Forum - View topicDon't Get Jaded: Cynicism in Anime
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Blatch
 Thread Killer Posts: 348 Location: Northeast U.S. |
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Oh man, this article couldn't have been published at a better worse time.
I'm tempted to start rejecting the idea of cynical anime because of how it has become the new norm overnight. But thanks for the recommendations, I guess. |
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Videogamep
 Posts: 564 Location: CA |
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I don't mind cynical stories as long as they're done well. Black Lagoon was cynical, but that cynicism fit the setting and didn't completely dominate the rest of the story. It's not like Akame ga Kill, which felt like it was only cynical so it could seem more mature than it actually was. It all comes down to execution.
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meiam
Posts: 3447 |
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Is Chitose really a cynic? She's incredibly optimistic about most things, that she'll get fame and fortune and that the world will recognize her talent (whether its there or not). If anything it seems like she believe other people are stupid more than self fish.
Similarly Kyon is more blaze than cynic, he doesn't expect the worse and its pretty clear that he enjoy Haruhi hijinks and I doubt he think the other member of the brigade are doing all there doing just for self interest. I do often drop show because of a fundamental disagreement with the authorial point of view, but its rarely that I disagree with them, rather its more that I find that they don't really support there world view. Instead they craft situation where there world view is validated not because they naturally follow the situation but rather because many character just act incredibly stupidly and out of character and simply at odd with the world in general (both real and the one in the anime). Parasyte, one punch man, terror in resonance and concrete revolution are example of show that I dropped because things happened foremost to tell a message, even if it meant they would go against everything that was established in the show. I'm perfectly fine with watching a show with a different viewpoint from mine, but I do expect it to be self consistent. Last edited by meiam on Fri Nov 11, 2016 1:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Parsifal24
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Eh for me Cynicism is like breathing I wish I could be more optimistic or earnest about things but honestly seeing things as a "con" may be safe. But ultimately look at how much media that promotes the positive messages people are really nothing more than a glorified commercial or assumed to be glorified commercial for the source material.
It's not so much that I don't enjoy the more "positive" series it's that it ultimately it all feels like an idea of "well that's nice but honestly it doesn't work like that" and sure this hampers my ability to enjoy some things. But if I assume the worst of everything that disappointment won't be so bad because I already assumed it's going to be terrible and can deal with that. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13239 |
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You want cynic anime, watch Tomino's earlier stuff, namely Ideon and Zeta Gundam where it all basically boils down to "Humanity is shit and everyone dies!"
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3768 |
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I cannot agree more with Mr. Creamer, with regard to authors and audiences alike. Light and optimistic shows can be too simplistic but dark and cynical ones can be too. Certainly like Nick said there is a place for a cynical worldview in a show, but the best embrace a more complicated view of the world. People can be selfish, but are not purely so, and moreover selfishness is not a uniform evil. If you don't look out for yourself, who will? Now it is bad if you only look out for yourself, but you shouldn't feel guilty for doing what is in your interest nor look down on people for doing what is in theirs.
And cynicism from the audience is no better. I have seen such facile cynicism too often, among fans and critics alike. Too often this manifests as a haste to write off shows because they "know" what it will be like. Sometimes they are right and you need not be naive when approaching shows or subject yourself to your own deal breakers. However, personally speaking, I have benefited more from challenging myself and letting a show surprise me than I have been burned by it. As someone who has followed his reviews, I don't know that Mr. Creamer is the perfect messenger for letting a show surprise yourself, but that doesn't invalidate the message and I respect him more for making the argument. |
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jojothepunisher
 Posts: 799 |
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I think part of the reason why some authors wholly embrace cynicism is because they hate to see other people succeed in living in a world that to them is "full of shit". Writing characters that will eventually reach a happy ending despite all the suffering they endure is the same as contradicting their own beliefs.
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Tenebrae
Posts: 490 |
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She's an egoist with an inflated sense of self-worth. Everything will go fine... because she's there. |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1009 |
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Right. She's trash, yes, just like the producer Kuzu in that show is trash, but she's not a cynic by most meanings of the word. She's not distrustful of others or of various standards; she just thinks that everything should come to her without much effort. Up until the last episode, I was half-wondering if the show was going to end up being super cynical by just having Chitose and Kuzu continue to succeed for the whole show without a comeuppance, even as the more idealistic characters despaired about art. That would have been pretty shocking and ultimately difficult to watch (even though the current approach will result in some cringing.) Most shows at least match cynicism about the world as it is with some sort of idealism as to what it should be and hope for change, or at least faith in a comeuppance at the end. |
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Calathan
 SubscriberPosts: 9113 |
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This is exactly what I was thinking. I really don't find Chitose to be cynical at all. Her extreme optimism is very different than what I would expect from a cynical person. She never seems to think that she is going to get ahead through deceit, but instead truly believes that she is great and that everything will naturally work out great for her. She comes off to me as actually very honest, where it never crosses her mind that she should say something polite when she doesn't mean it, or act like she is or isn't excited about something when the opposite it true. She also seems very oblivious to things . . . instead of thinking that she has everything figured out, she often seems to miss that there even is something to figure out. In the scene that the article referred to in an linked image, where she called one of her friends a "bitch", I didn't take that as her world view, but instead thought she was just joking around with a friend. I took the point of that line to be that she will say potentially hurtful comments to people without realizing they could be hurtful, and that it would never cross her mind that she could come off as a bitch herself. If she actually had felt that people are like that, I would think she wouldn't have said it out loud. I've felt that some people had a lot of expectations for Girlish Number based off of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, and that now they are interpreting Chitose based on those expectations instead of based on how she actually acts. But just because an author had a character act one way doesn't mean that their next character will act similarly, and I think the comparison is more clouding some people's interpretations than informing them. |
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DrunkAyanami
Get off my lawn Posts: 88 Location: The great state of Vermont |
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Forgive me for being overly dramatic, but I kinda sorta have just lost hope in humanity this past Tuesday night. America chose hate, vitriol, fear, anger, and apathy. So for ME, this week has made me think that I now NEED to start embracing cynical anime... at least the ones that end in a message of hope (or rejection of cynicism) anyway. Otherwise I'm worried that I might become a supervillain. |
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zrnzle500
Posts: 3768 |
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I believe that characters mean what they say, unless otherwise indicated, either when they say it or in after the fact reveals demonstrating they were lying. And as far as I can tell, Chitose does believe that others, in particular most commonly Yae, are two faced calculating...people who are pretending to be a cutesy naifs like her though lacking the self awareness to consciously realize that she is projecting. I don't thinks she holds that against Yae or anyone else. More that she sees everyone (in the industry) as selfish and two faced and so thinks that it is ok for her to act that way. She does seem quite impressionable, as in the last episode where after she expressed her excitement for the CD selling somewhat well, she line for line parrots Momoka's response when her fellow new voice actresses express the same excitement. She believes that is how voice actresses should act and tries to act in the same manner. She has internalized the not infrequent selfishness and calculating two facedness of those in the industry, sees it as good or at least normal and then projects that upon others, rightly or wrongly. I agree that she is, well not honest, but nonetheless insenstive and lacking in any filter of her impolite thoughts. Which makes me curious as to why you would think that if she did actually think that, she would be sensitive enough to not actually say it? |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11584 |
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I don't know what this means. If you distrust everything, you don't fully engage with anything at all. That doesn't make your non-engagement dishonest. I'm a total cynic about real life, but the opposite with anime. I'll let anime take me anywhere, because the worst it can do is waste my time. |
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jtron
 Posts: 185 Location: Chicago |
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Great article, thanks! I really appreciate in depth pieces like this. Also it made me think of this
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jojothepunisher
Posts: 799 |
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I think Nick was referring to her cynicism regarding working in the anime industry. She tags a negative ulterior motive for every action she witness in the people around her, like that one time when Chitose found her fellow rookie voice actress to be a cunning bitch after she discovered that the rookie too was selected for a heroine role despite the rookie's supremely modest behavior. She also doesn't have enough faith in the artistic merit of her work for her to say things like "marketing is the only thing needed to sell anime". These are all pretty damn cynical beliefs, and Chitose certainly spends more time on screen having these kinds of thoughts than trying to improve her own voice acting skill. So despite the optimism, most audience would find her overall to be cynical. |
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