Anime erotic subculture goes mainstream

[The Heretic Azazel]

More often that not too much fanservice can easily ruin a series, that is one of the reasons I couldn't get into Elfen Lied.

I was just thinking of Elfen Lied as a gateway anime, if that had been the first show I watched, I would have jumped right in. I don't know, I just love the shock value. And Nyuu's titties. They were round and firm, with just enough bounce.

[Kraco]

Much of the nudity in Elfen Lied wasn't fanservice per se but to illustrate how inhumanly the diclonius were treated in the facility. Though there was also plain fanservice later, no way around that even if you admit Nyuu didn't have other ways of showing her affinity.

Elfen Lied actually was a very early anime for me, and I have a feeling it multiplied my interest in the media instantly. Still, it would be a clear gamble to use it as an introduction to anime.

[Animeniax]

I thought the nudity in Elfen Lied was pandering and unnecessary. It took away from the story, and turned the anime into an object of adolescent titillation instead of whatever message it was meant to convey. I don't think it would be a good starting point for a mainstream anime fan, but a perfect place to start for a future otaku/serial killer.

If you wanted to delve into anime with the entire "locked-away experimental super being" genre, Akira would be a great anime to start with.

[Buffalobiian]

It's hard to say what got me started, since being Chinese meant I watched dubbed anime since I was little.

Ah! My Goddess got me into subbed anime.

[KrayZ33]

I don't even know anymore which series got me into anime.. for me pokemon/digimon and later one piece were all "cartoons" at first.


I think it was a mix of NGE, Goldenboy which aired at late night around 0:00 on TV.

I started to love mecha-series (even though I didn't understand NGE at all... which hasn't changed btw) and anime-comedy like Goldenboy which I believe is one of the best series ever and so on.

and from there on, my collection grew more and more.

After watching them I started to download stuff like Rurouni Kenshin or Oh! My Goddess! and other stuff...

btw Elfen Lied for starters!?
no way... the anime isn't that good and its way to brutal... It's like making people look at Hostel, even though they want to see some normal TV shows or movies...

I think it has to be something with action.as Animeniax said, something like Akira.

Jin-Roh could be another winner in that case imho.
in fact, the better the animatione -> the better the first impression.

It should be something which looks hand-drawn... so not something like Karas or Appleseed.
but more like Princess Mononoke.

But not Elfen Lied... where you have the "cute" and "humorous" sites like Chobits or Love Hina on the one hand, and a few seconds later the most possible disgusting way of showing mental and physical brutality... however the brutality isn't even "cool" it's just absurd and nasty.

ah... Chobits. Hmmm that one was also one of my first animes (however I only watched a few episodes back then and not the whole thing) and I liked it very much because it was very funny.. However I didn't got to know the romantic part back then, but I'm glad I fixed that a few month ago and watched it again, including the later episodes.


Btw some of the first anime-movies shown in the german-cinema for example, were Akira and Ghost in the Shell...I don't know why, but this somehow tells me that " dark-future "- animes are pretty popular.

[Buffalobiian]

It should be something which looks hand-drawn... so not something like Karas or Appleseed.
but more like Princess Mononoke.

Definitely, if you were to introduce "Anime" in its conventional form, and tell people "this is anime."

Appleseed EX Machina was really well done IMO, though I find it hard to call it "anime". After all, 3D and anime were contradictory.

[Death BOO Z]

Elfen lied... It was awesome..
I've watched it all, with an anime loving friends, and 2 non-anime-watchers.
we all enjoyed it (since it's awesome), but during watching, the non watchers (more like non-believers! phaa!) kept asking us if this gets us turned on..
I hated all that fanservice, they kill puppies in the show, they torment kids and put them in research facilities, it doesn't need fanservice.

[Buffalobiian]

Elfen lied... It was awesome..
I've watched it all, with an anime loving friends, and 2 non-anime-watchers.
we all enjoyed it (since it's awesome), but during watching, the non watchers (more like non-believers! phaa!) kept asking us if this gets us turned on..
I hated all that fanservice, they kill puppies in the show, they torment kids and put them in research facilities, it doesn't need fanservice.

I find that movies can get away with this sort of stuff. Like, say, American Pie. You still get people complaining about the nudity and all, but to them, the whole movie is wrong, while to others, the sex is all part of the show. It's the joke. The culture.

Anime, not quite so. Besides hentai, you can almost always take out the fanservice, and the story can proceed much the same. But isn't the fanservice (in particular cases), also the joke? The culture?

[KrayZ33]

well to put it simply... Ikki Tousen would get a 0/10 from me without fanservice

with fanservice it manages to get a 2/10 ! All thanks to the blue haired girl in a maid costume.

if you want to compare anime-fanservice with scenes from american pie you should do it with an anime like Goldenboy... because thats were it plays a role and is part of the story/comedy

In Elfen-Lied or Ikki Tousen, fanservice is just lame and not needed, especially when the story etc suffer from the heavy amount of fanservices like in Ikki-Tousen.

Fanservice in Ikki-Tousen is like watching some bruce lee movie with tits and asses every ~5 seconds.
I can imagine lee screaming his battlecry " WooooOOooaoaaaAAhhuuuu" and then -> scene switch to a girl, dancing naked somewhere for 3 seconds -> scene switch to lee breaking someone's arm or neck

I hate it if fanservice is "just there" and not part of a comedy scene for example. It feels weird and I can understand everyone who askes you or me

if this gets us turned on..

if you like something like this ^^

animes like that will hopefully never get to be "mainstream"

btw @ DBZ: Did Elfen Lied have so much fanservice? it's been a while since I watched it but I can't remember it to be full of fanservice.

I wouldn't call "Lucy beeing naked in the begin" fanservice... but I can't remember what happened in the "comedy parts" of the story anymore.

[Death BOO Z]

American pie had points to it's nudity, the plot revolved around sex.
I guess it's the same in harem animes, like love hina or ranma. I can even see how it's used in some gag\comedy animes... but it's far too overused to make it funny.

[Board of Command]

Elfen Lied was one of my early series. It was definitely one of the first alternative series I watched, and I liked it a lot.

[animus]

Guyver was my first anime. I used to watch it with my cousin and occasionally my sister. However, my sister said she would get nightmares from all the gore, but there's really not that much gore I guess except pools of blood. Though the anime that really got me started and into watching anime, was probably Gundam Wing.

[Animeniax]

If Gundam Wing had been my first anime series I would have sworn off all anime and never touched the stuff again.

[Board of Command]

Escaflowne (dubbed) was one of my earliest series and I really liked the animation. It showed me that not all anime are drawn like DBZ.

[Animeniax]

I saw Escaflowne early on too, but the subbed version. I've always been a purist about subbing. Akira and DBZ are two of the very few dubbed animes I like.

[narutosharingan]

This is a really interesting topic, I must admit. I think what first drew me into anime was DBZ. I always loved cartoons, and I started watching DBZ whenever I'd come home from school. Slowly I experimented a bit and got into other anime, with Bebop and Trigun being the earlier ones. It's an interesting transition, no doubt. I feel that Cowboy Bebop and Trigun are certianly the best beginner anime, since they really don't go so wacky as to scar people from watching further anime.

I think the article itself is a little misleading, since anime is not erotic for the most part. But if someone were to read this, I feel they would get the wrong interpretation of what anime is like. Certainly there are plenty hentai and whatever, but it's not like it's going to takeover the US. I have no problem with people who are into that, of course. Sometimes it's hard to explain to people that I like anime and that going to Otakon isn't some weird thing. My friends are usually cool with it, but I'm sure they think it's odd.

[David75]

Captain Future, Ufo Robot Mazinger, Captain Harlock, San Kukaï (not anime... but Japanese), Candy Candy were my first contacts with japanime.
I liked them a lot, like other anime at the time. I couldn't really tell they were japanese, yet they were a bit different, that themes and background stories were very different.
But honestly at the time, I didn't have the mindset to have a very detailed analysis on the anime I watched. I could only feel it.

Then there was atakkā yū, captain tsubasa, KOR, Maison Ikkoku, Hokuto no ken, DB and DBZ, Saint Seiya, Cats Eyes, makyou densetsu akrobunch, Nadia the secret of blue water,Mr Ajikko, Space Adventure Cobra, City Hunter, etc... that really got me hooked as an older child then teenager.

after teenagehood, nothing for like ten years, and there's now...

So It was a 3 phase hook, starting in kindergarten.

[Death BOO Z]

guys, keep the 'my first anime' talk in it's proper place, there has to be some dead topic to necromance if you really want (narutosharingan... where did you come back from?)..

anime is generally plenty erotic, maybe not 'proper' erotic, and not exactly 'sex-driven', but the female body parts take up far too much air-time for me to be comfortable with, even when watching alone, and especially if I'm trying to watch it with my kid brother.

I don't have any argument against hentai, or against animes like golden boy, who's only intention is to show us as many boobs, breast and panties as possible, but when if I can't watch a normal fighting show (say... Naruto, or Bleach) without getting a scene about panties, onsens or a nosebleed, then things are pretty much fucked up.

there's a huge difference between having a romance sub-plot, or even a romance main plot, from showing cleavage in second scene.

[Kraco]

That's an old anime tradition, though. Can't have one without the other. I guess the Japanese, behind their stiff hierarchical culture of half-empty flattering, are still more honest than many others. Or maybe the exaggeration is a way to vent. In any case the generous fanservice has been there and will be there whether foreigners like it or not. And thus if we choose to watch the media, we must also accept the fanservice within. It doesn't even make sense to want to watch entertainment from the other side of the world and expect it to be similar to whatever is the tradition in one's own country.

[XanBcoo]

That's an old anime tradition, though. Can't have one without the other. I guess the Japanese, behind their stiff hierarchical culture of half-empty flattering, are still more honest than many others.Or maybe the exaggeration is a way to vent.

I'm confused as to what definition of "honest" you're working off of here.

In any case, I completely agree that the exaggeration is a form of escapism. It's the same reason why there's always a scene of some character stuffing their faces with too much food. That kind of stuff is frowned upon in Japan and so naturally they find cartoon characters doing it hilarious. It's still obnoxious when touching a boob on accident and getting repirmanded for it with a paper fan to the face is tantamount to "humor", like DBZ said, but I guess that's just the Japanese equivalent of being an "edgy" comedian over here on Comedy Central.

It's pretty easy to tell the hacks from the real talent.