Forum - View topicShelf Life - Clanning Up
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Actually, yeah. You could simply write that "If you don't like moe anime, than you're probably not going to be able to like this". And then you can go on about actually reviewing the content of the anime, and not how gigantic the eyes are, or how they look like 12 year olds (unless Manabi Straight happens to make it over here... =P) For instance with Clannad, you could mention how the show suffers a bit from just going around seemingly from completing one girl's route to another. Or you could comment on the large amount of humor that the show surprisingly has, whether it's getting a girl to drink juice out of her nose or Akio's boisterous personality and stuffing his mouth with Sanae's bread everytime she hears him talk bad about the bread she bakes. Of course, I'm not a columnist nor a writer. I'm just a fan. And honestly, as others have stated on this thread, it gets tiring of reading a review for some (moe) show, and 80% of the content therein pertains to the visual style or tropes that most people think are inherent to moe anime. That's all. |
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Ceral
Posts: 28 |
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Aye, Abunai is as wise as his avatar suggests.
True enough, it is nice to have different points of view. I may have been a bit harsh and overzealous judging the review at first. This isn't the first time I've been indignant about Shelf Life and Bamboo's particular stance on Air/Kanon/Clannad, I try to avoid it, but with the picture and the title "Clanning it up" I could not help but click on the link. When I first read it, there was mis-information like calling one of the characters a dead girl, twice (which has been edited last I checked), which seems like her dislike for the character designs manifesting itself to lend the show even less credibility. It's a very, very, opinionated review, I don't think it lends itself much room for others to disagree with her, I would prefer for an article on a anime news site to have less bias. It's good to put your opinion out there, but also try to represent it from the other side as well. Or give a disclaimer, about the type of tastes of the editor and what pet peeves he/she may have about shows. If you have someone who goes nuts over bishoujo character models, and you have that person's review focus on that bishoujo show, on this website, which is supposed to be about anime news, attracting all types of tastes, you're going to piss off some people.
Well, if you're truly unbias, I think you would have enough editors so that for each genre, there is someone who is passionate about that genre and someone who isn't so enthusiastic about that genre. And wait for all of the reviews to come together and publish them all together. A-la Gamepro or something like that. That way, if you're a moe fan, you read the moe person's reviews to get a good idea of what you'll like, and if you're not a moe fan, you can read the anti-moe persons reviews to know what to stay away from. And shows that are a bit original, you can read all of their reviews, and if something is more moe or less moe, maybe the moe show was liked marginally by the anti moe guy and the moe guy liked this action show a little more than usual, you might get a better idea of what you might want to give a chance. You would have less people complaining if you did that(At least about the bias of this site). If you got one of the people who voted a 10 for Clannad, there's probably like 500 people visiting this site once in awhile who voted high for it, get them to post their sparkling review next to one of the 15 people who voted it worst. Maybe, maybe you'd have both sides a little more satisfied(Or maybe you'd have pandemonium in these forums.) But at least I wouldn't be posting here if there was a review from someone who I thought had an enthusiasm for moe shows. |
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Mysticmidnightmaiden
Posts: 123 Location: California (Bay Area) |
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If Clannad really is such a standout title, why is everyone arguing over the review instead of writing their own? I haven't seen one good post yet that's shown me WHY Clannad deserves all this support, other than "us fans like it, so should you."
(Besides, the review was positive! I mean, wtf more do you want? Five glowing stars next to the title? An 11/10?) |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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You and I both know that if a reviewer wrote that, there'd be 5 pages of comments that said, "This show isn't like all the other moe shows! This show is different! Don't just lump this together with all the other moe shows! You're biased, because you think all moe shows are the same!" Don't even try to deny it.
Two points. 1. If I had said she was in a coma, people would've cried spoiler alert, especially since the characters in the high school were all whispering about a ghost. Ghosts, btw, are usually associated with dead people. You don't find out about the coma until way later. 2. I'm sorry-- less credibility? So... a show about a dead girl whose ghost is hanging out with people... is less credible than a show about a girl in a coma whose spirit is hanging out with people? How does that work out? |
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Ceral
Posts: 28 |
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1. I think you would have watched up until then to make the review and to have paid enough attention to know the difference. 2. I don't know that I would want to watch a show about a dead girl's ghost, that sounds too depressing. And it sounded like you thought the show was a bit twisted that it was so cute and depressing. With the coma, now there is hope, and it's a bit more optimistic in tone. |
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vtnwesley
Posts: 171 Location: Natrona Heights, PA |
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I don't think I've noticed any bias or anti-moe, especially in reviews. I usually find them pretty informative. As a fan of the Key properties and a few other sob stories, I've always found ANN to be fair. I think people are just taking things to personally or being kind of picky... I say this knowing I am darn picky myself, yet this doesn't bother me. The bickering actually concerns me a little, because as you point out, now you have to concider not reviewing these things at all just to prevent nerd gang wars on the forums. Personally, I like Clannad and some of it's ilk (SOME, definitely not all). At the same time the stories are absurd, the girls behave immaturely, and they tend to be cliche-ridden like all other genres. Furthermore, reviews usually include common on any technical problems of DVDs. Even if you guys did have nothing but hardcore anti-moe types, they'd still let me know if there is a real reason I shouldn't buy a DVD. They let us know if the animation is good or some other aspect, even if they don't enjoy the base content. I know I can enjoy that base content. I think people need to learn to interpret the reviews, not live by them. There is room for disagreement. Not to mention with the trailer archive on ann now, it's even easier to tell if i'd like something or not. Because moe is so niche, sometimes sites like ANN are the only way I hear about the good shows and/or the only way I get warned about the crappy ones (or dirty ones for that matter). Please don't stop reviewing the moe stuff. Last edited by vtnwesley on Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:42 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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I feel like I'm repeating myself. I didn't want to spoil people. But now I have, because we can't stop talking about the bloody issue.
You know what's uplifting? Girls in comas. What is it with visual novels and girls in comas? This makes the third one I've seen now, where a leading character was in a coma (the second one where we still saw her spirit manifested physically! Mm, credibility.). |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14813 |
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Oops, this reminds me. You know what's the new thing in Japan after kogals have become passe? Agejo!
Notice the resemblance? 
As for the guy test, that reminds me about something else funny: whenever the J-media Q&As any J-idol, they always ask her either one of the following: (1) about her boyfriend (2) about her husband (3) if she has a boyfriend yet (4) when is she gonna get married That question never fails!
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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You can say that about any show. It's an excuse, it's an automatic forgiveness . "Well if you like shows about a hero who wants to be the world's greatest ninja/lumberjack/griddle chef/street sweeper/customer service agent, then you'll love this!" Saying something like that is basically saying that the writers of these shows can be as absolutely hacky and cliche and lazy as they want, and so long as a handful of plot devices connect with the fans, well, they're infallible. "If it's popular, then it's good". This is the same thing anime fans complain about when it comes to American movies.
I get what you're saying - the specific story details of the show itself and how they progress and whether or not they're well-written or satisfying on any level - should be the chief goal of the review. But saying that the show doesn't rely wholeheartedly on moe genre trappings is a disservice to the reader. Acknowledging that is important. Not everyone is so in love with the genre that they just ignore or can't see that it's just as formulaic as Naruto or Bleach. Notably most of this stuff is all based on hentai video games. A lot of you conveniently dismiss or forget that fact. In the game version all these girls exist so you can pick which one you'd like to see your virtual self f*ck at the end of the game. Yeah so she gets hit by a bus or has a miscarriage or gets cancer or something. That doesn't make it deep meaningful drama, it means you like soap operas that end in porn, and when they take the porn out, you still like the story part. Which is fine, that's cool. Nobody's judging you. But at least let us write reviews that complain about the moe trappings just as much as we complain about shonen trappings. Last edited by Zac on Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3011 |
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Seriously? I'm going to assume that you actually are being at least semi-serious. In my mind, the answer should be a fairly obvious yes. In your previous post, you were a lot more forthcoming than I was expecting, which was nice. Your difficulties finding a moe fan who's a good reviewer and a fit for ANN are interesting, and something I was unaware of. But despite that, you feel that you've managed to run plenty of even-handed reviews of moe products. If you've managed that in the past despite your lack of moe enthusiasts on the staff, then you should be able to continue to do that in the future. Do your best to avoid repeating any of the mistakes in the "handful of reviews that were probably unfair." I know all the "OMG! ANN is so biased!" and all the rage that these reviews can generate must be tiresome, but even so, it would be a disservice to your readers if you stopped reviewing certain styles of shows just because the reviews can generate controversy. The only time you should stop reviewing moe shows is if you honestly feel there's no one on your staff that can give them a fair review, which you obviously don't feel is the case. Last edited by Mad_Scientist on Thu Feb 26, 2009 4:05 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Ceral
Posts: 28 |
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Well I haven't written anything close to a review, but I have said, "I think it's a great show, it's fun and entertaining, sure it focuses on cute girls, but at the core, for me, it's a melodrama about the importance of family." For me to give it what I think is a proper review, would probably be at least a couple pages(My posts look like mini-essays...). To briefly summarize(Actually now I have written a pretty lengthy review), I would say it's a story about a delinquent high school student in his senior year. Who is late to class everyday, hates the city he lives in, and is pretty unhappy with life. The school he goes to, is the best school in the city, he was able to get in on a basketball scholarship, spoiler[but because of a fight with his drunk father, who is his sole guardian, his shoulder got dis-located and he has been unable to play basketball since. ] The start of the story takes place as he is walking up to class one day, late, and meets Nagisa, who is a shy girl lacking confidence, but has a great and very supportive family. Through this girl and her family, he gets to see what a proper family should look like, and starts to learn about the importance of family. In turn, Nagisa is given the support to rebuild the drama club, who she dreams of acting in, but never had the confidence before to do it. And then there are other girls who enter the show periodically throughout the episode, each one with their own unique personality. For the first dvd collection, it focuses on Fuko, she's very eccentric, anti-social, but likes to poke fun at the main characters by calling them weird. And there's a lot of funny skits in there, very innocent, non-threatening skits, some might call it "moe". E.G. she likes to make sculptures with her carving knife, but because of that, her hands have some cuts, the main character Okazaki takes the knife away from her so she wouldn't cut herself. When she asks for the knife back, Okazaki will ask her to prove that her hands have healed before returning the knife by giving him a high five or to play "Boxer and trainer". Which involves him punching her hands(He doesn't actually hit them, but Fuko will yell "One,Two" and brace herself.). There's a lot silly, innocent skits like that. And then there's the dramatic side, where you have Fuko, trying to create for her sister a grand wedding. Her sister used to be a teacher at the school and spoiler[met her husband there] she's trying to get all of the students to go to her wedding by handing out these sculptures she's been crafting. Okazaki and Nagisa help her, along the way, Okazaki, who has never been around a proper family(his mother died when he was very young) gets to meet Nagisa's family and see how they get along, and basically the show is about learning the importance of family from Okazaki's point of view. It's a very G-rated show, but there is some sexual innuendo(Like one of the girls being asked to join the drama club, but thinks that she is receiving a love confession). The characters relationships for the first half, I would label it as "friendship", there's not any, I like this person, I need to do this to get him/her to like me by doing x. It's pretty low key and easy going, it's just like daily life, but with A LOT of cute girls in between. It's supposed to be fun, and then a bit emotional when you see how hard the characters work to try to bring happiness to their family members. Despite what I've just said, it's a seinen show, a show designed for guys, and you will have to be comfortable watching a show that doesn't have a lot of explosions or barely any action at all. What moves the story along, is getting to know each of the characters, and seeing the fun and emotionally touching moments between them. Well that's not as brief as I thought, but I think that's a good idea of what I got out of watching Clannad. Keep in mind, it's my own review I wrote up on the spot, and I love "moe" or so I'm told, it does not reflect what ANN thinks. I have no shtick about bishoujo girls or girls being too cute, I just like what I think is a good show. |
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Ceral
Posts: 28 |
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I wouldn't have brought up the issue at all in the review then. especially for one on the front page. It's hard to do to not talk about those things sometimes though... spoiler[KGNE, Kanon and Clannad? ] Whoopty do, one is very different in nature. spoiler[Kanon does not leave you hanging on for long, like one or two episodes, Clannad, you have Fuko popping up like every other episode, it's pretty dumb, and silly, there's not much to be depressed about, I guess I'm too optimistic, because I never believed that she was going away. You'll find out what happens to her at the start of AS.] |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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Keep in mind that only the first 12 episodes of Clannad (Not After Story) have been released in the US. Not everyone watches fansubs. The column, for instance, only reviews R1 DVDs. |
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Ceral
Posts: 28 |
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There's no porn, no nudity in Clannad, even the visual novel. And the anime is very tame, in Air/Kanon/Clannad combined, there's, I think, only one kiss. The fanservice is very tame, I think there's only two very nonchalant fanservice scenes where a character is getting ready to go out, and they have a brief shot of her back or side in a bra. |
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Ceral
Posts: 28 |
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Well episode 12 has one of those "scenes", not that many people can be that depressed about the show, I hope, since they're already spoiler[making fun of her there.] |
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