Tag Archives: Critique

In response to the prompt “Why Do You Watch Anime?”

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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.

Brief Note on Critique and Areas of Love/Expertise

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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.

That Whole Sakurasou Thing

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I guess I should probably include at least one piece of my Sakurasou commentary – after all, despite my incredibly mixed feelings towards that show, formalizing my criticism of its narrative and character failings was basically what taught me my current writeup format. So here’s a “greatest hits” collection from the final “What did you think of Sakurasou?” thread

As xRichard implies, I’ve already spilled way too much imaginary ink over this series, on basically every conceivable topic. So let’s see what past me has to say about this show, say… fourteen episodes ago.

“Regarding the comedy. It’s true that there is no such thing as “bad comedy”. However, there is “easy” comedy, or “dumb” comedy, or “commonly used” comedy. A key element of great humor is the unknown – jokes you have heard a thousand times lose their element of surprise, and thus their impact. One way to avoid this trap is to be brilliant, and have great, unique gags. Standup comedians are pretty much forced to do this. Another way is to weave your humor into the very specific personalities of your characters, so your jokes are both fresh and ride on the sympathy your audience has built for your cast. Sakurasou does neither of these things, and while this doesn’t make its comedy objectively bad, it does make it objectively routine.

Regarding the drama. I personally like subtlety in my character relations and dialogue, but I also enjoy a ton of unsubtle things (Chuunibyou isn’t subtle at all, but it still excels in pretty much all fields). My complaint with some of the drama/dialogue isn’t that it’s unsubtle, but that it comes off as false – that it feels like the writers are putting words in the character’s mouths to spell out the themes and the messages of the show. This was most egregiously done with Childhood Friend as they were running away from the pool, and when it does happen, it immediately pulls me out of the show by drawing attention to the raw mechanics of the story.

By the way, Shiina is one of the worst and most discomfort-inducing romantic leads I’ve ever seen.”

Whoa, whoa! That sounds pretty harsh! But that was a while ago, and as we all know, it takes a while for these romances to really get cooking. Let’s check back in a month later…

“Jin seemed like the most interesting character for a while there, but they’re doing serious damage to that relationship by prolonging this drama of false expectations while avoiding a real conversation between those two.

It feels like J.C. Staff believe that if they shake these characters hard enough they’ll get another Toradora, but I think there just isn’t enough substance to their emotional conflicts. They’re artificially prolonging the melodrama – treading water.

I think my biggest problem with this show is that almost none of the characters can have actual conversations with each other. Sorata and Aoyama? Nope, Sorata’s too oblivious and Aoyama too tsun for them to actually talk. Jin and Misaki? Certainly not, both of them avoid talking honestly to each other all the time. Sorata and Shiina? Yeah, those are really incisive discussions between intellectual equals. Romance requires give and take – you show romance by revealing how two people interact with and compliment each other, not by telling the audience these two people love each other and then only showing them avoiding real conversation.”

Jeez, this guy is mad! Maybe another couple weeks could fix things?

“Speaking of forced drama, my eyes just glaze over during every single Aoyama scene. She exists to fail, and to have it be sad when she fails, and to create little hurdles for Shiina to dither about then effortlessly, obliviously sail over. When a love triangle is this transparently lopsided, I don’t think “I wonder what will happen next,” I think “get on with what I know will happen next”. Maybe if she were a bit more distinctive of a character, I wouldn’t have this problem.

Overall, I am desperately hoping next week sees the drama come crashing down. This emotional status quo needs to die in a fire.”

Hah, oh man, did Sakurasou kick this kid’s dog or something? Jeez, what a whiner! Okay, let’s wrap this story up. Episode 20!

“Damn! This was definitely one of the best episodes so far, with great character moments from Akasaka, Rita, and Nanami… none of whom I really thought had it in them. Akasaka’s speech in the first act displayed an awareness and individual perspective that more characters in this genre need, and I still have hope that Sorata’s clinging to an ephemeral present will be called out in some larger way. Plus Nanami’s results weren’t dragged out or used for cheap melodrama – she reacted by bottling all of it, just like she always does. Shiina is still a holy terror of an uncharacter, but outside of her, it looks like the show is emerging from its incredibly rocky middle stretch with some dignity and sense of purpose intact. I’m actually feeling pretty optimistic about the conclusion now.”

What? Something positive? Well, that’s boring… in fact, it looks like most of the comments for the next three episodes are positive, with only vague references to this… Shiina… character. Oh, wait, here’s the ending.

Oh.

“Regarding the entire series, well… I mean, that kind of is what this series has always done, right? It’s almost like an American sitcom in its fear of disrupting the status quo, to the massive detriment of its characters. The main trio were by far the worst offenders in this regard, and it doesn’t help that they were the most thinly and stereotypically characterized as well – Sorata, Shiina, and Nanami all spin in the same dramatic circles for virtually the entire series. Some of the side characters fair better, though Misaki is pretty generic as well (but she gets good speeches on occasion, like when she confessed how tired she was of chasing Jin to Nanami). The comedy was predictably hit-or-miss throughout, leaning too heavily on tired slapstick and exhausted embarrassment gags, but occasionally pulling out a snappy aside or distinctively silly reaction face. The themes were… well, I guess “underserved” would be the diplomatic way to put it. “Used, cheated on, and ultimately abandoned” would be my actual diagnosis – every idea about self-worth, creativity, and the callous nature of the real world this show promotes ultimately gets taken for a ride and then forgotten in the pursuit of reliable melodrama and a universally happy ending. There are good ideas here, ideas a better show would have run with and respected, and there are many scenes scattered throughout that ring personal, distinctive, and true. But they are the exception, not the rule.

I guess, ultimately, I can’t accuse JC Staff of not trying, but I can certainly accuse them of not trying very hard. Picking a love interest like Shiina was obviously the first, most central, and clearly largest mistake – her core personality is “helpless, doesn’t know how to interact with others,” and the only growth she experiences is “learns to love Sorata and Sakurasou.” That isn’t a character arc – her initial flaws are never addressed, never challenged, never risen above. Sorata, for instance, has to change from lacking any real goal, to truly wanting something, to gaining the discipline to pursue his passion through hardship, to dealing with the jealousy and anger of being close to others who are more talented than him (compounded by his quick temper, a definite and convincingly articulated flaw), to dealing with the pain of true failure, to (okay, as I said, they kind of skip how he reaches this, but…) being at peace with trying his hardest while knowing failure is the standard result (actually, they don’t really make him accept that either… okay, so this show sucks at characterization and being consistent with its themes, but the point remains). Shiina? Shiina is an object. Shiina is a goal. Shiina is a reward. And so all the dramatic plot points about her are things like “find the Shiina,” “deal with my feelings about the Shiina,” or “explain this very simple concept to the Shiina” – her own agency is pretty negligible, because she lacks the personality to really bounce off other characters and the intelligence to have goals outside of “staying with the people who are nice to me.”

I honestly hope they realize how big of a problem this is – I mean, they’re not idiots, writing and directing any show is a ridiculously difficult process, and having to work around a human-sized lump like Shiina only makes that task that much harder. And there were still sparks of good stuff here, as I said. But ultimately, Shiina’s character, the cyclical drama, and the way it either abandons or fails to meaningfully follow through on its interesting themes all drag it down. I don’t regret watching Sakurasou, but it wasn’t a good show.”

And back to your narrator

Sorry I didn’t rewrite all my thoughts, but I stand by the thoughts I had in the first place. Good base themes, some good characters, a scattering of solid episodes (mainly 8-12 and 20-23), but it goes in dramatic cycles to no actual effect, it abandons its own themes for the sake of a cheap happy ending, and Shiina is both offensive and by her base nature allergic to romance or meaningful drama.

That said, it’s been a pleasure discussing it with all of you.

A Brief Dialogue on Clannad and the Reason Reddits Gotta Be

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Here’s a brief exchange that started on the topic of /r/anime’s heated feelings regarding Clannad, but quickly diverged into a musing on the motivations of forum posters in general. Since the time of this posting, I’ve had several stress-testing discussions on my psychological desires theory, and have adjusted/refined it in a number of ways – but I still believe there is a decent amount of insight into people versus their media here.

 

OP:

Why does it seems like there’s a rising hate for Clannad’s popularity on r/anime?, Ive even seen people say its almost a circlejerk…

If so then fuck that. Clannad is popular because it is unbelieveablly amazing, its why its so highly rated, recommended and genuinely loved. You can hate the mainstream stuff if you believe they are dragging out series to earn more money. But how low you must be to feel the need to hate a short finished anime that people treasure simply for that exact reason.

Bobduh:

Clannad is the most popular show on /r/anime. Here, Clannad is the mainstream.

OP:

I believe the term mainstream has far more meaning than just popular. As Wikipedia puts it, its a cultural construct. its a Factor that affects media throughout production and has several causes, such as profit, popularity and largely shared tastes.

Mainstream is the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct.

So no, I believe Clannad is popular here, its the most liked if the latest polls are still valid, but I still believe mainstream isnt a term you can use to describe a sole entity, but rather movement and actions of that entity. For example, Dragon Ball Z Was mainstream, its still super popular, all over the internet and even in /r/anime[1] (sure its not liked that much), I mean every DBZ movie post gets like 100+ upvotes on ave (one got 2000+), however mainstream is used to define how that anime came to be, how it consistently stayed popular and sold well, but thats all in the past, and it wouldnt be entirly accurate to say its mainstream anymore (the same way how saying Elvis’ music is mainstream now inst right). And I believe it’s the same case is with Clannad (even if Clannish was never mainstream to begin with), it ended, it wasnt that popular, but it was good enough to create a massive fanbase and be treasured in a highly valued status, that inst mainstream, not here or there.

Bobduh:

Interesting response, and this is an interesting subject. Let me think “out loud” for a moment here…

Mainstream is a cultural construct, but I don’t think it only has to apply to macro-cultures (I don’t think that’s a word, but you get what I mean) – I feel that once any community reaches a certain size it can be described as having its own “culture,” and I also feel /r/anime[1] is large enough that you can describe it as having “cultural trends.” I feel like the backlash you’re describing (people mocking the “DAE cry at Angel Beats/Clannad” posts, etc) is a predictable response to a large, definable subset of the community.

Hm… I automatically typed “subset” instead of “culture” there, and I think that actually points to an issue with my own first thought. In my opinion, /r/anime[2] doesn’t have one culture, it has at least three, and they’re each partly responsible for a very different piece of the puzzle – I think the largest populations of new post creators, upvoters, and commenters are three very different groups of people, and that those populations are partially reflective of whether they approach anime (and by proxy, both media and communities in general) for entertainment, enrichment, or emotional resonance.

Okay, I am getting way off topic here. I’d actually like to write a full larger post about this specific topic, but ironically I’m pretty sure if my thesis were correct, that larger post would be downvoted into oblivion. But I think the points I should be making here are that:

A. Backlash to something that is very popular and inspires rabid adoration (which, in the context of /r/anime[3] , is true of Clannad) is to be expected.

B. I personally don’t see an issue with using the word “mainstream” to describe a work or opinion’s position within a smaller culture, though as I’ve said the case is somewhat more complicated than that here.

C. While Clannad may be considered “unbelievably amazing” to one of the largest subsets of the /r/anime[4]community, that is not necessarily a reflection of its inarguable qualities, and more a reflection of how well it satisfies the needs/desires of that subset. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I feel like your original post was implying that people were hating something inarguably amazing just because other people loved it, which isn’t at all necessarily true.

Sorry this got so long; it’s just a reflection of how interesting I find these arguments.

OP:

Fantastic response. You do raise many valid and interesting points. I’ll admit that I may not be presenting mainstream entirely accurate, it does seem like it’s possible in smaller communities, but it’s much more vague. You describe the backlash perfectly, and my original point was that it seems to be growing. I’m not entirely sure why? Is it because people are sick of hearing about Clannad? Is it simple the possible mainstream v hipster factor unlikely leaking into r/anime? Sure, not many people like it as much, but I’m certain only a tiny few hate… So then where is this backlash growing from?

I guess we can only speculate. But keep an open mind, because lately more and more Clannad posts and comments and being downvoted without giving reasons (that I’m curious to find out)

Bobduh:

I actually disagree with your “downvote without reason” claim here – in my experience, the votes and threads are normally in favor of Clannad, but the comments trend against it, at least outside of the (and I think we can both agree on this) circlejerk recommendation threads where Clannad still comes up with pretty overwhelming regularity. So if people are in the middle of a discussion unrelated to Clannad and it comes up, it might be viewed unfavorably – but if someone brings it up in a vacuum, or in the context of a circlejerky thread, it will receive all the upvotes.

-As a quick addendum, I do think part of the backlash is because so much of the support for Clannad exists in the form of either anonymous votes or swarms of people within recommendation threads – neither of which lend themselves to actual discussions of a show’s quality. But anyway…-

Personally, I think the idea of a hipster is kind of a fake one (at least outside of a tiny, statistically insignificant subset of super-self-conscious people), and this Clannad thing is far more fundamental than that. In my opinion, most of the very distinct pro/con divide comes down to these groups I was discussing. Clannad is a “feel-good” show, designed to evoke a fundamental, emotional resonance with the viewer – it attracts people who want to relate to shows emotionally, and these people often view online communities in a similar way, gravitating towards emotional confirmation (DAE Feel This Feeling, etc). In contrast to this, I think many of the people who find this situation aggravating do so because they take the show purely at face value, by surveying its objective merits without being swayed by its emotional intention. The way these people often view online communities is a reflection of their approach to media – they look to find new ideas and viewpoints, and to see their opinions either refined or challenged. From this perspective, the idea of a “DAE Feel This Feel” thread is a tedious waste of time, which results in no new perspectives of any kind, and basically clogs a center of discourse with intellectual static.

I think this fundamental disagreement on the essential point of media is the foundation of a lot of the arguments we run into in places like this.

On Art, Emotional Resonance, and Understanding Your Audience

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This was a discussion I had with Imperialx regarding his excellent blog post. The context is GJ-bu, but the discussion is really about the nature and purpose of art.

My (pithy, unnecessarily nasty) initial response:

So, GJ-Bu is a mathematically formulated printout of the variables required to make a successfully meaningless SoL/comedy?

Yeah, that’s something. I’m not sure “brilliant” is the word for it.

Imperialx (gamely):

Then what word would you use?

Bobduh (still in snarky asshole mode):

I’d say it’s a tossup between “cynical” and “inevitable”

Imperialx (with ungodly patience):

That doesn’t do the show enough justice though.

Bobduh (finally acting like an adult):

You’re right. I’m being glib and dismissive because your thesis represents what I find worst in anime, but clearly you’re just candidly talking about a show’s “effectiveness” and not really its merits in any way.

Fundamentally, I completely agree with you – the market for these “empty” SoL shows does not demand distinction or creativity, it really just demands the absence of variables that break their illusion of security within the world of the show, or their utter understanding of how that world will continue to act. This is why Tamako Market failed – it didn’t reign the camera into a “comfortable” safe space with the main characters, the prospect of romance represented the prospect of drama, change, or character maturation, all of which are death to that illusion, and the bird represented a glaring fantastical variable that intruded on the nostalgic dream shows like this are trying to manufacture.

But calling an understanding of this dynamic “brilliant” still seems kinda crazy to me – it’s really just knowing your audience, and the fact that this particular audience basically demands exactly what they’ve seen before, with no sharp edges, means works like this work best when they don’t even try. I guess sanding off all possible points of contention or illusion-breaking in a work is a kind of craftsmanship, but it’s just not something I find all that impressive or meritorious.

Imperialx:

This is easily the best counter-point I have read so far in this thread so far as well as one of the most intellectual comments I have ever read on /r/anime. Thank you for taking the time to put down your thoughts in your comment.

You’re right. I’m being glib and dismissive because your thesis represents what I find worst in anime, but clearly you’re just candidly talking about a show’s “effectiveness” and not really its merits in any way.

It’s interesting that you find the action of omitting subtle annoyances as something that hampers an anime’s effectiveness as an entertainment medium. Mind you, I was only talking about this action as part of the subset of Slice of Life where nothing happens only. I don’t believe that simply omitting bad things in other genres can warrant brilliance.

Fundamentally, I completely agree with you – the market for these “empty” SoL shows does not demand distinction or creativity, it really just demands the absence of variables that break their illusion of security within the world of the show, or their utter understanding of how that world will continue to act.

I don’t really like the use of the word “empty” due to its negative connotation, but I can’t say you’re wrong in the way you’ve used it, at least literally. These shows are not “empty” because for viewers that resonate with them, they are absorbed into the lives of the anime characters, filling the “emptiness”. That’s what I personally think are so attractive about “empty” Slice of Life shows that are done well.

This is why Tamako Market failed – it didn’t reign the camera into a “comfortable” safe space with the main characters, the prospect of romance represented the prospect of drama, change, or character maturation, all of which are death to that illusion, and the bird represented a glaring fantastical variable that intruded on the nostalgic dream shows like this are trying to manufacture.

I applaud you, dear sir. The most accurate deconstruction of Tamako Market’s failure I have read to date on the Internet. If I had spare money I’d buy you Reddit Gold for this.

But calling an understanding of this dynamic “brilliant” still seems kinda crazy to me – it’s really just knowing your audience, and the fact that this particular audience basically demands exactly what they’ve seen before, with no sharp edges, means works like this work best when they don’t even try. I guess sanding off all possible points of contention or illusion-breaking in a work is a kind of craftsmanship, but it’s just not something I find all that impressive or meritorious.

Indeed, all it takes for this dynamic to work is “knowing your audience”. However, is it really that simple? If it were truly as simple as doing exactly the same things they’ve seen before, then why did so many other SoLs fail? I used the Acchi Kocchi example, so something must have gone wrong.

People do get bored, and they get bored very, very easily when it comes to Slice of Life shows confined inside a club room. If someone makes another anime with characters with all of the same tropes as GJ-Bu, people will get bored and they won’t gobble it up in the same way again. That’s why Lucky Star sold so many units, and its copycats did not.

In conclusion I do believe the successful “sanding off all possibly points of contention” to require craftsmanship. It involves a deep understanding of statistics and your target audience. Otherwise it will just be another Acchi Kocchi or Ai Mai Mi.

Looking at GJ-Bu’s sales, I think we can safely say that it has passed the hurdle, getting a majority of the population to resonate with it. That is a “empty” Slice of Life which has achieved “brilliance” in my opinion.

Bobduh:

Jeez, thank you for that ridiculously generous complement! I actually think this article and the previous one from your blog have been two of the most incisive anime critiques I’ve seen here, so I very much appreciate it.

It’s interesting that you find the action of omitting subtle annoyances as something that hampers an anime’s effectiveness as an entertainment medium.

I think you’re misunderstanding my intention here – I’m not saying that the process you’re describing hampers a show’s “effectiveness” as a commercial success that this audience responds to (in fact I’d probably agree with you), I’m implying a show’s “effectiveness” is a value unrelated to its “merits,” which I am correlating with its artisticaccomplishments, not its commercial ones.

These shows are not “empty” because for viewers that resonate with them, they are absorbed into the lives of the anime characters, filling the “emptiness”.

This is a fair point, and making a story that can resonate with the widest possible variety of people is a noble goal, but I’d argue there are ways to do it outside of this process. Characters can be distinctive and unique, and their experiences can refuse to follow the generally accepted conventions of a genre, without losing the audience’s resonance – resonance can always be attained if the emotional states underlying these elements are still something the audience can understand and relate to. For instance, Evangelion is a show about a boy piloting a giant robot, which is a situation no-one can relate to. However, the topics the show is really interested in talking about are Shinji’s feelings of isolation, his desire to please the people who matter to him, and his inability to breach the emotional walls of the people around him. Those base emotional states are incredibly resonant, regardless of the surface details, because everyone can relate those feelings (which are, in my opinion, always enhanced by a thoughtfully crafted and distinctive set of surface details) to some elements of their own life.

Indeed, all it takes for this dynamic to work is “knowing your audience”. However, is it really that simple? If it were truly as simple as doing exactly the same things they’ve seen before, then why did so many other SoLs fail? I used the Acchi Kocchi example, so something must have gone wrong.

I haven’t seen Acchi Kocchi, but I assume it fails to resonate with the audience because it fails on both these possible approaches – it doesn’t go for the absolutely honed “empty” dynamics of GJ-bu, but it also doesn’t manage to present believable situations and emotional stakes that an audience could relate to in the tradition of conventional narrative.

Looking at GJ-Bu’s sales, I think we can safely say that it has passed the hurdle, getting a majority of the population to resonate with it. That is a “empty” Slice of Life which has achieved “brilliance” in my opinion.

This is the kind of reasoning that caused me to respond so viscerally to your post in the first place. I honestly find the conclusions of this results-based thinking kind of frightening, and the equating of “successfully caters to an audience we have an utter understanding of by never challenging their existing preferences” with “brilliant” is incredibly alien to my way of evaluating art, and feels almost Orwellian (keeping the proles happy and content with soma that never broadens their horizons, etc). Maybe I was just never the intended audience for so-called “healing-type” shows, but I feel the shows that solve this equation you’ve proposed are kind of fundamentally soulless, and that you can create works that appeal to this audience while still maintaining individual creativity, while still infusing your characters with distinct emotions and the capacity for emotional development, and while still giving your show some fundamental purpose or (fairly light and airy) themes.

And I don’t feel this is just a result of me overthinking a simple comedy – I think Chuunibyou succeeds as a simple comedy while still maintaining all these other narrative “merits” and appealing to this core crowd, for instance. Or, to pick a truly pure comedy, classically sitcom-y example, I think the show Community knocks this out of the park, existing perfectly well as a feel-good, “healing-type” half-hour dose of reliable comedy while also incorporating themes of trust and identity, while also regularly performing incredibly ambitious formal storytelling experiments that you don’t even have to understand to find the show funny. In fact, I think a strong emotional resonance with individual characters only improves the impact of humor, far from making it more difficult for a wide audience to relate to. And I think relegating the definition of “brilliant” to “was successfully embraced by its target audience” kind of devalues standards of criticism in general – I think we should always ask for more than that from our art, even if the audience doesn’t. If we don’t, who will?

Regardless, I totally respect your viewpoints here, and absolutely love these kinds of tough questions and discussions. I sincerely hope you guys keep writing and crossposting this stuff.

Square Pegs, Round Holes, and the Art of Adaptation

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Hey guys. There have been a couple posts recently (well, semi-recently now) about adaptation, and while they kind of talk about what adaptation is, I don’t think they really went into what makes adaptation so interesting artistically. And I have a lot of thoughts about that!

I was originally writing this post as a comment for one of the article links, but I figured that would probably get buried, and the artistic side of this is interesting enough to warrant its own discussion. My thoughts here aren’t law, or based in massive industry knowledge – I’m just a dude who likes stories a whole lot, and thinks about storytelling pretty much constantly. And I have far less of a single thesis here than I did with my Nisemonogatari writeup – if anything, my points are mainly that adaptation is both a craft and an art unto itself, and that understanding mediums is critical to understanding how and why adaptations work or don’t. The main point here is to promote discussion and your own opinions, not just say How It Is. Anyway, let’s get to it. What’s up with adaptation?

Why Are You Even Trying

One of the main reasons I find adaptation interesting is because, although I know this isn’t the actual intent, the very act of adapting something makes me think, “Why? Was it not suited to its original medium?” Every medium has different strengths and weaknesses, and most of the time, a truly great piece of art works partially because it takes advantage of the unique strengths of its medium. An adaptation seeks to take the “essence” of some work and translate it to a different format – but this does not imply a perfect 1 to 1 transformation. In fact, a “perfect” adaptation is very rarely the best possible adaptation, and some restructuring or refocusing is normally required to make the best work possible.

And obviously, from a production perspective, adaptations are chosen not because they make for artistic challenges, but because a proven property will sell regardless of the medium. But that doesn’t make the challenge less interesting, or the results less respectable. A good adaptation requires both a keen understanding of the work you’re adapting, as well as understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the mediums you’re converting both from and to. Misunderstand these strengths, and even an adaptation of a fantastic work can fall completely flat.

So let’s get into those mediums. I’ll only cover a point or two each here, but there are a ton of angles to take on what makes each of these mediums interesting to adapt, so I hope you guys offer some of your own.

Manga

Manga has traditionally been the largest source of adaptations, though the ascent of Light Novels has challenged its position. But it still reliably dominates certain genres, and it’s still the source of virtually all heavyweight long-running commercial properties.

In general, manga might seem like it’s the easiest to adapt, since you could consider it just a series of static anime frames already, with cinematography and everything. In a way, this is true – a strict adaptation makes by far the most sense for this transition. However, one major problem you can run into here is pacing. In a manga, the flow of panels can dictate pacing to some extent, but ultimately it is in the reader’s hands how quickly any given scene goes by. This matters so much when it comes to things like action or comedy – the flow of a fight, or the speed of a joke’s telling and its immediate aftermath, can entirely dictate whether those sequences soar or fall flat. This is why I only read shonens (outside of the rare shonen with both compelling writing and a well-directed adaptation), and why I couldn’t stand the Genshiken adaptation, despite the manga being possibly my favorite manga – the pacing felt incredibly belabored and drawn out, making me feel like I’m watching two seconds of joke and then seven seconds of “THAT’S THE JOKE!”

Also, because of manga’s similarities to animation, adaptations from this medium can sometimes hew closest to the “entirely redundant adaptation” problem. This isn’t actually a bad thing, but I feel it is a true thing – for instance, Monster and Cross Game are both manga with incredible pacing, because both of their artists have an absurd gift for panel flow and a flawless understanding of traditional storytelling. So how were they adapted? Panel for panel. Basically the exact same piece of art, in color, with voices. And there’s nothing wrong with that, of course – but if something was absolutely perfectly suited to its original medium, what does an adaptation really accomplish? This is why the writer of Yotsuba has outright refused to have his manga adapted, which is a viewpoint I completely respect and understand. The pacing and mood of Yotsuba is perfect as-is – he chose his medium correctly. Granted, some people simply prefer watching things to reading them, and anime does offer a few things with no parallel in manga (like sound design), but I think this point remains. Anyway, moving on!

4-Koma

Briefly, 4-koma are a subset of manga that consist of a series of distinct 4-panel strips, normally reserved for comedies. They’re a kind of manga, but their adaptation provides unique challenges, so I’m separating them here.

The 4-koma format is interesting to adapt, because if you’re actually going to transition what was originally a series of 4-panel gags into 23-minute episodes of cinematic television, you basically have to create an entirely new work – it’s barely an adaptation at all. All you’re carrying over is a collection of jokes, characters, and, if you’re lucky, the “feel” of the comic – you need to either flesh out that world and add another dimension (like K-On), or sequence those gags in such a way that they add up to more than the sum of their parts (like Azumanga Daioh). Adapting a 4-koma probably requires the most inherent artistic input of any adaptation – that is, unless you are strictly presenting a series of the 4-koma gags, only animated (which is frankly a huge waste of animation’s potential), you need to find some larger thread to build these gags around.

Light Novels

Recently, light novels have become the primary source for a wide variety of popular anime, from the industry-shifting Haruhi Suzumiya to otaku favorites like OreImo or action shows like Sword Art Online. This makes sense to me – the popular aesthetics and tropes of the core anime-buying market have largely shifted from the action and adventure of the past to slice of life and romantic comedy, and these genres lend themselves to the character and dialogue-focused style of light novels. But creating a light novel adaptation that actually makes use of the anime format is deceptively difficult.

Light novels are tricky for almost the opposite reason of 4-komas – there is very little direction or scene-setting (usually), but there is a very established script, and normally a very specific narrative. The problem here is the mediums have completely separate strengths and weaknesses – light novels are about conversations and character, and generally read more like a play’s script than a novel, whereas anime is a visual medium that is at its best when scripts and characters work in tandem with a strong visual aesthetic. Thus, even in some of the best light novel adaptations (like Spice and Wolf), it’s incredibly clear that this is a light novel adaptation, because it really is just a series of conversations linked by an understated overarching plot. At the other end, some light novels succeed beautifully because a visual component would always have made them better – I think Haruhi is a solid example of this, though that might just be KyoAni being really good at their jobs. But normally, to add a strong visual component to a light novel adaptation is incredibly difficult. Some shows get away with it by essentially treating their material like an actual live-action sitcom, complete with the standard camera angles and lengthy multi-camera-sitcom-esque single-room sequences. In my opinion, this is a huge waste of potential – as I explained at excruciating length in my Nisemonogatari rundown, active cinematography can add a huge amount of emotional impact to a show, or even undercut the spoken message, and by limiting yourself to the tools of a conventional sitcom, you fail to take advantage of your true toolset even if you succeed in making a popular show.

Actual Novels

Full novel adaptations are the rarest of the possibilities I’ll be covering here, but they really, really, really shouldn’t be.

Actual full-length novels are possibly the medium best-suited to anime adaptation, and in fact I’d argue that no medium is more suited to successfully recreating a novel than anime is. They just match up on so many critical variables: they’re both long-form narratives that are generally separated into smaller subsections, they both involve a creator having absolute creative control (unlike the sitcom, or even film, where your ability to manipulate the frame and conjure the unreal is significant, but never infinite), and they both have a critical emphasis on and ability to manipulate mood and tone. Most novels are extended, character-focused narratives that successfully create a strong voice (either through a character or the narrator’s own voice) and contain several distinct plot strands that reflect off each other and ultimately present a number of consistent and well-explored themes. A novelist can conjure literally any scenario he wishes, and have the reader take it for granted as the truth of that world (as long as he doesn’t betray his own truth through inconsistent characterization or world-building). The mood and “feeling” a book evokes in the reader is the result of both conscious narrative choices and the collective impact of the language chosen and the style of writing used. All of these things translate absolutely naturally into anime, and reflect the extraordinarily similar strengths of that very distinct medium. Frankly, it’s crazy to me that more novels aren’t adapted into anime – although considering the sales numbers of Shinsekai Yori, perhaps those producers aren’t so crazy after all.

Visual Novels

A fan favorite, and the one I’m sure my opinions will be the most controversial for. Visual Novels are essentially branching “choose your own adventure” games, generally with a huuuge focus on characters and conversation, and often formatted as a love story where the largest branches correspond to a set of several potential love interests. Because of the player agency and the distinct nature of the main paths, visual novels are often a collection of several very different and separate narratives, though the themes and characters of each may intersect and overlap.

“But wait,” you hopefully ask yourself, “if visual novels are actually a *collection* of stories, then how do you adapt that into the linear narrative of an anime?”

The answer is, “Most of the time? Very, very poorly.”

Now don’t get mad just yet. I’m not saying this is a fault of the visual novels themselves, and I’m not dismissing anyone’s legitimate attachment to and experience with a visual novel adaptation – I’m just saying that when you take four or five unrelated stories and smash them into one continuous narrative, something’s gotta give. Normally, visual novel adaptations result in very disjointed narratives, where a primary set of characters and perhaps main narrative are established in the first couple episodes, and then the story takes its time exploring each of the other potential plot arcs in turn before weaving its way back to that central narrative. While this tactic keeps the fans happy by not significantly shortchanging any favorite character, it is absolutely death to a coherent, focused narrative, and is in fact a fairly poor representation of the original source anyway. After all, does the main character of a visual novel do everything for everyone the way these super-humans often tend to in their adaptations? No. They have one story arc with one character, and that is their story. If you want to have another story, you start over from the beginning, and having another story. Sure, you might “progress” only by completing all these stories, but that’s a meta trick of game design – that’s not the same as all of them being part of the same narrative.

The “fit all arcs into one narrative” approach to VN adaptation not only results in a wandering and unfocused narrative, but it also generally results in an unrelatable superman of a main character, unless the character’s wanderings are somehow related to the main themes and point of the show (School Days, for all its faults, does a wonderful job of making the inherent weirdness of combining separate love stories into The Point Of The Show). I was actually hopeful Clannad would do something similar, and that Tomoya’s savior complex would end up being a reflection of his wish to avoid becoming his father… but Maeda instead merely uses the concept for a deus ex machina ending, and the show remains unfocused throughout. Honestly, I think this approach is nearly impossible, and requires a very, VERY specific narrative for it to work – the only two examples I can think of are the aforementioned School Days and Steins;Gate, which manages to work both the necessity of helping a set of side characters and the temporary nature of the character growth thereby gained into a clever conceit in its third act. So basically, unless your story is about time travel or womanizing, it’s pretty difficult to pull this off and have your story still work as a coherent narrative.

Another approach to VN adaptation, and one I think has a great deal more potential, is to simply drop the ruse of a single narrative and actually adapt your VN as a collection of separate short stories. I feel Yosuga no Sora isn’t a particularly good show, but I think it actually used this approach to fairly strong effect. Other problems do emerge by taking this strategy – for instance, to continue with my example, the second-most-important character in Yosuga no Sora is the main character’s sister. However, she starts off the story in a very unhealthy place emotionally, and because most of the show consists of establishing characters other than her and then backtracking to the start, her personality ends up coming across as artificially and frustratingly static, even though the second the show actually focuses on her, her character growth is immediate. But I feel problems such as this are much, much more easily fixed than the inherent problems of single-route adaptations.

That said, I don’t think the single-route adaptation problems are inherently unsolvable – but for most shows, they would require a far more significant restructuring of content than they tend to receive. Plots would have to be woven together more coherently. Characters would have to take the place of others to avoid “hero protagonist” syndrome. Storylines that could possibly reflect or influence each other would have to be merged. Essentially, a new coherent narrative would have to be created by smashing each storyline into pieces and then patching them together as a single framework – and this is both at least as hard as writing a story from scratch, as well as less likely to appease the fans that desire a strict adaptation of “their” route. As far as I can see, the question of successful visual novel adaptation is still an open one, and the relative success of many very unfocused current adaptations leaves creators with little incentive to truly answer it.

I would welcome more examples of different styles of visual novel adaptations, or examples from within these styles that work well. I’d also love to hear of any adaptations that actually adopted my “smash the storylines to bits, make one coherent one” proposal, regardless of the results. The concept of adopting a visual novel is extremely interesting creatively, even if I have mixed feelings about a lot of the results.

And the rest

There are a variety of other sources for adaptations – toys, idols, videogames, etc – but for most of them, there isn’t really a process of translation so much as full artistic creation or re-imagining, so they’re not really as relevant for the specific topic of adaptation. But anyway, those are just some of my initial feelings on the subject. I know better than to narrow the discussion with any specific questions, so…

Your thoughts?