pretty much what maf said in his first post. let's separate gaf's anime hysteria from a rational evaluation of the medium/genre, eh? anime has produced some legitimately good stuff, some amusing fluff, and a whole lot of fanservice dross. really, there ain't many folks at evilbore who preach anime uber alles; if we do like something stupid, it is with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
that said, i started watching anime in my second year of college, and i liked it because it really did present different themes, although i wasn't exactly aware of how stupid many of them were until i'd seen enough to make that assessment. i liked the wacky surrealism, the paradoxically "new" set of cliches, and the videogaming crossover component. after about of year of it, though, i found a great deal of it completely unpalatable -- particularly the harem shit that started popping up after ranma. i remember going to a screening of "oh my goddess" by a friend of mine and getting bored by the second ova and realizing that in the end there was a massive wish fulfillment component i didn't want to be a part of. it was the start of the sterile, charmless moe phenomenon, which took a good chunk of anime away from original, likable, over-the-top action toward specific fetishes. in college, eva was the last anime i really enjoyed until someone gave me their slayers tapes.
