When “Logic” Isn’t Enough

Critical textual analysis can be a tough gig. By design, there will always be folks who disagree with your conclusions, and a subset of those readers will be genuinely angry with you because of them. One of the pieces of advice I try to give out whenever I participate in an “Anime 101” or similar panel is for people new to the fandom to seek out a critic whose values and opinions reflect their own. This could be myself, another blogger, or a professional reviewer; it doesn’t really matter in the end as long as they speak to the subjects and concerns that person has as a consumer.

As a reviewer, I have certain things specific to myself, my life, and my experiences, that make their way into my writing. Those things can mostly be gathered under the umbrella of “representation of marginalized groups,” though I tend to specifically focus on women and how they’re characterized and treated within narratives. I’m not a big fan of violence, especially sexual violence. I don’t really enjoy fanservice, either, although that’s not always a deal-breaker. All of these are specific opinions of mine, and they’re much broader than any one anime, manga, or film.

There have been times, usually when I’ve reviewed a season’s “controversial” title, that readers (or non-readers directed here by some other means, usually someone who feels they have a vested interest in hassling people) have felt the need to explain to me why a certain plot twist, world-building element, or character trait are necessary within the universe of the series. It’s a compulsion, and I know this because I think we all do it; I definitely get the urge sometimes, I’ve just learned to keep it to myself and move on. It’s rare that passionate arguments about controversial topics in anime are actually constructive, and no one is going to change their mind by getting into a fight about it. But I know how tempting it is to allow “let me tell you how you’re wrong” turn into a damaging tirade or an internet flame war.

There’s a common thought process out there that, if something can be logically explained, it is therefore beyond reproach. People who are critical of or emotionally-affected by these things, whether they’re in a piece of media or in reality, are painted as overly-sensitive or “objectively” incorrect. The term “objective” is one of the more abused terms in critical discourse, a sort of “dog-whistle” for folks who believe that criticism and discussion ought to only agree with their particular, intentionally un-sympathetic worldview. It suggests a value system that, on the surface, might seem reasonable – it purports to remove emotion from the discussion, in favor of “indisputable” fact. The reality of criticism, analysis, and reviewing, no matter what your opinion is, is that by its nature it always involves an emotional reaction. People demanding objectivity are more often than not really just demanding that critics acknowledge only their particular brand of perspective and emotional investment. When readers get overheated at some critics when those critics discuss topics that challenge the reader’s worldview, it speaks to just what type of emotional reaction those readers consider legitimate, and the ones they expressly do not.

In any case, when there are opinions involved, there can be no such thing as “pure” logic. However, having a negative emotional reaction to something and talking about disliking it isn’t equivalent to censorship. The anime series I review aren’t being put on trial; the minor potential consequence of me saying “I don’t like this” is that a couple of people who read the review may decide not to watch the show, but the opportunity for anyone to go and see for themselves hasn’t been taken away. As I’ve said, though, sometimes individuals who are invested in the media in question like to explain why my (or someone of like mind) position is “objectively” incorrect. Usually this explanation incorporates world-building facts from the series, character motivations that haven’t been fleshed-out yet, or just nuts-and-bolts stuff that might be more evident in the source material. As I mentioned, I understand why people are compelled to want to do this – a lot of times they may really identify with some aspect of the series in question, and hearing criticism of it feels like an attack (as much as I know this is what’s going on, it still happens to me, too!). I think what many people fail to understand is that an internal explanation for a broader issue can’t hand-wave that issue away.

While I think I’ve known this in my heart for a long time, it wasn’t until recently that I heard a good explanation of this concept out in the wilds of the internet (I believe it was within a string of related tweets, but when I went looking I couldn’t find it again). In essence, though, there are two ways in which we as viewers might critique something. The first is an “internal” critique, which might include things like story structure, soundtrack, or pacing. While these aspects of a text are definitely opinion-based, they’re more focused on the nuts-and-bolts features of that text specifically. There’s also “external” critique, which is based around how a text handles and incorporates certain subject matter. This could include things related to representation of certain groups or traits, character portrayals, or incorporation of other “flavor” elements that are somehow built into the story. If something “fails” in one of these areas (and again, this is subjective based on the viewer), than in most cases the presence of some internal logic can’t do enough to “explain away” a viewer’s problems with it. This is difficult to explain generally, so I’ll give an example from my personal experience.

In 2008 the first Strike Witches anime series was broadcast in Japan. The series portrays an alternate-history scenario in which aliens attacked Earth. The people recruited to fight back against these aliens are “witches,” teenage girls with magic powers who augment their flight abilities using mechanical leg attachments based on real-life aircraft. This has been a fairly popular series over the years, and spawned a lot of sequels and spin-offs. It’s also a series that I dislike for a couple of reasons:

• It features (NSFW image) fetishized fanservice of underage characters – the youngest character, Lucchini, is 12 years old.
• I interpret it as having ageist and misogynist story elements.

For those who aren’t familiar, one of the reasons this series is infamous is that none of the titular “witches” wears pants. I have an issue with this as I mentioned above: the characters are mostly underage and as they’re swooping through the air the camera work often focuses in on their all-too-detailed underwear-clad butts and crotches. However one might personally feel about depictions of underage characters in cartoons versus reality, it’s not something I personally want to see and it honestly makes me uncomfortable. I recall many years ago getting into an argument with a friend about the lack of lower-body clothing; as a fan of the series, he argued that it was well-explained textually as a necessity, as wearing pants would block the characters from interfacing with their flight gear.

Setting aside the fact that the characters wear undergarments that are obviously very specific to a wide variety of popular costume/clothing fetishes (tights, school swimsuits, shimapan, etc.), internally the logic does hold up and the in-universe explanation is stated pretty clearly. The mechanical add-ons the characters wear probably wouldn’t fit if they were worn over a pair of military trousers (and who would want to deal with that fabric all bunched-up inside? Not me). That said, this is an example of internal logic that doesn’t address the broader issue, which is that I think underage fanservice is in poor taste, and I’d believe that no matter what hoops the narrative jumped through to prove its necessity. I gather that the story itself is fairly entertaining based on what acquaintances have told me, and admittedly the first episode starts off in a very dynamic way with some exciting aerial combat. For me personally, though, there are some deal-breakers that no amount of explanation can cancel-out.

That’s one of my examples, and I bet that most people have a few of their own in mind. Perhaps they’re disabled, and a depiction of their disability within a certain piece of media is inaccurate or insulting. Maybe a series depicts their racial characteristics in an unflattering way. Or possibly, as with me, it’s just garden-variety misogyny that’s got them closing that Crunchyroll window (seriously, how difficult is it for writers to imagine a fantasy world without our own world’s frustrating gender-based baggage?). No matter what it may be, to be told by someone on the outside that one’s very personal, specific opinions are de-legitimized by some form of logic that ignores the messy realities of human experiences and emotions is a profoundly frustrating experience.

While I could talk about the population’s general lack of empathy for quite a while, rather than spending my time frustrated an angry, I’d rather use this platform to speak to my own goals. I make it my goal to consider where writers’ and reviewers’ opinions might be coming from. Their lives could be very different from mine, and just because I really like a certain anime doesn’t mean that it’s without its flaws in the eyes of others. The next time others get the urge to jump into the fray when “someone is wrong on the internet,” perhaps the might consider this alternate possibility.