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Originally Posted by Kyuu
No, but. If you create a series that is "moe focused", what incentive is there to create a story in the first place? This is what I'm going on about. Now, if this idea spreads out and becomes more "rampant", then you'll see more and more and more of this kind of stuff. Then suddenly, anything with a story becomes a... "minority".
This is exactly what happened to Hollywood. All the good, deep movies became "second tier" to the flashy visual effect movies.
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These arguments don't really make much sense to me.
First, all anime have "stories". Even if it's a character-driven show that features various vignettes centered around random "day-in-the-life-of" events, it's a story. It may or may not have an over-arching plot that deeply connects all the episodes to each other in time and sequence (or it might)... but the actions and reactions of the characters are essential to character-driven franchises, and that can't happen without "stories". Everything has a story, at issue is only whether you find it interesting or engaging.
Second, your preference for "deep plot-driven narratives" is just that: a preference. There's nothing inherently "good" about it, or inherently bad about any other preference. And even in Hollywood, there continues to be a huge variety of different kinds of fare; despite an emphasis on the "flavour of the month", there are always works to consider in less-represented genres.
Your overall implication here is that character-driven stories represent "author laziness" (or inability to write a "real story"), but I think it's not trivial to execute a good visual effect movie, or a good character-driven show. Many people have tried and failed. I don't think that the apparent abundance of one sort of story means that any other sort is in jeopardy, if only because there is a pendulum effect, and at some point everything old will be new again. I'm also not necessarily convinced that the past was ever such a deep treasure trove of "good storytelling" either when you consider more than just the "best of" highlights... but I have no firm evidence either way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reckoner
Instead of trying to build up more natural character archetypes, a lot of females these days are given these quirky card board cut out archetypes who are designed to appeal with their personality traits to a crowd of people who like moe girls (Basically cute, though moe can go far beyond that I know). Things like tsunderes and kuuderes, or danderes or any other one you can think of.
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Well, first, I think this is not necessarily limited or related to the stereotypical "moe" at all. Consider for a moment how so many male protagonists, antagonists, and other decidedly "non-moe" characters tend to also fall in a very limited number of categories and archetypes, and this even in "serious, plot-driven shows". This may be more a matter of preferring certain stereotypes over others, or perhaps that some shows offer other elements that better "distract" from the character archetypes portrayed.
Beyond that, I think this is mostly a marketing strategy, and is (at least seen as) needed for character-driven stories to stick out in an otherwise crowded market (maybe even moreso in the manga and light novel world than anime, but these are the sources for most anime produced). Knowing the character archetypes gives the readers/viewers some self of reassurance about whether they are likely to enjoy the property, since it's simply impossible to try it all. However, I think the most successful character-driven shows are those that do something with those archetypes to stretch or develop them in a unique way, providing a "unique value" to the audience. I think the amount of successful shows that truly survive on archetype alone are very few, and as I said above, I think it actually takes a certain skill to take these archetypes and really make them come alive for the audience.
Besides that... I think the stereotypical archetypes were developed as a result of a sort of "natural distilling" of all the popular characters in stories past, and represents a sort of "evolution of understanding" of the sorts of characters people generally like. So the fact that they can now use that platform as a starting point is almost like "evolved thinking", in a way. (So much of anime on the whole is really about the "evolution" and refinement of ideas, themes, and motifs.) But I grant that people who value particularly "uniqueness" and "originality" may struggle a bit to appreciate things that show "cookie-cutter signs". But again, like I said above, I think most of the successful works push the boundaries beyond the stereotypes, and that's what endears them to people most. So perhaps if someone's getting too focused on the patterns and is unable to see the uniqueness, they may need to seek a new perspective or new, unfamiliar experiences (perhaps in other media or from other cultures). Over-saturation leads to fatigue.