How My Anime Tastes Have Evolved

When your new to the anime world you think the first few anime’s you watch will be your favorites for life, you’ll build up a concept of wanting to not check out other shows. I’m sure for others including myself, we’ve all gone through this stage. I’m glad I am finally getting around writing this reflection piece on where my anime tastes lie now and have evolved.

Back in England I only was obsessed with Yugioh, Sailor Moon, Dragonball z Etc, I knew nothing beyond that. My interest in anime really took off when I moved to Australia, met my best friend at the time (not friends now). I remember the first sleepover we had, binged watch all of the sailor moon as I had never seen the whole series, it was from this moment my love for anime really grew. After that I was watching anything my friend suggested to me or had been recommended to me because of this, I still have that openness now of giving any anime a chance. It took a long time to get out of ideals I had of not wanting to check out other shows or genres.

 

The first few anime’s I ever watched set in motion for me, of where my interests would lie. One genre love that has grown so big now is Mecha, I feel a fully fledged Mecha girl. Gundam Wing was the first of this genre I ever watched, good old Toonami for airing amazing stuff such as this. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen the series and one I crave to own in my collection but I remember just falling in love with the space setting, battles and the plot. It was exciting and thrilling, After that it was a long time before I watched my next Mecha/Military type show, Full Metal Panic, most know how dear this series is to me. First time watching it was so exciting, Sosuke, Kaname and the comedy stole the show, just after that I craved more for Mecha.

Gundam Wing is very important to me also as it’s where my Gundam loved began but that evolved more after seeing Gundam Seed Destiny. Haha though at the time I didn’t know to watch Seed first. Mecha genre over the years I know not a lot of people are a fan of “Just robots fighting” “plots are complicated”, usual remarks I’ve heard. I’m a crime of thinking this way whenever I watched Gundam Wing but from when I saw Destiny, my opinion completely changed. A lot of plots revolve around the theme war, the strength and weakness of the human heart, the greed of humans. This is what I love about this genre most, the representation of these themes by far Seed has delivered on this brilliantly to date. Any mecha show I’ve seen even, most of recent Gundam Blood Orphans, the deep emotion behind these complicated plots you’ll get lost in anyway, is something that will keep making me love this genre.

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Mecha genre has grown not the most, as a genre I’ve hardly seen any is Slice of Life. I didn’t really know way back what was considered “Slice of Life”, never had a true understanding of what it involved. The first type I recall watching was Air, having a fantasy aspect all about a sick girl was what made me want to watch it. In the end Air became forgettable to me as I didn’t really enjoyed the show and one part of it went off topic, just confused me. I do still feel that way about the series a little, but founding a new appreciation for this genre, Amanchu from the summer 2016 season changed all that. I’ve talked about this series a fair bit on my blog when I first watched it for it’s serene simplicity, myself connecting with the show based from a realism perspective. Story about two girls who meet, end up connecting with one another over diving and watching their daily happenings.

With Slice of Life anime if you’ve never seen any or are unsure, you need to take a step back see the realism, relation to real life it conveys. That is what I learned when I finally watched Amanchu, up on my list to watch next are shows such as Sweetness and Lightning, Barakmon. I feel bad I am only now beginning to explore this genre more, taken me so long but I’m thankful for the series Amanchu for opening my eyes.

 

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My loves for Mecha and Slice of Life have evolved a lot but one that continues to always grow even more was when my interest into unknown, older titles starter. Escaflowne was the reason it all started, at the time of getting into this series was not that talked about. Unlike now this year of his Kickstarter fund by Funmation it got a re-release to celebrate 20 years, this made me really happy to see. Anime years of 80’s, 90’s I have not explored enough of yet shows like Yu Yu Hakisho, Ayashi no Ceres, I feel like if I had not watched Escaflowne don’t think I would have been bothered much. People say 80 or 90’s year of anime is cheesy more towards the 90’s, older animation, lots of evolving cliches which are too well known now. I love all these things to do with this era of anime, it’s nostalgia for so many of this time frame and the reason I started my blog was to explore more of these shows that deserve to be known more. Next on my list to buy actually is Ayashi no Ceres, I love Yu Watase work and that all came from watching Fuishi Yugi. If it weren’t for seeing Escaflowne all these years ago I wouldn’t have discovered my interest in older titles of anime.

 

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A big leap in my tastes was again this year from never having seen any sports anime. In honesty I had no interest in this genre to begin with but the excitement and hype seeing from other anime fans made me curious. Certain people don’t get why fan go crazy over watching cartoons about sports where they can just watch the real thing? If you think about there’s many people who don’t watch or play sports at all. Sports anime I discovered just gives you this exciting thrill and the representation of each sport is easy to understand of how it’s played through anime. I chose Chihayafuru as my first sports anime, all about a competitive card game surrounded the 100 poems of Japan, it doesn’t sound all that exciting? My initial first thoughts were this but following of how the game works and the dazzling animation makes this an experience of feeling like your there. Sports anime have that huge impact just like in real sport of making you want to cheer for the team, brings tears when someone looses, relating to life sport experiences from a personal perspective, it has the power to do so. This is why anime fans love sports anime and I wish I had been roped in sooner, it’s something exciting to differ in your anime watching, bring you the thrills.

 

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The above genres I have talked about are the main genre interests that have evolved for me but there are other minor things that have changed when it comes to watching anime. I hardly was someone that wanted to keep up with seasonal anime but it has become so main stream, more shows coming out every season, I just want to keep up with all of them. I’m still open as I talked about in the beginning of the post of giving any show a go but that has wavered a little, I feel it’s easy to accept when I’m not enjoying something to stop watching it. But the fact of me wishing to get through half a show at least to see If I wish to continue still I do this. This ideal I had of watching only one show at a time, bleh don’t do that no longer but I won’t watch more than 4 shows at a time, need some limit still.

Never thought I would be gladly to admit I like the ecchi/harem shows which so many others get sick of it. I find them always funny and I watch mainly when I need something to lift my spirits. Fan service way back used to bother quite a bit, now I don’t care. Doesn’t matter if it’s a lot or a little of fan service honestly doesn’t bother only it does if the characters look 12 you know lolli’s. I use to have shame admitting I like Yaoi and Yuri, kept it secret for 3 or 4 years but became more openly about it over the last two, letting out my inner fan girl has never felt so good. As for one main thing when it comes to anime “The big ones” Naruto, Bleach, One piece I have no deep desire to catch up with these shows from hearing over and over about these shows, to watch them has dissipated, sorry to say. Don’t worry not saying I won’t watch them just in the near future I’ll get around to it. I always felt like I was missing out on something massive with these shows. I stopped thinking like that around eighteen, there was way more anime titles out there I had yet to discover.

Some favorites from my beginners days, Inuyasha, Please Twins, Munto Tv for example are favorites that have never changed. A post I write not long ago on Picking Anime Favorites I can’t do a Top 10 favorites list, is too hard now. I have so many favorites and only ones I would address for individual genre posts are ones that have had a personal impact on me. Like I said in that post more anime’s you watch, the more ever changing your favorites become but there are still solid favorites for me that won’t change.

I never mentioned about romance because that is something that will never change, ROMANCE JUNKIE FOR LIFE. As for darker anime shows, psychological, there is a border line for me depends what shows are ever recommended to me. I don’t honestly watch a lot of horror or scary movies in general, I’m at an age where I don’t want to watch depressing things too much. Darker anime though is an exception to this only, but vampire series my love for that is too hardcore for words.

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Finally admitting the changes in my anime tastes has been a good reflection for me. I’m way more open about what I like to watch these days than a few years ago. I feel many things have drastically changed and of where my interests may lie for the future. Feel free to comment below Do you feel your anime tastes have changed? Any genres you wouldn’t watch? now you do?

Regardless hope you all enjoyed reading this and finally got around to putting up something 🙂

I’ll see you all in the next post

LitaKino

 

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