Manaban's Sandbox

Manaban said:
The thing about discussing ecchi and forming opinions on it is that, overall, it isn't entirely removed from approaching comedy the same way. They're both really dependent on the viewer, moreso than most other forms of entertainment that anime delves into. And just as people have different types of humor, people have different things they find sexually appealing. Something somebody finds sexy and only adds to the show can be something somebody else finds to be obstructive, and I consider neither to be wrong for feeling such a way. Some people can like certain types of humor and dislike others and others can like certain ways of sexualizing characters and dislike others.

Like comedy, though, just because it's more subjective than other types of series doesn't mean that it's impossible to be talked about, dammit, and I'm kind of annoyed with how the bulk of people discussing against ecchi on the past couple of pages are falling back on "it's just my opinion" as a defense for it. When I say I like it, you can ask me as many questions as you goddamn well please because I recognize that just because something is my opinion doesn't mean that it's special and that I'm absolved from having it challenged or discussed. I don't know why this seems to be such a common argument in these types of threads, since I remember this happening in almost every other thread I've seen of this nature since I started being a more active member of AD, which, while they definitely aren't as numerous as they were when I was still kind of only dipping my feet, there's a sort of consistency to it all the same.

It feels like so often, people want to shit on subjectivity as a means of defending an opinion on this so, but only when the person using it as a defense is expressing an opinion differing from their own point of view. In cases like this, it's fine to completely plug your ears to any discussion or dissenting opinions for some reason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Perversion also plays a role in it - I feel like there's usually 3 types of people when it comes to this topic, which are umbrella archetypes to define a broader range of positions on a sliding scale moreso than just outright only 3 types of viewers, for clarification's sake.

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1. There are people like me, who are almost always happy to see things they find sexy whether or not they're even particularly in that kind of mood. I'll watch ecchi when I'm not even feeling promiscuous - I frequently will go fap and then come back and watch something that banks on sex appeal, even though I'm very flaccid since I just got done running up the palm tree. I've got no issue with it, and enjoy it all the same even, I assume because I'm just kind of a pervert at my core, and that I usually don't fap to ecchi itself anyway, albeit the characters and situations and what's shown are free range to let my imagination take the reigns :P These people I consider to be totally fine, obviously, so long as they don't act like overbearing dickheads about it.

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2. Then there are people who aren't prudes, and like sexy things, but aren't necessarily always in the mood for it and so whenever they're not watching something for as much and then get bombarded with it, they'll be put-off by it - either that, or they just don't look to anime whenever they're in the mood for looking at these types of things in general.

Whether or not I consider them reasonable in that case would be reliant on context - if they used such a complaint with a series that was blatantly ecchi and mostly relied on sexualization (which it does happen from time to time) then I would think they're still being unreasonable, as I always would with people who would complain about ecchi in an ecchi series. It's like complaining about giant mechs existing within a mecha series, and I see no reason to offer their failure to make use of common sense in relation to their expectations respect.

In the case of fanservice appearing in things that are non-ecchi, though, and being put off by as much with this type of mindset, then I find it totally fair game.

I feel like the majority of people belong to this sort of second type, based on what I've gathered during my time on AD so far.

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3. Then there's prudish people who don't usually enjoy sexualization as a means of entertainment regardless. This is more difficult for me to approach because I do consider an outright aversion to lewdness and sexualization to this extent to be prudish and so I consider these people such - but with that in mind, it's fine by me that they are like such - unless they're kind of cunt-ish and overbearing about it, obviously. I feel a need to defend my use of the word here, because it's in no way diminutive, even though offense will usually be taken to using it.

Being a prude is just lying on the opposite of side of the spectrum from people like myself when it comes to how entertainment is derived from sexualization, and as such I would want to protect people's right to have that approach so long as they don't act like overbearing dickheads about it, aka it's no different than my views on the first one, it just lies on the opposite side of things. Hell, I have friends I consider to be prudes on this site, yet I like and even respect some of them all of the same. I'm having to walk on eggshells because people tend to react negatively to being called a prude, even though there's nothing wrong with it, and when I use it at least, I don't mean it as an insult. And simply not liking ecchi doesn't make somebody a prude either, anyway, even though I am aware that there are people who will insinuate as much and I dislike that myself.

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Whether I find the second type of person I described fine or dumb is heavily depending on what the context is of how they're saying that, basically. The first and third are more or less always fine to me, so long as they don't get overbearing with others about it. When that treshhold is crossed, it stops being fine. That's more or less my views on the three main ways people seem to approach this type of content.

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So it's just a case by case basis, really. Depends on how much somebody enjoys sexualization as a means of entertainment, as well as what they find sexy. It's nothing more than that, for anybody, be it those who complain about it or those who do not.

There's an argument about it being reliant on execution (how it works within the series, basically) that I see brought up very often, but the greatest issue I take with that is that the type of pushing people do on how to handle with that argument would just be trying to make it more statiable to them, under the guise of it working as a criticism - so really, it's still just a complaint when it's used like this and nothing more. If they feel that way then fine, but I'm not going to roll with it just because they're discussing it as a means of execution and not preference. And preference is inherent to any argument where the foundation of it is something along the lines of "I don't want it to be this way, I want it to be this way instead!" which is all this idea really is whenever you whittle it down and think about it just a bit.

But I myself am specifically opposed to this because of my own stake in the genre rather than a disrespect for them feeling such a way - more often than not, applying these complaints are things that would actively devalue many areas of ecchi that makes me like it. I think many others like me would feel this way, and that's sort of why "creative intent" can be brought up as a counter-argument in these cases so often. If I want to watch something reliant on narrative or not-sexual entertainment, then I (usually) wouldn't watch an ecchi. I don't see where it'd be better to bend to these complaints for me as a viewer, only worse, hence why I'm not going to be buying into this often-reiterated idea of execution anytime soon.

That, and "execution" and "how it works within the narrative/series" are such vague concepts that they could mean fucking anything you want them to, so it's difficult to even be wrong when making that type of argument :V

But basically, if you're somebody who makes these types of argument, you can keep your ideas away from me because I'm not going to be sold on it as a fan of this type of content anytime soon. When I want to offer ideas on how to improve these types of shows on a broader scale, I'm going to keep pushing for more overtly lewd ecchi as opposed to some of the more prudish and reserved stuff that comes out (as an aside, I find it incredibly funny that I saw so many people say that Eromanga-sensei went overboard in this aspect, since I found it far too prudish and reserved about itself by and large), and pushing for the continued reliance on appealing character designs and sexy situations with a smaller (yet still existent) emphasis on more traditional standards like character development/personalities of the characters, and not really giving much of a fuck about how the ecchi works within the world and the narrative or whatever. It's not that I have no standards - but that our standards over what makes these types of shows are different, and as such, we can't really discuss them properly when we're not even agreeing on what's being defined as "good" or "bad" here.

But the main point being that it's not really something that can be objectively quantified in the sense that many want to do so, even less so than most other types of anime, and I don't know why so many wish to treat it as such. Like comedy, people can try to whittle it down to timing or whatever as much as they like, but whether or not it serves its purpose and is found to be funny/sexy is much more reliant on who's watching it. If this can be accepted as being the case with comedy, I see no reason why ecchi shouldn't fall into that group as well.

Pullman said:


The difference between actual western media and anime with western influences is that the latter is still anime, still 'eastern' and that kind of hybrid nature makes it enjoyable in a particular way. Just like anime-influenced western cartoons have a certain appeal because of the mix of cultures and techniques and styles. At least that's how I see it. Cultural crossovers like this have a distinctly different appeal compared to simply western media. Cowboy Bebop or Avatar TLA would not be possible without influences from both spheres coming together and both happen to be among my favorites so if there's a chance of more shows following in their vain thanks to Netflix, I wouldn't be unhappy about it.

And in terms of 'westernizing' the medium, I don't think that's even up for debate. When people look forward to Netflix potentially financing more western-influenced anime it doesn't mean people want the whole medium to get westernized. They would just enjoy a couple of more shows like that. No need to over-interpret their statements as wanting to change the whole medium and everything in it. Some might enjoy that, but I think the vast majority does not imply that.

And (for the alarmists in this thread) considering that Netflix does its own thing, it's not gonna really affect what the japanese air on their TV channels I don't think. Netflix isn't gonna spend money 'instead' of existing japanese production companies, just on top of it. The TV airing slots for anime will still be filled as usual. There's just also gonna be a few Netflix exclusives each season for the people who are interested. I don't see much of a downside.

Clebardman said:

I love animated drawings (not CGI) and I love cartoons aimed at adults. You can see why I'm consuming anime without caring much about the jap aspect of the thing.

Maneki-Mew said:


Because of the art and story telling / characterization style. I mean, anime have more indiviual characteristics than just moe, loli and harem. For example facial expressions and of course, the main reason for me to watch way more anime than western cartoons, which look like western cartoons, is the art style. I really prefer it, even if you can't generalize all styles and most artists have some individuals things, over the "typical western styles". But tbh, I like a mixture between the typical anime and the typical western style most, just not the extreme on the one or other side.
Oh.. and I prefer the black and white art of manga over the "everything is in color"-art of comics.

TripleSRank said:
The problem with the harem label is that there are no set standards that everyone agrees to. What constitutes a harem anime is too vague despite the seemingly clear-cut term.

The definition I'm going with and what I propose others adopt is a two-pronged definition in the interest of eliminating exception cases so that there are no grey areas.

The first prong I propose would be a show where the protagonist is mostly surrounded by companions/colleagues of the opposite sex that aren't substantially younger or older than said protagonist. Thus a series with a male protagonist with a male best friend and three (or more) significant female friends/colleagues would count as a harem. Since romantic interest and ecchi isn't a factor in this prong, the ratio of opposite sex to same sex friends would have to scale such that there is a clear majority of the opposite sex in a dateable age range. Taking the aforementioned example, if we give our male protag a second male best friend then we need to add two more female friends, for a third male another one or two more females, etc. such that the ratio clearly favors some sort of fantasy of having many opposite sex friends/colleagues or "possibilities" in a romantic sense.

The second prong I propose would be a show where [three or more] of the opposite sex show interest in the protagonist or are often thrown into ecchi situations around the protagonist. That's it. It doesn't matter if the protag has one noteworthy same sex friend or ten-- if there are three or more of the opposite sex who show interest in them or are inexplicably fated by the universe to have their clothes explode when near the protag, that would suffice. The protag doesn't need to reciprocate or appreciate the interest/ecchi.

If a show fulfills either set of criteria, it's a harem.

Thus both Steins;Gate and Monogatari are harems, Steins;Gate in the former sense and Monogatari in both senses.

Edit: If we want to get more detailed we could say a show that fulfills one prong has harem as its subgenre, while a show that fulfills both prongs has harem as its primary genre.

Manaban said:
Well, I'll be that one guy who walks into a thread full of people who love a genre and says "I don't like it much"



Idk, I tend to view sci-fi more as a setting than anything else and I always sort of have issue getting into a setting like that even when it's not anime. I mean for videogames I really love System Shock 2 and I've played Stellaris a bunch lately, and for anime there's been "sci-fi" anime I liked quite a bit, but compared to what I feel many would consider legit sci-fi it'd feel out of place to bring up things like TLR or Mahouka in that same vein. Can't think of any sci-fi films I've enjoyed tbh.

I feel like this stems from technology, if I were to guess, because I'm just not fascinated by technological growth/highly advanced technology (I've actually sort of started to strongly feel that we should slow down in real life, given there's fucking juicers that require you to be connected to a wi-fi setup just to be able to even use them, so maybe even a bit negative-leaning on it) and as a result, future tech and science just tends to hold little sway with me and that tends to be such a defining feature of sci-fi, at least from my experience. The work itself will either need something with that setting to compensate to make the setting itself interesting, or the show itself would need stuff I can like and appreciate other than the sci-fi aspects for me to be able to get into it. Which can still be hit or miss even with that taken into consideration.

I guess that's just the way my brain's wired, so idk. It's always been a genre/setting I've had trouble with and it's ranked 36 out of 39 on my malgraph. I'm not like, diametrically opposed to it to where sci-fi will just ruin something for me but they'll tend to need something that I can get into aside from the setting much more than other types of settings.

HaXXspetten said:
Let's do a quick search to check

Harem anime on MAL - 328

Harem + ecchi anime on MAL - 145

328 - 145 = 183

So there are 183 non-ecchi harems and 145 ecchi harems. So no, most harems are not ecchi. Of course there are some cases of series which are arguably harems even though they're not tagged as such, but it is unlikely that that would change the answer here

Manaban said:


There's been series like Zero no Tsukaima or DxD or TLR that have gotten multiple iterations even past an S2, but those also tend to be pretty recognizable and popular works. Nisekoi got an S2, TWGOK got 3 seasons, IS got 2 seasons, etc etc. I'm still waiting for the promised-yet-never-spoke-of-again second season of Nyan Koi, personally .-.

I guess it's like this with any genre so I'm not sure how much it means, but once you sift past a lot of what's up at the top there's a lot of shows that never got a sequel and ended at 12 episodes. Although plenty have, so I guess I'd say it doesn't feel especially prevalent here, maybe? Maybe it is, though, idk, I haven't looked at a lot of other genres with the same breadth as I have with H/E. That's part of the issue with having like, 240 completions and 50 days watched yet still having racked up a decently respectable amount of time watching stuff from a narrow selection.

I guess it is a somewhat top-heavy genre, though.

I'm actually kind of impressed when I scroll through other genres, when I look at it. Using a measurement of looking at where the page, the harem page (looking at first page only) bottoms out at an anime with 84k members yet has a highest member count at DxD with 491k - when looking at mecha, TTGL and CG are significantly higher in member count than DxD by about 200k members - yet the dropoff is more significant, the bottom of the first page ending at a 41k member anime. Though Ecchi has a better rate than mecha, topping off at NGNL with 792k members and still bottoming out at 100k.

Huh. I wonder what other genres bottom out at when it comes to this point for comparison's sake ._.

Psychological tops out with an anime at 1.2 million members, but bottoms out on the first page with an anime at 44k members. Horror has 818k at the top and 23k at the bottom. Slice of Life seems to do better than harem or ecchi in this department, topping out at 779k and bottoming out at 115k.

I'm not sure what use this metric has, but it might show how likely fans are to keep returning to a genre - at least when we're working with more narrow ones as opposed to action, romance, comedy, etc. - which in turn might make the amount of recognition a series (it being recognized by people who like a genre) and then in turn that might play a role in the sequel-in-relation-to-genre factor.

Looking at clubs can sort of reinforce this - the biggest SoL club I know of has around 13k members, and the biggest H/E club I know of has 9.5k members. The largest mecha one I can find sits at 2.4k, The biggest horror one I can find is 1.5k.

I'm just rambling at this point, it's not like this thread has any meaning to it and there's been a significant number of threads over this type of topic in the past week or so anyway, enough to make me want to puke almost. I blame the 1k fanservice thread. Plus I've been designated OP so I do what I want :VVVVV

Fvlminatvs said:
@TripleSRank, @Manaban

Okay, okay, I'll respond. I can't keep beating a dead horse, though, because our debate is going nowhere but in circles. So I'm going to shift my approach dramatically.

You seem to be taking issue with my tone first and foremost. I come off as what you characterize as "elitist." Fine. I'm going to roll things back and try to refocus here. I'll try to put things as neutrally as possible. Be ready for a wall of text, though. And don't accuse me of going over your heads. I am trying to summarize stuff to provide a) perspective for you, b) inform you so you understand better from where I'm coming, and c) provide the framework from which I draw my conclusions regarding the topics at hand. If it does go over your head at places, feel free to ask questions and if I have time, I'll try to answer them as best as I can. Also, wikipedia can be a helpful resource, even if it is, on the odd occasion, unreliable.

Let's start with subjectivity. Although we weren't discussing it yesterday, I'd like to return to it because this is an example of where I'm coming from and hopefully will put an end to what I believe is a tremendously unhelpful situation.

1) It is well established that everyone has opinions. It should also be well established that everyone has a right to those opinions.
2) It is also well established that human beings have extreme difficulty separating their analyses of various phenomena from their own inherent biases. In layperson's terms, people are subjective, not objective, observers and judges of all phenomena.
3) Humans have devised a variety of ways to mitigate their subjectivity, such as the scientific method. Hopefully, the scientist can apply rigorous use of the scientific method to uncover objective facts, such as the distance of the Earth from the Sun, the rate of acceleration due to Earth's gravitational pull, etc.

What, exactly, is subjectivity? Johann Gottlieb Fichte described subjectivity as the personal in distinction from objectivity--that which is beyond the individual and is observable. His student, Søren Kierkegaard, he posited that "truth is subjective" as a statement of epistemological skepticism and simultaneously ontological awareness of the self. And yet Kierkegaard was a proponent of faith since skepticism to him was simply a stage in the development of faith. He was also the founding father of existentialist philosophy.

So we have established that human bias exists and that human cognition is innately subjective. I do not deny this. At all. Whatsoever.

One of the ideas I take issue with is that this concept of subjectivity is binary. A great deal of this is based on my own philosophical study and my rejection of Hume in favor of Descartes.

Pullman cited David Hume--Hume was a philosopher that contributed to what historians call "British Empiricism," a trend in philosophy and a branch of empiricism. Hume denied that inductive reasoning cognitively existed and argued against reason and logic, stating that only direct observation and experience is epistemologically sound. Empiricists often described the individual as a collection of observations and experiences, which would lead to the realization that each individual's perception of reality is going to be distinct from every other individual's due to the uniqueness of each individual's experience.

This lends doubt as to whether or not we can even perceive reality in any sort of accuracy. In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he even throws doubt on the accuracy of scientific epistemology and mathematical certainties because he denies both causality and induction. Although he doesn't admit this, his argument leads to humans, at best, being able to guess at what will occur given a set of circumstances and that these guesses are correct, such as your hand burning if you put it in a fire.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I do not subscribe to Hume's reasoning. I subscribe more to Descartes' rationalism than Hume's empiricism. Fichte was influenced by Kant, who in turn, was influenced by Descartes. As I mentioned before, Kierkegaard was Fichte's student.

Let me return to Kierkegaard. He delineated between objective truth and subjective truth as well. For Kierkegaard, objective truth included that which could be considered fact (such as scientific measurement, historical events, mathematical laws, etc.) but also identified philosophical inquiry as resulting in objective truth. The reason for this is that because objective knowledge can be passed on directly to another person without that person having to experience the described phenomena themselves. That which would have to be experienced is the subjective truth and it is here that Kierkegaard identifies the religious and directly pertaining to one's apprehension of God as resulting from self-reflection and introspection.

This is all an incredibly brief summary that leaves much on the cutting room floor. The point that Kierkegaard is making, and with which I agree, is that although some of these topics may be doubtable (subject to human skepticism) in their veracity, like history, due to human bias, they are nonetheless objective due to the inherent characteristic that they all hold the search for truth as their epistemological aim. In other words, although the ancient Greek historian Thucydides was biased, he admitted it and took steps to mitigate his bias in order to make his historical account of the Peloponnesian Wars more accurate and, as a result, more truthful. Hence, since these topics aim for truth and do not require direct experience for the individual to ascertain them, they are objective.

Though there is a direct dichotomy that separates objectivity from subjectivity, implicit in Fichte, Kierkegaard, etc., is the idea that when it comes to the search for truth, bias can be reduced and an assessment of something can be more truthful.

I'm debating as to whether I want to get into Kant beyond that he advocated for both a priori and a posteriori knowledge, so I'll leave it at that. I could also go into Husserl and intersubjectivity but this is already a tl;dr.

Thus, the whole objectivity/subjectivity debate is based off of what I perceive to be faulty, incomplete, or erroneous colloquial definitions of the concepts in question. It is also entirely based upon an erroneous perception that bias cannot be lessened nor a statement, argument, or conclusion be more or less truthful, accurate, or correct in describing objective (i.e. external to the human mind) reality.

This goes for the assessment of a text's value as well (text here meaning any body of information that can be consumed, be it a painting, a film, a history book, an equation, or an anime). I've argued elsewhere that thousands of years of debate have built up a body of methodologies and techniques that are designed to either heighten a critic's bias (reader-response criticism) or lessen it (formalism and the New Criticism of the 1950). Criticism also has a variety of meanings that go beyond whether a text is "good" or "bad," or whether it "succeeds" or "fails." Indeed, because of the subjectivity of the human experience, the ability of a text to succeed or fail often changes given the cultural and social composition of the audience. Not only that, the interpretation of the text often shifts.

For example, Shakespeare's Coriolanus was beloved by soldiers, officers, and supporters of the American Revolution against Great Britain. For very, very different reasons, Nazi Germany taught it in schools as a diatribe against democracy. Both societies interpreted the same text very differently.

Aristotle's Poetics describe what makes a piece of tragic drama work in the context of Ancient Greek theater. He uses examples of plays that won prizes and playwrights who are still taught and studied today, explaining how they succeeded because they exemplify the characteristics he claims are good. Meanwhile, he uses examples of plays that were mediocre or bad because they didn't share those characteristics.

However, what worked for the Ancient Greek audience might not work for a modern one. It is true that many surviving plays have a sort of je ne sais quoi shared by all of the so-called "Great Books," but these comprise only a fraction of the number of plays written, most of which are lost. Perhaps the surviving plays did so because they had qualities that were universal to the human experience or could be comprehended by all humans despite the subjectivity of human experience. According to Kierkegaard, that would mean they have some objective quality that was independent of individual experience. This goes beyond Husserl's intersubjectivity because these things generate interest 2500 years after they were written and were preserved across that gap of time. They have an objective value to the human race or else they'd not find professors and students being inspired by them at universities in Japan and South Korea.

This leads me to the disparate value of opinions and how they are not all equal. Unfortunately, I have to get ready for work and don't know if I'll have much downtime today. If I do, I'll pick up where I left off here.

Fvlminatvs said:
Get ready for another wall of text.

I'm going to start off by quoting @Manaban, but @TripleSRank, this is addressed to you as well. I will begin with a few quotes from Manaban because it provides me with a lead-in to make my case more broadly. I think you two have grossly misunderstood me and part of the blame rests on my own shoulders for not taking enough time to explain my position. This is going to draw upon my last post's discussion of subjectivity and objectivity a bit, so if you haven't read that wall of text, please do so first.

I also ask that you read this entire post before replying. Some of the things I will say may seem objectionable at first but I don't mean them to be. I'm going to use the words "subjective" and "objective" differently than most people do so keep that in mind.


In this case your opinion has value to you and you alone because it defines your experience of watching x show. However, while I may find it interesting, your opinion will have a tremendously limited impact on my own with regards to the same show because my own experience is entirely separate. It's value to me lies in the glimpse I receive as to who you are and how you think but it will not necessarily impact my own feelings vis-a-vis x show.

This is why I insist on not arguing taste. It is one of those things that is impossible to fully share. We can talk about it but I am incapable of experiencing what you do when you watch x show.


If this is what you think I've been saying, then things have gone horribly wrong.

First, let me lead off with the statement that this has nothing to do with whether I agree with your opinions or not. Agreement is immaterial with regards to the value of an opinion. I can agree with an opinion and still devalue it. Conversely, I can disagree with an opinion but still find it incredibly insightful.

Second, there are different types of opinions--those that are subjective statements in nature (ex. "I like/dislike X.") and those that are objective statements (ex. "X is good/bad.") Categorically speaking, just because a statement may contain or be shaped from personal bias, subjective experience, etc., that does not make the statement itself subjective. If you make a claim about the outside world, whether it is a statement of fact ("1 + 1 = 2"), outright falsehood ("1 + 1 = 5"), or merit ("X is good") it is still categorically objective because it is a statement about that which is beyond your individual self.

Third, opinions and arguments are not the same--arguments can and often are a subset of opinions. The difference is that arguments are supported by either fact, logic, data, etc., or a combination thereof. If two opinions contradict one another, the arguments themselves can be assessed to determine which one is better using reason, fact-checking, logic, etc. If one argument can be determined to be superior to the other, that is a value assessment not only of the argument itself but of the opinion it supports. This is especially important when it comes to the veracity of an opinion, of which I will go into more detail later.



Let me use a hypothetical situation to explain what I mean. Suppose you and I are discussing Anime X.

Manaban: Fvlminatvs, I dislike Anime X.
Me: Why?
Manaban: Because the show had a very certain tone for the first half, then there was this dramatic shift in tone, a whole new conflict was introduced, and it felt like I was watching a totally different show.
Me: It sounds to me like the show uses a jo-ha-kyu narrative structure.
Manaban: What's that?
I explain it in detail.
Manaban: Oh. Well, I still didn't like that. Maybe I dislike the jo-ha-kyu structure.
Me: Fair enough.

Your opinion gives me insight into your preferences and taste, which I will never bash. Your opinion is categorically subjective and it is valuable in that it reveals something about yourself and your experience. It cannot be imparted to me, though, because if I liked Anime X, especially because of its narrative structure, my subjective experience cannot be reconciled with yours.

Now, let's create a fictional interlocutor for me so as to illustrate some further ideas.

Person A: Anime X was trash.
Me: Why?
Person A: Because the show had a very certain tone for the first half, then there was this dramatic shift in tone, a whole new conflict was introduced, and it felt like I was watching a totally different show.
Me: It sounds to me like the show uses a jo-ha-kyu narrative structure.
Person A: What's that?
I explain it in detail.
Person A: Obviously the jo-ha-kyu structure is trash.

Person A's opinion is unhelpful and in fact destructive. They're making categorically objective value statements about something they obviously do not understand. Now, let's try this again with a third interlocutor.

Person B: Anime X was trash.
Me: Why?
Person B: Because the show had a very certain tone for the first half, then there was this dramatic shift in tone, a whole new conflict was introduced, and it felt like I was watching a totally different show.
Me: It sounds to me like the show uses a jo-ha-kyu narrative structure.
Person B (knowing what jo-ha-kyu is): Yeah, but there are far better examples of its execution.
Me: Like what?
Person B provides a list of examples and describes how the execution of jo-ha-kyu was superior.

The difference in value of Person A's opinion versus Person B's opinion should be self-evident. I might totally disagree with both individuals. I might also totally agree with both individuals. However, because their position is more informed, Person B's opinion is going to be far more valuable and insightful. They understand the show better so they will not only be better equipped to defend their statement but their opinion is going to have more nuance.

This is why I don't give much weight to the whole "subjective vs. objective" positions most people take. Frankly, because I've read Kierkegaard, Husserl, and some of Fichte, the arguments I encounter show a dramatic lack of awareness of 1) actual definitions of the words themselves, 2) a real understanding of how objectivity and subjectivity operate in an epistemological sense, and 3) the implications that arise from 1 and 2. From my perspective, everybody's running around talking about stuff they don't understand and deriving wildly erroneous conclusions. Even worse, when I try to point this out to them, I risk being accused of being an elitist. I'm put between a rock and a hard place. Do I try to break it down for them in layperson's terms, avoiding the name-dropping and simplifying philosophical arguments? I've tried that and it didn't work. I also tried an appeal to authority, which was a fallacious argument, I admit. What is left? Talking above everybody else? Well, I tried that this morning and by-and-large, it has been ignored.

Anyway, let's move on.

Context is important as well. That I omitted context up until now is an incredibly gross oversight on my part.

In certain contexts, uninformed opinions can be more than simply unhelpful, they can be destructive on the level of whole societies. Let me use a quotation that I've seen thrown around for years.


Ellison is a science-fiction author known for his big mouth. He was very active in the 1960 and 1970s and is known for his opinions regarding the Vietnam War.

In a democratic republic such as the United States, popular opinion can influence elections, which in turn, can influence things like war and peace. Uninformed opinions on a mass scale, then, are incredibly dangerous since they can result in terrible events such as war, oppression, genocide, etc. Misinformation and disinformation can be even worse than ignorance but ignorance provides them with fertile ground. The strongest armor against misinformation and disinformation is the most informed opinion possible.

It is here that the veracity of an opinion is vital. An informed opinion is more likely to adhere to objective reality than an uninformed one. A misinformed or disinformed opinion can and often will stray far from objective reality. Consider the opinion that diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccines can cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome--this is a potentially destructive and fatal opinion based on misinformation. Someone who has no knowledge of the topic can easily be swayed into believing that DTP vaccines are harmful when presented with faulty logic and cherry-picked data whereas an informed person will easily detect the false information and discard it.

Therefore, in some contexts, an individual with informed opinions should disparage uninformed opinions. While I disagree with Ellison that "you are not entitled to your opinion," I do, at the same time, firmly believe that 1)opinions are not the people who hold them, and 2)opinions are fair game and should never be safe from evaluation and criticism.

In a sense, this is the inverse of the ad hominem fallacy. If, during a debate, you criticize your interlocutor instead of their argument, you've committed a fallacy. The codification of this fallacy as a logical error carries with it the explicit implication and assumption that the argument and by extension the opinion it supports are free to be attacked. It also explicitly requires that there be a distinction between the opinion/argument under attack and the holder of that opinion/argument. They must be separate.

Now, what does this have to do with academics? Well, within their particular field they are tremendously informed. They're also heavily informed in related fields. I hope I've already established the merits of an informed opinion.

This, by no means, makes academics the Arbiters of Truth. I do not go into my classroom and tell my students what to think. I give them data, I often give them my interpretations but I also tell them "this is my interpretation of the data," and encourage them to make their own. When they do, I listen to their interpretations and I'll point out flaws, errors, and omissions. I'll tell them, "go look at this," or "go read this," because that will improve their opinions and, ultimately, their coursework.

Academics do debate. They do not always agree. There is occasionally consensus but these points of consensus often come after decades of argument, data, and reason have been employed. This does not mean that what is accepted as historical fact (ex. Caligula was a bad emperor) actually represents the objective reality. Given the data, however, even when the primary sources are heavily critiqued (Suetonius, for example, is considered the "tabloids of the early Roman Empire"), we can safely assume that the statement "Caligula was a bad emperor" has an astronomically high probability of being factually truthful.

Where consensus is not reached, historical analysis begins to approach literary analysis and criticism. Indeed, literary theory and interpretive methods are often applied to historical study. Therefore, you get historians such as Ronald Syme who, in his volume The Roman Revolution, draws parallels between Augustus' creation of the imperial government and the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe. Syme can freely be debated but to argue with Syme from a position of ignorance won't get anyone anywhere. To effectively disprove Syme, one would have to thoroughly research not only Augustus' consolidation of power after the Second Civil War but also Syme's argument as well. In other words, to argue against Syme one must be at least equally as informed as he was.

Simply disagreeing with Syme is fine on a personal level. However, once that opinion is put forth in a more rigorous context (such as a term paper), there is a necessity that the opinion be thoroughly supported by an argument employing as much information as possible (or practical given the length of a semester), not simply reason or logic alone.

TripleSRank, this dovetails with what you were saying about Plato. If I recall, you asked why you couldn't just simply read what others say about Plato instead of reading his works for yourself. That's a fair question but the reasons are similar to what I was saying above.

If you read what others say about Plato, you will learn about Plato's philosophies but you will be getting them through a filter. Why trust what somebody else says about Plato when you can read him yourself and draw your own conclusions? It is true you might not understand his context so well (potentially leading to one or two erroneous conclusions), so go read commentaries on his writings because they'll help you get a better grasp on his ideas. Rinse and repeat.

It isn't a necessity that you do so, though, to live your life. You don't require detailed knowledge of Plato's writings to go about your daily business or post on MAL. However, if you want to understand what Plato said about literature, what better place to go than to Plato himself?

Now, let's get personal. What does this mean I think about your opinions?

Firstly, that depends entirely on the opinion itself and how much is riding upon it. What is at stake? If you say, for example, "I hate Anime X," I will probably want to know your reasons for it. If I, too, hate it, I might provide some reasons I have it as well. If I like it, I might provide reasons for why I do. This is a perfectly normal conversation about disparate opinions and the value your opinion has is as insight into who you are and what your tastes are.

On the other hand, if you say, "Anime X is trash" and we disagree, I'm going to expect us to hash this out a bit. I might not change your opinion and you probably aren't going to change mine. How informed your opinion is won't matter too much to me in this context. I may get irked if it is an anime that has been the topic of many academic discussions and if you demonstrate a lack of understanding. I'll definitely get irked if I explain some of the more salient features of the show and why it is important and you persist in saying it's trash. However, I'll probably be willing to drop the subject and agree to disagree. Not enough is at stake for me to persist in attacking your opinion. In addition, it is probably not going to affect my opinion of you very much, if at all. However, if you expect my own assessment of Anime X to be influenced by yours, your expectations will remain unfulfilled. On the other hand, if you do present me with reasons why you think the show is trash coupled with a thorough understanding of the anime, the likelihood of me coming away with something new to consider (even if my opinion doesn't change) is increased.

Finally, the last thing I want to cover is the occasional conflation between taste and assessment. Every once-in-a-while, someone claims that it is impossible to appreciate a text as "good" while personally disliking it. This is patently false--it is absolutley possible to consider something to be "good" regardless of personal preference.

Take, for example, Darren Aronofsky films. They are not to my own personal taste or preference. To narrow my example, let me discuss the film Pi.

In the movie, Aronofsky creates a nearly surreal tour of Max Cohen's everyday life. Cohen is a mathematical genius but he cannot turn off his brain to the point where he suffers various psychological illnesses. Through shot composition, depictions of near-surreal phenomena, and slow pacing, Aronofsky draws the audience into the experience of being Max Cohen. We aren't simply watching his story, we are experiencing the tedium of his everyday life and the uncertainty of what is actually real (within the text) and what is false.

It is a brilliant piece of film. It bores the hell out of me.

How can I reconcile the two? Well, the film exists outside of myself, therefore it is in the objective world, distinct from my subjective experience of it. Just like a scientist can consciously use the scientific method to reducing personal bias and establishing objective measurements of objective phenomena, I can pay close attention to various principles of shot composition, narrative structure, symbolism, etc., to attempt to get outside of my own head. I admit that the more concrete methods of measurement inherent to the scientific method make scientists far more capable of describing objective reality than a humanities professor like myself, I can still take steps, apply mental discipline, and lessen my own bias by trying to imagine perspectives outside of my own. This is where I can try to get into a sort of "shared subjectivity," or "intersubjectivity," as German philosopher Edmund Husserl called it.

Thus, whereas my personal assessment of Pi is solipsistically subjective, my broader attempt at assessing Pi's objective merit really doesn't result in any description of Pi's value in objective reality but instead lands somewhere in the intersubjective value it holds for the overall thought community that is the filmviewing public.

I hope this clarifies what I mean when I say that opinions are not equal.

Although I greet death;
I do not fear the icy grip.
My soul, at peace, sleeps.

Manaban said:
I guess what I factor in most is how much I love the series it's for and how well it encapsulates what I felt to be the spirit of it. That's pretty much the way an OP will stand out as an OP to me, not as an individual song or visual bit. It has to have that sort of vibe that connects it to what I held dear about the series in the first place.

My favorite OP of all time is the first To LOVE-Ru OP, for instance:



The visuals are fun, sexy, and a little bit creative. Simplistic in that they're often comprised of single drawings and still images, opting to be reliant on filters and applying soften colors to the designs in the series to stylize it. The credits in the OP are used in ways that are a part of the drawing itself through some element, via words on a notepad or on a clothing tag, and they use this to let them zoom into specific aspects of the drawing and show off the bodies of the girls and other lewd things. It's all about the ecchi and being eye-candy, and I think it's a fun way to tie in this element to as much. It's lewd and it doesn't give a fuck.

The song is what I really love about this one, though. The later OPs of the series are more standard J-Pop songs, which I like well enough but it kind of bums me out, considering the first one just bled out the exact vibe that the series gives me when it focuses on things like character dynamics and the little bits and interactions that compose the bigger picture.

The way the guitars hit loud and hard, from beginning to end, shifting from a swing-y old school punk riff to short, grovely, hard-hitting bits leading to the chorus, which is where it slides things to the lower strings on the upper part of the neck to operate alongside the vocal chorus and create that sort of climbing, higher pitched thing without sounding particularly bubbly. The bassline and the frequent deviations it makes from the linear backbeat it's providing gives it more of a presence than you can hear in most music that isn't funk or '70s rock. The absolute slamming on the snare and the crash that the drummer does throughout is just wild. The singer has a J-Pop voice, but she sings it in a way that's more...rebellious. It sounds like she's trying to flirt with the microphone at points, not in a cutesy way as much as a growling way. I also note that she doesn't let her voice get too high, even when she starts to sing louder. I like that.

The way that the instruments aren't playing in a way purely centered providing backing support to the singer - which I find to be rare in Japanese music pretty holistically, frankly - but manage to harmonize with each other even while doing that makes it feel like a very solid-but-free composition. And while THYME is a pop band, but this song is very much done in a much more western late-'90s early-'00s punk rock style, stuff like you'd hear in a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater soundtrack. It's like they just heard Bodyjar, Less Than Jake or Millencolin and thought "Pfft. We can do that shit but even better than these idiots."

I also do love the lyrics, the broken Engrish and all. Stuff like "Forever we can make it" and "We are never give up" sounds incredibly stupid if you're familiar with the English language, but the way they're sung in this song sounds very foot-forward to me. It's like they didn't know if it was right or wrong, but didn't give a fuck about checking and went all in on it. And I love that in this case, considering the whole vibe of the song and the vibe of the series it's being attached to.

The rest of the lyrics feel...awesome, if the translation that I'm most used to - the one I posted above - is accurate. They're very "I will do it! Fuck it all, I can't worry about this shit, I have to go all in!" - stuff indicating that even if things fell into the deepest depths, it doesn't give a fuck, it's got nothing but the utmost confidence that they'll be found again.

It's basic battle shounen stuff, I guess. Empowering and extremely confident. But this isn't a battle shounen, the series is an ecchi romcom and the lyrics are basically being contextualized around teenage love struggles and wanting to win over someone's heart, but from a female's point of view. It's just a goddamn teenage love-song, but it isn't sappy, it's trudging through the bad, trudging through the awkward, and trudging through it all because, well, we are never give up. It's stupid in hindsight, but at the moment, there is nothing more meaningful or valuable in the entire world. And it confidently declares this. It has force, it has spine, not a hint of shame or sheepishness in sight.

That's how TLR as a whole feels to me. It doesn't give a fuck, but the way it doesn't give a fuck is one of the utmost confidence. It's lewd as all hell, but it loves this about itself and pretty much wears it on its sleeve as a badge of pride. It revels in that identity. It plays around with so many of the tropes and other elements of the genre, but it does so in a way that has so much moxy that it turns the absurdity of what leads to the tropes up to extreme degrees, making them both fun and sexy both. And the way it flows these things, the bombastic absurdity that it just frequently establishes as its way of humor and portraying ecchi both, it never feels like it was done out of design to be like that, in that "hurr hurr aren't we super witty for doing this? Don't we just not care? We're going all in! We don't give a fuck! Aren't we cool?" - which kind of how other bombastic, absurd, and confident works come off to me, Imaishi's post-TTGL directorial attempts being my primary example of series that sort of reeked like they were just constantly trying to remind the audience to how few fucks they gave and how confident they were. The manga for To LOVE-Ru especially comes off like 99% of shit was never planned ahead past Hasemi and Yabuki thinking of dumb shit they could do while drinking and shitbantering together, and then later incorporating it as a joke or aspect without as much as doubting their drunken stupor. And it works because of as much.

TLR is a series of confidence in itself and not giving a fuck to me, basically. It goes all-in on what it is, ostensibly because it loves that about itself. It's also incredibly sexy and has a lot of my favorite characters in any form of media, but it's...free to me, in a way. It's always carried itself in a way that felt free from doubt, and went all-in on what it wanted to be because that's precisely what it wanted to be, which was a sexy harem romcom. It's thoughtless and careless, and I mean that in the best possible way I can state them. This OP revels in that as well, and it bleeds all of the series biggest strengths. It's the most perfect fit I can think of.

Like I said, some of the later OPs didn't capture this feeling much to me, especially the two for Darkness, but to a lesser extent the one from Motto as well. Which I find to be a damn shame, honestly, but meh. What can be done. There are OPs where I like the song more, there are OPs where I like the visuals more, but this one is basically "What makes me love TLR" wrapped up in a package of a song and visual combo. And given that TLR is my favorite series, well, hey, that's just fucking fantastic. Thus, it sticks around to me as a great OP because of how intertwined I see it as being with the content it's more or less building hype and interest for, and how much it just feels like it runs together so well with everything I love about the series.