I'm too tired to think of a good title right now

[cerusee]

I've finally had a chance to witness firsthand the anime fan equivalent to the following scenario:

"Hi, my name is John, and I love comics. My girlfriend doesn't read them, but she loves manga, like Fruits Basket and stuff, and she's willing to try a few comics. Can you recommend some?"

"Watchmen."

"Ditto. Also, V for Vendetta. And Dark Knight Returns. Make sure she reads that one first."

"I'm a huge fan of Preacher! And uhhhh, jeez, did anybody say Watchmen?"

"Kingdom Come, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but Marvels, Dark Knight Returns, definitely Watchman. So-and-so's run on X-Men is fucking awesome, but if she won't read regular comics, there's the latest Wolverine mini..."


Of course, I'm guilty of putting Usagi Yojimbo, Runaways, and Bone in the same headspace as Kitchen Princess ("these are all popular with kids, so thirteen-year-old girls will definitely like this!"), so I know how easy it is to do. Nevertheless, some people should probably not make recommendations to new readers, because their horribly inappropriate, blind rattling-off of fan-favorites that have nothing to do with the stated interests of the outside reader are actively counterproductive and may work to destroy the reader's willingness to sample, because after all, the cherry-picked titles they were given when they asked for a starting point at X turned out to be somewhere around the Ms.

Seriously, I see maybe one person actually answering her request for "epic fantasy anime titles" with epic fantasy anime titles. Other commentators manage a smattering (the same titles over and over again--old fan favorites like Vision of Escaflowne and Slayers, which are pretty on-target at least), but mostly just fall prey to the urge to list their favorites, regardless of how removed they are from the OP's stated interest.

On that note, I hereby declare Cowboy Bebop to be the Watchmen of anime fans (i.e. a fantastic genre deconstruction work with a moderate degree of independent appeal that really isn't as accessible to new audiences as fans think it is--the knee-jerk recommendation to the question "What do I read next?", assumed to be universal simply because it's good).

Comments

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I see entirely what you mean. I usually answer a question like this with a gentle poking around of the person's exact reading tastes and then try to tailor one or two titles.

I recommend Cowboy Bebop a lot, but only because it was one of the few anime that my husband would watch with me. He doesn't like the majority of anime series because of the "cutesy" stuff and the way that serious characters don't actually act serious--too much talking, in his opinion. Cowboy Bebop is that much different from other anime series, and it even seems a little Western in the way its characters act. (I suspect he also has a little crush on Faye, but he won't admit it.) He enjoyed Samurai Champloo for many of the same reasons--Gin doesn't stand around and talk about how deadly his martial art is, he shows how deadly it is by doing it. [End of anecdote]

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

You know, I still haven't seen Cowboy Bebop! Except for that movie with the butterflies.

[herongale]

You'd think that someone would recommend a feel-good girly romance such as Fushigi Yugi. It's a bit dated but the story is EXTREMELY accessible as both epic fantasy and epic romance. I'd go recc it myself but am not a part of the comm. :D