I am an anime fan myself, although I can see why people dislike it. I can see where BladesOnToast's friend is coming from - I have seen many anime which feature the whole "freezeframe with the background moving" thing, but more often than not I'll look past it if I find the show itself or story therein interesting.
More jarring to me is "freezeframe with lots of dialog" but again, only when said dialog (e.g. story stuff) is uninteresting. Lyrical Nanoha is a good example of one that I just couldn't get into for this reason.

Anyway, I agree with what Agentmax said above in relation to why most people won't watch anime. Something put it in society's head that anime is all phallic tentacles and schoolgirls, and that's stuck. This is why I generally don't mention that I like anime to people unless they're close friends or have hinted at the fact they watch it too.
This is also why I don't tend to listen to the outspoken haters out there. You know the ones. I have respect for those who simply say, "I tried watching it once, wasn't my thing" or, "Nah, don't really like it." because I get the impression that they're not going to be dicks to people who do like it.

On the subject of why I like anime:
Simply because it's different. It combines cartoony style without the restrictions western cartoons place on themselves. Many anime like to explore darker or weirder themes than you'll likely ever see in a western cartoons or perhaps even tv shows. Look at Serial Experiments Lain for example. Can't say I've seen anything as peculiar or weird or mindfucking as that except maybe Inception. Mirai Nikki involves a weird time paradox scenario in which many people with diaries that see into the future fight to the death in order to become the new god, and involves the murder of many teens and one small child - also lots of gore.

The basic premise is, it's a medium to convey fascinating stories to me, and one that I enjoy more because it's somewhat more unusual. The same way I enjoy movies, video games and tv shows, as they're a medium for me to be "read" a story, all using different methods.

TL;DR: People often don't like it/watch it because of the "tentacle rape + schoolgirls" idea. I like anime because it can explore darker or weirder themes than western cartoons whilst still being in the "unrestricted by reality" environment given by being a cartoon.

This message has been deleted

If you hate anime.. you didnt have a nice childhood! and I'm sorry for that.
Animes are my favourite!

the hell you say 'bout my childhood yo

I'm quite content having grown up with Doom, Quake and Descent. :U
ANYWAYS, for the topic at hand, i'm mostly neutral with a slight negative bias towards anime, partly because almost all the points of reference i have look damn near identical (and in a style that i'm not a fan of). Also, i like my animations running smoothly and not lazily, as in "static characters with two frames of mouth movement for conversation running at 10 FPS" lazy. Ok maybe three frames, but still. Might just be Disney spoiling me with absurdly high animation quality, or it could be that other animators don't have such a gigantic budget, but i digress.

Another key thing that annoys the shit out of me is how that stereotypical anime style is imitated by basically every second budding artist on the planet. Granted, some of them ARE extremely good at it, but... I don't even know how to explain it, i just feel like it's a stopping block. One of the things i like about art is to see the individual art style of every artist, but that's a rather hard thing to see when it's just an imitation of someone else.

It'd be ridiculous to say that i hate everything anime, however, because it's far from everything that falls into the stereotype. Spirited Away, for instance, was a movie that i enjoyed, and let's not even BEGIN on how things like Super Mario and Metroid are made in Japan (partly because they're vidya games, but yeah).

tl;dr don't like the stereotypical anime but there are good things too

Fun thing though, supposedly the stereotypical anime style is inspired by older western cartoons, and now there are multiple western cartoons imitating that anime look. :U (and likewise does anime that imitates the moders western look also exist)

I like some animes, because they are good shows.
What the hell is this even, you don't hate anime, that's like saying you don't like music because of Justin Beiber (or something).

Every anime is different, just like every song, movie, tv show, painting etc.
Not sure how you're judging a dislike for something here, but it seems ill thought-out and rash. Most of it sounds like people being hipster faegs.

I have literally never seen an anime that does that. What the hell shitty anime are you watching? O_o

But "anime" isn't a style in the first place..?

What does vidya got to do with...............

Erryone borrows from erryone.


Shook please watch Jinrui wa Suitaishimashita.

Never really got into anime much. But I loved bleach.

Now hentai is a different story

anime = cartoons

i dont think we should classify them by what country they came from, that's dumb

When you say cartoons, usually the first thing that springs to a person's mind is something like Spongebob or Mickey Mouse. Many anime fans wouldn't agree with this classification because it makes the artform sound like it's aimed at kids.

stereotypes and exaggerations lol

But most series i've seen have basically two images for a talking mouth: an open one and a closed one. I just think that looks silly, even though it's likely because a danish voiceover doesn't fit such lip motions at all.


I agree, but there are certain visual trends that tend to appear across multiple works. But as mentioned, my pool of reference is small, and i generally prefer slapstick cartoons over things with an actual storyline (Justice League Unlimited being a notable exception), which i think most anime series have. I could well be totally wrong though.
Also, the one setting i find the least appealing would be the "SPIKY HAIRED KID SAEVS VORLD WITH MAGICAL ridiculous collectibles" thing, or slight variations thereof. Pokemon was a decent series, on the basis of actually being pretty creative, but i haven't watched it for quite a while. Then come things like Beyblade and Yu-Gi-Oh and say "EY LET'S MAKE SPINNING TOPS AND CARD GAMES RIDICULOUSLY OVER THE TOP". I'm all for exaggerating things for comedic effect, but i can't bring myself to watch such series, much less take them seriously.


anime --> japanese animation --> japanese video games
Plenty of JRPG's with a very anime-ish visual style, but notably, some series' country of origin is completely impossible to determine. I'm certain that there are such cases in animation as well, but the mere fact that they're often still divided in separate categories tells that there are certain ingrained differences.


eh wot now

It's entirely possible that my aversion is completely irrational, i won't dispute that. As mentioned, i did enjoy Spirited Away, which is pretty much the only anime movie i've ever seen, as well as Pokemon, which is pretty much the only anime series i've followed for a lengthy period of time. It's far from impossible that i could enjoy other movies and series, i just haven't bothered finding or watching them.

also disclaimer: i do not care who made anything as long as it's awesome (i don't care who made shitty things either for that matter, they're just shitty)