Category Archives: anime

Don’t Fight Alone: The Boy and the Beast Review

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Over his past two films, “family” has been a hallmark theme of director Hosoda Mamoru. Whether it’s Summer Wars uniting generations together or a single mother raising two very unusual kids in Wolf Children, Hosoda explores the strength of familial bonds. This trend continues with The Boy and the Beast, but it’s certainly no rehash. Rather, this newest film addresses “family” by delving into the complex dynamics between the individual and the group, and does so in a way that somehow feels both immensely satisfying and a bit under-explored.

Ren is a young boy whose mother has passed away, and whose father is living elsewhere after a divorce. Understanding that his mother’s family sees him less as the child of his parents and more as their heir, he runs away from home only to encounter a large and gruff beastman. This half-human, half-bear fighter, Kumatetsu, is one of two candidates vying to become the next lord of his otherworldly home of Jotengai, and he’s desperate for a pupil because all others couldn’t handle his terrible temperament. He then decides to make Ren his disciple and gives him the name “Kyuta” (because Ren is 9 years old). Kumatetsu’s impatience and Ren’s anger means both have a lot to learn, but they gradually form a father-son relationship that thrives off of their mutually hostile yet well-meaning personalities.

What does it mean to be a family, or father and son? What do we do for those who feel like they don’t belong? What influences do we take from those around us, and in turn how do we influence others? These are all questions that The Boy and the Beast touches upon to varying degrees. Ren feels no connection to his mother’s family, and there is a clear conflict in values when they tell Ren that he will never want for anything, as if what’s most important to him on a fundamental level is material safety rather than the warmth of family. Kumatetsu is revealed to have grown up alone, learning how to fight and be strong all by himself, and this is what makes him such a terrible teacher. Throughout the film, Ren meets other characters whose specific circumstances are different but still feel lonely even when surrounded by others, or are confused about their identity relative to their family. In a way, there might be too many facets that The Boy and the Beast tries to explore, but I’m still on the fence about that.

The growing bond between “Kyuta” and Kumatetsu is one of my favorite parts of the film, because it becomes a showcase for how much the two characters truly need each other. At one point, Ren begins to copy Kumatetsu’s movements, to learn from him without Kumatetsu having to try and teach. Eventually, after the two come to an understanding, Ren even begins to unconsciously pick up Kumatetsu’s mannerisms: he growls when angry, talks in an extremely unrefined way, and seems more and more like the “child of a beast,” which incidentally is the Japanese name of the film.

If there’s one thing that I believe might throw viewers off about The Boy and the Beast, it’s that the film has a closer connection to reality than one might initially expect given its look and feel. I don’t want to go into too many details for the sake of those who have yet to see the movie, but I think this aspect of The Boy and the Beast contributes to that individual/group/family cluster of themes that the film explores, and grounds it the question of how people themselves, especially Japanese people, view their families and those close to them within the context of their society.

The Boy and the Beast does not have the flash and splendor of Summer Wars or the deep, moody atmosphere of Wolf Children, but it strikes a nice balance of light darkness and populates its world with colorful characters. Jotengai in particular is a vibrant, rural throwback to an earlier era of Japan (roughly Edo period?), and the beastmen who call it home are varied and full of personality. The lord of Jotengai, an adorable elderly rabbit man, is a highlight of the film, and I would honestly consider owning a figure of him. The animation often has a kind of pleasantly minimalist feel to it, even though there’s so much to look at, and the CG, while still noticeable in how it differs from the 2D work, is a step up from Wolf Children.

Out of all of Hosoda’s films, I think The Boy and the Beast might be my least favorite, but that is certainly no knock against it. I still think very highly of the movie, and I am impressed by the way it tries to tackle so many elements of the theme of “family.” Perhaps it’s stretched a little too thin, but I believe it was worth trying, and it’s gotten me thinking about the idea of the “sword within your heart”—a simple part of the movie that carries a lot of potential meanings. As for breaking down those meanings, I will save that for a future post.

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“White Rice is Amazing! I Wonder How it Gets so White…”

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hanayorice-1000“Insert rice comment here”

Fighting for Inspiration: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for March 2016

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This month I’d like to thank the following Patreon supporters, as well as my unnamed patrons as well. You’re all awesome and I’d like to talk with you all someday (and many of you I have!):

General:

Johnny Trovato

Ko Ransom

Alex

Diogo Prado

Yoshitake Rika fans:

Elliot Page

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

One thing that I’ve noticed is that my patrons come from all over the world, and I know that support for anime can be hard to come by in some places. It’s why I’m thankful for living in a major metropolitan area. Between the New York International Children’s Film Festival, and screenings of both The Boy and the Beast and Kizumonogatari, March is going to be kind of a crazy month for anime here. What’s your situation like?

Nothing’s really out of the ordinary for Ogiue Maniax this month from a content perspective. There’s the new Genshiken review (what an intense chapter!), the return of Patreon-sponsored posts in my review of Garakowa -Restore the World-, and a post that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time: an overview of the thematic relationship between Space Runaway Ideon and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Lately I haven’t been trying to broaden my horizons in terms of writing, and I wonder if it’s causing me to stagnate some. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not developing or changing or taking risks with my writing enough, and at times I struggle to come up with new topics to write about as a result. This is actually why I’m grateful for patron Johnny Trovato, because getting outside topics to write about can spark some inspiration. Just as a teaser, this month’s requested topic is an anime I’ve been wanting to delve into more after dipping my toe in many months ago, so this is the perfect opportunity.

Though maybe it’s because I’m playing more video games, things like Fire Emblem Awakening (I know I’m a game behind!), Splatoon (in my first Splatfest ever!), and of course Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. I attended a local tournament this past weekend and did okay, getting 13th out of 35 players. It’s not much, but I enjoy just checking things out and seeing where my Mewtwo stands. I don’t think that it’s bad to play games, of course, but perhaps I need to redirect my attention back to anime and manga a bit more.

To end off, I do want to mention something I’m doing over at Apartment 507, where I also blog. After the success of my analysis of Yazawa Nico from Love Live!, I’ve decided to tackle all nine main girls (and maybe a few more!) over the next few months in the leadup to Love Live! Sunshine. For February I’ve written about Sonoda Umi, so check it out if you’re all about the Umidaaaa!

 

[Apartment 507] Shidare Hotaru from Dagashi Kashi Fascinates Me

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I wrote a post about the eccentric heroine of Dagashi Kashi over at Apartment 507. You can find out why Hotaru might be my character of the year, and why her role as a sheltered dagashi heiress is so interesting to me.

[Apartment 507] The Big/Little Sister of Love Live!: Sonoda Umi Analysis

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To follow up my post on Yazawa Nico, I’ve written an analysis of Sonoda Umi for Apartment 507.

She really is a wonderful character.

When the Nakama Are Feeling FRUSTRATION: Translation and Use of Foreign Words

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One of the big bugaboos of Japanese to English translation has been the use of untranslated words. Whether it’s senpai (“upperclassman”) nakama (“comrade”), or the utterly fictitious zankantou (“colossal blade”) the question of whether words should be left as is or fully adapted to English rages in arguments between fans, translators, and everything in between. Of course, there are no solid rules, and determining where in this spectrum your translation should fall is very much a case-by-case basis. However, what intrigues me about this debate is that, when you look at the Japanese language and how it’s used in anime, advertisements, and more, there is a very intentional sprinkling of foreign words with the clear idea that they are used for their exoticism.

The show that actually got me to think about it was, of all things, Show By Rock!! Here are the first lines of the opening:

Ren’ai inochi VERY VERY HAPPY!
Yuujou inochi hajikeru JUMPING!
Bouken inochi dokidoki OK?
Seishun ouka COM’ON READY? LET’S GO!

I’m leaving it untranslated just to show the clear use of English vs. Japanese. They didn’t have to use English words but they did. Similarly, let’s look at the popular One Punch Man opening:

ONE PUNCH!
(THREE! TWO! ONE! KILL SHOT)
Sanjou!   Hisshou!   Shijou saikyou
Nan dattenda?   FRUSTRATION   Ore wa tomaranai

One concession is that a lot of these words are very simple, like “HAPPY” and “JUMPING.” They’re not terribly complex and don’t carry a great deal of cultural baggage like senpai (though one might argue that ren’ai (romantic love) being originally a concept introduced from Europe to Japan falls into that range). However, I think where the actual big cultural difference comes from is that Japan has been open to receiving a lot of foreign words and maintaining them as emphatically foreign, as opposed to fully integrating them into the language. So while English has its fair share of Japanese loan words, from sushi to karaoke, they don’t maintain as much of their exoticism. It’s just a very different environment for sentences and words themselves.

What’s funny is that English wasn’t always this way, especially when it was not the lingua franca of the world. Prior to World War II, French was the most dominant language in diplomacy, and (correct me if I’m wrong!) throwing in French words with the expectation that only a few would understand it was not uncommon among the educated. Of course, this is different from the use of “HAPPY” and “JUMPING,” but I do think that the English language’s ubiquity leads to the sense in us users that it doesn’t have to bend to the will of others.

Translating to English often assumes that English is important. That sounds like a no-brainer, but what I mean specifically is that English speakers value their own native language so highly that it comes across to some extent as a rejection of foreign influence. France today for example is known for trying to keep foreign words out of its language, preferring to take existing French words and modify/combine them accordingly to eschew the need for new loan words.

I’m not saying translators who do not use senpai or whatever are imperialists anymore than I think that using nakama means someone is fetishizing Asian culture. Moreover, the exotic aspects of English usage in Japan come with their own sets of considerations and concerns. Rather, the seeming need for everything to be transformed into English might say something about how we as English speakers look at ourselves, and that this differs depending on how we individually approach that self-reflection.

[Apartment 507] Myriad Colors Phantom World is Like a 90s Anime

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I’ve written a post about Myriad Colors Phantom World over at Apartment 507, and its similarities to anime of the 90s such as Slayers and Saber Marionette J. What do you think? Is Phantom World a “1990s anime in 2016 clothing?”

Mizuki Ichirou and JAM Project: The Voice of the Past

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Thanks to One Punch Man, I’ve been listening more to JAM Project as of late. I love how JAM Project takes anime music so seriously, and their desire to create actual “anime music” about the shows they sing for is admirable. However, the more I listen through their catalog, the more I miss one of their original founders, Mizuki Ichirou.

For fans of anime music, Mizuki Ichirou possibly needs no introduction. The voice behind almost countless theme songs, his work in titles such as Mazinger Z, Babel II, Golion (aka Voltron), and Kamen Rider X earned him the moniker “Emperor of Anime Songs.” In 2000, he became one of the founding members of JAM Project, taking a less active role a few years later.

Other members have come and gone from JAM Project, namely Sakamoto Eizou, the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Anthem, and Matsumoto Rica, a singer who’s also famous for being the voice of Satoshi (Ash) from Pokemon. They also lent their own unique voices to JAM Project in interesting ways, but something about Mizuki Ichirou’s singing is different.

Unlike the younger members of JAM Project, Mizuki’s vocal style invokes a different era of music, culture, and of course anime. It’s deep, memorable, and reminiscent of a Frank Sinatra-style crooner, only he’s singing about Mazinger Z’s Rocket Punch. When you placed him alongside his fellow JAM Project members, it would add something unique, something classic, to their sound.

Above are two versions of JAM Project’s “Hagane no Messiah,” one without Mizuki and one with. I think hearing them side by side really shows what the “Aniking” added to the band.

 

 

Moe Norton vs Avast: Garakowa -Restore the World-

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This post was sponsored by Johnny Trovato. If you’re interested in submitting topics for the blog, or just like my writing and want to be a patron of Ogiue Maniax, check out my Patreon.

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This might not be a universal feeling, but I think there’s nothing quite like your first emotional and heartrending anime. It could be something as simple as Pokemon, or something more known for its sense of tragedy, such as Kanon. Perhaps it comes from Japan’s literary tradition of valuing the ephemeral, or maybe it’s something more modern, but as you watch more anime, you start to notice trends in how sadness is portrayed, how characters are used to facilitate this sorrow. Though you don’t necessarily get tired of these trends, after a while recognizing the trend can cause the sheen to come off the anime model.

Garakowa -Restore the World- is a recent film from A-1 Pictures that I’m compelled to describe as “a standard interesting anime.” It doesn’t quite do the movie justice, as I think it’s actually a solid piece with a strong story, characters, and lots of interesting ideas to chew on, but there’s an odd sense of familiarity I get from the work.

At the center of the future setting of Garokawa are two antivirus programs, visualized as teenage girls named Dual and Dorothy. Their sole task is to protect their computer world containing vast archives of human history, known as the “box of knowledge,” by deleting any memories that have been infected, at least when they aren’t butting heads with each other (it’s why you don’t install two different antivirus software!). During one virus-purging, they encounter a mysterious other program named Remo, who seems to possess all of the human traits that are simply absent in Dual and Dorothy, and the three form a bond that leads them to the truth of the world.

Garakowa‘s atmosphere is like a cross between Madoka Magica, Corrector Yui, Reboot, and She, the Ultimate Weapon, in that there are elements of magical girl anime mixed with the idea of a world inside a computer, a looming sense of tragedy, and a grand scale whose exact dimensions are intentionally ambiguous. This might be more obvious when looking at the Japanese title, Garasu no Hana to Kowasu Sekai, or “the Glass Flower and the Crumbling World.” The official translation, by the way, is the odd-sounding Vitreous & Destroy the World. However, what makes Garokawa simultaneously not the most daring and original work while also filled with material worth contemplating is the way it creatively utilizes its science fiction setting alongside its emotionally resonant moments.

The first element that really stood out to me about the film was the idea of personifying the conflict that occurs when multiple antivirus programs are installed. The way it’s presented here, with the anime trappings of magical girl accoutrements and cute girls, is to be expected to a certain extent. However, even as it’s reminiscent of the OS-tan craze of personifying computer operating systems in the early to mid-2000s and even as it draws upon the power of moe, yuri, and a kind of sensuality, the story of Garakowa also somewat implicitly justifies their human appearances.

From there, the part of the movie that really stays with me (outside of some spoilers I’m choosing not to divulge) is the idea that Dual and Dorothy cannot taste food or understand human behavior even as they’re modeled after humanity. In particular, in a scene straight of Urasawa Naoki’s Pluto, Dual contemplates Remo’s advice that, if you think that something is delicious, it feels like it will become delicious (Atom in Pluto says something similar). While it might all be in my head, I feel like that interaction sets up this idea that the antivirus programs are part of the greater presentation of humanity that is the box of knowledge. Even if they aren’t able to directly feel human emotions or sensation, they can at least exhibit a record of the ideas. If the box of knowledge is a kind of catalog of human history, then perhaps Dual and Dorothy are just as much a part of that purpose.

Overall, Garakowa is a very “anime” film in terms of its combination of science fiction, attractive female leads, and heart string-tugging narrative that contextualizes an everyday environment as something larger than life. It’s the kind of work where I feel someone who has less exposure to Japanese animation, or at least anime of this variety, could be strongly affected by its ideas, characters, world, and presentation, but it’s also enjoyable for long-time fans. Garakowa -Restore the World- is actually available for free on Crunchyroll, so it might be worth your while.

 

Show By Rock!!: C’mon, Rock and Roll

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showbyrock-plasmagica  What happens when Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, creates a franchise aimed at men? The result is Show By Rock!!, an anime that’s an eclectic mix of seemingly contradictory visual aesthetics that somehow manages to bring it all together through clever humor, a heartfelt story of music and friendship, and a surprising amount of story.

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Hijirikawa Cyan is a high school girl too shy to join her school’s music club. While lamenting her lack of courage and playing on her cell phone (Show By Rock!! was originally a mobile game), she gets transported to the world of Myumons, half-animal people who share a love of music. She meets a talking guitar named Strawberry Heart, has to fight a giant hideous monster attacking a concert, and ends up staying on the other side and joining a small band called Plasmagica. Along with their ambitious leader and lead guitarist/vocalist Chuchu, tsundere bassist Retoree, and enigmatically cheerful drummer Moa, Cyan learns to gain confidence in herself and her love of music and saves Midi City in the process.

Though I might be biased as I am probably in that target audience of guys who like cute things, what I think draws me to this show is just how well it executes that cuteness in various capacities. I think often when it comes to how cuteness is utilized in anime, especially when trying to aim it at adult male fans, it can come across as a little too willing to revel in adorableness for its own sake, or to attach it heavily to tragedy. With Show By Rock!!, I actually hesitate to call a show like it “moe,” because there’s a different quality at work, a combination of silliness and seriousness that makes the anime feel closer to the morning cartoons that air alongside something like Precure than they would Hidamari Sketch, despite Show By Rock!! itself being a late-night anime.

I think I get this sense most from the show’s opening, “Seishun wa Non-Stop,” which is fun and addictive and the kind of introduction that I actually chose not to skip every episode. That, and seeing the glasses magically dissipate from Cyan’s head at the beginning of the opening is somehow hypnotic.

The moment that sealed the deal for me in terms of liking Show By Rock!! comes quite early on, in episode 2. During a scene when all of the girls of Plasmagica are discussing their reasons for joining the band, the camera closes in on each of their faces to reveal their actual reasons and not the innocent ones they’ve given on the surface. I don’t want to spoil the moment, but Moa’s reveal is so out of left field and hilarious that, even though I put the show on hold for months before finishing it, her inner thoughts stuck with me throughout my break from Show By Rock!!  What’s even better is that it pays off in a later episode.

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That moment is one of many indicators that Show By Rock!! is actually quite well-paced, with early hints at characters’ histories being built upon, a good sense of weight and understanding when it comes to the challenges each of the characters have to go through, and an extremely solid cast of supporting characters. While I can’t help but be fond of Tsurezurenaru Ayatsuri Mugenan, an Enka-themed band led by a woman in a giant cat daruma, the real stand-out side characters have to be SHINGANCRIMSONZ, a visual kei band with the most humorously overwrought members possible, chuunibyou types taken to the next level (plus one realist who nevertheless believes strongly in the power of music). If anything, even if you’re not a fan of hyper cute designs, you might just stay around for the SHINGANCRIMSONZ antics.

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Going back to the idea of Show By Rock!! being a strange mix of various visual styles, this can be seen in the fact that the members of SHINGANCRIMSONZ are drawn closer to the bishounen archetype than an attempt to reconcile their designs with the cutesy look of the Plasmagica girls. However, it works because they’re in many ways just as adorable and fun to watch as Cyan and the rest. Another facet of this blending of styles is the use of 3DCG and transformation into Sanrio-esque mascot characters during performances. It can be jarring, especially when watching this series for the first time, though it’s not extremely different from the heavy use of CG dances in girls’ shows such as Pretty Rhythm. In fact, while it isn’t quite up to the level of 2D animation employed by Studio Bones, the 3D animation in Show By Rock!! is actually quite solid.

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At only 12 episodes, Show By Rock!! is a quick and easy watch. I don’t think it’ll rock anyone’s foundations, but the characters are charismatic, the overall narrative leads up well, and the music is catchy. If there’s a way to describe it based on other music anime, I’d say it’s like 50% Sound!! Euphonium, 50% Macross 7. Don’t believe me? I guess you’ll have to check it out.