Ack… I just hurt my brain.

I think his point was about the facial features. Because they’re in general pretty generic, especially the lead, it allows the viewer to insert themselves into the show. It was an interesting idea.

Really though, iknight actually does a good job of analyzing shows in a more academic way. And to be fair, so do you. I mean if you start talking about character, plot, pacing and themes then your at the beginning of a literary analysis. Granted, they have all sorts of different types of analysis.

(Long winded explanation, woot!)

Anime characters don’t have many distinguishing characteristics? For an average harem lead male, perhaps, but I think a large part of characters are extremely memorable in appearance; hair color, accessories, so on. But then again, maybe the point is to have one blank-slate character for the viewer to insert themselves into, while the rest of the characters are more fantasy-based and less com parable to real life. That could be a little bit of the ol’ wish-fulfillment deal going on there.

I haven’t talked about – barely even read – books on any sort of serious level beyond the high school curriculum, or at least not recently; one thing that bugs me about literature is that there’s so much of it, it’s hard to find a place to start. Then again, anime might be the same, I just have blogs for it to tell me what to watch.

As far as the last paragraph, I heard an interview with Crispin Freeman once about why people associate so much more strongly with anime characters than they do with movies (and to a lesser extent books) has a lot to do with the art. Because the characters are drawn without many distinguishing characteristics it’s easier for the viewer to subsitute themselves into the show.

Although, I do think it is possible to dialogue about anime the same way you might dialogue about books. But on some level, I think he has a point.