Oversexualization. Panty shots, ass shots, boob physics, the same old jokes from the ‘80s about a guy “accidentally” groping a woman, guys peeping into a girls’ space, suggestive poses, barely-disguised fetishes (included, but not limited to, harems, incest and pedophilia).

It got to the point where a friend would recommend an anime, I’d watch it, and walk away halfway through the first or second episode because it was just unbearable. Friends would tell me to turn a blind eye, but why the fuck should I put up with sexualizing minors in a show? I’d rather spend my time doing something that doesn’t make me feel sick.

It also attracts the wrong kind of audience. Since the medium is so keen to produce oversexualized content, that’s all people look for and talk about. Any anime discussion thread degenerates into gross memes about “flat is justice”, “twincest is wincest”, people patting each other in the shoulder while calling the other “man of culture” for sharing their kinks, and shit like that. It’s so extenuating that, back when I was interested in the medium, I still actively refrained from interacting with fellow fans because I felt grossed out by them. Fun fact, I had a female classmate back in highschool who was interested in anime, and I thought that I could find common grounds with her, but no, it was the same thing, just reversed (she would only watch anime with sexualised boys).

The medium also forgot what its name stands for. I haven’t seen “animation” in “anime” in years. It’s just still frames and more still frames and whenever there’s an action sequence, the characters will constantly interrupt them to explain or think about the thing that I’m already watching and needs no explanation, or having flashback sequences, because it’s cheaper to animate. The fact that Ghost in the Shell and Akira from thirty years ago had better and more fluid animation than the shit they produce now is just sad.

Because most of it uses overly simplistic characters. There’s no depth to them. They’re good because they’re good, they’re bad because they’re bad.

No nuance!

The stories are overly simplistic too.

Not all of them are like this, but enough of them are that I’m just tired of the genre.

I don’t but I hate anime that rely on awful tropes like exploiting underage girls or the typical sister incest stuff (I would say brother-sister but this also applies to sister-sister)

I also find powerfantasy isekais boring

If you draw women like children, and then give them high pitched voices, like children, and have them act girlish and foolish like pre-teen girls, and then sexualize them…There is something very very fucking wrong with you. Anime “purists” can deny it all they want, but it’s inherently tied in/related to fake waifu girlfriends and lonely neckbeards drawing naked waifus all over DeviantArt.

It’s skeevy as shit and I refuse to pretend otherwise.

I generally don’t talk about it, but because you asked, I have seen a lot of anime and hate most of it. I have seen Hellsing, Hellsing Ultimate, about 9/10 of the OG run of Fullmetal Alchemist, a lot of Ranma 1/2, Serial Experiments Lain, Akira, some Death Note, La Blue Girl, some tennis one I can’t remember the name of, Castlevania, a few Studio Ghibli movies, Attack on Titan S1 & 2, random episodes of Samurai Pizza Cats, all of One Punch Man, Interspecies Reviewers, Slayers, some DiC Sailor Moon, some early Pokemon, and a few Dragonball, YuGiOh, Digimon, and Naruto episodes.

I don’t count early GI Joe or Transformers even though they’re technically anime, but I didn’t like those either.

Of those, I liked Interspecies Reviewers, about 1.5 seasons of OPM, 1 season of Castlevania, and Hellsing Abridged (because it’s fucking hilarious).

Here’s a random top 10 of reasons:

1. Anime has a horrible habit of having a great premise, a lot of repeated setup, and then zero payoff followed by a new season escalating with the same. In short, great at premise, poor at developing it into a story. And endings? They have no idea how to end a series except for fighting bigger bad guys…
2. And that’s IF they can even be arsed to finish a series. I’m aware of the timeframe dynamic between manga and anime. It fucked over Game of Thrones too. Maybe we just agree not to start a show before the source material is done?
3. Much of the animation looks abysmal and the “serious” ones seem to have an awful habit of just… panning over a background or frozen characters in a scene for fucking ever to fill time. I made note of this during Serial Experiments Lain to my friend who was making me watch it and it basically ruined the show for him. It completely wrecked the pacing and was done CONSTANTLY. There were 45 second pans (which I would start audibly counting after 10 seconds) while the main character just monologued “I’m 12 and this is deep” bullshit that was nearly completely disconnected from the plot. There was no reason to do this. Even recent shows like Castlevania did this.
4. Shit just happens that doesn’t make any sense in context of the world they’ve set up. This is endemic from anime I’ve seen. Anime fans think that randomness is “creative” instead of just “throwing shit at a screen because the writer had a fever dream and it doesn’t matter at all if it makes any fucking sense”. Spirited Away is basically just this. No, randomness is not creativity, Katy the Penguin of Doom.
5. They’re just a different set of tropes than American cartoons, many of which I find to be nonsensical, twee, or cringe-inducing. Bloody nose when you get a boner trope, I’m looking at you.
6. I fucking hate Japanese voice acting (and often for the most part the Americans who dub it, especially in kids shows). This started when Sailor Moon came over and I wanted to kill everyone in the immediate vicinity whenever most of the characters spoke. That shrill panic screaming that was in SM and Pokemon was awful.
7. In the same vein, I also can’t stand constant “reaction sounds”. Someone saying something mildly surprising that you should have easily realized 10 episodes ago isn’t an excuse to stare blankly and make an “AH”, “OH”, or “UH” noise (sometimes followed by a small choking sound) roughly four hundred times per episode. Humans don’t do this.
8. They make movies that just do random shit and don’t have anything to do with the show (if not outright contradict the show). Dragonball is especially notorious for this.
9. A really weird number of them throw in Nazis seemingly at random, appropriate time and setting be damned. Need a bad guy? Fucking Nazis!
10. I am constantly inundated with friends that like anime telling me that I should watch whatever their new anime obsession is despite it conforming to 3/4 of bad things on this list because obviously I just haven’t watched the right anime.

Tropes, filler, sexualization, the need to categorize or name things and stick to that strict hierarchy (ie. power levels), and laat but not least, the surrounding culture. Probably some other stuff I’m not thinking of as well.

Notably, the anime which doesn’t include these problems can reach some pretty high highs, because anime excels at motion and emotion.

I get asked this question a lot, because I love many traditional Japanese cultures, but not anime. First of all, I don’t hate it, I still respect it, but it’s simply not my cup of tea.

I often find it to be overstimulating and sexualized. someone said it’s like food with too much salt, that perfectly describes it for me. It’s just too over the top sometimes. The sexualization is also off putting. It’s a constant distraction from the plot and undermines the rest of the characters and story.

I also don’t like the voice acting style, where it is again overbearing, especially for women characters. That’s not what people sound like. It’s way too high pitched and trying way too hard to sound “cute”.

I never got into it and people online make it seem cringy. I know there’s probably good stuff out there but weebs are just so weird to me. Love Studio Ghibli and Akira. And used to love Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon - but as an adult never got into the shows.

I love how all the comments have caveats. Maybe that’s just the Lemmy demographic.

I’ve got a weird relationship with anime. Never really watched it as a kid, except for pokemon.

Two of my best friends were weebs in high school, so I got into some there, went to some cons with them after graduation. I’d binge with college friends pretty regularly, but it’s never really been something I seek out on my own for some reason. I guess I’m a social watcher.

My taste is odd for it, too. It’s mostly about gems in the rough and based on vibes. A lot just doesn’t hit, and I can’t always tell why some things do.

It’s like… I feel like I have to look up if there’s any weird stuff before I can get into any of it. Like I love fma (brotherhood ftw) and really enjoyed Death Note and some Netflix shows. But I couldn’t finish sword art online. I should have known when an early episode introduced a little girl voice trope character… Who was almost immediately attacked by tentacles.

Sex stuff doesn’t bother me (laughed my ass off at the wild food war competition show) but the kid stuff is fucking weird. And it’s common enough that I stick to other media mostly

I’m generally picky about how I spend large amounts of time. As an adolescent I watched like 700 episodes of One Piece but I eventually gave up. At this point I can’t be bothered with any Shonen; they’re the equivalent of junk food. Even Mob Psycho 100 started getting tiresome in season 3.

I’ve never appreciated bishoujo/harem garbage; I had coworkers that watched it regularly and it was very off-putting. They are horny and delusional, pretending there is substance.

But I still think there’s a lot of solid art in manga/anime. I tend to look for popular seinen manga that turned into anime, like Akira, Berserk, Monster, Ghost in the Shell, Death Note, One Punch Man. But even some of those end up going downhill or failing to evolve out of the “edgy and violent” stage, e.g. Attack on Titan.

Clearly the garbage is what makes money, which is a huge shame.

And AFAIK Hayao Miyazaki does not like to be associated with the Anime genre and would prefer being grouped with the likes of Disney. And I think that’s quite appropriate.

Youre mistaking indifference for hatred.

I wouldn’t say I hate it, but I can’t watch it.

I used to love it. I was obsessed in the early 2000’s. Then I went to college for animation, and learning about how that all works absolutely ruined all enjoyment for anime.

I don’t hate it but I think a lot of japanese anime and video-games have an awful pacing that make it so boring for me. The stories make too much time to move on. So slow.

I have tried a lot of anime (Myazaki, the titan’s thingy…) and videogames because fans don’t stop talking about it but it’s just not my cup of tea.

Never watched it because the characters all look creepy to me. I remember other kids watching “Speed Racer” back in the 70s, so I referred to as “that crappy Japanese animation style” until I learned the name for it when it really took off in the US after around 2000.

I know that makes me something of a Philistine. I’m aware that it has a rich history and millions (billions?) of devoted fans.

It still creeps me out, though.