I could handle season one of One Punch Man because it was almost making fun of traditional anime tropes; here’s this average unassuming guy who is more powerful than all the “superheros” (which on its own is an anime cliche, but OPM didn’t have a destiny or anything tired like that).

Sword Art Online had a cool premise that they used for all of about 6 episodes? Before moving to a new world and while that could work in a long-format short-run series it turned me off quickly. Why bother building a world you’re going to abandon so quickly? Plus the main characters started doing the “we’re prepubescent but we’re going to act like our love is written in the stars” cliche that only ever worked when Shakespeare did it, and even then only worked once.

I even didn’t like Cowboy Bebop, at least not as much as everyone assured me I would since I’m a Firefly fanatic. The only thing the two shows have in common are that it takes place in space and the crew is a ragtag bunch of misfits. I was finally starting to get into it once the whole crew was gathered, only to have it end two-ish episodes later. I suppose ending too soon is another thing it has in common with Firefly, but Bebop felt like a completed story.

I could spend all day listing all the cliches I don’t like in animes, but the art style and being in a foreign language (and culture, so many settings, jokes, and subtleties go unrecognized and therefore unappreciated by me) means the barrier to entry is already so high that it has to be an absolute 12/10 universally loved show for me to even consider it, and even that doesn’t always work.

I won’t yuck someone’s yum (not to their face at least) but I’ve given up on trying to figure out why anime is popular outside Japan.