Emotional Manipulation and Feeling Sad for Bad Characters.

GamerUnglued said:
I've never really understood this idea. I feel literally nothing for a character if I am not attached to them, no matter how overdramatic the music, directing, and voice acting is. A shows goal is to manipulate our emotions regardless, but without emotional attachment to something a show can not possibly have control over how we feel. The more attached I am to a character the more I will feel for them. They must feel like multi-faceted, nuanced humans beyond just looking cute or sad, having a tropey personality, and being dramatic. That's why I felt literally nothing for the massively dramatic endings of Angel Beats, Grave of the Fireflies, and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0,.

15poundfish said:
Its because the music plays a huge part in making the viewer cry. Angel beats has a bad story but it has a great sound score that complements its tear jerker. You don't really need to know much about the character to cry for them. all it really takes is good music and good presentation. In the Movie Up, I definitely felt the feels in the montage scene at the start when I first watched the film.

RLinksoul said:


^ This and also why I feel nothing for tragedy shows in general. If I either know the show's going to end tragically, or it seems inevitable (like the show beats it into your head that everything the characters do is pointless) then I can't get invested in it. It's like "Why bother if it's all doomed anyway?" And even if they pull some amazing mood whiplashing 180 to resolve everything in a way that's at least bittersweet, it feels hollow when the show spent most of its run dragging the viewer down and trying to make them feel for characters who exist only to suffer.

15poundfish said:
The Up scene is a good example of presenting a tearjerker story in 4 minutes; many anime no matter how well written the characters and story accomplish the same effect using the same or other techniques. The point is you don't necessarily need context or a good story to make the viewer cry. Jun Maeda is good at making people cry but he sucks at writing good characters and stories which is why I gave angel beats an average score. The tear jerker moments in the anime are on point but the anime as a whole was boring, meaningless and unmemorable. That basically sums up my average experience with a KEY anime which is why I avoid them like a plague.