2011-08-19, 19:22 | Link #41 |
Blooming on the mountain
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I think this could be one reference point for a working definition of "pandering" ... but pandering has a negative connotation imo, and re-using a "trope" sometimes works for many diff reasons: method of presentation could be one, but also the love of the staff, director, etc. for the subject coming through can sometimes make something "work".
Maybe one example of this would be the "mosquito catching sequence" that appeared in Lucky Star and Nichijou ... both use very similar material and both shows are from the same studio, but (at least for me) it "worked". I also noticed very few people mentioning it in the Nichijou thread here after it aired.... One could argue where the reason for something working comes from, but there are occasions where using tropes does "work". So maybe demanding solely on originality as a criteria might be stepping into dangerous territory. Even originality as an end in and of itself can (and for me often does) wind up in failure - for me the atonal music of European/American classical music composers from the 40's-60's is a stark example of this.
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2011-08-19, 19:34 | Link #42 | |
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It's just like how if people said Kirino from Ore no Imouto acts a certain way because she's a tsundere; that doesn't help you just because we realize it's a certain trope. And something I think that blasting a lot of the show's budget off was definitely intentional, but of course it's hardly a bad thing either... I mean when you see good action scenes, I could care less about them giving what people want. As for Rei, hmm, oh yea that debacle. >.> *Switch to serious* Well, that's just misaimed fandom to the max, I guess.
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2011-08-19, 19:37 | Link #43 | |||
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But... and this is hard to convey, but I'll try anyway... I can kind of tell when a show is just a mechanical assemblage of tropes with little thought to how they help serve the broader narrative or theme (and pretty much without exception, from what I've seen at least, such mechanical assemblages arise from excessive pandering). I can also kind of tell when tropes are being used judiciously, to serve the broader work. The tropes exist to serve the narrative and its characters, the narrative doesn't exist to showcase the tropes. That's they key, in my opinion. Well, with the possible exception of a comedy, anyway. Quote:
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I'm just saying that it's generally good to aim for originality in at least some aspects of a creative work. Things that are totally generic usually don't get noticed, after all.
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2011-08-19, 19:38 | Link #44 |
Knight Errant
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Tropes exist because they work. No one complains about the fact Macbeth dies at the end of Macbeth being predictable, it's a tragedy. That's what tragedies are all about.
In fact if you go back all the way to Greek Drama, it did a fair amount of pandering as well. Greek Drama was written quite strictly to formula, and works that deviated too far were considered terrible. Invariably the playwright has to give the audience something they want, or else the audience isn't going to want to see it. Shakespeare, for all his acclaim, always gave the audience what they wanted and never wrote a thing with a particularly original plot. I'll echo Flower's remarks about Atonal music, sure it's original, it also doesn't sound like music. Authors who are too obsessed with originality often end out committing the sin of looking down on their audience. Audiences are usually better then you think at sussing out what is good, and what isn't. For instance, if you compare Rotten Tomatoes to "popular opinion"(EG IMDB) there is only rarely a large dissagreement about the quality of something. |
2011-08-19, 19:40 | Link #45 | |
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I should have reviewed Shakespeare to get the point across more. XD
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2011-08-19, 19:42 | Link #46 | |
Knight Errant
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But you ninjaed me. |
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2011-08-19, 19:46 | Link #47 | |
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I was initially kind of happy that they've started doing more light novel adaptations, but now I'm disappointed that pretty much 90% of the adaptations they are doing are the rom-com/harem ones. |
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2011-08-19, 19:47 | Link #48 | ||
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The truly great artists differentiate themselves from what is commonplace (at the time, at least). Quote:
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2011-08-19, 19:48 | Link #49 | ||
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**** So then the issue (for me) comes back around to the question of not necessarily what is wrong with the arts - the use of pandering, unoriginality and the rest have always been present throughout history (even in ancient Greek drama, as Don rightly reminds us). It is easier to identify what is wrong, I think. And while this is good and perhaps even necessary to articulate, I think it is should occupy the "secondary" position in the primary/secondary paradigm mentioned above. For me the primary issue is what can/should be done to make material better? Of course it is always easier to tell others what they should do, but I think the "audience" should form distinct opinions and help to make their opinions known to others as one way (albeit a small one) to help improve the ... erm ... "quality" of art that becomes available. Also, I think there is another aspect to the problem and that is our own culpability in contributing to the problem. I am sure there is some material/art out there that contains elements that are part and parcel of what we see in general contributing to worsening a particular genre that we enjoy and help "feed the monster" in this way. I think we should be honest with ourselves in this regard.... Not trying to talk down to others or be "preachy" here (apologies if it comes across like that), but I think it is something we all should consider/remember when looking at the larger picture.
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2011-08-19, 19:49 | Link #50 | |
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I was actually thinking of Macross Frontier, when that show aired a lot of old fans who hadn't watched anime in years returned to discuss it on forums and there was a lot of controversy about one of the girls (standard clumsy moe type) whose actions confused them. But then there was also the alien pantsu hunt in high school in episode (dont ask) which pissed of new and old fans for being completely out of character of the show... So yeah, your right. |
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2011-08-19, 19:55 | Link #51 | |
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2011-08-19, 20:04 | Link #52 |
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You know what?
I find originality overrated. Mostly because of the grey area between uniqueness and absurdity. How about an anime where WWII fighter planes are turned into pantsless girls wearing mecha legs fighting aliens? Pretty original ain't it? But I digress. Overexposure to any medium will often breed contempt through familiarity, usually because one becomes tired of seeing the same old thing over and over. The result is that people become so cynical toward clichés that uniqueness will often become a substitute for quality, when in reality bad writing is bad writing no matter how original or not something is. Speaking of which, fictional tropes have a tendency to be treated differently for anything watched earlier simply for the novelty to the viewer at the time--for example, compare the, er, critical reception of Azumanga Daioh to K-On!--but if one is willing to look hard enough they’ll be able to find stuff that walks the beaten path and look good doing it.
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2011-08-19, 20:36 | Link #53 |
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And I think that you, and some others on this thread, are underrating it.
Would you want to never see something original, or truly different, ever again? Would you want to just watch nothing more than the same tired, old tropes for the rest of your life? I know that I wouldn't. Which is why I support originality, and I don't think that it's overrated at all. Edit: Looking over your anime favorites on your wall, two of the three your listed are Clannad: After Story and Time of Eve (I haven't seen the third, so I can't comment on that). I've seen both of them, and they're both pretty original, imo. Clannad: After Story takes the VN romance narrative well beyond the point of consummation or the start of marriage, making it stand out in comparison to other VNs (or VN adaptations) that I'm aware of. Time of Eve is a serious sci-fi story that addresses the issue of how the widespread existence and use of human-like server-robots would realistically play out in the real world. It subverts the common idea of "They'd turn against us" that we see in western fiction like The Terminator movies, and I. Robot. It's also one of the least pandering anime productions I've ever seen. In any event, good taste. I share your love of these two, and in large part because they're very different from the norm, imo.
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2011-08-19, 20:52 | Link #54 | |
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Hmm ... perhaps a working definition of originality may help here?
One dictionary defines it thus: Quote:
I think what people hope for (and dislike seeing an absence of , especially if it seems "pre-processed" for purposes of mass consumption) begins to be expressed in points 2 and 3 above. For me the fountainhead of those two aspects comes first and foremost out of an individual's personal life, growth, talents, experiences, etc. I would even go a little further and say that perhaps our ability to identify such things is directly affected by our own personal life, growth, talents, experiences, etc.? This could get a little too subjective and involve finger pointing at others, but again I think it should be considered in the overall perspective of criticism of pandering and lack of originality as opposed to the rightful praise of a work where it is present.
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2011-08-19, 21:17 | Link #55 | |||||||||
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Bravo! A most cogently formulated review! Quote:
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2011-08-19, 21:20 | Link #56 | |
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I watched tsukihime and liked it...until I go read the VN and came to know the Nasuverse. Same thing happened with Higurashi where I watched the anime before even knowing Ryuuksihi. Regarding originality. Every material in existence has been used before and will again in the future. What differs is only its presentation. Mix-matching, subversion, inversion, reboot, basically any kind of creativity in recycling old materials to create something new. Though you can say "originality" is "that new formula nobody has tried before".
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2011-08-19, 21:27 | Link #57 |
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I think Tatami Galaxy is an example of a show that doesn't pander to Otaku. It is about things that a lot of Otaku would be familiar with, however. The opposite would be Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, which is filled with Otaku pandering. Both are perfectly good.
Pandering is not necessarily bad, most Mecha is inherently Pandering. All the elaborate transformation sequences and missile ballet are pandering to mechheads that often has little bearing on the plot, but it wouldn't be mecha without it. There are a fair number of shows outside the Anime "mainstream" that don't pander to Otaku, not all of them are neccessarily good though. |
2011-08-19, 21:30 | Link #58 | |
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Hmm ... after re-reading the thread I begin to wonder again about the use of the word "pandering" being used too easily or lightly.
Whether or not something is similar to another work is one question in and of itself. No doubt there will be cross-overs and similarities - that is just how the arts in general have been over the centuries, I think, and I don't think that is going to change, and I don't think it is necessarily "bad". These are "tropes", and I don't think that the larger percentage of them are in and of themselves bad - as others have mentioned before they are "artistic devices" for the specific medium one is creating a work in. Agreed. In a broad general definition, I'd hazard that a large aspect of "pandering" (perhaps not the only one, mind you) is when a "trope" is done badly, or cheaply, or where it feels (i.e. this involving one's personal perception and tastes to a degree) the folks involved in producing the work took the "easy road" priorities wise. Quote:
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2011-08-19, 21:46 | Link #59 | ||
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2011-08-19, 21:48 | Link #60 |
Knight Errant
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I think the claim of Pandering comes in when the producers put more effort into satisfying the desires of core fans then into producing a coherent work with decent plotting etc.
So in Moé it's the insertion of beach episodes even though it has no place in the plot, just so that they can show the female leads in a scantily clad manner. In Mecha it would be the continuous introduction of new mecha models every episode, and concentrating more on the arms race and the boys and their cool toys then on keeping the whole thing coherent (Gundam 00 is particularly guilty of this). It's when the priorities of the producers grow too out of line with the "man on the street" casual viewer. Another case where you could clearly level an accusation of "pandering" is if the thing is an overly blatant case of wish fulfillment. EG the way every Harem show features a dull stupid male lead with throngs of girls falling over themselves for him. Or the well known "Mary Sue". Mary Sue's are reviled because they're pandering of the worst kind, they're pandering to the author himself, the author has grown so attached to the character that (s)he has made him/her amazing and beyong all moral reproach. It's particularly bad because Mary Sues are often stand ins for the author themselves. People also hate Mary Sues because deep down we hate people who are "perfect", and even more so if the bad author is talking about the character as if they are perfect, while the audience judging her by her own in-universe actions disagree. You can see this with Mecha fandom's general dislike of Kira "Jesus" Yamato. We like people who are flawed, but are always trying to do the right thing. The only exception is in Heroic works, where you can more easily get away with it because the emphasis is on feats of daring do. But if you start focussing on their perfectness over their feats of daring do even Hero fans will begin to cry foul. |
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