Reaperfan Rants: Misunderstanding Anime Part 1
Nov. 2, 2013Reaperfan Rants: Misunderstanding Anime Part 1
We can’t all be otaku, I get that. Even when going into a foreign media such as anime with an open mind, there are some of us who still just can’t “get” it. I’ve heard all kinds of things about the reasons as to why people say they can’t enjoy anime, some solid and understandable. Mostly though, what I’ve heard tends to be shallow-minded and either very vague or weak. Things like “I can’t take it seriously because it’s still technically a cartoon,” while personally upsetting, I can understand because many people just can’t dissociate cartoons from kids’ programming. But things like “it’s too weird” or “it’s only ever about kids in high school” I can’t understand. That last one is a bit I’ve heard parroted from pretty much all nonotaku, from spammy Youtube comments, real life friends and coworkers, and even implied by fellow reviewer and self-proclaimed nonotaku Cas in hisrecent review ofWatamotefor this site (though he did seem to be able to look past it for that article, good on ya mate). So let’s talk for a bit about why you shouldn’t discredit a show based on it’s being set in a high school.
Every story, no matter what medium or style it’s told in, has a setting. It has to, in the same way that no story can have no characters. So for those of you who slept through every English class in school since 3rd grade or for those of you who simply haven’t thought about it and forgot, a story’s setting is simply where and when it takes place. Typically, but not always, the setting is established to provide some kind of frame of reference for what kind of story is going to take place. People see a story set in outer space and realize it’s likely to be a science fiction story. They see a story set in a Tolkien-esque medieval world and expect an epic fantasy quest. There’s a layer of expectations between genre and setting that has been established, with certain types of stories commonly having similar settings, which leads me to my next point…
Anime doesn’t tend to follow these trends as much. Whether it’s deliberate on part of the authors or a culturally different approach to storytelling in general between the East and West, I’m not really sure. What I am sure of through many years of experiencing anime is that it has a tendency to not let it’s setting define it’s genre, instead choosing it as a point of reference for it’s target audience. The western expectation of a story set in high school is that of a teen drama, a genre not highly regarded by much of anyone. You see a story set in high school and think “it’s just going to be about kids having trouble with relationships and homework and parent issues,” and I can’t blame anyone but the likes of western television for that. Anime tends to only treat it as a way to establish demographic rather than genre though. A story set in high school will be a story aimed at teens and young adults using the setting to justify characters that relate to that age group, but the show itself can end up being about just about anything. I’m not going to deny the fact that there are some anime set in a high school that are just about high school life, but they really aren’t the majority across the medium as a whole.
For some emphasis, here are a few shows just off the top of my head that are set in high school or that star high school students, but that really have nothing to do with high school:
In a worldwhere virtual reality is the new cell phone and people walking around with personalized Iron Man-like HUDs is the norm, a particular program has been developed as a brain hack that directly accelerates your mental processes to the point where time basically slows to a standstill and allows you all the time in the world to do whatever you want. This program hides under the guise of a video game, where if you lose the game you lose the ability to use the program and players within the game engage in wars to determine who has the right to hold this power in the real world.
A technologythat miniaturizes motor engines has been used by street gangs to implant these micro-engines into their roller skates, allowing them unparalleled thrill-seeking and speed on the streets. What happens when you find you don’t care about the violence and dangers of illegal street gang life in the face of the most extreme “extreme sport” ever created?
A local townhas a mysterious legend where a particular class at a particular school might be cursed. This curse causes one of the students or a close relative of one to die horribly every month. But the technique they’ve been using to prevent the curse from happening is no longer working, and people are dying all over again.
A former princeof the world’s predominant superpower nation has been exiled and forced to live in a colony away from his homeland. Upon an accidental run-in with a terrorist faction against his former home nation, he is granted an opportunity and under a secret guise becomes the leader of the terrorists in order to overthrow the country and nation that abandoned him.
Highly sensitivetechnological secrets have somehow become lost to the world, only to somehow have been hidden away in the subconscious of a select few young girls across the country. These girls have no knowledge of this information being stored in them, and in an effort to recover the information and protect the lives of those who now unwittingly hold host to it from dangerous anti-government and rogue military groups, a small mercenary team has been assigned to watch over each girl who has been identified as a target.
I already talked about this one.
There is a girlwho happens to literally be God. If she so desired, she could rewrite the entire fabric of the universe and create a new reality overnight. The thing is, she doesn’t know this about herself. Other supernatural entities have taken notice of her though, and in an attempt to preserve their world they send agents to watch her and, while never alerting her to her powers, make sure she never becomes disinterested in the current reality so that she will continue to maintain it rather than simply grow bored of it and accidentally destroy all of reality through sheer apathy.
When presentedwith the option to have any one thing your heart desires, what do you wish for? With only one chance it needs to be something really important and literally life-changing. There’s also a catch, in exchange for having your heart’s desire granted, the being granting your wish will bind you to a contract where you must then work for it to fend off evil spirits that wreak havoc on the positive and negative balance of the world. It gives you what you want, and in exchange you work for it. A group of young girls is presented with this choice, between having whatever you desire and enlisting in a mystical calling straight out of fantasy.
And these are just the ones that I’d recommend to people. When you consider the ones I omitted because they aren’t quite as good as the ones here as well as the ones I simply haven’t seen, there are many, many more shows out there that break the setting.
Story and setting are connected, but they don’t define one another. A story can be set in high school, but beaboutanything it wants to be. Imagine saying “I don’t like science fiction because it’s always just about people in space.” That’s how much you’re limiting yourself from experiencing a whole culture of shows when dismissing high school in anime. Don’t do that. Please.
You can read more general interest articleshere.
Reaperfan
I agree that in anime it is common place to use characters tht intended viewers can empathis with and then put them in situations not at all in the norm of school melodrama. Obviously the fact it is the norm in western tv is not the fault of the viewer. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption to make as someone who does not watch anime.
I don’t agree though that thinking it is weird isn’t a legit excuse. It is, really. Vastly different cultures create media intended for their own culture- there is always going to be a culture clash. Id argue that having issue with dissociating cartoons from children’s shows is a much easier thing to get round than the cultural divide- as we have adult cartoons in western culture as well. Just like the idea of eating frogs legs or wearing a burka is strange to some, the quirks of anime may just be a step too far for some people.
I’m fine if someone can provide me with a reason as to why they think it’s weird, what bugs me is when they stop at just “anime is too weird for me” and never say anything more, which happens a lot more than I’d like it to. When they just say “it’s weird” in a general sense it sounds dismissive. When you can tell me WHY you think it’s weird I’ll be able to understand, though. So if someone has a problem with anime in general I don’t mind when they give concrete reasons like “the pacing is kinda off for me” or “I find the characters are a bit too ‘out there’ for me.” But leaving it at something vague like “it’s just weird” comes across as dismissive.
I think what you’re running into is exactly what Serious said. It’s simply a cultural difference. I can’t explain to you why Anime never appealed to me. It simply didn’t. I’ve really enjoyed the Anime I’ve watched. But until I sat down and actually watched some, as you said, “I thought it was kinda weird”. Am I strange for thinking it was weird before I had watched any? Or is that normal for Western culture?
I’ve tried to review the Animes I’ve watched making it clear that I’m new and not a fan, so that people who may not be interested can see that I wasn’t either and give it a chance.
Cas summed it up for me really. When my mates talked about anime and manga I laughed in their face at first cus lets be honest- on the face of it, anime really is just strange, weird and a little bit dumb mostly.. Then they got me to watch something at least set a tad in reality and genres I like in Death Note, then got me to read stuff I liked on TV when I was little like One Piece and I got hooked. Before that though, I certainly thought it was strange, the emotional responses and general mannerisms of characters are completely different to those in western culture- a key difference for me as to why there is a divide between liking sub and dub in anime. Also another reason is the general type of fantasy present in most manga is completely out there and far above the kind of fantasy that western cultures are used to. I mean the most popular ones out there- Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, are both pretty tame and normal compared to certain concepts in anime.
For me I still kinda feel like I’m not an Otaku.. I mean I’ve watched/read probably 50+ series, but now, there’s little I feel like watching as I’ve run out of things which grab my interest enough. I still favour live action western entertainment to anime and manga, so I guess I’m not a true convert. But I appreciate that there are some amazing pieces like Monster, FMA (manga/brotherhood), 20th Century Boys etc.
It’s more of an acquired taste. People such as you telling me that anime’s dumb/childish/foreign/stupid, although sometimes true, is hurtful, and it still feels to me that you’re just being shallow.
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