A few weeks back, Yumeka shared her unpopular Anime opinions which got me thinking, what are my unpopular opinions? Since I don’t necessarily have 10 unpopular Anime opinions to share, I will also cover some video game related stuff too. (Image Source)
My Unpopular Anime Options
1.I like Moe and I don’t think its “the cancer that’s killing Anime”
I have written two posts in defense of Moe, so it’s obvious what position I take on that issue. Of course, some people still have the idea that moe Anime is nothing but a mindless cute girls doing cute things. I don’t think that is necessarily the case since these shows can give one a different perspective on life and showing the things we tend to take for granted. Even so, I tend to enjoy these kinds of shows for the fact that they are soothing and fun to watch after a rough day of classwork, work or whatever.
2. I like all of the recent Kyoto Animation’s works although it’s not as good compared to past adaptations.
In the past year, it seems that there are a lot of people, especially the vocal ones accusing Kyoto Animation that they are “creatively bankrupt” and none of their new IPs are good. While I admit that I am a Kyoani fanboy, I don’t necessarily agree for the fact that I still enjoyed these shows for what they are. However, I admit that their recent shows aren’t as good compared to some of their past works or even the best recent IP, Chuunibyou. Still, I enjoyed Tamako Market, Free and Kyokai no Kanata as they have enjoyable characters and an interesting premise.
3. I tend to be too lenient and I rarely drop shows or give them really bad scores
To me, I would rather watch shows that I enjoy rather than bad shows for the sake of writing bad reviews. Sure, there will be shows that will have a good number of flaws, but it’s not a reason to give a bad score unless the flaws affected my enjoyment.
4. Yukiho is one of my favorite idols from The Idolmaster
While I do like Takane, Azusa and Chihaya as well, it seems that many Anime viewers did not like Yukiho because of her timid personality and her fear towards men and dogs. While I haven’t played her arc yet, I do find her becoming an idol in order to get over these fears and become more open one of the redeemable aspects I see in her character.
5. I like Idol Anime, but I dislike AKB0048
In last week’s editorial, I shared numerous aspects of idol anime that I enjoyed. While I enjoyed Love Live and The Idolmaster, I did not like AKB0048 not because AKB48 is everything that I disagree on how the girls are treated by the people who manage them, but there were a good number of things that turned me off when I watched the first two episodes. First, I couldn’t stand Nagisa’s voice and the premise was just strange. While I do enjoy a good amount of shows from Mari Okada (especially Nagi no Asukara), this show didn’t interest me at all, which is the reason I dropped it after two episodes.
6.I am biased against mecha Anime
Although I don’t have anything against mecha Anime, I just don’t have a particular interest in them for the fact that I would rather watch people or space ships fighting each other rather than large robots duke it out. Not only that, these shows tends to have a lot of complicated politics, which makes it difficult to follow. However, there are some exceptions since I did enjoy Suisei no Gargantia a lot, mostly for the fact that it focused more on the setting rather than on robot fights. While I’m open to watching other mecha shows like Macross Frontier and Evangelion in the future, it’s not my main priority.
7. I don’t think Anime is dying.
I wrote a whole editorial on this issue last year and at the end of the day, I think the lack of perspective is perhaps one of the reasons why people feel this way. There are always some good shows that are airing every season. It’s only the matter of finding them. As always, Sturgeon’s Law will always apply.
My Unpopular Video Game Opinions
1. I don’t like shooting games and I’m biased for Japanese made games
In recent years, I feel that first person shooters and violence overshadow everything else in regards to modern gaming these days. I just don’t have a particular interest in these games for the fact that I am not interested in killing people in video games. This is also why I prefer Japanese made games more than western games since they tend to focus more on plot while being more escapist and enjoyable to play.
Also, I highly disagree with Phil Fish and Jonathan Blow’s statement that Japanese games are horrible as there are going to be bad games from both sides. However, this doesn’t mean that I dislike western games as I enjoy the Portal series, Sims, and Simcity.
2. I don’t agree that Nintendo is doomed
Every time I read an article saying that Nintendo should give up the console business and make games for other consoles or embrace mobile, it makes me want to scream. While I admit that the Wii U is not doing that well since Nintendo didn’t market the console properly, they are still selling a lot of 3DSes! Although I don’t agree with some of their policies on region locking, I still think Nintendo makes a lot of enjoyable games and they should not give up no matter what the investors say.
3. I like Generation IV of Pokémon, but not Generation I and III
Sure, I admit that there were some bad Pokémon designs in Generation IV, one of the main reasons I like that generation is not because of the Gold and Silver remakes (Generation II was also my favorite generation), but being able to play online. The Wifi functions are what got me into competitive play. I started breeding Pokémon for natures and started to EV train my Pokémon, which I still do in the Generation VI games in addition to IV breeding.
On the other hand, the first Generation has increasingly become my least favorite. Besides the nostalgic value, Generation I has a lot of flaws such as broken gameplay mechanics (which in turn made the metagame very unbalanced), glitches and ugly sprites. Generation II fixed a lot of these issues, which is one of the reasons why I enjoyed the 2nd generation a lot more than the first.
Furthermore, I disliked Generation III for a simple reason: you couldn’t transfer Pokémon from Gold and Silver to the new games. Game Freak received a lot of flak because of this, thus they added a method of transferring Pokémon for each generation. Even so, breeding for natures was very painful until Emerald came along, which added nature passing with an Everstone while making it faster to hatch Pokémon by using a Pokémon with a special ability such as Flame Body.
4. I prefer playing as a female protagonist to a male one.
After playing games that have a female protagonist (Namely the Atelier and Neptunia games), I largely prefer it to male ones mostly because it challenges the status quo and show that females characters are capable of battling and doing the same things as a male protagonists. I think Japanese video game makers do a better job at portraying woman compared to the male counterpart for the fact that in some of these games, you play as one or have a choice of playing one and they tend not to overuse the Damsel in Distress trope.
____
With that, I hope you won’t think less of me because I think differently on some issues. Feel free to share some of your unpopular anime or video game opinions.
As for your opinions:
1. I agree with this. Also, they are not as shallow as what people tend to believe. However, I wished that these anime tone down the blatant and rampant lebianism.
2. Kyoukai no Kanata is good, but certainly not great as it was plagued with various issues, such as character roles, overly stylistic battles and awkward pacing.
3. Same with me. The only anime that I drop so far are Sakurasou no Pet no Kanojo, D-Frag and Saikyou Ginga Ultimate Zero: Battle Spirits.
4 & 5. No comment.
6. Mecha anime having heavy political themes is a misleading stereotype. Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince, Gundam Build Fighters and Buddy Complex are light or lack on the political themes, to name a few.
7. I agree with you. However, it’s very rare to find deeply thought provoking TV anime nowadays.
As for your video game opinions, I have no comment on them since that I stayed away from mainstream gaming for quite some time.
I do have my fair share of unpopular anime opinions:
1. Kill La Kill feels a lot like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece or (insert any battle shounen anime here).
2. Kids’ anime are very underrated and unappreciated by the anime blogging community despite being better than their older aged counterparts. Future Card Buddyfight is better than Z/X Ignition, Aikatsu! and Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live are better than Love Live! and Gundam Build Fighters is better than Kakumeiki Valvrave and Buddy Complex, for starters.
3. I would like to see a harem anime with zero fanservice, but that is not going to happen soon.
4. Just because an anime is aimed for a certain demographic does not mean that I have to watch it in the same way as how they watch it.
5. An anime can be good as a genre, but can bad as another.
6. Absurd comedy has to be both absurd and comedic. Just being absurd alone is not enough and worse, the absurdity would make the anime very unfunny instead. D-Frag! is a good example which ended up with me dropping it after just one episode.
7. I will never let others’ judgement of any anime influence my watching habits. If I like an anime, I will like it regardless how badly panned it is elsewhere.
My only unpopular video game opinion is simple: There is a world of unexplored freeware games which are no worse than your average games that you pay for. However, be prepared to get confused if you happen to get a game that is not in your language.
While I have a limited knowledge in that genre, I agree that not all shows in the genre is heavily focused on politics. But overall, interesting opinions. I think it will be interesting to see some some harem without fanservice, but I highly doubt there will be many considering the nature of the genre.
“Not only that, these shows tends to have a lot of complicated politics, which makes it difficult to follow.”
Actually for me, I find that not just for mecha anime, but usually anything that involves politics makes it harder for me to follow, which is ironic, considering that I was actually more comfortable with following mindwrecking plots, psychological horror and the likes.
Nintendo makes a lot of good games, while I did not delve into the Pokemon territory as much compared to other gamers, I have a number of favorite games from Nintendo too, ranging from Muramasa and Xenoblade. And speaking of which, since you have a Wii U, are you planning to buy the upcoming X (spiritual successor of Xenoblade)? It’s the game I’m most looking forward to if I’m ever getting my hands on a Wii U, well, as long as they don’t screw up the single-player campaign, since I heard it’s going to emphasize on multi-player a bit more.
“After playing games that have a female protagonist (Namely the Atelier and Neptunia games), I largely prefer it to male ones mostly because it challenges the status quo and show that females characters are capable of battling and doing the same things as a male protagonists. I think Japanese video game makers do a better job at portraying woman compared to the male counterpart for the fact that in some of these games, you play as one or have a choice of playing one and they tend not to overuse the Damsel in Distress trope.”
The only problem with this is that if they are making female protagonist, they like to over-sexuazlied their own protagonist. One example I would give is Bayonetta, but games like Dragon’s Crown comes to mind too. I personally don’t mind myself, but thousands of flames and rants in the net says otherwise… lol.
I can understand where you are getting at with the politics thing. In general, politics are complicated for the fact that different groups have different ideologies and beliefs. Not to mention, it can get outright dirty.
As for Xenoblade successor, I don’t plan on playing it for the fact that I didn’t even play any of the games in the series. My sister did, but she didn’t beat it yet.
Lastly, I see what you are getting at with female characters. It’s true that they tend to get sexualized for the fact that people don’t want to play as an unattractive character. The same can be said about male characters for the fact that we rarely see any weak ones, but most tend to look strong. But still, I wrote a whole editorial on this subject a few months back.
Those are some controversial opinions 😛 Although I don’t agree with all of them, it’s always fun to see people who aren’t afraid to share their beliefs. Keep it up (;
As they say, opinions are mostly subjective and one should take them a grain of salt.
Also, thanks.
I guess I’m among the people who hasn’t been too thrilled with KyoAni’s latest works. I don’t dislike them or anything and have enjoyed Chuunibyou, Free!, and Kyoukai no Kanata. I just haven’t liked them on the same level as Haruhi, Lucky Star, and Clannad After Story. I don’t mind that KyoAni is focusing on their own IPs…as I said, I still like their shows. It’s just that so far none has been able to impress that much and it makes me sad that now they’ll only animate their own series and won’t offer their lovely animation to other companies =/
That’s interesting that Gen. 1 is becoming your least favorite. I personally find that all those game glitches give the Gen. 1 games so much character and memorability, and define an age before the Internet where one little glitch could set off endless rumors and people could find all sorts of creative ways to exploit them. There was just nothing like it. But if we take nostalgia out, I guess I would say Gen. 4 is my favorite too because of the Internet capabilities, being able to transfer pokemon, and mostly because it helped bring back a lot of fans who had lost interest in the franchise (XY seem to be doing that now too actually…)
I know a few other guys who prefer to play as female characters in video games so you’re not alone there 😉
I agree that their own IPs aren’t up to par compared to adaptations. Even so, I still think they need to improve in that aspect. While PA Works tend to focus less on adaptations, at least I feel that they have something that stands out about them instead of focusing on similar humor, which is apparent in Kyokai no Kanata and Tamako Market.
As for the first Gen, Genwunners (people who think that Generation I is the best generation and every other generation after sucks) is kind of the sticking point. I admit that I used to play around with cheat codes in Pokemon Blue, especially to get Missingno to appear and catch it, which of course allows one to duplicate Rare Candies and other items while messing up the Hall of Fame. Of course, while Generation I will have a place for nostalgia, of course its not one of my most favorite generations as Gen II was better in every aspect and most importantly, the Genwunners ruined it for me.