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Commonly, spoilers can ruin one's viewing experience by giving away the major plot and character details surrounding an anime before one is capable of experiencing them first hand. However, the extent to which spoilers may affect a viewing experience can be related to the manner which particular anime may structure their narratives. Are these titles reliant on their particular twists and revelations for their enjoyment, or can they be enjoyed through simply experiencing their character interactions, atmospheric presentation, and general audiovisuals? What particular qualities make certain titles more susceptible to spoilers, to where discussion threads and communities would lend to extreme sensitivity toward the disclosure plot details? To what extent are particular details considered spoilers, and upon their utterance, what can be done after the fact? Or, even prior, what can be done to discourage the usage of spoilers? Going back even further, through the design and writing of anime, to what extent should spoilers be taken into consideration when planning for their future release?

These are some of the questions surrounding the concept of spoilers I wish to look at, to which I'd hope to demonstrate ways of approaching spoilers not necessarily in terms of a casual viewer reaching for brain bleach, but as a means to understand their function in the greater scope of things.



Spoilers and Rewatches

Planning for spoilers varies from narrative to narrative, where the more plot-oriented anime suffer much greater than other titles. The manner which the creators construct their anime will decide how susceptible an anime is to becoming spoiled. Does an anime revolve around solving a mystery or discovering a secret location? Is the anime about a character choosing between romantic love interests, where the final winner is only revealed at the very end? Or, perhaps it's a story of survival where it's a question of who would still be alive by the end of the series. The anime could also have a plot revolving around sports, competition, or fighting, where the victorious individual, side, party or group is undetermined. There could also be dramas where a character could be deathly ill, and it's a question of whether the character would live long enough to accomplish their goals. Perhaps the illness itself is a secret, to which the plot would reveal until a certain point. In these examples, a spoiler would conceptually shortcut to the end of those titles, circumventing any and all experiences and developments to the end result. Depending on the anime, this may destroy the viewing experience if the anime heavily leverages upon these particular reveals. In this, however, I'd also like to highlight the act of rewatching titles.

Certain titles rely on reveals for enjoyment, where one is at the edge of their seats awaiting for the plot to shock and awe. Upon rewatching though, when knowing all these developments ahead of time, one loses that sense of wonder and uncertainty, instead replacing those sentiments with expectation, patience, or in the more unfortunate cases, indifference once you already know what's going to happen. In these cases, the lifespan of an anime is put under scrutiny, to where a title can only be viewed certain amounts of times before the predictability of the plot becomes second hand, and enjoyment of aspects outside of the plot thins. If an anime exists in service of its own plot, then upon knowing the plot, enjoyment is potentially lost as it would become a wait until the anime comes around to its eventual reveal stage. While enjoyment can be found in watching these developments repeatedly, possibly due to the want to relive the initial viewing experience with renewed eyes or forgetfulness regarding particular points, there's a need for supplementary material to accompany the plot for the rewatcher. Otherwise, while the anime could be a great viewing experience the first time, subsequent viewings would lessen in impact, lending to the anime being a short-lived experience that would pass on as a minor hit.

In relationship to spoilers, how dependent is a given anime on its plot? Can the spoiler be uttered without affecting a new viewer's experience? While blame can be thrown at the individual speaking the spoiler, the anime itself can also be studied for how much prior knowledge can affect a viewing. Much like rewatching, a spoiled viewer would know knowledge coming into the anime, but how does a spoiled viewer compare to someone who goes in unknowingly? Additionally, how does a new viewer learn of the anime, what prior knowledge convinces them to begin watching, and to what extent is this information critical in preserving an obstructed viewing experience?



The Spoiler as Disruption

Speaking personally, I try my hardest to avoid episode discussion topics for the more popular titles, as I'm always sure that there's someone speaking about future events. I enjoy going into different shows as blind as I can, knowing only the barest of minimums so I may come to my own conclusions about how the anime performed. Despite this, it's difficult to avoid other people and discussion boards at times, and speaking as a forum moderator at the moment, I've gone into a number of discussion topics to clean up spoilers for titles I was hoping to watch first. In some respects, it can't be helped, but by being spoiled, it does allow for me to look for signs and foreshadowed details alluding to any particular twists. At the same time, it does remove the mystique and fun associated with trying to guess at what's going to happen.

As a disruption, spoilers can remove the fun associated with watching anime. Without watching the anime, you would know what's going to happen, so there would be little incentive to actually watch the anime if the whole show revolves around the particular reveal. I've seen this come about from unknowing individuals asking innocent questions, to which someone else comes and answers openly and without filter. This can also occur when an individual decides to analyze a title from either a retrospective or with knowledge of a source material, either through an individualized exposition or through argumentation with another person. And, at times, there exists people whom post spoilers for the sake of purposeful disruption and, well, trolling. Fault does exist for those whom detail the spoilers, to which moderation and mediation is required to encourage a healthy discussion where everyone can feel at ease and without fear of connecting their thoughts to others.

It's a terrible scenario for where people are afraid to talk to each other, for fear of being spoiled. It's even worse when arguments spiral out of control for when particular people attack each other over anime, of which is ideally supposed to exist for entertainment and enjoyment. On the viewer's side, we can at least attempt self-mediation and control to where we can speak about shows without becoming a nuisance to others. If that is, for some reason, the intended goal of a given individual, then they cannot complain if they are ostracized and alienated for their self-destructive tendencies.

For the creators, thoughts of how anime fan discussions could carry out should be kept in mind. How is an anime to be enjoyed by fans? What can you predict they will talk about? What is the anime's narrative flow, for where the ebb and flow of action and engagement may cause certain reactions by the fanbase? How are the show's plot events timed in relationship to one another? How should an anime be experienced by a first time viewer? A second time viewer? A third? What qualities about your anime would make someone watching it more than once? And, in that thought, for a late arriving anime fan, what information might they have come across that may influence their viewing experience, and can the anime accommodate viewers with that prior knowledge? Of course, it's difficult to control and predict how fans may act in terms of marketing and socialization, but at the very least, creators would have a level of control of how their anime is advertised and depicted in the public eye.



The Spoiler as Advertisement

Again, speaking personally, I try to avoid advertisement because I like going into anime blind. At times, advertisement may spoil anime for the characters whom are important to the plot by their significance on image-based ads. Trailer videos, in comparison, can give away initial twists to differentiate a given anime from its competitors. An anime's initial twist may be part of its marketing, for where it may be treated as a selling point, such as "fantasy medieval city attacked by giant monsters", "ordinary high school student time travels, or "French Revolution being a historical event". While they may not be regarded as spoiler content on the surface, they still speak on events in the plot, to which may either draw or repel interest based on how it's marketed.

To that end, as far as a capitalist, free market economy goes, anime is created within their contextual geographical and sociopolitical location of Japan, marketed within those arbitrarily defined boundaries, exported through creator intended, fan-driven, and alternative means to a variety of other locations, both in terms of the physical world and the internet, to have their imagery be re-represented in an equally variable set of contexts, adjacent to other imagery other than what may have been intended. This can come in the form of anime being sold in a local electronics store next to Disney products, or anime being shown at a film festival along with other international films. Or, anime could also be represented on an international news source in ways that can speak to far more people than any anime could ever hope, for better or worse. Controlling the spread of information and the types which get out is important to developing the image of anime as a medium, much less individual titles, making for a very large subject of debate and discussion.

In terms of spoilers and viewers, however, the images and stories marketed and spread about a given anime will color their their experience, especially if they're not well-versed in anime, film, literature, video games, or some other form of entertainment media that contains a large variety of stories to be exposed to. It's difficult to discern usable information from mass marketed and unfiltered public information, especially if you don't have a developed enough mental filter. As such, in terms of the text, images, and videos put out to the world, which includes material from anime episodes themselves, the creator should ask: "how is my anime represented, in what ways do I want it to be represented, and do these two match?"



The Spoiler as Artifact

At times, certain anime have been around long enough that they can be referenced and parodied without hesitation. Or, rather, without consideration for newer viewers. As a personal anecdote, Seitokai no Ichiban almost spoiled Air for me. The original visual novel for Air was released in 2000, to which later inspired the 2004 anime by Kyoto Animation. Seitokai no Ichizon, whose anime aired in 2009, had a reference to the final scene of Air of which, while iconic in its own right, I had only watched the year before. That being said, I wasn't so lucky with other shows such as Ashita no Joe and Clannad, of which I've been spoiled for by virtue of seeing them referenced in other anime and various discussion boards. Either by being around long enough, by being iconic and popular, or some combination of both, certain shows are perceived as capable of being referenced without fear. It's expected that any anime fan worth their salt should be familiar with the referenced joke or allusion, even if the have not watched the original source anime. Due to this, any late-arriving anime fan faces the potential for being spoiled just for not keeping up with popular and mainstream titles.

This is a somewhat unorthodox scenario, where information expected to be common knowledge is treated as taboo in different circles. Citing another personal experience, I once encountered an experience in a Dragon Ball Z discussion thread, where transforming into a Super Saiyan was referenced prior to the actual event in a discussion thread, to which was reported as a spoiler. While it was not an incorrect assertion given the constraints of discussion outlined in MAL's rules, it was odd realizing that not everyone may be familiar with certain characters being Super Saiyans, the concept of the Super Saiyan itself, or the Dragon Ball franchise itself.

Sensitivity toward spoilers is an interesting subject, as it takes into account personal tolerance with regards to spoilers. As such, the manner which spoilers are addressed is specific to the location in which discussion is had, as well as the other people present. With that variable tolerance, it's at least polite to assume at least one person present is ignorant to everything, and to never make the assumption that your knowledge is commonplace in order to avoid ruining some else's day. Of course, this is also problematic with regards to oversensitivity, where there's an unspoken censorship to how much one can speak on certain anime titles before needing to ask permission to spoil. It's an extra step to preserve discussion and to ensure no one is inconvenienced, but at the same time, it's difficult to hold limited conversations in where only the most basic, bare minimum points can be safely brought up.

Perhaps, as a whole, spoilers act as the antithesis to the spread of information, where too much information becomes undesired or harmful. As for myself, I can only hope that I'm not exposed to any spoilers on my most anticipated shows, because that would really, really suck.







tl;dr -

Spoilers can exist as disruptions, advertisement, and artifacts of iconic and popular titles. By understanding how the function, it's possible to better understand how the anime itself functions in the context of anime design and discussion.