Non Battle Anime; The Reason You’re not Watching All Anime

WE LOVE ANIME

We love everything about highly stylized animated shows describing characters and stories that subvert our expectations and leave us with memorable moments we WILL NEVER forget. Anime is pretty cool. No no. It’s amazing; but it seems to depend on the type anime you’re watching. Yeah, go figure.

Every Main Character is “The Blowman”

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH OUR PREFERENCES?

Almost every one’s favorites are shounen titles that have recurring circumstances; they have fight scenes with baddies, characters increasing their power levels for those intense final showdowns with their rivals, recruiting strong allies, going on quests and journeys for one pie… you get where I’m going. They are all out fantasy flicks almost entirely about otherworldly adventure or saving ZA WARUDO (the world, I couldn’t help myself) as part of the main goal of the plot. One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Full metal Alchemist, Hunter x Hunter, Fairy Tale, Seven Deadly Sins and recent new comers My Hero Academy and Blade of Demon Destruction are all structured around the fantasy format and they make up the average anime fan’s top ten list. Usually most lists are only fantasy titles and because we love ninjas, because we can only get behind the heroic, righteous and loveable saps, and because we literally lose our minds whenever a badass characters walks into a fight to whop another character silly or have that awesome fight with the overpowered villain on screen we have ignored non battle anime titles completely.

Again, it’s not a bad thing. You’re free to enjoy the genre you like but not when you ignore great titles, sometimes calling them overrated, simply because they don’t have fight scenes. There are numerous genres in manga and anime circulation and it seems most fans have limited themselves to the adventure and battle anime side of things.
Titles like Death Note and Kaiji: ultimate survivor are not as good as Naruto or One Piece for some loyal fans because they don’t have likeable characters summoning tailed beasts, releasing restriction art techniques or the main issue some fans have with them, they’re NOT punching some bad guy so hard their face implodes.

I repeat… IMPLODE

They are non battle anime, they lack action and resort to methods outside fighting to create tension and progress in their story. And that’s very boring for some fans… but is it?

Take JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures; it’s not your typical battle anime and so is very difficult to get behind if you’re not into it. The abilities of the characters, called stands, as well as their users, aren’t actually fighting. They sort of are and almost all the characters are badass but they’re not kicking each other’s butts physically all the time. There are no power level comparisons; the characters have strengths and weakness in relation to their abilities and they sometimes lose to people who aren’t as strong physically. They’re saving the world with strategy, cunning and sometimes even using sports, drawing and card tricks to battle. Another great anime title, Shingeki no Soma, is done a great disservice by being labelled as “just a cooking show” because it’s battles are done in the kitchen…by cooking.

The Irony

Recent titles that are highly rated like Dr. Stone, The Promised Neverland and Psycho Pass are ignored because “… the characters talk too much and there’s little action”.

SO WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?

This writer isn’t ranting about your biases or telling you to resist your preferences. I like what I like too and It’s cool that you love battle anime because a lot of work goes into them. When they’re well made and well edited GOOD LORD they are amazing.
The thing is, as anime of the decade lists are popping you realize great titles are overlooked because there is no action in them. People are making lists that don’t include them and disagreeing with lists that do have them because they are Non Battle titles. AGAIN, you’re free to love your anime preferences but When you’re listing THE greatest of all time in the last 20 years and you think “Strike the Blood” or “Fairytail” should be there instead of “Erased”, “Durarara”, or Mushishi because you like them better and they have action in them…. Well, ohk but no…

We’re good too

Love what you like but that shouln’t stop you from enjoying good titles, appreciating really good anime and acknowledging them. They too can create intense situations without needing to slow things down for a fight or two with a generic, single minded bad guy who wants to take over the world because of …reasons. and let’s not get started on the hero who wants to save the world because…well, they’re there to save it or it’s their destiny.
There are titles with zero battles but have bad guys with way more intense motivations that are Way Better than your average battle anime. And there are those that don’t have bad guys but show our main characters going through daily life in relatable interesting ways that might not save the world. They tell compelling stories and have characters you can get behind or absolutely hate who don’t even need to lift a finger or punch someone to get that effect. They’re cool too. And you should see them.