How important is the semantic content to you and what ideas does anime contain besides its production quality?

I don't really care if a show lacks that stuff. It primarily depends on how the show presents itself.

Lain and Ergo Proxy, for example, present themselves as having some kind of significant ideas held within their stories, but the actual messaging doesn't manage to reach the levels the shows lead the viewer to expect when their messages are revealed. On the opposite end, Space Dandy presents itself as having very little narrative throughline, then attempts to shoehorn in a pointless narrative thread at the end, undermining the fun episodic nature of the series in the interest of implementing a lame zero-sum scifi trope. Something like Flame of Recca, though, never presents itself as being a complex story, and the lack of narrative complexity doesn't cause any issues.

Basically, if the show doesn't build up any expectations of having narrative or metaphorical significance, its lack of that significance won't be missed by me.

I also don't really care if a show's animation and other production aspects are below average. It's usually easy to determine if a show will have impressive visuals or not early on in the show. Inconsistency is harder to ignore, but I can let a lot slide tbh

I don't really care if a show lacks that stuff. It primarily depends on how the show presents itself.

Lain and Ergo Proxy, for example, present themselves as having some kind of significant ideas held within their stories, but the actual messaging doesn't manage to reach the levels the shows lead the viewer to expect when their messages are revealed. On the opposite end, Space Dandy presents itself as having very little narrative throughline, then attempts to shoehorn in a pointless narrative thread at the end, undermining the fun episodic nature of the series in the interest of implementing a lame zero-sum scifi trope. Something like Flame of Recca, though, never presents itself as being a complex story, and the lack of narrative complexity doesn't cause any issues.

Basically, if the show doesn't build up any expectations of having narrative or metaphorical significance, its lack of that significance won't be missed by me.

I also don't really care if a show's animation and other production aspects are below average. It's usually easy to determine if a show will have impressive visuals or not early on in the show. Inconsistency is harder to ignore, but I can let a lot slide tbh

I would say yes, though there will always be exceptions to the rule. I don't mind edginess for the sake of it. I don't mind simple commentaries presented single-note, and I would wager simple messages are more likely to be thought provoking because there isn't a mess of other ideas getting in the way. I may not agree with the message, but that's a different conversation.


Yeah I agree with the interpretation here, but I think the show does such a bad job of presenting its ideas in an engaging way. It is excellent at introducing its questions in a way that grabs the viewer, but then stumbles through its explanations in a way that feels like it was meant to make the viewer so disinterested in the show that they don't bother to think about it any further. It makes me question if the ideas modern audiences are able to pull from Lain were ever actually intended, or if the show got lucky and managed to land close enough to modern reality by accident. I mostly feel this way because the show never chooses to dig into any of the problems or ideas it presents with the depth it suggests they have. Lain has great ideas, but it doesn't know what to do with them.

I would say yes, though there will always be exceptions to the rule. I don't mind edginess for the sake of it. I don't mind simple commentaries presented single-note, and I would wager simple messages are more likely to be thought provoking because there isn't a mess of other ideas getting in the way. I may not agree with the message, but that's a different conversation.


Yeah I agree with the interpretation here, but I think the show does such a bad job of presenting its ideas in an engaging way. It is excellent at introducing its questions in a way that grabs the viewer, but then stumbles through its explanations in a way that feels like it was meant to make the viewer so disinterested in the show that they don't bother to think about it any further. It makes me question if the ideas modern audiences are able to pull from Lain were ever actually intended, or if the show got lucky and managed to land close enough to modern reality by accident. I mostly feel this way because the show never chooses to dig into any of the problems or ideas it presents with the depth it suggests they have. Lain has great ideas, but it doesn't know what to do with them.

Yeah, that doesn't bother me, so long as it isn't parading around as one thing and actually being another. Although sometimes that contradictory messaging can sometimes be subersive in an interesting way. Obviously it varies.

I think ultimately it comes down to whether or not a show ends up being entertaining. Poorly animated shows can be entertaining just like poorly written ones can be entertaining. I'm watching anime for the entertainment value, and I'll gladly accept any added value on top of that, but I don't expect it.

@valico Are you referring to the fact that the more boring and uninteresting a show is for people to watch, the more they look for problems in its narrative? A Nostalgia Critic once joked that a lot of plot holes and problems in generally popular shows are ignored because people are just interested in watching them and don't try to roast them.

@RobertBobert Something like that, I guess. If I'm engaged, I'm less likely to catch things that might diminish the show. Lain, for example, gives the viewer a lot of time to wonder about a lot of the unexplained things in the show. When it doesn't offer any conclusion to those unexplained things, it's readily apparent because there hasn't been anything to distract from those unanswered questions.

Meanwhile, I'm willing to accept a lot of unexplained stuff in something like a show like Gundam, just because it seems like those unexplained ideas don't seem to be the focal point of the show.