What's the best way to understand why certain people like certain anime?

Maybe should just ask them directly ?

@tchitchouan
That just moves the question to "What's the best way to find people who like certain anime?"

I don't know. I've been repeatedly mentioning my love of a certain anime that's also featured in my signature, which so happened to crossover with a certain meme song used by a Brazilian politician about ice cream or something. I'm always open to talking about it more if you stopped using misogynistic slurs, insulting and denigrating people who don't share your interests, and actually talked to people, especially women, normally. Heck, people might even accept PMs and profile comment conversations which is where the really detailed dialogue happens if you do that.

As for fan of Key here why I like it




Edit: Stupid Error message and spam message

i like Lain. And i'll tell you why:

- Lack of dialogue makes it comforting for me to watch
- It was way ahead of its time, it very much is a mirror of the impact of the internet today
- The idea that you are multiple different people, you are a dfferent person online compared to your irl version is such an amazing plot point philosopically
- AND YOU DONT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND
- Amazing art work
- So Bingeworthy
- The music
- I could go on and on.
Maybe you need to rewatch it. I dont think you really understood what its about.

i like Lain. And i'll tell you why:

- Lack of dialogue makes it comforting for me to watch
- It was way ahead of its time, it very much is a mirror of the impact of the internet today
- The idea that you are multiple different people, you are a dfferent person online compared to your irl version is such an amazing plot point philosopically
- AND YOU DONT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND
- Amazing art work
- So Bingeworthy
- The music
- I could go on and on.
Maybe you need to rewatch it. I dont think you really understood what its about.

@_ohara I'm curious, did you "get" Lain through your own interpretation and observations? Or did you read about those ideas online before/after watching it and adopt them?

@valico I used my own brain. I never felt like I didnt understand the point. There was only 1 episode where I was confused about the plot so I did research.

@_ohara I am not implying you're stupid lmao. Most people's interpretations of anime are commonly lifted from YouTube or forum/blog analyses and then regurgitated. So I always am a bit skeptical when people push the "you didn't get it" response to stuff, because a lot of people don't even come up with their own interpretations, clearly illustrating their own lack of understanding until having someone else walk them through it.

@valico Ahhh I see. Sorry for the misunderstanding. But yeah, I think Lain is designed in a way where there is no set in stone interpretation, but there are interpretations that are more highly likely. The reason I think OP didn't get Lain was because he claimed that he can't comprehend how someone can like the series despite its themes being so on the nose. You can dislike a series but still understand why someone else likes it. I don't like Jojo's, but I can see why people like it:
- Great fights
- Humour
- Art etc.

Anyone can see that Lain is a mirror of our real world regarding the dangers of the web. So to me, he missed a lot of themes to come to the conclusion ''How can anyone like this''

Understand that people have different opinions, tastes, and values.

@Cielord
No offense, but: No shit, that's the premise this thread is built upon.

@thewiru Yet you still struggle so hard to understand why people like anime you don't.

@Cielord
Well, yes, how would accepting that premise solve that question automatically?
I want to know why and how they do that.

You should try and see where the appeal is, ask people who like them and experience the story from that point of view
As both a gundam fan and a lain fan I think both have a very similar strength-a very unique style and voice which encourages you to decipher deeper aspects of character, story and themes while also telling a very human and relatable story in a way that doesn't try to hide difficult stuff
Also gundam (especially tomino's) has this honesty about the characters and humanity, after all even the most legendary figure there is just a lonely, traumatized man who can't express himself in an healthy way or be what the world wants him to be, the person who the entire world thinks holds the future of humanity is just another human after all

@_ohara
No, no, I already knew it was "a prophetical work about the future of the internet" beforehand, but that really didn't change much.
What irked me was the lots of comments saying that "it was so difficult to understand and you have to rewatch multiple times", but the reality is that it really isn't: The scenes which are about it's plot (Which are few and far between) aren't difficult to understand at all (In fact, I would say that they explain themselves very explicitly), my issue with it are the myriad of scenes which don't say anything nor connect to one another and are just the director having fun (Similar to FLCL).
Like WTF is the scene where Lain is visited by an Alien? The scene where her sister becomes a dial-up modem? The one where SHE becomes an alien? The random guy that dies at a party?

@thewiru This conversation got me to give Lain yet another shot to see if I can finish it (I've never liked it up to this point and could never finish it). I'm now about halfway through, and your questions about why certain seemingly nonsensical things happen in the show, and your relation to FLCL, reminded me of something a friend of mine said after we watched FLCL together.

I'm a big fan of FLCL and have watched it probaly dozens of times. I've pulled a lot of meaning out of what it presents, and was discussing some of those ideas with my friend. He mentioned how he didn't naturally think about the show in the same ways I did. He was interpreting a lot of the ideas presented in the show from a perspective that, unsurprisingly, related a lot to how his life was going.

What seemed especially poignant was a comment he made, saying something along the lines of, "FLCL seems to present a lot of noise, and leaves it up to the viewer to find their own signal within the noise." Basically, FLCL throws a ton of ideas at you, and some of them are likely to stick. That might be the relationship melodrama, the mecha action, the bizarre sci-fi, the music, the frequent visual changes, etc.

While FLCL seems to construct itself around being noisy, most media is experienced in the same way regardless. People pull their own signal from the noise. Some will find the mysterious atmosphere, plodding pace, and apparently pointless scenarios extremely compelling. That may because they're in the mood for something weird, or perhaps they like searching for meaning in things that may ultimately have none.

If you want to understand why others like something you don't, you really just have to talk to people about it. But you also probably have to go into it with the expectation that even if you *understand* why they like something, you still may dislike it despite your understanding of someone else's enjoyment.

As it's already been said, the easiest way is to ask people. You can find fans of any particular anime in a community dedicated to it. You want to know why people like Gundam? Find a Gundam community and ask there. You want to know why people like Serial Experiments Lain? Find a Lain community and ask there. The next step is to listen.

"What's the best way to do that?"

Simply keep in mind that:
1. People are different. Like more then you give them credit here. Two people can enjoy the same anime or even one scene from that anime from diametrically different reasons.
2. People are bad at explaining why they like stiff.
They usually will say "writing", "direction", "animation" (actually meaning the art), "the build up"...but usually it's a combination of several things (including their current mood or being emotionally depending on other people to experience joy, thus the importance of hype for them) which manages to fit some of their preferences.

So the best thing you can do is guessing...or even just ignore the whole thing, since you may never have the answer for some people,

PS
On the other hand I can share why I don't like Zeta Gundam and Re:Creators or why I will never pick up Lain (the answer for the last is pretty simple - doesn't sounds interesting, also if you are not a professional you don't need to watch all the popular stuff).

@thewiru And that's why I said what I said. Rather than a specific problem regarding anime, your issue seems to come from a more general fault in your thought process. Otherwise, I don't see the reason you will have so much, or rather any trouble with this irrelevant matter.

@Cielord
Are we not all humans? Do we not all speak the same language? Think by the same logic? Use the same math?
In that case, what is absurd of me saying that people can understand one another?

Originally I think I gave it a 3 or 4, but then watched some videos about it, and one of them in specific convinced me of it's coming-of-age themes and made me increase it's score.
Back then I wasn't as open-minded as I am nowadays, and was wont to classify people's interpretations of works as "pulling things from their own ass then there clearly are none", and I was specifically mad at some videos on Akira and Cowboy Bebop in that vein I saw. That FLCL video, though, was so thorough and had arguments so convincing that I had to admit that what they said was there really was there.

@thewiru Don't see how you got to the conclusion that this is what I meant to say.

@thewiru It's interesting to me that, after writing out a pretty extensive response to your thoughts, this is what you chose to reply with. It certainly feels as though you aren't particularly interested in having a real conversation about people's experiences with shows to understand how or why they like them.

I gave you a pretty extensive explanation about why people may have varying opinions and feelings as a response to watching a show, and gave some specific examples of how that applied to a show you mentioned in passing. Your response essentially is you saying that you think people make things up in their opinions/interpretations of a show, but one time a video convinced you otherwise by pointing out something you seemed to miss? The implication to me is that you, to some degree, are unwilling or incapable of believing that others see the world differently than you do. This would be a pretty solid explanation for why you can't seem to find anyone to explain why they like an anime - it seems you aren't accepting their explanations and are writing off or completely ignoring their perspective.

At least, that's my conclusion based on this one response.

I'm not criticizing your attempts to understand differing opinions, I'm saying that your struggle in doing so comes from a larger fault in your thought process regarding the matter. Which seems to be an attempt to rationalize what is essentially an emotional experience.

What's absurd about this thread is that a month later (sometimes less than that), you will make this thread again having learned nothing. Just like the many other times you made "How do I be social?" threads (which really belong in Casual Discussion anyway).

Understanding is a two-way street. No one can tell you how to do it on a mere forum thread or 100. Actually talk to people, like everyone has tried to tell you 1,000,000 times.

If you mean Sakura, I'm pretty sure she died, no?

You're a terrible liar. I didn't respond because I didn't want to draw unwanted attention to the stuff you said to Merve by linking to them, but "Christmas cake." "Hag" "Menopause."

Oh, and these gems where you outed yourself:

"Call it "sociopathic behavior" if you will, but I see no contradictions in me complaining about misogyny and how it is a problem (Which I did sometimes here, I even did it today, and will continue to do so) and then, in other thread, use misogynistic tropes as a response to someone provoking me unprompted."

"so why should I respect them instead of treating them like sub-humans?"