Mobile Suit Z Gundam is a classic anime series, a successful sequel and a template for other 80s robot anime. One aspect of it that really sticks in my mind but is less talked about is the sound design. In particular, the sound of beam rifles in Z Gundam is rather iconic, as it’s noticeably different compared to every Gundam anime before and after.
I basically never hear that distinct Z Gundam beam rifle sound anywhere else (that’s not just featuring the Z Gundam itself), with one big exception: the fighting magical girl franchise Precure.
I can’t recall exactly when I first heard the use of the Z Gundam beam rifle sound in Precure—I think it might have been in Kira Kira Precure a la Mode—but ever since then, I can’t help noticing it. In Episode 32 of Healin’ Good Precure, the monster of the week makes pretty much that exact sound when firing a blast of energy (see 17:43 in the link).
It’s so strange to me. Of all the places for the beam rifle to show up, why Precure? There’s no studio connection (as Gundam is from Sunrise and Precure is from Toei Animation), so they’re not necessarily working from the same stock library. You won’t even find the sound in other mecha series—though maybe hearing it in a giant robot anime would bring up too many comparisons? I wonder if the sheer genre distance between the two allows Precure to use the SFX? Or could there be some Gundam fans in charge of sound production at Toei who like to incorporate the beam rifle into episodes. For that matter, I think I’ve even heard the classic Newtype flash on occasion while watching Precure.
More broadly, this all makes me want to know why the Z Gundam beam rifle sound just never really went anywhere beyond that one series. Personally, I think it has a great tone that sounds like a powerful yet precise weapon. Perhaps it was too iconic for its own good, but I guess for now, it’ll live on in the battles of modern anime’s most prominent transforming heroines.
There are two success stories to tell about the 1981 giant robot anime Six God Combination God Mars. The first is about a combining giant robot that was better as a toy than as an animated figure in motion: toy sales were strong enough to extend the series beyond its first year, but the awkward stiffness of the titular God Mars itself is something of a running gag (as seen in the YouTube comments here). The second, and I think the one that should get more attention among English-speaking anime fans, is about the tremendous influence of God Mars on Japan’s female anime fandom and doujinshi scene. In a time when pairing same-sex characters from your favorite series was not yet the full-on cottage industry it is today, God Mars was a cornerstone title alongside Captain Tsubasa.
I personally came to know about God Mars twenty years ago, although knowledge about the two aspects of the series came at different times. It was a collection of giant robot anime openings around 2001 that introduced me to the show and its impressive-looking mecha, but it was actually 2004’s Genshiken Official Data Book (of all things)that first brought to my attention God Mars’s popularity with women. Years later at Otakon 2010, voice actor Mitsuya Yuji mentioned among his most popular roles a character from God Mars named Marg. Now, I have the entire series on physical media thanks to Discotek (with 25 episodes up for free on TMS’s Youtube channel), and I’ve finally come to understand what made God Mars one of the granddaddies of fandom pairing in Japan.
Simply put, it’s Marg. Once you know about him, it becomes crystal clear why a female fandom around God Mars developed.
Marg is not the main character. That honor goes to Myoujin Takeru, a guy with psychic powers who discovers that he is actually an alien named Mars sent from the planet Gishin to destroy Earth. However, Takeru manages to defy the evil Emperor Zul and use the very weapon originally meant to eliminate Earth to instead form God Mars and beat back the Gishin Empire. Along the way, he discovers many truths about his original home world, including that he has a long lost brother—Marg—in Zul’s clutches. The dramas that emerge from their familial relationship include attempts to reunite, the pain of separation, and even the crossing of swords due to various plot contrivances.
Marg is ridiculously beautiful both inside and out. He has lush locks of long green hair, and eyes that can express the deepest kindness but also the most fervent passion. His voice is gentle yet powerful, and his forlorn communications with Takeru express a longing and desire to see Takeru—unless he’s being brainwashed into being the enemy, of course, at which point his anger is spine-tingling. Whenever Marg shows up, he becomes the most captivating figure on screen.
Given that we’re talking about shipping and coupling, it’s not entirely accurate to pin it all on Marg. The popularity of a series among female fans traditionally hinges on the relationships between characters rather than singular personalities, and Takeru himself is no slouch. Not only does he look like a more handsome version of many a 70s robot protagonist, but he is perhaps the angstiest hero ever to grace a giant robot anime. Sure, Shinji from Evangelion is traumatized and depressed, and Heero Yuy from Gundam W is dark and brooding, but they don’t angst the way Takeru does. Naturally, more often than not, that anguish has something to do with Marg. And yes, they’re brothers by blood. Whether that was an additional awakening for fans in 1981, I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Even before God Mars, there were plenty of good-looking and charismatic secondary characters in mecha anime. Between directors Tomino Yoshiyuki and Nagahama Tadao, they all but cornered the market: Prince Sharkin (Reideen), Garuda (Combattler V), Prince Heinel (Voltes V), Richter (Daimos), and both Char Aznable and Garma Zabi (Gundam). The key difference between these major rivals and Marg is that the latter is so many things in one. He’s an adversary at some times, but at other times he’s basically a damsel in distress.
There is something I need to make clear: Unlike so many later anime, which could be constructed from head to toe with a female audience in mind (or at least pay regular lip service to that side of fandom), God Mars is still built on the foundation of a toy-shilling kids’ anime. It is 65 episodes long, and not every episode is exactly compelling. There’s an unsurprising inconsistency in terms of the show’s quality with respect to storytelling and animation quality. In addition to the notorious stiffness of God Mars the robot, the anime is rife with fights between characters with psychic powers that revolve around dramatic poses in still shots in lieu of actual movement—a style of action scene the book Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga mocks for its laziness. And dashing canon hopes of brotherly love, the series pairs Takeru with a female character, albeit one with a connection to Marg. In other words, back in 1981, fujoshi had to walk uphill both ways to get their BL shipping fix.
Even so, a girls’ fandom emerged out of God Mars, and plenty of evidence exists that the creators became aware of this audience eventually. The TV series keeps finding ways to bring him back in different forms. A 1982 movie recap of the first 26 or so episodes reduces the screen time of other supporting characters in favor of more Marg, and the poster advertising the film even features him prominently (see above). A later OVA released in 1988—well after God Mars’s heyday—centers around Marg entirely. A look at God Mars merchandise reveals both official and unofficial works where Marg takes up a lot of real estate.
When I was going over my own prior history with God Mars, I omitted one thing: the game Super Robot Wars D for the Gameboy Advance. God Mars is one of the titles included, and in the game, you can manage to not only recruit Marg to your side but also have him pilot an alternate God Mars from that 1988 OVA in which he’s the star. Once together, Takeru and Marg can perform combination attacks like the “Double Final God Mars.” I can’t help but wonder if there were both kinds of God Mars fans working on this game, bringing together the hopes and dreams of those whose lives were changed in some part by God Mars and its two successes.
In the beginning, there was Love Live! School Idol Project. Then came the sequel, Love Live! Sunshine!! And now, we arrive at the anime adaptation of the third story about a high school club stepping into the world of idol performance for the sake of school spirit, Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. Well, technically, the fourth project is already underway, but I still want to commit to paper (so to speak) my thoughts on the girls of Nijigasaki.
I began as a Love Live! skeptic of sorts, but the first anime won me over thanks to the sheer presence of its characters. Love Live! Sunshine!! is also a treat, but even though it has elements that help to differentiate it from the original, they still feel built from the same essence. In both cases, while each of the girls that comprise their respective groups all have their own particular charms and personalities, their philosophy is that of group unity and togetherness. In Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, however, the focus is on the characters as solo idols. The first two thirds of the series spend each episode focusing on each character, with a special musical performance highlighting the star of each episode, before bringing everything together leading into the finale. This can even be seen in the fact that they have no formal stage name as a whole. Whereas Love Live! has μ’s (pronounced “Muse”) and Sunshine!! has Aqours (pronounced “Aqua”), these girls are just the “Nijigasaki High School Idol Club.”
If I had come to this anime as my first Love Live! experience, I probably wouldn’t have thought that this series’ emphasis on individuality as especially notable, but because I’m not new to the franchise, this change of direction stands out all the more. Combined with a different visual style (the character designs come across more “matte” than “glossy”), and Nijigasaki comes across as more of an alternative than a sequel.
I thoroughly enjoyed the previous Love Live! anime, and I have my favorites among the characters, Koizumi Hanayo chief among them. But when it comes to Nijigasaki, I find myself personally relating on some level to all of them. I’m not certain if it’s by general design (“They should all be relatable!”) or if it’s just my own specific circumstances that lends me to directly empathize with the Nijigasaki girls, but I didn’t quite have the same experience with the previous works. Whether it’s Asaka Karen’s lack of directional sense, Konoe Kanata’s perpetual sleepiness, Tennouji Rina’s struggles with outward expression (it’s why I’m a lot better at writing than speaking), or any number of qualities, it’s like I can find fragments of myself in each character—including the audience insert character, Takasaki Yu, and her desire to find her own dreams.
For that reason, I also can’t quite decide on a favorite Nijigasaki character, though I lean a bit towards Yuki Setsuna due to her Clark Kent/Superman duality as the student council president and how her love of anime and manga comes out in joyful bursts due to a strict family that looks down on such things as frivolous. It’s been a long time since I was in high school, but I can still remember those feelings.
One of the entertaining aspects of Nijigasaki is that it’s full of references both meta and cultural. The characters of Nijigasaki first emerged via the Love Live! mobile games, and that origin is paid homage throughout the anime. Three of the girls started off as “normal rarity” cards in Love Live! School Idol Festival, and many of their former peers show up in the anime as the school idols of other schools. While a different series would treat these characters as nobodies, Nijigasaki does the opposite. To use pro wrestling lingo, it would be all too easy to bury them and present them as lesser, the anime makes them the established idols of nearby schools that the Nijigasaki club aspires to match. At the end of the series, the event they hold is called “School Idol Festival,” bringing the name of the games they came from to the forefront, only now as a literal festival and not just something that sounds neat. As for non-Love Live!-specific references, their school is literally Tokyo Big Sight (complete with interior architecture that works great for a convention center but is weird to have for a school), and the anime’s Odaiba setting features cameos by the life-size Unicorn Gundam model currently located there. Sunrise, the studio behind Gundam, also does the Love Live! Anime.
Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club brings something new for existing fans of Love Live!, but it’s also a solidly pleasant anime for fans of all stripes. While the original is still closest to my heart, I appreciate what this series does, and I feel the most personally connected to the characters and what makes them tick. I look forward to a second season, especially if a certain Hong Kong–native makes her appearance.
“Beat-em-up” video games are relics of the past that manage to still persist to this day mostly as nostalgia trips. Examples include River City Girls (a gender role reversal of River City Ransom) and Streets of Rage 4. In these games, you can see the ways in which developers have tried to update the formulas to current gaming conventions, and it has me thinking about the evolution that the genre has gone through over multiple decades.
Beginning in coin-op arcades, the goal of beat-em-ups was to try to take your money in a war of attrition. They were downright ubiquitous too, with Double Dragon, Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun (adapted in other countries as Renegade), Final FIght, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sengoku are among the biggest examples from the 1980s to 1990s. Despite their blatant unfairness, however, there’s just always been something fun about their simplicity. You walk side to side, defeating waves of enemies and overpowered bosses with flashy attacks and however many coins were in your pockets.
But home consoles have had beat-em-up games for a long time as well, and the original quarter-munching system could not apply there. Instead, they usually did at least one of two things. The first was to limit how many times you could play in order to make the challenge about being good enough. Streets of Rage, for example, began as a Sega Genesis/Megadrive game, and restricted how many continues you could use. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game did the same, though it could be made more forgiving using a cheat code. The second approach was to adjust the experience to include elements from other genres. From one NES iteration to the next, Double Dragon incorporated things like an experience system, platforming, and recruiting enemy bosses as allies. Kunio-kun’s descendant is River City Ransom, a kind of 50-50 RPG and beat-em-up experience. Ninja Gaiden went from beat-em-up in the arcades to completely switching genres to a notoriously cruel action platformer. As Jeremy Parish points out in his NES Works video series, this was par for the course for many games in their conversion to home play.
For many years, the two variants existed side by side, with the arcades still taking kids’ allowances bit by bit while consoles acted as investments rewarding time spent. Eventually, however, arcades mostly faded away, and their brand of beat-em-ups kind of lost their place. These days, players can still visit the classic beat-em-ups of the past through re-releases on modern consoles and computers, but the lack of quarter feeding makes them an inherently different experience. However, there’s still a lot of love for the genre, especially among those who grew up with it, and there’s been a clear desire to capture the magic in a faithful way while still updating the beat-em-up to include accepted standards of current gaming—like not tossing you all the way back to the first level after you lose.
The result is that many of the beat-em-ups of the last decade really want to emphasize being “skill tests.” Both River City Girls and Streets of Rage 4, for example, take a lot of influence from fighting games—especially the “anime fighter” subgenre. The use of ground bounces, wall bounces, and air juggling makes these games partly an exercise in optimizing combos. 2013’s Dragon’s Crown also leaves plenty of room for combo creativity, and along with River City Girls does bring in RPG aspects that also reflect a more contemporary sensibility. While not the first beat-em-ups to incorporate these elements (that might be Guardian Heroes in 1996), the approach seems to have become a staple of sorts. What’s more, Streets of Rage 4 has bosses that are programmed to avoid attacks through brisk walk speeds (as if to whiff punish), as well as armor frames. Perhaps because fighting games are a closely related genre, the thinking is that it’s easiest to graft on those elements.
There are plenty of pros to adding long combos to beat-em-ups, namely in the realm of rewarding players for dedicating themselves to improving, but I think there is a recurring and significant con of sorts: the loss of the genre’s characteristic simplicity. In a lot of old beat-em-ups, you could probably get away with just doing basic punch combinations constantly, but now, the difficulty of newer games has been cranked up so as to almost require players to do those fancy combos to reliably succeed. In some ways, it reminds me of the direction Mega Man 9 and 10 went, which is to really fine-tune its platforming into combos of sorts. The result is a degree of extra polish that can sometimes feel too slick.
In the end, trying to add an extra bit of rewarding challenge to beat-em-ups is hardly a bad thing, but I have to wonder if there are other possible ways to make the genre work in this day and age. One thing I’m surprised to have not seen is placing the beat-em-up into the money-draining successor to the arcade in the form of play-to-win mobile games. It would be downright diabolical, and I’m morbidly curious to see what would come out of it.
Otakon, the largest American anime convention on the east coast, is in trouble. Due to the ongoing pandemic stifling last year’s event and the nonprofit nature of its parent organization, Otakon is at risk of shutting down for good. In order to fight off this unfortunate possibility, Otakorp is now, for the first time ever, accepting donations online.
I make no effort to hide the fact that Otakon is by far my favorite anime convention. I’ve been an attendee since before I started Ogiue Maniax all the way back in 2007, and I’ve gone as press (and occasionally even a panelist) every year since. Writing con reports and conducting interviews with great Otakon guests have become staples of this blog and my experience as an anime fan. Donating to Otakon has been one of the easiest decisions I ever made.
What I love so much about Otakon is that it never feels as commercialized compared to some of the professionally run anime conventions that are so common these days. I can expect interesting guests from Japan, including those who might not be as well known to the mainstream anime fan, and it’s always a pleasure to pick their brains for industry insight. I also love the fan panel culture that has grown out of Otakon, where every year is full of genuinely enthusiastic presenters, both new and seasoned, who encourage their audience to explore a little further and think a little deeper about anime, manga, and fandom. And it’s also been a great place to connect to many of the fellow fans I’ve met online.
In honor of Otakon and in hopes of it continuing on, I’ve decided to list some of the great interviews I’ve done at the convention over the years. I hope they can at least show you why it’s a cultural touchstone worth saving.
We are on the other side of a terrifying four years, and I am glad to be here with you. Though we don’t know what the future holds, I feel somewhat optimistic.
However, we still have COVID-19 killing thousands of people a day, so I hope for the safety of you and everyone you hold dear. Also, I hope this is obvious, but please do not attend any anime conventions while we’re in the middle of a pandemic. Seriously, don’t. Stay home, and enjoy anime from the comfort of your TV or computer. The new anime season is in full swing, and Valentine’s Day is around the corner, which means plenty of talk about giri and honmei chocolates.
Thank you to the following Patreon sponsors for their support in the month of February:
How does this gymnastics-themed anime handle its “older” protagonist?
Hashikko Ensemble
Chapter 36 is the long-awaited debut of Jin’s mom! Spoilers: She probably got teen pregnant.
Closing
If you’ve got a favorite anime of the season so far, I’m all ears. I’ve been enjoying the return to form that is Show by Rock!! Stars! and the strange and irreverent Back Arrow.
Blocker Gundan IV Machine Blaster is a 1976 super robot anime that most people have probably never heard of. It doesn’t have a long and storied legacy, and its international presence is limited to the Philippines and Italy, where it was known as Striker Force and Astrorobot, respectively. But it’s also a part of the grand history of giant robots in Japanese animation, and now one of the studios that produced the show, Nippon Animation, has started a crowdfund project to convert the Machine Blaster film reels into a digital archive through the site readyfor.jp. The goal is 3 million yen, or approximately $29,000 USD, by February 26 Japan Time.
While Machine Blaster is in many ways a footnote of anime history, that’s all the more reason why I want to see it preserved. I think it’s easy to assume that the art and entertainment we as humans create will always be around in some form, but film wears down, or it can get lost and buried. For many years, the sole copy of the Korean giant robot animated movie Robot Taekwon V was a badly damaged reel, and it was only by luck that a near-complete duplicate film reel was discovered. Machine Blaster is no Gundam or Mazinger Z, but I love giant robots and I would hate to see even this obscure series not have a proper archived version beyond its DVD releases.
Also, while Machine Blaster is indeed not Gundam, it actually shares a mecha designer! Ookawara Kunio, the man responsible for the mobile suits of the original TV series (as well as shows like Reideen, Zambot 3, and Daitarn 3), is also behind the robots of Machine Blaster. He even has a written message on the crowdfunding page talking about his time with the series as one of the many 20-somethings there being thrown into a full-on project without much experience.
If you’re like me and want to donate to saving Machine Blaster, I’ve provided a guide below, as the site is entirely in Japanese. Also, I should note that this is not a crowdfund to get a copy of the series; it’s just to help archive it. That being said, there are bonus goods for those who contribute more (though it’s not clear if they’ll send them abroad).
First, you’ll have to make an account on the site. At the top-right corner is a red button for logging in and creating an account. From there, you can either choose to register directly with readyfor.jp by clicking the red button on the right, or via Facebook using the button below it.
The blank spaces above, from top to bottom, are “user name,” “email address,” “password,” and “password again.” Then you’ll get a confirmation email, in which you’ll have to click a link to confirm your registration.
From there, if you go back to the Machine Blaster project, you’ll see another red button to the right of the main image. That’s the donate button, and it’ll take you to a page where you can choose how much you want to put in. Unlike other crowdfunding sites, you can only select along preset amounts, so the minimum is 3,000 yen, which gets you a thank-you message and updates via email. The most expensive one, seen below, is actually preview film reels of random episodes of Machine Blaster for 100,000 yen. The middle range has a bunch of merchandise you can get, like buttons and even a beach blanket. Choose which one you want, and note that you can actually select more than one at the same time. At the bottom, you’ll have the choice to pay via credit card or bank account. For payments outside of Japan, it’s probably better to use a credit card just because bank info in Japan can be very specific and have aspects that other countries don’t.
This is where it gets tricky. After putting in your credit card info, you’ll have to add your address as well. However, the form is not formatted for non-Japanese addresses, so you’ll have to work around it. Thankfully, if you just kind of fill it in as you would a normal address (and ignore the actual meanings of each form space, in case you can read Japanese), then it works out. Another crowdfund on readyfor.jp has provided a helpful screenshot, which I’ve also provided here. Note how the postal code in Japanese is just filled out as 111-1111. The only blank spaces this image isn’t showing are for your name.
From there, you hit the last button at the bottom and confirm your contribution! You can also write a message in the space provided.
Not every giant robot anime is going to be of legendary status, but I want to make sure we can keep and preserve as many as possible for both the fans who grew up with them and those who look back on anime’s history with curiosity. Blocker Corps IV Machine Blaster at least deserves that much.
PS: Like so many 70s giant robot anime, it got its own Italian theme song for the Italian dub. It is glorious, and worth comparing to the Japanese songs and their pleasant cheesiness.
The anime The Gymnastics Samurai is set in the year 2003, and nothing makes me feel older than having a fictional story ask “Remember back in the day?” about a time period that still in many ways feels like yesterday. But as the story of a veteran gymnast whose years are starting to catch up to him, it’s all too appropriate. The Gymnastics Samurai is not an altogether unique take on the trope of an old fighter trying to recapture glory, but it does stand out in a couple ways: its avoidance of faint and damning praise for its protagonist, and (for better or worse) the bizarreness of its setting details.
Protagonist Aragaki Jotaro, nicknamed “Samurai,” was once a former silver medalist in gymnastics who started a “Samurai boom” in Japan and around the world. Now, he finds himself a widowed father of one, unable to even approach his past success and considering retirement. However, a chance meeting with Leo, a foreigner dressed like a ninja, changes all that. Jotaro begins to wonder if there’s a chance he can keep doing what he loves, despite the fact that gymnastics is a young man’s game. In addition to the encouragement he gets from family and friends, he’s also egged on by a much younger rival who treats Jotaro as a dinosaur who should leave the spotlight for those with potential to fulfill.
The immediate comparison that came to mind watching The Gymnastics Samurai is 2006’s Rocky Balboa, the 6th movie in the Rocky franchise. In it, the famous Italian Stallion comes out of retirement for a boxing exhibition match against the current champion of the world, but has to re-invent his style once again (a recurring theme throughout the films) to make up for the fact that his body can’t move like it used to. Jotaro is in a similar position as Rocky, with a few key differences. First, Jotaro is nowhere near as old as Rocky in Rocky Balboa (29 vs. early 60s—almost a joke, in a way), and doesn’t have to deal with calcium deposits on his bones. Second, rather than Rocky’s approach of building muscle so that every punch he can land counts for more, Jotaro’s re-invention involves a return to fundamentals, and the muscle he does gain is to compensate for his old injury.
That second point is one of the most notable aspects of the story the anime is telling, because it’s in part a criticism of the notion that “spirit” and “hard work” can make up for anything. As the anime explains, Jotaro tried to work through his injury by just throwing himself further and further into gymnastics, only to end up aggravating his shoulder further. The fire of perseverance is not inherently a bad thing, but Jotaro has to learn how to work smarter instead of hoping to gain results from a mindless grind. Over-the-top training bordering on abuse is a classic (albeit dated) trope of sports anime and manga, so it stands out when a series like The Gymnastics Samurai puts it in stark relief with a more conscientious regimen.
There’s no doubt that it does get harder to keep up one’s physical peak as time passes, but the training Jotaro goes through is also not necessarily about abandoning what used to work for him. Instead, it’s a way to let him do what he was known for by providing a more stable structure. It reminds me of how Umehara Daigo, the most famous fighting game player in the world, trained to improve his reaction time rather than leaving it to his younger opponents because he didn’t want to limit himself by thinking like an old man (Daigo ended up winning a major online tournament). Note that Daigo is also older than Jotaro, being 39.
As for the bizarreness of The Gymnastics Samurai, although the anime is centered around a fairly straightforward sports narrative, there are a lot of little aspects of the show that seem like they come out of left field. Jotaro’s action movie-loving daughter, Rei, has a gigantic tropical bird (named Big Bird) who tells people to smile more. Leo appears to be a ninja-obsessed Japanophile whose use of theatrically archaic Japanese (de gozaru) is more a Japanese person’s idea of how a weeb would speak than any reflection of reality. Especially due to the bird, it reminds me of Tamako Market, which also has an avian creature providing comedy. These details make for a jarring tonal shift at times, which ultimately don’t remove the emotional impact of key moments in The Gymnastic Samurai but can still leave a sense of bewilderment.
The Gymnastics Samurai is one of the latest instances of a story that asks whether an old dog can indeed learn new tricks. While it’s not entirely a criticism of ageism due to its hero still being a reasonably spry 29, the series does give credence to the notion that re-invention and restoration are possible, especially where passion meets wisdom. In a genre of anime and manga dominated by stories about high school athletics—and where graduating at 18 is seen as the first step into mythology—Jotaro gives at least some hope to those who still want to compete.
It was Spring 2018 when I first encountered the Japanese multimedia franchise known as Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle. I was on vacation in Japan, and on a visit to Ikebukuro, I happened to walk past a Hypnosis Mic collaborative cafe. Not wanting to disturb the customers, I quickly left while wondering what it was I had just seen, though the large images of handsome anime guys with microphones told me that it was something at least idol-adjacent. I eventually learned the gimmick of Hypnosis Mic—rap battles!—as well as its incredibly odd premise (more on that below), which both puzzles and intrigued me. So when the anime was announced (full title: Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle “Rhyme Anima”), I thought it would be my chance to finally see firsthand what this was all about. The result: a show that’s not the most sophisticated work per se, but is consistently fun and ridiculous.
The outline: In the aftermath of World War III, Japan’s government has been taken over by a women-led political group called the Party of Words, who have managed to outlaw all weapons and replaced them with special devices called Hypnosis Microphones. These microphones can affect people physically and mentally, and they’re most powerful when wielded by talented rappers. In this environment, men are only allowed to live in specific areas of Japan called divisions, and in the present time, groups of men from each division are tasked with forming rap crews in order to compete in a tournament known as the Division Rap Battle.
The four main groups of Hypnosis Mic are uster Bros!!! (three brothers from Ikebukuro), Mad Trigger Crew (a combo of yakuza boss, police officer, and military veteran from Yokohama), Fling Posse (a fashion designer, a literary author, and a gambler from Shibuya), and Matenro (a doctor, a host, and a salaryman from Yokohama. Both intra-group and inter-group dynamics between the characters make for prime shipping fodder, especially because the leaders of each have a shared history.
I certainly was confused upon hearing all this first explained to me, as I had a ton of questions about the political implications of the plot. Women are clearly the target audience, so why are women also the primary antagonists of the series? What does it say that women are both responsible for demilitarizing Japan and saving it from itself but also are incredibly authoritarian? What would a feminist activist or a men’s rights activist think if they watched Hypnosis Mic? My best guess is that the setting is mostly a pretense, and that all contradictions are secondary to style and drama.
One thing I have to acknowledge is that because I’ve come to primarily know Hypnosis Mic through the anime, I had a fundamentally different experience from the fans who were there at the start. In its original format of music CDs, fans could purchase and vote for their favorite groups to advance—akin to voting for one’s favorite idol in AKB48 or Love Live! In its anime incarnation, Hypnosis Mic is mostly about cool rappers shooting music laser blasts with and against one another, like a bunch of hip hop Nekki Basaras from Macross 7. They call forth ethereal sound sets through which they deliver their verbal beatdowns, and it’s heavily reminiscent of how characters from Yu-Gi-Oh! might summon the Blue Eyes White Dragon or the Stardust Dragon. I titled this post after a gag from Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged because it just so perfectly sums up Hypnosis Mic that I couldn’t resist. Also, I think there really is a similar spirit of spectacle between the world’s most famous card game anime and the world’s only anime about superpowered rappers.
As for the raps themselves, I’m not the best judge of quality, even as I’ve been trying to learn. However, I believe there to be a genuine desire from the franchise to make rap exciting and interesting to an audience that is probably not well versed in it, and from what I’ve read, they do use experienced hip hop producers. The lyrics for certain songs can get pretty clever, and while not every voice actor in the series is a bonafide genius on the mic, the quality is generally high, and there are a few standouts. I’m particularly fond of Jyuto’s bars, the cop character from Mad Trigger Crew. Speaking of them, I don’t know if I’d call Mad Trigger Crew my favorite group, but I do like how Rio (the military guy) keeps accidentally grossing his teammates out by feeding them dishes made with bugs and other unorthodox things—someone I can relate to. My actual favorite character is the leader of the Party of Words, Touhouten Otome, but she doesn’t rap in the anime, so you can see where my preferences lie.
Hypnosis Mic is a trip, and the anime is worth checking out just to see with your own two eyes that such a show really exists. I love the idea that the franchise as a whole is potentially introducing rap and hip hop to people who might not have bothered with it otherwise; something akin to Hamilton. Much like how Hetalia inspired fans to learn more about history, it can be a gateway into discovering an entire musical genre. Though hat I really wonder is, how would the real world’s rap greats look in the world of Hypnosis Mic? Would someone like Tupac, Rakim, or Eminem summon rhymes so strong that they shatter the Earth itself?
A part of me understands that years are really just arbitrary designations of time, but I still feel a sense of relief that 2020 is officially behind us. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and I desperately hope that current and future generations learn the lessons we need about the important of healthcare, of helping those who are marginalized, and understanding that while competition is a part of humanity, it should not define us to the point of mutual destruction. Leave the power fantasies of invincibility to isekai anime, and let’s help one another out.
I also want to draw special attention to the Georgia runoff elections that will determine control of the US Senate. If you’re registered to vote there, you have the power to shape the future in your hands. If we want to establish even the chance for a future that benefits those in need rather than those addicted to power, this is our best opportunity for the next two years.
Anyway, thanks to the following Patreon sponsors at the start of 2021:
My initial impressions on the augmented-reality anime figure line.
Closing
On a less somber note, it’s the year of the ox, and we’re seeing a lot of cow cosplay anime fanart. I’d say something about being careful about NSFW pieces, but I get the feeling most people are currently at home.
OGIUE MANIAX 