Category Archives: manga

The Idiotic Protagonist

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I’ve been taught that the most dramatic stories come from having protagonists who have to do what comes most difficult to them with a fervent desire to accomplish their goals, and lacking intelligence is one way to stack the deck against the main character. You want your hero to struggle, to earn his progress. Protagonists in manga, particularly shounen manga, are often designed to not be the sharpest tool around. Be it Naruto, Goku, or any number of heroes who act before they think (or omit the second part of that combo altogether), the reason why they’re made to be dumb is to make them more of an everyman, to tell its readers, “Hey, this could be you.” However, with some readers an opposite effect occurs, and you’ll often see people gravitate to the supporting characters on account of the heroes being, at least in their eyes, bland or possessing little merit as characters.

In trying to make the hero an everyman, authors run the potential risk of making their hero a no-man, someone to whom the reader simply cannot relate, but I don’t think that’s the problem at hand. I have this feeling that some readers do not wish to see certain negative traits in a story’s most important characters. Sometimes it’s because they’re passive, other times because they’re idiots, and other times because they are totally moe.

There’s a division of sorts when it comes to making this kind of shounen-esque protagonist. Should you have a protagonist that acts as a stand-in for the reader, to allow the reader to be immersed in the world, to feel as if he or she is the one saving the day? Or is it more important that the hero be someone who is already skilled, someone the reader can look up to? Both are paths for readers to live out their fantasies through protagonists, both are forms of wish-fulfillment, but each is different in the types of interaction required by the reader, and people may prioritize one over the other.

I have to wonder if age of the reader factors into this division of stand-in protagonist vs larger-than-life protagonist. The stand-in protagonist is something that I think appeals more to that crowd of boys 12 and under who run around in the school playground pretending they can fire lasers. Meanwhile, the larger-than-life protagonist seems to appeal more to the rebellious teenage crowd. A magazine like Shounen Jump has readers well beyond its originally intended audience of young boys, and disagreements as to what makes a good main character in a shounen series may simply be a result of different groups reading the same story.

Non-fans, get out

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This is a somewhat personal rant that expands upon something I mentioned in my New York Anime Festival review, something that I’ve seen rear itself in multiple situations that I’ve encountered, and one that I feel I need to speak about.

At conventions one can see all varieties of fans, young and old, old and new, from all parts of the world and with different degrees and types of fandom along with sub-fandoms within fandoms. And it is at a convention that one can meet others and possibly become friends (or maybe more), meeting on the common ground of having passion for a particular subject. You can even end up having brief flings or one night stands at a convention and there’s nothing wrong with that. But to use the trappings of fandom, to pretend to be a fan for your own personal gain is something I cannot stand.

I am also not defining anime fan by number of shows watched, manga read, fanfics written, or what-have-you. I am defining fandom as I have in the past as having a passion for something, and even then I am not saying you need a sufficient amount of passion to qualify as a fan. Being a fan is a very personal thing. For that matter, I’m even fine with people who went to Akihabara after Densha Otoko came out, people who just wanted to see what was going on, who were maybe curious as to see what the fuss was all about. The breaking point comes from wanting to simply LOOK like an otaku without beginning to understand what being an otaku is all about.

This is not exclusive to conventions. I meet with a group for Japanese conversation, and there are people who go there not for Japanese conversation but simply to pick up women. The boggling thing about this is that there are plenty of places where people can meet and date and what-not, so why interfere with the task at hand?

The classic example of this situation is the guy who pretends to be Christian and goes to church to, again, pick up women. This is not what a church is for. Maybe your walk with God is strong, or your faith in Christianity is weak, but what you shouldn’t be is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Even if you’re someone who thinks Christianity is stupid and you go to a church just to question people’s beliefs, this is still adhering to yourself and not pretending to be something you’re not.

Through fandom of any sort, be it anime, sci-fi, fantasy, knitting, cooking, football, baseball, pro wrestling, eating contests, I could go on, one can get to know people. It can be a starting point for those uncomfortable with talking to strangers. It can be a source of friends and enemies all the same, but what I want to see is people who act like fans because they are fans, because they genuinely have an interest, big or small, in something. So when I say “Non-fans, get out,” what I mean is that if you go somewhere, and you have an ulterior motive so strong it can hardly be considered “ulterior,” then you need to reconsider whether or not you should be there in the first place.

The Ogiue Fan Defense Mechanism

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When I go to a convention or any place with lots of anime merchandise, I hold close to my chest one important policy: Ogiue First.

The immediate reason behind this is to prioritize Ogiue merchandise over everything else, as it should be. The secondary effect of the Ogiue First policy is that it prevents me from going crazy buying merchandise and going way over whatever my intended budget was. In a sense, I am using to my advantage the fact that Ogiue is not a character who gets much merchandise of her.

Ogiue is not only a source of obsession but also a source of self-control.

But I’m still buying that Revoltech Souther when it comes out.

Cause, Effect, Necessity? Sci-Fi Fandom and Early Anime Fandom

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Anime World Order recently posted an interview with what are the self-proclaimed “old farts” of anime, and they rightly deserve the title. Hearing them speak, and thinking back to an earlier comment by others in previous shows, such as Joey Snackpants and Neil Nadelman, I had to wonder just how much this has affected the flow of anime fandom in the United States. Though I personally have found some issue with those sci-fi fans who lament the status of anime today because it is not “sci-fi enough,” I cannot help but feel that their influence is hard to deny.

I am certainly not old enough to have experienced any of that early anime fandom, but in listening to those that had been around there is one message repeats constantly: to be an anime fan required obsession. This was before the internet was established, before google and youtube and digital fansubs and wikipedia, so to find any sort of information required the ability to search and research and to find collaborators so as to increase one’s chances of obtaining anime and anime-related paraphernalia. I imagine that either you had to be somewhat extroverted or at least have an obsession so strong it overcame your fear of other people to accomplish this task. And what better place to find those with powerful obsessions than in an already-established fanbase?

For that matter, who better to pursue this difficult-to-obtain treasure from the isles of Japan than those who already had spent time discussing and analyzing technology in their favorite shows, writing fanzines to pursue and exchange ideas? With this many people with the ability to obsess grouped together, and more importantly able to obsess over fictional works on television and comics, two forms of media long thought juvenile or at least unintellectual, it might be no wonder that American anime fandom in its infancy sprang forth from sci-fi fandom.

Of course anime fandom today is also largely the result of arguably bigger influences in the years after. Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, and Pokemon came on TV early in the morning and introduced both boys and girls to a serial story where actions in a previous episode are not reset in the next. They targeted a much wider audience than older anime had ever hoped to, and rather than having their native origins obfuscated where introduced as something from Japan. Still, I believe even this part of anime fandom is influenced by those sci-fi fans of yesterday. Slash, derived from the pairing of “Kirk/Spock,” may have allowed its foreign cousin Yaoi to get accustomed to traveling on western soil. Sci-fi conventions may have given pointers to the anime fandom when it became large enough on how to congregate with like-minded (enough) individuals. In that sense, perhaps the actions of sci-fi fans in the 70s and 80s became a template for today’s anime fandom, who have shaped it to their own experiences and will some day become the old guard to influence others.

Save the NYAF, BALDIIIIIIOS

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The second New York Anime Festival ran for this past weekend, oddly three months earlier when compared to last year. NYAF is a professionally-run con, and it shows in a number of ways for better and worse.

Perhaps because NYAF is so young as a convention, there were rarely any issues with lines in order to pick up badges. Both this year and last, I arrived on Friday and obtained a badge with minimal wait, though there was a bit of a hassle due to some poor wording on the website in regards to on-site registration. After that, a friend and I wandered around checking out the dealer’s room which comprises the majority of the convention. After buying a shirt from Sub, we decided that there was nothing much left to do at the con Friday and decided to turn our attentions outwards and towards karaoke.

Somewhat sadly, karaoke was probably the highlight of the con, though that might have to do with the fact that this was no ordinary karaoke get-together but an ultra-manly (and occasionally girly) tour de force spanning the history of anime. After I started things off with the Rose of Versailles OP, Sub followed with a powerful rendition of Holy Lonely Light. We then sang songs from Baldios, Gold Lightan, Hokuto no Ken, Zambot 3, Hajime no Ippo, Southern Cross, Macross, Dragon Ball Z, Overman King Gainer, Albegas, Gaogaigar, Pokemon, Pretty Cure, Soul Taker, and others I think I forgot. We ended, fittingly, with the ending theme to Golion, titled “Gonin de Hitotsu” or “Five as One.” In total, two hours were spent there.

Saturday was naturally much busier than Friday, though I found that there wasn’t all that much to do, or at least not much that interested me. After watching the Top o Nerae movie I went to the anime blogging panel curious as to what they had to say. It was overall good advice, though one thing I want to point to any anime bloggers out there, current, future, and potential, is that anime’s history is 1800 40 years old and if there’s nothing in the new seasons you like you can always look backwards. Other than that, there was nothing particularly important, though in skipping out on the Masquerade I found out I missed the chance to hear Tanaka Rie sing on-stage. If only I had hated myself enough to actually go as I had planned. I also bought a sketchbook at the con and decided to put it and my new black copic to use.

Ogimus Prime

An Anime Con Attendee

Taniguchi Goro

Taison Sanders, the Girl with Fried Chicken Wings

GET IT?

The Ultimate Yaoi Bishounen (with Optimus Prime Arms)

Sunday I woke up early to get the ticket for the Tanaka Rie signing but found out 90 minutes early was still not early enough. I attended the Rie panel, and she was a class act, even accepting gifts. Like all voice actor panels, there were the clowns who tried to speak to Rie in Japanese despite not being able to. Word of advice: DON’T DO THIS. You just waste time and make things difficult for the rest of the audience. The panel does not consist of just you and the voice actor. Now that I think about it, this never happens with the non-voice-actor guests. Go to hell, the lot of you.

A friend of mine had a VIP pass and thus a ticket for the Rie signing, but was unable to find the merchandise he wanted signed. I gave him my Gundam SEED pencil board, and when he returned we hesitated as to who should have it, like two women in front of Solomon, or three kids with a Radioactive Man #1. After much difficulty, I handed over the pencil board as he is a far bigger Lacus fan compared to me. If this were Shindou Naomi and a Cagalli pencil board, things would have been different.

I met the Reverse Thieves at their panel, which was meant to be an introduction of obscure anime to fans. Now not everything on their list was super obscure, but one has to remember that the con-going crowd is not that up-to-date with everything. I mean, Hayate no Gotoku was on their list, and rightfully so. They also mentioned Rose of Versailles, which makes them A-OK.

One major problem with NYAF is that it contained many of the undesirable elements that have been excised from other cons. I speak mainly of yaoi paddles, hug me signs, and the kind of behavior that results from them. There are reasons these things have been banned from other cons, chief among them being that they promote idiocy. Now I have nothing against people liking yaoi, or even advertising the fact that they like yaoi or just showing that yes, they are anime fans. But I don’t see that. I see people using anime, yaoi, naruto, whatever, as an excuse to disregard others and act like jackasses. Guys purposely kissing each other to get a reaction from a crowd, people carrying hug me signs, what I am opposed to is not the actions but the real reasons behind those actions, which generally amount to wanting immediate attention.

The supposed “Anonymous” at NYAF were the same, in that they understood the letter but not the spirit of being “Anonymous.” Anonymous does not Caramell Dansen. This goes double for that guy who was walking around in a Guy Fawkes mask playing Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. When you walk around blasting it and announcing yourself from many feet away, it is NOT a Rickroll. It defeats the purpose OF a Rickroll, which is to be a SURPRISE. You are no more a surprise than a stereotypical asian man lost in the forest tasked with searching for materials useful for survival.

That said, I didn’t think the con was absolutely dominated by this sort of thing. Will I go next year? Well, as with every con I go to (which isn’t many), I’ll have to see who’s there first.

Oh, and the weirdest thing I did at the con was that I stood RIGHT in front of a Cirno cosplayer for a few seconds.

The Post-Con Pre-Con-Report Report

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As I let my thumbs recover from being abused by the backs of pushpins, something hits me. The irony of going to an anime con these days is that you end up watching less anime than if you hadn’t gone. Back home, I must now catch up at a time when finales are coming in left and right not unlike a fierce Dempsey Roll.

Anime is dead. Long live anime.

I hope you’ll all join me for the most exciting part of Friday at NYAF

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Making fun of the Cosplay Summit Competition via Pictochat.

IT IS DONE

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Not pictured but still in my possession are the Genshiken Light Novel, and Kujibiki Unbalance Volume 2 with the Genshiken extra at the end.

Thanks go out to kransom, Asahiya Bookstore in NY, that Book Off in Hon-Atsugi, Kanagawa, and the Electric Town Akihabara.

Let’s Generate a Fetish

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Kamikita Keigo

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There are a number of aspects of the Japanese language that you can use to supplement your Japanese studies, but one of the most difficult areas in my opinion is that of politeness. More often than not, anime characters care little for using the appropriate verb forms in specific situations. Probably the most you’ll ever see in terms of levels of politeness and familiarity is characters who originally called each other by their last names transitioning to a first-name-basis kind of relationship. And the most formal vocabulary is known as “keigo.”

Keigo is the kind of vocabulary you use when you want to be ultra formal, ultra polite, and probably talking to your boss. I can’t give any specific lessons as my keigo is shaky at this point in time, but to give you an idea of keigo and some of the difficulty that learning it entails, I’ll provide a few examples. The verb “suru,” to do, in keigo is “nasaru.” That “itadakimasu” you hear so often before meals is actually a keigo form of “moraimasu,” or to receive.

Again, this is not something you can develop or improve significantly while watching anime or reading manga, so in this case it is best to go through more orthodox channels.