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Hey, Answerman! - Harem Harumph

If a show exists to sell toys, how can I trust it to have artistic integrity?

I'm not a "mecha fan" if that also means I have to put up with crap like Fafner and Gundam Seed Destiny. Let's all hope nobody feels that way.

I also liked Linebarrels of Iron too so maybe I don't actually like Mecha shows. Anyways, it shows what happens when a teenage boy gains control of a giant robot and yeah, it's not as pretty as it should be. Heroism, meet puberty! Unlike Envangelion which is only realistic if Shinji was neutered {That would explain a lot if it was true though}

Precure is a toy commercial. The problem stems form close-minded ignorant people who think 'toy commercial' makes a show automatically bad or something. They seem to forget that a lot of the 'best series evar' are toy commercials, like Evangelion, Sailor Moon, Kamen Rider W, Zeta Gundam (pretty much any mecha anime), and so forth. This is to say nothing of all the otaku anime which lives or dies by it's sales and merchandise. Complaining about 'commercials' in anime is like complaining about the ocean at the beach, it's the entire point of it's existence at the end of the day.

If a show exists to sell toys, how can I trust it to have artistic integrity?

Well, one of the mecha shows I like is Gravion, a mecha/harem series {Oh yeah. There's one problem right there}.

Anime is a commercial product. All anime exists to sell merchandise; whether that merchandise is toy robots, hug pillows, or tickets to the Ghibli Museum.

I love Gravion myself but the thing I hate about it is the harem aspect... specifically because the harem doesn't belong to the main character! Pissed me off to see pretty much every single female character fall for Touga when it should have been Eiji instead. Eiji totally got the short end of the stick when it came to... well, pretty much everything in that show. He only got to be the main pilot of Gravion twice. At least he had that cute classmate of his...

It is now, but it wasn't like this just a handful of years ago. It's only exploded within the past 10 years, and it's so lucrative, we're lucky some companies are releasing merchandise of older series.

And you lost me. You were going perfectly fine until you mentioned that Evangelion was a toy commercial.

It's far from it. It's a publicity sheep and great promotion material nowadays though! It's just not a toy commercial in the sense that most Gundam series only exist to push forward and promote new model kits.

You have to understand the cultural context behind it. In the 80's, there was a TON of cartoons in the US that were glorified toy commercials. And they sucked. And a lot of really bad cartoons still are made solely for th purpose of pushing toys. So that's why "toy commercial" is a four-letter word to some westerners.

If a show exists to sell toys, how can I trust it to have artistic integrity?

...or so elite and refined in your tastes that you have to put your monocle on before you even start talking.

Chagen46 wrote:

If a show exists to sell toys, how can I trust it to have artistic integrity?

If "artistic integrity" is that important to you, you are in the wrong hobby.

Fencedude5609 wrote:

Chagen46 wrote: If a show exists to sell toys, how can I trust it to have artistic integrity? If "artistic integrity" is that important to you, you are in the wrong hobby.

It's sad that you have such a low opinion of the thing you're apparently a fan of.

>not shipping Eiji/Touga

Specifically, I'm not very fond of yuri. I understand the appeal and see why people would enjoy it, but some fans... I don't get this attitude that "men are disgusting and true, pure love can only exist between females" and "it is impossible for two girls to be just very close friends." Or I suppose I do get it, I just think it's ridiculous.

I'm just an anime fan, guys! We can compartmentalize and section each other off as much as we want, I guess, but I don't like cutting myself off of new things I might enjoy

I tried on the measured nobility of Milton’s verse. Gaining confidence, I added the romantic sensuality of a Byron matured by a Keatish celebration of the language. Stirring all this, I seasoned the mixture with a dash of Yeats’s brilliant cynicism and a pinch of Pound’s obscure, scholastic arrogance. I chopped, diced, and added such ingredients as Eliot’s control of imagery, Dylan Thomas’s feel for place, Delmore Schwartz’s sense of doom, Steve Tem’s touch of horror, Salmud Brevy’s plea for innocence, Daton’s love of the convoluted rhyme scheme, Wu’s worship of the physical and Edmond Ki Fererra’s radical playfulness.
In the end, of course, I threw this entire mixture out and wrote the Cantos in a style all my own.

Specifically, I'm not very fond of yuri. I understand the appeal and see why people would enjoy it, but some fans... I don't get this attitude that "men are disgusting and true, pure love can only exist between females" and "it is impossible for two girls to be just very close friends." Or I suppose I do get it, I just think it's ridiculous.