Do you ever find yourself permanently losing interest in certain genres you once liked after seeing a certain amount of them?
Over the last year or two, the number of new anime I'm interested in each season is decreasing, and I think it's because entire genres I used to like I just no longer care about anymore. Like once I realize what the 'trick' of the genre is, I already know what the show is about from beginning to end and my interest in actually watching it evaporates. Like I used to be really into romcom/romance shows that had multiple girls after the MC, but after seeing so many of them and realizing they all follow the same patterns with love rivals, delayed development, reset buttons, certain girls who are predestined to lose automatically, etc I realized that the new ones I was watching could be predicted how the whole series played out pretty much from just looking at the poster and my interest completely vanished. I don't watch any of them anymore. That's just one example, there's probably 5 or 6 whole genres/story types that I just have a 'eh, I think I've had my fill of this for the rest of my life' feeling now and I probably only watch about half the anime I used to, if that. Anyone else run into the same sort of thing?
Commentaires
But I have to say though, romance shows have started to annoy me lately. Not sure whether it’s because of the genre or just some of the newer ones.
A really well written anime doesn't really need to have a novel concept or "trick." It's why you can make a take a riff on a classic with a plot that literally everybody knows going in like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth or Hamlet and still end up with a great film or anime.
If the show can make you emotionally invested in the characters, and the characters have interesting emotional arcs and development, a show that has no particularly unique plot device can be really powerful.
Comparatively, I feel like we get 2-3 good shows a season now.
There's a bunch of junk out there to be sure, but I feel like the volume of quality shows is waaaaaay higher now than it ever was when I was a kid.
I realize shonen is technically for teen boys and I am not that but a lot of shonen is enjoyed by a large adult audience (don’t know this statistic but I would bet lots of money on it being true).
*Edit to clarify battle shonen.
Listen, they’re not being pedantic, shonen isn’t a genre, it’s specifically a demographic, and that’s not something that can evolve over time because demographics specifically come from the magazines that they’re published from. It’s about the audience that the manga is for, not what the manga itself is about.
FullmeTal alchemist and 100 girlfriends both are shonen, but you wouldn’t put them in the same genre, right?
The words you use have meaning and just because you can’t be bothered to learn what they mean doesn’t mean they have to change themselves.
And it is noticeable, most slice of life are aimed at the seinen demographic by comparison. And the result is that Ruri Dragon is quite different from other slice of life.
Also Berserk and K-On! would be the same genre. Heck, Is the Order is a Rabbit? (GochiUsa) is considered seinen. Bocchi the Rock! is also seinen btw.
Yeah no. Tell me how these are the same "genre". For seinen alome this doesn't work, you'd be lumping the dark and gritty series with the most diabetic anime on the planet.
I actually don't lol. When someone says they don't want shonen, it can mean either they don't want the demographic shonen, or they don't want battle shonen. So then I have to ask again because I don't know if I can recommend them stuff like Frieren Beyond Journey's End, Bakuman or A Silent Voice since those are all shonen but not battle shonen, or if it works like The Case Study of Vanitas are still okay because it's a bit different and on and on.
It's better to just say I want to avoid progression fantasy, or I want to avoid YA writing, if that is what you mean, which is more descriptive, and plenty of even older targeted works fit it. There is no point using a foreign demographic word, when English has better terms to guide you.
Plus in the end, it's mostly ignorant anime fans, who associate shonen with Naruto alone, just like it's equally ignorant to associate seinen with just Berserk. People often misattribute demographics to certain works because they think all dark fantasy is seinen, or anything romance related must be shojo.
Frankly...Japan's format for manga magazines, I find to be quite outdated in general.
Cour is specific in the community, in terms of what it means, shonen isn't, and that's all I am saying. It's not a matter of like lol. I am saying it is personally confusing.
When I am trying to help them find shit they will like, yeah I do actually have to lol. I guess I could choose not to help people at all which is fair. Personally I watch everything so I largely don't care about demographics or genres for that matter, as I said in my other reply.
>You stepping in to "correct" them is completely unnecessary and irrelevant.
I honestly don't care lol. I am saying I personally find their usage confusing because you get both cases. I don't feel a need to correct people, no matter how much you attempt to "correct me" in that regard. I just literally said it is confusing, partially because people aren't using it to define what it originally meant lol. You have two definitions and the anglo community uses both.
You don't have to write an overly thought out response to that. I have been on r/anime, and I have been talking to fans, and helping them find stuff they like, and yeah it's confusing to me, which is really the only perspective that matters in this case. If it's not for you, fine but yeah doesn't change how it muddles conversation in the community to me.
- Please maintain a certain level of civility when interacting with the community.
---
^(Questions? Reply to this message, )[**^(send a modmail)**](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fanime)^(, or leave a comment in the )[**^(meta thread)**](https://reddit.com/r/anime/search?q=subreddit%3Aanime+author%3AAnimeMod+title%3A%22Meta+Thread%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=year)^(. Don't know the rules? Read them )[**^(here)**](/r/anime/wiki/rules)^.
If you’re talking long series, have you watched hunter x hunter or black clover?
If you’re talking shorter shonen, have you seen demon slayer, full metal alchemist b, my hero, dodoro, frieren, devilman, to your eternity?
I feel like they all have enough uniqueness going for them that none feel remotely in the same genre (which they’re not; shonen is a demographic).
The other shows I mentioned aren’t quite like this bar maybe my hero which is itself quite long anyway.
Maybe give frieren a try next.
It wasn't even a bad show, just had seen it all before and nothing really grabbed me like Dan Da Dan managed.
Although I do very much love Galaxy Express 999 and have watched all 113 episodes multiple times. That is the rare exception for me.
Same thing for romcoms. As you mentioned, so many follow a really established trapping. I basically need to see or hear what's going to set a romcom apart before I care to give it a chance. I still enjoy the genre when something I find really exceptional comes along. But thay also means I'm passing on basically 99% of romcoms.
Most of the common genres have such a selection of shows out there that I don't mind waiting for the more special ones. I'm more likely to give a mid show in an offbeat genre a chance, just because its formula isn't as tired.
Also [Yuri](), before I had no problem watching Yuri regardless of the type, but with experience I realized that the plots and characters tend to be too toxic for an experienced and adult person. So I only watch the ones that are comedy, wholesome like [Watanare]().
Mecha/Sci fi, largely older mecha/sci fi, has been my main interest, as I have matured as a fan, whereas sure, romcoms don't grab me as they used to. Still I enjoyed my watch of Kanon last year. It was a good break of the largely sci fi, and even grim nature of the fiction i was reading at the time. It was a nice reminder of the shows I used to enjoy as a kid/teen, and that was a good feeling, even if I don't actively seek out rom coms, like I used to.
Certain series I watched like 5 years ago and finally maybe got another season now. Like Fumetsu no Anata and Yofukashi no Uta both of which I both rated highly their previous seasons. This time around I had about as much interest in them as my parents have in me. Which is basically none.
I've found new genre interesting such as Romance, which I previously very seldom watched. Enough interest to pick up reading the mangas for one or two of them.
But I havent found myself stop liking some genres completely, no. If anything I just like more genres now than before.
I also can't say I'm not interested in Isekais because if a new season of any of the ones I've already seen drops, I'm watching it immediately. That being said, having watched both seasons of Eminence in Shadow in preparation for Isekai Quartet 3, I'm not really fiending for any new ones right now. Give me Re:Zero and TenSura S4, and I'm a happy camper.
So, to answer your question... no, I haven't permanently lost interest in anything due to oversaturation. The only time I'll drop a show is when it didn't have my interest out the gate, or when someone I used to watch a show with associates bad memories with it (I miss you Red Cat Ramen, but I still can't bear to come back and finish you yet 💔)
On the other hand I don't think I will ever lose interest about battle shounens or isekais obviously.
But in general, yeah, most stuff is slop once you've seen enough of it.
There's also just way too many of them every season I have to drop one or two of them. The worst part is they're not even funny, so no comedy. Then also you know a lot of the "romance" stuff won't actually matter until close to the end of the season or series in general.
Predictability is not a problem for me, I often rewatch anime and still enjoyed them well. Anime that rely solely on shock factor is more of a problem. Many anime can still be perfectly enjoyable even if easily predictable.
It's like some of the isekai that came out in the past few years, their main goal is to be as weird as possible, that really doesn't work on me who've been watching anime for almost 2 decades. Vending machine isekai? Spider? Sword? Old man? Hot spring? Dog? Yeah nah.