Hmmmm I don't completely buy that. Certainly with Western TV (I'll presume you're talking about your typical serial drama/comedies for the sake of argument) there's a lot more money to throw around, a lot more viewership, and a greater incentive to gather talent and produce something worthwhile given the amount of competition and the potential reward for a hit, as opposed to anime where most productions are content to cater to a known audience and approach their material with an eye to advertising other mediums.
Nonetheless we're talking about two types of television that have wildly different aims and differ wildly in their cultural context, and that can't be ignored. You might as well compare Western serial dramas with telenovelas for all the good that does.
You're correct in that we are talking about two very different things created in different countries under different conditions with different goals. However, none of that
really matters to me as a viewer. It might not be fair for me to compare these different works but I'll do it anyway because that's just how people are, we compare and contrast are experiences with one thing to are experiences with another. In that sense, for example, I can't help but think how a good Western TV show would at least try to make me care about the characters in it's first episode, something which I feel
Aldnoah.Zero doesn't really do because the script is trying to juggle so many things at once.
I mean, is it even fair to compare
True Detective to
Law and Order because they've got different creators with different intents going for different audiences? Of course you can compare them. I'll compare
True Detective to a movie, if I feel like it, and perhaps I'll find the movie lacking in comparison. We're free, as consumers of content, to bring in our wide range of experiences of other content when it comes to analysing something with a critical eye. This isn't something I can or would like to "turn off".
I don't know. Keeping myself within the medium, I don't find Aldnoah Zero to be "amazing" at all. I feel it is competent given the restrictions that the budget and schedule would likely put on them, but nothing more than that.
That said, I have no problems comparing anime to western television and movies as well, and contrary to the popular belief that I assume is held in here, I don't feel that either one comes up short against the other, if I were to hold the pinnacles of each up to closer scrutiny. They surely strive to do completely different things, but I don't find the ambitions of anime to be the lesser one. In fact, given my own personal interests, I actually prefer it (being a very visually minded person helps I think) in many ways.
Yeah I was kind of going overboard by calling it "amazing", but I agree with the rest of what you said.
