Today, just for kicks and giggles, I’m going to take issue with some views which are currently popular among anime viewers. Whether I actually hold these opinions is up for grabs.
Let’s start with the low-hanging fruit…
Asta’s voice isn’t so bad (Black Clover)
Is it annoying? Absolutely. Does it bother me as much as it used to? No. It’s like whiskey: At first, you can’t stand the stuff, but after enough exposure you start to enjoy the taste and ignore the pain.
Juni Taisen‘s lack of a protagonist is a good thing
Some viewers complain about how JT doesn’t have a single protagonist. Supposedly this makes the show harder to follow because there’s no one single character you can identify with and follow through the show.
I think it’s cool they did something different. It makes the show feel fresh. It’s a post-modern approach to telling a story, de-centralizing the narrative from a particular POV; but it’s not deconstructing for the sake of deconstructing. The shift between different POVs adds to the subtle, “just a bit off” feeling of the series—and that’s the feeling that fits Juni Taisen. The pleasure of the show derives from making you feel just the right amount of uncomfortable, unsettled.
That’s one of the weird things about the dramatic arts: watching someone experience something is not the same as experiencing it yourself. Viewing a character go through a terrible experience can be pleasurable—and that doesn’t mean you’re a horrible person for enjoying it. Aristotle wrote that tragedy was the greatest genre of drama, and that when the audience sees the tragedy they experience a “cleansing” of sorts; he called this katharsis. The ancient Hindus distinguished between bhava, the experience an actor appears to undergoing, and rasa, the emotional “flavor” the audience feels in watching him; they tried to articulate the relationships between different bhavas and their corresponding rasas.
In this case, maybe a show like JT can teach us new ways of feeling and enjoying art.
One Piece—why???
I don’t like One Piece. I gave it a try, really! Someone please explain to me why it’s so popular! I mean, de gustabus non disputandum, but how is it simply the most popular anime and manga of all time?
Juni Taisen‘s background is a good thing
Again, some viewers have complained that JT lacks much in the way of background information, thrusting us into a situation without any explanation. What is the point of this combat? Who is the mysterious group that set it up? How are they so powerful that they can eliminate all the people in an entire city in a single night, yet leave all of the city’s infrastructure in place? Who are the 12 families? Why are the fighting? Who is betting on the fight and why? How did the warriors obtain their different powers (some, like Tiger’s, can sort of be justified, but Dog’s?)? And are those actual horns sticking out of Ox’s head?
Erich Auerbach, the great literary theorist, called this lack of foundational detail “background”. In his landmark essay Mimesis, Auerbach contrasted Homer’s Odyssey with the Old Testament stories: The Odyssey gives lots of information, explaining things every step of the way (confusingly, we would call this “background information”; Auerbach calls it “foreground” because the details are being set clearly before us). The Old Testament, on the other hands, really glosses over a lot of explanation; it presents what is happening, but often leaves the “why” questions unanswered. And because they are not answered, Auerbach says that the OT has lots of “background”.
“Background” opens up lots of imaginative space: People can speculate on possible ways of filling in the gaps in the details, and sometimes even write stories (fan fiction, if you will) about those possibilities. While I hope more of these questions about JT are answered eventually, I don’t find that they have to be revealed up front. Sometimes it’s fun to go exploring in the background.
King’s Game is a fantastic show
Just kidding! There’s no way I can defend that.
Thanks for reading! Peace out!
Let’s defend King’s Game. It is unapologetically B Grade horror fodder material being delivered with mediocre presentation. That kind of makes it all kinds of fantastic to a very niche audience that just happen to like it when the show is as horrific as its subject matter.
That said, I don’t think Asta’s voice can be defended. That is all kinds of ear grating and obnoxious.
Haha, thanks for commenting, Karandi! I just saw your takedown of Black Clover and… can’t really find fault with it. 🙂 Still kick back and watch BC every week, though. (I should probably mention I don’t particularly care for whiskey, either.)
As for King’s Game, I haven’t actually watched it! So your defense of it sounds eminently reasonable to me. 😀