C.T.1290 wrote:So, you would kill adults for watching anime?

Y-yes. I-I thought you would approve, s-sempai...

Justacrazyguy wrote:I's also like to point out that anime( or whatever media you choose) being simple and generally below "works of art"(whatever that means) is just stupidly subjective and almost pointless to discuss. Freaky points out Genocyber as a junk food sort of anime but I'd actually disagree and say that in the larger world of violent 80/90's OVAs it's one of the better and more complex examples, with a honestly good story beneath the fleshy and bloody exterior. Even ignoring the story, Genocyber is worth watching just for it's excellent animation.
I fail to see the relation between watching these anime and "doing something for the world". Just feels like giving way too much value to the media you watch, it influences you, sure, but am I seriously to believe a person that watches garbage harem anime is at any danger of being less valuable to the world/society than some pretentious idiot that watches avant garde french films?

When it comes to Genocyber, I find the show far more entertaining the less sense it makes. The first OVA's story is kind of a jumbled mess with weak character development in favor of just having warm bodies to crush, but there's enough bizarre live-action inserts and a ridiculously fast rise-of-action within terms of its depiction of violence that seems to come out of nowhere and slaps the viewer so hard that is difficult not to be entertained by its sudden presentation alone. In later episodes the story begins to make more sense and the live-action inserts disappear entirely, but episodes (to me, anyway) begin to feel less fun to watch. They become incredibly boring, as the OVA continues to have weak character development amidst some otherwise compelling ideas. This is kinda why I consider the show "junk food," simply because that's how it best operates to me; as soon as it earnestly tries to become something more than that, I don't find anything nearly as compelling in the storytelling as I did the weirdness on display in the first and maybe second installments. But their ineffectiveness of the later aspects of Genocyber doesn't negate the existence of these aspects of the show int he first place, so I guess I should reconsider it to a certain extent.

As for art needing to "do something for the world," I actually agree with you, believe it or not. A lot of people like to claim that art is something that needs to be more profound than other creative endeavors, and I think this is wrong. It misses the point of the creation, appreciation, and criticism of art. Everyone has their own definition of art, but I tend to find that those definitions only really reveal the preferred type of art by those attempting to define it. For example, I tend to consider art as craftsmanship with meaning to it. For others, art is something that "does something for this world," or whatever. But all these definitions really do is reveal the type of art we appreciate or even try to create ourselves, and how they differ from one another. So what truly is the definition of art when you push aside all of these subjective preferences?

Objectively defining art is easy.

Art is a cultural reaction to a cultural phenomenon.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Trying to define it any more specifically than that means we start bringing subjectivity into a definition that should remain as objective as possible. In this light, almost anything can be considered art, and that's kind of the point. Defining art will always be like riding on a horse while trying to shoot at a moving target, so it's good to have a definition that recognizes and allows for that. The discussion now becomes less about "What qualifies as art?" and expands to becoming questions like "What do I think is good art as opposed to bad art?" "How and why is art as effective as it is in certain cases?" "What type of at do I prefer?" and "What is the circumstance and consequence of any given example of art?" If anything, this approach to art actually gives more weight to the responsibility of media, especially in examples of art expressing carnal desires like sex or violence, since it gives power back to what I labeled as "junk food" examples of art, indicating that even though these probably aren't the best or most healthy examples of art, their existence is still powerful enough to warrant discussion of their purposes and effects within society.

This means that discussion of art, including anime and/or ecchi stuff, works best when everyone identifies the culture they grew up in and how that culture might have shaped the creation of that art, allow comments on how another culture might perceive that art, and recognizing how, in the age of a globalized internet, how art from different countries effects people in unique ways.

Highschool of the Dead is art. It is (to some extent) a cultural reaction to a cultural phenomenon. Is it good art or bad art? Is it healthy art or junk food art? And how effective is it at being either healthy or junk food? What does it say about the people and circumstances that brought it to fruition? How intricate or simple is that work of art? How does it effect the people who experience it? What do the critics say about it (good or bad)? What to these (positive of negative) criticisms reveal about the critics and the circumstances around their perspective?

Explicit anime porn can also be considered art, in any age range of the characters depicted in it. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't be important enough to discuss at all. But the same questions still apply.

To be honest, three of my uncle (in their 40s) watch anime even when i didn't. I remember as a child they tried to show me some, but either i used to just watch while thinking about kid stuff or just straight up reject them. I did watch DBZ, pokemon and stuff like those as a kid. When i stepped in my teenage years, i started watching anime as in real stuff. And now, as an adult,i still enjoy them. Specially i've a thing for deep types. Those which i can watch with full attention, forget everything around me, and brainstorm for the time of my life. Some of my cousins (most of them older than me) watch also, but we don't talk about them that much. Recently, i got my sister (5 years older) into watching anime. As i expected, she loves them. Again, TBH we used to watch DBZ, pokemon together. But after her teenage years, she stopped. Now she regrets about it and asking me for recommendations. Some of my friend are into anime as well. But not as much as me and one of my closest friend who's the craziest otaku i've ever seen. And at last, my parents....never. 2D character getting real seems plausible to me more than my parents watching anime and enjoying them.
But, yeah i want people of all age to watch anime.

Justacrazyguy: I apologize for the "works of art" comment. It didn't convey what I wanted it to and after Freaky's brilliant write-up (which I consider completely true), I realize its stupidity. All culture is a work of art.

But nonetheless, I do think there's still a problem-most of those works of art today just don't meet my standards. Now, they may be overly high, but I see so much endless regurgitation of previous ideas and such a waste of interesting, new, original ideas in the now that I just can't help but think this is bad. The huge gap between entertainment and something that I'd consider actually good has always been disproportionally wide throughout human history, true, but that doesn't mean we should just accept what's happening. I have no problem per se with entertainment and I do like to watch a bunch of mindless stuff every once in a while, but it seems like the general public is just constantly consuming lesser-quality works full of fantasy and gratification and they don't have a lot of interest in actual revolutionary things that attempt to be something beyond just mere entertainment.

It's a complex issue in the sense that, yes, many people had issues before finding a work of culture that played to those issues, but culture that indeed plays to the issues as a way of generating more income is going to lead to just those people not growing, it's also going to lead to many impressionable young people becoming more perverted and finding similar issues as a direct result.

Maybe those young people actually had the beginnings of such, um, disorders (I feel a bit concerned about using this word, but it is technically right), but even then it would be better if they didn't have something to encourage the cycle of self-gratification, which will only lead to a mentally weaker state.

I also want to reiterate: I have no problem whatsoever with dark, sexual, violent works that dig deep into the darkest parts of humanity and all the horrors one can find there. It's actually useful, in my opinion, because by dealing with those things humanity has the potential to actually understand not only the problems they're facing, but also how to get past them. Consider this: as Derantor said, morally rigid societies were often appallingly violent and, despite the claims of many people during those times, becoming more honest about those existing depravities and humanity's potential for horrifying acts actually helped to make society as a whole less violent. But there is an important difference between dealing with problems and using those problems to create something that leads to mental deficiency. Imagine if instead of becoming honest about the violence hidden underneath, the morally rigid societies had instead erupted into creating dozens of artworks featuring pointless, extremely violent revenge books. What would have happened? I have to admit I'm not entirely qualified to give that answer, but I imagine that while public knowledge about the horrors hidden underneath formalities would have gone up, society as a whole would not have been that positively impacted. The violence wouldn't be there anymore that much, true, but there wouldn't possibly be that much of a decrease in violent tendencies within humanity, because instead of being faced with moral judgment, people would have been faced with entertainment that allowed them to escape into a fictional world where they could live out all their violent tendencies.

I seriously doubt there are many people that watch only simple, cheap entertainment.

The MCU, DCEU, Fast and the Furious and Harry Potter, for example, are extremely popular franchises. On the meanwhile, Scorsese, Kaufman and Carruth are hurting for money. I don't think there are many people who only watch cheap, simple entertainment, either, but the amount who doesn't watch and/or like much else is large. Otherwise, there'd be far more strange, weird, original, idiosyncratic films out there.

I fail to see the relation between watching these anime and "doing something for the world". Just feels like giving way too much value to the media you watch, it influences you, sure, but am I seriously to believe a person that watches garbage harem anime is at any danger of being less valuable to the world/society than some pretentious idiot that watches avant garde french films?

There's no direct relation. It's more that I think by watching something that only plays to your basest wishes and desires and constantly reinforces their validity won't lead you to become a better person and I don't think people who are stuck in feeding themselves their own basest desires and needs constantly are really able to have the kind of impetus necessary to truly change humanity and steer it into a better course.

Maybe my pessimism and high standards both re: art and re: great futures for humanity are just ridiculous and I suppose in a sense they are. But I do believe that at least something that I've said holds true in some way.

Edit: Made a sentence sound better.

Zusuchan wrote: Carruth are hurting for money.

I can't think of a single reason why he might be hurting for money lol.

Well, Carruth's a film director with idiosyncratic, original, complex, poetic ideas who refuses to be submissive to the studios. So of course he's hurting for money.

Then again, it turns out that Carruth was supposedly both emotionally and physically abusive against his ex-girlfriend Amy Seimetz, so he's probably not the best example, considering how he seems to also be an asshole. But there's a whole menagerie of great filmmakers with finance problems out there and it's only going to get worse-Kaufman's now relegated himself to adaptations, it seems, and he won an Oscar. Imagine what it's going to be like for seriously ambitious younger no-name filmmakers.

Zusuchan wrote:



The MCU, DCEU, Fast and the Furious and Harry Potter, for example, are extremely popular franchises. On the meanwhile, Scorsese, Kaufman and Carruth are hurting for money. I don't think there are many people who only watch cheap, simple entertainment, either, but the amount who doesn't watch and/or like much else is large. Otherwise, there'd be far more strange, weird, original, idiosyncratic films out there.



Maybe my pessimism and high standards both re: art and re: great futures for humanity are just ridiculous and I suppose in a sense they are. But I do believe that at least something that I've said holds true in some way.

I don't think we even disagree in much of this, you just have a more negative view of media and it's impact or lack of it. Or maybe I jut don't see the problem.

A couple of final points:

1-I do think I am rather easily satisfied. It's not like I enjoy everything I watch, but on the whole I'd say I can find something to like in the vast majority of media I consume: The story is garbage? At least the music is nice! The animation sucks? At least there are a couple of interesting characters! And so on. So that should be taken into account. Nearly every season of anime I hear somewhere that this one is the worst ever and it used to be good and now it's trash and I never agree. Again, not sure if it's just me being easily satisfied or other people being too hard to satisfy or a bit of both.

2- I did forget the amount of people that watch those popular franchises, but it's a different audience, isn't it? To bring it back to anime, someone that watches only Dragon Ball or whatever its equivalent is these days isn't, in general, the same people that watch anime that go in an erotic or violent direction. Many times I've even seen these kinds o people avoid fanservice like it's the plague. How much they overlap is probably a different matter altogether.

Zusuchan, have you ever seen a film called Sullivan's Travels? You remind me a lot of the Joel McCrea character from that movie.

In general I think this whole notion that people that don't watch "revolutionary" artwork or whatever are somehow "mentally deficient" is ridiculous on the surface. And I say that as someone who has seen 40+ Godard films and at least been interested by most of them, as I've also seen the kind of horseshit that also gets made when people get convinced of their self-importance .

Justacrazyguy: I like the idea of finding something worthwhile in everything and I would argue there's something good in every work of art. But personally, if the story and themes suck, the greatness of the animation or music or acting just doesn't really do it for me unless I'm in the mood for simple entertainment. I'm not sure about the second point-there is some overlap, I think. Dragon Ball is probably more of a kids' thing, but there's a certain similarity-it's a simple work that plays to fantasies. Adults being fans of it isn't a huge assumption as far as I'm concerned.

The Killer of Heroes: I haven't seen Sullivan's Travels, no. The "mental deficiency" is something I consider more of a societal symptom. You have a right to call it a ridiculous idea and I guess on the surface it is-but with so many people nowadays being totally fine with feeding themselves base stuff that plays to their fantasies (why do you think harem and loli animes are that popular? Or someone-else-is-going-to-save-you-without-much-problems-and-it-will-all-be-fine superhero films?) I can't help but think this isn't good.

I'm also not some cultural elitist. I'm not someone who considers watching Miyazaki, for example, a sign of a mentally deficient person. I'm certainly not one of the high-brow "culturate" who I think are mostly just interested in appearing very intelligent and great people. I don't like stuff made by people who are obviously in love with themselves and pretentious films are only slightly better than entertainment films in my mind, because while they may slightly open up someone's horizons and make them think a bit more, they're there largely to show off how intelligent the people behind them supposedly are.

Justacrazyguy wrote:1-I do think I am rather easily satisfied. It's not like I enjoy everything I watch, but on the whole I'd say I can find something to like in the vast majority of media I consume: The story is garbage? At least the music is nice! The animation sucks? At least there are a couple of interesting characters! And so on. So that should be taken into account. Nearly every season of anime I hear somewhere that this one is the worst ever and it used to be good and now it's trash and I never agree. Again, not sure if it's just me being easily satisfied or other people being too hard to satisfy or a bit of both.

There's no shame in that, my dude. I still love the more complex shows and other shows that some would deem (correctly or erroneously) as "pretentious," and that used to be my standard of measure when it came to what I wanted in my personal media collection. (Thus making me pretentious, regardless of whether or not what I was watching really was pretentious.) That all happened until one day I broke down and concluded "If I don't have Squid Girl at my disposal at any given moment, I think I'm gonna go crazy." There's a time for pretty much everything under the sun, so having the simpler stuff around is not only good and harmless, but probably needed from time to time.

2- I did forget the amount of people that watch those popular franchises, but it's a different audience, isn't it? To bring it back to anime, someone that watches only Dragon Ball or whatever its equivalent is these days isn't, in general, the same people that watch anime that go in an erotic or violent direction. Many times I've even seen these kinds o people avoid fanservice like it's the plague. How much they overlap is probably a different matter altogether.

I'm actually thankful for the popular anime that I'll probably never really get into, like Dragon Ball, the Shonen Jump library, Pokemon, and all that stuff. If it wasn't for all that popular stuff being so good at being popular, then there wouldn't be market for the níche, "more adult" anime I love like Ghost in the Shell or anything by directed by the late, great Satoshi Kon. (I have no idea where titles like Neon Genesis Evangelion are within terms of US popularity. Like, it simultaneously exists as that anime everyone's heard of, and the anime nobody's actually seen. That was partially due to its unavailability in the US since 2008 or so, but still, even then it seemed to have been in popularity limbo in America.)

I'm still trying to get into the more popular stuff. Sailor Moon pops up on my radar so often that I might actually have to start watching it pretty soon.

Zusuchan wrote:The Killer of Heroes: I haven't seen Sullivan's Travels, no. The "mental deficiency" is something I consider more of a societal symptom. You have a right to call it a ridiculous idea and I guess on the surface it is-but with so many people nowadays being totally fine with feeding themselves base stuff that plays to their fantasies (why do you think harem and loli animes are that popular? Or someone-else-is-going-to-save-you-without-much-problems-and-it-will-all-be-fine superhero films?) I can't help but think this isn't good.

Check out Sullivan's Travels at some point. At the very worst its one of the very best comedies classical Hollywood ever made and is directly about the dichotomy we're talking about here.

Harem/loli stuff and superhero films play to completely different desires. The former is the kind of sex material that has ALWAYS been popular because shockingly people like sex and smut and always have, who could have guessed, while I think the comparatively sanitized superhero films are popular for more complicated reasons. If I were to make a few guesses its because of...

1)Recognizable IP
2)Comedy/quips/etc.
3)Shift into television-esque writing styles. I don't think they're actually good at this mind you but people get into overarching story, character relationships across these movies etc.
4)Action scenes. People seem to think they're cool
5)They're big budget films they can see with their friends etc. MCU releases have become regular "event" that can also be used as excuse for socializing. Or people have parties where they watch all of the movies or whatever.

I haven't seen every major Miyazaki movie but position him as alternative to escapism like MCU/harem anime is strange to me, as the Miyazaki movies I have seen play to fantasy just as much as stuff you deride in these superhero films. Lupin III is fantasy of gentleman thief that will kidnap you from Castle of Cagliostro and save you from your problems, Castle in the Sky is fantasy of floating castle adventure, Nausicaa is fantasy that environmental problems can be addressed with morally uncomplicated action movie methods, Totoro is fantasy that childhood is wonderful place where your parents and siblings won't actually die and uglyass monsters won't eat you but instead give you hairy bus ride that probably doesn't pass local health codes etc. I'm sure his other movies are much the same, though I have hopes for Mononoke whenever I get around to seeing it.

Wind Rises is the only one I've seen that I don't think falls into that in some form (Maybe Spirited Away does too but I haven't seen it in 15 years and don't remember it too well) and that's the one people (IMO very wrongfully) accused of nationalism anyways.

Really only difference between Miyazaki and Marvel films is that Miyazaki is an undeniably fantastic formalist (I have yet to see a bad frame in any of his films) while MCU movies are often bland and ugly looking, but tbh I don't see them very different in terms of them being escapism or fantasy fulfillment or whatever. If anything Miyazaki is a little more troubling to me here because the "respectability" and reverence of Miyazaki's name has a created a sort of double standard. When Miyazaki creates entertaining mindless schlock like Nausicaa or Castle in the Sky, well its okay because uh people like him I guess and it IS well made. Anyone else doing that or playing to different base desires like sex are villains corrupting society, it seems. Weird strawmen and, at best, extreme annecdotes are created and used to justify dislike etc.

People may use backhanded defense of "It's just a Marvel movie" to shield their enjoyment from criticisms of people like Scorsese (Though really I don't think they're actually in as much disagreement as commonly reported) or know that harem anime is little more than mindless T&A but fans of those in my experience have way more self-awareness about what it is they like. Cases like overreaction to Scorsese comments or people trying to argue that trash like Elfen Lied is somehow thoughtful art seems much more rare to me (To use an example people on this very forum once tried to argue in favor of).

I don't like stuff made by people who are obviously in love with themselves and pretentious

I think you'd have hard time finding many artists that aren't both of these to some extent. Like this is exactly how I'd describe Shane Carruth and Charlie Kaufman, though Kaufman is at least very good at what he does (Carruth much less so in my view).

Also, adding to the discussion going on here:
I think it would be unfair to just look at "harem anime" as a whole as inferior art. I think Monogatari is excellent and I know people on this forum like it. I don't think the divide between "serious art" and "mindless/porn" is that clear. I also don't think porn is mindless, low-quality stuff necessarily.

That'd be like saying there isn't amazing food made by amazing cooks just because junkfood exists. Well, in the same way, anything, including porn, could be better or worse artistically. And any genre you'd typically see as "escapism".

At the same time, a work can be full of "trashy" stuff, without that trashy stuff being less trashy just because of its context, a masterpiece work, for example. And I think that is OK.

Well, anyway. We might disagree on some things. But at least we all have Evangelion. I'd like to thank Anno for rejecting any and all trash elements, like fanservice.

The Killer of Heroes: Harem/loli stuff and superhero films play to different desires, yes, but they both feature infantile desires. Harem/lolis are all about perverted sexual fulfilment, whereas superhero films are simple films about someone else coming in and saving the day all the time. Note there's not much true 'artistry' in either case. Like you yourself said later on, superhero films are bland visually and besides from that, they're also bland in narrative terms. The reason for them becoming popular is different, but at the end of the day they're both symptoms of the same thing and very similar at the root.

Your view of Miyazaki is strange for me. That's a possible response to his films, but it ignores their complexity. I haven't seen his early, pre-Nausicaä work, mind you, but to me he's not really an escapist as much as a fantasist, which is rather different. You could argue that both Nausicaä and Castle in the Sky are simple escapism, but at least they're a lot better than your general children's films not just in terms of aesthetics, but also of messages and themes. I don't think Nausicaä is as simple as you make it sound, though I agree with Castle giving off such vibes. Totoro, I think, is actually a film about accepting death and problems with life. Yes, perhaps the overtly happy ending took something off, but as a whole the film managed to convey the message of maturing and living through difficult times quite well, for me. Kiki is also a film about a confused teenager in a search for meaning, who's further troubled by a deep case of social anxiety-and the film doesn't really say "nah" to any of those concerns, for me. Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away are all quite deep and far from simple escapism (especially due to the cases of the more ambiguous morality visible in those films). Howl is a bit simpler again, but quite honestly I consider that his weakest work from what I've seen and Ponyo isn't very escapist for the traditional children's film either. The Wind Rises you've already mentioned.

Basically, for me it seems that Miyazaki is someone whose work is easy to mistake for escapism, but none of those films, on a deeper look, besides from indeed perhaps Laputa and Howl, really engage in it-his films are about things and the messages aren't simplistic nor are they ignored. The happy endings are also actually earned.

I'll make a note to watch Sullivan's Travels.

I think you'd have hard time finding many artists that aren't both of these to some extent. Like this is exactly how I'd describe Shane Carruth and Charlie Kaufman, though Kaufman is at least very good at what he does (Carruth much less so in my view).

Well, yeah, some amount of narcissism is probably necessary for an artist. But there's a difference in the amount of narcissism required to actually start making art and the works of some post-modern filmmakers who mainly just jerk off by shamelessly copy-pasting from other, greater works and seem to generally live through saying "Look at me, I'm so smart and intellectual!" The consequence is that none of their films mean anything.

I don't think Kaufman's pretentious, he just writes what he knows, so to speak. Carruth is possibly pretentious, but at least he's not pretentious enough to make films designed to show off his intellect. They're still about something, just in a complex way.

kuribo-04: Well, there isn't a clear line between 'art' and 'schlock', of course. But at a certain point stuff becomes too harmful, I think. Eva is strange in that sense-it's something I love tremendously, but it does engage in some not-necessary fanservice, especially in NTE. Which is strange. Ha is meta and Jo is to build up a bigger connection between Rei and Shinji, with the rest simply being left from NGE...but then Q has utterly unnecessary fanservice and in the strangest of places as well. But at least NTE is still artistic-it's a deeply personal, yet at the same time universal artwork with an unique sensibility and a positive ultimate meaning besides a deeply investigative one. Certainly not like Naruto or One Piece or Pokemon or Darling in the Franxx or Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle.

∆ Could I ask what instances of fanservice you mean specifically?
Obviously I don't think fanservice needs a justification, or is unnecessary if it has artistic value. On top of this, with a film that has existed for a while now, like 3.0, if wouldn't want anything cut. It's all part of the whole. Even the most "gratuitious" fanservice I think has value.

Then I also think people don't give some of the fanservice enough thought. Some of it.

Sexy fan service tends to feel more distractingly concentrated in a lot of episodic anime. Like, a show like Outlaw Star will seem to be going along at a decent pace, then suddenly there’s a bath house episode close to the climax of the series that feels like it exists apart from anything else, filling the frame with some rather extreme (for its demographic) shots of naked bodies filling the frame. Meanwhile, movies like Lupin the Third: The First or even the NTE Eva films can more naturally weave their fan service moments into the narrative’s overall flow and pacing.

The use of fan service in Squid Girl is among the top tier, I think, as the show simply makes almost every episode “The Beach Episode,” making the immaculately sculpted men and women revealing skin in the show a constant, casual aesthetic. This makes the sight of a sexy woman in a revealing bikini feel less like a story-halting moment and more like a fun, sexy, natural part of the show’s overall tone. It’s fan service as a stylistic choice instead of an awkward show stopper.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Sexy fan service tends to feel more distractingly concentrated in a lot of episodic anime. Like, a show like Outlaw Star will seem to be going along at a decent pace, then suddenly there’s a bath house episode close to the climax of the series that feels like it exists apart from anything else

I always found the outlaw stars Hot Springs Planet Tenrei episode generally hilarious but I feel this is because of its take down of the male perverts.
Given that perverts in anime don't always have consequences it was really refreshing. Though I won't disagree it is very out of know where it's still one of the better 90's anime in terms of the hot spring episodes.

Oh yeah, I like how Outlaw Star’s hot tub episode is actually a satirical take down of perverts. It at least uses the distraction inherent to an episode of that nature to its advantage in terms of its storytelling. But it is still emblematic of the fact that these episodes just exist in anime without the satire, and all we get are episodes that distract from their respective show’s storylines to show us boobies.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Oh yeah, I like how Outlaw Star’s hot tub episode is actually a satirical take down of perverts. It at least uses the distraction inherent to an episode of that nature to its advantage in terms of its storytelling. But it is still emblematic of the fact that these episodes just exist in anime without the satire, and all we get are episodes that distract from their respective show’s storylines to show us boobies.

I agree I felt that very much when I was watching Darling and the Franxxs some years back like why is this episode here? It serves no purpose or commentary, it's just here to be here and makes so sense in the world building side of things. Plus some of these types of episodes use this purely to queer bait using male/female characters and that's a whole other layer of deeply problematic since they have zero intention of following through. I'm not saying you can't do a bi curious or gay plot line but if you are make it clear that the one male/female character it's not in to it and have both move on don't then carry it over in other episodes it just rubs the audience the wrong way as they know their being baited and it makes your anime look shallow.

kuribo-04: I don't remember anything from Jo and Ha that couldn't be explained logically i.e. in terms of (meta)narrative, but Q does have some instances of fanservice than can't really be explained. Asuka's and Mari's breasts jiggle sometimes, there's shots of Asuka's legs.


Fanservice has always been a part of NGE of course and that includes unnecessary fanservice, but Q really has a lot of pointless "service". I think it's an especially weird decision to let those things stay considering how Q is so knowledgeably a refusal of the traditional generic anime and all that it entails along with a discussion on the bad consequences of indulging in such stuff.

I wouldn't want to cut anything out of any film-or any artwork, really. Even if I disagree with some or a lot of their messages/ideas/reasons for existence/plot points/et cetera, what good would censoring stuff do? The positive effects would be minimal, I think. Not to mention it could easily lead to fascistic "decency controls" or whatever when applied in any kind of a larger organizational scale.

Asuka's and Mari's breasts jiggle sometimes

I mean breasts do that sometimes lol. It's been established plug suits don't counter this for anime reasons, so whatever. It would be weird if there was zero animation to the breasts in shots like the Mari example you provide (which never bothered me btw, it can be sort of funny watching the film with somone, but being absorbed by the film and watching alone...I dunno, I just don't see breasts as funny or inappropiate.

there's shots of Asuka's legs.

I guess it depends on the person if this classifies as fanservice lol. I would hope though some shots would cut off some characters at some point for storytelling reasons or just variety.
EDIT:
I think this has definite storytelling reasons:

I think it's an especially weird decision to let those things stay considering how Q is so knowledgeably a refusal of the traditional generic anime and all that it entails along with a discussion on the bad consequences of indulging in such stuff.

Hmm, I dunno if Q is about that. EoE was, but even in that case it's not like Anno fully rejected fan service. He just didn't want people to lose their connection with reality. He also directed this: https://youtu.be/5t6fyLAuGk4

I wouldn't want to cut anything out of any film-or any artwork, really. Even if I disagree with some or a lot of their messages/ideas/reasons for existence/plot points/et cetera, what good would censoring stuff do?

Yeah, I agree with this.