I love stories. I love creating them and consuming them. Books, plays, video games, movies, etc. But I have always had a real heart for animation. Maybe because for a long time as an only child to a single parent, cartoons were my babysitter. Or maybe it’s because in animation you can do anything. Anything you can think of, you can create.
Now I”m obviously biased towards the cartoons of my generation. Compared to most cartoon shows now, the 80’s and 90’s kicked ass and didn’t even bother taking any names…they were that good. You know, shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Freakazoid, Batman, Tailspin, Darkwing Duck. The list goes on and on. Now you have shows that make little to know sense. Ed, Edd, and Eddy is perhaps the worst show I’ve ever seen. It’s not funny, the characters are way creepy, but it still continues to be shown. The new ninja turtles done in that cheap animation style that all the poplular shows are doing now, not as fun…though in their defense they do stay closer to the comics…sort of. Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good shows today too. Invader Zim is genius but not really for kids, Sponge Bob is quite legitimate, and Venture Bros. might be one of my favorite shows ever.
Ok tangent, back to it. Where I’m trying to get is anime. Anime isn’t just Japanese cartoons…I mean yes it is but its much more. Anime offers animated action which we get so little of in the states. Sure we had GI JOE and you would think a war between COBRA (a ruthless terrorist organization led by a crazed man with emphezema) and the JOES (some branch of the US army that requires one of every minority, they defend America and teach kids not to lick light sprockets in their spare time). I mean come on! This is a powder keg. You would think over all the seasons of GI Joe that someone would die…but no. Stuff blows up all the time but the US censors make sure we see that everyone baddies and goodies alike are ok. Doesn’t it make you wish real war was like this?
Anime gives us action that is not censored and often beautiful storytelling. Anime also gives us a complete story which a lot of American cartoon shows don’t. Instead of being episodic they go for an entire story from start to finish…this is anime’s greatest strength…and its biggest downfall. Now some animes last only for a short while. Some of my favorites: Death Note, Cowboy Bebop, Hellsing are all under at least 40 episodes. They told their story and they were done with it, no stretching out the story till no one cares anymore. Sadly I used to have two other favorite animes but they have fallen to the dark side. I love the style of both Bleach and Naruto. They have amazing characters and incredible worlds in which those characters live. I also used to think they had good stories…but no any more.
To a point these animes do have incredible stories, but you have to waft through so much muck and gunk that it’s hardly worth it. Naruto has been going on for so long that they had to start a whole new series so people wouldn’t go “Naruto Episode 324…Synopsis: Naruto and Sakura stand around and talk in great length about nothing that interesting while stylized shots fill up the extra ten minutes the animators didn’t want to bother animating and the writers didn’t want to bother writing.” Seriously though a lot of the episodes are like that. When Naruto is in an arch that directly correlates with the manga, than it is good…painfully slow but good. Back in the day writers like Charles Dickens were paid by the word for their stories, hence why some of their stories are long and tedious…classics none the less but eventually dull.
Same goes for these anime that run on and on. I mean Bleach has even gone as far as to have a 3 to 4 minute recap before we watch any new stuff. Add that to the long opening and closing song, plus the prediction of the next episode and weird little extras at the end, we the viewers are only getting about 10 minutes worth of story. Don’t even get me started on filler. If you don’t know what filler is, filler are episodes (usually many in a row) that anime shows put on usually to buy time for the writer of the corresponding manga since the anime show is catching up with the manga. I don’t know who writes these filler episodes but they are complete dribble. I dare a wooden stump to write fillers worse than some of the Naruto filler I have seen.
Part of the problem is people keep getting paid per episode. The show is no longer about the story and more about people getting more money. Now I am all for people making money but don’t make everyone else suffer, especially the story and the characters because you want some extra money so you can buy yourself another convertible and a high class whore who won’t steal your social security card after giving you the clap. Another problem is that both of the writers of this show look up to the guy who wrote Dragon Ball Z. When I was a kid, I thought that show was amazing. I wanted to be Vegeta. But after watching it awhile you figure out each story arch is exactly the same. New villain who couldn’t possibly be stronger than the last shows up to wreak havoc. People power up for several episodes while Bulma is no doubt setting herself up for awkward sexual advances. There is some cool fighting for a bit and than some boring fighting for a lot. Finally someone reaches some new insane level of being (which means their hair usually gets bigger) and they kill the bad guy. Wash, rinse, repeat.
All of this being said, I implore all you story writers out there to tell your story and be done with it. Stories should never feel like the line at the DMV, rush hour traffic, or listening to talk radio while stuck in rush hour traffic on your way to the God forsaken DMV.
