The Old School Otaku Lounge

I pretty much agree with what dave said. Every time I see comparison images like this, it is always bias. I would love to see one that isn't opinionated or just mashed together.

Let me give a shot at this.

Anime guys then:



Anime guys now:

Not a good comparison since 80s shows had lots of wimpy looking guys too. Saint Seiya comes to mind right away...

I was making a super-biased, slanted comparison, going along with what Dave said. Still, there does seem to be a lack of toughguy badasses in anime as compared to the '80s...

greg wrote:I was making a super-biased, slanted comparison, going along with what Dave said. Still, there does seem to be a lack of toughguy badasses in anime as compared to the '80s...

Oh c'mon, all the dudes in the 80s were pretty feminine:

(what? that's a girl? seriously?!?)

Yeah, those 80s anime guys were SO MANLY!!!



Yes, that's Hibari-kun, and in spite of all appearances, Hibari-kun is all man.

To be honest, the thing about the delicate, tinted-hair, J-rock visual k-looking, male anime characters - they look crazy from an American guy perspective, but walking around Tokyo you see TONS of guys who look like that. Tinted hair, styled to the max, dressed in the latest fashion; this is how fashionable young men dress in Japan. It's probably a look only Asian guys can successfully achieve, but they do achieve it. What you're seeing in the modern anime - and not all modern anime has characters that look like shojo manga romantic leads - but when you see it, it's a reflection of what people are actually wearing.

It's the Asian version of metrosexual. The metrosexual look seems to change every so often in the west too. In the past, it was James Bond. Now it's Bieber.

To compare anime girls then and now, a more systematic approach should yield more meaningful results.

Did a quick search for TV ratings for anime by year, and found something for 2000 - 2012: http://www.geocities.jp/animesityouritu/

ANN has a list of their current top animes: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... t_bayesian

Also genre search, which you can order by rating: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... arch/genre

I've no time to be doing too much with this, but for a real comparison of then and now, I'm thinking that systematically looking through what was popular by year, and with whom, may prove useful.

davemerrill wrote: Yes, that's Hibari-kun, and in spite of all appearances, Hibari-kun is all man.

I remember when I first discovered that show, I thought "she" looked really cool, and was kinda let down when I found out she was a he. The same thing happened on two separate occasions with Griffith from Berserk and Ayanojou from Magic User's club.