Category Archives: anime

V! V! V!

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Puberty is a funny thing when you’re a fan.

In some instances, a female character can enter the mind of a young boy just by virtue of being the most prominent female in his favorite show, and then stay with him as he awakens sexually. Of course it doesn’t happen to every fan, and I’d be remiss to not include female fans who carry the torch for their male childhood crushes (or varying combinations between these two areas), but as a guy who likes girls I want to focus on that area. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts given your own sexuality.

The first examples I can think of are Sayaka from Mazinger Z and Chizuru from Combattler V. While they are obviously not applicable to me seeing as I did not grow up with either show, in Japan and Italy and other parts of the world where these shows found popularity you have a lot of devoted male fans who will sexualize them and possibly draw fanart of them, to the extent that someone unfamiliar with these series might scratch their heads, or perhaps get the wrong impression of them when they see fanart of Chizuru in an outfit that’s quite a bit tighter than canon suggests. This is not a knock on either Sayaka or Chizuru. I can easily see guys liking them for legitimate reasons, and they’re even portrayed as attractive within the contexts of their shows (e.g. shower scenes), but I think there’s more to it than that.

An even better example might be video game characters. I’m not talking about your RPG characters who get loads of development, or games that have come out more recently and have the benefit of powerful graphics to improve character design and rendering, but those old, let’s say pre-90’s video games which barely had stories to go with them. While Samus Aran has had a lot of development over the years, guys were finding her hot since the NES era. Obviously her stripping to her skivvies in the ending sequence plays a role in this, but I think what pushes that over the edge is that you play as her for so long that you get attached to her. Again, familiarity.

Of course this doesn’t happen with every fan, but being a fan makes this more likely, I think. To preserve the memories of their favorite “stories” from childhood and bring those memories with them through to their teenage years and possibly their adult life, isn’t that the kind of thing a fan does?

And then my thoughts lead towards “moe.” Modern moe shows of course don’t have that advantage of familiarity, but when I think about it, liking a video game character because of the two or three things you know about them and liking a moe girl who is a collection of moe traits aren’t that far off. So I wonder if moe in the marketing sense of the word is trying to tap into that same nostalgia reservoir, only through more “efficient” means.

I’m not here to judge what characters you like for whatever reason, but to simply put down my thoughts on the way the fan mind works, particularly for when you start thinking girls (or guys) are awfully nice-looking.

On another note, I realize my past three post titles have all been song lyrics. Yeah I don’t know either.

Onegai Dutch Dutch Koko ni Dutch

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So I’ve spent my first two days in Europe, getting slowly accustomed to the lifestyle here. While the schedule is fairly loose around here, I do not know how much time I really have to update Ogiue Maniax, nor do I know if I should. Is it a sign of slacking off? I guess that’s only the case if I’m using too much time that should be spent doing important manga research. In any case, as was made obvious by my lack of a post yesterday, the streak has been broken and it is a very likely chance that no longer will I be posting daily.

Part of what I was interested in was how cultures outside of the US and Japan perceive anime. Fortunately, I spoke with a Japanese (that is, ethnically) philosophy PhD today, who informed me that the Netherlands does indeed have one or two small anime conventions. Maybe I’ll check one of them out. It’d be an exciting experience, I think.

Anyway, this is the start of my path to changing the face of anime and manga academia. Wish me luck!

欧米日

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This Hand of Mine is Burning Red, It Tells Me to Watch Anime: Thoughts on Blogging

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Ever since THAT Anime Blog came out with its guides on how to establish yourself as a blogger, I’ve toyed around with the idea of writing my own. My intended approach was to focus less on steps for “establishing” a blog-like entity and more on the act of writing one’s feelings on anime and manga. As I started to think about it more though, I realized that as much as I can talk about the way I write, the last thing I want to do is to give the impression that my style is better or that you should be trying to write how I write.

But even though I don’t think I can write a proper guide for anime blogging at this point, I still want to convey what I think are essentials for anime blogging, or at the very least are pointers that will help you, whether you’ve already been blogging for years or you’ve just started thinking about committing your thoughts to your internet journal. I will still use myself as an example, but mainly so that I can give some context to my thoughts.

Think of the Possibilities

Before I even start to write, I approach anime blogging with the notion that there is always, always something interesting to talk about or to consider. Now a lot of times I don’t even manage to reach those interesting conversation points, but what’s important here is the mindset. Somewhere out there in the nebulous space of otaku-relevant thought is at least one on-going discussion that is worth exploring, or perhaps an idea that has yet to be expanded upon, or even an area into which you can funnel your own thoughts and opinions.

Anime series, manga series, comparing anime to manga, fandom itself, story, characters, episodes, story arcs, character design, costume design, political and philosophical messages, psychological elements of games, the possibilities are near-endless, and if I fail to talk about something interesting, I don’t think it’s anime’s fault for not having enough meat, but more my fault for having my attention caught up by other things.

Which isn’t a bad thing, really. I can’t fault someone for not feeling like they can write about anime or an anime-related subject because their mind was elsewhere. However, I think you can see that there’s a difference between “I couldn’t find anything interesting to talk about” and “There wasn’t anything interesting to talk about.”

Understand Yourself, or At Least Try to

If you’re looking to foster your “voice” as a writer or at least as an anime fan, I think it’s good to have a good sense of yourself and how you approach your anime fandom. Do you see any trends? Why do you think you like one show but not the other? Can you commit those thoughts to your keyboard in a way where others can understand where you’re coming from even if they disagree with you?

My personal voice as it has been established on this blog is one of creating connections. I look to connect seemingly disparate ideas with one another to foster conversation and at the same time connect readers with ideas both old and new so that they too can think more about themselves and their fandom. However, this is not entirely how Ogiue Maniax began, and it’s something that was only eventually established as I wrote more. So even if you feel like you don’t have a voice, or you don’t feel like you understand yourself as an anime fan, you can still treat your blog as a venue for self-exploration. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be about you. One possibility is to write your thoughts on two different shows and to just kind of compare your two posts and see if they differ any in tone, attitude, or some other area. Then, simply ask yourself, “why?”

Love It Even When You Hate It

The feeling that I really want to emphasize is joy. Anime blogging should be fun even when it’s frustrating and you feel like it might not be worth it to say anything. If you can keep it fun for yourself by watching fewer shows, do so. If it’s more fun when you focus on specific things, focus on that. If it becomes a bit of a chore, don’t be afraid to experiment and find something you do want to talk about. If you can get fired up over what’s wrong with a series instead of what’s right, talk about that provided you can do so with genuine gusto. Burn-out is fairly common within anime blogging, and the chief cause is a simple loss of passion. That’s not to say that you can’t sometimes get tired of writing about anime or whatever topic you’re on, but that even when you get the strange feeling that your blogging has turned into an obligation, it shouldn’t completely extinguish the flame of fandom that burns within you.

Maybe This Would Work Better Spoken

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Question: What’s the difference between a bowl of blueberries and an anime club?

Answer: One is full of of antioxidants, while the other is full of anti-occidents.

A Common Misunderstanding

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Somewhat Less Perilous: MD Geist the Comic

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Rarely do I get review requests for Ogiue Maniax, but when I was told to review MD Geist, I knew I had to take on the challenge.

MD Geist is somewhat of an anomaly in anime. Largely ignored in Japan, this OVA found success in the United States in the 80s and 90s and helped to define “anime” as something more adult (or at least indicative of hormonal teenagers). With the titular character eventually becoming the “face” of anime through his role as mascot and “spokesmecha” for the anime company Central Park Media, you will find that a certain generation of anime fans feels a close connection to the title. Years later Central Park Media would fund a sequel.

But wait, this isn’t actually a review of the MD Geist OVAs, but of the American-produced comic adaptation by artist and VOTOMS expert Tim Eldred. And through the lens of Mr. Eldred, interesting things happen.

Before I get into the comic though, I have to state what is a commonly-held truth in anime, restated time and again over the past few decades: MD Geist is bad. Its designs are unsuited for animation, its story is paper-thin, its action scenes are only really enjoyable on a surface level, and its characters are poorly realized. At the same time however, it is an enjoyable sort of bad. In many ways it represents a generation of mediocre straight-to-VHS anime.

But it’s difficult to recapture that sort of accidental magic. Tim Eldred understood this well, I assume, as he doesn’t try to bottle magic. Instead, he takes the patches strewn across the floor in disarray and attempts to sew them together into a complete quilt. He adds a back story, he adds character motives, he turns MD Geist into a “real” story rather than an incongruous facsimile of one.

The MD Geist comic is divided into two parts: an origin story for MD Geist and a retelling of the first OVA, with the intent to flesh out Geist’s character. Not only was he a “Most Dangerous Soldier,” but you learn why exactly he was imprisoned and about the woman who first assisted/controlled him. Through this, you get the same impression as one would reading fanfiction. I do not mean that negatively. One of the great strengths of fanfiction is that fans of a series can take the odds and ends of their favorite series and then speculate until their brainstorming session has gone far beyond the original source.

On its own, the MD Geist comic is decent. The only issue with that is that it comes at the expense of the extreme amounts of ridiculousness which pervade the source material to the extent that the original creators cannot even remember why they made any of their creative decisions (check the director’s commentary track on the DVD). Reading the comic over seeing the anime will get you a better story, but it won’t necessarily get you MD Geist.

Another Kind of Radio Exercise

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I don’t remember when exactly it happened, but at some point in the 2000s, New York City got a couple of new Chinese radio stations. Currently on AM 1480 (Cantonese) and AM 1380 (Mandarin), these stations provide much-needed entertainment and news to people who are not as comfortable listening to English language radio stations. But they also provide something else, something I can only describe as “mind-boggling song selections that appear half-born out of geekery.”

What do I mean? Well, back when the radio stations were first starting out, I noticed an oddly familiar song amidst the usual selection of Chinese-language pop music. It stood out for a number of reasons, not least of which was that it was purely instrumental. As the ominous tune played on, it suddenly hit me: It was Kefka’s Theme from Final Fantasy VI.

“What? Really?” What was this doing on Chinese radio? What absolute nerd was in charge of music programming?

But aside from the occasional Utada Hikaru song, there wasn’t much else. Not much else that is, until the station started playing the theme song from The A-Team.

And no, it was not that one song from Full Metal Panic!

Once again, I had to question just who was in charge of selecting the songs for the Chinese residents of New York City. I have no idea how popular The A-Team was or is with Chinese people, but I don’t even think that’s a factor.

Then yesterday, I heard the most unusual song of all. This time the song was entirely in Cantonese, but it sounded odd, or at least odd for a tune on the radio, resembling more the theme of a TV drama or 80s anime than anything else. Like Kefka’s Theme years earlier, it started to sound more and more familiar. Then the chorus hit and I realized that it was a Cantonese version of Sentimental Over the Shoulder from Megazone 23 (Part 1).

So here I am, trying to find this mysterious Chinese rendition of Eve’s famous song, and I simply cannot do it. I definitely did not imagine it, but I honestly have no idea what I should even be searching for. Does anyone out there listen to WZRC AM 1480? And are you a huge anime nerd? Because if so, maybe you can help me identify just where exactly this song came from and who exactly sings it.

He’s So Through, You Know

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Parkour is an activity French in origin where practitioners try to get from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible, usually navigating through obstacles rather than around them to save time.

I can think of at least two anime characters who already have the right mindset for this non-competitive physical activity.

Kageyama Torako (Hyakko)

Her obsession with moving in a straight line towards her intended goal no matter the circumstance means that Torako has a bright future in Parkour, though she perhaps has to work on the fact that she actually ends up taking longer to get to her destination.

Raoh (Fist of the North Star)

Physical roadblocks actually mean nothing to him, as the man is actually unwilling to walk around a building if he can simply walk straight through it. Some might say that he’s too lacking in acrobatics for Parkour, but I think his spirit is in the right place.

Can you think of any other potential Parkour specialists out there in anime and manga?

On Powerful Female Characters

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Seeing the comments I received on my post about strong female characters two days ago, I noticed that much of the difficulty in the discussion comes from people disagreeing on the very definition of the term (as is the case with so many anime arguments). Re-reading the examples given there and elsewhere, I’ve come to realize that the issue stems from the fact that when many people use the term “strong female character,” they actually mean “powerful female character.”

It’s a simple yet profound difference. Think about how you’d use the two words to describe a real person.

“That woman is strong.”

“That woman is powerful.”

It rings differently, doesn’t it? Power can refer to a number of things. Physical ability, political influence, knowledge, specialized skills, it all comes down something which gives a character the tools to do things better than others. But when you say someone is strong, you’re generally talking about something deeper inside, such as an iron resolve or strong convictions.

That’s not to say that just because a character is powerful can’t meant they’re strong or vice versa, of course. And many times a series can potentially undermine a strong character by intentionally or unintentionally placing emphasis on “power.” Even so, I think this is where most of the misunderstandings occur.

So I guess the real solution is to ask both questions.

What do you think of the status of strong female characters in anime and manga?

What do you think of the status of powerful female characters in anime and manga?