Controversial Anime Opinions

[robersora]

^
Really? Elaborate, please. I kinda liked Haruhi, so I'm really curious about what makes the novels so great.

[Defectron]

The Haruhi anime is total shit, but the novels are amazing.

They seemed almost exactly the same to me.

[TehDonutKing]

^
Really? Elaborate, please. I kinda liked Haruhi, so I'm really curious about what makes the novels so great.

Characters are more complex compared to their flanderized portrayal in the anime, the story is told in an order that makes sense, character development is actually present, there are subtle implications that Kyon's not entirely reliable, etc..

[GAP]

Also, adaptations of harem light novels tend to focus only on the harem elements and not much else. Haruhi isn't one of them.

[Falcon_of_the_Sun]

*sigh*
I barely even know what to say to this, im cherry picking yes but there is a very distinct air of sexism in this (incoming "sjw" comment) and so its hard to take your post seriously but for the sake of discussion and not acting like a child i will.

See the thing is, if this was just a case of people loving ghibli films because other people love them, then i imagine they would be hard pressed to properly describe what they love about them, yet every time i have talked to a friend or family member about a ghibli film they have always described to me what they liked and disliked about the movies and opinions are still a factor in here there is no ruleset that says that everyone must love every ghibli movie.
heck im one of the few people who actually really likes howls moving castle yet porco rosso which a lot of people really like just doesn't click with me, yet if i asked my brother he thinks porco rosso is his favourite one (mine would be princess mononoke).

You are allowed to dislike the movies if you want but im just going to semi-echo something back from when this forum told me a similar thing when i called FF7 overrated: dont call something overrated if you cant viably back up the reasons why you think something sucks, and the reasons you gave are 90% your own opinion.

If anything with the way you worded this, talking way more about the audience than the movies it feels like you more seem to hate the ghibli movies BECAUSE so many people love them, which is something i see a lot, if something gets super popular then people will inevitably decide to be contrarians and decide it sucks instead, something i myself am guilty of doing (the FF7 thing) and if you tell yourself something enough times you start to believe it, see the people who constantly insist FNAF is the worst game ever the moment it get a second game for this effect.

I had replied to this already (also your comments seem to ignore the further reasoning I did a few posts above yours) but I must have done something wrong at the moment of submitting...

Anyway, here I go at it again.

You mention that your friends and family can tell what they like about Ghibli's works. So? People could tell you what they liked about New Kids on the Block but that didn't make them competent music listeners nor did it make New Kids in the Block good musicians. Ask Bill Hicks.
I know plenty of people who can do the same and tell me what they like about Ghibli movies. My argument is that many of the people who know and appreciate Ghibli's works do not have anime knowledge outside of Ghibli's work. I know that for a fact when it comes the people I am talking about although both "my people" and "your people" are too little a sample to decide which ones are representative of the overall population.
So you can like all you want and as much as you want. I'm never going to go against subjective liking. What I am trying to say, instead, was that the objective value (assuming there's such a thing when it comes to art, I'll give you that) of those works and his author(s) may be very likely overrated in comparison to the rest of the anime production. Miyazaki to be the only genius in the anime industry? Anno-bitch, please.

Everyone of all ages likes fairy tales and you don't have to be ashamed to watch something animated with your family. […] Ghibli is good in entertaining the masses. Might not be your thing, that's okay.

Since when success with the masses is a surefire guarantee of quality work?

[Fireball]

Since when success with the masses is a surefire guarantee of quality work?

No one said that, I was explaining the actual reasons why people enjoy Ghibli works so much, but to humor you, that depends entirely on what merits you judge quality. Entertainment is meant to entertain after all.

[Xard]

I know plenty of people who can do the same and tell me what they like about Ghibli movies. My argument is that many of the people who know and appreciate Ghibli's works do not have anime knowledge outside of Ghibli's work. I know that for a fact when it comes the people I am talking about although both "my people" and "your people" are too little a sample to decide which ones are representative of the overall population.

Who cares? If anything watching a lot of anime is likely going to degrade your taste, not improve it. So the fact people who don't really watch anime or are anime fan often love Ghibli films is by and far a merit for those features, a good sign you don't have to be a fucking pathetic cunty geek intellectually masturbating to muh adult cartoons and literally masturbating to Kusanagi's ass on the screen.

[Falcon_of_the_Sun]

You don't need to watch most animes that come out in order have a better understanding of anime than somebody who's only watched Ghibli stuff.
Also, watching a lot of anime, and sub-standard stuff with that, doesn't mean your taste is degrading because it doesn't automatically mean you are going to either like isubjectively or appreciate objectively everything you watch. Unless you have serious issues with congnitive dissonance and you live in a fantasy world where everything you do is automatically amazing because you have to justify to yourself the time you spent on it.
By your reasoning any art critic who's been looking at paintings for the last 30 years should have lost the ability to tell a Caravaggio from an amateur's painting, which clearly is not the case.

Again, my case was "Ghibli's work is on average overrated". I didn't say that it's not enjoyable, I didn't say it's not good at all, I am just saying that I find it silly to put Ghibli and Miyazaki on this sort of pedestal, this tier above anything else ever done in Japanese animation, which is the feeling I often get (also backed up by some evidence, see IMDB rankings, reviews etc).

Fanboyish and derogatory defence of Miyazaki proves my point, if anything.

[Xard]

You don't need to watch most animes that come out in order have a better understanding of anime than somebody who's only watched Ghibli stuff.
Also, watching a lot of anime, and sub-standard stuff with that, doesn't mean your taste is degrading because it doesn't automatically mean you are going to either like isubjectively or appreciate objectively everything you watch. Unless you have serious issues with congnitive dissonance and you live in a fantasy world where everything you do is automatically amazing because you have to justify to yourself the time you spent on it.
By your reasoning any art critic who's been looking at paintings for the last 30 years should have lost the ability to tell a Caravaggio from an amateur's painting, which clearly is not the case.

You don't get the main point. "Anime" isn't a medium, at most animation itself is. The sort of cel animation typical Japanese anime falls under is also at most use of specific techniques to do cinema or tv. If you have well formed taste in cinema and strong grasp of film theory you don't need to be well versed in anime to review Ghibli works as (animated) films. Having deep understanding of and experience with anime definetly helps, sure, but that's really just extra if you can tell a great film from bad one in the first place.

Of course you don't need to be any kind of elitist critic to be able to recognize good stuff when you see it even if you can't quite break it down intellectually why these pieces work. Hence Ghibli's ability to win thunderous acclaim with pretty much any audience from hardcore film buffs to anime fans to average people around the world and their target audiences. It is just like the classic output of truly Golden Age Disney, works that are both very accessible and very merituous. Not all merituous works are accessible, not all accessible works are merituous. Ideal scenario is when both happen, which is relatively rare. In my eyes and in eyes of many others Ghibli anime are some of these rare happy cases when both qualifications are fulfilled. There are many other great anime, yes, including even some that parallel the best Ghibli in merit. None however are as widely accessible. Similarly the other comparably accessible works are rarely as good as Ghibli. Hence their unique juggernaut status in Japan and abroad is pretty much no brainer - and not a diss on other good works.


As for degrading taste thing no it won't necessarily make your critical faculties weaker BUT it will inevitably make you more forgiving and understanding of idiosyncratic elements that would put off most people and legitly so. Perhaps like this you can enjoy the good bits of such dubious works better but your ability to give the correct weight to such idiosyncatic elements in overall evaluation of the work will likely lessen since it doesn't bother you anymore that much.

[Falcon_of_the_Sun]

Yeah, Xard, but knowing other anime will give you the actual understanding of how good Ghibli's work are against the average anime production, which again is the point I'm debating.
A lot of things, to me, are pointing to a situation where Ghibli's work has reached audiences beyond the usual anime audiences and on par with the gratest movie works ever made. That's not necessarily a bad thing but what I don't like and I think it's unfair is the fact that, for a reason or the other, Ghibli's work seems to have "graduated" and moved on to a tier that seemingly no other anime is worth of.

So no, you are right, you don't need to watch other anime to understand how good are Nausicaa or Spirited Away as movies.
Yes, you need to watch other anime to realise that they are not the only ones that'd be worth of widespread critical acclaim from non-strictly anime audiences, which again was my point of Ghibli's work having some sort of aura of automatic superiority RELATIVELY to other anime production.
I guess that, following your point that an anime movie isn't a special medium but simply a movie done in a different way (good point, for sure), it'd be more of a matter of other anime movies being underrated as just "movies" rather than Ghibli's work being overrated as "anime movies", maybe...

I might disagree on the fact that watching more stuff makes you more forgiving, I think it's the opposite, you become more intolerant because you are seeing that same trick or idea or whatnot used many times.
Say, if I had seen Devil Man and Space Runaway Ideon before I got to know Eva, chances are I wouldn't have found it so incredibly amazing and spectacular and original etc etc
The wider the knowledge, the more accurate the attempt to an objective evaluation of the piece of art.

(edit: I had written this reply before you added the Disney references to yours, I guess that with those you echo my alternate interpretation)

[pwhodges]

The wider the knowledge, the more accurate the attempt to an objective evaluation of the piece of art.

Actually, not so. There are countless examples of individual artists in various fields whose work has gone from being highly rated, to being considered of no value, and back to being highly rated - over a period of decades, or in some cases centuries. You may call that changes in fashion, and you'd be right; but how do you remove fashion from a supposedly objective assessment in the inherently subjective field of art?

[Falcon_of_the_Sun]

Actually, not so. There are countless examples of individual artists in various fields whose work has gone from being highly rated, to being considered of no value, and back to being highly rated - over a period of decades, or in some cases centuries. You may call that changes in fashion, and you'd be right; but how do you remove fashion from a supposedly objective assessment in the subjective field of art?

Well, could you share these countless examples? I reckon it may happen with arts somehow connected to political ideas and therefore governments and such?
But I would say that the issue you are describing may not be helped much by having a wider knowledge but it's more certainly made even worse by having a restricted knowledge...
Also, some art does have technical elements to it (sound engineering for records of popular music, animations and effects for animated video production, graphics for videogames), whose value and importance can be established more objectively that the "expressive" aspects of the piece of art.
Say, we may get to the point where most critics will think that the lyrics of the Dark Side of the Moon are just pathetic whinging, but I can't really see anyone ever NOT think that it was a record that was ahead of its time when it came to production and sound engineering...

[Xard]

I guess that, following your point that an anime movie isn't a special medium but simply a movie done in a different way (good point, for sure), it'd be more of a matter of other anime movies being underrated as just "movies" rather than Ghibli's work being overrated as "anime movies", maybe...

This is my take, basically.

Well, could you share these countless examples? I reckon it may happen with arts somehow connected to political ideas and therefore governments and such?

It has happened even with undisputable all time composer greats such as Bach. In principle no one is immune to follies of this or that era.

[pwhodges]

Heh! I was going to start with Bach. But the countless "rediscoveries" and "reassessments" of old material in all the arts point the same way.

[GAP]

Heh! I was going to start with Bach. But the countless "rediscoveries" and "reassessments" of old material in all the arts point the same way.

Vindicated by history?

[C.A.P.]

Neon Genesis Evangelion is Anno's WHAT'S OPERA DOC: The purest example of "Anno" to the majority of the fandom and the general public, but its' impact is now either taken for granted or taken too seriously. It's the one series he'll forever be remembered for, but if one wants to grasp on how important (and excellent) of a director he really is, just watching Evangelion is not enough. Whatever is there to discuss about Evangelion, the ways of talking about it are at the brink of exhaustion, or at least, in dire need of different interpretations that's based on the content.

There are fascinating tales about the man (one I would like to know more is the relationship between him and his peers) that are way beyond the "He was depressed making the show" or "He hates otakus" thoughts. It's much more interesting to see Evangelion as a part/logical stepping stone of Anno's career than the undisputed masterpiece/cream of the crop of his life's work that just changed anime forever, seemingly for popping out of nowhere.

[robersora]

^
Well, the problem is, that while Anno is a very capable director, (I love most of his other stuff (Gunbuster and Shki-Jitsu especially), fact is he hasn't made anything else, which would spurn that much discussion (yet).
That's why I hope we will see at least one other original project from him sometime in the future.

[Defectron]

Neon Genesis Evangelion is Anno's WHAT'S OPERA DOC: The purest example of "Anno" to the majority of the fandom and the general public, but its' impact is now either taken for granted or taken too seriously. It's the one series he'll forever be remembered for, but if one wants to grasp on how important (and excellent) of a director he really is, just watching Evangelion is not enough. Whatever is there to discuss about Evangelion, the ways of talking about it are at the brink of exhaustion, or at least, in dire need of different interpretations that's based on the content.

There are fascinating tales about the man (one I would like to know more is the relationship between him and his peers) that are way beyond the "He was depressed making the show" or "He hates otakus" thoughts. It's much more interesting to see Evangelion as a part/logical stepping stone of Anno's career than the undisputed masterpiece/cream of the crop of his life's work that just changed anime forever, seemingly for popping out of nowhere.

I would be interested to see how true the portrayals of him and his group were in Blue Blazes, obviously there was a bunch of exageration in this for comedy, but I have feeling that there was a lot of truth at the core of those protrayals too.

[Ray]

Anno goes weeks without bathing in order to work on his passion project, that's something both his real world and tv counterpart have In common.

[GAP]

While I don't hate KLK and its predecessors, their 'wackiness' takes some getting used to and I really don't like that style.