Disdain for new fantasy

[Mallus]

Lain and Eva don't pretend to be about big stuff...they actually are, one way or other.

Hijack-mode back on!

Eva is about 'big stuff' in an emotional/psychological sense, not an intellectual or metaphysical sense. And by 'big' I basically mean 'honest'.

edit: actually, by 'big' I meant 'personal'.

 

[Merlion]

I don't criticise the enjoyment when I call it crap, I criticise the constant attempts to claim that it's not... crap

This exact type of elitist attitude is what caused me to stop coming to ENworld for almost a year. "crap" is a relative term. If a creative work was made with thought and feeling, and if someone enjoys it and/or is affected or made to think or feel by it, it has value.

As for "fantasy exists only for entertainment", I disagree, it also exists to expand the mind's horizons, and to illuminate touchy situations that might otherwise be seen in completely political or historical terms without any deeper thought

Its both. I can be one, or the other, or both at once. And anything that succeeds on either or both levels for someone has meaning and value.

Eva is about 'big stuff' in an emotional/psychological sense, not an intellectual or metaphysical sense

Theres a difference? All of that is basically different words for forms of the same thing to me.

That's a good point. The Biblical/Kabbalist/weird physics ('Sea of Dirac') stuff is probably better viewed as a more elaborate form of the decorative use of English words in Japanese branding. It's not really meant to 'deep', just pretty

Maybe, maybe not. perhaps both.

However, the cumulative effect of all those embellishments in NGE initially made me think the show was mocking just about every other piece of speculative fiction with a philosophical/conspiratorial bent

Interesting. I never got that, precisely from it but I can see where one might.

I tend to take stories on their own terms for the most part. Eva, to me, was being put forth in a serious fashion, and I took it as such.

And by 'big' I basically mean 'honest'.

By "big" I mean important, and dealing with non-superficial, lasting and mostly universal problems/issues/ideas/questions.


Thats why i dont consider Lain or Eva "pretentious". They don't act like they are something they are not. They are both stories about big/deep/important issues.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This exact type of elitist attitude is what caused me to stop coming to ENworld for almost a year. "crap" is a relative term. If a creative work was made with thought and feeling, and if someone enjoys it and/or is affected or made to think or feel by it, it has value.

That's precisely it, though. Things like DBZ and Naruto are not made with feeling or thought. They might have started that way, but soon just became "products" to be sold. The mangas that created them probably were, but the animes? Pfffft. Even Naruto fans will tell you about the endless "filler" episoders, which are basically satan crapping on your TV screen.

I don't buy that "enjoyment" gives something value, either. If you go with that, injecting heroin is "valid" because it gives a very great deal of enjoyment. Watching crappy soaps and trash-anime may be enjoyable for you, but it's stifling your imagination and generally melting your brain in a way worse than drugs (albeit one less likely to directly stop your heart, but just as likely to kill you in terms of encouraging a sedentary lifestyle), so I have no respect for it.

I don't think mindlessly labelling any view you object to as "elitist" is an effective argument any more so than calling people one dislikes "facists", either. I'm not pro-elite. I'm pro-art-for-the-masses. It's the opposite of actual elitism.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I can call anything I like crap, matey. You like Days Of Our Lives? Doesn't stop it being trash You like Big Macs? Doesn't stop them being low-grade food that's basically bad for you. I don't criticise the enjoyment when I call it crap, I criticise the constant attempts to claim that it's not... crap... At least Days Of Our Lives fans aren't say "Wow it's deep man", yet Naruto fans sure are...

As for .//hack vs NGE, let me be clear - I've only seen the first series of .//hack - It was very shallow in that one, and full of unlikely angst. Does it improve? You tell me. Maybe it's just a slow start. Star Trek: TNG's first season was pretty awful, and Buffy's first season was one of it's weakest ones. So, if you're saying that .//hack LATER gets much much better, well, that's cool, maybe I'll give it a second chance - the first season though... oy vey...

You don't know anything about fantasy literature. Good for you. This puts me in a position of advantage over you, though - I've seen most of what you've seen, anime-wise, but you've not read the books I talk about. The ones I mention are ones that expand and improve the fantasy genre, not that mindlessly repeat existing tropes. Most JRPGs and anime fantasy is all about mindlessly repeating existing tropes. That's not necessarily a criticism, but it's quasi-post-modern wankery, not advancement, and it sure as hell isn't "new fantasy". Slayers is a good example of "post-modern-by-accident" self-aware fantasy entirely about extant tropes.

As for "fantasy exists only for entertainment", I disagree, it also exists to expand the mind's horizons, and to illuminate touchy situations that might otherwise be seen in completely political or historical terms without any deeper thought.

Hell, if you thought fantasy was REALLY just about entertainment, you wouldn't give two shakes of a lamb's tail about whether .//hack was good, just whether you enjoyed it personally. Which is it?

Do you even know much about .hack? Argh, there is no such thing as a "first" season or not. .hack//SIGN is a standalone series (presumably the "first season" you ramble on about), and also functions as a prequel to the first set of .hack videogames. Another anime, .hack//Legend of the Twilight, however, is just a bad, butchered adaptation of the very good manga of the same name, which is the epilogue to the first set of .hack videogames. The .hack//Liminality anime OVa is packaged with the games, and serves as a side-story. .hack//Roots is seperate, serving as the prologue to the .hack//G.U. videogames. There is no such thing as a "first" season, or a continuation for the first season. They are all seperate things.

.hack is deep because it thoroughly confronts the issues of life in the internet age. It deals with real issues about the disparity between someone's internet persona and their real self, gender issues that result from that confusion, parental issues from all kinds of perspectives, and many other major and minor things.

NGE is shallow because it is little more than a Super Robot series by the numbers, which go hijacked by its director's bout with depression, and ended with a complete collapse of the series' production budget, resuting in a good anime that turned horribly sour at the end. The creators have said that if they knew the series would be brought to the Western market, they probably wouldn't have used Christian elements (none of the creators were Christians). As a whole, there isn't a single thing in there that hasn't been done better by other anime series.

Also, you fail to see that I am not disagreeing with you about your judgements of quality, I am completely disagreeing with your measure of quality. The only thing that should be used to judge fantasy is its entertainment value. Saying something is "entertaining, but bad" is a complete logical contradiction to me. If it is entertaining (like Naruto is), then it is good. If it doesn't entertain anyone, then it is bad. Popularity occurs because of quality, not in spite of quality.

Your measures of Originality and Evolutionary qualities of a work are completely tangential to any real measure of value. If something is original, then the original elements will either work to add to or detract from the entertainment value. If it adds to the entertainment value, then it is good. If it detracts from the entertainment value, then it is bad. Either way, originality in of itself has no value worth considering.

Besides, you contradict yourself. You argue that originality is good, but insult Naruto. Like it or not, Naruto is an anime which heavily breaks away from existing conventions within its genre, and has many fresh and original takes on old ideas. It is anything but a story by the numbers.

 

[Merlion]

That's precisely it, though. Things like DBZ and Naruto are not made with feeling or thought. They might have started that way, but soon just became "products" to be sold. The mangas that created them probably were, but the animes? Pfffft. Even Naruto fans will tell you about the endless "filler" episoders, which are basically satan crapping on your TV screen.
.

Without actually knowing the people doing the writing, you can't really say that with any accuracy.

Now yea, certainly stories in whatever form can end up commercial commodities and become somewhat divorced from their pure value. But in the end, they can regain that value on the other end...even if thought wasnt put it to their making, if thought and enjoyment are their result, they still maintain value.

I don't buy that "enjoyment" gives something value, either. If you go with that, injecting heroin is "valid" because it gives a very great deal of enjoyment

Oh please. We are talking about enjoyment of creative works. Heroin has objective, observable, negative physical effects on the body, that are not a matter of opinion, there a matter of medical fact. When we say "enjoyment" in this discussion we are refering to enjoyment of a show, a book or other creative work.

Watching crappy soaps and trash-anime may be enjoyable for you, but it's stifling your imagination and generally melting your brain in a way worse than drugs

This is entirely, 100% your opinion. Many have the same view of roleplaying games, or of fantasy in general.

so I have no respect for it.

You can dislike it all you want. You can even not respect it, for yourself. But you should respect the fact that for others, it has meaning even if that meaning is only enjoyment. And it is not for you, or anyone, to say that a creative work is somehow objectively "bad".

I don't think mindlessly labelling any view you object to as "elitist" is an effective argument any more so than calling people one dislikes "facists", either. I'm not pro-elite. I'm pro-art-for-the-masses. It's the opposite of actual elitism.

When I say "elitism" in this case, I am refering to the belief that it is possible to label a creative work objectively "bad", for everyone, based on criteria established by another person or group of people.

 

[Merlion]

Also, you fail to see that I am not disagreeing with you about your judgements of quality, I am completely disagreeing with your measure of quality. The only thing that should be used to judge fantasy is its entertainment value. Saying something is "entertaining, but bad" is a complete logical contradiction to me. If it is entertaining (like Naruto is), then it is good. If it doesn't entertain anyone, then it is bad. Popularity occurs because of quality, not in spite of quality

I agree entirely. However, I do not feel that entertainment is the *sole* purpose of fantasy, or any creative work. It is also a form of communication, a means of putting forth and exploring ideas etc.

But as you say, if its entertaining, then it is good on that level, wether it has anything "deeper" or not.

 

[Nifft]

Mind you, I've yet to see a concrete example of how D&D 4e is, in any way, being influenced by WoW.

I don't have any concrete examples, but it would surprise me greatly if resource management as a whole didn't learn anything from WoW and the rest of that genre.

(I'm not a WoW player so I can't be concretely useful in that regard...)

Cheers, -- N

 

[TwinBahamut]

That's precisely it, though. Things like DBZ and Naruto are not made with feeling or thought. They might have started that way, but soon just became "products" to be sold. The mangas that created them probably were, but the animes? Pfffft. Even Naruto fans will tell you about the endless "filler" episoders, which are basically satan crapping on your TV screen.

I don't buy that "enjoyment" gives something value, either. If you go with that, injecting heroin is "valid" because it gives a very great deal of enjoyment. Watching crappy soaps and trash-anime may be enjoyable for you, but it's stifling your imagination and generally melting your brain in a way worse than drugs (albeit one less likely to directly stop your heart, but just as likely to kill you in terms of encouraging a sedentary lifestyle), so I have no respect for it.

I don't think mindlessly labelling any view you object to as "elitist" is an effective argument any more so than calling people one dislikes "facists", either. I'm not pro-elite. I'm pro-art-for-the-masses. It's the opposite of actual elitism.

So, your entire claim is that anime is as damaging as heroin? That it rots the brain and destroys the imagination? The classic elitist argument...

I am sorry, but just because you can't see the value of something doesn't mean it isn't there.

And come on... You are arguing that Naruto is bad because it has the bad filler episodes? That is a pretty shallow argument. No one is claiming the filler is good. People are claiming that Naruto is good, despite the bad filler. Your admission that the manga is good doesn't help you at all...

Also, it is hypocritical to insult Naruto as being a "product meant to be sold", and then proclaim anything else as good. That impies that there is art out there that is not a "product meant to be sold", which is simply not true. All art is a product meant to be sold. Every last bit of it, with the sole exception of small things which never get distributed. Whether it is a product or not has no relevence on whether or not it has feeling or thought.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've seen .//hack/SIGN, I'm guessing, as it was before the computer-games and did not seem to rely on me having seen anything else. It was crummy, that's all I know. I've tried to watch it twice. It didn't get any better.

As for "quality always causes success", I say bollocks to that. It should be true, but it isn't. Mediocrity and simple, thoughtless enjoyability create success in most cases. If that's quality to you, by all means, take your Big Mac and Naruto episodes, and enjoy them. That's clearly not quality though, it's meaningless drivel providing temporary escapism/entertainment (Naruto being a prime example).

Quality and success can go together, but your insistence that they always do is true nonsense.

As for "originality", well, Naruto may be original, but to a pathetic degree by anime standards. It's certainly no Cowboy Bebop of FLCL now, in originality terms, is it?

So, your entire claim is that anime is as damaging as heroin? That it rots the brain and destroys the imagination? The classic elitist argument....

Now you're just making stuff up

It seems you have fallen victim to my Inflammatory Agenda, and gone off into a universe of your own, where you argue with things I've not said, but you can imagine I might say I'm saying real bottom-of-the-barrel crap rots the brain and stunts the imagination. Not typical anime. Not even NGE or .//hack/SIGN, I admit, but Naruto's filler episode? Every minute of those you watched, are minutes that would have been better spent doing ANYTHING else, and you know it!

On the contrary, as I've directly stated, lots of anime is great. Lots is trash. 90% of everything is crap, and anime is no exception. Do not agree? In the 1990s most anime reaching America was part of the 90%, not the 10%, do you not agree?

 

[Nifft]

generally melting your brain in a way worse than drugs

Melty brains and drugs... dude, you're making me hungry. Knock it off.

Lunch time, -- N