Quote:
Originally Posted by Tenzen12
I agree it's matter of taste, but if someone start talking about anime of decade, he should better be objective 
And it should be said, it was one of my favorite (maybe even most favorite) anime of season as well. Just not flawlessly-wonderfuly-super duper-whatever one. |
No complaints, no complaints.
You know though, one of the qualities a branch of Japanese traditional arts excel at is a combination of aesthetics and minimalism - a sort of of Maximum content/Minimum Words mode of expression. One where the ideal is that every movement, every action, every word is encouraged to carry the highest possible meaningful content. This can be seen behind several of Japan's arts - flower arrangement, poetry, painting, calligraphy, etc.
Anime generally (and perhaps tv and film as well) is presented in such a way so that what is going on be both interesting but also accessible, however many levels are involved. This can lead to not only dumbing things down on occasion, but also over-explaining things that did not perhaps need to be explained, or explained so thoroughly.
In this sense Gingitsune has a much higher percentage of presenting and conveying content without words, but sometimes also without a lot of actions - and yet the message is conveyed, and often was conveyed very powerfully and in a short period of time. In other words, it is utilizing that particular aesthetic quality part of the Japanese arts excel in.
Enzo has a love for this aesthetic area, and I do as well - perhaps to an even greater degree than Enzo does (if I may presume to say so), and it is this that he was expressing, but also expressing in the aftermath of being exposed to a particularly effective episode with a fair amount of such content.
It is an aesthetic, to be sure, and therefore one's taste is directly involved. But for someone to opine that it has qualities that make it very distinctly Japanese is not without valid reference points at all, for this aesthetic minimalism is a large part of the Japanese aesthetic. For someone to opine that it may be the best anime on shinto in a decade is also quite reasonable and has plenty of valid reference points too.
Whether or no one agrees with it is another story (that is, whether or no one feels what it tried to represent was validly Japanese or validly reflecting shinto). When he said it was a very effective anime-of-the-decade, etc. he meant so in a very specific way. And, well, he could probably discuss the reasons behind why and how he said things the way he did much more effectively than I could (and with good reason), but one must also sprinkle his statements with the fact that he was speaking out of admiration and even love for what he had been exposed to.