What do you like in an anime/manga?

What kind of things does everyone like in their animes and mangas?

I really enjoy politics and intrigue in anime. For me, Gundam Wing, one of my all time favorites, was very much enhanced by the political environment that the story took place it. It was very well developed, and made the action meaningful, as opposed to in some animes where it feels like more often than not there is fighting simply to fulfill a sort of "Action quota" for the episode. The first soul society story arc(I say first because I haven't kept up and don't know if they have gotten back there yet) of Bleach captivated me for some of the same reasons. I loved the way in which the political machinations of the Shinegamis and the mian characters' quest were interwoven.

I also like an anime better if I find one the main characters to be admirable. For example, Vash in Trigun is admirable to me. His belief that he shouldn't kill anyone for any reason might seem naive, but he really does his best to uphold it, takes the responsibility for his failures upon himself, and definitely has the right ideas at heart. For a counter example, Mugen's wanton and impulsive killings, combined with the fact that he was supposed to be the "good guy" in some sense, made me dislike him and by extension Samurai Champloo to some extent(Though the beatboxing samurai idea was hilarious). Attitude is no substitute for a lack of careful consideration for one's actions and their results.

Finally, I enjoy animes that give considerable time and effort to developing deep and consistent plots. Good stories can be character driven, but sometimes you just get bogged down in filler, or nonsense, of the main plot seems manufactered simply to display a certain aspect of the setting, or something.

ah, Gundam Wing...

it would have probably been cool if i watched it earlier, but now, it fails me...


it has cheese all over it
...so much it kinda stinks already


the characters are interesting at some point, but sometimes they just seem unnatural that they are probably retarded

the plot? it goes, but not very spectacular

Gundam Wing is all about the mechas, giant robots destroying each other
it is an anime that was kinda legendary at its time, but i just couldn't appreciate it enough since i tried to watch it a little too late

[size=10]i think Gundam Z was a little better though... it was written by the original author after all[/h]

nevertheless, i liked Gundam Wing anyway


admirable anime male protagonists are everywhere these days
Simon from Gurren-Lagann is one
the guy from Law of Ueki too
etc.


as for "What kind of things does everyone like in their animes and mangas?"

the humor
tsundere girls
and guys with balls of steel

Admittedly, Gundam Wing suffers at some points from some very subpar dialogue/discourse(Though I saw primarily the english version so I don't know how much translation has to do with that), but it is not just about giant robots kicking the shit out of each other. That's what G Gundam was about. Gundam Wing is about the politics and battles of earth and colonies. You can look at GW and you don't find action for action's sake(perhaps with a thin veil of plot) like in G Gundam. The spectacular gundam duels that people would expect from an action driven series are quite rare, mainly just tactical operations and power politicking.

I just rewatched Gundam Wing over this past summer, and I was worried that I might find it cheesy or aged, and that it would ruin one of my favorite animes from when I was younger, but I found that for me, it was still amazing. The plot ideas might not seem terribly original at the beginning, but the way in which the plot develops and the story progresses is spectacular in my opinion. Many animes have their moments, but for me, no other anime I have seen is able to sustain such a well constructed and interesting plot throughout its entirety. It avoids the mistake that many of the more "serious" animes make: spiraling off into near incoherent pseudo philosophical nonsense at their conclusions(see Evangelion).

And much of the drivel that companies have tried to pass off as anime to cash in on "animania" doesn't have much of a plot at all.



I guess it depends on the standards used. Certainly we expect our heros, provided they are not so much anti-heros, to have some amount of virtue, but some are on the next level of admirability for me. I admire characters who give alot of thought to their actions and the consequences, which is less common than just being a "good person" for anime heros. I find Vash to be especially interesting because he is put in a world that rarely conforms to his morals and forces him into situations where the choice is obviously hard, whereas many times the virtues exhibited by protagonists are more nebulous and except for a few exceptions(usually villains who are clearly evil), the nebulous virtues aren't really challenged by the world.

What makes a good anime/manga to Minsc:

Firstly, it needs to have a set of abnormal characters. Characters that really stand out, and make you think "who is this person", "how did this person come to be", "what is this person going to do!?". Secondly, after they've established a great cast of characters, they should throw them all together in really challenging situations.

Example: Having Goku and Vegeta work together in DragonBallZ. A perfect example of how you mix diversity with great characters.

Minsc also likes when anime/manga tests your moral bounds. When you aren't sure who's right and who's wrong. Who is the bad guy, and who is the good guy? Any entertainment that gets you thinking- is entertainment worth watching/reading.

Eh, I like either serious types or comedy types.. I also like Mecha... So my two favorites (atm) are RahXephon for serious and Gurren Lagann for comedy...

I like how theres romance in both, and they work equally well ( NGE is okayish.... more on the less than average imo)

Characters actually change throughout the series and theres plot twisters that arent ridiculous, ill-timed, or put together for the fan base

Then comes introducing new stuff, Mecha shows of course have this with new abilities / machines and such

And i like fight scenes.. pretty, pretty bloody fight scenes

Well mate to let me strings things together shall we ??
1) Humuor
2) Abnormality (like those in Reborn!)
3) Preety heroin
4) Cool action
5) Fan service (prefered loli's)
6) Virtues (like holding dear to friendships)
7) Nice plots
8) Creepyness
9) Grossnes
Well thts almost all of it it doesnt have to be good in every element but if an anime tht has all the elements above then it will probably made into my fav list.

w00t, Kare Kano suffered the same fate

the director was just a little sick in the head, and he was apparently in a deep slump on both titles (namely Evangelion and Kare Kano)

both titles had the protagonists going around in an endless loop, wallowing in shit, getting bothered by the same problem over and over

they both had good things going, but everything was spoiled by creative block

so in the near-endings, all we see are shit and/or fillers
some people think they're cool
others are left with their jaws wide open

i just think that they were okay, but at least give them an appropriate finale


back to Gundam Wing...

most of the high-ups are either retarded or delusional, and most definitely narrow-minded
the ones that really stand out are just as bad, but their ideas are at a different level... you could consider them to be nutjobs...

it's kinda like one of those harem-love-comedies where most guys are horny bastards and the only decent one is a wussy protagonist who all of the women fall for

it's like a watching a chess game that was heavily rigged
mistakes were meant to happen
people were meant to be idiots
Gundams were meant to be almost indestructable
and nutjobs spend too much time thinking up of cheesy statements which can only be understood by people of their kind

but then again, Gundam Wing is not all that bad
i mean, i was able to see through all of it and felt satisfied
i was trying to watch SEED Destiny at the same time but Wing was more interesting (mainly because of Heero and Releena... and yeah, i postponed watching SEED Destiny for an indefinite amount of time)


@topic
guys with balls should also have their brains in the right place

heroes that uses wits and will to overcome any challenges make the anime/manga

and tsundere girls are never complete if they don't have the appropriate partner (Louise&Saito, Ayano&Kazuma, Konata&Kagami, etc.)

it's like, a boke is not enough as he/she needs a tsukkomi

and again, humor is a definite must

Also forgot to add no loli as a main girl in the story... i Dont liek lolis and they dont like me -.-

Apparently so.


Zex is up there on the delusion meter, or maybe the overreacting zealot meter, but other than him who is so bad? I'll allow the show one deluded major character.

Duke Dermail is an incompetent and mainly used as a pawn by other people.

Tres is an opportunist and talented politician. He has some strange beliefs, but I don't think he is deluded. He presents himself as a sort of messiah because he knows that it is a way to win popularity and influence. If he wants to hold on to power in his position(especially after being ousted by Dermail), he can't show weakness or doubt.

Une is his lapdog.

Neun doesn't care much for politics.

Quinze doesn't seem to be all that talente and is irrelevant after he hires Zex anyways.

Relena is very idealistic in the show, and would probably be one of the better targets for the deluded attack, however I think thus: After the assasination of her foster father, she geniunely wants to change the system to stop things like that from happening again, and as seen by her rash attempt for revenge, lacks direction. Then she is presented with the "peacecraft legacy." It both fills the void of her lacking direction in life, and offers her a chance for influence and power to change things. She is an adept politician, ever increasing her influence. She eventually does give up on the explicit peacecraft legacy, but continues to recognize that the idea was right at heart.

As for narrow minded, I would expect someone grabbing for power in political chaos to have or at least claim to have an explicit agenda. As for retards, well there are always those people. They are the pawns who are maneuvered by the more skilled politicians.



In this kind of fiction, the "good guys" usually win. I'm not sure what presumeably "artifical" mistakes you are refering to. I addressed the idiot issue above, there are always some. Ad for the gundams, they are superweapons, but we see their relative power decrease significantly over the course of the series as there enemies get over the initial shock of the power and adapt for fighting them.



Isn't that part of a politician's job? Tres and Relena are both talented in rhetoric, and it enhances the other aspects of their political skill.

GW isn't going to be on quite the same level as stuff like Foundation and Ender's Shadow, but as far as anime and that sort of stuff goes, I think it is amazing. If it is only mediocre in your opinion, please tell me what amazing animes concerning political intrigue I am missing out on because I would definitely enjoy them.



I agree with you 110%. Doesn't mean it always happens though. Goku of DBZ is an example of a notorious idiot anime protagonist. Additionally, we have alot of anime protagonists who have subpar wits, but have a tactician to do their thinking for them. Then there are those who have average/above average intelligence and who sometimes use ploys and tactics and think their way out of trouble, but it usually takes a back seat to contests of shear power. Additionally, they often don't spend time thinking about the implications of actions and why they support what they do. Cunning tactics without direction grow tired quickly(like Naraku from Inuyasha. He wants to kill Inuyasha and co., but other than that he is a completely convoluded character. What the hell is he trying to achieve?) I guess I like not so much cunning(though a skillfully executed plot is always exciting the first time) as I do some degree of contemplativeness.

When it comes it comes to anime and manga, I prefer it when they don't try to preach a certain set of morals or ideals over your heads as to say that you should be and think this way.

My view on anime follows over to how I deal with charcters,
I'll be frank: I dislike idealists and moralists, I enjoy characters who aren't trying to be hero's for it's own sake or believe they are doing the right thing; The notion that there's good guys and bad guys is something that shouldn't be taken too seriously, seeing things in shades of gray is allot more interesting then if they were just black and white; everyone has there reasons and opinion for what they do regardless of what it may be, anyone could be wrong or right.

Aside from the contradiction inherent in the idea of moral relativism, I will say this:

Don't all characters have a system of beliefs that they follow? When does a character believe something is wrong but knowingly do it anyways? When coerced perhaps, but then they do it with great guilt. For self gain perhaps, but then do they just not believe that self gain is a higher moral than whichever of their other morals they would be breaking? Or maybe they succumb to temptation to break one of their own morals to get something they want. I think most heros are flawed in some way. They can be temtped, misguided, or put in moral dilemmas where doing something actively against their morals might prevent something passive also against their morals from happening.(Think Vash in Trigun. Should he kill to save people?) I agree that true black and white heros who are always right and whose beliefs are never brought into question are boring, but they are also rare.

But back to the point, all characters pretty much have an inherent pull towards acting according to their own beliefs. There might be other reasons which prevent them from doing so, but I can't think of a character who has no system of beliefs or does not want to even try to act according to their system of beliefs.

Truthfully, I can only like a character to a limited degree for being moral/immoral/etc. I like characters who think about the meanings of their actions and address and contemplate the challenges brought against their beliefs. Characters who blindly follow vague morals that seem admirable(like friendship or something) are pretty boring. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and maybe there is a grey character in their somewhere, but they come around, and no ones beliefs are really challenged.(I find Goku of DBZ to be this kind of character)

I don't find a show like Trigun and the moral stance of Vash preachy. Certainly I think Vash has the right idea, but the show is interesting because of the constant clashings of different moralities, each of which has something compelling to say. I don't want to put spoilers in here, but I can think of some good examples.

Characters like Alucard from Hellsing and Gatts from berserk wouldn't seem very likely to get along someone like Vash, in Alucards case it having to do namely with his nature as a vampire (I prefer the TV version the the manga/ova version of Alucard if you're wondering).