Halo fan idiocy

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A friend of mine in WoW once called the condition of some of the idiotic WoW players, "14 year old halo wars syndrome" or something like that. Essentially, dont worry too much about the idiocy of Halo players . . . most of them are still getting used to the hormones now being poured into their systems.

I enjoyed the Halo games and I thought some of the books I read were actually pretty decent. I think they're a bit over rated by people, though. I haven't really been able to understand the mad obsession with the series.

I was down for a Halo movie after I saw those three shorts by the guy that did District 9. Thought they were really good. But an anime? Nope. My interest flat out died when they said anime. I would have given a western cartoon a chance, but I personally just can't stand the Japanese style cartoons. I've never understood the love for anime either. *

* I've seen an enjoyed a handful of Japanese animation, but they really were the exception.

Well what type of anime, there are many types, they also tend to be able to do more mature cartoons. To the japanese at least adult cartoon does not mean smut and they can be rich in story, art, music etc., and realy you shouldnt judge something before hand. Well regardless it will probably be more designed for westeners anyway, I just hope that it doesnt turn into an Afro Samurai which was designed for westeners aswell.

I think it's perfectly understandable why it receives flak for being an anime: Animé usually means cutting corners. Key frames, low frame rate, less actual animation, all in favor of shots of the characters head while they stand perfectly still, with the only moving part being their mouth, while they spew out crappy dialogue. I guess it basically comes down to this: If you don't the resources or the will to actually animate something, your work will suck. Or rather, you could do animé. Note that these are problems with ALL animé series, hence why it applies to this particular one. Also, all characters look the same in animé, so even if by some miracle they get past what makes anime suck, I personally wouldn't be able to take it seriously when some soldier takes off his helmet and reveals his meter-high spiky blue hair, which strangely enough is shared by all his squadmates, just with varying colors. And for some reason, they all have the same face. Good thing they have different colors of hair, huh?

Being better animated doesn't save the vast majority of Western cartoons from sucking, either.
Also, from an animation/framerate standpoint, anime puts more focus on suggesting movement using stance & positioning (like in the old Japanese paintings), which is why it has 'key frames' and a 'low frame rate'.
Seriously man, you need to do your homework before you go spouting your BS. And you really shouldn't be talking until after you've seen much more than just Pokemon/Dragonball Z/Bleach/Naruto/anything by Hayao Miyazaki/etc. - mainstream anime like those don't count towards your opinion at all.

Also, at least anime generally has better storytelling/character development and caters to many more demographics than Western cartoons. I usually see Western cartoons being targeted to either kids, teenagers, or "mature" audiences. Anime has tons of different genres, meaning it's got something for just about everyone.

Personally, I'd rather watch an anime than some blah superhero cartoon with bad writing & stupidly overpowered/nigh-unrelateable characters that all look the same & like they're on steroids (and that probably would've been better as a comic book anyway, but not by much) or some random dumbass slapstick Looney Tunes-esque kids' show, or some "mature" animated comedy whose material eventually grew stale (case and point, South Park/The Simpsons/90% of everything on Adult Swim/and to a lesser extent, Family Guy & American Dad).
If you're gonna state why you dislike anime and hope to be taken seriously, then do so like Hal 9000 did - without all your arrogant elitist fanboy BS.

Last edited by EnigmaticPhilosophy on 13 Sep 2009, 4:47 am, edited 6 times in total.

Oh, and before you try to play the "realism" card, let me just state that realism is in fact THE most overrated art style ever in the entire history of art.
The problem with realism is that it has a total lack of style. It is exactly that - realistic - and nothing else. Furthermore, the distortion of and/or lesser amount of detail to realistic features to at least a small degree is precisely what constitutes a style. Realism is the exact opposite of that, hence its large amount of attention to every single detail.

Is this based on the infamy from the Evangelion days, I myself have not yet realy started that for some reasons you mentioned. Though more modern day anime are much better, no longer do characters stand still and only mouth moves, the art has gotten really good, and usualy sucky dialogue is related to translation problems or censoring issues. And as far as I know the writing will be set for english dialogue.

Anyway it is very common for there to be a large variety of expressions, and as of late have been some amazing emotion in movements of certain talking parts that makes most made by the west look sad. And to sugest that everyone will look the same with big spikey hair, most anime has a wide variety of hair styles, usualy very fitting to the story, so it would be easy to expect such. You want me to sugest something that uses millatry and goes against your points including FMP especialy the thrid season, Hellsing Ultimate and Code Geass. I think they would clearly show how anime has changed and an anime adaption of Halo could be a great idea.

Um, no they aren't.
They are normally plauged by cliches, bad writing, poor storytelling, generic and/or uninteresting characters, and fan-service. The only truly notable improvements made in modern anime are seen in the overall quality of the art and the animation. As for everything else, almost all of the best anime came out during the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Well EC was complaining about animation. There has been some interesting ones lately they are not all filled with cliches. I could name Shaft anime that do a pretty good job at being quite either stepping off chliches or mocking them, though their animation is kind of goes artistic and can be confusing, or Spice and Wolf, able to make europian dark age trading interesting and though it could focus on fanservice it leans more on trading.

First off, I'm not a fanboy. Now, you can't argue against technical limitations. What you call "suggesting movement" is all fine and good, but the way I've seen it used in animé is as a replacement for hard work. For example, a sword is swung, but rather than seeing the sword raised and swung and subsequently perried, we hear it being swung and see a still-image for 2 seconds of what seems to be the middle of a fight, followed by yet another one. Repeat until one of them is dead, at which time we get to see another still image of the side of a character's face as their mouth flaps up and down(looks like they're chewing fast, not talking) to cheesy dialogue. And when it does get into its "groove" of actual animation, it's only in special moments, whereas proper vanilla cartoons have to have that the entire way through. The reason for all these problems is pretty obvious - It's not really about art, because Japan churns out so many animés, and as a result, general quality has clearly suffered, and it shows when you see the occasional good animé. Also, yeah, Family Guy, South Park aren't exactly phenomenal pieces of art.

But look at some of the stuff from Disney, like The Little Mermaid or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, check out pretty much anything from Disney and you'll see where I'm coming from with the animation stuff - Animé is way behind as far as actual animation goes.

The way you describe anime in general makes it extremely difficult for me (or anyone else) to believe you. Your post in fact came across as quite fanboyish, arrogant, elitist, as well as lacking in supporting evidence, which makes it very hard for you to be taken seriously.


You have no idea of just how badly that statement hurts your argument.
According to your logic both Japan and the West suffer from "technical limitations" of some sort.


According to your logic the West is just as lazy as Japan is, but in different ways.
There is a general attitude in the West that cartoons are really only for children with a few exceptions - which is clearly not true. It is this attitude that prevents them from creating truly good works most of the time, due to censorship, mediocrity and such.


A fluidly animated cartoon is not automatically a good cartoon. It is simply a fluidly animated cartoon - unless everything else about it is good as well. Also, most Western cartoons are chock full of 'cheesy dialogue' - anime is in no way the only culprit of this.


You know, similar things can also be said of the vast majority of Western cartoons. True, they are generally more fluidly animated than anime, but they are also generic/boring/stupid/unfunny enough that they suck ass regardless of the fact.


Neither is The Simpsons, or most of Adult Swim's stuff.
Very few Western cartoons can be considered good works of art because the studios that produced them are more concerned about money than anything else, and it really shows in the overall quality & entertainment value of their work.


That doesn't save Disney movies in general from being mediocre at best, and their animation has nothing to do with it.

Last edited by EnigmaticPhilosophy on 16 Sep 2009, 5:57 am, edited 9 times in total.

Understand, animation is but one of several aspects of what makes a good cartoon.
And since EC was really only using animation to support his claims, I just cannot take his argument seriously. Also, while there indeed are interesting modern animes, they are also very few in number. I personally enjoy older anime more than modern anime (with some exceptions) because while their animation may be lacking, they are at least entertaining.

Last edited by EnigmaticPhilosophy on 13 Sep 2009, 10:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I rarely see this hapen, one such example where the complete opposite is found in Samurai Champloo. The fight scenes can vary, but usualy they are usualy people suround the main characters attempt to hit the main characters, and either blocked or dodged in a well animated and entertaining way, almost like a dance. The characters then strike back one uses controled bursts being quick leaving a trail of blood or desmembered limbs, and the other puts his intir body into it very interstingly involving handstands and stuff. And a side view of faces with mouth flap + bad dialogue afterwards never hapend often if they did we would see the enitre body if they chose to speak, but it was always interesting.

I rarely see this hapen, one such example where the complete opposite is found in Samurai Champloo. The fight scenes can vary, but usualy they are usualy people suround the main characters attempt to hit the main characters, and either blocked or dodged in a well animated and entertaining way, almost like a dance. The characters then strike back one uses controled bursts being quick leaving a trail of blood or desmembered limbs, and the other puts his intir body into it very interstingly involving handstands and stuff. And a side view of faces with mouth flap + bad dialogue afterwards never hapend often if they did we would see the enitre body if they chose to speak, but it was always interesting. Actualy I will show an AMV which shows the fight scenes.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2i5W7jux6I[/youtube]

Your complaint is outdated, though some of the long series may use some tricks to save animation, this will be an OVA which generaly have even better animation.

I just took a look at the anime you showed an excerpt from, and I see the same problems in that one; they put a little extra effort into the fight sequences, and the rest suffers from the problems I listed; rough transitions in movement(translation: Lack of animation), or total lack of actual animation on screen, mouth being the only thing that moves while doing a side or front-shot of the face and so on. FYI, I'm watching this one here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUUAj97u ... re=related

My argument really isn't outdated, it still holds true from what I've seen so far from the one you listed. If there are some others I should check I'm all ears, but so far I'm not impressed.

Sorry, but a single fight scene from a single show does not count towards your opinion at all. You need to watch a lot more anime before you formulate such a strong opinion, and you need to watch them without bias.
Also, from what I see here you continue to claim that good animation quality = good cartoon, which isn't true - it's the whole package that matters. Characters, story, writing, presentation, voice acting, etc.
Animation is only one part of the package, and using only that as an example is nowhere near enough evidence to back up your claims.
So far, it looks a lot like you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Last edited by EnigmaticPhilosophy on 16 Sep 2009, 5:51 am, edited 1 time in total.