Help Wanted, Apply within

Hah, after writing about good and liking stuff here I am asking for recommendations.

Geez, just who do I think I am.

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of romance shows lately (Honey and Clover, NANA, Toradora!, Bokura ga Ita) and I'm looking for something else to watch along those lines. But I'm not really sure where to look, since this isn't really a genre I'm familiar with.

Any help would be appreciated.

In My View: What you’re expecting me to have standards?

So I spent my last post talking about the nature of "good" shows, but I haven't really addressed Coburn's fundamental conundrum.

What makes a show an all-time favorite? Or put better, what measures do I use to judge a show?

Now, I'll admit this is a hard question to answer because when I watch a show, I'm reacting to the show. I'm not trying to dissect exactly what I like about the show. I don't tend to categorize my complaints when I get around to dissecting the show. All of that makes this a tough question to answer.

Expectations, Standards and Biases

Recently, I watched Tokko. Now all-in-all, I enjoyed watching it, which got me thinking. What was it about the show I liked? That answer was pretty simple, I expected the main character to get superpowers about two episodes into the show. Instead, he spent half of the series without any kind of superpowers at all. Then after spending a long time developing the characters, building suspense and creating a level of excitement, he got superpowers.

In short, Tokko exceeded my expectations. For the sake of the argument, expectations are what I expect to see either after the preview or the first episode. My expectations are usually pretty low. If I'm watching a shounen fighting show, I expect to have a young plucky hero who will eventually have to fight a menacing bad guy after discovering his hidden reserves. If I get that, I'm happy.

So if a show does something I'm not expecting it to, then it can end one of two ways. Either I liked it, and the show exceeded my expectations, or I hated it, and the show fell below my expectations. Now my expectations aren't set in stone, if a show exceeds my expectations, then I expect it to continue to exceed my expectations. (That said, I'll usually forgive a show for having a few bad episodes.)

Now standards are what I want a show to do. I want a show to have a multi-layered, character-driven plot. I want shows to have flawed heroes. I want characters to be noticeably different at the end of the show then they were at the beginning of the show. To be honest, I don't expect these things. If I expected them, then they would be, well, expectations.

On a side note, I've found a lot of long-term reviewers tend to start replacing their expectations with their standards. Honestly, I find it a bit sad because they're going to always be disappointed.

On the other hand, biases are just stuff I like. While standards apply to any show, biases don't. For instance, I like fanatics. I find them fascinating. If a show has a fanatic then I'm probably going to like it. But I don't expect a show to have a fanatic.

Now it is kind of tricky to separate biases and standards. Standards apply to any fiction. While biases are just things I like, such as fanatics or war epics or WWI-style dogfights or dark, brooding anti-heroes.

What makes an all-time favorite show for me

So how does all of this sort out? Pretty simply actually, but a lot depends on the show. In all of the cases, these shows exceeded my expectations. In most of the cases, they hit at least one or two of my standards and they all featured at least one (or in the case of Last Exile A LOT) of my biases.

 

In My View: Coburn you have drug me out of the shadows

Coburn, Coburn, Coburn…

You've managed to drag me out of the shadows.

Anyway, I came across Coburn's post when DrmChsr0 linked it, and to be honest it's a subject I've thought a lot about. Of course that subject being favorite shows. Now I've didn't read the responses, mostly because I didn't really feel like it at the time, but I thought since this blog was the impetus for the original post, I should reply.

Okay, so how I define all time favorite shows is kind of tricky, and it'll take more than one post. I do want to start where Coburn started because I think we need a frame for what we're talking about when we talk about good, so I'm going to tread some tired ground and talk about rating systems.

Now Coburn opened by saying he was looking for a perfect "10" series. When he said that I started thinking: What defines a "10" anyway? Can I even classify series I watch as "10s" or without flaws. The assumption Coburn made was, I think of my all time favorite shows as "10s" and I find them flawless.

That isn't the case.

When I see a rating system, I see a completely arbitrary set of numbers. The problem with applying a rating to anything is it isn't just a measure of how much you enjoyed the show. It's a measure of how much you enjoyed the show at the time and in the mental state you watched it in. So if I'm tired and feeling grouchy and don't particularly feel like watching X giant robot show, and I watch X giant robot show I'm not going to like it as much as if I wanted to watch it. The same holds true if a show doesn't match my tastes, or if I got into a fight at work, or if I'm just feeling unpleaseant, or if I happened to give something else a low mark right before it. Or I happened to read lolkit's comment about how low his MAL average was before I went on a rating spree.

In fact, it's affected by so many factors any rating is largely a useless number if taken on its own. The only time a rating is useful to the average reader is when you have a whole bunch of them so you can see what the mean rating is (this is why ANN's encyclopedia is useful.)

Not only is a rating arbitrary, it's a cop out. All a rating says is how much the viewer enjoyed the show at the particular time he rated it.

It doesn't define good.

The problem with defining good

 

The problem we face when we start trying to define what is good probably can be summed up in a quote I'm stealing from iKnight (who stole it from someone else)

"There is a difference between something being good and liking it."

Now, I agree there is a difference. A rating system defines how much a person liked a show. However, I don't believe there is an empirical way to prove how "good" something is. Sure I could point out plot, character, world-building, theme, etc. and say they are "good." But what does that really mean? What if someone disagrees? Is their opinion less valid if they offer proof I'm wrong? Isn't any judgment on these issues simply a matter of taste?

So I'm left with a conundrum. Intuitively, I think iKnight is right, but, objectively, I can't prove it.

But I do think there's a solution. While I don't believe there is an empirical "good" like this quote seems to hint at, I do believe there is a more honest "good." The reason why I called any ratings system a cop out is because there's no accountability. If I say a show is a seven and someone says, "Well I think it's a nine." All I have to do is wave my hand and say, "Well it's just my opinion."

But if I say, "You should watch this show because I think it's good." You have to take responsibility for it one way or the other and on some level that is more pressure than simply saying, "Well it's good." There in lies the difference between something being good and just liking a show (or at least I think so.)

Now with my favorites, in most cases, I would say they are good and people should watch them.

But that isn't why they're my favorites. They're my favorites because their flaws are minor in comparison to what I like about them. Now that discussion is going to have to come later.