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Now and Then, Here and There (TV).

As for giving specifics, I'd have to watch the show again to be able to do that, and I'm not prepared to do that. The grade I gave was given shortly after I watched NTHT, while it was all still pretty fresh in my mind. It's not that fresh now and I wouldn't want to give a half-assed answer. What I *can* say is that I remember feeling that the anime was trying too obviously; the things that were happening seemed like they occurred *solely* to draw certain emotional responses... it was sort of like feeling you were playing poker with the deck stacked against you: not simply that you were having bad luck, but that the dealer was cheating now and then. That was the sensation (by analogy) that I had. So, I'm afraid I can't give you the specific sort of answer you were looking for.

Wow, this has been an interesting last page of discussion. A lot of things I can agree with, a lot of things I couldn't begin to. With Now and Then, Here and There being my favorite anime series of all time, I'll definitely be making a post in this topic sooner or later.

I usually don't comment on the forums since I'm a man of little words . This anime was just a masterpiece, but I find it difficult to understand why it is not on best anime list. I decided to watch one episode then watch several more later on. I would like to say so much more even a whole page, but I can't .

The ending did leave me with a lingering thought though. spoiler[How horrific must this kid's scars be? He has been whipped, apparently many MANY times, and in case you don't know when you whip someone it doesn't just hit you, it cuts you like a knife. Also I have never seen bird beak scars but I would bet anything that they are quite gruesome. OH not to mention the 2 bullet wounds certain brain damage from repeated concussions and several broken bones I'm sure]. This kids next medical checkup child services will be called IMMEDIATELY thats a goddamn guarantee

I loved the series for such tiny details that made the experience of watching it deeper.

There used to be a time when I would be swayed by how "dark" and "emotionally gut-wrenching" a show is, but in retrospect I think NTHT tried WAY too hard to be meaningful. Contrary to popular belief, writing dark and emotionally wrenching stories is the easiest thing to do. Need to get a rise out of the audience? Just think of doing something horrible! I know! Let's take this sweet little girl and have her go through some truly heinous crap. Want to get the tears flowing? Let's have a bunch of these kids die in truly horrible ways!

I'm not against the use of these things to manipulate audiences once in a while but when you do it for basically the entire show you're sort of making it obvious that you're basically saying, "Cry! Cry! This is really bad, isn't it? This is like so emotionally DRAINING ain't it?"

I actually put this show in the guilty pleasure section. I for one like that kind of manipulative grim crap, but to say that you're seeing some subtle, organic writing here that's award-worthy is really pushing it. It's like those films that win Oscars because they're the best at jerking tears out of the audience (terms of endearment, anyone?). It DOESN'T make them masterpieces.

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I'm judging NTHT strictly on its artistic merits, not on its "real life" social significance or any of that. The writers take the easiest ways of evoking tears or shock. I don't think it takes a lot of effort to do that. Some people think that "emotional assault = quality" but when you're resorting to assaultive tactics every 5 minutes, you're just trying too hard to push buttons. You might as well come to my house and wave an onion in front of my face if you want to make me cry, it's just as subtle too.

Yes. Every movie, show or TV is manipulative to a degree. But some do it with more subtlety, or more restraint. If making a masterpiece was as easy as showing girls getting raped and child soldiers getting brutally murdered in a succession of scenes and episodes, then everyone would do it.

bravetailor,

You've hit upon the reason I don't think NTHT is a masterpiece. A decent enough anime, sure, but not a masterpiece. For me, the writers are too hamfisted at their emotional manipulation, much like I found Air to be. Many of the characters never felt free of the hand of their creator(s), but more like dolls doing and saying what they were told to do and say.

And, bravetailor, if you like this sort of "manipulative grim crap", I urge you to try Air, if you haven't already.

If you can do it, then what makes this kind of writing so much more superior? Why bother with subtlety and restraint or low-key entertainment when all it takes to get an audience to declare a work a masterpiece is shock and awe?

Look. I'm not even saying NTHT is bad. I still like it, it does what it sets out to do, but there isn't really a lot of craft being displayed here in terms of writing. It sets out to punch the audience in the gut emotionally and there's nothing wrong with that at all, if you're aware of it. But I just think that getting fooled into thinking that this kind of writing is so much superior to less "emotionally wrenching" entertainment is what feeds into the stereotype of audiences being sheep who can't understand anything unless it's shoved in their faces.

it's easy to show something horrible to evoke a reaction out of an audience. For all the praise you heap on this kind of writing, let's face it: you could write the same thing and get the same reactions.

This kind of sledgehammer writing is not quality writing because it is writing that many laymen could probably do.

This is what I'm questioning in NTHT. Are people reacting to the story or are we just reacting to the fact that it dictates a series of horrible events?

I don't think NTHT's dialogue was that great either. Certainly there's nothing there that shows a high level of craft and sensitivity. NTHT's dialogue is as straightforward and uninspired as it gets.

I still think it's a very worthy anime

Even my criticism is merely an opinion. I don't say "In my opinion ONLY" every time I post, but I would hope that everyone would assume that this is what I mean when I do. I may not think NTHT is a masterpiece, but that's subjective. I may question the quality of the work, but that doesn't mean I assume I'm right. In fact, I may be looking at this from a totally anal angle. I'm not so invested in my opinion that I don't acknowledge this.

Look. We all know that we can get mad when someone is attacking a show we like. The gall of that person! Unbelievable, right? Grrr, how dare he say that? What a moron! Etc, etc,. But it's just a show, folks. Nobody is declaring war here. Think I'm a complete idiot for missing the finer points of the show's writing? That's fine, I don't mind. No need to bust a vein over it. I just wish that people would stick to the show's content rather than picking on each other's argumentative techniques. We'll leave that to our lawyers, okay?

Maybe if most of you just said that you really liked the show and it meant a lot to you personally, I wouldn't be all over this like a raccoon on an open can of garbage.

However, when I rate something, I am sometimes caught between my subjective feelings about a work and my objective feelings towards it. Sometimes the subjective feelings are so strong that I disregard any objectivity in my grade. Other times, I have given a work a higher grade because I realized that, even if I didn't particularly like it, it was technically a great work (sort of how I feel about Shakespere).

]Bravetailor, I feel as if you have a very eschewed view of what good writing is (no, I'm not saying you personally are eschewed or are retarded/stupid). Wasting time on unimportant details that would not add much to the story is a bad idea. Doing it on secondary characters is most often a worse idea. In regards to Sarah, the viewer knew everything about her that needed to be known to establish her thoughts and behaviors at the beginning of the show. We know everything we need to know about her life before the narrative of NTHT begins. She is from Shu's world and her life was good.

if you do not understand that the violence is specifically cast as a negative here then you're not understanding this series at all

People always rate anime with harsh violence higher -- if, of course, it is not rock-bottom-dumb -- because it raises the stakes: characters die (often times gruesome deaths), it impacts people more by definition. One example of that is Gurren Lagann (kind of spiritual follower of this project in some aspects), which is deeply flawed show, that got overrated due to certain plot twist in the middle. And there are countless real-life examples when famous people become overrated because they had untimely tragic deaths. It is natural that it happens; with this anime, I simply established the fact that this influenced voters. (This does not to mean that such projects and people are bad, of course; they can be still very good. And, coincidentally, this is the rating I came to regarding this particular show.)

As to other points: It weird to write that some of my arguments are "weird" (the more so my arguments are logic-based; its not easy to be objectively weird with this approach as it is not an emanation of feelings and impressions). If you do not agree with, then why not say so? "I do not agree" -- those words are more appropriate/accurate.

I forgot to mention that this anime has bad name. This "Here and Where, Then and Why, Therefore and For" is an unfortunate idea for a name.

Quote:

if you do not understand that the violence is specifically cast as a negative here then you're not understanding this series at all

Touche: if you do not understand I did not mean that this show glorifies violence -- unlike, for example, gore fanboys' favourite Elfen Lied, which is also stupider than this anime in terms of events making sense (I bashed that show for being classless, tacky and cheap mercilessly) -- then you are not understanding what I was writing.

People always rate anime with harsh violence higher -- if, of course, it is not rock-bottom-dumb -- because it raises the stakes: characters die (often times gruesome deaths), it impacts people more by definition. One example of that is Gurren Lagann (kind of spiritual follower of this project in some aspects), which is deeply flawed show, that got overrated due to certain plot twist in the middle. [...]

I'll totally grant you that the name is the most iffy aspect of the project. It was an attempt to make something less clumsy in English out of Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku, which literally translates as "The Me That's There Now," which I'll agree doesn't make much more sense. I would definitely like to hear sometime what, exactly, the creators were going after with that name.