Eight clues that may indicate you have wandered into the opening sequence of an anime show -->

1) The animation is better quality than what's actually in the show, and put on fast-forward to give the impression that the animators can do the fluid motion of Disney and Dreamworks cartoons...but they can't, so what they do is speed up the film and make it impossible for the viewer to know what it is they're seeing.

2) Wind. Lots of wind and billowing blue/purple/magenta hair.

3) Insert pretty girl in a skirt with shiny large-to-humongous eyes, standing on a cliff (in clue #2), with one fist clasped to her chest and a wistful expression on her otherwise empty face.

4) Insert random explosions or bursts of light.

5) Insert devestatingly handsome, narrow-eyed, evil, pointy-chinned bishonen villain doing something to represent his villainy. We're not supposed to know why, so don't bother asking.

6) Flower petals. Preferably tricked out with eye-piercing !uberlight! special effects, and combined with clue #2.

7) Upbeat Japanese pop-rock-synth music that has absolutely nothing to do with what the show is about.

8) Blatant overuse of peppy gung-ho hand gestures...most notoriously the V for Victory sign, often combined with a saucer-eyed wink at the closing group shot.


Q: When did anime start sucking?
A: The moment I got old. (facepalm)