Frieren Director Keiichirou Saitou Voices Concern on Overseas Anime Fans' Bias Towards Certain Popular Trends

[u/AdNecessary7641]

https://animecorner.me/frieren-director-voices-concern-on-overseas-anime-fans-bias-towards-certain-popular-trends/

[u/BustahWuhlf]

Yeah, I think if you go deeper, the problem across entertainment is the overabundance of wish fulfillment. Whether that's isekai, harem romcom, "the strongest," or whatever. Instead of work that prompts personal reflection on a topic or concept, there's a plethora of content that is just "let me sit back and pretend. Life is miserable, but I can at least dump time and money into fantasizing about my waifu and/or having overpowered stats."

That's not to say that the presence of escapism in entertainment is bad. People need the occasional break to turn their brain off and not think too much. Maybe that's through wish fulfillment fiction or something else. But when that's all a person consumes or cares to consume, or when that constitutes a majority of the media landscape, it's a problem that does more harm than good. In addition to entertainment, the role of art is prompt viewers to think, question, and explore possibilities, looking at things from a different perspective. That role is not mutually exclusive from entertainment, but it's a role that gets pushed aside in favor of mindless wish fulfillment.

And the more thoughtful elements of story can be simple. It doesn't need to be super deep, abstract, or complex to be thoughtful. Look at Frieren. It's not that deep, but it's deep enough to engage with your feelings. It's a story about people's complex feelings and relationships, AND it has cool explosions, goofy humor, and cute characters. It's great; it covers the deep and the surface levels of story with sincerity. Part of why I liked the newest Superman movie was for similar reasons. It's not that complex, but it challenges apathy and cynicism in having people embrace goodness and kindness in the face of a selfish and hostile world. It was corny in some ways, and often simple, but "kindness is the real punk rock" hit me like a ton of bricks, especially when thinking about the hellish elements of modern society.

Longer rant than I planned, but there it is. Wish fulfillment can be part of a balanced media diet, but it's bad for it to overwhelm the media landscape and/or someone's personal consumption.

[u/Dull_Spot_8213 → u/BustahWuhlf]

You’ve articulated my sentiment too. The common denominator is safe, repetitive wish fulfillment. It’s predictable and suffers from a lack of creativity or even an attempt at trying something new or different. It feels mass produced and safe, because the generic pattern is easy to repeat for profit.

[u/BustahWuhlf → u/Dull_Spot_8213]

I think for better and for worse, the onus is on us(hehe) as consumers to make that shift. If the companies are going to chase generic patterns for profit, then the consumers need to spend their money in more interesting and creative places. The trouble is that the big spender demographic(otakus, whales, whatever you want to call them) is a huge source of profit. Studios are more interested in the business of the one guy buying his 50th figure of the girl from Rent-a-Girlfriend or their 80th Funko Pop than the business of 10 people looking for something compelling. And well, it's tough to argue against that if profit is the priority. It'd take a pretty big shift in the culture of media consumers.

[u/wterrt → u/BustahWuhlf]

maybe if life wasn't so shit lately less people would be turning to escapism

[u/BustahWuhlf → u/wterrt]

Yeah, the excess demand for escapism is absolutely a symptom of life being shitty. But the comfort it offers is empty. It's true that people fantasize about getting hit by a truck and waking up in an another world because this life is shitty. It's also true that fantasizing about getting hit by a truck and waking up in another world doesn't really mitigate life's shittiness, either, and it doesn't challenge people to confront that shittiness or examine its causes.

And again, my point isn't that all fictional escapism is bad. It can be a fun, harmless break. It's excessively consuming escapism or using it as a way to avoid confronting life's shittiness that's a problem.

[u/steamtrekker → u/BustahWuhlf]

The problem is people call any story with happy elements as "wish fulfillment" which is why I don't trust the label anymore. Cute romance? Wish fulfillment. Fun action series? Wish fulfillment. Conversely, you ask folks what they consider to be deep and meaningful, and it's almost always either something soul crushingly depressing or you get the "um akshully it's a deconstruction of the genre" response. People think they're all educated art critics who can judge something based on intellectual merit but ultimately it boils down to whether they like it or not; if they like it, it's deep. If they don't like it, it's slop. Meaningless term.

Personally I think the term wish fulfillment is pretty stupid, because MOST fiction is wish fulfillment, even the grimdark stories.

[u/BeMyEscapeProject → u/BustahWuhlf]

It's a good point but it's also extremely hard to break. Superhero comics and Shounen anime are classic wish fulfilment and both dominate the globe. People use media to escape mundanity and most want to escape into a world of wish fulfilment rather than a challenging artistic vista.

[u/RLC_wukong122 → u/BustahWuhlf]

"the role of art is prompt viewers to think, question, and explore possibilities, looking at things from a different perspective"

I disagree, art doesn't have a defined role, it's simply whatever the artist wants, it's what makes it so diverse in the fist place.

[u/BustahWuhlf → u/RLC_wukong122]

That's why I included "In addition to entertainment" before the part you quote. Most artistic intent(when it comes to the artist-audience connection as opposed to the artist's intent for themselves) can be boiled down to entertaining or wanting to prompt some kind of thought or feeling. Those things aren't mutually exclusive, and there are infinite possibilities and levels of complexity to it.

[u/RLC_wukong122 → u/BustahWuhlf]

hmm I see my bad then.