Category Archives: genshiken

IN AMERICA

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Genshiken 2 10 came and went, and then came back around, and holy crap is it a crazy episode.

I’ve made it a point not to do episode reviews in the normal sense, but I think I need to discuss this one a little more. Genshiken 2 Episode 10 spoilers, obviously.

First thing’s first: Ogiue was incredibly, incredibly cute. And hot. As always. But moreso. Her blushing in this episode is a sight to behold.

Now then.

Angela’s English still sounds a bit awkward, but not in the way you’d normally expect a Japanese person’s English to be awkward. Kaida (her voice actor) does a really good job, but I suspect they didn’t have much of an English voice director to help them through it. Another odd thing is that I always considered Angela to be the one Genshiken character where the doujinshi based on her could most conceivably happen to her character, and it looks like Studio ARMS agrees with me, because wow is she flirtatious.

Sue is incredible too but in a completely different way. I think she’s going to garner a lot of fans after this.

And if those two weren’t enough, we actually get a THIRD character introduction! Hailing from Shiiou University’s Manken, it’s the one with no name, who Naruco Hanaharu calls “Cat-Mouth Girl.” And she finally has a name!

Say hello to ASADA, otherwise known as “Nyaako.” Her name is mentioned in the ending credits, if you’re wondering where I got it from.

I know some people who will be quite pleased with this episode.

And next episode has Ogiue in a public bath.

Mmm.

Bastards

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I got to the New York Anime Festival at around 5pm, and went to see if there was any Ogiue doujin in the dealer’s room.

Apparently it all sold out in the morning.

You bastards.

Susanna Hopkins: Cute because of her gender?

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Speaks loudly and randomly in a foreign language. Has no sense of personal space. Difficult to predict and kind of disturbing at times.

Now, am I describing Sue, or am I describing Kuchiki?

I mean, I like Sue (and Angela as well), but I have to wonder how much she gets away with in the eyes of us Genshiken fans on account of her being female.

Also, yes, I am looking forward to upcoming episodes. Ogiue and Sue are an incredible comedy duo.

BONUS GAME: Picture the conversations Kuchiki and Sue would have while on a date.

The Mystery of the Disappearing Keiko

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Sasahara Keiko, sister of Sasahara Kanji, is non-existent in the anime Genshiken 2.

Essentially, they’ve turned Kuchiki into a surrogate Keiko, giving modified lines that she would have been delivering to Kuchiki instead. I think this is really a shame because Keiko becomes a pretty good character in the second half of the Genshiken manga and that while the overall effect for the sake of the plot is the same, their wildly different character types result in two wildly different deliveries of the same information. Keiko fills a role that Saki can’t, being both normal (if you consider ko-gal to be normal) AND unreliable, and she gets quite a few good lines and even a chapter devoted to her. Probably the best example of Keiko goodness is in Volume 9 of the manga with her interactions with both Ogiue and Ohno.

All this considered, I’m not exactly sure why they’ve done this, seeing as Keiko has appeared as late as the third OVA episode. There are a number of possibilites though. Maybe Keiko’s voice actor, Shimizu Kaori, was unable to fulfill the role. Maybe they figured Keiko wouldn’t be a popular character. Maybe they thought the cast would have gotten too cluttered. Maybe they really like Kuchiki. It’s all speculation though.

At the very least though, I can say that reading the manga and watching the anime are two similar but different experiences. I, of course, recommend doing both.

DEFEATED

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Ogiue in Mii form

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Back when I first got my Wii, my first order of business was creating an Ogiue Mii.

I have uploaded it to Check Mii Out at 9781-2877-1647. It’s based on roughly volume 5-volume 6-style Ogi. I may make one that’s closer to her anime counterpart.

And yes, I will be referring to different periods of Ogiue aesthetics from now on.

You can also use the feature to see the rest of the Mii’s I’ve put online.

Does learning Japanese hurt the domestic anime and manga industry?

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I have taken years of Japanese. I studied abroad in Japan in a university with virtually no English speakers. The result is that I am more or less fluent, and that at some point I decided to start buying some manga in the original Japanese because it usually comes at a lower cost. Genshiken is an example.

However, by doing so, I am also directly taking away from sales of the Del Rey release in respect to me personally. At the same time, though, my early fandom into Genshiken I know has caused other people to pick up the manga as it was being released her. My consistent and long-term Ogiue fandom has caused people to take notice of Genshiken, buy it, read it, and enjoy it immensely. If I had never started reading the Japanese versions, this may not have happened. So it’s tricky to say, at least as it concerns myself and my interactions with others, whether or not this has hurt the chances of certain things succeeding in the US.

I think there may be a certain balance, and that there is a potential point where if too many anime fans were fluent in Japanese, it would hurt the domestic industry, but that with a certain percentage of fans as Japanese-literate that it may actually be very beneficial. This might sound like I’m encouraging a portion of the anime-viewing population to remain ignorant, but that’s not the case, and the chances of “too much” of the population learning Japanese leans on the slim side anyway.

My prediction was wrong

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In an earlier post, I predicted that the Ogiue cosplay in volume 7 of the manga would be replaced by Ogiue’s Menma cosplay in the opening.

Is this what they mean when they say “I can’t lose?”

Thrice-Removed from Reality: Anime in the Current Age

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The anime we see today is the product of a generation which grew up watching anime produced by people who grew up reading manga. We are twice removed from reality.

Hayao Miyazaki has lamented before that people spend too much time watching anime, stating that if you have time to watch Totoro 100 times, that time should have been spent actually being in nature. Similarly in the field of video games, Shigeru Miyamoto is well known for taking inspiration from various times in his life in making some of his classics. The Legend of Zelda is based on Miyamoto’s exploration of the caves and forests around his childhood home, and Pikmin is based upon his gardening in his current adult life. Both men have produced great works, and both emphasize that one should not be too disconnected from reality.

At the same time, however, much of the progress in the history of the arts has been in the form of response to previous works. Impressionism led to Post-Impressionism led to Cubism and so on and so forth. There is nothing necessarily wrong with making art in response to art, and thusly there is nothing necessarily wrong with making anime in response to anime. If anime and manga are such a part of Japan’s culture and increasingly world culture, then doesn’t it too become a part of reality?

What is perhaps most interesting to me then, are the works which exist in the world of otaku but manage to push the content back into reality. Genshiken is probably my favorite example of this. Genshiken is initially devoted to introducing the reader to the world of otaku. Once the reader is firmly entrenched in the trappings of otakudom however, the series changes to being about pushing otaku into the real world, as time passes, graduations occur, and the characters have to confront their relationships with others. Moe itself, I think, has origins in subtly nudging otaku towards reality, with the complex emotions brought on by games such as Kanon and Air.

The problem, as I see it, is that while much of the anime made today is a reaction to anime made in the past, it often does not any sort of concerted effort to look deeply into the anime of the past. References are made, homage is given, but criticism is lacking. Not every title is like this, and even among the ones that do fall into this category, you will find many shows that I am fond of. If an anime is going to be twice or even thrice-removed from reality however, it does no good for the viewer or the creator to be ignorant of this.

Reasons to Give Thanks

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I am thankful for the fact that even two years after my discovery of Ogiue, that I am still being provided with excellent material in the form of Genshiken 2. I am also thankful for the fact that despite its official November 26 release date, some book stores are already selling Genshiken Volume 9. Thus, I am thankful that finally, you can experience the complete joy of Ogiue and that I may finally discuss her with you in full detail.

I’d like to see Ogiue cook a turkey. It would probably come out as good, but not great.