I think It's okay, nothing too great, cheesy animations is a key factor in the style, the theme songs are better I think

Compared to cartoons? both have their appeal and l watch them for different reasons.

When l watch anime, l look for a complex premise that's engaging and dynamic. Cartoons are more for mindless viewing and a good laugh.

Anime's awesome. And as you mentioned, the theme songs are better. Don't watch it as much as l used to. l find it hard to come across any decent ones nowadays.

hate it.

I don't like the Elfen Lied or similar kind of anime....ones that use cliche techniques and rely more on the visuals than the story. Really, the plot in 90% of the anime is just empty and the visuals are nothing new. But there are also great ones. Shingetsutan Tsukihime is amazing and special for me. Haibane Renmei and Kino's Journey are great too. There are lot of good psychological ones as well - Perfect Blue, Boogiepop Phantom, etc etc.
I wouldn't generalize when it comes to anime and manga, there are so many different genres, directors, animators. Naruto and One Piece are not the only animes out there.

Anime is one of those things that makes life worth living for me. Even if most of it is just Moe-blob garbage. It is still fun to watch. After all the girls in anime are almost always incredibly hot. Need to surround myself with females some how.

I like it, though I tend to only really get into yuri/shoujo-ai/girls love stuff. For non-yuri things, I mostly watch random comedy and I've been meaning to broaden my horizons. I honestly think I prefer it over live action TV, probably because, in yuri at least, it doesn't focus on the same boring old coming out stories that EVERY western series dealing with lesbians does.

I'm not a mega-otaku, but...it does seem like a commendable goal. Maybe someday. =P

i thought we were talking about japanese animation.

I've never really gave it the chance to find out, but at the same time, i've never really felt much desire to.

Some people here may think I'm anti-anime, but I've probably seen more of it than many of the members here. However, I've only seen anime films - I've yet to see a series (though I nearly started watching Welcome to the NHK not long ago). Most series I've looked up aren't appealing to me for one reason or another, but I'm fussy when it comes to any kind of film/show. Quite a bit of anime caters to a young audience, but I actually like quite a few of the "kiddy" anime films like Totoro, and recently watched parts of The Cat Returns with my niece(I'm actually the one who got my niece into anime by showing her Totoro many years ago. )

I used to despise anime because all I'd see as a kid were bits from cheesy shows like Pokemon or Dragon Ball Z where the dialogue was so corny it made me laugh out loud. The animation and score were quite awful as well. I think it's mainly the English dubs that made the dialogue funny, but regardless, these shows didn't appeal to me.

Most anime films I've seen didn't have an extremely strong plot, and it was mostly the animation and score which made the films watchable. The storyline doesn't seem like a strong point in most anime, and you often have weird arbitrary shit going on in them, but it can still be entertaining. So anime, in a way, is kind of like video-games - usually no strong plot, you've got weird arbitrary shit going on, but they still (can be) entertaining as hell.

The thing about anime is to make sure you never watch it with dubs turned on. That's probably the most important advice. Some dubs are better than others, but it's always best to watch a film in the original language. I watch lots of foreign films, and I've realized that dubs can really ruin a film.

Some things are better done in Japanese animation (eyes), some things are better done in western animation (mouth).

I used to love anime some of my favourites were DBZ, FMA, Cowboy Bebop to name a few. But the last couple of years... I don't know if I've grown out of it, I just don't watch it anymore.

Yes, I like anime.
I'm interested in anime which deal with dark themes (Paranoia Agent). Or very witty ones (Haruhi Suzumiya).
I'm also very fond of anime movies like Ghibli (Totoro & Co.) - they're so nice.

It makes me kinda angry if people dislike anime because they just saw the stupid dubbed ones without an end on TV like Naruto, DBZ, Pokemon or so. I could never watch animes which have over 100+ episodes because they build a lot of fighting side-stories into them.
Detective Conan is one of the few exceptions because it contains only "murderer of the day"-episodes, the viewer can follow it easily. My mom even likes it.

i never watched any anime until i graduated highschool. at the time, i hated, hated, hated it. i started to like japanese films and was tired of everyone thinking they were all about spikey haired punks attempting to save some fantasy world. i didn't want to group myself in with that crowd, so i avoided watching anime at all costs. but i was missing out on so many good shows and movies.

then i started watching studio ghibli movies and slowly went on my way to see shows like kino's journey, planetes, honey and clover, and serial experiments lain. they weren't the typical cartoons most people think about when the term anime is brought up. they were thought provoking, relied heavily on character development and were visually appealing once i got over preconceptions of watching "anime".

these days i'm really into slice of life kinds of series where not much else happens aside from the mundane every day life of their characters. honestly, there's so much out there. anime itself is as diverse as any other form of media.

but yeah, i like anime. i watch it a few days a week.. which is more than i can say of any western t.v...... hockey, national geographic channel, discovery, history, animal planet not withstanding of course

I like anime if appeals to me.

I like all sorts of anime and cartoons, dragonball z, samurai jack, bleach, ed edd and eddy, shaolin showdown, megas xlr (not on anymore) anything decent or funny really.

I personally love anime. Anything with schoolgirls running around in sailor uniforms is awesome to me.

like anime
hate DB, DBZ and one piece

I watched around five anime series and some movies as well, but I felt it would just be depressing watching a lot of animé without understanding japanese. So, until I reach the point where I can read japanese in subtitles and understand it fluently coupled with japanese speech, I'll keep avoiding anime. I'm currently at the level where I can play video games if I take save point breaks and check all new words in a dictionary. I hope that maybe in a year or so I'll be able to watch movies with japanese voices and read japanese subs at the same time while understanding it.

After that, watching anime will feel fulfilling for me both because it lets me escape the real world and because it will help me master the japanese language further, until perfection hopefully. Because my life isn't very active, I'm guessing I'll spend a lot of time alone in my carefully decorated home which I spent a fortune on, having tea and immersing myself in anime and similar almost 24/7.

My only goals for life is to make my dream home, learn japanese, create my own private library, spend 3 months living in a japanese city on tourist visa while just perfecting the language further, and just finding as much introvert escapist movies, games and other things as possible.

I already achieved my earliest goal, to change my face with surgery because I disliked the way I looked. The past 5 years I've been doing that. Some people may think I'm unproductive, but on a personal level I've achieved my goals one by one, I feel accomplished and anime will be part of my reward, once my japanese is good enough.

I could make a very long post about why I enjoy anime, but it's 2am, I have class in less then 12 hours, and I'm tired. So to keep it short, good anime pulls me out of my reality. It makes me feel emotions I wouldn't otherwise, if not rarely, feel. It sometimes teaches me different perspectives on life, and also that life doesn't have to be a complete shit-hole. When my day feels boring and gray, for twenty minutes or more it adds some color. You can say, "well in that case, it doesn't have to be an anime, any t.v. show can do that." Yea, your point is? I like anime.

Not long ago, someone called me a "weaboo faggot". I don't even watch anime much.

apart from being really offensive, I also find it strange, because those are two words which I wouldnt ever think to describe you with!

Anyway, I guess I could say I like anime, but I'm really selective about it. I like anime mainly for the storyline, and also the visuals. The voices sometimes annoy the hell out of me, even when it is in japanese ( I never watched dubbed anime, cant stand it!)
I also hate the series that drag on and on, like naruto. The first few epsiodes are ok, coz the storyline actually has a meaning/purpose, but after the freaking 5 millionth episode its obvious the company is just dragging it out coz its a cash cow.
I like movies, and short series that tell a complete story, such as AIR, grave of the fireflies, etc.

Being an art student, visuals are really important to me too. I dont know why, but I just like the drawing style, its something that appeals to me i guess. I havent seen any in ages though, I have been too busy with other things, or just grown out of it heh.

i love anime but theres too few good animes in the world. most of it is kiddy shit

I like the subject matter, which is frustrating because it is always visually stylised, and mostly braindeadeningly childish in storyline or premise. I really like sci-fi and sci-fi girlies and post apocalyptic scenarios because they are fun to think about "what would I do in that situation" but the other aspects of anime keep me away. I have always tended towards realistic art and sensible abstractions of reality and I dislike metaphor(s). This is likely why my only reading consists of textbooks and other non-fiction. My younger cousin likes to draw anime stuff though.

No. Not into it.

And I wish this thread had a poll!