I'm not sure culture has so much to do with it, at least for the points you criticize here about the overuse of generic designs and lines. If you watch all the marvel movies back to back, you'll also see a generic, repeating structure in all the dialogues. A big part of the problem is that anime and manga are mass produced. And to keep up with the very high output that is required of them, mangakas and directors rely a lot of tropes (and are even pushed to do so by their editor, usually). Just like the MCU movies started feeling samey as they got increasingly streamlined and mass-produced, so did anime. As long as people keep buying the same franchises with 100+ books or 30+ movies. We won't see a change. The only real solution would be for people to consume smaller scale projects, that were produced slower and with more author intent in them, instead of mass-produced sludge. But when we see the numbers, it's most likely and sadly never going to happen.
I second a lot of this. I think a lot of Zacko's complaints are really more a fault of the fact that the Japanese have been able to more efficiently blend the concept of industrial revolution levels of production and stream lining with mass media and story telling than America has in the past several decades. Because as you said, America does that same thing with Marvel movies as a prime example, only less well and competent and engendering of long term market support. Yes, Japanese culture certainly plays a giant role there, but come on, they weren't the ones to start the cookie cutter problem or invent the cookie cutter or animation or comics. They're just the best at making it, getting out the door, and getting paid exorbitantly for it.
There are 3 problems that increase the feeling of “this dialogue is terrible” 1: The meaning, subtexts and tones can easily be lost in translation as words that hold significance over there likely don’t here. For example they may not use the word exquisite to describe something that is of supreme or top quality but rather as a general compliment and when translated, the feeling of the interaction is different. 2: The sheer amount of trash series that get through because having less than 3 seasonal black haired nerds being brought to the basic fictional world with lots of women who like him for no reason would be throwing away money. It’s eaten up because as you said, escapism is the main goal of most people watching anime and it’s easy to watch that type of show, no deep thinking or diving down into the lore of the world required, you already know what the entire story will be. 3: Most people start by watching the wrong stuff, if someone who wants more mature, grounded and thought provoking story a shonen battle series or slice of life isn’t for them and the dialogue reflects the average mental age people expected to watch said show will have. A series made for teens will have less refined dialogue, characters and plot than most made for adults. It sucks but that’s kinda the reality of things.
@@ZackoAnimeyou really made all this with only you phone? What phone you used and how? Is there any software you needed to install. Sorry for asking. I'm just curious. Btw this video is really well made that I was surprised that it was made by phone. ✌️😊
@aliNET86 so rn I use an iPhone SE (2020) I use screen recorders and ibis paint for moving stuff and cute cut pro for zooms and zoom outs then iMovie to put it together , a lot of my editing is done in a really roundabout way and often ends up blurry cuz it’s such a janky method . Thank you for commenting!!!
Most shows (not only anime) have bad dialogue because every line is written as what feels like a checklist for the narrative, these writers don't look at the big picture and construct each scene as one whole conversation, instead they write each line of dialogue to serve some purpose and then stitch them all together almost randomly. There's also the issue of some writers being anti-social, self-centered, or straight up narcissistic and unable to understand how a variety of people would think differently, as a result you see all the good guys in their story having the same mindset as the writer's, and all the bad guys having the opposite of that.
You’re right on that. But honestly anime dialogue can be outright egregious. Watching Code Geass made me realise how annoying dialogue for some female characters can be, they make a noise from every little movement or development.
I think that bad dialogues exist also on western media, we just don't notice it that much. Just try to look at all the cheap trashy show that netflix pulls out only to make the catalog more full.
Great point! Sometimes certain lines of dialogue can be ok when you listen in sub, but then you cringe when is dub. The opossite is also true, sometimes cheap dialogue doesn't sound so bad because is in our native language.
@@MyCarnageExtremeSome people dislike Japanese because it is a yellow language and that is why they would prefer dub in English or other language that isnt yellow
3:36 HUH??? Most Japanese people don't talk like this in their day to day lives, I have no idea where you got this from. And even if it was common, English is also similar in many aspects. If someone says "woah" or "bro" in a TV show, do you point that out and think "wow, such bad dialogue"?
I really enjoy the dialogue of the Monogatari series. They definitely did an amazing job considering it was a light novel adaptation, in terms of structure and conversation flowing smoothly
Even as a kid, I noticed this trend, especially in so much shonen. It was a running gag between me and my little brother that Dragon Ball was all, 'Hahaha! We shall talk now for fifteen minutes straight! Blah-blah-blah! Now we shall fight for two minutes! Ba-da-ba-da-ba! Hahaha! Now we shall talk for the remainder of the episode! Blah-blah-bla--STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE OF DRAGON BALL Z!' This is also reminds me of the other running gag we had: that if the Power Rangers so much as tripped over a rock, they're suits would spark up like they hit a fireworks factory.
Anime dialogue is cringey because it's designed to be so. Eastern/Asian entertainment is super weird in that the perception of fiction is more of a parody of life and does away with the dynamisms that would be present, whereas Western entertainment (or, at least post-French and German film modernization) made familiarity and groundedness its forefront. People in the comments section defending this as a cultural divide, though, couldn't be more wrong ... because the JAPANESE THEMSELVES are embarrassed by how bad the dialogue in their entertainment is; Hell, Miyazaki has gone on record practically begging for people to speak more naturally into the microphone at recording sessions, but they just can't without being prompted. There's a REASON the Japanese loved dubbed Cowboy Bebop and dubbed Fullmetal Alchemist.
i also don't know that western entertainment is necessarily more successful at this by default. hollywood has its own weird tropes for dialogue and stuff that's unnatural. i don't think it's so much that it becomes a parody of life as it's that writers start writing with other fiction in mind, creating a sort of derivative feedback loop, instead of keeping a strong connection to life experience my favourite weird example of odd dialogue is final fantasy 15 - because the way it comes across to me is like it has a blend of almost every anime AND hollywood-esque trope meshed together into one package LOL
Pure nonsense, and also the dubbed thing is just a rumor that gets repeated with no proof, pure cope by dub fans, even more so with the FMA one. Youko Kanno preferred the dub(or maybe just one of the performances) and that's it.
I don’t know how true it is that the Japanese feel embarrassed about anime dialogue because if so, demon slayer (which has dialogue so cringe that it makes dialogue in other anime look good), wouldn’t be the most successful franchise within Japan. Japanese people freaking love demon slayer and if you listen to the dialogue in that it’s unrealistic and cringe af.
You make a good point about anime dialouge being reflective of japanese regular dialogue. Maybe it's one of the reasons why Westerners like samurai champloo n cowboy bebop more than Japanese ppl did
I think anime dialogue also tends to lean to much on the expositional. Don’t get me wrong, dialogue should also serve as exposition but oftentimes consideration isn’t put into what the character is saying (though this could just be the result of translation), often, the specific words and mannerisms we use informs a lot on who we are, and anime often lacks this
I think translation has a big impact on this. Using pronouns is much less common in japanese which means you will usually get details included which you wouldnt in normal english speech. I think the clearest example of this is the brother/sister thing where it's immediately obvious and sounds natural in japanese what the relationships between characters but just sounds like exposition in english because no one just casually calls their sibling "brother". It can also apply to other things like places. There is definitelly more exposition but I think it's probably just because they can kind of afford it due to the language. I can now understand japanese very well and from my vies a lot of things do kind of just sound like bad dialogue due to translation, especially quick dialogue because common phrases are hard to translate well, but there are definitely some dialogue related blunders that only exist in anime like the video talks about
yes, partly because of the medium, it feels like you can't use subtle cues to inform the audience about something, you have to have it explained by a character, and it's often very unnatural sounding. I say because of the medium, because typically they are 20 minute weekly episodes adapting what was already a serial publication
I don't think the bad dialogue is a "collectivist culture" thing, it's way more likely the result of a lot of anime being mass produced cheap publicity for other forms of media on one side, and the poor translations we end up getting on the other. Both of those things are financial decisions. The anime industry is notoriously exploitative and their workers are incredibly undercompensated for ther jobs. Noone is going to produce their best job when you have to work as fast as you can in order to eat the next day. And in the west the situation is the same, the translators are barely paid and the deadlines are brutal. The Japanese language is very complex and ambiguous, the meaning of a sentence tends to be implied, and is very hard to understand all this context when you don't have the time nor the resources necessary to make a good translation. These are industries built on fast and cheap labor, quality is almost accidental. The point is not to make good art, the point is make people buy the manga/videogame/light novel/merchandising and to make them subscribe to a streaming service while spending the least amount of money in the process.
While it has many problems, this is why I like My Hero Academia's dialogue and character interactions. Class 1A have a rather tight relationship where everyone's personalities shine through even when talking about mundane things. Characters like Jiro and Kaminari or Bakugo and Kirishima bounce off each other pretty well for example.
Exactly!!! I love seeing all the characters interacting doing anything. Still doesn't fix the issues the anime has, but the anime voice-acting and writing is pretty good and makes especially 1A seem like real teenagers.
@@matthewmiller9485 Yeah even Mina, Sero, Koda, and Sato have good moments even if they ultimately don't get to do very much. The dub team also does a really great job of translating their antics into English.
Yeah I haven’t seen it but the reason gif that would be that it’s produced in the west right ? Most of western animation has good dialogue unless it’s minions or something,thanks got commenting!!!
Thank you man, this is exactly how I feel. Growing up and starting to fall out of love with the dull and extrememly repetetive dialogue that is so widespread in the medium. Really makes it hard to enjoy a lot of new stuff, but does make the good ones even better. Awesome video!
You absolutely hit the nail on the head. I thought I was going crazy that I was the only one who felt like modern anime dialogue is really poorly written compared to older ones. All of the modern anime's dialogue seems to include way too much exposition as well. What happened to Show, not Tell?
I think there are new shows with good dialogue though , kaguya sama , beastars , dr stone , konosuba , bunny girl senpai . I’m not sure if there are more shows with bad dialogue now or not .
it's not that deep. it's just bad writing that will go mostly unnoticed because their audience is mostly kids. same reason other kid shows have generally bad dialogue.
0:37 They do it so much they have a term for "people not saying what they feel", it's called tatemae. It's part of the reason why "nihongo jouzu" is a meme in the west.
Yeah even as a not gringo person myself, we have to accept that USA has shapped mainstream entertainment around the continent, a really really big amount of famous people come from there, most rockstars and famous singers either come from there or hit their biggest point in their career there, also a really big amount of modern floorbreaking literature comes from there and for a long time basically a 70% of internationally famous movies AROUND THE GLOBE, came from hollywood, it is not that USA has the only good entertaintment, but they have the most famous, this doesnt take anything from for example Latin American entertainment, it is just that they were the most influencial
@gaminginvirinch3339 who the f consumes folklore on a daily basis? Almost no one, plus I'm talking about MAINSTREAM. I never said we don't have entertainment, read properly before answering
@@lautarofarnos835 He just shows some NPC animes and calls it a day. He doesn't go deep and get involved in anime. So why should I care about USA being mainstream? Also, his ignorant comment on Japan, saying it doesn't allow them to have a personality, is false. I'm sorry, Japan isn't just a polite country; it's a country that has a culture. Just visit and spend some time there, and you'll see it's not the entire picture. As for his comments on dialogue writing, he shows one scene where characters agree with each other but doesn't show another scene where he could be wrong. COTE is generic? This guy and the other guy who say 'Fate is generic' are the dumbest motherf*ckers who can't even observe sh*t in the anime and call it generic.
I know it's late to add, but I think the actual main issue is Manga. If you watch Japanese film, There is a good amount of natural dialogue. The constraints of the manga medium, especially at the stsrt meant dialogue had to be restrained. You needed to do a lot in 20 pages... and remember most stories back then were self contained to one to 3 chapters. The point is the limited space led to the crestion of MANGA speak. Were diaolgue is mostly exposition or monologues about philosophy. Even good manag like Oshi No Ko falls into the former far too much, and has stitled dialogue at times.
I agree manga definitely contributes to it since anime and manga are so connected , with most anime being adaptions of them , I don’t know much about manga but manga like 20th century boys or just urusawa in general have good dialogue in my opinion, sorry if I’m misunderstanding your argument but would limited space force mangakas to be better at writing dialogue instead of monologues and whatever else , like trying to convey their points with smart dialogue like the samurai champloo clip where only a few words or sentences can convey character’s personalities and plots , I would say it’s more just a style that developed from manga initially being for young boys and having to be over dramatic and spell things out . What do you think ? Thank you for commenting!!!
@@AzureSymbiote As far as I am concerned, comics had this issue too. In fact, from my memory, reading Early Comics (1950s to 1970s) there was a presence of very stilted dialogue. The characters might talk and emote naturally for a bit, but much of the dialogue is exposition or monologue. One great example of this is the iconic Spider-Man thought bubbles, where Peter would think for about 1 page, letting the reader know what was up and what he had to do. Other comics had it worse-- Lois Lanebarely had a character for at least a decade in comics because of the lack of time given to character writing. What changed in American comics was the adoption of long term storytelling in the 1980s, which led into stuff like Miracle Man, Watchmen and Sandman. However, American comics had an advantage because they were monthly. There was generally more time to roughly make decent dialogue. Remember, most mangaka have a week to write, illustrate and panel out a manga. in other words, the speed of the process, combined with time restrictions, often makes manga dialogue stiffer.
@@ZackoAnime I think the best way to describe my point is to compare a few anime. Let's start with Samurai Champloo. Eovely series. But what makes Champloo different from most other anime? Well, one factor is that it was anime first. The production was not based on a previous manga. This whill become important later. Now let's turn the page to a modern day Shonen. My Hero Academia. a different series from Champloo for sure, but definitely comparable. My Hero Academia's anaime comes directly from the success of the manga. It is directly based on it. now the big difference is dialogue and narrative, isn't it? Samurai Champloo deals with subtlety almost exclusively-- so much of Jin's and Mugen's arcs are left up to speculation. The anime lets the characters operate subtley and also bears the narrative through that. Champloo is an episodic anime, that has twenty minutes to explain to get its concept across. My Hero, on the other hand is exposition heavy, and every character personality is laid on thickly. For example, Midoriya is very clearly an optimistic kid, whose opinions are easy to see. His dialogue almost clearly indicates how he feels on a subject, even if the body language is more than enough. My Hero is a shonen manga with 20 pages a week to get to the point of the chapter. When we compare these two, I think that my main point stands out. The point being mangaka are under a lot of pressure to pump out manga weekly, resulting in faster paced stories, narratives with dialogue that seems exposition heavy and all that. You may consider the idea that less would be more in a manga, but consider this: manga needs to keep readers on a week to week basis after 20 pages to do it. Anime needs to keep watchers after 20 minutes of play. The time given to mangaka to keep readers is much smaller than it is for anime. This means they cannot beat around the bush-- or else a reader might claim "nothing happened in this chapter". A good example of this in modern times are the complaints about Chainsaw Man part 2. In part, some readers have claimed "nothing has happened" despite Fujimoto clearly setting things up with subtle dialogue. This is why MHA drills ideas into your head quickly. This is why character arcs (all except Bakugou's) are made ridiculously explicit. The history of manga also needs to be considered too. The history of manga, like msot comics world wide starts with short stories and strips. This means that the managa art form, from the start was focused on managing space. There was not time for meandering, or for non-linear execution. If you had a funny manga short in a paper, it had to get to the point pronto. This bled into longer form manga, which led to manga keeping this quickedge style of dialogue. Which usually goes like this: initiate dialogue, have character A say something to character B which displays the point of the scene quickly. Or have character A monologue to character B to get the point across quickly. We can see this clearly is Oshi no Ko, where the writer consistently has characters exposit about the entertainment world, as it is easier to do so than have characters go back and forth on it, which can take longer-- or can be too subtle. An additional note that has to be made is that manga is meant for young kids/teens. This meant that the use of subtle dialogue is often not necessary. This all transfers over to anime, which is mostly adaptations of manga.
when i think of good dialogue i think of jjk slice of life moments with the main 4 and it just flows so damn naturally it feels like someone just ripped a conversation from a freindgroup
Well it’s mainly 3, since usually Itadori, Fushiguro, and Kuragai, that bound, and interact thr most, because it’d say that Gojo, is very goofy, and doesn’t talk at their level because he knows he’s the shit, and he kind of wants them to surpass him so he acts kind of uncornced.
This dialog and reaction problem is probably why I love "danshi no koukousei no nichijou", "Bocchi the Rock", "Love is War" and "KonoSuba" so much as comedy show. While I don't find other comerdy show interesting or funny despide being the same jokes. Even stupid line like "the sky is blue" was delivered in a context and timming that: A feel believable by the charater saying it, B felt funny as hell. Example would be the "windy poetry" in Danshi no koukousei no nichijou: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fjGuxSBU7FE.html The pure cringe and bullshit enegy it create is golden.
One of the absolute worst pieces of anime dialogue I've ever encountered was when watching "The Angel Next Door Spoils me Rotten." A self insert fantasy about a guy who somehow gets to hang out with the most beautiful girl in school because he lent her his umbrella once. This show is basically 4 hours of these 2 talking to each other and towards the end of it you don't know a single thing about how they are. This is also why I love Monogatari. Despite all its morally questionable stuff (which I do not agree with either) it really feels like every character in this show is alive, which is something I can't say for most anime I've seen.
@@k3m0t19 Liking monogatari does not equate to being attracted to the characters. I can look past the show’s questionable content because it’s animated. It’s genuinely one of the best pieces of media I’ve ever seen, but I do agree that all the loli stuff is unnecessary.
The constant grunting and gasping that account for 30 plus seconds of screen time. The dialogue itself feels like it was written by an American 3rd grader. Saw an ad for a show called "Demon Hunter" and just one scene almost set my cringe meter into oblivion. But that isn't the sole reason for my dislike of Anime. It's the freakin fanbase.
Exactly... The endless grunting and gasping, stretching a 10 second scene into 2 minutes is just abhorrent... I don't care if it's just a "3-man studio"... Get more people or stop wasting my time! The cultural differences are just absolute cringe. Where there's no unexpected plot twists... Where in Japanese culture everything is predetermined... Just a pile of bantha piss
@@audreyharris7643 I've seen a dozen Samurai movies. This particular criticism I give anime is only a fraction as bad in those. And usually with cool cinematography.
To be fair, some of the nuance that you want exists but cannot be translated properly (certain things in sentences that have an emotional meaning, but don't add any content to the sentence, for example the use of less polite vocabulary and expressions when talking to friends). It doesn't make a lot of the dialogue suddenly good, and your points still very much stand, but it does make ammends for some nuanced dialogue that you wouldn't get just from a translation Also the not talking over each other is timing that is important in acting so that the audience gets what's actually going on/being said. It's also why you don't see a lot of touching in theatre - the actors need space to cut out their silhouette so that the audience intuitively understands who they are and what they're doing and feeling in the scene without that being muddied by another actor or character. This is a very intentional thing in terms of acting no matter where you are in the world.
Most of "western"(aka, made in the US) dialogue also sucks. It is full of hermetic cultural references, cringy premade taglines, redundant and boring jokes, dehumanizing prejudices, predictable stereotypes and so many clichés they even link into each other in a continuous chain. Good dialogue is rare always and everywhere.
@Bob-fv9vj honestly both modern day versions suck. Modern western movies like the MCU or Disney have God awful dialogue and most newly released copy-pasted isekai harem romance anime also have garbage dialogue. You would have to go back in time to a few years ago to find shows from both countries that have good dialogue
I like how you brought up Japanese culture. But you missed mentioning the practice called Aizuchi, where listeners ask apparently redundant questions while listening to show engagement and politeness. Good job, make more videos like this one!
My main grudge against anime is small but constant uhh , ahh,ummm ,mhhh voice from characters I mean WTF is that language there is no mortal human in this world talk like that not a single one. Another thing is screaming for literally no reason. I recently started watching black clover and the protagonist main trop is he screams while talking and mention every minute that he's gonna be a wizard king. I literally had to drop it after first 8 episodes because I can't endure the content screaming. What surprises me is how nobody in production department thought it was a bad idea which makes me question their sanity. After doing all that work why ruin the anime by making protagonist cringe AF
I hate how they tends do those grunts and weird sound in the voice. Some of the anime body languages , hand movement and facial expressions. Like one is screaming and the body move weirdly upward and downward while gesticulating hands like crazy. Or people showing some passion of something like some children and female characters that both their hands on a fist close to their face and neck. The kawai girl thingy also annoys me a bit but since these japanese find that alluring or cute somehow. I have grown bit apart from anime lately. Also , I read comics and I am also departing with it with so stuff I don't like. I am selective what I watch. I am by no means saying I am some special or superior guy or some hipster that despise anything mainstream. I am now reading books, manga or indie comics.
@@Of_infinite_Faith I get you 're where you at. It just anime nowadays seem to be copies one things to another and reused tropes. Nevermind the fact the japanese dub is bit overexagerated or teathrical and does not seem how seem to be natural of how japanese really talk.
Another reason to watch it with subtitles rather than dubbed it sounds less cringey in Japanese than when spoken in english to a native english speaker at least in my opinion although can't personally speak to whether or not the same applies to dubbing in languages other than English when compared to the original Japanese!!!
I wouldn't say you can necessarily ascribe it all to culture because Japan produces other types of media where people don't talk like anime characters, you've definitely nailed though how so many shows get by with poorly defined characters talking past each other. Limited animation where the character just mouth flaps and the voice actor has to provide the characterization with an exaggerated voice doesn't help either.
I don't get why people seem to dislike your arguments, when they make literally perfect sense??? Seriously, it's so difficult to enjoy the light novel dialogue when it's so blocky and restrained.
That’s a good point actually, I wonder if a lot of the anime dialogue I don’t like are from light novel adaptations , itde make sense that long paragraphs of text are shortened or whatever and that makes them unnatural . I’ve never read any Japanese light novels though , I mean it’s fair to dislike what I’m saying , it’s pretty subjective , I feel a few people have misunderstood my intentions though , thank you for commenting!!!
Nothing i didn't know already but damm does it feel good hearing what makes something bad or good while having perfect examples of them on the background, great vid, keep it up.
I'm surprised to see people are defending anime. Brah you can enjoy something while knowing it's not that good. But pretending there's no problem with anime dilogue is outright insane opinion. Also I don't care about the explanation why it is the way it is it doesn't changes the fact that it's bad
@@audreyharris7643 Don't you find it weird that people become so ignorant and blind to the flaws of anime just because they enjoy them? I've spent 500+ hours watching anime, knowing some of them are not that good.
Bro I had so many cringe white guys around when I was growing up and they would tell recommend and beggin me to start watching anime and it was like that for years. I never wanted to give anime a chance cuz of the same people that watches it. They're weird as hell and speak cringe. And then I give that shit a chance and had to stop almost inmediatly. My white friends didn't even understand why I was saying that the dialogue sounded so fk stupid. They kept telling me I should watch this and that and everytime was the same, I can't even go through the second episode or even finish the first one. For a moment I though I was the only one thinking like that. But anime dialogue is very fk cringy and they express their emotions and their conflicts and objective so widely that sounds far from human and it's mad cringy. Shit not even for kids. Every mf I know that watches anime it's weird and has a strange way of socializing
I never really considered what goes into making a character with a watchable personality, or even just having one at all. I've usually only focused on the idea that the world building and characters' goals need to be unique and well-written, but an interesting and well made personality is also a very important aspect that I have thought of but never really tried to understand. Great video!
I really enjoy classroom of the elite, but I can't deny that it's quite stupid. Thinking back on it, the dialogue probably was part of it. I've thought about some of the same things you've touched on in this video, but I have a different view of the causes. I think there are lots of generic (but sometimes quite popular) series I've read or watched over the years that have some of that flat dialogue you talk about, but I really think the issue is the characters first. Flat dialogue leads to flat characters, to be sure, but it's hard to make good dialogue if you have terrible characters to work with in the first place. Too many characters just fit some pre-set mold (read archetype), and act in perfect lockstep with that mold. Even forgetting the dialogue, the characters feel so lifeless, whereas even old shows with lacklustre dialogue can still have characters that actually have life to them. But now, every popular show has to have some new flavour of the month waifu, which really takes the same old trope (e.g., tsundere, it seems almost a requirement to have the main waifu be at least a bit tsundere, since it makes for an easy, albeit extremely trite, character arc) and tags on some quirk to make them stand out from the crowd. And of course the MC will be some totally bland character you can project yourself onto, by virtue of being blank slates. Don't get me started on secondary girls from harem anime or the typical MC's best friend character. You just can't make good dialogue from that.
i think a good way to describe the issue with many bad anime today is predictability. you have already seen the same exact interactions play out the exact same way a thousand times. like a scenario where the MC just noticed something out of the ordinary happen right infront of him and when questioned "daijobu deska?" just replies "iye , nandemonai..." , or whenever someone cooks the food must always be orgasmically good. i legit pulled a joseph joestar by predicting the character's next lines ;"itadakimasu!" (enthusiastic screaming)"oooooohhhh!! sugoi!!! ureshi desu !!" (nervous laughter) "arigato !"
Great video! ngl id watch a 4 hour hbomberguy-esque review on very specific anime and their dialogue. I love the description of the Samurai Champloo scene, I'd love more in depth analysis like that
Your point about over the top dialogue sounding more tolerable in animation really clicks with me. I remember I was watching this Japanese live action movie once called “violence action”, an adaptation of some manga of the same name. Well, the director had the bright idea to have characters interact exactly as they would in the manga and the interactions in the manga are shown to be very “anime”. I never cringed so hard in my life, that adaptation should have just been an anime instead
Gotta say, while I may not agree with all your points and examples, your editing is on point and holy unique. Definitely a style ive never seen before and I love it, keep it up!
I was not expecting that much editing or a cereal box but here we are and I appreciate the video more for it Now I want to point out I also noticed that on the manga side, especially the character doing the pokemon routine where they tell you what is happening on the panel/image... like why litterally kill yourself producing 20+ pages of drawing each week if you are gonna wrights the thing like a (bad) novel, it piss me off so much, it insult the reader intelligence and the artist work as it seems the author do not trust the drawing to get the message across.
Dude I agree with you, but most of the examples you used as bad are shows made for teenagers/children... I think is more of a problem that normally these types of shows are more relevant in the west(again because teenagers consume more media in general), if you watch more adult stuff like Jin-Roh, Berserk or Ergo Proxy you find that the dialoge is written for actual adults
I think we should stop giving media aimed at a younger audience (not babies or little kids) a free pass. It's still subjective to criticism, wether or not it was made with the intention of being actually good.
Made in abyss and beastars is one rare where the dialogues seems way more natural than others in my opinions Like, peoples actually talking normally not like one piece where they talk like cartoon characters
I agree mostly , but sometimes because it is a cartoon it feels weird if it’s too realistic, I think something that one piece does great is that it feels like the characters actually exsist with eachother like they’ll react to eachother whereas as some other anime they feel like they’re saying things independently and it feels like they’re not even acknowledging that other characters exsist
@@ZackoAnime well "it is just a cartoon" it apparently try to be a Big littérature things, trying to be deep, profound, foreshadowing (i dont see them i mostly see easter egg), trying to aboard very serious stuff... Every manga is by définition and cartoon more or less Well i am not a Big one piece fan anyway, if peoples sell me this as a cartoon instead of a littérature révolution maybe i would not judge this way
Erm... ever considered a possibility of translators being bad at their job? I've seen it as professional translator myself. Some subtitles and dubs make no sense when compared to source material. Completely different tone, word choice, adding things which weren't said, not translating what's actually said, complete mistranslation of phrases and changing the character to fit what translator thinks would be better. Saw it all multiple times. Besides, anime as a media is so vast that it's like saying "moves have bad dialogue". Some do. Some don't. Can't bash the whole media. Especially if you yourself have no idea what the original dialogue actually says since you're relying on translators.
@@kinoo4496 Same with other genres. Books, comics, movies, theatrical productions, games, etc. Ones with objectively good dialogue are rare and majority is mediocre or even horrendous. That's just how statistics work. So why pick on media which is usually aimed at a culturally different population who speak their own language? Of course, anime ain't a Japan only thing. Disney and Pixar have been making their own anime for decades. But I feel like majority of people associate the word exclusively with Japan.
bad writing. it's because of bad writing. but that's not specific to anime or to japan. most media have bad writing regardless of where they're from. not sure why you're putting the blame squarely on japanese culture to explain bad writing.
As a bonafide retired otaku with over 500 anime under his belt, I can tell you for a fact that you're factually wrong. Lol... Okay but fr, Bad dialogue in anime is real as Jesus. It's sooo bad, It makes me facepalm. Almost all anime have this, I'm not even kidding
Because Japanese culture cannot have an unpredictable plot! It's against their everyday interactions. Hence, horrific predictable boring writing with more gasping and grunting than actual dialogue!
Yeah totally, I find them endearing to some extent but critically I don’t like it , it only really annoys me when I’m not convinced that characters are friends etc . Thanks for commenting!!!!
It’s needs-more-salt , the profile picture is Haruhi , it’s not got everything I’ve watched and the ratings aren’t updated or anything so I might not agree with a lot of it .
I agree I think that anime’s largest problem is how dialogue makes things feel unbelievable or just unrealistic. There are some fantastic anime like Steins Gate that I think would be even better if it considered how tropes could be used better or less in general.
Yeah , I haven’t watched steins gate in a while but I really liked it bsck then , I feel like if I watched it now I may see some of the dialogue a bit bad but I think that’s cuz it’s from a visual novel , I think anime adaptions of those always feel a bit off just cuz there’s so much content to condense , thank you commenting !!!
I like the cereal box head design you got going on! I think its quite fun! also I think the way anime dialogue is structured is why dubbed anime gets such a bad rap its less popular to shit on dubbed anime now but I do remember a time when shitting on dubbed anime was like the thing to get idk get accepted as a "true fan" or whatever. Sometimes the voice acting could be bad but it happened when it was good it still got negative reactions and I think the reason for that is when the show is dubbed in your native language you can understand it now! and now noticed some of the flaws the original dialogue had its the same show and same story but now you can understand it.
The algorithm blessed me with your presence man, what an amazing editing, your transitions are super unique. But yeah, I like anime but i can't stand the writing sometimes, there are so many shows that rely so heavily on unfunny tropes and characters that are literally cardboard cutout of said trope, I never really minded how exaggerated anime is, it creates some of the most funny or badass character interactions I've seen but when it's same reaction when the self insert protagonist glances at some big booba girl while his nose bleeds it really makes me watch another show
It may not be Japan specific. It's more like we expect more from anime than we should. There is a lot of American films with bad dialogue. I would imagine it's about the same percentage bad as in anime. Good films are rare. Good anime is rare. Though "good" might be a misnomer here. Some films or anime are still enjoyable while being considered bad by so called refined tastes. Like Classroom Of The Elite. I think the dialogue in that show was intended to show that elites are blowhards. If the dialogue was pared down to be information specific it would lose that effect. Something else I have noticed is that some dialogue is not really intended to convey data. Instead it accompanies the image. In that way it's not the dialogue that is bad, or good, but it's how the action works with speech. The dialogue becomes good because it is enhanced by imagery. The real problem may not be bad dialogue, but imagery that doesn't cohere with what ever is being said.
While I agree with you , I think bad dialogue is more common in anime and is present in even acclaimed anime , also your argument on classroom of the elite , the show is meant to show they’re elites and we’re meant to believe that they’re smart , it doesn’t show that effectively , and some characters dialogue isn’t even Elite it’s like every other generic anime side character , I don’t remember the name but that guy with brown hair and glasses he might aswell not be a character cuz I’ve seen him in so many other anime , “if the dialogue was pared down to be information specific it would lose that effect “ I’m not entirely sure what this is referring to , but good dialogue can handle showing two things at the same time , you can have someone elite convey information I don’t really understand your point , On the second paragraph , I think that , yeah the action can have an affect , for example in my video where I talk about body language , most anime characters stay completely still and their face like unchanging in emotion , it definitely could be that that influences how I perceive the dialogue , but at the same time I can close my eyes and listen to good dialogue and still learn things about the character , I really love dialogue that does like a few things at a time , it’s hard to argue about this without being able to show you clips .I really appreciate your perspective and I’m sorry if I misunderstood your points . Thank you for commenting!!!!
@@ZackoAnime I don't really believe there is such a thing as elite speech. There is just speech which is sometimes succinct, sometimes not. I intended to say they were to appear as blowhards in Classroom Of The Elite. Sorry if that message didn't come across. The appearance of blowhards makes the more silent, or passive characters stand out. And it's the silence, or passive characters that turn out the be truly intelligent master minds betraying their aggression. I think learning from dialogue alone is possible, but that highlights what I intended. What exists when there is silence? It's imagery, and we learn from that as well. In some sense nonsensical noise is similar to silence in that an image accompanying it can convey information as well. This all isn't to say that anime couldn't use more better dialogue. It's to say imagery, or nonsense can have just as an important role in story telling as well.
@@ZeroCloudsZeroSkies because anime writers dont know how to talk like that. They're not regular men. All they can do is have weird dialogue cause they're weird.
Classroom of the elite is sadly just a bad adaptation. the dialogue and schemes are just so bad in the anime. the LN uses its format to its advantage since it can just monologue infinitely and often does. for some reason the dialogue also just became worse in the anime, they talk much simpler and for less time. since COTE is such a dialogue and monologue centric LN i think that they tried to make the anime version easier to understand while being shorter. at that they failed misserably
I was astonished by how frail the adaptation was after I read it, every single scene and interaction became depthless, the inner thoughts and remarks which compose the majority of text, and imo is what made it so good, simply don't exist whatsoever.
@@ZackoAnime If it really were primarily a cultural difference, then you'd expect audience opinions to diverge pretty significantly when it comes to which shows are written well vs written poorly. But in reality, anime is cringe in Japan too. Otaku are looked down upon for diverse reasons, but one of the big ones is that most Japanese people feel the exact same way you do about anime, manga, and game writing. It's strange to be passionate about something of such low quality. The reality is that anime, manga, and light novels are pulp media, full of works produced at the lowest cost the producers can get away with. The only reason to stay in the industry (as a creator) is passion. It's not that every writer lacks skill, but rather that the conditions of anime production ensure that the writers who stay in the industry and work on seasonal anime at large studios are overwhelmingly those without the experience or seniority to dictate terms and demand higher pay. They aren't given time to refine every line of dialogue to a high standard, nor do they usually have the leeway to put their foot down and enforce a certain creative vision. Exceptions exist, of course, but again, a more skilled writer commands better pay, hours, and benefits, all things that make a production slower and more expensive. And so, labors of love stay buried under a mountain of cheap slop.
6:00 It's been years since I watched it but the movie Babel handled this kind of thing way better. There's a moment where a deaf Japanese girl is at a club with friends but the movie hasn't eluded to her deafness in a bit so you might not be thinking about how much of the experience she's missing & how excluded she might feel. Instead of having 3 character gush about how good the music is & then showing her reaction, it just shows the crowd dancing so you can see with your eyeballs, how much fun they're having before it cuts to her first person view in dead silence & her first thought isn't to look at the other people dancing or to start dancing herself. It's to look at the lights. Then when she sees her friend kissing a guy she likes & she pretends to be okay before walking out of the club alone, you understand how hard it would be for her to tell people when she's upset because you've been visually reminded that she's deaf & mute instead of needing the movie to hit you in the head & say "Be sad now, please."
idk I think u make a good point but you also make a shit ton of assumptions about how dialogue HAS to relate to Japanese culture - the connection is a little overblown
The translations suck for animes. I’m Japanese and I watch it in Japanese but it’s written like normal conversations over here(except for the characters that talk weirdly on purpose) and translating it literally makes it sound like all the characters learnt google translate English. Oh also Isekai dialogue most of the time sucks in Japan regardless. However, it really does come down to the bad translation as there are a lot of words or gestures used in conversation that in anywhere else are never used. If the translators do a good job it would sound natural. Or like Ghost Stories where they just improvised all of it😂. Also there are times where the dub translations are just longer than the original version so I think they would have to make the scenes longer but the opposite could be said but probably they don’t take out the scenes due to reasons. Here is a example of a bad translation 舌打ちor tounge click to the best of my translation. It is a click noise we do with our mouth but this is shown to be disrespectful to other people in Japan. Look at Toaru series Accelerator for examples of it. In the sub he sounds cool and edgy. While in the dub he sounds like an annoying teenager. His dialogue all sound forced and it’s just weird in the dub. Also Also some VAs of dubs just completely suck, they make the characters sound non human even with okay dialogue.
I'm okay with anime dialogue as long as the context feels meaningful and not something uninteresting, redundant, and / or not worth the time to listen to. EVEN the examples of short time dialogues like you showed here can still be considered not good if it doesn't feel like they're communicating something deep or particularly important to the story, especially when it's meant to build on the settings or characters...it's just dependent on where it's placed and/or spread out, and I will agree that a majority of anime don't do that too well. Or you COULD just watch Tenshi no Tamago or Cat Soup which had virtually NO dialogue and be perfectly fine if you want. Going with less dialogue can still just be as detrimental as going with too much dialogue and too much misplacement of it.
I love the classroom of the elite anime hate, too many people hype that actual shit up. Many people will say that the light novel is better and they are right, the characters are actually smart, more 3-dimensional, and interesting ( horikita is actually deep??!!?). The main character is also quite good. But if you talk about dialogue I think the criticism still somewhat applies. The dialogue is leagues better(most times) and a lot of times tells us a lot about each character in the LN, but still suffers a little bit when characters talk like robots(doesn't happen that much, but does happen, especially in a "special exam"). This can be excused for the MC as it makes sense for him to talk and think that way, but other characters not so much. classroom of the Elite's biggest strength is its monologues, which basically can't be adapted as the anime tries to make the anime 3rd person instead of first person. Season 2 tried adapting the great monologues from volume 7 but failed immensely. When you don't adapt context or reasoning behind monologues, it's gonna be a shit show.
Honestly, your editing style and way of speaking are really good. Genuinely pretty crazy transitions. With a slightly bigger budget and some pacing fixing up, you'd genuinely blow up more. All I wanted to say, not related to the video, just that you're insanely underrated
I don't think Japan's collectivist culture has much to do with this. It isn't as if western authors are all masters of dialogue. Crafting dialogue is a skill, and in-person conversation is just a different thing. The fact of the matter is, most aspiring storytellers aren't that great at it. That's true no matter what country or culture you're looking at.
You had very good points there,especially with the example you gave using "Samurai Champloo". Dialogue is indeed necessary but still the animation ,theme, plot and the background music outweighs the dialogue in a manner to make the overall anime enjoyable. I didn't expect COTE to be in the list of the anime which you didn't like, because I feel the story was interesting due to the elements of suspense and the use of strategy by the main character which keeps the viewer intrigued,later when the plan/strength of Ayanokoji is revealed it brings a sense of satisfaction.
Yeah not like we haven’t seen a loner mc who hides his strength for reasons and only select few are worthy to know his glory.. it is so satisfying seeing it for every edgy anime that try’s to be dark
I hate so much anime dialogue, it's so forced and exposition heavy. No one talks like that, even in Japan. There def are exceptions and those are the ones I enjoy, but man so much is just meh
Audio reasons + privacy , for the parts of the video in real life , the audio is already recorded and I move my arms to try fit it , if I didn’t have a mask it would be weird if my face wasn’t moving , and if I actually said the things in real life it’de sound differnt to the rest of the videos audio
Loved every single second of this video, and that low quality editing was so charming I instantly subbed LMAO. Keep up the amazing work! I can already foresee how big this channel will become.
The fact you did this all on a phone speaks volumes to your passion for content creation and has earned you a subscriber in me. But even that aside this is still a very well put together and informative video.
Makes sense I suppose. Simply put. A story follows the characters, so they need to be able to express themselves clearly to more fully flesh out the story and move it foward. I've watched lot's of anime, and not as much for their stories. Just for action. xD
I enjoyed reading all these giga triggered comments down there, that was funny. I also think most anime dialogs are terrible, but I think translation plays a huge part in it. You can translate words and meaning but you can never truly translate the full expression of a language, each has its own subtleties, body language, and non verbal elements. People don't hate english dubs because they hate english, they hate it because it's a dub. An original english series dubbed into japanese would probably feel just as weird for japanese people, I think.
I don’t agree when people say “I don’t like anime” but I can see where people are coming from, art styles like dragon ball z aren’t exactly good and can put people off also the dry storytelling as they will then stereotype all anime into one category even if there are some honestly good ones
I enjoy the story concepts but I clicked on this video cause I agree, it's always the dialogue that throws me off, I hate how anime dialogue ALWAYS has to explain what we can obviously see with our own eyes, I hate how there's hardly ever any quite moments in anime
@@lightningmonky7674 I agree with that animes (for example bungo stray dogs) can have good storytelling but some other anime’s can have recycled stories or a bunch of recycled ideas I also clicked on this because I agree with the sentiment that yeah anime dialogue isn’t good telling us exactly what’s happening that leaves no room for theorizing
@@lightningmonky7674 There is this relatively new mystery/scifi anime called Tengoku Daimakyou (Heavenly Delusion) where they apply the "show don't tell" to an almost extreme level and it's so good for the mystery part of the show. The show gets REALLY dark in some moments, especially since it happens in a post-apocalyptic world, I just want to warn you if you decide to watch it.
Wow. I fell in love with the way you shoot your videos. It's very demonstrative, so many references to various unknown but great anime, your analysis is very accurate and your examples are presented in a convincing way... what more could to ask for? You've made me laugh so many times with your cornflex's box head, I want you to get better because you deserve it. So I'm going to subscribe right now. thanks for posting this video, and all the next ones!
Wow. Thank you so much !! I really appreciate this comment , it’s very kind , it’s a shreddies box , which is a cereal but shreddies is also the name of a fart proof brand of boxers so that’s unfortunate
