I have to give credit for this prompt to YOMU. I saw the post last week and I thought it was a great idea. It really got me thinking about some of the anime that I love and how odd my tastes are.
This is a bit of a tricky question for me because I have long given up on being perceived as cool or an arbiter of tastes and I now recommend pretty much everything and anything that strikes my fancy without much thought. I probably shouldn’t do that. It has definitely led to people being confused/disappointed/horrified by some of my suggestions but what is a lazy girl to do?
Moreover, the prompt is incomplete. Who am I recommending these anime to? I mean Cowboy Bebop tends to be a really safe recommendation for a gateway anime. Not much to complain about there and it’s got a lot of solid elements to show off the medium even though it is starting to show its age. But I wouldn’t recommend it to that one friend who is not into anything sci fi adjacent or the other one who will definitely find it too out there. I would find a nice SOL for that one.
So for any given anime, there is probably a least one person out there who I would recommend it to.
But I’m being a big ol pedant here, aren’t I?. That’s not the spirit of the post at all. What they are asking is, is there any anime I quite like and wouldn’t recommend to most people and well, I had to really think about it. My first instinct was to say Sarazanmai. That’s a real weird show but also not weird enough to recommend it on weirdness alone and I loved it. But then I realized that I had personally recommended it to a whole bunch of people so that would be a lie.
In fact, I recommend weird anime that have a pretty high chance of flopping with the person I’m suggesting it to on a regular basis. I believe in taking chances with the media you consume as you never know when you might stumble across something that totally captures your imagination. And isn’t that just the best feeling? When you get completely engrossed and consumed by a piece of media. I’m not talking about falling into a fandom as I have no experience with that, but just that moment when you get mesmerized by a story and it blends into your world. I love that moment. I want my friends to have as many of these moments as possible. So I try to make them watch weird anime in hopes of finding the right rabbit hole. It rarely works but when it does. Oh mama!
So out go Kyousougiga, Humanity has Declined, Penguindrum, Zvezda, and the like. You ride with me, you’re gonna go down some surreal roads.
Ok so what’s next…
I figure that anything that can be misinterpreted as a fetish is probably a little hard to recommend but I’ll be honest, I don’t think I have any anime that falls into that category in my favourites. Or I’m blind to it which is quite possible. Actually, I guess Zvezda has its moments in that regard. It’s not that I don’t enjoy some questionable shows once in a while. I absolutely do. But so far, I haven’t found one that really left a mark on me and I can’t say that I can really name one at the moment.
And then it hit me, Idol anime!
Here’s the thing, I watch a lot of boy idol anime. And the reason I enjoy them is more on a so bad it’s good sort of thing. But the nicer version of that. There is such a wealth of loving kitsch and the creamiest of cheese in these anime. And I use to think they were unintentionally hilarious but I’m not so sure anymore.
There’s a general idea that you cannot manufacture camp. Camp is something that has to be organic and unintentional or else it’s not really camp. I’m beginning to think that idol anime are proof that that isn’t quite true. They are the exception that proves the rule. Or maybe it really is unintentional in which case all I can say is: brilliant!
Do I really looooooove idol anime? Well no, not really. The reason I don’t recommend these shows is that I know that if you don’t happen to have my specific sensibilities and sense of humour, there probably won’t be anything there for you. And even I have to be in a very specific mood to enjoy them. So it’s not like I’m saying these shows are brilliant and people should watch them more but I don’t have the confidence to champion them. It’s more of a, I know these shows aren’t great (with some notable exceptions) but I still like them. A lot!
Ok, now I just spent a paragraph making it sound like all Idol anime are trash and I feel the need to correct that.
When I say bad, I don’t in fact mean bad. They are for the most part mediocre. Average little anime shows, often made on a shoestring budget with a commercial tie-in to a mobile game or just an industrious amount of merch. They can be a little soulless, a LOT formulaic, and occasionally interchangeable. But these are all criticisms that can easily be applied to the medium at large. Anime is possibly more commercial than most storytelling venues at the moment. I love it but there’s no point in hiding that fact. And idol anime is a good representation of that aspect.
But they are also generally well-meaning and generally harmless fluff, which is more than I can say about a lot of shows. And the formulaic aspect of the genre can be quite comforting. Sometimes you are in the mood for something specific and more often than not, idol anime will deliver that well… something specific. The characters might be on the shallow side and use trouble backstories as development but they tend to also be completely unobjectionable. Unproblematic anime husbandos! I can’t deny that I have often found watching a little idol anime at the end of a long day to be relaxing and enjoyable in a very simple sort of way. What’s wrong with just plain dumb fun. And the camp is really quite extraordinary at times. And dahhling, I can appreciate a good camp!
But you shouldn’t watch idol anime. It’s not for you, you wouldn’t like it. It’s sort of a niche thing and really it’s pretty bad. You should watch some real anime. Try Kyousougiga, I still tear up at the family picture. Or like Demon Slayer – it’s an amazing-looking show!
I love writing prompts like this where you really have to think about it. There are absolutely anime that I love which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend because it’s either too niche of a genre or maybe it might be too much for someone to handle if they aren’t already in the anime circles.
For example my favorite anime of all time (If we aren’t counting RWBY since it’s not technically an anime) would be Yugioh GX but I wouldn’t throw that in as a recommendation to just anyone because you have to love the card gaming genre and also enjoy a lot of humor since it started off as part comedy with tons of references everywhere.
Then I enjoy God of Highschool a lot but it skips so much content and with seemingly no season 2 in sight it would be a huge cliffhanger. Off the top those are the 2 biggest that I just wouldn’t really recommend no matter how much I like them
Hidamari Sketch. As much as its beloved by me, the four season Anime is way too slow paced and slice of life for most people. Hidamari Sketch is most certainly a niche series to be sure. You must be this Darke Raven to ride this Yuno Drama.
I find that with some of the anime I watch it’s a process similar to mountain climbing. If someone from an average city was suddenly dropped onto the top of Mount Everest, they’d die almost instantly. You need to gradually become acclimatized to an environment like that.
The anime I was watching when I came up with this metaphor? “Revolutionary Girl Utena.” Absolutely amazing show, but I realize that if I recommended it to someone who hasn’t watched a lot of “challenging” anime it would make their brain explode.
OMG! Zvezda! This is the first blog I’ve seen that anime mentioned, and you even like it! It’s such a funny/weird anime, I loved it! Yup Sarazanmai is supper weird, but good. Hmm, I’ve always been a bit cautious when I recommend anime to people and only suggest anime that are fairly easy to understand and similar to something they are already watching, but maybe I was underestimating the people that are asking for recommendations? Maybe I should branch out and recommend a little more challenging anime that they might like even though the anime is different from what they are used to. Thanks for the post, very thought provoking!
My answer is more boring. I don’t recommend anime I love to people, if I don’t think there’s a good chance they’d enjoy them. What can I say, I take this task very seriously! On the other hand, I don’t close the door to any specific anime by default. I believe every single show in existence has the potential to be enjoyed by at least someone, somewhere in this big world of ours. Which is why I take it on a case-by-case basis, and try to adapt my recommendations to whatever I know about my interlocutor.
For instance… Somehow, I have a higher success rate when I recommend the, um, exotic? Redo of Healer, compared to respected classics with wide appeal like Bebop or Monster or Fullmetal Alchemist. Okay, I’ve only ever recommended Redo two times — first to a dude with a perpetual chip on his shoulder, then to someone with a fucked-up sense of humor. But you can’t argue with a 100% success rate!
That’s pretty much me, too. I don’t recommend shows just because I like them.As for classics; I usually don’t recommend them – I figure there are enough people who will do so. I might second a recommendation, though.
As for Redo of Healer; I don’t remember when I dropped the show (five to seven episodes in, I think? Maybe three or four?) But I do respect the show. I’ve had it heard called a revenge fantasy, but from what I’ve seen I’d rather call it depravity porn. Revenge is a huge aspect of the show, but I didn’t feel like there was any satisfaction in the revenge. It felt more like “this depraved main character is just a little less depraved than the rest of the cast – enjoy.” Other revenge shows tend to feel more like: “this scumbag gets what he deserves,” but here it felt more “aren’t you glad you’re on the other side of the screen?” It’s not that the scumbags-get-what-they-deserve isn’t a factor at all, but it’s so over-the-top that it wraps around into a baseline of depravity where words like “deserve” lose their meaning, eventually. Not sure if I’d have changed my mind about that, had I watched more. That said, I’ll never recommend shows I didn’t finish.
But, yeah, I also think that there isn’t a show that no-one can ejnoy. But there a some rare shows that have me stumped (if anyone reads this and has both seen and liked [i]Vampire Holmes[/i], I’m very curious about its appeal – this is not an attempt at humour; I just don’t see what the show wanted to do. I was both bored and confused – episodes don’t run longer than 5 minutes, less I think, and I still feel I wasted my time. But it’s not like I think it failed to do what it wanted to do. I can’t tell what it wanted to do.)
But, yeah, I always try to keep in mind the people I make recommendations to – and I don’t need to love a show I recommend if I think it fits. I’ve rarely recommended shows I don’t like (though I’ve never recommended shows I hate). And as a rule of thumb, the better-known a show is, the less likely I am to recommend it, though I might recommend a classic, if it fits a very specific question I’m answering (chances are, though, someone else got that in before me anyway; I’m usually time-zone challanged on the web, and nobody I know in meat space watches anime or asks for recommendations.).
Y’know Dawn-chan, I found Redo boring in large parts. But you touch on the one thing that kept me invested (or rather, amused) throughout its run. At some point you realize, the show suffers no illusions about its main character. To put it bluntly, he’s a colossal piece of shit, and the show knows it, and I suspect the character himself knows it too. The funny thing is, he does try to maintain a set of rules, to ensure he can frame his own acts of evil as justifiable. That’s what separates him from the real monsters, he tells himself. He can’t cause hurt to just anyone!
Well, except that he can, and frequently does. There are moments where the mask slips off, and the anime shows the character for what he truly is — an evil prick, who always looks for excuses to exercise his cruelty, even when he knows they’re flimsy. The man is depraved, vicious & irredeemable. But the anime doesn’t judge him for it. In fact, it remains remarkably committed to its amoral lens, a choice which I almost admired. It reminded me of Shigurui in that respect — a far superior show in my view, but also one in which there is no real “justice” or “honor” to be found. There’s only a brutal world filled with brutal men, who carry deep grudges & settle them with extreme violence.
As an aside, I do think Redo can be enjoyed as a revenge fantasy. For example, by someone who feels badly wronged, finds it hard to let it go, and lacks a strong moral compass. “Doesn’t matter if the world burns, so long as my tormentors die.” I’ve known a few folks like that, they’re not very fun to be around. The first person I recommended Redo to was one of those hard-edged guys, back then.
Now, regarding Vampire Holmes… I felt compelled to try a couple episodes after reading your comment. It’s funny you say your reaction wasn’t an attempt at humour, because I’d argue that’s exactly what the show is. The lack of connective tissue between the gags seems itself to be part of the joke, to say nothing of the absence of a discernable point. I usually find that non-sequiturs go down better with liquor, so I’ll save the rest for my next alcohol session!
Oh, there are plenty of random shorts with no paticular point to them, but they manage to carve out their niche. The ending or opening (I forget) to Ai Mai Mi (I think) has one of the characters licking an Axolotl, which is probably how that series came to be. I tend to enjoy them the way they are. Vampire Holmes? Yeah, it was supposed to funny (probably). At least someone must have thought this would advertise the game it’s an adaption of. And maybe it does? I don’t know the game. I’ve read reviews on MAL to see if anyone found anything to like. I found one review that said it sort-of kind-of liked it even though it was bad and tried to explain why. But it was vague. Apparently it’s the most dropped anime on MAL (a review said so, and I didn’t check). I can sort of see the lack of connective tissue being part of the show, maybe. It would make sense; you don’t dodge that many chances to be accidently funny by chance. Maybe.
For me, it has to be Shin-Chan. It is filled with Japanese culture and references, and I find that not even the adults around me have the maturity to handle that show. Same thing with Kochikame.