If you've ever been curious about what online dating is all about, whether it works or it doesn't work, read this article, you'll be impressed by what you learn.
Being an ex-life coach I feel more than qualified to write about online dating sites. --In some regards they were my competition, because people would rather hide out on online dating sites rather than fix whatever problems that they have that prevent them from having a relationship. In other regards, I've tried scooping up the online dating crowd in my marketing efforts and I had to do a lot of research in order to figure them out. In fact, I was interviewed at one time for a newspaper article related to this topic.
Here's what I've learned from it all:
1. Women are only online because they either a) lack the social skills to attract the attention of males in person or b) they are just investigating it because it is marketed as some mythical golden goose and they want to see if it really does produce golden eggs.
2. Men are only online because they either a) lack the social skills to attract the attention of females in person, or b) they are just looking for some easy action.
3. There ARE a lot of creeps online--in fact, you have a 1:5 (my estimate) chance of meeting a pedophile, rapist, druggie, thief, or other creeps online who if you meet in person will either rape you, molest your kids, steal your money or things and sell them to buy drugs and leave you without anything.
4. The women who lack the most social skills tend to be predominantly A) single mothers and secondary to them are B) women with weight issues.
5. There are three predominant (specific) reasons for a single mother to use online dating (remember that these women are either just investigating or they lack social skills) A) they feel that their efforts in a non-online-spurred relation have failed resulting in them being a single mother and that somehow it will be easier for them to have a committed long-term relationship with someone who they believe is a "nice" guy because he survives online. B) they're just looking for no strings attached sex and aren't really interested in a relationship. C) they are too lazy and gutless to develop a relationship in person, i.e. they are scared to take risks, believe they don't have enough time, or they are unmotivated to meet new people.
6. Most women who resort to online dating have a poor opinion of men, specifically, they believe in generalizations such as that men lack chivalry or men are players.
7. Those "normal" women who are only experimenting with online dating are likely to only stick to it for three weeks or less. Again, the rest--the ones who stay--have some social malady.
8. Not all dating sites imply the same things. Some dating sites attract a specific type of people. I attribute this to their marketing and branding efforts.
9. There are plenty of free and semi-free dating sites that are moderately respectable and therefore there is no reason to invest in a paid dating site because they all attract the same two kinds of people (read #1 and #2 again).
10. Few people use more than one dating site, most find one they like and stick to it.
Notes
This is heavily weighted towards what I learned about women in online dating because my target market for my research was women. I already know a lot about men because I am one. Also, bear in mind that I stuck to the age limits of over 18 and under 30.
Summary
If you're looking for someone to have the perfect relationship with don't use online dating. If you're a male and you insist on it, you had better be comfortable with inheriting kids because she probably has at least one. Also, there is no significant difference between the level of maturity of someone who is 18 online and someone who is 28 online. If you're a female, and you insist on online dating, you had better be comfortable with guys that want sex--some of them may hold out for a short while but they'll all eventually expect sex.
The physical quality of the people you see on online dating is a good reflection of the physical quality of those you would meet in person--I would suggest that there is even an accurate ratio of the number of "good looking" (I know that that is a subjective term) people compared to not so good looking.
I think really I would be scared to do online dating knowing what I know now.--I still have accounts online but I use them for experimentation and occasionally I like to look at pictures of people, it's an odd fascination of mine I know, but I feel like self-taken photos and the photos people choose to represent themselves say a lot about them and it's all very interesting.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Notes on Pairs
This is a snippet of some notes I've been sitting on for a few months--I remember writing these late at night on my smart phone and I don't remember what I was going to do with them, whether they were meant to be an article or part of a story idea or what exactly I was going to do with them. Every week when I check the notes on my phone I see this and keep meaning to use it for something, so I figure I'll just post it with the preface that these are just notes and may not actually lead to a conclusion
----
Two identical, similar or corresponding things that are matched for use together.
Why are they put together? Because it makes it easier to accomplish things and some things can't be done with just one half of a pair (think scissors)
It's much easier and more efficient to be paired than separated and occasionally tow unpaird things are just two worthless objects because they are not paired (atomic bonds, scissors, etc).
Some separated pairs serve an entirely different functions whent ehy are not paird or can do a different functions better by not being paired (...the pair holds it back?--but I can't think of an example).
So what is their true purpose? The one[function] that can be fulfilled unpaired (if not in a pair) or a function that can be fulfilled only as a pair?
And What of people?
when people have been paird, of course it's easier to perform certain fu nctions. It's also easier and more fulfilling (accomplishes it's purpose), to perform functions without the other pair or part of the equation--when that other pair is missing...(Again, I can't think of a specific example).
Is it easier to be good or bad depending on who or what a person is paired with? Is it harder to be the opposite (good or bad) without the other matching pair?
Normal, sane individuals would have a hard time doing good or bad if they weren't paired with objects or people who influence them to do one or the other.
The true nature of an individual is not his or her influences then, because when paired with one or the other he or she will be influenced by them.
The true nature of a person then is his or her desires and ability to resist persuasions that go against their true desires.
----
Two identical, similar or corresponding things that are matched for use together.
Why are they put together? Because it makes it easier to accomplish things and some things can't be done with just one half of a pair (think scissors)
It's much easier and more efficient to be paired than separated and occasionally tow unpaird things are just two worthless objects because they are not paired (atomic bonds, scissors, etc).
Some separated pairs serve an entirely different functions whent ehy are not paird or can do a different functions better by not being paired (...the pair holds it back?--but I can't think of an example).
So what is their true purpose? The one[function] that can be fulfilled unpaired (if not in a pair) or a function that can be fulfilled only as a pair?
And What of people?
when people have been paird, of course it's easier to perform certain fu nctions. It's also easier and more fulfilling (accomplishes it's purpose), to perform functions without the other pair or part of the equation--when that other pair is missing...(Again, I can't think of a specific example).
Is it easier to be good or bad depending on who or what a person is paired with? Is it harder to be the opposite (good or bad) without the other matching pair?
Normal, sane individuals would have a hard time doing good or bad if they weren't paired with objects or people who influence them to do one or the other.
The true nature of an individual is not his or her influences then, because when paired with one or the other he or she will be influenced by them.
The true nature of a person then is his or her desires and ability to resist persuasions that go against their true desires.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Mothers and Daughters
I could approach writing this article in several different ways: I could act excited as though I just made a major discovery (Eureka!)--though I've known this for several years. I could act outraged as though the people who don't know this or don't do this are scum for not taking action--but the rhetoric of such an approach would only deter those people from ever doing it, and it would pit those who are doing it against those who aren't, and I don't think that will solve anything. I could also act scientific about it and pull out a bunch of statistics--but my experience has been that people are wowed by statistics at first but then forget about them (because 99% of people hear too many statistics in a given day to keep any of them straight).
Just watch this video and then I'll comment on the subject:
\
The biggest problem facing our society today is the lack of good treatment by parents towards their daughters, and the lack of respect that daughters have for parents because of it. We've empowered women over the years to make them more equal to men. Many barriers have been broken, admirably, by superior women. Just like young boys must earn the privilege to be called a man, women have earned the privilege to be equal to men on many accounts; and on what remains it is only likely that women will overcome those barriers too.
But when you start to talk about the problems facing this world--not the quantitative problems such as sickness, but the problems that limit our quality of life-- there is a clear wire connecting those problems and the treatment of women in general. Anger, revenge, fear, threatenings, vile behavior, incivility, and disrespect to name a few, can all be tied to the way in which young women are raised. When a young girl is treated with disrespect by her mother or father, when her parents fight all of the time, when parents take advantage of her timidity, or they use her for a scapegoat--she will not only be repelled from her parents, but she will also carry the cycle on to the relationships she has with other people and eventually to her children.
Culturally, men are different. For hundreds of years young boys have been taught to be tough, to not be emotional, to act and defend themselves and to be proactive. Tales from the bible, greek, roman, and norse mythology, and american cinema have always portrayed the male protagonist as violent, tough, and commanding and because of such a long history of this culture, when men are mistreated, they fight rather than flight, they prove themselves, and if they fail they accept their losses and their insignificance.
Recently, the female protagonist has split into two categories: The sexually powerful, commanding goddess, just like Madonna and Lady Gaga or Katy Perry, Angelina Jolie, Ke$ha, Britney Spears, all female super heroes, Desperate house wives, the princess on Avatar, the women of Star Trek, and many others. OR, the shy, timid, unlucky girl who gets a good life handed to her for no reason, such as Anne Hathaway, Julia Robberts, Bella, any Disney Princess, etc.. The problem with this is that whereas the male figure teaches men to be tolerant and to stand firm to what they believe and to go after what they want and be proactive, the two female figures teach women that it is okay to control other people using their body, that in order to get what she wants she has to be confrontational rather than suave, that it is okay to be emotional and angry and to run away from situations if she doesn't get what she wants, that revenge is perfectly justified, and if not any of those then that in the end luck will always prevail to help her get everything she wants in the end whether she deserves it or not.--It culturally enforces the stereotypes men apply to women: that they're emotional, grouchy, unrealistically demanding, controlling, and that they control the sexual aspects of a relationship and if a man wants to have sex he must assert control over her/tame her, and that she will still always possess these irrational traits and that man just needs to deal with them and no run away.---------------This is nothing new. Thousands of people have presented this argument, and my job is to present further argument in line with this one, not restate old arguments.
When a young girl feels like she isn't loved at home, she retreats from home.--she may still live at home, but she despises home and she finds things to do that her parents wouldn't approve of simply out of subconscious revenge for being mistreated. She disregards simple advice of her parents because her parents' ethos has been damaged to the point where she subconsciously believes that what they say might be the opposite of what she should do. She ventures into the world too trusting of outsiders and not trusting enough of insiders, then she gets burned by someone who she thinks she loves and who loves her, when in reality she has no idea what love is because she hasn't ever experienced it before in her life--not even by her parents. Granted, this is an over simplified story--there are many variations of this scenario, nevertheless they all conclude that if the parents would have treated their daughter with a little more respect and formed an actual relationship with her rather than an obligated relationship, the daughter might have gone to them for advice, might have recognized what true love is in the first place and avoided the charms of others who claim love and have other motives in mind.
Just like John Mayer sings, "girls become lovers and turn into mothers"--that's pretty simple, but she only becomes a mother like her mother if she decides to be a mother at all. If she never knows what true love is like, how is she going to love her daughters (or sons) that way?
Many young girls go down dark paths and make stupid decisions because no one loves them. --This is not gender specific, young boys do the same until they realize how to follow the culture of the man and they stand up for themselves and suddenly it becomes okay for them to go in and out of the dark paths of life because that's part of being a man--Taking drugs, getting pregnant, having abusive relationships, breaking the law, all of these things come about when people don't feel loved or lose track of how to love other people even when those people don't love them back.
And let me present a counter argument in case anyone tries to point out the painfully obvious: Men can love too. Men can love women and break the cycle of a woman not being loved. They can have children and even though the woman doesn't know entirely what a loving relationship is (other than the one with her husband) her husband can love the children and correct any maladies in the cycle. [[how does biology correct defects in one person's gene line? It takes the good genes from both sides and tries to eliminate the bad ones--love can work the same way and hopefully correct the bad characteristics]]. However, even though our society is on the verge of equalizing man and women, the women typically get the kids, even if the man has a better job and could raise those kids, and even if the man might be the one who knows how to love better than the other--the woman gets the kids simply because of the cultural implications that men are supposed to be a certain way and women another way (unless the woman has done something terribly wrong that would make her place unsafe for kids).
The only thing I can see that would correct our society and make life "fair" is if parents loved their kids--really loved their kids. And knew how to love those kids. And if they didn't know how to really love and respect and care about their kids and show their kids how to love and respect and care about other people, then those same parents would LEARN how to do these things. --I don't think there is any excuse for not figuring out how to have a good relationship, people make excuses because they're lazy. The truth is, you can have an amazing relationship (friends, lovers, parent-children, mentor, etc) with ANYONE if you really want that. And THAT is what can improve the quality of life (as opposed to quantity of life).
Just watch this video and then I'll comment on the subject:
The biggest problem facing our society today is the lack of good treatment by parents towards their daughters, and the lack of respect that daughters have for parents because of it. We've empowered women over the years to make them more equal to men. Many barriers have been broken, admirably, by superior women. Just like young boys must earn the privilege to be called a man, women have earned the privilege to be equal to men on many accounts; and on what remains it is only likely that women will overcome those barriers too.
But when you start to talk about the problems facing this world--not the quantitative problems such as sickness, but the problems that limit our quality of life-- there is a clear wire connecting those problems and the treatment of women in general. Anger, revenge, fear, threatenings, vile behavior, incivility, and disrespect to name a few, can all be tied to the way in which young women are raised. When a young girl is treated with disrespect by her mother or father, when her parents fight all of the time, when parents take advantage of her timidity, or they use her for a scapegoat--she will not only be repelled from her parents, but she will also carry the cycle on to the relationships she has with other people and eventually to her children.
Culturally, men are different. For hundreds of years young boys have been taught to be tough, to not be emotional, to act and defend themselves and to be proactive. Tales from the bible, greek, roman, and norse mythology, and american cinema have always portrayed the male protagonist as violent, tough, and commanding and because of such a long history of this culture, when men are mistreated, they fight rather than flight, they prove themselves, and if they fail they accept their losses and their insignificance.
Recently, the female protagonist has split into two categories: The sexually powerful, commanding goddess, just like Madonna and Lady Gaga or Katy Perry, Angelina Jolie, Ke$ha, Britney Spears, all female super heroes, Desperate house wives, the princess on Avatar, the women of Star Trek, and many others. OR, the shy, timid, unlucky girl who gets a good life handed to her for no reason, such as Anne Hathaway, Julia Robberts, Bella, any Disney Princess, etc.. The problem with this is that whereas the male figure teaches men to be tolerant and to stand firm to what they believe and to go after what they want and be proactive, the two female figures teach women that it is okay to control other people using their body, that in order to get what she wants she has to be confrontational rather than suave, that it is okay to be emotional and angry and to run away from situations if she doesn't get what she wants, that revenge is perfectly justified, and if not any of those then that in the end luck will always prevail to help her get everything she wants in the end whether she deserves it or not.--It culturally enforces the stereotypes men apply to women: that they're emotional, grouchy, unrealistically demanding, controlling, and that they control the sexual aspects of a relationship and if a man wants to have sex he must assert control over her/tame her, and that she will still always possess these irrational traits and that man just needs to deal with them and no run away.---------------This is nothing new. Thousands of people have presented this argument, and my job is to present further argument in line with this one, not restate old arguments.
When a young girl feels like she isn't loved at home, she retreats from home.--she may still live at home, but she despises home and she finds things to do that her parents wouldn't approve of simply out of subconscious revenge for being mistreated. She disregards simple advice of her parents because her parents' ethos has been damaged to the point where she subconsciously believes that what they say might be the opposite of what she should do. She ventures into the world too trusting of outsiders and not trusting enough of insiders, then she gets burned by someone who she thinks she loves and who loves her, when in reality she has no idea what love is because she hasn't ever experienced it before in her life--not even by her parents. Granted, this is an over simplified story--there are many variations of this scenario, nevertheless they all conclude that if the parents would have treated their daughter with a little more respect and formed an actual relationship with her rather than an obligated relationship, the daughter might have gone to them for advice, might have recognized what true love is in the first place and avoided the charms of others who claim love and have other motives in mind.
Just like John Mayer sings, "girls become lovers and turn into mothers"--that's pretty simple, but she only becomes a mother like her mother if she decides to be a mother at all. If she never knows what true love is like, how is she going to love her daughters (or sons) that way?
Many young girls go down dark paths and make stupid decisions because no one loves them. --This is not gender specific, young boys do the same until they realize how to follow the culture of the man and they stand up for themselves and suddenly it becomes okay for them to go in and out of the dark paths of life because that's part of being a man--Taking drugs, getting pregnant, having abusive relationships, breaking the law, all of these things come about when people don't feel loved or lose track of how to love other people even when those people don't love them back.
And let me present a counter argument in case anyone tries to point out the painfully obvious: Men can love too. Men can love women and break the cycle of a woman not being loved. They can have children and even though the woman doesn't know entirely what a loving relationship is (other than the one with her husband) her husband can love the children and correct any maladies in the cycle. [[how does biology correct defects in one person's gene line? It takes the good genes from both sides and tries to eliminate the bad ones--love can work the same way and hopefully correct the bad characteristics]]. However, even though our society is on the verge of equalizing man and women, the women typically get the kids, even if the man has a better job and could raise those kids, and even if the man might be the one who knows how to love better than the other--the woman gets the kids simply because of the cultural implications that men are supposed to be a certain way and women another way (unless the woman has done something terribly wrong that would make her place unsafe for kids).
The only thing I can see that would correct our society and make life "fair" is if parents loved their kids--really loved their kids. And knew how to love those kids. And if they didn't know how to really love and respect and care about their kids and show their kids how to love and respect and care about other people, then those same parents would LEARN how to do these things. --I don't think there is any excuse for not figuring out how to have a good relationship, people make excuses because they're lazy. The truth is, you can have an amazing relationship (friends, lovers, parent-children, mentor, etc) with ANYONE if you really want that. And THAT is what can improve the quality of life (as opposed to quantity of life).
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Our non-realities aren't even Believeable
AMC is playing the matrix trilogy right now and every time I see the first 30 minutes of the show I'm reminded of how IT has shaped the way we approach movies today.
An entire genre--two genres even--has developed all because of the popularity of the Matrix. 1st, the live-action anime. 2nd, the comic book film. Granted, comic book films have been around since the first Batman in 1989 or Superman in 1978, but it wasn't until recently that comic book films have caught fire in the film industry.
The logic goes like this: comic books already have an established audience. They already have an artistic style and costumes and even camera movements can be seen in the way that the artist draws their panels. Turning popular books into films has been around forever because it's easy to market them, and it's a little easier to produce them because a lot of the creative decisions have already been made. All of this just means that it's easier. Easier, easier. They already know what the audience expects from them before they get to the theater.
Live Action Animes. Well, let's see, there is the Matrix, Sin City,Ultra Violet, Resident Evil, Aeon Flux, (I suppose I should include Transformers) &c. &c. They're starting to become more and more popular with western audiences and we will no doubt see more and more of them into the future.
The future. That's an interesting concept. It's something that all anime movies are about. --I'll admit to watching a few animes. I'm curious about this genre so I've seen a few of the most popular series, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Escaflowne, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, Berserk, and a few others. I can see a lot of potential in the genre and I've been impressed by all of the works of Hayao Miyazaki, including Panda! Go Panda!, but overall the anime genre is tainted by the least creative plot lines, too overthetop characters, and in-coherent themes.
The problems with animes aren't their ideas. They have brilliant ideas, such as a man with a bounty on his head on a desert planet where there is a mixture between modern technology and western era technology--steampunkeque (trigun). Or how about In a fantasy world, a good king is overthrown by an evil one and his son has to get revenge and save the country using only a giant mecha suit (Escaflowne). In the future on mars, a bounty hunter sets out to capture the ultimate criminal (sounds like a Bruce Willis film, but no, it's Cowboy Bebop). The ideas are solid, it's the implementation of those ideas that flop.
I think it centers around the themes of Animes (anime? is that the plural of anime?). They try too hard to make a dramatic point about life or the environment or about good and evil. The worst storytelling I have ever seen was in Escaflowne, where for 3/4 of the series everything is outstanding, but then it all goes downhill when they introduce the fate machine. A machine that controls fate. I think they even called it Deus Ex Machina--I have to give them credit, it is correctly titled, and unless you have something to say about poor storytelling you should never center your story on an actual deus ex machina. --I'm not kidding, and neither were the makers of that anime. It was really terrible because it at the 3/4 mark the main character had killed his main opponent and his conflicted older brother, who was working for the enemy, was still alive and starting to feel guilt, and the boss of the main characters' foil character (who he had just killed) was still alive, and you assumed at the 3/4 mark that he would make amends with his brother and kill the SOB who brainwashed his brother into being evil. --Yes, that's how it ends. But to justify all of that, they include the 5 or so episodes about how they had built a machine that could predict the future and that they could change fate by correcting anything that opposes them.
Why did they do that? Why didn't they just conclude the series by making it obvious that the main boss was a wicked genius and good at persuading people to follow him, and then have the MC do what he needed to do?
OR how about in Trigun, where Vash (anime are full of funny names for their characters), the MC goes around haphazardly helping all of the towns folk and what not and isn't a bad character he's just been labeled as such (every nerdy anime lover's dream come true, a character they can relate to). Nearing the conclusion (I think in this one it happens just before the climax), it is revealed that Vash is actually a superior alien race and that the planet is a new colony for humanity, but that his antagonist is actually his twin brother. Why do that? They had an amazing story until that point, all they needed to do was let the two characters have a showdown at high noon and then have Vash be declared a hero and retire?
In Berserk, the story shifts from being about a band of outlaw mercenaries who make a respectable life advancing to the thrown, to suddenly being about a magical token that the foil character carries around with him that grants him wishes and is actually evil... We don't find out about that until the last 4 or 5 episodes.
Introducing details so late in the story just ruins the story.
Pokemon at least did things right: It's ALWAYS about catching pokemon or beating trainers--preferably both in one episode. You know what you're getting into when you watch it, just like you know that the Simpsons will always start out on one path and end in another, or a character in Family Guy will do something completely ridiculous and stupid and have to correct that throughout the course of the episode. Pokemon's problem is that the characters are TOO over dramatic. Then again, twelve year old boys leaving home is always going to end in an over-dramatic mess...
My point is, we have changed so much over the last 10 years that now EVERYTHING has to be set in the present day in order to be interesting. I think they're trying too hard to sell their movie. Eventually, I suppose we'll reach a point where people realize that they want to approach movies with the understanding that it's not the real world and things don't work that way in real life. If the mass of society (The ones who are so attached to super hero films) doesn't realize this, then we'll probably see a breed of weirdos that are commonplace, just like anime weirdos are so...weird. In fact, we're already seeing them: people dressing in super suits to combat villains on the streets--and the crowd of people who endorse such behavior...
An entire genre--two genres even--has developed all because of the popularity of the Matrix. 1st, the live-action anime. 2nd, the comic book film. Granted, comic book films have been around since the first Batman in 1989 or Superman in 1978, but it wasn't until recently that comic book films have caught fire in the film industry.
The logic goes like this: comic books already have an established audience. They already have an artistic style and costumes and even camera movements can be seen in the way that the artist draws their panels. Turning popular books into films has been around forever because it's easy to market them, and it's a little easier to produce them because a lot of the creative decisions have already been made. All of this just means that it's easier. Easier, easier. They already know what the audience expects from them before they get to the theater.
Live Action Animes. Well, let's see, there is the Matrix, Sin City,Ultra Violet, Resident Evil, Aeon Flux, (I suppose I should include Transformers) &c. &c. They're starting to become more and more popular with western audiences and we will no doubt see more and more of them into the future.
The future. That's an interesting concept. It's something that all anime movies are about. --I'll admit to watching a few animes. I'm curious about this genre so I've seen a few of the most popular series, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Escaflowne, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, Berserk, and a few others. I can see a lot of potential in the genre and I've been impressed by all of the works of Hayao Miyazaki, including Panda! Go Panda!, but overall the anime genre is tainted by the least creative plot lines, too overthetop characters, and in-coherent themes.
The problems with animes aren't their ideas. They have brilliant ideas, such as a man with a bounty on his head on a desert planet where there is a mixture between modern technology and western era technology--steampunkeque (trigun). Or how about In a fantasy world, a good king is overthrown by an evil one and his son has to get revenge and save the country using only a giant mecha suit (Escaflowne). In the future on mars, a bounty hunter sets out to capture the ultimate criminal (sounds like a Bruce Willis film, but no, it's Cowboy Bebop). The ideas are solid, it's the implementation of those ideas that flop.
I think it centers around the themes of Animes (anime? is that the plural of anime?). They try too hard to make a dramatic point about life or the environment or about good and evil. The worst storytelling I have ever seen was in Escaflowne, where for 3/4 of the series everything is outstanding, but then it all goes downhill when they introduce the fate machine. A machine that controls fate. I think they even called it Deus Ex Machina--I have to give them credit, it is correctly titled, and unless you have something to say about poor storytelling you should never center your story on an actual deus ex machina. --I'm not kidding, and neither were the makers of that anime. It was really terrible because it at the 3/4 mark the main character had killed his main opponent and his conflicted older brother, who was working for the enemy, was still alive and starting to feel guilt, and the boss of the main characters' foil character (who he had just killed) was still alive, and you assumed at the 3/4 mark that he would make amends with his brother and kill the SOB who brainwashed his brother into being evil. --Yes, that's how it ends. But to justify all of that, they include the 5 or so episodes about how they had built a machine that could predict the future and that they could change fate by correcting anything that opposes them.
Why did they do that? Why didn't they just conclude the series by making it obvious that the main boss was a wicked genius and good at persuading people to follow him, and then have the MC do what he needed to do?
OR how about in Trigun, where Vash (anime are full of funny names for their characters), the MC goes around haphazardly helping all of the towns folk and what not and isn't a bad character he's just been labeled as such (every nerdy anime lover's dream come true, a character they can relate to). Nearing the conclusion (I think in this one it happens just before the climax), it is revealed that Vash is actually a superior alien race and that the planet is a new colony for humanity, but that his antagonist is actually his twin brother. Why do that? They had an amazing story until that point, all they needed to do was let the two characters have a showdown at high noon and then have Vash be declared a hero and retire?
In Berserk, the story shifts from being about a band of outlaw mercenaries who make a respectable life advancing to the thrown, to suddenly being about a magical token that the foil character carries around with him that grants him wishes and is actually evil... We don't find out about that until the last 4 or 5 episodes.
Introducing details so late in the story just ruins the story.
Pokemon at least did things right: It's ALWAYS about catching pokemon or beating trainers--preferably both in one episode. You know what you're getting into when you watch it, just like you know that the Simpsons will always start out on one path and end in another, or a character in Family Guy will do something completely ridiculous and stupid and have to correct that throughout the course of the episode. Pokemon's problem is that the characters are TOO over dramatic. Then again, twelve year old boys leaving home is always going to end in an over-dramatic mess...
Comic Book movies are the same way though... The Quirky Tony Stark invents a suit to help him--battle evil. Turns out that his partner steals his suit idea, has him fired, and then they have to duke it out suit against suit, but...turns out there are other bad guys out there and Stark will have to team up with other super heroes (with real super powers) and eventually the x-men in order to save the world
There is nothing wrong with this I suppose, but you'd think they would at least put it in the distant future, not the present.--ten years from now these films are going to be so dated--dated like the matrix using a 56k modem noise for the first time Neo goes out of the matrix.
Going to a movie, comic book or anime, I expect the world to not be believable, just like I do in a sci-fi. I expect the world in it to not be believable, but I expect the maker of the film to make a case that it is believable. These days, comic book and anime films compensate for the implausibility by setting them in the present day--transformers in 2007, no way!--you mean there is a secret school for genetic mutation humanoids in which they train their powers and use them for good? You mean this reality is not this reality, it's the matrix?
Come on, you don't need to do those things to have an enjoyable film, Metropolis and Gotham doesn't have to be New York city or Washington D.C. or anywhere else, just set them in an alternate, Marvel universe and we'll be perfectly happy.My point is, we have changed so much over the last 10 years that now EVERYTHING has to be set in the present day in order to be interesting. I think they're trying too hard to sell their movie. Eventually, I suppose we'll reach a point where people realize that they want to approach movies with the understanding that it's not the real world and things don't work that way in real life. If the mass of society (The ones who are so attached to super hero films) doesn't realize this, then we'll probably see a breed of weirdos that are commonplace, just like anime weirdos are so...weird. In fact, we're already seeing them: people dressing in super suits to combat villains on the streets--and the crowd of people who endorse such behavior...
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