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What makes an Anime good?

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Chef:
Artists of all kinds. I like to write, myself, but I think painters, musicians, dancers etc. benefit from thinking about their audience. It's not that it's impossible to think about on one's own, I just think discussing it is valuable because it comes to the forfront of your mind the next time you go to produce something, and perhaps you will even go down paths of thought you wouldn't have went on your own.

I think you make a good point about character development. It's often better for a character's virtues to be discovered by their actions, rather than for the audience just to be told they're virtuous. However, I think it's a delicate matter that many animes screw up. Sometimes it can be too obvious, and too out of the way when we're being shown a character is nice. For example, if a character is seen helping old ladies across the street, it is painfully cliche, and feels forced. So to expand on your idea, I think that a good anime develops characters through their actions, but that it does it over the normal course of the story arc, with events that are meaningful to the audience because they are directly moving the plot forward. I specifically remember this being my problem with Monster, as there were just too many events that were meant to develop a character, but that weren't moving the plot at the same time.

I think another way to develop characters is to see how other characters talk about them. It boarders on being told who they are without seeing their actions, but it also tells you a lot about their past quickly, without having a flashback that might slow down the current story arc. So I guess this is twice I've said that an anime loses appeal when elements such as character development slow down the main story... That is that a good anime develops characters, but does so without slowing anything down.

That's not to say flashbacks are necessarily bad, but that I think using them to develop character is a bit cliche and if they don't follow the natural progression of the main story, they could make the audience feel like nothing is happening. I'd like to hear opinions of how a flashback can be utilized effectively to make an anime good though, if anyone wants to share. I think Baccano! might be the only anime I've seen that I felt didn't use flashbacks inappropriately. Partly because the story was already all over the place, but also because the flashback (click to show/hide)(specifically the one going back to explain their immortality) was very fluid with the plot. I feel this was the case because I wanted to know, and so therefore it wasn't a distraction. Unfortunately I haven't seen the anime is long enough to recall what and how the built up that desire. Someone might get mad at me for spoiling it anyway.

I like that you brought up the instance of a cheeky, but extroverted friendly character. That's a very common archetype in anime that seems to always be satisfying. An overwhelmingly positive force, which later in the plot will suddenly become stricken with the blues/removed, creating an intense contrast. It seems cliche, and I don't think I'd want it in every anime, but is it possible to agree that it is what makes an anime good? Or is it just a choice an author makes that must be skillfully utilized lest the audience roll their eyes at the cheap grab for appeal? To me it doesn't seem very hard to pull off, but I am not sure. I think of Gurren Lagann and know the main reason I liked that show was because of how positive big brother was. Perhaps the reason it was so powerful was because of how much it affected the growth of little brother as a human being, and thus for this character to be utilized, he or she must be surronded with characters that he or she can change. Or else he will only be absurd comic relief. It requires more thought and this post is getting long ^^

erious:
Few quick notes about things:
A lot of anime are adapted from manga(and other things), yes.  But being faithful to the manga is hardly a rule, and sometimes it works for the benefit of the anime, sometimes it doesn't. Remember, lot of anime adaptations are meant as sort of commercials for the manga, so they're produced long before the original is finished. That makes it impossible to make a faithful adaptation, unless you just stop the story in the middle.
Second thing, a lot of mangaka don't have all that much control over their work. Editors are often more important then mangaka in deciding things like characters, theme, and so on. Of course, how it'll look in the end depends on the mangaka, but he often has to work adhering to very strict guidelines. The more famous aouthor gets, the more freedom he supposedly gets - but that's not that obvious too. Lets take Ken Akamatsu, author of Love Hina - he wanted to make Mahou Sensei Negima a shounen fighting series from the start, but his editors wanted another harem romance. He got his way in the end, as he made a fighting manga that looked at first as a harem romance(or rather, parody thereof), but he still couldn't do exactly what he wanted.
Don't idealize anime and manga industry please, because it is just that, an industry. An overwhelming majority is produced strictly because it will sell. Thankfully, it's a big industry - so amongst all the crap there are things things that are actually worthwhile, and thanks to the creators' passion a lot of series that could be simple fan-pandering are also interesting on another level.
And of course there are some things there don't put profit first, but they're are not the standard, sadly.





Oh, and also, anime doesn't need a story to be good.
Just felt like stating this again.

Chef:
I was speaking from ignorance of course. I wanted to know if it was true, and the only experience I've had with manga was Death Note, which did seem very similar to the show. Of course, I don't know how much the manga was controlled by the publisher. I'm aware authors of all mediums get pushed by their publishers to bend to what's "in," but the only threat is that they won't produce your anime for you. You can always keep looking for a publisher that will.

I think if you have a big name like Miyazaki, you probably have as much control as you want. And when I think about the animes I like to watch, they tend to be people who've already paid their dues and have a reputation by the time they produced it. Which to bring it back to the topic, I think that's another thing that makes an anime good. When the author is established enough that they can push back against their publisher. "You want my name on your product? Then we're doing it my way." Individual creativity is a necessity in creating an anime that will stand out (for better or for worse), and an anime that is homogeneous with all other animes cannot be considered a triumph or a masterpiece in any way. Thus we might suppose that for an anime to be great, it's author must either be rich enough to produce him or herself, or have a name in the industry that will attract publishers regardless of what he or she produces.

Thank you for your insight, erious :) It helped me develop my ideas.

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