Category Archives: philosophy

The End of the Otaku Diaries, the Beginning of More?

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In their concluding post of the Otaku Diaries, Hisui and Narutaki of the Reverse Thieves reflect back on their experiment: the ups, the downs, what could have been done differently, what they learned, and what they’d hope to learn in the future should they take up the task again. I hope to see them take a swing at it at least one more time, but that’s up to them.

One of the really remarkable things about the Otaku Diaries was that it was a concerted effort by the Reverse Thieves to learn about their fellow fans, and to do so by collecting information in a structured manner. With anime blogging (or hell, writing blogging in general), it’s very easy to play fast and loose with facts and data, and to write based primarily on feel (I am guilty of doing both), so it gives me a degree of joy to see bloggers who actually want to discover more about their peers instead of pigeon-holing them in stereotypes or talking in too-broad strokes. The project wasn’t perfect, as they’d themselved admit, but it opened up new possibilities.

Obviously I’m not telling people they can only write about anime and fandom once they’ve gathered enough information on the subject, but I’d like to see others encouraged to try similar endeavors, to really reach out and try to learn about your comrades-in-arms. I could stand to do more of that myself.

On a final note, I think they’re onto something with the idea of interviewing people over Skype instead of simply writing surveys. Provided they can make the conversation easy-going (and I know they can), it would allow a lot more otaku to open up, and would also make the conversation more free-flowing.

Worth Thousands Upon Thousands of Words

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This picture is here for a reason.

The Aniblog Tourney has me looking at a whole lot more blogs than I normally do, and as I check out one after the other, I’ve noticed a recurring blogging style that many sites follow, and I would like to figure out where it came from.


I also have no recollection where this image is from.

The style is defined by its frequent back-and-forth switches between between text and anime-related images. Sometimes it involves screenshots, but more often the pictures are high-resolution fanart with some kind of humorous caption underneath.  At their most extreme, images and text will alternate at a frequency of one image per paragraph.


Like so.

Now it’s easy to point fingers at “episodic blogs,” but that’s a little different from what I’m talking about, as a glut of screenshots is practically par for the course for an episode review. Also, many times they’re placed at the beginning, with a summary and then opinions following. This 1:1 paragraph to text ratio seems far more common with editorial-style anime blogs.

So I’d like to know, where did this style come from? Using the Aniblog Tourney itself, I checked out the highest-seeded blogs in the tournament to see if it was their far-reaching influence which provided younger bloggers with a stylistic framework, but in all of the cases the connection would be tenuous at best.

I might be thinking about this too hard. Maybe the desire to alternate paragraphs with images at a constant rate goes beyond simply anime blogging to the fact that there exists a space between every paragraph, literary voids which beckon to gain prominence by having art emerge from them. Or maybe it’s that people take screenshots and download fanart in batches first, and then look for ways to apply all of the images to an existing post. I’ve felt that desire myself, as it becomes hard to decide which images to cut from a post, a decision almost as difficult as having to cut out extraneous paragraphs that kill the flow of a post.

Speaking of which, the reason why I don’t really throw in a large amount of images into my posts is because an excess of images has the potential to be detrimental to the writing itself, interrupting the flow of a post as much as a superfluous paragraph, if not moreso. Not to say that it’s impossible to write well with constantly alternating paragraphs and images, but you risk cutting off your writing at the knees just as it’s starting to go into a full sprint.

So if you’re a fan of the aforementioned style of blog-posting, tell me, where did you find your inspiration, if any at all? If you really enjoy those types of posts, what in particular do you like about them?

Hold Right to Move Forward

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I’m a little late to the party, but I’d like to put down my own thoughts on whether or not video games could be consituted as “art.” My answer to that question is that video games already are art, and have been so for a very long time.

Before I start to elaborate though, I want to point out that disagreeing on one thing does not mean you have to disagree with someone about everything. I really like the way Roger Ebert writes, and just because I think he’s wrong in this respect doesn’t mean that it invalidates the rest of his opinions. He’s still very much someone I respect, and I think we on the internet could stand to remember that.

While I cannot tell you when exactly video games “became” art, I can trace back the history of video games and point out any number of instances where art has sprung forth in video games. When Space Invaders was released to arcades, it was one of the first video games to feature “characters,” creating an identifiable adversary to overcome. When Miyamoto Shigeru created Donkey Kong, he created an entire story told with simple animations over multiple “scenes.” Mario himself was a fusion of practicality and creativity, created from the desire to have a distinct hero whose lively animations would still be understandable given the limited technology.When  Pitfall debuted, it was not only a technical achievement, but also challenged players to revisit the game repeatedly, to identify with the characters in a way beyond the creator’s intent. When the Famicom was released in Japan, video game music legend Hip Tanaka took on the challenge of learning how to program in Assembly so that he could have finer control on the composition of his scores. When Kojima Hideo was told to make an action game on a system that couldn’t even handle having more than three moving objects on the screen, he created Metal Gear and laid the foundations for “stealth” in video games.

And that’s not even getting into the 16-bit era, or RPGs, or the modern advances we have today, with global communication between players working towards common goals, increasing levels of interactivity,

Art is created from the conflict between imagination and reality, when men are given a set of limitations and must find a way to work within their confines or to break from them, and that is the constant struggle of video game developers. Art is created when people are moved by what is front of them, and you will find a whole generation of people who can recall when video games brought them some of their greatest moments of joy and sorrow. Art is created when people are inspired, and I will tell you personally, video games have inspired me in innumerable ways.

Are video games art? Why, I can’t see why they wouldn’t be.

Accessibility and Relatability

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I might not understand the subtleties of a performance of “Swan Lake,” and I’m not even sure what arabesques and pas are, but as I read the manga Swan I find myself being excited by ballet in a way that I never have been before. Through effective narration and energetic artwork and storytelling, I can experience ballet on another level, despite my lack of experience.

Like so many manga titles, Swan takes what is unfamiliar and makes it less so. It is one of manga’s strengths, whether it’s glamorizing the world of ballet, adding excitement and tension to the art of breadmaking (Yakitate!! Japan), or outright teaching people new ideas (The Manga Guide Series). Essentially, manga often acts as a cultural ambassador of ideas.

But bridging the gap between those who know and those who do not is not solely the domain of fiction, let alone Japanese comics. Figures such as Carl Sagan and Bill Nye used their infectious personalities and honest passion to transform yesterday’s children into today’s scientists. In Starcraft, Lim “SlayerS_`BoxeR`” Yo-Hwan took an underdog race and through his creativity and dedication created an environment where even grandmothers know what “Zerg” are. Casters such as John Madden and Marv Albert have been able to express the excitement of athletic competition to people, from long-time fans to newbies, from those watching on TV to those listening on their car radios. Bruce Lee and Hulk Hogan combined fictitious roles with non-fictitious personalities to champion hard work, discipline, and respect.

Whether it comes naturally or is the product of concerned effort, these ambassadors make ideas accessible, and as anyone who’s tried to explain their hobbies to others probably knows, this is not a simple task. Even then, I think it is very important people try to give others a chance. Rather than standing atop your mountain while waiting for someone to reach your level, you could extend a hand and help someone up. After all, waiting is easy.

The Bishounen and the Trap

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The Speakeasy Podcast recently released their 4th episode, wherein they talk about the “bishounen,” and all of the celebration and agony that comes from putting some eye candy for girls into anime that are traditionally considered “for guys.”

For those unfamiliar, the term bishounen literally means “beautiful boy,” and refers to characters in manga, especially shoujo manga, who are beautiful and effeminate. In being pretty, bishounen in turn violate the unwritten rules of Acceptable Beauty in a Man, where guys are allowed to look good, but only in a way that reaffirms heterosexuality by having them conform to the male view of what a lady killer is supposed to look like.

Simply put, bishounen threaten masculinity and make guys uncomfortable. But the “threat” of bishounen isn’t simply in their looks, but in their very presence, and to get to the real heart of the problem, we have to take a look at a very similar concept which also holds some very profound differences: the trap.

The origin of the term “trap,” as it’s used by English-speaking anime fans, refers to the idea that a male viewer is “tricked” into being attracted to what he thinks is a very attractive lady, only to find out that the character actually has a Y-chromosome. In some cases, it works so effectively that some will say that liking traps is still not considered “gay,” because the character is so effeminate that all they’re doing is appealing to a heterosexual man’s natural desires using the power of artistic expression.

Now what’s really interesting is that in some cases you’ll find examples of guys who love traps but hate bishounen. At first, it can appear to be a contradiction, but there’s a fundamental difference at work here: bishounen are designed to appeal to girls, while traps are designed to appeal to guys.

Of course I’m aware that there are plenty of guys who decry the presence of traps just as much as they do bishounen, guys who believe that both the moe fan and the fujoshi are killing anime. But I really believe that the thin line between bishounen and trap reveals the truth, and that it all comes down to fear.

Guys who lament the presence of bishounen are not as threatened by their good looks as they are the idea that the presence of bishounen means that guy-oriented anime will suffer in some capacity. When the bishounen talks, this is what they hear coming out of their mouths.

“These character designs are not for you.”

“We’re doing things to actively appeal to people that aren’t you.”

It’s the fear that girls will latch onto a show just for the hot guys and will ignore all of the deep and wonderful story that’s actually there and will refer to the guys as “bishies” and debate the degree to which they would “glomp” them. It’s the fear that anime which would have had excellent story and setting might end up being aborted half-way and turned into a hideous carbunkle that sacrificed its potential for greatness for scenes involving with male beauty, angst, and sparkling moonlight.

The truth of this matter is actually stated in the Speakeasy podcast: anime, in some capacity has always made attempts to appeal to girls, even in that most manly of genres, the giant robot anime. The original fans of Mobile Suit Gundam were actually mostly female. UFO Robo Grendizer found a female fanbase as well, because of some of the romance elements in the story, as well as the presence of strong female characters. Even Gowapper 5 Godam tried to appeal to girls by being the first giant robot series to have a girl as the main character. They may have been a secondary audience to the boys buying action figures, but when it comes down to it, what’s wrong with having an audience that’s 50% female?

Read and/or Die: Aniblog Tourney Thoughts

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Back in 2008, I won 3rd place for Bloggers’ Choice Rookie of the Year in the now-defunct Anime Blog Awards. I thought that would be the first and last time anyone ever did some sort of anime blog competition, but  Scamp over at The Cart Driver has proven me wrong. Now he’s pitting 96 blogs against each other in a Saimoe-style throwdown in a competition aptly named the “Aniblog Tourney.”

Most likely your first reaction to this is something along the lines of, “This is just some kind of circle jerk popularity contest!” And you’re pretty much right, at least for the popularity contest side of it. The circle jerk I think is up in the air.

The one thing I like about this endeavor in particular is that the criteria for voting is very clear and simple, with no ambiguity like so many other vote-based tournaments you’ll find on the internet. This isn’t like Saimoe, where the meaning of “moe” is so nebulous that it loses all meaning in voting, or the GameFAQs character competitions where the notion of “greatest” can be construed in a million different ways. Here it’s just, if you were only allowed to read one blog out of those two, which would you pick? What do you personally prioritize? Humor, knowledge, writing style, good or bad is all up to the remote control voter.

And it’s not like it’s hard to get an idea of how a particular blog is. Just read one or two posts and you’re good to go.

I don’t know when this thing is beginning, and I can’t tell you who to vote for or whether you should vote at all, but if you do decide to participate, just go with what you think is right. And if you don’t participate, then at least it might be a good opportunity to just check out some blogs you’ve never read.

You can check out the bracket, as well as the thought process Scamp went through, right here.

Getting to Like You, Getting to Hope You Like Me

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What is a MILF?

The correct answer, of course, is a Mother You Would Like to Meet Between the Sheets. It is a fetish towards older, more mature women. But while a million things could be said about the concept of the MILF and its appeal, I want to point your attention to one in particular: what the word “mother” in this context really means.

The “mother” in MILF does not refer to the stretchmarks or the fact that they have a five year old sitting at home. Rather, it is very much a visual ideal. The MILF looks more mature and is therefore attractive in a way younger girls are not, and while it has a conceptual side to it, the idea that the MILF is also far more experienced in them in bedside manners, this is also achieved through visual signifiers, such as the clothes they wear and the hairstyles they favor.

While I’m no scientist, I think it’s safe to say that our minds are built to connect ideas and images, to associate one thing with another. This is evident in art, as symbolism abounded in works throughout history, changing depending on the culture. There, we find increasing levels of abstraction, wherein the “symbol” itself may potentially have the power to supplant the original itself, or at least to carry significant weight. So when it comes to anime and manga, the mental association of visual attributes to other physical traits as well as personality and sexuality isn’t that surprising.

Anime fans are encouraged, for better or worse, by possibly the shows or fellow fans, to grow and cultivate a visual vocabulary in this manner, creating a two-way street where looks imply personality and vice versa. Girls with large breasts either tend to be hyper-sexual (Anybody in Ikkitousen, but especially Ryofu Housen) or reluctantly so (Asahina Mikuru from Haruhi). Tsundere can often be found with twintails, due to their potential implication of guarded innocence.

At their most extreme,  these visual signifiers can describe not just personality and background but the entirety of their characters. It’s like instant ramen. It tastes “enough” like the real deal, and it doesn’t require the time and preparation of a real deal. You might consider it shallow, efficient, or both, but it makes sense. Anime fans new and old and from every generation have loved anime partly because of the connections they make to the characters. They want their characters to have personalities attached to their looks, even if those personalities might be one-dimensionally simplistic. This is what a lot of the successful Visual Novel companies have realized. While the characters’ story arcs are just as important, the companies know that they can set the stage with the appealing character designs and hint at their personalities through those deisgn aspects.

They can have players experience love at first sight. Or first moe or whatever.

(Oh, and in regards to MILFs and taking things too far…)

Ogiue’s Conscious/Subconscious Desire to Change

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If you were to pinpoint an event in Ogiue’s life that began her path of self-acceptance, you would not be incorrect in saying that the catalyst was her arrival in Genshiken. The story makes that much clear. However, what I would like to remind people about, even if no one’s arguing for or against it, is that the signs are clear that Ogiue changed because she had a deeper desire to change. If she were truly resistant to the idea of changing herself, it would not have happened.

While Ogiue’s preference for clothes changed throughout the series, in the very same conversation where Saki convinces her to start wearing better clothes you learn that Ogiue had already undergone a small makeover in the transition from high school to college. Her signature paintbrush hairstyle was something new, and she switched out her eyeglasses for contacts. The message is, “I don’t want to be the person I was,” though it’s marred by the fact that she isn’t sure at first what person she wants to be. Does she want to be more of an otaku or less?

This also comes out in her apparent interactions with the school’s Manga Society, where she antagonized the girls in the club. It’s clear looking back that all she really wanted was friends, but she projected her own shame onto them. Still, as poor a reaction as she had towards them, this was also a sign of change.

There’s that saying, “help comes to those who help themselves.” In this case, I think it happened on a subconscious level.

K-On and On and On!!

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In college, a teacher gave me some good advice on animation. He was a 3-D animation teacher, and he knew full well how time-consuming it could be, and how rewarding it was to make something really impressive. His advice, however, was a message of artistic prudence. I don’t remember the exact words, but the message was basically, “Don’t get so attached to a bit of strong animation that you reuse it to excess.” I was reminded of his words while watching K-On!! (the second season of K-On!).

In the new opening, there’s a very distinct part where the camera pans around the five girls of Houkago Tea Time, and it’s really some impressive animation, especially because while the background of the clubroom is 2-D, the girls themselves are still animated in 2-D, and overall it looks pretty natural.

So it looks really nice. But then they use the effect again. And then a third time. At that point, I think it’s just excess.

The opening for the first season also had something similar, a shot where all the girls are playing together that gets reused about three times total. However, in my opinion the recycling isn’t as jarring for a number of reasons. First, it doesn’t have that three-dimensional rotation effect going on like the new opening, where that piece is so different from the rest of the opening that you notice it immediately. The shot in K-On!! sticks out like a really nice-looking sore thumb, and it becomes all the more obvious when they use it another two times. Second, the first opening changes the background between usages of the stock animation, and while this can be seen as simply being lazy, the change in scenery makes the reuse more comfortable to the viewer.

If they really, really wanted to use the revolving camera effect that much, I think a good solution would have been to put more camera movement in the scenes right before that animation to ease the transition into it.

Not that Kyoto Animation is reading this blog, of course.

The Otaku Diaries Hint at the Secretive Triumvirate of Hugpillow Enthusiasts

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Now that the Otaku Diaries main events are over, the Reverse Thieves have seen it fit to hit us with all sorts of tidbits, from the number of people who were officers in anime clubs (13) to the number of man-crushes on Daryl Surat (greater than 0) to the number of people who own hugpillows.

Some of the trivia also sounds like it came straight out of anime. And assuming that everyone told the truth as they were expected to, that’s amazing. For example, the person who broke up with his girlfriend after canceling a date to watch Yu Yu Hakusho reminds me of a manga, Fujoshi no Honkai, where a closet fujoshi breaks up with her boyfriend by telling him that she’s “spending time with another man,” when in reality she bought a cake to celebrate the birthday of her favorite character. And when you realize that something like a manga based on the daily lives of otaku is trying to mirror the reality of the fandom, it’s almost like the beast feeding itself.

But really, looking at this trivia hodgepodge, I think it hits me harder than any of the previous Otaku Diaries posts just how similar/dissimilar we all are as fans of anime and manga. We are all united under the banner of Japanese comics and cartoons, but that sturdy felt cloth hanging high above us belies the sheer variety of places we come from. Gone are the days that anime fans all came from a single nerdy source of science fiction fandom or from watching the Pokemon on the TV. And though I use the term “anime fan” to encompass both those who watch anime and those who read manga, there are even people who almost exclusively focus on one or the other. All of it is surprising and yet none of it is.