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Why do Many Judge Anime Mostly by Superficial Merits?
Many people heavily emphasize technical parts of an anime, such as animation, sound track, and visual aesthetics, but weigh literary aspects far less such as plot, plot-theme, character development, structural unity, and pacing.
Why are there fewer people, such as Rym and Scott, who prefer talking about deeper literary aspects? I was slightly surprised when I noticed how Scott could filter past Wakfu's wonderful, glitzy art style and openly express antagonism towards its generic, JRPG-esque story.
Why are there fewer people, such as Rym and Scott, who prefer talking about deeper literary aspects? I was slightly surprised when I noticed how Scott could filter past Wakfu's wonderful, glitzy art style and openly express antagonism towards its generic, JRPG-esque story.
Post edited by Hethalos on
Comments
But like Coldguy says (sorta), in order to make the "to watch" pile manageable, you've gotta make some snap decisions. There are particular art styles that will turn me right off because 9 times out of 10 the art style is paired with other stylistic elements like a particular sort of plot or a particular type of protagonist or a specific kind of humor, and I can safely give it a pass. I almost passed by Aldnoah Zero on this metric (and even though I'm watching, the jury's still out.)
Currently watching RideBack, whose premise I'd normally laugh at and continue on, except that the art style is very compelling and sure enough, I've actually been enjoying the treatment of what seems like a pretty shallow plot conceit.
Book by it's cover, and all, but often you can make a lot of safe assumptions about a series based on a few key superficialities.
That said, yeah, people are jerks I guess, but as I get older I'm really trying hard not to think that way. There's enough polarization in the world.
No one.
I find it silly to state that one element of media is superficial compared to other.
Also of the question why most people empathize technical or superficial aspects of anime, that's because it's easy. Putting in words why you like story or characters in a particular show is really hard. Meanwhile saying "it looks good" is really easy. That doesn't mean they watch the show just because it looks good, but they are just incapable of explaining what's the real appeal to them is.
Adventure Time (donning my flame resistant gear now) sure as heck hasn't got great art. It survives primarily on absurdity and self aware humor (not a fan, but still.)
Went a little astray there.... anyway what I mean to say is: sure, no element is necessarily THE key element, but nevertheless, each element contributes to the overall product and therefore the overall impression.
For me the general turnoffs are usually the tropes that exist in almost all anime I watch. "cutesy" bullshit and goofy gags are often randomly placed to lighten mood and reduce tension but they're often very overdone and I personally don't think they're funny or enjoy them. Voice acting I often think is trash, even with Japanese voices and subtitles the vocal ranges are often way to juxtaposed. That isn't to say the US animation doesn't do the same thing but its generally more within an acceptable range. I usually find that when dubbed anime does it the contrast is so wide that its incredibly jarring.
I used to be much more accepting of those sort of tropes when I was in high school and I've tried coming back to watch the "good" animes after college but I still just don't think they're very good. The only one I can still stomach is Cowboy Bebop and sometimes even that is a little too much.
Bebop is amazing start to finish. About my only complaint are the areas where it tries too hard to be gritty, but that's a product of the fads in place at the time.
In, like, a week.
That's fine, fuck high art, etc, but there's nothing wrong with judging shallow things in a shallow manner. There's usually not much to anime except the obvious, so if you don't enjoy the obvious shit happening on the screen, you watch something else.
Animation is not incidental to anime. It's a solid portion of it. A comic can have amazing themes to be analyzed by critics but if the art looks like garbage and the pacing sucks who cares? So if the animation of this cartoon is poop and you don't take joy in watching it, why rub the poop in your eyes so you can see the stuff hidden in the poop? Especially where there are these things called real books that tend to not have the poop and have a lot more depth and stuff. If you are plumbing through dumb cartoons to find deep literary meaning, read some fucking literature.
I could even argue there are plenty of novels, such as Lord of the Rings 5th generation re-hashes, which can get as terrible as some animation. Just because 98% of people ignore the vast, artistic potential of a medium, it doesn't mean the potential does not exist.
However, you do have a point. I certainly don't think depth is the ONLY metric by which a medium can be judged. For instance, even though "Last Exile" had plenty of symbolism and themes concerning the nature of freedom of different classes (nobles and non-nobles) within the show, I found it an absolute drag to watch since the pacing was too fucking slow.
I don't watch a ton of anime now, but I tend to read the synopsis rather than just going by the cover, and as it was said before, a lot of Anime can be judged based on their covers, hence the reason Rym and Scott have their Judging Anime by its Cover panel.