Rambling Criticism

One of my pain points has always been a fear of criticism. A particular form of criticism stands out to me as nearly ubiquitous: "that's unoriginal."

In my high school English classes, I learned about archetypes, tropes, cliches, and other such literary devices. Stories tend to follow an arc and have certain elements in them. I wish I had really absorbed those concepts then, but they didn't really make much of an impression on me then. These concepts describe a pattern that we see over and over again, much to the chagrin of (I imagine) many would-be creatives. The existence of these patterns on the one hand provide foundations for good storytelling, but on the other hand fuel a fearful sense of inadequacy. On a deeper level, the preponderance of patterns suggests that there is something to the saying "there is nothing new under the sun."

Last weekend I had the pleasure of watching a short sci-fi romantic comedy anime. Afterwards, I wanted to learn more about the anime and hear what others had to say so I looked on an anime review site for comments. Sure enough, I found scornful criticisms based on lack of originality amidst thoughtful comments.

What I interpret as underlying that scorn is a desire to move forward. To these reviewers, the repetition of particular kinds of stories can be seen as meaningless or even harmful because they take it to be unproductive. "I've seen this before." "I know what's going to happen next." Perhaps it can best be summed up as saying "I understand, and therefore I don't need to hear it."  Sometimes I've caught myself with the same sort of feeling and I can safely say that I usually don't know what would satisfy me. Perhaps that's the key: the only way to satisfy such a critic is to catch him off guard with something he has never imagined.

What initially drew me to this anime was its moving presentation of a grandmother struggling to come to terms with her imminent separation from someone she loved like a grandchild. The main characters of the show interact with such individuals to help them accept their situations. Really, their jobs are to retrieve intelligent androids that are essentially indistinguishable from humans after 9 years of operation, which is when they begin to malfunction dangerously. In this world, there is no way to transfer the memories or personality of an android to a new android. Retrieval is essentially death for androids.

A complaint that multiple reviewers voiced was that the anime, which had a grand total of 13 episodes, did not live up to its potential because it was a romantic comedy. The work of the main characters was, in the end, a setting for two individuals to fall in love rather than an avenue to imagine society permeated with short-lived androids as children, workers, lovers, parents, etc. While I do agree that the anime could have gone in many interesting directions, I appreciated the story and the questions that the characters grappled with. I felt that, like the characters in the story, I could live life more vigorously in response to my own wishes and challenges.

Ultimately, my wariness of criticisms based on lack of originality comes from my perception that such a critique is sure to produce dissatisfaction. It is a voice that rails against tradition and demands new creative efforts. However, wherever the creative medium goes, it will still address human struggle and the circumstances that lead to it. Any new method of storytelling will be a way to communicate similar ideas to different audiences. I suppose the key to making peace with such a critic is to acknowledge this common ground and look forward to the wild ideas he comes up with.