What does Cred Forums think about "academic" criticism of anime and its culture?

What does Cred Forums think about "academic" criticism of anime and its culture?

Other urls found in this thread:

wrongeverytime.com/2014/08/04/imperfect-beings-hunter-x-hunter-and-the-chimera-ant/
wrongeverytime.com/2014/01/06/monogatari-and-the-monster-inside/
wrongeverytime.com/2013/10/06/uchouten-kazoku-and-the-meaning-of-life/
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>interrogation marks

Laughable; rarely insightful, against all expectations

Such a thing is completely out of Cred Forums's grasp. Over the course of several years I've tried it and most replies have been something akin to
>nice MAL review, faggot
>artistic babble
>all those big words
>pretty vocabulary, empty meaning
>all those buzzwords
etc.

People with poor educatation take pride in their ignorance (esp. among Americans) and scorn anything out of their reach. It takes an intellectual to understand another intellectual. The average Cred Forumsnon can only voice his opinion after in very basic terms of "I (dis)liked it" or after it's been validated by the hivemind (hence all those 'Just finished watching X what did you guys think about it').

Thank god I still have /lit/.

bump

Academic criticism is where fun goes to die to be honest. This is from someone who writes it.

/lit/ is great for gets, pooleykins even agreed, don't bother him about it

There is a distinct difference between making insightful comments about something and then hiding what you think about something using pointlessly flowery language.

From the experience I've had with academic writing, 9/10 academic critics favor this, even when nothing really insightful or meaningful is being said.

tl;dr, criticism like "it's shit" may get old after a while, but there's something charming about that kind of assessment.

Did your feelings get hurt? Poor baby.
There's nothing intellectual about criticizing anime, it's very simple to follow, and the vast majority of it is copy-pasted from something else so blatantly that even a monkey could recognize the pattern.
And no, you are not smart because you can write unnecessarily long-winded posts. If anything, that should be a sign that you're an idiot as you can't actually get your point across without making it convoluted.

Anti-intellectualism is a problem of course, but most attempts at "criticism" of anime end up being pretty awful themselves.

Regardless, I stand by my analysis of Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita being a critique of late capitalism and so on and so on *sniffs*

>fell for the "plot" meme
endless laughter

There's no such thing as academic "criticism" in the way you mean it. It might surprise you but most people who bother to go to college are interested in more than debating opinions of "I like it" vs "it was bad". Its not a critique in the way you probably Google "x anime review" If you ever go to college for anything they will teach you how to discuss something beyond Cred Forums level Internet debates.

It's shit. It's always done by people outside of the culture, and nobody knows what the fuck they are talking about.

>There's no such thing as academic "criticism"
>It might surprise you but most people who bother to go to college are interested in more than debating opinions of "I like it" vs "it was bad"
>If you ever go to college for anything they will teach you how to discuss something beyond Cred Forums level Internet debates.
xD

What exactly is your experience with "academic writing"? Not saying your wrong or anything, but your use of the language "academic critic" makes you seem like you don't even know what your trying to rip on.

Maybe I should try take some kind of critical thinking class, I do have trouble debating and getting my point across often.

We don't have to take stuff like that in engineering.

A+ response welcome to the deans list of Cred Forums

It helped me understand Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence, and convinced me that it is just as good if not better than the first.

listen to this /lit/ intellectual and his hot opinions.

I know there's a journal called Mechadamia, but most of the articles posted there are on anime over 10 years old, and only extremely popular stuff, it has to be popular in the west (as you can see from the title of the journal). Penguindrum is just the sort of series that could benefit from this kind of analysis, but the people contributing to the journal are basically casuals, so they probably never even heard of it

I hate anime so everyone else should too

It's just a cartoon senpai.

There's also the fact that, most art criticism of any kind from the last 40 years isn't really concerned with aesthetic value, but with deconstructing social norms or other such nonsense. So you won't really see that kind of criticism even with western media in the Academy at least, outside of a few outliers like Harold Bloom.

No one gives a fuck about reviews, be it anime, books or movies. Their usefulness stops after someone googles "top anime of 2016" and even then they're fucking awful.

Just watch/read something for yourself.
Also top kek at taking anime seriously

Not interested. I rather learn how it's made, how it's animated, what are the techniques used in the scenes, how the mangaka illustrates his ideas, rather than investing that time in the opinions of a loser with a superiority complex.

I'm more of a /sci/ guy I guess...

neurotypicals owned hard

I like Thomas LaMarre, I think his writing is on the right track in terms of a critical analysis of animation

autist

>academic" criticism of anime
Perfectly fine, except (unlike film/literaure/music and like video games) the fanbase is almost 100% children or those who act and think like such, so the stuff you'll find is very rarely of value. I make friends based on character, not interest, and that's part of the reason: I can bring something up if they've never heard of it, but anyone who actually says "I like anime/manga" would rather talk about the shows themselves and how cool they are (or, god forbid, their ships) rather than what their value is.
>and its culture?
Disgusting and a waste of time, but surprisingly a lot higher quality (if we're talking about Japanese culture--if not, worse than a waste of time).

go read books or whatever

this

Academia is, almost by definition, a breeding ground for ideas that don't mesh with practical reality.
It's why they vote for liberals.

>or whatever
13

That was bloodthirsty savage.

>but there's something charming about that kind of assessment.
You sound like you have literally no interest in anything smart, regardless of language used.

Are you guys just joking about being autistic? I always thought that was just an inside joke

No, we're all autistic little girls.

Or perhaps he doesn't want to listen to some guy who thinks he's god's gift, spouting flowery bullshit to make himself feel smart. Fucking write your own series if you're that clever and have that much time to waste.

smart things are 4 fags

>Academia is, almost by definition, a breeding ground for ideas that don't mesh with practical reality.
You mean the current trend in academia, where anything that challenges someone is banned.

must be sad getting into debt for the sole reason of joining an anime club in order to circlejerk how evangelion has such "dept" and "complexity" and that should be shown for museums for that reason.

>pic related: OP's teacher

Fun things are fun.
Unfun things are unfun.

What more do you need?

And cute too.

redpill me on dubs Cred Forums

>Or perhaps he doesn't want to listen to some guy who thinks he's god's gift, spouting flowery bullshit to make himself feel smart.
Ironically wordy.
>Fucking write your own series if you're that clever and have that much time to waste.
I'm in awe someone would actually say this outside YouTube. Looks like I was correct.

I like reading things that confirm my opinion that Evangelion is the greatest work of fiction ever made.

I post on Cred Forums but I think anime is inherently bad

>falling for le STEM meme

i can name a board full of people who make the most hippy-dippy liberals look like down-to-earth realists...

This is a terrible thread.

>Academia is, almost by definition, a breeding ground for ideas that don't mesh with practical reality.
no, you're thinking of Cred Forums

>People with poor educatation
Maximum irony.

>mfw to smart for anime

This is some great bait, mind if I steal this one?

>wants a smart debate, criticizes the number of words I used
Nice one pal

>outside YouTube
Alright then, keep shoveling shit into your mouth and writing "intelligent" reviews on how it tastes. Everyone wants to know your opinion. Can't even deny it's a waste of time.

Dumb enough to still find le reddit frog funny.

haha that's so funny and random :-) 20 years? what a guy

>...
Is it Reddit? Because you clearly came from there.

>wants a smart debate, criticizes the number of words I used
>Nice one pal
"Irony" is hardly criticism, but yes, it's weird to use so many more words than necessary when complaining about "flowery bullshit".
>Alright then, keep shoveling shit into your mouth and writing "intelligent" reviews on how it tastes. Everyone wants to know your opinion. Can't even deny it's a waste of time.
Now making assumptions AND ad hominem based on them. Guess it's confirmed.

neither of you are as smart as you think you are

Writing literary criticism for grad level papers tends to burn out you desire to see it outside of academia.

Insight of any kind is appreciated in criticism. What's not appreciated is people who think they're automatically smart because they can use the word catechism. Hide it behind as many archaic or uncommon words as you want, but if writing/criticism uses these types of words for the sake of using big words, it's not worth reading. In comparison to this, the charm of "it's shit" on occasion is it's simplicity.

"shoveling shit into your mouth" is hardly ad hominem, but yes, it's weird to use the wrong word when complaining about "assumptions".

Pretty spot on. There's nothing inherently wrong with analysis and critique of anime works (after all, they're a form of literature Aside: People that try to claim "haha anime is a trash medium and it should never be thought of as art" are a fucking bigger problem than those who aim to analyze it but lack the intellectual ability to do so. This goes for any medium which even contends to be "art"; the quality of its work does not nullify its literary value.) but most of the content you'll find is written by people not qualified to do so.

u2

I don't claim to be. I just thought it was strange for someone who clearly didn't care for it to complain about "intellectual" things. Then again, I'm on a site known for complaining about things they claim to be indifferent towards.

i am LITERALLY the smartest man who has ever lived

L I T E R A L L Y

Jesus man, just stop

I don't disagree that using unnecessary language is a problem (though I'd argue that's because most don't know the actual subtleties between those words, notbecause they inhetently don't fit), I don't agree that something so simple is a worthwhile insight. So many people can say "I like it" but not explain why, which is a sign of a larger issue. It'd be best for those people to learn to formulate actual reasoning, though it's also true that many have more profound insight in other fields but still want to talk about their smaller interests.

As someone who writes it, I both agree and disagree.

Back to OP: academic papers on anime/otaku (sub)cultures can be interesting. There is one really interesting paper written about the start of doujinshi, as well as a number of papers exploring the BL phenomenon. I have never read an "academic" critique of a particular anime because I have never seen one actually published. If you mean MAL reviews or people's blogs then I don't care to even look for those.

I used to debate writing an academic paper on the subject, and then I came to the same realization I think most western critics have--if you aren't Japanese and/or don't know Japanese, there's really no place for your criticism. Even the papers I have read have had to have a Japanese co-author.

I like you, user. My exact thoughts.

>hiding what you think about something using pointlessly flowery language.

>unnecessarily long-winded posts
>you can't actually get your point across without making it convoluted

Just admit that you'd discard a priori ANYTHING written in 'academic' prose as convoluted and/or flowery. You try to skim through it, but alas, the essential is not so easily discerned.
What you fail to understand is that the goal of any scholar writing about a humanities-related subject is to be completist and clear, but not necessarily dry or succinct. Since they are writing for other intellectuals who understand the nuances of the language and have been exposed to other academic writing, nobody really bothers to use a language mommy and her children can understand. They don't care how long it takes you to read through the whole thing. Conciseness is not a must in such writing. It might be preferrable, for some, but an author's style may be long-winded, which is accepted, by some.

For your level of comprehension it will always be a matter of language and its difficulty. Scientific papers versus science communication. Novels versus Light novels. Literary fiction versus genre fiction. Philosophy versus self-help books.

People grasping for straws at works like Ergo Proxy or Shinsekai Yori will always be less interesting than real animation discourse.

10/10

The term "art" is badly misused--something being shitty doesn't make it not art

This.
The irony is intentional.

Holy shit man, I glazed over after the first sentence. I came to Cred Forums to get AWAY from my comps reading, why are you trying to talk like a Foucault-knockoff on an anime imageboard.

tl;dr the thread

...

I probably should have clarified beforehand that I see that kind of simplicity as refreshing. Ideally I want a mix of both the academic analysis and "you're waifu a shit".

>Over the course of several years I've tried it
I don't think you know what academic means. It doesn't mean being pretentious on the internet. Anyone can do that. Real academic works on anime (books and articles written by students or graduates of arts and humanities) are exceedingly rare.

Cred Forums stand for austists

Don't even bother, most people who aren't fuckig retarded just lurk this board for screencaps/reactions, everytime you try to post something intelligent or instigate a debate you will be just replied with saltiness off the charts

the average Cred Forumsutist is just a tard with drool coming out its mouth, they clearly don't have the attention spam necessary to even read a post let alone interpret it

They can't enjoy a debate about quality or even culture at all, just give up this board is weeb cancer incarnate

just look at some replies on this thread for example

Why the fuck does someone need to be a god to criticize something? ( especially the generic bullcrap )

and what is with the '' if you don't like it do it better '' line? are you actually braindead? you don't need to be a master musician to have a taste or understand which musics are good and what not, you don't need to be a professional baketball player to analize teams, players and see which one is the best, you don't need to write a novel to know that Shades of Grey is dogshit

>Protip
Your anime is made by a studio which thousands of people work on it, its fucking impossible to someone to produce a actual anime just by themselves, so if you challenge someone to do something, choose realistic standards you cunt with down syndrome

Brevity is the soul of wit.
Faggot.

Inaccessibility can either be from the ideas behind the words or from the words themselves. I prefer the former over the later.

Yeah call me a faggot while you write an essay on word about how you didn't like 50 shades. Hopefully it doesn't take you long to organise that one in your head.
Top work.

>oh cool, a thread about methodically examining what makes some anime enjoyable and others not, so we can begin to appreciate what went into them on a deeper level
>instantly turns into a "I'm more intellectual than you" pissing war

God fucking damnit Cred Forums. Why do you still care about appearances on an anonymous imageboard? This is exactly the kind of shit I try to get away from when I go here to discuss my Chinese cartoons.

>>oh cool, a thread about methodically examining what makes some anime enjoyable and others not, so we can begin to appreciate what went into them on a deeper level
How the fuck did you get that from OP?

This book is the very best I've read.

In theory academic criticism of anime can be good, but I've rarely if ever seen any who actually knew what they were talking about.

I laughed 8/10

Did it ever occur to you that, maybe, people ENJOY writing, intelligent or not, the same way you're suggesting they should just get to the next show to enjoy themself?

That's essentially what criticism is. Unless you count stuff like feminist criticism, which judges media based on completely artificial criteria.

I think people overestimate people's capacity to write out a coherent roadmap of their thoughts. I think I have hotshit opinions about things and when I start writing it down I often realize I cannot just whip out paragraphs at will. I may just be dumb but I don't think people here have a natural talent to organize (slightly) complex thoughts into words

Jargon's I think tend to occur when writers find no good way of expressing their thoughts in a accessible matter.

"Enjoyable" isn't necessarily the end goal of criticism, though I think think even mindless consumers have a cerebral/personal reason to like what they do.
This thread does suck.

...

Some are good

wrongeverytime.com/2014/08/04/imperfect-beings-hunter-x-hunter-and-the-chimera-ant/

wrongeverytime.com/2014/01/06/monogatari-and-the-monster-inside/

wrongeverytime.com/2013/10/06/uchouten-kazoku-and-the-meaning-of-life/

>That's essentially what criticism is.
First off, I think that's very limited - even discounting feminist criticism, there's tons of stuff to be said that doesn't necessarily involve enjoyability but is about intent or structure or how the work functions.
But more importantly, you seem to be confusing opinions about criticism for actual criticism. OP mentioned the former, not the latter.

>then hiding what you think about something using pointlessly flowery language.
>you are not smart because you can write unnecessarily long-winded posts.
>who thinks he's god's gift, spouting flowery bullshit to make himself feel smart
>why are you trying to talk like a Foucault-knockoff
>It doesn't mean being pretentious on the internet.
>you're trying too hard to get an A on your final paper.

Do you honestly believe I consider myself smarter because I have a broader vocabulary than most people? I really don't think I'm being trolled, but why are you all teenagers unaware you're projecting this badly? Thank God I escaped high school classrooms ages ago.
This was the smartest thing anyone said about 'academic' language and it's ironic considering the origin of the quote, and not necessarily a revealed truth. Brevity is overrated, but you sound like a fun dude.

>I may just be dumb but I don't think people here have a natural talent to organize (slightly) complex thoughts into words
I agree. Though I don't have trouble getting thoughts together (I liked timed-writing in my AP classes a lot), most people can't do that.
You're not dumb, user!
>Jargon's I think tend to occur when writers find no good way of expressing their thoughts in a accessible matter.
I totally agree with this.

I took a quick glance at the first link and for me this seems like high-school level analysis rather than full theory/craft.

Is it time for the strawman MS Paint comics?

The essays I linked are thematic analysis, correct.

>Do you honestly believe I consider myself smarter because I have a broader vocabulary than most people?

Wasn't trying to insinuate that at all. I've only been speaking from my own experience is all. Not assuming that everyone who disagrees with me is a teenager.

I don't want this place to be a some English class knock off forum with posta consisting of blogpost reflections with upvotes.

But I do wish I could see some anons reason out why they like something rather than call something shit all the time because writing out why you like something requires more thought and bring more meaningful string of posts

Does anyone want a PDF of this? Not sure if the ebook is easy to find on the internet.
Just tell me where to host it.

It's fun seeing different interpretations of things. I wish I had someone to talk about things like Eva, Madoka, Haruhi, S&W, my favorite manga, etc..

You can literally just get it from the 2nd link on google.

Plus it's really hard to not sound like a fag writing any kind of "meaningful" posts. Was always jealous of people who can sound like an Cred Forumsutist and still get across a meaningful post. It's an art form I never perfectes

>tfw no intellectual bf to have long conversations with
>tfw no intellectually challenged bf to get frustrated at my thoughts

The degradation of intelligence that creates intellectualism corresponds to a degradation of the capacity to reason which manifests in the development of rationalism. Rationalism is the ideology that claims that knowledge comes from reason alone. Thus, reason is separated from experience, from passion and so from life. The theoretical formulation of this separation can be traced all the way back to the philosophy of ancient Greece. Already, in this ancient commercial empire, the philosophers were proclaiming the necessity of subjugating desires and passions to a cold, dispassionate reason. Of course, this cold reason promoted moderation — in other words, the acceptance of what is.

Since that time (and probably far earlier since there were well-developed states and empires in Persia, China and India when Greece still consisted of warring city-states), rationalism has played a major role in enforcing domination. Since the rise of the capitalist social order, the process of rationalization has been spreading into all of society throughout the globe. It is therefore understandable that some anarchists would come to oppose rationality.

But that is a mere reaction. On closer examination, it becomes clear that the rationalization imposed by those in power is of a specific sort. It is the quantitative rationality of the economy, the rationality of identity and measurement, the rationality that simultaneously equates and atomizes all things and beings, recognizing no relationships except those of the market. And just as intellectualism is a deformation of intelligence, this quantitative rationality is a deformation of reason, because it is reason separated from life, a reason based on reification.

>Plus it's really hard to not sound like a fag writing any kind of "meaningful" posts.
That sounds more like a problem with the board than the posts.

...

I fucking hate academic writing, I should have been a woodworker instead of going to uni.

I really want to go read a novel now. How did you do that?
FUCK YOU, I still have 380 episodes left! I can't start something new!

Still the simple and ironic language is what gives the place its character. Veering off from this style of posting will destroy what makes Cred Forums 4chan.

That image and the wall of text was sufficient to make me laugh

For some reason there's a huge anti-intellectualism streak in American culture.

Too much effort for a anonymous forum, too much effort in general, I watch and read stuff to get away from being forced to think.

Why type out an entire essay when you can get your entire point across with a smug anime image.

Many on the opposition to the prevailing thoughts think intellectuals failed them and are unable to see outside of their own clouds

It's pathetic.

Even if you put that effort. It's hard to not sound like you are from reddit or get anything beyond >blogging as a response

It's interesting to read when it's an actual academic study on it, either American or Japanese. ANN and YouTube reviewers are not that.

It leads to increasingly meta shows.

Yes, but if you actually knew anything about writing beyond what your first year literature classes taught you, you would know that you write for your audience. You're writing to Cred Forums. You're writing to people of various backgrounds and levels of education, so naturally, a good writer would write so the least educated potential member of the audience can understand him. If you come to a forum like this and write as though you're going to publish it in a scholarly journal, you're not accomplishing anything other than flexing nuts on people to send another spurt of blood to the massive, engorged boner you seem to have for your own perceived intellect. Language is about communication, you fucking faggot. It's not your masturbatory aid.

I don't get why people are getting so upset by the way this guy writes.
It's really not so bad.

I don't get it either.

Funny considering Cred Forums is all about being as inaccessible to newfags possible to prevent newfags from flooding in

Considering any academics commentary on society has deteriorated to identity politics cult retardation or jamming random pieces of media into post modern philosophy framework that had no relation to the media. Pretty shit.

Anyone claiming to be an academic who is doing something not quantitative or historical is just a retard.