| This similar thread had been made by me a year ago and I think it would be a good time to ask it again. It's been a topic debated very seldomly, but fiercely discussed about. Some say, "if it makes me cry, then the show's doing it right.". On the other hand, some say, "it makes you cry, a pure tearjerker, to convince you into thinking that this is a great show, even thought the flaws are numerous." For me, if it makes me feel things, that's a good aspect of that show. It even elevates my view on the show, since it can be personal. Making me cry about things won't convince me to not notice the flaws of the show. It's an entirely different matter. For you, have you encountered something like this? What's the first anime you have in mind that has this issue and why do you think so? |
| I don't really have this problem, it's a plus if it makes me have strong emotions towards it, and it includes laughing, crying, etc. |
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| not sure about degradation but it does improves a show by quiet alot for me atleast |
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| My emotions aren't easily manipulated. Like I watched Your Lie in April but it wasn't sad. It tried but failed. For me to cry at an anime, I need to be attached to the characters. If the shows purpose is to make you cry but fails to make me care for them, It fails at it. |
| Go check out my latest review: https://myanimelist.net/profile/YeeYeeAss/reviews |
| If an anime can manipulate your emotions then I think it’s time you reevaluate yourself. |
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| depends on how well the anime can manipulate my feelings |
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| The problem with manipulation is that it works different ways with different people, so you'll always lose the part of your audience which doesn't have the reactions you were expecting. Better to focus on conveying things. I'd far rather cry over the beauty of what has been conveyed than be tricked into it. |
| detecting the anime's attempt at emotional manipulation already degrades the experience to begin with, so of course. |
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| Talking about crying very few anime have made me cry so when one actually does, I like it more. However there has to be some sort of attachment firsthand for it to happen. |
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| I feel like "manipulating" is already the wrong attitude. Some people here even say some anime want to "trick" you into feeling something, which I find nonsense as well. An anime/manga/story whatever might want to convey certain emotions (I would actually hope that it's going to try that) but I'm not going to hold that against it on its own. I might criticize the way in which it is done if I find it heavy-handed but generally I don't see anything bad in it. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. Also, it's super subjective, so that which works for one person, might not work for another. |
| That's not really an anime specific thing. Emotionally manipulating the audience is a tactic as old as story telling itself. Goes all the way back to Shakespere and far older works thousands of years ago. |
| Lost my old account in the hacking accountpocalypse |
| Pretty much all media tries to manipulate our feelings/emotions to varying degrees, in one way or another. Whether said manipulation is a "good" or a "bad" thing depends on its execution, and the intent behind it. |
kycnui said: Some say, "if it makes me cry, then the show's doing it right.". On the other hand, some say, "it makes you cry, a pure tearjerker, to convince you into thinking that this is a great show, even thought the flaws are numerous." A good anime making me cry or feel very emotional definitely has the potential to make me overvalue it a bit above where it would go, especially over time, in the end I have absolute shit memory so emotional scenes that get stuck in my head help immensely with making me remember a show more fondly than others that maybe were nice too but didn't have that big moment that hit me. On the other hand tho... christ, hell no, poorly handled "tearjerkers" or big dramatic moments can make a good anime bad and a bad anime hilariously terrible, instead of feeling sad I either get pissed off at the characters or I start laughing at how badly it was handled. I was thinking of an example to give and there was definitely none better for me than comparing two fairly recent, shockingly similar themed idol anime: IDOLY PRIDE and Selection Project, both started very solidly and were enjoyable for most of their runs, but near the end their main drama start hitting... and Idoly Pride nailed it while Selection Project made me question whatever the fuck was wrong in the head of both the characters and the writers behind the work. Both were aiming at a 7/10 and Idoly ended a 7.5 out of how touching the conclusion was while Selection Project dropped to the 4/10 zone, just oof. |
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| I am not sure what u mean. If a story is able to provoke positive emotions out of u and make u connect to it, doesn't that mean it's well written. The flaw would be if it's not able to do that. Like u know it's trying to make u emotional, but it's not working on u. If it's actually working on u then u are either decieving urself by calling it a crybait or u are questioning ur own perception which makes the discussion invalid. If u are taking about other type of flaw that has nothing to do with emotional scenes itself, then Interelating those with eachother doesn't really makes sense either. Since it would be more like i love this aspect or show, but didnot like that aspect of show. |
AdampkAug 18, 2022 2:45 PM
  Click for a anime mashup! Still not gone bandwagon u, keep crying. Here u are welcome to CRINGE at my EXISTENCE |
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| Emotional manipulation? Seems quite hard to do. But if an anime truly provokes your emotion, then it is definitely a good show. But if it pretends to be one, then it is a big no-no. Sangatsu no Lion is good at provoking your emotions for starters. |
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| "If an anime manipulates your emotions, does it degrade your experience in watching?" The fact that it wants to involve me by force and doesn't wait for me naturally to start empathize with the characters, annoys me and ruins my my experience. Chances are I will drop such show (unless I want to see how trashier it will become later). |
| I downrate anime that try to make me cry without any real substance behind it. Pure tearjerkers like Clannad AS and Your Lie in April are cringe and not sad. |
| Yes, I used to love the first part of 86, but what they've done at the ending part1/beginning part 2 made me hate the show, all because they manipulated me and made me cry, just to undo everything later. |
| If you're a fanboy, please don't waste my time. Watch more movies, please. Kafka, Fu Xuan, Jingliu, Topaz and Huohuo. |
| Depends...but I find funny that so many people are saying that they don't watch those animes or that this doesn't exist |
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| A good anime will make me feel things without me noticing how it did that because I'm too engrossed in the experience. I can later go back and look at what it did and appreciate its techniques, but in the moment, that's not what's on my mind, because the emotional journey flows in a natural way. A bad anime fails to captivate me enough to not notice the attempts at making me feel certain things. The techniques are too obvious and distracting to focus on the actual story. That's when it feels like emotional manipulation, and yes, that absolutely does devalue the anime in my opinion. Of course everyone has their personal threshold that differs from others, and I think it also matters with which preconceptions you come into a show - for example, the well-known "tearjerker" anime have a reputation, so anyone watching them nowadays EXPECTS them to try and make you sad, so you're automatically more aware of such attempts and therefore probably not "in the moment" enough for it to work. But yeah, things that absolutely don't work for me are: - throwing crying children my way - big swelling sad orchestra background music - melodrama in general - passionate speeches about friendship/love til death from characters who've known each other for the better part of 5 minutes It's super easy to make me cry for fiction, if it's a solid story with realistic feeling characters I'll probably shed some tears automatically (of both joy and sorrow) because I get very emotionally invested in the stuff I watch, so the more a show goes out of its way to elicit a reaction, the more it takes me out of it. |
| Maybe I remember Your Lie in April incorrectly, but I didn’t really process it as tearbait when I was watching it. Arima’s last performance was pure nut-worthy catharsis, but it didn’t really make me feel like crying at any point. |
| It's pretty lame when an anime tries to make a sad scene by throwing sad music, exaggerated emotional voice acting amd all that, but then there is no substance behind it. Planetes did that in like episode 1, where they find a random coffin, and the entire episode is about what the dead guy wants. In present tense, not past. What does a dead person want, while he is dead. |
JaniSIrAug 18, 2022 4:44 PM
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| If it's clearly forced and seems like the anime's trying way too hard to be crybait, then yeah it'd be really fuckin annoying to watch through. If it's executed well though and allows time to let the scenes be genuinely emotional, then calm. Only enhances, not degrades in that case. |
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