Maybe I’m just a weirdo, but somehow it’s not until I started to read j1m0ne‘s preview post that I realize this is exactly the next-season-preview I would like to read. Uh, I guess I also dig hawt and cute and cool voice actors as well?
And there’s nothing wrong to be superficial about what you like in anime. It helps to be superficial at this point in the life of an anime series because we just don’t really know much beyond the PR that we see, unless you have some insight into things that others can’t see upon first glance. While we may all be looking at book covers and judging the contents within, I found what j1mone is doing more like reading the author and telling you who’s done which work in the past, without really saying much about the show itself. It’s just less guessing and more actual useful information. It helps to go beyond this a little and connect the dots, but not quite this far.
But it also got me thinking: is my taste in anime so superficial now? I know for some time it was shallow to begin with–not only was I after the episode-by-episode experience over some satisfaction behind following a good story, I was much more concerned about acting, direction and music rather than plot, characterization and themes. Well, I talk about all six things all the time still, so I don’t know. Certainly a good story is no more important than having good acting (you’d think this ranks way higher with most people?) and direction. A fanciful setting is great but only if the show would take advantage of it. And humor is really a personal, eye-of-the-beholder thing. And of course if it’s an ugly, still-panarama, it will still get dropped. Maybe.
Sadly so few of those things can be figured out weeks in advance, unless there was an advance screening (hi CLANNAD?). I guess I’m just articulating, again, why I find seasonal previews unhelpful.
September 24th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I find them kind-of helpful. “Oh, the director of “, or, “Oh, the team that did Honey and Clover“, and such.
On the other hand, none of the pre-season previews even made me aware of Suzumiya Haruhi, and they all gave me the wrong impression of Simoun, so I guess I see what you mean.
September 25th, 2007 at 12:36 am
I suspect, much like my own post, these preview entries are written by bloggers with nothing better to write about. At least, for most people it serves to not only inform everyone of what’s going on, but a way to collect one’s own thought about what shows we should care about–a way to share our research, so to speak.
But personally research rarely pays off for me, as an indicator of what show I’ll like to watch subsequent. Last season the only bit that paid off was Darker than Black, but that’s because I always watch a Kanno Yoko show without fail. The other candidate was Claymore, but only because other people seemed to like it. And even so it didn’t stick with me until it turned into a glorious seiyuu festival (which was something everyone found out after it started to air anyways).