Comment On This Post. (OR Because I Like Knocking My Own Posts Off The Front Page)
Clannad picture got your attention? Good. Now pay attention.
I’m going to talk to you about a little thing called anime bias. Everyone has one or two even if we hate to admit it. Because I like so many genres and so many elements of shows, I tend to forget my own bias, but I do have them. I am biased against traditional relationships. I am heavily biased against love triangles. I am biased against outer space and fantasy settings. I am a little biased against harem anime, and recently I’ve started to get just slightly biased against galge adaptions. What’s funny is that most of these biases are the opposite of my old ones when I got into anime. In the beginning, 4 years ago when I read Shounen Jump, watched Adult Swim, and my favorites were Naruto and Rurouni Kenshin, I loved anything with a simple action plot, as little romance as possible, and fantasy settings were great. When I got back into anime last year, I started with Air and Kannon and worked up from there. Now, you’d have to pay me to watch the shows I was watching 4 years ago like Samurai Deeper Kyo and Naruto and even though I want to rewatch Air and Kanon, I just can’t see them being somethign I’d enjoy anymore.
However, lately I’ve been breaking these biases one by one. You see, bias is a lot like racism. There are two major causes of bias. The first is seeing a few shows from the genre that you don’t like and thinking that it’s the genre which made you hate the show. The second is crowd mentality – a lot of people hate moe and loli because of the people who like it or the context in which it is considered, or hate harem because people who like ‘good’ anime usually don’t like harem. But these biases are all FUCKING BULLSHIT.
The bottom line is, in no genre is every show the same. It is a rule, not an exception, at you will like certain shows of any gerne. Many would like to say something like ‘well that show branches out’ or ‘that show is better written’ and therefor they like it, however truthfully they are trying to find an excuse to mentally seperate it from a genre they otherwise wouldn’t admit to liking. Chances are, if you see a show from a genre and like it, there’s another show from that genre you are going to enjoy, and perhaps another, and suddenly it isn’t that the genre itself ‘isn’t your thing’ but that certain shows aren’t your thing, despite you enjoying the genre.
I don’t honestly dislike love triangles in general. My favorite anime of all time, ef ~a tale of memories~, features a prominent love triangle, and I’ve always tried to use the excuse that I only enjoy it because unlike other love triangles it is defiant of traditional values. However, I only think I hate love triangles because there have been others I dislike – it’s not the case that I hate all love triangles, it’s the case that I hate their portrayal in, for example, True Tears. In reality, I can be tolerant of love triangles so long as they happen to appeal to me, such as Kashimashi or Kanokon. My acclaimed hatred for traditional romance also falls through when I love Kare Kano. I can’t hate galge adaptions totally because I still love Higurashi and the Type Moon adaptions, and as far as I know Kanon could be just as good a second time through.
Recently, I even tackled my least favorite genre, political sci-fi. I had a gut feeling that I might not be as biased as I thought because I really enjoyed Starship Operators when I saw it way back. Every time I say how I won’t watch a political sci-fi I think back to how much I would love to see another Starship Operators. finally, I watched the first episode of Tytania when it aired, really enjoyed it, and then watched a few episodes of Legend of Galactic Heroes and enjoyed that as well. Once again, my biases were lifted. Kanokon for harem, Revolutionary Girl Utena for shoujo, Space Adventure Cobra for 80s – I’ve almost killed off all of my biases.
Now I want YOU to do the same. I know you have a bias. If you didn’t, posts with a super moe picture wouldn’t get 9 times as many views and comments as ones with something less than cute. BRANCH THE FUCK OUT. Watch something that you didn’t think you’d like. If it sucks, watch another one – you’ll be surprised at how fast you’ll find a show that you never ever would have expected to be one of your alltime favorites.
I’m biased against yaoi.
Good job, digital boy.
@Baka-Raptor: get thee to a nunneryless.
Negative genre bias stems from a bad initial experience. Once the bias sets in, it’s difficult to leave the comfort zone genre wise and branch out to other things. I think you’re right that you do enrich yourself by tossing biases aside and treading into new territory.
That said I still generally go into shoujo/josei anime with a huge negative bias, but I like a few shows from the genre. My bias will always be there no matter what though. Some habits just die harder than others.
@B-R:Watch Fuyu no Semi.
@Yamcha: has you seen Utena or Ouran?
I don’t mind harem shows (in fact I do enjoy some of them) but sometimes it’s kinda uncomfortable for me when the fanservice is overdone or gratuitous. I think this is because I’m not the intended audience (a girl). It’s more distracting for me than eye pleasing.
I also have a bias against shoujo shows.While I do like shoujo, i’ve become so jaded, I usually watch/read them with low expectations or just skip them completely if it just sound cliche or unnecessarily angsty. (I refuse to read Vampire Knight)
I think it’s impossible to completely eradicate bias, which in my opinion are good things (bias and the impossibility). There’s a difference between being biased and being stubborn, and I think it’s that difference that audiences have to understand. Having a bias against something is the same deal as having a bias for something—we like specific genres or producers or other categories for certain reasons and likewise we dislike certain categorizations for specific reasons. However, when those reasons become misunderstandings, and one is too stubborn to correct these misconceptions, then we have a situation where one may refuse to watch something they would otherwise enjoy because of false reasoning.
Oh, how many Westerners I have run into that equate anime with plotless shoujo ecchi….
tai that stubbornness is kind of the same thing as bias, i would think. And really, it’s what I’m talking about. If you know how to manage your bias like I do it’s fine, but most people don’t.
Trouble is, you can’t watch everything. I passed on a whole load of shows this season, just because I the premise didn’t interest me. There’s a difference between bias and preference; perhaps it’s not because you hate a certain genre that you pass on a show, but more because you are more interested in other genres.
It all depends on what you, as an anime fan, are looking for in your shows.
I’m biased against series that don’t lure me into that state of procrastination when I have a (unfinished) project due in 24 hours.
While biases do go unrecognised all too often, like some of the other commenters, I don’t think they’re always a bad thing. I suspect they’re a lot to do with our personalities, and that’s not something I want to give up.
I think you’re absolutely right. Nothing should be approached negative only because of genre/nation/race membership. Everything is unique.
I generally dislike moe, loli and harem but I’m open to watching any series ^_^ Loli not so much though XD I usually watch harem for the action or the humor like Sekirei (one of the most blatantly harem anime). ^^
@21st Century Digital Boy: Yes and those are actually a couple of my exceptions to my disdain for things shoujo. I’ll also toss Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto into the mix because I really like the franchise.
“If you didn’t, posts with a super moe picture wouldn’t get 9 times as many views and comments as ones with something less than cute”
Actually I just happen to like moe .. and so if there were two blog posts, and one was a post about moe stuff, maybe ill read it first (and I may not have time to read the other). Does that make me biased?
I think Ive watched at least 1-2 eps of every show this season except (for Kameko DX and Earl & Fairy). I’m just naturally biased against shitty shows I guess (and I actually sat through 5 minutes of DX).
Anyways I think its easy to blur the lines between bias and personal preference, but I definitely agree that everyone should, in theory, give everything a chance. But then sometimes we just have to make the choice, i mean we only have x hours of free time in a day (and I know its not true for some people… but that x is like.. not alot of time for me). We sometimes have to make a choice between watching show A and show B. If show A is in a genre I like, well a logical/conservative person would pick A. Biased? Not really, this person is forced to make a choice.
I dunnno if im making any sense … its the end of the week, and i’ve worked way too many hours this week so my brian is now mush.
It’s true it’s all a matter of personal preference. Just because I watch one show and not another does not mean that I am biased to the other show’s genre. In fact, I can’t really think of any genre that I have a particular bias towards because I always know I will enjoy some shows from that genre. However, I do have biases towards any anime recommended to me by two personal friends of mine, but that’s only because they have a bad record of recommending shows that I end up disliking, but I have nothing against the genres.
@Cokematic
How dare you insult my precious Kemeko DX! It it probably one of my favorite shows of this season. Even though it is infuriatingly lame, it is also exceedingly hilarious. Although that “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Kamisama” part of the intro is a bit offensive, I still love the show. Earl and Fairy sucked / sucks / is currently sucking, so by all means, trash it.
Lately, I suspect that every genre has a few “gateway” shows, shows that can appeal to people not interested in the genre to which they belong and slowly pull otherwise disinterested viewers into said genre. I could be wrong, though — after all, I doubt I’ll ever like shoujo romance shows unless they have cross-genre elements. As IKnight said, it is in part a matter of personality. I certainly agree, though, that it’s best not to make sweeping generalizations about all shows of one genre.
I agree with Omisyth and Cokematic – there’s just not enough time to cover everything. This is more true these days when the anime market is much larger. Back in the days of dial up and a limited selection at the store, it was a lot easier and I watched as much as I could afford.
Not having time to cover everything is a lame ass excuse : p you aren’t otaku enough to fall into my broad generalizations of fandom! I will have seen every anime ever made in 5 years.
@Cokematic: The moe comment was in PURE SPITE and I pretty much hate you now : p
@Yamcha: Princess Tutu? Cardcaptors Sakura?
@JLesson: you are part of the solution.
@21st: CCS is all right. I don’t particularly like or hate it. Magical girl is a shoujo subset that doesn’t interest me aside from the Nanoha series, which is shounen in magical girl clothing.
But Tutu? That’s the really important one. One of the most widely regarded classics among those who’ve actually seen it.
I hate animes because of their genres. If I dont like the genre, then I dont like the anime. Its just the same for other otakus.
Whats that Clannad picture doing there?
@Kairu: that Clannad picture is to get the attention of people who Cobra couldn’t a week ago. AKA you and everyone else I detest.
^ Yeah. Seeing that picture make me read the rest of the entry. Good job. XD
Wow, you really may have inspired me to try something new. Thinking about it now, I really do have a lot of biases, but as of lately I have been trying some new genres that I normally wouldn’t. I’ll take it to another step though and try something completely out of my comfort zone next!
lostty, I’m very proud of you. Boldly go where no man’s gone before! But do read reviews and stuff first because if the first show ends up sucking it will be disheartening lol.
i have nothing against any genre.
as a general “rule”, i am not into harem anime because no anime in the genre can hold my interest beyond 4 episodes. but i’d still watch the first episode just to see if it can change my mind. my general rule every new season is to watch everything that premieres and judge. what matters to me is the story and how much that story can hold my interest. if it fails, i drop it. it has nothing to do with the genre.
The only thing I will not watch is super hardcore hentai. Well Hentai in general I suppose… any other genre is fair game. There are series I have a bias against though.
[...] less bloody bias in your opinions (which you frequently state as fact, something else I hate in general) and be a [...]
Someone please tell me the title of the show, from which the third picture is!
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