Fads that have taken animesuki by storm

[Kaoru Chujo]

I'd rather use the term "popular" than "fad," which implies that there is something unjustified about it. Particularly in the case of SHnY, I want to quote Vexx (for truth, as he says):

Originally Posted by Vexx

Many things can make an anime "popular" .... but usually some sort of quality lurks beneath the superficial.

I think I was the first person to post on AS after seeing the raw of episode 1, and I said it was one of the funniest single anime episodes I'd ever seen, gave the humor, animation and backgrounds A's, and praised the voice-acting to the skies. Before I watched it, I had no idea it was going to be so good, although I did expect good animation. So although I have no doubt the peer support is helping keep my fandom-level high, I don't think I'm alone in liking the thing for itself.

As for why it is so popular, I think the animation is key: fans of all genres can appreciate animation. That makes the potential fan-pool very large. I see names posting in the SHnY threads that I've never seen before, probably because we like different genres. I'll repeat that this is the best animation I personally have ever seen in a TV anime. The ending dance is like a focus for admiration of the animation.

The combination of comedy and (extreme) moe is a winner in itself. The comedy is excruciatingly funny. My reference-points for this kind of subtle absurdity are Monty Python, Hitchhiker's Guide, Absolutely Fabulous, Garry Shandling, and Ichigo Mashimaro. I also find something very humane there, even behind the molestation and dry comments. I think this is a show that could wind up being used in psychology classes or pastors' sermons, if they ever found out about it. For me, the strength of the show is somewhere beneath the surface, percolating in the hearts of characters that somehow seem like real people.

And the moe overkill of Mikuru makes a lot possible among otaku and half-otaku. That's possibly the main reason they started with the video. I don't see a lot of women among the fans, although I may just not be aware of posters' genders.

Haruhi herself is a bewitching character, combining moe, power and a quality that isn't really tsundere, but a combination of tsuntsun and ubercute blindness. It's always so thrilling to see your boss as a bit ignorant.

Finally, there is the fact that you are not handed everything on a platter, but have to think a bit to really know what's going on. That could turn people right off it it were very hard to do, but this is just hard enough to be intriguing. I've mentioned Marshall McLuhan before, and his theory about "cool" media that force people to fill in gaps. This makes the experience a participatory one, even before we start posting our heads off on AS. And the self-referentiality in this show is the same quality that makes all great TV great: the interplay between the Haruhi world and the ordinary world that is narrated by Kyon.

Finally, I just think this show is so smart. Every little detail -- visual, comic, plot -- has intelligence behind it and is related somehow to the whole.

As for Higurashi, that is a very nice show, with an elegant look and some interesting animation, as well as a strong plot. But it is all at a much lower level than SHnY, in my opinion. The effects are mainly from the horror plot development, which is not so special, for me, as the rich stew of plot, humor and ontological confusion that is SHnY. It makes its effects on the surface, with events, whereas the strongest effects of SHnY are in the hearts of the characters, and occur beneath the surface. At least that's how I see it. But I am not a good potential fan of Higurashi, since I don't much like horror, and take no pleasure at all in seeing...

Spoiler for Higurashi 4:

...lovely girls bashed into a bloody pulp.

Sorry to blather on, but I've been wondering about this question myself.

[N-Bomb]

Originally Posted by rooboy666

It's from a !@#$@#$^!*'ing creepy game. That's now been turned into an anime.

I can understand how Suzumiya Haruhi is so popular. But I can't understand why Higurashi no Naku Koroni isn't almost as popular.

Okay, yeah... thanks for the explanation. Never heard of it before, actually.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by N-Bomb

Okay, yeah... thanks for the explanation. Never heard of it before, actually.

http://forums.animesuki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55

The above forum should clue you in on what it's all about.
And as a teaser, there are some pics from that forum:

Spoiler:

[durrem]

Hmm, fads, huh? I'd say that those A.S.S. sigs were pretty popular for a while, as well as those "What Naruto Would Never Say" sigs. You know, the one with Hinata. I can't seem to locate those pics, though... Also, the Kazoo Club fad was pretty big for a while.

[NightWish]

Originally Posted by durrem

...the Kazoo Club fad was pretty big for a while.

The Kazoo Club? A fad you say?

Don't let NoSanninWa hear you say that

[rooboy]

I want to start by saying that I love Haruhi, it is easily the best show this season. And there's nothing to say about it's animation. Unless it takes a nosedive later on, it is easily the best animated TV show I've seen. Even throwaway episodes (like the baseball one) are animated at a very high level and with a great attention to detail.

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

As for why it is so popular, I think the animation is key: fans of all genres can appreciate animation. That makes the potential fan-pool very large. I see names posting in the SHnY threads that I've never seen before, probably because we like different genres. I'll repeat that this is the best animation I personally have ever seen in a TV anime. The ending dance is like a focus for admiration of the animation.

I still think that the success of Suzimya Haruhi is a lot more fundamental than that. People enjoy having entertainment that makes them talk to other people. There's enough going on in each episode of Haruhi that it basically makes you want to go off and discuss what happened. There's nothing wrong with xxxHOLiC, or Nana, or Ouran High Host Club, but the only thing I ever really see get discussed in any depth in most topics are the places where the series diverged from it's source material. That definitely doesn't strike me as the most stimulating thing to discuss.

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

Finally, there is the fact that you are not handed everything on a platter, but have to think a bit to really know what's going on. That could turn people right off it it were very hard to do, but this is just hard enough to be intriguing.

I would agree with this, except, as far as I can tell, you don't have to work exceptionally hard to figure anything out. It has what I call "Matrix depth." It has a good deal of ambiguity in the plot and the characters. And not bad "Who knows what they're doing" ambiguity, but good "They're acting consistently, I just don't know why they're doing what they're doing" ambiguity. The trick to making a show like Haruhi, or a movie like the Matrix, work, is that you can't explain too much. The answers the viewers come up with are oftentimes more brilliant than the writer can manage (at least the viewer is convinced so), and mean much more to each of them than if they were handed everything on a silver platter.
The little bits of information that are dribbled out will make the fanbase even more rabid over it. You can see this effect over and over again in entertainment. Boba Fett has one of the largest followings of any Star Wars character, despite the fact we learn virtually nothing about him in the movies. The Matrix movie (and Star Wars, to a lesser extent) was exceptionally popular because very little was explained in any depth and a lot was left to the viewer's imagination; however, once the second and third started to explain more, fans started complaining in droves. The first Wheel of Time novels were much more popular because everything wasn't explained until later, there are hints at a much larger framework but no concrete knowledge. Your imagination fills in the gaps very effectively.
Which illustrates the problem with this trick (and why Haruhi is all the more impressive if it manages to be this good for the full episode count), if you explain too much, you start to turn off some of the fans unless your explanation is so perfect that they're all forced to accept it. I would expect that when Haruhi's done, we'll probably be left with a lot more questions than answers. And lots of little bits of evidence that could mean one thing or the other, and we'll debate what they actually mean for quite a while after the series is over. Which is why it's so great (besides the animation).

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

But I am not a good potential fan of Higurashi, since I don't much like horror, and take no pleasure at all in seeing...

Spoiler for Higurashi 4:

...lovely girls bashed into a bloody pulp.

You should never apologize for blathering on, discussion is good.
I would actually not expect you to be the audience for the show (the fact that you even tried it somewhat shocks and impresses me). However, I have to take at least a little offense to one thing.

Spoiler for Higurashi 4:

I'm pretty sure that no one takes pleasure in that scene. It is intended to be uncomfortable, brutal, and horrifying. It is an example of life gone wrong.

I should also point out that I'm not trying to say Higurashi should be as popular as Haruhi (I don't think it should be), I just didn't understand how it's not next. Higurashi possesses the exact same qualities that Haruhi does, there's a lot going on in each episode and the information isn't handed to the viewer, they have to figure it out for themselves. Though it actually looks like this was more a perception problem on my part than anything else, after perusing it's subforum I'm pretty sure it actually is second (in terms of discussion).

[durrem]

Originally Posted by NightWish

The Kazoo Club? A fad you say?

Don't let NoSanninWa hear you say that

Heh, well, I didn't even notice that NSW still had that sig... *hides behind pathyfinder's tree*

[Shay]

The grammar issue in the Naruto Forum. LOL! That was hilarious. I think everybody had something to say in that thread.

[OutPhase]

Another fad of the AS forums in general was the "putting images in reputation hand-outs" fad, which I started (sorry about that).

And who could forget the 912479012468 iPod threads?

[NoSanninWa]

Let's not be silly. The Kazoo Club is far too low profile to have ever been properly considered a fad. That would have been fun, but we were well below the fad level.

[Calca]

The newest fad appears to be the "Loli in a bag" fad which involves shoving a 10-13 year old girl in a duffel bag and carrying her around.

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by Streetor

The newest fad appears to be the "Loli in a bag" fad which involves shoving a 10-13 year old girl in a duffel bag and carrying her around.

We were discussing fads on AnimeSuki, not in... honestly I don't think I've seen that at all. Where was it? If I haven't noticed it, then it can't be a fad in any subculture that I am part of. Fads are hard to miss if you are present.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

We were discussing fads on AnimeSuki, not in... honestly I don't think I've seen that at all. Where was it? If I haven't noticed it, then it can't be a fad in any subculture that I am part of. Fads are hard to miss if you are present.

Check the Suzumiya Haruhi episode 6 thread.

Spoiler:

Kyon's sister was trying to hide in his luggage so he'd take her with him to a remote island for "vacation" with the rest of the SOS dan

Though I'm not sure if it's reached fad status on it's own, rather than being a part of the overall Haruhiism fad.

[rooboy]

It happened in this week's episode of Suzumiya Haruhi. Though I'm not really sure how that constitutes a fad either, it's an old joke.

[Calca]

Hmm maybe i really didn't mean "fad" per se, but a joke that may spread.


Edit: To the dick who gave me negative rep for this post. It's my f*cking topic. And this isn't something that I was "hoping" would become a fad. Next time try reading a bit better you tool.

[Calca]

What the hell's a "Kazoo club"

If NSW was in it, it probably has something to do with driving away someone's self-confidence.

[Myname]

Chuck Norris...

O RLY?

YA RLY

NO WAI!

ROFL

LOL

LMAO

n00b

fanboy

these are only a few that i know off the top of my head.

[NoSanninWa]

None of those are fads. They're just catch phrases. And none of them have been terribly popular on AnimeSuki.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Myname

Chuck Norris... ; O RLY?, YA RLY, NO WAI!

ROFL, LOL, LMAO

n00b, fanboy

these are only a few that i know off the top of my head.

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

None of those are fads. They're just catch phrases. And none of them have been terribly popular on AnimeSuki.

Internet meme's is the correct term for the first group . And you can't away with a post just consisting any of those on asuki. The second group is just internet acronyms. n00b is gamer speak, Fanboy is a legitimate word.

And the asuki fads are usually related to some popular show each season: Naruto, Bleach, Air, Haruhi... Also people using colored text in the middle of posts seems to be catching on....

[OutPhase]

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

None of those are fads. They're just catch phrases. And none of them have been terribly popular on AnimeSuki.

Then obviously we skipped a class at "Fad 101" then, didn't we? The "if it's popular on 4chan, every-other forum on the internet must surcumb to the macros" class.