Studio Ghibli Films Have Plot Holes?

Vernacular, Connoisseurial Anime Reviews on YouTube as Database Consumption

Abstract

This paper explores how a specific type of vernacular and connoisseurial fan review of anime operates within the anime fan community on YouTube. On the platform, we see an overly detail- and logic-obsessed as well as sarcastic style of review that can be conceived as belonging to what Hiroki Azuma (2009) terms ‘database consumption.’ The latter represents a way of engaging with and perceiving a media artefact that compares it with a normative and metaphorical database, based on tropes, plot holes, and clichés, on which the quality of a reviewed anime is evaluated. Additionally, through the use of ‘crack videos’ that employ viral clips and memes, these reviews also lead to a form of fan engagement with the channel that emphasizes a datafied formation of fan knowledge and connoisseurship in the community around AniTube. By focusing on seven reviews of Studio Ghibli films from the channel Anime Sins, this article first explores how verisimilitude is seen as a norm in the community and how this norm fits database consumption. In a second part, it establishes how elements signaling connoisseurship are contributing to the affective engagement of the channel’s audience. The last part then shows the limits of database consumption: one possible reason why Studio Ghibli films do not appear to fit the mode of database consumption is because fans tend to be focused more on grand narratives, opposing this mode of reception.