This can be done well in theory.
As anyone who has spent any amount of time on the Internet probably knows, the problem with having a conversation with someone of different tastes is that it usually ends up something like this:
A-kun: Code Geass is awesome!
B-kun: No, Code Geass sucks.
A-kun: No, it’s awesome. Code Geass is really fun and Lelouch is a cool character!
B-kun: Actually, it’s a trainwreck.
A-kun: But that’s what makes it fun!
B-kun: No, that’s what makes it suck.
A-kun: OMFG STFU YOU ELITIST HIPSTER FAG
B-kun: NO YOU’RE JUST A COCKSUCKER
A-kun: Whatever it’s all just taste anyway
How much could you say you have learned from a conversation like the above? You can sum up the entire interaction as “everyone has different tastes and apparently A-kun is a cocksucker.” This is usually where the conversation starts repeating itself. “It’s all just taste anyway” is the one conversation killer that completely defeats the purpose of talking about anime with another person. In fact, it completely defeats the purpose of having conversations at all. But what can you say when someone insults your tastes and makes little to no attempt to understand your perspective?
On the Internet, people seem to forget the basic rules of forming a cohesive argument.
If, say, you were told to write an essay in class and you just wrote your opinion and the teacher gave you a crap mark, that’s fair enough, right? Even though it’s just your opinion, it counts for jack all on its own! An informed opinion needs to take into account other opinions. Yes, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not all opinions carry equal weight in a debate. Those that are clearer and more critical are superior to those that are not – it’s not something to take personally.
You also can’t just close your mind and only talk to the people who have the same opinions as you if you want to avoid having painless arguments. Yes, you wouldn’t argue, but you wouldn’t learn anything from the discussion either.
So here is what you need to do to have a more fruitful discussion with someone who has different opinions:
- Set the goals of your discussion before you begin talking. It’s not something you have to verbally agree on. But you should have a clear idea of something you want to take away from it, like trying to get a more informed opinion of the series you are talking about.
- Choose your battles wisely. If you see the other person is not willing to be constructive, then back out straight away. It’s not worth it getting into a circular debate.
- Ask a lot of questions in order to gain a clear idea of what the other person is trying to say. Make an effort to understand their perspective.
- When you respond, address their arguments directly and clearly. Be polite.
- Basically, observe Internet etiquette.
All of this is common sense, but let’s see what happens when A-kun and B-kun try it out.
A-kun: So why do you dislike Code Geass?
B-kun: It’s not very consistent with itself and, particularly in R2, there are many convenient plot events such as [insert numerous spoilers].
A-kun: I think that the series is trying to be over-the-top for stylistic effect.
B-kun: But at the same time that really undermines the other point the series is trying to establish, which is Lelouch’s intelligence.
A-kun: Does it, though? You can definitely argue that part of Lelouch’s intelligence is manipulating sheer luck to his advantage, which is what separates him from the likes of Light Yagami from Death Note.
B-kun: I really don’t think that’s the case. There are too many inconsistencies in Lelouch’s character. He relies on the same tactics and uses them regardless of situation. The way he defeated the final boss at the end of R2 struck me as particularly uninspired and impossible to pull off.
A-kun: That scene really struck me as clever, though, because what I think it really displays is Lelouch’s ability to take something very simple and adapt them to increasingly more elaborate situations. This is something you see him do constantly over the anime; he’s a very dynamic person.
B-kun: The anime might indeed have been trying to do that, but I’m unwilling to give it credit for understanding the fluidity of character dynamics. In Code Geass, it feels as if the characters change their behaviour simply to fit the needs of the plot. You can see this in the sudden changes in characters like Jeremiah, which is never foreshadowed.
A-kun: That’s a very interesting point which I never considered. I know it’s not a perfect series, especially R2.
B-kun: Same to you. I feel like I appreciate Code Geass better now after talking to you.
etc.
You can see how the conversation is much more civil and in-depth. All it takes a bit of respect and some critical thinking!
This is all easier said than done, I admit. There are some toxic parts of Internet anime culture, like 4chan, where rudeness comes with the description of the place. It’s probably best not to feed the trolls. But assuming you’re having a one-on-one discussion with someone in a controlled environment, I think it’s reasonable to strive in getting the most out of it.
As for whether it’s truly possible to get around the “It’s just taste” barrier and come to a common understanding of a series, even from opposing angles, I won’t really delve into that question here since the answer would probably be much too elaborate. Suffice it to say that there is no single “correct” interpretation of any story, but this shouldn’t stop people from forming their own impressions and reasoning them out. I think it’s the same principle as asking “Can you truly understand another person?”, which is what interactions with others boils down to in general. Ideally, a debate about how good an anime is should be the means towards getting to know another person’s taste, not the ends in deciding which tastes represent the “objective” opinion.
So in my eyes, “It’s just taste” is the whole point of a discussion, not the defence! If you think of it that way, it really is a lot easier to have a painless debate with someone who thinks differently from you. For what it’s worth, that’s the way I approach discussions about anime with other people. Surely I can’t be a bad person because of my taste in anime, right? RIGHT?
This was a short, painless post, so if you have some strategies of your own in dealing with Internet debates, feel free to share. Painlessly, of course.
(Edit: For a real-life example of a painless argument, scroll down and check out the comments on this very post! Alsozara and I respectfully disagree on whether good writing has to be morally sound.)
Frog-kun's Blog 
Good dummy tips. I do like not having to repeat the same argument and get into super-metaphysical-clearly-very-fun objectivity vs subjectivity debates.
I personally find choosing your battles is the hardest part, as you’d like to have a say about a disagreeable thing, but the overriden environment is simply too much for a concentrated effort to make a difference. Well, I guess there’s no point going into a BL fanclub and writing a discourse on the health benefits of yuri.
Yeah, unfortunately discussions only work when both sides put in the effort. People are a bit easier to deal with when you take them out of the narrow-minded environment they’re in, but even then, there are no guarantees. *sigh*
I know from my own experience that the ball is usually in B-Kun’s court so to speak. The “it’s just taste” barrier is often the civil way to deal with someone who is trying to tell you why something you like is either A. Awful. Or B. Why it makes you a bad person for liking it.
Even with my own friends(some of them anyway) getting past this barrier can often take hours of debating before we really even start talking about the anime itself. “It’s just taste” is often A-Kun’s polite way of saying “fuck your annoying, would you kindly go away.” (I hope none of my friends read this comment.)
I find that when A-Kun actually starts the conversation with the intentions you mention in this blog, it usually takes a different path, but depending on B Kun’s mentality it can still take a very long time to get there.
Personally I think this whole argument chain is often spawned by a sense of morality, superiority or both. Sexuality is often the elephant in the room and getting past that usually requires A-Kun to call B-Kun out on it. Doing that will either make the conversation much better if A-Kun is right and B-Kun is honest. Or much worse if B-Kun is not honest or A-Kun is wrong.
Again the reason I say the ball is in B-Kun’s court is because it’s often hard to tell why B-Kun doesn’t like something. To continue with your example, I’ve met a few people who I honestly believe really don’t like Code Geass for the reasons you mentioned, but when I’ve done some digging with friends the honest reasons are often more along lines of “It made me feel uncomfortable when Kallen got in the mech and the camera was stuck on her rear end.” Or maybe it is “How could that pompous a-moral asshole actually win in the end?”
To understand why someone doesn’t like a piece of fiction it’s important to find what first caused them to reject it. Maybe they didn’t like the way Jeremiah switches sides, or maybe they are just looking for a reason to hate it and that seems like a good one. The problem is that once the illusion of fiction is broken it’s all going to look like shit to them no matter what. At the very least it won’t be all it should be in their eyes.(a lot of people really need to learn how to drop anime when they don’t like it and learn to live and let live.)
To be completely frank, when it comes to popular breakout stuff the reason people hate it is usually more of an issue with them than it is the anime itself. That doesn’t invalidate their opinion, but it shouldn’t be used to validate a sense of morality or superiority either.
Now I am really not trying to say that more common reasons for disliking Geass are not the real reasons some people don’t like it, but rather that is it completely 100% impossible to get anywhere with a B-Kun who is piggy backing another person’s argument which I find is actually the case 9 times out of 10 when I see this argument you describe happening.
In the end the problem is that A-Kun can’t really tell if B-Kun really hates Code Geass for the reasons they say they do, or because of something they don’t actually want to talk about. If they are already close friends than maybe they can, but on the internet that is rarely the case. “Elitist hipster fag” and “It’s just taste” Are often A-Kun’s way out of a conversation they may have never really wanted in the first place and one that isn’t going anywhere fast. Of course if A-Kun is willing to be labeled an asshole for prying it’s not always impossible for A-Kun to change up the situation, but often there is no civil way to do that.
On an unrelated note, thanks for writing interesting topics. It can be hard to find someone who both exercises critical thinking with anime and blogs about it. I hope you don’t mind my occasional long ranting replies.
““It’s just taste” is often A-Kun’s polite way of saying “fuck your annoying, would you kindly go away.””
I agree. The “It’s just taste” or “Let’s just agree to disagree” is often one of the easiest ways to get out of an argument that isn’t going anywhere or that you just plain aren’t enjoying. I’ve used it in the past not just for people who don’t watch anime, but also for people who watch anime more than I do. I normally don’t focus on themes in anime, or at least not in any great detail, so when the deeper aspects like that get brought up I know that the person I am talking with and I have watched the show in two different ways and any further conversation will be centered around aspects that I wasn’t interested in. Perhaps that sounds closed-minded, but because I didn’t pay attention to those features while I was watching it renders me unable to argue at that level.
Maybe I just don’t have enough practice at it XD
Yeah that can be part of it as well. People often get engaged by different aspects of a story. It can be neat to know that someone else liked something you liked for an entirely different reason, but it’s a lot less fun to talk about when that other reason is something you don’t care about and they actually hated the story because of that thing. I think there is value in doing it anyway, but it’s certainly less fun.
Sword Art Online was divisive for me and my buddies at glorioblog. They all had things they wanted out of it that I didn’t care about. The things I wanted were all there. End result I loved it and they didn’t. We argued that show into the ground and back a few times before we were done.
I imagine most of our SAO debate looked a like froggykun’s first example. In the end it’s possible to talk it out and come to an understanding, but doing that requires not only talking about the anime, but getting to know the other person or people you are talking about it with. One of those is easy, the later is a complete wild card. I value the perspective gained, but how much of a battlefield it becomes is really in the hands of the attacker.
I think you two both brought up some really interesting points I hadn’t considered. “It’s just taste” is an easy way of getting out of argument that you don’t want to have, although it does come off as a flimsy defence if you don’t use it early enough to cut off the debate before it begins. And it is frankly not as entertaining to have a discussion about the themes in a story you don’t like. I don’t know about you guys, but I just feel dumb when someone points out all these deep ideas in a series I didn’t get involved enough to pay full attention to.
@lifesongsoa: Interesting observation that it’s the person who has the negative opinion who has the upper foot in a discussion. Liking an anime does feel like a passive thing to do, while criticising it forces you to be more active about the way you read it. I don’t think the attacker always has the upper hand, though, especially with the extremely popular series like Shingeki no Kyojin where it’s easy to full back on the “So many people think it’s great so it can’t be bad” excuse.
Another thing that got me thinking was when you said that people have reasons for disliking something that they wouldn’t actually mention because the reasons often seem inconsequential and flimsy. I can think of many cases where I didn’t like a series because of something like that. I didn’t like Gatchman Crowds because, well, Hajime’s voice irritated me. I mean, there were other reasons, but they sort of built on that first annoyance. As soon as the suspension of disbelief is broken, the whole package seems much less convincing. I don’t think that necessarily invalidates criticism, though. You just need to be careful about whether it says more about you or the anime itself.
I liked how you mention SAO because that’s where I see most of these kinds of debates play out. I think most of the negative criticisms reflected on what SAO wasn’t rather than what it was. Personally, I did get disillusioned about it after my suspension of disbelief got shattered by the fanservice, but after I shifted my thinking around and stopped thinking about what themes SAO might have been about, I started liking the whole thing a lot better. It’s not a bad series. Sorely over-hated ;)
Oh, and thanks for liking my blog and I don’t mind the rambly comments at all (I just hope you don’t mind my rambly comments back!)
Having a civil internet discussion and not defaulting to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c can be a little difficult since you have no idea what opposing points the other side will throw at you, heck you might even realize there’s some truth to what they’re saying. Because of that the “tastes” or “elitist” hand-waves are pretty tempting. Besides, not everyone can articulate there opinions as skillfully as say, you Frog-kun. This might be a little.harsh, but I doubt the average Code Geass fan could defend the series on a message board in the ideal way you demonstrated (same would go for the side of haters too somewhat, but there’s a lot to hate about Code Geass so they are better equipped).
Yeah, this is why I only like discussing titles I have something intelligent and at least somewhat unique to say about. It’s something that I need to work on though (hence why I haven’t started up a blog as of yet)
Yeah, I admit, that was a really unrealistic conversation… But hey, ideals are there to strive for, right?
It certainly is a lot more fun discussing titles where you feel like you have something unique to say about it. Probably why I end up writing mostly about ecchi/harem anime on this blog, because I feel like everyone beat me to it praising anime that is widely considered “deep”. I say find your niche and go for it.
A lot of great lines in this post, such as:
“Yes, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not all opinions carry equal weight in a debate.”
and
“So in my eyes, “It’s just taste” is the whole point of a discussion, not the defence!”
In fact, the whole classroom essay analogy was brilliant as well. Good post sir.
Aww thanks! It inflates my e-Penis to know that I just won a pointless discussion on the Internet >:3
I think it goes a long way to discuss things in a rational way as the examples you mention. Of course, just saying X sucks because it does and resorting to personal attacks obvious never the right way to get the right side of the argument nor resorting to elitism. I think facts are required to back up one’s opinion or position, but there is no right and wrong reasons as people will have different opinions. While people may not agree with a certain, people need to agree to disagree and not attack other’s. Still, I think there are going to be trolls out there, just don’t feed them, ignore them and walk away. It’s not worth wasting time and being emotional over them.
Oh, wow, you pretty much summed up my 1000+ word post into one neat paragraph. +1
My answer to all these debates: You dislike the show I like. It’s usually for the reasons I LIKED THE SHOW. Even though I can freely admit (which I usually do, except for the shows I loathe with every fiber of my being, which are thankfully very few) the reasons that my “discussion colleague” says a show I like is bad are valid, the thing is those very reasons don’t bother me that much.
One example is Gatchaman CROWDS. Without having to go into any forums whatsoever, I can easily predict that opinions on it are mixed.
I liked it, even though its flaws hit you in the face as hard as a coconut thrown by an All-Star pitcher. The ending is choppy as heck and a lot of questions remained unanswered…but the journey was enjoyable and the themes were interesting, so I ended up not caring too much. BUT, I wouldn’t argue with others who were bothered by these things.
If someone hated one of my current favorite shows in the last 15 years, Mouretsu Pirates, I wouldn’t hold it against them either.
Oh man the “hipster” card pisses me off. Worst of all it suggests the other person is being disingenuous, which is about the most frustrating insult you can throw at earnest criticism. Having an argument devolve into a meta debate on perspectivism isn’t much more pleasant.
The fundamental problem I have debating with people is that issues I consider absolutely show-ruining, primarily the objectification, infantilisation and over-sexualisation of women, most people seem to consider completely tangential. Most frustrating was an argument that basically boiled down to whether or not we thought it was OK for a show to encourage rape culture. It flabbergasted me that anyone couldn’t see how such a thing could be offensive to people.
I just can’t agree that the inculcation of chauvinistic values is OK, but this basic assertion seems to offend people extremely quickly, no matter how hard I try to avoid ad hominem, or generally try to be amiable, calm, and reasonable when presenting an argument. People immediately jump to “it’s just fantasy”, or the ol’ perspectivism card, unwilling to consider that the media they voraciously consume may in any way consciously or subconsciously affect them or others.
Speaking as someone who is most often in the position of B-kun, I find the A-kuns of the world the most resistant to constructive debate. Most of the B-kuns I’ve met have well thought out reasons for their dislike of something, and are more than willing to share them in a civil fashion. Mind you, I’m talking about people I know IRL here, and the internet tends to work a little differently.
Anyway, that all got a little tangential, but these are some of my experiences and issues with having constructive debates with people of differing opinion. That was a fun read, cheers, Frog-kun
May I respectfully disagree with parts of your opinion? :)
Critiquing art through a moralistic and ethical standpoint is, to me, a shaky business. Because what you are essentially doing is projecting your own values onto a work in a way that may not always be relevant to the work’s goals. There are stories which I find horribly offensive and would certainly never show to an impressionable young person, but unless the ethical framework under which a story operates is internally inconsistent, the writer’s skill and morals are best regarded on a separate plane. If you were unable to differentiate the two in your mind, then the “classics” would all be worthless. One should not assume that one’s system of ethics is morally superior to another’s, however incongruent it seems.
Now of course what you’re saying is that stories which promote rape culture or objectify and/or marginalise minority groups is bad writing, and I have to agree that this is the case most of the time. But this is not necessarily because the writer is a bad person (which is what you seem to imply when you get offended by the work). It is really because the writer has limited understanding of the dynamics they are trying to portray, and the resulting portrayals come off as shallow rather than actively challenging the reader’s worldview. If the writer showed awareness and insight into the cultural values that shape their writing, then their work would be transcend its context and attain a sense of timelessness. But bad writing doesn’t do this, and so the more self-aware reader is usually struck by how “off” the morals feel.
Basically, I’m saying I agree with you, but with different reasoning.
You certainly may respectfully disagree, but I’m afraid I’mma have to respectfully disagree right back at you ;p
First off, to clarify, I wasn’t offended by the work I had that rape culture debate over, it was more that I was defending others’ rights to be offended by it, and trying to explain to others why said taken offence was reasonable considering what message the text was conveying (that ignoring another person’s lack of consent is OK). I can’t remember ever being personally offended by a piece of fiction, but I’m a white, hetero sexual, cis male, so most fiction never really treads on my toes.
I’m certainly not trying to imply that any writer is a bad person. Heck, I’m not even sure what that is. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying with that third paragraph. I’ll have to ask you to expand and clarify before I can give a proper response.
I’m pretty sure I get what you’re saying in your second paragraph; however, I flat-out disagree with you. To me, good writing speaks to fundamental human truths. Real insight is as necessary as writing prowess. Misogyny, or the infantilisation of women are simply not reasonably defensible. I honestly don’t believe there is any writer in the world that could create a text that competently defended these values in consideration of their inherent irrationality.
On another note, “One should not assume that one’s system of ethics is morally superior to another’s, however incongruent it seems.” Completely disagree, but this isn’t the place for that debate.
Y’know, this is all getting a little messy, and the stuff about whether or not to critique a work based on moral issues is all a little tangential. I’m mostly just interested in what you were trying to say in that third paragraph, so if you don’t mind, I feel it’d be best if we just ignore everything but that for now.
Okay, I see. :)
I was saying that bad writers shows a lack of self-awareness about the social and cultural factors that influence them. So bad writing is a result of the writer not actually understanding the ethics system under which they are writing with.
The reason why I was arguing against judging a piece of writing under one’s own ethics system is that we actually can’t escape the factors which define who we are, and moral standards tend to change a lot over time.
And so, I believe showing an understanding of human nature or of how morals work is possible under a framework different from the one you or I use. This is why the stories in, say, the Bible can feel exceptionally immoral to modern readers in some ways but still feel universal and timeless in others – the writers understood the ethics they were using at the time. That means the ethics can be understood and even applied outside of its own context.
tldr; good writing only needs to display insight into the context in which it is created. Any more than that asks more than what is humanly possible of any writer ever.
Ah, I see. As I said before, I don’t entirely agree with you on the moral points there, but that’s not a discussion to be had here.
I mostly agree with what you said that a good writer needs to show awareness and insight into the cultural forces that surround them.
However, I think that devaluing any character is fundamentally bad writing, and to me aspects of moe necessarily require the creation of extraneous weaknesses and flaws in a character for the sake of making them reliant. To be honest, it sickens me, but from more of a fictional critique standpoint it’s just plain boring. It doesn’t contribute to the narrative, often it actively gets in its way. Shallow, weak characters just aren’t interesting. Complex, weak characters can be, mind.
Take a look at the Monogatari franchise, for instance. Araragi’s behaviour, particularly in Nisemonogatari, seriously undermined him as a character, and a lot of this behaviour was only present to force fanservice into scenes that didn’t require it, or often scenes that said fanservice downright detracted from. The Patches made a few good, similar points about it: http://altairandvega.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/nisemonogatari-and-the-arrow-of-female-hysteria/
A good writer can use unsavoury moral aspects of their story to challenge and engage their audience, but I honestly can’t think of a way you can make undermining a story’s female cast interesting or challenging. Perhaps you can?
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita comes to mind. Can’t really think of any anime examples off the top of my head, because I will concede that fanservice/harem anime are badly written in the way you illustrate.
Lolita is a very challenging work, anyway, that idealises and objectifies a young girl through the point of view of an older man, who continually justifies his perspective as moral. He actually does, in a strange way, manage to succeed in some ways, and it’s actually difficult to tell which views might represent the author’s and which might represent the character’s.
This is all up for a debate of its own, but I thought you might it interesting.
Ah, that is quite interesting. Know of, but don’t know much about Lolita, I must admit. Anyway, it’s been a fun little discussion but I don’t imagine there’s much more productive to be said. Thanks for engaging with me, and thanks again for the blog post.
[…] Being someone who has found the inspiration to write shitty posts on a blog, one can understand that I eventually tired from conversations that end up at the paraphrased quotes above, and despite recognizing that I myself need to keep an open mind about things, there’s no indication that your conversation partner will do the same. Compared to the real world, at least I can find people to have a nice discussion about anime with on the internet, but the people I meet in the club still don’t understand what it means to have a pleasant argument, and even less so when it’s about something as meaningless as Chinese Pornog…. […]
Hm, synchronicity.
I resumed blogging back in April in large part because of my desire to write a blog post or two about how we can and are allowed to like different things, which would seem obvious, but in the age of objects-as-identity-politics is anything but. I still hadn’t made these posts, because they’ll take a lot out of me.
The synchronicity is that one of the things that really made me want to write a blog post about this is a scene from a local comic book store 5 years or so ago, where I talked to a couple of girls about Code Geass and how much I liked it, and someone on the other side of the store snerked in a very obvious and affected manner, to show his “disdain”, which made me think “What an idiot.”
Pretty uncanny when it works out that way, huh?
You know, I think the idea of criticism and working out which criticism is “fair” and which isn’t seems to be something that the aniblogsphere is pretty preoccupied with in general. The argument of “it’s just taste” really is something that makes you stop and think about where your reasoning is coming from. I think most reviewers find a line between drawing from widely accepted metrics and their own gut, but it’s still very hard when some things are more socially acceptable to be a fan of than others. I think it’s a question we all need to keep thinking about, so it’s great to hear you’ve been addressing it too.
That’s not my problem. All criticism is fair.
What I find problematic is telling people they are wrong to have fun, or entering discussions where people talk about how much they like a show with the intent to leave with them despising the show as much as you do.
There’s a place for everything, and telling people “You have shit taste for liking what you like” or trying to douse others’ excitement? That’s not cool.
In your own reviews though? Write whatever you feel. No need to lie or sugarcoat it.
The reason why I like CodeGeass is because the anime has interesting themes and leaves enough room for the audience for their own imagination and questions/answers. Of course it’s debatable if the anime makes use of this to its fullest potential. We all know that Ichiro Okouchi was forced to rush some parts of the plot, but that doesn’t make it a “trainwreck” to me. However, it really gives the anime a very bipolar feeling and I can see why some critics often point out the pacing which is all over place. The only anime I consider a true trainwreck is the anime adaption of “Bleach”, because it relies way too much on fillers, underdeveloped characters and random power ups and whatnot. I don’t know if it’s Tite Kubo’s or Studio Pierrot’s fault though.
As an aside, I watched once a 40 minutes long review/rant on Batman The Dark Knight and many flaws and points the guy made really reminded me on the whole CodeGeassR2 discussion. I guess some stories are more about the thrilling ride, than the actual consistent plot.
You bring up something that’s all too common among anime fandom, or lots of fandoms really. Whenever I criticize anime I always try and give reasons for exactly why I feel that way rather than state something “sucked” as if it was an objective fact. There are, however, instances where we just can’t explain why something bothered us or why we felt something was lacking. Like, maybe we just don’t like a certain character archetype or something. In that case I simply say so…that I just personally don’t like such-and-such, but that doesn’t mean anyone who does is automatically wrong. As you suggested, just as it’s hard to really understand another person, it’s hard to see an anime through another person’s eyes and understand exactly why they did or didn’t like something. But making an effort to understand through thought-out criticism rather than blatant hating is enlightening to all parties involved, and the fandom in general =)
dumb people. THIS is the most stupid topic I ever seen, Argument About Anime On The Internet? How stupid you are. Everyone have their own favor or habit, and what? Why you stick your nose into their favor? seem your favor like his/her favor or habit? Everyone like a number , so, if you want censure something, first prove that 5=1 or 70 =999999999999999999. If you can, go ahead, change anyone habit by yourself, and if you can’t, just shut up and listen to your own and stop sticking in the other does
I, myself, have never had an unpleasant conversation about anime–even with the people who dislike the stuff I like.
The trick is simple: I don’t try, nor bother, to converse with chimps.
different strokes for different folks!