big reveal' is painfully obvious as you build toward it. Hints are dropped left and right. Parallels between characters drawn. The amount of foreshadowing in Attack on Titan as it gets rolling past its initial story arcs is insane, and the way you will likely overlook a lot of it as innocuous/meaningless until you rewatch/reread the story is wild.

Going into the show early on I think it's easy to get wrapped up in the wrong aspects of the show, such that you miss a lot of the character set ups and themes those set ups establish. Erin's underlying goal to be free is easily overlooked compared to his action hero angry habits being one of the big ones. For a time I chalked it up to bad writing, but in retrospect and having seen the whole series I have to disagree with myself. Attack on Titan doesn't hold your hand through its themes or its plot. You have to be a bit open minded about it and not get swept up in what you would prefer the plot to be. Whether that makes AoT enjoyable or not is probably down to personal preference, but it can't be dismissed as bad writing. The set ups are too consistent. The character developments, and especially the interplay of multiple characters and what they say, think, and do over the course of the series, is too complexly woven and on point to be called bad writing.

Having had years to mellow and time to think about the series, I can only admit that Attack on Titan is brilliantly written in its complexities, and even the stumbles at the end feel more like the result of the author having a true beast to wrap up and not sticking every little piece of his landing perfectly. A task so daunting I can't really hold it against him.

So. What does anyone else got? What's something you thought of as bad, or dismissed, that you later went back to and hand to slap yourself because you were wrong?

Is the show better than the Manga?

The manga had these dumb Spider-man bungee-steel cables (that would attach to clouds, because what the heck else were they swinging from in an open field?).

Most the art was so poor I gave up 65% of the way through. Does the show look better?

I found the manga's art to be 'just okay.' The anime is more dynamic with the studios who produced it definitely putting real money into bringing the show to screen, but honestly if you got annoyed about how they were webslinging around in the manga, I'm not sure the anime really fixes that. It's something you kind of just have to dismiss a lot of the time, since the series will flip flop over whether or not it's trying to be consistent about how the ODM gear works practically.

Sometimes it goes out of its way to establish what the characters are swinging on/from. At others, it's not remotely clear how they're moving the way they are with Levi and Mikasa's acrobatics at times being physics breaking by the power of anime. Really though, the series is about its characters and its themes more than it's fantasy webslinging devices.

EDIT: The real glory of the anime though, imo, is that a lot of the dub cast just... Dear fething god the folks playing Armin, Hange, Reiner, and Erwin especially are phenomenal. IMO the guy doing Erwin's English lines is legitimately better than the Japanese VA and anyone who says otherwise is just a sub snob high on their own farts. Erwin's English voice actor is fething insane every time the moment calls for it.

Well there was a magna that I did not want to read called Gundam Thunderbolt because I'd read a couple issues and they'd gone an introduced a slew of young heroes.

I was over the young kids save the day idea, so I put it down, for a long time.

Then I picked it up and was hooked. I should've read one more issue.

It wasn't the best Gundam (08th MS Team is still the greatest), but I went from a curmudgeon who didn't give the series a chance, to a fan.

Oh yeah. I caught Thunderbolt when they adapted the first arc into an OVA and it was instantly one of my favorite entries in the franchise. Full Armor Gundam and the Psycho Zaku are great model kits too (you need to get a heavy duty stand for Full Armor to remain upright, the Psycho Zaku kit actually comes with a special stand).

I tried the manga though I couldn't get past the art being in a style I didn't like.

Twin Peaks was a show I couldn’t get into back when it was airing, even when it was the favorite show of the cutest girl in my art class. But now that I could binge it and enjoy it for what it was and not where it might go, I enjoyed it.


2001: A Space Odyssey was a film I loved in high school. I must have watched it a hundred times in two years. I tried rewatching it a couple times post college and just found it too self important and tedious to watch.

Independence Day. I thought it was so stupid when it came out, but watching it after the pandemic I really enjoyed the quality of writing, setups and payoffs, compared to modern movies. Same with Twister, too.

Most music. I just hated all new music when I was a kid and through high school. Then in college I started clubbing a lot and sharing mp3s and discovered I actually like most music. Except country.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS: what was the big reveal in Attack on Titan? I only saw one episode, but I still want to know.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

PS: what was the big reveal in Attack on Titan? I only saw one episode, but I still want to know.

There's a lot of wham reveals in the show, but the big one that I think really set a lot of people like me off comes about 2/3rds of the way into the series.

V for Vendetta. When I first saw it in the cinema I got hung up on it mis-portraying Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot as somehow heroic.

Then a lot of world stuff happened and I realised it was a warning about the insidious dangers of populism, fascism, and authoritarianism. Valerie’s story brings tears to my eyes every time now, it’s one of my favourite films.

Kinda? I’ve long struggled with Anime as a genre. Or rather an art and production style, I guess.

Started with Akira, which blew my socks off and remains great. But, this being the early 90’s and the very tip of Manga Mania, my next exposure was the kind with random, unfeasibly prehensile demon weiners, which put me off.

And over the years, due to Stereotypical Weebs making it their entire personality and all the cringe that comes along with it, I continued to avoid.

In my early 20’s my best friends were obsesssed with Dragon Ball Z. A tiresome show in which very little happens very slowly, and every episode just seems the same as the next (lots of powering up, stilted delivery of dialogue, and the screaming, so much screaming)

In later life, I got into Studio Ghibli, which is universally fantastic. But most offerings, such as Attack on Titan and Tokyo Ghoul left me entirely cold.

But I continue to persevere. Rather enjoyed the One Piece Netflix adaptation, and really enjoyed the original Ghost in the Shell. I also recognise a bunch of amazing 80’s shows (Ulysses, Cities of Gold etc) were the beginning of Anime in the west, and I like them well enough)

So I wouldn’t say I’ve 180’d, but it is a genre/art style I continue to try out, here and there. Turns out a chunk of my dislike isn’t just Weebs*, but Really Poor Voice Dubbing, Using Talentless, Emotionless Actors.

*Note here I specifically mean Weebs. The sort of smelly, fedora clad weirdo that has entirely confused watching a lot of Anime with having a deep insight into Japanese culture. The sort that claim fancying a 12 year old who’s actually a 10,000 year old dragon thing isn’t at all weird and creepy. That. The stereotype. Every fandom has its own Weeb or Weeb Equivalent. Thankfully they’re typically a very vocal (and again, exceptionally smelly) minority.

For me it was Star Wars. I was indoctrinated at a young age and had Return of the Jedi bed sheets.

I read all the books, played all the games and played with every Imperial guy available. (The Crimson Guard were so cool)

Even in college, after I was more mature (supposedly mature... supposedly), my friends and I would go see the new movies, play Star Wars games and whatnot.

But lately? I don't think I've read a Star Wars novel, comic book, or watched a Star Wars movie since Rogue One (Which I enjoyed). I take that back, I saw the dreadful Solo.

My interest in all things Star Wars is just kinda... gone. I can't explain it.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
For me it was Star Wars. I was indoctrinated at a young age and had Return of the Jedi bed sheets.

I read all the books, played all the games and played with every Imperial guy available. (The Crimson Guard were so cool)

Even in college, after I was more mature (supposedly mature... supposedly), my friends and I would go see the new movies, play Star Wars games and whatnot.

But lately? I don't think I've read a Star Wars novel, comic book, or watched a Star Wars movie since Rogue One (Which I enjoyed). I take that back, I saw the dreadful Solo.

My interest in all things Star Wars is just kinda... gone. I can't explain it.

I can pinpoint exactly when my love for Star Wars died. It was walking out of the theater after seeing The Last Jedi. And if you'd told me as I was walking into the theater I'd be done with Star Wars forever walking out, I'd have laughed in your face.

Sigh.

There were parts of The Last Jedi I liked (I thought the end of Luke's story was fitting) and parts I didn't like (Admiral doesn't say anything even though she has no reason to not say anything but the moral of the story requires characters to make nonsensical decisions).

For me it was The Rise of Skywalker. Just such a blandly terrible film. I still watch Star Wars stuff when the mood strikes, but I can't say I'm much of a fan anymore. So yeah. I guess a negative 180 also counts for the thread XD

I pretty much grew up on a merrygoround of procedural crime shows from the late 80’s to the early 2000’s where a case was solved in a neat one hour episode. They were my jam and I ate them all up.

Then when I returned home from my brief stint in the Army, my dad was watching The Wire. Didn’t have much interest in it as it seemed so slow compared to most crime shows that I enjoyed. Then my good buddy took me to the titty bar that was the filming location for the HQ of the gang in the first season (“Orlando’s” on the show, was “Ritz Cabaret” irl). ‘Oh, its set in Baltimore! I’ll have to check it out and attempt to recognize where they’re filming!”*

Turns out The Wire became one of the best pieces of modern TV/storytelling. For me, it ruined the average 1 case per 1 hour episode weekly format type crime show, particularly as they got more outlandish. (Looking at you every CSI variant show) I don’t even watch police procedural shows anymore.

*Homicide: Life on the Streets was also a more realistic police drama set in Baltimore, but a lot of its thunder was stolen by the more popular NYPD Blue police drama and studio meddling forced the show to be more like the stereotypical police procedural.

The only one I can think of that'd be a 180 for me would be the Vampire, The Masquerade RPG. (and related WW games mixed in)

In the mid-90s through 2k? I played a helluva lot of Vampire (& other WW stuff).
I thought (and still think) the mechanics were pretty good. And the setting was interesting.
Some great stories were told, some great games were played in, great games were run (in particular the game I helped run from NY Eve 1998-NY Eve '99), etc etc etc.
There was always something increasingly off though.
Part way through the 1999 game? I finally realized what it was. I just don't like playing games where everyone (player & NPC alike) is some sort of bad guy.
And in a proper Vampire game? That's all there is. At the best you're just a monster trying to do the least bad things possible. Beyond that....

So on Jan 1st 2000, once the final session of that year long game wrapped? I walked away from the World of Darkness. Haven't played a WoD game since and don't intend to.


The next closest shifts would be MTG & Star Wars.
Though with these I haven't gone from liking them to disliking them, but rather just.... stopping.
Magic:
Great game. Played solidly 1994-mid 2k. You name something from that era, it's in my collection (with the stupid valuables in a safety deposit box nowdays ) . Casual games with friends, at the local shop(s) of the time, tourneys of all sizes. etc Just burned out eventually.
Returned to playing a bit during Cold Snap - 1st Lorwynn set. Then walked away again.
In recent years the only times I've played has been in D&D related pre-releases & when the 40k decks came out I picked up the Necron deck for an event at the shop.
But I really have no interest in playing Commander, the current release schedule, nor all the current sales gimmicks. So unless another D&D set comes along....
Star Wars:
I will forever love episodes IV/V/VI. And I enjoy I-III well enough. Nothing will ever change that.
Once Disney took control though.... (sigh) :( The only stuff I've LIKED from them was the 1st 1/2 of Force Awakens, Rogue 1, & Andor (surprising as I didn't give a single gak about him in R1). and I at least enjoyed Skeleton Crew. Everything else has been on a spectrum of plain hated it - don't really care (though some things have a few good bits in them). If Disney never made another SW film/show? It wouldn't matter to me.

Attack on Titan is a tough one for me. It's absolutely brilliant, but I don't "like" it. A lot of the mechanics that make the story work, particularly towards the end don't really click with me. It's still such a great story, one of the best, its just not my thing.

Star Wars has always been a mix of quality. There's few things as good as good Star Wars, and there's always been things like Darth Kryat that you ignore. There's probably just too much Star Wars right now, with the feeling that you need to pay attention to the lows being far to high.

I rarely 180 negatively in general. There's lots of things that I go hot and cold on like comic books, card games, anime and the like. Sometimes I just need something that reminds me why I love it in the first place.

My first post referred to individual pieces of media I have 180’ed on. If we are discussing franchises where later drops in quality remade us unable to go back and enjoy the early hits we loved, then Battlestar Galactica has to be at the top of my list. The first two seasons appeared to be brilliant, but now we all know better.


Buffy was another series where the last couple seasons were so bad it makes the first seasons depressing to think about, let alone rewatch.


I can always go back and watch the original trilogy or Andor despite the prequels killing Star Wars and the sequels desecrating its corpse. I can rewatch TNG and DS9 despite Picard. Battlestar Galactica is truly dead to me.

Is it possible for your tastes to drastically change?

Because I have friends who loved slasher flicks and wore black t-shirts so often I started to wonder if they were secretly the Black Power Ranger.

Now they watch art-House flicks and wear Derby hats and discuss the director's "subtle use of colors" through out the film.

You can like more than one thing.

I do think our tastes can expand as we get older. I still love what I used to love, but I have a far higher tolerance for weird movies and art house movies than I used to.

It depends.

My interest in understanding, and not simply watching, movies has increased over the years.

I’m not a critic, and I’m certainly not an authority. But I do enjoy looking to understand why I enjoyed a given show or movie. Especially as I enjoy a lot of stuff other folk don’t.

It can lead to frustration (the merely mediocre being derided as the Worst. Thing. Ever.) but just have to temper it by remembering that where I, frankly, don’t give a fig whether the next person enjoyed it, nor should they give a fig if I enjoyed it.

Though when it’s clear someone hasn’t even watched what they’re ripping in to? That’s just outright annoying,

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kinda? I’ve long struggled with Anime as a genre. Or rather an art and production style, I guess.

I think the main thing a lot of people who struggle with anime is that they sometimes feel like its a monolithic genre, which it really shouldn't be seen as such.

People sometimes get stuck thinking Anime is a genre, when its really just an extremely overbroad animation style. Though even calling it a style is itself perhaps too specific, since there are dozens of animation styles within Anime itself. People that don't know any better think that liking Anime is equivalent to saying you like Westerns, or Action Movies. When it's really a step above that.

I would say someone saying "They like Anime" is more similar to someone saying "I like movies" than saying "I like Westerns". Its more specific than just liking movies for sure, but its far broader than simple genre.

Which is why I often say to someone who doesn't like anime, "No, you do like Anime, you just haven't found any you like yet."

Just like YouTube, Anime has a lot of garbage to sift through. Anime is basically mass produced in Japan, so much of it is incredibly niche or only appeals to specific interests, or specific interests if you get the drift. And it's not helped by the descriptions of some shows being incredibly obtuse and sometimes just plain deceptive. I've learned you can't judge an anime till you've seen at least 3 episodes in, sometimes more.

The storytelling used in a lot of anime is very different from most western media, so it might be a little jarring but if people can force themselves to sit through it they can begin to like it. Its sort of a conditioning we have to break somewhat.

I had zero interest in Fromsoftware's work until playing a Skyrim mod based on Sekiro which led me to Jedi Survivor, then Sekiro, and then several other games in their catalogue. Now they're probably my favorite developer.
I dropped Chainsaw Man a couple of times before finally reading all of it. It has a lot of issues, but Part 1 was generally good, despite being insane. Fujimoto is a headcase.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kinda? I’ve long struggled with Anime as a genre. Or rather an art and production style, I guess.

I think the main thing a lot of people who struggle with anime is that they sometimes feel like its a monolithic genre, which it really shouldn't be seen as such.

People sometimes get stuck thinking Anime is a genre, when its really just an extremely overbroad animation style. Though even calling it a style is itself perhaps too specific, since there are dozens of animation styles within Anime itself. People that don't know any better think that liking Anime is equivalent to saying you like Westerns, or Action Movies. When it's really a step above that.

I would say someone saying "They like Anime" is more similar to someone saying "I like movies" than saying "I like Westerns". Its more specific than just liking movies for sure, but its far broader than simple genre.

Which is why I often say to someone who doesn't like anime, "No, you do like Anime, you just haven't found any you like yet."

Just like YouTube, Anime has a lot of garbage to sift through. Anime is basically mass produced in Japan, so much of it is incredibly niche or only appeals to specific interests, or specific interests if you get the drift. And it's not helped by the descriptions of some shows being incredibly obtuse and sometimes just plain deceptive. I've learned you can't judge an anime till you've seen at least 3 episodes in, sometimes more.

The storytelling used in a lot of anime is very different from most western media, so it might be a little jarring but if people can force themselves to sit through it they can begin to like it. Its sort of a conditioning we have to break somewhat.

More or less the lesson I’ve learned.

Though I’m still automatically turned off by anything self-appointed “otaku” can’t or won’t shut up about. Which to be honest, may be a reliable guide to avoid the guff.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kinda? I’ve long struggled with Anime as a genre. Or rather an art and production style, I guess.

Started with Akira, which blew my socks off and remains great. But, this being the early 90’s and the very tip of Manga Mania, my next exposure was the kind with random, unfeasibly prehensile demon weiners, which put me off.

Anime is not a genre, but there are common elements across the various genres in anime.
It's mostly Japanese (the big show right now is Solo Leveling which started as Korean web novel, but the production for the anime is Japanese) and reflects different cultural values consistently across the board. There's some positive ones you'll see more frequently in slice of life stories, such as an emphasis on friendship, family, and doing your best at school, work, etc. I think we're all familiar with most objectionable negatives ones such as inappropriate depictions of underage girls and the 'looks like a 10-year old but is actually a 4,000 year old dragon' meme.
You also have things like chibi depiction of characters popping up across genres.

The biggest problem with anime is that it's generally aimed at teenagers so the most popular works are borderline mindless action like Dragonball or Solo Leveling OR they're sketchy romcoms like Sono Bisque Doll. I can't think of a single romcom that focuses on adult characters, but I'm not an expert.
The second biggest issue is that the animation quality varies wildly and tends to be poor outside of 'blockbuster' series. Another issue is that a decent amount of anime exist to sell manga so they may or may not ever have a followup season. On top of that, a fair amount of manga now are adaptations of light novels (think YA fiction) that may or may not ever be finished.

IMO, manga is generally better and has more variety. There are some notable exceptions such as Frieren greatly improving on fight scenes and pretty much every music manga benefits from having actual music.

Despite all of the above, if you're looking for great storytelling, it's extremely rare in both anime and manga.

Hmm, I don't know if you can really say Anime is mostly aimed at teens anymore. If you even ever could.

Even, or indeed especially, back in the 80s and 90s a lot of anime was definitely aimed at adults.

Most anime that gets made is definitely made for the adolescent/YA audience, but you'd have a hard time calling something like Monster or Ghost in the Shell (the original at least) as not aimed to at least appeal to an older adult audience in addition. Naruto and Bleach and the like get most of the publicity, but there's series that are produced to appeal to older audiences either as their primary demographic (Monster) or in addition to a younger demographic (Gunka no Baltzar, which can only appeal imo to college aged adults and history buffs).

I never expected to see a Monster shout here.

The core of Gundam was to teach kids that they shouldn't want to go to war. Where their friends will all die, and if your lucky, you'll end up alone in your military career. (See Char's Counterattack).

The existence of Shonen/Sienen as genres pretty much says that not all Anime is for teens. Because why would there be genres specifically for/about teens and growing up if that was the case. It implies the existence of not-for-teens/kids anime simply by existing.

No one said that all anime is for teens.

Edit: The magazine demographics are really weird and kind of disturbing when you dig into them. There are also some magazines that don't target a specific a target age/gender demographic and instead have a specific genre demographic that they target.

Noone here said it. But a lot of people who are not into anime have a lot of preconceived notions about it.

Like they might think all anime is just DBZ or One Piece type crap. Or its all Hentai/fanservice/pervy, etc... Its certainly far less common today, but it is still not unusual.

The general Anime artform is prone to slander thanks to some of the more unsavory or famous shows.