Alright, this week’s Aniwords is live! Sorry, I’m late posting it over here—I was busy watching the pile of crap that was Charlotte. Anyways, this week I used a sparkly title to talk about getting mad at people’s opinions. This honestly isn’t really even about anime that much, but more about the things that happen around anime watching (or engaging with any kind of media, really).
I’m not sure how much I actually like this post, but it came to me pretty easily, so that’s good, I guess?
Mage in a Barrel 
I’ve never actually had the kind of reaction to hearing someone speak ill of the shows I like that you described. It probably has to do with the fact that i don’t really have any shows that are important to me, something I realized after reading your piece from the beginning of the month. Like, there aren’t any anime that are meaningful to me. They’re all just entertainment, so that desire you speak of of wanting to stand up and defend the anime that you like is foreign to me. However, I have quite frequently experienced a feeling that is kind of the opposite to that one.
For reasons I don’t really understand, hearing people speak favourably of anime which I dislike makes me want to decry those anime as loudly and as harshly as I can. It’s a reaction that really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. These are shows that I dislike, so my own base assumptions and ideologies shouldn’t be a factor, right? Yet the impulse to attack these shows seems to be just as strong as the impulse other people have to defend the works they love.
It’s kind of an ugly impulse now that I think about it, wanting to tear down something someone else likes.
Hmm…this comment has gotten a bit dreary, so I’ll wrap this up by saying that I hope that your next piece is just as thought provoking as this one. No pressure though.
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