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Originally Posted by relentlessflame
I honestly think you're reading an awful lot into it.
There was really no point in having an impassioned debate about it, even then. A lot of people in that thread had known him for a long time. He had his point of view, but the things he disliked about it really had very little bearing on the things others liked about it. I can see objectively where he's coming from, but it's honestly irrelevant to those who enjoyed it. He will never be swayed by talk in that thread, and I really think you're overplaying his ability to sway others (except those who already come from a similar point of view anyway). The movie is a final send-off for the cast, so it was never really setting out to bring in that many new fans to the mix in the first place. That doesn't mean it's beyond criticism, obviously, but criticism from someone with that point of view has a fairly limited audience at that point. (If you made it that far in the franchise, you really should have already decided how you feel about its core construct. A criticism that amounts to "if you never liked K-On, the movie isn't going to change your mind" is a valid perspective, but was never really a goal.)
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Actually, there was every reason to debate such a perspective. My goal was never to sway Reckoner himself, but rather, the people in the thread who had agreed with him despite liking the movie themselves. When a forum has a member who can shut down discussion on virtue of their reputation, and force others to self-censor or modify their own enjoyment to avoid something like being neg-repped, there's a problem; now that I think about it, it appears that the now-defunct reputation system was behind why things devolved the way they did. Had no one in the thread agreed with Reckoner, there wouldn't have been a problem. Reckoner's rant was never meant to have a message for other audiences, but rather, it was one final bit of unconstructive vitriol that accomplished nothing more than insulting the cast and fans. This is why it was so unusual that there was any sort of agreement at all with Reckoner like the following:
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"I do agree with [Reckoner's] thoughts about the London trip, there wasn't really anything done with the setting other than a few gags with the girls' Engrish."
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"No grief here. I'm not at all bothered by your movie-review-turned-generic-K-on!-rant"
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It becomes clear that others in the thread were worried about offending these senior members, who clearly enjoyed their authority, which is why they were so eager to agree with Reckoner: they were worried about their hard-earned reputation being stripped away in moments because Reckoner couldn't accept that there were other perspectives besides his own. We recall that prior to its removal, the reputation system was taken so seriously that anyone with the red dot would be ostrised and ignored. It became clear that reputation here meant a great deal to many users, and Reckoner himself has admitted it was a way of keeping people in line as well as affirming his own correctness. However, just because Reckoner had spent more time here than most does not make his opinions more valid or authoritative, and this was a leading reason in why I whole-heartedly supported the decision to disable the reputation system altogether. Unsurprisingly, Reckoner's activity has dropped; without this form of validation, Reckoner's activity has declined. It was never about the "analysis" or "intelligent discussions" as he claimed, but rather, a form of validation, not unlike people who farm retweets or upvotes.
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Originally Posted by relentlessflame
I agree that people should be more considerate when stating their opinions, and I've made this point extensively over the years. Attacking the people who make the anime or those who enjoy it is absolutely wrong and unacceptable (and, is against the Forum Rules). But -- maybe it's because I've gotten older now, I don't know -- at some point someone's enjoyment of a thing can't be so fragile that one person's angry review causes you to get that defensive, especially when their biases were obvious coming into it. You just waste a lot of energy. In my opinion, better to just keep talking about the reasons you liked it and why and move on.
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I would argue that it was Reckoner whose enjoyment of things was fragile. He had every chance to not watch the movie and focus on the series that were suitable for him. Instead, he willfully chose to watch the movie knowing full well he would not enjoy it; Reckoner was not interested in discussion that day as much as he was in causing trouble, and this was (admittedly, cleverly) hidden behind a rant. As such, there is a reason why Reckoner's attitudes are a sticking point for me: it's not about the differing opinions as much as the double-standard in the fact that he was allowed to outright suppress discussions contradicting his own thoughts, but when someone else raised valid points, that someone did not deserve to be heard. If you look back at some of the posts, you'll find that these were pretty well-reasoned, and far more deserving of agreement from others in the thread than anything Reckoner had to say. All of this boils down to treating members of the forum fairly, and that means giving all members their chance to be heard, rather than just someone with a lot of green dots beneath their name.
On another note, it's now been exactly a decade since
K-On! The Movie screened in Japan. I still remember the day the movie came out: while moviegoers queued up for the film in Japan, I was sitting in a lecture hall. It wouldn't be until July where I'd actually have a chance to see the movie, when the BDs came out, but since then, I've rewatched the movie at least once a year, every year, for the past decade. This movie exemplifies Kyoto Animation's magic in making the ordinary, extraordinary, and the fact that the film has endured is a testament to the things it excels at doing. I have a
much more extensive set of thoughts on why the film is as successful at it is on my blog, since I can't fit all of my thoughts here, and I daresay that I do a much better job than Reckoner does of showing why the positives outweigh the negatives. Trenton Dawn and others, if you're out there, know that thoughts like these exist, and it is not too late to retract your support of Reckoner's stances.