Forum - View topicThe Spring 2012 Anime Preview Guide
Goto page Previous Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
Author | Message | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
dragon695
Posts: 1377 Location: Clemson, SC |
|
|||||
It's too bad that dtm42 got himself b&, I know he'd be flipping a gasket at the current skin. But getting back to the point, I think you misunderstand. Zac does yeomen's work to make sure this preview guide is up and going. That he has time to entertain and inform us via his witty and well-written reviews is an added bonus. I'm glad that he does, and I know I'm not alone. |
||||||
Rensie
Posts: 251 |
|
|||||
He is not fun at all, everytime he or another reviewer insult an anime and ricidulize it is like insulting and ridiculize people who like and watch it. You know, not everyone care about realism in anime, someone can watch anime for mere entertain and for keep your life busy 22 minutes in pure relax. Watching anime is just an hobby, but some people take it too far. Get a life and follow only what you like without insulting people for their own tastes, nobody limit your freedom since everyone has a choice. |
||||||
Swissman
Posts: 787 Location: Switzerland |
|
|||||
"[...] is like insulting and ridiculing people who like and watch it" -----> seriously?? Oh geez, you are the one who takes it too far, not Zac. Zac Bertschy is merely a human with personal opinions about some japanese cartoons you may agree or disagree with, but he's nowhere God or a godlike entity whose voice you must forcefully oppose against. Don't be so butthurt that he didn't researched all the details about the show's origin according to your standarts. Just step back from the computer and take a deep breath - the anger will go away, I promise. |
||||||
Rensie
Posts: 251 |
|
|||||
You should get a life too. He should do some research before spread false informations and lies, expecially when ignorant people (aka people who don't have idea what they talking about) start to insulting the community based on false statements and assumptions. Some news they wrote too are false statements with false synopsis. Again don't write something if you don't know what you talking about, read more resources is a first step to improve the quality of a news website don't think? No wonder Ann community is considered crap around the anime fandom. Last edited by Rensie on Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:58 am; edited 1 time in total |
||||||
誤称
Posts: 549 |
|
|||||
Seconded. I come to this site for the news. The reviews and especially the season preview guides are like watching Fox News to me. They are that bad. There is not a season in which I've found myself enjoying almost every show they've tried to bury with their agenda driven "reviewing". |
||||||
YotaruVegeta
Posts: 1061 Location: New York |
|
|||||
You, ah, know far far more about Boku than I do, Cecilthedarkknight.
My whole point is, yeah, fiction, in the end, doesn't affect your actual life, but if done properly it can get the proper reaction from you, as if it was real. Just like something sad in a film or TV show can make you cry, seeing a guy lick up bodily fluids gets a visceral reaction from me. I don't know if anyone's pointed this out, but to me, I think this girl drooling saliva is a reversal of when a guy leaves, well, you know, a final product. I'm totally making assumptions, but I think this was the author's point of having a guy do this with a girl. |
||||||
Kaioshin_Sama
Posts: 1215 |
|
|||||
Just read the Upotte article by Zac. Oh poor poor Zac......
|
||||||
vashfanatic
Posts: 3492 Location: Back stateside |
|
|||||
#5. Anyway, when I translated the summary (remember: if I made a mistake, leave an error message, especially with names!), the whole oral spit-swapping idea didn't bother me so much because I assumed it just meant "French kiss," which is fine, whatever, people do that, it's clearly a weird romcom. But apparently she like vomits spit? Oh region blocking, you keep me in the dark! Also, licking anything of a school desk is a bad, bad ideas. Don't try this at home.
The distinction between Fox News and ANN is that Fox News is (supposedly) a news organization, that is supposed to be presenting facts from a reasonably objective position. ANN's preview guide is a collection of reviews, and reviews cannot be "objective." Otherwise, they are a recitation of facts about a show. That's not a review. That's news. Which Fox News frequently fails at by being about as objective as, well, MSNBC. And what is there "agenda"? What's their aim? Their "agenda" - their target, their purpose - is to write reviews giving their opinions. You make it sound as if they are nefariously plotting to "bury" perfectly good series because... they're evil? I mean, you do all see that Theron Martin gave this series a 4.5, right? ANN is not a single hive-mind bent on wiping out the kind of anime you love, they are individuals, and they do not always agree. I mean, in this season alone: > Zetman was pounded by most reviewers, ranging between 1.5 and 2.5, but Rebecca loved it and gave it a 4. > Rock Lee and his Ninja Friends had people who hated it (Carlo and Bamboo) and people who thought it was pretty funny (Theron) > Theron gave Sankarea a 4, while Carlo gave it a 1.5. > Carlo thought that Kuroko's Basketball was generic, but Carl and Becca liked it. > And Mysterious Girlfriend X varies from Zac's "Ew!" to Carl's 2.5 to Theron's 4.5. This happens every season. If you want more examples, I have records going back to 2010. There's no "agenda" here, there are just reviewers with opinions. If you can't stand hearing opinions you disagree with or believe that Real True Anime Fans would give everything a 5, then... well, there's not much I can do for you. So stop reading the Preview Guides, get off the forums, and just do what you claim to do, i.e. read the news. Unlike reviewers, you aren't being paid to look at things that you don't like. Last edited by vashfanatic on Mon Apr 09, 2012 9:06 am; edited 2 times in total |
||||||
jl07045
Posts: 1527 Location: Riga, Latvia |
|
|||||
Good Heavens people! All of this over some spit.
|
||||||
Surrender Artist
Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
|
|||||
Zac's audio rating of Mysterious Girlfriend X made me laugh out loud. I understand the visceral disgust, but I'm still a little curious about the series; it may be a little gross, but it's not as overtly creepy as Upotte!!. Given what Karl and Theron have written, it might be worth watching even if I have to put up with a sort of base discomfort to do so.
As Funimation licensed Jormungand for streaming before it aired, will it not be reviewed in the preview guide if they don't begin to stream it before the guide ends?
No, it isn't. It's ridiculing and insulting just the show itself. The person and the entertainment that the person enjoys are not some unified whole. If you identify so strongly with what you watch that you can't brook any derision toward it, that's your problem, not any critics. Otherwise, those writing reviews would end up having to walk endlessly on eggshells, being so worried about offending somebody that they wouldn't dare risk being incisive, interesting or entertaining or really having an opinion at all. Reviews would be lowered to the level of synopses with a few empty adjectives thrown in.
I've never grasped what statements like this meant to mean. Nobody has claimed that realism is essential. Even if they did, wouldn't this imply that your are a hypocrite by insulting those who do prize realism? Besides, it isn't accurate. We covered some of this already and I listed several a few silly or unrealistic series that Zac liked in earlier preview guides. If you really believe that,"Watching anime is just an hobby, but some people take it too far," then you might need to examine yourself, because if you've come to identify so strongly with your hobby that you become so insecure at any slight against what you like that you fall back this strongly upon psychological defense mechanisms and put so much intensity into delegitimizing the source of those slights, then you've probably gone too far yourself.
Firstly, I think we should say a small prayer for the late Theron Martin, who evidently died and was forgotten recently, else you might have noticed that he gave the first episode of Mysterious Girlfriend X a good review. He will be missed. Well, no, he won't, because he's not dead, but for some reason he is being overlooked, as to some extent is Karl Kimlinger, who thought that the characters were interesting and that the romance worked, but that the central conceit was distractingly gross. And if anybody claims or acts like all that matters is that last part, that gets to what I think is wrong here. The negative opinions are being exaggerated in severity, importance and tone. Even the most damning reviews ultimately still convey information about a series in the form of the critic's reaction to it. The point isn't to let critics command you what to watch and what to ignore, but to look at their reactions and consider the extent to which you could imagine having a similar one and how your emotional or intellectual reactions differ from the critic's. And just what has provoked this outrage is a little suspicious; few people seemed to care when Zetman was savaged by everybody but Rebecca Silverman and that the short comedy series have gotten lukewarm reception. Likewise, there's been little anger over things like Space Brothers and Polar Bear Café being pretty well received. The accusation of an agenda leaves me wondering just what it is, who's orchestrating it and just why it's nefarious? Even more, I wondering: Has is or can it even accomplish anything and just whom to these accusations serve? Every time this kind of thing happens, the people complaining denigrate ANN's staff as, "nostalgic," or insist that they only like anime for being horrible things like, "deep," or claim that some shadowy conspiracy guides their every actions. They're not content to just note that they have different opinions than the staff, they have to make the staff wrong or illegitimate for having those disagreeable opinions. Last edited by Surrender Artist on Mon Apr 09, 2012 9:42 am; edited 3 times in total |
||||||
vashfanatic
Posts: 3492 Location: Back stateside |
|
|||||
Yeah, I thought we'd be doing this over Upotte! Also, thank you Surrender Artist, I see I didn't have to go back and edit that post to include something I noticed later, you made most of the points for me. Looking over the scores, if there's been anything approximating consensus thus far this season it would be: Space Brothers and Lupin III: A Woman Named Mine Fujiko are good, Hiiro no Kakera is generic, Gakkatsu is only okay, Natsuiro no Kiseki shows some promise, Upotte! is creepy as heck, and everything else? Your Mileage May Vary. Figure out which reviewer most matches your taste and weight their reviews accordingly. |
||||||
Key
Moderator
Posts: 18394 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
|||||
Surrender Artist and vashfanatic have made some excellent points in the past few posts that I would encourage all of you to heed. The back-and-forth exchanges in the (for me) overnight posts was getting heated enough that it was bordering on flaming, and that I will not allow.
I'm too short on time right now to respond to individual comments, so I will just reinforce the presented notion that anyone who thinks we here at ANN are consistently united enough in our opinions on things to actually have an agenda isn't paying attention. |
||||||
誤称
Posts: 549 |
|
|||||
Lets not forget Gia, her reviews tend to break from the herd as well. But to take my Fox News analogy along, having a panel with two hardcore wingbat republicans and a token Democrat does not make it fair or balanced. To the poster, I think it was vashfanatic, who reminded us that this isn't a news site, I call bs. Anime NEWS Network is primarily an anime news site and has promoted itself as such throughout its existance. It does a damn good job on that front. I prefer Japanator, but they tend to walk the Sankoku side of the fence sometimes and that makes them not safe for work. I guess I really wish that Anime News Network took the same amount of care they show with their interviews, their news pieces and their convention coverage to their coverage of the season previews. They have a great amount of professionalism when it comes to hard journalism but when it comes to the review side of the house, they seem to take way too much glee in being a more legitimate 4chan without the cat macros. MOAR CAT MACROS. Just my five yen. |
||||||
zensunni
Posts: 1294 |
|
|||||
Hey, that is totally cool. I was just wanting to reassure you, others that have expressed that opinion, and more importantly the people reading those opinions that have yet to decide about watching the show, that the drool thing, while a major plot point, isn't really something that stands out when reading the manga after the first couple of chapters and I expect that it will be likewise with the anime. In advocating for the show, I really was trying to assure people that aren't already so grossed out by the concept, or that haven't watched it yet because they are worried about the 'gross out' factor, that the focus of the story is not drool, but romance. The 'drool bond' is a plot device that he uses to explore the special connection between two people who, lets face it, only recently met, yet seem to have some real connection and are developing deep feelings for one another. The mystery of love is the real theme. The fact that the lead female is enigmatic, eccentric, and seems to secrete addictive substances from her salivary glands (or maybe not...) is just the window dressing. spoiler[(And, in the manga, it is shown to not only be between the two of them, but that is much later and may not make it into the anime. It seems to not be a feature of Urabe, but of the world the story is told in...)] I totally understand someone not getting into something because of what basically boils down to the inability to suspend disbelief to the extent required to enjoy the show. That is an issue with any form of entertainment. I know a person who has very similar taste to me in books and live action movies that is totally unable to enjoy animation of any kind because she just can't suspend disbelief. I have a fairly high tolerance for strange fantasy/supernatural elements in stories, but I realize that others don't. |
||||||
Keichitsu0305
|
|
|||||
Natsu-iro Kiseki: Not a bad first episode. I'll just marathon it once the series is over.
Sankarea: I'm half interested/ half bothered by this show. It's mainly Sanka. She was so annoying with the whole "I'm a victim of my Dad's perversion so instead of telling someone I'm gonna shout down a well!" Chihiro's necrophilia doesn't make sense either (he wants a living dead person?) I rather if they just play the horror straight or parody the genre altogether because, right now, I'm quite confused. Accel World: I'll watch a few more episodes since the action is very good and it's a nice change of pace to have a "round" protagonist. If there is one thing I don't like about the first epiosde is spoiler[how obviously evil Kuroyukihime is.] Kuroko's Basketball: I'm going to try (again) to watch a sports anime this season. From what I've seen, there might be a funny partnership with the petite Kuroko and the ridiculously tall Kagami. Mysterious Girlfriend X: In the first episode, Akira asks Urabe if there is some sort of substance or bacteria in her drool. She replies no, it's because you love me. I can't accept that. It would make more sense if she was a yokai or goddess and inside her magical blood (or rather drool) there is an aphrodisiac of sorts that can cause her victims to have weird visions. That would be so awesome!! As it is though, the romance between them is fine (dare I say, rather cute). So, I'm continuing this series. Can't wait until ANN reviews the two big Noitamina series: Kids on the Slope and tsuritama! |
||||||
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
||
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group