Category Archives: anime

The Empty Storefront: The Rickety Path Towards Purchasing Anime

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A boy passes by a storefront window, when something catches his eye. He desperately wants it, but knows his parents won’t just buy it for him, and his birthday is many months away. But the boy has a plan, a plan he has thought up entirely on his own. He will save money little by little however he can. He will make small sacrifices. He does not need candy EVERY week. Little by little he accumulates bits of change until finally his effort is rewarded and he can confidently walk into that store, put the money on the counter, and walk out at least a little happier.

…Except that the store is all sold out and the chances of them getting more are now slim to none.

Purchasing Anime DVDs these days feels like a race against time. There might be a series you really want to own, but you are unable purchase it as soon as it hits store shelves, be they real or virtual. And yet, if you don’t purchase it now, it might be on your hands that this DVD did not sell well. Worse yet, if the 1st DVD doesn’t sell well, or the 2nd or the 3rd, there’s a chance the rest of a series may never see the light of day.

I don’t fault the anime companies in particular for removing titles or lowering circulation rates. They are businesses, after all. At the same time, I feel like it almost penalizes those fans of anime who do not have immediately disposable income. It puts the pressure on fans to support ther series they love, but they must do so in a limited time window.

It’s a problem.

Untameable

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The Japanese word for tomboy is “otenba (お転婆).” I learned that it’s based on the dutch word “ontembaar,” which means untameable.

Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun and the Mystery of Moe

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Slayers is a 90’s anime series which arrived in a time before moe became a commonplace word. The most recent series which began airing this year, Slayers Revolution, is extremely faithful to that era of anime. So faithful, perhaps, that it can be jarring when put up against the other shows surrounding iSlayers Revolution at the moment. It is with this contrast that I began to wonder about the character of Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun and how, in her very 1990’s anime characterization, she is not quite moe as we know it today.

Young and cute with a bit of sexiness.

Honest and kind, but overly naive.

Tries her best but is often clumsy.

On paper, Amelia seems to be an obviously fall into the “moe” category in its most obvious and stereotypical sense. And yet, something doesn’t add up. While she has a lot of endearing traits similar to those of characters such as Arika Yumemiya (My-ZHiME) and Nono (Top o Nerae 2), Amelia is somehow different. She is not a character easily called moe, and her immediate loss in round 1 of the first Anime Saimoe’s main tournament says she was popular enough to get there, but not popular enough to overcome others.

Just to make things clear, I believe moe to be a personal, subjective thing. It is okay to moe over Amelia. What I mean when I say she is not quite moe is that she is generally not viewed as a “moe character” despite being so similar to characters who are.

One possibility is that while it’s possible to enjoy her character, feel empathy for her, and even perhaps become infatuated with Amelia, it’s much more difficult to feel sorry for her. Amelia is the confident princess of a powerful kingdom. She is skilled in diplomacy and magics both offensive and defensive. Her personality flaws are in sort of a no-man’s land, where they’re real flaws (and not just ones to make her cuter), but not so detrimental so as to turn her into damaged goods. She has both a gentle side and an agressive side, but it could never be mistaken for the ever-popular tsundere category.

I do not have the answers, but I believe that with a careful study of Amelia’s character, we can begin to unravel the clues explaining why anime has increasingly made this turn towards moe as she sits on the precipice between two worlds.

The Stigma of Giant Robots

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First, no Kaze no Stigma jokes.

Okay? Okay.

Mecha is one of the main stereotypes of japanese animation, along with martial arts, sci-fi, and not being for kids. But despite being one of the first things many people think of when they see the word “anime” it somehow has gotten a negative reputation among many fans in the United States. People will turn away from a title if giant robots are involved, and the only Gundam series to ever truly be successful is Wing.

I have no issue with people not preferring giant robot anime, but what is bothering me is the idea that robots, be they real or super, are an automatic red flag for a lot of anime viewers.

What happened? I know that the large female otaku population tends not to be fond of titanium titans, but why do so many guys also brush these titles aside? Could it be that giant robots are no longer considered a staple of anime, that in the eyes of this newer generation of anime fandom it is something to be ignored? Are there certain tropes of robot animation, different from say, shounen fighting, which detracts from the viewing experience?

The Ending I Want for Code Geass

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Odysseus u Britannia, eldest son of Emperor Charles di Britannia, is the Hitou Nami of Code Geass. He is a man who did not find anything odd about being married to a tiny little girl. Had the marriage gone through, he probably would’ve spent their honeymoon making hot cocoa and playing board games with Tianzi. He is the master of milquetoast, the avatar of average, the sultan of sterile. Somehow, in a family of conniving psychos, Odysseus remains completely sane and, more importantly, completely alive.

As such, he is easily my favorite male character in Code Geass. And with that said, I can think of no better conclusion that for Odysseus to become the new Britannian Emperor while the rest of the royal family dies.

And the moral of this story would be…

And then stuff happened: More Real Shoopon?

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Before I realized it, it seems her pose is similar to a certain previous drawing.

Kyoto Animation to do 801-chan, Hiyorin and Konata cameos deemed inevitable

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When I first heard that Tonari no 801-chan was getting an anime, I was interested in seeing how they would adapt it to a full show. I figured that it would be something fairly low-budget and a decent show, but with the news that they of Haruhi and Lucky Star, those lords of chaos known as KyoAni, are going to be animating the show, well that changes things. 801-chan now has the potential to not only be a show that everyone’s talking about, but the show everyone’s talking about. I for one welcome new shows centered around the concept of the fujoshi.

One problem.

With KyoAni being the engine behind 801-chan, there’s a chance that Yaoi-chan will be the most popular fujoshi around.

And I cannot allow that to happen.

Flaw Magnification at Conventions

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A week after Otakon, about a month away from New York Anime Fest, and knowing my friends are going to PAX at the end of this month, I have conventions, or more specifically congoers, on my mind.

I support fans doing what they want with what they love. One might call it one of the pillars of the concept of fandom itself. However, even I find myself being at times bothered by some of the behavior at anime conventions, even things that I normally would not be too bothered by outside of a con. It bothered me as being hypocritical, and it still might be, but I knew something was different about each situation. I mean, a lot of things are different about a con, but the main one is that it’s a lot of similar people in one area.

When you have one person who loves being the center of attention, it’s a perfectly okay personality trait, especially when you have people who can reciprocate. However, when you have 100 of those attention-craving individuals, and ten times that many people reciprocating and giving them attention at the drop of a hat, it magnifies the negative facets. It’s like inbreeding, where the more it happens the more concentrated the disadvantageous genetics become (no Koi Kaze jokes, please). And because so many people ARE vying for attention, their individuality tends to get lost in the mix, making them faceless, making them “attention whores.”

Being the center of attention is just an example, and not any sort of focal point for criticism. And it doesn’t just apply to personality traits but also tangible ones as well. When everyone who is not in a costume is wearing a t-shirt (myself included), you start to notice that fact.

Once you get to know someone individually, this sort of thing almost always stops mattering, but it is in this initial stage, this first sighting, that these judgments are formed, for better or worse. Moreover, many geeks, nerds, dorks, and otaku are bad at making first impressions in the first place, so this doesn’t make it any easier.

And though I say this is “at Conventions,” I know that this is less about cons in particular and more about human behavior and the interaction between individuals and masses. This is just to put it all in a context which is meaningful to me so that I can think about it more readily.

Kaiba is a difficult show to watch

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A very good show yes, but a difficult one nonetheless.

Kaiba is a very intelligent show, but so are a lot of other shows. The difference, however, is that while something like Crest of the Stars appeals to the viewer’s intelligence, it does not actively try to challenge that intelligence as Kaiba does.

Crest of the Stars will say, “I assume you to be an intelligent person, and therefore I will provide you with tons of information so you can get a clear idea of what’s going on and better appreciate this fiction.”

Kaiba, on the other hand, will say, “I assume you to be an intelligent person, therefore it’s only right of me to push that intelligence further, to not only grease those wheels but to then burn them out as well.”

The result is that Kaiba can be rather exhausting, and it’s not the kind of show I would recommend for a marathon. This is exactly the reason why I haven’t finished it yet. Each episode presents so much, and asks so much of the viewer that it makes me wish I was some kind of brain cow with four organs to process it all.

This is one of those posts About Me, so don’t read it

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In the “About” section of Ogiue Maniax, I state that I “want to have a strong sense of its lifespan, to appreciate its history both in the context of the work itself as well as its influence in society throughout the world.” I think this accurately portrays my stance towards anime and other topics which I choose not to discuss on this blog, but I often wonder what made me the anime fan I am today. While a lot of it has to do with the shows I’ve watched and the fellow fans that I’ve known, that’s more of a “how” and not a “why.”

In a recent conversation with my mother, she told me that I was extremely inquisitive. I would always be asking, “Why?” Not to the extent that I’d be accompanied by a dog named Buttons perhaps, but she said that there were times when she would get fed up by my insistence on asking questions. A typical conversation would go something like:

Mom: Play with this toy. It’s fun.
Me: Why is it fun?

I remember a large amount of my childhood, but I don’t remember being so eager to learn why things are the way they are. I do remember that in high school, when a friend of mine would say he thought something sucked, I would get kind of agitated because he couldn’t back it up with why he thought it sucked. I thought this was something I developed around junior high, but apparently I was wrong.

So it might be the inevitable conclusion that I ended up interested in all those things “beyond” anime and manga: the history surrounding it all, the interaction of fans and creators, the way anime and manga differ from other forms of entertainment, not just on a qualitative level but emotional and societal levels as well.

I mean, this is probably why I devoted so many posts to discussing WHY I like Ogiue.