Not just games? A Discussion of Anime

Hey, why stop at games? Those of you who know me well know that I am quite a fan of anime, and there is a lot of anime that I've been watching lately, so I figured I'd share my thoughts on them.

Bleach...Bleach. Yeah, it's Bleach. It's had its ups and downs, but 300 episodes in, I'm still watching it. As is a problem with many long-running shounen anime, it is bogged down unrelentingly with mindless filler arcs. Bleach, in particular, has contracted a particularly filthy habit of breaking for random one-shot episodes (and even entire, 30+ episode story arcs) in the middle of the main story, setting them in some sort of "alternate universe." >_>

To give a quick summary of the series itself, for those who are unfamiliar, Bleach starts Kurosaki Ichigo, a high-school kid who suddenly finds himself wrapped up in the world of shinigami, "death gods," due to his innate ability to see ghosts. In a rough situation, he is given shinigami powers, and he uses these powers to protect his friends and his hometown. This is the starting point, but it goes quite a ways from here, eventually having Ichigo and friends travel to the world of the shinigami, Soul Society, to save the one shinigami responsible for giving Ichigo his powers, Rukia. This story arc is commonly regarded as "the good part" of Bleach. Then, there is filler. Then they start the next story arc, but oh wait, more filler first. Then they get going with the second arc. Break for filler. Continue story. Break for filler. Repeat ad nauseum.

But, as you may know about me, I'm a big fan of shounen anime, and when Bleach decides to buckle down and get to the main story, I quite enjoy it. Things were getting a bit ridiculous for a while with all the new Arrancar characters they were introducing, but they're finally getting down to brass tacks and dealing with Aizen, the main villain, so the current episodes are very exciting indeed. Even if the current story arc has taken over half of the current number of episodes to get to this point, partly due to gratuitous filler. But thus is the pitfall of long-running shounen anime.

Fairy Tail is a more recent entry, and one that has the makings of a long-running shounen anime, with 64 episodes as of this writing and showing no signs of slowing down. This one took awhile to make it into anime form, since the manga has been publishing for a full three years before the anime started in October 2009. I can't complain though, because 64 episodes of filler-free, well-paced shounen is not something that you often come by.

Now, regarding the series itself. For those who are unfamiliar, Fairy Tail is a series that takes place in a world of mages. The main characters are part of the popular mage guild, Fairy Tail, whose job it is to accept contracts offered to them by the townspeople. As can be expected, accepting these jobs gets them in to all sorts of troublesome situations, and through the stories you learn more about each of them. It's not one of my favourite series just yet, but it definitely has a promising start. The characters are very engaging, the villains entertaining (in mannerisms and in appearance) and the art style is intriguing. The art style, to be more specific, is very One Piece-inspired, with unusual character designs (such as this guy) that give even One Piece mangaka Oda Eiichiro a run for his money. Even with such unusual characters, though, the animations are fluid and well-drawn. The soundtrack is also really well done, and I've found myself humming along to the main theme on several occasions. At first, I was concerned that Aya Hirano was voicing Lucy since her voice kind of grates me, but it hasn't proven to be a problem, so that's good. Overall, I would recommend this series to any shounen fan who's looking for something that's sometimes emotional, sometimes funny, sometimes badass, but always awesome.

And here's Naruto. Yes, it's Naruto, everyone's favourite shounen punching bag. It has its problems, I will tell you that it's probably not as bad as you think, if you stay away from the filler. I got into my filler diatribe already with Bleach, so I won't repeat myself here, but in Naruto Shippuuden's 200-episode run, it has had approximately 30-40 episodes of filler, so it's not terrible. It earns its bad reputation from the original series, Naruto, which ran filler episodes for two years straight, from episode 136 to episode 220. I watched all of that. Would not recommend it.

So, about Naruto, for those of you who have managed to steer clear of it. It's set in the ninja village of Konoha, where a young boy named Naruto aspires to be the leader of the village, the Hokage, however everyone in the village resents him due to the demon fox, the Kyuubi, contained inside of him. So he works as a ninja in the village to earn the respect of his fellow citizens. In Naruto Shippuuden, he has earned some of that respect, but he also acquires a new goal, to save his "friend," Sasuke, whom has defected from the village to train under the villainous ninja, Orochimaru. Naruto battles alongside other ninja in the village against the evil organization that is hunting him, the Akatsuki, in an effort to get closer to Orochimaru, and to find Sasuke.

This is a good concept for a shounen anime, and overall I think it is well executed. I quite enjoy Naruto a lot of the time. But, well, the pacing needs work, when you have entire episodes where Naruto simply stared at Orochimaru across a bridge, doing nothing. This is Dragonball Z levels of stalling, and it doesn't make me happy. This, and the filler, makes it difficult to recommend Naruto to anyone, even shounen fans, but if you have the patience to wade through the bullshit, there's some good stuff in here.

Okay, I have a lot more anime to talk about, but this post is already pretty long as it is, so I'll save that for another day. Let me know what you think of this post, and I'll tailor future posts to your opinions.