Sorrow-kun's Profile - MyAnimeList.net

Last OnlineApr 16, 2022 5:23 AM
GenderMale
BirthdayJan 1984
LocationBrisbane, Queensland, Australia
JoinedMar 25, 2008

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Owner of and reviewer for The Nihon Review.

Feedback on the site is always welcome. Got a comment or opinion, drop us a line.

Check out Behind The Nihon Review for all the latest news on the site, as well as opinion, editorials, rants, etc, and general stuff that doesn't fit on the main site.

Latest reviews:
Seitokai no Ichizon
Kara no Kyoukai – The Garden of Sinners
Valkyria Chronicles
Sora no Manimani
Spice and Wolf II

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Days: 184.5

Mean Score: 6.16

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Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru

Apr 16, 2022 5:23 AM

Completed 12/12 · Scored 7

Fruits Basket: The Final

Aug 22, 2021 3:27 AM

Completed 13/13 · Scored 8

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou

Apr 29, 2021 5:03 AM

Completed 24/24 · Scored 7

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teh_masterer Jul 27, 2022 3:38 PM

It is actually a little impressive that you've managed to hold your tongue after all this time despite clear and valid arguments being presented to you about why 1) Behind The Nihon Review was an unsuccessful blog and 2) your approach towards about slice-of-life comedy is both invalid and flawed. While you're probably patting yourself on the back and congratulating yourself for your dignified silence, know that this doesn't change the fact that both Nihon Review and Behind the Nihon Review are now gone. The domains were suspended some time ago, and I waited to ensure this was true before popping the champagne. This is a momentous moment in the anime community because it means you and your pseudo-intellectual methods will no longer be accessible. All of the "objective" claims you've made are now lost to time, and further to this, it is with some satisfaction that you will struggle to rebuild the audience you once had now. This is karmic justice for your previous efforts to shoehorn academia into your blogging; while you may have a PhD, your anime opinions are not more valid than anyone else's. In the unlikely event you read this message, consider the permanent shutdown of Nihon Review and Behind the Nihon Review, and the resulting loss of comments agreeing with your editorials (especially the misguided and invalid remarks directed at K-On!), the consequences of your trying to sound smart in an attempt to stroke your own ego. For everyone else, here's a blogger who, unlike Behind the Nihon Review, is actually worth reading.

AegisFate Jul 7, 2019 4:37 PM

While it's been a shade more than a decade since your post on attitudes surrounding K-On!, and that one hopes your perspectives on things have broadened in the past ten years, I feel it necessary to, on the behalf of the entire anime community, provide a response to your "Attitudes to Slice-of-Life Comedy Anime" article, which is a rather contentious and narrow-minded perspective on K-On! and the slice-of-life genre as a whole. For your benefit, I also provide an example of what an excellent presentation of K-On! looks like: insightful, broad-minded and thorough, the author clearly aims to present what K-On! was trying to do with its execution.

There’s been a lot of disparity in reactions to the slice-of-life moe comedy genre of late sparked by the recent end of K-On!. A lot of its defenders have fallen back on the idea that “it is what it is”, while its critics have argued that that’s no excuse for mediocrity. My own opinion is that there’s no question that K-On! is mediocre, but there’s merit in the “it is what it is” defense provided one adds appropriate riders. The problem with the “it is what it is” defense is that, if you take it to its logical conclusions, you can’t criticize anything, because everything “is what it is”. What you can criticize something for is how well it achieves its intent. Personal preference inevitably plays a role in criticism, but the fact of the matter is that every genre (and arguably every individual title) has its own unique set of criteria which depend on a number of things, and sound, reasoned criticism is about minimizing the number of criteria which cannot be controlled or influenced by the creators themselves.

While K-On! is admittedly a polarising series, with proponents and detractors alike, the proponents have done nothing of the sort. There are numerous accounts of what makes K-On! so enjoyable, and in particular, one insightful and incredibly well-written post details the strength of K-On! well beyond the accusations that "it is what it is". In this post, you wield the word "mediocre" as an inexperienced undergraduate student who'd just finished their first junior literature course might, using it equivalently to how you perceive others as defending K-On! with arguments of "it is what it is": if "it is what it is" is invalid as a catch-all phrase for K-On!'s merits, then "mediocre" (and any of its derivatives) is equally as invalid as a criticism, as it implies single words are sufficient to accurately describe an entire series. Beyond this hypocritical use of language, you also incorrectly suppose that the worth of a work must be assessed by objective terms independent of other factors. In this case, it is "how well something achieves its intent": where fiction is concerned, the only objective elements are the genre, factual elements such as episode length and count, and symbols or other literary devices, which hold values that are shared amongst a group of individuals sufficiently as to have a common ground. Beyond this, all criticisms of literature (and fiction as a whole) is a subjective exercise, and it is inappropriate to claim that K-On! is "objectively" bad.

Personally, I think some of the more prominent attempts to criticize K-On! have gone to the opposite extreme of the logical conclusion of “it is what it is”, and have set unreasonable expectations and asked for things that K-On! never had any intention of delivering in the first place. K-On! is, after all, firmly entrenched as a slice-of-life moe comedy, a genre which has been well and truly established since the classic Azumanga Daioh (which I’ll get to later), and we’ve probably seen enough of these, particularly more recently, to know what the game is all about. There have been what I’ve seen as too many attempts to unnecessarily overcomplicate what is, at heart, a simplistic genre, and I’ve always thought that the appropriate criteria for titles within the genre are similarly simplistic. My view is that the most important criteria for slice-of-life moe comedy – possibly the only one that matters – is whether it’s funny or not. If you’re laughing, you tick the box, if not, you give it a thumbs down. The problem with this is that its an inevitably subjective criteria and disagreers generally have difficultly finding common ground on which to critically analyze the work and their difference of opinions in a way that, well, isn’t futile.

While you are correct in that arguments about "wasted potential" (another buzz-phrase of dubious value) are irrelevant to K-On!, his own criteria for what constitutes a good slice-of-life anime is lacking. Slice-of-life is not synonymous with comedy: the genre as a whole is intended to showcase the mundane, often without conflict, arbitrary moments in someone's life. The Japanese interpretation of this genre places a particular focus on the halcyon days of school and interpersonal relationships, of an appreciation for the ordinary and making the most of a given everyday situation. By showing such moments in detail, slice-of-life series intend to present a moral or lesson to the viewer, typically about friendship, persistence and other positive traits. Thus, your statement that slice-of-life is purely to be judged by its comedic value is limited: shows like K-On! and others do not aim to be intentionally funny, but rather, aim to show what can be learned from certain experiences. Critically analyzing these works is then directed towards determining whether or not the characters reasonably grew as people, and this part is also subjective. Based on their backgrounds, people may be irritated by Mio and Yui's mannerisms, while others might see Yui and Mio as having matured as a result of their time together, for instance. Either perspective is fine, but the point is that these are strictly subjective.

Its unique in that sense since so much of one’s opinion of titles in the genre are formed from subjective reactions, which makes it a rather challenging genre to review objectively. Does that mean we shouldn’t be reviewing these titles at all? Well, no, I don’t think so… but you know me, I’m a big believer in reviews (I wouldn’t write them if I wasn’t). In most other genres, you can look at things that have an internal or creative logic, or can be justified somehow… it’s much harder to do this with works that are so innately simple. I think this is why works driven by meta-humour seem to be better critically received; you can look at anime like Kannagi or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei or Ouran Host Club and point to tangibles that can be acclaimed: “oh look at the sharp wit and the timing and the references and the self-awareness”. It’s much harder to do this with titles that have an opaque fourth wall. Then, the question is, how does one justify a positive response to Azumanga Daioh and Minami-ke and then an indifferent one to K-On! and Minami-ke Season Two, when they’re basically all trying to do the same thing. That’s a tough question. You can only talk about what you liked and what you didn’t like, but ideally you’re working within a set of criteria that are fair and reasonable and considerate of the intentions of the series. But who exactly decides what’s “fair and reasonable”?

I assure you that no one, not myself, the people I speak for, and certainly not you, can decide what constitutes as "fair and reasonable". Creation and internal logic is irrelevant in entertainment, whose first and foremost objective isn't to be clever (or make viewers feel good about themselves), but to present an idea. It is therefore an elitist perspective to suggest that a work necessarily must involve self-referential humour, reference timing or some other nonsense in order to be amusing. The implication here is that a work must try to be funny in a clever way, and audiences must be of a certain standard in order to catch these jokes: only a subset of the population has the requisite intellectual capacity to appreciate a certain work. This suggests that the shows that you (and other of Behind the Nihon's writers) watch have intellectual substance, justifying it to those who view anime as a whole to be a frivolous or childish hobby. If this was not your intent, then there is little need to adopt such a hard-line stance about anime like K-On!. What is to be gained by stopping others from watching and enjoying what they wish to enjoy?

“It is what it is” is basically what I see as a clumsy attempt to raise a reasonable rebuttal: consider a title’s intentions when criticizing it. But its use to defend K-On! carries with it a disturbing implication: the idea that slice-of-life moe comedy don’t have to have anything more than what K-On! delivered. It’s an idea which is easily refuted just by the half-dozen or so other titles I’ve mentioned already in this article in passing, all of which are funnier and more entertaining than K-On!. This has basically been my major criticism of K-On! since the early episodes: when you compare it to other anime within its genre, it doesn’t stack up. If I took a random slice-of-life moe comedy from the list of anime I’ve seen and was forced to choose between it and K-On!, chances are pretty low that I’d pick K-On!, and chances are almost as low that I’d have think about that decision for long. This is what I see as a real indictment on K-On!, since it basically points to a failure on its part to distinguish itself within its own genre. But that (obviously) is my opinion, and I’m kinda curious as to how proponents of the “it is what is is” defense consider this. Simply as a non-threatening curiosity, my question to fans of K-On! is, how does it compare with other anime within the slice-of-life moe comedy genre in your opinion?

K-On! ultimately is what it is, regardless of unqualified attempts to argue that this is a clumsy attempt at a rebuttal: your own disturbing implication is that all slice-of-life anime necessarily need to incorporate a higher form of humour in order to be "objectively" enjoyable. If we accept what you said as true, slice-of-life would lose its value and only pander to people who inexplicably demand intellectual merit from their entertainment, for whatever reasons that might be. Instead, the reason why K-On! is what it is, is because the series is primarily about learning and discovery. K-On! means to show what it's like to begin somewhere, follow a journey and highlight the unexpected, pleasant things that happen along the way. K-On! was never about the comedy, and any humour in the series derives from a sense of pathos that arises from watching the character stumble. These act as an aside for the actual messages, and ultimately, to judge K-On! purely based on how funny it is would be akin to calling a passenger jet inadequate because its cargo capacity is limited. Compared to other series of its genre, K-On! does an excellent job of conveying its themes about discovery, and K-On! has certainly distinguished itself from others of its genre by using music as a motivator; there is a respectable technical aspect that Yui must overcome, giving her journey weight. To put things in perspective, slice-of-life that followed, such as Anne Happy and Stella no Mahou, are instances of where the protagonists failed to have any tangible pay-offs.

Maybe that comes back to my own attitude that, if there are two titles that do much the same thing but one has a greater impact, then that means the other has failed to be distinctive, and thus has less chance of being deemed “good” (but, again this comes back to the idea that the response to a slice-of-life moe comedy is generally more subjective than other genres). My own opinion of the slice-of-life moe comedy genre as a whole is that the bar was set in its infancy with Azumanga Daioh and nothing since has raised that bar (although the much more satirical Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei came close). But, I’ve recently wondered whether it would have anywhere near the same impact if I was watching it for the first time today. I suspect not, and I daresay there’s a bit of a “Seinfeld Is Unfunny” effect going on with Azumanga Daioh (which is ironic, since Seinfeld was often the title it was compared to in the early days as they were both among the first in their respective media to utilize the revolutionary concept of being “about nothing”). These days the ideas that were (relatively) unique to Azumanga Daioh at the time have been copied, subsequently watered down and repeated to the point of cliche, which means that there are greater expectations now for what makes a good slice-of-life comedy (although its a credit to Azumanga Daioh that it’s still fairly highly revered in its genre after so much time has passed and so many new titles in the genre have been released, even if it is mostly by slightly old-school people… relatively speaking, of course, since it is only seven years old).

It is similarly an invalid comparison to compare Azumanga Daioh and K-On!. While both animated adaptations have their roots in a 4-panel manga format, Azumanga Daioh is simply about various events in high school and how over time, characters grow as people through their journey in high school. The series intentionally incorporates absurdist moments to bring humour into different moments, whether it be the fact that Chiyo could skip through middle school and become a high school student, or the antics that teachers and students alike cause. Azumanga Daioh deliberately constructs its moments to set up humour. By comparison, K-On! has a smaller cast, and is focused on Yui's experiences with the light music club. She begins her journey an abysmal guitar player, and over time, her love towards her friends allows her to improve and share this with Azusa. Both series clearly aimed to accomplish something different: while Azumanga Daioh aims to amuse and evoke memories of high school, K-On! is about discovery. K-On! never set out to do what Azumanga Daioh does: in order for the comparison to hold, K-On! would need to dispense with light music and tea, and introduce a larger cast.

As a fan of the slice-of-life moe genre, this is what makes K-On! disappointing. It’s essentially taken things from other anime which have taken things from Azumanga Daioh, which isn’t all that shameful a thing of itself (formulas are successful for a reason) but many of the things that K-On! put in play are basically stale now. Add to that some pretty banal comedic execution, and you end up with a rather forgettable, throwaway entry to the genre. Fans may say, well “it is what it is”, implying that ambition was never an intention. My response is, with all the other funny and entertaining slice-of-life comedies being made, even now, with not a great deal of ambition themselves, why couldn’t it be something more? Never mind plot or character development or things that it never intended to have. Just “more funny” would have been enough to make it serviceable.

Overall, had you framed your article from a subjective perspective, your thoughts on K-On! would have been reasonable. K-On!, for its popularity, is not for everyone, and a justification as simple as "I didn't find it funny" is more than enough to make this clear. There was no need to adopt a pedantic outlook on things and write lengthy paragraphs justifying this decision (in the interest of fairness to you, my replies are roughly equivalent in length to yours, as I feel it inappropriate to dismiss your arguments with short responses), nor was it necessary to constantly belittle K-On! in your other posts. Unless your intent was to dissuade other viewers from giving K-On! a shot (only you know whether or not Behind The Nihon Review's objectives were actually to use a more academic tone to intimidate readers into agreeing with you), mentioning that your opinions are subjective would have sufficed. It's okay to dislike K-On! (and any other series, for that matter), but it is not okay to claim that there is an objective basis for why people enjoy certain things. My goal here was not to convince you that you necessarily must change your perspective on K-On! (that would be disingenious, as everyone is permitted their own opinions, and no opinion is more valid or invalid than the other, after all), but rather, to present enough counterarguments indicating that objectivity simply isn't something you can bring to the table when it comes to enjoyment of an entire genre. That is presumptuous: consider the fallacy in my claiming that K-On!'s popularity makes it "objectively" good. This isn't the case, and for the reasons stated, K-On! works for a wide audience, which contributed to its success. The likes of Baka-raptor and Kaioshin-sama were unwarranted, and given that they lack your finess, one can reasonably conclude those two were merely desperate for attention. By all standards, K-On! is actually very ambitious, being much more than the other "funny and entertaining slice-of-life comedies" out there: it's been a decade, and no other anime of this genre from this time period are even mentioned any more, consigned to the annals of history. By comparison, for being novel, genuine and sincere, K-On! remains well-known.

Melifluidade Dec 17, 2017 3:28 PM

Great Cossette's review. Thanks for it <3

DNAxHirsch Feb 15, 2014 7:53 AM

Thank you for your list "50 Great Anime of the Decade 2000-2009", it introduced me to Koi Kaze and it's pretty amazing.

Greetings

Dashiawia Apr 5, 2013 11:46 AM

Hi there! I'd just like to say that I enjoyed reading your reviews on Nihon and I hope that you will continue to write them in the future. :)

MayucchiYukie Apr 3, 2013 3:31 AM

I know you really enjoyed Tempest and I see that you have seen Spiral (which was by the same author).

I really didn't know like Spiral the anime (I gave a 4/10 to it because it introduced so many plot devices but didn't follow up on them). The adaptation was insanely terrible and was years before the manga finished serialising. I knew that the ending couldn't have been conclusive, but I wasn't interested in finding out what happens anyway.

Recently I finished Tempest and enjoyed it so much. Knowing that Tempest actually adapted the manga faithfully until the end, I thought the author must have a notch for writing up an entertaining story. I decided to give Spiral another chance and read the manga and see what they missed out in the anime.

I finished reading the whole manga over the last 3 hours, and I was really happy with it. I highly recommend the manga for Spiral. It's very similar to the style of Tempest and everything comes together at the end. I see that you have given Spiral 5/10 and I imagine your complaints with it will be very similar to mine. But we both enjoyed Tempest so we know what the author is capable of. That's why I highly recommend the manga.

SerasAshley Apr 18, 2012 11:30 AM

MayucchiYukie Mar 20, 2012 6:17 PM

I've always wondered, what episode from Minami-ke is your avatar from? I don't recall seeing it.

Infinite Mar 20, 2012 5:47 PM

I recently finished Beck, and as I usually do, I thought I'd share my... thoughts. I thought at the very beginning I might not like it, but I ended up really enjoying it though I thought it left one or two things unresolved, and the ending was rushed as it tried to tie up several loose ends. I thought the characters were likable (apart from a certain few episodes). I think the romance side could have had more time given to it. I gave it and 8. Thanks for that one.

Valkyrie_Wings Mar 4, 2012 1:54 PM

You, sir, are quite inspiring.
Great reviews!

Infinite Feb 22, 2012 9:52 AM

Deciding upon an anime to watch, I decided on One Outs, and have started watching it, and have only realized just now that you mentioned it in one of your earlier messages. Clearly your words have managed to ingrain themselves in my subconscious.

Anyway, I'd like to request another recommendation if that's alright, I've recently finished the recommendations of Mai-HIME and Sora no Woto from ImperialX, both of which turned out to be very enjoyable for me, I rated them higher than you did, possibly because in the case of Mai-HIME because I didn't hate the ending as much. As I said to ImperialX, although it ruined the tension and took away from the spectacular last third, I was relieved slightly because I liked the characters a lot, and so I was more forgiving of the "happy" ending.

In the case of Sora no Woto, I happily took the advice of ImperialX and read the charts found on the Wiki, which proved beneficial to the viewing experience. Also, the soundtrack was lovely, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in the review. It's certainly one of the few moe shows I actually think are pretty good.

Anyway, getting back on topic, if you wouldn't mind giving a recommendation, that'd be great, thanks.

Infinite Jan 23, 2012 6:31 AM

I just finished Taishou Yakyuu Musume, and if I were to sum it up, it's good light hearted fun. The cast was likable, and for the most part I thought it was paced very well, apart from a couple of episodes that I thought were unnecessary. Of course the issue of women in society was an issue throughout, but it was never dealt with seriously, not that I mind too much, I felt it all rather unrealistic to begin with, in that there was less of the "women stay at home and cook" attitude than I would have expected there to be. Anyway, I ended up giving it a 7.

Taking a look through your list, I noticed your watching list, and I wondered about how exactly you go about watching previously aired series, because you seem to have 28 of them on the go, which is a massive number in my mind. Are you really watching all those series simultaneously? I would have thought it detracted from the viewing experience of the individual anime watching so many.

Infinite Jan 16, 2012 2:50 PM

I just started watching Taishou Yakyuu Musume, and for a moment I thought that it was a musical, in a way I'm slightly disappointed it's not. It's quite a cheery anime, I'll think I'll have fun with this one.

Also, I've been meaning to ask since I started on the Nihon Review forums over a year ago, who is the person in your avatar?

Infinite Jan 5, 2012 2:36 PM

Though you didn't strictly recommend it, I just thought I'd mention I'd finished Moshidora. I have to say I'm in agreement with you about the show,it was a very good show, though unfortunately I was spoiled, so the dramatic punch lost a lot of it's impact, it's just as well the follow up was so well done.

One thing I'd disagree about is that although the male characters are quite bland, I think that they weren't too bad given the time spent on them. They were all very genuine at the very least. The only real issues I had were some of the Seiyuu weren't that good, also it was a bit too short.

It's coincidental that I'm now about to start another baseball anime, which will make three baseball animes with Cross Game. I'm surprised at how many baseball anime there are actually.

trzr23 Jan 5, 2012 9:17 AM

I think I'll stick to the Daioh one... hope you don't mind.

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