I really wish characters in animes didnt explain obvious things every 5 minutes.

[Nightmare799]

Gee Lust, I can totally see that Mustang is pressing his hand on his cauterised wound, and that the picture he drew on his arm with suspicious red color (I mean he totally must have found a small bucket of red paint on his way to her to draw that huh?) Is most likely the alchemy crest painted with his own blood. Also the fact he uses lighter as a trigger is pretty self explainatory considering the fact he immolates her 5 seconds after explaing it.

 

IMO, writers should really refrain from destroying the tension and intensity by characters to explain every little thing.

[Yuuko]

Ehh I have never been bothered by stuff like this. They also have to make the episodes to last for 20 minutes

[Zodai]

Most of the time this is known as an exposition/info dump and is usually advised against.

 

That said, I think I know what scene you're talking about (Assuming it's Brotherhood) and I actually remember liking it quite strongly.  One possible event is that they simply needed something to draw the pacing out before the climax, and used dialogue to fill that gap with something that fits things thematically that happens to fit the information giving as well.

 

At least, in theory.  It's been many years since I've seen it.

[Nightmare799]

Ehh I have never been bothered by stuff like this. They also have to make the episodes to last for 20 minutes

[Fiddle]

But I sometimes forget that people die when they are killed.

[ExtraMana]

This is your little sister.

This girl who you found has amnesia.

She does not know things.

btw did you know she doesn't remember things

Also you remember your sister right

One episode of anime,.

[firecat]

ya writiers do that a lot, it becomes a habit too.

[Nightmare799]

This is your little sister.

This girl who you found has amnesia.

She does not know things.

btw did you know she doesn't remember things

Also you remember your sister right

One episode of anime,.

 

This...

 

This is way too accurate...

 

 

But I sometimes forget that people die when they are killed.

 

This kind of became trademark of fate stay night huh? Which reminds me that fate animes are one of worst offenders of this issue.

[Kaguya]

Unless it happens in JoJo, on which case it's awesome.

Imagining that without exposition is.... *shudder*

[Nightmare799]

Unless it happens in JoJo, on which case it's awesome.

Imagining that without exposition is.... *shudder*

 

I would really like to see more fumoffu examples. What does Sagura do when Tsubaki starts channeling his bullshit exposition? He just pulls out his gun, loads rubber bullets, and shoots him in the face.

[Down]

Unless it happens in JoJo, on which case it's awesome.

Imagining that without exposition is.... *shudder*

Well it depends...

 

>King Crimson without exposition

 

>King Crimson WITH exposition

[solidbatman]

Show, don't tell should be the number 1 rule all writers follow. Sadly, 90% of anime is simply advertisements for a different work, and the writing is often very poor. This results in telling and not showing.

 

 

It could also be they feel anime viewers are as dumb as a bag of rocks and they feel the need to explain everything. 

[Zodai]

Show, don't tell should be the number 1 rule all writers follow. Sadly, 90% of anime is simply advertisements for a different work, and the writing is often very poor. This results in telling and not showing.

 

 

It could also be they feel anime viewers are as dumb as a bag of rocks and they feel the need to explain everything. 

 

Show don't tell is actually a bit more complicated than that - when treated as law it leads to them showing everything and bogging down the pacing.  The key in and of itself lies in information management, what does the audience already know, what does the audience need to know and what is the most entertaining way to convey that information?

 

If the voice doing the telling is engaging enough, telling can be a strong tool in its own right, especially if you're in a situation where showing isn't quite usable.  A flashback of sorts with heavy narration might be an example of this, for example.  If you're in a high-action scene with lots of stuff flying around, it depends on which style can create a vivid enough image in the smallest number of words.

 

There's also an argument to be made of 'Showing by Telling' but it's a little complicated and I don't know how to fully wrap my head around it myself yet ^^;;

[madvanced]

This kind of became trademark of fate stay night huh? Which reminds me that fate animes are one of worst offenders of this issue.

This particular case would have to do with the writing style itself of Nasu rather than anything else(assuming we aren't talking about any of Deen's blasphemy). Nasu likes to write things with at least a certain degree of descriptiveness(it can be quite a lot more often than not) which can turn some people off, I personally quite like it.

[Nosebleed]

It really depends on the degree of it as well as the context.

 

Exposure is necessary in one way or another and it can be done well just as it can be done badly.

 

I don't really mind characters talking about what's happening on screen to be honest, it's easy to get used to it and as long as they don't exaggerate the hell out of it I won't be bothered.

 

And even if they exaggerate the hell out of it *cough* Bakemonogatari *cough* it can be done right if you have a good scripwriter.

[joehawks12]

and i wish that my dick could suck itself, but neither of these things are ever going to happen.

[Kaguya]

Well it depends...

 

>King Crimson without exposition

 

>King Crimson WITH exposition

Eh, still better with exposition. I'd rather not think by myself about the whole erasing time thingy. 

[Darklord Rooke]

Show don't tell is actually a bit more complicated than that - when treated as law it leads to them showing everything and bogging down the pacing.  The key in and of itself lies in information management, what does the audience already know, what does the audience need to know and what is the most entertaining way to convey that information?

 

If the voice doing the telling is engaging enough, telling can be a strong tool in its own right, especially if you're in a situation where showing isn't quite usable.  A flashback of sorts with heavy narration might be an example of this, for example.  If you're in a high-action scene with lots of stuff flying around, it depends on which style can create a vivid enough image in the smallest number of words.

 

Definitely more complicated than that, but it's the number 1 rule because beginner writers constantly suffer from this problem. The number 1 problem with writing is an overuse of “tell” which is why this rule is thrown out so much – in other words, learn the basics before you try and be fancy.

 

You are correct about which style is needed to create a vivid image, you should realise though that tell limits the information received by the reader and is therefore infinitely harder to create a vivid image by telling. So if someone is a beginner, if they aren't a master wordsmith who has mastered the language through decades of study, if they aren't a natural linguistic genius, they should stick with mostly “showing.” The rule's there for a reason. "Showing by telling" - not for beginners imo, advanced concept employed a lot by people who have a certain control over the language. 

 

Regarding the topic - anime has the privilege of being one of the mediums most likely to want to drum information into your head over and over again, like the creators think the audience is too stupid to get it. Considering most anime are aimed at a younger audience, it’s too be expected though. I generally don’t like the style anime employs, I prefer a more subtle writing style tbh. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy anime, it’s just I don’t enjoy their storytelling style, I find it a little crude.

[Lexyvil]

I agree at times. I love speculating on my own without any fictional character explaining things; it becomes too cliched and not as realistic of a story when there are constant hints. I always prefer visual explanations or situations that is dependent on the reader/watcher's opinions alone on how events are perceived, like that it makes you feel rewarded when you pay attention to an event that turns out to be true to your speculations in the end.

 

I love figurative works where it's all up to the person experiencing the plot to put the pieces together until at least the later parts of the story; it's why I'm a big fan of some selected Mystery-genre stories (let it be games, novels, mangas, animes, movies, shows, etc).

[Nightmare799]

Regarding the topic - anime has the privilege of being one of the mediums most likely to want to drum information into your head over and over again, like the creators think the audience is too stupid to get it. Considering most anime are aimed at a younger audience, it’s too be expected though. I generally don’t like the style anime employs, I prefer a more subtle writing style tbh. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy anime, it’s just I don’t enjoy their storytelling style, I find it a little crude.

 

I have always thought of most anime as of a way to visualise story into art while avoiding making film or 3D animation. The lovely thing about anime is that you can make practically anything possible as long as you can write and draw it, bypassing the posibilities of acted film, while avoiding the often childish looking 3D style. I mean, I have never seen a critically acclaimed 3D animation that has adult themes to be honest.

 

What I meant with what I written above, is that writers of anime should realize that quite a good number of the fans are normal grown-ups of at least average intelligence. I usually need to be told things once to comprehend them, not 6 times in the course of 10 minutes.

 

Yeah sometimes recap of what the heck is going on is nice, but that should be reserved for the start of the episode, before the opening IMHO.

 

I agree at times. I love speculating on my own without any fictional character explaining things; it becomes too cliched and not as realistic of a story when there are constant hints. I always prefer visual explanations or situations that is dependent on the reader/watcher's opinions alone on how events are perceived, like that it makes you feel rewarding when you pay attention to an event that turns out to be true to your speculations alone.

 

I love figurative works where it's all up to the person experiencing the plot to put the pieces together until at least the later parts of the story; it's why I'm a big fan of some selected Mystery-genre stories (let it be games, novels, mangas, animes, movies, shows, etc).

 

Ïneed. The fact that the anime is thought inducing and allows degree of individual thinking is IMO a good thing. Now that I think about it, this is probably why I liked steins gate anime so much.

[hsmsful]

I find it mostly ok and easy to get used to. Most of the time the anime has more unbearable problems than such a small problem. I only found this really unbearable in mahou shoujo and shounen anime. Not that what we say here will change. I guess it's more like a way to pass time and for some reason people think it bumps the blood of the spectator before the climax if u insert an exciting obvious infodump (which might or might not be using a dubstep track as bgm), whether or not that works is really subjective and changes from one human to another.