True Tears, Neverending drama and fanboy hype: Why Bandai is passing up an epic chance to introduce animé to the masses

True Tears is epic. True Tears has DEEP DRAMA. True Tears is BETTER THAN CLANNAD (That last bit a complete lie. CLANNAD, as a game, is way better than True Tears.). Geez people, give the fanboying a rest already. You’re triggering my cynic sense.

Reading pro-True Tears polemic is like me reading a variety of anti-religion propaganda. Not all of it is good reading, and some of it is downright condescending. On the other hand, reading anti-True Tears polemic is like seeing 4chan SaiGar shitstorms. Will you stop being so shallow already, you naysayers.

My opinion? True Tears seems to be a masterfully-executed show, with writing worthy of Chinese/Korean drama scriptwriters. It’s all good, yeah, but I’ve seen it before.

I’m sorry to rain on your parade, True Tears fanboys, but I’ve seen this kind of stuff before. On TV. Before I knew about animé. I was watching Chinese dramas and local dramas which had the same amount of quality you close-minded fanboys laud True Tears for. Heck, if I could list a recent example of the same kind of drama, I’d be listing Heroes. And for those of you who rail at me for daring to list some “shitty American TV show”, I’ll list K-dramas. One Liter of Tears, Winter Sonata, blah blah blah. (LOL When will it ever end lololol)

In fact, I’m more impressed with the scriptwriter’s ability to write something people fanboy over, because honestly, the original material is utter shit. Otaku do not like True Tears the game, so it’s not just a complete surprise, but complete and utter shock, that they are fanboying the animated series to such a level.

But the funny thing is this: I see an opportunity to market this show (at least in Asia) to an altogether different group of people. If True Tears is a drama on par with the likes of Winter Sonata, why not market it to the same people who watch Winter Sonata et al? I bet the number of people who watch Korean, Taiwanese, or Chinese drama far exceed the number of people willing to pay for True Tears DVDs. Some may call me crazy, but I see a golden opportunity to rake in NICE BOATloads of cash by making a few wise marketing moves. There’s no harm in trying such a stunt, or at least conducting focus group testing for this show, at the very least.

So there you have it. What I think of True Tears. I’m more impressed with the fact PA Works took a license that sucked and made it into something that worked rather that the OH SO DEEP drama, or the whole “IT’S IN THE SUBTEXT” shitstorm it generated.

…And as for “subtext”, it’s visual storytelling. Where the fuck is this “subtext”? Facial expressions, body language, intonation, character interaction and other visual, aural and sociological cues, this isn’t “subtext”, it’s the art of visual storytelling. (And on a personal note, I think the term itself is pretty pretentious)