Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - When Criticism Meets Anime Fandom
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2702 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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This line right here reminded me of something I saw online yesterday, where someone wondered if they had "aged out" of anime, because they don't find "the discourse" around current anime engaging to them anymore, and when people brought up watching older anime & stuff outside of "the discourse", the person acknowledged that while it's cool to see people write & make videos about that kind of stuff it wasn't what they were looking for... they seemingly just wanted "the discourse" to be more palatable to them. Unfortunately, most people seemingly want to prioritize "the discourse" over simply enjoying the medium for themselves. But the fact of the matter is that "the discourse" will always be about what's current, so there's no real way for someone to truly appreciate a medium or expand their knowledge/literacy if what they seemingly prioritize most is "the discourse". Yes, it's easier than ever to let your own opinion be shared via online review, thought piece, or deep dive, but if it's anything outside of "the discourse" then "no one" will really care. It's partially why there's that notion that "critics prioritize the esoteric", because what most people simply want is what "the discourse" is prioritizing, and if they see critics talk about anything outside of that then there's a dichotomy. It's like when Netflix announced that it'd be offering Neon Genesis Evangelion TV, and a certain group of people got so hyped because they were expecting a new age of "discourse" over its themes & messages, like it had done for them back in the 90s & early 00s... only for it to essentially only be hot for a week or two & then nothing. Yeah, sure, Netflix dropping it all at once played some factor in that, but I honestly doubt episodes getting added once a week would have really changed much (outside of protracting things), because "the discourse" around Eva had long ended by the time 2019 rolled around. It wasn't new, so "the discourse" had other stuff to focus on at that time. At least, that's how I see it, but I'm someone who quickly grew to not care about "the discourse", outside of simply having a basic idea of what's being talked about at any point, so of course my views on this won't necessarily align with most people, I'm sure. |
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Saeryen
 Posts: 1010 |
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I simply enjoy what I enjoy. Often very passionately, and if I love something I’ll talk it up as much as I can. Since I’m not a critic nor have the desire to be, I don’t discuss what I don’t end up enjoying unless it’s a general discussion of our faves and disappointments of the season, and even then I don’t put down those who enjoyed what I didn’t (I’m not saying the reviewers do that because they don’t, I just know some people can get mad at those who liked what they didn’t and frankly that’s mean).
There are times I disagree with a reviewer or the general opinion, and that’s okay. I’ve learned that even the reviewers I agree with most of the time will sometimes have takes I disagree with (usually I liked something a lot more than they did) and that’s okay, their word is not gospel. All that matters to me is my taste, and if that makes my heart kirakira sparkle, yay. That’s why I love giving recommendations since it’s a chance to gush about my faves and hopefully get more people to watch them. |
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tintor2
 Posts: 2180 |
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I see Jujutsu Kaisen gets a lot of mix lately. IGN gave the Shibuya arc a 6/10 which got a lot of hate from the fandom even if they had given the 0 movie a 9/10. Same happened with this website especially when a certain character died out of nowhere and now the manga is just dropping dead bodies so quickly that it feels like Devilman.
But yeah, the Gundam article divided a lot of twitter probably in an immature fashion due to decision. Then again, I'm surprised the Gundam Seed Freedom movie got a "B+" here despite the hate it tends to get in general. Guess I'll check more Western reviews besides Filmink (which was also positive in general) to see if the fandom's backlash is way overthetop |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13243 |
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Yeah, you have to at least acknowledge the irony of complaining about complainers.
ANN used to be pretty bad in its reviews, not only trashing the show but outright saying there's something wrong with people who enjoy it. This line is from Carlo Santos' preview of High School DxD back in 2012
There was no shortage of slamming shows as "Otaku bait" back then, the implication being that only creepy dudes enjoy those shows. ANN actually had to outsource a review for Strike Witches. But I find that on today's ANN I haven't encountered that sort of thing much. Granted I don't read many reviews on here any more but overall I feel that critisms are aimed at the anime themselves rather than the people who enjoy them. |
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turnsie
 Posts: 33 |
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This is weird. On the internet, all public opinions are subject to scrutiny, that much is obvious enough. It comes with the territory. There's no denial that there are critics who have no idea what they're talking about, but it's very often difficult to tell if the person criticizing a review is doing so from the standpoint of seeing something objectively off in a review, or if they're just coming to the defense of their favorite media. More often than not, the bulk of major uproars over reviews are chock full of the latter, even if the former is present and unfortunately being diluted. I agree with the discussion over objectivity being very off. While it may be more or less impossible for a review to be 100% purely objective about every aspect of a piece of media, saying objectivity in criticism in general is a "myth" is not the look they probably think they're giving. Speaking of objectivity, saying they mentioned Hogwarts Legacy to "bring up the culture war" is, in fact, bad faith. The point was extremely clear; Hogwarts Legacy's trailer had a bunch of 4.5 and above scores plastered on the screen at some point, and they mentioned there were small, hardly known publications or publications that are scarcely looked to for video game reviews cited, all during the discussion of the general lack of trustworthiness of review scores. Not a single "culture war" talking point to be seen. Come on now. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2702 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Would you be able to give a non-extreme example of what you feel is an objective angle, because otherwise it just sounds like the usual excuse for the word, i.e. "This person didn't write about it how I wanted them to". Personally, I think objective angles in an anime review are, quite literally, factual things to bring up. You know, stuff like who made the anime, the history of the work its based on (if it's an adaptation), going over any publicly revealed information about the production itself, i.e. stuff that helps give extra depth to a review, & may even help explain certain elements, but otherwise isn't really about reviewing the title itself. I personally love seeing those aspects covered, which is why I do my best to try to include them in my own writings, but I know that most people would prefer to just skip over that stuff in a review, because they just want to get to the "juicy" part. In a cynical sense, objective angles are "boring" (at least in a review) by their very nature, as not everyone cares about history & the like; they mainly just want to know if they might like something. You bring up Ex-Arm, but here's the thing: An objective angle regarding its animation would be about explaining why the staff went in the direction they did, and if there were any hiccups, problems, or obstacles in actually animating it. The moment the person writing the review goes over what they felt about the quality of the animation it enters a subjective angle, because it's their personal feelings regarding it. Even if "everyone" would tend to agree that Ex-Arm has poor animation, it's still subjective unless the review also brings up WHY it came out the way it did, and even then it'd just be a mixture of subjective feelings with objective facts. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2585 |
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For animation, I'd pitch two alternative ways of providing 'objective' (partial) analyses: (1) rather than asking the staff if they had problems, examine their work and try to guess whether many of the qualities of it causing negative subjective reactions are the sorts of things that tend to disappear as an animator or studio develops more experience (or funding) with animation. i.e., try to identify choices they made because of a lack of skill or resources, rather than because they felt it best fulfilled their artistic vision (2) address more specific questions -- e.g., rather than "Is the animation good?", instead, questions like "Is the animation life-like?", "Are the models self-consistent? If not, does this seem to be done in a way that suggests limits in skill/funding were the cause, or can we infer some kind of artistic intent behind the inconsistency?", "Do moments depicting a sudden change in acceleration capture the visual cues necessary to convey that?" These involve some guesswork, but that's a bit different from them simply being subjective with nothing else of note worth analyzing or saying. |
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Bonebrain
 Posts: 31 |
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I think everyone should just keep in mind their opinions are not facts. Even if they sometimes try to present them as such. And if people don't want to be accused ot presenting their opinions as facts, wording things better might help. Saying "this show sucks and is bad" and being surprised they get pushback seems like it could have been avoided by wording it like "I didn't care for this, but then I don't like this stuff anyway so my opnion probably doesn't mean much.
Also, try not to be inflammatory, passive-aggressive, or snarky when doing so. People are not dumb and know what you're doing when you say things like "people who like this show should probably have their hard drives checked..." in a review of I Admire Magical Girls, and.... Don't piss in the bath water then feign ignorance when people yell at you. If it's just to farm engagement and clicks then fine do what you gotta do but just in case people genuinely don't get it I figure I'd mention it. |
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uhuurt
Posts: 26 |
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I'm glad you asked: this is a very interesting topic that could have made for an actually good column. First of all, to explain why Ex-Arm animation is bad you do not need to go through the studio history, you only need knowledge of animation itself, or even just a higher standard, which obviously everybody has. A lot of factors can contribute into making that aspect of a show bad, like lack of time or talent, but when assessing the quality of that aspect, they're not relevant because you're analyzing the result. Now, about the non-extreme examples. The easiest angle to deem "objective" is the technical one: knowledge of animation makes you notice off-model key frames, wonky CG, missing inbetweens, blurred backgrounds, unfinished cuts, cost-saving shortcuts, etc. It doesn't end there: plot holes, contradictions, contrivances all negatively affect a screenplay and can be pointed out. Generic, cookie-cutter art direction will be felt by experienced viewers. Same goes for good and bad voice acting. Let me be clear: I'm not going to the opposite extreme and suggesting everything is objective, that is obviously not the case. Even for those examples above, there is indeed a level of subjectivity: I can like or dislike the art direction, the characters, the soundtrack. For example, I can't stand Yuasa's style. I'd rather rewatch Ex-Arm 10 times than endure another second of Devilman Crybaby. But I'd never tell you that the former is better than the latter, despite the fact I genuinely like it more. All of this means that there are levels of obectivity in reviews, and a good critic is knowledgable, experienced and sensible enough to analyze with that in mind. Then, of course, you can and should add your subjective feelings and judge based on a reasonable balance of the two. Sometimes subjective feelings can be so strong they hurt an otherwise good grasp on the objective qualities, in which case you shouldn't be hired to review the thing in question, like I shouldn't review Yuasa shows. This really summarizes my whole point in a way: it's important to discern a review from a blog post. |
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onpufan
 Posts: 166 |
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Objectivity and subjectivity can co-exist. It's more of a video game thing, but pointing out technical issues like framerate problems, bugs, glitches, poor optimization, and so forth are objective things that are valuable to know. Subjectivity is harder to value, but I think it still has value so long as you can find critics that you resonate with. I don't know if it's a generation thing but most legacy media critics like websites and blogs do not resonate with me so I tend to not value their criticisms much. I tend to value more personal and transformative formats like YouTubers and Streamers since I relate to them more and they share similar tastes with mine more often than not. I think that's what happened with Hogwarts Legacy. All the major gaming websites either gave it a press blackout or a non-review, but it got tons of positive word-of-mouth from YouTubers and Streamers and it went on to be the best selling game of the year. Some random guy talking over footage on Tiktok probably has more critical relevance than places like GameSpot at this point if we're going by numbers and influence power.
I've come to loath the term "media literacy" because it's almost always used in the context of "you didn't interpret this thing the way I did, therefore you are stupid". Evangelion's many misinformation like "Anno hates otaku" and "If you sexualzied Asuka/Rei you missed the point" to even people insisting how Shinji x Kaworu was obviously canon only for shippers to be up in arms over Shinji x Mari being the true endgame. I've never seen the term used in a non-condescending or non-invalidating way. |
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light turner
Posts: 194 |
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I mean, even ignoring that whole can of worms, it just seems like a mean comment for one critic to just randomly make about another critic that implies their outlet or opinion is lesser or not worth anything at all. It comes off like gatekeeping being a critic and only the people who work for certain sites matter or are worth mentioning. It's especially odd because it's not like certain websites like Kotaku or IGN don't have such a terrible reputation among a massive amount of people that being from a smaller place comparatively might be a net-positive in the end than the average person. I personally don't care how big or small an outlet or creator is. I value similar taste and knowledge more than anything else. IGN can say SMTV sucks because it's "Persona without the heart" but if someone I know who loves and plays every SMT game said it sucked then it would be interesting. Bigger is not always better, especially in an industry where page clicks and video views matter more than anything else so saying inflammatory or misleading things is encouraged. |
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MiniMarps
 Posts: 102 |
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My main thing with the imo broken review process here at ANN is that some of the ladies and gentlemen who write here (I'm not gonna name names, but I've been here long enough to where I could if I wanted to) will start with the statement "this show belongs to a genre that I personally do not care for", spend three paragraphs explaining why that is the case, call it a review and send it in. The problem is that for anyone who is into that genre (which will be most people who are bothering to seek out reviews for shows of said genre), that's not the type of information they're looking for.
Just as a very simple example: if someone with an interest in shojo romance anime is trying to figure out whether this season's shojo romance offering is worth looking into, what would it matter to them whether or not it's in line with the tastes of someone whose area of expertise is shonen battle anime? That's not going to answer their questions. |
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AsleepBySunset
Posts: 245 |
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Ex arm is not "objectively badly animation", because NOTHING can be objectively bad. If that were possible "objective" would have no meaning. By definition, art is subjective Also, I assure you there are plenty of things some people think have amazing animation which I think have hideous, repulsively bad animation, and vice versa. |
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Snowcat
Posts: 190 |
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By reading the Gundam selection, I think it was a good one and doesn't deserve harsh criticism. In fact, the exercise to do a selection in a franchise like that is quite difficult.
It is funny that critics are not that reliable at self-criticism 
The basic problems for reviews that deserves to be called out: - when attacking the audience through the show - when having a very limited knowledge about the medium Another one, is related to the subjectivity aspect: you can like or dislike the story for itself or for outside elements relative to yourself. In the second case, your review will get criticized because some expect the review to be about the material reviewed and not the reviewer. |
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turnsie
Posts: 33 |
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Oh no, for sure, I'm pretty much with you on this one. It's just in the case of advertising an honestly big-name game, citing high scores from more notable publications is bound to make a bigger impact. It's most likely a case of quality vs quantity, but quality not meaning notable publications inherently make better reviews, which is clear as detailed by the examples you provided ("SMTV is Persona without the heart" is one I still quote with friends when we're being mad about video games, lol), but rather it makes a greater impression on laymen who may not know about video game journalism hoopla. But yeah, the amount of snark in the comment about the smaller publication was less than necessary, especially when the article encourages reading reviews from critics of all sizes and even branching out into reviewing media yourself if you think your favorite media isn't being done justice. I fully get the point that was being made in the article, but it could've been clearer and less haughty. |
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