Forum - View topicThe communal aspect of anime: how important is it to you?
|
|
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
|
||
|
I, personally, feel that there are two aspects to watching anime. The first is the actual viewing of the anime, and is obviously the most important. The second, however, is the communal aspect of anime: discussing it online or even in real life with others after the episode is aired. People share theories, argue about the characters they like, debate the things characters do, and hype themselves up for the next episode. Others make blogs and talk about their opinion. Of course, every fandom does this, but anime fandom runs thick with it, from its stature as a nerd culture and its preference for the internet.
I value the communal aspect of anime a lot--perhaps too much. I find the experience of going online and talking about a show, or even just reading other people talking about it, to be very fun and important. This actually has bitten me in the ass: not to make this a pity party, but I suffer from very severe depression/anxiety and crippling ADHD. Because of this, I have immense trouble keeping up with anime and in fact rarely watch shows at all. I often drop shows after the first episode not out of dislike, but because I just plain forget or I'm depressed/anxious about life matters to muster up the energy. As such, I've missed out on a lot of shows. But I also find it very hard to work on my backlog, as I've missed out on that communal aspect. Call me shallow, but I feel that watching a show all on your own in a binge is...hollow. I don't have any other way to describe it. The experience of finishing and episode and then talking about it with others is just really fun to me, even if the show is tepid pablum (looking at you, The Asterisk War, which I keep watching for incomprehensible reasons). In fact I find it so fun that I'll read through threads on shows I'm not even watching, just to see the discussions! Of course, there could be darker reasons--I remember my counselor telling me that I seek validation for liking things through seeing others like them too much, so maybe I value this community aspect so I can cynically validate my own tastes. But this is not one of my therapy sessions. I'm asking you guys: how much do you value this "communal" aspect? Does it form an integral part of being an anime fan to you? |
|||
|
|||
Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
|
||
|
To answer the question in the title, it is not very important to me.
Since I am here it is obviously not completely unimportant to me, but I really do not put much time and effort into it. I do not engage in deep discussions, and I have never blogged, but I do enjoy some things that we do here. I think that this is a case where the much abused word "casual" is actually appropriate for me. |
|||
|
|||
|
Chagen46
Posts: 4377 |
|
||
|
Anyone who has nearly 2000 posts here isn't a casual. And ANN is actually quite low on the communal aspect, I'd say. This forum and the manga forum are not heavily used. The main part of the forum and site is the Talkback section, which is about industry discussion, not communal discussion of shows.
|
|||
|
|||
Night fox
 Posts: 561 Location: Sweden |
|
||
Well, to be fair, on December 30 Touma will be celebrating his 100th month on these boards. That means he's writing on average 19 posts per month, which in my book is pretty casual. Congrats in advance, Touma! I also have a similar approach to Touma's when it comes to the community's anime discussions and rarely get involved in newer threads with currently airing shows - which is where most of the buzz is. This is part due to me watching mostly older anime because I'm relatively new to the medium and I feel the need to catch up on the classics first. I also don't have much free time to invest here atm, but if I do read something interesting I'll usually comment on it. Oh, and I'll also give a thumbs up to the quote- and character guessing games, which are very educational for a newbie like myself. I make sure to check those out from time to time. Though, Vaisaga is currently as unstoppable as the great wrstler Karelin was in his prime and he is pretty much toying with his opponents, so new players are welcomed. 
|
|||
|
|||
zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
|
||
|
I'm not into blogging, but when I find something incredible, it is nice to go discuss it with some people.
And I like to keep a close circle of friends with whom we can discuss anime and manga (especially manga, as I lend her manga approximately all the damn time, sometimes on purpose just so I'll have someone to discuss an obscure manga with, lol) But I'm also a total introvert, so I'm not big into socialization anyway. But I do enjoy my cons all the same! |
|||
|
|||
Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9936 Location: Virginia |
|
||
|
I guess I'm fairly low on the communal aspect. I do not read or participate on any anime forums except here. Also I'm not currently in real life contact with anyone who is into anime or manga (or even knows what they are).
@Chagen46 Since the institution of the weekly episode reviews, the Talkback section has become a hot bed of communal discussion of shows. Add to this the preview reviews and the new editorial articles on new and old anime, there is about as much show discussion there as there is in this forum. |
|||
|
|||
|
Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18352 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
||
|
This topic has come up a few times before but not in quite a while, so I think it's fitting to have a fresh thread about it.
I think it's obvious that I enjoy the communal aspect of discussing anime and would rank it as important but not essential to the overall experience. With certain exceptions, I am far less enthusiastic about the communal aspect of watching it. Basically, I prefer either a big, anonymous room (such as a viewing room at a 'con or a movie theater) or solo viewing. I almost never watch anime with just a handful of friends, and I've gotten to the point where I'm actually uncomfortable doing so since I'm always so concerned about what they think of it that I can't fully enjoy it myself. |
|||
|
|||
DJStarstryker
 Posts: 140 |
|
||
|
For me, it's yes and no. Most of the anime I watch nowadays I watch with my husband. It works well because we have similar tastes in anime. I enjoy discussing shows with him.
I don't bother to discuss them online though. The reason being is we both prefer to watch an anime when it's finished (or at least a whole season is) so we can binge watch it. Neither of us enjoys watching TV 1 episode per week anymore, whether it's anime or a live action American show. So by the time we start watching a show, it's finished and all of the people discussing it online have moved on to watching new things. It doesn't help, I think, that I got into anime originally in the early '90s, during the days when American anime fans watch shows way after Japan did and either had to watch it dubbed on TV, through expensive VHS bought from Suncoast, or fansubbed VHS that people copied and mailed around to each other. It was harder to discuss anime in a timely manner with people because of that, and people were generally at different points of watching the show (some just started, some partway through, some finished, etc). |
|||
|
|||
DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15545 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
|
||
|
Oh it is quite important to me, as you probably ascertain from my post count. At this time it is 300 more posts and I will have 10,000.
I can name some stand out communal experiences too. This years Rokka was fairly high in it for swapping theories. The best I have experienced was probably when Madoka came out, discussion with the community was quite important there, there was secret alphabet with hidden messages, and even certain names of characters. I have in the past been not too into the actual reviews, but I am warming up to the episode reviews in that I find myself agreeing with them more often, and with varied opinions. I think there is an element of "being in the moment, which I believe was mentioned in a recent podcast, which I really only started listening to. Maybe I should look for other forums, but I like it here, the moderators are a bit strict, but it is because they are very fair. Comments tend to be good, probably also a fact that I might occasionally go into paragraphs for a post. I am planning on doing a "personal anime awards" topic for the year soon, it does not get a lot of posts like the last few years, but I like doing the post for a bit of community at saying things that stood out in the year. Just have to figure a good time to start it, most anime are coming up to their last episode. |
|||
|
|||
Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1792 Location: South America |
|
||
|
Much less important than the actual stuff. I like reading reviews and it gives me good recomendations for stuff to read and watch, like TV shows books and ovie in general. The community is important for also providing information about stuff I already consumed and I like reading more sophisticated opinions of shows and Manga as well.
I also find that problematic because I always binge watch everything after the community has discussed it in the weekly reviews. Anime is also very time consuming to follow compared to movies which last only 2 hours. |
|||
|
|||
A Mystery
 Posts: 1888 Location: Netherlands |
|
||
|
This topic just kind of flew by without me noticing it. I was going to start a topic (something I rarely do) about asking where people prefer to talk about anime, but this is something similar in nature.
There has been a topic not too long ago about the silencing anime ANN forum. I wonder if most of these people just moved elsewhere or if the gist of the people that comment on the episode reviews would've come here (anime subforum) otherwise. I don't talk about anime with my friends or family and this is the only place where I talk about it. I wonder where all other fans talk or read other people's talk (blogs, reviews) about anime. Do I miss most of the talking buzz? Should I move to Crunchyroll or something ? I know a well known quite old blogging site (kinda 'random' site to give you a hint), but that's about it.
I'm not someone who discusses anime a lot, I like listening to other people babbling/discussing more, with me sitting in a corner overthinking what has just been discussed. Problem is, I don't just like threads/fora full of spoilers and oneliners, where nobody tries to dig deep into the episode material. @Dusky: So... I tried my hardest for your anime awards topic, but I think I chased everyone else away
|
|||
|
|||
walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
|
||
|
I enjoy the communal aspect for the anime that warrant discussion, so you have people to speculate with and get into hype whirlwinds, like with Valkyrie Drive. Other anime don't really require much in the way of conversation, they can be enjoyed by watching the episode and that's it, like with GochiUsa. The inherent issue with needing to discuss a show as you're watching or if you've recently finished it, what happens to older anime? And not old by just a season or two, which would be enough to render most discussion long since dead, but much older anime that to get anything going you'd personally have to construct and guide the topic. That's not really going to get me anywhere when I start up on L-Gaim or Dunbine.
|
|||
|
|||
Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
|
||
|
Do doujinshi and fan-art count as communal aspects? Because doujinshi are pretty nice to have for your favorite shows. Especially if all your favorite artists are making doujins/art for a show. That's the best recommendation for a show I can think of.
Fan community is one of the reasons I prefer long-running anime over shorter ones. I've been with the Detective Conan fandom since the 90s when I was a kid and this girl down the street had foreign TV-recorded VHS that first introduced me to Conan. Discussing and theorizing plot theories is always fun, especially when you get it right hundreds of episodes before it actually happens. Conan's fan community has been a part of my life for about 17 years now. Same with Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece, Naruto, and all those other long running series and those communities. So it's a pretty nice bonus to the show itself. It also makes watching older stuff a bit hard, since everyone's already talked about it and moved on. Same with falling behind on a show. If you have 40 episodes to catch up on, it makes you avoid the community out of fear of spoilers or not knowing what people are talking about. -Stuart Smith |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group