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This Week in Anime - When Criticism Meets Anime Fandom

NeverConvex wrote:

This is kind of what I was trying to get at earlier with some of my specific suggestions using animation as an example. I think the primary obstacle is that, in principle, an animator could choose to do just about anything and the choice could be defended (?) on the grounds that it is 'art, and subjective', and no matter how many people dislike it nor how predictable that is, there's not some discernible rule of reality that decrees their choice was bad.

Sorry but anime aren't art, and reviews aren't art criticism.
Anime are entertainment with artistic value. If it doesn't entertain, it's a failure and a waste of time and money for everybody involved (aka. it's bad). Art, on the other hand, has by definition no utility.
So if audience (and animators) have decided that action sequence should have higher framerate, its objective. You can decide to cut completely the fight, for example making it offscreen like in Katanagatari, but you have to entertain the audience with the dialogs and in this case the trolling of the audience.

Also, I feel like the crux of the issue boils down to one sentence, so much so that I feel like you missed a golden opportunity to fake ending the article right then and there.

Quote:

it's bad to tie your identity to a piece of media

I'm genuinely curious, what is an example of something that meets your definition of art?
Also, profits are objective, but entertainment certainly is not.

The teoretical purpose of a review is letting readers know what a reviewer thinks of some series. Not promoting anything. If you just want "this anime is about that", go reading a plot summary at the Wiki.

But most people who’ll click on that article are doing so because they’re curious about the title, not about the author. Like if I have an interest in iyashikei, and I see there’s a new iyashikei out, I might check out a review because I want to know how good that iyashikei is at being an iyashikei – not because I’m looking for any specific person’s opinions on the iyashikei genre. And if I don’t have an interest in iyashikei? Then I’m probably not checking out reviews for iyashikei to begin with. That’s what a lot of this comes down to, I think. Some of these writers have a tendency to forget who it is that’s gonna be reading what they’re writing, and why.

Are iyashikei reviews useful for people who aren't already versed in iyashikei, then?

For the record, your post is currently the only Google search result for this sentence. If it's a hypothetical example, I think the case might be better made with real ones. Otherwise you risk arguing against a person in your head, rather than one who exists in real life.

Helix91 wrote:

I'm genuinely curious, what is an example of something that meets your definition of art? Also, profits are objective, but entertainment certainly is not.

I don't like art and i like anime, so anime are not art. That's my definition.
Profits can be considered an objective censor: you target to entertain a specific audience, they pay to support you and you make profits. It's not a bijection because there is context (for example the contract you made with the production committee, broadcaster, streamer) so the best censor would be a satisfaction survey of the target audience. So you can have an objective measure of entertainment but nobody will waste money doing that and the profit are used instead.

It's not that exact wording but IIRC one of the preview guide writers here for MahoAko said that you would be put on a government watch iist for watching it.

The choice to have all the characters be – and look like – middle schoolers is a bucket of cold water dumped over this whole show. I'm not interested in litigating fictional character ages or anything like that – it's just that characters looking and sounding like children is the antithesis of sexy to me. It turns every lovingly animated bit of cheesecake into something I purposefully unfocus my eyes on. That's kind of the rub (no, not like that) with shows that are mostly porn delivery vehicles. If you're not personally revved up by what's on screen, you're essentially stuck reading Playboy for the articles for 20 minutes, except here, the centerfold will get you put on a government watchlist.

That's a variant of a joke I've seen lots of times in comment sections for manga chapters, from the very readers you interpret as being attacked. "Welp, guess we're all on an FBI list now" and such. The premise is that regardless of your actual reason for reading, Big Brother will suspect the worst. That same sentence starts with the supposition of its subject not being into the middle-schooler action: "If you're not personally revved up by what's on screen…".

It's not a claim of others being suspicious, it's a joke about being suspected. And the joke's underlying point isn't that the hypothetical viewer is gross, but will feel gross, hence the rating of "At least two boiling hot showers to stop feeling spiritually unclean".

Again, pay attention to what's actually being said.

To respond to your previous post, anime isn't only low entertainment. There are clearly series targeted to critics like sonny boy. Most authors want to make something not just good, but also something with substance. Because thats what both good art, and a good story needs. Substance is a theme or a hook, which can drive the story, give it more interesting moral conflicts, give readers something to talk about. The only people who don't care about substance are the slave harem web novelists.

First: not every anime and manga has its own wiki, or even its own Wikipedia page. I’m not exactly looking for One Piece reviews here.

Second: is that to suggest when you read a review, you don’t actually care about the subject that’s being reviewed, but just the writer themselves? Go follow them on Twitter, then. But most people who’ll click on that article are doing so because they’re curious about the title, not about the author (...) That’s what a lot of this comes down to, I think. Some of these writers have a tendency to forget who it is that’s gonna be reading what they’re writing, and why.

...in science when you have a consensus, it's considered objectively true, you don't need unanimity. In anime for example, you have a consensus that Yutaka Nakamura action sequences are great animation: it's objective...

All reviews are going to be subjective -- all qualitative statements are, by definition, inherently subjective. That's just how language functions.