Seriously, I have no real positive or negative opinion about Shield Hero. It's not terrible at all -- the production values are pretty high, it has two strong main characters, and it has a pretty strong hook with Naofumi against the world -- but I have so many complaints, large and small, about the series that I cannot say that I like it either. If I'm being honest, if it weren't for the new one elimination per week on the roundup, I don't think I would still be covering it after the 3rd episode. Granted, that would have meant that I missed the 4th episode, which was great, but I still have a very middle of the road opinion of the show overall.
But as we all know, there are no neutral or nuanced opinions on the internet, so that means I just hate Rising of the Shield Hero, just like I obviously hate Goblin Slayer and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, which are even more popular than Shield Hero right now. Now, I think that if anyone actually read my reviews of any of these series, they would understand that the only show I truly dislike is Goblin Slayer, which I decided was worthy of my worst anime of 2018 list, and even then I didn't say that it was an abomination like the other 9 shows on my list, instead describing it as merely "mediocre." And it's also interesting that these three shows all share a lot of similar elements and all leave me feeling kinda lukewarm. Is it just that I don't care for the genre? Well, I don't think so. I love fantasy stories, and Overlord shares a lot of those elements as well and I like that show quite a bit.
Besides, if it was something as simple as just hating fantasy stories with video game elements than I would feel just as positive as the rest of the community about every other popular anime, and I just don't. I mean, I understand that these numbers are just the averages of thousands upon thousands of people's viewing habits and it's impossible to say how well I match up compared to the average anime fan in terms of opinions on any given show, but still, there's a niggling thought in the back of my mind when I write up my thoughts on Rising of the Shield Hero each week, silently wishing that I could just swap it out for Kaguya-sama. Am I being too harsh? Am I turning into an elitist who looks down on the common anime fan?
 |
| Is this how you imagine me when you read my posts? |
So, I did a little research on the matter. I compared my top ten favorite anime of 2018 against the seasonal charts on MyAnimeList to determine where my tastes compared to the popular anime of any given season. Here were the results:
- A Place Further than the Universe: 7th place, Winter
- Megalo Box: 8th place, Spring
- My Hero Academia Season 3: 1st place, Spring
- Planet With: 25th place, Summer
- Lupin III Part V: 40th place, Spring
- Golden Kamuy: 13th place, Spring (Season 1), 22nd place, Fall (Season 2)
- SSSS.Gridman: 10th place, Fall
- Major 2nd: 42nd place, Spring
- Hinamatsuri: 7th place, Spring
- Violet Evergarden: 1st place, Winter
So, only 2 of the best of each season's anime by popular vote made my top ten. Four more are in the popular top ten of their respective seasons, but then things get interesting. I'm honestly surprised that Golden Kamuy's first season did so poorly, comparatively speaking, but Spring 2018 was full of really good shows and highly anticipated sequels, so I guess it makes sense, especially since the CG bear in the first episode probably turned a lot of people off.
But the other three outliers? I just don't understand it. Island, my 4th worst anime of 2018, has more than twice as many viewers on the seasonal chart than Planet With! And my absolute least favorite anime of 2018, and possibly of all time, Tachibanakan Triangle has over twice the viewership of Lupin III AND Major 2nd! On one hand, I can understand how sequels will naturally have less viewers than new series (even though both Lupin and Major 2nd are very newbie-friendly) and Planet With starts out kind of insane, so I can understand how new viewers would be turned off.
 |
| Actually, no, I don't understand how this isn't the most popular anime of all time. |
As reasonable as I try to be while trying to explain these insane numbers, this doesn't change the fact that these numbers are INSANE! I don't understand how some of these shows can get so many viewers when Lupin III, one of my favorite series of all time, struggles to maintain relevance, with only the original tv anime and the Miyazaki movie having more than 50 thousand viewers on MAL. To put that in perspective, Kampfer, an anime from 2009 about a gender-bent magical girl protagonist with a yuri harem and a series of mascot characters represented by stuffed animals that committed seppuku that I honestly thought I dreamed before finding it again while putting together my own MAL profile, has 193 thousand viewers.
And that's just by list of MAL members who have watched the shows in question. When it comes to scoring? Well, according to my research, the only show on the Winter 2019 weekly roundup that I have given a higher rating than the average viewer is Run With the Wind, and even then, that difference is only by .05, since we Run With the Wind viewers recognize quality when we see it.
 |
| That is the face of quality right there. |
But what does that mean? Am I just a stupid elitist that hates popular anime? Well...no. Just because my favorites aren't the most well loved doesn't mean that I hate popular shows. But at the same time, I think I am a bit harder on anime as a whole than the average viewer may be. And that's hardly surprising. The average anime viewer probably doesn't maintain a blog where they recap and review the newest episodes for several series at once, try to watch 16 shows simultaneously, and loves to pick stories apart and try to figure out what they mean and why they succeed or fail to elicit emotion. My choice to be someone who critiques anime has naturally left me more critical as a result.
Does that mean I would enjoy Rising of the Shield Hero more if I never started this blog in the first place? Maybe a little bit, but I honestly don't think I would have ever watched it past the first episode if it wasn't for this blog. I honestly find the entire premise of the false rape accusation ruining Naofumi's life to be incredibly problematic, not because the idea is impossible, but because it has been so commonly used by less than reputable individuals to intimidate actual rape survivors into silence and discredit those brave enough to come forward and share their stories with the world, and it's highly probable that the disgust with that outside baggage has forever ruined any chance of this show being in my good graces. I really do try to keep my own personal beliefs out of discussing the merits of this show, and there is plenty of good in that show. In fact, I currently have Shield Hero at 6/10, which, lest we forget, is a positive score overall.
 |
| Let's all agree on how great Raphtalia is, at least. |
No comments:
Post a Comment