UlasanAnime.com – It appears that I’m a bit of an oddity, but it wasn’t until I read j1m0ne’s preview post that I realized this is precisely the kind of next-season preview I’d enjoy. Perhaps I also have a soft spot for attractive and cool voice actors?
You might also be interested in : Well Done, Mikan; the Mystery Continues?
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being superficial about what you like in anime. It can be helpful to be superficial at this stage in an anime series’ life because we often don’t know much beyond the promotional material we see, unless you possess insights that others can’t discern at first glance. While we might all be judging books by their covers, I found j1mone’s approach more akin to reading the author and identifying past works, without delving too deeply into the show itself. This method offers less guesswork and more genuinely useful information. It’s beneficial to go a little beyond this and connect the dots, but not quite this far.
However, this also led me to ponder: has my taste in anime become so superficial? I acknowledge that it was perhaps shallow to begin with – not only was I more interested in the episode-by-episode experience than the satisfaction of following a compelling story, but I also paid more attention to acting, direction, and music rather than plot, characterization, and themes. Still, I discuss all six aspects constantly, so I’m not entirely sure. Certainly, a good story is no less important than good acting (which you’d think would rank higher for most people?) and direction. A fanciful setting is great, but only if the show capitalizes on it. Humor, of course, is highly subjective. And naturally, if a show is visually unappealing and static, it will likely be dropped. Perhaps.
Sadly, very few of these elements can be determined weeks in advance, unless there was an advance screening (hello, CLANNAD?). I suppose I’m just reiterating, once again, why I find seasonal previews to be unhelpful.
