Serious business is serious. And it’s also important. Very important. Life, after all, is usually pretty serious, and since many works of fiction take on darker subjects than real life contains, it’s only natural that stories should be suitably heavy-hearted. However, the funny thing about seriousness is that there’s a very fine line between “serious” and “too serious,” and I’m sure we’ve all seen far too many times cases in which the creators of a show fail to notice that line.
The problem is, understanding how much seriousness to use is ridiculously important, to the point that a careless mistake can destroy an otherwise good story. And yet, the right balance between dark and light subject matter can make a good story even better. It’s one of those simple aspects of a work of fiction that’s easy to understand but hard to master.
Of course, this all begs the question: how serious is too serious?
A question like this can be answered using nearly anything as an example, and taking a random look around my room, I spot a Type-Moon figure. So there we have it: seriousness in the Type-Moon visual novels. How does it work? And more importantly, does it work?
I think many would agree that Nasu has a good feel for how to structure his stories in a way that is neither too heavy nor light. There were a few times in Fate/stay night where I felt as though the comedy was a little forced or drawn out, but by and large, they did a good job. The plot-centric moments remain untainted, the story knows how to take itself seriously, and the overarching plot, both in terms of mythos and character interactions, is good enough to be taken seriously. In other words, it works.
But what about, say, Da Capo? Or most any harem/visual novel adaptation? The DC anime is far less serious than a Type-Moon game, but as anyone who has watched the series can contest to, the seriousness is often too much. Admittedly, there are a few moments that work, but the anime attempts to throw Key-level drama at the viewer before doing much to earn his or her respect. The characters are all right if viewed from the perspective of a dating sim, but there isn’t enough substance – in the adaptations, at least – to handle the quantity of drama. The end result isn’t exactly bad, but I don’t think it qualifies as good, either.
Not a bad game until it decided to take itself seriously.
(I’m talking about Snow Sakura, and no, the crab is neither relevant nor serious)
Lower-tier VN adaptations are the best examples I can think of in terms of stories that take themselves too seriously. Other infamous culprits include bad shounen and some JRPGs (the idea for this post first came to mind while playing the second Tales of Symphonia). The fact of the matter is that a bad story that thinks it’s good is arguably worse than no story at all. No one complains about the few serious moments in Lucky Star, but what if the entire second half of the series were dedicated to Konata’s family issues?
Obviously, the reverse can also be a problem. I believe a few people were bothered by the comedy in Darker than Black, though I was personally fine with it. At any rate, the argument is that the comedy breaks the plot apart. And that’s true, in a sense: too many lighthearted distractions can kill the atmosphere of an otherwise excellent story. Incidentally, I’ve also noticed this in a few RPGs, particularly the ones that like to throw in random minigames, but the problem is also present in Code Geass and Macross Frontier. My opinion of both shows is positive, but I can’t blame someone for questioning why Sheryl’s panties require as much screentime as a space battle – and we’re not even talking about real fanservice!
For the sake of avoiding needless verbosity, I’ll wrap things up by stating the obvious: that seriousness only works in the right amounts, and that it can destroy the original material if used in incorrent amounts. Saying it like that, it reminds me of some form of powerful medication – necessary, but only when used flawlessly. Many a story has been harmed too much comic relief and ineffective melodrama, and much of this comes back to the fact that seriousness is easy to use inappropriately. Thankfully, the shows that do it right seem to outnumber the ones that don’t – I’m looking at you, RahXephon and Clannad – but it’s important to remember the fact that seriousness is the kind of thing that either helps or hurts, rarely anything in between. As viewers, there’s little we can do about this delicate equilibrium unless we decide to write our own fiction (preferably not of the fan variety), but it always helps to note when and where flaws show up – and when debating things like Kannagi and Love Hina, seriousness is likely to be the word of the day.
~ ETERNAL
つづく
