How to Transition to Anime

Many of us who were actually allowed to watch Saturday evening cartoons eventually got the opportunity to watch anime in some form or another. When I was growing up, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, the 4Kids dub of One Piece, Yu-Yu Hakusho, and many other shows were at our disposal to watch. Unlike most cartoons, these were fairly serious, contained heavy action and story elements, were sometimes creepy (looking at you, Orochimaru), and had blood in them...blood that was not colored out in a remastered edition.

So you could say that for many of us, the transition to anime was smooth. Going from Teen Titans over to DBZ was almost seamless. Yet as the years went on and Toonami was for some reason cancelled (ONLY TO BE BROUGHT BACK YYYYEEEAAAAHH), anime seemed to lose its touch in the United States outside of the various Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! shows. So, it was anime, but it wasn't what Saturday evening Toonami gave us.

Thus, we lost it. Then some years past and my Tumblr discovered Sword Art Online, a new anime. I knew I had a lot to learn, but I believed, SAO could show me anime.

Obscure Avatar: The Last Airbender reference for the win.

Anyway yeah, I'd heard all about SAO and that one show, I don't know if you've heard of it, Attack on Titan, through various fan-arts of Kirito x Asuna and of Jean or Levi. So, I figured, why the heck not? May as well check these out. And as you can tell, the rest is history.

But it'd been a while since I was in touch with my inner anime geek. I did watch Bleach for a short while (the arc in which Ichigo and Ulquiorra have their final battle and when Aizen's Arrancar take on the Soul Reapers) but then something happened and I didn't watch. I tried watching Casshern Sins but fell asleep during the first episode and never bothered to stay up for it. It was SAO and AoT that really saved me, though.

The point I'm trying to make here is that my background with anime is the exact reason I stayed up until midnight to watch Bleach and Deadman Wonderland. I knew what it was like to an extent and wasn't turned off to it when I would watch it every now and again. Even after years of watching cartoons and live action shows I was still able to take it in.

So, then, what about people who have never watched anime, even the more famous ones? How does one transition them into watching something that is typically displaced as big-eyed dudes screaming for five episodes straight while every girl is almost always depicted in a school-girl outfit?

Simple. Relate it to a live-action show on television and explain how it's better. Typically, the anime will be better than the counterpart.

Take, for example, the quote featured every time a product is made with "Attack on Titan" slapped on it. "Japan's equivalent of The Walking Dead." If someone is a fan of TWD, and you would like them to check out AoT, go ahead and tell them that, then perhaps you can sit them down and watch it, which is especially easy since the whole season is now dubbed (for sale on the Funimation website, definitely worth acquiring if you're a fan). If they liked that, then, you can bring up other anime you're interested in showing them.

In my opinion, one of the best anime to show someone who is kind of iffy on the whole anime thing is Death Note. It blends the realistic elements of being a detective with the Japanese lore of the Shinigami. Even my mother got interested in Death Note after just three episodes, curious to see where the psyche of Light would lead him and if, or how, he would get caught by L and Kira cops.

While yeah, the Shinigami themselves are a bit deplorable in appearance eventually they just blend into the background and are nothing more than floating beings behind Light and Misa...who also like to eat apples.

By the way, side note--if it is true that the Apple of Eden was really a pomegranate I'm gonna flip because that ruins everything symbolic about "Assassin's Creed" and Death Note.

Anyway, to get back on track: anime is something that more and more people are slowly getting turned on to because it covers such a variety of genres now. Not that it didn't before, but now each genre has it's own unique show. You want a fantasy story of knights and adventure set in current day? Fate/ Zero. You want a drama that pits characters into perilous situations? Death Note. You want to see giant robots duke it out? "Gundam." Equivalent of TWD? Attack on Titan.

Though there are certain things that live-action shows have that anime can't, the same can be said vice-versa. It's easier for anime to show the character's expressions for artistic reasons and it also makes more sense in anime for us to hear what a character is thinking, whereas in a live-action show it can be sometimes seen as the character being a psycho.

For some, the transition into anime is rather easy. At first it appears to be just cartoons but then giant monsters come flying through fifty-meter walls and then it's a whole other story. For others, it's a bit more difficult. "It's just cartoons, it's silly, I don't understand Japanese, I can' read subtitles." Those are all excuses.

And if you can read this, then you can read subtitles. Which means you too should be watching the 2014 edition of Fate/Stay Night.


Also, taking a break next week because I'm gonna go check out a movie and I'm getting the Green Arrow trade (OUTSIDERS WAR FINALLY YAY) so if I don't blog about animes, then, well, go watch one! :D But after that, we're departing from our anime ways and reviewing a manga! A really funny manga, actually: Attack on Titan Junior High vol. 1! Featuring all your favorite cadets in little kid form, and where we learn the truth of why Eren really hates the Titans.


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