Tag Archives: Psychology

Thoughts on Art Appreciation, Anime Culture, and the State of the Medium

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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.

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.

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.