Forum - View topicANNCast - Viewers Like You: I Think Therefore I Rant
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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The firefights over ecchi, moe, loli and possibly shemp sometimes fall into seeming rejecting the idea of having an opinion on them and trying to deligitimize critics. If the critic is one of ANN's reviewers, there willl invariably be allegations of bias against the site, implicitly impugning the editorial staff or the critic himself; some even outright decry the practice of the reviews that they faithfully read and rage against. It seems to be more about identity than content.
Zac often attributes the phenomenon to these people identifying too strongly and personally with the content, thus confounding attacks upon them and upon what they like. I could imagine this to be true, but I have my own theory, which elaborates by trying to add status games the the problem. Essentially, my own guess is that those who are particularly devoted to the, and pardon my failing to resist the turn of phrase, prurient trio not only identify too closely with what they watch, but also with the larger anime community, so they perceive criticism of their preferred content not just as attacks upon themselves, but as an effort to lower their status. The dogged efforts to delegitimize the critics is thus to them a fitting reply, since they're jockeying for social position. It all being about group identity and status might also account for why there's relatively limited discussion about discriminating among shows of the prurient trio. As for Queen's Blade, I refuse to watch it because almost every time I act contrary to my impressions on something like that, I am disappointed. I did it with Ikki Tousen and was seriously dissatisfied. I did it against with Ikki Tousen because I had been severely depressed and eating an entire pizza at the time, so I wanted to see if the plot made any sense to me when not emotionally distressed, only to end up very irritated. Strike Witches was an excruciating disaster and Destiny of the Shrine Maiden, which I'll concede doesn't quite fit with the other two, halfway made me want to put a hit out on Kaishaku. The only exception was Witchblade, which I admit to kind of liking. If Queen's Blade wanted me to watch it, it should've lead with something other than the naked pink lady who squeezed acidic milk from her breasts with hands formed from her own hair. There may be better things lurking beyond, but experience has trained me well to be averse to things that look and act like that up front.
Wandering Son has been a fascinating experience for me. I have no personal experience with people like its characters and fiction otherwise treated the subject exploitatively or with indifferent whimsy. My instinct is to be sympathetic to people like that, but I admit that I'd always found their emotions and motivations inscrutable, but Rising Son is giving me a better hold on the subject. I hadn't even come across the word, "trap," in the sense of 'man very convincingly dressed and made up as a woman'. until some time after I returned to anime. At first blush I was surprised that it was being so freely used since it felt to me like a word scarcely kinder or more acceptable than faggot. As a relatively standard-issue straight male, I feel uneasy making judgements on these matters since people in marginalized groups sometimes object as much to those in dominant groups being too 'protective' of them as to disrespectful portrayals because it can be stigmatizing and condescending in its own way. I have a hard time finding the line on that. There's also the sometimes overlooked complication that not all people within a marginalized group think alike, which is especially problematic because the way that societies tend to think about them is prone to expecting uniform opinions from them.
But legum magistra is such a cool title!
You spin me right round, baby Right round like a record, baby Right round round round Last edited by Surrender Artist on Wed Feb 01, 2012 2:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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agila61
 Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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I'd read it to be trying to say that "Claiming your fanservice show is serious is the anime equivalent of 'I read Playboy for the articles'." Note that Playboy worked for a long time to defend that rationalization, buying articles from an excellent stable of writers. Alex Haley of Roots fame wrote for Playboy. There is, of course, a wide range of possible claims, from "its a heavy fan-service show, but it has several saving graces" ~ which is like, "I subscribe to Playboy because it has better articles than the other girlie magazines" ~ to "you are just calling it fan-service because you do not appreciate how brilliant it really is" ~ which is, "I read Playboy for the articles". This being the internet, the whole range of views are likely to be expressed somewhere or another. So no matter how outlandish the claim, it probably is expressed by someone, somewhere. |
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arromdee
Posts: 71 |
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This is about a podcast. The podcast had someone complaining that she thought her shonen-ai shows are serious but other people kept calling them fanservice. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Maybe we should instead ask what makes some people so adverse to sex and fanservice they can't comprehend it as anything more than 'boobs are wrong'? Or can't seem to understand that a series can have both boobs and a meaning at the same time and the two are not mutually exclusive? What makes that stance any more incorrect than the opposition? |
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tuxedocat
 Posts: 2183 |
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It's the presentation. Some of these shows are specifically intended for heterosexual males. It's really obvious, and that's okay. It's just weird when there is some expectation that everyone is the intended audience. It's not like I expect that same audience to like a show about big, bulging, ball-sacks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=978uQUK231M&feature=related 
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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So what do we do when the mangaka says different? Act like we know more than the person who made the series and have more authority than them? That's a bit presumptuous. Especially from people in different cultures where nudity isn't as big of a deal as is it is in other cultures, so what might be 'obvious' to some is anything but. People might find repeatedly showing a little girl naked as reprehensible and disgusting and 'no excuses' or whatever.. yet it's in one of the Japan's top 3 anime regularly. Let's not act like what we as foreigners think has any real weight in judging stuff from another country, because people are obviously going to project their own beliefs, morals, and religions on it and see it as 'Well, obviously, it's wrong'. |
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tuxedocat
Posts: 2183 |
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That's what I was saying. It's about the presentation. (I'm guessing you are referring to the bathing scenes in Totoro? ---though I wouldn't consider those scenes "fanservice")
 my sympathies. hope everything is ok. 
Last edited by tuxedocat on Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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nudity is a very big deal in Japan though?
In theory it is of course possible, in pratice however from all the animes I've seen, it is simply rarely the case. Most of the time the primary intention of fanservice shows is indeed the fanservice and not telling an interesting story or exploring complex characters. The only show I can think of right now that does combine a lot of fanservice with an actual story would be Bakemonogatari, and that one was just "ok" for me. (I'm open for recommendations.) |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I personally find it totally distracting. It's hard to take a story seriously when every other shot is someone's panty-clad taint or their breasts being smashed into the camera. Has nothing to do with sex being "bad" or "wrong" (that whole "you're some kind of anti-sex prude if you'd rather be told a story without having tits in your face!" argument always makes me laugh), it has everything to do with how it impacts the story flow. Film is a visual medium, remember.
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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This. I can take some tits on the screen but if you have a panty shot in the middle of an otherwise serious scene it just looks ridiculous. |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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Despite this, I find the SFX that accompany tremendous bosoms to be the most distracting of all... |
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TitanXL
Posts: 4036 |
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Doraemon, actually. Where one of the recurring jokes is Shizuka gets walked in on while showering/bathing/clothes somehow get torn off/surprise nakedness. It's played up to eleven in it's 'sister series' Chinpui (which is from the same author as Doraemon) where the main lead is a female and all kinds of stuff happens to her.
What is deemed 'interesting' is up to personal interpretation, though. As is the claim of it being 'distracting'. Just because one person finds it 'unable to be taken seriously' doesn't mean others can't. So there's no real generalization or standard. I mean, you have people taking Queens Blade seriously on one side, and then on the other I've seen people lampoon a kid's anime like Yu-Gi-Oh because it has fanservice because "kid's shows shouldn't have fanservice, how disgraceful" Tolerance levels differ. So much as drawing a breast line on a woman's shirt is too much for some people. One of Zac's reviews of B Gata H Kei literally says trying to say it's more than fanservice" is "bullsh*t, and that the show throws out that pretense and it's clearly all about the fanservice. Where as if you go by the mangaka it's based on her own high school life (exaggerated, obviously) and the series is a comedy about how teenagers treat sex and how meaninglessly it actually is. Yamada's whole misguided view on sex comes from vapid teen magazines and people at her school and displays how despite her being obsessed with it she's completely clueless about it and sees it as more of a 'status' thing that a lot of teenagers do. Later on it's more humerus when you find out spoiler[her best friend whom she has as her wingman in her love quest isn't a virgin and sees sex as no big deal and is just laughing at Yamada's stupid attempt at treating sex as something more than what it is]. I can completely understand why a series about teenagers being stupid about sex might choose to have have sex-related things in it. Both as simple entertainment reasons and as to make the meaning behind it all the more meaningful by having the very thing you're saying is no big deal as a common occurrence in the series. While some say fanservice detracts, there's plenty of times it can enhance and drive the point home even more than if you made a chaste series about the same thing. |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
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@TitanXL
What times? And what points? I really can't think of any circumstance that can be "enhanced" through copious fanservice. Keep in mind though, that this is coming from a gay man who's only attracted to real people, so maybe there's something I just can't "get" I mean, for me there's no shortage of shows that are great without resorting to any kind of "enhancements" through cleavage, et al...so there's very little reason for me to turn to stuff that's filled to the brim with stuff I'm not even remotely titilated by. |
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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Well, you asked why some people would feel a certain way, and I answered. It was no general answer that can be applied to anybody, but just why I feel that in practice most of the time "boobs and a meaning are mutually exclusive", or "boobs" are the only "meaning" of said shows. As far as your example goes, I don't think B Gata H Kei is a fanservice show, it almost had no fanservice (the panty shots or boobs-in-your-face kind) from what I remember. Imho it was mostly a comedy series with some perverted jokes, like the more innocent anime version of American Pie or something.
It "can", but in animes, imho it rarely does. |
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