An apologetic on why “genre” is mostly antiquated rubbish
Posted by: Owen S in Anime, tags: Apologetics, Commentary, Discussion, ef - a tale of memories, School Days, Theory & Structure, true tearsHappy Chinese New Year to those of you descended from the motherland, and may you collect more of those delicious red packets this festive season. I spent the reunion dinner eve in bed, with a majority of the New Year’s Day going towards getting more sleep in view of my erratic nocturnal schedule. While part of me felt like Nobita in that chapter of Doraemon where he decides to spend the first day of the new year in his room with gadgets in lieu of real human company, I figured trying it just this once wouldn’t hurt.
obligatory picture since it’s the year of Yuki Sohma the Mouse
In other news, the discussion over at In Search of Number Nine and a later post by Cameron Probert reminded me that I should stick to this rule in 2008: If comments don’t achieve their required effect after the first one, taking it to a post would be more productive given the growing length.
To kick things off, I’m sure you remember this dead horse? Of course you do. That’s what genre does for the most part to the unwitting, which is to say, it distorts and warps reality in ways you could never imagine. It gives you false first impressions, it endows you with a inflated sense of experience and allows you to think you’ve seen it all, and it discourages people from watching more. What’s not to hate about it?
Taking the position of the reformist who thinks that it’s antiquated rubbish isn’t all that hard when you do your research and look at the effect it has on fandom as a whole. I took a year, having read anime blogs regularly since early 2007. While, like Stripey, I’ve always maintained a no-naming policy due to not wanting to stir up much conflict, there’s something to be said about the following comments and portions of aforementioned posts that prove why my theory works, and here’s my case:
1. Genre separatism breeds ignorance.
Comment by bateszi on February 6, 2008 11:00 am
(…)A good example is the current flavour of the month, true tears; the harem/school-romance fans are talking it up right now, like they did with ef a tale of memories, school days and even elfen lied, but I’m yet to see a review of it from a blogger who, like yourself, isn’t typically drawn to that genre in the first place.(…)
Comment by bateszi on February 6, 2008 11:40 pm
(…)Fundamentally, ef a tale of memories, school days and even elfen lied are about the main character being surrounded by a bunch of adoring girls.(…)
Emphasis mine. One of my principles of bashing critique here is that if you don’t watch it, you shouldn’t be talking about it as if you know stuff. It isn’t so much the bashing here that’s my emphasis as it is the perceived ignorance of talking trash/badmouthing/thinking poorly about something you haven’t seen well enough or much, if any at all, and this is why genres fail in that respect.
It goes without saying that ef bears as much resemblance to School Days like an apple does to an orange. Sure, they’re both considered fruit, need a cold climate to thrive, and grow by means of seeds, but for the most part anyone who’s tasted an orange and has his or her taste buds in working order could never mistake an apple for an orange. I hope you don’t take this personally, bateszi, but your comment’s the prime example of why I think this train of thought is counter-productive and not at all healthy.
I brought up Lucky Star as an example thanks to the hilariously farcical hate going around at that time. People were judging an entire series based on an episode, or a six-minute conversation about chocolate cornets, or even a whole one minute and thirty seconds of an OP. How isn’t that ignorance caused by genre? They look at it and say “oh, this is more of that moe crap”, and then bang out a few paragraphs detailing exactly why stuff like this makes their blood boil. We all know how well that turned out in the end.
2. Ignorance results in a distorted reality field.
As opposed to an euphoric field (you can laugh now). In all seriousness, I’ve linked to this exceedingly honest post only about a thousand times, so I hope you’ll tolerate this indulgence just this once more. I think the evil that genre does, when juxtaposed on this recurring issue of every season of anime being “terrible”, becomes immediately evident. Maybe you’ve done it, bemoaned the lack of anime available for you to watch after catching the season’s first episodes and deciding that maybe this season isn’t any good.
What do you mean, you don’t even preview them? Oh, that’s right: you know, or I’m sure you think you know all there is to anime, and can adequately judge one based on its genre. Which is why you’re flinching at the thought, heaven forbid, of watching something adapted from a visual novel, eroge, or dating sim. Surely the very idea is anathema! Or maybe you’ll watch a dismal episode or two and then drop it anyway after looking for things that don’t exist there.
The thing about this distorted reality field is that it’s self-serving. Otaku A is convinced that he’s seen all that anime has to offer after deciding that a select few, obscure and relatively non-mainstream titles are what he’s looking for, and bristles with indignation (alongside the convenient shield of “taste”) when told to get out of his box and watch something else. Out of the 40 or so titles that debut, he spots the occasional show that caters to his preferences, and his conviction that all anime is going to hell is reinforced. The next season comes around 3 months later. Rinse. Repeat.
3. A distorted reality field leads to absolute despair
bet you didn’t see this coming
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found the Itoshiki Nozomus of anime blogging and the fandom in general to be extremely tiresome. I’m sure you can think of a few people when I say this, but there’s always the odd one who’s convinced that anime and its ilk are beyond hope and redemption, and the best they can do as the Bastion of Taste? is to defend themselves against the apparent onslaught of mindless shows that they decry without even watching.
Sarcasm aside, I’ve always found it amusing to see someone go on and on about how everything they tried to watch this week or month was unpalatable bar a select gem or two that he or she found. Not only does it present a skewed version of the season that doesn’t really ring true with the fan on the street, it’s always seemed to me like an extensive exercise in masturbation, and that famed circlejerk in turn. To top it off, these bastions of taste usually have a particular favourite that’s as bad as the stuff they rubbish, yet it’s this very stinker that they’ll sing praises of.
In summary, a love for genre separatism is never good. I’m aware that this might come off as a slippery slope, but based on what I’ve seen I’m quite convinced that I’ve got the path down pat, so free to argue or correct discrepancies as you see fit. With that out of the way, here’s my individual replies to bateszi and Cameron:
Comment by bateszi on February 6, 2008 11:40 pm
@Owen: I’m tending to agree with iniksbane’s above comment, I don’t believe in objective journalism. If you happen to enjoy harem anime (which you do), you’re more likely to launch into hyperbole about harem anime.(…)
I didn’t really get this part, particularly because it was a weighted statement that I’m sure I’ve misunderstood somehow. You’re basically saying that since there’s a conflict of interest between what I’m lauding as one of the better works this season and my preferred genres, my word isn’t credible anymore? How exactly do you classify “hyperbole”, and since this would be applicable to you, couldn’t I say too that your word can’t be taken seriously if it’s regarding a non-mainstream anime, since you’ve got a thing for the indie?
I’m also assuming that all of these people I’m going to quote from in both comments and posts are also biased and spouting hyperbole, since they share similar sentiments with me.
However, I do like how this series has portrayed an aspect of male-female conversation that happens all too often; the way males completely fail to notice the subtle body language of the female altogether, and cause a misunderstanding without understanding how it happened in the first place. I’m guessing this is mostly the reason why guys complain about females being unpredictable; yeah, we guys are a little blunt in the head. (…) What I liked even better though, is how the same sequence is seen through two different POVs consecutively; after getting a look into Shinichiro’s thoughts throughout the whole exchange, we go through it all over again, this time from Hiromi’s thoughts to get the complete picture. It is this kind of thing that makes the True Tears characters feel so unusually real, yet so intimate to the viewers at the same time.
(…)I agree that by showing instead of telling True Tears was able to overawe this old cynic within the first episode. There is no gimmick, no magic, no bouncing racks, and no eternal pit of despair, it simply works in being ordinary. There are no useless characters here, even the employee has touch of personality.
True Tears is the only series thus far that has gotten me to wait impatiently for the next episode, for no other reason than to simply watch what happens rather than what new mockable material will come in my case. I agree with Kurogane that its really hard to believe that were already nearing the halfway point as most other series would have dithered with a filler. I hope that this will turn out to be one for the ages, an anime that newcomers can watch years from now and still be awestruck by it. If nothing else PA Works has demonstrated what excellent story telling can do.
the influence of Higurashi on 21st century fan-art was evident
(…)It’s actually hard to believe that true tears has only been 5 episodes. I’ve felt as if I’ve known them for longer than five weeks as a matter of fact. Couple that with the fact I wasn’t truly interested in to true tears until episode 3, this show is amazing on that aspect. As saturnine has pointed out on at his post, the depth of the subtext, truly makes this show a much longer one than it’s actual length. The intricacies of the body language, emotions and even the tones of voice evokes a sense of being actually inside the world of true tears.
You can say Hiromi is stereotypical. In fact, she is one. But what really attracts me to liking her isn’t because of her character archetypes or her physical attributes, but because I can feel a strong sense of attachment and empathy towards her, developed wonderfully by a combination of a strong drama and character development, and most importantly, the voice acting of Nazuka Kaori, which has shown herself to be a master of inserting a myriad of emotions and feelings into her voicing as Hiromi.
Heh, man-flu hasn’t helped me think straight but at least another two episodes have given me a better grasp of the characters. I don’t mean this in the sense of the old ‘problem with preconceptions’ idea that came up in the 5cm and ef discussions but I still think there’s an issue of some sort with how this show doesn’t ‘behave’ like most anime series of the same genre. Comparing this with, say, Clannad really makes the difference show up for me: Clannad has a very linear, calculated and almost artificial way of story progression, while True Tears looks and progresses like a live action drama (one of the well-written ones, not a soap opera, obviously), or, indeed, real life. Using the old fave of the food analogy, going from Clannad or similar to True Tears is like living off microwaveable TV dinners for a week then feeding yourself up on home cooking at the weekend. That’s how I understand that side of things, at any rate.
Taking the ‘indie’ and ‘arthouse’ route in the same way as Shinkai, Shinbo or Anno is actually a rarity in anime (often much to my disappointment), but I’m getting the same feeling with this one already. In regards to AOTY we’re only in mid-February right now though, so a lot can happen in the remainder of the year; I’ll concede that this is the best of the season, if nothing else. Crucially it does have that ‘grown up’ vibe, which appeals to me in particular when oftentimes I feel like I’m pretty much growing out of what most anime has to offer.
Just to complicate matters even further (see why I needed to make two separate comments?), the choice Shinichiro feels he has to make in regards to the two girls in his life reminds me a lot of the Toru/Naoko/Midori love triangle in HM’s Norwegian Wood. I just got that sense of familiarity with the solemn childhood friend and the vivacious ‘new girl’, with a clueless guy in between. It’s probably irrelevant, but my brain often goes at tangents like that when I’m running a temperature.
(…)I think I’m beginning to understand why I like True Tears so much, it’s similar (but more powerful) to the reason I like Kimikiss, they don’t waste time in developing the story. There’s very few filler scenes that are just for comedic purposes, unlike say, Clannad. Each scene is meaningful whether interpreted directly or through more subtle hints, every meeting, every exchange of words carries a clue to where the story is heading. And to top it all off, both True Tears and Kimikiss are annoyingly good at cliffhanger endings, ending at points that make me cry out in anger, wanting to see what happens literally seconds later, but having to wait an entire week to do so.
what genre separatism does is both sad and funny at the same time, like this picture
You know what I think? This isn’t journalism, and never will be, because we don’t have a duty to impartiality or objectivity like journalists do. What we do have, however, is a duty to explain the “why” when it comes to elaborating on why we like something, and I think you’re confusing that for hyperbole. Tell me, how is what I and those I’ve quoted have said more praise than necessary? Or, for that matter, how is our praise related to our “bias” for the genre in any way, when what we’re talking about is based on technical details, and has nothing whatsoever to do with genre conventions?
Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it seems to me that you’re rather resistant to the idea of true tears being the best that Winter has to offer. Could it be that you’re just in denial about how “good” and “harem” are mutually exclusive in your book, and you’re considerably irked about what I, and those I’ve quoted by extension, have said about it? It’s nothing personal, and I’m just asking this for curiosity’s sake, but I hope you’ll enlighten me on this matter.
Cameron, you said this, in addition to dedicating a new post on it:
Comment by iniksbane on February 6, 2008 8:38 pm
But the reason for genre is because those shows have similiarities. When someone says ’slice of life’, I know it’s going to be a show without an overarching plot that focuses on the day to day aspects of life for a select group of people. That simply allows people to choose whether or not they like that type of show. (..) And I agree that a show can be analyzed outside of the genre. But I don’t think a show can be analyzed outside of a person’s individual tastes. Much like the myth of objective journalism, the goal is to be fair and to take those tastes into account. Then to provide a sound argument.
Like what Sagacious C said in the comments, no one’s questioning the usage of genre in an everyday basis. My argument is an entirely different issue altogether: I’m specifically targeting those who don’t watch a certain show or don’t think highly of it all because it’s in a genre they don’t prefer. Obviously there’s a time where genre can be used and where analysing it within existing genre conventions is useful, but I’m talking about selecting anime, and how genre usually gets in the way of someone watching a show due to existing preconceptions in place.
Returning to my reply to bateszi’s comment earlier, what I have issues with is how the fandom generally looks at what a show’s made of (what it seems) and then assumes that that’s all there is to it (what it is). His uninformed attitude demonstrates this to great effect, as I said, and while it might have been relevant to use genres to describe and define shows a few years ago, the recent slew of anime has proven this to be redundant, even somewhat unnecessary given the originality of a lot of works.
The contrast between ef and School Days are good examples of this. Despite being in the eroge adaptation category, the audiences they attract are vastly different; discounting the fact that only one of them is harem, you’d think that the eroge market would usually attract the same fanbase by virtue of its common denominator, but that isn’t the case. The reception in the blogosphere towards ef and School Days differed greatly, and I’d like to think that both of them appealed to different audiences for very different reasons.
Times are a-changing. I finished watching Baccano recently, and how exactly do you classify that according to genre anymore? If it’s classified as seinen or shounen, what does that say about the disparity between the meaning that either label carries, and how it works in reality? Assuming you’ve seen, or at least heard about how good kimikiss is, how do you reconcile the fact that “high-school romance” doesn’t begin to describe the depth of its performance and content?
I believe that we’re slowly but surely arriving at an age where the fail-safe security of a genre label no longer applies to a sizeable amount of anime available. I don’t know if we’ll be using different labels by then, like the post- affix or combinations of existing ones aka the Nanoha franchise and its mahou shoujo-shounen mix, but what I do know now is that sticking rigidly to the semantics of what was valid maybe a decade or so ago just doesn’t cut it anymore, and that’s what I mean when say that genres are irrelevant.
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February 8th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Oh this is another shitty post from Owen, I’m going to not read the whole thing, I know how this is going to turn out in the end. Of course I need to react in some manner, though, so here, a reaction:
>>We all know how well that turned out in the end.
Yeah, Lucky Star was the worst piece of shit to ever leave its mud-colored stains on the record of the skilled Kyoto Animation. That’s how it turned out, so how did those who judged it by its moe nature go astray? They saw, in 2.5 minutes, how crap it was going to be, and called it on it, and were right. Vindication is a lovely feeling, Owen, and it would be nice for all of us if you felt it once in a while.
A good place to start would be being right. Step two would be making an astute, correct post on a topic, and step three would be not having me troll you. Whore.
February 8th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Maybe we just need to redefine our genres? I think the best thing to do is to classify anime by what they are advertised toward or what the production studios label them as, because the fans themselves will have their own definitions and then it all gets too confusing. People just need to realize that genres are not restricting and just because an anime is considered to be a shounen doesn’t mean that it won’t have shoujo elements or whatever the case may be.
Genres aren’t irrelevant; we just can’t generalize all anime in a certain genre. I don’t know, maybe I’m missing the point of all this.
February 8th, 2008 at 9:47 am
>>I don’t know, maybe I’m missing the point of all this.
Internet drama never has a point. Much like this blog. And my comments.
February 8th, 2008 at 10:21 am
The “problem” with genre is that it is formulated by the audience. The n00b perceives of a genre differently from the afficionado, and people that jump in at different times will have their perspectives altered in this way. Using Eva to explain, the show requires you to be an affcionado of mecha to understand what the show is doing thematically. But when the show came out, if you were watching the show in Japan, you wouldn’t need to be an afficionado to understand this since you would’ve understood mecha shows in terms of super robots and Gundam. But since a lot of non-Japanese anime fandom began around the time of Eva, it becomes the baseline for thinking of mecha, and the shows that Eva is a reaction against never get seen.
Or, different conceptions of genre is why Nadesico often shows up on Japanese polls of the best anime ever but rarely does outside of Japan.
February 8th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Genres are very much so irrelevant, I thought differently in the past, but after delving into ones that I thought I would hate based on the preconceptions formed by its genre, I came to the rather obvious conclusion that a one word generalization like “drama” does not suffice in the least in describing a series.
Though I will have to disagree with you on the outcome of the LS war, I was among the ones who bashed it after its opening episode, and while it got marginally better throughout its course, it didn’t deliver on the comedy it promised, every episode was a 20 minute joke without a punchline. I tried to remain bias free in my few posts about it, but truthfully, the only reason I watched it was so that I could criticize/troll it without people throwing the “how can you say it was that bad if you didn’t watch it” argument at me.
And on that note, for the severe hate Anonymous has for bloggers, seems like most of them lurk /a/
February 8th, 2008 at 10:38 am
>>the only reason I watched [Lucky Star] was so that I could criticize/troll
A true warrior.
February 8th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I apologise for lk’s behaviour, since he swore to me that he had rehabilitated himself, and I’m the one that let him out of his cage. He should be released back into the anime blogging society circa April 2008. An April’s fool, in other words.
IcyStorm: Yes.
jpmeyer: I don’t get the Nadesico = best anime part. How exactly is the question phrased and how does it relate to genre and “best anime ever”?
Shirukii: I can only write your dislike off as expecting an Azumanga out of a Aria + Hidamari. This, unlike other dubious examples, was a case of IT’S NOT THE ANIME, IT’S YOU.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:35 am
But I love ARIA and Hidamari Sketch D=
February 8th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
This reminds me of a convention panel I went to where one of the panel speakers is a professor teaching anime courses. One of the things he mentioned before doing some kind of serious academic research on anime is to know your terminology, and in his case film since it is his specialty. Fans would come up to him saying that anime X is a really good anime. Then when he asks why, their only response is to say it’s good for very generic reasons: “It has good drama, tons of action, etc., etc.”
I think mainstream anime fans are just too sheltered. They don’t wanna take really explore the actual culture behind it. And what they don’t understand ends up being a perfect target to flame. The someone in the hardcore fandom may not like a particular element, say moe, but can at least respect it’s existence. Once a show gets tagged with one the mainstream’s evil taboo words (moe, harem, etc.), it somehow becomes an immediate turn off. Mainstream anime fans group animes into their supposed boxes way too easily.
With that said, I stopped looking at genres and just read the summaries nowadays.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
On the whole I agree with you. On certain semantics I disagree with you. I would say what you’re arguing against is not genre at all but people refusing to watch more than one “type” of show. Which is a fair complaint. And I do agree that there has been some genre blending going on. But if I took ef as an example, I would still say that it’s primarily a romance show. And if you’re inclined to like romance shows then you’re more inclined to like it. Which I think is the point that bateszi was trying to get at.
For example, if I tell you I like cheesy 80s action movies and I say “The Last Boy Scout” is the best movie ever. Then you’d be more inclined to think that I was probably biased. And that’s a fair assumption, because I told you I liked cheesy 80s action movies. But if I really liked crazy art films and said that I like “The Last Boy Scout”, which is a cheesy 80s action movie, you’d probably be more inclined to think, “Wow, I wonder what that movie has to offer to someone who does not watch cheesy 80s action movies.” Now I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with bateszi point that the second opinion would be more valid. But the first person’s opinion is expected. The second person’s opinion is not.
Does that mean I think you should judge something without watching it? No. But do I think that has anything to do with genre at all? Absolutely not. It has everything to do with the person who wants to hide out with his copies of LoGH and Space Battleship Yamato, or cling onto his copy of Cowboy Beebop like it’s the holy grail. Genre is merely a classification. And no matter how a genre is bent it will always remain primarily one genre, if you want examples of that I’d be happy to provide them. But I’ve blathered on long enough.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Nadesico is the best anime ever for Japanese because how cleverly it plays off of, incorporates, and reworks the conventions of mecha and sci-fi shows. A lot of those shows however would never have been seen by non-Japanese anime fans so it just ends up being a “good” anime. I think that Macross was only released on DVD about 18 months ago, and just try finding fansubs of something like Getter Robo or Mazinger Z. Therefore, if you didn’t know much about the genre, for example characters that are a clever twist on a convention don’t appear to be that. They don’t appear to be anything, really.
Also, @Cameron:
It’s really, really easy to blend genres. Take My-Hime. Is that a moe moe show, a magical girl show, or a shounen battle show? The way that you answer that question will also heavily weigh on whether or not the ending worked or not.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
[...] some coincidental genre-talk crossfire going on around other places, combined with my following of 2007 hit Nodame Cantabile, I began to [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
>>This, unlike other dubious examples, was a case of IT’S NOT THE ANIME, IT’S YOU.
You dipshit, someone dislikes something and you tell them it’s their fault? What the hell do you think you are, the Bastion of Taste?
February 8th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
@ jpmeyer - To be fair, I haven’t watched My-Hime. Not that I don’t want to, just that I’ve seen a lot of mixed reactions to it. But if I were to pull an example out it’d be something like Nadesco which I’d argue is primarily a war epic (it’s got the boy pilot, the space battles, the “war is hell” theme) with comedy elements. And to be honest, it’s really easy to blend genres in a lot of places. Almost every anime I’ve seen recently has a moe character, some more moe then others. But I’d argue that moe isn’t a genre, it’s a combination type of character/emotional reaction to a character.
Genre is a classification of plot/character/world types. Generally involving all three. Now some genres (for example horror and thriller) can be really close in their plot types (usually one normal person against a foe that is stronger and better equipped then he is.) but they’ll be differentiated by the world type (normal vs supernatural) or by tone (tense but hopeful or tense and despairing).
February 8th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Cameron: The “romance” portrayed by harem is not so much romance as it is a mockery of it with a lot of pseudo-polygamy and blatant pandering going on. ef is equal parts love triangle, high school romance, drama, and artsy experimentation, a far cry from School Days’ overtly harem roots and one-guy-bangs-all setup lacking realistic romance. I won’t comment about Elfen Lied since I haven’t seen it, but I take it you’ve seen neither ef nor School Days to be able still insist on going on that particular tangent.
If you’re the type to like School Days, again, you’re more inclined to shows like… Da Capo II? H2O? Rosario Vampire? Those are true harem shows, and I was rather horrified to see bateszi use ef as an example when it clearly didn’t fit the “main character being surrounded by a bunch of adoring girls” mould at all, to say nothing of how ef doesn’t really have a main character per se.
The rest of what you said here is semantical, really. When you say
you really mean genre, which is my beef with how it’s constructed here; anything that is not LoGH/Yamato does not have anything in common with them, which is “sci-fi drama in outer space”. Anything that is like LoGH/Yamato will have sci-fi drama in outer space, which still leads back to my point about genre.
lk: No, LS polarised greatly, as opposed to general disdain, which is the only time when a show can be properly considered “bad”. What LS was in terms of “bad anime” was really its audience wanting more comedy from it than slice of life; viewing LS as slice of life meant that it was excellent; taking it as comedy, on the other hand, was where you have people like Shirukii calling every episode as a “20 minute joke without a punchline”.
Since you evidently need a bit of hand-holding to see you through the blind hate and anger, take this simplified analogy. It’s like wandering into a restaurant famed for its haute cuisine and asking for burger and a fries. You’ll get your burger and fries, it just won’t be as satisfying as if you had wandered into In ‘n Out, or Carl’s Jr., for instance. Get it? Or do I need to beat you on the head with this idea like I was a Key show?
jpmeyer: Thanks, I think I get it better now. It certainly does explain the huge disparity between what Japanese and Western viewers prefer, although I’m a bit stumped as to how it translates to the mind-bogglingly high votes for sola, StrikerS, and Nanatsuiro Drops in this one survey of 2007’s best anime that I read.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
@ Owen- I still fail to see how a classification system has anything to do with people prejiduces. Now I’ll admit I haven’t watched School Days. Although I have watched Elfen Lied. And I don’t think ef and Elfen Lied do have that much in common genre wise. I think ef is romance and Elfen Lied is horror. But blaming genre is essentially like blaming the word radiation for the reason why people don’t eat irradiated beef. It’s not the word’s fault, it’s people’s fault.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
@Cameron
…and that’s exactly why you’ve seen so many mixed reactions to the show :)
@Owen
StrikerS I can at least chalk up to people being obsessed with the franchise, but yeah I’m totally stumped on sola and Nanatsuiro Drops.
I think part of the problem with the discussion is the tendency to conflate similar genres. I never thought of ef as a harem, but ef is based on an eroge. Eroge have harems, yes, but they don’t play out the same way as a harem show does, with the guy surrounded by like 5 girls. In games, you might fuck 5 different girls, but you’re focused on one girl per playthrough, generally. But since there’s a harem, you can be overly reductive and say that it’s a harem by using tautological definitions like “A harem anime is an anime with a harem.”
(BTW, that tendency towards tautology in order to think of a way to incorporate all of the various variations on a genre is one of the historical difficulties that film scholars have had with trying to define genre.)
Oh, and the other problem is a historical distaste for genre artistically stemming from Romanticism, so saying that something is “just” a comedy/horror/action/romance/etc. is an easy way to make it look worse than it is. But nobody would ever say that something is “just” a character drama.
Additionally, people will say that genre works are bad if they don’t have elements of character dramas (”It was all explosions and zero character development”), but they won’t apply generic conventions to anything else. Using that paradigm, it seems obvious that nobody would say “It was all character development and zero gore” about a character drama because of that genre’s valorized place. It would also sound silly to say “It was all laughs and zero explosions” about a comedy, yet that sort of thinking never seems to cross people’s minds when thinking about character dramas.
Hell, if you really want to get mental masturbation-y, I’d say that ef has more in common with an action show because the focus of both is the visuals.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
“I still fail to see how a classification system has anything to do with people prejiduces.”
I think if anything, it just provides a basis for those prejudices. At the very least, when people think of a certain genre, they have certain buzzwords that come to mind. From the compatibility of those buzzwords with the mindsets of the people (i.e., how well they work with the person, and what effect does it have on them: positive, negative, neutral) in addition to previous experiences with that specific genre, that’s where a decision can be made on whether to pursue something or not. But that’s simplifying things. From that aspect though, if a person’s fine with shunning a genre based on their notions, then by all means they should go with that, but it’s depressing to hear people not bother even trying to watch a show because they don’t think it will be something they like, or by forcibly fitting what’s happening in the show into their definitions of genre to justify their dislike or like for it. Let the show flow over you instead of you trying to flow over it? :P
As everyone says though, it’s the person’s problem in that case. So why are we saying the same thing again? o_o
February 9th, 2008 at 12:20 am
>>viewing LS as slice of life meant that it was excellent
So you’re saying that by narrowly examining it within the scope of a single genre, it’s good? I THOUGHT YOU WERE TRYING TO ARGUE FOR THE DISUSE OF GENRES WHEN JUDGING. What the fuck Owen, have you no sense of decency sir?
February 9th, 2008 at 2:23 am
If it’s not moe, it’s not worth watching!
Well, for the most part.
Actually… why is it that people like me who primarily watch/enjoy moe shows are willing to enjoy non-moe stuff, but people who only watch non-moe stuff consistently call anything with moe “garbage?”
Biases are a strange thing indeed.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:17 am
It reminds me of the saying, “I don’t know art, but I know what I like.” The irony of the statement is that the speaker usually does not know exactly what it is that he/she dislikes about the artwork precisely because of the lack of art knowledge.
But who is more to blame, the genrist (descriminating based on genre) or the labler (maybe he/she is doing it wrong)? Do you attack a person for their tastes, or do you attack the assumption that series X is genre Y?
Also, I love Shirukii’s comment about watching a series you think you will hate, just so you can flame and troll. Counter-arguments should be earned! It’s no fun when the other person can shoot down your argument by pointing out that you only watched 5% of the series or that your argument does not even follow basic rules of logic. In the world of academia, love is a battlefield.
And BTW, Baccano falls into harem-journey genres because everyone was traveling to NY to make out with Maiza. Your rhetorical question was too easy.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:23 am
All I can say about this is reserve your judgement on something until you’ve seen it all the way through…
That and the fact that genres are really just for convenience. I hate stuffing things into pigeonholes but sometimes it’s necessary to keep what I’m writing down to a sensible length. Of course, tagging a genre onto a show (which is something I do in a very literal sense thanks to Wordpress!) is that I’m using it as a guide for recommending stuff, rather than ammunition for shooting down something I don’t like. For example: “Show X belongs to genres 1 and 2. Show Y belongs to genres 1 and 3. If you like show X, you might want to try show Y as well, even if you don’t like genre 3.”
Or did I miss something really, really, obvious?
@lk: your therapist would be proud of you. ^_^
February 9th, 2008 at 6:30 am
I’m about to drop a pingback here (hopefully) but I thought I’d nitpick a little first:
What it’s made of and what it seems are very different things! (Also, what’s the fundamental difference between what something’s made of and what it is? In certain cases, the two are the same thing.) I’m assuming this could be expressed more clearly, because I can’t see you proposing that genre is a kind of ingredient.
February 9th, 2008 at 6:33 am
[...] first impressions have been declared the Enemy of the Free World³ this month, and it would be easy to join in the general going-over [...]
February 9th, 2008 at 8:07 am
>>your therapist would be proud of you. ^_^
Despite the fact that I just digressed about a year of anime blogging?
February 9th, 2008 at 8:13 am
No Owen, I don’t take it personally. I’d complain about a mere comment being taken apart like this, but the truth is that when I was writing the first one, I was anticipating such a response anyway, so fire away, chaps. Anyway, everything I wanted to say was in that first comment. For my money, and looking through all the bloggers who have posted here, Martin, jpmeyer and Cameron are probably the only ones I’d trust to tell me what’s good about a show like “True Tears”, everyone else is far too “attracted” to this (dare I say it) genre for my liking.
When I clumped together ef, School Days and Elfen Lied, I’m generally referring to the overriding sense of “high-school\teenage romance” rather than “harem”, which was a (literally) tired description on my part that’s been attacked here. To be honest, I started writing a full riposte of my own, but I gave up. I can’t be bothered to circle round the same issues time and time again just to explain I couldn’t care less about a bunch of angsty high-school girls and their romantic mishaps. That’s just my taste in anime, I’d rather watch a some soldiers blowing up a giant monster in New York city.
February 9th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Maybe it’s my imagination as well, but you’re rather resistant to the idea that true tears ISN’T the best that winter has to offer. Though I haven’t seen it, I’m willing to pass judgment and say that it’s not, . It’s about high school girls and whatever! No matter how good of a plot, how ‘different’ it is, it’s all the same damn thing in the end! High school girls and their relationships! Could it be that you’re just in denial about how ‘bad’ and ‘harem’ can be used in the same sentence? Enlighten me as well, please.
It’s seems that everyone’s just stuck on the same issue, besides bateszi, who in his comment above mine, said everything I wanted to say. I read every week one of these lengthy diatribes about one thing or another and it all really boils down to the same thing, personal preference. What the hell do genre have to do with it? You like what you like and you don’t like what you don’t like. You know yourself better than anyone else and you shouldn’t be considered ignorant or dumb for choosing not to watch certain shows based on preconceptions due to which genre the show is in. There might be a reason that the harem genre has a negative connotation and is associated with mass orgies of teenage girls and one guy. It’s just this one issue dressed up differently every time.
February 10th, 2008 at 1:38 am
lol @ Yuki Souma… only a handful of people will get that joke :P
all the True Tears, ef, etc. fanboying reminds me of nothing else but my Tokyo Marble Chocolate fangirling, which I admit to be very biased of. Given that bias, I expect people (like bateszi in this case) who will find my review of the OAV to be less than useful, because of the lack of objectivity it turned out to have.
in fairness to bateszi, you can’t really blame him for looking at True Tears that way, because that’s just the way he sees it. It wasn’t really a bash at the series per se, but what it’s like in the eyes of someone who has grown tired of seeing high school romance and angst. I’ve come to accept that with the help of my brothers who are not so appreciative of the usual romance and slice of life genres, and even shoujo animes in general.
True Tears is a character-driven, high school romance slice of life anime. Not to consider it as a stereotype, but there are just certain possibilities and limitations to be expected from a certain genre. You might have not seen every anime that falls on the genre, but you have an idea of what to expect from it. When True Tears started, you already have this idea that it would probably have angst, drama or melodrama, bittersweet romance, etc. Now it’s up to the person if he wants to jump into the bandwagon of following the show, not knowing how things will turn out, but expecting that certain elements (or stereotypes) will be used.
The multi-faceted animes which cross different genres are a totally different beast. And I think that “genre” in itself is sometimes enough to make it a compelling watch for other people. It brings a different degree of unpredictability, which might or might not work against people’s tastes, again, because of varying tastes, prejudices, etc.
February 10th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
[...] I wasn’t going to post anything else on the subject. I mean largely Owen is standing on the moral high ground here. We shouldn’t judge a series as lousy before we watch it. It really isn’t right. [...]
February 11th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
lk: This is why you need to go back to rehab. Details to follow later.
IKnight:
Oh, there’s a world of difference, alright. This comes back to my argument about why the whole genre thing sucks; as an example, having an anime that’s set in high school with “romance” as its apparent focus doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s entirely about that; TTGL as another example wasn’t just merely about mecha. It’s really semantics, but you get my drift.
bateszi: I can’t tell if you’re being inconsistent, facetious, or both.
I’m having difficulty seeing the consistency here. First you say that you’d only take a couple of bloggers like the ones you mentioned seriously when it comes to telling you what’s good about true tears, then you say that you couldn’t care less about an anime like true tears? Which one is it exactly? If you couldn’t care less about the genre, why would you care regardless of which blogger praised it? Or am I missing something really important?
If I may read between the lines, it sounds as if you’re just hung up over watching a potentially “bad” anime, and seem to think that aside from your elite select few, no one else would be able to judge it accordingly because we’re… “biased”, as you put it. I like how you conveniently ignored that we’re all saying the same thing despite my laying out the quotes for you, and I’m just wondering what you think of that. Six bloggers, Martin among them, bateszi, and we’ve all said the same thing. I don’t know what to make of your view, but I hope you have fun.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I’ve read this post and its comments soo many times but found little I can add to the existing wealth of discussion. Still, here’s a 2 cents worth in a bit to leave my little mark on this epic post.
As one who always try to see the cup as half-full, I embrace anything and everything that enhances the anime experience. And the way ‘genre’ is employed in opinions/aniblogs, it, more than often, diminishes the experience as many wield it like a blunt weapon or ignorantly, imbued more with the writer’s prejudices rather than sound/balanced assesssment of the series strengths, thus upsetting or skewing expectations.
Genre is still useful for granting us the barest framework of the show we are diving into but I propose we approach every show with an open mind, shedding as much as we can on genre precepts for maximal enjoyment of the medium.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:16 am
@Owen: You’re viewing me too rigidly, like I’ve got some kind of hard line stance on all this. No, I haven’t, I’m fallible and prone to contradiction like everyone else. Point is, because it’s not my kind of thing, I’m not going out of my way to watch “True Tears” just like you (and all the blogger’s you’ve quoted) haven’t bothered to look at Shigurui yet. One day, I might wake up and give it a go because people like Martin have thrown their support behind it; and that’s the only reason why it would even register on my radar. To be honest, last year, I made an effort for the harem fans and tried to watch ’sola’, yet it was the worst kind of anime; absolutely, soul-sappingly mediocre and I dropped it at episode six. Why am I mentioning ’sola’? Because the harem fans loved it, just like all you Clannad buffs are drooling over True Tears right now. My villainy cemented because I’m afraid of being betrayed again by you bastards ;) Similarly, I tried ‘Princess Tutu’ last year because the general consensus was good; I was skeptical that its fan-base consisted mostly of unhealthy men with ’strange’ obsessions (you know what I mean), but I ended up really enjoying it.
So, here’s a proposal for you. I’ll watch the first four episodes and post my impressions of True Tears if you watch and reflect on the first four of Shigurui. Sounds fair to me?
February 13th, 2008 at 12:17 am
bateszi: Point taken. I kinda hate to say this, but sola sucked. It was unoriginal, lacklustre, and ultimately disappointing despite decent production values and a stellar soundtrack and I remember panning it for the most part, so I guess you couldn’t have been talking about me. :D Seriously though, I’d say your venture into sola was just bad timing, so don’t let one bad apple taint your future experience with this stuff.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure you missed this, but I used to have a shitty PC, which is the only reason why I didn’t watch Shigurui when it aired. I got a better one recently though, and Shigurui’s up on my list of “2007 shows that I missed due to encoding incompatibility”, alongside Kaiji, Toward the Terra, Seirei no Moribito, and The Skull Man. Deal. I was going to watch it eventually anyway, so give me a week or two. I’ll keep you updated.
Stripey: Thanks for the compliment, to have this be called an “epic post” from you is quite the honour. (: Goes without saying that I agree with what you said — it would be nice to have every other blogger out there share your opinion, if only to have less of that hair-tearing frustration that comes around every season ever so often.
February 14th, 2008 at 7:52 am
The only thing I remember about sola is how mind-bendingly ugly the characters were. They simply were drawn poorly, bad enough to deny me any enjoyment. I noticed that nobody ever commented about it, so mine must be some oddball impression. I keep a stash of screencaps to look back at it in a few years.
April 16th, 2008 at 12:41 am
[...] of contention in the blogosphere for who knows how long, and a topic tackled by Stripey-nii and Owen a few months back. As much as I hate to admit it, I found myself guilty of doing this act of [...]