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All Comments (32) Comments
While K-On! is admittedly a polarising series, with proponents and detractors alike, the proponents have done nothing of the sort. There are numerous accounts of what makes K-On! so enjoyable, and in particular, one insightful and incredibly well-written post details the strength of K-On! well beyond the accusations that "it is what it is". In this post, you wield the word "mediocre" as an inexperienced undergraduate student who'd just finished their first junior literature course might, using it equivalently to how you perceive others as defending K-On! with arguments of "it is what it is": if "it is what it is" is invalid as a catch-all phrase for K-On!'s merits, then "mediocre" (and any of its derivatives) is equally as invalid as a criticism, as it implies single words are sufficient to accurately describe an entire series. Beyond this hypocritical use of language, you also incorrectly suppose that the worth of a work must be assessed by objective terms independent of other factors. In this case, it is "how well something achieves its intent": where fiction is concerned, the only objective elements are the genre, factual elements such as episode length and count, and symbols or other literary devices, which hold values that are shared amongst a group of individuals sufficiently as to have a common ground. Beyond this, all criticisms of literature (and fiction as a whole) is a subjective exercise, and it is inappropriate to claim that K-On! is "objectively" bad.
While you are correct in that arguments about "wasted potential" (another buzz-phrase of dubious value) are irrelevant to K-On!, his own criteria for what constitutes a good slice-of-life anime is lacking. Slice-of-life is not synonymous with comedy: the genre as a whole is intended to showcase the mundane, often without conflict, arbitrary moments in someone's life. The Japanese interpretation of this genre places a particular focus on the halcyon days of school and interpersonal relationships, of an appreciation for the ordinary and making the most of a given everyday situation. By showing such moments in detail, slice-of-life series intend to present a moral or lesson to the viewer, typically about friendship, persistence and other positive traits. Thus, your statement that slice-of-life is purely to be judged by its comedic value is limited: shows like K-On! and others do not aim to be intentionally funny, but rather, aim to show what can be learned from certain experiences. Critically analyzing these works is then directed towards determining whether or not the characters reasonably grew as people, and this part is also subjective. Based on their backgrounds, people may be irritated by Mio and Yui's mannerisms, while others might see Yui and Mio as having matured as a result of their time together, for instance. Either perspective is fine, but the point is that these are strictly subjective.
I assure you that no one, not myself, the people I speak for, and certainly not you, can decide what constitutes as "fair and reasonable". Creation and internal logic is irrelevant in entertainment, whose first and foremost objective isn't to be clever (or make viewers feel good about themselves), but to present an idea. It is therefore an elitist perspective to suggest that a work necessarily must involve self-referential humour, reference timing or some other nonsense in order to be amusing. The implication here is that a work must try to be funny in a clever way, and audiences must be of a certain standard in order to catch these jokes: only a subset of the population has the requisite intellectual capacity to appreciate a certain work. This suggests that the shows that you (and other of Behind the Nihon's writers) watch have intellectual substance, justifying it to those who view anime as a whole to be a frivolous or childish hobby. If this was not your intent, then there is little need to adopt such a hard-line stance about anime like K-On!. What is to be gained by stopping others from watching and enjoying what they wish to enjoy?
K-On! ultimately is what it is, regardless of unqualified attempts to argue that this is a clumsy attempt at a rebuttal: your own disturbing implication is that all slice-of-life anime necessarily need to incorporate a higher form of humour in order to be "objectively" enjoyable. If we accept what you said as true, slice-of-life would lose its value and only pander to people who inexplicably demand intellectual merit from their entertainment, for whatever reasons that might be. Instead, the reason why K-On! is what it is, is because the series is primarily about learning and discovery. K-On! means to show what it's like to begin somewhere, follow a journey and highlight the unexpected, pleasant things that happen along the way. K-On! was never about the comedy, and any humour in the series derives from a sense of pathos that arises from watching the character stumble. These act as an aside for the actual messages, and ultimately, to judge K-On! purely based on how funny it is would be akin to calling a passenger jet inadequate because its cargo capacity is limited. Compared to other series of its genre, K-On! does an excellent job of conveying its themes about discovery, and K-On! has certainly distinguished itself from others of its genre by using music as a motivator; there is a respectable technical aspect that Yui must overcome, giving her journey weight. To put things in perspective, slice-of-life that followed, such as Anne Happy and Stella no Mahou, are instances of where the protagonists failed to have any tangible pay-offs.
It is similarly an invalid comparison to compare Azumanga Daioh and K-On!. While both animated adaptations have their roots in a 4-panel manga format, Azumanga Daioh is simply about various events in high school and how over time, characters grow as people through their journey in high school. The series intentionally incorporates absurdist moments to bring humour into different moments, whether it be the fact that Chiyo could skip through middle school and become a high school student, or the antics that teachers and students alike cause. Azumanga Daioh deliberately constructs its moments to set up humour. By comparison, K-On! has a smaller cast, and is focused on Yui's experiences with the light music club. She begins her journey an abysmal guitar player, and over time, her love towards her friends allows her to improve and share this with Azusa. Both series clearly aimed to accomplish something different: while Azumanga Daioh aims to amuse and evoke memories of high school, K-On! is about discovery. K-On! never set out to do what Azumanga Daioh does: in order for the comparison to hold, K-On! would need to dispense with light music and tea, and introduce a larger cast.
Overall, had you framed your article from a subjective perspective, your thoughts on K-On! would have been reasonable. K-On!, for its popularity, is not for everyone, and a justification as simple as "I didn't find it funny" is more than enough to make this clear. There was no need to adopt a pedantic outlook on things and write lengthy paragraphs justifying this decision (in the interest of fairness to you, my replies are roughly equivalent in length to yours, as I feel it inappropriate to dismiss your arguments with short responses), nor was it necessary to constantly belittle K-On! in your other posts. Unless your intent was to dissuade other viewers from giving K-On! a shot (only you know whether or not Behind The Nihon Review's objectives were actually to use a more academic tone to intimidate readers into agreeing with you), mentioning that your opinions are subjective would have sufficed. It's okay to dislike K-On! (and any other series, for that matter), but it is not okay to claim that there is an objective basis for why people enjoy certain things. My goal here was not to convince you that you necessarily must change your perspective on K-On! (that would be disingenious, as everyone is permitted their own opinions, and no opinion is more valid or invalid than the other, after all), but rather, to present enough counterarguments indicating that objectivity simply isn't something you can bring to the table when it comes to enjoyment of an entire genre. That is presumptuous: consider the fallacy in my claiming that K-On!'s popularity makes it "objectively" good. This isn't the case, and for the reasons stated, K-On! works for a wide audience, which contributed to its success. The likes of Baka-raptor and Kaioshin-sama were unwarranted, and given that they lack your finess, one can reasonably conclude those two were merely desperate for attention. By all standards, K-On! is actually very ambitious, being much more than the other "funny and entertaining slice-of-life comedies" out there: it's been a decade, and no other anime of this genre from this time period are even mentioned any more, consigned to the annals of history. By comparison, for being novel, genuine and sincere, K-On! remains well-known.
Greetings
I really didn't know like Spiral the anime (I gave a 4/10 to it because it introduced so many plot devices but didn't follow up on them). The adaptation was insanely terrible and was years before the manga finished serialising. I knew that the ending couldn't have been conclusive, but I wasn't interested in finding out what happens anyway.
Recently I finished Tempest and enjoyed it so much. Knowing that Tempest actually adapted the manga faithfully until the end, I thought the author must have a notch for writing up an entertaining story. I decided to give Spiral another chance and read the manga and see what they missed out in the anime.
I finished reading the whole manga over the last 3 hours, and I was really happy with it. I highly recommend the manga for Spiral. It's very similar to the style of Tempest and everything comes together at the end. I see that you have given Spiral 5/10 and I imagine your complaints with it will be very similar to mine. But we both enjoyed Tempest so we know what the author is capable of. That's why I highly recommend the manga.
Great reviews!
Anyway, I'd like to request another recommendation if that's alright, I've recently finished the recommendations of Mai-HIME and Sora no Woto from ImperialX, both of which turned out to be very enjoyable for me, I rated them higher than you did, possibly because in the case of Mai-HIME because I didn't hate the ending as much. As I said to ImperialX, although it ruined the tension and took away from the spectacular last third, I was relieved slightly because I liked the characters a lot, and so I was more forgiving of the "happy" ending.
In the case of Sora no Woto, I happily took the advice of ImperialX and read the charts found on the Wiki, which proved beneficial to the viewing experience. Also, the soundtrack was lovely, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in the review. It's certainly one of the few moe shows I actually think are pretty good.
Anyway, getting back on topic, if you wouldn't mind giving a recommendation, that'd be great, thanks.
Taking a look through your list, I noticed your watching list, and I wondered about how exactly you go about watching previously aired series, because you seem to have 28 of them on the go, which is a massive number in my mind. Are you really watching all those series simultaneously? I would have thought it detracted from the viewing experience of the individual anime watching so many.
Also, I've been meaning to ask since I started on the Nihon Review forums over a year ago, who is the person in your avatar?
One thing I'd disagree about is that although the male characters are quite bland, I think that they weren't too bad given the time spent on them. They were all very genuine at the very least. The only real issues I had were some of the Seiyuu weren't that good, also it was a bit too short.
It's coincidental that I'm now about to start another baseball anime, which will make three baseball animes with Cross Game. I'm surprised at how many baseball anime there are actually.