Re:Ask HN: Do you enjoy or dislike anime?
by solarmist on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @02:09AM
(#28298510)
I love anime despite all of it's warts and blemishes and worse (as mentioned by others here). And I've been in and out of it heavily since I learned what it was my sophomore/junior year of HS (around 1996/7).
I've learned that for me it comes down to the different way of storytelling and emphasized.
tldr:
"In a Western story the plot is moved forward by the character’s goals."
while in Japanese story telling they might go like this
"In a simple-reaction story, the character’s own actions and the universe’s reactions to them drive the story to a conclusion that may or may not have anything to do with character goals."
and the ending.
"This leads us to the second significant difference between Japanese and Western story grammar: the conclusion. The Japanese story grammar ends with “events and/or emphasis,” whereas the more western model ends with a “resolution.”"
I've learned that for me it comes down to the different way of storytelling and emphasized.
A great breakdown of some of the differences are can be read here. https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-horror-structure/
especially the diagrams from
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20198301?seq=2
tldr: "In a Western story the plot is moved forward by the character’s goals."
while in Japanese story telling they might go like this
"In a simple-reaction story, the character’s own actions and the universe’s reactions to them drive the story to a conclusion that may or may not have anything to do with character goals."
and the ending.
"This leads us to the second significant difference between Japanese and Western story grammar: the conclusion. The Japanese story grammar ends with “events and/or emphasis,” whereas the more western model ends with a “resolution.”"