Forum - View topicReference humor in anime.
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Sylpher3
Posts: 85 |
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Lately, I’m spotting a lot of series which use reference humor (Blood Lad, Servant x Service, Watamote, Genshiken Nidaime, Outbreak Company), more than before. When it is applied rather well, not out of place and functional to the storyline, like in Watamote and Genshiken Nidaime, I can appreciate it but in many cases I feel it’s only there for the sake of being a reference to another show.
What mystifies me is the high appreciation for this type of fanservice from the fanbase. It’s sometimes even used as a positive argument to watch a show, while I feel that reference humor doesn’t make or break a show. And I’ve seen a lot of comments in forums/boards (not talking about ANN forums) saying: “Lol, that [insert show] reference” or “I totally got that reference from [insert show], like it’s some kind of personal achievement to recognize references in a series. Why does it generate so many comments while, in my opinion, it hardly says anything noteworthy about the show? Sure, it can be helpful when someone didn’t recognize it, but a few comments would be enough to cover that. So my questions are: What is your opinion on reference humor? Why is it lately so often applied? How and why does it affect the quality of a show? Why is this type of fanservice so highly appreciated? Why is it worth commenting on? |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10018 Location: Virginia |
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Sylpher3 wrote:
I don't care one way or another. If I catch it fine, if not it is no big deal.
Because heavy duty fans like it. They are the ones who buy the shows.
It depends on how it is done. As long as it doesn't distort the current show it is not a problem.
Because it makes the fan who notices the reference feel like an insider, someone who knows more than the casual fan.
Because it allows the commenter to announce to others that he saw it, getting public credit. This sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Most of the "Trivia" listed in the encyclopedia entries are for such references. |
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Looneygamemaster
 Posts: 192 |
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I feel the same way about it in anime as I do when it appears anywhere else--if it's worked into a joke well, it's great. If it's just dropped, I'm neutral toward it. But if the joke is nothing but the reference (a la Family Guy), then I consider it the laziest form of "comedy" imaginable.
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Bango
 Posts: 1122 |
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Pretty much the same with me. Most times it generates a fun game of "what show is that parodying?" but that's because anime tends to use it just to establish a character as an otaku or that they're in Akihabara. I follow a rule of "can the joke be as funny or funnier if it weren't referencing something else? I forget what it was in but there was something I saw recently that threw in a random Gundam reference with absolutely no regard to setting or if the characters would even know it. |
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Wrathful
 Posts: 372 |
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What is your opinion on reference humor?
I love them and I appreciate if there were more anime like that, the ones that don't take themselves so seriously. Why is it lately so often applied? The production noticed the success trend and jumped on it. How and why does it affect the quality of a show? Most comedy anime cannot maintain humour for so long and that's when reference humour helps to bring some sort of liveliness and wittiness in the dialogue. For people who watched the certain show, references brings some nostalgia or some fascination or makes the main character bit easier to relate to. I'd say the reference humour is an easy trope to abuse but if you hide it in so subtle direction, it increases the longivity of the show. Why is this type of fanservice so highly appreciated? Because most often it doesn't get in the way of plot nor require any sort of objectification or degradation of certain topic. Depending on the directors, the use of reference humour is clever and easy to enjoy like Shaft anime before their pre-Madoka era. Why is it worth commenting on? Often a lot of people are curious which obscure anime are referenced and I want to know how much references they hid. |
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ajr
Posts: 465 |
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When watching a Certain show recently, I hit the obligatory beach/swimsuit episode. It was quite generic with boring stock jokes, and I was just enduring it to make it to the next episode. Out of the blue though, it dropped a Space Odyssey:2001 reference that salvaged the previous four minutes of tedium. I felt it showed that the creative team actually knew they were being generic, and could in fact be creative when they wanted to. Especially given how out-of-left-field it was in-context; that is to say, it was a deliberate non-sequitur.
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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Also because they're embracing the idea that Otaku Culture has replaced most of what used to be the mainstream audience for anime in Japan. We can have a series that panders to it, with panty shots and incestuously affectionate little sisters, or we can have a series that flies its Encyclopedic Geek flag high, because, as MST3K used to say, The Right People Will Get It. The poster-idea of the latter, of course, would be Sgt. Frog, which lives to near-embarrass otaku with every single classic-anime reference known to fan: Keroro builds Gundam models. His platoon is hooked on watching Yamato. Other travelers from space arrive on the Galaxy Express (complete with ramp to the sky). In one episode, he decides to open an alien bathhouse, and the episode begins with, yep, the mom and the kids taking a wrong turn in the car and ending up at a strange gate with a mysterious frog statue... In true reference-anime humor, you don't just throw one reference, you RUN with it. Would that Peter Griffin could show such mental focus. But even that series was just paying tribute to the founding 80's royalty of Reference-Parody Anime, Mamoru Oshii and Rumiko Takahashi in Urusei Yatsura: There were a few ref jokes here and there in other series before (maybe a few cutesy primitive refs in Dr. Slump or Dragon Ball), but that series first defined an entire generation of how to embarrass an otaku with what he didn't think you knew. (Like the episode where a new crackdown on school rules turns to all-out war with the students, and Megane dreams that Lum-chan will come to their rescue, picturing her in a blue flying suit, soaring over the city in her hang-glider...) |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Reference humor is a subcategory of topical humor, which is a favorite of mine. Like topical humor's reliance on the audience's knowledge of current events, reference humor rewards the viewer for his or her knowledge of pop culture, the history of fandom and all things otaku. It's probably the closest I'll get to topical humor in an anime, so I'll take it.
I like it when people post the reference so I can appreciate the joke better. And reference humor is nothing new. The first title I can think of is Gintama, but even Osamu Tezuka had reference jokes in his manga and anime (most of it referenced his other work, but still) |
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