2012-09-25, 03:06
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Link #21 | |
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On a mission
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Not here
Age: 40
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I think grimdark/gritty is quite overrated. It's not necessarily superior and not all satire is witty.
The "realism" for Makoto is not his situation, but the situation if a person was really landed in a place where a bunch of attractive members of the opposite gender were to freely have sex with them, that many people would take advantage of it as opposed to many anime which has the lead actively avoiding the situation. It's relative I know. Quote:
Cynicism can be healthy, but endless delving into it creates nihilism and that just makes it pointless. And I'd rather explore other things than pointlessness.  There's a difference between tearing at one's soul to make one experience strong emotions and tearing apart one's soul and proceeding to urinate all over it. :S
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2012-09-25, 03:17
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Link #22 | |
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Still Alive
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Somewhere far far away
Age: 30
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Quote:
 )Anyways, School Days, as many pointed out, is not realistic. Here's why - Makoto is not super rich(or even rich) nor is he handsome. So, I don't see any reason for (good looking)girls going gaga over him. Moreover his personality and intellect are full of shit. (I would have ranted more but, I've done enough of that in SD thread)
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Last edited by Eragon; 2012-09-25 at 05:51. |
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2012-09-25, 03:27
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Link #23 |
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RUN, YOU FOOLS!
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Formerly Iwakawa base and Chaldea. Now Teyvat, the Astral Express & the Outpost
Age: 44
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Breaking Bad had the good idea to counterweight its descent into the grimdark with a fair touch of surrealism and dark humor. Also, unlike School Days, stories like the one aforementioned offers quite a few moments where we do see the good side of characters. When you go too deep into the grimdark, you get miserabilism like the worst you can read in Emile Zola's novels.
I want to watch anime to have fun, but also to cry bitch tears and manly tears. The more memorable stories to me are when the characters have gone through terrible, or even horrible, shit and yet, through their willpower, unwavering faith in people or themselves, manage to earn something good out of their journey. In other words, the mercyful hand of the writer after he have tortured his creations and witnessed what his characters are made of. Examples of those: Gunnm,Madoka Magica, JoJo, Hokuto no Ken and Muv Luv. Yes for black and grey, yes for grey and gray. But no to black and black. Go too deep in miserabilism and I WILL stop to care about the story. |
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2012-09-25, 03:27
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Link #24 |
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Me at work
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 36
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Well what I conclude from this thread NinjaRealist is that you really should watch Madoka Magica because from what you're saying I think you'll really like it,it's also a great example of how an anime can do what you're looking for ("realistic" wouldn't have been the word i'd use but I get what you're trying to say) and be really popular.
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2012-09-25, 05:10
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Link #25 |
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Age: 42
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Over a year ago, I did a review on School Days, though it was more of a character study on its three main characters. I definitely see where the OP comes from, and agree with him to a degree.
I wouldn't say that School Days is realistic in some absolute sense. Certainly, it stretches things a bit both when it comes to Makoto's overall level of popularity and how the anime ends. But I think the anime is generally right about two key things: 1. How a lot of teenage guys would react to the standard harem anime setup if they were in the male lead role. 2. The fallout that this reaction would cause for the girls that he ends up having sex with. Both are dramatized and exaggerated a bit, to be sure, but the general thrust is correct - Which is to say that I think a lot of teenage guys in the harem anime male lead role would have a very hard time turning down all of these girls except one (or turning down all of them, period, as some harem anime male leads seem to do ), but at the same time I think the anime is right about how most girls aren't going to react well to this two-timing (or three-timing, or four-timing, etc... ). So I frankly do think that School Days is more realistic than, say, a show like Love Hina! There's elements of School Days that stretches suspension of disbelief for me, but I can kind of imagine something like this happening in real life if given the right mix of students going to the same school together (it helps that School Days sets up its school as one of the crappier ones in anime - I mean, seriously, the stuff the teachers let go on at that school shows how loose basic discipline is there). I get why many people don't like School Days. It's not exactly a happy watch, at least it's 2nd half isn't. But I had the benefit, I think, of knowing how the School Days anime ended before I started watching it, so that made my mind mentally prepare for "Modern-Day Shakespearean Tragedy" and that really helped me appreciate it. Anyway, I'm amazed Dr. Casey hasn't posted on this thread yet. He's a huge School Days fan, and his passionate recommendation is the main reason why I watched School Days. Oh, and NinjaRealist, I agree with totoum - If you like School Days, I really think you will like Madoka Magica.
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2012-09-25, 15:03
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Link #27 |
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Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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"realistic"????? o.O yeah... right... not. I think everyone else posting has already beaten that one to death.
Frankly, "Love Complex" or "REC" was more 'realistic' than School Days... the show was a satire on the grade school silly harem notion where all the girls are happy *anyway* at the end and its all about the guy's choice with all the latent testosterone-near-misogyny of women as possessions that implies. School Days punctured that fantasy quite nicely.... but its no more realistic 
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2012-09-25, 17:01
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Link #29 | |
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Battoru!
Join Date: Sep 2012
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Quote:
I figured out that what I really was respoding to in School Days and Narutaru wasn't so much the realism as the genre deconstruction. I looked up a big list of genre deconstruction anime and, lo and behold, many of my favorite animes are on this list, including: Mai-Hime Evangelion Fullmetal Alchemist Now and then Here and There Berserk Toradora! Great Teacher Onizuka Trigun (also, do you guys think that D. Gray Man is maybe a deconstruction of the Shonen genre just a little bit, it kinda feels that way?) and of coure School Days and Narutaru (and it seems like Madoka Magica is poised to become a favorite as well. Please help me out if you think there are others that should go on this list. Now I'm not gonna deny that I find genre deconstruction animes to be more realistic but I think you guys need to understand, I'm not talking about realism in terms of the plot and the setting because you'll almost never get realism in terms of plot and setting in anime. Out of thi list, the only ones that come close to realism in these two categories Toradora and GTO which both have healthy dose of the unbelievable. But what all thee animes do hold in common is that, IMO, the character interactions are more believable to me than in most anime. Now I'm not sure why I feel this way and so many others vehemently disagree. Perhaps it is that I've had a grimmer and sadder life or maybe it's just that I am more fixated o all the atrocious aspect of human nature. At any rate, anime that tries to realistically represent how cruel and manipulative humans can be to each other has always been more appealing to me than anime that teaches you that, "You can do anything if you try your hardest." Clearly, this is the opposite for many of you. |
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2012-09-25, 17:46
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Link #30 | |
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SHSL Lurker
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Academy City
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Quote:
Shigofumi and Ga Rei Zero are also pretty dark, though Ga Rei Zero takes a little while to get there.
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2012-09-25, 18:04
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Link #32 |
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Unleashing the Homu-Rage
Join Date: Apr 2010
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Ahhh School Days..... What to say about School Days, apart from "Nice Boat" of course...
Either way, when I first watched School Days a few years ago, I actually liked it. At the time, one, I hand just gotten back into anime after a long hiatus after I stopped watching it on Cartoon Network around 8th grade. But at that time, I had finished Higurashi, and I rather liked it for different reasons, more for the horror/mystery genre, but I definitely became a fan of the yandere trope- as something to watch, but not as something I'd actually want in a girlfriend. Anyway, another thing that colored my perception of School Days was my, messed up, to say the least, experience of high school. For details, see my entries in the The Dating Thread, but for the short version, I have Asperger's Syndrome, a mild for of autism, that does not effect intelligence, only social skills and causes obsessive tendencies. Lets just say, my obsessive tendencies made me try too hard for a girlfriend. At the same time, I fell in with the wrong crowd, many of whom were really laughing at me behind my back, got some bad ideas, and ended up as a psychological mess. Also, for your information, I am a lot better now, still single, but I am certain I will get a girlfriend sometime in the future... Now, back to School Days When I first saw School Days, I was in my second year of college, having escaped the giant mess that was high school. Now, I saw Makoto, and was reminded of two things, first, I was reminded of said wrong crowd, who at least claimed that they engaged in the same sort of activities as Makoto. Second, I saw Makoto as what my misguided high school self wanted to be. Now, I won't lie, I'm no prude, and I might, hypothetically, given the opportunity have a "friend with benefits". But I would NEVER do it behind the back of a (currently still hypothetical) girlfriend. Quite frankly, even though I am not repulsed by the notion of casual sex, I was still ashamed to think that I wanted to be like that when I saw Makoto's behavior. Quite frankly, in spite of this psychological talk, I'm NOT going to say School Days changed my life. Quite the opposite. My liking School Days in large part cathartic: Makoto grew to represent elements of my past that I hate now, and he died. Now, If I think about it, all of the cast were idiots: Makoto cheated several times, and doesn't for one moment stop to think about the consequences of his actions. Kotonoha didn't break up with Makoto when he started cheating on her, and went into a phase of denial. Sekai slept with Makoto when he was still dating Kotonoha, and got pregnant for her troubles. All three of them threw away their lives over a high school romance- Makoto and Sekai were murdered, and, if this happened in real life, Kotonoha would probably get caught and even if she does not spend her whole life in prison, she would serve a lengthy sentence and have a record, not to mention psychological trauma, that will haunt her the rest of her life. The secondary characters were just as dumb. Setsuna was among the more sane of the bunch, but even she tries to convince Makoto not to cheat on Sekai... By fucking him! Otome, Hikari, and those three other girls just throw themselves at Makoto, in spite of his despicable personality, and having no real appeal at all. |
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2012-09-25, 19:23
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Link #33 |
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On a mission
Author
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Not here
Age: 40
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As a side note, I'm sorta glad that Makoto gets so much hate even if he was presented in a situation where it's difficult to resist temptation, since promiscuous males get much less flak for being that way than females who do the same thing are.
Though, much like School Days, a lot of the best things out of it are unintentional.
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2012-09-25, 20:00
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Link #34 | |
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Battoru!
Join Date: Sep 2012
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Quote:
Spoiler:
I guess that is what I like about genre deconstructions is that they usually demonstrate the bad outcomes that genre pieces often ignore. Maybe it's because I've witnessed so many of these horrible outcomes that I think genre deconstructions are not only refreshing but an important counterweight to some of the improbable nonsense that is promoted by some genre pieces. One example of how a genre piece can be almost criminally unrealistic is Kenichi The Strongest Disciple. As a shounen anime this one is decent I guess. The fight's are ok and it has some good comedy. I actually enjoyed the first hundred chapters of the manga but i gave up on it when I realized it would be 400 chapters until: Spoiler:
But it's depiction of martial arts training is dangerously unrealistic, especially when you consider that much of this training info is being presented in a very serious manner in a sometimes "scientific" sounding way (all that nonsense about what red, white and pink muscle...). It's not improbable to think that a child might attempt to emulate some of the training techniques or philosophies in Kenichi and the result would almost certainly be a painful, potentially life debilitating sports injury. I say this as someone who has trained Muay Thai, MMA and my body in general for years and years. I'm not saying that you should't push yourself hard when you train, but the truth is that everyone has limits of how much training they can do (without steroids) to certain parts of their bodies and without adequate rest and food, for recovery, you will begin to injure yourself. Quite simply, overtraining is a very real thing, and something that you can only avoid by taking steroids. Believing in yourself does't make your muscles recover any faster. Not only that, but punching a wooden board wrapped in rope, which I know is a traditional Okinawan Karate exercise, is proven to cause degenerative injuries that will eventually lead to severe arthritis in the fingers. It is said that the famed karateka, Mas Oyama, had, by the end of his career, such badly damaged hands that he couldn't even sleep with a sheet over them. This is just one example, but I appreciate when anime actually teaches us something about reality rather than presenting us with dangerously unrealistic information that we have to willfully discount, which is easier for adults than children. |
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2012-09-25, 20:07
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Link #35 | |
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On a mission
Author
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Not here
Age: 40
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Quote:
True, School Days did get the "actions have consequences" down as well as "people do stupid shit" but I really don't think it's a cautionary tale as much as your average horror movie of idiots wandering into places they shouldn't wander.
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2012-09-25, 23:03
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Link #36 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
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As for characters who get way too much hate, for realistic situations and problems, I mostly think of Shinji Ikari from Evangelion and Yuri Otani from Alien Nine. Ignore the aliens and robots, and distill the situations to their more human sides.
Those who have never experienced depression don't have any idea what it's like, and that sort of people attack Shinji openly and vehemently. A lot of Shinji's struggles were based on what the director, Hideki Anno, was actually going through at the time, so the depression and mindset that Shinji has rings more true than a lot of anime angst, and it isn't the kind of thing that people can just "stop whining" about. The amount he accomplishes in the series, despite this, is certainly an accomplishment. Spoiler:
As for Otani, she goes though absolute hell in a completely uncaring world. She has a damn good reason to be scared Spoiler:
How does she react? She's scared, terrified, even, and she's utterly alone in her plight. Even the other alien fighters avoid offering support as much as they can, because they, too, are terrified, but they're pushing it as far back into their minds as possible, as a coping mechanism. It's this utter lack of caring that makes Alien Nine so disturbing to me, and when I see people view Otani's character in an equally uncaring light, I actually get a little mad. I bet that they'd crack entirely if they had to go through the same thing, and keep in mind that she's going through all this at age 12... That's not too many years past the age when the average kid is still scared of the dark.
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2012-09-25, 23:18
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Link #37 | |
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On a mission
Author
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Not here
Age: 40
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Quote:
Heh, it makes me a bit teary eyed thinking about it, but yea, context is extremely important. There are no easy fixes to problems sometimes, but sometimes it's about simply staying alive. And the fact that Shinji didn't put a gun to his fucking head somewhere around episode 19 means a lot.
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2012-09-26, 05:17
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Link #38 | |
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Not an expert on things
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Although if you ask me, I prefer overly optimistic anime over overly pessimistic ones .
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2012-09-26, 07:11
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Link #39 | |
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RUN, YOU FOOLS!
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Formerly Iwakawa base and Chaldea. Now Teyvat, the Astral Express & the Outpost
Age: 44
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Quote:
GTO is ultimately a positivist manga, no matter how twisted or fucked up some individuals in there can be. That is one of the messages of this work, people does cruel things to others, but they do it because they have their own reasons, even the pettiest ones, to do so. But as long as someone tries hard and well, you can bring the good that was inside those people out of them. And that goes from Anko, who bullied Yoshikawa (one of those secondary characters who went through one of the most staggering character development of the series) to Misuzu Daimon (the "evil" new school principal) from the final arc. And that goes even to Miyabi Aizawa who did a good job at being hated by readers. I have drawn my own view of life from my own father's life and movies like Schindler's List and The Pianist. From my father, it's something like, you can go through the worst of hell and you can earn your own small happy ending: he was forced into a labor camp during the Khmer Rouge period, and movies like Killing Fields can give you a glimpse of how horrible those can be, and yes, he speak other languages which could mean death for him, and a LOT of his family members died during that period. But in the end, he survived and had another family, it's his small piece of heaven. The keyword is "earn", something you do with the right course of action, at the right time at the right place, with enough mental fortitude to endure the shit that Fate throws at you. From the Pianist and The Schindler's List, I have been drawn to believe that humans can be horrible to each other, but there are always some who are genuinely good and trying to make this world a better place, or caring for humanity as a whole. Those people, trying to do better and redeeming humanity through their actions, are why life is worth living and why humanity is awesome.
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Last edited by Sheba; 2012-09-26 at 07:24. |
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2012-09-26, 07:37
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Link #40 |
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( ಠ_ಠ)
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep
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^Anko developing crush for the boy she formerly bullied was one of the most adorable, cutest thing to happen in history of manga pairings.
It was just so delicious. *cough* carry on with the discussion.
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