Daily Anime Thoughts

Mfw that lame Digimon Adventure reboot is finally done.
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Ghost Game better be friggin good
 
Anyone watching Fena?
EDIT :

i don’t know if it’s because they Waited to long to release or whatever but I haven’t been as interested in ‘ Dragon Maid’ anymore. First season was great , I enjoyed watching the new episodes ever week.. but now it’s just like every other episode is blah in S2.
 
Rascal said:
See I used to be in the same mindset as you guys, thinking more thematic stuff was just shallow because I preferred good animation above all else but I came to realize overtime, that anime that are "entertaining" and nothing else, incubate an insufferable side of the anime community. When a popular show is undercut with a fanbase infected with "hype culture", the anime starts revealing itself to be so much more vapid and shallow than I ever would have thought because how people react to it doesn't match the actual substance of it. The only way an Anime actually has value is if it has emotional, intellectual, or cultural significance. Same with anything, really, films, books, tv, ect. If it doesn't have those things, then no amount of "entertaining" content matters in the least.
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5 syllables, 3 words, "I hate popular." Summary done! Let's work on being more concise in the future! But now that I've said that I'm going to be incredibly long winded. Spoilered it cause it's long and ain't nobody trying to see al that. That's me working on that courteous nature that's all the rage.


In all seriousness though, is entertainment not value in and of itself? Laid Back Camp (a show we both rated highly) is not thematically deep. It certainly would not be studied in any philosophy class and no one will ever write a book to analyze the impact of the show on anime as a medium or it's impact on culture long term. Yet it's a very comfortable time with some amusing interactions. Ultimately though it will just be a small blip on the radar that few will remember in a decade. It seems to me that there must be some intrinsic value to a show that can relieve stress and give a person a moments respite from whatever may be going on in their life. Perhaps you'd call this 'emotional significance', but that seems disingenuous if you apply it to a show you like but not equally to something you don't *coughFilthyTanjiroHatercough*.

Is being excited while watching a fight because of it's animation, choreography, or music is killing any less valid then feeling comfy watching a group of girls that love to camp sit around a fire talking nonsense? Are these feelings inferior to a show where you sit and puzzle over the symbolism and what the author is trying to convey? Emotion isn't logical so I don't see how it can be tied specifically to some metric of substance. If an anime has value cause it made you feel something then the vast majority of anime have value unless you tie an arbitrary ratio to how many people must feel of those that watched it. Or tying 'emotional significance' to some arbitrary metric where one feeling is somehow more valid or 'real' then another.

I would say that anything that people can relate to, resonate with, or get lost in has an inherent value to it from an entertainment perspective and very likely hits some emotional notes. This may be a thinking man's anime, though it need not be. It likely won't be culturally significant but....very few things actually are. In fact I'd wager money and say if you go through your top rated shows, you'd find very few that had any meaningful cultural significance that has lasted. That's not even just about quality, it's also about luck and numerous other factors that have changed how we consume anime over the decades.

On a side note, just to rustle your jimmies because I know you hate things getting undeserved credit...Demon Slayer currently would fall under being culturally significant, especially in Japan. ;) Will it be that way long term? Hard to say, but given the perfect storm that culminated in all it's success I'd imagine so. That's the thing, to be culturally relevant doesn't necessarily speak on somethings overall quality, but can be a culmination of various factors.

The other amusing thing to me about this entire convo, is whether you look at music, books, theater, movies etc. you see similar arguments play out, especially as something becomes more and more popular. The dime novel for example didn't matter when sales were low, but as they grew in popularity with the youth the tune changed. All of a sudden they were for 'casuals that were ruining literature' in the 19th century. Yet those works despite being of ill repute inspired generations of young men and women to read and write themselves and genre's of books grew and flourished because of it. Things deemed low class but that are popular...have an uncanny ability to shake things up long term.

At any rate I have a lot of issue's with the anime industry as I'm sure, any of use that have been watching for a good length of time do, but from your comment it seems to me your notion of what 'value' is in relation to entertainment was formed in a reactionary manner to an overall disdain for what you view as unwarranted success or popularity. Yet I look at your list and am left thinking "does he really believe that though". Damn...that last line is some real deep psychology. On the house!

I can't hate ya, because you do have some good taste, but legit sometimes I wonder why you let other people's hype so heavily sway your thoughts.
 
rekindled said:
In all seriousness though, is entertainment not value in and of itself? Laid Back Camp (a show we both rated highly) is not thematically deep. It certainly would not be studied in any philosophy class and no one will ever write a book to analyze the impact of the show on anime as a medium or it's impact on culture long term. Yet it's a very comfortable time with some amusing interactions. Ultimately though it will just be a small blip on the radar that few will remember in a decade. It seems to me that there must be some intrinsic value to a show that can relieve stress and give a person a moments respite from whatever may be going on in their life. Perhaps you'd call this 'emotional significance', but that seems disingenuous if you apply it to a show you like but not equally to something you don't *coughFilthyTanjiroHatercough*.
Click to expand...
rekindled said:
Is being excited while watching a fight because of it's animation, choreography, or music is killing any less valid then feeling comfy watching a group of girls that love to camp sit around a fire talking nonsense? Are these feelings inferior to a show where you sit and puzzle over the symbolism and what the author is trying to convey? Emotion isn't logical so I don't see how it can be tied specifically to some metric of substance. If an anime has value cause it made you feel something then the vast majority of anime have value unless you tie an arbitrary ratio to how many people must feel of those that watched it. Or tying 'emotional significance' to some arbitrary metric where one feeling is somehow more valid or 'real' then another.
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Well to that I would say, that the difference with Laid-back camp, is that it isn't designed purely to appeal to mainstream audiences. It's designed to appeal directly to people that love camping, and that's the solid idea it's trying to get across, to show passion for a subject like camping. This idea that things that appeal to everyone are just as valid as more niche things, and that this alone gives them value, I don't agree with, because anyone can make something successful with vague ideas that appeal to the largest amount of people, it's not special. That's why Laid back camp is more valuable.

rekindled said:
I would say that anything that people can relate to, resonate with, or get lost in has an inherent value to it from an entertainment perspective and very likely hits some emotional notes. This may be a thinking man's anime, though it need not be. It likely won't be culturally significant but....very few things actually are. In fact I'd wager money and say if you go through your top rated shows, you'd find very few that had any meaningful cultural significance that has lasted. That's not even just about quality, it's also about luck and numerous other factors that have changed how we consume anime over the decades.
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Well I don't typically like anime that have cultural significance. Like, evangelion for instance, i fucking hate, but I still respect it as art because it does have that. I love dororo though, which does have a lot of cultural significance as it influenced pretty much every feudal era japan work that came after it. The remake is the perfected state of that story.

rekindled said:
On a side note, just to rustle your jimmies because I know you hate things getting undeserved credit...Demon Slayer currently would fall under being culturally significant, especially in Japan. ;) Will it be that way long term? Hard to say, but given the perfect storm that culminated in all it's success I'd imagine so. That's the thing, to be culturally relevant doesn't necessarily speak on somethings overall quality, but can be a culmination of various factors.
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Yes. It is culturally significant in japan, unfortunately. So it does have value in that regard, but loses a lot when you consider what into making it that way and what's actually in it. And I hate a lot of culturally significant anime so this fits. I don't even hate demon slayer though, just its characters and humor. I only hope that those aspects of it don't influence the anime industry, and just Demon Slayer's animation and story will. Please anime God... no more fuckin mary sue, so pure he makes demons cry, shounen protagonists. I'll even take whiny ass naruto types back. Please!

rekindled said:
The other amusing thing to me about this entire convo, is whether you look at music, books, theater, movies etc. you see similar arguments play out, especially as something becomes more and more popular. The dime novel for example didn't matter when sales were low, but as they grew in popularity with the youth the tune changed. All of a sudden they were for 'casuals that were ruining literature' in the 19th century. Yet those works despite being of ill repute inspired generations of young men and women to read and write themselves and genre's of books grew and flourished because of it. Things deemed low class but that are popular...have an uncanny ability to shake things up long term.
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And they were right because the older you go with literature the more creative, original, intellectual, cultural, and better it is. Case in point, there.

rekindled said:
At any rate I have a lot of issue's with the anime industry as I'm sure, any of use that have been watching for a good length of time do, but from your comment it seems to me your notion of what 'value' is in relation to entertainment was formed in a reactionary manner to an overall disdain for what you view as unwarranted success or popularity. Yet I look at your list and am left thinking "does he really believe that though". Damn...that last line is some real deep psychology. On the house!
Click to expand...
rekindled said:
I can't hate ya, because you do have some good taste, but legit sometimes I wonder why you let other people's hype so heavily sway your thoughts.
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I just get tired of seeing the same shitty tropes not be improved on. I don't even mind seeing most tropes used again and again, but when tropes are already weak and they're carried over to something that was inspired by the thing that has those tropes, and don't improve on them or change them, it's frustrating. It's not really about popularity, it's that the people who make these things popular are saying, I accept the shitty way things are and I want more of it, and that frustrates me because... it needs to stop! Every single thing in Jujutsu Kaisen for example is the culmination of 25 years of shounen tropes never ever improving or changing from the original dragon ball, perfectly mimicing every flaw that bleach and naruto have, ect. And it's like the 5th highest rated thing on this site.

Then there are things that DO improve on those tropes like one piece does time and time again, which also get plenty of well deserved praise, so it's a double sided coin.

People need to know that what they're seeing and feeling a shallow, surface level excitement for is actually very cheap entertainment sometimes, and stop pretending it's revolutionary or masterpiece material just because they're new to the medium and think they know what they're talking about.

This shit.
https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/29/22202875/jujutsu-kaisen-review

It needs to stop.
Hey guys watch I can control the number of likes I get

↓0 likes here
 
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@rekindled @Rascal
(i'm not quoting text walls, people can scroll)

Particularly with Rascal's response, I'm thinking on a notion I heard awhile back...
The difference between a show that has 'mass appeal' versus a show that has 'niche appeal' and how long it collectively stays in the minds of people who watch it. How a piece of animation (or any other piece of media) is ultimately evaluated by its 'mass appeal', that is the most people who can watch it, not be offended/taken aback by its content, and approve overall of its presentation. These shows are generally what we see in any (mass calculated) top 100.

Whereas, a show that has niche appeal may just be popular to a rare few people - but because the content is SO niche, it becomes extra impactful and memorable to them. Why? Because the collection of themes and elements they see in it is so unique. Exploring a particular 'niche' more thoroughly is rare and may overall be more impactful to people who rarely see that kind of story.

Am I saying there's anything wrong with mass appeal? No, but it'd be a lie to say mass appeal is not the dominating factor in how a work is viewed, in whether it gets labelled a classic. And my point is, of course... that mass appeal, at the end of the day, is a somewhat meaningless value except for pure profit and profit prediction which unfortunately does drive and has to drive a lot of what gets produced. But on an individual level? From the people who consume media? A work that lacks mass appeal, for the most part, will rarely hit the top (pooled) 100s for people. The more niche weird subject matter you include in something, the more it just hits people the wrong way for whatever reason.

Now I know you don't like Sarazanmai Rascal, but I don't bring it up out of spite. I just bring it up because it's the closest recent example I can think of that's something like that for me. Everyone probably has a show like that, a different example to work with. And for me, I think Sarazanmai is like that... you can tell, inherently, it's a show that's weird to pitch to people. It has so many niche concepts and ideas, metaphorical layering, and then various things that might offput people for one reason or another. But it's those unique themes that also bring it a diehard fanbase, too.

I think... hm.
How do I put this... we often value works by how they end up viewed by the public, when any controversial subject will ultimately bring the value of the work down in the public's eye. Or, at the very least create dissent.
I don't think a work being popular is bad, certainly some very great creations are! Things that can be very meaningful!
Rather, putting aside popularity (and popular works can be very meaningful to the individual) we should evaluate media on the level with which it resonates with us, and it is harder for more broad-aiming works to really dig into niche themes, imo. There is always an inherent subjectivity.
 
Claptrap said:
@rekindled @Rascal
(i'm not quoting text walls, people can scroll)

Particularly with Rascal's response, I'm thinking on a notion I heard awhile back...
The difference between a show that has 'mass appeal' versus a show that has 'niche appeal' and how long it collectively stays in the minds of people who watch it. How a piece of animation (or any other piece of media) is ultimately evaluated by its 'mass appeal', that is the most people who can watch it, not be offended/taken aback by its content, and approve overall of its presentation. These shows are generally what we see in any (mass calculated) top 100.

Whereas, a show that has niche appeal may just be popular to a rare few people - but because the content is SO niche, it becomes extra impactful and memorable to them. Why? Because the collection of themes and elements they see in it is so unique. Exploring a particular 'niche' more thoroughly is rare and may overall be more impactful to people who rarely see that kind of story.

Am I saying there's anything wrong with mass appeal? No, but it'd be a lie to say mass appeal is not the dominating factor in how a work is viewed, in whether it gets labelled a classic. And my point is, of course... that mass appeal, at the end of the day, is a somewhat meaningless value except for pure profit and profit prediction which unfortunately does drive and has to drive a lot of what gets produced. But on an individual level? From the people who consume media? A work that lacks mass appeal, for the most part, will rarely hit the top (pooled) 100s for people. The more niche weird subject matter you include in something, the more it just hits people the wrong way for whatever reason.

Now I know you don't like Sarazanmai Rascal, but I don't bring it up out of spite. I just bring it up because it's the closest recent example I can think of that's something like that for me. Everyone probably has a show like that, a different example to work with. And for me, I think Sarazanmai is like that... you can tell, inherently, it's a show that's weird to pitch to people. It has so many niche concepts and ideas, metaphorical layering, and then various things that might offput people for one reason or another. But it's those unique themes that also bring it a diehard fanbase, too.

I think... hm.
How do I put this... we often value works by how they end up viewed by the public, when any controversial subject will ultimately bring the value of the work down in the public's eye. Or, at the very least create dissent.
I don't think a work being popular is bad, certainly some very great creations are! Things that can be very meaningful!
Rather, putting aside popularity (and popular works can be very meaningful to the individual) we should evaluate media on the level with which it resonates with us, and it is harder for more broad-aiming works to really dig into niche themes, imo. There is always an inherent subjectivity.
Click to expand...
You know what though, that's another thing I should have added to my ideas of what makes art valuable: controversy. Something that pushes barriers and creates discussion, and doesn't stay "safe". Popular things are nearly ALWAYS "safe". Even though I didn't like sarazanmai, it was definitely that; controversial.
 
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