A lot of fiction works get their immense popularity on the base of striking one's emotions, even if it means bypassing rationality.
Popularity does not equal quality.
I'm not surprised people compare Madoka to Elfen Lied, since they basically go by comparing the use of "Break the Cutie" trope.
So do
a lot of shows.
But even though I appreciated Elfen Lied (yes, mostly for its tearjerking nature), these shows go completely different ways.
Definitely.
I don't even think they're comparable in the
slightest.
The rest pretty much rolls on its own. Elfen Lied, on the other hand, takes a plot and genre which are sufficiently serious by themselves, then put little girls under the knife for emphasis.
I never really considered the fact that there were little girls in Elfen Lied that were being the focus of the story. All I thought of was that the events that were happening would be horrific to anybody.
(if you place adults there, it won't lose its darkness technically, but it won't be a magical girl story anymore, thus making the purpose of creating the series questionable)
I think that it would. A middle-aged police officer debating the point of his existence as he found and fought monsters of the human kind wouldn't be as well-recieved at all.
clumsy fanservice killed its mood in a bloodier way than Lucy could ever manage to.
I read the manga.
Haibane Renmei or something like that
Haibane Renmei is one of my favourite anime of all time, and the second anime I watched. It's, pardon my crass wording,
fucking amazing. It's a great example of a philosophical media done right, where it explains just enough to be essential and not have plot holes, but ultimately leaves speculation to the viewer. It
does deal with existentialism, although it's not the main theme.
If you want true existentialism, I think
Waiting For Godot or even
Fight Club would be a pretty good example.
Its main theme is counterposing hope and despair, after all. That's the context where all of their actions and plot devices become well-used for their context - as long as you remember that it's middle school girls whose reactions to the events we're dealing with.
This is
existentialism.
I'll repeat once again: you may belong to the lucky kind of chosen ones who know the true objective figures for measuring fiction
It's not hard to judge something objectively. And even then, it's okay to subjectively say "it's omg so good lol", but as soon as someone says "omg no it's crap", subjective judgement is immediately void and THAT PERSON IS WRONG GET OUT WHY ARE YOU EVEN WATCHING IT IF IT'S CRAP OMG.
I see it all the time in my fandoms, and I always end up having to defend the person saying that it's bad, because the double-standard angers me immensely.
(and I conclude you know them on the intuition level, since so far we haven't come anywhere near defining those exact figures)
Even if you don't have exact quantitative figures, you can weigh up what's good and what isn't with qualitative evidence as a substitute, and then reach a conclusion of either "good" or "bad" based on what's more prevelant; the virtues or the faults.
I showed an example with Seikon no Qwaser's anime in
this post.
AN ENORMOUS LOT OF PEOPLE judge fiction subjectively
But they're not
right, and just because a lot of people do it doesn't
make it any more right.
If a large majority suddenly started denying that psychopathy is a genetic and brain dysfunction, it wouldn't automatically make all psychologists and neuropsychologists go, "i guess all the evidence must be wrong, huh".
Even if they move away from their own genre tastes, it's still not a question of the show being "bad, because it's objectively so", but of it being "bad, because it's worse than x and a ton of other shows I watched".
You
cannot judge based on comparison.
If you can't think up a
single good thing about the original media, then it is
inarguably bad. Likewise, if you can't think up
a single bad thing about the original media, then it is
inarguably good.
I'm using Waifu's murderer example again, because you don't seem to have understood it the first time, and it shows what I'm talking about perfectly.
waifu said:
i have an example: THERE IS A GROUP OF MURDERERS.
one of them has only killed three people, and someone says that they are a GOOD person because there are 5+ people who have killed more. does that make it true?
i mean, i'm sure that a bunch of people could agree that this person is BETTER than the other murderers, but on his own, is he a good person for "only" killing three people?
Judging by comparison isn't objective, nor is it logical. In fact, comparison
itself depends on the objective quality of other works so you can adequately compare them, so objective analysis is still necessary.
Most of us don't dive into logical and supportable claims like "this show is lacking, because it lacks the things it lacks, not to mention the things it lacks even more", but simply say "LMAO, WTF have I just watched?" Ditto with the definition of "good".
And that's fine. I don't have an issue with people liking it or disliking it, because that
is subjective. However, I
do have an issue with people lying about the original media to try and incorrectly explain why they like it.
You should
always be
able to explain your reasoning with factual logic
when prompted. To simplify it is acceptable, as long as you're not making nonsense up only to counter it with "no subjective" instead of acknowledging the evidence.
sob this is like the wuthering heights forum all over again :(
In reality, Madoka was highly acclaimed not because of being objectively good
...I can't even. So you admit that Madoka isn't good?
(since few cared to judge it objectively), but because of being better, more original, more impressive and more touching than a lot of other shows on the anime scene
No.
You can
only say that if you've watched the entire collection of anime in existence. Otherwise, you can only say claim it's "better, more original, more impressive and more touching" than the anime that you've
watched.
especially those of recent few years
We're still in the moeshit phase of everything looking cute and having no plot or character establishment/development at all. This means nothing.
(even the show you adore dates back to 2007)
The time frame doesn't matter. Mononoke is objectively good, and will always be objectively good.
Madoka dawned above them all. Not to mention that it's a genre deconstruction - the type of anime which have always been valued.
The only thing that's being deconstructed in Madoka is quality.
I don't even understand deconstructions anyway. If you're getting sick of shows meant for toddlers and want something more mature, watch a seinen, don't watch a deconstruction that's still meant for toddlers but it's just a TINY bit more mature.
so the problem was with the mail service after all. Why do so many Western/Eastern sites dislike mail.ru?
), let alone with identity crises. It's more comparable to war-themed stories - those about children dealing with death, horror, survivor/outcast-type solitude, pain of losing someone dear and wish to protect them, corruption and sacrifice. Its main theme is counterposing hope and despair, after all. That's the context where all of their actions and plot devices become well-used for their context - as long as you remember that it's middle school girls whose reactions to the events we're dealing with.
