Quote:
Originally Posted by Ermes Marana
I am curious about something though. Does anyone else see a trend where characters are constructed only to appeal to otaku, and are not intended to be relatable or truly interesting characters? This includes characters who have highly artificial interactions. Again... I won't go into if this is good or bad. Characters don't necessarily have to be relatable. I'm just wondering if this trend exists.
The top sales lists show an increase in popularity of seinen shows starring young girls. However, I can think back to other seinen shows with relatable/interesting lead girls, such as Chiko (Daughter of Twenty Faces), Youko (12 Kingdoms), Kino (Kino's Journey), and Lain (Serial Experiments Lain). In many cases I have no problem relating to a girl lead character of a seinen show.
So to fans of (for example) K-On, Railgun, Koihime Musou, Strike Witches, do you think you are supposed to relate to the girls and find them interesting on a non-shallow level, or just enjoy watching them? Is a loli a mythical creature, or is it a person you can relate to?
|
I'm quite a fan of seinen series (particularly the romance and comedy) but this seems to be quite a loaded question (if unintentional). It seems to assume that the characters are more shallow by definition than other characterizations. The characters in K-On!, for example, are "relatable" in that the series depicts rough personality sketches of what might be real people - just like any prime time live-action adult drama. You will never get a "true" person out of any piece of literature, its a sliding scale of sketches and combinations of known tropes/archetypes, etc.
Also, its not clear what you think you mean by "loli". I consider my wife to be "loli-tsundere" in many ways (size, fashion, personality) and she's quite relate-able.
Again, a television series can only depict a rough sketch of a real person and the viewer is left to fill in the blanks. Sometimes they're written more cleverly, sometimes not.
As far as the topic thread title... I have to say it has changed since the 80s and mostly for the better from my perspective: in that the sort of things I like versus the things I don't like have increased. I happen to like things like Honey&Clover, Katanagatari, Azumanga Daioh, Working!!, Nanoha, REC, Moon Phase, TTGL, Hidamari Sketch, Aria, Usagi Drop, Love Complex .... see a pattern? I don't really... I just see good examples from a variety of genre. Whereas in the 70s, 80s, and 90s --- most of the anime I could find was pretty much "bang and shout with some boob" (young boy action shounen).