What is "substance"?

Swagernator said:
Its something most newer but even older shows don't have.

BeyondTheStars said:


Aah, so it's like that, huh. I understand everything now.
*doesn't get it at all*

Imaishi said:
It's definitely not something you can judge after just 1 episode, so whatever really, don't give a shit about people who say that

ClinT said:
to have content behind what they do and present
for example, for everything you do, you have a reason behind that, isnt it? to blink, to eat, to sleep
and not just that, but what you'll do depends on your personality, something that is strongly and deeply imbued in your brain
so that's it

for example, if character A falls in love with character B, we want to see A having true, organic reasons as why to love character B, and not just because thats the purpose of character A

and not just in the characters, but for example, if anime C is about a fantasy world and anime D is also about a fantasy world, which one do you think it would have more substance... the one that you can magic to do whatever you want, or that one who magic based upon unbreakable laws?

and you can go on about any detail or element in any title

edit: woah, i was expecting to be the first reply so i could answer his question already...
edit 2: and yes, you can see substance just in the first episode, that's not a law, but generally is something too noticeable to your perceptions...

ClinT said:
@paradigmatic words can have multiple meanings and if you want to call it like that its okay, its all about being convincing anyway

ClinT said:
what would be use of right words if they have similar definition?
ofc i wouldnt contradict myself, but see, for a title to have depth, it needs to have substance in prior, otherwise how it could be deep?
something to be deep needs to have substance, wouldnt we agree?

BeyondTheStars said:
Every now and then i see people who hate some shows say it's because "there's no substance" to the point where it just feels like a stock phrase you say when you can't point precisely at what you don't like. The most recent example of this is violet evergarden. I really liked the first episode but i've seen a lot of people say "pretty visuals but no substance dropped" (i don't blame anyone for not enjoying VE tho)

Paradigmatic said:


Yeah, yeah... disregard what I said. My sleep deprivation got the better of me. Lmao. They're the same.

ClinT said:
@beyondthestars have you been answered? because if so im going to copy paste all of this posts in my profile

zieek said:
So if we get rid of all of our prissy criteria, and rate anime at their core than we look at three things. They would be, "presentation", "substance and "impact". You can interpret that however you like.

1. A particular kind of matter with uniform properties.

2.The real physical matter of which a person or thing consists and which has a tangible, solid presence.

3. The quality of being important, valid, or significant.

4.The essential nature underlying phenomena, which is subject to changes and accidents.

ClinT said:


are you putting me in those last statements?

and following your thoughts, how could people use 'substance' as a compliment, then? surely the neutral sense of the word(the way the word firstly intended to be used) could be searched in a dictionary and everything would be answered, but the OP was asking about the word with certain context

i dont know if you were implying i am one of those people, but i use the words as i know them, their being well-known or not is irrelevant

i mean... if you want to say something has content, you could just say it has content. actually, like you said, by just existing, it has content, so thats redundant to say

in the cinematopgraphic world, the word 'substance' is often used with a praiseful meaning, and by everybody using it that way, it became like that, whilst still making sense to its original concept, so theres no problem with it

apologies for any english problems

Ruuckiee said:
Think of substance like this

violet evergarden is an anime that looks really amazing if ur just looking at its exterior but if you were to dive deeper into the characters and plot etc it would lack substance "it would lack depth/meaning/orsomething".

how ever i dont know why they would say violet evergarden lacked substance, i really enjoyed the first episode.

Vyzass said:


'Lack of substance' is just a buzzword phrase when someone doesn't know why they couldn't like a hyped anime so to make themselves sound cool/intelligence, they said 'Lack of substance' just to add credibility to their post.

Ruuckiee said:



i wouldn't know, dont spend that much time talking to people who put importance on how many anime uve watched, or whether u liked a popular anime or not. all i know is what my definition of the word substance in relation to anime is.

Pullman said:
Just because there isn't a snappy one-word definition for it doesn't mean it's a pointless phrase. It's a complex phrase. But I'm pretty sure you know what it means and just kinda argue against it for the sake of it based on this thread?

But let's look at the dictionary definitions for 'substance', especially these 3:

2. The most important part or idea of what is said or written; the essence or gist: the substance of the report.
3.
a. That which is real or practical in quality or character; practical value: a plan without substance.
b. Significance or importance: Did he accomplish anything of substance?

And I'd say basically substance in literature means a combination of these things. especially #2 and #3b. It's the essence of a story if you take all the stylish fluff away, and it's usually judged based on whether it's interesting, significant or important in any way or just a copy paste thing.
In Literature you can imagine substance as the book minus the uniqe writing style of the author. Would it still be as interesting if it was rewritten in a monotonous style that simply retells the events of the story? In anime there's more to it, because as a visual medium pretty much everything in it is part of the style. Designs, artwork, animation, colors, artstyle, sound, voice acting etc...
Basically the question is, if you take away everything that makes an anime look or sound cool, would it still be worth watching? Does it have enough substance to still be appealing even if you strip it from all it's style elements and turned it into, idk, a picture drama with generic art?

To some degree it's an unnecessary distinction especially in a visual medium like anime because there'll always be style elements everywhere and they are inherently influencing how you perceive an anime so you can't really remove style (or substance) from the equation completely. The closest you'll get is something like Sagrada Reset with it's minimalist directing
But I think it's easiest explained via the comparison and juxtaposition to style even if in reality a complete separation is impossible. Substance is simply every part of an anime that isn't part if it's style, of it's presentation. Can't really explain it simpler than that.

Figuring out whether a show leans on the substance or on the style side is definitely important in helping you set the right expectations and not be disappointed by shows for no reason. For example, I can't fathom anyone expecting a series that's more about substance than style when they start Killing Bites. But apparently someone did and the first review for the show was just some guy ranting that it had no plot. That's what I call a useless review because imo anyone with a brain could figure out that Killing Bites would be more about style and action than substance/plot.

So yeah, while it should be easy and obvious a lot of the time, I think maybe 50% of all people who rant about shows do so just because they were unable to set the right expectations in terms of style and substance.

Pullman said:
Just because there isn't a snappy one-word definition for it doesn't mean it's a pointless phrase. It's a complex phrase. But I'm pretty sure you know what it means and just kinda argue against it for the sake of it based on this thread?

But let's look at the dictionary definitions for 'substance', especially these 3:

2. The most important part or idea of what is said or written; the essence or gist: the substance of the report.
3.
a. That which is real or practical in quality or character; practical value: a plan without substance.
b. Significance or importance: Did he accomplish anything of substance?

And I'd say basically substance in literature means a combination of these things. especially #2 and #3b. It's the essence of a story if you take all the stylish fluff away, and it's usually judged based on whether it's interesting, significant or important in any way or just a copy paste thing.
In Literature you can imagine substance as the book minus the uniqe writing style of the author. Would it still be as interesting if it was rewritten in a monotonous style that simply retells the events of the story? In anime there's more to it, because as a visual medium pretty much everything in it is part of the style. Designs, artwork, animation, colors, artstyle, sound, voice acting etc...
Basically the question is, if you take away everything that makes an anime look or sound cool, would it still be worth watching? Does it have enough substance to still be appealing even if you strip it from all it's style elements and turned it into, idk, a picture drama with generic art?

To some degree it's an unnecessary distinction especially in a visual medium like anime because there'll always be style elements everywhere and they are inherently influencing how you perceive an anime so you can't really remove style (or substance) from the equation completely. The closest you'll get is something like Sagrada Reset with it's minimalist directing
But I think it's easiest explained via the comparison and juxtaposition to style even if in reality a complete separation is impossible. Substance is simply every part of an anime that isn't part if it's style, of it's presentation. Can't really explain it simpler than that.

Figuring out whether a show leans on the substance or on the style side is definitely important in helping you set the right expectations and not be disappointed by shows for no reason. For example, I can't fathom anyone expecting a series that's more about substance than style when they start Killing Bites. But apparently someone did and the first review for the show was just some guy ranting that it had no plot. That's what I call a useless review because imo anyone with a brain could figure out that Killing Bites would be more about style and action than substance/plot.

So yeah, while it should be easy and obvious a lot of the time, I think maybe 50% of all people who rant about shows do so just because they were unable to set the right expectations in terms of style and substance.

OmegaSwampert said:
Or, conversely, Evangelion's fans praise its philosophy, its characters, its story, etc, but I felt like it had nothing to say in the philosophy department that wasn't obvious to me, I felt like its characters were overshadowed by Shinji and the series' commitment to being trippy, and I felt that its story, while containing some great individual moments, didn't come together well as a whole.

Harlekin169 said:


First: Please don't quote without giving the source, it could be a copyright issue and where i live that would be enough to get one the equivalent of F on a scientific work. Oh, and i'm always on the lookout for good dictionaries to better my use of the correct words.

Second: Any work of art cannot be striped completely off any style, as the style defines how one is suppossed to interepret a specific part of it. Take LotR and the battle of helms deep (? not sure how it is called in english), you could just say they were outnumbered, but it would not transport that they are really hopelessly outnumbered and begin to despair, and even calling it 'hopelessly' outnumbered would be style. Or take the scene from SAO II, where Kirito needs to find a weapon in the shops, you could strip it down to they see numbers of ranged weapons with low prizes and come over some sword for a high prize, but it would not transport the absurdity of the high prize compared to the low prizes, and that there are nearly all kinds of ranged weapons but only one sword. Or even before that the part where everyone sees him as being female just because his avatar has long hair and a slim build, you have to use a bit of style to transport why Sinon helps him out.


Sure they were overshadowed by Shinji, as one was meant to identify oneself with him and to constantly question oneself what one would do in his place.
Please specify which version you've see, the US-version of NGE where they stripped the last two episodes in favor for using death and rebirth as ending or the original version or the new one, which i haven't see yet?
But now I'm getting OT...

To some degree it's an unnecessary distinction especially in a visual medium like anime because there'll always be style elements everywhere and they are inherently influencing how you perceive an anime so you can't really remove style (or substance) from the equation completely.
But I think it's easiest explained via the comparison and juxtaposition to style even if in reality a complete separation is impossible. Substance is simply every part of an anime that isn't part if it's style, of it's presentation.