Creator Focus
Author points out something interesting but at the same time what’s more amusing is that his blog, despite having no automatic feedback mechanism, dare to ask a question.
I’m posting to answer, but I think that is only because it is an interesting question with a simple answer.
So, why concentrate on people or studios?
The simple assumption is that anime comes from people and studios. Human tendencies are such that we are fascinated with the process of creation, and the creator is invariably a major part of that process. That fascination only grows exponentially when the creation triggers our fancy, captures our imagination, and depletes our savings. That’s the short answer.
The shorter answer is that: yeah, how good an anime is depends on how “good” the people making it is, so who is making it matters a lot.
The TL;DR take is multi-prong.
1. Association. To be simple, Author is incorrect to say that “[i]n general, no matter who you take, the record is nearly always mixed on the average, past performance is no guarantee of future performance, and so on.” Mainly because 45% of statistics you read on the internet is made up of thin air. But what is tried and true is that people pay attention to makes and creators because the human brain is programmed to make that connection. When the same guy made 2 shows you like, you keep an eye out for the next show the same guy makes because of the good track record. Never mind that between those two shows there were 3 bad shows by the same guy and you didn’t hear about two of the bad ones. If you are a discerning fan, any indication of a new production that could be good is something to note.
In the aggregate, that’s what makes reputation worth caring for. Reputation is built on fame and notoriety. Kyoto Animation is a good example, and it’s a good example because they have a relatively slim catalog of shows, and Kyoani’s reputation and the work-product are plain to see. But reputation is even more flimsy of an indicator because it is a secondary factor. Anime studios make anime, not their reputation.
2. At the same time, a small pet peeve (well-illustrated by this post) is that people make brand claims without investigating further. Studio this and studio that means nothing if Kyoto Animation was to set out to animate the next chapter of Musashi Gundou directed by Yamakan? I think it still would. But it won’t be the same epic adventure as the one made by ACC Production Studio. To lead in, what I’m trying to say is that people make anime, studios are just the corporate entities that organize these people. So I think Author’s half wrong about studios and completely wrong about people. A refined example is Makoto Shinkai. Some of us eat up everything he makes! And what’s more he is actually doing a lot of the nitty-gritty that goes into the show directly, too, so it makes you wonder just what he does that makes his shows the way they are. Sunrise, for example, is a big budget studio that make a lot of stuff, but if we don’t see who are at the helm of their productions we are fairly clueless about what will come next. Much the same can be said of Gonzo, too.
3. The industry perspective. There is power in brand. (And trademark lawyers make a meager living.) There are reasons to produce brands. At the same time this is not something well-observed in the anime industry. Leveraging that socially engineered habit about brand association goes a long way to make people care, but unless you are Pixar or Hayao Miyazaki, that good will serves little more than free marketing. This I can agree with in regards to Author’s ultimate point in his question. I mean, if the stuff is good then then stuff is good, who cares?
4. Who cares? People who cares about the creation does. When I look at, for example, Yoshitaka Amano’s works, I sorta care about how and what he was thinking that were consequently reflected in the works. He’s been a pro illustrator for a while and a lot of his stuff are emblems of SRSBZNS titles, like, the whole Final Fantasy thing. For fans, his inspirations are a big deal, and so are influences and (a big one people neglect to ask) prior knowledge and experience. To make a specific example out of Amano, I know my share of map/cartography aficionados out there (all two of you) and wasn’t it a great insight into how FFXI’s maps were drawn (man, I totally forgot about that, should’ve gotten my copy signed) when Amano explained it? But I guess if all you wanted to know was which of the new shows this season are good to fap to and not a pain in the butt to follow, you wouldn’t care who’s who and who made what.
5. But so what? If I was making a new game and I wanted an awesome map, now I know who to commission. Or for that matter, a metal album CD cover. Odds of me doing either of those are slim to none. But if I wanted to appreciate an awesome map, or a funky CD cover, now I have just one more bit of context to do so.
Art is ultimately an expression. It doesn’t stand very well in a vacuum. It needs context. As much as the mass media evolution has ‘cleanroomed’ today’s anime for greater portability, fungibility and for a wider audience, knowing where it comes from gives us context. Certainly, people can make due without, but there’s nothing odd about looking for context.
Although, taking in the context of what Author was talking about–being prodded by your producer–that’s what’s important.
1. It would be nice if Author actually leave the comments here as well on his “note” blog.
2. I reject his “premise” in the sense that I’m not talking about his personal preference. I certainly don’t really care about that. And I am in no position to say “he will never find one single person, ever, who will consistently produce stuff he likes.”
3. So…if there are people out there who do like creators, then what he is saying is really just personalized nonsense.
Well, I like going by studio “rep”, because it sorta simplifies the process when weeding out what to watch each season. I mean, sure going by director is probably a more precise way to go about things, but the studio counts for something too. Anime isn’t just created by one person; it’s a product of a pool of talents. By focusing on the conglomerate, the studio, you can get a good sense of what it’ll be composed of.
I like to think of it somewhat like running a pro sport organization. You got a coach (director), who is supplied players (animators, VA, storyboarders, music composers, etc.) to work with, that are assembled by the GM/owner (studio). So while it’s probably most accurate to look at the players and coaches to determine whether the team’ll be good or not, you can also look at the GM and get a good idea as well by taking into account his success of organizing talent. For example, you can rest assured knowing any team composed by Matt Millen as GM will most likely suck hard, much like how you can be confident that the next Bee Train anime will be a handful of fail.
Because I dislike the spread of misinformation, and because I can’t comment on Author’s blog, I just want to point out that I think Author is making a pretty big assumption in saying that ABe is “being prodded into it [Haibane Renmei season 2] by the producer”. There’s no reason to believe that just from reading Marc Hairston’s post.
As for the topic at hand, I often wonder how many people actually follow a particular person from show to show. Personally I’m very interested in the creative process so I pay a lot of attention to who makes what. I’m always fascinated when I find a concept in an earlier show that they used or expanded on in a later one. Like you said, it provides context.
“Anime isn’t just created by one person; it’s a product of a pool of talents.”
True, but the pool of talents does not equate to a studio as a whole. But I might be splitting hairs with that.
But it makes me wonder why I do things like assume that if SHAFT is producing something, Akiyuki Shinbo will have some hand in the matter. Or that ufotable productions generally are d(”d).
Focusing on studio is fine if you know what you’re doing. Not all studios are the same (esp. there are so many so different ones today) that it is a bit of apples vs. oranges comparison. In my own experience the most important part of an anime is the core creative team–the original creator, director, designer, music, animation director, art director, producer, writer, lead voice actors, storyboards… and that really is not tied to any particular studio. Studio, in my mind, rings more of the companies that are hired to do the grunt work of actually turning what the core creative team come up with into actual animation.
Hey Author updated his post again. Good thing I know better to check, right? I don’t think there’s a “edit-post-update-RSS” thing, but I may be wrong there. But I do know there’s a comment RSS thing for a lot of blog platforms out there.
I just want to say that it is unreasonable to expect people to make a blog post to reply to a couple stupid points on someone else’s blog when a comment, and the discourse that a comment system fosters, does the job better. I don’t see much of a need to immortalize even Author’s response to lbrevis in a blog-post form, let alone lbrevis’s comment, FWIW.
Clearly, comments are silly. We should all make our own blogs and “comment” on each other’s blog by making and updating our own blog. This is how people function in “real life” too. For example, rather than making sure the person I am speaking to knows I am talking to them, I simply randomly talk out loud and hope that the person I was intending to communicate with is within earshot.
Wait, no, that’s a stupid way of communicating.
I like everything ABE has done and even the shows Shinbo directed (note: my two idols) that I dont’ like (tsukuyomi) I still love the directing. I am the type who gets really into the creator, as a creator myself. EVERY time I see something I like, the FIRST thing I do is find out who made it, and the second thing I do is find out what else they’ve made. I can’t say there have been many times that I didn’t enjoy their other works. This is why my blog has an entire section of my blog dedicated to directors.
Also, since I take every chance I get to say how retarded ani-noto’s no comment thing is < that
Seems like I’ve heard this topic come up before, although usually it’s something to the effect of “studios matter less than creators,” which I think is probably true (and I guess is a variant of what the Riuva post was trying to say?).
But I’ve never heard this angle — if Satoshi Kon had a new movie and it was animated by Madhouse, I guess it would be ridiculous for me to assume that I would like it just because I liked most of the previous ones? I don’t know if we’re comparing to other forms of art/entertainment here (is anime any more of a commodity than a major Hollywood movie, I doubt it), but if I just gave up following creators I’d have a pretty random time of things. Whoah, you went to see the new Cohen brothers just because you liked all their movies? What an idiot! Following people like Lynch got me into movies, and following people like Anno got me into anime.
Yea, this is part of that ongoing conversation about being stupid about names, studio or creators, like brands. I think what I really wanted to say is that it is okay to talk about brands like “Satoshi Kon” or “Cohen brothers” but you have to dig deeper than that. But there are times where you don’t, such as Pixar.
Author (or zaitcev, as I would prefer to call him), is taking a very dangerous stand better known as emotional relativity.
He says there’s pretty much ZERO purpose in caring for the work AND the studio, so why care about the show in the first place?
I’ll get to firing my salvo in a bit, ZAITCEV. BE PATIENT. I AM A WARHAMSTER. I HAVE LITTLE TIME TO BE MAKING POSTINGS.
XD XD