Mindset (2018): Not "Why is it shit?" but rather "Why isn't it good?"
"No one is entitled to their opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant." - Harlan Ellison
"Realize that your perspective is a very narrow one; talk to older people. Talk to your grandparents, talk to random people on the street. Maybe, even get yourself a girlfriend and see how that changes your perspective." - Shinchiro Watanabe, Madfes 2017 (Paraphrased)
"For Shit Airing anime, I swear there is a hotline to make them decent, or at least watchable, and for some reason, it's always Sawano Hiroyuki answering the phone." - henriiez, 2014
"If you hate what's in your head, the fuck would you speak your mind?" - crash by EDEN
My Favourite OTP: Renge & Kaede because they are the cutest things ever.
How I Score Anime: Enjoyment
Favourite Genre: I would normally say "doesn't exist" but to get to an answer for a question, I'd have to say Slice-of-Life because screw a 1-dimensional genre-type answer. I love seeing character driven works and the different types of interactions that can occur between a certain group of people in a certain type of situation. I don't look at anime and manga as a way of escapism so I have always loved Slice-of-Life type anime with one of my first loves being Toradora, which I related to quite a lot, and is the only one I watched back in the day that I still think is good enough to gush over anytime I hear about it nowadays.
One of My Favourite Anime: Mushishi, because of how beautifully the story is presented, sounds and is unique to every episode the series has. The whole series is an extremely atmospheric forcing you into their world, but doesn't rush straight into anything nor does anything really have to happen, where it dwells in realism whilst exploring the unknown. This series is able to let things slow down and there is not a need for an event to be happening every second, and things simply fall into place.
One of My Favourite Anime: Usagi Drop, because of how lovable Rin is; matured with respects from table manners to diligence with almost anything since does but the innocent she brings with her young age which is shown with the concept of death and many other things that appear throughout the anime. A combination of Daichiki and Rin as they tackle their new profound lifestyle presented in a light-hearted manner, soundtrack to fit, enjoyment is the only thing that follows when watching this anime.
One of My Favourite Anime: Baccano, because of the brilliant use of writing to input information without having strong enough connections at the forefront to put together a well-developed whole picture only to put the pieces together at the very end flawlessly. The characters are undoubtedly the most unique and fun cast of characters in anime's history rather than one or two strong leads, they have almost everything to get into (even if you always look for a character to relate to, you'd still love this series, you just have to finish it for those that haven't).
One of My Favourite Manga: Yotsubato!, because of how lovable Yotsuba is. That's it. Honestly, it's how Yotsuba tackles concepts or interacts with any of the other characters, especially her Dad, that make the manga and absolute pleasure to read. The characters feel alive and genuine through their actions and the interactions which make the series more alive even with the ever so curious Yotsuba.
One of My Favourite Manga: One Punch-Man, because the series is a good take on a deconstruction of the shounen genre with it's ridiculously overpowered protagonist, however is extremely plain on appearance. Saitama does not get his attention from his appearance but genuinely from his immense power that easily far-surpasses anyone else's. He has already gone through the excruciating training to get him to that point so we no longer have to see him train and want to get stronger; he just wants a worthy opponent to fight against now.
When I started watching anime seriously: September 9, 2011 – It was the holidays and I had absolutely nothing better to do and the AMV below made me wanted to watch One Piece. There were almost 500 episodes at the time and since I had time to spend, I decided it would be watch all of One Piece to the current episode, which took me a month (ran one week into school). I later went to a family friends house, who introduced me to the site I'm using now to watch anime and I have been ever since, and here I am now.
Meh, then I guess we can talk about "How many layers must something possess for it to function well?" since it comes across like we have differing viewpoints on that, or at least that's what I take away from it based on how you articulated yourself there.
I'm not really a proponent of the idea that a good character needs to be shrouded in complexity with their motivations and interactions. Some things function better while being more basic and ascribing too many layers to a character can actually be a detriment in some cases, I feel like. Think a lot of harem/ecchi or CGDCT shows where idealization is a major aspect towards their appeal and what causes people to enjoy them, and as such the interactions and dynamics between the cast itself generally will function better in a more simplistic manner than in a layered, complicated, more gray manner. There is little need for a thematic, psychological exploration of what makes a character attracted to another in a romcom, maybe in a subversion but that subversion would take it more into psychological exploration territory over romcom in the first place I'd argue. Something like Nagasarete Airantou does not need as much to be a better series in terms of what its identity is, it functions well as an episodic harem/ecchi romcom with the premise being "guy trapped on an island populated entirely by females."
This is kind of what can irk me about these ideals, it can change the identity of a series and as a result they don't tend to be constructive or useful on an objective level and instead just come across closer to objectifying what's never possible to amount to more than a personal distaste for common tropes and elements found within a certain sect of entertainment. So I'd treat a hypothetical criticism towards Nagasarete Airantou that would go along the lines of "It could've focused more on fleshing out the island and how the island's society adapted to survive in the absence of males and blah blah blah but instead it focused on ecchi jokes and romcom stuff" with absolute scorn because that isn't necessarily needed to make the series better at what it is, it's making it into something else more suitable to their palette all together. It's biased and non-helpful and it's pretty much the equivalent of someone like me saying "Gee, I sure wish (x series) sexualized its female cast more. They've got such attractive designs, so it's such a waste." That wouldn't be a useful criticism to a series that has different priorities than attractive female characters and focuses itself entirely elsewhere at all now, would it? What's the difference between the two? One sounds nicer on a superficial level because it comes across like it's demanding depth and quality whereas it's much easier to dismiss sexualization as basic and vapid, but that's about it. It's still neglecting everything about the series in question in favor of wishful thinking and impressing personal desires for its identity onto it, which is fine for shitbanter discussions or not so-serious conversations about a series but isn't fine at all in the context of a review or a legit attempt at interpreting its quality. I really do believe that the reason people like Digibro can dismiss people who push for these things in reviews and serious discussion as "trying to project an image of refined taste onto themselves" is because these sorts of sayings often come from a place that's neglecting the priorities and identity of a series and just impressing their own desires onto it. It lacks a solid foundation past as much and there's a difference between trying to be subjective and trying to be objective - the difference being how "X is bad and would be better with this" and "I would've liked it more if X focused on this more" are two entirely separate claims in regards to what one is expressing.
And don't get me wrong, I think that idea Digi expressed in his "the most boring 3x3" video a while back is a crock of shite, but it's easy to see why people would come to that conclusion if you've been around reviews and discussions around anime enough for the reasons I outlined above. That doesn't mean that it isn't totally unfair to reach that conclusion and begin making those accusatory claims of intent on broad, sweeping levels to why these certain people like these certain shows like people who say shit like that often end up doing, but I see why ideas like that take root at the very least and they seem more reactionary to poorly founded, neglectful criticisms towards certain types of shows than anything else.
That's also why I treat the statement of "Shokugeki is how to make a good ecchi" with such scorn. The ecchi elements start off kind of present and then mitigate into nothingness the longer the series goes on. The identity of Shokugeki has always been as a battle shounen with a cooking-twist since the beginning and the fanservice has been sparse at best, yet people see this thing that can more likely appeal to them and notices that it has fanservice every now and again and wish to make every ecchi this way. It's just not useful towards ecchi itself when the underlying idea is, well, "the way to make ecchi better is to have it just be something else entirely and then pop a couple of fanservice scenes in throughout its whole runtime." It's a joke.
There are certain tones and identities that benefit from those layers to characterization and identity as well, though, so I'm not diametrically opposed to these sorts of things in the slightest. At the end of the day, what's relevant to making something better and what isn't is entirely reliant on being able to substantiate an interpretation of a series' identity and priorities with evidence from the text and extending criticism that can be additive rather than reductive. The failure to establish the most basic foundation and treating "thematic explorations" and "layered characterization" as an inherent good is why so many reviews on this site seem haphazard and superficial to me.
Then again, there's also people who treat Trigger like they can write characters with loads of personality whenever the personality of those characters is often pretty superficial and reliant on Trigger's sense of spectacle permeating them to create an illusion of individual personality more than anything, so I also kind of think that none of this will be relevant to a lot of people and if you just give them something that's loud and distinct they will immediately ignore all else and treat it like it's the total package.
It's kind of hard to explain how I rate things on a broad level whenever I don't have any broad consistency and takes things on a more series by series level. One of the main things I look for in a series is how much I can get into the flow of it, how much the rest of the world around me melts away because I get so into it - and "I just got so into it" is so vague that it can be achieved in a number of ways. So some scores are relative to me and very personally oriented, some aren't and relate to qualities I think it has somehow, which tends to function within the confines of either just that series or maybe the field if there's enough shows cut from the same cloth that I've seen, it's just...very, very hard to define because there's no consistency and the reason there's no consistency is because I keep it very subjective and relative to how I felt as an audience member.
I don't think that's a bad thing, mind you, mostly because I keep my list for myself and not meant to guide people or anything. Discourse and trying to mitigate biases has its place in interpretive discussion and constructive critique, but I've never actually been a critic in of itself as much as just some dipshit on the forums, so when people come to my profile and ask me about scores it's kind of awkward because it's just...my thing, not really meant to be helpful.
That's kind of my philosophy when it comes to consuming anime, not just rating it but things like deciding what I want to watch too. "I just do whatever I want to." No use keeping a little list of do's and do-not's that I look at when assigning a rating to any given show, no use planning out my "what I'm watching next" hundreds of anime into the future. Literally just do what I feel like I should score/watch at any given moment.
Probably a disappointing answer but that's how it is xP Never been a critic at heart, couldn't even speak English that well a couple of years ago and the only reason I amount to anything in my posts is because I got irritated that it felt like people were really unfair about things like fanservice and ecchi and tried to get better at talking about them so I could actually defend them without being a little mongoloid who dropped off little one sentence posts and whatnot. Just happened to bleed into other areas as well because I actually am interested in more than just ecchi, even though ecchi is still now and forever my #1. I'm not perfect but I try at least, so I can say that with pride.
Tho I do the second thing a lot and there's been series that have trickled down for me quite a bit. Could give a series a 10 and completely love it in the moment then months later be like "lol wut is this series doing here I don't even remember it that well" and move it down.
And no, I wouldn't, I'd only do that if I decided to do so myself. I'm too much of a stubborn bastard to not have a fight about panty shots in AD every couple of days, I'm not exactly going to begin worrying of what people think of how I do things. And even if, hypothetically, they articulated their arguments better than me, it doesn't necessarily make their thought or ideas as to why better than my own, just more well-expressed. What I've sort of taken to doing whenever somebody "beats" me in an argument is that I just go back to the drawing board and try to flesh out and understand my own thoughts or feelings on something rather than just outright admitting they're right. If I come to the conclusion they're right then hey, I probably would, but that would still because I reached the conclusion they were right and not just because I was challenged or even beaten in an argument over it.
I would be unconcerned moving from the PM inboxes to general comments section as a form of reply. It actually does its job to navigate quickly or refer to messages immediately without messing up. You could easily track what topic you've left and successively reply to the person on the other end. My only concern is that it may seem easy commenting on profile but what about interference you could get from others as they will be able to read since it is publicly posted on here? I don't really mind but my commentaries usually range from objectively rating based on substance to empirical knowledge based solely on experiences, what I've noticed, believed, felt, hoped, knew, imagined, sensed, remembered etc. and thus somehow represent.
I wasn't surprised that you numerously encountered shounen not because it targeted mainly the demographic, it is also easy to say it is near to youth. But anime doesn't seem to be stuck in just particular age but carried on on all age levels. It's like you cannot easily do away from Hiruma Youichi of Deimon Devil Bats even if you're at 56. I understand my brother being particularly drawn into tokustasu, action loaded and adventure-filled anime in which I could personally relate to him. You have named some conventional classics in your previous message and we're also up to it. Last time I checked on him, he's been watching Magi. Unlikely, I got more diverse set when it comes to anime preference.
I see this conversation is getting into somewhere. If I'm to slack I'd shitpost particularly on tumblr. I wasn't too long on reddit but I shityounot the site's at the very least keeping the internet from its ultimatum...well only with some subbreddits, ofcourse.
It has. Accounting, huh? Some of my family members are accountants. It's not for me but they appreciate it. Is that what you ultimately want to do or maybe you want to do something else? Awesome, link me the channel when you get rolling with it. I'd like to see it. As for my birthday, I forgot about it myself! It wasn't until my parents reminded me that I thought about it. I guess that's what happens when people get a bit older.
I've been doing well. There's a lot of of work for my grad program, especially since I'm in the middle of midterms. It's going well and I did a bang up job on my presentation if I do say so myself! Got into an internship for next year. Yay! I'll be working with teenagers with behavioral difficulties. Abuse, neglect, etc. It's certainly going to be a different and difficult experience and I'll be learning a lot. It's going to help me become a better psychologist and I'm looking forward to help teens cope.
It's getting warmer and the sun's out for longer where I'm at, which is quite, quite, quite nice. I grew vines + some herbs like basil, rosemary, and parsley. I bought some posters for my room to add some color. Some video game ones, and some Mucha ones. Some christmas lights too. Other than that I got to see my parents and brother this weekend so that was fantastic. A much needed breather from work and school.
I've been listening to some audiobooks and I really enjoyed The Trial by Franz Kafka. Good stuff. Not sure what I want to listen to next.
As usual, I get my anime discussion from the Uber club, Anime World Order, AAA podcast, and The Cart Driver. It looks like The Cart Driver isn't going to last with one blogger leaving, and another writing for MAL now. I've been following them for quite a while and so we'll see what happens. Nothing definitive yet but I'll be sad when they go. Maybe I'm looking for a new blog to follow like them with a lot of humor and silliness? I've been looking for some other sites for discussion. Any suggestions?
Also, I've been thinking of how I enjoy anime and if I want to change anything. I share my thoughts as I watch different shows and it's fun to hear what others think. I'm liking where I'm at though. In college I joined an anime club and that was fun. Not sure if I want to do that again but I do love face to face discussion more than anything. I had the opportunity to go to some conventions but I passed them up for whatever reason. I'm debating on going to Anime Boston but idk. I'm slightly curious to see what it's all about. I was debating on writing a blog but I'm terrible at writing, I'm inconsistent in posting, and I'm pretty lazy! :) How do you enjoy anime besides watching it?
I've been looking for some sites for video game discussion as well. I listen to Kinda Funny now and I really enjoy them, even if I don't agree with everything they say. I was looking at neogaf but I'm not sure. I also follow a few people on Twitch like Dans Gaming and some people I met while playing Dark Souls. I do enjoy backloggery but I'm not sure how to engage in discussion there. Any suggestions for video game discussion that has a solid community?
Some video games I've been playing are on my profile. They're Firewatch, Life is Strange, and Persona 4 Golden. All great. To The Moon and Undertale are probably going to be next. I've been pumped for Uncharted 4 from the trailers and gameplay. Looks fantastic. I need to start from the series beginning though before I touch 4! Dark Souls 3 looks like more Dark Souls, which is totally fine with me. I won't be able to play it bc no PS4 access. Any games you've been enjoying? What are you looking forward to?
Lastly, and to actually answer your question, for animoo I've been taking it very easy. Just watching Erased right now. Rakugo is up next. That's all I want to watch from the current season I think. I took a break from everything else. Anyway, there's shows I want to finish and series I'm excited for the future. Any series that you're enjoying now or looking forward to?
In general it was well designed and animated. The audio was pretty good overall and the voice acting was surprisingly good for what was ostensibly a simple highschool romantic comedy. The problem - which ironically was also one of the better aspects of the series - was the "mystery" about Eru's uncle.
The bit with "Ice Cream" was really well done, but the whole scenario seemed to have been crowbarred in to the main storyline and it actually felt quite shallow because the focus kept shifting from one thing to another without resolving the more interesting plot elements.
Classic memes, well I am a spastic, not surprised i misspelled half of the about me section. Whatever gets the information across is all gee. I'll fix it up sooner or later.
Yeah man, well I have plenty of "god tier" anime to watch still. e.g steins gate, madoka.
Saving it for when times get rough, I'm fine with watching anything right now, I like things surprising me. That's why watching seasonally can be really rewarding. There can be those anime that have no information about them turn out to be amazing, or the ones who everyone anticipates to be bad turns out being good as. Works both ways, sometimes the hype gets to things and they turn out terribad, whether that's because it was never as good as they hype claimed it to be or whether it was just made terribly.
Well you have watched 3x more anime than me so I'm sure you know whats up. These days its just the fun of watching things and talking to people about it. It's never going to be like how it used to be, I remember watching something like SAO and it was the best fucking thing in the world, watched it without taking a break to even eat. ahh good times *wipes tear*
Can't really get away with that these days for me. Nothing is ever that good. I feel like ive already seen the best thing I will ever see. And the anime that people tell me will be better than what I have seen I'll save for the day I really need it. Not any time soon though, times are good, everything is chill, mentally stable. So were gucci.
I'm also afraid to rewatch anything that I thought was good, especially things on my top 5. I always feel like if I do I'll see the flaws and not enjoy it nearly as much. Ah well, maybe in a couple years i'll go for the rewatch. Only been watching anime for a year and a half so everything is still pretty fresh considering how long you need until you forget it enough to warrant a full rewatch, unless you really love it :p
Hey :) Hope you have wonderful holidays. Don't worry, I will respond to your comment soonish! Been busy marathoning Penguindrum! LOL I'm excited for Ikuhara's show next season. Are you looking forward to anything?
Alright. I will give you an add but I am not always online. It's pretty useful for me as I like to do keep the amount of hassle to the minimum and it does that pretty well.
Oh! So you are buying a new laptop. That's nice. It must be a really really ancient piece of hardware to not be able to run even YouTube 😋.
Y11 and Y12 are the last two years of highschool where I live or you can call it 2 years of college according to Uk education system. I forgot it's summer in Australia at the moment. Gl with surviving. I am managing to get good grades by putting in a bit of effort - maybe 50% or so. Well, I only take 3 subjects so it's somewhat manageable; even with the huge amount of syllabus.
It was 30 or so Earlier but it's still comparatively small to you. And that's after adding all the rewatched. At least I surpass you in manga.
Nop. I don't know how to play either but I sure do like both. Since I like both the classical/jazz as well as the rock/metal genre so it's pretty hard to decide. I won't go for an over the roof purchase. Nothing more than $500 for a start. The headphones don't seem so bad though I would have gone for another of the corsair's but since it's a gift - understandable. It's nice that you listen to all genres. It's pretty similar for me except I don't like modern pop or dubstep sort of genre.
Thanks for understanding ^_^ It sure would be helpful if you could talk on some IM but I guess you don't use any or don't want to add me on any or it's alright. You should try out the MAL updater. It's a great software and very easy to use. It can automatically update if you have the anime downloaded and you finish watching and close the player.
Damn! How did it die? Don't you have a laptop or mobile? I have no idea how I will survive without using computer for a day. Probably would be like a fish out of water >.< Holidays at this time of the year? o.O I mean isn't it usually closer to Christmas (We don't get those holidays XD)
If you check my anime stats, mine also increased by some bits - I guess roughly 30 days. So I guess I spent 1 month this year watching anime :D I already have friends who share interests like watching anime and playing games. I am refraining from games as they make me addicted quite easily and I don't want that because it's somewhat affecting to my studies. Y11 is hard for me as well. Like a whole pile of new stuff is taught in Math. If Y11 is 100%, Y10 would be maybe 10%. So what topic of Math did you face a problem in? I am being a lot more productive this year than last.
30-40 series? Daym. I probably followed like 10 or something but I only finished a few because most were just typical bs. This season shows little promise except maybe 2-3 anime (comparing to last few seasons). Try what more?
Oh, that's nice. I was thinking of buying a violin or guitar. It's such a hard decision because I like both instruments. Well, I still have time to decide because I will buy it in Q1 of next year. What kind of Headset did they gift? I also have a gaming headset which I gifted myself >.< - A G430. Though, I am curious as to how you use headsets with a drum set? Like you plug it in (if it's electronic) to mute all the sound? Or do you use it to listen to songs while practicing? Not sure if I asked before, but what kind of music do you listen to?
Shit shit shit shit shit. I am like bloody sorry dude. So bloody sorry T_T that I didn't reply. Dammit. It's been a bloody year. I literally forgot about this website for most of the time. I mean I do watch anime and update my list but that's done through the software so yuh.
I kinda got busy with studies and a new friend I made (who turned to be a bitch later on :/) during the start of the year. I was also playing a lot of MMORPGs, mainly Aion during that time and a few others later on. And then I was out of home during vacations and once I came back BAM! This grade is seriously far harder than the one last year so I seriously needed to study (along with watching anime :P) But I guess I can keep up with it since I am confident with my basics and I got good grades last year as well ^_^
Been a long time, bruh. Would love to catch up. How's your drum set? That sure was an expensive purchase.
Well, there are some topics I have more to say on and some - I don't even know what to say on anymore. (Everything seems to be said already and all that's left is to conclude or drop - although possibly dropping some topics might work better, so there's more place for new ones. Hard to tell when a thought is finished and when it's not. I think I might simply not continue a topic when I feel I have nothing left to say about it or when I agree about those bits completely. Like, I also loved the bit about the subtle ways character feelings were shown in Hyouka - if I made a paragraph out of it - it would be super short and possibly meaningless.)
Justice and Fairness still seem simple to me, even with your example. Suicide is a murder, but hard to classify because the murderer and the victim are the same person, I think a person attempting suicide should be treated pretty much the same way as someone attempting murder. It's never right to take a life, but it's right to take away freedom from those, who do not respect freedom and rights of others. If certain adjustments are made to laws, I feel that those things could become even simpler. And in any case - the person saving that suicide attempting man would have 100% done the right thing, no matter how it might end. (The anime "Monster" is a well illustrated example that plays in the opposite direction, though.) If you commit a crime, you should pay for it, but the payment system is very underdeveloped and mostly ends up being simply - lock someone up for a while and let them out so they can continue committing crimes. In that case it's obvious why many people would support death penalty and whatnot. Also why there's still the problem of lynching - the ideals laws hold should be similar to ideals people hold, there should be a very well developed compromise between ideals and reality AND, the most painful part - enough funds to uphold these laws. I think people who commit crimes mainly need a therapy and psychiatrist working with them, since it means they have a really big problem in their morals and values - and both of those can be changed and influenced.
Yes, I have seen Chitose Get you!! If I consider the shortness combined with the style and animation quality, then - yes, I must admit I wouldn't enjoy them nearly as much if there was a full episode. It's like with salt - it's good in small doses, but gets really disgusting if that dose is overstepped. With short episodes I feel one can endure a much longer period of bad animation/sound/quality - which are all parts that matter strongly with longer pieces. (Anime movies for example - even the average quality, which is good for episodes, often doesn't cut it when it comes to a two hour feature film) Although that holds true with anything - there can be unlikeable bits, but they should never form a huge enough chunk to ruin the whole experience. I think there aren't that many shows, where one could honestly say they liked 100% of the show. There's always one or two 'but I din't like this part' sentences. (And if there aren't then it's questionable, if the person even watched the show properly)
Strong start doesn't always mean that the characters will be placed in a box of sorts, real humans aren't that simple either. If character is made complex enough (life-like), then you can get plenty of surprises from them, no matter how fast paced the story is. That box you talk about is something fictional, often made by the authors themselves and it's called 'inflexible plot'. It happens when author is too tightly set on having certain things happen and that makes characters behave like puppets. If characters are alive and breathing and are let to do things the way they want to, then they'll break that box, before there is a chance for it to appear. I have seen it often in good science fiction literature.
Speaking about inflexible plot and boxes - perfect example is Sword Art Online II, I can only cringe about the 'pretty scenes' that are lumped together for the sake of being pretty. Not to mention all the over-explaining and shallow drama it makes. I keep watching it, but gosh, I have no idea why they decided to combine such crappy plot with a pretty animation like that. The way Shion's character was completely destroyed for the sake of making Kirito look cooler in the newest episode was just... I don't even know a word to explain something that is so bad, that you can almost cry from how bad it is. (I don't know what was I even expecting from that piece.)
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I'm not really a proponent of the idea that a good character needs to be shrouded in complexity with their motivations and interactions. Some things function better while being more basic and ascribing too many layers to a character can actually be a detriment in some cases, I feel like. Think a lot of harem/ecchi or CGDCT shows where idealization is a major aspect towards their appeal and what causes people to enjoy them, and as such the interactions and dynamics between the cast itself generally will function better in a more simplistic manner than in a layered, complicated, more gray manner. There is little need for a thematic, psychological exploration of what makes a character attracted to another in a romcom, maybe in a subversion but that subversion would take it more into psychological exploration territory over romcom in the first place I'd argue. Something like Nagasarete Airantou does not need as much to be a better series in terms of what its identity is, it functions well as an episodic harem/ecchi romcom with the premise being "guy trapped on an island populated entirely by females."
This is kind of what can irk me about these ideals, it can change the identity of a series and as a result they don't tend to be constructive or useful on an objective level and instead just come across closer to objectifying what's never possible to amount to more than a personal distaste for common tropes and elements found within a certain sect of entertainment. So I'd treat a hypothetical criticism towards Nagasarete Airantou that would go along the lines of "It could've focused more on fleshing out the island and how the island's society adapted to survive in the absence of males and blah blah blah but instead it focused on ecchi jokes and romcom stuff" with absolute scorn because that isn't necessarily needed to make the series better at what it is, it's making it into something else more suitable to their palette all together. It's biased and non-helpful and it's pretty much the equivalent of someone like me saying "Gee, I sure wish (x series) sexualized its female cast more. They've got such attractive designs, so it's such a waste." That wouldn't be a useful criticism to a series that has different priorities than attractive female characters and focuses itself entirely elsewhere at all now, would it? What's the difference between the two? One sounds nicer on a superficial level because it comes across like it's demanding depth and quality whereas it's much easier to dismiss sexualization as basic and vapid, but that's about it. It's still neglecting everything about the series in question in favor of wishful thinking and impressing personal desires for its identity onto it, which is fine for shitbanter discussions or not so-serious conversations about a series but isn't fine at all in the context of a review or a legit attempt at interpreting its quality. I really do believe that the reason people like Digibro can dismiss people who push for these things in reviews and serious discussion as "trying to project an image of refined taste onto themselves" is because these sorts of sayings often come from a place that's neglecting the priorities and identity of a series and just impressing their own desires onto it. It lacks a solid foundation past as much and there's a difference between trying to be subjective and trying to be objective - the difference being how "X is bad and would be better with this" and "I would've liked it more if X focused on this more" are two entirely separate claims in regards to what one is expressing.
And don't get me wrong, I think that idea Digi expressed in his "the most boring 3x3" video a while back is a crock of shite, but it's easy to see why people would come to that conclusion if you've been around reviews and discussions around anime enough for the reasons I outlined above. That doesn't mean that it isn't totally unfair to reach that conclusion and begin making those accusatory claims of intent on broad, sweeping levels to why these certain people like these certain shows like people who say shit like that often end up doing, but I see why ideas like that take root at the very least and they seem more reactionary to poorly founded, neglectful criticisms towards certain types of shows than anything else.
That's also why I treat the statement of "Shokugeki is how to make a good ecchi" with such scorn. The ecchi elements start off kind of present and then mitigate into nothingness the longer the series goes on. The identity of Shokugeki has always been as a battle shounen with a cooking-twist since the beginning and the fanservice has been sparse at best, yet people see this thing that can more likely appeal to them and notices that it has fanservice every now and again and wish to make every ecchi this way. It's just not useful towards ecchi itself when the underlying idea is, well, "the way to make ecchi better is to have it just be something else entirely and then pop a couple of fanservice scenes in throughout its whole runtime." It's a joke.
There are certain tones and identities that benefit from those layers to characterization and identity as well, though, so I'm not diametrically opposed to these sorts of things in the slightest. At the end of the day, what's relevant to making something better and what isn't is entirely reliant on being able to substantiate an interpretation of a series' identity and priorities with evidence from the text and extending criticism that can be additive rather than reductive. The failure to establish the most basic foundation and treating "thematic explorations" and "layered characterization" as an inherent good is why so many reviews on this site seem haphazard and superficial to me.
Then again, there's also people who treat Trigger like they can write characters with loads of personality whenever the personality of those characters is often pretty superficial and reliant on Trigger's sense of spectacle permeating them to create an illusion of individual personality more than anything, so I also kind of think that none of this will be relevant to a lot of people and if you just give them something that's loud and distinct they will immediately ignore all else and treat it like it's the total package.
I don't think that's a bad thing, mind you, mostly because I keep my list for myself and not meant to guide people or anything. Discourse and trying to mitigate biases has its place in interpretive discussion and constructive critique, but I've never actually been a critic in of itself as much as just some dipshit on the forums, so when people come to my profile and ask me about scores it's kind of awkward because it's just...my thing, not really meant to be helpful.
That's kind of my philosophy when it comes to consuming anime, not just rating it but things like deciding what I want to watch too. "I just do whatever I want to." No use keeping a little list of do's and do-not's that I look at when assigning a rating to any given show, no use planning out my "what I'm watching next" hundreds of anime into the future. Literally just do what I feel like I should score/watch at any given moment.
Probably a disappointing answer but that's how it is xP Never been a critic at heart, couldn't even speak English that well a couple of years ago and the only reason I amount to anything in my posts is because I got irritated that it felt like people were really unfair about things like fanservice and ecchi and tried to get better at talking about them so I could actually defend them without being a little mongoloid who dropped off little one sentence posts and whatnot. Just happened to bleed into other areas as well because I actually am interested in more than just ecchi, even though ecchi is still now and forever my #1. I'm not perfect but I try at least, so I can say that with pride.
Tho I do the second thing a lot and there's been series that have trickled down for me quite a bit. Could give a series a 10 and completely love it in the moment then months later be like "lol wut is this series doing here I don't even remember it that well" and move it down.
And no, I wouldn't, I'd only do that if I decided to do so myself. I'm too much of a stubborn bastard to not have a fight about panty shots in AD every couple of days, I'm not exactly going to begin worrying of what people think of how I do things. And even if, hypothetically, they articulated their arguments better than me, it doesn't necessarily make their thought or ideas as to why better than my own, just more well-expressed. What I've sort of taken to doing whenever somebody "beats" me in an argument is that I just go back to the drawing board and try to flesh out and understand my own thoughts or feelings on something rather than just outright admitting they're right. If I come to the conclusion they're right then hey, I probably would, but that would still because I reached the conclusion they were right and not just because I was challenged or even beaten in an argument over it.
I wasn't surprised that you numerously encountered shounen not because it targeted mainly the demographic, it is also easy to say it is near to youth. But anime doesn't seem to be stuck in just particular age but carried on on all age levels. It's like you cannot easily do away from Hiruma Youichi of Deimon Devil Bats even if you're at 56. I understand my brother being particularly drawn into tokustasu, action loaded and adventure-filled anime in which I could personally relate to him. You have named some conventional classics in your previous message and we're also up to it. Last time I checked on him, he's been watching Magi. Unlikely, I got more diverse set when it comes to anime preference.
I see this conversation is getting into somewhere. If I'm to slack I'd shitpost particularly on tumblr. I wasn't too long on reddit but I shityounot the site's at the very least keeping the internet from its ultimatum...well only with some subbreddits, ofcourse.
I've been doing well. There's a lot of of work for my grad program, especially since I'm in the middle of midterms. It's going well and I did a bang up job on my presentation if I do say so myself! Got into an internship for next year. Yay! I'll be working with teenagers with behavioral difficulties. Abuse, neglect, etc. It's certainly going to be a different and difficult experience and I'll be learning a lot. It's going to help me become a better psychologist and I'm looking forward to help teens cope.
It's getting warmer and the sun's out for longer where I'm at, which is quite, quite, quite nice. I grew vines + some herbs like basil, rosemary, and parsley. I bought some posters for my room to add some color. Some video game ones, and some Mucha ones. Some christmas lights too. Other than that I got to see my parents and brother this weekend so that was fantastic. A much needed breather from work and school.
I've been listening to some audiobooks and I really enjoyed The Trial by Franz Kafka. Good stuff. Not sure what I want to listen to next.
As usual, I get my anime discussion from the Uber club, Anime World Order, AAA podcast, and The Cart Driver. It looks like The Cart Driver isn't going to last with one blogger leaving, and another writing for MAL now. I've been following them for quite a while and so we'll see what happens. Nothing definitive yet but I'll be sad when they go. Maybe I'm looking for a new blog to follow like them with a lot of humor and silliness? I've been looking for some other sites for discussion. Any suggestions?
Also, I've been thinking of how I enjoy anime and if I want to change anything. I share my thoughts as I watch different shows and it's fun to hear what others think. I'm liking where I'm at though. In college I joined an anime club and that was fun. Not sure if I want to do that again but I do love face to face discussion more than anything. I had the opportunity to go to some conventions but I passed them up for whatever reason. I'm debating on going to Anime Boston but idk. I'm slightly curious to see what it's all about. I was debating on writing a blog but I'm terrible at writing, I'm inconsistent in posting, and I'm pretty lazy! :) How do you enjoy anime besides watching it?
I've been looking for some sites for video game discussion as well. I listen to Kinda Funny now and I really enjoy them, even if I don't agree with everything they say. I was looking at neogaf but I'm not sure. I also follow a few people on Twitch like Dans Gaming and some people I met while playing Dark Souls. I do enjoy backloggery but I'm not sure how to engage in discussion there. Any suggestions for video game discussion that has a solid community?
Some video games I've been playing are on my profile. They're Firewatch, Life is Strange, and Persona 4 Golden. All great. To The Moon and Undertale are probably going to be next. I've been pumped for Uncharted 4 from the trailers and gameplay. Looks fantastic. I need to start from the series beginning though before I touch 4! Dark Souls 3 looks like more Dark Souls, which is totally fine with me. I won't be able to play it bc no PS4 access. Any games you've been enjoying? What are you looking forward to?
Lastly, and to actually answer your question, for animoo I've been taking it very easy. Just watching Erased right now. Rakugo is up next. That's all I want to watch from the current season I think. I took a break from everything else. Anyway, there's shows I want to finish and series I'm excited for the future. Any series that you're enjoying now or looking forward to?
In general it was well designed and animated. The audio was pretty good overall and the voice acting was surprisingly good for what was ostensibly a simple highschool romantic comedy. The problem - which ironically was also one of the better aspects of the series - was the "mystery" about Eru's uncle.
The bit with "Ice Cream" was really well done, but the whole scenario seemed to have been crowbarred in to the main storyline and it actually felt quite shallow because the focus kept shifting from one thing to another without resolving the more interesting plot elements.
Hope that helps.
I like your style, keep it up :)
Yeah man, well I have plenty of "god tier" anime to watch still. e.g steins gate, madoka.
Saving it for when times get rough, I'm fine with watching anything right now, I like things surprising me. That's why watching seasonally can be really rewarding. There can be those anime that have no information about them turn out to be amazing, or the ones who everyone anticipates to be bad turns out being good as. Works both ways, sometimes the hype gets to things and they turn out terribad, whether that's because it was never as good as they hype claimed it to be or whether it was just made terribly.
Well you have watched 3x more anime than me so I'm sure you know whats up. These days its just the fun of watching things and talking to people about it. It's never going to be like how it used to be, I remember watching something like SAO and it was the best fucking thing in the world, watched it without taking a break to even eat. ahh good times *wipes tear*
Can't really get away with that these days for me. Nothing is ever that good. I feel like ive already seen the best thing I will ever see. And the anime that people tell me will be better than what I have seen I'll save for the day I really need it. Not any time soon though, times are good, everything is chill, mentally stable. So were gucci.
I'm also afraid to rewatch anything that I thought was good, especially things on my top 5. I always feel like if I do I'll see the flaws and not enjoy it nearly as much. Ah well, maybe in a couple years i'll go for the rewatch. Only been watching anime for a year and a half so everything is still pretty fresh considering how long you need until you forget it enough to warrant a full rewatch, unless you really love it :p
Happy Holidays!
[spoiler]
Hey :) Hope you have wonderful holidays. Don't worry, I will respond to your comment soonish! Been busy marathoning Penguindrum! LOL I'm excited for Ikuhara's show next season. Are you looking forward to anything?
Anyways, hope you're doing well :)
Oh! So you are buying a new laptop. That's nice. It must be a really really ancient piece of hardware to not be able to run even YouTube 😋.
Y11 and Y12 are the last two years of highschool where I live or you can call it 2 years of college according to Uk education system. I forgot it's summer in Australia at the moment. Gl with surviving. I am managing to get good grades by putting in a bit of effort - maybe 50% or so. Well, I only take 3 subjects so it's somewhat manageable; even with the huge amount of syllabus.
It was 30 or so Earlier but it's still comparatively small to you. And that's after adding all the rewatched. At least I surpass you in manga.
Nop. I don't know how to play either but I sure do like both. Since I like both the classical/jazz as well as the rock/metal genre so it's pretty hard to decide. I won't go for an over the roof purchase. Nothing more than $500 for a start. The headphones don't seem so bad though I would have gone for another of the corsair's but since it's a gift - understandable. It's nice that you listen to all genres. It's pretty similar for me except I don't like modern pop or dubstep sort of genre.
Damn! How did it die? Don't you have a laptop or mobile? I have no idea how I will survive without using computer for a day. Probably would be like a fish out of water >.< Holidays at this time of the year? o.O I mean isn't it usually closer to Christmas (We don't get those holidays XD)
If you check my anime stats, mine also increased by some bits - I guess roughly 30 days. So I guess I spent 1 month this year watching anime :D I already have friends who share interests like watching anime and playing games. I am refraining from games as they make me addicted quite easily and I don't want that because it's somewhat affecting to my studies. Y11 is hard for me as well. Like a whole pile of new stuff is taught in Math. If Y11 is 100%, Y10 would be maybe 10%. So what topic of Math did you face a problem in? I am being a lot more productive this year than last.
30-40 series? Daym. I probably followed like 10 or something but I only finished a few because most were just typical bs. This season shows little promise except maybe 2-3 anime (comparing to last few seasons). Try what more?
Oh, that's nice. I was thinking of buying a violin or guitar. It's such a hard decision because I like both instruments. Well, I still have time to decide because I will buy it in Q1 of next year. What kind of Headset did they gift? I also have a gaming headset which I gifted myself >.< - A G430. Though, I am curious as to how you use headsets with a drum set? Like you plug it in (if it's electronic) to mute all the sound? Or do you use it to listen to songs while practicing? Not sure if I asked before, but what kind of music do you listen to?
I kinda got busy with studies and a new friend I made (who turned to be a bitch later on :/) during the start of the year. I was also playing a lot of MMORPGs, mainly Aion during that time and a few others later on. And then I was out of home during vacations and once I came back BAM! This grade is seriously far harder than the one last year so I seriously needed to study (along with watching anime :P) But I guess I can keep up with it since I am confident with my basics and I got good grades last year as well ^_^
Been a long time, bruh. Would love to catch up. How's your drum set? That sure was an expensive purchase.
Justice and Fairness still seem simple to me, even with your example. Suicide is a murder, but hard to classify because the murderer and the victim are the same person, I think a person attempting suicide should be treated pretty much the same way as someone attempting murder. It's never right to take a life, but it's right to take away freedom from those, who do not respect freedom and rights of others. If certain adjustments are made to laws, I feel that those things could become even simpler. And in any case - the person saving that suicide attempting man would have 100% done the right thing, no matter how it might end. (The anime "Monster" is a well illustrated example that plays in the opposite direction, though.) If you commit a crime, you should pay for it, but the payment system is very underdeveloped and mostly ends up being simply - lock someone up for a while and let them out so they can continue committing crimes. In that case it's obvious why many people would support death penalty and whatnot. Also why there's still the problem of lynching - the ideals laws hold should be similar to ideals people hold, there should be a very well developed compromise between ideals and reality AND, the most painful part - enough funds to uphold these laws. I think people who commit crimes mainly need a therapy and psychiatrist working with them, since it means they have a really big problem in their morals and values - and both of those can be changed and influenced.
Yes, I have seen Chitose Get you!! If I consider the shortness combined with the style and animation quality, then - yes, I must admit I wouldn't enjoy them nearly as much if there was a full episode. It's like with salt - it's good in small doses, but gets really disgusting if that dose is overstepped. With short episodes I feel one can endure a much longer period of bad animation/sound/quality - which are all parts that matter strongly with longer pieces. (Anime movies for example - even the average quality, which is good for episodes, often doesn't cut it when it comes to a two hour feature film) Although that holds true with anything - there can be unlikeable bits, but they should never form a huge enough chunk to ruin the whole experience. I think there aren't that many shows, where one could honestly say they liked 100% of the show. There's always one or two 'but I din't like this part' sentences. (And if there aren't then it's questionable, if the person even watched the show properly)
Strong start doesn't always mean that the characters will be placed in a box of sorts, real humans aren't that simple either. If character is made complex enough (life-like), then you can get plenty of surprises from them, no matter how fast paced the story is. That box you talk about is something fictional, often made by the authors themselves and it's called 'inflexible plot'. It happens when author is too tightly set on having certain things happen and that makes characters behave like puppets. If characters are alive and breathing and are let to do things the way they want to, then they'll break that box, before there is a chance for it to appear. I have seen it often in good science fiction literature.
Speaking about inflexible plot and boxes - perfect example is Sword Art Online II, I can only cringe about the 'pretty scenes' that are lumped together for the sake of being pretty. Not to mention all the over-explaining and shallow drama it makes. I keep watching it, but gosh, I have no idea why they decided to combine such crappy plot with a pretty animation like that. The way Shion's character was completely destroyed for the sake of making Kirito look cooler in the newest episode was just... I don't even know a word to explain something that is so bad, that you can almost cry from how bad it is. (I don't know what was I even expecting from that piece.)