Art/animation and sound in anime: "fanservice is tl;dr."*

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

The point is to not harp on the individual weaknesses of each element of the medium — because there are bound to be many — but to look at the big picture and to wonder how is it that we were entertained in spite of the individual weaknesses.

Spoiler for Sword Art Online:

The main problem with the show's first half was introducing characters whom seem to be important and get killed off in the same episode. There's not enough time to know them and it ruins the dramatic impact their deaths were going for. But the character deaths reinforce the not even important characters are safe idea so Kirito and Asuna's survival is uncertain.

On the other hand, the anime's second half had inconsistent story and gameplay mechanics. The player's abilities weren't determined by levels but by their real-life athletic abilities but that new gameplay mechanic was better left unexplained since there wasn't any difference from the first half of the anime aside from magic and flight. And speaking of flight, the final dungeon makes no sense considering the limitation flight is supposed to have. Kirito keeping his strength from the first half is also suspect and the explanation the show provides for keeping his strength only takes into account what he's lost and not what he's kept.

Kirito himself borders on being a flawless character in the worst sense of the word. He accomplishes everything except when he's not supposed to and his personality swings between so many extremes that he becomes a one-dimensional character for every emotion he shows.

Asuna fairs much better as a character. Given the amount of time that passes in the game and the episodes showing her at stages of becoming nicer, her development was gradual even if entirely expected.

Suguha was a pleasant surprise. Not-really-blood-related-to-Kirito-wink-winks not withstanding, there's a certain scene between them with no sound but the tension in their voices that beautifully summarizes their relationship and their differing feelings about Asuna.

If the show used the art of silence more and this well consistently, the overall soundtrack would have been better because there's not enough of Yuki Kajiura's song work to balance out the synthesized-in-the-worst-sense-possible music that plays otherwise.

Back to content, the story and gameplay mechanics are largely consistent in the first half and the characters are at least genuine compared to the caricatures introduced in the second half who serve as either an obligatory opponent for Kirito, harem fanservice, or plot device. On the other hand, the second half of the anime doesn't pretend the other characters are important and is more focused with developing Kirito, Suguha, and Asuna's relationship of sorts.

Speaking of relationships, Kirito and Asuna's wedlock might be the main reason people like Sword Art Online. Asuna's development is gradual, as mentioned, and it's here where Kirito isn't so flawless. They're always saving each other and neither become dragged along by the other; there's equality in their relationship at least before the second half. Other girls came along and almost put Kirito in a harem position but they're either early in the story or get the hint when they see Kirito and Asuna together.

Sword Art Online isn't as good as its more dedicated fans make it out to be but it's far from being the worst its detractors portray it as. It's somewhere closer to the middle. It's an enjoyable if flawed experience.

tl;dr: Despite the numerous characters I couldn't care about and Kirito being almost too perfect for my liking, his relationship with Asuna was endearing and believable while Suguha's feelings toward both of them made for some interesting character drama. The story and gameplay mechanic wonkiness only really hurt the second half of the show.

Anyone else feel like putting something they liked through the ringer? Anyone? Anyone?

(I might "revisit" Saki: Achiga-hen next. My problems with that were less about its content and more about some awful directional choices that undermine what made the original Saki anime so good)

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Why this concentration on shows that look bad? Why not spend more time discussing shows that are well-drawn and well-animated?

Because life sucks, thus we focus on what sucks.

/wrist

[TinyRedLeaf]

At first blush, the article might seem unrelated to anime, but read on and you'll get a better appreciation for why I've long come to feel that fans pay too much attention to writers at the artist's expense.

Five ways for a comics artist to avoid being diminished by writers

"I don’t sign as many autographs as the writer!" or "How come I don’t get as many questions during panel discussions?"

Story is in our DNA, art is not. Proof? People can do a great job describing what a movie meant to them — the characters, the plot twists, the surprises, the music, the action, and the ending. Send those same people to an art museum and they get much quieter.

Why? Some of them don't get art. Some of them like it, but don't know why. Even the ones that loved it can only use limited vocabulary to describe it: neat lines, nice color, good mood, blah blah blah. And that's totally fine — it took you years to learn about art, so ease up on people that don't have your education.

[Triple_R]

I think that article actually does a great job of explaining why people tend to focus more on writers than on artists in mediums that need both (such as comic books and anime). The article is right - Story is in our DNA, whereas art is less so.


One thing I have noticed is that when anime is perceived as having bad writing, people just criticize the writing and the writer(s).

But when anime is perceived as having poor visuals, anime fans tend to criticize almost everything but the artist(s). In fact, the default criticism seems to be "Looks like they were lacking budget for this episode". In other words, bad visuals are chalked up to simple monetary limitations whereas bad writing is simply chalked up to... bad writing.

At a surface level, it may seem like this distinction would favor artists. But I think it actually is to their disfavor - If we don't think the artists are important enough to warrant criticism for bad visuals, then sort of follows that we also won't think that the artists are important enough to warrant praise for good visuals.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

One thing I have noticed is that when anime is perceived as having bad writing, people just criticize the writing and the writer(s).

But when anime is perceived as having poor visuals, anime fans tend to criticize almost everything but the artist(s). In fact, the default criticism seems to be "Looks like they were lacking budget for this episode". In other words, bad visuals are chalked up to simple monetary limitations whereas bad writing is simply chalked up to... bad writing.

At a surface level, it may seem like this distinction would favor artists. But I think it actually is to their disfavor - If we don't think the artists are important enough to warrant criticism for bad visuals, then sort of follows that we also won't think that the artists are important enough to warrant praise for good visuals.

I think the reason for this distinction in anime's case is rather simple: an anime episode likely has one writer (and one overall supervising writer/story planner), but an entire team of dozens of different artists all doing their various parts. So if the writing is bad, you can probably point back to a very small list of people. But if the art or animation is bad, it really does have a lot more to do with budget and scheduling, because a few "hero artists" can't make an entire episode look good unless they have lots of time (i.e. weeks/months).

I will say that one less-appreciated focal point in terms of anime discussion is the storyboard artist, since this planning and vision is really the key to how the animation turns out (frame-level art and animation consistency notwithstanding). You could argue that the storyboard level is really where the "artistry" of the episode on the whole takes shape. It's only those who really pay attention to animation who you see making comments about who did the storyboards and observing correlations based on that.

As far as comics go, it is certainly true that a lot of the way the story is conveyed comes down to the artistry of the panels/layouts/designs, so it may well be the case that writers are given too much attention and credit whereas people have a harder time nailing down the exact impact of the art on their perception of the story.