SineSwiper wrote:Dutch wrote:SineSwiper wrote:I could easily name off a Top 25 list for US shows or movies that didn't have kids in it (as supporting roles) and be fine, but nobody can do even a Top 5 for anime under those same conditions.
Really? Since it's so easy, list off your top 25 animated shows in North America with no kids or teenagers in them.
I didn't say cartoons on purpose: cartoons in America are only for kids. Anime in Japan is quite a different medium. Half of their shows are anime, so it's just a medium for telling a story, instead of being an actual definition of what audience the story should be.
My key point is that many many adults watch anime, and yet, there are still kids being the focus on most of the anme out there.
Actually, anime is not really a mainstream form of entertainment even in Japan. The bulk of anime in Japan is shown during 12pm to 3am (late night anime slot) or early morning/evening weekend (aka the kiddy slot).
Pretty much the only one watching the late nights stuff are the Otaku population and those that watch the weekend stuff are kids.
What is being shown a lot on Japanese TV station is variety shows... Tons and tons of them.
Lucky Star, which was brought up in this thread is shown at 1:30am Tuesday, aka targeted towards otakus.
As most of you know, the otaku population are a weird bunch and anything with moe/pedo/cross dressing/blah blah blah characters will interest them.
The other time slot, which is tuned towards kids obviously has kids as main characters.
There are time slot which shows anime that are tuned to a mature/normal audience but they aren't that common. One of them is the Noitamina time slot (9-10pm Fridays) on Fuji Channel.
I'll give some rough description of some of the anime shown during this slot. Search Wikipedia or something else for better description, I'm a bit bad at this.
Honey and Clover - Ignoring Hagu (She's 18 but don't look her part), rest are in their 20s. It's about a bunch of arts students graduating from their college/looking for work etc...
怪～ayakashi～ Japanese Classic Horror - As you can tell from the title, tells 2 classic japanese horror story. Contains 3 separate story arcs, Yotsuya Kaidan (Sadako from ring was sort of inspired by Oiwa from this story), Tenshu Monogatari and Bake Neko. First 2 arcs are on the dull side but the last one is great. Last arc is about a man exorcising a monstrous cat that was formed from a certain grudge.
Jyu Oh Sei - Set in the future, two twins were thrown into a savage planet and have to survive. No special power/eye laser etc involved. Plot is somewhat Digital Devil Saga like. Twins starts as children though.
Hataraki Man - About a woman in her late 20s working as an editor at a magazine company and how she juggle her personal and work life.
Nodame Cantabile - About a man trying to fulfill his dream of becoming a composer. At the start of the series, he encountered a talented but messy girl and he try to get her straighten up. Main female character is actually not pretty looking.
Mononoke - Spin off from the Bake Neko arc of Ayakashi. Featuring the exorcist from Bake Neko.
Nana - Not really part of Noitamina but might as well be. Story of two girls with the same name and how the deal with their life. One wishes to work her way to being a rock singer, the other idly dreams of getting married.
I can probably dig out more stuff if I waste more time searching for stuff other than those from Noitamina.
BTW, Ergo Proxy was shown during the early evenings IIRC and GiTS was shown an hour or so before the late night anime slot.
In short, if you are looking for a more mature anime, take note of what time they are being shown.
