Comment by throwawayk7h
13 hours ago
It comes down to identifying what I dislike about the anime I dislike.
I find I don't like "fanservice" (boob jokes etc.), or at least find it to be a signifier of poor quality. So I use animefeminist.com for recommendations, since it's pretty effective at filtering out (or at least warning of in advance) that kind of red flag, and also for their ranking of seasonal anime. (If you use this method, make sure to look for their "recommendation," "digest," and "three-episode check-in" articles specifically). This improves things from about 1% chance of enjoyment to probably 1-in-15 chance of enjoyment. On average, each season has an anime I find is not bad, but only every 2-3 years or so is there an anime I unabashedly love.
(Of course, there may be shows the site rules out which I really loved -- for instance, my all-time favourite anime is Attack on Titan, which is blacklisted on anifem because someone once wrote an article on polygon about how its overtly pro-jewish anti-fascist allegory is anti-semitic somehow. I think that's a load of bull, but probably not enough of a problem for me to stop using this method of finding anime.)
I think Attack on Titan is a good anime, but I read the allegory as being a Japanese one, and in that reading it comes off as somewhat apologist toward fascism. I think many readings are present in the work and more besides can be read into it, so I don’t claim that any interpretation is right or wrong, because that would probably involve spoilers.
Have you seen Psycho-Pass? I wonder what your site has to say about it, as it seemed kind of a feminist work to me.
You might find this site interesting:
https://cyberfeminismindex.com/
I love Psycho-Pass, it's a classic Urobuchi. Can't find a proper review on the site though, likely since it predates the site's launch. (They're doing reviews of previous years as well, but slowly.)
Regarding the Japanese interpretation of the allegory -- I don't think it's apologist toward fascism really, because essentially every side in the conflict has fascist elements. In that sense, it's more "some situations just don't have any good solutions." But what's clear to me is that the situation itself has fascist roots. Regardless, the Polygon article in question has a much more surface-level reading -- it is clearly stating that it's antisemitic, which I simply can't see at all. Spoilers rot13: vg'f gehr gur gvgnaf ner ~wrjf, ohg guvf vtaberf gung gurl ner gur perngvbaf bs ~anmv rkcrevzragf, naq nyfb gung nyy gur cebgntbavfgf ner ~wrjf nf jryy.
I don't understand what I'm looking at with the site you linked, but I am intrigued.