Rooster Fighter is an anime and manga whose title is both self-explanatory and woefully inadequate for capturing its full scope. The rooster indeed fights, but he also does so much more.
Cut from the same cloth as classic manly action series like Fist of the North Star and Golgo 13, the simple twist of Rooster Fighter is that its gruff and grizzled hero is the literal cock of the walk. Keiji is a chicken seemingly without peer, and the very fact of his existence could be enough to carry a comedy series. However, as tongue-in-cheek as it can be, Rooster Fighter plays itself mostly straight, and the result is a surprisingly good overarching story that continuously escalates and delivers shock and awe in the best ways.
My initial impression just from promotional material was that this chicken is much larger than normal, a la Chicken Boo. I was wrong; he’s a normal-sized bird. So what does this small Rooster Fighter fight? Why, giant house-sized Demons of course. How does he fight them? With talons, but also a super cock-a-doodle-doo beam (or kokkekoko in Japanese). Why is he fighting Demons? Because one of them kidnapped his little sister. Of course.
The series is somehow able to hit every trope you can think of while also feeling oddly fresh and exciting. For example, Keiji slowly gathers a crew (whether he wants to or not), and they pretty much slot in perfectly with Kenshiro’s group. You have the kid sidekick, the girl who’s more about gadgets and intelligence, and so on…yet while they certainly give Keiji the biggest spotlight, the rest of the team is shown accomplishing feats and making up for his oversights and shortcomings. On top of that, every twist is legitimately surprising, possibly because “standard character detail or story development” takes on an added wrinkle when you follow it with “and also they’re all chickens.” For instance, the hen can communicate with humans using a smartphone???!
Rooster Fighter is a ridiculous work, but the most ridiculous thing of all is how legitimately good it is. If you turned everyone into humans and kept everything largely the same, you would still end up with a well above average battle series. Making everyone a bunch of cluckers elevates it beyond satire and irony into the realm of hyper sincerity, where most series wish they could be.
This month, I feel incredibly fortunate to have a good life, and I wish to have a country that could provide good fortune to others, now more than ever. I don’t know how long it would take, but I hope we can someday live in a place where all the xenophobia, sexism, racism, and continuous trampling of the poor are no longer systemically baked into everything. I want people to love and thrive and not be so punished for things beyond their control.
There are a lot of VTuber concerts this month, including from hololive, so I get the feeling I’m going to be writing a lot about them. I don’t intend to make July nothing but those, but no guarantees!
Also, I watched the first episode of F.D Signifier’s Goon World, which is about the sheer unavoidable volume of pornographic material that people encounter these days, and the myriad complexities that come out of living in that world. It’s a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about myself in recent years (especially with how the internet encourages parasocial interactions), and I’m glad someone like F.D is tackling such a difficult topic.
Manga author panpanya drew the final web bonus for Rakuen, which involves exploring a store based on all the different Rakuen titles. Kio comments “Heh-heh-heh, what a suspicious store this. How wonderful…”
To celebrate the 500th issue of Young Comic, the magazine interviewed various creators about their fetishes, and Kio drew a short informational comic about his fondness for futanari. Kio comments that the preview thumbnail makes it look like he’s calling himself a futanari.
(I’ll probably write a summary of Kio’s entry and post it to the blog in the near future.)
Having watched the World Cup match between Japan and the Netherlands, Kio says that getting a tie score demonstrates that the Japan team isn’t just for show, and that they have what it takes to win.
Watching Ueda Ayase play is also apparently quite the rollercoaster.
Dooby3D is one of my favorite VTubers. As an independent creator, she had a lot of say in her own design, and something I find really charming and noteworthy about her look is her large ears.
In a field where it’s more common to find animal ears (like those of a cat girl or dog girl) on top of the head or elf-like knife ears on the side, it’s actually quite rare to have two honkin’ huge ones like hers that are both cute and comedic. They tie into Dooby’s lore by hinting at a jerboa’s rabbit-like ears, but the more human appearance straddles the line between realistic and cartoonish. Heck, I have relatives with ears almost that big.
There’s a lot more to Dooby than just her looks (like her laid-back attitude and her creativity with 3D and 2D anime) but I just wanted to highlight this small but effective element of her design.
Happy birthday to Dooby! I never tire of her antics.
For a couple months, the yuri film Cosmic Princess Kaguya seemed to be all over my social media timelines. It was a big enough hit for Japan to screen it in theaters after its Netflix release, multiple VTubers mentioned it or did watchalongs, and there’s still a lot of ongoing buzz. Before sitting down to watch it, I only knew two things: 1) It’s inspired by the Japanese folk tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter 2) The movie includes covers of Vocaloid music remixed in a way to invite a bit of debate and disagreement.
In a near-future science fiction twist on the original folk tale, a high school girl named Iroha discovers a baby inside of a utility pole instead of bamboo. The child, who quickly grows into a teenage girl, calls herself Kaguya and claims to be from the moon, and says she decided to leave to find more excitement. Life together isn’t easy, especially for Iroha as she studiously tries to get into a good college while working part-time, but a contest to see who will perform on stage with Iroha’s favorite virtual idol has them launch Kaguya’s VTuber career.
Cosmic Princess Kaguya comes across to me as Summer Wars if it was made for a younger generation than Hosoda’s film. Both works center around a vast virtual world where people can interact through their avatars, but whereas Summer Wars shows how old-fashioned modes of communication and relationship-building still have an important place in an increasingly online world, Cosmic Princess Kaguya feels firmly planted in a kind of late Millennial to late Gen Z mindset—or late Heisei, if we’re going by Japanese terms. Between the Vocaloid music, the VTubers and metaverse stuff, and even the inclusion of a game that’s basically Fortnite + League of Legends, it feels very much like the film is aiming for a “digital natives” generation, to use a somewhat outdated term.
Cosmic Princess Kaguya has multiple false finishes, intentionally emphasizing the arbitrary nature of endings, when stories are “supposed” to be done, and who even gets to decide when things are over. While I appreciate this playing around with narrative structure, I do think it’s hurt by an overall structure that drags in multiple places. Perhaps it’s because I’m not a really devout yuri fan, but there are scenes where it just seems like Iroha and Kaguya are interacting just so that viewers can bask in their presence together, but it makes the narrative hang in place instead of inching forward. The aforementioned combined “battle royale and arena battle” game does feel like it was devised by people who understand both genres, but its inclusion in the middle feels excessive. The inclusion of Vocaloid stuff also just seems to be there, as if it’s assumed it’s the best and coolest music ever, whether or not it fits. In other words, I feel that Cosmic Princess Kaguya targets a certain audience, and I feel like I’m just ever so slightly out of that range.
There is one moment in the film that sticks with me, and it’s a kind of reference to the history of digital media in Japan. At one point, a character explains that the moon is the world of dreams and separate from Earth, but that the gap is inadvertently bridged by the digital and virtual world as a halfway point between dreams and reality. On the moon, a depiction of a character is done with dither graphics, a technique used in 1980s and 90s dating sims to work around the limited palettes of that era’s computers. In doing this, Cosmic Princess Kaguya makes a reference to some of the earliest attempts to portray anime characters using computer graphics, and implies that this is the closest the film can get to visually representing the inhabitants of the moon as they truly are.
I find Cosmic Princess Kaguya to be a pretty good film that revels a little too much in what it’s offering. There’s a solid story in there in terms of the big picture, but it loves to indulge in its portrayal of its virtual world and the simple existence of its main characters to a degree that bogs the whole thing down. Both cohesive narrative continuity and plot contrivances somehow exist in an elegant but awkward dance, and I think how much you like this film comes down to how much you resonate with the internet culture that is represented within.
Last month, I attended a US screening of the second movie in the Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway trilogy, The Sorcery of Nymph Circe. It was actually my second time seeing it, having catched it during a trip to Japan. I had originally planned to write about it after that first viewing, but I came away confused about a few things that I felt would benefit from a repeat viewing.
Prior to the release of the first film in 2021, the Hathaway’s Flash novel was always something of a mystery to me—a work I merely read about in dedicated online forums or guides for Gundam crossover games. It’s wild to think about how by the time all this wraps up, it’ll be 2031 and an entire decade will have elapsed, alone the 30 years since I learned about the novel.
In the first Hathaway movie, we were introduced to Hathaway Noa as a full-grown adult, years removed from the child and teenager we saw in previous works like Zeta Gundam and Char’s Counterattack. While he’d previously been best known as the son of Bright Noa, commander of the famed White Base from the original Gundam, here we discovered that Hathaway is now the head and namesake of a militant anti-government organization called Mafty. While living his double identity, he encountered a mysterious female Newtype named Gigi Andalucia, who reminded him of Quess Paraya—the girl he loved and whom he saw die in combat after having defected to Char Aznable’s Neo-Zeon.
After a big battle, the first film ended by introducing a ton of new faces as Hathaway reunites with the other members Mafty. The Sorcery of Nymph Circe continues from there, and I have to admit that I originally got a little lost keeping track of everyone, trying to remember if I even saw them last time, all while they threw names and places around. By the second viewing, though, I came to understand that Mafty was trying to coordinate an attack on a gathering of Federation leadership, all while Hathaway struggles with his relationships towards women and his sense of guilt/responsibility as leader. All the while, Gigi contends with the fact that she has been sheltered and showered with every luxury imaginable due to being both such a powerful Newtype and the favored mistress of one of the richest people in the world.
Hathaway is surrounded by gorgeous women, many of whom have feelings for him, and the film really wants to make that clear. Watching in the moment, the frequent indulgent shots can feel gratuitous, but the film eventually reveals that there’s a greater point being expressed beyond cheesecake: Hathaway suffers from PTSD brought about by his involvement both direct and indirect in the death of women from his past. He angrily and desperately chides himself for feeling sexual desire when he’s supposed to be fighting for loftier goals, as Char Aznable did. In this light, our protagonist becomes something of a pathetic James Bond, whose pain and determination become a form of charisma that attracts women and acts as both a curse and a blessing. In other words, the fanservice is portrayed in a distracting manner because it is meant to show how distracting it is for Hathaway himself, and I find having such patheticness in a main character to be pretty interesting.
Now, whether that approach works is a more complicated question. It’s not the main driving force of the movie (which would be the whole “attempting to overthrow the Federation” thing, but that turmoil does reveal itself to be the foundation of Hathaway’s character and the thing that undergirds his actions. In the moment, however, the T&A can feel excessive and gratuitous, and like an attempt to get some horny fans.
A similar issue exists with Gigi. There are many scenes of her basically playing fashion model and home designer in ultra-wealthy settings, and they’re ultimately meant to show how Gigi is trapped in a gilded cage. She has her position and privilege because she’s desired by a very powerful man who values Gigi for both her psychic gifts and her body, and this gives her access to more than most can even dream of. In this context, all the opulence feels like an attempt to exercise some form of autonomy, and the limitations of this are what attract Gigi to the mess that is Hathaway Noa. However, the sheer amount of expensive outfits, furniture, and decorations portrayed—not to mention Gigi’s statuesque beauty that is very rare in Universal Century Gundam even among its most beautiful characters—can also come across as trying to appeal to people with similar tastes, or perhaps those obsessed with luxury goods.
The movie also can sometimes just be visually hard to follow. In addition to not always being clear who’s on what side, there’s a particular problem that stems from Hathaway’s Mobile Suit, the Xi Gundam. It is a chunky hunk of metal that almost feels like a very burly and pointy linebacker, and between that, the night battles, and the amount of weapons being fired, sometimes action scenes can be a huge blur. Rather than being able to follow the “choreography” so to speak, I found myself enjoying it more when I let the chaos wash over me and lived in Hathaway’s head. There’s also a big moment that really delves into his psyche, and the world portrayed there ironically shows how much more clarity these battles could have had.
I’ve given some criticisms, but I ultimately did like The Sorcery of Nymph Circe. It feels both mainstream and experimental, and I do like that Hathaway Noa is such an unusual protagonist whose internal struggles oddly seem more relevant than ever with how the male libido has become a weird battleground in culture. He is an imperfect hero whose attempts to become more ideal are filled with pitfalls.
As the credits finished during that first viewing I watched while in Japan, there was a girl behind me who was crying. Talking to another girl next to her, she simply commented that it was really good, all while drying her tears. If a film can move someone that much, I feel like it’s gotta be doing something right.
For some reason, I continue to watch MF Ghost. I think the races have genuinely gotten better, and it’s just enough to overcome some of the weird aspects of the series that comes partly from an old man trying to write a young romance for an old man audience.
Something I’m more neutral on that keeps popping up in the anime are these scenes that are basically shilling Japan and its culture, like they’re doing tourism advertisements. Kanata, the half-Japanese protagonist who recently moved from the United Kingdom, is constantly in awe of Japanese Things. He’ll eat the most delicious rice ever in Japan, or go into a speech about why the country is uniquely suited to seafood because of various environmental factors. And all that is wrapped up in a show that’s about Kanata’s Toyota 86 GT facing off against Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and other elite foreign cars.
I’m not necessarily against this, and it’s true that Japan has a lot of delicious food and excellent rice. It’s just that it feels like an ongoing undercurrent of Japanese nationalism, though I have no knowledge of the author Shigeno Shuichi’s political beliefs. I’m just confused as to whether this ties into any sort of previous Cool Japan initiatives (or its successor, whatever they’re calling it).
This past month was lighter on anime and manga–specific content for that reason, which I hope to rectify.
My mind feels like it’s in a whirl. There are a lot of things I want to write about anime-wise, but I find myself unable to get everything out there in a timely fashion. On a personal level, I think I’m struggling with writing well and putting out insightful commentary. I’m shooting from the hip pretty often, for better or for worse.
June is actually a month I look forward to, though, as it’s an important time for me. I have many plans, and I look forward to some memorable experiences.
Kio gives his thoughts on Patlabor EZY, Ghost in the Shell, and more.
Closing
It’s also been a hell of a time as a VTuber fan, between a Haachama anniversary message that’s trying to bring hope after some serious turmoil, two graduations from V4Mirai, and more. Since Saturday, I find myself listening to the final cover from Komo Dokueki (the Mahoromatic opening) and Serina Maiko’s cover of “Secret Base.”
Kio read the first volume of Kuroda Iou’s new manga, Sendou Yasugorou, and loved the realism and sense of tension. (Incidentally, Kuroda is one of my favorite manga artists stylistically, so I gotta check it out!)
Kio also loves Kuroda’s manga Nasu: Summer in Andalusia, as well as the film based on it. (I didn’t realize the movie was based on a work by Kuroda Iou!)
I’m including some replies to this that I haven’t translated or summarized so I can go back to them once I have proper context.
A quote tweet of someone who’s correcting a mistaken assumption about an old Animage cover featuring Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service. The erroneous belief is that the cover depicts Kiki three years after the events of the film, but it’s actually supposed to be how she looks and dresses before the events of the film.
Kio recalls reading this issue in middle school, and that it showed how Kiki looks when riding a broom in this outfit.
He watched the new Patlabor EZY File 01, and felt that it was very much a modern-day Yuki Masami series and very Patlabor. Cognizant of the old OVAs, Kio is anticipating some major storylines to develop.
In a Twitter discussion about works people expect might never get a real ending, one title that popped up is Pandora in the Crimson Shell by Shirow Masamune and Koshi Rikudo, which was expected to never conclude but then suddenly came back with a proper conclusion.
In response to the initial tweet, another person talks about how those who criticize Shirow’s works for not having endings do not understand the world of Shirow and the entertainment his manga provide. Kio in turn says that when it comes to incomplete Shirow stuff, he mainly thinks of Appleseed rather than Ghost in the Shell, but that he’s grateful for getting a complete series in the form of Pandora in the Crimson Shell.
Kio makes a pun here, basically saying he feels grateful with all his “ghost,” playing off of the Japanese zenshin zenrei (with all my body and soul) and the idea of the “ghost” as one’s soul/consciousness from Ghost in the Shell.
Kio upgraded to Clip Studio Paint 5.0. He’s normally not so comfortable with new features, but he thinks he might be able to make good use of Smart Shape.
To celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of Gundam in 2029, an animated music video featuring virtually every series in the franchise was released. It follows three different generations—father, son, and granddaughter—discovering and growing up with Gundam in different ways over the decades.
One thing I find noteworthy about this animation is that it implies the father, a fan of the original series, does not really “keep up” with Gundam for a chunk of his life. He watcheseverything in the Universal Century timeline up to Char’s Counterattack religiously, but then falls out of touch with it as he gets married and starts a family. It isn’t until a few years later, while discovering G Gundam with his young son, that he dips his toe back in.
However, there’s something of a generational divide depicted. While the son is enraptured by the martial arts fury of Domon and Master Asia, the father is stunned. And as they go through the other alternate universe series up to Turn A, you can see him actually getting overwhelmed by these unfamiliar worlds.
That’s when the two go back to check out older titles in F91 and Victory, which acts as a middle ground and bonding experience. These scenes highlight what a drastic change G Gundam was “supposed” to be, and I find the dad’s rocky acceptance of them surprisingly refreshing. While I’ve always been fond of the AUs, I understand that they can be a far cry from what made many people fall in love with Gundam, and I appreciate that the music video acknowledges this gap.
This video is an idyllic and glamorized rendition of Gundam fandom, and differs from my own life in many ways. Even so, it makes me reflect on the wonderful memories I’ve had with Gundam across most of my life at this point. Whether it was discussing favorite characters and mobile suits in high school or being there to see my own wife watch G Gundam for the first time many years later, it’s been an indelible past of my own history.
OGIUE MANIAX 