GlennMagusHarvey said: Pullman said: To be fair I just came back to this thread to edit in the fact that I only watched 3 videos. I didn't watch "Anime as Regular Culture", which turned out to be a follow-up video rather than a reference video.e: nvm, @GlennMagusHarvey seems to have already done that. Props to him for actually being willing to sit through 4 videos just to reply to a thread. No thread should ask that of you imo and if an OP can't properly summarize a video they reference, they should just not reference videos at all if you ask me. Make your own points, referencing long-ass videos from anitubers just feels like a cop out to me. Still 3 more videos than I'd be willing to watch for any AD thread :>. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| @GlennMagusHarvey With regards to the first video, I feel like your post is mainly about something different though. It's not about elitism vs. casualism (unless one could make an outside chain of mental leaps to connect it to the vague complaints about the "westernization" of anime in the form of simply making curmudgeonly complaints about new people getting into the fandom). I didn't have the full image of my thread when i began writing it, so yes, one of the videos was underused, i end up only referencing it directly in the paragraph "My view of it is that instead of being an Aristotelic Aristocracy, moving the community to a better place, elitists on the anime community, quoting myself, "Just prefer to advertise stuff that looks like normie stuff so their academic friends in cinema, literature or etc might take them seriously" instead of embrancing a counter-cultural identity." I most likely wanted to write that elitists should be the first ones embracing such counter-culture, instead of the opposite that happens today: They being the first ones to propose such subservient mentality. Also, yes, E-kon and I don't use the same definition of elitist. It's been a while since i've watched his video, so I may be misremenbering, but by e-kon's definition I am an elitist. In contrast, you're arguing that anime shouldn't align with "western" academic ideas of "cinema, literature or etc" and should "embrace" a "counter-culture". No, i'm arguing that when movie critics do their job, they treat that the movie should look like a movie, not an anime, so why should anime critics treat anime like it should look like a movie, not an anime? My theory is that critics of other media compare their media to itself, but anime critics don't because of such underdog mentality. And no, i'm not falling under "relativism" here, quite the opposite. E-Kon and Digibro seem to be talking more about "developments of the art form of anime" elitism, while you're talking about a "keep the anime fandom niche" argument. There is some overlap but they're definitely not the same thing. Not really, my argument is that we can do both and they're more closely related than they seem. As for the second video...like Digibro actually mentions, the "counter-culturality" of anime is a thing that cuts across nationality -- it's not just about "looking western" vs. "not looking western", as you suggest. Because i didn't suggest that. While embracing something non-western in the west might be niche, just going with something non-western for the sake of being niche feels like a cop-out as far as "being counterculture" goes. That's not how it works, my argument is that anime is able to be niche naturally, not that it forces itself to be niche. Not to mention that I'd question how much value there is in intentionally trying to "be counter-culture"; which feels kinda chuuni; it's more a role that one ends up falling into rather than one that one can really just voluntarily choose because one is bored with life (though that's not to say that can't ever happen either). Perhaps it is chuuni, but hey, it's a small price to pay for having a community with better critics and a better mentalty. No thread should ask that of you imo and if an OP can't properly summarize a video they reference, they should just not reference videos at all if you ask me. Make your own points, referencing long-ass videos from anitubers just feels like a cop out to me. I could go on about how your argument that i shouldn't reference things without explaining them is stupid because that's what literally happens in academic papers, but i prefer to go to the core of the argument. You don't NEED to watch those video, every point i wanted to make i made either in the original post or in one of my comments, the videos are just for people who want to have a deeper understanding of it or have some context of what i think. Also, considering i watch youtube videos in 2x speed and english isn't even my main language, they're not that big, considering one of them is only 4 minutes long. @petran79 When i said "academics" i referred to "academicism", not the academy awards. It was mainly to reference, as someone else pointed in other thread of mine : "I've said it a million times already if you follow a criteria to rate and critique anime you are basically looking at art as one dimensional, that is why I can't get behind certain persons and channel, example thatanimesnob, they think that there is only one way to write a story, to develop a character and if an anime doesn't follow whatever criteria they have created in their head then it is bad, without even them thinking about it, a mindset like that kills innovation or thinking outside the box, sure there is some critera to some degree when writing a story but that is like story 101 criteria. People forget that what makes the entertainment medium unique is that each individual has their own opinion on what they considered be good or what they find entertaining, and that is why people read reviews in the first place to see the opinion of others, if your review is base off some shitty criteria you make up and not your actual opinion, it means nothing to the person reading it, because you are not being true to yourself." The reason i mentioned "academics" is because they are the type of people that circlejerks stuff like AKIRA, Devilman: Crybaby, Satoshi Kon and Evangelion a lot. A lot of it comes from one of the anime videos i hate the most, which is Pause & Select's video about AKIRA, which half of it doesn't even talk about AKIRA, but about academic concepts, and a lot of the parts where he indeed talks about AKIRA are just him low-base assumptions on what he interpreted and presenting that as "the think it was intended" making the movie feel a lot more deep than it really is (And it isn't much). Ever heard that EVA theory that Asuka is to represent western imperialism and Shinji the pan-asian movement? Not imagine that, but unironically, for me, that what was most of this video. And the worse part is that the video itself wasn't even the first time i've heard something similar about AKIRA. Whenever i read someone say something on the lines of "Yeah, it is confusing, but that's because life is confusing" i want to punch that person. So i thought to myself "If THAT'S what being an academic is like, i want the opposite". Apart from that i also have personal stances against the academy and their centralized approach and "ivory tower" posture, specially because in my country "Argumentum ad verecundiam" is very common, and whenever i see someone using it i feel that that person doesn't deserve human rights, but that just me. |
thewiru said: But what if they're not being "subservient", but just prefer certain things in anime over others?I most likely wanted to write that elitists should be the first ones embracing such counter-culture, instead of the opposite that happens today: They being the first ones to propose such subservient mentality. thewiru said: But they do treat it as an anime. They discuss the directors, the writers, the animators, the sakuga fans, the production committee model, and all sorts of stuff (tropes and all) that is distinctive to anime and doesn't happen in movies.No, i'm arguing that when movie critics do their job, they treat that the movie should look like a movie, not an anime, so why should anime critics treat anime like it should look like a movie, not an anime? thewiru said: I don't see that happening, unless you somehow feel that "westerners talking about anime is biased toward western ways of thinking" in which case the answer is a combination of "duh" and "I'm not sure how there's anything wrong with that".My theory is that critics of other media compare their media to itself, but anime critics don't because of such underdog mentality. thewiru said: What exactly do you mean by "relativism"?And no, i'm not falling under "relativism" here, quite the opposite. thewiru said: Nicheness is not an inherent quality of anything; it's just something that coincidentially is or isn't.That's not how it works, my argument is that anime is able to be niche naturally, not that it forces itself to be niche. thewiru said: What do you mean by "better critics and a better mentality"? (Can you explain what you mean without reusing the word choice and phrasing you've used above?)Perhaps it is chuuni, but hey, it's a small price to pay for having a community with better critics and a better mentalty. Also the last bit of your reply to me is actually a reply to @Pullman's quote. That said: thewiru said: Actually references do indicate why the reference exists, in academic papers like science research papers published in academic journals for a field of research.I could go on about how your argument that i shouldn't reference things without explaining them is stupid because that's what literally happens in academic papers You may instead be thinking of anitubers and other commentators who may plop down piles of jargon without fully explaining what the jargon means. And yes, that's annoying, though in a way that probably also means that you (and I) are not the intended audience for such commentary. (Imagine trying to make sense of someone explaining statistical methods for testing jet engine performance.) |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| @GlennMagusHarvey >But what if they're not being "subservient", but just prefer certain things in anime over others? Then it has nothing to do with my thread. Also, do you think is just coincidence that most of those lists have the same anti-anime pro-western bias? >But they do treat it as an anime. They discuss the directors, the writers, the animators, the sakuga fans, the production committee model, and all sorts of stuff (tropes and all) that is distinctive to anime and doesn't happen in movies. Then explain the anti-anime pro-western bias. >What do you mean by "better critics and a better mentality"? (Can you explain what you mean without reusing the word choice and phrasing you've used above?) I don't think i can explain more than i already have, i feel i already said pretty much everything. As a content creator myself i just wanted the overall "level" of the community to go up so we could have more quality fan-made content and higher-level discussions, and that mentality i feel is something that prevents so. >Also the last bit of your reply to me is actually a reply to @Pullman's quote. I know >Actually references do indicate why the reference exists, in academic papers like science research papers published in academic journals for a field of research. I don't think they explain more than i did with mine. Considering that Pullman thought i didn't, by logic, hw would conclude that academic papers don't either. |
thewiru said: Then prove that this "anti-anime pro-western bias" exists.@GlennMagusHarvey >But what if they're not being "subservient", but just prefer certain things in anime over others? Then it has nothing to do with my thread. Also, do you think is just coincidence that most of those lists have the same anti-anime pro-western bias? >But they do treat it as an anime. They discuss the directors, the writers, the animators, the sakuga fans, the production committee model, and all sorts of stuff (tropes and all) that is distinctive to anime and doesn't happen in movies. Then explain the anti-anime pro-western bias. Because I can't explain what I haven't seen any evidence of. If you're talking about "here's a list for westerner newbies to anime, it contains stuff that is considered less weird-japanese-thing", then that's simply saying "i think newbies used to certain things i presume they're used to, would feel most comfortable with these shows". It's not saying that those other shows are bad, just that they may not be as easily accessible. But if a newbie wants to watch them, no one's stopping them. And this isn't about anime criticism anyway. Nor do I even like these lists. I prefer recommending things on a case by case basis, depending on what people tell me they like/want. And I wouldn't expect anyone to perfectly mirror Japanese tastes in anime anyway -- not even any individual Japanese person. Deviating from average Japanese tastes is not "anti-anime pro-western bias". What does that term even mean anyway? Is, say, Cowboy Bebop any less of an anime series than Eromanga Sensei, just because of the choice of content? I don't think Bebop should be put on some unreasonable pedestal but that goes for any show. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| I dont think a significant amount of people (read as nobody) judges anime by how "western"?? or non anime like it is. But it doesnt surprise me this sort of intellectual "highlight" was inspired by Digibro. Why cant we just autoban anything with him? What is western. What is anime like. What is counter culture. If you want some counter culture than let this be your core argument: Anime youtubers are the death of anime |
| "This emotion is mine alone. It is for Madoka alone." - Homura or how I would descripe Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica. |
| @GlennMagusHarvey A lot of people in this thread understood what i'm talking about, so you don't need to believe in me, you can believe in them. Also, a quick google search: https://i.warosu.org/data/lit/img/0062/93/1426872074934.jpg http://i.imgur.com/CDiZB2J.jpg Such "bias" is but my theory that try to explain what i have perceived: The overpraising of anything that looks western or non-anime in opposition to anime that looks like anime. If you have another theory that explains such phenomenon in such dept, feel free to tell me. |
| EDIT: I got the first and second lists mixed up thewiru said: ...could you please explain how these two lists that you've linked show that stuff that "looks western" is "overpraised"?@GlennMagusHarvey A lot of people in this thread understood what i'm talking about, so you don't need to believe in me, you can believe in them. Also, a quick google search: https://i.warosu.org/data/lit/img/0062/93/1426872074934.jpg http://i.imgur.com/CDiZB2J.jpg Such "bias" is but my theory that try to explain what i have perceived: The overpraising of anything that looks western or non-anime in opposition to anime that looks like anime. If you have another theory that explains such phenomenon in such dept, feel free to tell me. And what even is "anime that looks like anime"? The second list is titled "Essential Japanese Animation", and putting aside the fact that some unsourced list on the internet might not even be worth anything, let's look at it. It starts in the 1940s when nothing really was standardized as far as art style was concerned anyway and there were basically very few anime productions at all. Not to mention that a number of things back then took heavy inspiration from Disney movies anyway. Astro Boy in 1963 was the first show to influentially standardize the big-eyes-small-mouth trait, a trait that is found in many of the subsequent shows (albeit not all). This list looks mainly like a list with an emphasis on the influential and artsy ("essential" could essentially mean anything), though I'm not sure how influential (or essential) something like House of Small Cubes is. Nevertheless, Crayon Shin-Chan is about as "very Japanese and totally not western" as you can get as far as anime goes. The anime series has been a staple in Japan since 1992 yet still westerners don't really care about it. Perhaps it doesn't "look like anime", so how about all the shows that DO have that more stereotypical big-eyes-small-mouth trait in its usual lineart form? Fantastic Children, Millennium Actress, Spirited Away, Utena, Perfect Blue, GitS, Evangelion, (Patlabor 2 has that lineart, just not the oversized eyes, and you can't see Porco Rosso's eyework), Peter Pan, Totoro, Wings of Honneamise, Galactic Railroad, Giant Gorg, Nausicaa, Tomorrow's Joe 2, Rose of Versailles, Galaxy Express 999, Anne of Green Gables, Treasure Island, Future Boy Conan, 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother, Heidi, Aim for the Ace, Gutsy Frog, Horus, Sally the Witch, and Astro Boy. And some I've excluded because I can't see their artwork in proper detail. You're right that this list largely doesn't look like your own list earlier: thewiru said: -Most of Hiroyuki Imaishi's stuff -Kaiba -HisoMaso -FlipFlappers -Kobayashi-san -Made in Abyss -Endro~! -Hakumei to Mikochi But let's be fair... * Imaishi animated Evangelion, and it's not like Sex & Violence with Machspeed or Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt or Kill la Kill is particularly known for looking conventional either. * Kaiba doesn't even "look like anime" at all in the usual sense. * Dragon Pilot (HisoMaso) (2018), Flip Flappers (2016), Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (2017), Made in Abyss (2017), Endro! (2019), and Hakumei to Mikochi (2018) are all very recent series and that first list ends in 2013 anyway. This isn't to say that your idea of "anime that looks like anime" only goes so shallow, but I'd be curious to see stuff from more comparable years, on either side of this seeming disagreement. (Given that we don't know who made the list, I guess this means I'm asking you to name more shows, particularly ones before 2010.) And meanwhile we still don't even know what the point of this list was, or who created it. Regardless, it looks like a list with an obvious emphasis on the artsy, and includes a bunch of movies and other well-acclaimed and influential works while excluding a lot of stuff that's popular (and arguably also influential) both in Japan and the west, e.g. Sword Art Online (2012), Madoka Magica (2011). As for the first list, it seems like just another incarnation of a now years-old list of generic /a/ recs, albeit this time tagged with /lit/ for some reason. Regardless, I've criticised these usual lists as having a very clear bias toward seinen, psychological, and generally darker shows and ones that don't feature kawaiisa/moë art as much. I don't know how you get an "anti-anime, pro-western bias" from this. On the other hand, for me this suggests a "young men" bias and probably also a bias toward the artsy. Unless, of course, you regard kawaiisa and moë as "looks like anime" and thus stuff that isn't that "looks less like anime". And in that case, that would be your own taste showing. |
GlennMagusHarveyMay 21, 2019 7:00 PM
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
thewiru said: Hamazura said: the moment you gave attention to anime yt's and digibro etc it's the moment you have ruined yourself in this particular form of entertainment. Please you are in time. Stop watching and believing to those beings anymore. have your own thoughts an your own point of view. Stop! Why? man really that's the best you can reply about it? you have watched to little anime yet and want to make a counterculture of something you barely knows? it's kind of dumb man, don't take it bad but seriously, you haven't even reached a level to be able to criticise something appropriately. |
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Kaith_Zith said: My hunch is that the list may intentionally be picking shorter things like movies over entire shows.I like anime that influences from westerners, or targeted young adult above. I don't think it as to look more "mature". It's only want to reach broader audiences. Yes, I like to see more of counter-culture anime, IF it's make sense in term of moral. I don't want to see anime with incest as its main topic, at all, for instance. What I want to see is more like Squid Girl, Days of Highschool Boys, Tsuritama, Summer Wars, Lovely Complex, Dragon Ball, etc. Also I saw the picture which has "essential" anime on it which you put the link in a above. I don't see in what based does the maker created such list. I think Dragon Ball, Gundam and Doraemon should be included in the list. But what I see from the picture is a list of older anime. Also 1979 Gundam is on there. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| @GlennMagusHarvey I didn't mean that THE ENTIRITY of the list had that bias. I feel like we already agreed on a lot of things, but i don't think i'm able or suitable to convince you any further because i actually think i posted pretty much all i think about the subject already, so anything else would be something i have not thought yet. @Hamazura You talk like "Why?" is some kind of offense. Of course i'm gonna ask why, you simply gave an order without context or reasoning behind it whatsoever. Give your reasoning and then we can talk about it. I'm not even the person with less anime watched in their list in this thread, and i think even before i had 100 completed i was already searching about anime history, directors, influences and aesthethics, so numbers don't scare me. I'm part of an anime podcast for a year now also, so sure, i may not have the numbers, but why would this make my arguments any less valid? |
| Yeah, it's really difficult to talk about that list in the absence of any information about what this list is even supposed to mean. If we knew that then we could properly critique it. It's certainly missing a ton of very influential productions, for starters. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| I got the "essential" one from Reddit, thought there are similar versions of it in a lot of places and it probably didn't start on Reddit. The people on that threat are as clueless as we are, also: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3k46wt/essential_japanese_animation/ As for the other one: https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6293655 Just bear in mind that the thread is exactly how you imagine a chan thread to be. |
thewiru said: Well that second one looks like someone walked into a concert hall in the intermission and started shilling for their baseball team. I'd go "wut??" too.I got the "essential" one from Reddit, thought there are similar versions of it in a lot of places and it probably didn't start on Reddit. The people on that threat are as clueless as we are, also: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3k46wt/essential_japanese_animation/ As for the other one: https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6293655 Just bear in mind that the thread is exactly how you imagine a chan thread to be. As for the Essential list, the creator seems to say that it was largely influenced by a list of 150 best animation of all time, as chosen by "140 animation artists and film critics from around the world" at the 2003 Laputa Festival, who "were asked to list what they thought were the 20 best animated films or animated series. These lists were then combined into one list with 150 titles on it." https://niffiwan.livejournal.com/7455.html Though for what the "Essential" list doesn't even include every anime work on there (no Lupin III for example). Also the amount of arguing going on in that reddit thread shows that this list is hardly representative of any sort of consensus. Kaith_Zith said: I personally wouldn't use the term, in the sense that I wouldn't make a list of "essential" anime.How about you? What do you think 'essential' means for a movie/series? But I'd expect it to be used to mean "essential to getting to know this medium", particularly from the perspective of "getting to know the lay of the land". So it'd probably mean familiarizing oneself with particularly influential anime series, or alternatively, a set of series representative of the diversity in the medium, by typifying or being the best of specific major genres. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| Wow list of essentials including stuff like Ginat Gorg, Bartender, Aria, Shinsekai Yori and Wicked City. I even like Ginat Gorg and Wicked City but come ooon. |
Holy shit at this list. Holy shit. It's so freaking niche and reductive it hurts. I can't empathize with anything that tries to sell Shigurui as some sort of high art. It's almost a statement in itself, and an ugly one. I may be exaggerating a little but seriously the list is so EH |
jal90May 22, 2019 11:25 AM
| The mere idea of deeming anything to be essential viewing for an audience member repulses me. |
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| im not sure what you are talking about... the anime community prefers shows to look like and be stereotypical anime over any sort of other style. Like there so many threads from nerds going "why does anime look so much nicer than cartoons" or "why are anime so much more mature than cartoons". Which they arent but that discussion requires nuance which the average person cant muster, but thats another story. i also think its weird that you are trying to shoehorn anime into one art style instead of hoping animators and story tellers get to experiment with any style they want. The japanese do and should borrow from other cultures, because it will enhance their craft as having more knowledge is always good. the community doesnt just promote "normie" stuff to appease other people. The community is full of a bunch of "normies" because that is the nature of the word normie. The vast majority of people are normies so of course theyll like normie stuff. It doesnt make sense to say they like stuff only because they can push it on others or look good to others. If that was the case, they just wouldnt watch something as niche as anime to begin with. People like what they like and that dictates what is popular and not that other way around. As for so called elitist - i imagine you are talking mostly about slow arthouse stuff. Thats the most niche thing you can like in any medium. Its not a good start for most people. If you are going recommend it to someone, it should be someone who you know would like it. If these are the arguments you are pulling from digibro, maybe you should adopt my feelings towards him. I think digibro is a hypocrite and cry baby whose words should rarely be taken seriously. He is always crying "why dont people like what i like. Cant they see how special and smart i am. Everyone else is dumb" |
| https://combosmooth.itch.io/ - I make free-to-play browser games for PC and I sell pixel art animation here |
| These videos fucking suck lmfao. Anyway, counterculture mentality is bad, and it encourages people to build their identities around the shit they consume rather than being real people. News flash, being into anime or cinema isn't a statement of your identity or personality, it's just a fucking hobby. GlennMagusHarvey said: Yea this just sounds like people who don't know what they're talking about. Don't think anybody considers art/film/book critics elitists, nor are they actually widely respected. This is just a common appeal to authority that doesn't work when the person in question doesn't even know of any of the authorities he's speaking of. Indeed, the video that the first Digibro video is a follow-up to (and which Digibro praises), E-Kon's "Why Are There So Many Anime Elitists?", actually mentions "art critics, film critics, book critics", describing them as "all elitsts that are widely respected, and celebrated, even, for having self-important tastes and criticizing others" (and asks why anime elitists can't be viewed the same way), and also speaks of studying "filmmaking, screenwriting, aesthetic theory", and other things, citing even a Disney illustrator's work about animation. In contrast, you're arguing that anime shouldn't align with "western" academic ideas of "cinema, literature or etc" and should "embrace" a "counter-culture". People might say like a Roger Ebert or a Harold Bloom as safer examples, but the former is dead and the latter isn't even respected in academia, and how many other writers does someone like Digibro know? I know plenty of them, and I can tell you they're not remotely close to even being known, let alone respected outside of very niche circles. Also I find it hilarious that the video is scoffing at Western academic ideas with respect to anime but wants to embrace a sort of "counter-culture," as if counter-culture is in any way meaningfully non-Western or non-academic. |
thewiru said: Except actual critics do. If you take any class on anime these days in any East Asian studies department, you will probably read part of Thomas Lamarre's The Anime Machine, which details how animation and Japanese visual culture distinguishes anime from other types of media.No, i'm arguing that when movie critics do their job, they treat that the movie should look like a movie, not an anime, so why should anime critics treat anime like it should look like a movie, not an anime? My theory is that critics of other media compare their media to itself, but anime critics don't because of such underdog mentality. And no, i'm not falling under "relativism" here, quite the opposite. Now, you don't have to believe Lamarre, that's up to the discretion of the individual reader, but if we're going to be fair and have some kind of parallel discussion between "art" critics and "anime" critics, then literally nobody who would presumably be called an anime critic would say that they don't consider anime a type of media of its own in some way, shape, or form, despite the natural problems that arise from this kind of thinking. Also, no critic actually truly only compares apples to apples, at least not in this day and age. Comparisons between books, movies, works of art, and classical music performances are incredibly common. Plenty of people think of media as hierarchical or as distinct categories, but in practice most people treat media as more of a non-arborescent multiplicity with indeterminate and sinuous interconnections. |
YudinaMay 22, 2019 7:02 PM
jal90 said: /lit/'s well known for just straight posturing. It's not like anybody in that thread even reads literature either, so to link that thread is honestly a moot point.Holy shit at this list. Holy shit. It's so freaking niche and reductive it hurts. I can't empathize with anything that tries to sell Shigurui as some sort of high art. It's almost a statement in itself, and an ugly one. I may be exaggerating a little but seriously the list is so EH petran79 said: Don't think this is true at all, and it wouldn't even be true for most other things with even greater cultural specificity and idiosyncrasies than anime. Most of the academics you'd ostensibly trust use Western academic criticism in their approach to anime. Even Japanese anime critics do the same. Tamaki Saito's Beautiful Fighting Girl is heavily inspired from Freud and Lacan.Trying to isolate anime from its cultural setting does not work. |
Yudina said: thewiru said: Except actual critics do. If you take any class on anime these days in any East Asian studies department, you will probably read part of Thomas Lamarre's The Anime Machine, which details how animation and Japanese visual culture distinguishes anime from other types of media.No, i'm arguing that when movie critics do their job, they treat that the movie should look like a movie, not an anime, so why should anime critics treat anime like it should look like a movie, not an anime? My theory is that critics of other media compare their media to itself, but anime critics don't because of such underdog mentality. And no, i'm not falling under "relativism" here, quite the opposite. Now, you don't have to believe Lamarre, that's up to the discretion of the individual reader, but if we're going to be fair and have some kind of parallel discussion between "art" critics and "anime" critics, then literally nobody who would presumably be called an anime critic would say that they don't consider anime a type of media of its own in some way, shape, or form, despite the natural problems that arise from this kind of thinking. Also, no critic actually truly only compares apples to apples, at least not in this day and age. Comparisons between books, movies, works of art, and classical music performances are incredibly common. Plenty of people think of media as hierarchical or as distinct categories, but in practice most people treat media as more of a non-arborescent multiplicity with indeterminate and sinuous interconnections. Why are you writing like i disagree with anything you said on this post? When i said "critics" i didn't refer to academics nor hollywood (Who despises animation from anywhere in general), but was referring to "wanabee academics" in the community. And i didn't say you couldn't compare either, i just said that if you're going to a media with different objectives, you should expect different results. "how animation and Japanese visual culture distinguishes anime from other types of media" is basically one of the points of this thread, why are you talking like i'm defending the opposite? |
| I was merely responding to your "theory" that "critics of other media compare their media to itself, but anime critics don't because of such underdog mentality," none of which is actually true. I don't even think the "anime critics"/"academic wannabees" or whoever you want to call them know enough about "other media" to have an underdog mentality to start with lol That being said, hot take, anime academia is not real academia and is even worse than film scholarship, which is also pretty bad. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So iono, I see real reason to have underdog mentality if it exists, since you can conceivably pass your masters thesis at university with a paper on military history with regards to Kancolle. https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/229753/Vuorikoski_Valtteri_Pro%20gradu_2017.pdf |
YudinaMay 22, 2019 8:23 PM
| I dont belong in this conversation lol, its full of intellectuals |
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petran79 said: I don't know. I mean if the work is completely untranslated naturally you'd need to have someone who knows Japanese to tell you what's going on. But the problem with the rest of the point is that it's not true that anime is uniquely or solely Japanese, culturally or otherwise. Even if it was, most matters of translation, unless they're truly awful, aren't really discernible until you get into obsessive levels of minutiae and for most people there's nothing that can't overcome linguistic differences provided you have enough footnotes to explain any conceivable misunderstandings.It is not so much about the methods but knowing the language and culture. Some minor details that are omitted due to the language barrier are very important. Especially regarding obscure anime that are based on even more obscure untranslated manga. And secondly, a lot of anime just isn't really Japanese focused at all. I really wouldn't feel compelled to listen to someone with an East Asian studies degree on their opinion on titles in the World Masterpiece Theatre, since those TV anime are almost all renditions of stories by European and American writers. Even things that seem focused on Japanese culture or history are not so impenetrable that you'd need someone with some degree to write something meaningful about it. Ikuhara's Sarazanmai from this season or something like Uchouten Kazoku are based on Japanese mythology, but it's not like a quick read on kappas or tengu won't help you figure out the big picture. |
thewiru said: @deg There are no utter motives on this list, i leterally just listed some anime that i like that i also like for "feeling more anime", i don't intend to do anything with that list because, as i said, i'm partially against the sole idea of "lists of anime to get into anime". What are the things that make anime different from other mediums or are unique to it? I don't know all of them, which is one of the reasons i made this thread, it would be good if many content creators made positive content telling their own experiences about this. i do not plan to reply anymore but i got plenty of time anyway and this thread is still not dead lol i think you or those anitubers for example will eventually make a list of counter-culture anime if they taken your idea seriously, just by talking things that make anime different or unique will not be enough since people will eventually ask what are examples of those anime anyway |
| I mean that first section is just biographical information. Realistically speaking nobody needs to know who the animators are to understand or appreciate old Japanese series. Perhaps for the purposes of trivia and knowledge as a fan that'd be appreciated, but at the end of the day who's on the staff is functionally useless as a matter of criticism. We hardly even take into account directors or authors these days, let alone animators outside of just knowledge for the sake of it. With regards to the second half, for starters I don't think LNs are remotely good enough to really have to be any kind of academic. They're basically just the equivalent of trashy teen novels or YA fiction here in the West, and while it's true that there's lots of manga that are untranslated, again, the only question here is a matter of translation. You don't need to be an academic Japanese historian to understand what they're writing here provided you get a good enough translation. It just seems like a lot of useless gatekeeping to determine who has something worthwhile to say or a mistake of placing anime or manga on some kind of high pedestal simply because it's more niche. I'd argue you'd have to be much more in tune with Japanese culture or aesthetics to understand its literature, but that's relatively well known and mainstream by comparison. |
| If the point you're making is what I think it is, look at it this way: A is people who have no intention of altering their preconceptions to accept things on the outer edges of the Venn diagram of cultural acceptability B is people who come into the medium wanting to present themselves in a more intellectual, studious light, before they've even learned anything about it. People who fall into A will usually be fine with shounen action series and the like, with immediate appeal and a lack of content that offends their sensibilities, and people who fall into B will usually be fine with things like the Monogatari series that offset loli fanservice, incestuous themes etc. with viscerally avant-garde elements, but the only way to appease both groups, or people who happen to fall into both, is to recommend things that are immediately recognizable as "mature" through the western cultural lens - hence why every recommendation chart has to flood its top spots with Cowboy Bebop, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Ghost in the Shell and so on. This is only really a problem at the surface level though, amongst people with upwards of several hundred (or even thousand) completed shows, the "community" becomes far too fragmented and niche-circlejerk-heavy for the issue to arise, and most people who still fall into A and B will have given up on the medium. |
I think the reason they are recommending anime with western appeal is because they have higher chances of getting liked by not-yet animefans. If they recommended typical moe-lolicon-fanservice anime instead, most newcomers would probably get turned off instantly. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
| Kind of late to the party, haven't read ALL of the comments, sorry on that. So I refer to the original post only. First of all, I won't bother looking up into those "essential charts". Though if I could guess, it should be your typical chart of anime that are easily consumable by non anime viewers. Western as you mentioned. Death Note, Attack on Titan, you know the drill. IF that is the case I'd fully agree with such chart and disagree with your proposal to advertise more anime with actual "anime" tropes. Why is that? Because you as a person should not shovel your taste (anime, movie, literature, whatevs) down into other people's throats. Especially not when they have no clue about the medium. The only thing that might trigger is that they shy away from the medium even more. Instead they have to make a move. They have to ask YOU to recommend them an anime. Now I enjoy Gintama a lot (and despite being popular, it's not a safe bet), but still, I wouldn't advise anyone to watch it. At least not out of the blue. And not because of shame. Reason is, I always ask a simple question and that question is what the person's taste and expectation is. As their mindset is build around western media, it is a given that I will give them a recommendation out of the "western" anime category. Once again, not out of shame but because it was their choice. If they enjoyed the recommendation and ask me again, maybe for something more special as they are now somewhat accustomed to anime, I might give them something more anime-ish. If they ask for another "western like", I give them another cookie cutter-anime. Easy as that. So,yeah. Underdog mentality, my ass. |
Zarutaku said: I think the reason they are recommending anime with western appeal is because they have higher chances of getting liked by not-yet animefans. If they recommended typical moe-lolicon-fanservice anime instead, most newcomers would probably get turned off instantly. We should probably tone down the dumb assumption that newcomers get turned off by certain content, particularly if you are going to group stuff with so variable levels of social acceptance together in your generalization. |
jal90 said: Zarutaku said: I think the reason they are recommending anime with western appeal is because they have higher chances of getting liked by not-yet animefans. If they recommended typical moe-lolicon-fanservice anime instead, most newcomers would probably get turned off instantly. We should probably tone down the dumb assumption that newcomers get turned off by certain content, particularly if you are going to group stuff with so variable levels of social acceptance together in your generalization. I see it as a rather reasonable assumption, since I was talking about the general majority of newcomers but not all of them. |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
| I have two questions. 1. What exactly is 'western appeal' even? How do you define it? I'm pretty sure many shows and creators that people think of having 'western appeal' are seen as very important historical figures or titles of the anime medium in Japan, as anime 'classics' so to say. I think this 'western appeal' is more or less just a construct that people like OP make up without being able to really define what it means, because it has no specific meaning, and is just applied in retrospect to anything that is popular in the west, but not to any specific aspects or appeals that these shows have in common, because there are no such things. It's just an idea born out of a sense of cultural 'purity', which leads me to my second question. 2. Why such an obsession with cultural purity? Why is taking influences and using elements from another culture a bad thing? Why is that even an issue in the age of globalization where cultural purity basically doesn't exist anymore because every culture is influenced by others on a global scale? Japan as a society is already full of a lot of western influences so isn't it normal to expect that to be reflected in their media as well? Or on a more general level, what makes a culturally 'pure' product better or more worthy of praise than something that combines aspects of various cultures? One of those is not inherently better or more interesting than the other. So yeah, this whole obsession with cultural purity just sounds very strange for me and gives me very bad associations with right-wing nationalists, which are also obsessed with cultural (and genetical) purity. I simply don't see any other reasons aside from ideological ones to care that much about cultural purity and not seeing it as a good thing when works of art or entertainment combine some of the best or more interesting aspects of various cultures. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
Zarutaku said: jal90 said: We should probably tone down the dumb assumption that newcomers get turned off by certain content, particularly if you are going to group stuff with so variable levels of social acceptance together in your generalization. I see it as a rather reasonable assumption, since I was talking about the general majority of newcomers but not all of them. That general majority of newcomers is a construction that I don't quite know where does come from. |
thewiru said: Yudina said: Except actual critics do. If you take any class on anime these days in any East Asian studies department, you will probably read part of Thomas Lamarre's The Anime Machine, which details how animation and Japanese visual culture distinguishes anime from other types of media. Now, you don't have to believe Lamarre, that's up to the discretion of the individual reader, but if we're going to be fair and have some kind of parallel discussion between "art" critics and "anime" critics, then literally nobody who would presumably be called an anime critic would say that they don't consider anime a type of media of its own in some way, shape, or form, despite the natural problems that arise from this kind of thinking. Also, no critic actually truly only compares apples to apples, at least not in this day and age. Comparisons between books, movies, works of art, and classical music performances are incredibly common. Plenty of people think of media as hierarchical or as distinct categories, but in practice most people treat media as more of a non-arborescent multiplicity with indeterminate and sinuous interconnections. Why are you writing like i disagree with anything you said on this post? When i said "critics" i didn't refer to academics nor hollywood (Who despises animation from anywhere in general), but was referring to "wanabee academics" in the community. And i didn't say you couldn't compare either, i just said that if you're going to a media with different objectives, you should expect different results. "how animation and Japanese visual culture distinguishes anime from other types of media" is basically one of the points of this thread, why are you talking like i'm defending the opposite? >academics nor hollywood (Who despises animation from anywhere in general) I'm starting to think you're just resentful about academics. I don't know where you get this impression from. |
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@Pullman i suppose the questions are addressed to me, if not ignore this reply. 1. With western appeal I simply mean anime that have a good chance being liked by a casual western audience. That doesn't mean they are aimed at a western audience however, they can at the same time also appeal many Japanese people and basically everyone but since OP was talking about "westerners" I specificallly used the term western as well. 2. I'm somewhat of a Lennonian who's imagining there were no countries so I'm not at all obsessed with cultural purity, what did I write that made you get this idea? |
This dance is the pinnacle of human achievement. |
Zarutaku said: @Pullman i suppose the questions are addressed to me, if not ignore this reply. 1. With western appeal I simply mean anime that have a good chance being liked by a casual western audience. That doesn't mean they are aimed at a western audience however, they can at the same time also appeal many Japanese people and basically everyone but since OP was talking about "westerners" I used the term western as well. 2. I'm somewhat of a Lennonian who's imagining there were no countries so I'm not at all obsessed with cultural purity, what did I write that made you get this idea? I wasn't addressing them to you specifically which is why I didn't quote you. It was more aimd at the general discourse and OP and anyone who agrees with his post, since my initial criticism of his argument still has not been addressed. I just don't think the premise of this thread makes a lot of sense unless you are obsessed with cultural purity. I simply want to understand why the people who care so much about it, like OP, care so much about it, because I just don't. As for the western appeal, your answer is not very satisfying tbh. What aspects of an anime make you think of it as having that 'western appeal'? Just saying it means you think westerners will like it doesn't explain anything, I'm curious as to what makes people think of something as having specifically western appeal as opposed to 'japanese appeal' or just 'universal appeal'. How do you differentiate between those 3 except in retrospect based on which title was successful with which audience? For example I see battle shounen as something very typically anime and therefore typically japanese by extension because you don't really have anything comparable in western media, but at the same time battle shounen are the primary type of anime that gets popular with 'western casuals' so I'd be curious as to how they fit into OPs logic because while you say you don't mean it as being an exclusive appeal, the OP comes across as having a different approach and dividing anime into 'typically anime/japanese' and 'having western appeal' but without even attempting to show where they draw the line. And I think that like simply can't be drawn, so I'm curious to see them, or anyone, try. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
thewiru said: I got the "essential" one from Reddit, thought there are similar versions of it in a lot of places and it probably didn't start on Reddit. The people on that threat are as clueless as we are, also: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3k46wt/essential_japanese_animation/ As for the other one: https://warosu.org/lit/thread/6293655 Just bear in mind that the thread is exactly how you imagine a chan thread to be. At this point I no longer understand what you're going after. Both of the lists are very diverse in terms of styles, techniques, periods, and genres. And I'm wondering if you're complaining about them because you haven't seen or heard of most of the titles in the lists and they don't have your favourite recent shows so you assume "they must all look like Western Hollywood movie". The reddit guy actually seem to me to be more serious about animation as a media because of how many early animations and experimental animations he puts on the list. Those experimental animations, if you have ever seen them, you would know they are as far as possible from a "normie" taste. |
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Yudina said: These videos fucking suck lmfao. Anyway, counterculture mentality is bad, and it encourages people to build their identities around the shit they consume rather than being real people. News flash, being into anime or cinema isn't a statement of your identity or personality, it's just a fucking hobby. GlennMagusHarvey said: Yea this just sounds like people who don't know what they're talking about. Don't think anybody considers art/film/book critics elitists, nor are they actually widely respected. This is just a common appeal to authority that doesn't work when the person in question doesn't even know of any of the authorities he's speaking of. Indeed, the video that the first Digibro video is a follow-up to (and which Digibro praises), E-Kon's "Why Are There So Many Anime Elitists?", actually mentions "art critics, film critics, book critics", describing them as "all elitsts that are widely respected, and celebrated, even, for having self-important tastes and criticizing others" (and asks why anime elitists can't be viewed the same way), and also speaks of studying "filmmaking, screenwriting, aesthetic theory", and other things, citing even a Disney illustrator's work about animation. In contrast, you're arguing that anime shouldn't align with "western" academic ideas of "cinema, literature or etc" and should "embrace" a "counter-culture". People might say like a Roger Ebert or a Harold Bloom as safer examples, but the former is dead and the latter isn't even respected in academia, and how many other writers does someone like Digibro know? I know plenty of them, and I can tell you they're not remotely close to even being known, let alone respected outside of very niche circles. Also I find it hilarious that the video is scoffing at Western academic ideas with respect to anime but wants to embrace a sort of "counter-culture," as if counter-culture is in any way meaningfully non-Western or non-academic. To be fair Japan had a counter-culture in the 60s that parallels America's. The most iconic thing is the Japanese New Wave in cinema. But the Japanese New Wave was pretty "academic" from the start: it was inspired by the French New Wave which is basically a bunch of film critics and film theorists starting to make films for people who have read a lot of books instead of for a mainstream audience. So pitting counter-culture against "academics" as OP and digibro do only show they don't really understand the words they use. Being counter-cultural was also at least a politically radical gesture as a refusal to participate or pay respect to the mainstream narrative about how you should live your life in a capitalist society. The context has changed drastically today as the counter-culture of the 60s has completely incorporated into consumerist society. The things the hippies did in the 60s were at least defiant against predominant bourgeois protestant rigid morality about sex and lifestyle. Today they're a part of the mainstream culture (sex is omnipresent today) and it has just become, as you said, building identity around consumer products and thus no longer is a counter-culture. But in the context of the 60s they were actively political and is associated with socialism, anarchism, going on strike and protesting against Vietnam war. And what is political about otaku culture? Being an otaku is more about "leave me and my hobby alone" than any self-conscious attempt at changing the society to a specific direction through collective effort. |
CHCMay 23, 2019 11:40 AM
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operationvalkyri said: Pullman said: 1. What exactly is 'western appeal' even? I've been plodding through this thread in hopes of getting an answer to this question but no luck. Can anyone enlighten us, please? Looking 'american'. You know the kind of thing that used to go to Toonami? Yeah, that thing. @CHC "Being an otaku is more about "leave me and my hobby alone" than any self-conscious attempt at changing the society to a specific direction through collective effort." If there was a word for that, i would use. Buthere isn't, so i use the closest thing, "counter-culture". I didn't even use it literally, there's a reason i'm using quotes. "I'm starting to think you're just resentful about academics. I don't know where you get this impression from." Yes, i am. Part of it is because of my principles and the context of my country, where there is strong "academicism" in the sense that "the academy" pretty much become a sect and academics want to be "the monopoly of knowledge". The other part is because of hollywood. The third is because of this video There may be even more reasons, but i don't recall them now. @Pullman 1: No, it is not about purity, but individuality. 2: Quite simple: I'm not defending what you're saying. Quite the opposite, i am FOR incorporating things from different backgrounds into anime. Also, forming a "cultural identity" has nothing to do with "cultural purity". "but at the same time battle shounen are the primary type of anime that gets popular with 'western casuals' so I'd be curious as to how they fit into OPs logic because while you say you don't mean it as being an exclusive appeal" Because that was never part of my logic to begin with. I never said that something that doesn't look western can't be successful in the west. More than that, in this argument you would be talking about casuals, and not once i talk about casuals in this thread. Don't take offense with this, and i'm probably not the best at expressing myself either since in my last two threads people claimed to disagree with me while agreeing with me thrice, but what my biases tell me that is your profile, it is basically one of the profiles i am complaining about in this thread, so that may be one of the reasons for what i talk about appear so "alien". |
thewiru said: @CHC "Being an otaku is more about "leave me and my hobby alone" than any self-conscious attempt at changing the society to a specific direction through collective effort." If there was a word for that, i would use. Buthere isn't, so i use the closest thing, "counter-culture". I didn't even use it literally, there's a reason i'm using quotes. "I'm starting to think you're just resentful about academics. I don't know where you get this impression from." Yes, i am. Part of it is because of my principles and the context of my country, where there is strong "academicism" in the sense that "the academy" pretty much become a sect and academics want to be "the monopoly of knowledge". The other part is because of hollywood. The third is because of this video There may be even more reasons, but i don't recall them now. There is a word for it. It's called subculture. I don't think contemporary society is stopping you from participating in any form of subcultural identity at all. If anything, all the echo chambers of the age of social media is actually encouraging you to have a strong subcultural identity. But then of course, being subcultural and niche by definition means you're not striving for wider mainstream influence or anything kind of high cultural status. So I don't understand why you're so obsessed with academic recognition. If you do want anime subculture to take a revolutionary role in changing the climate of the society, then you would need a strong reason to justify why you think people should care about your subculture. That was the case with the counter-culture in the 60s. Young people in the 60s defended the public meaning of their new life style by references to Marxism, Freudian psychoanalysis, post-structuralist philosophies. They think people should care about the alternative life style they present because they think the old style is sexually repressive, full of bureaucratic dehumanisation, and a major source of modern alienation. Critical "academic" discourse was intertwined with counter-culture from the beginning, otherwise it would have been a political movement that could have substantially changed the sexual culture of America and Western Europe. In your case, you seems to be dissatisfied by the market (Hollywood) on one hand, critical discourse on the other, but then you are also not satisfied with staying in the confine of a subculture, so what exactly do you want? There have been various conservative academicisms throughout history, but the "essential lists" you show us is quite far from anything like an ossified taste. If anything, it is the lack of stylistic variety in the trope-heavy, otaku-targetting anime that is conservative and ossified. So I sincerely don't understand what's wrong with the so-called academicism you're referring to. There isn't even a sizable anime academic community to begin with. The only scholarship that pay a significant attention to anime is a small subset of cultural studies and media studies, in which scholar study anime as a pop cultural phenomenon rather than thinking too hard about ranking anime shows. They pay a lot of attention to shows that fits the otaku taste - mecha, moe, beautiful fighting girls, etc - the exact opposite of what you imagine academics are like. Just give us the names of the specific scholar you disagree with, not some random posts on reddit or 4chan. It's not like the academy is a monolith. Very often the most avant-garde stuffs are also pushed forward by the academics and because people rarely even read let alone understand what they wrote, they tend to think every academic must look just like the Eng lit teacher who taught them in high school. |
CHCMay 24, 2019 3:32 AM
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