Forum - View topicWhy are so many anime so committed to not making sense?
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gsilver
Posts: 618 |
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Right now, I'm watching Summertime Rendering with a group of people. We're in the final arc, where things have completely gone without the rails, and the events are basically a mad fever dream. While one could kinda-sorta piece together a metaphorical meaning for the happenings, the moment-to-moment actions are *deeply* in what is commonly referred to as "Anime bull____".
We've seen it many, many times before, especially in endings. What I'm wondering is, why? Why is it so common for anime/manga to be so deeply committed to making little to no logical sense? //Not saying that STR is anywhere close to the most egregious in this regard, but it's certainly part of a trend. |
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Nom De Plume De Fanboy
 SubscriberExempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 614 Location: inland US west, pretty rural |
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/* shrug */ Starting out with a really interesting premise is a bit hard, but keeping it both interesting and consistent and creating an even more interesting ending, maybe even an amazing ending, is really hard? So in an art, which is also part of a mass produced entertainment business, maybe it is just a sad fact of life.
I think I know what you mean, or I hope I'm close. I have seen it happen so many times, sometimes, when I'm half-way through a show that seems really good, I'll stop watching until the end of the season so I can find out if it "sticks the landing", or if it crashes and burns, because its just too painful to watch another one of these fail. Part of what I think is true about anime versus other entertainment, and admire about it, is there is a bit more willingness to try for the really big one. For all the cookie-cutter, made-by-a-checklist stuff, maybe one show in - I don't know, pulling this out of thin air here - 10(?), takes some risks. And maybe even then, only one of those in 10 comes out at least good. So, out of 100 some shows that try, we get ten(?) ok ones, and maybe one Frieren. But we pay for that with lots of not so good forgettables, and a Darling in the Franxx, or a Science Fell in Love, or two or three or whatever. I do believe there will be more bombs than successes. I don't know, I hate to think about those. Anyway, just my two bits. PS I liked pretty much all of Science Fell in Love, until that last ep. So maybe it is not a good example. If I ever go completely digital with my collection, that one epps just not going to be in it. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23831 |
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I understand where the OP is coming from. There are two things that I think help contribute to this perception of not making sense if you happen to be (like me) a Westerner who doesn't speak or read Japanese. People like us are at the mercy of translators. We have to hope their subtitles are doing the Japanese justice. Then there our blindspots with respect to cultural norms and references. If you haven't lived in Japan and aren't intimately familiar with customs, beliefs, behaviours, etc, something that doesn't make sense to you might make perfect sense to a Japanese viewer.
I'm not saying these two factors are in play for every wtf moment you experience as an anime viewer, I just hypothesize they may be relevant in some cases. |
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 575 Location: North America |
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Maybe they are hoping lightning will strike twice and what they create will be discussed nearly 3 decades later (e.g., NGE Episodes 25 and 26)? |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9857 Location: Virginia |
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Most anime these days is based on existing source material. The more popular the source material the more likely that it will extend well beyond what can be handled in a standard single cour show. This creates a certain amount of tension. On one hand they need to provide a satisfactory ending for the anime only watchers and on the other they don't want to stray too far from the source material and cut off the possibility of an additional season of anime. Trying to achieve two goals at the same time may cause some of the weirdness you are talking about.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4593 |
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It's funny, some friends and I watched Summertime Rendering together in the past year or two, and I wouldn't lump it into this category myself. Sure, things got pretty crazy before the end, but for my money it stuck the landing. The last few scenes in particular were absolutely note-perfect. I guess mileage may vary though.
That aside, I know how you feel. I like to call this a series going "full anime," when you sit there scratching your head over what the hell is going on. I've always chalked at least some of it to cultural differences, in that English-speaking audiences traditionally tend to like events being wrapped up in a neat bow, whereas that may not be the case with Japanese audiences. Even so, some series with completely WTF endings wind up being among my all-time favorites. Big O immediately comes to mind: I love it dearly, but I could write entire essays about what the hell I think is going on in its finale. 
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1778 Location: South America |
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I think that there is another factor: Western culture just cares more about making sense than Japanese culture. So western fiction tends to try to build stories and fictional worlds that have a closed logical structure. Japanese fiction, while not devoid of logic, just goes with the emotion more frequently and they think its more important for it to work on an emotional level than on a rational level. I refer to Miyazaki's Spirited Away as a textbook example of an anime that does not make sense but "works." But generalizations aside, lots of "arthouse" western movies and TV shows also don't make much sense. David Lynch's movies and TV shows are good examples. But in the west this kind of nonsensical fiction is considered "alternative" while in Japan it is a bit more mainstream: Spirited Away was for about 20 years the biggest grossing movie in Japanese history until that Kimetsu no Yaiba train movie. Although I do agree sometimes it is because the translation is not as good as being fluent in the original language. With regards to Summertime Rendering, its a rather complex show, but I personally loved it and I think it made sense given its universe. Though I am not sure if I noticed all the logical holes in it, I just went with the vibes. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23831 |
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I suspect this is true. Years ago, I remember Justin Sevakis commenting on how Japanese audiences seem to have a greater tolerance for not understanding or knowing what is going on right away. This was in reference to how sometimes a show would pluck an episode out of sequence and make it the first episode just to kind of shake things up (I believe Divergence Eve did this, for example). I'd say Western audiences prefer to be oriented right off the bat. Again, I'm generalizing but I think it's mostly true. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9857 Location: Virginia |
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@Blood-
I disagree, starting a story in the middle of things is a well worn trope in Western fiction. In my reading I've encountered it frequently, especially in mystery stories. It is a good way to attract the reader's or viewer's attention by starting during the action and getting to the slow start later. Anime does use it effectively though. In medias res is a Latin term meaning literally "into the middle of things". Wikipedia dates the first use to Horace (who died in 8 BC). He uses the Iliad as an example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res#:~:text=It%20is%20typical%20for%20film,murder%20is%20told%20via%20flashbacks. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23831 |
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@Alan45 - although I didn't not specify in my post above, I was thinking primarily of TV shows. Generally, a Western TV show would never do what Divergence Eve did and move an episode from later in the broadcast order and make it the first episode. It's not even done that much in anime, either, but I think it's a reflection of differing expectations between Japanese and Western audiences. I think Japanese audiences aren't as freaked out by a maneuver like that and I think that stems from Jose Cruz's observation that there isn't quite the same emphasis on things making sense. This was especially true in the West when there was only broadcast TV. Thanks to the rise of cable TV shows and then streaming platforms there is much more tolerance for offbeat story structures than there was back in the day when ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox ruled the broadcast roost.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9857 Location: Virginia |
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I will concede that early TV shows were not very inventive in their story telling. But that was more structural than a reflection of different audiences. The vast majority of shows in that era were original shows without a significant fan base for the franchise. The shows were also almost without exception completely episodic. When you only have a half hour or an hour at most to tell a story, you can't dabble in odd storytelling. Some early kids shows ended an episode with "to be continued" but very little prime time stuff.
That said, most mystery shows start "in the middle of things" with the crime already committed off screen. Writing a show that way from the beginning is different from swapping around the broadcast order of whole episodes. That is sort of a gimmick, usually intended to compensate for a slow beginning by jumping directly into the action. I don't think it is appropriate to compare early US TV to Japanese TV anime available here which only dates back to the late 90's and early 2000's. Most of the stuff we have from prior to that is OVA's. If you are going to talk about when dinosaurs roamed the TV scene, you need to drop Fox, a Johnny come lately first established in 1989. On the other hand, we did start getting serial story lines and odd storytelling from PBS which started in 1969, courtesy of the imported English shows they featured. I could seldom understand what the characters were saying but the shows sure were sophisticated. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23831 |
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Actually, I'm not really comparing early US TV shows to Japanese anime from any particular era. I was citing historical precedent because it shows how Western audiences were "trained" to watch drama - most of which were one hour not half hour. I was scrupulous to note that that "training" has changed in recent years as content moved away from being made for a mass, broadcast audience to more niche audiences. I have seen other examples of Japanese shows doing things Western shows, even the most avant garde, would never have dared do. The Endless Eight from Haruhi Suzamiya being a prime example. You may not agree with the contention, but I don't think there is any question that Japanese audiences (generally speaking) have a different tolerance for the offbeat than Western audiences do (generally speaking).
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9857 Location: Virginia |
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I think we are trying to compare apples to yuzu here.
Also before I go on, I would like to say that nothing I read about the Japanese reception to The Endless Eight indicates that they tolerated it any better than the English speaking audience did. Yes, there are significant differences between US TV and Japanese TV in story telling. Most of the differences are cultural and some are historical. A good example is the potential audiences for animation. I mean, it was the differences that got me into anime in the first place. I don't think "training" is a good word to use since that implies intent on someone's part when what you describe is just historical accident. I'm sure there are things about US TV that are just as puzzling to the Japanese as their stuff is to us on occasion. I basically disagree with the original poster of this thread. When something becomes hard to understand in anime it is likely not the Japanese author trying to be obscure. It is much more likely a cultural difference you don't understand or a long standing trope not present here (Japanese stand up comic duos for instance) or plot lines left hanging so you will "read the book" or simply a screw up (Evangelion). And yes, sometimes writers will try something that just doesn't work. I don't thing The Endless Eight is any lamer or silly than the "it was all a dream" in Dallas that wiped out a whole season of continuity. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23831 |
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The point is Alan45 that Endless Eight got released at all. Unlikely that a similar gambit would ever have been planned in the West let alone get made.
Training is a great word to use because that is exactly what is happening when an audience is raised on certain dramatic expectations. Those dramatic expectations are not naturally occurring phenomenon that organically arise identically in all cultures. They are conventions that were invented by dramatists and because they proved to be successful in that culture, are replicated down the ages. They become so standard that a culture simply accepts them as being "right" or "natural." You tend to be very literal and I think that makes you resistant to analogies. No doubt in your mind, "training" is something that happens in a classroom or work setting and somebody stands up and says "Welcome to this training session. I'm your trainer and I will be training you." Outside of that specific box there is a world where the word "training" can be used properly in other contexts and I have done so. |
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