Forum - View topicFan service: Is it necessary?
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18200 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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What evidence is there which suggests that it should "outgrow such flawed beginnings?" Live-action films, despite decades of "growth," have more "fan service" content (in the sense that you're talking about) than ever before, but that doesn't stop them from still producing quality shows. Heck, some movies that have done well at the Academy Awards have featured nudity and graphic sex scenes. (I'm thinking of Monster's Ball in particular here, but doubtless there are other examples.) Why should anime be different? It's not like it's a more enlightened entertainment venue, after all.
You're looking at the past with rose-colored glasses here. OVAs of the '80s were actually famous (infamous?) for the frequency of actual nudity in them, and many of them were still damn good despite that. Besides, past decades had just as much trash and copycat behavior, percentage-wise, as you see in the current decades, if not even more. For example, '70s anime was terribly formulaic, especially in its mecha and sentai series, and that didn't really change until the advent of Mobile Suit Gundam (which wasn't a big hit at first because it bucked formulaic conventions too much) near the end of the decade. Really, all those quality shows you're referring to only seem like they were more prevalent in the past because you're talking about the cream of the crop scattered over a couple of decades. Only a small handful of shows each year (if that many) have truly excelled in the manner in which you're speaking, and that's as true now as it has been at any time in the past 30 years. Despite my occasional comments to the contrary in reviews, I usually personally enjoy fan service (though not panty shots so much) as long as it either a) doesn't distract significantly from the storytelling or b) is clearly meant to be the main point. I, too, found the oversexualization of Motoko (via her clothing) in the first season of GITS: SAC to be a nuisance because it ran so contrary to the content of the series otherwise, but I typically enjoy the odd sexy shower scene, romps like episode 9 of Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu, or even casual nudity like Elfen Lied as long as it's drawn well. I also think Goodpenguin brings up an interesting point, in that decided moe content is really just an emotional variation on traditional panty-shots-and-nudity fan service. It serves about the same function: to get people to watch stuff they wouldn't otherwise tolerate.
Oh, please, tell me you're joking here. |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Anime is more than "panty shots, jiggly titties and jailbait". It's a medium, not a genre. Look at any medium, and you will find that the vast majority of the material produced within it is designed to appeal to a putatively "lowbrow" audience. But interspersed with that, there is plenty of intelligent entertainment. It would be nice if, for every Motonaga Keitaro, there was a Kon Satoshi. Unfortunately, the ratio is somewhat less than 1:1. 
However, it would be catastrophic if they were all Kons, and no Motonagas. No medium can survive an all-highbrow, all-the-time content. There has to be something to appeal to the broader tastes, and that means "lowbrow" entertainment. Besides, Motonaga has actually worked on some good stuff, too. It wasn't all Amaenaideyo! and Yumeria. What I'm getting at is that those of you who want fanservice gone are wishing for something impossible, and that you may not have thought through all the implications. Besides the obvious economic effect on the anime industry of having a fanservice-free medium with less mass appeal and less money coming in, the long-term effects on any artform which censors itself is negative. There is nothing particular in any medium that drives it to "grow up" and put away fanservice and the like, no matter how long the medium exists. If there was, there would be no Hollywood, no car chases, no starlets playing on the beach at Cannes, no overpaid undertalented stars acting in overbudgeted SFX-fests. There would be no tabloid magazines with Elvis-clone stories, no centerfolds and no reality TV. And, for all their gross and moronic mass appeal, without most of these things, the world would be a duller place. - abunai You underestimate the power of the Dark Side. |
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igriega
Posts: 6 |
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When you wrote "our enjoyment," shouldn't that've been "my enjoyment" since you're talking only about yourself? I can't see you speaking on behalf of all of "us" regarding this issue. I have a love/hate relationship with fanservice (the nudity / lolicon / underwear / bikini type). On one hand, I think if done properly, fanservice can make a show a little more enjoyable and funny to watch. On the other hand, it royally pisses me off when there's so much of it that it's obvious to me the creators are more interested in T&A than everything else, or when fanservice is added to a scene that just doesn't fit and ruins the scene. But if I had to choose to be for or against it, I'm going to be for it. |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3883 Location: New York state. |
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Personally, in small doses, I can tolerate fan service with comedy if used as a side track from the intensity and drama that takes place in an anime series. Not to mention that that they portray certain aspects of the characters. Shows like Video Girl Ai and Tenchi Muyo do a decent job at this as Ai and Ryoko flaunt themselves in each respective anime title just to show traits to their characters: spoiler[Ai to know what type of person Youta is like and Ryoko because she is not used to living outside of her space pirate lifestyle. When Ai reveals too much skin to Youta in episode 1, she realizes that she went overboard and doesn't repeat things in later episodes. Ryoko slowly learns how to live life more normally thus she's more tame in later episodes of the OAV. ]
On the other hand, having too much fan service can kill the mood for certain anime titles. Kaoru and Aoi's touching romance in Ai Yori Aoshi, for example, gets hampered at enough points by the fan service antics of the other girls living with them. Having it be the entire premise in titles like Eiken make it a complete waste of time to check out. But then again, sex is a selling point in all forms of entertainment, no matter how you much you try escaping it or denying it. This includes anime thanks to fan service and the murky waters of hentai titles. |
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TheTheory
 Posts: 1029 Location: Central PA |
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It all depends on the fanservice to me. As mentioned by someone else before, the stuff of Strike Witches and its ilk highly bothers me and I didn't watch past the first episode of that. I'm not a big fan of gratuitous panty shots to begin with, then adding on the underage factor was just a huge "eeew".
On the other hand, a show like Elfen Lied didn't bother me at all. Partly because the females in question are quite of age, but mostly because the nakedness added to their characters. spoiler[The opening shot of the naked woman with a thing on her head just absolutely destroying a heavily armed army. It made a statement about the inhuman ruthlessness of the character that clothing would not have communicated. Conversely with her alter ego, the nakedness speaks about her total innocence. It was like taking a, say, six year old and putting her in the body of a 20 year old... same desires, but without the awareness that such things should be held in check in many situations.] Leastways, that is how I saw it. Anyway, I don't mind some scattered fanservice if it, in my opinion, either a. serves the series or b. doesn't distract from the series. Which are probably the same limits of anyone who isn't watching anime solely for the fanservice. It is just our tolerance levels that differ. It is also worth mentioning that, fanservice will never disappear because sexuality is such a huge part of being human. On the one hand, fanservice can be seen as fiscal pandering to a certain crowd of people. On the other hand, it speaks volumes about humanity: we are driven by a handful of things, money, power, and sex. Yet of those, sex is the only thing we have biologically wired into our flesh. Last edited by TheTheory on Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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grafikdon
Posts: 8 Location: Jamaica, NY. |
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I noticed the 'extreme' exaggeration of the 'fan service'. Honestly most of those things get in the way and often ruins the enjoyment, Ikki tousen comes to mind. I gave up on that series when I couldn't tell what the heck I was watching. Sometimes you are in the middle of a very interesting show and somewhere down the line, the figure they'd jolt you with a sudden unnecessary body part shot...
I guess like someone said, it's all about the money and what rakes them in so we are not going to see any minimal unnecessary and ridiculous jiggly body parts and panty shots... |
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Theshadybadger
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What concerns me and the point i was trying to get across earlier was that many anime shows seem to routinely and activly present girls who are in there early teens as sexual objects. This is cannot be a good thing. Yes anime is a medium and not a genre, as such there should be a wide varairty of shows, catering to different tastes - highbrow and lowbrow, however, i do not believe that anime will gain the recognition it deserves while it objectifies young teenage girls. It's just not right. |
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Ikari1
 Posts: 531 Location: London |
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Ikkiitousen. If you really dont like fanservice thats the show you want to watch.
fanservice for me only gets irritaing when used in the wrong place. Theres a particular show this happened in recently, and i remember it pissing me off but i cant for the life of me remember what it was. Being a Film student rots your memory like this you see, bugger i cant remember what it was but basically it was completly fine all the way through, with out any fan service at all which was ok, but then out of the blue my eyes suddenly started burning with a panty shot, that pretty much ruined the serious atmoshpere of the show for me. It seemed to be there just for the sake of it. It annoyed me because of the way in which it was carried out . sometimes its so bad you can hear the cogs of whoever wanted it in there turning as the pointlessness is decided upon. Shows such as ikkitousen dont try and hide it. this is fine by me; as i knew before hand what to exspect and shoud only be kicking my self if im getting frustrated by it. Other shows such as haruhi deal with it excellently. They went out of their way to manage and restrict fanservice in this show if I've read my facts right. The result was a stunning show in deed where sex appeal went hand in hand with humor and did it in a tasteful way.They managed to avoid the panty shot through out the show unless you count the mikiru caught changing scene. If used for purely humorific purposes then thats not bad either. Its just the sly uses of it that get me wound up. Its when they casually slip it in to a scene and think they have got away with it that really pisses me off. If its a recurring joke/theme/managed tastefully then fine but a panty shot for the sake of having a panty shot is not on sometimes. Iwill say that Im very seldom annoyed by fanservice and in my opinion its quite easy to tune it out if it bothers you in most shows. If it bothers me to the point of ruining my exsperience then its not worth having the exserience in the first place and thus I will turn the tv off at that point ....and watch EVA to cheer my self up . my recent gripe with it was in Zero no tsukaima princess no rondo where i felt it has started becoming too much a part of the story line. I liked the first 2 series of zero no tsukaima as the fanservice lent to the story but didn't overwhlem it and was damb right funny at times. The problem i have with it now is the fact that im only 5 episodes in and its grating on my nerves slightly because the story hasn't proressed much in the process. Shady badger...I liked sky girls, I especially loved the theme tune and loved some of the later battle scenes. Am i suposed to feel guilty about this. Last edited by Ikari1 on Fri Aug 08, 2008 10:05 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Top Gun
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Is fanservice "necessary" by the strictest definition of the word? No.
Can fanservice be a lot of fun when used in moderation? Hell yes. Seriously, some of the responses in here make the Puritans look liberalized by comparison. So what, having tons of little moeblobs running around saying "uguu~" constantly is perfectly acceptable, yet a bit of good ol' fashioned T'n'A is somehow repugnant? Give me a break. Fanservice takes as many forms as there are genres of anime, from ridiculously long mecha transformation sequences to big bouncing boobs to cute little spineless girls willing to do the male lead's every whim. It's all for the sake of drawing fans, and as others have mentioned, similar principles have been used in every single entertainment medium humankind has yet produced. A big mindless summer blockbuster movie, a trashy harlequin romance novel, yet another WWII FPS game, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition (yum)...it's all exactly the same. No entertainment medium caters exclusively to "artistic" tastes, and if any one did, it'd be outright horrible and would choke to death on its own pretentiousness. Not everything can be some convoluted cerebral work; we need those mindless guns-and-explosions fests to give us simple entertainment as well. Long story short? Yoko is awesome and hot, and she's a big part of what makes Gurren-Lagann so great. Bring on the bounce! (Also, I feel like anyone criticizing Motoko Kusanagi's rather revealing outfits in Stand-Alone Complex is kind of missing the point. Motoko isn't defined by her sex appeal, but it is a significant aspect of her character. It's a tool that she's able to use, sometimes quite literally, to exploit those who only look skin-deep. Besides that, the fact that she continues to use an attractive female body is one of the only remaining links to her humanity, as Batou brought up in the first season when he asked her why she'd never switched over to a male model. The way she plays off of her physical appeal is a not-insubstantial part of what drives her character development throughout the series...and seriously, what's wrong with her looking sexy while kicking ass and taking names?  )
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18200 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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You and Murasakisuishou are both stretching it a bit to find some reasonable way to justify it. GITS:SAC is a show that takes itself too seriously for frivolous fan service and makes not even a vague attempt to be sexy beyond that outfit. For me it just seemed at odds with everything else the series was doing. (OTOH, the nudity in the movie didn't bother me. It somehow felt more appropriate.) By comparison, I love all the fan service Yoko gives us in Gurren Lagann because that series is all about being showy and bodacious, and the way she flashes her skimpily-covered breasts around fits perfectly. |
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nightjuan
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I think Godannar is best described by the AWO podcast's review segment on it. Can't really disagree with them there, but others might.
Now, about fanservice in general, it really depends on the kind of show you're looking for at any given time. In general, when you want a show with a certain level of intelligence, realism or seriousness, fanservice should be low or non-existent, hopefully strictly limited to the requirements of the plot. Maybe a couple of scenes or less. When you want a show which doesn't take itself too seriously and is mostly focused on entertainment value, some moderate to higher amounts of fanservice should be okay. When you want something that is entirely made up of fanservice for its own sake, there's really no point in asking whether it's necessary or not, isn't there? Or if you want something that is somewhere in between any of the above descriptions, fanservice should be scaled appropriately. There are some specific types of fanservice that you probably can't stand, regardless of the situation, or you might not like fanservice at all, but that's naturally a matter of personal preference. Nothing wrong with that. In short: I would never go into Godannar expecting Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Ghost in the Shell or even Cowboy Bebop. Heck, I wouldn't even go into Gurren Lagann expecting Godannar either, if you want to put it that way. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I can see why Motoko would use an attractive female body (actually an upgraded sex-droid model if I remember correctly) in missions where she must blend in, or to lure guys. But really, a small female body like hers is useless is a fight involving a whole lot of power. I cannot remember the episode number, but there was one notable instance where Motoko could not defeat a strong enemy, but Batou just annihilated it with a punch.
So why does she use a beautiful - but often impractical - body when she could switch to a stronger one at any time? She works for a paramilitary Government organisation, where personal feelings take second place to the impetus of getting the job done. Her high intelligence and excellent skills can only go so far. Well, have you ever seen a "chicks with guns" show/movie where the female wasn't beautiful? But that doesn't answer the real question: Why have a "chicks with guns" show or movie in the first place? The answer is that the fans demand such things. Not all the fans, of course. I don't like panty shots, jiggle shots, or breasts the size of small planetoids. I don't like Lolicon, Shotacon, DFCs or Moe. I am not enamoured with the "chicks with guns" genre. But, enough fans want such things (or at least one of them) that they sell. There wouldn't be Hentai mousepads or other similar accessories if people weren't willing to buy them. But isn't that awfully shallow of people? Why, yes, people by and large are sexual beings. What's wrong with that? To deny that general fact is unhealthy. Even I'm a tad partial to some traditional fanservice, as long as it doesn't over-do it and descend to the lowest common-denominator. I don't want the show to insult me with it's fanservice, nor present a misogynistic viewpoint. It's why I won't watch Godannar, but thoroughly enjoyed Elfen Lied. Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex was saved by the intelligence present in the writing and in the characters, despite the unnecessary and implausible fanservice. Though, to be fair, only one character was the subject of such fanservice, which helps its case. Fanservice (of all types, not just sexual innuendo) should be a tasteful spice used in moderation, not the whole substance of the show. Yes, there are those who willingly put up with an otherwise bland, mediocre, or substandard show because of the fanservice. But, should they do so, they must accept that it doesn't look good in the eyes of other fans. So, to avoid any accusations of being a hypocrite, I hereby admit that I bought and watched all of the utterly dreadful* Gundam SEED Destiny. Yes, I have a problem with Mecha fanservice, and I am currently participating in a nine-step program. * "Utterly dreadful" is putting it nicely. |
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XREJECTZX
Posts: 5 |
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I believe fan service is not necessary. Good animes don't even have to show excessive or any nudity at all. There have been a lot of good movies that implied sexual intercourse without showing it. The fact that a lot of animes have to be excessive shows how low animes go.
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I don't call fanservice necessary. Depending upon how it's depicted, I'll watch the show. If it's overdone in a way that I feel I don't like it, then I don't watch the show. If it is presented in a way that will get my attention in a way, then I watch it. Eiken is one I call overdone.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I have just realised that I did not answer the question.
Is fanservice necessary? No, it is not. But it sure is appreciated by a large and vocal segment of fandom. There, I said it. Can we end this divisive thread now? |
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