Quote from Emperorpogi
For all the manga veterans, or consider themselves manga veterans.
I guess if I were to call myself a veteran that would probably be overestimating myself since when Genbu Kaiden was fairly early in its scanslation was when I started reading more manga. Other than that, I didn't have much access to English translated manga books.
Quote from Emperorpogi
Do you guys criticize mangas as you read along? Anime?
When I was first introduced to anime/manga I was just absorbed in, eyes glued and never stopped reading or watching. I enjoyed every one I watched/read.
Now 2 years later, I find myself disliking almost every manga/anime because I just keep thinking what crap it is.
Quote from Crenshinibon
I can relate to this a lot. Honestly, I think it's mostly as you've said. Initially, it's all new and fresh, but slowly we begin to realize the cliches and similar plotlines and it gets old.
Additionally, standards increase over time. If you've never watched anime or read manga you have a huge array of choices of quality choices to suit your tastes, while after a while the quality of those in the genres that appeal to you begins to drop as you move through them. It's not as though you can compare anime in similar genres to, say, Evangelion and expect them to seem good relative to it.
But if a person inhales or floods him- or herself with anime or manga in a short period of time (watches anime or reads manga between eating and basic hygiene), that person is going to become more critical because there is just high expectations and so more criticizing will come into play.
And if one only stays with one genre, the number of manga series actually seems pretty small or will overlap if it's like a specialized series, such as the action shounen, because otherwise shounen has LOTS to offer as I see it. I pretty much leave myself open to anything that doesn't automatically repulse me such as hentai, horror (though I haven't filtered it out since sometimes people might be labelling something that's like a child's Halloween-level of horror), and yaoi.
I haven't really read any new manga for a few months, but that might have also been because the manga that I wanted to read was not completely scanslated (it's crummy waiting and even long after I put the "don't read manga that's not completely scanslated" rule is in place, I find myself breaking it and myself somewhat annoyed knowing that the series isn't complete or any new chapters after at least a month). 
I have completed series on HD but I didn't really touch them. It wasn't burn out but I just decided to do something else. I guess it could have been that I got sick of looking at my computer screen. 
I didn't have internet at the time so probably reading the manga I had on it would have been one of my options to do something on it.
But was also feeling at a certain point that I was not liking the female characters of the manga I was reading, which was a female character that was involved with a boy and that she got walked on. I was always reading Shinjo Mayu, where the boy manipulates the innocent girl, but like there were just like normal guys and the girls seem to be idiots that allowed themselves to be easy to guys, and usually not an empowering way (which is by the girl's choice). I just decided to start looking for that in Harlequin romance novels since the women involved were usually 20+ years old and not just being led by the guy, usually. Say what you will about them being cheesy, but when I read about 9 or 12 of them over about 6 weeks (that's with me almost reading them non-stop with some days where I would break between books), I got usually a lot more satisfaction with how the woman acted (I didn't automatically label her "idiot"). I guess the medium used, words vs. mostly images, could have altered things since I'm like rolling my eyes at the Harlequin Pink novels. The original text novels must've good sellers I would think if the company goes to the extra trouble of have it illustrated and re-interpreted. But The Bachelor Prince felt more predictable that I would think it would have been in a book.
But noting that I always mentioned "girl" in the manga I got bored of, well the girls were about 15 to 16 years old and so that doesn't compare to a 20+ year-old, I probably should have moved on to josei manga, right? Okay, maybe I didn't search for it, but I was disconnected from the internet so I couldn't go looking for it when my interest was there for it, but even when I look through the Releases page a bunch of the manga there is between 1/3 to 2/3 shounen and then the rest usually shoujo. Josei manga is more serious than shoujo, and I think even smutty manga gets lumped into shoujo. But I'm not sure if the smutty shoujo should be considered josei manga in the Japanese market instead of the Western or otaku sort of view where there is more serious drama. 
But on the Genres page there are 5000+ shoujo labelled series and not even 400 josei labelled series. There are probably a few titles in either group with both labels attached, so that maybe one group doesn't get overlooked...? ^_^; I guess josei is only being more sought after recently by the scanslation community and publishers, but I think in Japan that somehow that there is a similar ratio with more shoujo than josei there. Just a guess though.
Edit here:
I forgot to mention that female characters in shounen tend to have more spine than the girls that were annoying me in the shoujo area. It's partly cultural, I guess, since the readers are high school girl students who don't have much self esteem. It hasn't been brought up in the thread yet, but say there's a series that is like your first favourite anime or manga. A person would try to find series that are really just like that series, but probably couldn't, or maybe complain that the new series is a copy cat and boring. But the first series may hold sentimental value because if one watched it near like graduation or relief to break from intense year end exams, there's nostalgia attached to them. It might be nothing can touch that series with its "perfection" in the person's idealized gaze.
Although I did talk with a fan once and even though the person had gone to the trouble of writing fanfic for it, the person had abhored Sailor Moon as an anime by the time I wrote comments to the person for it. (The rose-tinted glasses came off.)My 409th just ended up long somehow...
Last edited by Takiko at 11:57 pm, Mar 18 2008________________
My avatar was Yves Saint Laurent's The Black Evening Dress (with big bow) first shown in 1983, photographed from his 2002 retrospective and final show. [color=#CC0066]Check out some of his collections for free (pre-2008)
HERE[/color] courtesy of FirstView.
