I heard the song “Crazy” at work recently, and it made me think about anime a bit, and what I like about it. The song is very pessimistic, and angsty. Well, anyone can angst, but what are you going to do about it? And are you really sure everything’s all bad, or are you just suffering from bias?
In the best anime, there’s always some sort of challenge that the characters are facing. There are exceptions, but generally anime without a challenge isn’t good anime. The challenge can be as simple as “make it through the day as an apartment manager with several tenants who are perfectly capable of killing me while I study for my entrance exams” — but it is almost always present. Often, the challenge is even more over the top.
Too many movies nowadays are just lowest-common-denominator body horror, or at least it seems that way to me. Take the Saw series, or the latest Alien vs Predator. Where is the message? Where is the soul?
There are exceptions, of course. But overall, with competition like this, that consistently goes for high-budget effects and cheap gross-out plot lines, how can I not like anime?