post in discussion. Though I have little clue about what they’re talking about, it seems very interesting.
Shiraishi: except for me, of course
Zetsubou-sama: No, even you, in time, will learn to come to love Our Shinbo as one of your own!
Shiraishi: much like with kimi ga nozomu eien, the drugs were the only way i was able to make it through pani poni dash
Takayuki-kun: the best thing about bakemonogatari was how it lifted some of the charm points from yamamoto yohko and soul taker and rolled it into a stick and beaten people with it. then again, that might be just akio watanabe’s fault.
Akio-san: I wouldn’t say “watanabe’s fault,” it’s probably overall the best shaft crew assembled in a while, and it shows. I do like the Shinbo sound bite about how, because of the author’s use of words, he and shaft were perfect for the adaptation. It works.
Shiraishi: i wish i understood what that meant
Takayuki: Nisiosin is a perfect match with Shinbo, that much is obvious to a lot of people already and Bakemonogatari is just confirmation.
But uh, <3 Watanabe.
Kona-chan: “Is there a difference in the instantiated Shinbou versus the conceptual Shinbou?”
The main issue I have with Shinbou is the tendency to go borderline extreme artsy, a point where I just start questioning the necessity of scenic disorder attempting to provide a textured meaning but ends up annoying. Ya
Takayuki: That’s my problem with Nisiosin too. Among others.
Kyou-Sensei: The comparison with Kubrick is an interesting one: I think the thing that really marks Shinbo out as different, right now, is that you have to pay attention. Lots of directors/writers are making intricate stories, and the best back them with great characters and designs. But in the end it’s all still presented to the viewer on a plate, like sandwiches cut into bite-size squares for consumption. That is the proverbial “grain of truth” in the accusation that a lot of anime is juvenile: it’s not the stories, it’s the method with which the viewer ingests them.
Shinbo isn’t “for kids” in any way: I’m not certain a kid could fully process most of what’s going on. EVA is perfect for adolescents, it mixes media, but in a stilted way, great for the viewer just becoming able to process it all. Shinbo assumes you’re already through with that phase, and can handle the mature levels. It’s a lot like reading in that sense, where you have to do a whole lot of the work yourself.
And part of the reaction against Shinbo happened to the New Wave SF writers: just tell a simple story, or it’s not SF (anime). Why all the arty shit? Well, as Delany said, the style is entertaining. If you ignore it, you’re refusing to entertain your audience as well as you can.
Takayuki: I don’t think Shinbo’s presentation of his stories are as complicated as you imply. It definitely has layers, but at the same time one can take the flip side of the coin and accuse him stuffing the mattress with bills that someone enjoying the show will either find them or don’t, rather than organizing that layering in a manageable, presentable way. Hopefully obvious, but you can make a complicated show that’s easy to understand, so why be convoluted?
The criticism about “for kids” have two layers to it, too. One is that kids may or may not have the intellectual capacity or education/life experience to understand all that is going on, on the screen. The other is that a kid would not have lived long enough to accumulate all the necessary background information to even perceive every reference and nods in Shinbo’s shows. The latter is the most common form of criticism Shinbo gets.
It’s a bit like those overly thought-out murder mystery light novels that are/were all the rage in Japan (LOL Umineko) where the fun exists in the meta rather than its per se presentation.
To me, Soul Taker remains Shinbo’s best directorial work because he was able to add that extra dimension to the show via the actual direction of the show! As opposed to relying on merely stylistic presentation or Unlimited Joke Words or something. Although that might be as much fault (or credit) of the source material Shinbo works with.
Kyou-Sensei: Well, accusing him of “stuffing” is essentially accusing him of adding too much entertainment. The guys who do the Venture Bros. have called attention to the fact that some of their fans complain that there are too many jokes… in a comedy show. I would say the same is true here: as it’s never actually difficult to follow the story in any of Shinbo’s works (that I’ve seen), complaining about how there’s too much stuff in the episodes is complaining about too much content.
Shiraishi: the problem i have with what i’ve managed to sit through is that you DON’T have to pay attention. so much of what’s there is as you put it “arty shit” which doesn’t actually add anything. it can be things like blackboards full of references that serve no purpose (not even to be funny!), or it can be like baroque mise en scene that’s ultimately irrelevant because the focus of the scene is a conversation. when i watched pani poni dash for example, i didn’t even bother trying to pay attention and take everything in once i realized that doing so, even when i did know what it referred to, added absolutely nothing to the work as a whole.
it’s not even like say, south park’s critique of family guy. these aren’t even jokes a lot of the time! to put it another way, would you think that a random show is better or worse if there was a text crawl at the bottom that just spit out unrelated memes? like you’re watching an episode of i dunno, full metal alchemist and at the bottom is a string that goes like “my own father never hit me…norio wakamoto…omae mo naa…yaranaika…yomiuri giants…do you remember love…three times faster…zaa warudo…lucky star…the japan that can say no…”?
finally, the question of “why” does matter for the simple reason that there are opportunity costs, for lack of a better term, in everything that’s there.
Kona-chan: “baroque mise en scene” I lol. (I dislike Baroque)