/otaku/ - Japan / Otaku / Anime

Nature documenteries are the closest thing the west has to slice of life. Seriously, if you want live action slice of life there are tons of great asian dramas/movies.

>Can you think of an example of a Western show/movie that comes close to the SoL genre?
I want to say most sitcoms come somewhat close to this until they run long enough and start shipping their characters just to stretch out it's life and keep the ratings but I ignore most of it because it's rarely ever something I want to watch.
>non-romantic relationships
I want to agree but that always feels a little rare even for anime since so many slice of life series like to bring in some amount of yuri.
Also is a thread that asks about western media something that should be in /otaku/ and not just in /lounge/?

>>1509
I don't think it is because of the genres. The best example I can think of is what happened to ghost in the shell when it got a western adaptation. It went from being about technology and humanity and evolution to a very narcissistic focus on motokos self and childhood.

The characters in anime seem to be connected with a larger world, and to other people, in a way that evokes a certain harmony. Hence the comfiness that appears in both slice of life and action. In western media the only real value or truth originates from the minds of the main characters, so seeing everything else through this subjectivity and devaluing all other perspectives.

>>1509
>and a strong focus on warm, happy, non-romantic relationships
never thought of it this way but i Agree, except for the non-romantic relationships, where i agree with >>1512, the yuri undertone is almost always there and is a big part of those series even though they're never in the spotlight.
I think the difference is that western series try to show many sides of romance to make the audience identify with the characters or just force MC-MC and SC-SC (side character) relationships.

>>1512
>I want to say most sitcoms come somewhat close to this
Sitcoms usually rely too much in the "this is funny and you should laugh at it" apporach, while anime SoL rely more on "this is weird/unusual so you should laugh at it" approach, in my opinion.

>>1512
And if it were posted in /lounge/ they would say "shouldn't this be in /oktaku/?" lol. Does any meta-analysis of anime need to be done as far away from the actual audience as possible to avoid the risk of offending the sensibilities?


>>1512
>>1514
You're certainly right that many SoL have yuri undertones, but when I say there's a focus on non-romantic relationships I mean the point of the show isn't that the characters need to get together for a satisfying payoff. In other words, none of these shows are "romances". Sure, in K-ON it's hinted that Mugi is interested in girls, and there's the slightest tinge of sexual tension in a few scenes; and in Dragon Maid, Toru is overtly in love with Kobayashi (and also all the dragons have huge honkers because Coolkyousinnjya draws whatever he wants), but nobody would argue these are romances. And I think that's the important distinction. The show can still give the characters warm, loving, close bonds of friendship without it needing to be a romance, and I feel (perhaps unjustly, and that's what I'm trying to get at in this thread) that this element is missing from Western shows.

I never thought of that. I think western media has a different approach to get the same SoL feel. Whilst fiction tends to either be dramatic or comedy, shows like how its made or bob ross fill the down to earth/relaxed feeling. The only example of a western cartoon I would call SoL would be little bear. The demographic is different where little bear is for young children while the shows you listed are for young adults and up but heh but it's an example none the less.

>>1511
>if you want live action slice of life there are tons of great asian dramas/movies.

That's interesting. Do you have a specific recommendation? Even if it's not Western, it would be quite interesting to compare an animated and a live action slice of life. I've heard it suggested that autistic people have an easier time empathizing with the exaggerated expressiveness of animated characters, and though I don't think I'm autistic I'm very curious how much of my attraction for anime lies in the simple fact that it's animated, and how much of it lies in some sort of fundamental difference in the themes present in anime vs more traditional media.

>>1517
Whoa, you're bringing back a part of my childhood I'd completely forgotten about. Little Bear is a great example! And I think you're really onto something with the idea that the "serial documentary" (I don't know what the actual genre term would be) fills that SoL/empathetic connection niche in the West. Another example I can think of of this (Bob Ross was a good one) is Mythbusters. People LOVE Mythbusters, and they don't just love it for the experiments; they love it for Jamie and Adam, their warm personalities, and the continuing lore and almost "friend simulator" quality of the show that goes far beyond the simple experiments.

As far as cartoons go, Western animation is almost always either aimed at kids or very crude comedy for adults (family guy, american dad, whatever they're all the same). I think the Bronie craze a few years ago speaks to the lack of diversity in cartoons in the West. I suspect that there are a lot of young adults/adults that really wanted that warm, drama free story of friendship, and unfortunately one of the only outlets for that was MLP. Obviously some people only jumped onboard for the meme, and the fandom is super cancerous, but I suspect there were a lot of people who were simply looking for a SoL.

>>1518
Stuff like Swing Girls, the Little Forest movies, and Eat Drink Man Woman probably aligns closely to your idea of SoL.

>>1512
Most slice of life manga and anime actually are primarily sitcoms or gag comedies. We just don't tend to think of them that way because of the difference in medium and themes. Slice of life is a narrative technique, not a genre per se, and even among iyashikei the series that puts that relaxing sort of voyeurism before everything else is relatively uncommon.

>>1509
The best western slice of life ever created is the star trek tng episode "data's day". Also the adult swim show "joe pera talks to you" is very different from typical slice of life stuff but evokes a similar feeling. Outside of that I don't know what else exists. I think the reason is that SOL anime air very late at night, to the point that if you're watching it, it's because you stayed up specifically to catch it. Therefore they can get away with the more niche brand of story telling / guarantee that the audience is not going to get bored and change the channel. In the west we don't have the same focus on niche TV audiences because TV makes money by trying to show you as many ads as it can, where as anime makes money by selling very expensive DVDs to a niche but hyper dedicated fan base. People in the west aren't used to DVDs being that expensive so that model doesn't work here.
Oh, another idea I just thought of is British panel quiz shows (the american equivalent is who's line is it anyway). They're comedy focused for sure, but they're generally not THAT funny, and especially a show like QI is more like banter than tryhard comedy. because the BBC is publicly funded they can't be seen giving too much money away as prizes, so who can you get on a quiz show and get away with not paying them a prize? well, comedians who don't play the game seriously and riff constantly. It's kind of like a let's play, where the focus is on the jokes and the game just serves as material. now that i think about it that's very different from SOL anime i'm just trying to think of "comfy" TV.

used to get stoned and watch little bear