Anime, martials, expectations vs reality.

[Tacticslion]

I don't think I've ever actually watched a French film (animated or otherwise), had French cuisine, or enjoyed "French" aesthetic as a primary thing in works I've consumed pretty much ever in my entire life (I've never been a fan of mustaches for one*, and for better or worse, mustaches seem to be firmly in place as an icon of "French" imagery for some reason). Just something about the whole cultural whatever - and I've tried pretty much all the genres. It's not to say that I hate French people, cinema, food, and aesthetic. I find the food pleasant, the people fine**, and the cinema... never really worth the time. And it's usually never really been for any single easily identifiable reason - I've never been able to point and say, "Aha! This is French, therefore I hate it!" (unless it's going overboard to the point of being cliche on purpose), but rather it just tends to be some weird combination of pacing, dialogue, stylistic preferences, direction, characterization, and so on that always leaves me very unhappy with having spent my time watching the thing, often only later finding out that, again, it was a French film.

France is cool. It has awesome history. It also gave us Les Miserables, so, you know, I'm good with stuff that's produced there sometimes! But in modern times for whatever reason it seems that my sensibilities just doesn't mesh well with French sensibilities. I find this to be okay. Similarly, people from France (or wherever) not looking stuff from the USA (or wherever).

Now if only my martial could have a bad mustache and smoke too much while spouting rhetorical exposition that doesn't matter about the meaninglessness of it all and how we're all going to die and it's all hopeless so I might as well enjoy some bread that's kind of okay, if a bit hard and dry for my tastes.
/very naughty and inaccurate French stereotypes (and also, my apologies; I know you guys are all supposed to have the best food/culture/whatever - just not my cuppa; you guys are cool, though!)
* In a bizarre set of quoctupliptetle standards, certain mustaches are not only okay, but actually kind of required. I just... don't know what those are until I've seen them. I think it might depend on the person's facial structure or other facial hair? I dunno. I just know my father in law has never looked more like a police officer until that one time he cut his lip and couldn't shave it for a month - retired or not, the man looked like a police officer, and I don't associate mustaches with the police; I also wasn't the only one as my brother-in-law's fiancé was thinking the same thing. It was all very strange.
** Results are exceedingly mixed. The people that don't hate out the gate for being American are just like anyone else I've run into. The others are unpleasant, as is anyone who hates you out of the gate for being <X>. The moral: don't hate people for being <X>. Humorously, and probably with good reason, given the international jokes that abound between our cultures, those who've drunk the hateraid in advance seem to think I have as well. Hm. Definitely a moral there.

[Pan]

Country music has all sorts of sub-genres like folk, modern, pop, and bro. If you don't like the old timey whiney vocal styling, check out any number of dudes with two first names today. I think country music as a comparison to anime actually works real well. The point I guess is any type of thing can be broken into sub-things by the fans. If you don't care for those common elements, chances are you wont like any of it.

[RDM42]

Or that fishing the things yo might like from the sea of things you don't might just not be worth it to you.]

[HyperMissingno]

Pokemon having Japanese things like samurai, ninja, onigiri, and kid's day didn't lessen the experience for me as a kid. I just assumed that they were special things in the setting (I was 5, okay?) and that they had white, holeless doughnuts over there.

These days if there's something I don't know about in an anime I can just ask my friends who know more about Japan or Google it myself. I'm not going to let my lack of knowledge about a culture ruin a good show. That would just be stupid.

[NenkotaMoon]

HyperMissingno wrote:

NenkotaMoon wrote:

JoJo's Blizzard Adventure is literally a bunch of Summoners running around I've realised.

They are part 3 and beyond. For part 1 and 2 they're sacred fist warpriests...and in one case a brawler that has some weird custom archetype to grant them positive energy shenanigans.

"Yare Yare Daze!"

[Liz Courts]

Removed some back and forth posts. Please be civil, folks.

[HeHateMe]

It's hilarious to me that this thread started out being about martial classes and somehow morphed into a thread about anime.

[HyperMissingno]

HeHateMe wrote:

It's hilarious to me that this thread started out being about martial classes and somehow morphed into a thread about anime.

Anime is in the thread's title, not that odd that discussion trailed into that.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

Sundakan wrote:

That's the same for everything though. Sturgeon's Law is the one true constant.

No.. it's nothing more than an acerbic, anecdotal, observation, by an author less than enchanted with his industry. I'm not nearly as much of a cynical pessimist.

[Snowblind]

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

Sundakan wrote:

That's the same for everything though. Sturgeon's Law is the one true constant.

No.. it's nothing more than an acerbic, anecdotal, observation, by an author less than enchanted with his industry. I'm not nearly as much of a cynical pessimist.

While "constant" might be too strong a word, do you disagree that the vast majority of work in any field that isn't held to stringent standards can be expected to be of low quality?

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

Snowblind wrote:

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

Sundakan wrote:

That's the same for everything though. Sturgeon's Law is the one true constant.

No.. it's nothing more than an acerbic, anecdotal, observation, by an author less than enchanted with his industry. I'm not nearly as much of a cynical pessimist.

While "constant" might be too strong a word, do you disagree that the vast majority of work in any field that isn't held to stringent standards can be expected to be of low quality?

If that were true, a lot more buildings should be falling down on a regular basis, and we wouldn't have cars, because half of them would be exploding each week. Because not every car is crafted like a Bugatti. Nor is every house overseen by Leonardo Da Vinci.

And if we're talking about creative work? Who gets to say what's crap and what's not? By whose standard? Sturgeon's assertation was more likely borne out of bitterness in not receiving accolades that he felt was due.

[Sundakan]

It's pretty damn accurate. While you can argue it's hyperbole, I wouldn't judge anywhere near half of everything ever made as good. Quite a bit less.

ESPECIALLY creative works.

If you think there is ANY medium or genre where the majority of content produced for it is good, you quite frankly have very low standards of good.

Which is a good thing for you, mind you. It means you can enjoy more things.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

Sundakan wrote:

It's pretty damn accurate. While you can argue it's hyperbole, I wouldn't judge anywhere near half of everything ever made as good. Quite a bit less.

ESPECIALLY creative works.

If you think there is ANY medium or genre where the majority of content produced for it is good, you quite frankly have very low standards of good.

Which is a good thing for you, mind you. It means you can enjoy more things.

It means that I've learned to be more humble about judging the work of others. And I've also learned that media reflects the culture that produces it. If that much of our media is by your terms, bad, than it's saying more about the culture at large than about individual creators.

Critics are frequently the worse part of the system. They make their presence by what they reject and what they snear at, especially if it's popular to the "unwashed masses" as they see it. (NY Times, I'm LOOKING AT YOU!) And as for judging what is good, from what I've seen of the typical fan population, they have locked themselves into the mentality that the only way to venerate what they worship is by kicking the teeth of anything else irregardless of it's merits.

It's certainly NOT the attitude I'd want to be taking if I were to set myself up as an art or creative teacher to the young.

[Sundakan]

Thankfully I want to be neither of those things, so have no need to be "humble" about calling a spade a spade (or a crappy book/movie/anime/comic/song/etc crap).

I don't see what humility has to do with it regardless.

[HyperMissingno]

I dunno, my art teachers were pretty fast when it came to calling my art shit in grade school.

[Snowblind]

Heck, I am very critical about my own work.

In fact, thinking that your work is great is probably a sign that the Dunning-Kruger effect is strong in you.

Believing that the same critical attitude applied to others (in good faith) is somehow bad is really questionable.

[thejeff]

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

Sundakan wrote:

That's the same for everything though. Sturgeon's Law is the one true constant.

No.. it's nothing more than an acerbic, anecdotal, observation, by an author less than enchanted with his industry. I'm not nearly as much of a cynical pessimist.

Actually, it was part of a defence of his industry, at a time when science fiction was considered trash literature with no artistic merit.

Quote:

I repeat Sturgeon's Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud. Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. is crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.

The point is not the cynical claim that everything is horrible, but that you can't dismiss a field by the worst or even the average works in it, but that you need to look at the best.

[claymade]

Steve Geddes wrote:

Well, having just googled those two, I can confirm that I would have dismissed re:Zero on the "over the top fighting" basis, based on the artwork I saw.

Oh, it definitely does have "over the top fighting". That's not all it has to offer, but if you don't happen to like shows where people do things like obliterate an entire building with a single swing of their sword, then your instinctual, gut-level, subconscious assessment of that show was giving you exactly the right warning.

thejeff wrote:

Which is also a thing commonly done, particularly by older people - "Cartoons are for kids". Less prevalent than a few decades ago, but still a thing.

And again, while it's definitely a stereotyped overgeneralization, it's not racism.

Yeah. And for a while, it wouldn't actually have even been that bad as a heuristic. Used to be, if you recognized something as American animation, you'd have pretty decent odds that it in fact was targeted primarily at kids. Not 100% certain, even back then, but it would have been a perfectly reasonable thing to factor into your "will I like this?" probability calculation.

Heck, even nowadays, you've still probably got better odds for it than not over here in the States. If that's within your level of tolerance for "missing stuff you might have liked", then I don't think it's wrong to use things like that as a rule of thumb.

So it's hardly irrational for someone to think that there could be large-scale commonalities across a given culture/medium combination. Sometimes, particular mediums do hold particular cultural niches.

Or, heck, even just statistical skews. Say a person has tried six different anime, and four of them involved "over the top fighting" which they really didn't like, and two of them were touching school dramas that they thought were okay. In a case like that, even though they might realize that there's more to anime than just "over the top fighting" alone, I'd fully understand if they decided to shy away from anime on general principle, just on the basis that: "in my experience, just personally speaking, I've found that anime seems more likely to involve crazy fighting with big energy blasts than, say, American TV is, and I dislike that element to enough of an extent that I'm okay with the risk that I might also miss out on some stuff I might have liked".

Even then it's probably still a skewed impression, formed from a unrepresentative sample set. But I'm still not going to fault them for making their decisions as far as entertainment choices go based on what they happen to have seen themselves.

[thejeff]

It does sort of raise the question of how much anime you have to watch before deciding you don't want to watch more of it.

[Vlaeros]

Forty-two. You must exactly forty anime. I helped!

[non-dyslexic Valeros]

Anime what, you goof? Episodes? Films? Seasons? Arcs? Hours? Minutes?

Can't get good help these days...

[Jiggy]

claymade wrote:

Steve Geddes wrote:

Well, having just googled those two, I can confirm that I would have dismissed re:Zero on the "over the top fighting" basis, based on the artwork I saw.

Oh, it definitely does have "over the top fighting". That's not all it has to offer, but if you don't happen to like shows where people do things like obliterate an entire building with a single swing of their sword, then your instinctual, gut-level, subconscious assessment of that show was giving you exactly the right warning.

Not necessarily. The scene you're thinking of was an explicitly magical act, which seems to make a big difference for most of the folks who don't like unrealistic martial combat.

So it's very possible that his instinctual, gut-level, subconscious assessment of that show was completely wrong. Depends on whether "unrealistic" complaints only apply to nonmagical actions or also rules out any use of magic.

[HyperMissingno]

One thing I should note about anime is that more often than not (from what I've seen at least) most of the over the top fighting can be explained with magic of some kind. They might call it something else (hamon, stands, alchemy, cybernetics, etc.) but there's still usually some sort of magic going around.

[Sissyl]

A friend of mine once told me that before I could discount Buffy and give up on seeing it, I had to watch at least two seasons.

[kyrt-ryder]

HyperMissingno wrote:

One thing I should note about anime is that more often than not (from what I've seen at least) most of the over the top fighting can be explained with magic of some kind. They might call it something else (hamon, stands, alchemy, cybernetics, etc.) but there's still usually some sort of magic going around.

And then Yujiro Hanma stops an earthquake with a punch in an absolutely nonmagical setting.

[RDM42]

Sissyl wrote:

A friend of mine once told me that before I could discount Buffy and give up on seeing it, I had to watch at least two seasons.

I do think on a lot of series it is fair to say you need to watch at least the second season: many shows really don't figure out their formula until then.

[HyperMissingno]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

HyperMissingno wrote:

One thing I should note about anime is that more often than not (from what I've seen at least) most of the over the top fighting can be explained with magic of some kind. They might call it something else (hamon, stands, alchemy, cybernetics, etc.) but there's still usually some sort of magic going around.

And then Yujiro Hanma stops an earthquake with a punch in an absolutely nonmagical setting.

I said more often than not, not all the time. = w=

[Sissyl]

RDM42 wrote:

Sissyl wrote:

A friend of mine once told me that before I could discount Buffy and give up on seeing it, I had to watch at least two seasons.

I do think on a lot of series it is fair to say you need to watch at least the second season: many shows really don't figure out their formula until then.

You think? Well, let me spell it out for you: As a creator of a creative work, you have VERY LITTLE time to sell your work to the consumer. Readers today often toss out a book if they aren't hooked by page 10 or so. Lord of the Rings is considered "hard to get into" because the good stuff starts at page 50. In writing courses, it is always emphasized that a) you need a good title that can grab the reader, b) you need to hook them FAST. With a TV series, you will usually have ONE episode, whichever one the viewer happens to see first, and the reaction to that will determine future viewing. You may have a bit more, say two or possibly three. So, no, a show doesn't GET two seasons to "figure out its formula", at least not if they want viewers.

When I started watching Babylon 5, I got into the beginning of season 2. And it was awesome. I stuck with the series religiously. And, seeing season 1 was almost painful. I am quite certain that if I had started there, I would never have kept seeing it.

There is a tendency today to discount writing. Animation, after all, takes the lion's share of the time involved, and the most people. But take a look at the most successful series. I am pretty sure you will find strong writing, right from the start, in almost all of them.

Sorry for ranting.

[HyperMissingno]

A lot of people that watch anime have a rule, any show has three episodes to hook them before they drop it. And to be fair, most anime need only 3 episodes for you to get what they're doing. The only three I watchedthat need more are Higurashi No Na Ki (which needs 5 episodes for you to know what it's doing but you still get the feel in 3) Smile Pretty Cure (which spends the first 5 episodes getting the party members before settling into its formula) and Shinki (which has the pacing of a snail.)

No idea if this rule works on western TV and animation. It sure doesn't work on movies which is one of many reasons I avoid that medium.

[Rathendar]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

HyperMissingno wrote:

One thing I should note about anime is that more often than not (from what I've seen at least) most of the over the top fighting can be explained with magic of some kind. They might call it something else (hamon, stands, alchemy, cybernetics, etc.) but there's still usually some sort of magic going around.

And then Yujiro Hanma stops an earthquake with a punch in an absolutely nonmagical setting.

If by absolutely nonmagical you include prehistoric throwbacks, genetic cloning, and spirit/soul migration from the past to the present, i agree, absolutely nonmagical. ;)

[Rathendar]

HyperMissingno wrote:

A lot of people that watch anime have a rule, any show has three episodes to hook them before they drop it. And to be fair, most anime need only 3 episodes for you to get what they're doing. The only three I watchedthat need more are Higurashi No Na Ki (which needs 5 episodes for you to know what it's doing but you still get the feel in 3) Smile Pretty Cure (which spends the first 5 episodes getting the party members before settling into its formula) and Shinki (which has the pacing of a snail.)

No idea if this rule works on western TV and animation. It sure doesn't work on movies which is one of many reasons I avoid that medium.

Blue Seed was the one for me that needed more then 3. season 1, each of the first episodes was intoducing/backstorying one of the cast. once that was done (episode 6) the plot really took off. Whenever i loaned that one out i'd have to tell them 'wait til ep 6 to decide if you want to watch the rest' but fortunately most did and also finished it.

I do agree with you about a general 3 episode min for decision. it's usually what i use.

[HyperMissingno]

I knew I was forgetting something. JoJo's Bizzare Adventure also takes more than three episodes for it to get what it's really about, but thankfully part 1 still is plenty enjoyable on its own if only because Dio is best villain.

[Sundakan]

It's a good thing Phantom Blood is mercifully short, since Dio is honestly its only redeeming quality.

Batyle Tendency with best JoJo's insane luck is where it picks up.

JoJo is a bit odd (bizarre, even) though since most seasons are relatively self contained.

[HyperMissingno]

Don't forget his wit, that's important too! ...and his hamon too I guess?

[RDM42]

Sissyl wrote:

RDM42 wrote:

Sissyl wrote:

A friend of mine once told me that before I could discount Buffy and give up on seeing it, I had to watch at least two seasons.

I do think on a lot of series it is fair to say you need to watch at least the second season: many shows really don't figure out their formula until then.

You think? Well, let me spell it out for you: As a creator of a creative work, you have VERY LITTLE time to sell your work to the consumer. Readers today often toss out a book if they aren't hooked by page 10 or so. Lord of the Rings is considered "hard to get into" because the good stuff starts at page 50. In writing courses, it is always emphasized that a) you need a good title that can grab the reader, b) you need to hook them FAST. With a TV series, you will usually have ONE episode, whichever one the viewer happens to see first, and the reaction to that will determine future viewing. You may have a bit more, say two or possibly three. So, no, a show doesn't GET two seasons to "figure out its formula", at least not if they want viewers.

When I started watching Babylon 5, I got into the beginning of season 2. And it was awesome. I stuck with the series religiously. And, seeing season 1 was almost painful. I am quite certain that if I had started there, I would never have kept seeing it.

There is a tendency today to discount writing. Animation, after all, takes the lion's share of the time involved, and the most people. But take a look at the most successful series. I am pretty sure you will find strong writing, right from the start, in almost all of them.

Sorry for ranting.

True. THey need to be at least presentable first season. But they do often markedly improve going into the second.

[Serghar Cromwell]

Sundakan wrote:

It's a good thing Phantom Blood is mercifully short, since Dio is honestly its only redeeming quality.

I think you're selling Zeppeli's hat short.

[Talonhawke]

Serghar Cromwell wrote:

Sundakan wrote:

It's a good thing Phantom Blood is mercifully short, since Dio is honestly its only redeeming quality.

I think you're selling Zeppeli's hat short.

Zeppeli's and Speedwagon's.

[thejeff]

Sissyl wrote:

RDM42 wrote:

Sissyl wrote:

A friend of mine once told me that before I could discount Buffy and give up on seeing it, I had to watch at least two seasons.

I do think on a lot of series it is fair to say you need to watch at least the second season: many shows really don't figure out their formula until then.

You think? Well, let me spell it out for you: As a creator of a creative work, you have VERY LITTLE time to sell your work to the consumer. Readers today often toss out a book if they aren't hooked by page 10 or so. Lord of the Rings is considered "hard to get into" because the good stuff starts at page 50. In writing courses, it is always emphasized that a) you need a good title that can grab the reader, b) you need to hook them FAST. With a TV series, you will usually have ONE episode, whichever one the viewer happens to see first, and the reaction to that will determine future viewing. You may have a bit more, say two or possibly three. So, no, a show doesn't GET two seasons to "figure out its formula", at least not if they want viewers.

When I started watching Babylon 5, I got into the beginning of season 2. And it was awesome. I stuck with the series religiously. And, seeing season 1 was almost painful. I am quite certain that if I had started there, I would never have kept seeing it.

There is a tendency today to discount writing. Animation, after all, takes the lion's share of the time involved, and the most people. But take a look at the most successful series. I am pretty sure you will find strong writing, right from the start, in almost all of them.

Sorry for ranting.

It's one thing when you're just picking up a new show cold and another entirely when you're watching something on a recommendation that tells you it gets really good in the second season.

I mean, you certainly can't watch the first two seasons of every show out there to see if it gets good. There aren't enough hours in the day. And most of them don't turn into something you want to watch in season 2.

[kyrt-ryder]

Rathendar wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

HyperMissingno wrote:

One thing I should note about anime is that more often than not (from what I've seen at least) most of the over the top fighting can be explained with magic of some kind. They might call it something else (hamon, stands, alchemy, cybernetics, etc.) but there's still usually some sort of magic going around.

And then Yujiro Hanma stops an earthquake with a punch in an absolutely nonmagical setting.

If by absolutely nonmagical you include prehistoric throwbacks, genetic cloning, and spirit/soul migration from the past to the present, i agree, absolutely nonmagical. ;)

Nonmagical doesn't exclude supernatural, there are millions of people who would buy any of these (except the earth shutting u when Yujiro tells it to) being plausible in the real world. Just very few who would accept them all lol.

[MMCJawa]

I've given up on shows after only a couple of episodes (Scream Queens) and have persisted multiple seasons through other shows (Gotham). How long to "give a show" really is dependent on taste and if there is a particular element/character you really like, who is good enough to hold your interest.

If I dismiss a show because I didn't immediately like, but people tell me that it eventually gets really good, I will give the show another try (Clone Wars). After all sometimes show do change for the better, whether it through new actors, better creative control, changes in narrative, or other revamps.

Also Anime is just sort of a weird category. Pretty much all the anime I watch is chosen because of topic. Blindly going into anime seems really weird. I loved Attack on Titan and Cowboy Bebop, but that doesn't mean I have any interest in some high school drama just because it also is anime.

[Jiggy]

MMCJawa wrote:

Also Anime is just sort of a weird category. Pretty much all the anime I watch is chosen because of topic. Blindly going into anime seems really weird. I loved Attack on Titan and Cowboy Bebop, but that doesn't mean I have any interest in some high school drama just because it also is anime.

"Also American TV is just sort of a weird category. Pretty much all the American TV I watch is chosen because of topic. Blindly going into American TV seems really weird. I loved Arrow and Grimm, but that doesn't mean I have any interest in some crime-scene police drama just because it also is American TV."

This community can be really fascinating to observe sometimes. ;)

[thejeff]

Yeah, that's back to "anime is a genre" again.

OTOH, it really is treated as a genre in the US. Marketed as a genre. Pretty much a genre in every way that matters.

Which is better than most foreign cinema gets. At least anime gets its own genre, not lumped in the "foreign films" category.

[Jiggy]

Oh, speaking of "going into anime blindly"...

If you're the sort who can enjoy a good facepalm and laugh at bad media, Crunchyroll.com (an anime-streaming site) has a "random" button (I call it the "dice button" because of the d6 icon on it) which, when clicked, will take you to Episode 1 of a random anime.

And that site has a LOT of shows.

So you'll hit plenty that are either real trash or just clearly a genre you don't care for, and you can get like 5 minutes in and hit the dice button again. (Hence why you need to be able to enjoy laughing at dumb shows.) Then sometimes you'll get one that might have potential and kill half an hour on an episode before deciding whether to watch more or not. And every once in a while, you'll encounter a real gem that you might never have discovered otherwise.

I've found something like 3-4 really good shows through this method. (And plenty of bad or not-my-taste shows that I enjoyed chuckling about as I reached for the button.)

[Pan]

Everything can be boiled down to just simply a genre. It is the fanatics that care to discover in detail the nuances and subgenres.

My take away is that it is ok not to care about something. Not caring about something while making generalizations and tossing insults at its fans is being a Richard. Don't be a Richard.