Sci-Fi HoF...Hall of Fame

I have never complained about Guap nominating anime in the HoFs. If you actually read the other thread, you would have known that.

In fact, Gunbuster was ranked #5 on my list in the Sci-Fi HoF.

You're beating a dead horse. At least I hope it's still dead.

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Well, you said your point was that he was pushing anime too hard on people. That's what I was trying to address.

No, I said my point was that extreme horror movies that are gory with disgusting blood and guts shouldn't be in general HoFs.

I could care less if Guap nominates anime.

Braindead isn't extreme horror. ;p

Btw, not trying to spark another argument or anything. Just wanted to point out something.

I guess you just forgot.

Before I talked about animation with non-anime fans I perceived the manga world as being part of a larger cultural sphere existing in the developed world, as being also something that was perceived as being an integral part of our cultural background, just like Hollywood. However, it's obviously not. Most western people are just not aware of this manga world.

One thing about anime is that even people who are not afraid to watch French animation like Fantastic planet for example are afraid to watch it. Why is that? Western civilization as a whole has a strong feeling of inherent superiority over anything else in the world. And France is part of that western world. For example, Indian live action movies are also regarded as garbage by Westerners. That is because India is not part of the western world, India is it's own world. This feeling of superiority is perhaps multiplied when one talks about animation, a medium reserved for children in the western world. So if you combine animation and foreign culture, truly foreign, from a whole different civilization (Japanese civilization is a whole distinct civilization from western countries such as US, Brazil, UK and France), you get maximum prejudice: western prejudice against non-western culture combined with western prejudice against animation.

Then, since western animation is virtually nonexistent (as a large medium it is, why do you think there is so many anime fans in the west? that's because there are very few non-Japanese animations worth watching, not because they love Japanese culture itself, as most American anime fans don't even read manga, Japanese novels or watch Japanese live action, they are just fans of animation), comics are also in a bad situation (though not that bad since there are many great comics for adults in the west, so there are not as many manga fans as anime fans in the west even though manga is considerably more popular in Japan than animation is), people who have sensibility to animation, and hence watch anime since it is the only option, also suffer a certain degree of discrimination (as can be clearly noticed by some comments made by some people in this site). It's a quite sad situation.

Instead of just quoting one random post from a different thread over a month ago, go back and read that whole discussion. It was about Guap pushing anime, and other people being upset about it. Guap was upset that people weren't giving his nomination a chance. I was just explaining that people were upset because he was pushing anime too hard. I wasn't complaining about his nomination.

That discussion had nothing to do with the HoF issue last week.

Though I actually think that she is right in a sense. There is not point in recommending people who are not used to anime to watch hardcore otaku stuff. And also there is no point is telling people that some classic is a classic a million times over. It's obviously a waste of time to talk to people who are not interested in something and forcing them will make them react negatively and become less interested.

I don't know if it's so much an issue of a Western vs Eastern superiority complex. I think it's just that people over generalise. They sample the most visible examples, and if they don't like them then they close their mind to the whole category. Take music for example. If someone doesn't like a few of the most popular mainstream bands of a genre then they write the whole genre off without realising there could be many bands of the genre that would appeal to them. I find most people are just as opposed to watching French films as they are to watching anime, because they don't like reading the subtitles because they aren't already used to watching foreign films. So just because they don't like one element, they don't even try to appreciate the whole entire category.

I'm not even entering that discussion. My post had nothing to do with that discussion. My post was only in response to a post of yours that is on the previous page of this thread.

And it's still only one random post from the discussion in this thread. If you had actually read the whole discussion instead of picking one random post to reply to, you might have noticed that I wasn't the one complaining about Guap nominating anime.

I was only explaining why other people were upset about it.

People generalize more in regards to anime than most other mediums. People also respect it less and show arrogance towards it, disrespecting the knowledge of anime. So I perceive more prejudice in regards to anime than French movies (at least here), when someone dislikes some well regarded French or Japanese live action film they show at least a bit of respect, when someone dislikes a well regarded anime they just say its garbage, without any consideration for the artform or the people who appreciate it, showing a greater degree of arrogance if compared to live action stuff. So I partially agree with you but I also perceive clearly that indeed there exists a specific prejudice and generall disrespect for the artform and people who understand it.

Welcome to the forum Guap after your here more than a day you will see people here are flippant about all different kinds of movies.

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Letterboxd

I think you make a good point about the way people disregard anime versus Fench or Japanese films. I don't know if you mean "here" or in a broader sense, or maybe both. But anime seems to be something only anime fans appreciate, and good anime is appreciated even less. Animation in general is not appreciated by most film buffs beyond pixar and disney films, but people will generally appreciate Akira and Princess Mononoke as much as Forbidden Planet and Watership Down. I find in general many film buffs don't appreciate old films, or silent films, or many of the more niche styles. People in general are not very open minded.

Why does finding your tastes and generally choosing your entertainment from there equate not being open minded.

Are there not things that you don't watch because you know your tastes by now?

How many anime does someone need to watch for their opinion on a particular film that they watch to be valid?

I'm not equating it with narrow mindedness, I'm just relating the two. Everyone is closed minded to some degre, myself included. No one is completely open minded.

To answer your last question it varies. Three years ago I would not have been able to watch and appreciate Madoka Magica despite being an Anime fan already. I still can't appreciate DBZ or Naruto. I can't stand them. It can take years of gradually opening your mind to learn to appreciate a particular nieche depending on how much a person has closed their mind to it. I was initially repelled by Madoka, but I said to myself there had to be something worthwhile there for it to have so much critical acclaim. So I gave it another go and actually started liking it.

Too many movies out there that I love to start caring about acquired tastes. I certainly don't hate anime either. When I see them and it is one I don't enjoy I am going to say so and I don't think I need to be sleeping with Miyazaki to do so.

I am the same. We all have preferences regarding genres, however, these preferences themselves are not innate but they evolve with experience. Hence, there is something called being open to trying stuff that you usually don't experience and try to understand how some people appreciate it and them you will perhaps learn to appreciate it in the same way. That requires certain humility from the person as well to know that you might learn to enjoy things.

All my favorite things are to a certain extent the product of acquired taste. In fact, I think that everybody's favorites are, since you will only enjoy The Godfather as much as movie fans usually do if you have a substantial experience with American movies. If you show this movie to a polynesian tribesmen who never watched TV in his/her life, I don't think she/he will like it at all. You will also tend to only enjoy some otaku anime like K-On! if you have substantial experience with otaku culture. Some things are easier to enjoy without particular cultural experience because they are more similar to mainstream stuff, a movie like Wolf Children is much more similar to typical Hollywood drama movies than the Utena movie, hence people who don't have substantial experience with anime but have experience with Hollywood movies will tend to enjoy the first much more than the second.

I understood some of those things better in fact by interacting in this forum as well as other forums about movies, animation and other mediums. One can even say that I used these HoF to make some experiments regarding people's capability to digest otaku cultural products without being familiar with otaku culture itself. I learned a lot in the process.

I particularly didn't like K-On! the first time I watched it, I found it a bit weird and didn't quite notice what was so special about it, as it consists of watching a bunch of stupid highschool girls acting like retards. I watched it because it was named one of the best anime of the year in a magazine. But after watching all the 39 episodes of K-On! and K-On!! plus the movie plus about 30 other slice of life comedy cute girls doing cute things TV series and OVAs I recently rewatched the first episodes of K-On! and I understood why they were so popular among otaku, it's just a brilliantly made masterpiece of slice of life anime comedy. But it certainly is a very culture specific thing. Though comedy usually is.

Serious drama tends to be more accessible to foreigners than comedy, which explains why many people here loved movies like Princess Mononoke (being highest ranked foreign film in the 1990's countdown and top 10 in the animation countdown) and Sansho (even winning a HoF), even without being familar with Japanese culture in general. Comedy tends to be harder for foreigners to understand, I myself cannot understand what is so great about Coen's movies like Fargo and No Country for Old Men, being sarcastic tragicomedies that are very cultural specific to Americans.

Well Seanc, it's certainly your prerogative to not care about acquired taste. Personally I try to be as open minded as I can be, because I'm the kind of person who always wants to learn more about life. I often try things that I don't like to see if I can learn to like them, especially if it's something of remarkable quality like a gourmet meal or a critically acclaimed film. As a Christian my world view is that every experience in life matters and amounts to something more significant. So that's why I always want to grow as a person. I want to be the kind of person who at the age of 80 still picks up new hobbies, learns new life skills, and acquires new tastes.

You say there are too many movies you love to start acquiring new tastes. Well one of my favorite movies is The Passion of Joan of Arc, and I never would have found that movie if I hadn't acquired a taste for black and white silent films. Ten years ago I did not like a single black and white film. Four years ago I did not like a single silent film. It took me years to acquire those tastes, and because of that I found the greatest film I've ever seen. It may not be my personal number one favorite, but it's certainly the best film I've seen in terms of quality. So if you don't want or care about having those experiences, that's you're choice and you're free to make it, but you don't know what you're missing.