Is anime deep or just entertainment (or both)?

Since this interesting topic has come up on Anime Nano, I felt like putting my thoughts in too. The debate of whether “anime is deep or just entertainment” is a complex one. What is “deep” and what is “entertaining” can have different meanings to different people. But from what I’ve seen, and from what most people would define as “deep” and “entertaining,” I believe that some anime try to evoke a sense of depth in their audience while some are pretty much only focused on the entertainment factor. The term “anime” covers too wide a range of genres, stories, and perspectives to have just one adjective (“deep” or “entertaining” in this case) to describe the entire entity. It’s like saying “movies are deep/entertaining” or “books are deep/entertaining”; the word encompasses too many themes to narrow it down to such a broad description. There are so many different anime series, saying that “anime” in general is such and such is just too vague…

Ok, so I’ve made my general opinion about this topic clear – some anime are deep and some are just entertaining, but these adjectives are too vague to be attached to the general term “anime” alone. So what makes some anime deep and some not, or some both deep and entertaining?

If you asked an anime fan what they thought a “deep” anime was, they would probably mention series such as Evangelion, Wolf’s Rain, Ghost in the Shell, Death Note, or Gundam Seed. So what is it that these “deep” series have in common? Simply put, they seem to provoke thought in their audience rather than try to dull it. They don’t throw in random acts of hyperbolic comedy or predictable drama and thus they don’t take away the realistic mood of the series. Leaving unanswered questions and sometimes utilizing philosophical viewpoints, these series assume a certain level of intelligence in their viewers and let the viewers incorporate their individual interpretations, not unlike most great works of literature. But of course, since anime is primarily a commercial product, it would be unrealistic for a series to have depth but not any entertainment aspect. So while the mecha combat and fan service in Evangelion, and the sleek animation and violence in Wolf’s Rain, may make these series appear to be just entertainment, anyone who’s watched them in their entirety knows that these things are masks for something beyond entertainment. The fact that the endings to Evangelion and Wolf’s Rain can be debated long after the series have finished, or the fact that many different people can either justify or dismiss Light’s actions and opinions in Death Note or Lelouch’s sense of justice in Code Geass, proves that, at least to a certain degree, depth in anime exists if people are willing to use personal experience and cultural values to interpret an anime that does not serve its audience answers on a silver platter. I did not write an insanely long interpretation of Wolf’s Rain or comply a bunch of Eva ending debates for series that were just entertainment.

Some other series where the word “deep” probably does not come to mind as often but still have a sense of depth beyond their entertainment value would be Full Metal Alchemist, Noir, Chobits, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Fruits Basket. Though FMA is masked with violence and comedy at times, the themes of human weakness and helpful or harmful alchemy are very prominent. The cinematography and brilliant music in Noir, along with an ambiguous ending, make for a unique sense of depth. And although Chobits appears to be a cute shoujou series, one could make an argument for its themes of man vs machine and even love existing between the two. Likewise, Utena and Fruits Basket appear as pretty, flowery and sometimes comical shoujou anime, but their depth, like in most shoujou anime, lies not in the complexity of the story but in the characters. The inner conflict of these characters, the actions they take and the feelings they have, can also be endlessly debated.

Which leads right to another kind of depth in anime that I believe exists – the attachment one gets to a certain character or characters in a series. Anyone can have a favorite character in any TV show, movie, or book. But as all major anime fans know, there’s at least one character that goes beyond just that, sometimes they even feel that attachment to all the characters in a series. I’m sure many fans care more about the lives of certain anime characters than they do about real people; they collect pictures and other merchandise, cosplay as the character(s), talk about them with other fans, wonder what will happen to them in the series’ future, care about them when they get hurt, feel happy just seeing the character(s) doing what they do. Some fan girls/boys even fantasize about that character being real and having an actual relationship with them. Why is it that anime characters seem to provoke such emotional attachment from their viewers? It all comes down to anime placing comradeship, complexity, inner conflict, and personal flaws in their characters – in other words, a sense of realism and humanness in their characters that’s sorely lacking in most other shows and movies…depth in their characters. So not only can some anime have depth in their story but in their characters as well. Whether Shinji from Evangelion is a whiny brat or simply a victim of his time or whether Light’s ideals in Death Note are evil or not are one kind of character depth, but the other kind lies in character development. Now series such as One Piece and Inuyasha aren’t particularly “deep” at all yet the main attachment most fans have to these shows is solely from the characters. The fact that the main cast in One Piece and Inuyasha usually start off as enemies, grow to care about each other, form strong bonds with each other, cast away their troubled past and become willing to sacrifice themselves for each other. And among all this development, have adventures that are sometimes comical, dramatic, or action-packed. Call it wish-fulfillment or whatever you want, but the fact that anime fans can feel such strong emotional attachment to the characters in One Piece, Inuyasha, or any other anime, sometimes to the point of obsession, makes it clear that there’s more to the characters than just entertainment value.

So I’ve pointed out examples of depth in anime. And likewise, most fans would agree on certain series that are “black-and-white,” pure entertainment-only without any depth, mostly mainstream and kiddy series such as Pokemon, Naruto, Sailor Moon, or even Bleach would come to mind. Any anime whose target audience is young children will most likely lean towards the entertaining factor rather than depth for the obvious reason that children don’t yet have the mental capacity to appreciate anything too deep. But some mainstream series like Bleach for example, also focus more on entertaining their viewers rather than making them think too hard. Bleach doesn’t force us to interpret its story with our own imagination nor does it provoke us to think and ponder as to why things in the story happen the way they do. It gives us fast-paced action, drama, complicated fantasy, and intense characters, together with random hyperbolic humor – the things that most viewers will be entertained by. It deals the most with tangible things such as swords, sword fights, supernatural creatures, and alternate words as opposed to intangible things such as human nature, war, ideals, and personal conflict. That’s not to say that mainstream series are totally devoid of depth. One could make an argument for depth in Naruto; Gaara’s tragic past and subsequent character development as well as the nature of Naruto and Sasuke’s rivalry and whether Sasuke was right in his choices, are all a bit thought provoking. But then again, one can take a look at the Naruto filler episodes and see that this series is more concerned about entertaining its target audience, even if it does throw in depth now and then. And as I’ve mentioned above, though One Piece and Inuyasha are also more rooted in the entertainment aspect by focusing on fantastical adventures that don’t hold much universal value, their depth comes from the development of the characters. So even though most mainstream and kiddy series do not have much depth as far as their stories and plots go, beyond that, depth could still exist if the character development and relationships between the characters are well conceived. This all goes back to how Japan feels about anime as opposed to an American view – the Japanese place a heavy emphasis on their characters being believable with real human emotions regardless of how out-of-this-world or babyish the story is.

Well, I think I covered everything I have to say about the topic of anime being deep or just entertainment. To sum it all up, the word “anime” covers too wide a range or series to be assigned just one of these adjectives. There are some anime that are deep and some that are just entertaining. But if one gets to know a series well enough, most anime seem to have both aspects in them, leaning more towards one or the other depending on their target audience. Is deep anime better than entertaining anime, or vice versa? There’s no right or wrong answer since it all depends on what you’re looking for in your anime and how well the series carries out its depth or entertainment.

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Other blogs involved in this debate are:
* Bateszi
* Drastic My Anime Blog
* Heterochromia
* Hige Vs Otaku
* That’s Not Kanon
* T.H.A.T. Anime blog
* Cruel Angel Theses ♪
* The End of the World
* Anime Diet