Do you think anime fans read enough?

JokerVentura said:


No, that's called a debate. If you offered to debate the show, than you get two sides of an argument. You offered to defend, which is a once sided defense of a show. You really need to think about what you write and stop blaming others for your poor choice in words.

Akerakai said:

when people offer to defend something they usually expect some effort to be given from the other side of the argument


Assuming that you know the point of repetition since you suposedly read a lot

JokerVentura said:


Your assumption has nothing to do with fact and repeating it doesn't make it fact. If you wanted to debate the show, you should have stated that, you didn't you offered to defend it and failed to even try, because you cant.
So bye bye, arrivederci and sayonara.

Akerakai said:

Yeah sorry i should've predicted that you were slow and that you needed to be spoonfeeded .my apologies.


"Your assumption has nothing to do with fact and repeating it doesn't make it fact."lol

And op i can defend it once you actually explain why it is shit in a non basic way

HeroicIdealism said:
Because novels can't also have piss poor writing?

JokerVentura said:


Turnip, poppies, barnacles...wait you didn't assume what I meant because I used the wrong words, you sir are slow and in no way am I the fool for using the wrong words.

You remind me of a certain black knight....

JokerVentura said:
I've found over the years shows like SAO, Akame Ga Kill, ect are defended despite the piss poor writing. I get that people enjoy them, but I don't understand how people defend them, other than by enjoyment.
It lead me to question if anime fans as a majority read?
What I mean by that is do many anime fans read actual novels, not light novels and manga.

Turtles_Hunter said:

I read decently and never found SAO writing that bad (and it's coming from someone who didn't like ALO and GGO). It sure isn't the masterpiece fans pretend, but it sure ain't the shit haters pretend. For Akame Ga Kill, I dropped it after one or two episode because it was terrible, and character progression was really badly written, so I'd tend to believe you.

Anyway, I think there are more important factor than not reading enough.
A significant part of the anime community are Master Edgelords, that hate on popular things because they don't want to be the normies that like things everyones likes. This very strong with SAO for example. This is also where I put people saying One Piece (the manga) is a piece of shit. Not liking it is one thing, but ignoring the narrative talent, the way Oda achieve to structure its story in a single case, the world building and the prefiguration he often plant here and there is really bad faith. The number of thread about normies, overrated show, underrated shows seen by 3 peoples, etc is just a consequence of that. Or even people completely watching things they don't like. If that's not a hipster/edgy kid mentality, nothing is.

This lead to a second bias : these people begin watching a show to search for any little problem. The state of mind in which you watch something matters a lot on how you will see things. You won't enjoy a show if you already decided you would like it. Maybe it could happen for an over the top anime, but most anime are just average stories made to entertain 15 years old (because yeah, even if anime aren't only for kids, let's open our eyes, the vast majority of anime is meant for kids and teenagers up until 16/17). I feel like too often people ask too much of what they see. As if they watched a transformer movie, and then complained they didn't get Inception.

In the end the real question to me is "Which of the shows" you pretend are badly written really are? Because as I said, as much I tend to follow you on AgK, SAO always had decent writing. Not bad, not good either, but enough if you take the show for what it is : entertainment. You don't like it, fine but it doesn't mean it's utter shit.

What are you talking about. LotR is considered as difficult to read. It's one of the few books I re read very often because everytime, I (re)discover things that I didn't see previously. You make it sound like LotR was meant for young audience, when it was not.

Zefyris said:

hmmm FYI light novels are "actual novels".
I'm a bookworm and have been a bookworm for almost 30 years. I've read hundreds of light novels and many thousands "novels" from many countries, in French, english and Japanese.
And I can tell you, it's the exact same thing. If you think it's not, you don't know what is the definition of a light novel I'm afraid.
"Light novel : a novel published by a light novel label".
It's definitely not classical literature, but novels are NOT limited to classical literature in any form or way.

JokerVentura said:


Light novels are what we would put in young adult literature section. It's written for teenagers and that is exactly what the definition is for light novels.
I purposely excluded them not because of that, but because like manga it is tied to the industry and was asking if anime watchers read books outside of the industry. I didn't mean just classics, there are many great novels written in the modern age, from all over the world including Japan. Some of the most acclaimed anime are actually created from novels.

Zefyris said:

Tied to which industry? Anime? Light novels and manga are NOT created in order to be made into anime, only an extremely small part of those two gets adapted into anime. There are non light novel novels that are adapted into anime just as much, that doesn't make them tied to anime either. There's an average of around 50 light novel volumes being published EVERY WEEK OF THE YEAR. Compare to the number of light novel getting adapted per year. And it's not that the others were not "good enough" or not "popular enough" to get adapted. What you're getting as anime adaptation of light novel is a ridiculously small portion of light novels that isn't close of being representative of the quality and diversity of genre and demography it's targeting.

At best anime is a way to advertise for some titles, and that's it.
There's plenty of light novels that are better written than non light novel. For example the very praised (on this website, I mean) LOTGH (ginga eiyuu densetsu) is not as good as plenty of light novels i've read.
in any form of creative media, in any novel label (light novel or not) you get plenty of stuff that you will consider badly written and stuff that you will consider well written. Them being in a light novel or not has absolutely no incidence on that.

Just because you watched a few anime adaptation of LN that you thought were horribly written doesn't mean that this is representative of the whole novel titles published under LN labels. Not even mentioning that plenty of adaptation are terrible compared to their original, too.

Turtles_Hunter said:

I read decently and never found SAO writing that bad (and it's coming from someone who didn't like ALO and GGO). It sure isn't the masterpiece fans pretend, but it sure ain't the shit haters pretend. For Akame Ga Kill, I dropped it after one or two episode because it was terrible, and character progression was really badly written, so I'd tend to believe you.

[...]

In the end the real question to me is "Which of the shows" you pretend are badly written really are? Because as I said, as much I tend to follow you on AgK, SAO always had decent writing. Not bad, not good either, but enough if you take the show for what it is : entertainment. You don't like it, fine but it doesn't mean it's utter shit.

JokerVentura said:


Can your next rant explain at what point I stated all Light Novels are badly written?

Zefyris said:

So you're saying that your whole "are peoples reading ACTUAL novels and not light novels" in "order to understand what is good and bad writing" is in no way heavily implying that light novels are badly written?(hence why someone who read light novels but not "actual" novels is -according to you- in a bad position to understand quality? )
Hmmm, it's been a while since someone took me for an idiot, that's refreshing.

Turtles_Hunter said:
It's just I could watch SAO (even if rethinking of it GGO was pretty bad. Kirito forgetting he had PK). Like I said, I dropped AgK. The character passing from the guy who pukes when he see dead people to the guy that decide to kill someone not to defend himself in 12 seconds (even the Anakin's turn to the dark side wasn't that silly). Then the really bad episode presenting the character. It was already too much for me. It was downright bad. The reason I talk more about SAO is mainly because I actually watched it, not that I'm biased. Sure I didn't hate it. But I won't try to be objective for that reason.

Still despite not being that great, I watched SAO until the end, despite the serie being very uneven. It's true that if the serie had opened with ALO (god I hated the introduction of the sister in love trope), I'd probably have also dropped it. But the first arc was nice, and presented a dynamic that I continued to find enjoyable despite the default. Maybe if AgK wasn't downright bad, I would say the same thing about it.

For the other girls, it never bothered me, because it was obvious the only girl was Asuna (up until the sister, that's part why it annoyed me so much). I don't like harem (and I hate love triangle where the character actually consider the third person), but here whatever. They're side character. When I see the amount of stupid fanservice character and how they act in average anime, SAO is really a small player. There is only 3 females character that matter in SAO, Asuna, the sister (sadly) and Sinon. And at least 3 of them have consistant character writing. While AgK achieve to fail the MC. Everything else is just fluff. I don't care about fluff and fanservice as long as it doesn't hurt the story.

The only part I really loved in SAO is the excalibur arc, despite knowing it's probably one of the worse of the show, but I really like the lighthearted adventure feel.

RafaelPereira97 said:


Last time I checked reading manga and light novels also counted as read.

JokerVentura said:


Yes, not all writing is the same, there are different ways to write and being experimental can lead to greatness. The examples I gave though do not fall into this category. Also the factors of character development and world building are important. It comes from storytelling before there even was writing. Paint me a picture of where it happened and explain to me why I should care about this persons story. It's basic technique and there are many different ways to do this in one way or another, completely leaving it out is bad writing. Yes, people enjoy many of these thing and I already know why they do, its like junk food, its fun, sloppy and I'm guilty of it too, but I can distinguish between what I like due to great writing and just due to pure enjoyment, even if it's not really good.

Turtles_Hunter said:

I read decently and never found SAO writing that bad (and it's coming from someone who didn't like ALO and GGO). It sure isn't the masterpiece fans pretend, but it sure ain't the shit haters pretend. For Akame Ga Kill, I dropped it after one or two episode because it was terrible, and character progression was really badly written, so I'd tend to believe you.

Anyway, I think there are more important factor than not reading enough.
A significant part of the anime community are Master Edgelords, that hate on popular things because they don't want to be the normies that like things everyones likes. This very strong with SAO for example. This is also where I put people saying One Piece (the manga) is a piece of shit. Not liking it is one thing, but ignoring the narrative talent, the way Oda achieve to structure its story in a single case, the world building and the prefiguration he often plant here and there is really bad faith. The number of thread about normies, overrated show, underrated shows seen by 3 peoples, etc is just a consequence of that. If that's not a hipster/edgy kid mentality, nothing is.

This lead to a second bias : these people begin watching a show to search for any little problem. Why would people watch completely thing they don't like? Either because they actually enjoyed it to a point but don't want to admit it, either because they want to be edgy about it. Normal people that don't like shows just drop it. You can come with any excuses about being completionist, it still plain stupid.

Anyway the state of mind in which you watch something matters a lot on how you will see things. You won't enjoy a show if you already decided you would like it. Maybe it could happen for an over the top anime, but most anime are just average stories made to entertain 15 years old (because yeah, even if anime aren't only for kids, let's open our eyes, the vast majority of anime is meant for kids and teenagers up until 16/17). I feel like too often people ask too much of what they see. As if they watched a transformer movie, and then complained they didn't get Inception.

In the end the real question to me is "Which of the shows" you pretend are badly written really are? Because as I said, as much I tend to follow you on AgK, SAO always had decent writing. Not bad, not good either, but enough if you take the show for what it is : entertainment. You don't like it, fine but it doesn't mean it's utter shit.

What are you talking about. LotR is considered as difficult to read. It's one of the few books I re read very often because everytime, I (re)discover things that I didn't see previously. You make it sound like LotR was meant for young audience, when it was not.

North514 said:


Well personally I first read the LOTR Trilogy when I was 12-13 years of age. The Hobbit was intended for children and LOTR was created as his kids were growing up. LOTR was still intended for younger reading audience mostly in their teens.

Plus I didn't even say that who it was intended for only that I saw the films when I was 6/7 and then later read the books at 12-13 and that they really influenced me in terms of what I wanted to see in fiction. All I was saying while LOTR is well regarded I personally don't literary critics hold it up as their favorite book.

Pullman said:


I read LOGH during the summer before the first movie came out, must have been 11 at the time, and I loved it as well. But I also appreciated it more after re-reading it as an adult because as a kid I was mostly focused on the plot and less on thr writing and worldbuilding and stuff like that.

So I think it's moot to argue who the book was aimed at. The result is obviously one of those works that can be perfectly enjoyed at pretty much every age 10+. It has that universal appeal.

North514 said:


Pretty much I really enjoyed the films and I had been told the books had content that had been cut from the films so I wanted to read the books. I ended up doing so and there are some really fond memories I created reading them during my summer vacation. Those memories probably endeared Tolkien so much to me and why it still will always be my #1 fictional work.

Still books really aren't much different than anime some types of stories are going to be appreciated, others held up and some treated with scorn. (YA novels are basically in the category of Isekai in the literature world aka branded as mostly trash). LOTR is kinda like a well regarded action shonen series aka something everyone likes but very few would feel confident to put as their number 1 as it isn't artistic enough.

Regardless I think to really give a critical analysis of writing you really have to spend a lot of time in the media and analyze trends, good works, tropes etc. Consumers of most media however aren't going to spend the time doing that. Even still you are just giving a more well informed opinion with some factual backing but still an opinion all the same.

I have read quite a few books and many "classics" but would I say I am good at judging things critically in media not really. I don't spend the time that some do analyzing fiction. The ability to judge writing I think just comes from spending a lot of time critically looking at a media rather than just consuming certain media in short. Reading books hardly influences your ability to give good critique.

Turtles_Hunter said:


There is no discussion, Tolkien stated several times LotR was aimed for adults.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_189
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_181

for example.

Turtles_Hunter said:
@pullman I actually quoted the wrong person. I wanted to quote the post above yours. this phrase exactly "Even so LOTR was still intended for younger reading audience mostly in their teens."

Turtles_Hunter said:


There is no discussion, Tolkien stated several times LotR was aimed for adults.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_189
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_181

for example.

Pullman said:


Idk I think it depends a lot on the author. Someone like Neil Gaiman has gathered a lot of acclaim for his novels and they can be classified as young adult novels. Sci-fi as a genre has long struggled for acceptance for there's a fair amoun of authors who have been really acclaimed as well, from Philp K Dick to Stanislaw Lem. The times were whole genres were completely written off was luckily before we were born, although I'm not saying there is no stigma left attached to most of them.

Personally LOTR wasn't that big of a milestone for me, I was already knee-deep into fantasy literature at the time and the movies being announced just made me want to read it before they came out. I loved it, but I don't think it's my favorite fantasy series, and my favorite books at this point aren't fantasy at all but rather a bunch of different stuff. It isn't really about being artistic tho, just that my interests have evolved in a bit of a different direction as an adult so fantasy isn't my #1 any more although I do still enjoy it.

Pretty much agree with your paragraph about critical analysis. In the end you need to educate yourself and gain a lot of experience with storytelling, so you're able to have more sophisticated and well-informed opinions as well as easily communicate them to other people versed in critical analysis.

At the same time most people aren't versed in it and also not open for it, they don't understand the vocabulary and jump to conclusions about what it means based on their buzzword usage in the mainstream and simply refuse to acknowledge that there's anything learnable, any knowledge or experience involved in analysing and judging art that can give their opinions more credibility or validity.

In other fields, when someone has studied something for years people give their opinion some respect and the benefit of the doubt and don't think they know everything better themselves without ever studying the topic. But when it comes to literature or anime or anything related to art, people treat it like there is literally no difference to a random guy giving their opinion on the first show they watched and someone studying critical analysis and literary theory for decades while also accumulating a lot of experience reading and watching stuff at the same time giving their take on it.

It's kinda ridiculous to me, but the 'muh subjective, all opinions are equal', anti-intellectual mindset really makes people treat any knowledge or experience in non-hard sciences as completely worthless and meaningless, not giving you an ounce of credibility even if you studied the subject your whole life.

Which is why it feels like being versed in critical analysis serves more as an isolation mechanism in something like the anime community. There aren't many people around who are able and willing to communicate on the same level, and it's mostly a frustrating experience trying to do so with more casual people since they aren't familiar with the vocabulary and often have very negative prejudices about people who enjoy critical analysis and will often revert to 'muh opinion, end of story' 'stop being so pretentious' or 'y u take this so seriously' argumentative dead-ends when you try to have some kind of standardized discussion or argument.

That's why I personally don't discuss individual series much at all. I analyse for my own enjoyment and understanding of a show, but I don't have the stamina to type it all out and defend it against droves of people who mostly have no education on the topic and just argue based on emotions and a wrong sense of 'everything is subjective, therefore all opinions are equal'.

North514 said:


As for your first statement all I am getting at is I feel there are certain writers that tend to be held up on a certain echelon of respect. Some stories might be considered good or influential like LOTR but it would be rare to find anyone seriously into literature praising it as much I do. At the same time I think there are works that are more commonly chosen by that group if that makes sense. YA has had books that are well regarded but even in the anime community I would say that really isn't different than most Isekai either. There are a few well received works but most view the genre/type of story with scorn. Again just my perception but it could be very wrong.

As for critique basically how I feel. I think when people just say well its all subjective you don't have to defend any sort of perceived bad writing I think that does stop discussion rather than encourage it.

True educated critics aren't going to be more right on art as it isn't that cut and dry compared to some other fields. Art at the end of the day can give different impressions depending on the viewer and is just the representation of our beliefs, emotions, ideals etc. Even still there are still more well informed and less informed opinions. A paragraph backed with examples gives more proof for why something is good than a simple sentence. A random casual viewer and critic might like the same show, book or film but it is how they phrase and back their argument that determines the difference in quality.

I am not going to pretend I am a good critic I don't care how many perceived "elitist" anime I like or how many classics I have read. There are some people out there who are very familiar with analyzing writing in a way I am not capable of nor do I wish to be able to do. Even things like animation to really appreciate it and criticize it your going to need to some knowledge of the art itself. In media like this there is a lot more to criticize than in literature animation, music, cinematography etc. Writing and characterization are just one element to any film, show or animated production. All of these areas have different fields of art in a way so I don't think everyone is going to give a 100% well informed critique on media such as this even if they are very knowledgeable in some areas.

Ultimately though I think it is okay if I and most of us can't give that level of criticism you dont' have to feel like your stupid it just isn't an area most are familiar with. Plus if some people are just upset with the fact their favorite anime got criticize I guaranteed you will find someone who will give a well thought out defense for it. Critics will disagree all the time.

Pullman said:


The thing is that it's not just about being educated in criticism, but it goes hand in hand with being educated about the medium you're talking about as well. Knowing about literary techniques and historical context will often allow for a deeper understanding of a work that can't just be brushed aside as pure opinion even if there can still be disagreements on that level. Interpretations are still subjective in the end, but depending on how informed they are they should definitely be taken more or less seriously.

If you can't identify a technique, you can't interpret what it was meant to express, making your interpretation deficient. Knowing what to pay attention to is half the battle. Doesn't mean the other, more informed opinion is objectively true, but yours is still inferior because it's based on a more superficial understanding of the text, unless you can make a more convincing argument, but that's gonna be hard when you didn't even get the part it's referring to in the first place.

Many people just have a hard time wrapping their heads around that concept. They think either everything is equal and no opinion better than the other just because there's no objectivity. That's really the most telling things that seperates people who are somewhat educated in critical analysis from those who aren't - the former know the whole objectivity debate is moot because arguments and interpretations can still be more convincing, informed or consistent than others.


Back to anime specifically, there is a LOT of stuff going on. It being animation means every frame was specifically created and nothing is just displayed by accident. There could be meaning in everything because someone specifically made the decision to put it there. Plus there is the process of animation and animation techniques itself which is a very interesting subject. Then there's film techniques like cuts, color palette choices or (imitated) camera movements and other elements of cinematography. There's voice acting and music and sound effects. There's script writing and storyboarding.

I just can't wrap my head around why people don't think that learning more about some or all of these areas give you at least a bit of an edge when it comes to interprating and formulating opinions on stuff.

Also by no means do I mean to say everyone should be informed on those things. It's really a matter of how deep your interest in the medium runs. I like music, but I've never gotten in-depth into it and wouldn't claim particularly good understanding of it, I just listen to what I like occasionally. With anime, or storytelling in general, I'm more passionate so I always had a natural interest about learning from it from as many perspectives as possible. And it's always fascinating how much details you can learn about most of these areas and how much it enriches the viewing experience.