Category Archives: anime

How Much Does “Japanese-ness” Matter to Anime and Manga Fans?

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The stereotypical image of the non-Japanese anime fan is someone who is in love with Japan. He goes by many names, mostly given by others but also self-referenced: otaku, wapanese, japanophile, weeaboo. This anime fan believes that at least part of what makes anime great is that it comes from Japan, and this imbues a certain degree of specialness or at least difference to it.

But I have to wonder, just how much is it even true that Japanese-ness is that vital component for so many anime and manga fans?

This is not to say that it definitely does not matter for people or that at the end of the day fans are better off judging things from some imagined objective stance of mighty neutrality, but rather is just me asking about where that desire for Japan may or may not exist.

Let’s talk about fans of dub voice actors, the kind who line up to get their autographs every time they appear at a convention and who vastly prefer them over their original Japanese counterparts. You can say something about how those are the voices they’re familiar with, and that they were exposed to those voices through a more accessible medium like television, but what I think is that, at the end of the day, even if Japanese-ness might be present in other areas of the anime they like, be it the character designs or the settings of the stories, “Japanese-ness of speech” itself is not as much of a factor. Having the comprehensibility and perhaps even understanding of nuance of English (or whatever language) is more important than having the characters speaking in Japanese.

Once I attended a cherry blossom festival in New York, where I saw a black girl dressed in a kimono. If it wasn’t clear that she was an anime fan, she was also surrounded by friends cosplaying Naruto characters. What was interesting about the way she wore her kimono though was that it clearly wasn’t the correct way to put one on nor the correct way to walk in one but it was obvious that she didn’t care. I got the impression that even if she knew, it wouldn’t really have mattered. While the coolness and I would even dare to say the Japanese-ness of the kimono itself was important, it was also important for her to assert her own attitude, to conform the kimono to herself rather than the other way around.

A simple hypothesis would be that a fan prefers just enough Japanese-ness for their anime and manga to seem special or different, but not so much that it becomes utterly alien or unapproachable. However, I think that would be a flawed statement for a number of reasons. First, an appeal of Japanese-ness might not necessarily equate to exoticism or Orientalism (though in many cases it probably would), and second, there is a dynamic of what people do and don’t want to be, how much they expect things to conform to their own values rather than the other way around, and so “alien” for some may be preferable. Maybe I’ll think of something better eventually.

Family Re- Union, Go! Aquarion Evol… Review Podcast!!

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I was a guest recently over at the The Veef Show, where its illustrious host VF5SS and I reviewed Aquarion Evol.

Just as a warning, the podcast is super spoilery with little to no warning, and we sometimes go off on odd tangents.

Have a listen.

Exploring Thoughts in “Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Mine Fujiko”

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This post contains spoilers from Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Mine Fujiko

Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Mine Fujiko came and went, and I think it brought with it an intriguing sort of depth and character study that differentiates it from most anime out there.

The way in which the series explores the psychology of the character Fujiko really felt like women were in charge of this show, which they were. It had not only a female writer in Okada Mari, but also a female director in Yamamoto Sayo. I think I get this impression because while Fujiko is an unpredictable character of many mysteries, the way it’s portrayed doesn’t invoke “mysterious woman” as some kind of unsolvable rubik’s cube or distant creature like I think often happens when men write about exploring a female character’s psyche. There is less peeling back the layers and more starting from the assumption that the way thinking happens on the part of Fujiko is normal.

There’s an interesting twist which happens at the end of the series where up until that final episode we think we’re learning about Fujiko’s past and that finally we get to know what makes her tick, but it turns out that all of those memories have been falsely implanted in her. That false past shown is one of rape and sexual abuse, and it created this sense that Fujiko’s life of crime and hypersexual activity is in response to that. As I was watching, I wondered how this would transform the identity of the character of Fujiko, and even whether this extreme past would make it incompatible with the rest of the Lupin the Third franchise before it’s revealed to be false information.

If the circumstances were different, the fact that we were basically fed lies perhaps might have felt like a cop-out, but I don’t see it that way at all. By subverting it at the very end I feel like that whole train of thought, the very act of considering the consequences, became a meaningful thought exercise.

Anime and Idealized Figures

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When it comes to figure drawing in the western art tradition, the standard human is marked at about 7-7.5 heads tall. Increasing those proportions will result in a more idealized figure, to the point where if you want to make a figure look heroic you make him 9 heads tall. However, based on information I’ve learned from the manga drawing workshop at Anime Expo 2012 (and backed up by the Wikipedia entry on body proportions), it turns out that manga and anime much prefer a 6.5-head-tall character as its baseline, and in some cases as an ideal.

The Wiki entry gives moe as an example of where those proportions change, but even putting aside moe girls and going straight into masculine tough guy territory, what I find particularly interesting is that even some of the majestic figures in anime and manga are about 6.5 heads tall.

Reinhard von Lohengramm (right) is a genius tactician and a brilliant leader beloved by all who serve under him, someone who’s not just heroic but legendarilygalactic heroic, and yet he himself is only 6.5 heads tall, maybe 7 heads at best.

Kinnikuman is a super powered wrestler with muscles rivaling even the greatest of American comics superheroes, and yet he too ranks in at about 6.5 heads tall. The same even applies to that most recognizable of anime superheroes, Goku.

Obviously not all anime and manga characters are 6.5 heads tall, and there are plenty of tall, svelte characters who go into fashion model territory, but I have to wonder how this might affect people’s perceptions of characters both male and female. For example, are anime characters viewed as more child-like or less powerful when viewed by someone unaccustomed to manga for these reasons?

Not the X-Games: Anime Expo 2012

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Anime Expo 2012 was my first Anime Expo and my first west coast convention. While I’m not one of those really thorough con veterans, I still found some interesting differences between it and the conventions I’ve been to before, both when compared to the bigger cons as well as the smaller ones. Located in Los Angeles, it uses its position to its fullest.

Industry

In a change of pace of sorts, I  somewhat foolishly attended fewer industry panels than I normally would at a convention. I say somewhat only because of the fact that, for so many of them, they largely amount to announcements (which appear within a minute on Twitter) and they have Q&A sessions which lack teeth. Sometimes you can get a good one, and I try hard to ask good questions when I can, but the more “official” it is, the less chance you’ll get a decent answer. The foolish part is the fact that I was accustomed to Otakon, where one must generally choose between autographs and panels, an only later found out that AX works on a system of giving people “skip the line” tickets for attending guest panels. Lesson learned for (hopefully) next time.

Despite those limitations, AX2012 was by far my most autograph-heavy convention experience I’ve ever had, which is a reflection of one of Anime Expo’s greatest strengths: the sheer amount of guests, particularly Japanese ones. I managed to get stuff signed by the staff from Madhouse, Animetal USA, Kajiura Yuki + FictionJunction, a limited autographed image from manga artist Toume Kei (who wasn’t attending but offered the images as part of a gallery), and probably the biggest one for me: an OVA of Legend of the Galactic Heroes signed by Horikawa Ryo, voice of Reinhard von Lohengramm. I happened to take a fantastic picture of him.

I did manage to go to a few panels as well. I went to the Animetal USA Q&A just to see that bit of spectacle (it was calmer than I had expected), and attended the panel for GoFA, or Gallery of Fantastic Art. GoFA can be described as an organization dedicated to taking anime and manga and giving it a sense of realism by creating products and opening galleries based on those works. The panelists showed off actual products such as glasses and watches based on the designs of anime and manga creators, and mentioned that artists such as Hoshino Lily (Mawaru Penguindrum character designer) and Fukumoto Nobuyuki (Kaiji, Akagi manga creator) have or will have gallery exhibitions in Japan. Apparently they’ve been a part of AX for a long time now, but this was their first time running a panel, a privilege they received because they’re actually producing a stop motion animation based on the artwork of Toume Kei (Sing Yesterday for Me). We got to see a very short preview, about which not much can be said because it lasted less than two minutes.

Another panel of interest was a manga workshop run by an actual manga artist whose name I sadly did not catch (though Peepo Choo’s Felipe Smith was helping to translate). I was unable to stay for the entire thing, but what I saw focused a good deal on anatomy, working from the idea that a solid foundation in realism is needed in order to deviate from it. While I don’t entirely agree with that assessment, I think it is nevertheless an excellent skill to foster and definitely a legitimate way to begin to create art and comics. I do wish that manga workshop panels and the like could move more towards paneling and page layout, but I get the feeling that character design is much more immediate has much more impact for the vast majority of people.

Concerts

I went to all three of the concerts—Animetal USA, FictionJunction, and LiSA—in some capacity, though could only stay for a small portion of the FictionJunction concert due to some scheduling conflicts (more on that later). Animetal USA had by far the smallest crowd, but an enthusiastic one nonetheless, and it was great to hear their take on classic anime songs from shows like Gatchaman, Mazinger Z, and Saint Seiya. I’ll admit, I’m not a fan of heavy metal (though that’s not to say I don’t enjoy it), but I’m glad I went. Later at their signing, the most impressive thing was that there was a real Animetal USA cosplayer, a girl dressed as guitarist “Speed-King” (aka Chris Impellitteri). What little I heard of FictionJunction was definitely excellent. I definitely wish I could’ve seen it all.

The LiSA concert is one of the highlights of AX2012 for me, because I went in only knowing her as the singer of the Fate/Zero opening but not particularly interested, and came out of it as a fan. Not only were all of her songs really good, but her practically-headbanging enthusiasm just filled the concert venue. Impressively, she managed to do the emceeing for her own concert almost entirely in English. I’m not sure how much of it was from actual fluency and how much was practiced and scripted, but she pulled it off regardless. She gave us the benefit of singing the opening to a new summer anime (that wasn’t even out yet), Sword Art Online, and the concert actually made me want to check it out despite only having a passing interest in it prior.

Non-Industry Panels

If AX’s main strength is its industry presence, its main weakness is a lack of interesting fan panels. While fan panels can always vary in quality, they tend to follow along the same basic goals of bringing fans together in order to share in a topic or to convey new ways of seeing the things we love, hat’s not to say that the fan panels at AX weren’t or couldn’t be interesting, but that the sheer amount of “official” panels somewhat limited the overall presence of fan panels. On top of that, many were workshops or something similar, but personally speaking I generally don’t go to conventions for workshops.

I attended the Bloggers and Podcasters Town Hall, not knowing quite what to expect, especially given the use of the term “Town Hall,” but it ended up actually being fairly accurate. Moderated by the Benjamin “Benu” Lopez of the long-running Anime Genesis podcast, the audience (including myself) discussed various topics, including the move to include blogging into a podcast and vice versa, as well as ways to break up the factionalism and cliques which often appear around groups of bloggers/podcasters. It was a fruitful discussion, and I got to meet a number of people I’d only read/heard previously, though I do kind of wish that we didn’t just talk about reaching out but also ways to refine and improve our existing work. As I said at the panel, I do believe that content is king.

Given that I’ve been a part of academia for a while now, I went with the purpose of attending as many of the academic panels as I could. At times, this caused conflict as I had to sacrifice seeing a certain guest in order to see what other researchers were working on, but I think it was well worth it. Even though other events clearly overshadowed the attendance of the academic track, there was something distinctly different about having it as part of a general convention instead of simply being a stand-alone academic conference. Mainly, I felt like presenters had prepared for a mix of academic and non-academic audiences, and it made the presentations a little more fun than what would normally happen.

The highlights of the academic track were the keynote address, where Professor Jeffrey Dym of UC Sacramento discussed his “History of Manga” class, and the “We Make Manga” panel run by Northrop Davis of the University of South Carolina. In both cases, the speakers really knew what they were talking about, and described the challenges they faced in creating their classes, how they designed their curricula, and what sources they used as the foundations for their classes. For Dym’s panel, the things that stood out to me the most were his lament that Ishinomori Shoutarou did not have more work out in English despite his legendary status and the fact that he hesitated on including sports manga in his class because of how little of the really groundbreaking series (Star of the Giants for instance) exist in English. For Davis’s panel, it was definitely the fact that he mentioned his class as being designed to somewhat mimic the editor system used by manga publishers in Japan, especially given the degree to which endeavors such as Tokyopop’s old OEL material lacked in that very area.

I think the attendance could have been stronger if the academic panels hadn’t been added so late. The large color guide didn’t even have those panels, and it was clear that despite the giant screens showing the updated schedules that many attendees ignored it. When I presented at my own panel (which ended up overlapping with the FictionJunction concert due to a 40 minute delay, thus eliminating my chance of doing both), it was to a rather sparsely populated room, which I honestly think could have been made more lively if only people knew about it (and if the concert didn’t start and end when it did). Overall, I think I did an all right job (I did a visual analysis of the manga 7 Billion Needles), I just wish more of you could’ve attended it!

Cosplay

I think I’ll say it: AX2012 was possibly the best convention I’ve ever attended in terms of cosplay. Not only were many of the costumes excellent, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much variety. Popular cosplay topics such as Homestuck and Hetalia!, while still very present, didn’t even come close to dominating the visual landscape of the con, and cosplays I had resigned myself to possibly never seeing appeared in numbers. Whereas previously I had seen zero Dragon Kid cosplays from Tiger & Bunny, this time I saw five.

I remember being the only person to clap for Dragon Kid at Otakon 2011’s Sunrise panel, so this was a pleasant change.

In addition, I thought I’d never see a Precure cosplay at an American con, but I was gladly proven wrong. Have you watched Heartcatch yet? It’s really good.

Anyway, I’ll let the rest of the cosplay speak for itself, though keep in mind that this certainly isn’t an accurate representation of all of the cosplay at AX2012, merely what I photographed.

Final Thoughts

So there went my first Anime Expo. If I had to do it over again, I probably would’ve found a better medium between panels and autographs, and I would’ve definitely tried to see more faces. Also, the Kinokuniya in LA is definitely better than the one in NYC.

Stand Aside, Book Smarts: The “Knowledgeable Girl”

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While reading the Drops of God recently. I took notice of the supporting character Miyabi, a sommeliere-hopeful who assists the hero Shizuku, bolstering his seemingly supernatural sense of taste (literally tasting things with his mouth) with a larger knowledge of the wine world. In this setting, Shizuku’s genius, though achieved through years of work and forced training, comes across as of a deeper quality than Miyabi’s superior book smarts.

Miyabi falls into a character type I might refer to as the “Knowledgeable Girl,” a trope I see most often in shounen manga. This character is different from someone who’s simply smart or studious or is a bookworm. Instead, it is the character who seems to play two roles: the first is to have a solid foundation of knowledge so as to be useful when exposition is necessary, and the second is to have that knowledge contrasted with the hero’s more impressive abilities, as if to say that, while the hero lacks conventional knowledge, he is such a radical that he can overcome it, or that it’s only a matter of time before he picks up that knowledge as well. In a way, she is meant to be surpassed.

Probably the most prominent example I can think of is Sakura from Naruto, who, like Miyabi, criticizes the male hero for not knowing the basics, and whose book smarts are ultimately shown to be less powerful and important than the unique flavors Naruto himself provides. I bet you can think of many others as well.

I don’t think this is a character type doomed to mediocrity, as the key, I feel, is to actually give a true advantage to book smarts, something that just isn’t waiting to be trivialized. Female coach Riko from Kuroko’s Basketball (AKA THE BASKETBALL WHICH KUROKO PLAYS), for example, while very much in that supporting role, at least shows a strategic knack owing to her intense study lacking in the players. Tokine in Kekkaishi, more knowledgeable than her counterpart Yoshimori, is better at refining her abilities than at simply making things bigger and more powerful.

I wonder if it’s possible to argue that no character type is truly terrible and that it’s all in the execution? I’m sure I’ll be corrected rather immediately.

Operation Bring Devil Curry to the World

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So it turns out that one of my favorite places in the world to eat, Go Go Curry, is teaming up with legendary manga creator Nagai Go to create a new super spicy curry. Called “Devil Curry” in honor of the 40th anniversary of Devilman, it is going to be a permanent fixture on the Japanese Go Go Curry menu.

These days, however, Go Go Curry is international, with stores in New York and Singapore. I know I want Devil Curry where I live, and for those of you who feel that Go Go Curry, while good, isn’t quite spicy enough, I’m sure you’d like to try it out too. The only choice then is to campaign for the international release of Devil Curry.

Every time you go to a Go Go Curry, tell them you heard about Devil Curry and want to have it on the menu.

For the times you’re not near a Go Go Curry, they also have twitter accounts: GOGO_CURRY and GOGOCURRYUSA

The only concern I have is that it might end up losing its Devilman connotations upon going abroad. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I Love Smile Precure’s Banal Villainy

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If you’ve watched Smile Precure, you’ve probably noticed that while the villains have an overall dastardly goal (revive their evil leader), most of the time their motivations are incredibly shallow and petty, something along the lines of “Eh I’m bored, what evil can I do?” Contrary to it detracting from their characters, however, I feel like it actually makes them more enjoyable to watch, humanizing them beyond simply the idea that they’re “bad,” while also still keeping them cartoonishly villainous. It also adds to the overall feel of the show as fun and enjoyable with a lot of big, vibrant personalities. In this sense, the villains are kind of like K-On!

Another thing I enjoy about the villains, Wolfrun, Aka Oni, and Majorina, is that they have a consistent theme as fairy tale villains which makes them a bit more memorable. That might not seem like much, but at least in terms of the Precure franchise it’s a significant step up. Previous series would utilize such memorable combinations as “a bunch of evil muscley dudes,” or “a plant guy and a gold guy,” and even probably the show with the best villain concept in the series, Yes! Pretty Cure 5 (whose staff I believe is also responsible for Smile) with its evil corporation (complete with evil salaries, evil promotions, and evil quarterly evaluations) basically turned into a mishmash of designs once they transformed out of their (evil) business suits.

Wolf, Ogre, Witch. It works, and the fact that they’re so dumb makes it even better.

Thoughts on Fandom Structure: Facilitating the Moe “Lifestyle”

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In a recent conversation, I was presented an interesting question: why is that moe seems to engender the type of fandom which seems on some level staunchly devoted to it and has fans who can take attacks on moe personally? After some consideration, I thought of two reasons.

The first reason is that on some level, whether it be deep or shallow, I think moe fosters a very individual, perhaps even private connection. Regardless of the specifics and any sort of moral/aesthetic tastes, the idea (nebulous as it may be) begins to resonate with concepts such as catharsis, fantasy, sexual desire and identity, self-reflection, stress, and so on.

The second reason, and the one I’m more interested in for this post, has to do with the ease by which one can become a fan of moe. In a recent interview concerning Starcraft 2 fandom, commentator and personality Sean “Day[9]” Plott was asked why so many SC2 fans have a tendency to identify themselves as “Starcraft fans” and to put down other games as inferior products, to which he responded:

There’s a lot of people who are into Starcraft and it’s just become their identity because, honestly, there’s so much Starcraft content that you can watch it all day, every day, just like you can be into football or baseball. And so, rather than just say, “I like this,” they look down on other things.

I think these words can apply to moe as well, in the sense that not only is there so much of it currently available that you can watch and read nothing but moe genre titles and have your entire day filled, but that the system behind it actively promotes and encourages this sort of obsession. On the fiction-production side, you have this tendency towards characters who each possess easily expressed individuality, and so make it easy to define a favorite, and it’s a process that can be renewed with the next show and the show after that. On the merchandise side, you have figures, posters, limited edition DVD boxes, fan clubs, official events, and so on. If you’re into some show, there’s a good chance you can buy something related to it, and though there’s a lot of talk these days about how fandom is moving beyond expressing itself through simple consumption, it can’t be denied that it is still in its own way an expression of one’s self.

Obviously this model doesn’t only apply to moe or even just anime/manga, nor does every single fan of moe do this (and I want to make the point clear that I’m not characterizing an entire fanbase as having a singular mindset). However, when combined with that very personal connection which moe fosters, I think it creates a particular kind of devotion, which, while not entirely unique, more easily manifests itself as something just that personal.

Ogiue Maniax’s First Trip to Anime Expo!

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Though not my first time in Los Angeles, it’ll be my first time hitting up Anime Expo, that monster convention whose size and majesty dwarfs all around it. In fact, it’s also my very first west coast convention, so while I know what to expect from a big convention, I don’t know if there’s anything particular this con in particular that I should be aware of.

In any case, I’ll be attending most if not all of the academic panels, and trying to go to the concerts if I can. I’ll also have my own presentation to give while I’m there on Saturday, as part of the Building Bridges Through Individual Texts panel. My presentation is titled going to be focused on the science fiction manga 7 Billion Needles.

My (tentative) schedule is as follows:

Friday

The Cutting Edge of Anime and Manga Studies (11am-12:15pm)

Why Do We Try So Hard? Anime and Manga Studies Roundtable Discussion (12:15pm-1:15pm)

The Origin of Anime Fandom (2pm-3pm)

Aniplex of America Industry Panel (3pm-3:45pm)

Animetal USA (WHO IS IT WHO IS IT WHO IS IT) (4:30pm-6:15pm)

Adventures in Teaching: “The History of Manga” (7:15pm-8:15pm)

Bushiroad Industry Panel (8:15pm-9:15pm)

Saturday

E-Manga: The New Style of Manga with Ryo Horikawa (11am-12pm)

Animetal USA panel (12:15pm-1:30pm)

Madoka Magica panel hosted by Aniplex (3pm-4pm)

Anime Bloggers/Podcasters Town Hall (4pm-5pm)

Yuki Kajiura/FictionJunction (6pm-8pm)

Building Bridges Through Individual Texts (8:30pm-10pm) (That’s me!)

Sunday

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fan Panel (9am-10am)

Hamada, Morio, Tsunoki (Madhouse) (10am-11am)

LiSA Concert (12:15pm-2:45pm)

Right Stuf/Nozomi Entertainment Premieres (3:15pm-4:45pm)

What do Anime Fans do, Why and How? (5:15pm-6:45pm)

Supporting and Expanding Anime and Manga Studies (7pm-8pm)

Monday

Who knows!

So there you have it. For all you cool dudes I know, I hope to see you, and if I don’t know you, then I hope to at least meet you.