Trying to Understand an Alternative Approach Towards Anime Commentary
This post is basically a reply to a response to a comment I made on a blog post on When Anime Past Meets Present. Kaoishin Sama (whose reputation precedes him) basically made a troll post that I fell for (as he put it) “hook, line and sinker”. We, I guess, share a lengthy history and my own response towards his writings seems to fluctuate, at times resembling a sense of indifferent bemusement to, more recently, a vexing disdain, which, ironically, is pretty much how it started out. Kaoishin Sama has a reputation as Sunrise‘s rottweiler, and has always been a major player in the petty genre/studio wars that have plagued fandom, and seemingly reached their height during the airing of Code Geass R2, which is coincidentally about when his discourse was at its most intolerable. Everyone, according to Kaoishin Sama, seemed to be against him, and he continually maintained that the show had no major flaws, damn what anyone else has to say. Fine. I know what I’ve seen, and he knows what he’s seen. It’s one’s own right to hold onto their opinion. There were extremes on either side of the spectrum of reactions to Code Geass R2, he sat towards the pro- side, while I was more towards the middle. But when he began second guessing the opinions of those who disagreed with him, culminating in a post which strongly suggested that people who thought Code Geass R2 wasn’t well written were trolls (ironically, this post has now been password protected, so I can’t hotlink it), that’s pretty much the point where I decided he lost his credibility as an anime writer.
A case of “serious business”? Of course it is, everything on the internet is serious business. I’ve worked so hard to build a reputation as a serious anime commentator, someone who’s reasoned, credible, highly critical but, most importantly, fair. But, this is the internet, all we have to go on is our reputations and our opinions. Which is why I get particularly annoyed at the suggestion that my own opinions aren’t honest, that they’re somehow contrived in some fashion. It’s a dismissive attitude, an easy way to avoid acknowledging that people could possibly hold a different point of view on anime.
The genre/studio war nonsense has lingered in Kaoishin Sama‘s discourse, even after Code Geass R2 has ended, although it has been a mainstay of his opinion since forever. His uninformed remarks about Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou is just one of many examples of one of his passive aggressive jibes against a perceived critical popularity of the slice-of-life genre and the supposed internet driven contempt for the genre(s) and studio to which he loyalty subscribes, as if they’re two sides of the same coin. But they’re not two sides of the same coin, and the idea just contributes to the divisions within anime fandom that are constantly growing (moe vs. gar, mecha vs. slice-of-life, your favourite anime vs. my favourite anime, etc, etc). Why do people need to continually need to judge an anime on superficial qualities without actually taking the time to bother watching it? Why can’t people actually take the time to watch something and form their opinions on what they see, not what they surmise from a summary on ANN?
It’s incongruous to me that Kaoishin Sama could possibly be thought of as a credible anime commentator when he, as he puts it himself, doesn’t
feel the need to watch or care about Slice of Life anime to feel informed or to develop a sense of “taste”.
It basically flies in the face of my philosophy towards credible critiquing of anime, (ie, you must at least watch it before you can claim to be informed about it), which makes me think there’s a distinct possibility that our respective approaches to watching and discussing anime are irreconcilable. I’ve spent hours watching anime, eyes on screen, mind on job, so I can put together a review that’s considered, an opinion that can be at least appreciated, even if it isn’t agreed with, a recommendation that’s pointed squarely at a target audience without compromising my own position. I watch a crapload of anime, moreso, I imagine, than he does, and from a much wider array of dispositions. I admit that my sense of taste and, consequently, my opinions, are guided by personal preferences which have developed over time, but they’re certainly not strictly defined by them. I’ve reviewed a number of titles from a number of different genres, and have tried to be forthright, but have always tried to ground my opinions in something much deeper than superficial preferences. I’ve made my disinclination for the shounen action genre well known, and the reasons for this is because of a tendency for titles in the genre to resort to established cliches and questionable storytelling, moreso, in my experience, than many other genres. But that certainly hasn’t stopped me from giving a shounen action series a positive review when I’ve been impressed (My-HiME, Claymore, Akagi). Mecha? Sure, why not, mecha can be great (Idolm@ster Xenoglossia, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid) Shounen romance? This is a bit more challenging, but yeah, I’ve given a positive review to a kinda shounen romance before (School Rumble). But, the fact remains that the titles most likely to score positive reviews are the ones that don’t conform wholly to a single genre, but are a novel mix of multiple genres or something that really pushes the boundaries of its genre. The reason, to oversimplify, is that these title are less likely to offer tired cliches, and that they’re usually ambitious in one way or another. After that it comes down to things like execution, emotional impact and meaning. It could be something as simple as a coincidence, but in my experience the iyashikei genre has a better track record with these things than most other genres in anime. But it’s not like I go into iyashikei anime with a preconceived positive bias. Want to see my initial reaction to Natsume Yuujinchou? It’s in writing on the AnimeSuki Forums. It wasn’t enthusiasm at another slow-paced, theme-driven, episodic story, it was indifference!
Sorrow-K»
Ep 1I think the Mokke comparison is more apt than the Mushishi one (haven’t read Tactics).
First ep didn’t really grab me all that much, but I can easily enough believe this could get more interesting later on. Brains Base was the obvious draw for me to this series, they’re last two series were outstanding. I’ll keep this series at arm’s length for now.
For the record, I consider Mushishi a masterpiece, but didn’t like Mokke. Like every single other anime I’ve seen, Natsume Yuujinchou had to earn my respect, it wasn’t instantly given out just because of any arbitrary superficial preferences I may have.
Now, at this point, having outlined my own philosophy towards critiquing and commenting on anime, I’m going to point out what I find so incongruous about Kaoishin Sama‘s.
Anime is a hobby to me, I analyze and interpret it to an admittedly unnecessary degree, but I make no allusions as to it’s content being of equivalent social relevance compared to what you might find in a socially oriented documentary that confronts real issues affecting, and here’s the kicker, real people. So when your most realistic anime scenario is hardly realistic a person from my school of thought tends not to worry to much about the intellectual quality of a shows content.
This is a dangerous sentiment, because if you take it to its logical conclusion, the suggestion is that fiction can’t effectively analyze social issues, because it doesn’t involve real people. I certainly won’t argue that documentary is a very important medium in increasing awareness and analyzing social issues, but one can’t limit it to be the only one. While a well made documentary can be very effective in communicating ideas such as the dangers of unregulated corporate influence in our daily lives, or the facts about climate change, or the ongoing tragedy of poverty or the inadequate state of higher education, etc, there are a number of relevant social issues that may be analyzed just as well, possibly better, in fiction. Race is one such issue which has been examined extensively in fiction, and one of the best examples I can think of off the top of my head is Harper Lee‘s To Kill a Mockingbird. Films like Crash and American History X also use carefully controlled cinematography and an intimate examination of its characters to make a point about the issue which is resounding and powerful. War is another issue that is served just as well in fiction in general and film in specific, as it is in documentaries. There’s a established tradition of really outstanding films about Vietnam and World War II, that show, in gory detail, the travesty of war, and the list of such films that are dramatic and powerful is lengthy (Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, just to name a few). There are lots of other issues which are less social and more intimately human that don’t work as well in documentaries as they do in film and/or fiction: revenge, temptation, loneliness, just to name a few. Anime doesn’t have the same tradition of analyzing serious issues in a dramatic context, but its potential to do so isn’t muted because of that. Koi Kaze is one of the most obvious examples, dealing with a complex issue of incest in a mature and even-handed way that really wouldn’t work outside of fiction, since so much of it is driven by introspection. But that doesn’t make it any less realistic or emotionally affecting. Now and Then, Here and There is another anime that tackles a tough issue about human rights with its contention towards war and how children are victimized in a war situation.
Most dramatic anime are less about dealing with social issues than they are about coping with the challenges of life, and, in that respect, anime offers a lot of freedom as a medium to do that in. Such anime tend to be more about building characters than what happens to them, with the plot acting more as a vehicle for exploring the characters’ decision making in the wake of an ethical quandary. At this point, looking at it from a critical point of view, it becomes mostly a question of execution. Are the events unfolding believable? Are the characters sympathetic, or at least understandable? The answers to these questions, among others, are the sorts of things that define the difference between Honey and Clover and True Tears.
So it’s not a matter of taste to me as it is from your school of thought, but a matter of perspective, and in the case of anime I feel why pretend that your Minami-Ke’s or your Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s are gunning for your grey matter and not moreso your funny bone, emotions (I have explained that aspect of me whereby this approach doesn’t work right?) and wallet. To me you either go full on educational/intellectual or you get the same level of expectations and treatment in my list as your Kotetsu Jeeg’s or your Moetan’s.
Well, ignoring the fact that no one has ever tried to credibly claim that Minami-ke is an intelligent anime, this strikes me as a rather black-and-white way of setting one’s expectations for anime. My own attitude towards expectations is that the less you have, the better. Critics are human and can get it wrong. Reviews are really meant as a guide, not a thesis (and not even theses are infallible). And anime are often designed to have an appeal past the visceral. The extent to which they want you to actually think about what’s happening on screen varies wildly, and, in my opinion, expectations need to be flexible enough to adjust to that, especially if one wants to give an anime a fair opportunity to communicate its meaning. You have a better chance of being objective (I know perfectly well that true objectivity is a myth, but that certainly doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s worth aspiring to) when you don’t let expectations influence your opinion, which is why I try to be ahead of the curve and watch anime as they’re fansubbed. I generally choose anime on premises, (and films on critical response), but the less external influences, which includes a misguided set of expectations, I have about a title, the easier it is to form an honest and “objective” opinion. If I find my expectations are wildly wrong, I have to quickly throw them in the bin before they get a chance to significantly effect my opinion.
I’ve always had my suspicions that unfair expectations were part of the reason why I could never see eye-to-eye with Kaoishin Sama. I’ve always had a feeling that much of the genre/studio pettiness stems from a general bitterness about what’s popular in certain circles in anime fandom and that his own loyalty towards Sunrise and mecha anime, alongside other people’s indifference to Sunrise and preference towards other genres, were, in his own mind, two sides of a single coin… opposites that were irreconcilable. First it was Suzumiya Haruhi, then it was KyoAni, then it was moe, but he later turned around and embraced the lolicon fad (for completely asinine reasons, by the way), then it was slice-of-life, then it was anyone who dared to be critical of Code Geass R2. (“Anti-Sunrise“, he’d hysterically shout in the same way Uncle Leo from Seinfeld would accuse people of being an “anti-semite”. Because Sunrise is so victimized, being one of the biggest and most established animation studios in Japan and tied to the hip to a giant toy-making multinational, you know, seeing as how it’s so maligned anonymously on the internet). I’ve often wondered if it’s not unfair to label Kaoishin Sama as a prolific anime reactionary, and that his opinions, or, at the very least, the thinly-veiled vitriolic nature of his responses, were governed more by a need to respond to what other people were saying or doing rather than an innate desire to express opinions formed on his own, through his own direct observations of anime itself, rather than anime indirectly through its fans. But, right now, I don’t think this is quite right. I think there’s something more complex at work which is probably impervious to all but himself.
And in my case I think you ought to know that my tastes which you call superficial are far broader then you’d ever begin to imagine. And if you must ask the question as to why I don’t talk about or review the same types of shows you do in the same manner….well I’ll let you puzzle that one out.
Well, I can’t say I read minds, so an explanation would be appreciated.
I’ll tell you what though, if you ask nicely I’ll give you my real honest impression of the show you bitched at me for not previewing properly. Yes I’ll even watch the first three episodes minimum and give my impressions on it and if I like what I see I’ll continue it, but you have to then promise to never try and tell me what I should be watching or what my tastes should be ever again. Your up.
Look, in all honesty, I don’t give a flyings what Kaoishin Sama thinks about Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou, and I’ve certainly no intention of getting on my knees and sucking his cock in order to get an honest and considered impression. My entire point is basically that I shouldn’t need to. If he considers himself a respectable anime commentator, he should offer that for free, and out of an innate desire to share his opinion with the greater world. Anyway, I’m perfectly capable of forming my own opinion. This, after all, I don’t think is a matter of taste, it’s a matter of credibility, and the method of forming opinions rather than the opinions themselves. I mean, there are a bucketload of prominent anime writers on the internet that I don’t typically agree with, yet don’t have any problem with most of them. I’m trying to get to the bottom of why it’s Kaoishin Sama that annoys me more than any other. If it were something as simple as “he’s a troll”, then I can live with that, but no full-time troll is that sophisticated, which is why I’m pretty sure that he honestly believes most of what he writes. If I had to gander a guess, I think part of it is because he gives off the impression that he’s watching the fandom much more hawkishly than he watches the anime itself. And yet he still can’t seem to come up with anything better than sweeping generalizations about the fandom that are, in a lot of cases, way off and underestimating.
Although, then again, maybe he’s onto something by suggesting that our favourite slice-of-life anime aren’t as deep as we like to pretend. I mean, what would we know after watching, thinking about, and writing about dozens of them? Not nearly as much as an outside observer who hasn’t actually seen them, it would seem.
While I don’t know any Kaoishin Sama, I in my Kaioshin Sama persona will assume you mean me. So let’s try and work at bridging that gap between our respective approaches.
First of all thank you for sharing your perspective, truthfully I admit I’ve gone too far in recent months and it’s probably time to tone down the rhetoric and smarmy behaviour. I find it neat though that you should bring up American History X as I had finally gotten a chance to show this great movie to my parents the very night Deathy put up the article. In fact, it seems like we share a similar taste in cinema. As far as anime goes though, I’m not saying that it is a medium incapable of carrying important messages from which the audience can benefit intellectually from the experience, it’s simply that I haven’t seen one in a good long while, though maybe I haven’t been looking as hard as I could be. The last example I can think of as to an anime that hit the right buttons in making me think about life was Welcome To The NHK, which some people like to tell me wasn’t faithful to the manga and therefore was garbage. As I’ve stated though, that really has a net zero effect on how I view a show. As long as it succeeds on it’s own merits then that’s good enough for me.
Again I think we share a similar perspective in how we like to view anime, but a different way in how we express that viewpoint. It might not seem like it recently, but I prefer to view my shows with an even hand much like yourself. Perhaps I don’t think of reviewing as an art form to the same degree you do and have offended you in such a regard, but I still believe a review should be as fair and unbiased as is reasonable possible just the same and that prejudice in reviewing is wrong. Though I can see for myself that I’ve taken a rather one note track in showcasing that recently and have moved more then a little off from the centre as an anime viewer and commenter, to the point where even I can see that I’ve been a total asshole lately. I think it’s time to start working back towards the centre now, where hopefully I can meet you and others in some sort of understanding. I’ll get back to that in a moment though.
Also perhaps you missed the article that I wrote which contained a handful of the major criticisms and faults I had found with Code Geass (stated in bulletin point format) that I didn’t share until after the series was over since as I’ve sworn after my unfair pre-rating of Kanon that one time (one of the greater learning experiences through a personal failings that I’ve had in my time on animesuki, which is probably soon to be joined by the past few months or so I’ve spent being a divider as opposed to a uniter), I will never judge a show completely or pre-judge it until it’s all over, and if I do I expect somebody to hit me with an article like this. Anyway, as proof that it exists, here is the link: http://animehistory.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/yes-i-did-have-some-criticisms-for-code-geass-actually-thanks-for-asking/
And the same goes for that 2009 preview that was deliberately superficial, none of what I wrote in that article has any real bearing on how I view the upcoming season other then that nothing really catches my eye, but since you brought Zoku Natsume Yuujin-chou up and are so adamant about wanting people such as myself to give it a fair look then I will. No cock-sucking (ewww…..I was just curious to how you would reply to that, and while I guessed right I didn’t think it would….come out like that) necessary.
Though like Deathy and I said, try not to take what I write personally or as an affront to your sensibilities and values as an anime reviewer. Anything I say is generally only the way I see something and while it may seem at times that I’m trying to enforce my viewpoints on others (and perhaps I’ve crossed the line into working that angle a little bit in recent months as I’ve said), I generally just prefer to get them out there and let people confront them as they will. Kind of like what you’ve done here.
As for what I’ve been thinking a little bit over the past couple of days with regard to the subject of me and my infamy, here’s what I came up with. To quote the Lincoln quote that Danny used in his essay from the ending to American History X, “Though passion may have strained, it must not be allowed to break our bonds of affection”. As I was watching the movie again the other night that part hit me especially, because perhaps while it’s not to the same degree or the same type of situation, I’ve let a few bad experiences with other anime viewers being unreasonable and unfair colour my view of anime fans as a whole in these recent months and I’ve started to move in the direction Derek moved toward at the beginning of the film, where he started to hate an entire sub-group of people for superficial reasons. I don’t want to be like that Derek though, I want to be the one from the near the end of the movie who learned the error of his ways and worked to make amends for them by turning his way of thinking and even his entire life around. I’ve even asked myself the question Sweeney brought to Derek when he visited him in jail, “Has anything I’ve done made my life better?”. Well has anything I’ve said or done in the last few months really helped to make my experience as an anime fan or the one I share with other anime fans better? Unfortunately and embarassingly enough since I’ve already been down this road once before, the answer is a shameful no. There are more then a few apologies that I need to get in order, but more importantly a number of things I need to start to change and do over the next few weeks, but you can expect some changes in the way I carry myself online and I say that not just to you, but to everybody who is reading this and that also extends to the people who aren’t.
I hope this was the kind of follow-up you were looking for.
>”He later turned around and embraced the lolicon fad (for >completely asinine reasons, by the way)”
Funny you mention that.
He got Helldumped (by the Anime mod out of all people) on Something Awful a while ago for being a pedophile. People don’t get successfully Helldumped for no reason; even aristocrats who post GOP cocksucking shit don’t get banned, only ridiculed.
This is his response to the Helldump and his permaban:
“Personally I find it quite amusing actually. I mean the fact that the so called smartest and tight-knit forums on the internet frequently makes such snap judgements like that about it’s “goons” makes it so that I can’t really help but laugh. Their attempt at helldumping me was extremely lacklustre however, like we’re talking weaker then what I get from my friends and coworkers. Anyway, what does that have to do with this conversation anyway?”
Which tells us one important fact: he probably posts this shit because he’s a very, very angry person. Personally, I understand him in a way. I would too be very angry and fustrated if my friends and coworkers gave me shit that could be considered worse than being called a pedophile and a control freak.
http://trainwreck.ggkthx.org/2008/09/25/the-kaioshin-sama-drinking-game/
I think you might enjoy the above entry, which also includes that password-locked troll post you mentioned. “Bill O’Reilly” pretty much sums up how I see him, and it’s best not to get seriously worked up with what he says, since it’s like talking to a brick wall. To be fair though, he did have fairly justified criticisms against Geass R2 and he was more against those who panned out R2 unreasonably (which I kinda agree with). Although imo he was more interested in proving how intellectually superior he was above the rest of anime fandom than forming any credible opinions on anime.
I also agree about external variables, such as misguided expectations, can influence your viewing (although obviously they can work in a postive way sometimes). Personally though, marathoning a show helps me putting these external influences away. Recent proof of that is with ef, where watching each episode episodically (days before eng-subbed viewers in fact) didn’t help at all with what I wanted and expected. But I suppose everyone have different viewing habits that works for them.
I think you might want to check your spam filter there Sorrow-Kun as it seems the link I posted got my response filed in there somewhere. Also I can assure you that I’m neither Bill O’Reilly like nor am I as difficult to hold a conversation with like a brick wall.
@Kaioshin Sama
I typo’d your name the first time, and then copied and pasted in throughout the article. How embarrassing.
On most occasions, I wouldn’t really say that anime is trying to benefit its audience intellectually. Most anime simply aren’t smart enough to achieve this. In most drama, I think the aim is generally an emotional one, and emotions are something I’d say anime is pretty good with (provided one allows the necessary suspension of disbelief, obviously). But I think what makes a really good anime drama is how effectively it can invoke those emotions. Titles like ARIA The Origination or Mushishi are more evocative because their deliveries are more subdued than titles like Air or ef (both or which I liked, but they’re not in the same tier, IMO). I know I tend to lean towards titles with a more subdued approach, and I think this could be the reason why. I think you could almost think of the aim of such anime is to invoke “smart emotions”. Oh, and characters. Characters make or break anime, especially in drama series, IMO. That’s something I’ve always thought.
Every now and then, when I’m pretty sure it’ll let me communicate my point better, I won’t mince words. But I’ll point out now that Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou is a sequel, and as you know, sequels can’t stand on their own two feet without the original. And, to put a dampener on expectations, I’d never put Natsume Yuujinchou among the best or most innovative titles in the genre. Most people around these parts have Natsume Yuujinchou around the “Awesome” mark on the NHRV rating scale, but I can tell you there’s at least one reviewer on our site that wouldn’t rate it that highly. So, it’s definitely not the be-all, end-all iyashikei anime. As I pointed out, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the first ep, which I guess was part of the reason why I ended up liking it so much, since it turned out to be a surprise.
Flexibility is the key in all things, I think. I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with your views of themselves, even if I don’t tend to agree with them, because, at least back in the old days, I could at least see where you were coming from. But, more recently, I couldn’t, and, if you’ll allow me to be frank for a second, I think it’s because you took too much notice of the fandom, and couldn’t sufficiently separate the anime from its fans. In all honesty, you didn’t do yourself any favours. You responded to the “trolls” pretty much exactly how they wanted you to, but then you went one step further and grouped the neutral and reasonable people with the trolls, which meant that you alienated a lot of your potential allies. During this time, I got the impression that you were just more comfortable in the situation of you versus the rest of the world (or, at the very least, versus the rest of the anime community), because you seemed to be constantly reacting to whatever the larger community was doing (hence the term I used, “anime reactionary”). Every since then you’ve appeared as someone fighting against windmills, taking any opportunity to make jibes against the subgroups that you’d been antagonistic with, irregardless of whether you were informed about the issue or anime at hand or not. The problem is that a lot of these subgroups consist of reasonable people that almost certainly wouldn’t have been antagonistic towards you had you not grouped them with the trolls while Code Geass R2 was going on.
Personally, the way I see it, if a reasonable and informed person comes up to me and says “I’ve read your opinion and I can’t possibly understand how you came to this conclusion”, then that’s my failure, since that means I’ve misinterpreted something while watching the anime, or my expectations have unfairly influenced my judgement or I haven’t done a good job at communicating the reasons behind my opinion. If a reasonable person comes up to me and says “I don’t necessarily agree with your opinion, but I can see where you’re coming from”, then that’s golden, because that makes for a starting point for a reasonable conversation with a distinct possibility of both parties walking away with a better understanding of the other’s interpretation. But, if someone comes up to me and says “this isn’t an honest portrayal of what you really think”, then that infuriates me. Most people don’t like being called a liar, especially if they’ve spent years building a reputation on writing opinions after putting effort into trying to be informed and carefully considered. I’m sure you know this.
Anyway, I’m interested in where this will take you, and I am glad that you recognize that the volatile approach towards commentary which you’ve adopted since Code Geass R2 doesn’t exactly serve yourself. And, I’ll just say that if you want to make more accurate and insightful comments about the fandom, you pretty much need to understand memes. Memes are pretty much the language of the online anime community, and if you can get to the bottom of them, you’ve got a better chance of getting to the bottom of what makes anime fans, as a group, tick. The AnimeSuki Forums are no longer a decent reflection of the wider anime community, as it’s grown increasingly insular and has so for some time. I don’t think one can really make insightful commentary about anime fandom just based on what one sees on the AnimeSuki Forums anymore.
I’m surprised at how pertinent bringing up American History X turned out to be. What a convenient coincidence.
@Rush Limbaugh – Your Conservative Rock
Well, I want to avoid this getting too personal, but I do find it curious that Kaioshin Sama, a vocal pedo, would join ADTRW, which, as far as I can see, is pretty strongly anti-pedo, but I guess the reasons are his own.
@gaguri
Yeah, I can see how this whole furor started over what he saw as an unfair treatment of Code Geass R2 (although I think he’s wrong that this “trolling’ was organized in any manner, Code Geass R2 was just more popular than Macross Frontier, which is why its detractors were always going to be more vocal. The more popular something is, the more vocal its detractors, this is how it’s been since forever). I like to think that he’s realized from this, though, that the more fervently you go after these detractors, the more you put your own credibility at risk. It takes a lot to earn credibility; it doesn’t take much to lose it again.
tl;dr – Errr… I think there’s a chance we can talk about things like reasonable people again soon.
Can’t say I would defend everything Kaioshin Sama ever wrote on R2 or even simply how he did it, not at all, much less his opinions about other shows (not that I’ve seen most of those in question though). I do in fact take issue with some of his comments about other bloggers and commentators.
But what I did notice, when he actually talked about the show and not the reactions to it, was his attempt to provide something different, probably in no small part because my own opinions on the show are also not those of most people.
My own rating of 6-7/10 included or excluded (essentially the same in NHR’s review, as I’ve pointed out before, my formal complaints excluded), depending on how you look at R2 yourself.