Management: My writeups will still obviously all be on the test, but here are my overall initial impressions of this season’s lineup.
This week sure was summer. I caught the first episode of a whole tidal wave of shows, dropped several, clung to a few more, and was actually impressed by exactly two. Let’s get those out of the way first.
Management: This is a two-parter that I’ve split up because while the original question was based on my panning of Sakurasou, it also concerns a lot of media evaluation theory that is much more generally relevant. I’ve divided it as best I can into separate questions to reflect this – Part 1 here should be relevant to everyone.
Question:
It seems impossible to fairly evaluate shows unless you take those shows’ own goals into account, and try to respect their specific priorities. Do you think some of the shows you rate poorly are merely a result of approaching these shows with the wrong mindset, or wishing they were different shows entirely? How do you reconcile your personal taste, or the nature of taste in general, with your attempts to assess art in a general way?
Question:
What makes a show “mature” or “for adults?” I see people throw these terms around in a condescending way, saying that shows like Steins;Gate or Madoka are inferior to shows like Monster because they’re aimed at teenagers. Are there any actual guidelines or metrics here?
Well, this one was definitely simpler than Nise. Simple enough that I figured this writeup would be redundant – but I looked around online and, surprisingly, I couldn’t find a piece that really dove into the central theme. I’d planned on working on my backlog, but…
Alright. Fine. Hey guys. It’s Bobduh. Let’s talk Nekomonogatari.
Question:
Many people seem extremely dismissive of otaku culture and anime in particular, claiming anime is an inferior cultural medium to books, movies, etc. How would you go about refuting this argument?
New season zomg everybody hit the deck. The lineup of shows is available here, and certainly covers a pretty diverse spread of genres. As for what I’m moderately excited about? Let’s get to it.
Management: This one was a really excellent question, and this topic is definitely something that critics need to be more willing to engage with and admit to. Hopefully this little confession won’t invalidate all my future criticism or anything.
You’ve previously talked about the distinction between personal enjoyment and artistic evaluation, and how what you like isn’t necessarily the most artistically impressive anime. Could you talk a bit about any fundamental biases you’ve noticed in your own anime appreciation/evaluation?
Oh, I’ve got a ton, in both the positive and negative directions.
On the positive side, I’ll definitely slant towards introspective and character-focused works over narrative or theme-based ones, though obviously this can change based on my perception of how well they accomplish what they try to do (Madoka’s all narrative and theme, and I absolutely love it). It generally goes Character->Theme->Narrative for me. I’m also a sucker for great or even decently well-articulated romance, and can follow one well-written and intriguing character through a generally mediocre show. I think pretty much the only things Ano Natsu had going for it were okay dialogue and decent chemistry between the main romantic pair, and that was all I needed to finish it. I also highly value snappy dialogue, and interesting narrative or pacing tricks and experiments (like the mini-arcs Gargantia builds out of various thematic points). I also really like imperfect shows that reveal a very distinctive creative vision, or, at the opposite end, shows that reveal a great mastery of storytelling craft fundamentals.
On the negative end, I could not care much less about setting and worldbuilding – they’re close to irrelevant to the way I evaluate art, and while I prefer a nice background world to a generic one, either way it’s window dressing for me. A character whose personality seems designed to make the audience happy, or moderate general fanservice, will rapidly sink a show for me. Leaden dialogue will sink a show even if the visual design is great and the story fairly well plotted. Narrative or dramatic cheating will often sink a show, particularly if that show wants you to invest in the reality of its world. Visual design in general is secondary to what I like about anime – again, if it’s got it, great, but it’s not what I’m there for and it won’t save a show. Sound design is also gravy – I’m in shows for characters, themes, and storytelling, and while everything outside of the writing can do great things to supplement or raise up those elements, they will pretty much always be supplementary, not central to my appreciation. Some shows do rise above this – KyoAni, the Monogatari franchise, and recently Brain’s Base have done a great deal of their character-building and storytelling through visual cues. This I really appreciate, and would like to see more of.
That’s all I can think of at the moment, but everyone has a million of them, and it’s a really interesting topic.
Question:
How do you think anime and manga have affected your view of Japan and its culture/people?
Bobduh:
It hasn’t really influenced my perspective on Japanese culture, because most anime don’t try to be realistic, the ones that do tend to paint Japan as a nation of people just like any other (with some cultural quirks, obviously), and anime is generally not created to cater to the sensibilities of the “average Japanese person,” if such a thing can described of any person of any nationality (it can’t).
What it has done is give me a pretty solidly negative impression of the relevant, anime-watching market. But again, that’s still not a monolithic group.
Question:
Can you you elaborate on your negative impression of the anime market? I’m curious because I always see you give pretty insightful analyses of anime in general.
Management: I promise, I would have rephrased this question to be more neutral if my own response didn’t actually address the choice of words – and I think the tone of my response is kind of critical to keeping these discussions civil, so I’m leaving it as it was originally written
Bobduh:
That’s a dangerous question, but you also flattered me, and that’s well established to be my only weakness.
Let me preface this by saying that these are all my opinions, and most of what I’m talking about are things that are frustrating for me specifically as a consumer of media who would like to see more media that appeals to my interests. They are not value judgments on anyone outside of myself, and obviously people like media for different reasons, and that’s totally fine. People find their bliss in all sorts of ways; that’s totally cool. And I’m being reductive here as well, and I admit that, and I understand people are complicated organisms. And in addition to that, I don’t personally live in Japan, so everything I’ll be talking about will be inference based on the media I’ve seen, the ways I’ve seen audiences interact with that media, and the news surrounding fandom that has reached my distant, obviously not-fully-informed ears. One more time: these are all just my opinions, based on what appeals and matters to me. Alrighty.
Well, first there are the issues that could be leveled at the general audience of virtually any medium: the audience places a heavy premium on works that don’t really challenge them, they highly value familiarity and specific, sometimes problematic, sometimes just storytelling-averse tropes, they judge shows based on a variety of surface details as opposed to their underlying quality and nature, they judge all shows within similar frameworks of their own media desires, and will condemn or simply not engage with shows that have goals and ideas outside of their specific avenues of appreciation…
But as I said, that’s pretty much every medium. Anime seems to combine this with a few distinct and in my opinion negative additions: a pervasive acceptance of and even desire for sexist works, a particularly virulent desire for catering to their specific media and cultural preferences (Sakurasou getting attacked for containing a Korean meal, of all things), a predilection for “untroubled worlds” that don’t reflect any aspect of real experience and are generally storytelling and meaning-averse, a strange conflation of their media preferences and actually real-world identity and opinions (which is fine in moderation, but that’s not what I’m referring to here – and when you combine this with that fetishizing of “untroubled worlds” that don’t reflect reality you get things like the Aya Hirano slut-shaming scandal or the general idea of “idol purity” as something to be valued), and a related near-idolizing of various elements of their media (Love Plus vacation experiences, etc). Basically it seems like a portion of the audience’s attitudes and the industry’s need to cater to those attitudes to survive creates some kind of media obsession feedback loop that strikes me as socially limiting and also predisposed to result in awkward, artistically uninteresting media (which brings us back around to this being a problem primarily because I’m mad not enough people like what I like to dictate the majority of what gets produced, not because people don’t have the right to be who they are and like what they like, which they obviously do).
Question:
It seems like you’re implying that anime will only continue on a downward spiral due to continuous re-enforcement of what you view as negative tropes (although I say “what you view as,” I’m pretty sure 90% would also regard those same tropes as negative). Think there’s any realistic way the current models can change?
Bobduh:
I honestly don’t think the situation is quite as dire as my post possibly implies – in fact, although many shows do seem to reflect the things I bring up, I’d say we’re actually entering/living within a period of relative artistic vitality.
Many people complain of desiring a return to anime’s “good old days” of the late 90s/early 00’s – perhaps there is something to this, but I personally I think this is partly nostalgia infusing old shows with merit they didn’t actually possess, partly a compression of the greatest hits of a ten year period and disregarding of the actual “average show” of that period, and partly a fact that the mainstream entertainment back then just catered to a different audience – the action and adventure shows that came across as more popular then weren’t necessarily “better” than the current trends (less psychologically questionable might be a decent argument, though), they were just different trends that appealed to different people.
It seems to me that, although the anime-culture trends I’ve referred to aren’t really positive ones, there’s actually a greater variety of solid works coming out these days, and certain studios are taking creative risks, whether they end up being rewarded or not. And there’s a whole gallery of talented and creative writers and directors who are being given a great amount of artistic free reign in spite of any ostensible market trends. The market also seems to be growing – charts like this one seem to imply more people are buying anime in Japan in general, which can only be good for the diversity of productions. And though obviously some people could happily watch shows catering towards the market I was describing forever, I think the law of diminishing returns applies here, and most of the audience will move on towards the next big thing soon enough. Regardless, it seems like there’s still room for shows to make at least reasonable profits without bowing to any perceived fandom needs.
Most things in most mediums will not be that artistically profound or interesting, and I don’t think anime’s entering any kind of death spiral in that regard. I just think some mainstream views within anime culture/fandom are pretty problematic in a very specific way, and that appeals to those attitudes tend to be reflected in too many works.
A few reasons.
First, animation can do things virtually no other visual medium can. The diversity of possible topics, the creativity and depth in which they can be explored, the absolute freedom of any visual representation of any idea, no matter how outlandish or high-concept it might seem… that’s awesome. Many anime could not possibly be translated to any other medium and maintain what makes them great.
Second, anime tends to focus much more sharply on the interior lives of characters than many other media, and I really appreciate that. I enjoy a good plot as much as the next person, but my favorite anime are all about subtle character moments and explorations of what makes people tick.
Third, the best anime often offer combinations of strengths that surpass almost any other media – I’m thinking here of moments where a long-building plot, a strong visual aesthetic, a slowrolled character turn, and a fantastic musical accompaniment all come together to make something incredibly unified and powerful. Moments like (Eva spoilers) this or (FLCL spoilers) this are why anime strikes me so powerfully.
Fourth, I really like “broken” works – works that are flawed in some obvious ways, but also compelling or deeply personal in other ways. There are many anime that could never, ever attract a mainstream audience because of some glaring flaw in immediate storytelling, or a necessary suspension of disbelief, or some strange visual choice – but that clearly demonstrate the singular vision and mind of a quirky and dedicated creator. I prefer my art un-streamlined, and while I can get plenty of this in music and film, anime combines this with the ability to tell a story over a larger time frame and the strengths I’ve already mentioned.
Fifth (I know, sorry), I like the pacing of many anime more than Western media – I like how so many scenes are built out of peaceful establishing shots, how so much is left unsaid in slow conversations, how the environment can often become as much of a character as any single protagonist. The town of Mabase is an intractable part of a show like FLCL – the environment does most of the telling in 5 Centimeters Per Second. To me, this really cements these stories, and makes me feel more a part of the character’s lives than more direct action and telling ever could.
Finally, I just like it. At this point, I’m programmed that way – an adolescence of Toonami, a young adulthood dominated by the visions of Gainax, Watanabe, and Miyazaki, and all the other shows I’ve seen and manga I’ve read along the way have basically conditioned me to feel incredibly comfortable and almost safe watching any new show. There will be things I’ve seen before. There could very easily be a high school that is not all that it seems, containing a somewhat detached student, sighing as he looks out the window from his window seat second from the back. And that’s okay. That seat’s a pretty fun place to be.
TLDR: Because.
Question:
As a new anime critic, how should I decide what I choose to critique?
Answer:
Honestly, I think it should depend on what shows you watch where something in them strikes you personally, and you feel compelled to elaborate on it. Personal insights on shows you have a passionate response to will always be far more interesting than general reactions to shows that don’t grab you as specifically, whether they’re current or not.
For example, you didn’t seem to care for OreGairu, but I actually found its dialogue and philosophy on high school incredibly insightful and true to a very specific teenage mindset that I personally remember all too well. So I’m going to probably be doing more consistent/thorough writeups for that one, because something in it strikes me as fundamentally true to my own life experiences, and so I’ll have something to reflect on and share my own specific perspective on each week.
Also, I try to let my personality and my own passions (character writing, storytelling craft) dictate what I cover and how I talk about it. So I’m much more likely to have a strong, distinct opinion on a character-based romance than an action-based visual spectacle, because that’s the kind of thing I’ve spent years both consuming and studying.