Category Archives: genshiken

Why I Like Ogiue, Part 6: The Fight Continues

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As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve decided to help Ogiue through a contest on the Megatokyo Forums. Below is my post in support of her in this second round. It is also a reply to some comments that Genshiken females are wish fulfillment character.

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Ogiue strives forward. I am here to help her along.

I have no particular fondness for tsundere, or fujoshi, blunt characters, or any other basic, isolated aspects of Ogiue aside from her striking eyes. I did not have a checklist which Ogiue managed to fulfill the majority of. What happened instead was that Genshiken presented a character who was so rich and full of personality and hang-ups and smiles and tears with such weight in her actions and words that she became my favorite. It is because of Ogiue that I like her qualities, and not the other way around.

The vital difference between the wish fulfillment aspect of a Genshiken female and that of many other anime girls is that they don’t fall neatly into the viewers wishes. Instead, what they do is that they convince YOU that how they are what you want, exactly the way they are.

It’s like having your attraction to someone grow over time. At first they look okay, but over time as you get to know them and their personality better, they start looking more and more beautiful until you can’t help but smile while thinking of them. Your emotions affect how you view that person. This is what happens with Ogiue. The more you get to know her the more beautiful she becomes.

Vote for beauty that comes from the heart. Vote for beauty that comes from being all-too-human. Vote for Ogiue.

The Target Audience is Me

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Recently when in the manga section of a bookstore, be it Japanese or English, I find myself gravitating towards the seinen series. “This isn’t so unusual,” I think to myself, seeing as I am exactly in the target age for seinen, but what alarms me is that I seem to be checking out shounen and shoujo less than I used to. I don’t think this has much to do with my tastes in manga changing; many shounen and perhaps many more shoujo titles still rank as among my absolute favorites. So what’s the deal?

I considered that perhaps what’s holding me back is a lack of desire to start new series, especially long ones. Once I buy a first volume, there tends to be a strong desire to keep getting them if only to quench the completionist fire within me. The fact that my most recent truly blind purchase was La Sommelière Volume 1 may be what gets me to approach the seinen section in Kinokuniya, which inevitably leads me to the Monthly Afternoon titles situated nearby. I have a fondness for Afternoon, as it’s where Genshiken was published.

Shounen series, especially successful ones, tend to go on for very long, riding their success as hard as possible, and understandably so. Shoujo series can be similar, though they tend not to be as crazy long as the most popular shounen series. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m ultimately a guy and while I enjoy shoujo immensely it might be always as a guy. Who has the hots for Oscar.

Why I Like Ogiue, Part 5: Join Me

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The Megatokyo Forums are having some kind of Saimoe-esque Character Battle right now, and I was informed of Ogiue’s participation, and implored to stick up for her as that’s a common thing in these competitions. Below is the post I wrote. A lot of the ideas have been explored by previous Why I Like Ogiue segments, but this was written for the uninformed.

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I have been awoken from my SLUMBER, called upon by higher powers called duty and passion, to pass on to you my love for one Ogiue Chika, Shiiou University undergraduate and member of the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.

Ogiue is a very unique character in anime and manga, and it comes from a realistic personality that’s almost tangible. You can practically hold her personality in your arms, and what you will find is a multi-layered cake filled with the most bittersweet cream.

Ogiue is a self-loathing fujoshi whose desire to fit in is off-set by her secret love of yaoi. So strong is her perversion towards boys’ love that she is able to take a simple thought and construct the most erotic homosexual fantasies possible. It is this conflicted personality which bleeds into Ogiue’s every action and word. She tries to be polite, but comes off as blunt, tries to be innocent but you can hear the guilt in her every syllable. Still, deep down she is the most genuine otaku you will ever see.

It is only after she joins the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture, a club which already houses the misfits of the world of misfits, that she begins to open up. It’s not an easy process, and there are many trials along the way, but in time she begins to accept herself as an otaku. Anyone who has ever had issues with being an otaku should look to Ogiue and understand her message: You can’t stop what you like.

Ogiue is tsundere, but this is not like any tsundere you’ve ever seen. She is every spectrum of tsundere, both traditional and modern. Her feelings gradually change over time, from that of terse rebellion to genuine love, but along the way she still maintains that hint of shame which keeps her from openly talking about herself and her desires except in the most private of moments. There are many tsundere in this world, but Ogiue is one of the few you can call a Complete Tsundere. Not complete as in it’s the only part of her personality, but that her tsundere has so many gradations you cannot call it simply tsun or dere.

That is Ogiue. That is the girl to whom I’ve devoted my fandom. Join me.

My Attention Leans Towards Ogiue’s Sweet Voice

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It is not unlike spicy butter.

I’ve spoken previously about the fact that the Japanese special edition Genshiken manga Volume 9 came with a drama CD. What I haven’t spoken about is how it differs from the two drama CDs which followed it.

The two drama CDs released with Genshiken 2 seem to take place more firmly in the “anime,” while the first drama CD, having been packaged with the manga, seems to be more manga-esque. There’s a complete lack of background music unlike the later drama CDs.

The big difference though is the sound. While the later two drama CDs seem to have a very straightforward approach, the first one plays with stereo sound a lot. When one character walks across the room, you can hear his or her footsteps going from one speaker to the next. At one point the conversation splits off, with the guys talking in one part of the room, and the girls talking in the other. It’s pretty much impossible to listen to both conversations at once, so you begin to favor one over the other. Naturally, I pay more attention to Ogiue’s conversation, but what this also means is that you can benefit from listening to it at least twice to really get into each side’s conversation.

This was also clearly Mizuhashi Kaori’s first recording as Ogiue as she sounds a little softer than she does in Genshiken 2, not quite yet fully adapting to the bluntness of Ogiue.

Ogiue Maniax on Answerman

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I submitted a response to Anime News Network’s (new) Answerman and it got published. Go there if you want to read yet another story about me relating to Ogiue.

I really enjoy this new Answerman, Brian Hanson. He brings a level of positivity and sincere respect for his readers and anime fans in general. Really good stuff.

Let’s Start Off the New Year with a CONSPIRACY

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Some of my first untranslated manga purchases ever were Japanese volumes of Great Teacher Onizuka. I found them again recently and began flipping through, when I saw something startling.

Here are pages from the GTO extra comic series, “F(iction) GTO Gaiden.”

Do you notice anything peculiar? If not, let me help you out.

Genshiken began in 2002. GTO began in 1997 and ended in 2002.

There are a lot of funky hairstyles in anime and manga, and plenty of top knots, but none of them are quite the same as Ogiue’s distinctive “paintbrush” hair. On top of that, the character in question (labeled “Chief” in the comic) has front bangs similar to Ogiue as well, and dresses in a style similar to Ogiue.

Sure, it’s not uncommon for someone to be wearing these kinds of clothes, but Genshiken itself has bothered to point out that Ogiue prefers to wear this sort of clothing.

I am not sure what to make of all this, and I have no concrete answers. However, what I believe based on this information is that there is someone out there who is the model for both of these characters, a real person on whom Ogiue is visually based (we already know that personality-wise Ogiue is based on Kio Shimoku himself).

Genshiken ran in Monthly Afternoon, GTO in Shounen Magazine. Both are owned by the publishing company Kodansha. Perhaps the model is a Kodansha employee. Also, it might not even be a girl.

The writer of FGTO, Hosokawa Makoto, is called the “sub-chief.” Who, then, is the “chief?” Further research reveals that it’s probably Ayamine Rando, creator of  Get Backers and former assistant to Fujisawa Tohru. Ayamine has a series, Holy Talker, currently running in Manga Rival, a magazine published by Kodansha.

Here’s a self-portrait from Volume 3 of GTO by Ayamine.

His hairstyle is more realistic, shown here as just a sloppily tied together ponytail without the unusual paintbrush shape, but this also means that “Chief” might just be him.

There are other asisstants’ names. One of them is “Takeda Chikanoshin.” Chikanoshin? Chika? No visual evidence, though.

Could this be purely a coincidence? That is certainly a possibility and probably the most sensible one. The only way to know for certain is to find out if there’s any connection between Kio Shimoku and Ayamine Rando. Until then, I hope you’ve enjoyed my tinfoil hat endeavors.

There Are Still Ogiue Doujinshi at Comic Market

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Yes, despite Ogiue and Genshiken having nothing new to offer otaku this year, at least a few faithful acolytes are still keeping the dream alive.

Ogiue is a bit of an anomaly in regards to doujinshi. If you’ve ever kept up with that scene, you’d notice that an increase of character-specific doujinshi tends to occur when a manga gets adapted for animation. There might be a few doujinshi out there beforehand, but it’s the anime which brings the pencil to paper. Not so with Ogiue; her doujin heyday was shortly after the climax of Genshiken’s story. Powered by love, care, and perhaps other things, by comparison the amount of Ogiue doujinshi when Genshiken 2 came out was rather sparse. Makes sense though, seeing as the anime never even got to that climax.

Comic Market 75 is to be held this year from Sunday, December 28 to Tuesday, December 30 at Tokyo Big Sight. Don’t forget that there’s something special happening with the Eureka Seven movie too.

Tatsu, Tatsu, Koko ni Tatsu

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Hey, Japan. I know you keep trying to remake Cowboy Bebop to tap into the American market. You think, “Americans must like American things!” and you’d be pretty much right. But I’m gonna give you a tip on the down-low about something that’s so American that you’re sure to see dudes dropping dollar bills while they eat hot dogs and sing the Star-Spangled Banner.

Picture a youth traveling the country with a bag over his shoulders, never satisfied with staying in one place, always looking for the next challenge. Is he a Martial Artist? A Traveler? A Drift Racer? No, he is a Stand-up Comedian.

Meet the rival who cannot forgive anyone who steals jokes. Meet the beautiful girl in the crowd who follows our hero to all of his events but the hero’s too oblivious to notice. Get a narrator who will explain the nuance and power of each joke dropped by the hero as his audience sits gasping.

It’s the kind of thing that could go on for hundreds of episodes or just three and it would have the ability to be good either way.

No need to thank me, Japan. Any check you cut, just commission Kio Shimoku to draw a life-size Ogiue poster to mail to me.

A Never-Ending Journey

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I AM MORE THAN MECHA, MY DARLING

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People know I like giant robot anime, but at the same time I like to think that my taste in anime is pretty diverse, as is my collection of actual anime DVDs. I’m proud to say I like mecha and super robots, but I don’t like being pegged as solely a fan of giant robots.

Then I passed by a row of anime dvds in my room (there’s other DVDs elsewhere) and I noticed Godannar, Gravion, Tetsujin 28, Eureka Seven, and Infinite Ryvius all lined up next to each other.

At my feet right now are the Gurren-Lagann LE box 1 and Zambot 3, too.

I don’t know if this is actually a lot, but it’s just this feeling that if I were in a tv show or something I would be all, “You cannot simply place me into this narrow category you call ‘mecha fans’ dear,” but then my own room would betray me.

And somehow they wouldn’t notice all the Genshiken DVDs stacked up next to each other. Alas.