Once again, I'm genuinely impressed.

In this case, genuinely impressed at how dementedly RACIST and stupid Japanese writing can be, yet still be given a thorough basting and adoration from the American Anime-community.

Iron Man the anime is one of four series of anime that was produced in 2010 by a Marvel teamup with the anime studio Madhouse. It's certainly more action packed than Blade, the only other series I've seen any of, but it's not exactly good.

Tony Stark is wierd in it. He's not funny and he just doesn't come off as cocky enough. For one thing, he rarely if ever uses the affectionate male [boku] or arrogant tosser male [ore] personal subjects and, more importantly, he's not funny. At all. This isn't a lost in translation thing; I know what someone making an intentional joke in Japanese sounds like. All of his lines, well most of them, as if Marvel had additional stuff recorded after the fact, given the tone differences of the delivery, are delivered in a flat, uninterested monotone.

The love interest is your standard issue crappy Japanese female character. We've all seen her before, and few bother trying to defend her anymore. She's 2D, selfish, poor at her job and violent with little to no provocation. She struck Tony in the first episode for catching her when she fell into him and trying to be charming about it to diffuse her embarassment. Slapped him.

A lot of the dialogue suggests that people [I don't see this as unreasonable, but it is racist] assume Tony is innately trying to screw them over with his phillanthropy because he's not Japanese. No other reason really. Sometimes they point out that he's a weapons designer by trade, but that's always an afterthought to the fact that he's a dirty foreigner.

I'm going to keep watching it, but considering the adulation i'd heard about this prior, i was hoping for this to be less...badly Japanese.

I swear, this has all the things about Japanese writing i hate the most, especially the catty, stupid and mean female lead who can't quite grasp that's why she can't get a man that fits her really high standards.

AAAAaaaarggghshhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

I remember when I used to be an anime fan...