That or the lolis. I hate when you're watching an anime that seems good, and then they start sexualizing a nine year old.
I've heard the arguments about how it's a difference in culture, but I don't think it's offensive when I say if your culture includes pedophilia, it's time to take a long hard look at where you went wrong and think about what you should be changing about yourself. Because it's gross.
I'm with you, there's some anime that I've enjoyed but I really don't need a 500 plus episode show about people fighting and shit. Just give me some nice films of anything.
I'm an early 90s kid so I love Akira, ghost in the shell, and a lot of the bloody techno punk anime. Recently I've been watching random ones with my wife but ones that don't look conventional, we really liked My Happy marriage on Netflix, and of course Castlevania
There's a new one called Captain Laserhawk that has an anime style but is all English, similar to Castlevania. I believe it's also the same showrunner as Castlevania.
A lot of the times it's the animation style that gets me. The art style is usually fine (Exceptions being stuff like jojo and one piece. Cannot stand the art in those shows.), but that jiggly thing they do with they eyes really fucking creeps me the fuck out. It's worse than uncanny valley stuff.
Also, the more popular stuff tends to be aimed towards younger crowds. Which I am not a part of. (Naruto, ew.)
Those are almost always shonen anime, i.e targeted at teen/young adult boys, a genre (demographic) almost defined by action and fight scenes. Not that seinen doesn't also have a lot of series with heavy emphasis on fighting, but at least it's rarely the entire point, and when it is, the point is usually to be a gorefest.
Check out Attack on Titan, not too long and everything happens for a reason, so the plot is quite well worked, the action, the soundtracks and the characters too.
This is my life generally on Lemmy. You can be a Linux/tech person and not be an anime lover or trans fem furry, but they are fucking TIGHTLY entangled here.
I think Miyazaki put it best when he said the problem with popular anime is that it takes its inspiration from other anime instead of bringing in fresh ideas and doing things differently. Anine is a genre but it shouldn't be.
I mean if you don't want to watch anime simple because it legitimately does not interest you it's fine. I assume people have tried different animes and no interest caught on.
There is manga and anime for a vast array of audiences after all.
Now...
If you don't want to watch it because of stigma from others than you kinda have a bigger problem. It's necessary to grow out of the need of validation from other people.
I have to admit the same too. I'm a huge fan of Nintendo and other Japanese gaming giants but I don't watch anime or read manga regularly. I have watched something like Hayao Miyazaki's movies, Evangelion, Berserk, Dragon Ball and some popular others as it's "common knowledge of popular culture".
To be fair, most Western shows are trash these days, too. There's a few standouts, and plenty of them are still the stupid kind of enjoyable in spite of being trash, but that's true of anime, too. Most modern media has just unfortunately become a vehicle for making money, not a vehicle for making art.
Anime is often very mind numbing, with some exceptions of course. I have a much better time reading manga when I get the urge every few years, when I try to watch "normal" animes (not critically acclaimed/advanced stuff), I cannot get into it.
I'm kind of the same. I like bullet trains, katanas, Nintendo, japanese hotels, and vending machines (not the used panty ones) but anime just doesn't click with me
Start with something simple like one punch man. A lot of people try to get into the 100+ episode classics off the bat and then thing they don't like anime. But you have to develop a pallet for it
That's what I've found: there's a dozen or so series that are great going back decades that I've found. But whenever an anime fan or friend recommends some, 80% of the time there's fanservice that is so out of place. I ended up just ignoring most anime for that reason.
You can have sex and nudity, even gratuitous (like many HBO shows), but the casual objectification without even recognizing it puts me off.
I feel different from most anime fans in that sometimes I can ignore it and other times it's worth dropping the series. A little fan service and cringe nosebleed scenes are just standard anime tropes at this point. But some anime pushes it so far that, like you said, its jarring and distracts from the story. I've dropped a few shows just for the annoying fan service alone (Fireforce, Fairytale, Seven deadly sins, etc.)
If you are looking for recommendations of shonen anime that have heart, action, and deep characters I would suggest: Mob Psycho 100 and Ping Pong the Animation. Both of these have a weird art style, but they both have a story to tell that leaves a deep impact on you.
That said, anime is a a big medium and there is something that will appeal to everyone (dramas, sci-fi, romance, ecchi, sports, mecha, horror, comedy, historical fiction, etc.) I've linked some helpful anime flowcharts/recommendations that I always refer to when I want to get away from the endless deluge of seasonal anime.
Inuyasha, Dragonball, Ranma ½, Fist of the North Star, Lupin the third, Urusei Yatsura, Jojo, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Hunter x Hunter and a bunch of others.
Some are good, some are definitely classic, and a few are both.
Mostly because it's not sourced from, or meant to be, weekly episodic content. It's from a set of space opera novels, so the animated version is like when people adapt Game of Thrones. It's also technically not an Anime, but an OVA.
There's nothing really cringe about it. Just good story in an animated format.