I don't have a problem with Anime LARPers.

I can absolutely relate to being conceptually a fan of something I can't engage with directly whether it's Video Game franchises with an interesting Lore but the actual Gameplay is unplayable for me personally like Mega Man and many RPGs and most Visual Novels.  Or foreign media that still lacks any kind of English Language localization like some Paul Feval novels, La Seine no Hoshi or the Pre-School Days Overflow Games. 

However beyond that strict definition of a Fandom LARPer (someone literally presenting as a fan of media they haven't engaged with directly), LARPer as an insult in the Anime community is also becoming functionally synonymous with terms like Tourist. It's about what it means to say you like Anime as a concept. 

I should be clear that on the subject of terminology to me Anime Fan and Otaku and Weeb are not perfect synonyms. Though in the context of specifically Western Fandom discourse for the purpose of this discussion the nuanced distinction between Otaku and Weeb doesn't matter. An Anime Fan is anyone who is a fan of at least 3 distinctly different Anime and identifies as liking Anime. However an Otaku or Weeb is someone who even when they don't like certain trends of Anime will never view them as things that should be gotten rid of, there is no room for Antishippers in Otakudom. 

I want new Anime Fans, or even long time ones who've remained very limited in what they've seen, to watch more and expand their horizons. But in my opinion talking down to those people, calling them culturally illiterate or tourists or LARPers is counterproductive, you're just making them hate the culture and pushing them away.  Politely recommend them shows similar to what they already like, or from the same creators, and/or what your personal favorites are, but let them take their time. 

I've currently completed over a thousand Anime and partially watched nearly 300 more. But there was a long time, from like 2005 to 2014, when I'd seen less then 50 and still referred to myself as liking Anime, not using the words Otaku or Weeb only because I hadn't heard them yet. Looking back on that now I know there is a lot I used to be wrong about, but I do not view that younger version of myself as lying about liking Anime. 

What's changed about Tourist discourse in the last like year is a massive increase in even the perceived Left Wing of the Anime Fandom doing it.  What's interesting there is how it's the Left Wing who is truly putting it's emphasis on wanting more people to watch more older Anime, while the shows the Neo-reactionaries are mad at you for not watching are recent seasonals. Like definitionally you would expect the opposite. 

Thing is as a Leftist Anime fan who has seen more older Anime then most of these Reactionary Vlogers. Most of the Anime I like are part of Genres and Trends that took off in the 90s and 2000s so only a very small percentage of stuff from the 60s and 70s feels significantly relevant to my tastes. 

There are two Genres of Anime in particular whose fandoms have a tendency to get really angry about anyone saying anything about them if what they've seen is still only a few of the most well known shows.  Mecha and Magical Girls. As someone who is an enjoyer of both genres, with more then mere entry level familiarity with both, I also find this troubling.

Yes it's annoying when people talk like experts on something they have a small sample size of. But being factually mistaken on on the history of a genre of fiction is not the worst thing in the world.

And some of the opinions these people think can only exist among people who've seen very little I think they are massively underestimating the validity of.

On the subject Mecha, I only feel more vindicated in calling Evangelion a Deconstruction the more of the genre I watch, not less. A lot of disagreement on what Anime can and cannot qualify as a Deconstruction is more predicated on disagreement on what a Deconstruction is then a given Genre's history. 

I still hold the view that no Magical Girl show qualifies as a Deconstruction. However not every Video on Madoka's role in the history of the genre that makes fans mad is at all appealing to that term specifically. 

I would agree that Pretty Cure monopolizing the market has more to do with the lack of Shoujo Manga based Magical Girl shows in the last 15-20 years then Madoka. But the basic opinion that Madoka disrespected the prior history of the genre is not going to go away simply from knowing the prior precedent for darker takes exist. 

I also disagree with the claim that Anime is more mainstream now then it used to be.  But that's another string of topics. 

I'm gonna link to two nuanced yet opposing YouTube Videos.

Carbio-kun's I Have no Taste and I must Larp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ9ynYK7qTI

It's Blythe's Gatekept Fandoms ar ethe Worst.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Fx0rM2GDU&t

Update: Here's a 3rd one.

Framing The Narrative The Truth about Anime Tourists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5mHu3UsFwY

Study of Swords MIGHT be wrong about Deconstruction

 A YouTube channel named Study of Swords has a video titled You Are Wrong About Deconstruction, and I have very uniquely mixed feelings about this video.  Sometimes I feel like I agree with it entirely and sometimes I feel like it’s led astray by a myopic perspective on the subject.  I certainly agree with the general annoyance at people calling everything even slightly subversive or dark a Deconstruction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiXzVaqdIgo&pp=ygUieW91IGFyZSB3cm9uZyBhYm91dCBkZWNvbnN0cnVjdGlvbg%3D%3D

The gist of the video’s thesis is that the modern Internet Culture understanding of Genre Deconstruction is entirely the invention of TVTropes and that it’s both unrelated to Derridean Deconstruction and not something that any work of fiction has ever truly done, certainly not intentionally.  And if one did it would be inherently bad.

Here’s the thing, all the specific examples of alleged Deconstruction they are annoyed by are Anime examples.  And their defense of that is that they are an Anime centric channel and that’s the discourse they are in dialogue with.  However the video isn’t titled “You are wrong about Deconstruction in Anime” or “Otaku are wrong about Deconstruction” and TVTropes didn’t build their concept of Deconstruction on primarily Anime examples, they built it primarily on Watchmen.

In 2003 The History Channel aired a documentary called Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked. I'd recorded it on VHS when it aired so I had watched the entire thing multiple times back then.  However I had gone years without rewatching it by the time I first discovered TV tropes in 2012 and still didn’t rewatch it again till after I’d watched this YouTube video.  It speaks to the unreliability of memory that I had basically incepted myself into thinking they actually used the word Deconstruction or Deconstruct in the segment on Watchmen when in fact they did not.  However the basic idea of what TVTropes means by Genre Deconstruction was there.

The quote they put at the start of their video is telling “Deconstruction is when a thing I like is a Genre I disrespect”.  Because within the Anime Community that definitely feels like it’s often the subtext, the community is now filled with Anti-Otaku like Noralities who can’t admit to liking an Isekai without going on about how it’s not like all the other Isekai, same with the Yandere.  And while this sentiment doesn’t get expressed much recently, there definitely were some early Madoka fans who were open about liking it and not the classic Shoujo Magical Girl shows.

Thing is that’s not really the case when it comes to Deconstruction outside of Anime.  No one who calls Watchmen a Deconstruction while explaining why they like it but hate the rest of the genre exists, rather everyone understands you need to love the genre in its standard forms to appreciate the Deconstruction.  Same with the relationship between GoT and Fantasy, or Scream and Slasher films.  Despite it’s technical etymological relation to the word Destroy it’s not actually meant to be malicious, it’s about taking it apart to assemble something new, like a Lego set.

Because I was a Normie Nerd for over a decade before Anime became my main interest, my perception of terms like Deconstruction isn’t as inherently filtered through Anime discourse.

Even among people using the word to describe an Anime they like I don’t think the intent is universally malicious.  I currently oppose labeling Madoka a Deconstruction, but early on I was different, I did defend calling it a deconstruction in the past, but it never went with some hostility towards other Magical Girl shows, rather I got into Madoka soon after I became mature enough to finally be willing to publicly admit I like Sailor Moon and always have.

This of course isn’t the only AniTube video that is in part about denying certain popular Anime qualify as a Deconstruction, others do know to make the comparison to Watchmen, and in so doing show their ignorance of the place Watchmen actually holds in the history of its Genre.  Like when Trixie The Golden Witch did a video on the subject arguing certain things aren’t Deconstructions because they didn’t do anything that hadn’t been done before, unlike Watchmen.  However Watchmen in fact did not do anything that hadn’t been done before, all through the 70s there were already Superhero Comics that were Dark and dealt with real world social issues and politics, there were already Antiheroes and Heroes turning into Villains and Villains turning into Heroes, already stories with moral complexity.  [Update: Even the specific world building plot point of the Golden Age Heroes being forced into Retirement or hiding by McCarthyism was done with the JSA in Adventure Comics #466 December 1979.]  Watchmen didn't do a single thing that was completely new, it was all in the complete picture it painted.  Madoka however did things that had rarely if ever been done before and that’s why it’s not a Deconstruction, none of what’s Dark about it feels like a commentary on prior stories because all of it is tied to what’s mechanically distinct about Madoka's universe.

But maybe this misunderstanding of how inherently critical a Deconstruction is supposed to be has seeped outside the Anime Community a little bit.  Consider all the Breadtubers who think it’s important to “Deconstruct” what’s Problematic about the Superhero and Fantasy genres. Consider the YouTuber Worm’s Hole who seems to think the Darker version of a Genre is always better because they expose what’s dark and ugly about the real world.

In discussions of both Watchmen and Game of Thrones I commonly see the phrase “Critique of Power” used to describe what both Alan Moore and George R. R. Martin are trying to do and that’s why no it isn’t Feminist to root for the Dragon Lady Girl Boss.  I don’t entirely agree with either side of those debates, but I do think the kinds of Leftists who put too much emphasis on critiquing Power as a concept need to rethink their priorities.  I’m neither a Tankie or an Anarchist, if I’m a Marxist at all I’m somewhere between Kautsky and Luxemburg.

We do not in the 21st Century need to worry about arguing against Feudal Style Monarchy anymore.  If anything the knee jerk reaction of many Liberals and even some Socialists to anything that even looks like Monarchy is a problem, whether Cuba or Vietnam qualify as a “Dictatorship” or not is irrelevant to if they are economically successful Communist experiments.  The Greek word Tyrant was not originally inherently derogatory, it was made derogatory by the same Laconophiles to whom the word Democracy was Derogatory.

So the title “You are wrong about Deconstruction” is probably increasingly correct when directed at a good number of people.  But the video’s understanding of why is flawed.

You can't Deconstruct the Magical Girl genre because there is nothing wrong with it.

You can parody the formula and the tropes, but there is nothing morally wrong with it to truly deconstruct.

Western Comic Book Superheroes abound in Deconstructions because there is something fundamentally wrong with that genre, with it's complex relationship to violence and state power and fictional billionaires, no matter where you fall on the American Political Spectrum there is potentially something for you to find wrong with that genre.  

Individual Magical Girl Warrior shows may sometimes have their own problematic elements, but the core of what the genre is has nothing you can criticize.

Madoka Magica is confused with a deconstruction not just because it's dark.  It's also attempting to be a meta commentary of some kind, referencing earlier works in the genre in ways kind of comparable to what Watchmen does with Superhero Comics, but it's also similar to the way George Lucas was quoting earlier works in Star Wars.  And as I talked about once before this is really the first time one used the term "Magical Girl" in universe.

However the thing about a good Genre Deconstruction like Watchmen is none of it's individual elements were unprecedented in the genre, it's only the way they are put together to draw a different kind of complete picture that makes it unlike anything that came before.  There was in fact no shortage of prior Superhero Comics that had been dark and gritty and/or dealt with similar political themes and social issues.

With Madoka however what makes it so dark in the unique way it's dark (Magical Girl shows had done "dark" stuff before) is tied to what is unprecedented about it.  There is no prior precedent for the monsters the Magical Girls are fighting being all former Magical Girls.  There was also no prior precedent for the wish granting element.  Even before the moment said to be when the show "reveled itself" it had already established a mechanical distinction from prior works of the genre in how the Grief Seed system discourages them from working together as teams.

You might cynically think this all means Madoka was trying to be a Deconstruction but failed because the Genre is Deconstruction proof.  But no I don't think even that has truly happened to this Genre yet.  If Madoka Magica is Deconstructing anything it's the ways one might criticize the genre.

To a certain extent Madoka also plays out like a Greek Tragedy where a tragic fate befalls various characters because they have a tragic flaw.  But none of these tragic character flaws are because of the characters being like a traditional Magical Girl.  I recently watched ClearAndSweet's Youtube videos on Madoka (a series that isn't done yet) and what they've been stressing is how their flaws are all ways in which they fall short of being a traditional Magical Girl.  The title character is the one who is cut out to be a Magical Girl show protagonist but she is being kept from becoming a Magical Girl.

At face value Mami seems like an ideal Magical Girl, her death however is what is commonly misunderstood.  The show definitely at first tricks us into thinking she died because she finally found happiness like what Whedon loved to do on Buffy.  But what the show actually does explicitly say is that her death was the result of refusing Homura's help.  Her stubbornly writing Homura off as an enemy is something a proper Magical Girl Heroine would never do, Usagi is defined in certain seasons by her refusal to write off any fellow Senshi no matter how antagonistic they're currently being.

Each of the four lacks something different.  And the thing is Magical Girls with these kinds of character flaws can be supporting characters in a traditional Magical Girl show, I could probably compare each of them to an Outer Senshi or PreCure Sixth Ranger.  But the key to their ablity to overcome those flaws is the inspiration and example and emotional support that comes from the lead Magical Girl, who for most of this show is being held back.

Another thing that often defines Deconstructions is that they are supposed to be more "realistic" takes on their genres.  Madoka is the exact opposite, and I don't mean by that anything about how it uses it's supernatural elements, I mean how even Madoka's mundane slice of life scenes do not feel like they are happening in the real world.  Sailor Moon mostly takes place in a specific district of Tokyo, you can travel there and visit Rei's shrine or the park where Nephrite died.  So when the Supernatrual stuff happens it feels like it's disrupting a realistic reality.  Mitakihara city however feels like it's made up of elaborate Theater Stages.  Sailor Moon has been adapted into Live Action already and I think it can be again even more faithfully, but Madoka is a story I feel can only work in Animation, how unreal it is is largely the point.

Madoka is definitely not saying Magical Girls would be a bad thing in the real world, it's saying you need to contrive a world much more dystopic then ours for things to go nearly this badly and yet they are still able to set things right in the end.  Madoka is neither a Deconstruction or a Reconstruction, it's a rejection of the very idea of deconstructing this genre. 

Madoka Magica is a show that can work for someone who has no prior experience with The Genre, SFDebris reviews of the show document that perspective well.  But the perception of it's relationship to the genre has (I think mostly in The West) been clouded by how many people watched it who usually wouldn't watch a Magical Girl show, too many people watched it for the darkness not the light at the end of the tunnel.  But in Japan the show was originally marketed without putting the darkness up front, it was marketed to traditional Magical Girl fans, not to edge lords.

Madoka isn't the only show that gets called a Deconstruction of this genre, people also call Utena one.  Utena I do not consider properly part of the genre at all.  It's related, related enough that it's among the earlier shows Madoka is referencing and related enough that any fan of the genre should see it at some point.  I would not ultimately call Utena a Genre Deconstruction at all, what it is working to deconstruct is The Patriarchy, and the values of the Magical Girl Warrior which Ikuhara and Enokido kind of helped build in the first place are one of the weapons they are using to do that.

I don't like to dwell on the negative but I guess I can't close out this post without clarifying that I am anti-Rebellion.

Anime Deconstructions and Subversions

Digibro did a video awhile ago about disagreeing with certain Anime being labeled Deconstructions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT6EdojMvUs.

Watchmojo is dumb for labeling Gundam a Deconstruction because it was simply the creation of a new Sub-Genre.

Most of the Anime mentioned I'm not familiar with. I want to disagree with Digi mainly on Evangelion and Utena (Utena is complicated).  But I will also talk about him being right that Madoka isn't a deconstruction, but for the wrong reasons.

Digi recommends Miragephan's video Madoka Magica is not a Deconstruction.  I liked that video when I first watched it, but now I realize it's kinda lame and saying nothing more then it doesn't have enough deep Philosophical discussions to be a deconstruction.

I agree that Madoka isn't a deconstruction (so ignore my post from December 2015).  But a lot of people are coming at it from a place that IF Madoka is a Deconstruction that somehow discredits the Magical Girl genre.

Superhero stories became better then ever after Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns came along.  That process involved some stories being weak for being seemingly nothing but a pale imitation of them, but in the long run it made the genre better.  Because after the Deconstructions came the Reconstructions.

The Magical Girl Warrior doesn't have a truly great Deconstruction yet, and I think that is what is holding the genre back.

Now onto Eva.

First Digi is arguing Eva isn't a deconstruction by comparing it to Gundam is misguided because TVTropes has a whole page for when the original of a Genre seems like a Deconstruction compared to what came latter.  It's called the UnBuilt Trope.  A genre Deconstruction is a reaction to what the genre has become more so then it's originator.  Not quite every Genre creator turns out to be like this, but quite a few have, from The Three Musketeers to A Study in Scarlet to several Anime genre creators, the page even lists Gundam if I remember correctly.  And Hell I'd say the Kanto Era Pokemon Anime seems like a Deconstruction of Digimon and YuGiOh.

But regardless, since I just watched the Gundam movies, there is in fact only one scene where Amuro refused to get in the Robot.  The series may have had more, but the overall plot considered it necessary only once.  At the start Amuro jumped into the cockpit with no hesitation, like many old school protagonists he's set up as someone who naturally runs towards danger rather then away from it.

But the greater flaw with comparing Eva to Gundam in this context is Eva is more a Super Robot show then the genre Gundam created.  But Gundam did still influence Eva, and Shinji was clearly written to be a much more (in Ano's mind) realistic example of someone in Amuro's situation.

Digibro says a few things about what makes a Deconstruction that are literally the opposite of how I or anyone else would define one.

1. He says Eva (and Madoka which I'll get to again later) "do nothing that hasn't been done before".  In my opinion an attempted deconstruction that does something that hasn't been done before has cheated.  It's more of what you don't do that makes it a Deconstruction.

Watchmen didn't do anything that hadn't been done before.  The Punisher was already a vigilante actually killing criminals, maybe also Wolverine.  The Golden Age stories also had some death.  And the 70s were filed with stories bringing real world politics into it in a similar way.  In fact Alan Moore originally wanted to just use the Charleton characters and that is exactly why Rorschach is a right wing conspiracy theorist like The Question.

2. He says Eva isn't even really part of the Mecha genre because of how irrelevant the "Robot" is to the story's final resolution.

But again it is exactly the same in Watchmen.  The world isn't saved by the Superheros, it's saved by a Supervillian's evil scheme.

A Deconstruction is about saying the fantasy this genre is built on isn't the real answer, if anything it could be the problem.  And that is exactly what Watchmen and Evangelion have in common.

Evangelion like Watchmen has improved it's genre, without it we wouldn't have Pacific Rim.

Now on to Utena.

Utena is a Deconstruction, but probably not a Genre Deconstruction, and certainly not of the Magical Girl Genre.  The Magical Girl aspects of the story are if anything the one thing it's not Deconstructing.  If anything the world Ikuhara really wants to deconstruct is the real world.  But it can also be read as a deconstruction of Fairy Tale archetypes and high school set Shoujo Manga/Anime conventions.

Now returning to Madoka.

Digibro said Madoka didn't do anything that hadn't been done before, and that is very wrong.  No prior Magical Girl Warrior show was predicated on Wish granting or the girls finding out they become the monsters they are fighting.

Ultimately I would say Madoka isn't a deconstruction for the same reason Gundam isn't, it's the birth of a new Sub Genre.  And it may well already be no longer the best of that Sub-Genre.  I'm not sure anymore how much I agree with my past declaring Yuki Yuna to be better, but it's definitely close to being at least equal in my mind.

A good example of what a Magical Girl Deconstruction could be is the first episode of the original Kaitou Twin Angel OVA, but the second episode restores things to normal.

I enjoyed Digibro's video on One Punch Man "Is there value in subverting Shonen Tropes?".  And I think he should create an equivalent "Is there value in suberverting Moe tropes?".

Because I've seen a lot of people recently praise shows like Galcochan as being somehow subversive of "Cute Girls doing Cute Things" by being "Cute Girls doing raunchy things", though it's really more talking about them then doing them.

But like what Digi says about Shonen stories that duality has always been there.  In the pinnacle of the genre, Lucky Star, Konata is described by Kagami as being like a dirty old man.  Not to mention the entire premise of Akira Kogami.