Morridine's Blog

Anime Relations: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Kurozuka

It's getting tiresome to read so many dumbly expressed opinions on shows. What is amazingly annoying is not the fact that many people dislike the lack of character development, but the fact that many use it to explain why a show deserves low consideration, when in fact "character development" is not vital/necessary/etc.

To explain, I will make a parallel between animes and their raw story form, also referred to as "literature" I guess.

So as I believe most of the people here have some sort of education, I am expecting them to be familiar with the concept of "novel" and "short story" and the differences between them. If not, I will just quickly mention this: in a novel, the context of the story is explained in depth, the plot is very complex or it might as well have multiple plots.... and there usually is a complex character development. While the short stories, apart from the lot lesser length, only depict certain events, enough to give the reader a single impression or a particular effect, meaning character "development" is impossible most of the time and not fit for this style.
there is also a particular genre of novel, the Bildungsroman, which is a novel that concentrates especially on the development, coming of age, or major psychological change of characters through complex narratives (that don't need further explanations here).

Needless to say that shows follow this patterns also, because simply this is the way to build stories... it can be done like this or like that. A character doesn't HAVE to develop in order to take part in an event that holds OTHER meaning than to show how it can affect characters. I will give an example: Higurashi series. I think I even saw a few people crying that it doesn't provide enough character developemnt, and while I personally didn't really enjoy it, I find it obvious how this show would harm itself if it would produce some of this. Higurashi is basically one of those stories centered on events. Does that make it less entertaining? No, considering how many sick ppl watch it solely for the gore and think of it as godly.

Another example, less obvious, is Kurozuka's character Kuromitsu. Again, people cried that this show would have been perfect if only we saw some character development in Kuromitsu. Seriously? Who would want to see a demon cold blooded entity DEVELOPING like a newborn tard learning his way through life? Some characters have it in their nature not to be able to change in this way. Developing in their cases would mean changing the end of the story in a wish fulfilling end and that can be total shit.

I seriously can't think right now of any character that was simply badly written and given no development where it should have had. There is always a reason and maybe there are cases where the highlight of the story doesn't emphasize the right thing, that IS indeed a directing mistake. But "no character developemnt" is a totally retarded argument to bring up when you need to bad talk a show simply because character development has relevance to only few genres.

Anime Relations: Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED

Just noticed while browsing randomly that my all time time second love series has been REMASTERED :X How am I glad I had a few days off work so I was able to find this piece of legendary good news! I mean I checked it out and it seems to look so much better and detailed than the previous versions that i had.

This DEMANDS a rewatch. Righ. Now.
DUHUH
Jesus, is it normal if my hands are shaking

Anime Relations: Fate/stay night

Today I finished Fate/Stay Night, after long months of having it on hold and I realized that I must have judged it a little too soon or maybe it really had a very bad first half. Oh well, maybe more than a "first half" considering I put it on hold after watching episode 17 (out of 24). It was getting very boring and I recall at the time I was very annoyed by the pointless harem that was building up. I had had a great lot different expectations out of Night, expecting it to be a serious and dramatic action show and to me the mythial figures seemed like a lot of fun and potential. The show was awful in the first half, so awful I kinda felt ashamed about watching something this silly and pointless. To top it, Saber seemed just a stereotypical tsundere, too into herself to even make me try to empathize with her. I was determined to finish FSN one day and to give it a great big low rating just to set an example of how i CAN actually give very low ratings to whatever show deserves them.

NVM all that. When the Archer vs Berzerker arc started or actually ended, the tension, the drama, the conflict was just too perfect. And the music was just sublime... I can't really think of any other series this dark, sad and yet actually not too pathetic. The last 6-7 episodes of it managed to completely changed my opinion on the show. I don't care anymore how awful the first part was, as long as in the end I got what I was hoping for. Much love for this series, great story, great plot, great tension.

Anime Relations: Naruto, Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED, Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED Destiny, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Towa no Quon 1: Utakata no Kaben

Lately I've been having these sort of uncomfortable conversations with people about the way we rate animes and so it has been brought up quite a few times the fact that I have a lot of high evaluations on my list. Appearantly there is even a site that evaluates your evaluation and puts you in your place if you dare having more 10s on your list than "normal".

SO I feel like not only justifying myself but also throwing in some light on why and how people who give high evaluations aren't retarded or anything just because they usually get trolled about this.

I know my list has a great lot more 10s and 9s than just about any other user here. But I also have one of the greatest "Planning to watch" lists around. Why? Because I add to that list everything that catches my eye. I may not be literally planning on watching any of that in the near future or in the next year whatsoever, I am just sort of "bookmarking" something of interest. Therefore, whenever I have to pick something to watch it goes through a great decisional process. Because I don't want to start something knowing that I might not like it. There are quite a few titles in my "watching" list which are somewhat more on waiting because I didn't really enjoy them for some reason. I don't like dropping series and I hope I never will, I just don't like the feeling of dropping in the middle of something. And this rule may only be broken once for an exception named Clannad.
When I start watching something, I already know I made a good choice. I read reviews and I try to ignore ranks. Clannad was my one and only exception. I started this series because I was curious about why people loved it so much. Yes, I hated it. Still Clannad is on the top of the list for reasons I cannot understand.

Ranks mean nothing sometimes because they can't give a clue on if you are going to like it or not. You can find very good "hidden gems" as low as on 2000+ top.

For example (skip this paragraph if you don't wanna read a Gundam blab), I totally loved Gundam SEED Destiny, which is somewhere on the 1300something place. Its older brother, SEED is however on 380. This one detail would put off a lot of people. But there is also another side of this matter: why is this anime there? I watched both SEED and SEED Destiny as a whole and I Didn't notice any difference except a sort of minor character focus. When I refer to SEED, i am also including Destiny, they are both beautifully executed, have the same feeling about them even tho, from my point of view, Destiny is a little darker which is why I liked it better. But Gundam franchise fans probably, who watch these series because of its concept and aware of the Gundam history and such hated Destiny because it didnt bring anything new or brough some out of place characters. I Didn't feel like this had happened at all. Although I could not bring myself to agree with Shinn's (main character here) way of seeing things all the time, I could also see where that was coming from, it made sense and it made the series credible. And kind of unique for focusing on a character that is indeed wrong and for some time literally against the actual good guys. Destiny may be uncomfortable. But not bad. You know, for Gundam fans out tehre who despise Destiny.... with all the war scenes you had enjoyed, haven't you once felt like all those peons the sides where using weren't the actual bad guys but more like victims of deceiving and influence? To hate on a character because of its weakness and, in fact, for its humanity is, in my side of the woods, naive. BUt nevermind Destiny. Going back to 9s and 10s :D

As I was saying, I pick titles that I already know I will love. Of course, sometimes not everything goes as expected, I do get disappointed at times and when I do I make sure to give the right mark.

I think it's wrong to have only a top5 animes when a lot of people use to give only those 5 a 10 and then everything else they loved a 9 just because it doesn't fit the top5 list. So what ? We only have 5 masterpiece animes in the world?
Another thing that is completely wrong is about people who give bad rating just because it's not the genre they like. For example, people giving 4 on Higurashi series because it's too much gore, as opposed to the Higurashi gore fans who give 4 to the less gory OVAs. I watch every anime for what it is and I am trying not to give bad evaluations just because I have a personal something against shojo genre, military genre, yuri or anything like that. And MOST importantly... the most annoying mistake people do is rating bad a genre they don't like because they are comparing it to the animes in the genre they DO like. What I am trying to say is... when you rate a horror anime.... rate it by comparing it to another horror anime or to what you would expect from a horror anime. You can't rate Ghost in the Shell a 4 just because it didn't have enough moe, just as you can't be disappointed in a drama for not being funny enough.

What is a masterpiece anime? To me, it is that anime that makes you go beyond the screen and the stupid pixels. I'd give Naruto a 10 because it affected me in a lot of ways. I adored the music, to which I am still listening, the characters inspired me in my drawings, the fights were exciting, the story was motivating... So from my point of view, Naruto was a masterpiece. And still is. I know it's flaws, but I don't think they are important at all. Some pacings are horrible, fillers are retarded sometimes and the low budget also has its word lately.

I am not an anime expert, so i don't rate animes based on mathematics: like animation 2, story 10 so overall is 6. I have "feelings" towards what I am watching and I believe everybody else does even though a lot of people feel like being harsh for one reason or other. The way you rate is a process in itself very personal. Some people rate low because they are perfectionists, just like I am not the type to drop shows. And some rate animes based on how they made them feel, usually enjoyment is the most important factor. I enjoy what I am watching, usually. If it bores me, then I will drop a few points. If things don't make sense, I will drop more. If the characters are very retarded (like in Clannad), I will drop more. If the setting lacks complexity, and that is really a very important factor to me for some reason, then it will definitely not get a 10 or 9.

An ideal anime to me, that will get a 10 for granted is that anime that suceeds in building up a world of it's own, where no element seems out of place or queer. The feeling of "unity" and a special fluidity that goes well with the overall setting is much needed. And this does not depend on how the characters are as long as they fit. But I generally don't like some of the "happy go lucky" or tsundere character patterns that to me seem exaggerated and lacking dimension. Whatever extreme element that is there in a random way that cannot be justified to me is a killer.And this usually refers to some character patterns but not only. For poor character patterns I could always exemplify Clannad.

It was funny to notice different reactions for Ergo Proxy. I think someone was writing in his review that he/she was not sure if the series were complete junk or really genius. I think this is a blatant case of an anime that is put to favorites just because people want to look like they have interesting tastes even though they don't really have a clue on wtf they just watched. This also happens a lot and justifies maybe some of the high rankings for anime that don't make any sense no matter how you look at it. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved Ergo Proxy, again, because if the sense of decadence and the dark feel about it.

Recently, I started watching Towa no Quon movies. Low rated and I must admit to a certain point I know where thsi comes from. But when I saw the beautiful animation in the first movie I was so wowed I couldn't believe my eyes. Epic may be the best word to describe the coreography and animation quality used for that part. I'd definitely give a high rank ONLY because of that and ignore the fact that it was a complete crap story. Why? Because it is a must see. Unique to everything i've watched before. A masterpiece of animation ?:D Definitely.

I'd like to end this here. And I'd like to be able to encourage everyone to give the series the evaluation they reasonably feel it deserves. I always though most of the people just rate lower than they actually feel for some reason. Because I could never actually complete/watch a series that to me is worth a 4,5 or 6. That;s why I have a very few evaluations of this kind on my list. Why even start to watch a series that is so blatantly bad?