Management: Finally posting the sequel to this piece, which focuses much more closely on four commercially successful romantic comedies: Sakurasou, Toradora, Clannad, and Chuunibyou.
Question:
I can see where you’re coming from when you talk of judging a show according to its goals, as well as your reservations regarding some goals. How would you apply these metrics to Sakurasou?
Management: I’m a bit more heated here than my usual tone, but it’s an actually important topic, so I figured I should still post it. This was a straight-up argument, so I haven’t changed a word on either side to make sure no-one is misrepresented. It came about in response to my first Free! post, which apparently ruffled some feathers.
Question (sort of):
You didn’t need to tell us what a good little feminist you are (and oh so concerned with shitting on anything that might be remotely aimed at men) 27 times in one post.
Bobduh:
Shit, you got me! I only pretend to be a decent person to look cool on the internet.
Question:
For one thing, forcing yourself against your will to hate something that’s nothing but love and kindness (K-On!) because of some political ideology does not make you a good person – quite the opposite.
But even if we grant that your brand of feminism is what’s good, you’re still obnoxious in how often and aggressively you signal your adherence to it, just as it’s obnoxious when a religious person (who is also a “good person” by their standards) talks constantly about how much they pray and go to church.
Bobduh:
Forcing yourself against your will to hate K-On because of some political ideology
There is no part of this statement that I do not take issue with! First, there is no “force” involved here – my will, personality, and conscience mind are all in agreement that there is something deeply problematic about the archetypes displayed in shows like K-On, Clannad, Sakurasou, and any other number of shows where a female character’s infantilizing helplessness is supposed to be perceived as attractive. I am not going against any natural tendency here – every fiber of my body finds this stuff pretty disturbing, and I actually have repeatedly gotten in arguments on this board, and often just avoided other conversations entirely, because of it. You seem to think I’m just pretending to believe the things I say – I assure you, I’m not trying nearly that hard.
But this doesn’t address K-On itself, which I don’t actually hate – I honestly do believe the creators of that show were intent on making a lighthearted healing-type show, which is apparently what you got out of it. I did not intend to belittle your experience with the show, or their intent – what I take issue with is the specific style of characterization used, which is very prominent in many other less-defensible shows with overt romantic characteristics. I find those helpless character archetypes indicative of an incredibly sexist and dehumanizing style of pandering. My problem is not specifically with K-On – I merely used it as an example because it’s also a KyoAni show and it bears a large number of humorous parallels to Free!, which is why I was referring to Haru as Mio throughout, etc.
Obnoxious in how often and aggressively I signal my adherence to it
I’m sorry my brand of humanism is so offensive to you! My first suggestion would be to possibly not read my posts, since they are all an extension of my beliefs and thus all likely contain the capacity to offend you, but I’d also like to add a little context here. First, and I’ve covered this earlier, but it bears repeating: I’m not filtering my voice through some outside agenda here. I’m cataloging my honest reactions, adding a little humor, and trying to show people my context on media. My first goal in writing these things is to better process my own thoughts, and become a more intelligent consumer of media (thus the questions of sexism and objectification will necessarily crop up here, since they’re such a big question when it comes to this show, and are obviously on my mind) – but in a roundabout way, you’re also right. My second goal is to impart something. Normally that thing is either my way of analyzing stories or my thoughts on media evaluation or my belief that humility and curiosity are the only ways to have a meaningful relationship with art. But my general worldview is also inescapably a part of that.
I’m not a religious person, but I can understand why a religious person would try and tell you how valuable their religion is, if they care about you – according to a great many faiths, if you’re not an adherent, you are eternally damned. That sucks! Why wouldn’t a religious person want to spare people they care about from that? And personally, as a non-religious person who instead believes that data is a real thing and prejudice exists and our world is incredibly goddamn far from a place where genders or races or sexualities or whatever can honestly consider themselves equal in society, government, law, or media, I think that downplaying this stuff, particularly in a setting where people actually read what I have to say, would be pretty inexcusable. I’m not hammering on my “agenda” here, but if my thoughts make anyone think that maybe continuously treating female characters like objects is a shitty thing to do, then I’d also be pretty fucking proud of that. If you find that obnoxious, whatever, read something else – but you can’t tell me it’s not sincere.
But seriously, I’m not actually trying with that – if I were trying, I could be doing much more directly relevant stuff than criticizing anime. This show is pretty dumb on a straight textual level, and so I find that outside of just making jokes, the most interesting angle to analyze it from is its relation to the pervasive sexism in the anime industry. When relevant cultural stuff crops up in other shows, I’ll certainly mention it, but this happens to be a show where that angle is likely the best one for encouraging meaningful discussion. I did not once think while watching this, “now would be a good time to propagate my subversive feminist agenda” – things just came up in my mind and so I wrote them down because I thought someone else might find them interesting. If that doesn’t work for you – well, sorry, no refunds.
Question:
First part: Apologies for being unnecessarily rude earlier – I did find your initial post a bit condescending. Although I can see where you’re coming from about helpless women, I don’t think this is an entirely fair portrayal of K-On! The girls in that show may be goofy and a bit childish in their personal interactions, but they’re also proactive and successful at their goals. They aren’t genuinely helpless and they don’t sit around waiting for men (or anyone else) to save them.
Second part: I think there’s a danger in jumping in too whole-heartedly into any political belief given the high possibility of those beliefs being at least least partially in error. Taking abstract beliefs completely seriously is powerful but dangerous, and can drive things like terrorism just as much as it can drive positive change (not that I think you’re going to bomb anyone). I did think it was a bit weak when you were about to criticize Free! for possibly being sexist against men and then cringed back because you were apparently terrified of being labelled an MRA neckbeard – I think it’s better to own your thoughts instead of fearing “thoughtcrime”.
For what it’s worth I have no comment on Free! itself – I don’t intend to watch it but anyone who does enjoy it is welcome to. I did think it was a bit lame that some people claimed to be watching it in an attempt to stick it to /a/ somehow – just watch what you want to watch and don’t worry about what some anon said about it.
Anyway, thanks for being reasonable when I started out being a bit snarky.
Bobduh:
Abstract beliefs
The thing is, the only real “beliefs” I’m proposing here are that all people deserve equal treatment, that various societal and systemic forces trend towards sexism, and that this extends to media as well. And none of those “beliefs” are really debatable – there’s endless academic evidence for it, and even a cursory examination of anime at large reveals the general tendency to objectify and infantilize female characters. I agree that unsupported beliefs are dangerous, but I think what you’re proposing here is equally dangerous – the idea that all viewpoints are created equal. They aren’t – there’s only one reality, and when all the evidence supports the idea that women are not given fair representation in media, the viewpoint in support of changing that becomes kinda self-evident.
Terrified at being labeled an MRA neckbeard
I was actually just making a joke there, and am not particularly worried about being labeled an MRA or whatever. I don’t deny that men can also be objectified in media (I mean, look at this show), but I think the relative objectification/agency ratio is so skewed towards male fantasies that raising a show like this as a counterpoint to sexism at large is pretty laughable. That was pretty much what I was trying to say with my joke: that Free!’s existence as a show that objectifies men does not excuse an entire culture of sexism in the other direction, farcically playing off the general tendency to use single isolated examples in order to “prove feminism wrong.”
Thanks for the apology, by the way. I try to stay as reasonable as possible, since we can’t really learn anything from each other if we’re just throwing barbs.
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.
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.
“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.
