To truely understand anime, you first have to watch the anime that is not shown in America. The anime that is shown in America are only shown because of their popularity to kids and that they can make compianies lots of money [cough]pokemon[/cough]. Their are alot of animes out there that are for teenagers and have much deeper story lines. Examples of these are Evangelion (action and alitte romance), Serial Experiment: Lain (action and alittle religion), Love Hina (a romantic-comedy), To Heart (a romantic-comedy), and Comic Party (a romantic-comedy). The story in all these animes are great and you can learn alot from them if you pay attention to it. There many, many others that I am sure others can come up with.
As always, if you want to know more or have any questions IM me with AIM at puzz3dmaster.

most people that watch japanese anime (either dubbed or subbed, i perfer subbed) hate DBZ, it has hundreds of episodes and it takes forever for anything to get done. Half the episode is a recap of the previous one. There is much better stuff out there, which is more mature/violent/sexual which kids don't/shouldn't watch. DBZ is good for 7 year olds i guess, since they scream for 5 minutes and then punch someone.

I definitely disagree that the good stuff is more mature/sexual. Some of it is, like Love Hina(well, at least Love Hina Again), Hand Maid May, and Evangelion. However, there is a ton of Anime out there that is good, but is also acceptable for kids. .Hack/Sign is almost totally without violence or sex. Theres no sex in Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, or Inu Yasha, and while these deal with a lot of fighting, its not much worse than DBZ.

This conception of all anime as being like Ninja Scroll (tons of blood and gore, with sex and nudity thrown in there for fun) is a bad one, as 95% of anime is not like that.

By the way, I hate DBZ too. I don't enjoy it for practically the same reasons you stated, as well as just disliking the animation style.

I happen to be a huge fan of DBZ, it's what got me into anime. I don't know what it is, but something about it just makes me want to watch it, perhaps that whole Good versus Evil thing. and yes I've even criticized it for it's length and when they stand around (especially the Cell Games) and talk about stuff that's happening, "hey! He just got punched in the mouth!" when the viewers have seen that 5 seconds ago. Maybe DBZ should've ended way before the entire Majin Buu thing, but I'll still like it no matter what. If by chance you have a .00001% interest in DBZ, You might want to head on over to www.ultimatedbzinfo.com It has to be the greatest DBZ site ever made, the guy really puts a lot of thought and comedy into his writing (Greg Werner). Anyways, that's that.

I'm a huge anime fan. I also vastly prefer it subtitled. A few of my favorite titles, in no specific order,:
Cowboy Bebop, all of the Gundams except Gundam X, Lain, Mononoke, X, Berserk, Record of Lodoss War, Wings of Honneamaise, Ghost in the Shell, Card Captor Sakura, Evangelion, Martian Successor Nadesico, Candidate for a Goddess, Patlabor (the tv series), Gasaraki, Perfect Blue, and lots more I can't remember. And to those who don't like anime I'd just like to point out: Most of you are talking about a specific genre of anime. There is more variety in anime then you can find in American Cinema. Don't watch DBZ or Ninja Scroll and assume it is all like that. They play crap on TV, most of which has been horribly dubbed and edited. Assuming that all anime is filled with violence, sex, and oddly colored hair is like assuming Schindler's List is like Indiana Jones because they had the same director. Think about what genres of movies you like and find a store that specializes in anime rentals and ask them for advice. Unless you just hate animation or subtitles you will probably enjoy it.
BTW for those interested in the more realistic side of mecha and robots check out Gasaraki.

Edit: Forgot to mention, Dragonball is not that bad of a series if you watch it the way it was meant to be watched, not the horrible sliced up Funimation version they play on TV. Its actually funny, much like the manga it was based off of.

Also half the dialogue in DBZ is grunting or gasping. How do they record that stuff? Do they go into the sound studio and the director guy says "Ok, today we're going to be doing a lot of grunting for the hurt scenes. Act like your really constipated."

Well... let's think about that. If your arm happens to be broken in half, or your body happens to be cut in two... I don't think you're going to be not-making much noise, I'd scream my head off, but yeah anyways, that's not all there is to DBZ, well if you watch the American Dubbed-Editted poo version that's all there is; Watch the real subbed stuff before judging it, please.

DRAGONBALL is probably one of the funniest animes ever, the manga that is. Akira Toriyama is the greatest creator of anime who ever lived, Dr. Slump is hillarious too read that if you can find it... and apparently he has a new series out called "Sandman", I haven't checked that out yet, but I intend to. Toriyama-San is the greatest!

Ok I have to admit, I am starting to get into anime. Well sort of.

I bought this DVD from Ames cause they are going out of business and it was cheap. The movie is calledMETROPOLIS and it is from the same guy who did Akira. It is the coolest "cartoon" I have seen in a while.
Originally I thought it was an animated version of the silent film of the same name done in the early 1920's but it is different. The budget on this film was close to 15 million dollars. Now I don't know how that relates to other cartoons, but I'm sure it was a lot more expensive than your normal cartoon movie. The animated effects in this movie are awesome.

Simply put, You have to see this movie!!!

Metropolis eh?? looks interesting enough for me to buy it, plus if it's made by the makers of AKIRA, then I'm there.:p

This version of the film is really cool. German People Rock! I think it was dirrected by Fritz Lang. I went to the DIA (Detroit Institute of Art) and saw the dirrectors cut of it last year with the alloy orchestra doing a live soundtrack. It kicked major soccer balls :)

Re: Any Anime Fans?
 

I'm wondering if anyone here would be interested in joining a fairly new anime forum. We're still looking for new members because the community is still pretty small. Let me know if you're interested. :)

Re: Any Anime Fans?
 

I like Medabots and Pokemon (I have some Medabots cards around my place and some Pokemon cards collecting dust). Digimon was the one of the only animes that I hated. That was because it was a big spoof of Pokemon, just like Duel Masters is a spoof of Yugioh. I've gotten over that rivalry of Digimon and grew to live with it. My favorite animes include Evangalion, Bebop, Yugioh, and others.

Re: Any Anime Fans?
 

Actually I thought Pokemon was a ripoff of Digimon. I think the concept actually came before pokemon. Duel Masters is hilarious. It was suposed to be a saitire of Yugioh and that is what makes it so great.

Re: Any Anime Fans?
 

For some reason I have not fully figured out yet, I really like Read or Die. Ghost in the Shell is good as well.

Re: Any Anime Fans?
 

I'm not much into anime, but here's what I do watch:

- Duel Monsters (it's on when I wake up, so it gives me something to think about)

- Zoids [Both series that was on CN] (I preferred the first one, but the second one was decent...a little to serious though for me)

- Digimon (I don't watch it anymore actually, but I used to watch it everyday until it changed)