I’m a fan. I am displeased by stylistic homogenization.
Like, I get that this is, on some level or to whatever extent, a … marketing to whichever demographic kind of problem or process.
Either I am in the minority of fans, or, they’re targetting market demos inefficiently.
… it would be very difficult to say which of those is closer to ‘true’, with anything approaching objectivity, unless people were literally polled/surveyed on this.
But, the other element here is that just is what capitalism does to art. It smushes everything down into generic, familiar, safe, with as much broad appeal as possible.
Because its churning this stuff out on an assembly line, anime is a mass market product, like spam or canned soup or plastic plates.
I simpler terms, broader appeal means less complexity.
If you want more people to “get” a piece of music, by definition it must be less complex.
For example a current pop song will be more approachable by more people than Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue”, simply because everyone can get the former, but only some people can grok Miles’ music (and those people also get the pop stuff, even if they don’t listen to it much, or if the listen to it a lot).
It’s not a free market thing, it’s simply the old distribution curve applied to art. Marketing just utilizes the nature of people.
I “get” Miles stuff much more than the average person, but when it comes to visual arts I know fuck all, so only the most fundamental stuff has any appeal to me.
I’m essentially the same in visual arts as someone who only listens to pop music.
What you’re forgetting is that anime (and art in general) is typically not done to please the critics, but to please the fans.
I’m a fan. I am displeased by stylistic homogenization.
Like, I get that this is, on some level or to whatever extent, a … marketing to whichever demographic kind of problem or process.
Either I am in the minority of fans, or, they’re targetting market demos inefficiently.
… it would be very difficult to say which of those is closer to ‘true’, with anything approaching objectivity, unless people were literally polled/surveyed on this.
But, the other element here is that just is what capitalism does to art. It smushes everything down into generic, familiar, safe, with as much broad appeal as possible.
Because its churning this stuff out on an assembly line, anime is a mass market product, like spam or canned soup or plastic plates.
I simpler terms, broader appeal means less complexity.
If you want more people to “get” a piece of music, by definition it must be less complex.
For example a current pop song will be more approachable by more people than Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue”, simply because everyone can get the former, but only some people can grok Miles’ music (and those people also get the pop stuff, even if they don’t listen to it much, or if the listen to it a lot).
It’s not a free market thing, it’s simply the old distribution curve applied to art. Marketing just utilizes the nature of people.
I “get” Miles stuff much more than the average person, but when it comes to visual arts I know fuck all, so only the most fundamental stuff has any appeal to me.
I’m essentially the same in visual arts as someone who only listens to pop music.