Before I write a blog post, I often toss out a question to J-List’s Facebook or Twitter page to get additional input on the subject from J-List customers. Sometimes these posts blow up into extremely long discussions on the topic at hand, and I know I’ve got material for another blog post. That’s what happened when I was preparing my post on the Shinigami Bocchan anime, an anime with a great story that’s not helped by its use of 100% CGI animation. Here’s a list of 13 things anime fans really hate about Japan’s animation industry, based on reader feedback!
Note: this is a post about the anime industry and its practices and not a critique of annoying things anime fans sometimes do. Maybe that’s a subject for another post!
13 Things Anime Fans Hate About the Anime Industry
Making Bad Decisions About CGI
The first time I noticed CGI in anime was in 1985’s Zeta Gundam, which used computer animation to rotate the floating space colonies. Since then CGI has claimed an important place in the anime industry, used for everything from Gundam battles to the exciting mountain racing scenes in Initial D. While some shows (the 90s video game reenactments from High Score Girl, the city flying past the characters in Attack on Titan, everything about BEASTARs) tell a better story thanks to the appropriate use of CGI, some other series (Shinigami Bocchan, Sakura Wars 2019) have no reasons to use computer animation other than for budget reasons and lack of respect for fans.
And sometimes CGI fails so badly, it takes the entire show down with it, which is what happened in the awful Berserk 2016, as well as the ending to So I’m a Spider, So What? The wheels came off so hard towards the end of that show that I didn’t even bother to finish the series.
Studios Running Their Animators Into the Ground
The anime industry has a lot of internal problems, notably ridiculously low salaries and poor working conditions. Using 2019 numbers, animators start out earning just around $10k per year and slowly rise as they reach their 40s. The rise of anime funded by streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime has helped, but in general, anime is a terrible industry that needs to make big changes if it wants to continue to flourish. (Salary source: Vox.)
Perhaps one solution is splitting 2-cour series into two parts, like has been done recently with Re:Zero, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and Jobless Reincarnation. Putting a season or two in between a 12-episode bank of episodes allows the animators to take the time they need on the next animation, and also provides the licensors extra months of selling figures to fans, which I appreciate both as a fan who wants to see anime studios be successful and as an anime retailer.
Great First Episodes Followed by Animation Quality Cuts
It’s sad when an anime studio blows its budget on the first 1-2 episodes, only to have everything fall in quality in the middle episodes of a show. In longer 2-cour shows like Bodacious Space Pirates, the initial poor Blu-ray sales signal that the show won’t be finally successful to the studio, so they cut the animation budget from episode 7 onward.
Filler Episodes
Naturally, you can’t run an anime for 500+ episodes and always have interesting material from the manga. So bring in the filler episodes!
Geoblocking
There’s nothing more frustrating than jumping through hoops just to watch anime, either on YouTube or on the various streaming services in each country. This is something all anime fans hate about the anime industry.
Changing the Original Lines for Political Purposes
It happens far less often than fans realize, due to the way confirmation bias works inside our brains, but anime fans really aren’t amused when a line is changed from the Japanese original to make some political joke or comment that’s not intended by the original creators.
Read my post about how Sony managed to eat the entire anime industry here.
Non-Existent Endings
Another frustration is anime series that exist as an advertisement for fans to check out the original manga, light novel, or visual novel if they want to see how the story ends. As a guy who’s got just enough time to follow anime but never time to read the original works, I’m often left high and dry when anime stories just fade away without a proper ending.
Anime-Only Endings That are Meaningless
On the other hand, sometimes anime studios try to shoehorn an anime in to give some fans some closure, because the original work is still ongoing, or it’s so long that it will never get animated. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Doing Episodes Out of Order from the Original Work
One responder said he disliked it when anime stories were told out of order from the original work, which is jarring for fans of the original. This is something that’s happening with Peach Boy Riverside, as creator Coolkyousinnjya juggles the episode in order to tell an anime story that will do his manga justice. I personally like stories told out of order, like Haruhi or Pulp Fiction, though not everyone will agree with me.
Changing Studios or Character Designs in the Middle
No one likes having a new studio come in in the middle of animated work, especially if it involves radically changing the character designs.
Not Making Second Seasons
Another thing we dislike about the anime industry is when a second season is promised but not delivered. Obviously, there can be good reasons for this, like when the creator dies, but it’s still a disappointment.
Making New Seasons That Have No Reason to Exist
On the other hand, I’m not a fan of new anime seasons that are created because the first one happened to make a lot of money. Despite having no real story to tell (K-On! season 2) or actually harming an already perfect story (Chuunibyo demo Koi ga Shitai season 2), the studios gotta get those dolla dolla bills, y’all, while they can.
Live-action Adaptations
As I wrote in my long post on why anime live-action adaptions will never go away, there are a lot of reasons why live-action anime exists. They’re cheap to license and produce, and often make a lot of money. Creators want them to exist, so they can see their stories unfold and attract new fans.
Got Any More Things Anime Fans Hate about the Anime Industry? Tell Us Below!
Thanks for reading this post on 13 things anime fans hate about the anime industry. Did we miss your favorite pet peeve? Post it in the comments below, or tell us on Twitter!
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