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[Categories: Editorials]

[Group discussion] The follow-up

Posted by Martin  [Tags: ABC]

Firstly, an apology. My article that dealt with the theme "Anime isn't deep It's just entertainment." was timestamped with the wrong hour and I was out of town over the whole weekend (partly because I was here but mainly due to important and unforseen family commitments) so I didn't get time to answer and read the discussion that followed. Just so you know why my promised articles on Macross Plus and Excessive Manliness in Anime aren't online yet either. Before I get onto the topic itself, I ought to point out that the resulting shitstorm that knocked the blogosphere's climate out of whack for several days was as much to do with the joint blogging concept as much as the subject matter itself. Being something that was planned via e-mail rather than being publicly posted on the participants' blogs, quite a few readers were understandably confused and misunderstood the object of the exercise, which was to bring a topic to everyone's attention by a number of us posting simultaneously and having fun with healthy and lively discussion. There are one or two points that came out of it, and will be addressed by those of us who took part before we take on a similar mission in future; it's something we're working on and I hope we can do it again. My own 'take home' messages I'd like to share are:

1. It was an experiment born from so many members of the blogsphere getting into frequent discussions with each other and getting our heads together to try something new. It's not an exclusive club: it was merely a list of people on an e-mail that can easily be lengthened through others showing an interest. The more the merrier basically, because it can be fun.
2. As always, I'm more than happy to get a discussion going with what I personally write but if your beef is with another article from the same 'joint blogging venture', please leave a message under theirs, not mine. I'm afraid I can't speak for them since we all wrote our respecive articles independently of each other and can't give more than a personal opinion on what they wrote.
3. This was an effort in highlighting an interesting topic and alerting visitors who visit our own blogs to other blogs that they may not have read before. Although it may be clear to some, others saw it as some sort of linking-orgy (nice imagery, there :shock:) or self-promotion or something. It wasn't. I admit there are a few problems to be addressed before we do any of this again (including one blogger who was sadly excluded in the end...I hope your thoughts go online at some point because I was looking forward to reading them) but I think this sort of thing could work in a setting that has a good sense of community like the anime blogosphere does. Watch this space.

Okay, so onto clearing up misunderstandings and misconceptions on the subject itself. The first problem is that the definition of depth in a story is really subjective. It's akin to justifying what makes something funny: I can laugh myself silly at Blackadder, Spaced or Scrubs but chances are quite a few people I know will not see the appeal. It's easy to see why disagreements occur when everyone has a different definition! Another impression I've had as a result of all this is that the showing of thematic depth is associated with being pretentious or inaccessible to the majority of its audience; I didn't help myself much in using Oshii's Ghost in the Shell movies as an example when the Stand-alone Complex incarnation makes the point I was making so much more effectively. In Hige's article he rightly points out that the SAC is not only more fun to watch, but retains the complexity and philosophy, which makes for a more balanced and rewarding piece overall. That is not to say that shallow stuff is less important, which may have been an impression some readers got from my first article (I was trying to argue the opposite); I think being entertained is of paramount importance when you've spent money on a DVD or cinema ticket, but the extra meaning drawn from some pieces matters too. Another sticking point is that 'deep' anime has to be depressing. In the same way that the genre as a whole is a minority, there are a few select titles that do not fit this description at all (again, the definition of 'depressing' is itself subjective!). Getting back to Makoto Shinkai for the umpteenth time, his work has immense emotional depth but the bittersweet and profound endings to Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in our Early Days left me with an overwhelming sense of hope. In closing The 'essay title' we were set, as it were, turned out to be a trick question: anime CAN be deep (my reading of the companion articles gave me much food for thought but my general stance has not changed a great deal) AND be entertaining at the same time. The importance of this extra 'depth' clearly matters to a different degree depending on the viewer, but I'm still getting the impression that 'thoughtfully written' is being mistaken for 'pretentious' or 'too clever for its own good'; I also believe that some people mistakenly see fans of complex anime declaring mere entertainment as somehow inferior. Sadly I can't think of a solution to that but ventures such as this rather disorganised but enlightening joint blogging exercise seem to be good at bringing issues like this into the spotlight.

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