A few months back I showed a preview of a set of images I was working on. It was great fun working on it, but at some point I stopped. This post is mostly for me, as I want it to mark the point that I decide to finish it, or at least take it significantly further.
Below are some of the bits I finished prior to stopping.
When listing the tropes of the magical girl genre, certain traits come to mind. Shows are generally targeted towards mainly a female audience. Romance is usually a focus. Magic is used in some manner of wish fulfillment, either by the characters or the viewers or even both. Cosmic Baton Girl Comet-san, a 2001 anime about an extraterrestrial princess with the power of the stars, can easily fit these descriptions and more, but none of them quite do justice to young Princess Comet and her story. Comet-san defies its own categorizations without betraying any of them in the process.
All stars have their own radiance, their own personalities, their own lives. And in the vast sea of the universe there are those who understand and communicate with these stars. One of them is Comet, a young princess of Harmonica Star Country, who is set to marry the prince of the neighboring Tambourine Star Country and unite their lands for the sake of their peoples. When the prince runs away to Earth, Comet is tasked to follow him and ask for his hand in marriage personally. Comet is quick to accept her mission, though what no one other than her mother knows is that she doesn’t care one way or another about chasing princes or fostering peace between nations. Comet is a girl full of curiosity and enthusiasm, eager to see what life is like on a new planet far away from her home.
Comet-san has a certain magnetism to it. While many magical girl anime are very episodic, or have a focus on the daily lives of normal girls (albeit with magical powers), very few of them can match the (ironically) down-to-earth nature of Cosmic Baton Girl Comet-san. Rather than Cardcaptor Sakura or Shugo Chara, the pacing of Comet-san is closer to that of shows such as Kino’s Journey or Aria. The show pulls you into its own deliberately slow pace, and you may find yourself being dragged along willingly. Each episode finds Comet-san learning more and more about life on Earth. People, plants, animals, customs, weather, art, love, anything and everything is a joy for Comet to experience, and every day is a new opportunity for discovery.
Comet-san is a show that is blessed with strong characters all around. The primary rival, a short-tempered princess from Castanet Star Country named Meteo who is far more interested in finding the prince, provides a nice foil for Comet, though it is Comet’s even-handedness that frustrates Meteo more than the other way around. A young life guard reminiscent of Li Shaoran named Keisuke provides one of many potential romances for Comet. Comet has her requisite animal mascot in a bear-like creature named Rababou (a take on “rubber ball” due to his elastic body), who is there to remind Comet of her true goal, but is also a valuable friend and at first her only companion from home. Comet’s host family’s children are fraternal twins named Tsuyoshi and Nene. Their nickname for Comet is “Komatta-san,” with komatta meaning “troubled.” They are two of the most endearing and non-irritating child characters in anime all the while while having the maturity one expects of children.
Comet herself is an inspiring main character whose personality could probably be best described as “subdued enthusiasm.” Comet shows a wide range of emotions, some of them completely new and unfamiliar to her, and expresses them in a way that can be very cathartic to watch, especially because of her pleasant voice, courtesy of Maeda Aki. In the end, nothing contributes to the slow pacing of the series more than Comet.
This is not to say, however, that the show is without progress or continuity. The feeling of the show is such that often times I found myself thinking that all it would take is one big twist to turn it all upside down, and most likely this twist somehow involves the fact that no one knows what the Tambourine Star Country’s prince actually looks like.
Sadly, that is all speculation from me, as less than half Cosmic Baton Girl Comet-san is available subtitled, and the fansubbing group that has been slowly plugging has been doing so since 2002. If there is an end, it is way off in the distance. I hear that this show was actually dubbed into English as “Princess Comet” though, and broadcast around the world, so it may be possible to obtain it in that form more easily. That said, even with completion nowhere in sight, I urge anyone and everyone to watch a few episodes and see if life doesn’t start looking a little brighter.
There are a number of aspects of the Japanese language that you can use to supplement your Japanese studies, but one of the most difficult areas in my opinion is that of politeness. More often than not, anime characters care little for using the appropriate verb forms in specific situations. Probably the most you’ll ever see in terms of levels of politeness and familiarity is characters who originally called each other by their last names transitioning to a first-name-basis kind of relationship. And the most formal vocabulary is known as “keigo.”
Keigo is the kind of vocabulary you use when you want to be ultra formal, ultra polite, and probably talking to your boss. I can’t give any specific lessons as my keigo is shaky at this point in time, but to give you an idea of keigo and some of the difficulty that learning it entails, I’ll provide a few examples. The verb “suru,” to do, in keigo is “nasaru.” That “itadakimasu” you hear so often before meals is actually a keigo form of “moraimasu,” or to receive.
Again, this is not something you can develop or improve significantly while watching anime or reading manga, so in this case it is best to go through more orthodox channels.
Today, an idea came to me.
I would release a series of woodblock prints to the public. People would be able to purchase these woodblock, which would be comprised of fantastic images of various beasts and mythological creatures. Then, collectors would be able to take these prints and combine them into thick, accordion-like booklets and compete against other collectors. The rules of competition would be sophisticated, deep, and complex but simple enough that anybody could begin playing.
And this game would be called…
U-Ki-Yoh!
Anime fans in the west have had a long history of actively seeking out their anime. Be it trading tapes, taking time out of your day specifically to go to anime clubs, figuring out the arcane secrets required to get shows off of irc, learning how to use bittorrent, or even searching on Youtube, there has always been the push to find more anime. There is a sort of mental devotion, however small, to finding new shows or finding more of a particular show, and I believe that just as much as it is a reflection of the hardcore fan’s mindset, it can also influence that mindset as well. It is both cause and effect.
When one downloads or otherwise looks for episodes of Pretty Cure, there’s some sort of labor involved, and from that labor it makes sense to want sufficient value in return, to (misappropriately) use some of Karl Marx’s terminology. Thus, when that episode of Pretty Cure has no progress, when it feels like the last episode, disappointment occurs. Then you might think, “This show isn’t worth my time.” And it might not be. However, keep in mind that most anime in Japan is shown on TV, and the TV acts as a passive medium for most mainstream shows. Anime like Pretty Cure air on weekend mornings, so there’s no need for staying up late or setting a VCR or Tivo. It, like so many other shows, becomes simply a part of a weekly routine, something that can be enjoyed in addition to other activities by the viewer, such as eating breakfast.
It becomes a custom, like saying hi to your neighbor every morning (feel free to substitute neighbor with anyone else). Anyone who woke up for Saturday Morning Cartoons is probably familiar with this feeling. Sure, there are shows you like more than others, or would have to sacrifice one for the other if they aired at the same time on different channels, but the familiarity makes it less of a new shirt and more of a warm blanket.
Having started to watch Eureka Seven in Japan, I originally thought it was going to be a warm blanket, that Eureka Seven would be mostly episodic and carried on the characters’ strong personalities and their interactions. When I noticed those interactions causing permanent changes in those characters, I became more involved, and before long it started to become an active pursuit, where I would purposely go to sleep early on Saturdays to catch Eureka Seven early Sunday morning. I think this gradual shift from blanket to shirt is part of what made me so fond of the show.
I think some of the success (or lack thereof) of anime aired on TV in the US has very much to do with being situated in a way that makes them accessible to passive viewers. Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing aired at convenient, after-school time slots. Cowboy Bebop was on around midnight, when it’s late but not too late. Gundam SEED was saddled by a poor time slot that got progressively worse. Adult Swim seems to be pushing Code Geass off a cliff with a 5am time slot, and I think they are well aware of the active/passive fandom dichotomy that occurs. I mean, you could say that viewers should just set their vcr’s to record, but then that involves labor, and the viewer then pretty much has to be a fan.
And while it’s great to be an anime fan, not everyone who is a potential viewer or a potential fan starts off this way.
My fondness for Daidouji Tomoyo predates my obsession with Ogiue by a number of years. At one point, pre-Ogiue, I was talking with someone online, who mentioned that in his opinion Hotaru from Sailor Moon is a “better” Tomoyo. I held nothing against him despite his being completely wrong, but remembering this brief conversation got me to thinking about how many characters I would call variations of Ogiue’s character-type. Ogi-esque, if you will. After much deliberation, it dawned on me that no such other characters exist. Other fujoshi characters bear little resemblance to Ogiue, and are typically much more cheerful. It’s easy to call Ogiue a tsundere, but her tsundere is like nothing else. It’s not even a stronger type of tsundere, like with Kugimiya characters, but it’s a unique flavor full of body and depth that leaves you satisfied.
I think it has to do with Ogiue being a very balanced, well-rounded character. She has this mix of passion and repression that comes out in everything she does. Her simple one-word responses speak volumes as to the kind of person she actually is, particularly because throughout the story she tries her best to hide her true self. And certainly there are characters who often don’t say what they actually think or feel, but this attribute occurs much more frequently on far more aggressive characters.
Or maybe I’m just incredibly biased. Which I am. But I’m still right.
According to MSNBC’s recent article on anime and otaku culture, not only is anime NOT KIDS’ STUFF, but apparently lolicon is short for “lolita + comics.” Oh, and Gurren-Lagann and Urotsukidoji can be mentioned in the same breath with ease.
The writer makes some valid points, such as the division between 2d and 3d among a portion of the otaky population, but It does no one any favors when a mainstream news service such as MSNBC posts an article full of logical leaps so astounding they’d have taken the gold at Beijing. Students of all ages eager to write their school essays on anime, or even relatively inexperienced academics trying to examine fandom from a broader scale might actually take this article seriously. And if anime-related academia on any scale is ever going to improve, we need to not have yet another “BAM! POW! COMICS AREN’T JUST FOR KIDS ANYMORE”-type article, no matter how dressed up it is with hipper, modern references like Gurren-Lagann or Akihabara.
I’ve registered for the JLPT2, which happens December 7th, 2008. As a reminder, registration ends around September 20th, so get a move on it if you plan on seeing just how much Japanese you know while under the pressure of a test environment with a test purposely designed to fool you.
After Otakon, my studying had dropped significantly, and I found myself forgetting kanji i thought I knew. Alarmed, I became determined to study more with the help of a friend. I answered some sample questions from the JLPT2 and got most of them right. However, being correct doesn’t matter if you don’t actually answer all of the questions, and this is where I learned the harsh reality of the JLPT2: It is a LOT of questions in very little time. One section wants you to answer 100 questions in 40 minutes, leaving you actually less than 30 seconds per question. Granted, you only need to get 60% of the test correct in order to pass, but the pressure of that time limit is so harsh it’ll cause me to lose 2 PP every time I attack.
I also have been trying to improve my listening comprehension, and decided to be all hardcore about it and listen to the Nikkei News Podcast. What I learned is that I can understand Japanese commercials (or rather the between-news-segments promos) a hell of a lot better than I can understand news about business and economics. Maybe if I listen to it 10 more times I could actually understand 50% of it.
it’s only a few months away so I need to buck up and study more. You may or may not see a decrease in post that are actually about anime.
OGIUE MANIAX 