I wish more anime focused on adult characters instead of highschoolers.

Not all anime is good, a lot is straight up shit. Not all things that aren’t anime are shit some are quite good.

Edit: some recommendations for good live action TV that’s neither a police or medical procedural:

• I May Destroy You - an analysis of consent and modern dating

• The Sopranos - one of the first shows to really smash the episodic format apart with its sprawling, long running narrative

• The Wire - while it does involve some elements of the police procedural format, it’s really a novel about a decaying society in TV form

• Freaks and Geeks - spawned it’s own sub-genre, possibly the most influential teen drama ever

• Deadwood - framed as a western but it’s really about how you build a society, crying shame it got cancelled before the conclusion but some of the best characters and dialogue ever written

• Battlestar Galactica (2003) - the perfect series to capture the paranoia and changes in society following 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan

• Chernobyl - just incredible

• Band of Brothers (honourable mention to The Pacific) - suffers a little from some American Exceptionalism but an incredible look at the effects of war on ordinary people

• The Deuce - an unflinchingly honest look at the sex and porn industry in 70s and 80s New York

4 seconds into first anime, high pitched squeal coming from female lead

10 minutes in, realize the main character is 15, girl phobic, and being put in charge of serious military equipment nobody has the right to touch until they undergo a year of training and are willing to follow orders; starts wondering if the person giving the child multi-billion dollar military equipment is more incompetent than the main character…it’s really a close call

15 minutes in, bitches like the child they are for the rest of the episode

episode ends

I love anime, but boy are some of the tropes really annoying and is a massive part of why so many people just turn it off shortly after it starts.

Here’s my problem with anime: I keep getting burnt on recommendations.

Anime fans do not share my distaste for sexualized child-coded characters. Which would be tolerable if they would even acknowledge the CONCEPT.

It’s a dice toss whether the anime is a Cowboy Bebop or something with loli side characters halfway through season 2, and I’m just rarely up for spending the time to do that research for a recommendation.

And “Achshually, these are just drawings not real people”, “umm, she’s really a 1000 year old dragon who just chooses/got stuck with a small human body” fuckery just tires me.

I’m in neither camp. I don’t watch much anime, and I hate these detective/murder solving shows. There’s plenty of third options to choose from here as well. Lots of good stuff.