What is with the lack of "show, don't tell" in anime?

[Rossco64]

For those of you who don't know "show, don't tell" is a term used in television and film script writing. To put it simply, it means that you should always try to show your audience what is happening through actions rather than have your characters spell everything out.

A very simple example would be if you wanted to communicate that one of your characters is a drunk, rather than have the character say "I drink a lot!" or someone say "Bob is always drinking, he is a drunk!" you would instead write scenes were we see Bob drinking or stumbling around drunk.

Now I've only really just got into anime but I have noticed that in quite a few series, including ones which are highly regarded as being well written, that a lot of the characters seem to break this rule.

A good example of this is in Death Note. When she expresses interest in the Kira case Naomi's fiancée says something to her along the lines of:

"I know you used to work for L and were a top agent in the FBI, but you are retired now and we are getting married soon."

It's clunky and makes no sense. She knows these things why is he telling her them? He probably found out all this information from her.

And this is in both subs and dubs so it can't just be bad translations.

Is this just an accepted quirk of the medium or does it bug others as well?

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Well this is just a theory but anime is supposed to be a cartoonish performance. The Japanese are a restrained people so exaggerating the explanations for everything seems like the way to go to emphasise that anime is fantasy.

 

[Cheesepower5]

I think part of it comes from the fact that they tend to be based around comic books as well, where a flashback is harder to convey and filler is more frowned upon.

And, y'know, bad writing.

 

[FireAza]

I can't say I've ever really experienced what you've described very often in anime. Death Note, probably due to it's long, twisty, complex story, needs a bit of exposition every now an again. But when you compare anime to a lot of American films, there seems to be more unspoken exchanges in anime. Like, a character will answer another character's question with just a facial expression, rather than actually answering.

To give an example, take the end of episode one of Kino's Journey. The setup is that Kino arrives at a country that has developed telepathy, with the intent to making communication between people clearer, since words can't express everything. This results in people avoiding each other, since people can hear the slightest dislike you have for someone. Kino meets a man, who is divorced from his wife, due to their lack of common interests. The husband liked listening to music, and the wife liked gardening, but neither shared each others interests. At the end of the episode, as Kino is leaving, Kino glances over at the man's backyard, and notices he's growing flowers. Kino and the man share a silent exchange via a few facial expressions, that results in Kino understanding why the husband has suddenly taken an interest in gardening, much like telepathy, despite Kino not having that ability.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I think it's bad writing, and it's by no means limited to anime.

This. It's due to bad writing, something you see often in Bad Anime, which is most of anime. Sturgeon's law, you know.

 

[Keoul]

At a guess I'd say because they assume we have no idea what's going on.
A good example would be Naruto or Bleach, were every enemy ALWAYS EXPLAIN HOW THEY DID WHAT THEY DID. Something magical happens where either the hero or the villain gets the upper and bam, exposition. Might just be the their style though.

 

[Baneat]

1. The industry isn't your high-school creative writing class
2. It forms part of Japanese humour. Whether you think that's funny is irrelevant (I think it's boring)

 

[DarkRyter]

Animating moving mouths is cheap.

Animating anything else is not so cheap.

 

[thesilentman]

Lack of show, don't tell? There are anime that do that; the most recent one that comes to my mind is Darker than Black. Maybe you just need to open your eyes a little more and see the others that are out there.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

It's called padding. Why show someone being drunk and wasting all those precious dollars in your shoestring budget when you can have someone take five minutes of an episode narrating that the person is drunk while flashing still images?

 

[Casual Shinji]

Most anime have no real pension for subtlety. It's kind of the Japanese mindset.

Same as why you hardly ever see an anime with sarcasm.

Animating moving mouths is cheap.

Animating anything else is not so cheap.

Also this.

Having one of the voice actors do a voice over while the camera pans across a still background, is cheaper than animating actions displaying the emotion of the moment.

 

[LoFr3Eq]

The best Anime in which this is not the case is the movie "Skycrawlers".

An absolute masterpiece of a movie has the characters being introduced, and interacting, but they hardly ever talk about the kildren, or the war, and when they do it's about them, and not the world.

There is heaps of implied things, like how the kildren are reborn, and who the enemy is, or why they are fighting the war at all.

In addition to what has already been said, a lot of times it has to do with relation to the plot. A lot of TV shows have "previously on X" to show you some important things you should remember from previous episodes to know what is going on in the current episode, Anime does not do this.

So, long exposition takes the place of the "previously on the show" segments at the beginning.

Last time on "Dragonball Z!!!"

 

[DrunkenMonkey]

Good question, I would like to say it's either because the writers don't trust viewers to connect dots, but that would be such a dumbass response so I won't say it. Maybe its a writing technique originally used by kid show writers, the writers of today grew up shows with those same writing techniques and adapted it into their writing styles. Or maybe it's just a rule in anime to always keep the audience informed.

Maybe its just an anime thing like how characters repeat other characters names in any sceneraio.

"Kotomine Kirei...- Emiya Shirou..." (tense showdown)
"SNAKE!" (panicked)
"Shiki..." (love stricken)

 

[JudgeGame]

While it's true that exposition is one of the laziest ways to convey information, it can also be an easthetic choice. Anime like Kaiji or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure rely heavily on a lot of narrator and character exposition to create tension and highlight information not visually apparent. Show, don't tell becomes a much more glaring problem when you are attempting naturalism which western culture is obsessed with and I honestly think is restrictive and unimaginative.

tl;dr Hollywood rules often don't apply elsewhere.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Because it's a show about Death Gods and their books which can kill people in various ways (ok that was a little too nut shell) and not about an FBI agent.

But i know what you're getting at. Doesn't really bother me though, as I've never noticed it taking away from the main story (or from anything). Then again I probably have and just forgot.

 

[Mid Boss]

It's probably because almost all anime is based on a comic book and implying things in comic books is pretty difficult. They can't go into endless verbal detail and nuance like a book and they don't have motion and voice to imply things like in movies. So they're caught between the limited narrative of the medium and that just saying something is faster, easier, and cheaper than trying to imply it with still images.

The best Anime in which this is not the case is the movie "Skycrawlers".

An absolute masterpiece of a movie has the characters being introduced, and interacting, but they hardly ever talk about the kildren, or the war, and when they do it's about them, and not the world.

There is heaps of implied things, like how the kildren are reborn, and who the enemy is, or why they are fighting the war at all.

In addition to what has already been said, a lot of times it has to do with relation to the plot. A lot of TV shows have "previously on X" to show you some important things you should remember from previous episodes to know what is going on in the current episode, Anime does not do this.

So, long exposition takes the place of the "previously on the show" segments at the beginning.

Last time on "Dragonball Z!!!"

I saw Sky Crawlers on the Netflix lists today and passed it over! Think I'm gonna go watch it now.

 

[Jingle Fett]

At exactly 1:44 is the complete explanation

Basically because as others have mentioned, budget. Though I imagine the fact that they're based on manga books, which sometimes rely on lengthy dialogue to help the reader keep track of what is going on, is part of the reason too.