Anime Fans Are Angry People Part 2 – Ty Gets Mad

Following last week’s blog post on anime fans being angry people, here’s a list of the times when anime has made me angry. I promise not to resort to cursing or making threats while writing this! Spoilers for Naruto/Naruto Shippuuden and Blood-C.

Blood-C makes me physically sick

To this very day Blood+ is one of my favourite shows, so I was ecstatic to learn that it was due a sequel and that CLAMP, who were still in my good books at the time (though not anymore), were behind its creation. So I was bitterly disappointed to learn, upon watching it, that it was actually more of a spiritual successor than an actual sequel and that, unlike Blood+, its characters were vapid and their relationships with each other were shallow, its plot was nonsensical, and its tone was all over the place. One moment the show was a cutesy slice of life, the next it verged on torture porn, with giant raving rabbid rip-offs throwing victims into blenders to create sickening slushies. It still enrages me that this monstrosity is even associated with Blood+. I sure learned the hard way that when a franchise changes hands, it’s almost always a bad thing.

Nobody liked Flowers of Evil

Flowers of Evil is one of my favourite manga, so you might think I’d hate its anime adaptation, given that its art style is radically different from its source material. Its studio decided to use a technique called rotoscoping, where artists draw over live-action footage frame by frame. As far as I’m aware, this hasn’t been done in anime before, which resulted in Flowers of Evil having an extremely unique look, which many people found jarring, unnerving, or just plain ugly. But the show’s art style didn’t put me off. I actually thought that the adaptation was very good. It stuck to its source material’s story, but its masterful sound design and unique art style gave it its own, distinct flavour. So it’s a crying shame that so many people wrote the show off purely because of the way it looked. The clip show during Flowers of Evil’s finale gave the impression that it was originally supposed to stretch on for two cours or for there to be a sequel, but the anime fandom’s collective disdain towards the show (which, of course, meant poor sales), make that seem like nothing but a pipe dream, leaving me bitter and resentful.

The NANA manga being on indefinite hiatus

Alright, so this complaint’s not technically anime-related, but cut me some slack, okay? The NANA manga is another one of my favourite manga. As a 24 year old woman, the trials and tribulations of 14-16 year old girls (which represents the vast majority of prominent anime ladies) no longer resounds with or appeals to me in the same way. That’s why the struggles of Nana K and Nana O, involving money, pursuing their dreams, sex, boyfriends, and crappy jobs struck a chord with me and many other women like me. Which is why it’s so upsetting that the manga is on indefinite hiatus – and has been for nearly a decade now. I’m not angry at the mangaka over this, it must be terrible to be so unwell that you have to abandon what is, essentially, your baby, I’m just upset that NANA fans like me are probably never going to get the closure that we so crave.

Sasuke Uchiha is a giant jerk

Naruto is one of my favourite shows (yes, really), but that doesn’t change the fact that it contains one of my least favourite characters of all time, Sasuke Uchiha. Sasuke incenses me. He’s an entitled, snot-nosed brat right from the very first episode. He acts as if he’s better than everybody around him, when in reality he simply inherited his visual prowess from his prestigious family. But time didn’t endear him to me, as he later goes on to abandon his friends in pursuit of revenge, kill several of my favourite characters in rapid succession, and then act as though he’s hot stuff for killing said characters – even though one was crippled, one, technically, killed themselves, and the other was blind. And upon learning that Itachi killed their family to prevent them from staging a coup, thereby saving their village, Sasuke then vows, in a most baffling move, to destroy the very same village in deference to his brother, who he suddenly worships again. But the culmination of my rage towards Sasuke is when, upon hearing the previous Hokages describe what Konoha meant to them, he declared his intent to become Hokage. I was dumbfounded. After everything that you’ve done, attacking your allies, joining a group of rogue ninja, vowing to murder every man, woman, and child of Konoha, and then killing a Hokage, what makes you think you’re qualified to be Hokage, you piece of human excrement? The arrogance of this guy is maddening.

Natsume Yuujinchou gets its six-thousandth season. Not really, but still…

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like Natsume Yuujinchou. It’s relatively touching, atmospheric, and makes for some easy-viewing. But each series is much of a muchness, with minimal story progression and character development between each one. So it annoys me that it’s had six seasons over the span of nine years and has a movie in the works when I’m still holding out, in vain, for sequels to other shows that I’d love to see more of and were kind of left unfinished, like Spice and Wolf. Now, I know that there’s no real relationship between Natsume getting its umpteenth sequel and my favourite shows not getting any, but I can’t help but think: ‘hey, Natsume fans, you’ve had your fill, what about us fans of smaller franchises? When are we to be placated with more series to our favourite shows?’ Irrational as that might be!

So there you have it, five times I was angry at anime. And I was able to get through writing this without making a single threat! Not bad, huh? I think I will go make myself a calming cup of tea though! As always, your thoughts are welcome, so feel free to comment in the comments section below!