When someone calls an anime they watch a “guilty pleasure,” they usually mean it’s a series that they know is bad but they enjoy it anyway for whatever reason. There are some people who enjoy nothing but anime that others would call guilty pleasures, whether they agree with that label or not, as well as people who don’t enjoy anything they can find significant flaws in. With such a wide range of feelings on what exactly defines a guilty pleasure amongst anime fans, I want to explore the subject further…
The most common definition of an anime guilty pleasure I’ve come across is a series one likes despite recognizing its often very noticeable flaws. Like I discussed in a previous post about “head” and “heart” scoring for anime, one would give a guilty pleasure a high heart score but a low head score. Even though logically they can see that it’s a bad anime, something emotional keeps them enjoying it, whether it caters to a fetish of theirs, brings out nostalgic feelings they may have, or just has some element they like so much that they’re willing to overlook the anime’s bad points.
In addition to this, typically an anime has to be considered bad by the general populace in order to attach that label of a guilty pleasure to it. After all, even if you think an anime is bad, if the majority of fans around you think it’s brilliant, you don’t need to feel “guilty” about watching and liking it too. So, whether you want to call something a guilty pleasure or not, is actually pretty dependent on the company you keep. For example, a 40-year old male anime fan might not feel any guilt about enjoying Cardcaptor Sakura, since most other anime fans do, but he certainly might feel like calling it a guilty pleasure amongst his male coworkers who aren’t into anime and would raise an eyebrow if they knew he enjoyed a cartoon about cute little magical girls (though whether he feels guilty or not depends on his personality). Anime fans who enjoy particular fetish-pleasing anime like hentai, yaoi, and yuri might also call these series their guilty pleasures even among fellow anime fans, since these are less universal genres than ones like mecha or shojo, and so are niche even in overall anime fandom.
However, I feel there’s an alternate definition for a guilty pleasure too. I would also call an anime a guilty pleasure if I enjoy it yet it’s something far removed from anime that’s aimed at my demographic – in other words, an anime that fans my age aren’t typically into, yet I enjoy it for my own reasons. A prime example of this kind of guilty pleasure for me would be Digimon; it’s a franchise whose main target audience is kids, particularly young boys, and most fans who share my age group and general taste in anime don’t care to watch it (I wouldn’t call the Pokemon franchise a guilty pleasure since it’s so massively popular, both nationally and internationally, among all ages. The anime maybe though…) Another example would be two very simply animated and simply written series about the daily lives of cats and their families – Chi’s Sweet Home and the currently airing Poyopoyo. Again, these two titles are very family/kid friendly and don’t appeal to the average young adult anime fan unless they have a particular fondness for cats, cuteness, simple comedy, and the like. It’s not that guilty pleasures like Chi’s Sweet Home and Digimon are bad anime…actually, they can be very good series for their genre. They’re just not what people would expect you to like.
Now we come to the extremes. I know there are fans out there who only like what others would call guilty pleasures. They might only watch an anime because they like fan-service and don’t care that the story is poorly written. Or they might still be a kid at heart and watch mostly kid shows like Doraemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! even though they know there are more mature anime out there they could be watching instead (I have the same attachment to Disney movies…in most cases I’d rather watch The Lion King again than check out the latest Hollywood action/drama/romance movie). Some of these fans might acknowledge that the anime they watch are guilty pleasures and feel at least somewhat embarrassed about it…or they might not consider them guilty pleasures at all and won’t give a damn if other people make fun of them. Then there are the more “connoisseur” fans (could be elitists but not necessarily) who only want to watch intelligent, mature anime, and things like cuteness, fan-service, yaoi/yuri, pleasing aesthetics, and any number of reasons one might have for a guilty pleasure don’t apply to them. In other words, they don’t have any anime guilty pleasures, whether their reason for this is because they’d rather suppress such feelings so as not to get ridiculed by other fans, or because they sincerely only enjoy top-quality anime.
To conclude, guilty pleasures are very dynamic things, as giving an anime such a label often depends on who you’re admitting it to rather than your own personal feelings. Maybe everything is a guilty pleasure depending on who you’re talking to, or maybe nothing is because one should never feel bad about the anime they enjoy, whether it’s the raunchiest fan-service filled series or the silliest little kiddy show. When it comes down to it, I feel that a guilty pleasure is something you choose to believe in or not.
It’s so wrong, yet feels so right. Anything cute works for me. In anime it’s yuri, lolicon and shoutacon. Yuri wouldn’t be too bad to explain, but young looking characters might be pushing it. Anime fans should be fine with it, but my friends might not be.
I want to find an anime with yuri lolis to maximise guilty pleasure.
Boku no Pico has yaoi shotas starting the second episode. And it would certainly qualify as a guilty pleasure by most definitions.
Yuri isn’t my thing but whatever floats your boat XD I don’t mind yuri relationships in regular anime as long as they’re not forced and there’s some good writing behind them. Utena is the one series that comes to mind for me as far as yuri I’ve seen.
200 episodes of Sailor Moon is my guilty pleasure. No one must know!
Nice, I want to watch all the episodes of Sailor Moon one day if I can ever build up the motivation. It was the very first anime I ever watched back in 1995, before I even knew what anime was! Since then I’ve only seen scattered episodes out of order.
The first two examples of my personal guilty pleasures that come to mind are Heartcatch! PreCure and Senki Zesshou Symphogear.
Heartcatch – Okay, so the PreCure franchise is pretty notorious. I’ve seen almost all of them, too. Long running mahou shoujo series with the exact same concept every time, recycled character archetypes, and obscenely annoying mascots. But the general consensus around the blogsphere is that Heartcatch is the best one, and actually a good show. And I kind of agree. I’m ten years older than the intended demographic and I enjoyed it. It’s got a great aesthetic, surprisingly likable characters, and it managed to do drama. Sure, it was still about twelve episodes too long, but what can you do?
Symphogear – Not sure if you read my Symphogear posts or not, but this show is so stupid. My god, the stupid and cliches never end. And yet it almost never fails to entertain me. It’s so bad that it’s good.
Mizuki Nana plays the main characters in both shows. I’m pretty sure that her presence contributed to my enjoyment. ;P
LOL, I was just gonna say that the reason I feel you’re enjoying Symphogear despite putting it down is because of Nana Mizuki XD I didn’t know she was in Precure too. But hey, if a favorite seiyuu is a good reason for you to watch a less than impressive anime, more power to you =D
“[A] guilty pleasure is something you choose to believe in or not.”
I’d agree completely; and I’d add that despite what other people categorise as worthy of being a ‘guilty pleasure’, whether the term applies comes down to you – especially where it comes to more ecchi or even just heavily moe anime.
Kodomo no Jikan is one of my favourite manga, but I wouldn’t classify it as a guilty pleasure, simply because I believe there is genuine quality in the work: it’s an excellent romantic comedy with strong, engaging characters a strong self-awareness that blah blah blah. I’d say the same of Strike Witches. Episodes 1 and 6 of both seasons provide the strongest examples of why I think it’s a good show: as well as stupid ecchi hilarity, there’s a real sense of heart and camaraderie. Plus the battles get pretty epic on occasions, and flying girls fighting laser-spamming geometric aliens with guns and magic shields is just plain awesome in general.
A series like Ro-Kyu-Bu! would be a borderline example for me. It tells a decent sports story with an interesting cast of characters, but at the same time it’s very moe and not that original. If it weren’t for the earnestness of the sports aspect and believable friendship of the characters, I’d qualify this series as a guilty pleasure, but not quite.
While there are some aspects of anime that invite disdain from more ‘serious’ anime fans – mainly things like moe, ecchi and the harem genre in general – I’d rather someone thought I liked a series about a girl who wants to have sex with her teacher than, say, any given crappy popular shonen anime where eight minutes of plot is dragged across eight episodes and which, despite being categorised ‘action’, contains pretty much no action and when there is some it’s just two frames being swapped with gratuitous speed lines.
CONCLUSION: If you think there’s worth in a series, feel superior that you recognise it where others are more narrow-minded. And ‘moe crap’ is hardly the only type of anime with popular examples that are lazy, merchandise-driven, boring, tedious, dull,or just plain crap.
I know Kodomo no Jikan and Strike Witches have strong fan followings despite their ecchi-ness, so I figure there’s gotta be some good writing behind all the fan service. I’m always glad to know that even in a genre like ecchi that’s precisely made to please fetishes, creators can indeed put honest effort and quality into these shows as well.
I’ve seen a good deal of shonen anime and I don’t feel they’re as dragged on as you imply (I’ve heard Dragon Ball Z is like that though I’ve never watched it), but as for your point about people’s preconceptions about moe anime and the idea that we should feel good about ourselves for finding something enjoyable in an anime most people think is bad…I would agree =)
My response to this post was too long….soooo….
I saw your post that’s pingbacked below. Thanks for the mention, glad I gave you something to blog about XD
When anyone mentions ‘guilty pleasure’ and ‘anime’ in the same sentence, I always think of Kyou Kara Maou!. The production qualities are fairly low and the series is far, far longer than I can normally tolerate (around 50 is my usual limit, and even then I sometimes get fidgety), not to mention the story gets downright silly at times. But gosh darnit, I love it to pieces anyway. I guess mostly it comes down to the yaoi fangirl in me – two guilty pleasures in one, if you will.
I’ve heard good things about Kyou Kara Maou!. It sounds like a series even non-yaoi fans can enjoy =)
Yeah, there’s no actual yaoi – just the suggestion thereof. It’s more of a fantasy-driven harem anime, to be honest. It’s just that in this case, it’s an all-male harem with the main character essentially taking the place of a girl.
Guilty pleasure series can be quite a fun experience. I believe everyone, even the most jaded and elitist of fans, should be able to look past a show’s flaws if it strikes some chord with them. Generally, my “head score” more or less agrees with my “heart score”, but there’s been quite a few shows that didn’t fit.
Needless is a series that I would consider a guilty pleasure. It basically is the anime equivalent of an extremely trashy Hollywood summer blockbuster. The main characters spend every episode screaming and pulling off a never-ending series of reversals (If I remember correctly, about literally half of the series was one endless fight scene that carried on from episode to episode). That, and the obnoxious levels of fan service, gave me every reason to hate it, but I blasted through the series in record time.
Symphogear is a more recent example. I honestly cannot figure out why I enjoy this show so much. The animation quality ranges from well below average to god-awful, the story is a generic mess that can’t quite decide whether it wants to rip off Madoka or not, there are no good male characters, and the main character is the exact kind of character that I hate. However, I still eat up the episodes and find myself enjoying it for some strange reason…
It really is interesting how we can recognize these flaws in anime, like you can with Needless and Symphogear, yet we still enjoy watching them regardless. Sometimes we know what that “chord” the series strikes is that makes us look beyond the flaws, for example, with me it’s usually cute/cool animals like with Chi’s Sweet Home and Digimon, for someone else it might be a yaoi or yuri couple. But sometimes we don’t know what the chord is either.
Incidentally, one of the commenters above, Myna, has similar guilty pleasure feelings about Symphogear ^^
“First of all I don’t watch that weird stupid stuff called anime. Second of all I definitely have NEVER seen anything stupid or girly. I’m a bada$$ dude, all I do is eat steak, chase chicks, and play football.”
*look around to make sure I’m alone. Turn Pretty Rhythm Auroa Dream back on for my love of figure skating and choreography that goes to Japanese music*
^^ and THAT is the dichotomy between life styles I find myself in. While I do enjoy steak, girls, and football(not necessarily in that order) I can’t openly blend them with my guilty pleasure which is probably anime in general. And while I do watch shows that aren’t that horrible or girly for the most part, every once in a while a show with a concept I’ve never heard of shows up and I’m doomed to watch it. Hahaha! I gotta say though, that show wasn’t as bad as I know it was. But for that, I blame bias!
Cheers to guilty pleasure! You’ll never catch me, societies perception of what is deemed normal!!! Mu-haw-haw-haw-haw!
While I don’t deny my interest in anime to society, and I never pretend that I don’t like it, I usually just downplay how much I like it or just don’t bring up the subject at all if I don’t have to. Of course, I’d never watch anime in public, like on a laptop or something, nor would I play anime music anywhere else but at an anime convention XD I do wear anime shirts and have an anime bag though…so I guess I don’t care about letting the average person know I like anime, I just don’t proactively talk about it if I don’t need to.
LOL, hope you can keep up your “steak, chicks, and football” facade XD
“A show not considered acceptable by your peers” might be one definition, as you imply, but in those cases it’s just something you will probably try not to mention at all, and there always is internal resistance to people labeling things you like as not deserving to be watched etc.
If I use the term, I have in mind a show that I personally enjoyed, but one that represents a more general undesirable tendency. I recently used the term to refer to Guilty Crown – it is watchable mostly because it’s pretty, but I could easily agree that scrapping the whole idea and dividing the budget between anime with more deserving stories would benefit the industry in general.
Then there are those crappy shows that have an “unfair advantage” by hitting one or more of very specific tropes that I find particularly enjoyable. I can often happily watch those, but have no delusions about the quality and the fact that they are not worth recommending to others, therefore my “guilty pleasures”.
Apparently I’m one of the few people who’s watching Guilty Crown and is enjoying it while taking it seriously. I know the plot is kind of a mess at times and a lot of things are contrived, but the drama, action, and overall story clicks with me…and I don’t think a huge amount of people hate it (it has a decent rating on MAL at least) so I wouldn’t think of it as a guilty pleasure. If I were to compare it to something like Chi’s Sweet Home though, while I feel Chi is actually a better written anime in terms of its genre, Guilty Crown has more universal themes that general anime fandom would find appealing, while Chi and all it’s kitty cuteness has a more limited audience.
I haven’t seen Chii but I suspect it doesn’t really contain themes that would make you feel guilty :-).
Now that I think about it, you can be e.g. a tough male and enjoy a series about cute cats – people will think you have funny tastes. Watch a series about cute grade schoolers and people will think you need serious help xD.
(As far as Guilty Crown is concerned, it’s selling reasonably well in Japan at some ~9000 discs per volume right now and it’s characters are popular enough too, I’d say it successfully achieves a broad appeal through some easily understandable themes combined with pretty execution in terms of art, songs, battle scenes and so on. It’s just that there’s no way this show can be called rewarding for a blogger who tries to get deep into the story and analyze stuff, because it’s honestly a mess in terms of plot and /not/ thinking too much about it makes it much easier to enjoy. Well, nothing evil about this kind of show, but it’s probably not something that will be remembered for long…)
I’ve never actually thought about some animes being a guilty pleasure. Though I think for me the Sora no Otoshimono series would have to be considered a guilty pleasure series.
I always tend to decribe myself as one who will watch a show with deep story, well developed characters, and good artwork. I look down on shows that are just fan-service and strictly fan-service. This is why I’d call Sora no Otoshimono a guilty pleasure. As a whole, the show is just fan-service thrown in the viewers face, which I’d usually get bored of and drop, yet I still watched both seasons, and plan on watching the third season and the movie. I rate Sora no Otoshimono as one of my favorite series, which I’ll admit, does make me sound hypocritical.
It’s actually kinda funny how guilty pleasures work. I will proudly state that I’ve watched Panty and Stocking, all of the moe-blobs, and plenty of other series; however, I always get a bit embarrassed when I talk about a show that is pretty much, a majority fan-service.
That’s interesting that one of your favorite anime is fan-service filled despite the fact that you desire anime with deep stories and developed characters. It must really have something strong that clicks with you in order to override the fan-service. I think a lot of us like to say we have the “default” reasons for liking an anime – well written story, developed characters, etc., – when the truth is we really just like an anime if it entertains us or offers us a specific trope we can’t resist. Sometimes these things happen to be good stories and characters, but other times they’re not.
Hum… Not quite sure I agree with that definition of a guilty pleasure… To me, a guilty pleasure is something that feels good, but may be harmful in some way. Like eating a whole chocolate cake. It is probably delicious, but eating 3000 calories in one sitting is no good. That would make you feel a bit guilty afterwards :)
So if you want an anime because you like it at some level (be it fan service, kids show, etc), then I do not think of it as a guilty pleasure, just a pleasure. Like the example, I’m a grown man already, but I love cardcaptor Sakura. I do not consider it a guilty pleasure, I simply like it. I know society may not take it very nicely, so it may be socially unaccepted, but I do not feel guilty about it.
So I would not quite pin that label on it. Watching anime at home by yourself does not harm anyone at all, so you may feel a bit embarrassed talking about it, but nothing to feel guilty about.
Interesting thought that a guilty pleasure should be confined to overeating or otherwise harmful things, and not for a hobby like anime ;) Going by your definition, if an anime can actually bring harm to you – if not physical, than perhaps social, like making you ignore real life obligations or something – then it could be called a guilty pleasure. But if it’s just something you watch and might feel a bit embarrassed about, no need to feel guilty.
I just wrote a post about that phrase a week ago. In short, whether it is used to imply that the guilty pleasure show is really bad, or to quality anime that’s genre is riiculed by the viewer’s peers, I don’t like it’s existence.
It’s a spineless, sneaky phrase for people who want to sound as dismissive about the “it’s popular to hate them” shows as everyone else, but with an excuse to continue watching them.
If my peers think that just because they hated x show and I like it there is something wrong with me, THEY should feel guilty about being arrogant judgemental elitists, not me.
And if I actually liked a show, *I* should have the spine to say that it was good, instead of pandering to the haters, and playing along with them by pretending that it’s a shame of mine.
Very good points about why the idea of guilty pleasures can be bad. In all honesty, I don’t use the term seriously in real life – I might call a few of the anime I watch guilty pleasures in a light way amongst my anime-loving friends, all the while I never feel ashamed of myself for liking these shows nor do my friends think less of me for it. I’d never use the term in more formal situations among people who aren’t into anime though – I tend to be shy about my love for anime but I’d never describe it to someone in a way where I’m putting myself down for liking it. I’m proud of my fandom even if others don’t get it! XD
No guilty pleasures for me.
The main reason to feel guilty is if you’re harming someone, of course. So obviously you can’t do that by watching anime. But you might not get that instinctively. If you were to talk about love for CCS in some testosterone-filled environment and get disapproving reactions from your peers; well, we have instincts which tell us if our peers are disapproving, we might be doing something wrong. Hence a feeling of guilt. But I’ve got the moral confidence to dismiss such a reaction. I might well avoid talking about CCS in certain environments, but it’s very clear in my mind that it’s because some people are likely to misinterpret the information, not because there’s anything wrong with it.
The other notion of a “guilty pleasure”, as in cake, at least makes objective sense. Too much cake is bad for someone (on a normal Western diet), and equally, it would be possible for too much of certain types of anime to be “bad” for your mental state, (although there certainly wouldn’t be any show which is “bad” in of itself, it’s going to depend on the person viewing it, and what their needs and problems are, and working out when this is the case is horribly difficult anyway, to the point of impossibility.) But an instinct in the back of your head saying “watching these things probably isn’t a good idea for me” will certainly have a chance of being a genuine warning.
But even in this case, I don’t think “guilty” is a very good word. Because it’s based on this whole Puritan “you should feel guilty about things which give you pleasure” attitude. You do of course need to take care with pleasurable impulses, eating that entire cake will indeed make you feel sick later, but getting mired in guilt as a mechanism for this is just silly.
But in any case, I’ve got a nice and varied anime diet, so I’m not worried about it being unhealthy.
As always, excellent thoughts, particularly what you said with CCS as an example. Like I mentioned in the post, the “guilt” from a guilty pleasure seems to come more from our company than ourselves. It always irritates me when people act differently or flat out lie just for the sake of not getting disapproval from their peers. In a situation like you described, while I wouldn’t openly talk about exactly how much I love anime, if asked I certainly wouldn’t lie or act like I feel ashamed of myself for liking it. But there are definitely people out there who value the approval or their peers more highly than I do, hence they’d be more likely to use the term guilty pleasure.
Similar to what Kal said above, maybe it’s best to leave the term for cake and similar things that can obviously cause you harm, whether physical or mental. Anime might cause you harm if you stay up too late watching it or it messes up your social life, but for most of us, it’s nothing to feel guilty about.
As a seiyuu fan I probably have more guilty pleasures than most people, but I really don’t feel that guilty about most of them (with the exception of Queens Blade and Seikon no Quaser, I am genuenly ashamed of myself for liking those shows, but their cast does such a great job…)
If there is one type of anime I strongly feel guilt about is something I’d call an anti-guilty pleasure- shows that I understand that are great, but somehow don’t feel like watching till the end- things like the currently airing “Another”, and completed works like “Seirei no Moribito” or “Rainbow Shichinin”, the same goes for some games, par example, Chaos;Head- I’m half way through that game since last summer, but just can’t find the drive (the drive, not the time) to finish it. Instead I somewhat prefer replaying, rewatching and relistening games, anime and drama cds I already finished long ago.
Ah, I can certainly see how being a seiyuu fan could bring about more guilty pleasures for you. After all, a good anime seiyuu cast is what you’re seeking, and your interest in that may be strong enough to overlook things most fans deem #1, like a good story and characters.
I never thought of the idea of anti-guilty pleasures – I usually call anime I don’t like much but other people adore overrated. I don’t have many of these since I tend to finish most anime I start and usually like the very popular titles. I’m the opposite with games though; I like to replay my favorite ones rather than seek out popular titles.
My first guilty pleasure is that I’m a sucker for a good romance, especially if it’s within a ecchi comedy. I sometimes put up with disappointing ecchi harem shows just so I can see some level of romance. Sadly, most of these shows go out of their way to avoid any romance plot progression and the protagonist is sometimes downright awful. I’m starting to realize that I should just stop watching them or I’ll end up becoming masochistic. It may already be too late.
This season “Ano Natsu de Matteru” is by far the most amazing romance comedy I’ve seen in awhile. To me it’s right up there with “ToraDora.”
“Mayo Chiki” was a recent show where I felt the romance between the two main characters was sufficient even though it was harem show. The progress was still a bit slow. But at least it’s got a kiss scene.
My second guilty pleasure is my big three seiyuus; Eri Kitamura, Kana Hanazawa, and Yoko Hikasa. when I hear their voices i go “HNNNNNG”.
Eri is particularly good cause she has a more sultry type voice that I really enjoy.
Her characters also seem to get semi-erotic scenes. Recent ones being “Nisemonogatari, “CubedxCursedxCurious” and “Mayo Chiki.” She was amazing as Kanade Suzutsuki in “Mayo Chiki.”
With Kana. She has the more adorable style voice. I’m actually willing to watch shows I would avoid just cause she has a major part in one. Ro-kyu-bu was a recent one that comes to mind. I don’t like the way some shows sexual-ize preteen girls. It’s getting to be a bad trend that’s getting worse in Anime. I actually dropped the show half way through cause I didn’t like where it was heading. I really hope that Kana isn’t forced into doing shows like that in the future.
As for Yoko. I just enjoy her deep tone. She was really good in “Infinite Stratos” and she is really good as the lead in “High School DxD”.
I’m a sucker for romance too, though sometimes even a good main couple can’t make me overlook the terrible quality of the rest of the show. Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu is the closest thing I’ve come to watching an ecchi harem show, and the only thing that kept me going is the romance between the main couple and the otaku subject matter. But as expected from a bad harem show, instead of using episodes to further develop the main romance, the show kept falling back into harem form and had episodes focused on the male lead in awkward seductive situations with all the other female characters. Doesn’t help that he’s a typical wimpy male lead to boot.
If an anime has seiyuu I like, that can certainly boost how much I like it XD Not sure if it could ever be enough to override things like story and characters for me though.
My guilty pleasure is Zero no Tsukaima. The story is going nowhere, but that Louise is sooooo cute.
Louise is the only one of the four Rie Kugimiya “tsundere wonders” I haven’t seen XD
I watch a huge variety of anime, and love it all. The shows I call a guilty pleasure for me are any shows I know my peers would probably make fun of me for enjoying – this could be the really cute stuff geared towards a younger audience than myself, or the over the top fan service shows. If a show can somehow make the characters & their story endearing to me, then I am hooked even if a lot of people think it is tasteless or too silly.
Yes, as long as a show is endearing to you, whether it’s for your age-group or not shouldn’t matter =)
When it comes to anime, not many that I consider guilty. Video games on the other hand…the Hyperdimension Neptunia duology is the closest one I can think of. I know both games aren’t revolutionary or great games, they’re okay. The content in them is intense enough to qualify them as guilty pleasures. I know many won’t like these games but I like them regardless of their flaws. Besides, they cater to my naughtiness quite nicely.
Mito No Daiboken. I own the series. It features a space pirate with the body of a child, but she doesn’t act like a child. In her own way, Mito drives a stake through the heart of the anime cute girl stereotype.