Literary Fiction is like a Jigsaw Puzzle

Writing about the anime I had hard time watching, I came up with this metaphor, as I tried to explain reasons for following plot very carefully and attentively.

Literary fiction or symbolism anime has a complex story, that is like a jigsaw puzzle, or perhaps and anti-jigsaw puzzle or a Rubic cube. It squeezes a lot of detail into a single complex picture. Every single piece of info is needed to understand the whole picture. Missing a few details here and there will cause you misunderstand the whole story.

That applies not only to the shows I mentioned in that article, but also to many others. To all I ranked 10 and 9, and to many more. Code Geass, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Serial Experiments Lain, Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji. Also, Planetes, Infinite Ryvius, Mawaru Penguindrum, Portrait de la Petitte Cosette, Tatami Galaxy and some more.

Black Lagoon, Phantom, Requiem for the Phantom and 5cm per Second might not look like that, but they also have minor details that alter you understanding of the whole, if you pay enough attention to notice them. 

Of course, mother of such shows, Umineko no Naru Koro ni is the most complicated puzzle of them all.

People who do not understand that, miss important details and ended up misunderstanding the show entirely. 

Just noticing these details alone is not enough however, you should also understand what role they play in the whole picture. Where exactly this small piece of the jigsaw puzzle connects to the whole picture and what role it plays.

Such intellectual exercises are what symbolism literary fiction is about. And as a reward for solving the puzzle they give you a story that is on a different level from these other shows. It is like discovering that there is a whole new world out there behind the doors of what looks as nothing more than a wardrobe.

I have seen many, many such huge worlds.