>>148822570This sounds more like you have an interest in anime that has more room for a brainy plot or at least themes. DBZ is a shounen jump manga adapted into an anime which is why it has budget + an adaptation in the first place. Even then, a lot of shounen jump manga get adaptations (to varying quality) just because they appeal on a surface level.
Some kind of break this and are nice in their simplicity, or deep in spite of their simplicity. For example Hokuto no Ken, as long as you can tredge on until Rei appears and hang on at least until Raoh's arc ends, that's a nice journey.
But for something that's good but not in that "realm" you seem annoyed with, try some Chanba, like Shigurui (though only half adapted into anime, both the manga and anime are good in my opinion), a tragic manga about the samurai's society that's basically a gorier, grimmer version of a Kurosawa movie.
There's a lot of variety, I just don't think criticizing anime just based off of shounen that's inspired by DBZ is a good angle.
Also
>most of what I love from anime is because of cool factor, edge factor, or nostalgia factor. I understand thinking that it does things cooler, but do you like anime just because it's willing to do edge? I think honestly that there's too much edge in modern cartoons that are popular, like invincible, than I like. Manga that are honest and genuine in their desire for optimism feel very nice once they resonate.
Ultimately, the genre is wide and deep. It has a lot more variety than popular comics in the west does just based on how much money it can make. So breaking it down to simplicity isn't something I buy.
