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Fvlminatvs said:


Firstly, I am a member of an elite in that I earned a status and position through hard work and achievement in (what ideally) is a meritocratic system.

Secondly, being a member of an elite and being an "elitist" are not synonymous.

Haeduans said:
After all these years, I do NOT actually understand why Legend of Galactic Heroes managed to become an elitist bait. Of course, I believe I can very much acknowledge what "elitism meme" really is in MAL so I'll leave that out to propose or put forward another topic of discussion concerning elitism (particularly on LoGH).

Just what is the relationship between the two, LotGH and elitism?

a) Legend of Galactic Heroes used as an instrument to advocate/exemplify elitist thinking. (conceptual)
b) Legend of Galactic Heroes inspired the viewers to take an elitist mindset.
c) Legend of Galactic Heroes inherently possesses elements of elitist thinking.

Discussion and Prognosis:

a) I disclaim the fact that I have stayed long enough in MAL that I've first-handedly experienced or took a glimpse of its evolving status as a symbol of participation within the elitist circle. The point of the above premise, "Legend of Galactic Heroes used as an instrument to advocate/exemplify elitist thinking" is that when approached etymologically to a certain extent, whoever those founding fathers of elitism are in the past, they have succeeded in inculcating the praxis within the anime community. Ironically, it is somehow analogous to simply creating or generating hype for a popular mainstream anime. The difference is that this whole case of hype-generation was not handled by a majorial body - elites (or elitists) did. Within the confines of human achievement pedagogy, this should not be an easy ploy. Yes, existence of Luther created Lutheranism, etc. but can the same thing be said for the elite's case? The assumption that it is improbable to point a finger to someone or something that started this hype, shows the "real nature of elitism". When put into anime context, elitism may have not started as a mentality, but a mechanism. It is definitely more difficult to dismantle, disprove, or debunk someone's hypotheses if you cannot locate the originating source. At one point of time, some of our "elite fathers" decided to proclaim that LotGH is an excellent model as to whatever purpose they may have been advocating. Elitism works best within from the shadows, it has no conceivable form of centralization, nor it has the massive popularity to garner antitheses. Thus, ELITISM IS AN INSTRUMENT. It endures criticism by lacking a central or prominent body, it defies abrupt antagonism through its naturally slow temperament, and more importantly it CREATES ANONYMITY which in turn, suppresses exposure. You can go into lengths advancing your ideological inclinations without being overly concerned with any kind of consequences or repercussions. I'll argue at this point, this is what set the stage for ITS TRANSITION FROM INSTRUMENTALITY, TO MENTALITY.

Anything could have been chosen as a prime material, it is not limited to LotGH. Apparently in MAL, LotGH seemed to won the consensus.

b) To quote my first ever MAL teacher in elitism matters,


The first discussion somehow enlightened what does it mean to take "elitism by its essence or nature". The elitism we may be seeing today, is a convoluted product of its evolving nature, nevertheless elitism started as a mechanism and instrumentality for "INVULNERABILITY". I believe this needs to be clarified as most commentors here in MAL, although they are right in most aspects, chose to disregard the historical context of the word "elite - elitist - elitism", leaving the impression that elitism, as a concept by itself, is an innately subjective matter that needs to subdued into healthy levels. The dialectical repercussions favoured only the bad stigma of the concept, people can only hope NOT to become an elitist when originally there's nothing wrong of becoming an elite. IT'S ACTUALLY A SKILL that shows mastery in information dissemination and control while remaining hidden.

Reassuringly, my teacher have quoted as well, elitism is NOT ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU KNOW. In this regard, we can safely say, elitism is ABOUT HOW MUCH ONE CAN CONTROL AND MANIPULATE WHAT YOU KNOW. (Quality over quantity)

Let's go back to the earlier question.
Q: What is the relationship between the two, LotGH and elitism?
A: Based on the two parts of discussion above, I am tempted to say, literally nothing aside from measly relations originating from the elites' motivation to showcase their skill in the form of persuasion through effective use and control of information. Why LotGH was chosen, is surely based on the series alone and not because LotGH suits better the working mechanisms of how an "elite" works.

c) I wish not to say anything about those people that ascribes to flauntly sharing and letting other people know about their gusto when it comes to LotGH. It is a fact that they can interpret it as a very excellent anime and no one has the right to disprove that, elitist or not. However, it is my assumption that people who have not EVEN TRIED TO UNDERSTAND BETTER the historical and etymological context of "elitism" attribute properties to it even though their vantage point is ONLY WHEN ELITISM STARTED AS A MEME, OR MENTALITY as what many others have tried to construe. It is as said, created unnecessary dialectical problems. Inherently, LotGH should have no ties with elitism to begin with. Other than "whoa Kaiser Reinhard embodies what elite truly is, just look at how he speaks, he moves, etc.." I agonize and lament as to whoever were those succeeding generation of LotGH fans chose to interpret elitism in THE MOST DENOTABLE WAY. That is literally a denotative way of interpreting things, and not all LotGH fans share this sentiment!

Another thing, if we take into consideration as to how much thematic underpinnings there are involved in LotGH, and not taking hermeneutic approach in a very serious and exhaustive manner, you would be surprised that the 110 episodes of LotGH intimately centralizes in history as its framework, with social studies largely focusing on political ideology and ethics. DOES THIS SEEM TO BE A CULMINATION OF EVERY EPISTEMOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE THERE ARE IN THE WORLD that when you watched and finished it, you will suddenly gain superior knowledge in history and politics? Yes, for beginners, you will be able to appreciate basic concepts such as democracy and imperialism, and the interesting dialectics formed between them, but were you instilled with the concepts of history as a structure, as a method, or its methodologies? Can you suddenly attempt historical evaluations in the form of juncture points on different real-life context, just because you know the Intergalactic space history of LotGH?

In short, LoTGH gives you something to contemplate, something that is more heuristically-inclined, something that is fun to watch, and something that you can appreciate as a student - whether you are a major in history, philo, in humanities, sociology, etc, or whether you are still in the lower years of education and this show ignited your enthusiasm for history and politics. I won't speak for adults and settled individuals, they knew what they want to go for in their lives.

I stand by my argument/assumption/thesis - I DO NOT SEE LotGH AS AN ELITIST MATERIAL GIVEN THE LATTER'S HISTORICAL AND ETYMOLOGICAL CONTEXT. For those of you who see it as mentality, feel free to continue advocating it like that, but know that the reasoning you employ is not entirely foundational, and that at one point of time, you just "go with the flow" with what others are saying. There's nothing wrong with being influenced. Just don't hop in every time you see the bandwagon..make sure what you say to others is not just a reproduction or replication of what others have concluded. Put some of yourself into it.

So, I'll ask you again, ARE YOU AN ELITIST OR NOT?

Haeduans said:
First, let me elaborate my reasons as to why the first episode of Shingeki no Kyojin (SnK) is I personally believe, not posing that much of a problematic flaw as a mainstream series. As you have stated earlier, Flannan generally frowns upon the usage of gore and violence in creating a tension for the plot story. He spoke of his enumerations as easy examples of good and bad things, so I have to assume that he dropped SnK to show a particularly bad example of a flaw a mainstream series "seems or is inclined to possess". The question I am more preferred to entertain at this point is whether the viewers really see the gore as the main catalyst for its growing popularity. Take for example, Texhnolyze, in the first few episodes or so, we can actually see the character losing his arms and legs from a sword cut, and as one of known personalities here in MAL have substantiated (I believe I picked this up from one of masterofgo's casual discussions) that kind of portrayal of violence and gore is very unusual and unique as it captures the concept of pain so vividly that it strongly resonates and reverberates to the back of one's mind. I am sure that there are other examples of this gory vibe (eg. Ao no Exorcist, Claymore, Berserk) but let us first limit the comparison to these two: Texhnolyze and SnK. I would also like to introduce three concepts that are very much popular as a sufficient citerion to theory choice: accuracy, consistency, and simplicity.

Simplicity as Acquinas wrote,

If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices.

In this regard, we find SnK to be needing to employ this same strategy all over again and again, showing the viewers numerous deaths and other fatalities, while Texhnolyze can be argued to only have sufficiently provided an extreme gory moment just once; from there everything is supposed to follow smoothly. It does not need to repeat those instances, it is simple in its purpose and execution.

#1) Mainstream anime like SnK does not employ the use of simplicity criterion; the overall repeated instances of gore and violence that needs to be spread all throughout the series proves to strengthen a weakness that is embedded on it: that "something" has to be properly maintained and given sufficient exposure. Mainstream anime is not simple, by all means.

This simplicity criterion can be extended to other mainstream anime culture, such as battle shounen, by which DBZ comes to mind first. As much as people wanted to stress the formulaic property of the mainstream to be one of its delibitating qualities, it can also be equated as the MAINSTREAM NOT HAVING THE CAPACITY TO BE SIMPLE. The tournaments, the battles, the never-ending match-ups, they are all there being incessantly repeated because there is this some sort of moral lesson/message/revelation which cannot be conveyed and touched to the core without the power of repetition. Hardwork, a common theme to shounen anime, can be rendered simple in the surface, and yet one cannot hope to beautifully carve a story of it that was done in just 2-3 episodes. It is not simple, visually or mimetically, and the fact that the mainstream further promulgates these kind of thematic underpinnings ardently touches the hearts of the viewers.

While it can be said that repetition does not always equate to non-simplicity, but of mediocrity and lacking-ness of the plot itself, this assumption is dangerous as it can lead to assertations that two separate individual bodies/thoughts/ideas have the capacity on its own to produce a meaningful presence even when disjointed from one another. Consistency or correlation, (can have different meanings regarding to context) the idea according to which we only have access to correlation between object 1 and object 2, and never to either term considered apart from the other.

Quote: "It's less talking about the show, but what was the intent of even making a story like that is in the first place, to appeal to individuals that like the suspense and tension created by gore and he doesn't like that."

I understand that it is Flannan's personal matters to abhor it, but I believe what we are talking about here is the viability of such gore as to be considered a flaw that is inherently shared among mainstream anime. The question or inquiry I would like to entertain here is "to what extent, does this gore becomes a flaw?" By employing the consistency criterion, I will try to contemplate whether there really is a meaningful basis for such proposition, and on what grounds are they being created or misconceived.

This time, we will take Bleach as an example. There is this one immutable fact that SnK let their viewers see a Titan biting to death a helpless person, while Bleach's hollow-ful universe choose to only imply that they are capable of doing the same feat to wandering souls, nevertheless they were never explicitly shown under normal [plot] circumstances. Nevertheless, the mainstream presumably attracting its audience with blood-splattering antics will only gain considerable value or interest it it fits and is "consistent" with the world-building. To illustrate the consistency criterion, in Bleach there is a hollow (bad soul), and a good soul. Realistically, we will never be able to make sense of what these hollows are by-themselves, and so is the same for the wandering good-natured souls that Ichigo was able to see with a materialized body. We can say that the connection between the two will only be made indentifiable by gore, as the latter will decidedly become meals for the Hollows. All in all, the definite thing is that we have access to either of the subjects being compared with each other and that we know that it is a failed mimesis or mimicry. There are no Hollows in real world, and our concept of good souls may not fit as what is being provided to us by Bleach, nevertheless we sympathize and we pretend that we can relate to them.

#2) Mainstream anime is a failure at mimesis. Assuming coherentism's feasibility, there's no real access to all the ideas or entities an anime series provides to us. The mainstream ones are much susceptible to this criterion and as such needed to devise an instrument that will help bridge the gap to the constitutive subjects. The gore is one of the answers.

The gore may initially be seen as a flaw in that anime producers use it as an advertising tactic to promote the anime series as cool, edgy and stuffs, meanwhile it augments the mimetic failure of anime in general in respect to realism. The more mainstream ones tend to be more "unrealistic" that people should start rolling their heads as "who cares if an android gets killed, duh it's not a real human" but surprisingly the blood from the gore and the pain that accompanies with it makes almost everyone dismiss the idea of a synthetic build-up of an entity and choose to symphatize with it because of the blood splattered by gory actions. It shows then that in SnK, the gore has almost very little to no relevance (atleast in mimetic buildup) as it does not need to emphasize further the contained realism where real humans are the one being put into onslaught by a more oppressive living species. Terraformars as well. Regardless of how strong an anime character is, once he bleeds, once he was beheaded, once the agonizing pain of splattering blood entered the scene, thats where the mimetic aspect of anime comes back onto itself. That's the time where they cam become truly relatable (see phenomenological theories), that's the time where they can be made vulnerable that your heart reaches out to them as if to internally cry from the inside. Otherwise, I don't care if Orochimaru was to get beat by someone 500x a day...when Tsunade's curse was passed onto him and during that shower scene (not really a good one) was the only time I felt that he is is till a living being contained in the fabric of realism that we pretend to objectively know.

(...to be continued)

Haeduans said:
Why is Rin not looking so much of a girl? Get her a guy hairstyle and she might as well ba a guy at most. What the hell, does Ufotable has something to do with how I came up with that impression of Tohsaka Rin? Or I'm just being half-awake every time I see her?