Category Archives: philosophy

Cosplay Parallelism in Genshiken and the world of 2.5D

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I like Genshiken, and I like when other people talk about Genshiken, especially when they’re able to see just how strong and fleshed out the characters are. Best of all, it gets me to think more about the title, and reminds me that as much as I have looked at the series, there’s always more to consider. So when I read Pontifus’s look at the second half of Genshiken, it not only reminded me of a post from years back, but it also made me aware that the series presents many more comparisons between 2-D and 3-D than I originally thought.

In his post, Pontifus wonders about why Madarame never felt anything for Ogiue, first pointing out that:

“Ogiue is precisely the kind of manga character he likes (literally!). When she’s finally talked into cosplay, she even dresses as Madarame’s favorite Kujibiki Unbalance character, who, in terms of broad traits, isn’t all that unlike her.”

He then goes on to describe how based on his own personal experience, the things that get you going in a fictional character don’t exactly apply to actual women, and that this seems to be the case with Madarame as well. Madarame does show a moment of piqued interest towards Ogiue’s brief debut as Kamishakujii Renge, but it seems to be more about the character than the person behind it.

However, Madarame isn’t the only one in the story whose attraction to a real woman runs opposite to his manga character fetishes; Sasahara also falls into this category. While Sasahara’s taste in pornography isn’t dwelled on as much in the latter half of the series, we are told fairly early on that his favorite female character is Ritsuko Kubel Kettengrad, the chairman in Kujibiki Unbalance, whom Kasukabe famously cosplays to save the club from doom.

So we have Kasukabe, whom Madarame likes, as the character that turns Sasahara on, with Ogiue, whom Sasahara likes, in the guise of a character that turns Madarame on. Again, given the guys’ doujinshi-buying habits and overall anime character fetishism, you might think that their taste in women has been flopped, but the series makes it clear that they have good reason for liking the girls they do, and it all has to do with how they are as people.

In addition to reminding the reader of the distinction between 2-D and 3-D, the parallels between Sasahara and Madarame (or perhaps Ogiue and Kasukabe?) affirm the overall theme of growth and maturity in Genshiken. Otaku can enter the real world and still be otaku, it just might take some help to adjust. But putting aside notions of “2-D complexes” and such aside, people’s tastes in women (and men!) change over time. You can have in your mind your concept of your “ideal partner,” or a mental checklist of all the things you like in an anime character, but you never know if something is totally going to surprise you. It’s not necessarily that they’re fickle, but more that there could always be more qualities that you love, either in a person or a character, which even you don’t realize.

Post from the Past: “Ogiue’s Perspective or Why Sasahara is a Giver”

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Note: Fellow anime blogger Pontifus recently posted his thoughts on re-reading Genshiken, wherein he discusses in part Ogiue’s developing feelings for Sasahara. This reminded me of an old post I wrote about the subject, pre-Ogiue Maniax, and I thought that it’d be good to share with everyone.

Keep in mind that this post is originally from 2005, two years before the start of this blog, and so not only had the Genshiken manga not quite finished yet, but my writing is a little more unrefined than even back when I first started Ogiue Maniax. I was considering refining it but I think I’ll let it run as is. I still think it makes a good point of just how Ogiue would start to fall for our main man of the Modern Culture Society.

——

In Ogiue’s fantasy yaoi world, Sasahara is viewed as an aggressor. This seems to run contrary to what we’ve seen of Sasahara’s character. Ohno seems to agree; she finds the idea of Sasahara being a “giver” to be unusual. And why shouldn’t she? She has known Sasahara for years now, and he has generally been a very passive individual and easily seen as spineless.

However, Ogiue has not known Sasahara since his freshman year and initial awkwardness. Ogiue initially meets Sasahara when he is Genshiken’s chairman. And while Sasahara is still fairly passive in general, there are moments where Sasahara is “uncharacteristically” aggressive.

First, is the scene where Haraguchi comes back in volume 5 to give Genshiken “advice” on their doujinshi. Sasahara tries to get along with Haraguchi as much as he can, politely saying that while Haraguchi’s advice is appreciated it is not needed. Eventually, as Haraguchi continues to press on in his unique annoying way, Sasahara decides to turn it around and asks Haraguchi outright to teach him everything. Ogiue reacts to this. So does everyone else. They’re all taken aback by Sasahara’s sudden decisiveness and the way he has shut down Haraguchi. At this point Haraguchi turns to Madarame asking if it’s okay, but Madarame points out that Sasahara is the current chairman. I believe this is moment is what gets the ball rolling.

Next, is the scene where Sasahara and Kugayama are arguing over the status of Genshiken’s doujinshi they are making for Comifes. Ogiue is seeing Sasahara yelling loudly and demanding that Kugayama actually stay on schedule, and this further reinforces her perception of Sasahara. The real killer, however, is the moment when Ogiue awkwardly suggests that she could do more work to make up for it. To make a stand against Kugayama, Sasahara says to Ogiue that she doesn’t have to do anything. In fact, they can just use a bunch of sketches from Kugayama’s sketchbooks.

Ogiue becomes silent. Then she starts crying.

This has more to do with the fact that she had put her heart on the line, and Sasahara’s words were probably interpreted by her as, “Sorry, but you’re not good enough.” The main thing is that Ogiue has now directly felt the aggressive side of Sasahara, and it has her in tears. It has made her feel vulnerable in a way up to that point we have not seen of her.

From these two examples, it’s easy to figure out why Ogiue thought of Sasahara as the giver in Sasa-Mada when she sees Sasahara pulling Madarame’s tie. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows that lying underneath Sasahara’s normally gentle nature is someone who can be very active and commanding. And while she doesn’t even initially think this outright (she believes her own drawing of an aggressive Sasahara to be “impossible”), from her personal history with Sasahara, she had no reason to discard the idea.

——
Thinking about how much more happened after I wrote that originally, I think my initial thoughts hold up pretty well. The Sasa x Ogi romance arc reached its climax, with the two of them actually becoming a couple.

Ogiue’s view of Sasahara as “pitcher” comes from the fact that he has a quiet, gentle confidence about him.  It might not be a strong, hyper- masculine or ever-present confidence but it’s still there. It really shows by the end, and I think this contributes significantly to not only the feelings Ogiue develops for Sasahara but also Sasahara’s eventual success in winning her affections. For Ogiue, who had been searching for a way to reconcile her passion for manga and yaoi with her own self-doubt and sense of shame, Sasahara becomes what she needs, providing just the right amount of emotional support.

Man, Genshiken is awesome. Just thought I’d remind you of that.

Let Me Tell You About “Anime” Okay

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In the mid 90s when I was still a fledgling anime fan, I thought about how I would summarize anime to other people. In the end, I came up with something along the lines of “Anime looks really awesome but the story tends to be the weak point. They’re confusing and make no sense.”

When you think about it, you could almost argue that anime is the opposite of what the pre-teen me said. Anime tends to use a large amount of animation shortcuts to save money on already sparse budgets, but make up for it through storytelling and visuals which support that storytelling. It all makes sense though when you consider that my main exposure to anime at the time came in the form of Chinatown bootleg VHS tapes, whatever my brother could bring home, and Blockbuster rentals, the era of MD Geist and friends. If you told me that I would receive a million dollars if I could recall to you the plot of Armitage III, I would be walking away none the richer.


It’s about uh… a girl and stuff…

But there I was, summarizing the entirety of anime as if I knew so much when in fact I had such limited experience with the subject. It’s so easy to think that what you see is everything there is to know, to believe that your little island encompasses the entire world.

Any 5-Year-Old Can Tell You Why Summer Wars is Great

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As of late, it seems like podcast after podcast is discussing Summer Wars. Speakeasy podcasters Hisui and Narutaki use the movie as an impetus to talk about how getting taken out of a movie causes you to more readily notice its faults. Andrew on the Veef Show talks about how the hype for Summer Wars is met by backlash, while also stating that he finds the movie to be good but not great. Anime World Order’s Daryl and Gerald also disagree on the merits of the movie. Overall, the two big questions seem to be 1) Why do the people who love Summer Wars love it and 2) Why do the people who hate it do so?

Now I am on the side of thinking the movie was fantastic, so the best I can tell you about why critics deride it is hearsay and conjecture, but I can tell you about why I think Summer Wars is a very strong movie on par with Hosoda’s previous work, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

Summer Wars‘ greatest strength comes from its overarching theme, centering around the idea of closing gaps, be they generational, technological, or even familial. A super advanced online world is contrasted with old-fashioned ways, the celebration of family is contrasted with the desire to move beyond the home, and young is contrasted with old. But in every case, Summer Wars doesn’t say that one is better than the other, instead giving a message that each is equally useful and that everyone can work together for the common good. It’s a very optimistic view of where we’re going as a society and as a planet, and I think that optimism is what keeps people cheering and praising the movie.

A lot of reviewers seem to neglect mentioning these themes, and I find that to be quite odd. It’s pretty much the heart of Summer Wars and for all of the praise and the criticism, how is it not mentioned more often? And it’s not like the themes are particularly subtle to the point of invisibility either. When I went to the New York Children’s International Film Festival showing of Summer Wars, there was a Q&A session with director Hosoda. In every case, it was the kids who nailed the most important theme of the movie, as well as a lot of the lesser themes. Now, these kids had to be fairly smart, being able to keep up with the subtitles on-screen, but they were still about eight years old on average. Surely the great minds of the anime internet can’t be outdone by a bunch of elementary school kids, right?

Re-reading my glowing review of the film, I am forced to realize that I too forgot to mention the overarching theme of Summer Wars and so am just as guilty of obfuscating the discussion as anyone else. Looking at my own words, I get the feeling that I was so caught up in trying to describe the enormous amounts of effort clearly put into the film and its potential for wide appeal through juggling many different elements that I simply forgot to actually say why I think the film is great. Perhaps everyone else experienced the same problem, like a collective mind fart from thinking too much about anime without actually thinking about it.

And so in the end, we were bested by third graders.

Well My Parents Don’t Drive Awesome Flying Cars

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For the most part, video games have advanced in a positive direction in terms of artistic progression. Though I don’t agree entirely on how our newfangled advanced realistic graphics are being used or certain trends in storytelling or interaction, I can say that we’re doing okay. At the same time though, I’ve come to realize that when video games look this good and have fully elaborated stories and such, it often leaves less room for creative, off-the-wall adaptations in fiction.

At this point with games looking and feeling closer to the realm of film and animation and other storytelling mediums with characters having concrete personalities, there  are fewer opportunities to make great leaps in interpretation. Yes, I understand that products like the Super Mario Bros. movie are exactly the kinds of disaster that comes from being too “loose” an interpretations, but I believe there is a definite charm.

This applies not just to storytelling but also visuals as well. Although the Tekken OVA of the 90s was awful, could you imagine a Tekken anime today, given the fact that it would be 2-D interpretations of such detailed 3-D characters? Good looking or not, you could see the move from blocky polygons anime designs to make some sort of sense.

Basically, I’d like to still be in a world where a racing game with a normal setting could be interpreted as a futuristic setting with talking computers inside my motor vehicles.

Is that too much to ask, I wonder?

Growing Your Anime Fandom

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I go to anime conventions for many reasons, but when it comes to attending events within the con itself, my main focus is on panels. Industry panels, fan panels, history panels, I’m there to learn and I enjoy doing so. However, I know that in the grand scheme of the con “scene,” I am in the minority. At cons across the nation, the best ways to attract an audience are through masquerades, AMV contests, J-Rock concerts, and to a lesser extent con raves.

It would be very easy to lament that not more people are attending panels that could potentially expand their knowledge and scope as anime fans (or geeks in general). “Look at this sad state of affairs! Don’t these supposed anime fans care at all about anime?” But the answer is that they do care about anime and the fandom that surrounds it; they just choose to take it in different directions.

How do you develop your fandom? When someone reads up on anime history or when they go to informative panels at a con, they are trying to grow the “knowledge” aspect of their fandom. Here, a fan tries to become a greater fan by learning more about the subject they love, and that is certainly a valid way to do it and one I subscribe to myself.  But when someone joins a specific forum of like-minded individuals, attends group panels to celebrate their favorite series, or even calls for FREE HUGS, they aren’t simply being “shallow anime fans” who don’t care about being fans of anime, but are instead choosing, consciously or otherwise, to grow the “social” aspect of their fandom. They are already fans, and they want to find kindred spirits who will understand why they are the way they are without explanation. It’s the desire to belong.

Growing your anime fandom isn’t simply limited to “knowledge” through study and “socialization” through outreach, however. Although there’s reading about anime, there’s also watching as much anime as you possibly can, to broaden your “direct experience” within the medium itself. There’s “self-expression,” the desire to show your fandom to the world, whether through fanart or fanfiction, cosplaying or creating AMVs, or, heck, writing an anime blog. Even seeing these things is in itself a way to affirm one’s own fandom. And it’s not even like these areas are rigidly separate from each other. Socializing with fans can bring you knowledge through an exchange of ideas. Gaining more knowledge can put you in better positions to talk to other fans, to learn to understand others.

When you get down to it, there’s a most fundamental part of being a fan, something that I think everyone can relate to even if they don’t agree on how to get there. I’m talking about that feeling of truly enjoying something and loving every moment of it. At that point, whether we want to have more of it or share it with others or any number of paths, we know at that point that we are truly fans.

Praying Towards Castle Grayskull

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When it comes to the international phenomenon that is Pokemon, producer Ishihara Tsunekazu had the following to say:

石原： 北米ではけっこうクラシカルに伝説系のポケモンの人気があるんですけど、リザードンのような見た目か ら強そうなタイプのポケモンが好まれています。それとミュウツーでしょうか。

Ishihara: In North America, classical-style Legendary Pokemon are popular, but Pokemon who look strong like Charizard are also preferred. Mewtwo as well.


Charizard and Mewtwo

While Ishihara then goes on to say that  universally speaking, Pokemon like Pikachu are popular everywhere, I want to to focus mainly on this unique bit of difference North America has.

While I can’t speak for Canada, Mexico, or Central America, I think it’s very well-known that America likes powerful characters. More broadly, America likes the hero who rises above all, the larger-than-life figure. He may have a humble background, but the end result is still strong. It speaks to our culture of individualism, and it is reflected in the popularity of action movies as well as in the existence of iconic heroic figures in cartoons and comics such as Superman, Captain America, He-Man and Flash Gordon. When the US encounters the creative output of another nation such as Japan, it very profoundly reflects this ideal.

This is also partly why I think many of the anime that have been popular in the US are or were popular. Compared to the less popular One Piece, Naruto and Bleach exude seriousness and power in their aesthetics, doubly so for something like Dragon Ball Z. The hyper violence of MD Geist and its contemporaries in the 80s and 90s felt new and fresh to some extent, but that level of violence is I think something comfortably American, animated cousins of action movies.

I think it’s very easy to take one’s own cultural upbringing for granted, to think that the ideals of your own culture are the ideals of everyone else’s. It’s not small-minded or biggoted so much as it is a fairly natural progression if there is nothing to jar you out of it. In an article from 1987, Frederik Schodt, author of Manga! Manga!, points out that American superhero comics do not do well in Japan. Back then, they were considered too plain and too wordy, and today I can tell you that superheroes are better known through their movies than anything else. When I was studying in Japan, I had a conversation with a Japanese classmate, where I tried to explain the Flash to him. I told him he was “red and very fast,” to which he responded, “Daredevil?”

That said, there are a number of manga artists influenced by Americann superhero comics, such as Nightow Yasuhiro (Trigun) and Takahashi Kazuki (Yu-Gi-Oh!). In anime, it goes at least as far back as Gatchaman. Still, you will find that just as we have taken anime and said, “This is what we like in our anime,” they have said, “This is what we like in superheroes” and transformed it into something more in-line with their culture.

Cultural exchange, as they call it.

One last thing to dwell on is the way Europe has approached anime and manga. Taniguchi Jiro, who is influenced by the French comic artist Moebius, is much more popular in Moebius’s home country than he is in the US. His style is very European, incorporating complex and detailed backgrounds and placing a great visual emphasis on environment (not to be confused with “the environment”). But as I said before, I’m no expert on European comics, so I’ll leave someone else to fill in that blank until I catch up.

Let’s Try to Foster Better Discussion in the Aniblog Tourney

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Ogiue Maniax wins its first round in the Aniblog Tourney (technically the second, due to a higher seed allowing me to bypass Round 1), and I am happy to be the victor in this instance. I want to thank Caraniel of course, who was not only respectful and courteous during the week of competition but also is a good blogger in her own right.

Ogiue Maniax goes on to face Chaostangent in Round 3.

Now one thing about the Aniblog Tourney is that for those who are actively participating in it, either as voters or contestants or both, the whole endeavor has allowed people to discover new blogs, to get an idea of the range of styles available from just these 96 examples, let alone branching out to ones that haven’t been included in the tournament. But it’s very clear that there’s a lot of blog readers out there who simply are not participating in this fully and are not bothering to read the majority of the blogs available, or at least are not voting.

The first big piece of explicit evidence that the tournament is not reaching as far as it could is the matchup between Colony Drop and Canne, which got by far the most total votes in Round 1. This had very much to do with both the Pro and Anti-Colony Drop campaigns conducted when Colony Drop was poised to lose and then to win, but it’s clear that here was an audience of readers (if only for the one blog) that could have voted in or even looked at other parts of the tournament but didn’t. The second piece of evidence is the matchup between Star Crossed Anime Blog and Just as planned, where, to put it mildly, Star Crossed is dominating like Godzilla mixed with Guts from Berserk. 568 votes, just for Star Crossed! And I don’t think it’s a big leap to say that the crowd that voted so much for Colony Drop is not the same as the one that was so eager to show their support for Star Crossed Anime Blog.

I understand that not even the people who are actively participating in the Aniblog Tourney are voting in every single matchup. I’ve missed a few opportunities myself, but there’s a whole bunch out there who just vote for their favorites without looking at the other.

While Star Crossed garnered plenty of comments on its own blog in regarding the tournament, there were comparatively few on the Aniblog Tourney page itself. Then an equally titanic blog came up, but Random Curiosity’s situation has been far different. Unlike Star Crossed, Random Curiosity is not crushing its opponent and its fanbase is much more vocal (though still obviously just a small fraction of the actual readership Random Curiosity garners). And in those comments is a classic accusation among fans of competing or opposing sides, the foul cry of elitism.

Amidst the complaints that the people running the tournament (and by extension the primary audience of the tournament) are biased against popular episodic blogs, I left a response basically saying that instead of throwing out accusations of elitism or using overall popularity as a metric of superiority, that those who disagree should state just why they read the blogs they do, why they are fans of certain blogs and what keeps them coming back for more. Rather than just  naysaying the other side, we can express our own opinions on why we read anime blogs at all and come to understand each other, even if it’s just agreeing to disagree.

Just to give you an idea, I’ll talk about a blog I enjoy that’s not in the tournament at all: Subatomic Brainfreeze (though actually he writes for Colony Drop so he wasn’t completely removed from it).

While I am friends with Sub and even engage in mahjong camaraderie with him on occasion, the reason I really enjoy his blog is his informative yet accessible writing style. Now I know that I am credited as having an accessible writing style as well, but Sub’s is on another level. When I read his posts, I feel like an arm is reaching out from the computer to grab my shoulder and occasionally high five me. Even his stuff on Colony Drop which makes fun of other fans still has the same basic feeling.

I know that not everyone who enjoys something is willing to comment about it, let alone write lengthy posts discussing the nature of preference itself, but I encourage everyone to think about why they enjoy the blogs they do.

On the Usage of Profanities

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It’s about my persona ain’t nothing like a man
that can do wha he wanna
Ain’t nothing like man on that you knew on the cornna
See ’em come up and fuck up the owna
See ’em throw up Westside California

-Ice Cube

Personally speaking, I do not prefer to curse. Even on this blog I usually try to find other avenues. But years ago I asked a relative with a similar stance towards profanity a simple question: If you’re quoting someone who cursed, do you quote them exactly or do you still put in your personal filter? His response was a hard-line  “absolutely not.” It was at that point that I began to think about the nature of profanity as a part of the English language.

We can substitute for cursing all we want (and I do), but that doesn’t take away from the fact that curse words carry a lot of meaning with them that is specific to the fact that they are considered profane. There is a certain and special kind of impact that comes from their context in society, and so when you decide to curse, you transmit a message well beyond the surface meaning or even the fact that it’s a profanity. It hints at emotion and personality and any number of things.

You might think that my description is vague, and that it applies to all words, but that’s exactly my point. They can be treated as a part of your vocabulary, like a tool from your toolbox to use when the time is right and when you want to or even need to convey a specific meaning. They can be misused and overused (as was the case with the act of “fifteening,” the addition of excessive profanities in old anime dubs in order to bump up their ratings), but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they say something.

At this point, my non-usage of curses is simply a personal and stylistic choice.

I occasionally find myself in an odd position where I am defending rap and hip hop from criticism. Now while I like rap well enough, I am not a particularly big fan of it, and so I feel kind of out-of-place doing so. However, I think that a lot of people misunderstand rap and hip hop specifically because of that liberal use of profanity on top of the general image of violence portrayed in a great portion of it.

So for me, my non-usage is merely a stylistic choice.

These days, I refer detractors to Ice Cube’s “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It,” as an example of how words and phrases that can be considered offensive can be used to conjure up certain meanings and images in order to send a specific socially relevant message. If you’re unsure yourself, go ahead and have a listen.

Obviously, there’s explicit content.

I think this sort of thing is relevant to anyone who writes, and that includes anime bloggers.

I Have the Answer. What’s the Solution?

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Do we really know why anything is popular?

Whenever an anime or manga is super popular, be it with “casual” fans or super hardcore 4channers or die-hard bloggers or anywhere in between, someone eventually decides to ask, “Why is this popular?” The question can be interpreted positively, encouraging people to express why they like that work so much. It can also be interpreted negatively, giving way to sweeping generalizations that categorize a work’s fans in a particularly unattractive light.

As a quick demonstration: Why is Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu so popular?

We can posit why Gundam isn’t popular “here,” or why Captain Tsubasa is popular “there,” but after a while I just have to wonder how often we’re putting the cart before the horse, completely blinded by hindsight and trying to draw conclusions from something most people might have trouble expressing in the first place, even if you asked every Naruto fan why they like Naruto so much. And in a way, when we accumulate more knowledge and experience in anime, we paradoxically move both closer and further away from the truth.

Not saying I don’t enjoy the speculation, nor am I telling people to stop, but popularity (or lack thereof) can be such a difficult entity to grasp and manipulate that I’m sure we’re all wrong more often than not.

Also, I know this doesn’t just apply to anime or manga or even fiction. Asking why stuff is successfully popular is applicable to just about any topic where  group enjoys or uses something.

No, really, why is  Baka Test so popular? I liked it well enough because of the way it embraced the otaku/moe/anime humor and really ran it to some logical extremes, but why is it considered the #1 light novel series of 2009?