I like shojo anime

MillerCross · 2011-09-25 15:51:49

I just don't think it's a negative trait, which is why I brought up less episodical series.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-25 15:53:45

Those series are all still episodic in that it's not expected that you'll watch large portions of them in one sitting.

MillerCross · 2011-09-25 15:55:13

The Wire is.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-25 15:58:03

Bear in mind, The Wire's original format was the standard TV "you can watch one episode per week. If you miss it, tough."

MillerCross · 2011-09-25 15:59:30

Well, yeah, I know that, but what does the tone of an episode matter if the episode advances the plot and it doesn't damage characterization?

Also, even if it was distributed and published in an episodical fashion, it's still hardly told in an episodical fashion.

glennmagusharvey · 2011-09-25 16:00:47

It matters because it interacts with the viewers' expectations of the show.

MillerCross · 2011-09-25 16:02:37

Eh, I think that sometimes expectations need to be confronted. What's the fun in fiction if you don't get a curveball every few times.

RedEyedAbyss · 2011-09-25 16:05:10

I agree so long as it's not to the level of making Seymour Skinner really be Armin Tamzarian.

MillerCross · 2011-09-25 16:07:20

I'd say that's not a really a curveball so much as taking the ball to the catcher and claim that's a strike

/Killing the metaphor.

Malkavian · 2011-09-25 16:20:13

People keep mentioning Generic X is better than Generic Y.

Why waste your time with the generic ones?

There are interesting Shonen (Rurouni Kenshin, Black Cat, the original Gundam)

There are also intersting harem animes like... uh...

Ok so I don't really watch harem anime but I'm sure there are some.

MillerCross · 2011-09-25 16:21:50

^ Haruhi is a sort of Harem show, isn't it?

I don't understand the concept of Harem well here, so. >.>

Malkavian · 2011-09-25 16:23:05

Yeah sort of, though from what I've gathered in harem shows, all the women are basically fighting over him.

Also, there's Rosario + Vampire which is both,

DYRE · 2011-09-25 16:23:39

Haruhi's pretty much a harem anime, and it's good. Nadesico is also awesome and has harem elements. Clannad is decent. ...and... er... I'm sure there are others too that are good.

EDIT: Ninja'd about Haruhi.

Icalasari · 2011-09-25 16:56:43

"I recommend you watch the first porygon episode in Pokémon."

I've seen the seizure clip

Soooo Preeeeetty

Noimporta · 2011-09-25 17:22:27

Shounen has stuff like FMA and TTGL , shoujo has stuff like Ouran and Princess Tutu.

Most Shonen is like Naruto/Bleach/One Piece, most shoujo is like Skip Beat/Vampire Knight.

Both have a tons of mediocre stuff, some awful stuff and a few gems.

As for harem shows, Haruhi is pretty good, Nadesico is good too, among the more fanservicey ones, Vandread is fine... and I guess Ouran would count as a harem too.

AHR · 2011-09-25 17:22:55

School Days

TheMightyAnonym · 2011-09-25 22:07:04

One of my favorite anime ever:

It's also what inspired me to select culinary management.

Nova · 2011-09-26 04:04:15

>The story is written better than most Shōnen stories

>The female characters actually do SOMETHING instead of being useless bitches

>The magic system is highly researched and extremely detailed

>The whole series is well-researched

>The fights are more complex and interesting than "two Flying Bricks hit each other until one keels over" (Negi/Rakan fight is a good example)

>The manga knows when to be less serious and when to be serious without falling into melodrama

>The characters are generally characterized rather well (including the Female ones--most Shōnen fail in this respect)

Time for me to start going into rave-about-stuff-nobody-cares-about mode, I guess.

Negima is really not that good a manga. It's... better than Bleach, Naruto and the like, but that's really not saying much. It's like saying 'Neighbours is better than Home and Away'- it might be true, and it might have good points, but long-running dramas and sitcoms and the like are just fucking terrible, with the good ones being very rare. The same applies here- Negima is pretty bad, albeit it's still enjoyable, and there's the key difference; you can enjoy something that's bad.

I will say, right off the bat, that Soul Eater is not very good. Many characters don't get fleshed out, there's a lot of unexplained powerups, and I'm still not even sure what happened at the end of the anime except giant mecha death city. It's a guilty pleasure of mine.

However, even it is better than Negima. Character arcs are better handled- Compare Soul by the start of the series to Soul at the end, and note how he's actually achieved his goal of being a cool guy, even though nobody ever actually brings any attention to it. Or, hell, even take a look at Chrona; even after Maka befriends him/her, that's not just it, s/he's not just relegated to the status of a background character. The villains are still using her- s/he betrays them in the anime on Medusa's orders, then nearly leaves until Maka tracks her down and convinces her to stay, at which point she tracks down Medusa and tries to kill her (his/her own mother) for Maka's sake, and in the manga s/he has been driven insane and is turning into a Kishin herself, and Maka is delaying the hunt for Asura to track down Chrona and save her.

Compare this to, say, Kotaro, who is introduced very early in the manga as an antagonist, defects to the hero's side after a while, and then... is nearly irrelevant to the story as a whole, apart from a single romantic plot thread of his that is rarely mentioned.

A lot of things just happen in Negima. Negi, a ten-year-old kid, is trying to track down his father. He's accessing all of these super-sooper-ultimate powers. He's got all these older women lusting after him. It's just... really generic.

Hell, the only reason I still occasionally keep up with it is because I like Konoka and Setsuna.

And that's another point. It's very easy to flesh out all the female characters if you slap a trait on them and call it a personality, then neglect to add in more than a couple of male characters.

If you want to see a good example of a shounen, go watch ~~Soul Eater~~ Fullmetal Alchemist. It is infinitely better- not just in my opinion, but objectively; its' characters are actually fleshed out, it has a full mythology behind it, the villains are actually dangerous, the main characters have a motivation for continuing their quest...

Watch Fullmetal Alchemist, then go back to Negima. Honestly. Just try and tell me Negima is as good as you think it is now if you have a good example of the genre under your belt.

BecNoir · 2011-09-26 06:29:48

Whoa thar.

I know Chagen (how do you pronounce that anyway? Chah-gin? Chay-jin? Chay-gen?) might be annoying at times, but you don't have to go into Subnormality Mode.

Nova · 2011-09-26 06:31:38

But that was after I trimmed away all the excess words and stuff ;~;

I tend to write longer points when I'm being a bit serious. It helps me to get my point across.

MillerCross · 2011-09-26 06:45:55

Laconism is better baby.

also, comparisons to other shonen don't really matter when your argument is still "Negima is the best manga", as I've stated before.

Nova · 2011-09-26 06:49:54

Laconism is better.

Making my point understandable is even better than that.

And don't call me baby.

RE comparisons: Yes it does. If Negima cannot even stand on its' own feet as a good example of a shonen, then the argument that it is the best manga as a whole has already lost water.

MillerCross · 2011-09-26 07:02:51

Making my point understandable is even better than that.

>Implying they're mutually exclusive.

>Implying there really was a point in there beyond "Negima doesn't flesh its characters out as well as other Shonen shows, which are Example and Example, which do it better"

And don't call me baby.

General baby.

...shaddap, it totally makes sense.

Nova · 2011-09-26 07:11:55

Implying they're mutually exclusive.

maybe for people with a BRAIN

Implying there really was a point in there beyond "Negima doesn't flesh its characters out as well as other Shonen shows, which are Example and Example, which do it better"

The point in there was 'Negima is lacking in a lot of departments, the same as a lot of standard shonen shows. Take a look at this example, as compared to a better show which does it better (highlighted with examples from both shows). Negima lacks here, here and here, too, most points of which are easier to understand if you've watched a few shonen shows, but this post is already a page long and too many people will already tl;dr it, so I won't add examples here. I suggest you go watch X shows, which are much better examples of the genre, so you can see how a good show plays it out, then go back to Negima with some understanding of its' flaws under your belt.'

In other words, I need that Something Awful [words] emoticon.

General baby.

what

Icalasari · 2011-09-26 07:21:28

"General baby"

?

Chagen · 2011-09-26 07:41:18

I don't care what you said, Cygan, Negima is still the best manga ever to me.

No argument will convince me out of this irrrational stance. At all.

Nova · 2011-09-26 07:43:21

Then please go away.

In fact, I have an image for you.

AHR · 2011-09-26 07:52:34

Cygs: I have heard that Negima is actually pretty good at handling a large cast (at least, compared to Naruto), have I been misinformed?

Nova · 2011-09-26 07:55:12

It doesn't handle it terribly.

But it also doesn't do it good.

It does it poorly, but not terribly.

The problem is, the majority of its' characters don't really do anything, and when they do, it's either not something that is integral to the story and could have easily been dropped, or something that could have easily been done via another means.

There is very little meaningful character interaction, and many of the characters barely develop at all.

It's still done better than most shows that feature large supporting casts.

Unfortunately, that's a very low bar to pass over.

Even Bleach does it better than Negima does.

AHR · 2011-09-26 07:56:24

...well, I haff been misinformed, then. I feel cheated, somehow.

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I like shojo anime

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