Arclight_Dynamo's Anime Frustration
Posted: 23 Jul 2015, 15:00
Or: "A Forum-Goer's Uneasy Relationship with Pop-Culture"
I've tried bringing this up a few times in LRL chat (usually during Beej's or Ian's streams -- surprise, surprise) but, despite a bunch of well-meaning people trying to help, I never really got anywhere with it. I suspect that Twitch chat just doesn't work for this sort of thing. It was suggested that I post a topic in the forum instead, which struck me as a good idea, so here we are.
(Honestly, I feel I might be clogging up the chat when I do that, and coming across as some sort of awful, hipstery troll who craps on everyone else's fun. I, uh, really don't want to do that, or be that guy. *Ahem*)
Right. Fair warning: this is long.
I have never watched any anime of any kind; I would like to try, since I feel like I'm missing out. That isn't as easy as it seems, especially to people who have been deep into anime since they were kids. I know that might sound ridiculous; how hard is it to watch stuff? Well, I'm going to go into that a bit, to try to explain my difficulty.
***
Trying to enter a fandom like this is intimidating
Yes, intimidating. Overwhelming. I have no idea where to begin. No clue at all. I'm entirely at sea. There's just so much stuff -- both the shows/films themselves and the entire fandom culture that has grown around them -- that I'm lost. There's no obvious entry point; it's a complex, roiling, hermetically-sealed bubble, and I don't want to just fling myself into it. I'll get chewed up and spat out, without ever finding my place in it.
Look at it this way: pretend you managed to make it to 28 years old without ever having played a video game. But you want to try, since you've heard good things, and people seem to be having fun. So, on the recommendation of a friend, you download this thing called "Steam." And now you're looking at ten million different games. With no guidance. What do you do? Where do you start?
Okay, fine, so that's no good... maybe you go on the internet and start looking up reviews and things. But now you have people going on about PC-port graphics degradation, console wars, and what you think are jokes about something or other called "HL3."
None of it makes sense. None of it is helpful. No one is explaining. There's no way in. All you want is a game to play and enjoy, dang it!
The anime fandom is, intentionally and unintentionally, bad about gate-keeping
My experience is mostly with the unintentional kind of gate-keeping (and everyone in the LRR community I've spoken to about this stuff has been genuinely friendly and well-intentioned, I should point out)... but I have run into some of the intentional kind. I'm sure you have too, and you know why they can be... off-putting.
But I more want to talk about the unintentional gate-keeping. Mostly, I think, it comes from knowing more about anime, and being able to engage with it on a higher level, than the newbie. Genuine attempts to help and to guide the newbie are still bewildering, and end up reinforcing that the anime fandom is complex and inscrutable. Impenetrable.
For example, the most common answer to "Hey, I don't know anything about anime, but would like to get into it" is a slew of recommendations. With, at most, a description along the lines of "It's about robots who fall in love!" or "It's cyberpunk!" Which, though well-meant, is still overwhelming. See, that list of titles means something to people who watch anime. They know what they refer to. But to the newbie? It's meaningless. Those titles don't relate to anything. It's just a huge pile of stuff thrown at them, and they still don't know where to begin.
I mean... great. Now I have a list of, like, two dozen shows. Where do I begin? I'm no better off than I was before.
To return to the video game analogy, imagine that after being overwhelmed by Steam and confused by the internet, you go to an online community you're a member of to ask people where you should start. What you get is a list of about thirty video game titles like "Dark Souls," "The Binding of Isaac," "Myst," "The Stanley Parable," and "Zork." At most, the descriptions you get are "You die a lot" or "It's about going into books and things." And you get the warning that "Video Games aren't a genre; they're a medium. What you want to play is going to depend on what you like."
That's not helpful. And that's not really the way to introduce a complete newbie to video games. That newbie does not know enough to know what sort of games they like. This is still overwhelming to them. The better way to introduce someone to games is to say "Here, look at this. This is a Mario game" or "Here, look at this. This is Minecraft" or even "Here, look at this. It's Bejewelled for iOS."
"Pick something that catches your eye and watch it!" isn't super useful
This kind of goes back to the "overwhelming" and "ignorant" things. There's so much stuff, and I know so little about it, that none of it has ever caught my eye. All of it looks the same to me. It's a big, undifferentiated mass of animation. Consequently, none of it has ever caught me, and I have no point of entry.
That's what I'm asking for help with, really. Help me get something to grab me; help me find that entry point. Because, up until now, I haven't had one. It's just been piles of recommendations that overwhelm. The talk has been over my head.
Talk to me like a complete idiot. Because when it comes to anime, I am one.
***
Okay. So those are my issues. I've been told that, in order for anyone to be able to help me, I need to lay out what I do and don't like. So I'll do that here.
Things I do not like
While it's true that I've never watched anime, I have seen anime. It's been on a screen in front of my eyes, but I never engaged with it on a level that I would call "watching." But I have seen some:
- When I was little, I caught an episode of Samurai Pizza Cats every now and then. It was cute, I guess? Never really made an impression. Hell, Rugrats probably made more of an impression. And it didn't make much of one.
- I think I saw part of an episode of Sailor Moon one time when it was new on YTV? I thought it was going to be about sailors and ships. I was disappointed.
- When I was in elementary school, Pokemon hit. My friends were really into it. I asked them to explain the worldbuilding: what's the deal with the Pokemon? Are they monsters? Is this fantasy? Is this science fiction? Is it set in Japan or some fantasy world? Their answers were... not terribly enlightening. So I never played the games, and watched maybe one or two episodes of the show. And that was that as far as Pokemon was concerned.
- One of my friends turned into a bit of an anime nerd and developed an interest in Japan. He tried to get me to watch anime a couple of times. Once was a show about big robots. Another was something about a female police officer... who got her clothes shot off? Or something? Neither interested me.
- My sister used to watch Digimon before school, so that was on in the background. Didn't see the appeal; I felt it was targeted for younger kids than me.
And that is the sum total of all the anime I have seen in my life.
The closest I've come to watching anime is Steven Universe. I know it isn't anime, but I understand there's heavy influence. I watched the first six episodes, and was left totally cold by them. Nothing interesting there, for me. I had heard there were deep themes and things... none were in evidence. There was just silly stuff and magical fighting, which I'd tolerate for deep themes, if there were any... but which I generally dislike on their own. (I have promised to watch the next six episodes, though, so that judgment isn't final, I guess)
I also watched the first episode of MLP when that was a new thing. I was curious what the big deal was; people seemed to like it. Well... I didn't. Again, nothing interesting to me at all.
I've not watched any of the other "big" western animated series. Kora, Avatar, Adventure Time... none of those interest me.
Now, as to anime specifically, as I understand it, there are a lot of shows and films with gross stuff in them (as is the case with any medium). Homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. I don't want to watch that. So things like "harem" anime are out entirely.
I'm not interested in anything set in a school. Or anything with giant punchy robots in it (I didn't like Pacific Rim, and frankly left the theatre really annoyed with it). Or anything that's about supernatural/super-powered people beating each other up. Just... no interest in those things whatsoever.
I'm also not terribly interested in magic or fantasy, though I won't rule it out entirely. Some things are interesting (magical realism or allegorical elements, for example) and other things are not (high medieval fantasy or straight-up sorcery, for example). Religious or spiritual themes are likewise not terribly interesting to me.
Superheroes and similar stuff are also not really my cup of tea. I can like them, but that's generally in spite of the superheroics rather than because of them. I liked the Iron Man movies, for example... but not The Avengers. (You see why I worry I'm coming across like a hipster, eh?)
I'd kind of like to avoid the more... excessively anime-ish stuff, too, if you catch my meaning. For example, if a character in a show or film does this or this or this, I'm probably not interested.
Things I like
Well, generally, I like things with good plots, good characters, and good arcs. I'll put up with anything for a good story, well-told. Even the stuff up there that I said I don't like. (Though... let's try to avoid those things, if we can, please. Remember: newbie, here.)
As to genre, in no particular order, I frequently enjoy science fiction, drama, lit-fic, historical fiction, alternate history, and magical realism. Though I'm very open to other genres.
I don't like things where the only way to enjoy them is to "turn off your brain." I like things that are thought-provoking. I like deep themes and big ideas. I don't like things that are weird and zany for the sake of it; I'm perfectly happy with surrealism if there's a point to it.
If I'm going to watch animation, I'm going to watch something like these:
When the Day Breaks
Bydlo
From the Big Bang to Tuesday Morning
Wild Life
Sleeping Betty
These are the sorts of films I like:
The Third Man
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Fog of War
Dr. Strangelove
Cloud Atlas
(And, yes, Guardians of the Galaxy is in there, despite me saying I don't much care for superheroes. I tend to think of it more as space opera than superheroes... and it does show how contrary and complicated I can be... there's a reason this is difficult.)
I don't much watch television these days, but I've enjoyed these shows:
Breaking Bad
Star Trek (Especially DS9)
Battlestar Galactica (Reboot)
Due South
New Doctor Who (Pre-Moffat)
So... those are my problems. Those are my dislikes. Those are my likes. Can anyone help me find an entry point into anime?
(I'm going to hit "Submit" now and hope I don't come across as too much of a jerk...)
I've tried bringing this up a few times in LRL chat (usually during Beej's or Ian's streams -- surprise, surprise) but, despite a bunch of well-meaning people trying to help, I never really got anywhere with it. I suspect that Twitch chat just doesn't work for this sort of thing. It was suggested that I post a topic in the forum instead, which struck me as a good idea, so here we are.
(Honestly, I feel I might be clogging up the chat when I do that, and coming across as some sort of awful, hipstery troll who craps on everyone else's fun. I, uh, really don't want to do that, or be that guy. *Ahem*)
Right. Fair warning: this is long.
I have never watched any anime of any kind; I would like to try, since I feel like I'm missing out. That isn't as easy as it seems, especially to people who have been deep into anime since they were kids. I know that might sound ridiculous; how hard is it to watch stuff? Well, I'm going to go into that a bit, to try to explain my difficulty.
***
Trying to enter a fandom like this is intimidating
Yes, intimidating. Overwhelming. I have no idea where to begin. No clue at all. I'm entirely at sea. There's just so much stuff -- both the shows/films themselves and the entire fandom culture that has grown around them -- that I'm lost. There's no obvious entry point; it's a complex, roiling, hermetically-sealed bubble, and I don't want to just fling myself into it. I'll get chewed up and spat out, without ever finding my place in it.
Look at it this way: pretend you managed to make it to 28 years old without ever having played a video game. But you want to try, since you've heard good things, and people seem to be having fun. So, on the recommendation of a friend, you download this thing called "Steam." And now you're looking at ten million different games. With no guidance. What do you do? Where do you start?
Okay, fine, so that's no good... maybe you go on the internet and start looking up reviews and things. But now you have people going on about PC-port graphics degradation, console wars, and what you think are jokes about something or other called "HL3."
None of it makes sense. None of it is helpful. No one is explaining. There's no way in. All you want is a game to play and enjoy, dang it!
The anime fandom is, intentionally and unintentionally, bad about gate-keeping
My experience is mostly with the unintentional kind of gate-keeping (and everyone in the LRR community I've spoken to about this stuff has been genuinely friendly and well-intentioned, I should point out)... but I have run into some of the intentional kind. I'm sure you have too, and you know why they can be... off-putting.
But I more want to talk about the unintentional gate-keeping. Mostly, I think, it comes from knowing more about anime, and being able to engage with it on a higher level, than the newbie. Genuine attempts to help and to guide the newbie are still bewildering, and end up reinforcing that the anime fandom is complex and inscrutable. Impenetrable.
For example, the most common answer to "Hey, I don't know anything about anime, but would like to get into it" is a slew of recommendations. With, at most, a description along the lines of "It's about robots who fall in love!" or "It's cyberpunk!" Which, though well-meant, is still overwhelming. See, that list of titles means something to people who watch anime. They know what they refer to. But to the newbie? It's meaningless. Those titles don't relate to anything. It's just a huge pile of stuff thrown at them, and they still don't know where to begin.
I mean... great. Now I have a list of, like, two dozen shows. Where do I begin? I'm no better off than I was before.
To return to the video game analogy, imagine that after being overwhelmed by Steam and confused by the internet, you go to an online community you're a member of to ask people where you should start. What you get is a list of about thirty video game titles like "Dark Souls," "The Binding of Isaac," "Myst," "The Stanley Parable," and "Zork." At most, the descriptions you get are "You die a lot" or "It's about going into books and things." And you get the warning that "Video Games aren't a genre; they're a medium. What you want to play is going to depend on what you like."
That's not helpful. And that's not really the way to introduce a complete newbie to video games. That newbie does not know enough to know what sort of games they like. This is still overwhelming to them. The better way to introduce someone to games is to say "Here, look at this. This is a Mario game" or "Here, look at this. This is Minecraft" or even "Here, look at this. It's Bejewelled for iOS."
"Pick something that catches your eye and watch it!" isn't super useful
This kind of goes back to the "overwhelming" and "ignorant" things. There's so much stuff, and I know so little about it, that none of it has ever caught my eye. All of it looks the same to me. It's a big, undifferentiated mass of animation. Consequently, none of it has ever caught me, and I have no point of entry.
That's what I'm asking for help with, really. Help me get something to grab me; help me find that entry point. Because, up until now, I haven't had one. It's just been piles of recommendations that overwhelm. The talk has been over my head.
Talk to me like a complete idiot. Because when it comes to anime, I am one.
***
Okay. So those are my issues. I've been told that, in order for anyone to be able to help me, I need to lay out what I do and don't like. So I'll do that here.
Things I do not like
While it's true that I've never watched anime, I have seen anime. It's been on a screen in front of my eyes, but I never engaged with it on a level that I would call "watching." But I have seen some:
- When I was little, I caught an episode of Samurai Pizza Cats every now and then. It was cute, I guess? Never really made an impression. Hell, Rugrats probably made more of an impression. And it didn't make much of one.
- I think I saw part of an episode of Sailor Moon one time when it was new on YTV? I thought it was going to be about sailors and ships. I was disappointed.
- When I was in elementary school, Pokemon hit. My friends were really into it. I asked them to explain the worldbuilding: what's the deal with the Pokemon? Are they monsters? Is this fantasy? Is this science fiction? Is it set in Japan or some fantasy world? Their answers were... not terribly enlightening. So I never played the games, and watched maybe one or two episodes of the show. And that was that as far as Pokemon was concerned.
- One of my friends turned into a bit of an anime nerd and developed an interest in Japan. He tried to get me to watch anime a couple of times. Once was a show about big robots. Another was something about a female police officer... who got her clothes shot off? Or something? Neither interested me.
- My sister used to watch Digimon before school, so that was on in the background. Didn't see the appeal; I felt it was targeted for younger kids than me.
And that is the sum total of all the anime I have seen in my life.
The closest I've come to watching anime is Steven Universe. I know it isn't anime, but I understand there's heavy influence. I watched the first six episodes, and was left totally cold by them. Nothing interesting there, for me. I had heard there were deep themes and things... none were in evidence. There was just silly stuff and magical fighting, which I'd tolerate for deep themes, if there were any... but which I generally dislike on their own. (I have promised to watch the next six episodes, though, so that judgment isn't final, I guess)
I also watched the first episode of MLP when that was a new thing. I was curious what the big deal was; people seemed to like it. Well... I didn't. Again, nothing interesting to me at all.
I've not watched any of the other "big" western animated series. Kora, Avatar, Adventure Time... none of those interest me.
Now, as to anime specifically, as I understand it, there are a lot of shows and films with gross stuff in them (as is the case with any medium). Homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. I don't want to watch that. So things like "harem" anime are out entirely.
I'm not interested in anything set in a school. Or anything with giant punchy robots in it (I didn't like Pacific Rim, and frankly left the theatre really annoyed with it). Or anything that's about supernatural/super-powered people beating each other up. Just... no interest in those things whatsoever.
I'm also not terribly interested in magic or fantasy, though I won't rule it out entirely. Some things are interesting (magical realism or allegorical elements, for example) and other things are not (high medieval fantasy or straight-up sorcery, for example). Religious or spiritual themes are likewise not terribly interesting to me.
Superheroes and similar stuff are also not really my cup of tea. I can like them, but that's generally in spite of the superheroics rather than because of them. I liked the Iron Man movies, for example... but not The Avengers. (You see why I worry I'm coming across like a hipster, eh?)
I'd kind of like to avoid the more... excessively anime-ish stuff, too, if you catch my meaning. For example, if a character in a show or film does this or this or this, I'm probably not interested.
Things I like
Well, generally, I like things with good plots, good characters, and good arcs. I'll put up with anything for a good story, well-told. Even the stuff up there that I said I don't like. (Though... let's try to avoid those things, if we can, please. Remember: newbie, here.)
As to genre, in no particular order, I frequently enjoy science fiction, drama, lit-fic, historical fiction, alternate history, and magical realism. Though I'm very open to other genres.
I don't like things where the only way to enjoy them is to "turn off your brain." I like things that are thought-provoking. I like deep themes and big ideas. I don't like things that are weird and zany for the sake of it; I'm perfectly happy with surrealism if there's a point to it.
If I'm going to watch animation, I'm going to watch something like these:
When the Day Breaks
Bydlo
From the Big Bang to Tuesday Morning
Wild Life
Sleeping Betty
These are the sorts of films I like:
The Third Man
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Fog of War
Dr. Strangelove
Cloud Atlas
(And, yes, Guardians of the Galaxy is in there, despite me saying I don't much care for superheroes. I tend to think of it more as space opera than superheroes... and it does show how contrary and complicated I can be... there's a reason this is difficult.)
I don't much watch television these days, but I've enjoyed these shows:
Breaking Bad
Star Trek (Especially DS9)
Battlestar Galactica (Reboot)
Due South
New Doctor Who (Pre-Moffat)
So... those are my problems. Those are my dislikes. Those are my likes. Can anyone help me find an entry point into anime?
(I'm going to hit "Submit" now and hope I don't come across as too much of a jerk...)