Why do you like Ginga?

[Wolpard]

Sometimes I have trouble justifying why I enjoy Ginga. After all, I dont think the stories are written very well, theres justified and glorified animal abuse, the characters aren't too dimensional, it goes on forever without any real direction, and it's extremely sexist. This is all stuff that would generally drive me away from a series, and yet I really love Ginga?

Personally, I think the reason I enjoy it has to do with the concept (I mean how many warrior dog series are there?), the art style (mainly in the GNG manga but aspects of the other series are good to), and the character designs.

Also just because some stuff is just so damn wild that its amusing. Dogs that can do spiny attacks? Wolves that can control tornados? Giant monster laboratory dogs? Monkeys with axes? Ninja dogs??

Dunno. I guess there's aspects I just find charming cause you can't find it anywhere else, even if it's incredibly flawed as a series.

[Dragon]

I'm in the same boat as you As much as there's a lot of flaws and downsides to the series, to the point where sharing my love for it might be embarrassing to the casual anime fans, I can't help but stay attached.
I definitely think it's the concept that holds me most. War of good and evil translated into wild dogs/animals. Dogs training and gathering allies to fight a greater evil, meeting all types of armies and breeds, and then the epic fights. I wish the characters could be taken more seriously, but the concept is all I really need.
If Yoshi put effort into his characters and sort of modernized it a little, since realistically girl dogs would be just as capable of fighting and surviving as a wild boy dog, I think it would be greatly improved. Keep all the crazy special moves and ninja dogs and kids winning versus adults. I can deal with that since a lot of shonen anime do that.

You have a point about the art and design choices too. Despite fighting the style a little bizarre sometimes, it's really.. interesting to look at when he puts effort into his pictures.

[Wolpard]

If Yoshi put effort into his characters and sort of modernized it a little, since realistically girl dogs would be just as capable of fighting and surviving as a wild boy dog, I think it would be greatly improved. Keep all the crazy special moves and ninja dogs and kids winning versus adults. I can deal with that since a lot of shonen anime do that.

Sometimes I'm honestly super frustrated about how conservative Yoshi is and how he enforces those values onto dogs of all things. I remember watching the Ginga animes for the first time as a kid and being so upset about how Cross seemed like such a wasted opportunity! She coulda been so cool but then she was tossed aside to have puppies. Imagine how cool Ginga would be if we had some truly badass female characters.

[Dragon]

If Yoshi put effort into his characters and sort of modernized it a little, since realistically girl dogs would be just as capable of fighting and surviving as a wild boy dog, I think it would be greatly improved. Keep all the crazy special moves and ninja dogs and kids winning versus adults. I can deal with that since a lot of shonen anime do that.

Sometimes I'm honestly super frustrated about how conservative Yoshi is and how he enforces those values onto dogs of all things. I remember watching the Ginga animes for the first time as a kid and being so upset about how Cross seemed like such a wasted opportunity! She coulda been so cool but then she was tossed aside to have puppies. Imagine how cool Ginga would be if we had some truly badass female characters.

I truly don't understand why he's enforcing it on dogs lol Fine if you want to with humans, and I know the dogs hold human-like values sometimes, but they also sometimes display animal traits too so.... wtf?
It's like a disease to him Besides Cross being the only female accepted in, Lydia also got washed down.
She was the only female with the russian troops when crossing the large sea. She is the daughter of a marshal. She fought as equals with the army versus Hakuro's army of 300+ and kept up to speed with them as well. She smoothly dodged an attack from Hakuro's son and was given the duty of killing any escapers/scouts.
Once she became more main, just like Cross, she basically got powered down. She was knocked out in the fight against the traitor russian dogs, was underestimated about crossing the sea again, and later when she fought the polar bear she was knocked down by a scratch (though I still appreciate Yoshi not forgetting she is agile enough to try helping).
And then GDWO.... nothing. She stands around and doesn't say a word when danger is surrounding her kids.

Will it kill Yoshi to even attempt to make a consistently strong female? OTL just one...

[Spirit Tree]

When I discovered the Ginga series when I was a college freshman in February 2016, I got interested in it because I had never seen or heard of it before. I watched both animes and read GDR, GNG, and a lot of GDW. From there, I became fascinated with the series. I suppose I like the Ginga series because I really like materials, medias, writings, or anything else that focuses on dogs as the main concept. I also say the same thing with wolves, owls, and grizzly bears.

And when I discovered Ginga Board, I felt excited to find a community website that's so active on the Ginga series. And after looking into this board for over 1 and a half years, I eventually got the courage to finally join.

All of those things led me here. And for that, I am very grateful.

[Wolpard]

And when I discovered Ginga Board, I felt excited to find a community website that's so active on the Ginga series. And after looking into this board for over 1 and a half years, I eventually got the courage to finally join.

I think having folks to enjoy something with definitely helps! It can be difficult for series that have huge fanbases, but I really like how tight-knight the fandom is for Ginga and how chill it is.

[WolfKing]

Great topic.

I love Ginga, because of it's entertainment value with fight scenes and adventurous feel. But also it's surprising amount of emotional depth, with scenes making you smile and laugh and Even cry tears of joy or sorrow. It makes a somewhat cheesy but also ambitious premise More deep and profound.

I usually think the protagonists like Gin and Weed are lovable and awesome. They are able to Jeep The story going well. The character development IS also Hood and The stories take the time to do it.

However i've also noticed it's flaws with one or two dimensional characters, along with bland characterizations and change on personalities and character roles.

Ever since GDWO, pretty much only him and Sirius have received character depth and something to do. Other characters are cardboard or observers who are either nonchalantly killed of or just filler.

The humor is often lame and forced, and gender roles outdated and frustrating. And OOC IS severe

I often Look Back at GNG with bittersweet thoughts and hope Ginga can return to that feeling again.

Nonetheless i live Ginga

[Rals]

I only really pay attention to the GNG and GDW anime. And honestly one of my favourite tropes is the whole rag-tag bunch of idiots team up to take down a much stronger, and perhaps evil, enemy.

Also I really like Samurai stories and films and honestly?? They're both clearly modeled off those.

[ZackThePuppy]

Because the characters are dogs. Lol.

[Arano]

Because the characters are dogs. Lol.

Zack spilling the real truth here tbh HAH

I had a think about it and for me it boils down to:
a) It's so niche and interesting both stylistically and in the (often terrible) writing.
b) Highly collectable series that is actually challenging to collect. The knowledge-seeking to build my collection has been delicious.
c) Getting into Ginga and maintaining interest is very much community reliant. We are all nerds and that's just grand.
c) It's an animal based manga/anime that is adult themed.
b) There is zero reliance on character love interests to drive the story. That's so refreshing even if it means female characters get so badly side-lined and are only used for popping out new male characters/akita progeny.
e) It's cool enough to have a Finnish and Japanese musical made out of it. Says it all really.

[Jinto]

While the writing in Ginga is not the best I actually wouldn't say it's bad. GNG did win Shogakukan Manga Award for best Shonen series after all. Of course sometimes it is bad but I still often find the stories and the plot intersting. Even if many characters are more or less bland they still have enough personality for me to like them and care about what happens to them overall. Not every character of course. Themes of adventure, unity and righteousness are impactful to me and in a way I find the series to be epic.

[Arctic Ranger]

It's my childhood. And even in spite of that, it's enjoyable in adulthood as well. Such a strange combination of childhood nostalgia and still relevant appeal. Plus, it's quite unique. What else can I say?

[LIBRAKIND]

I like it bc I likes stories more centered around animals

Even though the writing isn't great, I love the adventurous feel to it, it just feels so grand and entertaining to watch/read!

I guess it also kinda helped I watched GDW first when I first came across it, bc if I started with GNG with how I was when I was younger I probably would've dropped it in the eariler episodes

[Raki]

Talking dogs and a big bear! :'D

[Gingaddict]

DOGS! And... that's it because it's about dogs! ADVENTURE HO!

[Sandatora]

I've just loved "dogs living in the wild" stories since I was a little kid xD There's a lot of books about that if you dig for them, but sadly not a lot when it comes to animation / manga.

[GSDJohn]

-Awesome hax canines that can range from Ninja dogs to users of overpowered spinning attacks, magical wolves and giant monsters of destruction

-A massive amount of dog characters all with great designs. Even if more than half of these characters are forgotten on the story and don't get much personality. But this leaves room for fan interpretation! (Thinking about it, I probably won't care much about the forgotten dogs and flat characters if they were reocurrent main characters , the fact that they get so little screentime on the series and so little fanarts/attention on the fandom is what makes me feel drawn to them )

-The GNG soundtrack is . That opening especially!

-The big meme potential of the Ginga screenshots. The fact that topics especifically for "bombing" Ginga exist and the forum emojis that are a result of these Ginga bombs should sum it all

-Very nice community that has given me the necessary motivation to make lots of Ginga fan content! If it weren't for joining GingaBoard and getting to know the Ginga community, I would have never made so many papercrafts (I have almost 50 different Ginga papercrafts right now! And I just had like... 14? When I was just joining GingaBoard ) and my Ginga mod of the Super Mario War game (now with over 75 characters and revamped sprites) would have stayed with few characters and low quality graphics. I also would have never thought the expansion for the Battle for Futago Pass board game if it wasn't for the community remaking said board game to begin with!

-Gotta agree with Arano's fifth point. As I said on the Ginga fandom survey, I don't care about pairings. And Ginga thankfully has very little focus on these!

These and other reasons are not only why I like Ginga, but why Ginga is my top favorite series!

[PhantomWolf]

It's unique; very different compared to other anime from that time period and now

I grew up with Balto and in turn wolves. I discovered Ginga shortly after discovering Wolf's Rain and before I knew it, I was an anime fan.

Sure, I've watched Spirited Away before, but I didn't really know that they called it anime. I just thought it was just an animated movie that was made in Japan. But ever since discovering anime, I haven't found another series that's like Ginga.

[JazzyJazz]

Because it just fills me with a special feeling There really isn’t an animal based story like it aside from Warrior Cats afaik. Sure, it might be problematic but there’s plenty of stuff to enjoy, and there’s always aus and fanfiction for whenever Yoshi loses his mind