yeah, sorry about that… Arguing in these threads (and a few other cases recently) has really taken a lot out of me, and apparently its affected me to the point where I’m letting things like this slip by. Sorry if i offended you @yerian98.
Really, it didn’t bother me at all. I usually enjoy arguments so I don’t mind having people disagree with me anyway. And as I said, I think its a compliment to be told you’re good at bullshitting.
Don’t want to stray the discussion off-topic again, but don’t you recognize this pattern? No, I’m not talking about chemistry. It has something to do with dwarves and ripples
Well, I see ripples, objects that might represent “a boy”, “a girl” and “8 dwarves”. I’d love to interpret more into it, but “ripples” and the numbers are the only things that match. And ripples aren’t even part of the tale of 8 dwarves…
On a side note:
There’s a term for that, too and it’s called the anthropic principle. It says that for something to exist, it requires someone conscious to witness it.
And now back to the topic.
I agree with this. In my opinion, VNs add to our “knowledge” just as much as other books do. Works of fiction can influence us almost as much as personal experiences (fiction merely ‘feels’ less real because we’re conscious of the fact that it’s fiction and also because it doesn’t impact all of our 5 senses). But in the end of the day, everything we experience is just in our head and we can’t bypass our brain in order to find out whether the information it gives us is 100% true or not. This is both good and bad. It doesn’t even matter if you tell people the truth or lie to them. What matters is whether they believe it or not. A believable lie or even propaganda will influence people just as much as a truth would.
But I digress. Some people may ask "How in the world are VNs, being a fictional work for the purpose of entertainment, be as valuable and informative as, say, textbooks? Well, did you know that life experience is an important asset in creating a fictional story? The more experience you have, the more you can share, the more realistic your story will become. An experienced reader will be able to tell apart a realistic story from mere juvenile fantasies.
And by writing a story, you share that life experience. VNs tell the stories of people, of lives and life situations. How do people think, what do they feel and how do they react in a given situation.
A textbook will teach you 1 + 1 = 2, but the knowledge you get from a story isn’t as plainly visible. Only by understanding the situations and the characters will you be able draw conclusions and learn something from the story. And you know what the fun part is? Different people might draw different conclusions. Readers might conclude something different from what the author wanted to say. Authors might have subconsciously included something they didn’t even intend to include, but it ended up there because it’s also part of their life experience, which they used to create the story.
Oh, and it’s not like there’s zero scientific knowledge included in works of fiction. Scientific topics are ALSO used as material for stories. Just look at this thread. People were talking about schrödinger’s cat but only a minority of them are actually familiar with quantum physics and the math behind it. Sure, they didn’t know as much, but they more or less had a general idea of that topic.
Now think about it: how come they knew it without reading a textbook on quantum physics? We’re not all physicians. If it wasn’t for certain works of fiction, we wouldn’t even have known about things like schrödinger’s cat. Most of us would never read an actual textbook on that topic. But those things have been mentioned in several works of fiction we’ve read or watched and now we know about them.
We have tons of valuable knowledge in our heads that ended up there by means of entertainment media. So of course there’s real meaning in Visual Novels.
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Good point. Lies are basically just fiction that someone has presented as reality. Perfect example for why fiction can be just as influential.
[quote=“Naoki_Saten, post:36, topic:414”]
And by writing a story, you share that life experience. VNs tell the stories of people, of lives and life situations. How do people think, what do they feel and how do they react in a given situation. A textbook will teach you 1 + 1 = 2, but the knowledge you get from a story isn’t as plainly visible. Only by understanding the situations and the characters will you be able draw conclusions and learn something from the story. And you know what the fun part is? Different people might draw different conclusions. Readers might conclude something different from what the author wanted to say. Authors might have subconsciously included something they didn’t even intend to include, but it ended up there because it’s also part of their life experience, which they used to create the story.
[/quote]So fiction has real and practical knowledge and lessons because it it stems from the author’s real and practical feelings and experiences? Interesting. That would also explain why different people (author included) have different conclusions and feelings about the same work of fiction: because as much as we like to say that facts are facts and the world only exists in one way, everyone experiences reality differently as well.
[quote=“Naoki_Saten, post:36, topic:414”]
We’re not all physicians.
[/quote]I know you meant physicists, but still, lol.
A great example for anime fans, is to compare a Ghibli or Mamoru Hosoda work… or even just a highly rated Slice of Life like Kawaisou or (despite how exaggerated it is) Daily Lives of Highschool Boys… to pretty much anything else out there. Take NGNL, OreImo, or Nisekoi for example.
It’s easy to see from the characters which directors have focused on real-life experiences. I think the one thing the anime industry lacks most is humanity. There aren’t all that many shows that really say “these characters are as real as you or I.”
That’s kinda what I was going for when I said
Totally agree with the idea~ It’s like… recently I’ve been listening to Porter Robinson’s new album. There’s a song named ‘Sad Machine’ sung by Vocaloid AVANNA. It tells the story of a female robot, who depends on the human that awoke her, to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
While the story of the song is something in his head, Porter said that a lot of people have asked him if it’s based on Portal 2, Angel Beats, or Her. Personally I think it’s very Planetarian-ey, but can see it as it’s own story as well.
The fictional lyrics of a song make people reflect on their memories of a different fictional work, in the same way you’d associate a song with a memory.
The idea that so many people can experience a form of entertainment as memories of another experience is amazing.
This sounds really similar to something Hayao Miyazaki himself said in an interview, actually: here.
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The title of the article is hilarious.
I agree with what he is saying, just not as strongly.
“Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people,” is probably truer than I want to believe. When did characters stop being exaggerated humans? When did they become a bunch of tropes plucked out from an Otaku’s DVD set?
There is certainly a disconnect between the majority of anime characters and humans. Something is off about the way characters in a lot of anime act, and sometimes… it can be kinda creepy, you know? Lose focus of the entertainment for a second and you are met with a strangely empty world.
Some anime have it a lot worse (look at DRAMAtical right now) and some anime do it a lot better… but that strange feeling is still there.
They’re not related to each other, but they are part of something bigger. BGM: The world where nothing happened
It can be reflected upon language. Think “tsundere”, “yandere” and the like, used to describe some characters, and how ofter such tropes are used in there
I was originally going to rant here about the unrealistic-ness of anime, but after counterarguing with myself several times and just hitting a wall in general, I decided to scrap it all. Then I tried to write some simple opinoins about mature anime with realistic characters, but I had writer’s block (can you call it that when writing a forum post?) on that too. So here are a bunch of short, possibly unrelated thoughts that I just wanted to get out there
I don’t have anything against high school, but anime seems much more mature when not set there, and the west doesn’t really seem to get it
Some of my favorite anime are ones that could have made just as much sense/been popular as live action in the west. Some that come to mind are Psycho-Pass, Fate/Zero. NOT that I would ever want live action adaptations, because they are great examples of “here, this is a great show that just happens to be animated” for non anime fans.
Live action of Monster on HBO directed by del Toro actually sounds amazing though
Screw characters with no intelligence as if they need everyone else to think for them. Screw characters with no motivation. Screw characters with no development. Archetypes and tropes are things that character should happen to fall into, not be created around. Real people are smart, have reasons for doing everything, and will change because they are affected by their experiences and other people
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I don’t think that’s the case. White Album 2, Tari Tari, Vanishment, Honey and Clover, and so on~ Some people would even say NagiAsu or Kokoro Connect… I wouldn’t though >.> It’s just a lot easier to make a school idol anime and gain millions of fans.
I think you are going down the wrong route by using the term “mature.” Being able to work as a Live Action film doesn’t necessarily mean it is mature and realistic. I wouldn’t say F/Z or Psycho-Pass take inspiration from real humans. I loved Fate/Zero, it certainly worked on it’s characters, but I think there is a disconnect between the characters of the Fate franchise and humanity.
I never got far into Psycho-Pass, so I can’t say much about it~ If it improved later on then you might be right.
It seems like it is hard to balance it all. Focus on the world and the realism, or focus on the story? Almost all Ghibli films lack story, and the few that do have some story aren’t great.
As I said before, a greatly exaggerated example of what I mean by having a disconnect between the characters and humanity, is to watch something like DRAMAtical. You could even go watch Canvas: Motif of Sepia if you want to suffer.
They have massive flaws all over, not just the antisocial nature, but elements of the awkwardness can definitely be seen in a lot of other anime.
Sorry, haven’t seen any of those except Kokoro Connect, which I didn’t think was mature or had realistic characters. (Not that that means it wasn’t a decent anime)
Yeah I realize that. I meant to just use that word once and then mostly talk about realism but as I said, I erased everything several times.
[quote=“Takafumi, post:44, topic:414”]
Being able to work as a Live Action film doesn’t necessarily mean it is mature and realistic.
[/quote]I disagree with you on that. I think that in order to be convincingly played by a real person, a character must seem real to a certain extent.
[quote=“Takafumi, post:44, topic:414”]
It seems like it is hard to balance it all. Focus on the world and the realism, or focus on the story? Almost all Ghibli films lack story, and the few that do have some story aren’t great.
[/quote] I think what I’m pointing out by my examples is that you don’t necessarily need a realistic world to have realistic characters. Take super hero movies. Those kinds of powers, etc. are not realistic. But point is that they are all still human, or at least feel like/want to be human.
I would never say, “F/Z is a realistic anime” because its not. But I think I could probably put myself in almost any of the character’s situations and acted similarly. And lets make this clear: We will see what ufotable does with F/SN, but for now my “realistic characters” tag does not extend to the rest of the Fate series.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Miyazaki’s and Hisoda’s works are also really great exmples.
Also, sorry for using only Urobuchi examples. Complete coincidence. I could list several others instead (Baccano, Satoshi Kon films, etc), but I heaven’t seen any of them so I can’t really back that up anyway.
[quote=“Takafumi, post:44, topic:414”]
watch something like DRAMAtical
[/quote]Dropped this after 2-3 episodes. Its really bad
Wow, that was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be
Wow. You’re missing out~ 
I wouldn’t say Kokoro Connect is either, but I wanted to take some cheap shots at the people who think it’s characters are well written, hence the “I wouldn’t though.”
That’s a very obvious statement. I think that in order to be convincingly presented in an anime, a character must seem real to a certain extent. Anything has to seem real to an extent in order to be convincing.
Actors can be as fake as any fictional character. The only difference between the two is our perception of what is real and what isn’t. This has pretty much been proven in the past over and over again. It all comes down to how the film is directed, and how the actors behave. Sure shows like Avatar or Dragonball (Extreme examples, but examples nonetheless) have been made into live action films, but it doesn’t mean they were realistic.
Keep in mind that live action movies don’t always focus on making a character “be convincingly played by a real person.” It’s hard to compare the two, but the live action scene has the same problem as the anime scene. In the end, a character in an movie adaption of a book, is the same as a character in an anime adaption of a VN, LN or manga. They are text given a form or a voice by another person.
I think that’s really a staple of the genre though. A super hero movie is usually either complete trash mindless action, or a story of a superhero’s struggle to become “human” in some way… Really, it’s an easy ticket to make realistic characters. The powers don’t matter in this discussion - I’m not arguing about the realism of fantasy.
The characters themselves have to be realistic. They can have as many inhuman characteristics as they want, but they still have to be a person… otherwise they are just something that fills a role.
Hmmm, maybe we are misunderstanding each other. What kinds of qualities would make you say: “This anime is realistic”?
I think we might be agreeing and we don’t realize it.
The other thing is, lets not forget that anime is often supposed to be unrealistic in some ways. Part of whats so great about the medium is that it can use stories and characters that are very different and often even impossible in live action.
We’re talking about slightly different things. As I said…
I’m not talking about it using “stories and characters that are very different and often impossible in live action.” I’m talking about characters that just don’t feel right. They don’t feel like people. They are just a thing on the screen.
You can have impossibilities in a realistic anime. Going back to Ghibli, that’s what a lot of their films are about - using impossibilities to enhance the realism of the show. Using talking animals, fantasy creatures, or mysterious magics in a way that people can still relate to.
I’m not saying fantasy is unrealistic. I’m saying characters are.
I’m sorry. Maybe its because I’ve seen comparatively so much less anime (As we know, I like to pretend I’ve seen a lot more than I have), but I’m starting to become confused by all this. I definitely see the really unrealistic characters (e.g. DRAMAtical, characters molded into archetypes), and I see how some directors like Miyazaki can be really good at portraying very real people. But I feel kinda lost in the in-between. I guess I don’t really feel that as many anime have unrealistic characters as you seem to think. Maybe I’m just less critical than you?
Normal is boring.
Nobody would care to watch a normal person’s normal everyday life. There would be literally zero story and no notable characters in there. I’m definitely not your average Joe, but I bet I wouldn’t be able to get anyone to watch an anime based on my life even if I paid them for it.
So in order to make things interesting, you either need a bunch of unusual (not-normal) characters or an unusual situation or setting to put your characters into (or both). And I guess this is where it happens that some authors, in an attempt to create unusual characters, end up making them unrealistic.
But let’s be honest: creating something unusual is a tough job, especially when it exceeds your own life experience. How would a mother who had her children stolen from her by a secret organization feel when trapped in a giant underwater building? How the heck would I know?? It’s never happened to me or any of my acquaintances and probably never will. But it does sound kinda interesting, so an author just might give it a shot. He can try and use some remotely related material as a reference, but there’s no sure-fire recipe to make fictional characters behave realistically in a totally messed-up situation that’s unfamiliar even to the author.
On a side note: Even if you’re totally inexperienced as an author, you can still produce remotely popular works as long as you can draw in viewers/readers that are similarly inexperienced. Write down your fantasies instead of something based on your own experiences. Inexperienced viewers or readers won’t be able to tell you’re being unrealistic. And I think that’s what “The problem of the anime industry nowadays is that there’s too many otaku” was referring to. You can sell a low-quality product well and even compete with high-quality ones if the majority of your clientele can’t tell the difference.
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This^ is a really good point and I totally agree. I feel like at some point I was trying to say parts of this but instead it probably got lost… somewhere. Thank you.
Idk about you, but Non Non Biyori was a completely normal anime about normal people doing normal things; and that was a really good anime.
coughcoughswordartonlinecoughcough Imeanwut?
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It was a little bit silly in a very special way and had some severe wackiness to it- But it was fantastic without being supernatural or anything or having in massive plot piece other than the joys of childhood, etc.
