Anime as a measurement of time: 2007’s obligatory reflection, or It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
Posted by: Owen S in Anime, Review, tags: Year In Review
this was pretty indicative of my state the last two weeks, sans alcohol
The MyAnimeList I made a few weeks ago tells me that I’ve spent a grand total of 18 days worth watching anime. I’d like to say at this point that I spent the last 13 days of 2007 watching more anime in order to boost my street cred add to that number and explain my absence from this blog, but I did no such thing. Rather, a lethal combination of crappy sleep patterns and a back-to-back dose of Real Lifeâ„¢ in the days leading up to Christmas in the form of numerous functions, dinners, and carolling did a lot to tear me away from the PC and my blogging plans for the much-publicised 12 moments.
Regarding the title: Sometime in the past few months I started telling the days of the week by looking at the anime broadcasted on that day. Myself; Yourself would be Wednesday, Clannad and Shana II, Friday, and Gundam 00, Saturday. I’ve probably seen more anime this year than I have my entire life combined, and seeing how I’ve been reading quite the number of anime blogs (I’ve got about 169+ unread items in my feedreader’s anime blog folder right now) recently, it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to say that 2007 was an anime-filled year for me.
Social networking tool aside, I’ve found MAL to be an invaluable tool in assisting my evaluation of an anime, which in turn makes me ponder upon why I rate the stuff I’ve seen the way I do. It’s a rigid and inflexible grading scale of 1 to 10 with no decimals or half points allowed, and while I personally would rather have a distinction made between the “masterpiece” ratings of Byousoku 5cm and Gurren Lagann, it works, for the most part.
Likewise, I’m not sure whether calling 2007 a great year in anime would be apt, having not seriously pursued anime over a year long period since 2001. For every masterpiece like Darker than Black (underrated in its subtlety) and Bokurano (lol adaptation rage lol), there were shows like sola (suddenly, mediocrity, lots of it, everywhere!) and Mushi-Uta (what were they thinking?) to balance it out. But enough of all that blanket rating talk.
2007 did well to show me the distinction between “art” and “entertainment”, and I’m thankful for that. Aside from the laughable Lucky Star fiasco where judgements based on its style in lieu of substance took place, three other anime came to mind: Darker than Black, for its supposedly lacklustre ending; ef, for its “difficult” and seemingly random imagery; Clannad, for apparently being “mindless moe”. While these were undeniably good shows in their own right, the occasional, minority opinion in the negative showed a common pattern of misunderstanding, sometimes tragic in its making.
Ultimately, what detractors of good anime such as these failed to understand was how the lens by which they viewed it was patently flawed. They looked for art when they should be entertained, and looked for entertainment when they should have be seeing art. To quote from ef, knowing and understanding things like these are two different matters; it is one thing to know about the latent symbolism in ef, but another thing to understand that ef was not much different than TTGL when it came to matters of pathos, and expecting anything else out of it would be a tragic misunderstanding.
It’s fans like these that watch Shana II for the action, or Clannad for the humour, as mind-boggling as it might sound. Focusing on a single portion of an anime isn’t wrong per se, it’s just missing the point, and that’s my beef with opinions like these. It’s akin to not liking the Mona Lisa as a painting but raving about the beautiful frame in which it’s placed, or being annoyed at McDonalds for serving everything but pizza, or even watching porn for the story.
Bringing ridiculous expectations to an anime that can never deliver them or expecting an anime to mould to one’s expectations without letting it say its piece is, in my opinion, the best way to find a year of anime utterly devoid of any good whatsoever. The point of a balanced anime diet isn’t so much about watching different genres of anime for the sake of diversity as it is to simply not keel over and die in the process of finding more gems to write or talk about. I’ve stated this before, but frankly, I’d have crashed at some point in Autumn had I not obtained a palliative in the form of Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun. There’s a comforting weight that comes with anime designed for pure, sometimes mindless entertainment that’s almost impossible to write about, and I’m glad that I came to realise that.
putting on another thinking cap’s all that’s really needed for a change of perspective
With regards to the three aforementioned anime, it’s amusing, if only slightly, to notice how they represent the entire spectrum of anime, with one being the epitome of entertainment, another the epitome of art, with the last one doing an excellent job of balancing between the two. I’ll be elaborating on this in the span of a fortnight or so — what happens when art is mistaken for entertainment and vice versa; the conflicting signals an anime can potentially deliver while blurring the genres; the idea of there being no bad anime (with the exceptions of a few clearly awful ones), just bad opinions.
Aside from completing the 12 moments of 2007 series while taking advantage of the lull in aired anime this week, I’ll also be doing long overdue reviews on the top 5 anime of 2007. I’m personally loath to do “top X” lists such as these due to the implication of certain anime claiming genetic superiority over others, which obviously isn’t the case here. These five anime could very well be good given certain genre conventions and not given others, and the numbers here aren’t by any means indicative of their relative value (except for #1, but that’s another story).
Over the weekend I finally got around to wrapping up my college applications to the States. In the Common Application essay (that I’ll eventually publish if I ever make it in) I wrote about this blog, how I started it, and what I’ve gained since its conception. It’s pretty rose-tinted, as far as essays go, but unlike the other starry-eyed hack jobs that I’ve written in school for the sake of marks, I actually believed in what I wrote this time round. It’s been nine months since I started blogging, and I guess I’ve come quite the distance — if you’d told me this time last year that I’d be writing an essay about an anime blog in my college application, in addition to submitting four posts from said blog as supplementary material, I’d have thought you insane. But that’s 2007 for you. Happy New Year.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 am
Wow, that bit about college applications and blog posts is extremely japes-like of you. I’m impressed.
And yes, you’ve come a long way. Our overlapping time of activity in the aniblogosphere was actually pretty limited, and we’re mostly asses to eachother on IRC, but I think I can appreciate what you’ve done since that first post of yours and that first comment of mine. It would be all kinds of awesome if you made it into college in the states, especially because then we’d get to see your essay.
By the way, I was slightly surprised—I didn’t realize that you were at the same point in your life as I am in mine. For some reason I thought you were much older, maybe a grad student or something.
Shows how perceptive I am…
Anyway, good luck!
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:37 am
I hope you get in to the American Colleges so I can maybe harass you in person and add to the number of anibloggers I’ve met.
I also hope that your strategy of referencing your blog so much in your applications pays off!
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:42 am
Looks like I wasn’t the only one MIA this week. I hope all goes well for that silly college app stuff.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:33 am
While I’m not sure I entirely agree with the entry (I’m trying to work up some methodological stuff to post myself shortly), you make Good Points. Happy New Year, and here’s hoping you get a flood of hits from American Colleges.
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 am
Bah, don’t even get me started on those Bokurano haters who bashed a show they never even saw through to the end…seriously. I wonder whether the misunderstandings are something that happens around here every year - I mean, Haruhi kicked up one hell of a fuss back in the day, perhaps moreso than Lucky Star (although I still enjoyed LS more).
You’re right about the 1-10 grading system being a bit woolly and difficult to decide on though - It’s like the old apples and oranges comparison really. Anyway, good luck with the applications and happy new year. ^_^
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:28 am
Always loved reading your blog posts; I wish you the best of luck on your college applications.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
lk: Thanks. I’m actually way older than you, just so you know, but I guess your “grad student” comment brings us back full circle to when I first thought you older, too. Silly internet. I’ll upload my essay somewhere eventually, so even if I don’t make in it you’ll be able to have a gander at what I wrote.
DS: Haha. I certainly hope so too. Thanks.
Totali: Did you hit in America? I took an Early Decision for Bates, so I guess I’ll know in about March or so.
IKnight: I was being intentionally vague so as to not tire myself out elaborating on what would essentially be a post in itself. Will elaborate further in future posts, and you’ll be the first to know if my traffic spikes any time soon, lol.
Martin: Did Bateszi’s top list of anime in 2007 make you a sad blogger too? :P I guess it’s good to have anime that people don’t unanimously agree on, for it’d be unsettling to see TTGL after TTGL; despite that, however, it’s always a sad thing to have a favourite series of yours trashed unnecessarily, but that’s the way things are, I suppose, and why we have blogs of our own in the first place. Thanks, and Happy New Year to you too!
chami: Thanks. (: Do stay tuned, I’ve got quite a bit lined up for the next few weeks. Hope to see you around more often!
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:44 am
That’s great that the time spent on your blog can be reused for a real life purpose! Best of luck with applications.
Also, I like rigid grading schemes. I rate anime I finished on a 1-10 scale (well, it’s actually a 1-5 scale with half-points allowed), and I like that you have to take a stand and assign a final grade. If you make the grading on a continuous scale, it becomes too nitpicky to say that this anime series was ever so slightly better than that anime series. With a smaller, defined scale you leave a little wiggle room.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:53 am
I feel so out of place in MAL. :( It’s all…anime. And manga. Pray tell, good sir, what be this “anime” and “manga” thine site speaks of?
By the way, I do hate McDonalds for not serving pizza…but then again, I don’t eat there. I’d hate to see what kind of pizza they’d come up with, though, seeing as their “food” isn’t exactly…well…food. That and the last time I ate at a McDonalds,
Now I want some pizza. :( You better do well in your college application!
January 4th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Good luck on your applications. What will you be majoring in? Animeology studies? :) jk
January 5th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Late posts, I blame vacation.
Good to see you alive and posting (especially continuing the 12 Days, although I’ve had to run screaming from many due to spoilers). Best of luck with college apps (psst…early decision makes January so much easier, wink wink, etc, but that’s gloating).
Would have to agree that expecting great things from anime doesn’t help, some of the best shows of this year are the ones that I took mainly on a blind recommendation from other blogs. So, uh, keep ranting over random shows, in a highly educated-sounding fashion, or something.
Don’t use MAL myself because it just feels too objective, and - to be mildly if not entirely hypocritical - geeky with the level of stats and numbers that it has. Maybe I’m just too irrational, in that I wouldn’t want my anime reduced to a number. (Or because nearly everything would be an 8, 9, or 10.)
January 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
(COMMENT EDITED BECAUSE THE AUTHOR FAILS AT USING GOOGLE TALK)
January 7th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
A bit late… but God Bless in your application! It’s great to know that the efforts you’ve put into the blog became a worthy investment ^^
now regarding the “there’s no bad anime, just bad opinions” part, I’d say it’s more “there’s no bad anime, just different biases, which prompts a person to label a show as bad”. This is exactly my case with KimiNozo. There are certain aspects of a show a one is touchy about, which might be enough to put off the person and dislike the show, despite how great the it’s proclaimed to be.
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