[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Flawnalyst

When it comes to making a series, pandering and unoriginality are unavoidable complaints. However, that doesn't change the fact that if your series doesn't do anything to stand out from other series, even within its genre, then it's not considered a good series. For me, entertaining or stand-out characters is what I mostly look for in fiction, let alone anime. If a series doesn't have anything to make it different from other series, then what's the point in seeing it?

A show can be both unoriginal and good at the same time by taking familiar story elements and presenting them in a well-made manner. For example, Sturges' The Magnificent Seven is a retelling of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai beat for beat. However, it's still a great film with a lot of entertaining scenes. Critics worth their salt wouldn't go around complaining about how it's unoriginal. When it comes to anime, there's almost no show that copies its original to this degree, so why is originality so much a problem?

Originally Posted by Flawnalyst

Concerning the issue of otaku-pandering shows outseliing the exotic fare, it's true that the audience and the timing is very important. However, I still stand by the saying that a show shouldn't just give the audience what it wants, but what the audience doesn't know it wants. That's why there were huge gaps in DVD sales between Madoka Magica and other generic series. Hourou Musuko...yeah, I don't know why it didn't sell, but then again, I never watched it.

Shows sell precisely because they give their customers what they want - that's pretty much the first rule of salesmanship. That doesn't have anything to do with predictable or not taking chances or anything like that, it just means providing the kind of entertainment that caters to their customers.

Hourou Musuko didn't sell for the same reason why a lot of other shows of its nature don't: they don't appeal to the people that buy DVDs. For anime, the vast majority of DVD-buyers are otaku, and so we have that conundrum. It basically sits in the same category as a lot of well made shows like Dennou Coil, so it's not exactly unexpected.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I totally disagree. It's a lot easier to just copy and paste a bunch of tropes into what is being wrote, and play them entirely straight, than it is to try to come up with something interesting without instantly grasping at the most common tropes in the book.

Sure it is, but if we take "pandering" to mean to go out of the way to cater to a particular group's tastes, then it's no longer a matter of copying and pasting tropes.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

The best way to connect with an audience is by making well-written, relatable characters.

But then, that takes actual work, unlike playing out the exact same scene in the exact same way that a thousand other anime shows have done.

The problem here isn't the pandering, it's the bad writing and direction. There are some examples where pandering detracts from the overall quality of the work, but this isn't one of them.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I disagree.

It has no tsunderes. None of the characters are otakus themselves (which I find to be an increasingly common element in pure otaku centric shows). It has as many references to medieval European literature as it does to other anime shows. It has no significant fanservice (of the most common sexual kind, at least). Many would argue that its moe elements are subverted, if anything. Its narrative is hardly "feel good", or "comfort food". It's very far away from something like K-On!

Since when was pandering to otaku restricted to just that? Madoka is predicated on having a preconception of how Mahou Shoujo shows work, and to play on such preconceptions. This is the very essence of pandering: to reward viewers for having such preconceptions (aka specialized knowledge).

Originally Posted by Arabesque

The thing is, and I think this point was mentioned already, just because might pander to a certain segment of viewers doesn't make it bad

Precisely. A show should be judged on its merits rather than what kind of category it fits or how it appeals to its audience.

Originally Posted by Arabesque

Now, about the topic ... I think that the problem seems to be more about how the reviewers throw the word ''pander'' a lot and treating it as a bad thing automatically. Sure, excessive use of it is bad, but does that mean any use of it needs to be damned as well?

This comes from the same impulse as declaring a character a "Mary Sue" and automatically treating that as bad. It takes more effort to figure out why Mary Sues are bad, and a lot of critics don't want to make that effort.