Do you guys think anime and video games are just for kids?

[CyberXIII]

I've been seeing a sudden upswing in this thought recently. Everyone I talk to seems to hold the opinion that all video games and cartoons are for children, which I think is complete crap. I can't count the number of times people have walked by, seen me watching, say, Rebuild of Evangelion, and had them say something to the effect of, "Are you watching a cartoon? Isn't that for kids?" The ignorance of a statement like that astounds me. I would never show anything like Eva to a 10 year old, and people don't seem to get that there are genres and age ranges for these things.

People also don't seem to get that I watch anime not because it's for kids but because I enjoy it. Sports bore me, most live action shows are insipid at best, and most good movies only show up once in a blue moon.

Despite my bitching, there was a point in there. Thoughts on it?

[IrkenEvangelion]

I've just recently convinced my mom that anime =/= cartoons. 8 years later... Anyone here in the West who is unaware of anime's significance will think that it is simply weird cartoons.

[Azathoth]

But anime is simply weird cartoons. Only difference from American/etc. is somewhat broader demographic range.

[IrkenEvangelion]

Well yes.. but in the West, cartoons are usually identified as children's shows while anime... well I shouldn't need to spell it out.

[gatotsu911]

I doubt anyone going to this website actually believes that anime and video games are just for kids, and if they do and yet still come here they probably have some serious issues to work out. (So, maybe Xard.) (Just kidding, Xard!! Huggles!)

Seriously though, if the people around you think your hobby (be that anime or games) is "weird" or "for kids", the best thing you can do is either A) ignore them, or if you care about them enough to actually want to spend time with them, B) show them something that will change their perception. What would be best for that "something" varies from person to person, but classic anime like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop are probably good places to start when it comes to convincing someone that anime isn't just "kids' stuff". (I wouldn't recommend Eva for neophytes, but apparently some people have been turned onto the medium after seeing it, so what do I know?)

As for video games, it seems kinda dumb that someone in this day and age would perceive them as being for kids when so many successful video games of the past 15 years have been decidedly less than kid-friendly. Of course, maybe they're dismissing it as "kids' stuff" on the grounds that games like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty are so obviously trying to be as ADULT and GRITTY as possible, which is in fact very immature; if that's the case, show them a game that proves video games can be artistic or intelligent - something like Silent Hill 2/Shattered Memories, Red Dead Redemption, or even Portal. If none of that will convince them, then screw 'em - YOU know your hobbies are cool, what does it matter if they do?

[MugwumpHasNoLiver]

I doubt anyone going to this website actually believes that anime and video games are just for kids, and if they do and yet still come here they probably have some serious issues to work out. (So, maybe Xard.) (Just kidding, Xard!! Huggles!)

Well, kidding or not, Xard does have serious issues. I mean, just look at him. He's a train wreck of neuroses and fixations. We silently weep for his lost and tormented soul every day.

Anyhoo, the fact that anime is stigmatized as kid's only, is because of a typical cultural bias. One one hand you have a culture where animation appeals to all ages, and on another, you have a culture where it appeals to just kids. Of course the latter culture is going to project its own views on things from the former. The only way for this prejudice to go away is for all the old people, who think it, to just die already. I imagine this particular cultural bias will probably be gone in a generation or so.

[chaosakita]

I'm not sure who on the forum wouldn't confirm your opinion.

[gatotsu911]

Anyhoo, the fact that anime is stigmatized as kid's only, is because of a typical cultural bias. One one hand you have a culture where animation appeals to all ages, and on another, you have a culture where it appeals to just kids. Of course the latter culture is going to project its own views on things from the latter. The only way for this prejudice to go away is for all the old people who think it to just die already. I imagine it will probably be gone in a generation or so.

Well, more specifically, Westerners generally have two perceptions of animation: either it's for kids, or it's for raunchy comedy. In a similar vein, there are also dual (conflicting) perceptions of anime: either it's all Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon, or it's all La Blue Girl and Legend of the Overfiend. See also TV Tropes' thoughts on the matter.

[The Abhorrent]

The idea of classifying a whole medium to being specific to an age group (often younger) is definitely an annoyance. Western animation was making progress and moving toward an older audience during the 80s & 90s, with many notable series being either entertaining for all ages and/or pushing towards more mature content (Batman TAS is commonly cited, Gargoyles was made by Disney of all people, The Tick is packed with surprisingly mature jokes that weren't innuendos, and Animaniacs is crammed with enough adult humour to choke a whale). Perhaps this is one of the reasons anime gained the foothold that it did during this time, the leap in mature content when going from domestic shows to anime wasn't so large back then. Unfortunately, for some reason domestic shows which were more mature are very rare now (barring the Simpsons-styled shows, are they classified sitcoms?); Pixar's films are probably the most notable examples which are still around. Nevertheless, animation as a whole is gaining some more acceptance as being more than just "kid's stuff".

Video games on the other hand? It looks like the medium is going through a "'mature' teenager" phase: the subject matter of the games themselves is adult-oriented, but handled in a very immature fashion (plenty of gratuitous violence & nudity in many of the more popular titles). Fortunately, these do appear to be mostly growing pains rather than degradation; there are many more games coming out which can be called genuinely mature, with the Mass Effect series coming to mind.

Cultural misinterpretation in the western world is quite the annoyance, but the situation in general does appear to be improving.... hopefully.

[gatotsu911]

Video games on the other hand? It looks like the medium is going through a "'mature' teenager" phase: the subject matter of the games themselves is adult-oriented, but handled in a very immature fashion (plenty of gratuitous violence & nudity in many of the more popular titles). Fortunately, these do appear to be mostly growing pains rather than degradation; there are many more games coming out which can be called genuinely mature, with the Mass Effect series coming to mind.

This is very true. In more ways than one, video games as a medium are currently in their adolescence - they want to be taken seriously, but mostly attempt to do that by being loud, either through lurid content (Grand Theft Auto, God of War, Call of Duty) or for the "artsy kids", extreme pretentiousness (Braid, BioShock, Heavy Rain). There still are, and have always been, examples of true maturity on the periphery of gaming culture, though, and sometimes even the spirit of adolescent enthusiasm and excess in (comparatively) more mainstream titles can lead to them tackling grandiose ideas and themes that more jaded creators wouldn't dare (e.g. Xenogears, Metal Gear Solid). But by and large the medium is still going through growing pains, and still finding its own identity among the existing artistic mediums (also still getting out of the phase of believing that the pinnacle of artistry in video games is trying to be movies). While I've been pretty disappointed with the general lack of ambition and creative derring-do this generation, I do think that games and gamers are, however slowly, maturing - most obviously, the standard for game writing has gone up exponentially. What would have been considered acceptable or even good game writing 10 years ago is often called out today, and rightfully so, for being sub-B-movie garbage. Of course, by and large games still have a long way to go before approaching the same standard of writing quality seen in films and literature, but progress is being made. The prospect of growing up could also bring bad things to the medium, though - it could (and in many ways already has) become rigidly set in familiar routines, losing some of the adventurous spirit of youth. But, I digress. What I'm trying to say is that the fact that video games are an art form, and that they appeal to people of all age groups, should really be old news by now. This isn't the freakin' 90s anymore.

[Ornette]

Another thing especially with video games is not so much that older people are drawn in to start playing video games, but that these were people that have always played video games but just got older.

[Azathoth]

What would have been considered acceptable or even good game writing 10 years ago is often called out today, and rightfully so, for being sub-B-movie garbage.

I wouldn't say this is the case. Mass Effect 2's writing got praised up, down, and sideways even by reviewers who had the balls to point out the dreadful "streamlining" of combat and inventory, and let's be honest, as entertaining as it can be, it's B-movie "assemble your team" garbage (although not sub-B-movie). There were games ten years ago with better writing - Deus Ex is eleven years old (although its writing is not without its own failiOH MY GOD JC A BOMB); Daggerfall and Marathon Infinity are both fifteen, and I'm sure there's even older games that are written just as well. These games are recognized as well-written, sure, but the primary focus of the game industry remains in, well, industry, in making money off the audience. So does pretty much any medium.

What's interesting is that videogame criticism as a field provides information as such a disconnect from reality that good writing (such that the brilliant Deadly Premonition can be rated 2/10 by IGN while the dreadfully boring canonwrecker that is Halo: Reach gets 9.5) can easily go overlooked because hey, it's got high production values (and of course there have been ugly accusations of all manner of shenanigans on part of reviewers and publishers and who knows what).

See also the whole shitfit thrown over Dragon Age 2's Metacritic rating. Regardless of the fact that much of the impetus for its 4.2/10 user score came from /v/'s desire to harvest delicious tears, there were a damn lot of people who felt that tears were worth harvesting. Why did so many gaming journalists rate this game so much higher, that its critic score is 82%? Of course it's easiest to blame /v/ and associate trolls, but I think that's too easy an out; it doesn't address why felt the urge to target DA2 as the object of their trolling. These people clearly did not feel that they were playing a good game. Many of them, for all their trolling, raise very legitimate issues with the game which professional review outlets do not. This kind of disparity is not remotely limited to DA2: compare critic and user scores for Black Ops or even Portal 2. That disparity's something that could stand to be addressed.

I don't know how reliable early film critique was, so I can't look at videogame critique and proclaim that it's entirely unreliable as a whole forever, but I can't say I rely too much on critical consensus as a metric of whether I should play a game or not - and I certainly don't rely on it to judge a game's writing.

[gatotsu911]

it's B-movie "assemble your team" garbage (although not sub-B-movie).

And that's still an improvement, isn't it?

Believe me, video games, and especially gaming culture, still have a loooooong way to go. But you have to admit that, at least in some respects, progress has been made (even if in others, arguably, it has regressed). Mass Effect's plot/writing may not exactly be Star Trek-caliber (or whatever, as I'm not intimately familiar with either), but 11 years ago Deus Ex was not the norm for mainstream video game writing; the norm was Duke Nukem (though I guess you could argue that Duke Nukem's absolute refusal to take itself seriously is itself something that po-faced modern games could learn from). Things aren't much better today, but on the whole they are at least a little bit better... maybe. Or, hell, maybe not, I'm not really sure myself anymore.

A bit of a disclaimer: with a few exceptions, I myself rarely play mainstream games; most of my gaming time is spent either on games ranging from two to twenty years old that I didn't have or take an opportunity to play when they were new, or otherwise on mildly-obscure titles, e.g. JRPGs or quirky/weird action games. Also, the only two review publications I still trust even remotely are Edge and Eurogamer (despite the fact that I'm an American) and maybe, occasionally, Action Button Dot Net (well, that's technically more of a blog than a professional review site, but I love/hate Tim Rogers for his insightful/pretentious stream-of-consciousness explorations/explosions of verbal diarrhea and iconoclastic/smug sense of style/narcissism); otherwise I base most of my game selections on friends, blogs, message boards, or personal curiosity. I completely stopped paying attention to publications like IGN and Game Informer years ago.

[GasmaskAvenger]

I really despise certain forms of media being pidgeonholed as "just for kids"


everything is not for kids and never will be, which is why we have a variety of stuff intended for certain age groups

[Azathoth]

And that's still an improvement, isn't it?

It could be far worse, to be sure. Doesn't hold a candle to the first game imo, which was the same ilk of B-movie nonsense but executed far more elegantly and with a wonderful sense of humor at the history of pulp sci-fi. (Actually I blame a lot of ME2's problems on the absence of Liara - it's impossible to pretend your storyline is serious business in the presence of a character so consciously created out of every emotionally naïve alien girl Captain Kirk ever banged - and note how much more natural Lair of the Shadow Broker feels, once she's back. To use an analogy you probably won't understand but someone else might: if ME1 was the original Star Trek, ME2 is Deep Space Nine). At any rate, what worries me is not ME2 specifically but the larger tendency in the reviewing world to greatly exaggerate a game's virtue because it's made by a big-name studio.

Or, hell, maybe not, I'm not really sure myself anymore.

I mean...in a sense writing's stepped forward, sure; it's become unacceptable to leave a game absolutely without conventional plot and characters, but as you point out, the endlessly dull Tom-Clancyish blather of Call of Duty could stand to learn a few things from Duke. There are times when I have to wonder if a painfully stupid narrative is better than no narrative at all. Even the Halo series...we began with Halo: Combat Evolved, a beautifully minimalist, frequently bleak, and occasionally rather comical week-in-the-life of a peerless soldier who really doesn't [s]afraid of anything[/s] have any human attributes at all when compared to his by turns cheery and megalomaniacal computer allies and enemies. But by Halo 3, it's morphed into a bizarre and operatic legend about the byzantine plots of even more computers, descent from ancient aliens, the perils of having an insane AI for a girlfriend, and dying black men delivering horribly cliche lines - and by ODST and Reach, all trace of our soldier/machine dilemma has been removed and we're speaking the same "war shit" language as Call of Duty. It's a kind of worrisome trend, although I can't imagine it'll last forever or hurt the industry too terribly. Bah, I don't know, maybe none of this will matter ten years from now. It wasn't a problem a decade ago, it probably won't last another decade after this...

[TaintedHero]

I never hear people say video games are for kids anymore, in fact when I get online and play, the group I almost always play with has a guy who has 2 kids and I am the youngest at 20. Though what you do get in the world of video games are the games that are anime based or rpg style, which don't necessarily get the, "for kids" as much as they get a, "What a loser" comment. My brother in law came over one day and he is as normal as a person can get, we play Call of Duty online a lot, and I was playing Tales of Vesperia that day. All he said was I don't really like that style of games, which is something from him. Video games are become pretty well accepted, no matter what your playing.

As for the anime, thats a but different. Oddly enough, when i mention something anime to my friends sometimes they surprise me by actually at least knowing what I'm talking about. Though I do keep my anime tendencies to myself most of the time.

I think people see anime as being a bunch of fairies and big eyed girls running around. Honestly what does the majority of america think of when they hear anime. I can tell you some of the top ones working at a toy store where we sell bakugan, beyblade, yu-gi-oh and pokemon toys. They are thinking of the cheap anime put on cartoon network and disney XD or whatever they play now. I have tried to explain people that what is on TV is for kids, and what you can't find so easily is for adults and teens. It's like watching Suit Life of Zach and Cody and then basing all live action american shows off that.

Generally if they aren't a stuck up ignorant person, I find people usually just accept what you like, to each his own.

[Xard]

Of course not!


Anime and video games are for manchildren

[Eva Yojimbo]

I'm always annoyed at the notion that "X is for kids" because the vast majority of art/entertainment for adults is no more sophisticated than the stuff aimed specifically at children. I've said it before, but demographic is no indicator of quality, substance, or intelligence.

[Allemann]

Anime is for people with deep pockets.

[backseatjesus]

Anime is for people with deep pockets.

Or internet capabilities.

Anime/cartoons/games are for everyone, just like ignorance.