Category Archives: anime

Ogiue: Definitive Fujoshi Icon

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Mousou Shoujo Otakukei Volume 3 has been out in America for a number of months now (under the name Fujoshi Rumi), and in the back of the book the author Konjoh Natsumi describes her experience meeting the guys who played her manga’s characters in the live-action Mousou Shoujo adaptation. In one of the panels, she talks about the fact that her “Yaoi Antenna” went off as a result of seeing these guys together, and I think it’s quite telling just how she decided to portray this Yaoi Antenna.

Interesting, no? Konjoh could have chosen plenty of other icons to portray the tingling of her Yaoi Sense. Ohno’s mole, a pair of glasses, a wheeled suitcase, a furry ball of a creature emerging from the back of her skull are all valid choices, but it is the Ogiue fude which immediately brings to mind the image of the “fujoshi.”

Now, Konjoh is not against making obscure references because she does so pretty regularly, but I wouldn’t count this as among the “obscure.” This is a clear sign that in terms of fujoshi characters, Ogiue is pretty much #1 no matter how you slice it, even if a million pretenders to the throne should appear.

By Crom! Endings!

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In a previous post I made here on Ogiue Maniax, I talked about how as a child I was amazed when cartoons I watched had actual endings or resolutions or at least something resembling a good stopping point, and I specified Conan the Adventurer as one such show. Then, I found out that another show I loved as a kid, Dino-Riders, also had an “ending” of sorts, and then I found out both of these final episodes are on Youtube!

Conan the Adventurer: A Serpent Coils the Earth

Dino-Riders: One to Lead Us

Now I know for many anime watchers, having an ending is not that special. Most anime and manga end at some point, and even the ones that run forever try to come up with some kind of conclusion. Take a look at To Love-Ru, which just ended rather abruptly recently. Even it had a chance to squeeze out a final chapter to give the story a tiny bit of closure. But with cartoons like the ones above, most would just stop running and that was it.

I’m not going to say those cartoons were perfect in any way, but I appreciate that they got the opportunity to do something at the end, to go out with a bang.

Let Me Tell You About My New Favorite Nico Tag

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You want to watch a lot of anime but you don’t have a lot of time. And you want it to all be about robots. Well, let me introduce you to or “Robot Anime Scene Compilations.”

Have you ever wanted to check out the awesome fights in a giant robot anime, but didn’t want to wade through 50 billion episodes and endless filler to reach the few fight scenes that might be somehow significant? Well, the Robot Anime Scene Compilation tag is there for you and me.

Want to watch the greatest fights from Getter Robo or God Mars? Well here’s your chance, and rather than killing 100 hours worth of time, all you need is 30 minutes per video.

Are shows like Grendizer and Baldios too high-brow and high-quality for you? Well then you can take a look at some of the not-so-fondly remembered robots, like Gloizer X and Srungle!

It’s thanks to this tag that I found out Michiru takes over for a captured Hayato towards the end of Getter Robo G, and on top of that she’s actually not useless!

So go forth, watch some robots, and come back a more learned anime citizen.

There’s So Much Teamwork, You Might as Well Call Them Hajime Yatate: Gundam Perfect Mission

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So have you seen the fancy new Gundam 30th Anniversary “Perfect Mission” Video? It features the original Core Fighter being helped along by various Gundams from throughout the franchise until it reaches its destination and forms into the RX-78-2. It’s  one of the finest Gundam crossovers ever that’s not also a video game.

What I particularly like about this two-minute video is how it doesn’t really try to play favorites with the Gundams, outside of choosing which specific Gundam to represent each series. Despite SEED Destiny’s shortcomings for example, the Destiny Gundam is given its due. Wing Zero and Wing Zero Custom are displayed side by side to represent both Gundam Wing and Endless Waltz. There isn’t even any preference given to order; it’s not chronological or even in-universe chronological. All Gundams are presented as equals.

And though I say it’s the best non-video game crossover in Gundam history, I gotta hope that future Super Robot Wars games might utilize the “Perfect Mission” Combination Attack to rival the Final Dynamic Special and the Choudenji Reppuu Seikenzuki.

Reductive Production

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As of late, I’ve felt that quite a few anime creators have been taking a reductive approach to determining what is necessary for a piece of fiction to actually work. They’re examining the innards of animation as a story-telling device, and removing seemingly vital organs in order to determine whether it was a heart or if it was just the tonsils. The three most prominent examples I can think of are Miyazaki, Oshii, and Kyoto Animation.

Miyazaki asks, “Do I really need a cohesive narrative when I just want to illustrate a series of events in animation?” and then creates Ponyo.

Oshii asks, “Does my movie really need to be actively engaging when I want to make a movie entirely about tedium?” and then creates Sky Crawlers.

Kyoto Animation asks, “Can a work be considered ‘new’ if everything BUT the story itself is entirely redone?” and then creates the Endless Eight portion of Haruhi.

In every instance here, creators are using their reputations to put surprisingly experimental animations in a public setting for mass consumption. In the case of Oshii and Miyazaki, it’s in the theater, and for Kyoto Animation it’s on TV in the form of one of the most popular anime in recent years. And with these experiments, they are asking a rather weighty question: what exactly is fiction? They’re asking themselves, asking the audience, asking the industry, and depending on the answer they receive, we may see more works like this or less.

How do you feel about this? Should creators be using such public settings to experiment to such an extent?

I feel like in every instance here, creators are using their reputations to put surprisingly experimental animations in a public setting for mass consumption. In the case of Oshii and Miyazaki, it’s in the theater, and for Kyoto Animation it’s on TV in the form of one of the most popular anime in recent years.

Four Kings Meet in a Room to Discuss the Meaning of a Punch Made out of Rocket

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If you were to ask someone informed what the most influential giant robot series of all time were, they’d probably give the following answer: Mazinger Z, Mobile Suit Gundam, Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Isn’t it amazing then, when you realize that all four of these series have had recent revivals, as if the Forces of Anime have deemed this period of time to be the celebration of all things humanoid and mechanical?

Mazinger Z has the new Imagawa-directed Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen, which takes elements of the entirety of Mazinger lore and its remakes (as well as much of Nagai’s works) and incorporates them into a single cohesive story that explores and brings to light the thematic elements which make Mazinger Z itself such a prominent part of anime’s history. As the first Super Robot to be piloted from within, and the first to declare its attacks with passionate yells, and then in 2009 to make such a show feel fresh and original, I think we’re all the better for knowing it exists.

Gundam received a new series set in our timeline (AD) in the form of Gundam 00, as well as a return to the Universal Century timeline that few expected after all these years in the form of Gundam Unicorn and Ring of Gundam. There’s also the massive celebration of its 30th anniversary in real life, which includes life-size Gundams, weddings on life-size Gundams, and musical concerts. Whichevery way you prefer your Gundam, whether you’re an old-school curmudgeon or someone who came in from Wing or SEED, there’s a message for you, and that message is “Gundam is Amazing!”

Macross Frontier meanwhile celebrated the franchise’s 25th anniversary. Unlike Gundam, Macross doesn’t just get animated series updates every year, so to have a full series emerge and capture much of the energy of the original Macross while still being true to its current era of anime made Frontier a joy to follow. The most interesting departures, so to speak, were the extremely current-era character designs (in contrast with the classic 80’s Mikimoto ones), and the ways in which the concept of  the “pop idol” has morphed over the course of two or three decades.

Evangelion is in the process of having its story entirely re-animated and retold in a series of movies which seek to do more than just cash in on an already perpetually marketable franchise, though that’s not to say that they don’t do so at all, and instead also transform the story in dramatic ways, from adding entirely new characters to subtle changes in the characters’ personalities and actions, everything is moving towards the idea that things will Not Be the Same. It’s also the newest series of the bunch, and thus the “freshest” in the public consciousness.

What’s also interesting about this is that when you step back and look, you’ll see that each of these series has influenced the one after it in very powerful ways, whether indirectly or otherwise. Mazinger Z set the stage for the super robot formula, which led to a young Tomino Yoshiyuki working on super robot series, then getting tired of them, eventually leading to Gundam, the first series to really push the idea of giant robots as tools, and to advance the concept of a war with no real winners that existed in series such as Daimos and Zambot 3. Macross is an evolution of this “real robot” concept thanks to a staff that fell in love with Gundam years ago, and now includes real-world vehicles transforming directly into robots, a much greater emphasis on character relationships, and an optimistic spin with the idea that the power of songs can influence two warring cultures and bring them closer to one another. Evangelion’s director Anno Hideaki worked on Macross, and the influence of both it and Gundam and even Mazinger Z permeate throughout its episodes and general design. The “Monster of the Week” formula made popular by Mazinger Z finds its revival in the form of the mysterious “Angels” in Evangelion, but the story and the monsters are merely part of a philosophical backdrop. Characters are entirely the focus of the series, and these children are so intrinsically flawed that some do not enjoy them as characters.

And now it’s like all of these series are sitting in the same room, feeling the weight of their years of fame, and standing shoulder to shoulder, eager to see what happens next in the world of giant robot anime. And then sitting in the same room is Tetsujin 28, which nods its head in approval.

Are giant robots still capable of capturing imagination and transforming world-views after all this time? I think so, and I think it’s happening as you read this.

If Terry Man from Kinnikuman Made a Doujinshi, What Would He Call It?

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“Spinning Touhou.”

So I Don’t Know About You, But My Questions to Tomino are Pretty Awesome

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‘s all I’m sayin’.

Aim for the Ace Anime Adaptations Analysis

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The year was 1973, and a young anime studio named Madhouse began work on its first big series, an adaptation of a popular tennis manga called Ace o Nerae! or Aim for the Ace! as it translates in English. Running 26 episodes, it was directed by Dezaki Osamu and had character designs by Sugino Akio, a duo that continues to work together even to this day, including Rose of Versailles, the 90s Black Jack OVAs, and Space Adventure Cobra. They also worked together on every other anime adaptation of Aim for the Ace!

With that in mind, I thought it’d be interesting to just put the openings of each of the Ace series next to each other, if only to see how time, money, and experience have affected the same series over the course of two decades.

1973’s Ace o Nerae!

1978s Shin Ace o Nerae!

1988’s Ace o Nerae 2!

It might be a little unfair to compare openings, but I feel that doing so is a good indicator for seeing how an anime series wishes to be first seen. When you look at the 1973 opening vs the 1978 opening though, you can already see a world of difference. Character designs in Shin Ace are cleaner and more consistent, perhaps at the expense of some of the wild and untamed artwork that characterizes the original. Everything is also much-better animated, with fewer visible shortcuts being taken. Fast forward to 1988 and of course you can see a huge change, brought on by overall progress in anime, an OVA-level budget and changing visual trends in anime (and in real-world fashion). Keep in mind though that unlike, say, Cutie Honey, where each incarnation is done by a different studio and different people at the helm, Ace 2 has the same core team as the first Ace, and what you’re seeing here is direct evidence of how they changed over the course of 15 years.

I think the biggest difference between the original and the later series is that by the time of Shin Ace, the anime is actively trying to portray human figures in a three-dimensional space, and Ace 2 even moreso. If you look at the original TV series, even in the opening it never wants to tell you exactly where the characters are in any given moment. It feels closer to a manga brought to life, for better or worse. In that regard, I feel that the original has a certain charm that the others lack, the kind of appeal that comes from seeing just how much people could do with so little.

Really though, I just think they should have kept the hair from the first TV series throughout each incarnation. That includes the live-action series from a few years ago.

Anipages Talks Kanada (Moreso than Usual)

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Animator Kanada Yoshinori died about a month ago, and as one might expect from the blog anipages, they have numerous articles dedicated to the man’s long and influential career, as well as prior articles from long before his death. The articles are all fascinating, as anipages articles tend to be, and they’re very accessible to even people who may like anime but aren’t very familiar with the people who make them beyond knowing the names of voice actors. I really recommend that you read them.

Of particular note to me personally is that Kanada worked on Zambot 3 and the movie version of Galaxy Express 999, two of my favorite anime ever. The Zambot 3 article on anipages talks about how the show was plagued by poor animation overall (and he’s right; often times the show looked worse than Mazinger Z which came out years earlier), but how you could still see Kanada’s hand in the episodes he worked on adding a level of quality to the production.

Kanada’s style is noted by a wondrous and playful approach to animation, which can be seen in this compilation video someone made of his best work.