What makes a series a winner?

[Bean Bandit]

I got to pondering this the other day.

Is art in a manga or anime a deal breaker? I've noticed that I'm not too choosy about what an anime looks like, provided I'm entertained. FOr example...'One Piece'. I really like this anime and manga, despite the fact that the art is....simplistic, to put it charitably. Crude, even. The story, however, keeps me riveted.

Which isn't to say that I'm a writing snob. Ikkitousen has an inexplicable appeal to me, despite the uneven plotting, and shameless pandering to the T&A audience. I also like to watch other series that are visually pretty, yet are less than stellar in script

So, needless to say, I'm confused, so I thought I'd ask.

What makes an anime watchable for you?

[Anastasia]

I got to pondering this the other day.

Is art in a manga or anime a deal breaker? I've noticed that I'm not too choosy about what an anime looks like, provided I'm entertained. FOr example...'One Piece'. I really like this anime and manga, despite the fact that the art is....simplistic, to put it charitably. Crude, even. The story, however, keeps me riveted.

Which isn't to say that I'm a writing snob. Ikkitousen has an inexplicable appeal to me, despite the uneven plotting, and shameless pandering to the T&A audience. I also like to watch other series that are visually pretty, yet are less than stellar in script

So, needless to say, I'm confused, so I thought I'd ask.

What makes an anime watchable for you?

I'll go down the list one at a time, then add my own thoughts.

1. Art is important. It needs to be appealing on some level, or if the plotting and characters can make up for it, at least not annoying to myself. What constitutes good, bad and neutral art styles is highly subjective; I can't stand the manga of Sailor Moon due to Takeuchi's style while others think it's the best thing since sliced rabbit. In that case, not even a strong plot and characters can save it.

Getting by with bad art puts all the burden on the story and charm, so it has to be fundamentally good to carry without it.

2. Same here, sometimes eye candy is enough. Kannaduki no Miko is the best example offhand, I'm interested in it almost solely because it's pretty. Plot wise, it veers all over the place, from mecha to shoujo to lesbian schoolgirl(s) in a jagged, non sensical course.

I think the answer is obvious.  There needs to be at least one element of the story that appeals to you, luring you into it's web. It's not always the same element, you can like a show for it's plot and another for it's visuals; or for whatever else does it for you.

On another note, I think strong personal favorites are formed when more than one or two of the elements please you, or one element is exceedingly compatable.

[Bean Bandit]

I think the answer is obvious. There needs to be at least one element of the story that appeals to you, luring you into it's web. It's not always the same element, you can like a show for it's plot and another for it's visuals; or for whatever else does it for you.

Hmm...I'll agree with that, with a slight caveat...A good series NEEDS a hook. You need to have your attention grabbed, somehow, or it slides right under the radar, no matter how appealing it may turn out to be.

On another note, I think strong personal favorites are formed when more than one or two of the elements please you, or one element is exceedingly compatable.

Agreed. I absolutely hate Inuyasha...and yet, the power of Sango-sama compells me to continue watching. Mysterious...

[Brian]

Honestly, in artwork, what matters to me most is attention to detail.  Not really pretty visuals, but the dedication to bother animating (always) those little things.  Some anime will gloss over this.  But attention to detail always gets my interest.

In storyline, I really go for what looks to be compelling and thought-out story, instead of a shlocky monster-of-the-week and magical-girl serial.  I can't abide episodic anime, where continuity is thrown out the window at the end of each episode.  This is, in fact, the entire reason I prefer anime to American animation.  Continuity is king. >_<

The only other thing that matters to me (more than the above, even) is characters.  I don't like shallow or 'bad' characters.  Even in the Tales of Phantasia game, I never used that annoying magical knight character (Zelos?) until I was forced to, and then he was straight out of the party.  I know this is a bit of an aside, but I like a deep character with flaws and virtues.

I like watching Ed and Al or the Scrapped Princess deal with their lives.  I just don't care about Anita whining for nothing, though.  Characters who are whiny bother me, too.  I know I'm picky, but basically, would you rather look at Anita sobbing over her woes, or Drake grumbling about how he was blown up and thrown off a cliff AGAIN?

Really, though, what makes an anime for me is watching a character with flaws or issues, and watching them grow stronger.  That's why I watched EVA all the way through, and loathe the movie with such passion.  That's why I was able to enjoy Vandread, despite the (kinda) cheesecake.  Hmm.  I don't know if I illuminated this at all.  :/

[thepanda]

To me, reading manga is a lot like watching anime; the art needn't be steller, but it absolutely cannot be bad. Bad art is different from not-good art. Not good art doesn't enhance the story, but it doesn't detract from it either. Et Cetera comes to mind when I think of not-good art, but I love the story so its never been a problem.

When I think bad art Battle Royale instantly pops into my mind. The movie was entertaining, the novel moreso, but the gawd-aweful artwork in the manga was bad enough to make me physically ill. I struggled through two volumes of it and simply could not take anymore. A sad fact when you consider that the plot was better than the movie adaptation.

This also carries back to an arguement I spotted over Old School vs New School anime, specifically gundam. If you've ever seen one gundam argument you know how the flow goes. Old school purists insist that the UC canon was the end all be all of gundam and everything afterwards sucks. The neophytes believe their series has merit and that UC is over-hyped and the artwork for most of it is crap. THe UCers screaming "ITS THE STORY THAT MATTERS!" and things degenerating from there.

I've done some thinking about this argument. Is the story alone capable of sustaining a series with truly shitty artwork? I don't believe so. The artwork in the original gundam series (0079 I think it was) is so bad that the story itself suffers because of it. Yes, its old. I don't argue that it isn't. Surely I don't expect it to look as pretty as Wing or Seed. But being old isn't enough to excuse the shoddy artwork. Original Dirty Pair is old and I prefer that to Kiddy Grade. Macross/Robotec is old, and yet the artwork manages to hold up enough that it doesn't take away from the storyline. Same with Vampire Hunter D, especially when viewed back-to-back with Bloodlust. Prject A-ko, Gall Force, Bubble Gum Crisis; the list of old shows that manage to still hold up after all these years goes on.

Being old is simply not enough reason to excuse shoddy artwork.

That being said, I love a good plot, though in a visual and text or visual and sound medium I don't need them as strongly as I would in pure text. To paraphrase, a purely written work must be three times as entertaining as the same work in a different medium because it lacks nuances like BGMs or visual aids to convey what's going on. In both manga and anime I find that I can still enjoy a weak plot so long as the characters and the trip getting to the end is enjoyable. Et Cetera is an old west-fantasy-semi parody about a little Chinese girl in the old west trying to get to Hollywood to become a star, and she inherited a special gun from her dead grandfather that obsorbs the souls of zodiac animals and fires special bullets that have the properties of said animal. Plotwise it ain't exactly War and Peace, but the characters are fun and the story holds up its internal logic. The artwork isn't good, but it isn't bad either.

Its almost the same with Geobreeders, and that's one of my all time favorite manga. The character artwork is certainly nothing to write home about, but they nail the sense of action they're trying to convey and for this title that's what matters.

Hm, I think I may have wondered a bit here. >_>

If any one of the elements artwork, plotting, or character design is truly horrible it will usually break a series for me.

[Merc]

While the art is generally what hooks me in, its the story that will keep me watching with anime. The reverse doesn't generally apply where I know the anime should have good story and am kept by the pretty art when the story turns otherwise (*cough* Tales of Phantasia *cough*).

I can also generally stomach bad art better than I can bad stories.

[Priss]

What makes an anime watchable for you?

Well, putting aside the horrid badness that is done to some anime through dubbing, one thing with anime is the voices.  (Though I will also say that sometimes you end up with some of the most outright halirious situations when they're dubbed... it just doesn't happen very often. ^_^;) If the voice is annoying/aggrivating/nails-on-chalkboard, I'm not going to watch it, even if the story and art are absolutely fasinating.  But then I'm a fairly aural person and sounds mean a lot to me.

As for the topics you mentioned...

Art:  The quality of the artwork is always important, though from time to time I can overlook it if the story fasinates me enough.  However, what I mean by quality is evidence that the time was invested to make the particular style of the artwork properly animated or drawn.  Admittedly there are styles that I simply despise, but it's not nessicarily because they're _bad_, or poor quality.  It's just because I don't like the style.  Besides, if you want to see _bad_ artwork, there's _plenty_ of examples on the net calling themselves "webcomics".  (There are also plenty of _GOOD_ artwork in webcomics, but that seems to be the exception instead of the rule when it comes to the masses of stuff online.)

Storyline:  This also includes things like characters and internal logic.  If the characters are two-dimensional, I'm usually going to find myself with the attention span of a three-year old.  Slim to none.  However, if the character grows and changes while chasing his/her goal/purpose, then I tend to find myself drawn in to the story, sometimes against my better judgment.   And internal logic!  If the writer of the anime/manga can't be bothered to maintain the logic that he/she devloped for the story, why should I be bothered to watch/read it?  Another thing is one of the reasons that Ranma 1/2 ended up annoying me intensely by the time I finished reading it.  Plot holes.  If I can send a 747 through the hole, it's VERY obivious.  And annoying.  

That's not to say that an open-ended anime/manga that doesn't have a firm ending are a bad thing.  I happen to have a couple of anime/manga series that I enjoy that are open-ended.  For example the anime Whistle!.  The anime covers the events of one year/season following the main character.  The ending is left open, but it's left open in a way that tells you that things are still going on, still changing.  It lets you believe that this is something that has _really_ happened or is happening.  Life doesn't have firm set endings, so a realistic anime really shouldn't either.

But, these are just things that get me.  They don't nessicarily mean anything to anyone else.

[thepanda]

Another thing is one of the reasons that Ranma 1/2 ended up annoying me intensely by the time I finished reading it.  Plot holes.  If I can send a 747 through the hole, it's VERY obivious.  And annoying.

That's funny. I think Ranma manages to hold up under its own internal logic quite well. Its like the Simpsons; chronology without so much continuity. That is to say, after each arc everything resets like a Simpson's episode. It makes the comedy that much more flexible. Like Homer, Ranma gets to be oftimes stupid, sometimes genius and still BE who he is.

The whole 'Takahashi continuiity' problem seems to be more a product of people reading good, linear fanfics and then going to read to source material and finding it vastly different. I liken it to the disappointment felt by many Gundam Wing fanfic readers when they aired the show on cartoon network and finding out a great many of the fandom conventions had little basis in the canon.

[Dracos]

Uh.  No it doesn't >_>

Nothing Takahashi produces does as far as I've read.  <_<

This doesn't stem from an internal logic so much as Takahashi being willing to toss anything she's put on the table away for a short one shot joke.

Dracos

[Ragnar]

1. Art / Plot

2. Animation style (y'know, "realistic", "gratuitous physics", "stiff", "lively",etc.)

3. Music!!

5. Character designs

4. "Cheese Factor"

Hmm. Come to think of it, besides number one, the rest are about equal ranking in terms of what makes something watchable.

As Merc said, the art hooks me, and the plot keeps me watching.

[Caliban]

What makes a series unwatchable for me is not so much a slow developing plot, but slow expansion; unrealistically long character reaction times, overblown drawing out of situations, stereotyped unrealistic characterisations. Dubbing is irrelevant as with anything except Princess Mononoke US accents just don't work for me ( which could have something to do with just plain bad dubbing, I guess ), and anything else is entirely dependent on the series itself: I can take bad art if the story is gripping enough. Equally good art and production makes up for some plot weaknesses ( Tsukuyomi comes to mind ).

Kannaduki no Miko is a somewhat special case: the entire thing is so insane I've got a sick fascination with it, rather like reading a really bad fic just to find out what lunacy is going to happen next.

[Stan]

I have to say writing is the most important thing in an anime or manga. Anime, for me, is a visual story. There has to be characters I care about and plots I want to see come to an end, in some way. If the writing is more complicated then it will have me watch the show several times to see what is going on. If there is no substance to a show, there is no reason to go back and pick it up again. Even thought the plot is not that serious in Tanma 1/2, the characters there take themselves as seriously as most teens do that age. This makes it more a character study as well as a great laugh. VanDred and Slayers remind me of the way MASH was written, slapstick humor on the toip with a lot going on underneath. Cowboy Bebop seems very film style to me as Spike and Faye could fit right in most Bogart movies if they wereanimated.

I lean more to Drams/humor in my viewing but s a serious drama L/R or Petshop of Horrors comes out of my collection at least once a year. I just look at anime and a serious film art, only animated instead of live action.

[thepanda]

L/R?

Licence by Royalty? Or some such. >_>

[Stan]

Yup, thats the one.

[kpjam]

To some degree, does it matter?
Sure, if I have limited time and want to pick, knowing myself and what the choices offer is nice.  Or to have a relevant conversation, recognizing wht appeals and doesn't and being able to explain is a grand idea.  Something that bring people together.

But I like such a eccentric mix of anime and magna, in the end, I just have to try.

Art.  If I find the art appealing I'm more likely to sit down and watch.  But Irresponsible Captain Tylor's art is dated, but Ikkitousen's art rocked.  Najica had art similar to Ikkitousen, but I couldn't stomach it.  So it's not art.

Comedy.  I like Tylor.  I hate One Piece.  So, nope, not genre.

Author -- I like the idea of Ranma and I like Maison Ikk(sp), while Inu-yasha was a yawn.  Even though I hated the anime of Ranma.

Drama -- not even going there.

Space -- I like most recent battletech reincartnation, hated the original.  

I would say it's mst likely characters.  If I like the characters, I like the series.  But then again, how do you really describe what characters you like?

I could go on and on, but really, there is little rhyme and less reason. and I've rambled enough.

So I leave you how I started.  feel glad you can pinpoint what you like.  It makes selection easy. Me, I just have to get lucky...