Okay, I made this list a while back, but I never got around to posting it. At that time, it seemed like tons of people on this site were bashing anime dubbed "mainstream" by the fanbase. This in itself didn't bother me, but the reasons some people gave for hating the shows they did...irked me, to say the least. 

So, though it seems there isn't as much of this going on anymore, I decided to post it anyhow, just so people can read and consider my opinion. So, let me quickly state my stance on this issue, in a nutshell:

You can bash on any anime you want, all you want. Popular or not, I don't care. You just have to have a VALID FUCKING REASON. 

...Sorry about the language, for those who care. Anyhow, that's how I feel, and this is a brief list of items that I believe aren't valid reasons to hate an anime.

1. It's popular.
It's a sucessful anime, therefore I hate it.

...Lolwutbro? Jealous you can't get as much merch from your favorite virtually unknown anime with the sixteen-word-long Japanese title? Hating a show simply because other people like it is unreasonable. 

2. Anything that's that popular must be really stupid.
Again, what? Has it ever occured to you that you aren't the only intelligent person in the world, and that the show might actually be as popular as it is because it's good? I dunno, just throwing that out there.

3. Its fanbase is composed entirely of morons.
First off, I think this is an exaggeration not matter what anime we're talking about here. However, even changing "entirely"  to "mostly" doesn't make this a good reason in my eyes. There are morons in every fanbase. There's just a larger amount of morons that love the more popular anime because there's a larger amount of fans in general. Ratios, people! Oh, and while we're on the subject, please spare me a rant and don't EVER say "All *insert name of a popular anime* fans are stupid." Huge generalization, and it couldn't be more wrong.

4. It has too many episodes.
'Kay, I admit a lot of episodes can cause an anime to start getting a little lame once the good parts of the plot dry up. However, that's not always the case, so it's not really a valid reason to hate an anime, unless you've seen the newer episodes and enough of the older ones to make a real comparison. Besides, I never seem to hear people saying, say "Hitman Reborn (203 episodes), Prince of Tennis (178 episodes), and Detective Conan (634 and counting) all have too many episodes!" Fans of these shows would most likely say that it's because they all have a great storyline until the very end (doesn't apply to DC; as it is ongoing), which may very well be true, but can you really deny that any one of them would get more heat for their episode count if they suddenly became hugely popular?

5. Non-anime fans base their opinions of anime in general on the popular ones alone.
Their problem. Not every anime that airs on Adult Swim necessarily fits the definition of "mainstream." In fact, some of them aren't that popular at all, and are also very good. Many not-so-popular anime are almost as easy to access as Bleach or Naruto, so it's not the fault of well-known anime that some people think all anime is just a bunch of fight scenes. First of all, that's a closed-minded way to look at Bleach or Naruto specifically. Secondly, that's an extremely closed-minded opinion of anime in general. So don't blame certain anime, just blame the narrow-mindedness of many non-anime fans.


So, there you have it. To emphasize what I stated earlier, I'm not saying that if you hate a popular anime, you suck. I'm saying, if you're going to openly declare your hatred for a popular anime, or any anime for that matter, make sure you have a valid reason. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Oh, and feel free to comment; I want to know your opinion!