I’ve been reading The Clock of the Long Now recently, and thinking quite a bit about pace as a result. Of course, pacing is very important for a story, and anime is a story-telling medium.
A lot of people have often remarked that shows from several decades ago seem slower, more plodding than recent television &nash; this is specifically mentioned in The Clock. I had an opportunity to see this firsthand today – there was movie on TV, I’d guess from the 01970s, with a couple, obviously in love with one another. The guy actually took a minute or two to explain the concept of marriage and wedding rings.
For whose benefit was the wedding-ring explanation? Not Da Beers; the ring was a makeshift flower-thing, not a diamond. Maybe the screenwriters felt that the audience wouldn’t grasp what was going on without this explanation, but I find that difficult to believe – surely most people in 01971 would have understood, at least as a symbol of love, what the ring symbolized. As an in-character dialog, this exchange is just bizarre – surely “let’s be together forever, please wear this symbol of our love” followed by a passionate kiss would have been more romantic and more realistic? No one likes to listen to a stilted love-lecture. It’s slow, but I think what’s really irritating about the scene is that’s it’s primarily acts as a confirmation of an oversimplified worldview.
Anime sometimes moves slowly, revealing little bits of a mystery one part at a time. I recently finished Soul Nomad, and the game is slow compared to any TV series. Even at the end, you aren’t entirely sure about Gig’s motivations (echos of the beginning of Inuyasha, maybe? probably not). The entire game, in a way, is a build-up to a scene after the credits &nash; a large, dozens-of-hours joke. But modern anime rarely goes off into exposition about things the audience already knowns &nash; the audience can debate details, look up the meaning of an unfamiliar word, or check Wikipedia for the details of an obscure practice. Anime producers know that they have a sophisticated audience that has had libraries, never mind the Internet, suitable for an understanding their work for decades.