Which things do you value more?

1. Characters
2. Plot
3. Visuals
4. Worldbuilding
5. Themes

I have never seen a good anime that doesn't have good characters.
Looking for deep themes in anime is a total meme.

snk

You can have a good story with shallow characters where it focuses on the plot

all anime characters are shallow, no exception.
attempts to write deep characters end with schizophrenics like itachi juggling twelve completely different shallow personalities

this is what happens when the mangaka believes he can write deep characters

Evangelion

Higurashi

Nah

Characters > themes > visuals > plot

worldbuilding

i have never watched anything higurashi, but you can't be serious with the grotesque caricatures populating nge

Witch Hat Atelier

I'm happy to see the spread we're getting here. You, my friends, are not NPC's.

I am an NPC though

Plot, Themes, Characters, and World are the same thing.

World building is not as important as plot, characters, and themes.

No, the more time you spend on one, the less time you have for the other

I'm a little retarded so I don't even pick up on themes a lot of the time unless the author slams me over the head with it repeatedly.

1. Plot

Anime has no plot, just tropes.

2. Characters

Wrong. Anime has no characters, just templates.

3. Visuals

Wrong. Anime has no visuals, everyone just reuses same moe "art"style.

3(Wrong it is 4). Themes

Wrong. Anime has no themes, just tropes.

4(And this is 5). Worldbuilding

Wrong. Anime has no world-building. Their values are hermetic and don't stretch outside of the borders.
Fantasy? Wrong, it just japanese game Dragon Quest.
Sci-fi? Wrong, it's post-apocaliptic world where "only Japan survived".
Therefore it should be renamed to "Japan-building".

In a perfect world, where anime isn't slightly re-arranged slop, from the tropes reinforced by editorial; I would say it should be 1 > 5 > 3 > .

And besides, it is impossible to write a plot without any characters. "Plot" and "charcters" should be same point. Same goes for themes. As the theme, is aftermath of the plot. Without plot there is no theme.

what about old anime that was made by people with actual life experience and stories to tell who also were chads and weren't afraid to show their face

Watch more.

And besides, it is impossible to write a plot without any characters. "Plot" and "charcters" should be same point. Same goes for themes. As the theme, is aftermath of the plot. Without plot there is no theme.

It is possible to write a plot with shallow characters. A mystery can have a complex plot but completely shallow characters.
It is possible to write a plot without themes (that the author intends to exist). A mystery can also have a complex plot with no actual meaning.

It really depends. A good director can make basically anything work.
Ping Pong is proof you don’t need great visuals if the direction, themes, and characters are good enough.
Redline is proof you don’t need deep plot or themes if the visuals and direction are good enough.
Made in Abyss is proof you don’t need a deep plot if the visuals and worldbuilding are good enough.

I would probably put direction in visuals

Worldbuilding > Characters > Plot > Themes > Visuals

The interesting thing about good worldbuilding is that it can carry all the other aspects if they're weaker, but you can also ignore worldbuilding and still produce great works. But if you want to build a long lasting franchise & a fandom, then it's imperative. Just look at JJK or Demon Slayer that ran out of steam the moment they ended.

Visuals are the least important though, because neglecting everything else just ends up with the equivalent of a music video than a actual anime.

I disagree. Ping Pong’s art (and the animation in particular) is pretty poor by most standards, but the direction more than makes up for it. If the animation was smoother, I wouldn’t say it was the director’s doing.

Characters over everything else. Characters are what make anime and all surrounding media stand out in the first place.

And by direction, I’m referring to the framing of shots, the decisions of what to show when, the character themes, etc. Basically all the conceptual stuff you can’t take a screenshot of.

Characters are what make anime and all surrounding media stand out in the first place.

Visuals do.

anon doesn’t know what books are

1. Themes
2. Worldbuilding
3. Characters
4. Plot
5. Visuals

In most anime, characters are most important followed by everything else that surrounds the characters.

To be fair, she has experienced being abandoned and looked down on by the many

It's okay do make your best friends life miserable cause you had a bad childhood

Plot is what makes a story memorable and unique, any all time greatest fiction media needs to have a compelling plot, a truly great plot is extremely rare in any media, borderline non-existent in anime

Some anime with good plot/plots:

Natsume's Book of Friends

Cowboy Bebop

Ergo Proxy

Kanon

Anime characters usually fit into the same simple archetypes so I don't expect much in terms of characters usually, but that does make shows with unique characters a lot more memorable. Archetypes can also be done well or poorly, using archetypes well can result in good characterization despite a show seeming generic.

Some anime with good characters:

FLCL

Cowboy Bebop

Michiko and Hatchin

Myriad Colors Phantom World

Visuals are the heart of any visual media, visuals drive every other aspect of the media forward, it's important for a great show to look good or unique.

Unique visuals in anime:

Redline

Sonny Boy

Ping Pong

Children of the Sea

One Piece Fan Letter

Themes... Kind of a vague term. I guess you could say themes are like "psychological", "chuunibiyo" stuff like that. I do like shows with that early 2000's edge a lot, I feel like modern shows lack cohesive theme a lot.

Shows with cool themes:

Casshern Sins

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Ergo Proxy

FLCL

Worldbuilding is the heart of fantasy. I find it hard to compare realistic fiction to fantasy fiction because they almost seem like entirely different echelons of fiction, fantasy being the more interesting and complex.

anime with good worldbuilding:

Ergo Proxy

Cowboy Bebop

Made in Abyss

One Piece

Dragon Ball DAIMA

The element I think is most important is... None of the above!

I think the most important element is Adventure: the ability to keep a story in constant motion with continual new evolutions

She's forcing her into living her dream though

What's with the Bebop glaze? I don't think the plot was that memorable.

The episodic plots are individually almost all 8 or 9 out of 10's, I would say my personal favorite anime is either Bebop or Ergo Proxy

It's interesting that you don't put FLCL in the unique visuals and Evangelion in the good characters and worldbuilding. I would say that Evangelion's theme is not obvious. Unless you accept what the show tells you.

-1. Catering to my fetishes through any part of the medium.

The question is which one are you more willing to forgive for being lackluster and which one is a deal breaker for being shit?

1. cute girls
rest

Might as well play DnD at that point.

Tell that to Fujos

Themes, all those other things are just the ways that the core thematic arguments of the work are created

If what you value most is ideas, then wouldn't you get more from reading a book on a specific topic?

Characters, you have interesting characters that you get invested in and connected to, throw them in any situation and it's enjoyable. example: GOD-TAMA

I highly appreciate the way that visual art, voice acting, etc. convey ideas in anime so I find it enjoyable in a different way from reading. In fact what's most enjoyable is reading books AND seeing how anime interact with literature. My go to example of this is UN-GO since a lot of that show is going to go unappreciated if you don't read academic texts on postwar Japan as well as Sakaguchi Ango's essay Darakuron.

Visuals (not necessarily technical skill)

Characters

Worldbuilding

Themes

Plot

This order. Visuals above all else because it's the main vehicle for storytelling. Without visuals, you don't have anime, manga, or even books.

I hate anime

You could've shortened this into 3 words and gotten the same point across.

Fujos value characters above everything else. Not sure what you’re trying to argue here.

Without visuals, you don't have anime, manga, or even books.

without visuals, you don't have books

why is rape below rape?

this

Characters >>>> Plot > Visuals > Themes >>>> Worldbuillding

World should be built around the themes IMO, nobody cares about your autistic ms paint maps with elaborate tax policies and 50 invented languages.

Themes don’t matter if there’s no solid stort to convey it and a story with shit characters is a shit story.

As for visuals, a good looking story with good characters is already 90% there, themes just contextualise and wrap everything up

Naruto is slop though. Not representative of anime at it’s peak that’s for sure

1. Satoko

2. Satoko

3. Satoko

4. Satoko

5. Satoko

Watch more anime and read more manga

A big part of the desire for worldbuilding is the notion of "I want to go there", and imagining things up in your head isn't going to be enough. Ideally we'd reach the real thing if we could, but if we can't, then maybe a video game. But games themselves have other limitations, so animation can capture that likeness instead.

There’s an episode in Ergo Proxy where the characters do basically nothing but fuck around with zero story progression and it’s one of the best episodes in the series.

The problem I feel with social critique works in general is that they're always going to be judged against the more literal newspapers, textbooks or academic debates of the societies they're judging, and often at times they come up woefully short, more as an introduction for teenagers and otaku than a serious contribution to the debate.

Made for swift and efficient rape

A significant portion of a book's contents is dedicated to visual descriptions. Those, and the prose as a whole, is there to guide your visualization of the work; without it, all you've got is an outline.

nobody cares about your autistic ms paint maps with elaborate tax policies and 50 invented languages.

Alot of the most interesting worlds don't bother too much with specific details like this. It's more about creating the believable likeness of the foreign land that you feel could really exist somewhere, someplace.

For example, New York City is a popular point of tourism, but what if NYC didn't exist? The desire to visit wouldn't go away, because the various media and papers that depict the likeness of NYC would still push that desire to-would-be tourists, just like they are doing today.

That’s writing. Same way an anime character can look evil but have kind heart and presence. Hard to pull that off in prose unless the author is talented at writing

They give zero shits about worldbuilding since they are going to shove their favorite twinks into a coffee shop or office building anyway.

You’re an actual fucking retard if you think descriptive prose is the same as animation.

That’s actually a good point. IDK then, depends on the story being told. Twelve Kingdoms for example, loved the worldbuilding but the story is so poorly paced. 10 episodes wasted on some black kirin that contributes ZERO to the plot

1. Characters

2. Plot

3. Girls design and waifuness

4. Music

5. Pacing

6. Humor

7. Themes

8. Visuals and animation

9. Final resolution

10. Worldbuilding

If characters are most important then SG is superior to STR.

Newspapers, books, and scholarship inspire artists, artists reach the masses. The importance of otaku media is precisely that it helped bring counterculture into the mainstream through its positioning as mass market fiction for younger audiences.
I think it's silly to make comparative judgements of "sophistication" or something like that between such different forms of media with such different audiences. What's actually important is how those media interact as a mosaic. That's why it's really interesting when these "lesser" media suddenly take stabs at developing powerful themes, not just in terms of social critique either, even purely emotional/tonal themes have some fascinating expression across otaku media.

1. Characters

One characters with a well-written personality can keep conversation alive for years even if nothing interesting happens in the show itself. "Waifus" also fall into this category

2. Plot

It's what everything else is built upon. Unless you're watching the show on mute this is what you're taking away other than cute girls

3. Visuals

It just has to look alright. No point bankrupting your studio over sakuga

4. Worldbuilding

A nice detail to see something thought out but loredump shows are shit

5. Themes

It's anime. "Vengeance is bad" "Try your best" "Life sucks and that's the way it is *old guy smoking*" "Value your friends" Do you really want the show beating your over the head with one of these?

Sure but as far as story importance go, its not as important as a good plot, characters and theme. If anything, worldbuilding's importance is dictated almost entirely by the plot. Adventure stories give world building more importance. Romance drama, world building isnt as important.

It's anime. "Vengeance is bad" "Try your best" "Life sucks and that's the way it is *old guy smoking*" "Value your friends" Do you really want the show beating your over the head with one of these?

that's pretty much what Mizukami writes and Anon Babble loves him

It's not a simple weighted sum to calculate the total quality of a show, each of those four categories has a series of thresholds that unlock the next tier of enjoyment, but the overall mechanism is too complex and fuzzy to put into words.

Wait they're five categories, I got fooled by your double three, CURSE YOU SATOKO

Ive got a question for you. What is this a picture of?

There are 10 categories, but Op is faggot and an ignorant.

It's a facet of writing, but imo visuals are as much its own thing as characterization and worldbuilding are. Something like McCarthy's long descriptions of landscapes, for example, are functionally identical to long pan shots. Many background elements like time or season or general environment are almost always conveyed visually; if they're not, it's usually a sign of bad writing. Since they're the main vehicle of storytelling and therefore bleed into every other element it can be harder to quantify in more homogenous media like books, but you can very much tell the difference between a book with good visuals and a book without. You can 'see' its visuals just as clearly as you could a movie or an anime.
Visuals encompass far more than just animation, retard. It's everything you can see. Composition, paneling (in manga), mood, tone, style, symbolism and euphemism, environment, etc., are all dictated by visuals. Animation is only one element that works together with the rest. Descriptive prose is the direct equivalent to it in books. What do you think imagery is?