Author Archives: sdshamshel

The Perfect Nickname for Saki’s Anetai Toyone

Posted on by

The new season of the Saki anime is here, and with it comes a whole slew of new characters. I’m quite fond of a number of them, but perhaps none more than Anetai Toyone. At 197 cm tall (over 6’5″) she’s not just “anime girl” tall, but actually a dark and imposing figure (at least physically).

I mentally refer to her as “the Undertaker” because on her resemblance to the WWE wrestler, particularly his early-to-mid 90s look, and I’m encouraging everyone else to do the same. It’ll make the actual experience of watching the show that much richer, and I want you to think of that signature gong every time you see Toyone.

Perhaps Kakura Kurumi (the small one) could be her Paul Bearer.

The Fujoshi Files 90: Matsumoto Setsuna

Posted on by

Name: Matsumoto, Setsuna (松本刹那)
Alias: Macky (まっきい）, Kimouto (キモウト)
Relationship Status: Single
Origin: Fudanshism: Fudanshi Shugi na Seikatsu

Information:
Matsumoto Setsuna is the younger twin sister of Kentei Academy’s  manga club president, Matsumoto Senri. Extremely similar in appearance, the two share what can be best described as a sportingly antagonistic sibling relationship, where Setsuna mockingly refers to her older brother as “onii-chama” while Senri has labeled his sister “Kimouto” (disgusting little sister). Originally attending a different school from her brother, at the start of high school she also begins to attend Kentei. She is able to deduce on her own the fact that gothic lolita fujoshi “Amane” is actually her brother’s male classmate, Miyano Amata.

Setsuna is friends with a fair number of fujoshi, such as Gen’ei Ryou (though primarily online and through mahjong), and the manga club’s Takaide. Unlike many of her peers, she enjoys but is not maniacal about Omakase Tentel, and is far more interested in titles such as Hameai and the genre of construction tool personification yaoi, for example Hammer on Nail action. She can often be seen giving a wry smile while saying, “Aha.”

Fujoshi Level:
Not above pairing her own brother with other people (though doing it partly because she knows it gets under his skin), Setsuna’s facial expressions belie the fact that the gears are constantly turning in her head to turn anything and everything into a BL situation. One example is when she becomes fixated on a pen and its cap, with the pen being the seme.

Busou Renkin, a Good Manga but a Bad Shounen Fight Manga

Posted on by

After attending Kurosaki Kaoru’s Otakon panel on her husband, Rurouni Kenshin author Watsuki Nobuhiro, I felt compelled to read more of his stuff, though perhaps unexpectedly I gravitated towards Busou Renkin, a manga that I had no idea about beyond having some girl with a scar on her face. Now, after having read all of Busou Renkin, I find it to be a rather interesting work in that its strengths and weaknesses like distinctly along the lines between what is “conventional” in shounen fighting manga and what is not.

In the end-of-volume notes in Busou Renkin, Watsuki writes about how this title is his attempt to make a straightforward shounen fighting manga along the veins of Dragonball and its ilk, but even if he had never said anything this would have been completely obvious. Busou Renkin has a typical high school guy protagonist Kazuki who encounters a mysterious power which gives him a cool weapon to fight villainous creatures and evil organizations with the help of a girl who is more experienced than he is but has less overall potential. It’s about as established a structure for a manga as it gets, but what’s especially fascinating is that Watsuki pretty much fails to execute that basic premise well, and we’re left with a kind of hodge podge of shounen-esque elements which either do not have enough oomph to wow aesthetically (like in the weapons for instance), straightforward payoffs which aren’t really satisfying, and just a lack of connective tissue to hold it all together. I think it’s often easy to characterize the shounen fighting manga as simpler or even easier and therefore less worthy of merit, something that should be child’s play for the creator of Rurouni Kenshin, but Watsuki’s mixed success with Busou Renkin reminds me of something said in Bakuman, which is that because it’s the most reliably successful formula, it also gets the most scrutiny.

Just as the series doesn’t quite deliver within the established structure it purposely stepped into, however, it also impresses when it comes to elements of itself which are not conventional shounen. A lot of it is in the small gags, but the main example is the female character referred to above, Tokiko. Her relationship with Kazuki is the absolute highlight of the series, and seeing them grow closer while giving each other strength makes the whole thing just so much more enjoyable than if it were solely about the fight against increasingly powerful enemies. It’s not even that Tokiko is a strong female character (which she is, and which I’ll get to in a bit), but that there’s an active interaction between equals when you see her and Kazuki together. It’s kind of telling that the final chapter (albeit a final chapter which technically followed the intended final chapter which then followed the original end of the manga which got canceled, it’s confusing I know) is about advancing the romance between Kazuki and Tokiko, and about Tokiko’s past and personality.

When I look at Tokiko, particularly in regards to that last chapter, she gives me the impression of being a kind of proto-Mikasa from Attack on Titan. They share a similar kind of intensity and desire to proect, and neither are slouches when it comes to being able to fight. Both are less squeamish than their male counterparts about a number of things, and both are willing to resort to extreme violence to get the job done. Tokiko can be so vicious that she’s eviscerated someone from inside out, and her catch phrase is actually, “I’ll splatter your guts!” like she’s somehow distantly related to the guy from the Doom comic. It’s maybe no surprise that she ended up being the most iconic and memorable part of Busou Renkin, not just for myself but seemingly everyone else.

As a shounen fight manga, you’re probably better off reading Akamatsu Ken’s UQ Holder, which seems to be doing most of what Busou Renkin tried to do but better and more consistently. However, judged on its less upfront merits, Busou Renkin is really strong, and if you’re a fan of Mikasa from Attack on Titan I think the character of Tokiko will hold immense appeal.

Shounen Sports and Girl Appeal

Posted on by

I’ve been watching two shounen anime adaptations as of late, Yowamushi Pedal and Kuroko’s Basketball. The former runs in Weekly Shounen Champion, the latter in Weekly Shounen Jump. When you look the contents of each series, it’s almost obvious, as if they embody the general direction each magazine has taken, but not in a way which denies either their contemporary nature or their shounen-ness.

In this age where the definition of shounen manga has been in flux, Shounen Champion is the most primary source of classic, old-fashioned shounen manga where a boy does his best to fight and improve. It fits the basic goal of that magazine quite well, which is to be a boys’ magazine for boys, though Yowamushi Pedal isn’t without its modern flairs, including having a more handsome rival for the main character.

Shounen Jump on the other hand is arguably the mainstream boys’ magazine which has embraced its female audience the most, outside of Jump variations which specifically target that audience. Kuroko’s Basketball, like Prince of Tennis before it, is filled with good-looking guys handsomely showing their best. Even if they’re not fujoshi, there’s a clear appeal to girls in it, though overall the series still has in common with Yowamushi Pedal the thrill of sports and competition.

One thing that both series share is the female manager archetype, who more broadly fits into the “knowledgeable supporter” role as well. The idea is that, while they’re not participants in the main activity of each series, they bring an enthusiasm and a set of knowledge that helps the reader understand the sport better while also acting as a cheerleader for the main character and maybe providing a bit of eye candy, though I don’t think either Miki from Yowamushi Pedal or Riko from Kuroko’s Basketball are quite the characters you’d go to for cheesecake. At the same time, I think there’s a certain substantial difference between Miki and Riko, which is that Miki is clearly a love interest for the main character, whereas Riko if she has any romantic involvement at all is with a side character in the series.

I think the fact that Riko is not a love interest, and arguably that Kuroko’s Basketball has no main female love interest for its main character at all (Momo is ostensibly one but her connection to Aomine seems stronger) speaks a lot to the difference in their magazines.  I don’t think this just has to do with Kuroko’s Basketball having a fujoshi fanbase which prefers pairing the guys together, either. If anything, I get an almost shoujo manga-esque impression of Riko’s relationship with Hyuuga and Teppei due to their interactions, not in the sense of hearts and sparkles in the background, but from its use of Riko as a character in her own right.

Spring 2013 Mecha Anime Retrospective (Majestic Prince, Gargantia, Valvrave)

Posted on by

Last spring marked an unusually robot-heavy season of anime where three mecha shows, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince, and Valvrave the Liberator, took three different angles each of which had their own unique appeal. I originally wrote about them as a package, so now with all three shows finished (aside from the fact that Gargantia has another series on the horizon) I figure it’s best to look back on them all at once.

Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince, which had a strong tokusatsu or even 90s anime feel to it, ended up progressing almost as expected, but without it being tedious or losing something in the process. In shows like Majestic Prince, there’s usually some sort of humble beginnings, in this case the main heroes being the “losers” of their class, and comedy gives way to a more serious story as the narrative progresses until it ends up in a giant space battle. It’s par for the course, but while I can’t say Majestic Prince will change the way we think about giant robot anime, I do find that the show is a little bit of everything, nothing in particular that screams, “Wow, this is amazing!” but lots of minor things done well which make for an overall satisfying experience, and a more consistently forward-moving story compared to Gyrozetter. It’s a popcorn anime, something you might show to an anime club or a group of friends to relax, where you find yourself gradually more invested by the final string of episodes. Because of this, Majestic Prince is the show I simply have least to say about, though I do want to point out that it has one of the most memorable death lines ever. You’ll know it when you hear it.

Although Majestic Prince isn’t a show I can talk about too extensively in terms of conceptual or thematic depth (it skims the surface of topics like genetic engineering and human behavior at the very mosy), Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet is the strongest of the three shows in terms of both its ideas and how it presents them. Its initial format, where Ledo, a boy from another galaxy who knows only war, is exposed to the everyday lives of the Earth characters and their concept of family, acts as a part of the science fictional exploration of its world and which become the backdrop for the show to reveal its secrets was somewhat of a source of disagreement and controversy. As people wondered how the story would turn out, there were both complaints that Gargantia spent too much time focusing on the daily lives of characters and that it too much time on its narrative drama. Personally, I think it ended up striking a very nice balance, as we got to learn about the culture of Earth away from the galactic war which they were ignorant of (perhaps for the better), but when it came time to get “serious,” the show effectively used the context it established to make the circumstances and solution directly connected to the characters’ “everyday.”

Significantly, the series did not do the predictable thing and “bring the war to the people.” Instead, it brought the philosophy and ideas which came out of the eternal state of war in which mankind out there in space had become accustomed to, and challenged the people of the Earth (as well as the lead Ledo) to confront and address them. The everyday lives of the characters became the very “weapon” by which they could defy the way of thinking imposed by the world Ledo comes from, and I think there’s a lot to think about in that regard.

Out of the three anime, however, I suspect Valvrave the Liberator will, if not be the most memorable show, stick around the longest in the overall consciousness of anime fandom, though not necessarily for the best reasons. The rape scene in Valvrave is going to remain infamous, and it’s something which is impossible to ignore but also shouldn’t define the entire show. I really think the creators of the show wanted to use it for dramatic purposes but didn’t quite understand what they were getting themselves into, evidenced by the fact that they eventually just drop the subject after some questionable followups. Whether that’s better or worse than keeping at it, I’ll leave you to decide that, but one thing I will say is that having the victim still be in love with her attacker doesn’t inherently make for a bad or “harmful” story, as Watchmen manages to deftly incorporate something similar into its narrative and point out the difficulties associated with such a circumstance.

I was once asked why I kept up with Valvrave even though the show has a lot of odd and nonsensical twists to it, and I explained that the appeal of the show for me was about seeing if Valvrave was trying to celebrate the power of youth or criticize it. Even within the same episode it became difficult to tell if the show was saying, “Kids are the future, a source of new ideas and ideals,” or, “Kids are so damn stupid! Man, I can’t believe we let them touch anything!” I think by Season 2 it leaned more towards the former, but never entirely, and to its credit I think the second season was a huge improvement on the first, as its ridiculous qualities were focused down into a clearer direction while still remaining just as strange. Overall, I think the show turned out okay in the end even with the issues mentioned, if only because it managed to use its social media aspect to great effect, and shows a kind of tempered idealism. It also has a more satisfying conclusion than the Gundam 00 movie despite being fairly similar, but I’m not really sure why I feel that way.

It’s difficult to judge the effect of having so many mecha shows close together has had on anime, if any at all, but it is true that a number of new giant robot shows premiering in 2014, from Captain Earth to the bizarrely named Buddy Complex. I think what I liked most about having each of these shows is that even through their ups and downs, Majestic Prince, Gargantia, and Valvrave all manage to maintain their identities as shows, with developments, characters, endings, and themes which keep the mecha genre from feeling like “more of the same.” None of them are really similar in any way, and I hope this trend continues.

Curbing My Anime Enthusiasm

Posted on by

In my 6th Blog Anniversary post, I spoke about how my schedule has made it so that for the next few months my posts will probably be singificantly less refined in terms of content and complexity, and likely sporadic. Currently I need to concentrate myself primarily towards another task, and so I basically can’t afford to expend my concentration and mental energy too extensively on Ogiue Maniax. Thus, I’ve decided to switch to a method of posting in which the act of blogging is more stress relief and patchworks of thought. You may have noticed it already.

The funny thing is, while often times this can be attributed to some kind of burnout (be it for their blog or for anime/manga in general), this is not the case for me, and in fact I’ve felt the opposite in the past. The issue is that this desire for more is something I must mitigate. I have to basically force myself to not blog, because if I spend too much time with anime and manga, it encourages too much thinking, too much analysis, and too much desire to just keep finding more. If I blog based on that, it draws me towards putting in some serious effort into what I’m writing in a desire to present really well-structured posts, which is again something I need to make sure I don’t do.

It’s a really odd situation to be in, but I hope people understand. I’m not trying to rekindle a dying flame, I’m trying to contain an inferno.

The Fujoshi Files 89: shrshr

Posted on by

Name: shrshr (シルシル)
Alias: shr-chan (シルちゃん）
Relationship Status: Single
Origin: ｇdgd Fairies

Information:
shrshr is a fairy who lives in the Fairy Forest alongside her friends, pkpk and krkr. Energetic and cheerful, shrshr frequently brings up topics of conversation with pkpk and krkr, usually questioning some everyday assumptions, though the discussion typically spirals out of control. In addition to chatting with her friends, shrshr also practices (usually out of control) magic with them in the ”Room of Mental and Time” and peers into other worlds using the “Magic Spring Dubbing Lake,” where they fill in the voices for the people/things they see.

shrshr seems strangely familiar with a number of human anime, at one point wearing a scouter to detect power levels, and making multiple references to “Seiya” and “Cloths.” She also once transformed a gator-whacking game into a naked muscley men-whacking game.

Fujoshi Level:
Upon using the Magic Spring Dubbing Lake and seeing two men kiss in front of a gorilla, shrshr instantly identified one of them as an “uke” and pointed out that she loves this sort of thing. Afterwards, she even suggested doing a doujinshi about this, though for some strange reason spoke of a context “outside of gdgd Fairies.”

Future News: Cure Heart Restores Pulse of Japanese Economy

Posted on by


precuredreams

A trailer for the new Precure crossover is out, and it reveals that they visit the Dream World where you get to live out your dreams. The above screenshot shows a bunch of the main heroines and their aspirations, and they’re mostly in line with what we know about them already.

  • Saki wants to be a baker, like her parents.
  • Nozomi wants to be a teacher, just like mascot sidekick/love interest Coco.
  • Love wants to be a dancer, which we see her work on throughout her series.
  • Tsubomi, who loves flowers, wants to be a florist.
  • Hibiki wants to be a concert pianist, which is part of her general character arc in her series.
  • Miyuki wants to create picture books, which is one of her defining features.
  • And last but not least, Mana wants to be PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN.

I know everyone else’s dream jobs are cool and all, and full of effort and wonder and something we assume they’d be amazing at given their never-give-up attitudes, but I feel like Mana’s is on another scale. Of course, just like the others it’s an extension of her identity in her own series (Mana is class president in Dokidoki! Precure), but even so that is some serious ambition for a girl in middle school, or a boy for that matter. She’s even able to imagine being selected by the National Diet.

precuredreams-mana-small

The more I watch Dokidoki! Precure, the more I think Mana is probably the best true “leader” character out of all the protagonists in Precure. She’s not my favorite in her series or in Precure as a whole, but just from this trailer she impresses me even more. On some level, I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually end her series 30 years in the future and she actually is Prime Minister.

A Message from Another Time: Genshiken Nidaime OAD

Posted on by

Volume 15 of the Genshiken II manga came out in Japan recently, and with it a limited edition featuring an OVA (or OAD as they call it) where they animate a couple of chapters from the original Genshiken. Covering Sue’s stay over at Ogiue’s apartment and the group’s new year’s shrine visit, it’s a part of the story that should be completely familiar territory to Genshiken fans, and watching it has made me want to both consider its role or purpose as the first Nidaime OAD and think a little about the story itself.

When you think about it, this OAD didn’t have to be the new year’s shrine visit, but it is in many ways the most appropriate given Nidaime. Ogiue’s trauma and the trip to Karuizawa would have been too long and arguably too heavy for this. The graduation in the last chapter of the original Genshiken would have been nice but is of course more of a finale than anything else. The no-dialogue chapter would have been an interesting part to adapt, but that would negate the entire new set of voice actors they’ve brought in. With the new year’s shrine visit, however, you get various threads which lead directly into Nidaime, particularly what’s been covered by the anime. Ogiue shows her softer side, which plays into her role in the second series. Sue expresses her desire to study in Japan, thus setting the stage for her increased prominence. The forlorn romance of Madarame is in full swing here, expressed almost painfully in its silence. Though Genshiken is in a sense full of turning points, this is a pretty major one in hindsight.

In terms of adaptation from manga to anime, I find it interesting that the characters were made to look like in the original series. It seems like a no-brainer but they had to do things like switch to older hairstyles and even styles of dress in order to capture the visual sense of how different the club was back then. In fact the entire mellowness of the OAD really stands out, and I imagine for anyone who watches it after having only experienced Nidaime, they would notice first and foremost the relative lack of bombastic energy. Even the references are from a different period of otakudom (“Sit, Nekoyasha!”).

One minor but noticeable change has to do with the fact that Ogiue has her default Series 1 hairstyle in the OAD, which is subtly different from the hair she wore to the shrine in the manga. There, instead of having the horizontal “antennae” on the sides of her head, Ogiue has more pronounced tufts of hair over her ears, and most likely creating another set of character design sheet just for this one-off Ogiue hair would have been too difficult or time-consuming. What’s important is that this specific hairstyle was not a fluke or a shift in judgment in the manga, as Kio Shimoku specifically drew Ogiue with that hair on the the limited edition cover of Genshiken Volume 15. Given her dress-up for Sasahara’s graduation a few chapters later, I feel like the purpose of this hairstyle was to show Ogiue trying to pretty herself up a bit (which in turn extends from a longer trend of her getting more fashionable after talking to Kasukabe).

If there’s one thing I really took away from  watching this, however, it would be a case of self-reflection, so I hope you’ll forgive me as I indulge in some introspection.

When Ogiue is drying Sue’s hair, she talks about how she’d like to be more like Sue, who isn’t afraid to be an otaku and to just be herself, which Ogiue has been trying to learn. This process Ogiue undergoes in the series is part of why she’s my favorite character, and it’s something I’ve tried to live by as well, to my benefite even, but as I get older I increasingly feel this pressure to not display my otaku-ness so openly. It’s not something I try to hide, but I realize that it’s important to know that sometimes other people won’t quite understand, and explaining who you are and why you love the things you do requires a certain sociability and deftness with words which often escape me. On some level, I worry that the essential advice of “be yourself” is something I’ve begun to creep away from even though it’s been so important to me.

Also, because I’ve managed to become more social and more comfortable over the years, I think what I basically am afraid of is becoming the very person I swore I never would, that person who passes judgment on others for being weird or socially awkward, not because I want to but because I might have lost touch with that feeling. That said, if I’m actively concerned about this, then that’s maybe for the best because it means I haven’t forgotten that idealism even if it doesn’t work out, well, ideally.

Secret Bases: Genshiken II, Chapter 95

Posted on by

As Yoshitake and Yajima discuss the Madarame “harem,” Hato shows that he is more accepting of all the complex facets which make up who he is. Given the issue of romance in the air, however, Yoshitake worries that it could end up breaking Genshiken apart.

One of the manga volume extras has Tanaka and Kugayama discussing the idea that romantic feelings can often destroy otaku groups, and to see that “aside” brought to the forefront in the main manga is interesting, to say the least. It’s an aspect of “nerd friendship” that has been left unexplored in Genshiken so far, for better or worse. Madarame had his thing with Saki, of course, but that was defined more by Madarame’s silence, and now that their particular subplot finished with everything out in the open, the potential drama of the current situation acts as perhaps an extension of that. It’s like every time I look at Genshiken another new arc or period is starting.

Of course, the fact that when Tanaka and Kugayama talked about otaku groups falling apart they had in mind the lone girl whom all of the male otaku fawn after, which is completely flipped with Madarame here. I think I wouldn’t be a fan of too big a swing into “club drama” in the venomous sense, as I think it might get way too far from the core of Genshiken (I’d hate to see friendships fall apart), but given where the series has been and my sense of how Kio Shimoku has advanced the story of the new generation so far, I strongly doubt that’s where it’s headed. Even if it does, I think the man has enough skill to execute it well and make it an opportunity for contemplation nevertheless.

This chapter shows once and for all that the projections have been manifestations of various conflicts in Hato. With the other Hato it’s about how he has tried to maintain this dual mental identity such that his “male” self and his “female” self are two separate entities when in fact they are, as the other Hato put it, the same person. When it comes to the Kaminaga stand, however, given what we know now it’s clear that she represents Hato’s repressed feelings for Madarame. As I’ve stated many times before, I find it interesting that these are two separate aspects. Seeing Hato accept and “absorb” them is probably the highlight of the chapter, as it show perhaps more than any other scene with Hato in the entire of the manga a kind of resolution, or should I say resolve? There’s something powerful about seeing those semi-subconscious facets of Hato disappear from the page, almost like the last time we see Madoka in the original Madoka Magica TV series. I find it also significant that Hato now wants to find an apartment closer to the school so that he doesn’t have to change at Madarame’s place. The idea is obviously that Hato’s own feelings for him make that scenario incredibly uncomfortable for Hato.

A first for Genshiken is that we get to see Sue by herself this chapter. Usually she’s with Ohno, or Ogiue, or Angela, but here Genshiken presents the lone Susanna Hopkins, and though there’s nothing surprising about her lifestyle (or the fact that her dorm is a mess!), there’s an almost melancholy feel to seeing Sue without others to bounce off of, for her actions to collide with the sensibilities of others. If it weren’t for the stuff with Hato mentioned above, I would say Sue in her dorm room would have been the most powerful image in this chapter. Also, though it’s hard to tell I think Sue lives in an on-campus dorm specifically devoted to foreign students. My clues are the bits of unreadable English (or other roman alphabet text) on a couple of plaques and the fact that the two other dorm residents portrayed are speaking something unintelligible for Sue.

I also feel the need to talk a bit about Yoshitake, if only because, as much as the old Genshiken characters were into some pretty hardcore stuff, they never spoke so openly and candidly about topics like sex. Of course, Yoshitake’s exclamations come from a place of otaku fantasy and not personal experience, so it’s not that different, but she’s a far cry from everyone else outside of maybe Angela who’s more forward and is more sexually active than Yoshitake is. I think Yoshitake’s decision to title the whiteboard list of Madarame’s faults as “Rame-senpai no koko ga ramee,” which makes it sound like a line from a porn manga, says it all. As an aside, Yoshitake makes a reference to Kamijou Touma (I’ll break that illusion apart”), which I’m sure will please at least a few.

Sadly we did not get to see Ogiue in her hometown, which I was really hoping for. That said, though this may just be my own wishful thinking, I believe that Ogiue could play an important role in all of this because she understands the emotional and relationship damage that can happen when people refuse to communicate with each other, which I think is the biggest “threat” when it comes to a club like Genshiken falling apart.