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Avatar - Captain_Rush - 28th August 2005
i think a poll is order, every month or so i change my avatar and sig, i want to change it something but cant decide so i thought you guys would for me.
Avatar - dex - 28th August 2005
Number one, because of the fact that funny is good and anime is dumb
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 28th August 2005
Anime dumb? No comprende? Porque?
I picked the second avatar as it is clearly superior.
Avatar - dex - 28th August 2005
Anime is to story telling as the microwave is to gourmet cooking.
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 28th August 2005
Darunia: Are you calling me SHORT?
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 28th August 2005
Quote:Anime is to story telling as the microwave is to gourmet cooking.
Heh, tell that to all the Hayao Miyazaki movies or all these: The Patlabor movies, Kino's Journey, Haibane Renmei, Serial Experiments Lain, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Last Exile, Voices of a Distant Star, Trigun, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress Texhnolyze, Rahxephon, and...well there's no need to belabor the point any further.
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 28th August 2005
And besides that, the Microwave has it's uses in gormet cooking, but whatever you are heating up needs to be a substance that can stand to lose moisture in the process.
Avatar - Darunia - 28th August 2005
To insult animé in front of these folks is akin to suicide. Trust me, I still have scars on my back from the thorough whippings.
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 28th August 2005
Hey, feel free to criticize it, but come up with something intelligent. The biggest thing in this case is that if you are going to blanket every single japanese cartoon as horrible, you should have seen a significant enough percentage to enable you to make such a call.
Now, let's say you have actually seen some of the actual good shows Japan has made, such as Miyazaki's movies, that show GR loves that I keep forgetting the name of, or even some of the better "actiony" type ones. If you can say that they suck after that exposure, then I can respect your opinion.
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 28th August 2005
Quote:To insult animé in front of these folks is akin to suicide. Trust me, I still have scars on my back from the thorough whippings.
You also threw in a dislike for the Japanese people and region in general. So far dex hasn't done that, and besides he's new so I'll let him go lightly for now.
Avatar - Weltall - 28th August 2005
Cowboy Bebop is awesome.
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 28th August 2005
I seem to remember hearing you say that before...
Avatar - lazyfatbum - 28th August 2005
lmao GR thought I was Dex :D
Dex is my 12 year old nephew who cannot spell anything that uses more than 4 letters. When i'm visiting my mom I dont bother to log out of his account on TC because hopefully people will have the ability to understand the difference between cohesive thought and "woh wants a revuloshion///?" But I digress.
As i've stated many times it is my opinion that anime is completely trite cookie-cutter me-too bullshit designed by people with small dicks who over-compensate by thinking of characters that must use brute strength, extreme innuendo or heavy weapons to overcome conflict in their stories while retaining the same social structure of Japan regardless of the characters scope of what or who they are in their respective situations and conflict (as opposed to a western story teller who will use other cultures as a basis for their fictional character's origins (aliens for example) or work hard to make a completely new ideal of a culture, see Alien Nation as a simple example). It is often pointless and usually mindless save for the rare instances of the stories that actually had a script as opposed to a culmination of action sequences showcased in some rudiment order that only makes sense if you're a child with no understanding of what a person is and instead judges and accepts on a level of physical characteristics and extremes which unfortunately the majority of 'anime' and Japanese films in general use as their means to communicate the goals of the story to the audience(high visual value and low plot, character dev. writing, etc values).
Regardless of translation issues, the dialogue is mostly set up as to be a punchline without the context of a joke - a 'drama punch' is usually the last resort of a story teller who is trying to explain something quickly without dwelling on it as to speed the pacing of the story and it always results in failure, in western and modern storytelling we know this as the 'flash back' which gives the story teller a palette to generate his character for the audience while not actually generating character through the character's actions within the context of the current conflict (which is ridiculous), The state of mind, morality, etc. The content of the sub-plots are usually so blatantly simplistic or at times even drowned in idealistic banter (again, pushing Japanese social structure) without context or purpose and usually amounts to filler if anything at all, a 'break' between visually oriented scenes which, as I said earlier, is the entire basis of anime.
It is literally a story told for the purpose of "Isn't this cool?" and has no groundings what so ever. There is a major reason why all of the films you mentioned are not widely accepted or even considered mainstream and that is because they are convoluted confusing stories that try to entertain its audience by flashing sexual innuendo and over the top action sequences (that would be nearly impossible or incredibly difficult with live action without resorting to gimmicky CG since it definitely wouldn't be trying to obtain an audience through the story save for the anticipation of what might happen next in the story, i.e.: the next action scene and how the protagonist will cope). That we, as a movie going public, accept as trite, convoluted bullshit films that do not deserve the price of admission.
I could dump my entire education of film and story telling in this thread and do my best to show how ridiculous anime is and probably prove my point rather well but there would be no point. You have characters that you love, anime and Japanese live action movies that you love, I have no right to tell you that you shouldn't enjoy them. However, do not ridicule my opinion or judgment on them and tell me that i'm wrong and they're the best thing since sliced bread simply because you think they're cool. If you want to continue a debate like that I suggest making a new thread and I will give you black and white facts of why anime is sub par overly simplistic story telling with an emphasis on eye-candy and little else. If you enjoy them, that's great, but I do not for various reasons.
Now, having said all that, there are definitely some incredible movies from Japan that use new ways of storytelling to put a more original spin on the same story we've seen a thousand times. Spending half the movie on a character that has nothing to do with the main character as to simply introduce us to the world the story will take place in or using a love story as a catalyst to generate conflict between the main character and his ultimate goal which he now questions based on that love. These stories and examples should be celebrated but they are not in the examples you provided and in fact very few people know about them because they do not contain any flashy action sequences or over the top context.
Avatar - Weltall - 28th August 2005
...Cowboy Bebop is awesome.
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 28th August 2005
I've been watching Excel Saga, it's awesome... :)
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 28th August 2005
So you have in fact seen some Miyazaki movies yourself lazy? If you take issue with those movies, go ahead and explain what is wrong with them.
At any rate, I must agree that all too often the solution to a fight may be in some spiritual form, but that spiritual form inevitably will take on a physical form in the way of "more powa!".
Exactly what anime series/movies have you seen? I think that's what I'm getting at.
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 29th August 2005
Quote:As i've stated many times it is my opinion that anime is completely trite cookie-cutter me-too bullshit designed by people with small dicks who over-compensate by thinking of characters that must use brute strength, extreme innuendo or heavy weapons to overcome conflict in their stories while retaining the same social structure of Japan regardless of the characters scope of what or who they are in their respective situations and conflict (as opposed to a western story teller who will use other cultures as a basis for their fictional character's origins (aliens for example) or work hard to make a completely new ideal of a culture, see Alien Nation as a simple example). It is often pointless and usually mindless save for the rare instances of the stories that actually had a script as opposed to a culmination of action sequences showcased in some rudiment order that only makes sense if you're a child with no understanding of what a person is and instead judges and accepts on a level of physical characteristics and extremes which unfortunately the majority of 'anime' and Japanese films in general use as their means to communicate the goals of the story to the audience(high visual value and low plot, character dev. writing, etc values).
Regardless of translation issues, the dialogue is mostly set up as to be a punchline without the context of a joke - a 'drama punch' is usually the last resort of a story teller who is trying to explain something quickly without dwelling on it as to speed the pacing of the story and it always results in failure, in western and modern storytelling we know this as the 'flash back' which gives the story teller a palette to generate his character for the audience while not actually generating character through the character's actions within the context of the current conflict (which is ridiculous), The state of mind, morality, etc. The content of the sub-plots are usually so blatantly simplistic or at times even drowned in idealistic banter (again, pushing Japanese social structure) without context or purpose and usually amounts to filler if anything at all, a 'break' between visually oriented scenes which, as I said earlier, is the entire basis of anime.
It is literally a story told for the purpose of "Isn't this cool?" and has no groundings what so ever. There is a major reason why all of the films you mentioned are not widely accepted or even considered mainstream and that is because they are convoluted confusing stories that try to entertain its audience by flashing sexual innuendo and over the top action sequences (that would be nearly impossible or incredibly difficult with live action without resorting to gimmicky CG since it definitely wouldn't be trying to obtain an audience through the story save for the anticipation of what might happen next in the story, i.e.: the next action scene and how the protagonist will cope). That we, as a movie going public, accept as trite, convoluted bullshit films that do not deserve the price of admission.
I could dump my entire education of film and story telling in this thread and do my best to show how ridiculous anime is and probably prove my point rather well but there would be no point. You have characters that you love, anime and Japanese live action movies that you love, I have no right to tell you that you shouldn't enjoy them. However, do not ridicule my opinion or judgment on them and tell me that i'm wrong and they're the best thing since sliced bread simply because you think they're cool. If you want to continue a debate like that I suggest making a new thread and I will give you black and white facts of why anime is sub par overly simplistic story telling with an emphasis on eye-candy and little else. If you enjoy them, that's great, but I do not for various reasons.
To that I say watch these series: Serial Experiments Lain, Kino's Journey, Haibane Renmei, or Azumanga Daioh, because none of them fit any of what you said all anime is.
By the way, have you watched much anime besides Dragon Ball Z, because that fits exactly what you said...
Quote:lmao GR thought I was Dex
...
...
what
Avatar - lazyfatbum - 29th August 2005
Great Rumbler Wrote:So far dex hasn't done that, and besides he's new so I'll let him go lightly for now.
My nephew Dex has not posed in this thread, when I visit my mom I use his account blah blah blah I explained it in the above post.
GR you have not been through film school so while you can argue the validity of anime's good points to me you cannot continue a debate with me based on the more advanced understandings of film making to include direction, motivation, writing and structure. Yes, there are exceptions to every rule, yes some anime is just damn cool. But it is all, in comparison to any good movie that obeys the guidelines of story telling, convoluted trite bullshit that only makes sense to children who dont have any grasp of what an adult is and how the adult ID is formed. Perhaps, anime is trying to be experimental in that sense, but it comes off as ridiculous hyper-visual krap with little character development.
I have seen most of the things you mentioned and I can tell you that they do fall in to what I described. Serial Experiments: Lain is writen by Chiaki Konaka and directed by Ryutaro Nakamura. Do an IMDB search on them and tell me that they dont fall in to what I described. I have not seen that series but here's what I found:
In fact, the story itself fits what I said perfectly:
Amazon.com video review: In serial experiments lain, things get very weird very quickly, and they stay that way. A schoolgirl commits suicide, but several days later her classmates receive e-mail from the dead girl. One--an introverted 13-year-old called Lain--replies, and her correspondent claims not to be dead, but to have passed into the "wired world." Eventually, Lain must join her. What follows is a story that combines virtual-reality, nanotechnology, a host of other science fiction concepts, and a healthy dose of postmodern paranoia. It would be unfair to reveal much more about the plot, but the phrase "nothing is what it seems" applies to just about everything in this compelling anime.
The beauty of serial experiments lain is the deliberate pace at which the story unfolds. Director Ryutaro Nakamura eschews the hyperkinetic style of many anime, allowing the plot to develop in slow motion and making every single image count. The first episode (a total of four are included) is a masterpiece of shifting moods and slowly building tension. Every detail--from the strange blotchy shadows to the ever-present hum of power lines to the slow tracking shots across the dazed face of Lain herself--helps create an atmosphere of unease, and as the truth is gradually revealed, that unease is amply justified. The art direction is superb, mixing computer graphics with traditional animation and making frequent use of high-contrast images that set deep shadows against a blinding white sky. The first four episodes of serial experiments lain combine the millennial dread of Neon Genesis Evangelion with the subtle menace of The X-Files to create a uniquely disturbing beginning to an imaginative and intelligent story.
So let's recap:
-High visual value
-Little to no character development
-Over the top action sequences and/or plot in place of actual story content
-Me-too cookie-cutter bullshit that is directly comparable to any anime that was ever made and continues the tradition "Isn't this cool?" without actually having a real story progression
And to that, the answer is Yes, it is cool. But is it an amazing story? Should we we put this story in the same levels of the best films ever made? God no, the story barely has any comprehension of outline or scope, it's litteraly a story without a character driven plot. Which is called bad story telling.
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 29th August 2005
Quote:-High visual value
That's not exactly a down side.
Quote:-Little to no character development
If you call Lain's quest of self-discovery through a global network [and breakdown in the physical world] where she is forced to face the reality of her existence, little to no character development, then I suppose yes. Several other characters get some time as well, but most of them are purposefully distant to show how isolated Lain was in the "real" world.
Quote:-Over the top action sequences and/or plot in place of actual story content
Lain features virutally NO action scenes ANYWHERE, and if you think the series is just a bunch of random scenes thrown together with no cohesion you don't really know that much about it.
Quote:-Me-too cookie-cutter bullshit that is directly comparable to any anime that was ever made and continues the tradition "Isn't this cool?" without actually having a real story progression
You can't just read a short summary of a series and then pretend to know exactly what it's about and what happens in the series. I've seen it twice so don't try to tell me what Serial Experiments Lain is.
Also a lot of that was a summary of the first DISC and some is the first EPISODE. The entire series is 12 episodes, the first disc has four.
Quote:GR you have not been through film school so while you can argue the validity of anime's good points to me you cannot continue a debate with me based on the more advanced understandings of film making to include direction, motivation, writing and structure. Yes, there are exceptions to every rule, yes some anime is just damn cool. But it is all, in comparison to any good movie that obeys the guidelines of story telling, convoluted trite bullshit that only makes sense to children who dont have any grasp of what an adult is and how the adult ID is formed. Perhaps, anime is trying to be experimental in that sense, but it comes off as ridiculous hyper-visual krap with little character development.
I would not presume to know a lot about cinematography or set design or anything like that, but I've seen many of the highs and lows of anime as well as the highs and lows of many of the different decades and eras of American and international cinema so I feel at least somewhat qualified to tell if something does or does not have a good story or good character developemt. So, I WILL debate the qualifications of anime with you at anytime you want.
Oh, and if you're looking for good reviews of ANYTHING for the love of God DO NOT go to Amazon.com.
One more thing, I seriously doubt a child could understand what Serial Experiments Lain is really about.
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 29th August 2005
So you have seen it in fact? Just keep in mind by not actually watching it but going on reviews of questionable nature, you are not seeking out the most accurate data that you know to be available.
I can only add that while I respect the work you did to get through film school, I'm sure you were taught there what anyone who's taken one of the sciences in college has been taught, that any and all things taught there are not above questioning so long as the questioner has the evidence to back it up.
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 29th August 2005
Lain... GR is right, Lazy wrong. Now, lots of anime is indeed similar... there's lots of stuff out there that doesn't exactly try new ideas. But Lain is one of the most unique, and best, animes ever... it's utterly unlike anything else out there, and is great because of it. It doesn't have characters with flourescent hair, lots of violence, characters with no depth or character development (Lain especially changes a lot), etc, etc... it doesn't follow the "rules" of anime story or artwork (all of the light/dark contrast shots, the pacing, everything... it's so different from what you expect anime to be like...)
Quote:One more thing, I seriously doubt a child could understand what Serial Experiments Lain is really about.
This is absolutely correct, it's a very complex show...
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 30th August 2005
Quote:Azumanga Daioh
Just rented disk one (eps 1-9)... it's ... odd. :D Kind of normal, but not... seems pretty good though.
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 30th August 2005
I just have one question. What's all this about the id? Isn't that an outdated concept along with ego and super ego with no evidence supporting it?
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 31st August 2005
What does that have to do with anything?
Quote:Just rented disk one (eps 1-9)... it's ... odd. Kind of normal, but not... seems pretty good though.
It's one of my favorite series. :)
Avatar - lazyfatbum - 31st August 2005
Like i said i'm not telling anyone not to like it, all I said is that it (anime) does not follow structured story telling which usually amounts to garbage IMO. You guys all agree that Lain goes way outside the structure of story telling and is trying to be very different.
However on the imdb message boards people talk about how there are shots where the camera does a slow... really slow pan across the girl's face to show her emotion as she deals with the idea that she's dead and they said it's really overly dramatic and borderline goofy. *shrugs*
DJ/ if they have any evidence to support the idea of ego or ID not existing in the human mental make-up then we're more fucked than ever. It's Freudian's theory on the subconscious that is based in instinctual needs and immediate satisfaction of those primitive needs. Now throw it in to modern society, shake, boil for 12 hours, dice in to cubes and put in a blender and pour liberally and you have your average Jane or John in modern western culture. It's the kind of theory that has real workings and we can see it happening. It can never actually be proven, just accepted (from what I understand) and since we know that during gestation in the womb we actually go through our worm, fish, lizard, mammal then human "musical chairs" and actually have these layers of the brain present in all human beings (other mammals lack the human layer) it is a safe assumption to view the human psyche as a tower built on the foundation of primitive instincts or 'the fish brain' (the most simple brain layer). Though there is evidence to suggest that the 'human layer' is more like an over-powered mammalian layer but whatever same thing.
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 31st August 2005
Quote:Like i said i'm not telling anyone not to like it, all I said is that it (anime) does not follow structured story telling which usually amounts to garbage IMO. You guys all agree that Lain goes way outside the structure of story telling and is trying to be very different.
So every single movie should tell stories in exactly the same way? I'll agree that there are certain things that must be done in order to make a good movie, but if no movies or series ever tried to do anything different it would get really boring! Maybe you're reffering to something else though, but that's not what it sounds like.
For instance: You made reference to flash-backs and acted as if this were a bad thing. In some ways, yes, if it relied on too much as opposed to relying on the actions and emotions of the characters in the present. BUT, a certain anime [Millennium Actress] which tells almost the entire story through flash-backs. However, it's one of the most beautiful anime movies that I've ever seen. It starts out with a reporter talking to an old woman who used to be a famous actress and she tells him her life story through flashbacks interspersed with scenes from her movies. It's really a wonderful movie.
Oh and the way you talk about Lain seems to suggest that it tries to be different and fails, but Lain doesn't fail at all! It tries to be different and IS. Yeah, there are movies and series that try so hard to be different that they fail utterly, but Serial Experiments Lain is not one of them.
Quote:However on the imdb message boards people talk about how there are shots where the camera does a slow... really slow pan across the girl's face to show her emotion as she deals with the idea that she's dead and they said it's really overly dramatic and borderline goofy. *shrugs*
IMDB is one of the largest groups of idiots and retards that I've ever seen. Very few people on there know ANYTHING about good movies or what it takes to make a good movie. And people on there constantly bash EVERYTHING. It doesn't matter how good something is [or even how bad] there are people who will bash every aspect. The vast majority of people there have no idea what they're talking about, or will at least act like they don't.
As for these shots they're talking about, yes there are a number of close-ups of Lain's face but I don't think they're unnecessary. Oh, and Lain is most certainly NOT dead.
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 31st August 2005
Lain: Lazy, stop trying to judge it without watching it... I know a lot of anime isn't unique, but Lain IS, and succeeds completely at it.
Milennium Actress: Good movie, yeah...
Haibane Renmei: more conventional than Lain, but just about all anime is more conventional than Lain so that's not saying much... I loved it of course, it's one of my favorite anime serieses, but I don't know if someone who clearly wants to dislike anime would like it.
Azumanga Daioh: I rented the middle third. Great show... weirdness within "normal life", done well... yeah, it's got a lot of anime cliches, but it's not quite what you expect because while it's cliched in a lot of ways the basic premise actually isn't something you usually see... As in, high school is probably the most common subject animes set in the "real world" deal with... but instead of being a show about sports, or about robots, or pure comedy, or romance, it's just about ... life... with weird, definitely not normal characters. A similar example would be how, like so many animes, there are a lot of female characters and few male ones... but instead of that being the standard "one guy with a bunch of girls around him who all like him" it's just a show without male characters in major roles (except for the one creepy teacher... :)). So it's both well within an established genre and different... I think it does it well, but of course I like anime. But still, it's very, very well done...
"Charming" would be an apt description... "cute" works well too. Oh, and the songs are interesting... light and nonsensical weirdness. I mean, "everday, the temptations of wheat, so fluffy"? :)
Quote:As for these shots they're talking about, yes there are a number of close-ups of Lain's face but I don't think they're unnecessary. Oh, and Lain is most certainly NOT dead.
Did he mean that girl at the beginning of episode 1 who jumps off that building? As for Lain being dead... yeah, she's not...
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 31st August 2005
Freud was to psychiatry what Aristotle was to physics...
By the way, I am not the one making the claim for alternate states of conciousness. I don't need to "prove" they don't exist, you need to provide evidence they do.
Remember, "proofs" are for math and logic, not science.
Here's a quote used in a more specific context but it should give you a good idea of exactly what science does.
Quote:"Proofs" are written by mathematicians and logicians, not by astronomers nor by astrophysicists.
Science offers "proof" of nothing. Science offers data, gathered under specified conditions. Science seeks comprehensive yet parsimonious explanations of data named "theories," a jargon word which ignorant people often misconstrue as a synonym for "guesses."
No, it isn't "just semantics." It is the basis for the manner of reasoning, and the results to be expected from such manner of reasoning. A "proof" is not a product of science, so just who is expected to write a "scientific proof"?
Since writing "proofs" is outside the realm of science, a prize for "scientific proofs" ought to be very safe indeed. You should consider offering more "challenges" of the same format, but with a different topic, say for example "prove that the Earth's core is molten," or better yet, "prove that the world is round."
And I might add that if it can never be shown correct, then what is the point in believing in it anyway? What good does it do? I can offer the idea that there are countless ghosts wandering around that, unlike the normal testable ideas of ghosts, are completely and utterly undetectable and can never interact with our world, but are there anyway. Still, what would the point be? If an explanation for human behavior has the same explaining power as anything Freud dreamed up but without extraneous mental states like the id and super ego, then why go with the more complicated one?
This is the very basis of skeptical thinking. Now, an extreme extension of this thinking is "the only thing I know is that I know nothing beyond this", but that is hardly a very useful one.
Avatar - Captain_Rush - 31st August 2005
it has been decided, thanks to the convencing and my love for anime
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 31st August 2005
Oh yeah, the voting thing...
Um...
Well, I did the slacker thing!
Avatar - lazyfatbum - 1st September 2005
I feel like a one man legged man in an ass kicking contest.
At this point we'll just have to agree to disagree.
About flashbacks, they're a crutch used for weak story telling. Unless of course the story uses them as part of the through line and spends very little time on the character in the current situation until the resolve of the story. Ie: Forest Gump
The rules and guidelines I mentioned have nothing to do with causing movies to become identicle to eachother. That comes from producers trying to capatalize on trends. The guidelines are based on your through line, protagonist arc, antagonist arc (point of connection), character bibles (usually applies to TV but I use them for film scripts), story pacing, story arc, 3 (- 4 - 5) act paradigms and subplot comparison story telling (and release), the call to action, commitment to act (4 other general rules that depend on genre/context), "logical foundation theory", audience reward, audience participation, 'infinite' viewpoints theory (context), hidden meaning, contextually hidden meanings, and then about a 50 other guidelines depending on the genre you're trying to tell. These guidelines are the difference between something retarded like The Cave and something breathtaking like Gone with the Wind.
I have not seen Lain, but I have seen hundreds of anime movies and TV shows and I can tell you that the guidelines are not there. And even while at school they showed us how Japan has a different take on story telling albeit not as advanced as western story telling, with their own set of guidelines which is very much based on japanese culture. For every Lain, there is a thousand Dragon Ball Z's. For every Azumanga Daioh there is a thousand borderline anime pornos, so while I haven't seen these particular movies it only makes sense as they're in a sea of krap and have to be discovered.
About the ID and ego discussion, I know what i'm talking about and I know what i've learned. Freud is one of the major pillars to how we understand the human brain today and it's thanks to him that therapists can actually help people. you can question the idea of the subconscious all you want but it's a WORKING theory that we can actually see and measure, we cause the same effects to happen over and over and it is a thing itself which can be studied. and for those reasons it is considered a combination of sciences and logic. That's what the brain is.
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 1st September 2005
Lain has absolutely nothing to do with DBZ (which is a truly horrible show)... why do you think there are any grounds for comparison?
Quote:About flashbacks, they're a crutch used for weak story telling. Unless of course the story uses them as part of the through line and spends very little time on the character in the current situation until the resolve of the story. Ie: Forest Gump
Lain isn't focused on flashbacks... Milennium Actress is, but as GR said they're the vast majority of the story in that case.
Quote:About the ID and ego discussion, I know what i'm talking about and I know what i've learned. Freud is one of the major pillars to how we understand the human brain today and it's thanks to him that therapists can actually help people. you can question the idea of the subconscious all you want but it's a WORKING theory that we can actually see and measure, we cause the same effects to happen over and over and it is a thing itself which can be studied. and for those reasons it is considered a combination of sciences and logic. That's what the brain is.
Freud is one of the major pillars in psychotherapy history, but his theories have very little application today... he was guessing, and now we know he was wrong about a lot of things.
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 1st September 2005
Indeed... Aristotle was a major pillar at one time in physics, and we now understand that he never actually did research when it came to his understanding of physics. He tried to explain phenomenon without actually experimenting to see if that phenomenon existed to begin with. It took someone saying "wait, DO things fall faster if they have more mass?" to eventually dethrone those old theories.
Freud is in a similar position. He came up with a lot of ideas behind psychology, but many of them were baseless and without study. Hypnosis, psychoanalysis, and hidden states of conciousness were all things he simply came up with and did no good studies to show their existance. By the way, the argument "it works!" is not sufficient when the debate is IF it works. Much like medicine, an anecdotal story that someone got better after the treatment is not evidence as they may very well have gotten better without the treatment. A double blind study where the right treatment is given to some patients and none is given to others, where neither the patient nor the doctor knows who is getting what (though someone who is not involved with applying the test would have a master list to check it all after the test), is the only real way to get some evidence.
Anyway, I wouldn't just be saying all this except that I've read a lot of things regarding a lot of fields in science just because it interests me. Of course psychiatry is not my field of study, but that doesn't make it above me questioning it. It just means someone who knows more should be able to provide evidence that shuts me up.
I shouold also make it clear that I'm only rejecting Freud's notion of an unconcious mind, the id and super ego world of repressed memories. I will also say that Freud played a major part in getting us to look into subconcious thought. If he didn't look into it, we may not realize today that our brain actually does a lot of things without our knowledge, such as the regulation of heartbeat or tuning out (not storing as repressed data) sensory information our concious mind just can't handle at the time.
But more to the point, just saying all this is not sufficient. While I could go into details on how Aristotle was definitely not a scientist in a lot of what he did, I'll need to actually look up some stuff on Freud and post some links here as that is certainly not "fresh" in my memory.
And as always, you are the one who took classes in this. I may be sadly mistaken. You yourself have stated there are many case studies showing the validity of Freud's methods. If you provide them this can be put to rest.
I can only provide these links. Perhaps I have been misled?
http://skepdic.com/psychoan.html
http://skepdic.com/unconscious.html
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 1st September 2005
I've taken psych 101 (in college), they basically said that Freud's theories are mostly wrong and we mostly studied him because of how important he was to the field historically...
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 1st September 2005
Quote:For every Lain, there is a thousand Dragon Ball Z's. For every Azumanga Daioh there is a thousand borderline anime pornos, so while I haven't seen these particular movies it only makes sense as they're in a sea of krap and have to be discovered.
Oh come on! It's like that in American as well! For every Batman Begins or Revenge of the Sith there's a Stealth or Dukes of Hazard or Undiscovered or Fantastic Four [a fun movie for what it's worth, but with many flaws]. That's just the way it works. I can name off a long list of VERY good anime series, yes I had to dig through Dragon Ball Z and Inuyasha and a ton of generic harem animes, but good series and movies are there, waiting to be found.
Movies: Patlabor the movie 1-3, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Royal Space Force, Princess Mononoke, The Place Promised in Our Early Years, Millenium Actress, Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Porco Rosso, Voice of a Distant Star, Jin-Roh, Nausicaa, and Tokyo Godfathers.
Series: Kino's Journey, Haibane Renmei, Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Last Exile, Rahxephon, Cromartie High School, Azumanga Daioh, Excel Saga, Fooly Cooly, Someday's Dreamers, Planetes, Now and Then Here and There, Niea_7, Blue Submarine #6, Saikano, Gundam 08th MS Team, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, Fruits Basket, and Gunslinger Girl.
All of these are pretty good, though for different reasons.
Quote: but I have seen hundreds of anime movies and TV shows
Could you name some of them?
Quote:About flashbacks, they're a crutch used for weak story telling.
I agree to an extent, but I've seen a few examples where they have been used well. For one thing it needs to be sparringly and not "Hey remember when...? Oh yeah! *Flashback!!*" and it should be used in conjuction with the actions of the characters in the present and to give insight into a character that has already been developed through their actions. A good example would be in Haibane Renmei. It has one flashback around the middle of the series and was very important to what was happening in the series, providing insight into motives that weren't yet fully understood. It worked there, but certainly not always.
Avatar - lazyfatbum - 1st September 2005
Like I said, agree to disagree, I really cant continue the discussion on the level that I want to take it to.
Quote:Freud is one of the major pillars in psychotherapy history, but his theories have very little application today... he was guessing, and now we know he was wrong about a lot of things.
I've never heard anyone call the scientific method 'guessing'. I also dont understand how anyone could be proven wrong when all they deal in is applying working educated theories to the unknown that cannot be proven or disproven except for major particulars or happy accidents. The one instance off th top of my head was where Catholic religion had views of being against God to ejaculate outside of a woman's vagina which was 'proven' by Freud to be a big mistake on the Catholic's part. He basically 'discovered' and then proved nocturnal emmisions or 'wet dreams'. Which meant the Catholic church had to reform its beliefs in light of the new data, and prior to this knowledge it was considered a joke to think that anyone could ejaculate or reach orgasm while in a subconscious state. I'd love for you to show me all the things he was "wrong" about, i'm sure that would be a very interesting read.
Quote:Lain has absolutely nothing to do with DBZ (which is a truly horrible show)... why do you think there are any grounds for comparison?
Read my post again. I only compared the ratio, not the content.
Quote:For every Batman Begins or Revenge of the Sith there's a Stealth or Dukes of Hazard or Undiscovered or Fantastic Four. I can name off a long list of VERY good anime series, yes I had to dig through Dragon Ball Z and Inuyasha and a ton of generic harem animes, but good series and movies are there, waiting to be found.
Quote:For every Lain, there is a thousand Dragon Ball Z's. For every Azumanga Daioh there is a thousand borderline anime pornos, so while I haven't seen these particular movies it only makes sense as they're in a sea of krap and have to be discovered.
Thank you for repeating what I said. :D
Quote:A good example would be in Haibane Renmei. It has one flashback around the middle of the series and was very important to what was happening in the series, providing insight into motives that weren't yet fully understood.
ergo "Bad story telling". as a writer if you have to use a flashback to explain something, you're not doing your job. Though in his defense, the director could have chosen a flashback sequence to speed the film up and add a sense of intrigue on purpose. I dunno, but I know that the last thing you want to do is confuse your audience by introducing motives with no... motives and then try to fix it all with a plot hole band-aid (Aka 'flashback')
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 1st September 2005
Quote:Thank you for repeating what I said.
Actually I took your quote and turned it back on you by showing that American film-making isn't really better than Japanese film-making. There are bad movies and good movies, if you focus on the bad it looks like there isn't anything good to watch [something a lot of people say about American movies], but really you just have to look beyond what's at the surface [i.e. what's popular at the moment].
Quote:ergo "Bad story telling". as a writer if you have to use a flashback to explain something, you're not doing your job. Though in his defense, the director could have chosen a flashback sequence to speed the film up and add a sense of intrigue on purpose. I dunno, but I know that the last thing you want to do is confuse your audience by introducing motives with no... motives and then try to fix it all with a plot hole band-aid (Aka 'flashback')
Well, I thought it worked well for what it was doing. The series had been building toward such a scene for several episodes, the sense of something big happening in the past had been bantied around for a while though none of the characters had been willing to discuss it until the middles of the series, when events made it relevant for the main character [and the audience] to know just what it was that happened. And instead of being "confusing" it actually made a lot of sense and revealed a side to character that had only been hinted at somewhat until then. I don't know, maybe you would have having that in there, but I thought it was important because it brought about on the key turning points in the series.
Quote:Read my post again. I only compared the ratio, not the content.
Like I said, it's the same in every region. You've also got to realize that anime is nowhere near as big here as American film-making so much of what does get over here are series or movies that the big companies believe are commerically viable so you end up getting animes that are popular with the kids but don't really have any redeming values for people looking for something of more substance. Now of course that's not to say that companies won't take chances with animes that for more niche audiences, but not as much as you might see with American movies given the number of movies released in a year. So if the ratio of bad to good animes seems unreasonably high compared to other things, you might want to take that into consideration. And as I've said before, the good animes are out there you just have to look for them.
Quote:Like I said, agree to disagree, I really cant continue the discussion on the level that I want to take it to.
Don't worry, lazy, if you say something that I'm not intelligent or educated enough to comprehend, I'll simply ignore it. :)
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 1st September 2005
I think with the flashbacks thing he's more talking about stuff like all those scifi show episodes where they rewind time in the end, erasing everything they did in order to get a better present to happen... they did it in Voyager like five times. :) I mostly didn't mind, but sometimes (like in the final episode) it was annoying, overall... because yeah, while sometimes messing with the timeline can be a cover for a lacking plot, in a case like Haibane Renmei it was the only thing they could have done at that point to continue the story.
Quote:And as I've said before, the good animes are out there you just have to look for them.
Some of it... other good animes aren't available at all, legally, in the US, sadly...
Quote:Actually I took your quote and turned it back on you by showing that American film-making isn't really better than Japanese film-making. There are bad movies and good movies, if you focus on the bad it looks like there isn't anything good to watch [something a lot of people say about American movies], but really you just have to look beyond what's at the surface [i.e. what's popular at the moment].
I guess he's now saying that American stuff is just as bad overall?
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 1st September 2005
Quote:I guess he's now saying that American stuff is just as bad overall?
No idea.
Quote:I think with the flashbacks thing he's more talking about stuff like all those scifi show episodes where they rewind time in the end, erasing everything they did in order to get a better present to happen...
No, I'm pretty sure he means flashbacks that show events that happened before what's covered in the series.
Quote:in a case like Haibane Renmei it was the only thing they could have done at that point to continue the story.
Right. It just wasn't something that could have been at the first of the series and having it the middle really casts a shadow on everything that happens before then. The same thing happened in Trigun, near the middle of the series and also close to the end it features some flashbacks to Vash and Knives when they were younger. That's just not something that would have worked out as the intro to the series. It would give too much away too early.
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 2nd September 2005
There, I fixed the vote so it looks like we cared... :D
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 2nd September 2005
Regardless of the fact that nowhere near that number of people actually post here. :D
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 2nd September 2005
Hey, we can't have that stopping us, now can we?
Quote:No, I'm pretty sure he means flashbacks that show events that happened before what's covered in the series.
Yeah, but I'd rather he meant what I said... :D
Quote:Right. It just wasn't something that could have been at the first of the series and having it the middle really casts a shadow on everything that happens before then. The same thing happened in Trigun, near the middle of the series and also close to the end it features some flashbacks to Vash and Knives when they were younger. That's just not something that would have worked out as the intro to the series. It would give too much away too early.
I've only seen scattered episodes of Trigun on Cartoon Network, so I haven't seen it in order and haven't seen anywhere near all the episodes...
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 2nd September 2005
Quote:I've only seen scattered episodes of Trigun on Cartoon Network, so I haven't seen it in order and haven't seen anywhere near all the episodes...
You really need to see the whole thing. It's well worth the time and effort.
Avatar - A Black Falcon - 2nd September 2005
Based on what I've seen, it's okay, good I guess, but not worth THAT much effort to go and find. I mean, it's good, and I'll continue to watch it sometimes on Cartoon Network... but there are better animes out there. If it was in the local rental place I might consider renting it, but it's not, so oh well...
Avatar - Dark Jaguar - 2nd September 2005
lazy, I wouldn't call the scientific method "guessing", except that Freud didn't really use the scientific method, by his own admission.
Please though, take this to the level you want to. Try it out, and see if we can't actually get it. Don't just assume we won't get it.
Avatar - Great Rumbler - 3rd September 2005
Quote:Based on what I've seen, it's okay, good I guess, but not worth THAT much effort to go and find. I mean, it's good, and I'll continue to watch it sometimes on Cartoon Network... but there are better animes out there. If it was in the local rental place I might consider renting it, but it's not, so oh well...
It actually is worth getting. Watching one episode here and another episode there is no way to get a feel of what the show is ultimately capable of, the last four episodes are just amazing. At least try to watch the whole thing in order on Adult Swim.