Podcast XI: Clan Aid!

http://www.animeuknews.net/review/1197/clannad
http://www.animeuknews.net/review/1165/clannad-1

vashdaman said:
Good job guys you did me proud, you really made Clannad sound like a steaming pile, and I now feel that all my pre-judgemental Clannad (and Kanon) bashing has been vindicated. But considering the amount of praise and glowing reviews I've seen the show receive on this website over time, I'm surprised at just how unequivocally rubbished Clannad got by you guys.
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The thing is, the podcast people hate slice of life in general. I'm actually wondering if they like anything not Berserk..... =)

VivisQueen said:
I think it's the money-making demographic. The anime industry significantly relies on the tweens with parents who will buy all the money-making merchandise. It then also relies on the older folk who fell in love with **** they watched when they were tweens and now have the money to buy even more expensive merchandise. Beyond that, it relies on gamers and toy collectors and the like.

In almost none of those demographics is a high quality plot vital to their continued fandom. If you look specifically at the VN/Erogames subset, you are in an even deeper cesspool of low expectations. That is my theory.
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It makes me wonder.... not sure I understand the comment here.

Professor Irony said:
Eh, I like to think we were pretty even-handed with Clannad. Although none of us came away as huge fans of the franchise, we could all point to things we did like about it and did enjoy. Even if there were no burning motorcycles.
I get where you're coming from, but I'd be wary of generalising VNs as being a worse example than anime. At the very least, I think it's worth distinguishing between games where the sole focus is on sex and those with an emphasis on story.
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Are they? VN's are "cheap" to produce, that's why any "aspiring" game producers / companies creates them. As for their popularity, I'd actually question it, until I see some numbers. My guess is that most VN's will not pay for themselves, the few that do, end up becoming animes to finance the next game.... =P

fabricatedlunatic said:
Maxon sounds much more cuddly on the podcast than he does on here. From now on I'm gonna read all his posts in that voice, and just like that he won't seem so angry any more.
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Lol. He is not that bad in person.

Lawrence said:
I honestly thought more people liked Clannad around here... I mean someone must do, if it came second in that anime list Maes organised a couple of years back but equally, everyone's remarks thus far don't sound too warm about the series.
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Apparently lots of people like Clannad. It's just that only Maxxon was on the podcast out of the ones that do like it.
 
chaos said:
Just finished listening and wondering why so much hate? People will like what they like, nothing you can do about it.

Haven't seen this show, but a lot of people seems to like this:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/encyc ... sian&n=100

I still wanted to watch Kanon before getting to Clannad, which I eventually will do. I just don't get why do an episode only to bash something you don't like =/
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This is why I havn't bothered to listen to it. I can't remember if I put it in my top ten when we did lists on here but even if it isn't it's still a show I like and the people on the podcast can diss it as much as they like, it isn't going to make me suddenly hate it.
 
We don't like slice of life in general? hey, that's tripe chaos. I enjoy slice of life, i just found this to be a little urksome. It's not terrible, but it by no means deserves the extremely high level of praise it has been getting for years. Keep in mind i hardly spoke in this cast ;p - But regardless they did cover a lot of the issues i had with the series as well. Where the characters fun? sometimes. But most of the time, a lot of went on felt overly dramatic, as if to say this has to force a reaction here or there. Certainly for the first series, and it being a Key series, it felt a little bit predictable about how things would pan out. Probably why i felt it didn't have that spark so many believe it did.

Also, keep in mind. We didn't go into Clannad with the pure intent of bashing it. Asides from myself who'd seen season 1 and maxon seeing all of it + the VN, when we planned it, vivis and the prof had yet to see it. So it was by no means planned as an episode of bashing. It just happened. Sure people like what they like, but we can still question it if we find it a little weird to us.

@mangaman - our intent isn't to make you hate it, it's just that we kind of question how people think it's the best thing ever, since to us, it doesn't come close.
 
Arbalest said:
@mangaman - our intent isn't to make you hate it, it's just that we kind of question how people think it's the best thing ever, since to us, it doesn't come close.
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There will always be differences of opinion. I once watched the first episode of Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo thanks to a Newtype USA cover disc. I didn't like it and so I never purchased the rest of the show. There are plenty of people on the forum though who rate it highly though.
 
I'm kind of surprised some people see this as just hate towards the show. It turned out as balanced as you can get as far as the commentary is concerned with Vivi on the negative side but still being able to be constructive at points and Maxon on the positive but still admitting it's not without flaws. Prof and Arb remaining respectfully somewhere in the middle. I can understand that if you love the show it can be hard to digest when someone has such a strong dislike as Vivis had in this episode but she managed to articulate her points well and some decent counter arguments were made in defense at her complaints.
 
I honestly don't think the podcast was overly negative at all. Only VivisQueen seems to actively dislike Clannad, and even then she found some things to appreciate. I got the impression that Arby and Prof don't have especially strong feelings one way or the other (which is not to say that they didn't go into plenty of detail about what they liked and disliked), and they even got Maxon on the show to ensure there'd be a decent balance of opinion.

Overall I think it was a fair and even-handed discussion of the show's merits.

EDIT: or what Sy said
 
I haven't listened to the podcast as yet, as I'm in the middle of watching After Story Part 2, but I can guess why this would be a more contentious issue than criticism of say Gurren Lagann or Evangelion. Shows which are taken on a visceral gut instinct, or shows which are appreciated at an intellectual level are easy to criticise, and such criticism is easy to stomach, because it becomes a difference of opinion, and someone holding a different opinion to mine doesn't invalidate it.

With Clannad, and indeed other Key Visual titles, things are different as they are designed with an emotional response in mind. They take you on an emotional rollercoaster, are meant to elicit feelings in the viewer. I may have been turned into a blubbering mess by the events in last night's episode, but if someone then comes up to me with a critical opinion of that show, it's no longer a matter of invalidating my opinion, which I can handle, but it becomes an issue of invalidating my emotions, which I cannot. The last thing you need when you're feeling grief, even vicariously for an animated character, is someone telling you that you're really not feeling that.

At least that's what I think is so polarising in shows like this.
 
chaos said:
I just don't get why do an episode only to bash something you don't like =/
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Et tu, Chaos? We did not do an episode purely to bash something and I'm actually rather hurt that you think we would.

As stated at the beginning of the episode, we chose Clannad as it was a requested topic, the same as we would if someone asked us to cover a mecha show, a seinen romance, a josei horror or whatever else. Other than that, I can only reiterate that we tried to approach Clannad with minds open, we did strive to keep the discussion as balanced as possible and if we have somehow offended anyone in the process, I offer my most sincere apologies.

There are podcasts which do set out to bash series purely for comedy value, but that is not us.
 
Just Passing Through said:
I may have been turned into a blubbering mess by the events in last night's episode, but if someone then comes up to me with a critical opinion of that show, it's no longer a matter of invalidating my opinion, which I can handle, but it becomes an issue of invalidating my emotions, which I cannot. The last thing you need when you're feeling grief, even vicariously for an animated character, is someone telling you that you're really not feeling that.

At least that's what I think is so polarising in shows like this.
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I really like this part of your comment a lot. I think it goes to the heart of why people get so passionate about shows. It's really about you thinking that someone is invalidating your emotions, which is in itself an emotional and probably unfair reaction. Why must someone automatically think I am attacking their emotions when what I want is to know the basis of their interpretation? (By the way, I think all animation - all art - is designed to elicit some kind of emotional reaction, be it shock or gooey feelings or a thoughtful stillness. So I'm not sure I agree with your show 'types'.)

What I think those who approach a discussion purely emotionally should sometimes do, however, is to learn how to defend their views with reference to the show itself. If you want helpful discussion (and some people don't, some people are happy to watch a show and not talk about it with others), then it's important to be able to say 'I thought the characters were good for this reason; I thought this part of the narrative was effectively done because of this and this'. To constantly revert to the truism that your emotions/opinions are as valid as anyone else's is not just boring, but dead-ends the discourse. It's not possible to wholly disconnect emotion from your defence, but you need to acknowledge that your interpretations come from something concrete in the show and be able to identify them and thus defend them.

Maxon, in that sense, defended himself really well on the podcast. He said he was a 'characters' person, and for him it was the relative originality (compared to other like shows) of the character relationships. I just had to accept that since I don't know many other like shows, but theoretically, another VN expert could come and say 'Nah, they're not that original when you've seen this and this and this' and the discourse continues. This is what makes Maxon's view interesting - it is an analytical point that someone can contest in a fun and constructive way. If we all just cry about our emotions, we end up with a stagnant anime culture.
 
chaos said:
Just finished listening and wondering why so much hate? People will like what they like, nothing you can do about it.
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But I did say I liked it. Where are you getting this idea we all hated it?

I don't have to put it into my top 10 of the last decade to like it.
 
chaos said:
Just finished listening and wondering why so much hate? People will like what they like, nothing you can do about it./
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Why not?

What is love unquestioned but tyranny?

And what is Key Anime but the Retardation and Murder of females?
 
ConanThe3rd said:
chaos said:
Just finished listening and wondering why so much hate? People will like what they like, nothing you can do about it./
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Why not?

What is love unquestioned but tyranny?

And what is Key Anime but the Retardation and Murder of females?
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:lol: Brilliant.


Honestly though, the Podcast was actually pretty even handed, both good and bad points were discussed, it's just that it gave me zero desire to anywhere near the show (which was never going to happen anyway), and is in stark contrast to most of the other reviews of the show on this (and other) sites.

I also don't think it's right to have the attitude that bashing a show your not particularly keen is somehow wrong. This isn't a news broadcast, there is no need for the padcast crew to be impartial, if any member of the team did hate the show they they should express that.
 
Yeah, I mean if we're reviewing something, there is always the chance that we'll come away not liking it.

It was never our intention to offend anyone, but I feel we treated Clannad very fairly and I stand by the respective verdicts that we all reached.
 
Arbalest said:
We don't like slice of life in general? hey, that's tripe chaos. I enjoy slice of life, i just found this to be a little urksome. It's not terrible, but it by no means deserves the extremely high level of praise it has been getting for years. Keep in mind i hardly spoke in this cast ;p -
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Sorry, you were too quiet on this one. Ended up forgetting you like your slice of life every so often. Vivis is the one that hates slice of life, if I'm not wrong ? Or does she likes any slice of life show / manga?

Arbalest said:
Also, keep in mind. We didn't go into Clannad with the pure intent of bashing it. Asides from myself who'd seen season 1 and maxon seeing all of it + the VN, when we planned it, vivis and the prof had yet to see it. So it was by no means planned as an episode of bashing. It just happened. Sure people like what they like, but we can still question it if we find it a little weird to us.
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Maybe because Vivis has the most "airtime"? I don't know why, but I just get negative feelings from listening to it. The good points were not defended strongly enough. So, you had one who hated it with a passion, one who likes it, but isn't passionate about it and two undecided... So basically, that's why I don't think it was even handed.
AND in any case, knowing how Vivis feel about this kinda of shows, I'd say that particular outcome was predictable.

Professor Irony said:
Et tu, Chaos? We did not do an episode purely to bash something and I'm actually rather hurt that you think we would.
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Sorry, didn't mean to hurt you. Reading the forums before listening to the episode gave me the wrong idea about it.

Professor Irony said:
As stated at the beginning of the episode, we chose Clannad as it was a requested topic, the same as we would if someone asked us to cover a mecha show, a seinen romance, a josei horror or whatever else. Other than that, I can only reiterate that we tried to approach Clannad with minds open, we did strive to keep the discussion as balanced as possible and if we have somehow offended anyone in the process, I offer my most sincere apologies.
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Nah, it's fine. In general I dislike bashing something for the sake of it, therefore my reaction.

VivisQueen said:
It's really about you thinking that someone is invalidating your emotions, which is in itself an emotional and probably unfair reaction. Why must someone automatically think I am attacking their emotions when what I want is to know the basis of their interpretation? (By the way, I think all animation - all art - is designed to elicit some kind of emotional reaction, be it shock or gooey feelings or a thoughtful stillness. So I'm not sure I agree with your show 'types'.)
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Mmm, how German of you..... Why the wife can't leave the wife-beater? How can one explain emotions rationally? Wasn't part of your hate for the show because of your own emotions?

VivisQueen said:
What I think those who approach a discussion purely emotionally should sometimes do, however, is to learn how to defend their views with reference to the show itself. If you want helpful discussion (and some people don't, some people are happy to watch a show and not talk about it with others), then it's important to be able to say 'I thought the characters were good for this reason; I thought this part of the narrative was effectively done because of this and this'. To constantly revert to the truism that your emotions/opinions are as valid as anyone else's is not just boring, but dead-ends the discourse. It's not possible to wholly disconnect emotion from your defence, but you need to acknowledge that your interpretations come from something concrete in the show and be able to identify them and thus defend them.
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Ok, let's change this slightly. Is there a measurable criteria to define what is the best anime? Isn't "Best anime" a subjective concept? If it's subjective, what isn't based or guided by feelings?
If it's feeling related, can't I simply say that I rate anime X as high as I do because I like it? I just think that you're trying to rationalise it too much.
I never really stopped to think about what makes my favourite animes my favourites. I simply love them. Was it the music? The animation? The story? The characters? Or was it because when I watched anime XYZ, I was in a particular point in my life that re-enforced the connection I had with it?
Fro instance, what basis have you got to say that the kid in the show should hate the dad? Isn't it your own feelings giving meaning to what you see on screen?

VivisQueen said:
If we all just cry about our emotions, we end up with a stagnant anime culture.
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Therefore, I guess we will have to agree on disagree here. I like stories and how they make me feel. Everything else is just add-ons. I may or may not be able to explain why I like something.

I think that next time we meet, we need to talk about our persoanl top tens!
 
Vivis is the one that hates slice of life
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I remember she quite liked Solanin, and that was pretty much pure slice of life. So I'm not sure you can really make this accusation.

Maybe because Vivis has the most "airtime"? I don't know why, but I just get negative feelings from listening to it. The good points were not defended strongly enough. So, you had one who hated it with a passion, one who likes it, but isn't passionate about it and two undecided... So basically, that's why I don't think it was even handed.
AND in any case, knowing how Vivis feel about this kinda of shows, I'd say that particular outcome was predictable.
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I think this is a little bit unfair. I mean, how do you even know the good points weren't defended strongly enough, you said you haven't even seen the show? I think Maxon did a good job stating his case, he doesn't need to be gushing love for the show out of his pours. I do agree with you though, in that the podcast definitely doesn't make one (or me at least) eager to watch the show any time soon, but why do you seem to have a problem with that? The reviewers aren't unbiased and they will all like or dislike a show to different extents, the main thing is that all the points were discussed, explained and backed up. It's clear that no one was "bashing on the show for the sake of it".

Reading the forums before listening to the episode gave me the wrong idea about it.
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You didn't think that my rather light hearted comments made earlier in this thread somehow represented what the podcast crew were aiming to achieve, did you? :?
 
vashdaman said:
Vivis is the one that hates slice of life
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I remember she quite liked Solanin, and that was pretty much pure slice of life. So I'm not sure you can really make this accusation.
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Of course I can! it doesn't mean I'm right though.
AFAIK, Solanin is more seinem than it is slice of life. I'm yet to hear of a pure slice of life that Vivis like. It is more to the liking of Reevo or Arby.
She is a KyoAni hater, and I'm not making this up, she told me so at SLA.

vashdaman said:
... in that the podcast definitely doesn't make one (or me at least) eager to watch the show any time soon, but why do you seem to have a problem with that? .... "bashing on the show for the sake of it".
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My original view was that they were bashing for the sake of it. I think that as they said about "approaching it with an open mind" already show a certain bias.

vashdaman said:
Reading the forums before listening to the episode gave me the wrong idea about it.
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You didn't think that my rather light hearted comments made earlier in this thread somehow represented what the podcast crew were aiming to achieve, did you? :?
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vashdaman said:
Clannad...:(
I will listen, but only because I'm fully expecting you good people to bash it. Bash it almost as good as I, a man who has never and will never watch it, bashes it.
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vashdaman said:
Only 10 minutes in and the Clannad bashing does not disappoint. I loving the slaying Vivi is giving it :lol: "I don't think it would be in any of my top tens, except maybe top ten worst shows".
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Yep. I was. But that's right. It's unfair of me.
 
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