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No. 6665
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>>6664 (cont'd)
For the timeless enjoyable-factor, let’s use the Pokemon anime as an example. A little more than 10 years ago, I, like many other children, absolutely adored pokemon and thought it was the greatest show ever. Of course, like with most childhood favourites, once we grow up and develop more “refined” standards, we see that they really weren’t up to par and thus undeserving of the timeless-label. It’s what separates works like Disney’s classic Snow White and the not-so-classic Barney and Friends. But the problem with this is that many of these shows weren’t supposed to appeal to older people. They were specifically designed to appeal to the tastes of children so why should it matter if we can’t enjoy it once we grow up? If you think it does matter, then is the term “classic” exclusive to works that appeal to all demographics? If so, are works like War and Peace truly classics if they don’t appeal to children? Also, when rewatching anime that we saw in our childhoods to see if it was timeless or not, how can we be sure we’re not subconsciously being affected by nostalgia?
Now let’s turn our attention to the second factor, how “well-remembered” something is even after many, many years. It’s entirely possible a given work will be remembered not necessarily because of its merits but rather external factors beyond its control. For instance, consider Ashita no Joe, Candy Candy, and Rose of Versailles, three 70s anime/manga that are commonly labelled classics as they were all well-received both inside and outside Japan and still fondly remembered in the countries that aired it back then. Are these works well-remembered because the works themselves were good? Or is it because they were the first anime seen by the viewers who had never seen anything like it before in cartoons of their native countries and was thus bound to leave more of an impression? There’s also the fact that all 3 of these anime are targeted to children. As kids, we’re much more susceptible to being influenced because of our inexperience with art in general. So it’s entirely possible that a given anime is well-remembered solely because it targeted us when we were most malleable.
So there you have it. My reasons for why I dislike the term “classic.” Just to be clear, I’m not saying “classic works” don’t exist, but merely that it’s just too imprecise for my liking so I’d much rather discuss specific well-defined aspects of a given work. If this were any other board than tohno-chan, I wouldn’t have bothered typing up all this because people would inevitably respond, “you expect me to read all that shit, nigga?” I also agree very much with this fellow >>6643. At the end of the day, the only two useful categories for me to judge art is those I like and those I dislike (I forgot which famous person this quote is from but if anyone knows, I’d be happy if you could jog my memory).
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