Does Anime has to Make Sense?

[Astrana]

I've never been a super hardcore fan or fanboy for specific anime, I just like Anime in General. Since April is the new Anime Season, I am currently watching every new show that gets subbed. As in result, I end up jumping in most of these anime discussion thread. I often find people are arguing about certain part anime by trying to adding comon sense, there will be discussion going on and on about one thing just because it wouldn't make sense in real life.

What's your guy's takes on it? Should Anime follow common sense or logic of our daily life?

[KholdStare]

Well, there are really two ways to interpret "making sense." The first one is trying to apply anime to real life, which is what I think you're trying to get at. In this case, then no, it doesn't have to make sense. One good example is SaiKano and Elfen Lied, which are complete fantasies. Their plots are comprehensible, but they can't be literally applied to real life. However, it's what I got from the anime that matters, and if it matters to me, then no, it doesn't have to make sense. For a simple analogy, let's assume that the point I'm trying to make is, "violence is bad." There are two ways of doing this. The first would be making a movie about two real people who gets into a duel and kills themselves plus innocent bystanders. The second way would be making an anime about two ninjas battling it out, destroying a whole village. Either way, the point is there, no matter how realistic their methods of doing so were.

Taking "making sense" literally, then what if the plot of an anime doesn't make sense at all? For example, let's take an comedy series that is pretty episodic, har har, Lucky Star. I'm pretty you're not going to find a group of those characters in real life, and there is really no central plot either. However, if you enjoy each episode, then no, it doesn't have to make sense.

Let's take another anime, Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo. At the end of the anime, there is this scene about time traveling that no one can make sense of. Seriously, I just can't put any logic on what's going on nor try to explain it scientifically. As people in that thread said, the movie is more enjoyable if you just take what you don't understand for granted and focus more on the more important parts of it, such as the plot. In this case, they're right. Who really cares about some technicality as long as you enjoy the anime as a whole?

In short, will the something that, to you, does not make sense, be detrimental in some way to your enjoyment of the series? If it is, then feel free to discuss/drop it. If not, then I just shrug it away and continue. Often times we get bogged down in the little things that we should just move away from. If it doesn't make sense to you but you enjoy the series anyways, then to me, if I don't want to contribute, then I just click away.

[Aoie_Emesai]

Simple answer. No. But if it comes down to it, go ahead and try to solve it's meaning.

[Kamui4356]

If you're asking does anime have to be realistic, then no. Anime for many people is a form of escapism. One of its strengths is to show fantastic situations as if they were normal. Grounding it in reality is denying one of the main strengths of animation as a medium.

If you're talking more about should characters have more common sense about situations, well that's a bit different. I believe the term for that is plot induced stupidity. Something glaringly obvious to the viewer goes unnoticed by the characters because the plot demands they don't know. Characters do something that everything they've experienced so far says they shouldn't do, but they do anyway because the plot requires it. Those types of things are pervasive in fiction, and are in my opinion a sign of lazy writing.

[Vexx]

An anime, once it defines the universe it is set in, must follow its own rules or something literary people call the "suspension of disbelief" is broken.

Practically, what that means is once you establish a limitation or behavior - you must honor it. You can have elves, magical girls, warp drive, sentient staves, whatever... but you must be able to rationalize its existence in the defined universe and you can't just keep changing its rules to suit your whims. If you establish that a character has certain personality attributes, you can't just whip out new ones without showing an evolution into that state (e.g. Frodo's transition from faithful friend of Sam to someone willing to slice his throat open to protect his precioussss).

Doing any of that raises the risk of breaking the "suspension of disbelief" - which causes you to lose the thinking portion of your audience. By almost any measurement, that's a sign of poor story-telling skills - no matter how much you love the result (e.g. "ooooh, Blah-chan ended up with Psycho-kun!"). Its particularly noticeable in poorly concatenated harem series driven by polls where I sometimes call it the "bad puppeteer" effect: you stop thinking of the characters as real people because they're clearly being jerked around by strings rather than appearing to be self-motivated.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Vexx

An anime, once it defines the universe it is set in, must follow its own rules or something literary people call the "suspension of disbelief" is broken.

Practically, what that means is once you establish a limitation or behavior - you must honor it. You can have elves, magical girls, warp drive, sentient staves, whatever... but you must be able to rationalize its existence in the defined universe and you can't just keep changing its rules to suit your whims. If you establish that a character has certain personality attributes, you can't just whip out new ones without showing an evolution into that state (e.g. Frodo's transition from faithful friend of Sam to someone willing to slice his throat open to protect his precioussss).

Doing any of that raises the risk of breaking the "suspension of disbelief" - which causes you to lose the thinking portion of your audience. By almost any measurement, that's a sign of poor story-telling skills - no matter how much you love the result (e.g. "ooooh, Blah-chan ended up with Psycho-kun!"). Its particularly noticeable in poorly concatenated harem series driven by polls where I sometimes call it the "bad puppeteer" effect: you stop thinking of the characters as real people because they're clearly being jerked around by strings rather than appearing to be self-motivated.

That's pretty much where I stand. I find people often confuse an anime's sense of reality with their own a lot and thus out comes an accusation of poor writing, when really it's just people blowing smoke that the series isn't shaping up to be what they want. One of my favourite sayings these days is "Just because a series doesn't follow the plotline you desire, doesn't mean it 's a trainwreck" and I think it applies to this whole Suspension of Disbelief definition. Suspension of Disbelief to me is an onus placed on the viewer to accept the realities of the anime universe and if the viewer can't do that then it's not the fault of the creator/writer. When it is the fault of the creator is as you say when they don't follow the rules and established character behaviour they have layed out.

[Happy_Chip]

Originally Posted by Astrana

since April is the new Anime Season, I am currently watching every new show that gets subbed.

good luck. That's a lot of series. Hope you find time to get out of your room.

Originally Posted by Astrana

I often find people are arguing about certain part anime by trying to adding comon sense, there will be discussion going on and on about one thing just because it wouldn't make sense in real life.

What's your guy's takes on it? Should Anime follow common sense or logic of our daily life?

A reasonably crafted series ought to follow some kind of logic. Characters aren't supposed to simply do random things and a series isn't supposed to be a random collection of chaotic events.

I've found that the better anime often does not explain everything to you, it gives you the pieces and lets you put them together - if you think about what you've seen. This is where the discussion comes in, the less 'sense' a series can make, then the greater the chance you haven't grasped what's really going on. (I still am confused myself about what the ending of Paranoia agent meant, but I digress...)

But you're right, the discussion can become like looking for shapes in clouds - seeing patterns where there aren't any. Hopefully the creators of the series are following some kind of internal logic for what's going on. But not always, I suppose.

As an aside, if you're watching a gaggle of anime, you may indeed be missing more subtle points of what you're watching, that escape the casual viewer. It may then indeed be making less sense ...

[whitewater_81]

lol.Why do you think there is an anime called Lucky Star anyway?

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Astrana

I've never been a super hardcore fan or fanboy for specific anime, I just like Anime in General. Since April is the new Anime Season, I am currently watching every new show that gets subbed. As in result, I end up jumping in most of these anime discussion thread. I often find people are arguing about certain part anime by trying to adding comon sense, there will be discussion going on and on about one thing just because it wouldn't make sense in real life.

What's your guy's takes on it? Should Anime follow common sense or logic of our daily life?

It depends on whether the anime takes itself seriously or not, in my opinion.

Excel Saga, for example, is a very obvious comedy/parody/spoof anime - it has some semblance of having a serious and dramatic plotline at times , but it's clearly mostly for laughs and explosive weirdness. As such, I'm prepared to see a lot of random happenings, and bizarre character behaviors/reactions, and basically things that don't make sense, coming out of it.

Lucky Star is also a heavily self-referential comedy/parody/spoof that doesn't take itself very seriously.

So, with each of the above two animes, it can get away with not making much sense at times, and I'll still like it (if I like the other factors - if I like the comedy, the character designs, the art style, etc...).


However, the vast majority of animes, from what I've watched anyway, do take themselves seriously. When it comes to these animes, my take is very similiar to Vexx's.

I will add that I've never really been a fan of Akamatsu's works (Love Hina!, Negima, etc...) because they tend to have extreme comedy moments situated right next to serious drama/serious action and then frequently switch right back to extreme comedy moments. I just find that very hard to swallow from a believable characterization perspective, and it makes it hard for me to take the anime seriously, even in cases where the anime itself is clearly meant to be taken seriously.

So, if an anime takes itself seriously, then I do think that it should make sense, more or less in the way that Vexx described.

If the anime doesn't take itself seriously, then it doesn't need to make much sense, imo.

[Seditary]

Yes, anime does need to make sense I feel, but not from your point of view because we don't live in the worlds portrayed in various anime series/movies.

Even batshit animes can make sense if the entire world is batshit.

[Claude]

In rare cases, I do get turned off by totally random/impossible things that pop up but it really depends on what I'm watching.

An example would be:

Spoiler for Jungle Wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu X Hunter x Hunter:

There is a scene in Jungle Wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu where Guu's fingers open up like a hatch and shoot bullets out of them like a machine gun. When I saw this I thought to myself, wow that's kinda stupid. Later, I watch Hunter X Hunter and one of the members of the Genei Ryodan, Franklin, has the exact same ability. Was I affected by it in Hunter X Hunter? No. Was I affected by it in Jungle Wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu? Yes.

[Z3120]

Depends specifically on the anime.

You can have an anime like "Lucky Star", and it makes great sense because of the tone and approach the series originally took and continued to go with until the end; but then you can also have a bad anime where whatever happens is based solely on the director's whim instead of allowing the plot devices of the story he created to justify certain actions by the characters and so forth and move the story forward without truly no bounds is bad story telling to me.

Vexx pretty much sums up and elaborates a similar belief I have. I would like to add though there are many times where one's own perspective and experience, broad or limited, can shape a discussion in many ways more than one would suspect. Who's more right or wrong or "sensible" in thinking what things are constituted as justifiable or ill-advised depends on your beliefs. But then there's always "it's bad, no matter how good you think it is" or vice versa. You can only agree to disagree at this point.

In the end, I would also think expectations and prior bias (lack of a better word) on how things should move could depict "sense" in many variations of light.

But alas, there's a reason why I can't enjoy most harems except quite a few (still disappointed how Shuffle went)...

[anselfir]

yes, animu has to make sense, but your 'average life' criteria for making sense is clearly questionable. a good fantasy/social exploration/critique animu could make sense and be wonderful, but a show having so called "supernatural" elements is not exempt from making sense by virtue of that alone. the hardest works to judge are those that present no definite message, but even in that situation, our aesthetics and judgments are not suspended.

[minhtam1638]

No it doesn't. Just look at Hayate no Gotoku. It's the Anime version of South Park.

[Zenemis]

Originally Posted by Kamui4356

If you're asking does anime have to be realistic, then no. Anime for many people is a form of escapism. One of its strengths is to show fantastic situations as if they were normal. Grounding it in reality is denying one of the main strengths of animation as a medium.

Absolutely, trying to force fiction into reality is sheer folly.

[chison]

common sense are alway suppose to be the best action by a example,
but some of the foolish action might have hidden meaning leading to a new chapter

for example,one types of comedy are suppose to have the all the common sense mess up
like boboobobobo,he don't use his hand to punch ,instead,his using his hair to fight a whole kingdom

by changeing the world's rule,it give a differents life perspective ,
they make you think why someone can thinks like that and that,and you can understand the author's mind a little more with it


meanwhile,when we have no power to change something,
no matter what we think something should be,something will never take affect

most of us can do nothing but dissappointment

[Banditopants]

In a way Anime always makes sense, no mater what characters seem to do there's almost always a logical explanation for it, worst-case scenario, the logic is rushed and doesn't flow well with the story (Example: In a sci-fi the reason the protagonist can defeat the aliens is because she's a princess from magic-land and can talk to waffle-cones, completely made up but somewhat illustrates my point).

[r-18]

the only sense anime has to make for me to enjoy it is the sense of continuity or perhaps i don't know the proper word, but if something happens at a place in the anime i don't like it if the characters do things that contradict what has already occurred. why are you fighting the monster with a sword when you threw lightning bolts at one 2 episodes ago? you did this... in the 3 episode but now in the same situation you say you can't? so sense in the real world no but sense in the world of the anime yes.

[Skyfall]

Vexx has already explained the situation nicely. Anime has to make sense within the universe it is portrayed. All fictional worlds have their own set of rules and oddities that obviously differ from our own, but it is all good as long as it stays true to the limitations and possibilities it has established. Same goes for characters and their behavior - as long as they remain true to their established personalities, as wacky as those might be, the characters are "making sense".

You want to avoid having the characters act in a manner thats not true to their established self and displaying OOC (Out Ouf Character) behavior. Same for the universe - it can have all sorts of exotic properties, but you must stay true to them instead of introducing new elements out of the blue without any established foreshadowing.

To sum it up: Anime "makes sense" as long as it stays true to the in-universe laws it has established and characters stay faithful to their personalities.

[SeedFreedom]

Vexx has won this thread. Basically, it can be magical/fantastical but does it make sense within the realm of the anime. I would say there are a few exceptions to this rule however. Gundam, and most mecha, fit a different kind of reality. The whole mecha genre is fantastical as there are no such things as mechas currently. As well most of the ideas behind their weaponry/propulsion/power source is fictional, people complain about lack of physics or overpowered unrealistic hero suits based on real life, current technology. One such example is when the hero gets blown to bits, but recovers with little more than a few bandaids and in a matter of days. Even if such an event was explained by a mysterious substance shielding the cockpit, most watchers would have a hard time believing that to be acceptable.