flannan said:GenesisAria said:Yet you're unfamiliar with "what strong friendships between girls or women are like"? If there's one thing anime is always dead accurate on, it's sociological and psychological study. You should pay closer attention to details and patterns, then you'll learn. PS: don't forget that relationships are behaviourally different depending on the culture, even if the thoughts are similar.
It's all about reliability of sources. Anime is notoriously crazy and over-the-top, thus I do not expect things to work the same in real life.
For example, my relationship with my osananajimi easily crumbled when we hit puberty (I suddenly realized we were completely different people with nothing in common), unlike harem anime, where osananajimi are super-loyal and persistent. I believe i've said it pretty clearly: there's also a cultural separation. Things like promises and bonds are held with a lot more value in asian cultures (largely china/korea, and especially japan) than they are the west. A lot of people lose touch of the old cultural subtexts in more trendy places like the city, the more out in the country you go, the further back in time and the more traditional it is. Try not to use unnecessary japanese words in english. My childhood friend(s) from like elementary years disappeared when i left town, and so did my middle school friends and so on. Friends are fleeting if they're not held close, they'll get preoccupied with life and forget you exist until reminded. The only way around this is if there's love involved, or you're really tightly bonded by experiences or something. Anime exaggerates elements for them to be easier to understand, like a magnifying glass. While what a magnifying glass shows you is not the same as what your naked eye sees, it allows you to easier look at details that were previously easy to miss.
In short, anime is not a reliable indicator of what real life is like. And as I'm not a girl, and don't remember ever being one, I have no idea what their friendships are really like. Sure, girls in our class looked a lot more touchy-feely than boys. But would they grope each other in bath? Do they bathe together in the first place? In japan, they do, and guys bathe together as well. Girls go on about boob talk all the time in most modern cultures; it's an endless silly competition to gain the attention of guys. There is at times that one girl who wants to grope everyone, it's not as common as in anime, but that doesn't make it false. You don't have to be a girl to know what girls do, and you don't have to be a guy to know what guys do. That's a self-motivated restriction of your own understanding. Anime only seems unrealistic on the surface (like with the intentional gravity defiance which no one should be stupid enough to think that anyone believes the physics are realistic), but underneath it is far more realistic normal life psychology than live-acted TV.
Even akiba knows this: the primary anti-realisms are the improbabilities, exaggerated tropes, and disproportionality. Otherwise it's generally very well studied. For example, an other worldly situation, with improbable character personalities - it may seem unrealistic to normal sensibilities, but as that type of person in such other worldly circumstances, are very much realistic more than 90% of the time. The issue is that the given personality types which appear to be common, are not unreal, just unlikely.
For example: my middle school life played out oddly like a slice of life anime, especially in the way everyone kinda had a spot that was distinct. Mane people (not all) was so individual seeming that you could almost colour code each person. You could tell who the main characters were, and they stood out in their own ways, be it the arrogant one, the bookworm, the nerdy girl, that guy that pretends to be innocent even though he watches porn like everyone else, the elegant girl and the runner-up... To my regret, i didn't understand how fortunate i was for such circumstances until after i was well into highschool in another town... the highschool i went to was monochromatic, everyone was more or less the same, no reputations, no individuality, nobody knew anyone outside of their cliques and nobody cared. It depends where you live, and how positive it's atmosphere is, to whether the purity will come out, or the melancholy will blend it grey. With a pure environment, people's inherent personality archetypes shine, and you can see who each person really is, without that protective barrier up; they really are a lot like anime characters.
People being complex doesn't make them realistic, we think that's realistic because it's the norm; we complicate our own individualities because of all these social disturbances we have today. And because of people without good/loving parenting. Complicated individualities are supposed to be rare, and usually victims of circumstance, like someone with a troubled past, or someone with gender identity issues. Humans are meant to be simple, and characterized; it allows us to get along because we can understand eachothers' types.
GenesisAria said:As far as fujoshi, they kinda bring it on themselves. They have a high tendency to be very obnoxious and lean towards obsessing with yaoi to where any hint is a weird fanfiction spawn. Yuri fans (female and male) tend to be a lot more humble, and don't go around bothering everyone with it as much. I suspect that fujoshi aren't any more obnoxious and obsessive than male yuri fans, but people overreact to them because of psychological biases. I lived my whole highschool with fujoshi. They are as obnoxious as people suggest (without downright shoving it down your throat). I see hardly any yuri fans, and when i do they're always quiet and self-contained. Not once have i heard annoying squee-ing or obsessive gay-afying of every famous female actor - fujoshi do this with male actors, a lot. To them, the gayer the better. Fuujoshi (yaoi fangirls) typically exist to create manly gay fan-fictions, be them written or purely imaginary, regardless of the character's actual sexuality. Oh god not the pairing, the fan-pairing!
To most yuri fans, they love girls, and 2 girls together is better than 1 girl with a guy. That's it. They also aren't obsessed with pairing female characters for fanfictions all the time, while it does happen, it's not very common, and usually limited to pictures. They're both on totally different orders of magnitude.
Edit: That ended up longer than expected. I guess i have a lot to say on things i've intently studied ^^; |