Anime, Part 1: The Dozens of Anime Genres

As previously mentioned, I'm an anime fan who likes these shows very much, so I made this post to discuss more about it. Here's a simple note about what it is:

Anime is a term used to describe animation created from Japan. It is very popular in the country that it's pretty much everyday life over there. Now as for us, it gained cult status because not that many people know about it. Thanks to the dozens of people who fan translated the shows, the anime and manga (the Japanese version of graphic novels except you start reading them from the right to the left) gained popularity over in the west. Now Anime isn't just for children, actually in fact it's more aimed at teenagers thanks to the variety of content presented in the shows.

Well, there's dozens of genres to present anime to an audience, I warn you though as this post will be pretty long:

• Mecha - the most popular genre used to describe super massive giant awesome robots who are controlled by people to stop evil from dominating the world. Famous shows like Mobile Suit Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion have helped support this genre, though the latter became controversial and a massive mind fuck to every being who ever watched it, not to mention the movie itself...

• Slice-of-Life - this genre is very popular as most shows use this for comedy and romance, or just for the fanservice. Now the biggest problem with this genre is the lack of story telling, but in some cases like K-On! there's some element of story involved. There are some good anime that go into this genre like Azumanga Daioh, Nichijou and Oreimo, so it's not all bad.

• Visual Novels - Now I always put this as its own genre because the story and setting contrasting other types of anime out there. Visual Novels are basically video games where you choose from a list of text options and the choice changes the path throughout the story, and therefore picking one of many endings. Visual Novels nowadays also have an anime adaptation. The best adaptations around include Clannad and Steins;Gate, both of which are visual novels and have had different stories of their own. The difference with the VN and the Anime is that the animated version can only choose one ending, which is mainly the main story arc.

• Studio Ghibli - Like VN, this has to have its own genre. Basically this is the studio that brought anime over to the family audience during the late 90s. You should be aware of films like Spirited Away (which won Best Animated Feature), Howl's Moving Castle (Batman's Christian Bale voices Howl) and Ponyo (literally a massive popular cast) which have gained really good positive responses to the public audience. There are around 20 films created by the studio, and they are all available on Blu-Ray and DVD in all regions (with some being released later on).

• Science Fiction - This area tends to be used quite a lot over the past decade. In fact, this was the first genre that became widespread in the US thanks to Akira. This trend also brought over Mecha. The standouts for science fiction has always been the likes of Gundam, Macross and Ghost in the Shell though nowadays we have been introduced to shows such as Cowboy Bebop (blending sci-fi with Jazz), .hack series (cyber-related) and Code Geass (sci-fi with action and mecha).

• Magical Girl - This genre is quite hard to notice these days because nowadays you don't see any of these type of shows appear any more. Magical Girl is a genre known for having an ordinary girl randomly chosen to become a magical person with a different costume and its own special power. This genre gained attention with Sailor Moon and recently, Madoka Magica. Thanks to the fan bases, don't expect this genre to go extinct for decades.

• Comedy - Like Slice-of-Life, Comedy tends to have no plot involved. But most of the time it doesn't really matter. A good example of this is Lucky Star, which is a slice-of-life comedy that intentionally parodies every show including the very popular Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, also a slice-of-life comedy made by the same studio. Other good example for comedy is FLCL, an Original Video Animation where it blends random with comedy, i'm not joking.

• Action/Thriller - Just like Hollywood, there is also a genre focusing on action and thriller. The difference is though is that anime is much better and is worth watching, especially with great action shows like Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Gurren Lagann, Lupin III and Monster. Note that this genre can be pretty violent, speaking of violence...

• Supernatural - This genre tends to be really violent. Supernatural genre includes spirits and inhuman beings. Elfen Lied, for example has a mutant person who has vectors that can kill anyone within 2 metres. Others such as Kara no Kyoukai has the protagonist being able to see spirits, Another has a curse put upon students in a school, Highschool of the Dead has zombies going everywhere and Hellsing Ultimate has Vampires and Nazis (i'm also not joking on that part). Death Note is part of this genre with a spiritual book of death.

• And many more. There's literally so many in anime that it's incredible. I haven't mentioned the Big 3 because everyone pretty much knows that these Shonens will never stop. There are some that you should stay away from, like Hentai/Harem. It's really interesting how so many people think Anime is Hentai because they completely different things, yes it's true that some shows are hentai but not every single one of them. Fanservice does not count as Hentai, but as a way to keep the audience interested like bra shots. Maybe that's why they call it hentai...

Stay tuned for more.