The definition of pretentious is as follows; "Pretending to have more wisdom or knowledge than you actually possess." And there are many ways that a fictional story can be pretentious. Maybe they try to tackle deep or mature issues that they don't understand as well as they think... Maybe they try and make a character's issues feel more serious than they actually are... Maybe they use abstract visuals to distract people from noticing how little substance the story itself has(Like most of Studio Shaft's work). There are other ways this can happen, and I'd like to hear your opinions on the anime that you think are pretentious, as well as whether being pretentious is even a bad thing or not.
Also, if you disagree with somebody for calling an anime pretentious, please call them out on it... Discuss whether or not the anime in question has the depth it claims, but please, do so respectfully. This kind of thread could make for quite an ugly flame war if we let it.
Elfen Lied's "plot" is about as pretentious as it can get, especially in the case of the manga.
It's hard to find something that tries as hard as it does to inflate itself to sounding deep and meaningful and just fall completely flat.
I have to agree with this one... It tries to look like it's an emotionally poignant tragedy, but in the end, it's just emotionally manipulative torture porn.
I'd say Evangelion. As cool as Evangelion looked it seemed like it was trying to act deeper than it actually was. And Hideki Anno's other anime such as Nadia Secret of Blue Water (based on 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea) and Revolutionary Girl Utena (which was about a same sex couple) had better messages. But a lot of people had that "omg 2 deep 4 u" on Evanglelion. While I enjoy the original series and the rebuilds of Evangelion it tried to act more artistic than it actually was. It used strange Christian symbolism and it tried to be about something deeper when most of the show seemed to focus on Shinji's depression. It seemed pseudo-intellectual at best. It was a mecha anime and most mecha anime are not that deep not to rip on mecha anime. I mean Arjuna was pretty intelligent as was Wolf's Rain and Cowboy Bebop and Ghost In The Shell. Satoshi Kon has some very good anime films and shows as well. Hideki Anno is a good directior but he wrote Evangelion when he was in despair and in a pit of depression and it shows.
Anno's other anime were much more uplifting and happier. Utena was about a same sex couple who were overcoming being bullied for being two female lovers in love. Nadia was about an Indian girl named Nadia who was trying to find her father who was still alive and figure out her heritage and who she was since she was raised in a circus as a little kid and was treated differently because of her race.
What's the message behind Evangleion? I am not really sure. There have been several speculations but the symbolism seems so abstract from the main story. It is about Shinji's hardships and his depression? Is it about humanity struggling to survive? Is the religious symbolism of crosses and angels about Christianity's misplacement in Japan? It may be some or all of these things. I have watched the series three times in a row and I am still not sure what the heck Evangelion is supposed to be about. While I love Utena and Nadia those anime by Hideki Anno had a clearer message. The message behind Evangleion seems cloudy and difficult to figure out. It could be a number of things or none of these things. I just wish I knew the true answer. I've seen a lot of fan theory articles on what Evangleion was about some people think the aliens called "angels" are based on HP Lovecraft lore like the elder gods. Some people think that the angels show the potential of how humans can evolve into being something great, or also symbolize the destruction of humanity.
My one Christian friend was offended by Evangleion and he said it was "them fighting God" I don't think that was the message behind Evangelion. Because they never mention God. But the problem I have with Evangleion is there isn't one true clear message but rather a ******** of different messages. Its nice its left up for fan interpretation but it left a lot of loopholes and questions.
Such as why was Asuka's dead mothers soul in her Eva in the End of Evangelion movie? As well as Shinji's dead mother's soul in his Eva? Where did the angels come from and why did they want to destroy humanity? If humans are the 14th angel and humans evolved from angels and humans became more advanced than angels why couldn't humans kill off the angels? Why were they called angels if they evolved from humans and were more humanoid? Why is Rei so powerful and kills everyone at the end of the Evangelion movie? Why are Shinji and Asuka the only two living people left is this a contracted simile to the story of Adam and Eve? Why was Misato so hell bent on pushin Shinji so hard to pilot the Eva when the very idea of it was stressing him out? Why was the fate of humanity so reliant on 3 14 year olds? Why was Shinij and Asuka and Rei chosen to pilot Evas to save humanity? And why did the fate of the world have to be these 3 chosen high school freshman? And why on Earth couldn't they build more Evas and have a larger army or have more high schoolers help them and make more Evas in more places to keep the world safer. If Lilith is the Original Angel and was the first of her kind like the biblical character Lilith why on earth did they keep her alive instead of killer her? Was it to study her? Keeping her alive was what doomed humanity in the End of Evangleion movie. Why did Ritsuka allow Shinji's dad to do all these illegal human experimentations on Rei? When Ritsuka found out that Shinji's father had the angel Lilith with him she tried to shoot him and of coarse died at the end. Why did Misato have feelings for Shinji when she was dating other man? Was she pretending to like Shinji and say she would kiss him as some kind of perverted encouragement? Why does Rei supress her emotions when her friends Shinji and Asuka tell her to express herself more? Why did Shinji never talk about his problems and keep them all bottled up inside to the point where it drove him crazy? Why didn't Shinji talk about his problems regarding his father to Misato who would listen to him? Why did Shinji never admit to Asuka that he loved her? Why did Shinji touch himself when Asuka was in a coma? Why did Shinji have sex with Rei in the movie?
I don't mean to take away from your post but Utena was directed by Ikuhara, not Anno (who is not at all credited with working on Utena), though they were friends. And Utena and Anthy didn't face discrimination on their relationship either really (not what I'd call bullying at least), they were overcoming societal gender norms and expectations and the vicious abuse cycle and growing up. It's a great story but I just felt like it needed to be cleared up who worked on it c:
Elfen Lied's "plot" is about as pretentious as it can get, especially in the case of the manga.
It's hard to find something that tries as hard as it does to inflate itself to sounding deep and meaningful and just fall completely flat.
I agree with you on this one. A lot of people seem to like this series, but I think it's just overrated. The writing isn't really very good, and the characters don't capture my attention at all. I feel like the series could have changed a lot if small adjustments were made.
I don't mean to take away from your post but Utena was directed by Ikuhara, not Anno (who is not at all credited with working on Utena), though they were friends. And Utena and Anthy didn't face discrimination on their relationship either really (not what I'd call bullying at least), they were overcoming societal gender norms and expectations and the vicious abuse cycle and growing up. It's a great story but I just felt like it needed to be cleared up who worked on it c:
Oh gosh my mistake you're right. Ikuhara did work on Utena. I was mistaken.
Elfen Lied's "plot" is about as pretentious as it can get, especially in the case of the manga.
It's hard to find something that tries as hard as it does to inflate itself to sounding deep and meaningful and just fall completely flat.
I agree with you on this one. A lot of people seem to like this series, but I think it's just overrated. The writing isn't really very good, and the characters don't capture my attention at all. I feel like the series could have changed a lot if small adjustments were made.
Elfen Lied was mostly boobies and gore. The manga was creepy as hell because it had a daiper fetish character. The Elfen Lied series I watched the whole thing but I didn't understand why everyone thought it was so good. It was mostly senseless violence.
A lot of CLAMP's works are pretentious. One example is their ability to use symbolism to the extreme. Feathers are a huge theme in CLAMP's works, to the point where not many of their works are lacking in them. Symbolism is overused to the point I often wonder why they bother not drawing symbols.
I love Ergo Proxy, but dear gods, does that go overboard with it's pretentious use of philosophy (and fauxlosophy).
Yeah... About a third of the way through, it stops making sense and starts making statements. I hear ya.
Mhm. I don't know about pretentious, but that series definitely kind of lost me. I wanted to like it, but it just wound up being rather confusing at times. @_@
And I echo what was said about Evangelion and Elfen Lied, bleh.
Honestly madoka magicia it was a great anime don't get me wrong but I didn't find it to be the soul tearing tragedy it was supposed to be. Instead I thought the ending was very fitting and bittersweet at most. It had a simple message and I find people look to much into it looking for a deeper theme.
Sword art online. It pretends to be an mmorpg. If this mmorpg was real. It would fall flat on its face. It would be extremely broken like sonic in sonic 06.
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