Do you have to enjoy an anime in order to acknowledge that it's good?

Caassaac said:
If you see animation (or anime, or whatever) as an artistic medium... then no, it doesn't need to. Unless you think The Mona Lisa is shit just because it doesn't personally entertain you to glare at it.
If you see it as an entertainment medium... then yes, it does need it, for obvious reasons.

I think some anime are meant to be entertainment, some are meant to be art, and some are meant to be both (the majority, I guess?). So I use that logic.

xXTenderTacosXx said:
Of course not. Holding a state of objectivity and unbias is a crucially important value in rating art, music, and film. It's unfortunate how many people fail to realize this.

Let's put it this way: I don't like plots that revolve around romance. No exceptions. It is fundamentally unfair for me to therefore rate every romantic drama a 1 based purely on this personal bias. Hell, Soul Eater, my favorite anime of all time, is really only a 9 at best, and I think it's current average of 8.07 is deserved.

Maz said:
I wouldn't necessarily say so, although it would certainly help. I'm of the belief that quality and enjoyment are not one and the same; the absence of one does not mean the absence of the other, and similarly the presence of one does not mean the presence of the other. If one attempts to be fair in their assessment of a story and tries to look beyond their own personal biases - as much as they could be reasonably expected to - then they'd be in far better position to analyse and critique it; they could look at the individual facets it's made up of and recognise where it did well and where it did not, rather than brushing the entire thing off because "it bored me".

But whilst having that in mind, I would posit that there's only so far the perceived quality can go if you didn't enjoy something; that is to say, whilst I won't immediately think something is terrible based on the premise that I didn't enjoy it (for whatever reasons), I would still never be able to call something excellent if I didn't enjoy it to some extent. I suppose my conclusion on a series would be along the lines of "It was good here, here and here but overall this was not for me."

It would be far easier to recognise something as being good or better when directly comparing it to other similar stories as this would mitigate personal bias and preferences somewhat. If we take someone who doesn't like Mahou Shoujo anime and made them watch 20 different Mahou Shoujo series, then they'd be able to rate and critique them all in a fair manner. Whilst going into each particular one with the same mindset - "I'm most likely not going to enjoy this" - they'll be able to acknowledge which ones had a higher perceived quality than the rest. They might be more able to recognise which Mahou Shoujo series are 'good' where specifically Mahou Shoujo series are concerned, even if their enjoyment of them is somewhat limited or even lacking altogether.

It's worth mentioning, though,that quite naturally if there is an absence of enjoyment then that could easily be due to the perceived quality. They may not be one and the same thing but they're obviously quite interlinked and connected. If a fictitious story hasn't managed to capture your interest and steal your attention, then even with preferences in mind a certain amount of blame must be laid on the story. No matter how stoicly one sticks to what they like, I believe that there's always going to be an exception to someone's rules. As much as they might despise all harem anime, there'll be that one which they manage to enjoy. As much as someone may spit with disgust at each seasonal CGDCT anime, there's going to be one which manages to surpass their expectations and find a way into their heart.

With that in mind, my point is thus : whilst the perceived quality may not be reliant on one's enjoyment, it is certainly limited by it; there is only so far you can agree with the positive merits of something without finding enjoyment in the story. If it hasn't managed to enthrall you, could you really call it great? I personally would hesitate to call anything 'good' if I didn't enjoy it to some degree - and even then, it would be in the context of "good where X series are concerned, but at that point it would be more apt to say "I found it to be better than I normally would think of X series" rather than just calling it 'good'.
I'm not particularly fond of calling things 'good' or 'bad' because they're far too reductionistic and somewhat vague. I tend to find it far more accurate to actually explain one's stance, or just change how you would explain your opinion. "I thought it was good but I didn't enjoy it " sounds, to me, a stranger way of phrasing it than "I didn't think it was bad but I didn't enjoy it". The former would usually automatically lead someone to presuming that you would enjoy something if you thought it was good.

TL;DR Reducing opinions to 'It wuz good but I didn't liek it" sucks and you shouldn't do it. "I can recognise its merits and believe it to be better than other series of a similar disposition but ultimately did not enjoy it" is far more accurate.

Manaban said:
I'm not going to shit the bed and say something I didn't like was "good." I'd be completely full of it if I acted like I thought that. If I thought it was good then I would've liked it.

Manaban said:
The only time that's usually applied is by people who can't explain themselves well enough as to why they didn't like a critically acclaimed anime, so they end up just ceding the point before they can get jumped on for saying they didn't like something that has had books' worth of praises of it written and reiterated into the ground, without having to give up their platform on it.

If I see it applied, I'm going to just dismiss it as a copout and nothing more, because that's all it is.

TripleSRank said:

On the contrary, I find it to be far more arrogant to act as if something can only be good if you enjoyed it. If not that, then I would presume one either lacks the ability to self-reflect or the vocabulary to express that self-reflection.

I will explain below.



Your claim is false. To pick an exceptionally simple example, I thought Nichijou was boring. It's a well-acclaimed comedy in the community, but I rarely ever found it amusing. Yet, this is not because the jokes aren't fashioned well, but because the type and variety of comedy in Nichijou is not the sort of comedy that appeals to me or makes me laugh.

I recognize that the jokes and puns are well-fashioned and executed for the type of comedy they are, yet they still don't appeal to myself specific taste in comedy. The way I-- and many, many others-- would express that is by saying that the show (comedy) is good but I didn't enjoy it ("it wasn't for me").

Doing the above isn't necessarily "evaluating against your own interests" either; it's not being dishonest with yourself or any other such nonsense. You can appreciate what you perceive to be quality (in the case of jokes/puns, things like good structure and timing) without necessarily "benefiting" from said quality in the form of enjoyment.

This also applies in much broader and more complicated scenarios, but comedy tends to be an easy example for the context of this discussion because there's less of a spectrum when it comes to enjoyment. Either it amused you or it didn't.

Manaban said:

Mm, so basically the entire idea of this post is that there's a single - or possibly several, since I'm on MAL I always assume people will be more ready to argue semantics as opposed to points - way for something to be considered good, and if it falls into those concrete standards of quality, then it's something people should say is good regardless of whether or not they liked it. .

Your Nichijou example very heavily implies this; we have to say that it's "good" because it follows a set of comedic standards that the discussion is treating as the absolute good, but the issue with that it's that nothing real can come out of it because you're sucking all of the individuality out the opinion. The only perspective being gained from it is how something manages to entertain other people regardless of whether or not it followed these standards. Not about why they found it good or why they prioritize what in this kind of anime; you're trying to strongarm people into having to accept the idea that this anime is undeniably good because it follows these set parameters and treating the perspectives that can be shared in a discussion as a side dish that way in favor of something that should be considered unarguable and concrete.

And while I most definitely don't like or respect every opinion out there I see, I'd much rather have a lot of people I don't agree with yet setting their individual priorities while I set my own rather than everybody taking the exact same, bog standard approach of whether or not something should be called "good." Because of that I use the terms enjoyable and good interchangably - the idea of objective, factual standards of quality is completely counterproductive to gaining any new insight or outlooks from the people I talk to, making any discussion on why something is good or bad moot because it follows a set of standards I may or may not agree with.

A discussion board can be like a fighting tournament to me - I believe that, honestly, little substantial growth comes out of it, but it still can be interesting and fun to hear new insights and perspectives on things regardless. Or fun to challenge somebody else's preconception or to try and defend your own. Basically, I treat stuff like this like a game. I'm not going to be changing very much on a personal level with the viewpoints I hear from some avatar with a username attached. What can be interesting is the act of discussing why, though - why are things subjective, why is this good or bad, why is this behavior shitty, so on and so forth - it's like clashing swords in a way. The will sound cheesy, but the individual parameters somebody sets for what they want to get out of something is like their weapons and fighting style. Under absolute subjectivity where it's left to the individual to determine quality, then you can see a variety of different styles and attacks from the enemy. It can be an interesting duel, a hostile encounter, so on and so forth. It's fun to visualize things in this sense, and it's fun to figure out different methods and approaches to each individual discussion on quality.

But by thinking people should be forced to say that something is good or bad based on your Nichijou example is simply taking all of these different styles and approaches and trying to whittle it down to being a single approach that is correct and any other given approach can largely be considered irrelevant. You have to say "It's good because it follows these standards that clearly don't apply to me, but I didn't like it for [personal opinion.]" If you don't benefit from those standards, then why fucking follow them, y'know? By accepting absolutes in terms of quality and taking on standards that we don't agree with but treat as correct anyway, we don't see the new perspectives because we're never thinking outside of the box as to why we liked something and expanding and explaining on that - we just say "it's bad, but I enjoyed it anyway," or "It's good, but I didn't like it."

That sounds boring as hell and entirely counter-intuitive to actually gaining anything from a discussion. Let's just not let people figure out why they liked or disliked something themselves, and just cede that it's good because it's good by standards that obviously serve no purpose towards forwarding their goal of achieving whatever they hope to achieve by seeking out to entertain themselves in some way.

Perceived quality and enjoyment are interchangeable and should be treated as interchangeable, because setting individual parameters and figuring out what you like to see, what you don't like to see, and learning how to expand on these thoughts on what you like and dislike according to your individual priorities as a viewer are where the real gain is. Not some bogus notion of intellectualism and limiting things to a matter of rightthink and wrongthink by treating entertainment objectively and like there is a true good and true bad that can be applied to everybody. And even then, it still tries to mask itself up as subjective and tolerant to opposition by saying that it's okay for people to like something, but it's still bad according to this set of critical standards, as if that's the only kind of standard that can apply to any given viewer on whether or not they end up benefiting from that entertainment in some way. That's bullshit, and I won't even begin to entertain the notion of buying into something like that.

John_2001 said:
I somewhat enjoyed Mirai Nikki because Yuno. I also enjoyed Attack on Titan because of those creepy titans. Both of these shows rely on shock factors which is a sign of bad story writing. However, I still enjoyed them.

So to answer you OP, no. If I am enjoying an anime it may be bad or good; it depends.

TripleSRank said:

Since you like to visualize discussion as a battle with weapons, I will slay your wall of text with a relatively short and pointed response.

Where did I purport that my idea of quality is absolute? Why must my idea of good timing and structure in comedy coincide with that of others?

I never claimed that. You projected that onto me.

People can hold different values, obviously. Keep in mind that I never said that equating one's values with one's enjoyment is wrong-- simply that I generally find it shallow, unreflected, arrogant, or some combination of the three, and I do, and in actuality it is your strict adherance to enjoyment-quality equation that makes your discussions unlikely to mean anything to you. My views are far more malleable because I am not so caught up in my emotions that I cannot appreciate things that may not appeal to me in a direct sense.

Worded differently, I like it when jokes and puns are (according to my unique, individual worldview) well structured and well timed, even if I didn't directly gain amusement from it. I can talk about what I think makes them well-structured and well-timed without pretending it is some sort of fact, and others are free to argue against my logic, and it is still independent of my enjoyment/amusement-with the joke or pun in question.

That is what makes for interesting discussion, the "whys" (the reasoning) rather than the "whats" (enjoy or fail to enjoy, appreciate or disregard).

On_the_Lam said:

Don't most action thrillers rely on shock factor? Isn't that Game of Thrones main selling point and why it is so beloved?

Manaban said:

Alright. So I'll keep my retort brief as well - if we're not talking in the myth of objective quality here, and the standards you're applying to something to determine whether it's good or bad don't benefit you in the sense of whether or not you actually like it, why are you applying them at all?

Rather than simply saying "I like it but it's bad" or "I dislike it but it's good," wouldn't figuring out how to expand on why you dislike it better suit your needs as a viewer?

Because simply saying something can be good or a bad by a set of standards that don't apply to you is basically saying that anything can be good or bad, because anything can be good or bad when the entire spectrum of possible opinions is brought into play. It's why I assumed you to be talking in absolutes - "I don't like it, but I can understand why it's good in this sense" is something that sounds more akin to somebody saying that they didn't like something yet everybody is right when they say it's good, rather than simply saying "I can see why people like it even though it doesn't appeal to me." Because when you whittle it down to that, anybody can like something according to any given set of standards that they ascribe to what they watch if you put forth the bare minimum amount of thought required into trying to understand the appeal of something. Most people who fail to understand the appeal of something often just haven't taken the first step in trying to. Still no point in discussing stuff in this sense.

Caassaac said:
If you see animation (or anime, or whatever) as an artistic medium... then no, it doesn't need to. Unless you think The Mona Lisa is shit just because it doesn't personally entertain you to glare at it.
If you see it as an entertainment medium... then yes, it does need it, for obvious reasons.

I think some anime are meant to be entertainment, some are meant to be art, and some are meant to be both (the majority, I guess?). So I use that logic.

John_2001 said:
I have not watched Game of Thrones but there can action thrillers with good story writing such as Monster, Perfect Blue, etc.

On_the_Lam said:

Oh, I'm pretty sure Perfect Blue doesn't rely on shock factor at all...

TripleSRank said:

Who said my values don't benefit me, or that I don't like my values? I like them very much. They're so cute and huggable.

More to the point, I do like jokes that are well timed and well structured. It's just more of an aesthetic appreciation than a direct emotional benefit. I'm not entirely sure how to explain the concept of "aesthetic appreciation" if you don't get that, though, at least not any better than I could explain why I enjoy something: Your question is analogous to asking "How can you enjoy something if you don't gain anything from it?"-- I do gain something, the enjoyment itself. Likewise, the aesthetic appreciation is itself the benefit. The best I could do is to describe it as a more mental, analytical appeal than an the more intuitive, emotional "enjoyment".

My very first post in this thread emphasized that my values belong to me rather than community consensus or others' standards. RahXephon is very well acclaimed in the community, yet according to my values I found it subpar. If they were not my values and I only cared if others thought it was good, why would I express disagreement? It's just that I don't see the mental, "aesthetic" appeal any more than I do the emotive appeal in that case.

I'll take it even further with another example, one which fits your description of "I don't like it, but I can understand why it's good in this sense": I fully understand the so-called "aesthetic appeal" of White Album 2, but I still completely disagree with that perspective and personally find it just as repulsive aesthetically as I do emotionally.

It's all an extra dimension of "liking" or "disliking" something. Unfortunately words are limiting when describing such a topic.

[edit] One other way I thought of to demonstrate the difference is that of themes or messages. I like it when a story tries to show or convince me of something, even if that isn't inherently enjoyable; reworded, I appreciate a convincing development of themes toward a point even if the show is "dry" in emotive appeal-- for me, something like Trigun would qualify. It wasn't "fun" in an enjoyment sense, but I still like and appreciate what the author did with the story. Thus you might say "aesthetic appeal" is in some ways analogous to "interestingness" or intellectual appeal. [/edit]

You're also wrong that there's no point in discussing stuff in this sense. First of all, aesthetic appeal and emotive appeal are not wholly disconnected. As I also expressed in my first post, a contradiction between the two is the exception rather than the norm. Finding an aesthetic way to appreciate something is often what opens the way to enjoy something emotively, even, and that's how I've managed to open myself to so many genres I would have never been able to otherwise.

For a specific example of this, when I first watched Five Centimeters Per Second I viewed it with the perspective that the message of the movie was that "sometimes, love fails". I didn't find the movie at all convincing in presenting such a message, so the experience became emotively tedious and lackluster. However, when discussing it extensively with tsudecimo some time later, after he came to fully understand my issues with movie, he suggested that I shift my perspective such that the movie isn't about love at all, but rather that love is merely the context for a narrative concerning the passage of time and the idea of possibilities. The perspective he explained seemed plausible to me, and thus the aesthetic, mental appeal is mended into something appreciable. Because of that, whenever I rewatch the movie I will probably be far more likely to emotively enjoy it than when I watched it the first time.

So, again, to open yourself to other perspectives you have to care more about the why than the what. If you do, you may gain something of worth, like I did in the above case.

TripleSRank said:

Worded differently, I like it when jokes and puns are (according to my unique, individual worldview) well structured and well timed, even if I didn't directly gain amusement from it. I can talk about what I think makes them well-structured and well-timed without pretending it is some sort of fact, and others are free to argue against my logic, and it is still independent of my enjoyment/amusement with the joke or pun in question.

Manaban said:

From my experience, opening myself up to other perspectives doesn't do anything nearly on the level of self-introspective. Which is the biggest reason why I tend to dismiss most discussions as fruitless endeavors in terms of gain or growth. Then again, if I found them to be entirely non-beneficial like you seem to do think I do, I wouldn't be here talking about this with you right now :V Of course, there are plenty that provide nothing whatsoever and so I just tend to avoid those.

It's poor form to use myself as an example, so I'll try to keep it brief - as early as a year ago, I was absolutely horrible at presenting myself in an argument. I'd get mad easily, my English wasn't the best, and I couldn't really ever expand on my points on why I thought something if I was trying to defend what I liked, which, given my tastes were circumstances I found myself in often.

If I ended up taking the route you're saying I should take , being keeping a set list of standards of bad or good and then separating entertainment and quality and determining each on a separate level, then I would've never really improved - I would just cede that it was bad by this group of standards and then said I enjoyed it anyway. I'd probably just apply it to whole genres instead of anything.

Instead of that, I went the route I'm promoting here - I figured out my own set of parameters and made them flexible. Instead of saying "Okay, yeah, this is bad but I liked it so meh," I pushed myself to figure out exactly what aspects of it I liked and disliked. I didn't settle for separating entertainment and quality, or the "whats," like you keep assuming I do, I went for the whys all the way. I just don't bother discussing them with most people because often times the people that I could end up having disagreements with tend to just have views too incompatible with my own to gain anything from it, since the core values we have in our stated priorities just tend to be too far removed from one another. There's no reason to challenge somebody's thoughts when it's just because of values dissonance, which is often the situation I find myself in.

I determined that the route where true gain is made is the one where you press yourself to figure out why you didn't enjoy it in spite of it being something you'd normally enjoy, instead of settling for something as vapid and unproductive as "it's good but I didn't like it." I'm still far from perfect at these internet debates, but from where I was at a year ago in terms of getting my point across, I've improved substantially just by recognizing the importance of self-introspective and working from there.

That's my core idea of subjectivity and remaining open-minded. Determining individual parameters and keeping them flexible - and to keep things flexible, you have to push at things by questioning why you didn't like it, not accepting that it was good but you just didn't enjoy it. Enjoyment and quality work best when treated as a singular entity for that reason.

Your idea is simply this:



Instead of pushing yourself to figure out why Nichijou didn't amuse you or work for you as intended in spite of doing things you'd normally consider good, you just accept it as good without really trying to figure out deeper on why it didn't work because it fell into your pre-determined parameters of quality. As you dismiss my take on the importance of individual priorities as arrogant and selfish or whatever it, I dismiss this as inflexible and narrow-minded.

The part that I have a real issue with past just banter, though, is that you're trying to paint your lack of desire to figure out why it didn't work in spite of doing things right at the core as the true means of seeking out intellectualism and growth. By separating the two instead of trying to figure out why it didn't work despite normally being something that would is just settling for stagnation - there is no growth or intellectual gain coming from not pushing or questioning yourself. Actual change and growth depends on individual introspective and personal values, not simply letting people question your ideals for you.

Conclusion. On the contrary, I fully endorse and encourage one to explore the whys when one's values and taste conflict, as these are often rather unusual and interesting cases. The reason I portray taste or emotive appeal as the more "selfish" of the two is because of how difficult that is to share with others in a direct way, whereas values or aesthetic appeal is something that can be far more easily conveyed or "shared" with others who can appreciate that dimension of things and thus provides more opportunities when it comes to discussion.

Joven said:


@TripleSRank As someone who really doesn't really have a conflict between my taste and what I value... I see things like "aesthetic appeal" or values, as you call it, still as something to enjoy(taste or what you call "emotive" appeal) and if I didn't enjoy it, I can't appreciate it hence it's bad. If I enjoyed it, then it's good. It's simple, really.

Of course we can discuss the finer details of its "aesthetic appeal" but if I still can't see a single thing to enjoy from it... then yeah... I can't appreciate it. Hence, I can't concede that it's good...
(This is pretty much how I feel about Cowboy Bebop which I dropped after 8 episodes..)

15poundfish said:
I disagree because art is not designed to just entertain its audience but also to think. One show can be really fun to watch but the other show where you dozed of a little in some scenes can be more worthwhile to watch than the former because you experienced something new and made you think about interesting things you never thought before.

TripleSRank said:

Quick check, are you Capitalist? Gotta make sure to remember the new name if so.

Anyway, the point you're making seems to be more of a semantics issue than a direct disagreement. If you call any and all forms of liking something, mental or emotive, as "enjoyment", then my post will probably confuse you to no end. You lose a lot of nuance and detail when you take to such an overly reductionistic way of describing your opinions, unfortunately.

Further, even if you are understanding me as I intended, I'd like to reiterate that there's nothing inherently wrong with favoring only the things that bring you direct emotive satisfaction. I dislike that approach, but it isn't "wrong".

Joven said:


Yeah... I'm CapitalistGod

No, it's not just a semantic issue... I don't really have a distinction with the two. The only time I can appreciate a show's "aesthetic appeal" is if I enjoyed it in an "emotive" level, and the only time I can I enjoy something in an "emotive" level is if I subconsciously or even consciously notice and appreciate a show's "aesthetic appeal".