My Thoughts on High Guardian Spice and the Crunchyroll Controversy

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to talk about this today.  This was a bit of news that really had otakus and the anime community in an uproar for the past couple of weeks.  It’s caused such a stir that many people, including some of the most prominent and recognizable anime YouTubers, have voiced their own opinions on the issue.  In a nutshell, this took the anime community by storm.  It’s clear that it’s had a significant impact and will continue to have one in the near future.  Though I’m under the assumption that everyone has calmed down a bit from it, I thought I’d share my own thoughts on the matter while it’s still somewhat fresh in our minds.  And yes, I probably know better than to contribute to this kind of online cancer, but given that it’s gotten such massive attention- especially for all the wrong reasons-, I feel like it’s something almost unavoidable.  That being said, let’s talk about this.

For those of you who don’t know the about this issue, allow me to give you a rundown:

Back in August, Crunchyroll, an online streaming service that exclusively offers anime and K-dramas, released a trailer advertising an original animated series called High Guardian Spice.  The show follows a group of girls in a fantasy world who attend a magical school to become guardians.  And that’s about all we get about the show because the trailer talks about the “diversity” of its cast and crew more than about the show itself.  This was made worse when Crunchyroll later disabled their Like bar and comments for the video on YouTube.  As a result, many otakus and anime fans have voiced apparent hate and boycott of Crunchyroll-even encouraging people to illegally download anime rather than pay for a subscription- and have openly refused to watch High Guardian Spice dismissing it as garbage even though it’s not out yet.

Again, it’s gained some rightful attention, but what do I make of all of this?  Well, it’s not easy for me to just give a straight up summary as there are many things I find wrong with this.  But I’ll try not to ramble that much and be as brief as I can.  And to get this started, I want to put it out there that I’m actually interested in seeing High Guardian Spice.

Yeah, I’m well aware that there is very little information about the show at this point and time, but it still hasn’t stopped me from showing some interest in the show, and I certainly don’t think it should stop anyone else either.  It’s kind of sad for me to see how many people have refused to watch the show without knowing anything about it besides the bare details for the sole reason that Crunchyroll has its head in the clouds.  And sure, the animation style pretty much copies from shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe and the overall concept is something that’s been done in anime countless times, but to me it’s not grounds to completely disregard it.  Most people who have said they’re avoiding the show are just pissed at Crunchyroll’s poor advertising.  I’d give at least the first episode a watch, and then determine from there whether it’s worth my time.  So yeah, High Guardian Spice the show is not the problem, it’s Crunchyroll’s poor advertising and overall message that are problems here.  Speaking of, let’s get to the heart of what I found wrong with the trailer and the overall controversy surrounding it.

Tackling the biggest issue head on, the trailer talks about what a diverse cast and crew it has, but really it’s not.  If you watch the trailer, the majority of the crew that you see are women.  More specifically, white, mid 20’s to early fifties, women.  In fact, one crew member says that 100% percent of the writing staff are women!  And throughout the entire trailer, you can only spot one man, and it’s only for a second.  THIS IS NOT DIVERSITY!  Not even close!  All the crew has is more women on their staff than men.  If you were to look up diversity in the dictionary, it would pretty much read out as coming from a variety of different backgrounds.  So if you were to have a truly diverse cast and crew, you would have a variety of staff members that come from different races and ethnicities, practice different religions, identify as being gay or straight or any other member of the LGBTQ+ community, have people who have some kind of disability, and more importantly, have an equal ratio of men and women.  For the crew to say that having mostly women working on the series and calling diverse is not only false, but as a woman, it’s insulting.  So yeah, I definitely didn’t fall for the diversity crap they were spewing here, and frankly, no one else who saw the video did, too.  Still, that wasn’t the only problem I had.

One line from the trailer that I pretty much scoffed at was that the story and concept were original.  That concept reads as four girls who go to a magical school to become guardians.  This, at it’s core, is not original.  There have been countless anime shows over that past several decades that have pretty much used the exact same concept.  And if there were anything of considerable difference, the trailer never mentioned it.  So without knowing anything else, there’s no way this is something different.  The argument that Crunchyroll doesn’t know what it’s viewers want pretty much stems from this issue.  Openly stating that High Guardian Spice is for it’s fans does make the studio sound like it’s aloof.  Still, whether or not it indicates how little Crunchyroll seems to care or listen, you really can’t deny that the overall concept of the show is not even close to being original.  Oh, and don’t even get me started on the show calling itself “anime.”

I know I said earlier that I was interested in seeing High Guardian Spice in spite the flack it’s gotten.  Well, my interest in seeing it is seeing it as an animated show, not an anime.  And yet, they show is advertised as being an anime.  Yeah, I wouldn’t buy that especially seeing that the character design has more ties to Steven Universe than anything else.  It wouldn’t surprise me if the series came out and the animation was exactly like it.  The character designs being anime is one gripe, but another comes from my own definition of anime.  For me, there’s a pretty clear difference between anime and western animation.  Anime is produced in Japan, Western cartoons are produced in western countries like the U.S.   Anime is an animation style that’s pretty much trademarked in Japan.  And since High Guardian Spice was made here in America, it’s not anime.   Something else besides obvious style that makes anime what it is is that there’s a lot of Japanese culture and tradition that’s weaved into it.  Even shows like Cowboy Bebop which are considered love letters to Western pop culture still carry some Japanese tradition and culture in it.  Sure, you have some isekai and fantasy shows, but even then, you can see a lot of ethic and moral codes on display that only the Japanese show and understand.  I’m certainly not trying to put other shows that borrow a lot of the anime concepts down, but I don’t think it’s something that American culture grasps.  Still, when you get down to it, High Guardian Spice will never qualify as a traditional anime, animation style or Japanese traditions included.

So there you have it, my problems with the High Guardian Spice  controversy.  Again, much of this involves Crunchyroll’s poor execution of advertising, but it hasn’t stopped me from giving the show a try.  I don’t know whether or not it’s out yet, but I don’t think it would hurt.  Still, to bring the point home, Crunchyroll really bombed at showing off what new content they could create for their audience.

I know my opinions have not been the first to be read, but I certainly thank all of you for reading this!  Stay tuned next Sunday when I officially start October with a supernatural review on one hell of a new movie!

-Hanime on Anime