That's a bit of a presumptuous title, but I'm going with it. Being a critic is an inherently presumptuous job, after all, you're telling people what they should and shouldn't like.
So, I mentioned in my very first post that I loved Neon Genesis Evangelion. I will never forget when I tried to show it to my then-girlfriend (who I watched a lot of anime with) and her older sister (who was also into it, but was a bit more generally cynical), nor my intense disappointment when they didn't "get it" in the same way I did. Being as I was only 16 at the time, it shouldn't be too surprising that it took me about 6 years to really understand what I did wrong.
Evangelion is a series that relies very heavily on the viewer empathizing with characters who are at best flawed and at worst downright vile. If the viewer does not let the struggle of the characters become their own struggle, the series loses all meaning and becomes the many things it is mocked for: absurdity, wangst, mind screwery and bizarre Christian imagery.
And it is much, MUCH harder to let yourself empathize with the characters if you're in front of other people. Humans are naturally social creatures, they want to be understood and to understand, and to impress people. Evangelion is a crowning example of a series that a first-time viewer will reflexively mock almost as a defense mechanism against empathy. "Shinji's a whiny little wuss," is something that you don't need to say when it's just you and him alone, but in front of other people, it's far, far easier to let posturing and joking get in the way of a series' actual emotional message.
That being said, when a series is funny, clever or tricky, watching it with friends will add dramatically to your enjoyment, as multiple sets of eyes will catch more details, and inside jokes can be generated and spread. So I'm not saying that you should watch all anime alone.
The Shorthand version is this: Drama should be watched alone the first time you watch it. Comedy should be watched with friends. Both types very often benefit from a second watching. There are series (for example, Gurren Lagann and FLCL) which aren't really either one, or are both. In my opinion, FLCL falls into the former category and Gurren Lagann falls into the latter, but I'm not sure I could completely explain why.
I should also note that series which can't make up their mind if they're drama or comedy will usually crumble worse in a multi-viewer environment than a single-viewer environment. If you're the only one there, you can give it credit rather than poking at every plot hole you see, which I find that people do reflexively when they're with others.
Food for thought, I suppose. Tonight I may (or may not) watch Triangle Heart: Sweet Songs Forever, the OVA of which Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was a spinoff/alternate universe setting of. As Nanoha is far better known than its predecessor, I'm curious as to what the "original" was like...
1 comment:
Interestingly, I watched Eva with my family, whose reactions were quite mixed. My mom... fell asleep every time they started counting (nearly every episode lol) and the rest of us got variously sucked in, aggravated, furious, etc. And I think we might have been divided - some preferred Asuka (I suspect though I don't recall for sure that it was my sisters and I) and some preferred Shinji. The thing about Shinji, though, is that although at first he seems very whiney, a la Luke Skywalker, if you try and give him a chance, you eventually understand that he's basically the emotional center of the show, its human heart (imo). In other words, he grew on me.
I would agree that one should be careful about what shows you expose others to and recognize that the ones you love may not get the same reception from others.
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