Friend's criticism ruins her appreciation forever

A new amateur manga posted on the Japanese image-sharing website pixiv has struck a chord among anime fans for its blunt depiction of a girl whose enthusiasm for a particular popular anime gets permanently shattered when a friend bashes it.



"There was an anime I loved. But one day, for a certain reason, I fell out of love with it."

The manga, Watashi ga Daisuki na Anime wo Mirenaku Natta Riyū ("Why I Can't Watch [One of] My Favorite Anime Anymore"), starts when the protagonist finds out that her favorite anime has become a theatrical movie. She excitedly invites her less enthusiastic friend "×ko" out to see it. She loves it, cries during it, and gushes that it's "[the work of] God" afterward, but ×ko has a dramatically different take. She thinks that it got "ridiculous" towards the middle, with a subplot being forgotten entirely, and dismisses the sakuga (art and animation work) in a particularly important scene as "horrible." She slams the script and direction and claims that the movie follows a particular pattern of bad film adaptations.

The protagonist reacts with silence at first and eventually goes out to see the movie alone, and cries again at the important scene. But then she remembers ×ko's criticism of that same scene and stops. She doesn't go to see the movie again. When the Blu-Ray comes out, she doesn't buy it. She loses all interest in the anime and returns related merchandise. The manga's final page reads, "I may be just one person, but I want many to know this. Criticism gives birth to nothing. On the contrary, it destroys memories that were important for fans."

While Why I Can't Watch My Favorite Anime Anymore is a work of fiction, its artist, micorun, admits that it is based on personal experience. It has struck a nerve among anime fans, who have retweeted it 60,000 times and shared their thoughts. Many have had similar experiences, and chide people like ×ko for being inconsiderate. "Even if you act like it doesn't bother you, [criticism] can have an unexpected impact," one wrote. On the other hand, some fans felt that the protagonist was blaming someone else for her own change in tastes, and wondered why she doesn't trust her own judgment.

To read all six pages of the manga, see here (Japanese only). What are your thoughts? Have you gone through this experience with anime (or another medium)? Tell us in the forums!

[Via Kai-You]