The Ramblers Guide: How to become an Elitist

Disclaimer: This post contains some mild cursing. I tend not to curse, but this time I felt it was necessary. Sorry in advance!

Are you sick of being a casual?

Are you bored of watching Anime for enjoyment?

Are you tired of being a pleb?

Then Elitism may be for you!

Today I’m going to present a completely accurate and truthful step-by-step guide that will most definitely help you reach the status of Anime Elitist. Just follow these steps and you’ll achieve your dreams of transcending the plebs and sheeple that populate the Anime community.

Step 1: Discard most of your favourite shows

 

Before we take the first steps to becoming a true Anime fan, the first thing you’ll need to do is go through all of our old favourites and pick out anything that would be considered popular or highly regarded by the Anime community.

The best way to do this is to go to MyAnimeList and look at the All-Time Top Rated and Most Popular Anime series. If any of your favourites are on that list you must discard them from your favourites list immediately because true Anime fans don’t watch trash. Shows to look out for are:

• Sword Art Online
• Attack on Titan
• Gintama
• Naruto
• One Piece
• Erased
• Fate/Stay Night
• Code Geass
• One Punch Man
• Bleach
• Re:Zero

There’s many more, but those are the ones you absolutely, most definitely must purge from your favourites list.

There are some exceptions to this though. It’s okay to like any of the following because they’re objectively good and anyone who says otherwise is a tasteless casual and isn’t a true Anime fan like we are:

• Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
• Death Note
• Monster
• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
• Hunter x Hunter (2011) [But you’re only allowed to like two arcs because the rest are shit]

Step 2: Watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Now that you’ve purged your favourites list of all the unworthy shows, what’s next?

Well, the next step is to watch the Anime Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It’s the best Anime ever made, it has absolutely no flaws what so ever and it is the smartest, most thought-provoking, most well written and most logical Anime in existence.

It is a masterpiece. It is objectively good and no one can say it’s bad. It is engrossing from beginning to end and never feels boring or dragged out. It has 110 episodes.

Once you’ve watched Legend of the Galactic Heroes, it must become the standard that you judge all Anime by, even if the shows can’t be compared at all. A fighting Shounen underdog story about ninjas? Better make sure it’s as good as epic naval battles in space! A Slice of Life show about a high school student who keeps falling asleep in ridiculous situations? If it’s not as good as this show about two galactic empires fighting one another in space, then it’s shit.

Also, no Anime you watch from now on will ever be as good as Legend of the Galactic Heroes, so you must now embrace yourself for complete disappointment every time you fire up an Anime series. It’s the price you must pay to become a true Anime fan. You muse sacrifice enjoyment for the sake of being the best fan.

3. Give away your entire collection

This must all go

Now that you’ve been enlightened by the best Anime ever, it’s time to mindlessly give away your entire Anime collection. You’ve spent countless amounts on it all, but you have no need for it any more, so just give it away for free.

You don’t need those filthy Sword Art Online DVD’s any more!

4. Create a new Anime social media account

Now that you’ve watched the best Anime of all-time, it’s time to show the world how amazing an Anime fan you are. Already got a MAL or Anime-Planet account? Already on Twitter? Well, it’s time to say goodbye to the old you by making a new account on all your social media platforms!

Try to come up with a name that really screams how much of an elitist you are. Something along the lines of TrueAnimeFan1337.

Make sure you have a Legend of the Galactic Heroes character as your avatar as well, so people know that you’re a true Anime fan for real and not one of those plebs who pretends to be one of us. You don’t want to mislead people. I’d go with Yang Wenli. He’s the best character ever.

This one should do nicely

5. Create a rating scale that suits your new taste

Now that you’re all set up on MAL, it’s time to go through all the shows you’ve already watched and rate them all according to your newly found taste after watching the greatest Anime of all time.

This is relatively straightforward. Just follow these three rules and you’ll do fine!

• Any show that is highly rated or popular from the early 90’s or before can be rated an 8 or above.
• Any show that is highly rated or popular from the early 2000’s and beyond are all shit and should be given scores between 0 and 6. Most of these will be a 3 or 4 because everything modern is for tasteless casuals.
• Anything tagged with the terms “psychological”, “deconstruction” or “GAR” is automatically a 7 or above. Madoka Magica doesn’t count because it’s about cute girls.

6. Memorise the commandments of Elitism

Now that you’ve gotten the hang of rating Anime the correct way, you should remember to practice the following rules every single day. There’s a lot of these, but you should make sure to remember them all:

• Although Anime is a medium that encompasses a synthesis of elements, script is the only one that matters. Visuals, directing and soundtrack don’t mean a thing. Redline is the exception to this rule for no real reason.
• All Light Novel adaptations are instantly terrible and can never be good. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is a Light Novel adaptation, but we will always deny that it is because it isn’t.
• A show can never get better. If the first episode is bad, the rest of the show is bad. If the first episode is good, it will never be great. Legend of the Galactic Heroes was a 10/10 from the first episode and it never got better or worse after that first episode.
• If a show is over 100 episodes long and came out after the early 90’s it’s bad. Hunter x Hunter (2011) is the exception to this rule since it’s based on a retro Manga.
• In the case of Hunter x Hunter (2011) you’re only allowed to like two arcs, the Yorknew and Chimera Ant arcs. The rest are pointless and don’t contribute anything to the story. This is an objective fact.
• A retro Manga means a Manga from late 90’s or before. This is accurate.
• Stakes are all that matter in any show. If a show is a low stakes Slice of Life it is automatically terrible because emotional stakes are boring. The Tatami Galaxy is an exception to this rule for no real reason.
• If anything has a Moe aesthetic it’s automatically terrible because true Anime fans don’t watch cute things. Princess Tutu is an exception to this rule for no real reason.
• If a show has high levels of violence and isn’t retro or based on a retro Manga it’s “shock factor” and “goreporn” and should be considered edgelord material.
• All Anime remakes, except for Hunter x Hunter (2011) and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood are bad and serve no purpose.
• Any Anime made after 2009 is terrible and you shouldn’t enjoy it. All modern Anime is bad, except for those based on a retro Manga. They don’t count because they’re based on old Manga, even though they are modern Anime, for no real reason.
• Anything made by Gen Urobuchi sucks. Especially Psycho Pass.
• On that note, Psycho Pass is a rip-off of Ghost in the Shell even though the series have very little similarities.
• Anything made by Kyoto Animation sucks. Full Metal Panic is the exception to this rule for no real reason.
• Anything made by Bones automatically means it has a bad plot.
• Anything made by Shaft automatically means it’s all about visuals.
• Romance ruins any Anime because no real reason.
• Everything must be approached objectively. Subjective opinions don’t count. This guy is wrong.
• Hype is the biggest problem in the Anime community. This guy is wrong.
• If anything has fan-service, it is automatically trash. Except Kill La Kill and old Mecha shows because symbolism.
• If anyone disagrees with you, do not engage in a mature discussion with them. Just make fun of them and call them names. “Narutard” is the best one to use. They’ll probably tell you they don’t like Naruto, but they’re lying. Only Naruto fans would disagree with your objective opinion.
• Enjoyment should never be a factor when deciding how good a show is. Even though the whole purpose of entertainment is to be entertained, a true Anime fan transcends this and is not allowed to simply sit down and enjoy something.
• Every show must be logical and make complete sense. If it doesn’t follow logic of makes up its own logic, then its bad. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the exception to this rule for no real reason.
• It’s okay to skip entire episodes and story arcs. You can still form an opinion about a show if you’ve skipped half of it.
• You cannot like more than 50 shows. If you do, you’re a tasteless casual.

7. Share your opinions

This should be you in every discussion

Now that you’ve made your accounts, scored your shows and memorised the commandments, make sure you frequently post on forums and comment sections and make tweets about how shit everyone else’s opinions are and how you are always right about everything.

Your Twitter should look something like this

If people disagree with you, make sure you follow the commandments and insult them instead of trying to reason with them because you’re superior to them in every single way.

8. Keep watching Anime (Even though you hate everything about it)

Now that you’re a fully fledged elitist, you must now continue to consume Anime.

All modern Anime is bad, no show can measure up to Legend of the Galactic Heroes and enjoyment now means nothing to you, but you must persevere and brave the storm.

Why do we still watch Anime if we hate everything about it and bring nothing but constant negativity to the medium and its community?

That’s the biggest mystery of Elitism. I honestly have no idea why we continue to watch a medium we get nothing out of any more, and questioning it is thinking like a tasteless pleb.

If you made it all the way to the end then congratulations on becoming a true Anime fan!

Note: In case you some how didn’t catch on, this entire post was satire. I’m poking fun at elitists and I do not encourage you to actually follow any of this. I hope this made you laugh and I apologise for the language in some parts, it felt necessary to deliver the humour.

If you’d like to see more posts like this, I have a few other ideas that I’d really like to do in a similar style. Thanks for reading everyone!