Category Archives: philosophy

Ruminations on Harem Anime, Part 1: Responsibility

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I’ve been doing some thinking about the concept and tropes of harem anime recently. Here is Part 1 out of I don’t know how many parts but expect at least one more. Today’s topic is the concept of responsibility in harem anime.

The basic concept of a harem show is that it involves one guy surrounded by multiple gorgeous women who are all either vying for his affection, or could be conceived as such. As such, it tends to be a rather divisive genre among fans. Some of the more controversial topics in anime spring to mind, such as sexualization of anime characters, arguments about whether or not harem shows hurt or help anime, what makes a “good” anime character, or whether or not the fans of such shows are just perverts with no taste. One common criticism of harem anime is that they tend to feature a do-nothing protagonist who sits around and lets his gorgeous harem girls sexually tease and prompt him without himself applying any sort of initiative. However, what I have come to realize is that harem anime, with very few exceptions, requires a certain level of passivity from its male protagonist, without which the “harem” concept would weaken and crumble.

The “Arms’ Length Harem” as I have dubbed it is a simple concept. It is where, as stated before, a male protagonist in a harem anime never actively makes a move on any of the girls until perhaps the very end when the story is nearing its conclusion. The reason for its existence is also quite simple: as long as the protagonist is at “arms’ length,” he is absolved of responsibility. What this means is that as long as the male protagonist does not make an active effort to start a relationship with a female character, he is in a sense still “innocent” and can maintain the harem illusion. It doesn’t matter how many times he accidentally walks in on girls taking a bath or how many times their breasts fall on his face because he is not the initiator and thus it is never actually his fault.

As soon as he makes a move, he must take responsibility, and if he tries to maintain the harem while also in a relationship with a girl, he loses the support of the male viewers who want the benefits of being considered a good and pure man at heart who is surrounded by beautiful women who tend to be in various states of undress at any given moment. The male protagonist cannot be an uncaring, unfeeling womanizer if he wishes to keep the support of the men viewing him.

Even in erotic games and dating sims, this sense of innocence and responsibility is maintained. In games where you pursue only one girl per story path, while you can sleep with all of them eventually, in the specific plotline the player is pursuing there is only one “true” girl. In games where you have sex with multiple partners, sometimes simultaneously, the girls are usually the ones to initiate. And in games where the hero is actively trying to have sex with multiple women, at the very least this is displayed front and center and the main character is given a predatory personality to match his actions, i.e. making it not an Arms’ Length Harem at all.

An interesting case study is Itou Makoto from the School Days anime, who is a male harem protagonist who goes against this “unwritten” rule of harem protagonists. Makoto starts off just like any other harem protagonist, being a nice if innocuous guy who finds himself in a situation where multiple girls are interested in him. However, unlike most protagonists, Makoto gains an extreme amount of confidence from the knowledge that girls can find him attractive, and it transforms his personality from a caring individual to a player who manipulates girls so he can sleep with them. As one might expect, Makoto does not have many fans in the anime community beyond those whose who like him in an ironic sense. However, it’s not just his sleeping with multiple women that garners him hatred, it’s the way in which he does it, as well as how his sense of responsibility is entirely lacking.

Makoto tries to do exactly what I said is death for the male harem protagonist: he attempts to maintain the harem while actively pursuing girls, but on top of that he tries to act as if  he is still an innocent protagonist along the lines of Negi Springfield from Negima. It is Makoto’s two-faced dichotomy and his active deception of the girls he pursues that makes him such an unlikable character.

Makoto’s situation is different from heroes who sleep with multiple women such as Golgo 13 or even Minase from Bible Black because they do not hide this facet of their personality. Characters such as those are sexual dynamos who act as they truly are and accept responsibility for their actions, something Makoto never manages to do.

Makoto eventually finds his extensive harem crumbling, with girls blocking his phone number and refusing all contact. In this situation, where Makoto basically manipulated countless girls into having sex with him by being a wolf in sheep’s clothing, h reacts poorly to the sudden change in his daily life, from constant sex to no sex whatsoever. However, the thoughts that spring to Makoto’s mind are all along the lines of, “Why did this happen to me?” and “I don’t deserve this!” With this mindset, where no matter what he does or which people he hurts he still considers himself the “nice guy,” he completely alienates the male viewers who might be supporting him otherwise.

No matter how the real world is, an Arms’ Length Harem must have a male protagonist who is essentially pure of heart, even if his libido rages with the power of a million exploding suns. While the girls are important for any harem, it is actually the main character that is necessary in order to keep the harem in its ideal state. What can be said about this mindset, then? Is it just a symptom of otaku being unable to handle women in real life? I would not simply say “yes” to that. What I think is important in this subject is that there are certain contradictions which cannot be reconciled because they violate how the target male viewer perceives himself and others. This viewer, whether he truly exists or not or is simply a fabricated “ideal viewer” by the show itself, sees himself as a person who would not betray his responsibilities. However, if responsibility can be avoided then there is no need to take it.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is a Really Good GI Joe Movie

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Is Transformers Japanese or American? Is it anime or not? The answer to these questions is “yes.” While the toys came from Japan, the original plot of Autobots vs Decepticons came from American writers, so it should come as no surprise that an American director was assigned to helm not one but two movis based on the franchise. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is the sequel to the previous live-action Transformers movie, and once again directed by Michael Bay.

I enjoyed the first movie overall, but I had my own complaints about it. It was, to no one’s surprise, a flawed movie with a lot of action and a lot of juvenile humor. I was okay with that. My main issue with the movie however, was that so little time was spent on the actual robots themselves that one had to ask if it was really a TRANSFORMERS movie or not. Focusing too much on the kid, Sam Witwicky, was also a problem as I felt that within the Transformers franchise you had perfectly good main characters in the robots themselves, and to have to see it through the lens of High School Kid was pointless. If not Optimus Prime, at least make the main character Bumblebee so you could have a young character who is ALSO a Transformer. But again, I enjoyed it more or less.

Transformers 2 manages to solve at least one of the major problems with its predecessor, and that is to include the Transformers in the movie from the very beginning. There is no waiting an hour for Optimus to arrive, and that’s the way I like it. Also, they were given more time to talk and show their personalities. Sadly, while this issue was resolved a number of other ones cropped up.

Many characters felt useless or extraneous, and I was left scratching my head and wondering just what purpose these characters served. I’m mainly talking about the twins, who also act as sort of racial stereotypes without actually being any human race. I wouldn’t mind that aspect so much if only these characters actually DID something.

The action was often-times not well-suited for the presence of giant robots, even if the majority of the action involved them. It was often difficult to differentiate the Transformers, especially at a distance. Because so much gray metal was exposed, the defining colors of the Transformers was barely noticeable, and often times it was easy to confuse one robot for another and be unable to tell just who was fighting who. On top of that, it was often difficult to even tell just what was going on in a battle because the camera refused to be located where it actually mattered. This is an action movie first and foremost, and I expect the action to actually be visible. That said, there were actually a few instances where this was not the case and naturally they were the best fight scenes in the movie.

And now, the big complaint.

Transformers 2 has this very overt, unsubtle pro-military, pro-Iraq, America is #1 forever and ever stance that is extremely difficult to ignore. It was present in the first movie to an extent, but here it was so in-your-face that it made me kind of angry.

The most annoying character in the movie was an assistant for President Obama who acted as a strawman so that his intention to withdraw the Autobots from Earth in light of the Decepticon threat would be compared to the intention to withdraw American troops from Iraq. He is the typical guy-in-a-suit who the humble but patriotic military boys get to contrast with to seem that much more American.

Then there were all the scenes designed to glorify the American military, such as planes launching from hangars and soldiers jumping out of planes, and these wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t look like they were ripped straight from a US Air Force commercial on TV. The quality of the video, the camera angles, everything is set up to glorify the military.

The American soldiers even manage to score some successful hits on the Decepticons. And while I’m not against the idea of humans being actually useful in the face of a giant sentient robot menace, too much time is still spent on the American military dishing out the damage. It sometimes ends up feeling like an idealized war movie which happens to have giant robots in it.

Pro-America ultra militaristic patriotism. Lots of action scenes with soldiers running around coordinating attacks and using cool vehicles to fight an enemy. Hilariously awful racial stereotypes. These are all the ingredients for a fantastic GI Joe movie, but when you’re making a Transformers movie it just ends up being inappropriate. Transformers supports capitalism and American values already by being about the right to freedom and the right to sell millions of action figure toys to kids; it does not need such a divisive and time-specific message tainting it.

So in conclusion, why is Michael Bay NOT the director for the GI Joe movie anyway? I mean seriously, whoever was in charge of adapting Hasbro/Sunbow franchises for film seriously should have thought this over better.

Hating Who You Used to Be

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I have a few questions to ask of you the reader, and I would much appreciate it if you responded in the comment section below. If you want to remain somewhat anonymous, feel free to not put down your usual username, etc.

1. How much do you feel you’ve changed since you’ve become an anime and manga fan?

2. Do you resent who you used to be, and if so, how much?

3. Do you feel that the changes to your person, as well as your resentment (or lack thereof) significantly impact what anime or manga you watch? Alternately, have you stopped watching anime and reading manga as a result?

To start off, I’ll answer my own questions.

1. The main difference between who I am now and who I was when I first started getting into anime is that I am a much more confident person. I don’t radiate confidence, but I’m now much more apt to speak my mind. However, I don’t feel I’m significantly different from who I used to be, other than I’ve been exposed to more ways of thinking and education over the years.

2. I do not really resent my younger self, even though I feel like a much-improved version. While there are some things about myself which I regret, I can see how those things shaped me to be the person I am today.

3. One thing I’ve grown less tolerant of are mecha shows which try to get by almost entirely on their mecha designs, as I feel you can’t carry a show alone with that. However, when I see a character who is similar to how I was when I was younger, I do not hate that character any more than I hate myself.

Now, it’s your turn.

Response: A Further Look at the Realism of Genshiken

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The Reverse Thieves made a post today about perceptions of realism in fiction and how pessimism tends to overwhelm optimism in public opinion of what is “realistic” or not, at the expense of being able to tell more happy and uplifting stories. It’s a really good read and it got me thinking, particularly because of the primary example they use, my beloved Genshiken.

Hisui writes,

There are a standard list of complaints people have with Genshiken. The first being the prevalence of  female characters in the club and those female characters being too attractive to be in such. The second complaint is that too many of the club members wind up in relationships by the end of the series. Tacked on to this is the belief that the characters lives turn out too cheery overall. Too many of them get jobs they like and come to accept who they are through the club. Essentially, Genshiken is not harsh enough. Real otaku are sadder and more pathetic. Real otaku life is darker and drearier. To generalize the complaint, Genshiken white-washes the life of an otaku and makes it seems happier than it is. Genshiken is accused of having just enough realism to get you to ignore the lies and placates with what you want to hear but does not give you the true story.

I’ve talked about Genshiken on this blog numerous times, and it comes as a surprise to no one that I love the series. I’ve heard these complaints too, that Genshiken is too unrealistic in that its members all achieve some degree of happiness and success, whether it be in relationships, careers, or other areas entirely. However, I want to point out that having the majority of the cast descend into a pit of despair and bland mediocrity would be more unrealistic. It is very possible for geeks and introverts to remain immature and unsocial creatures who remain uncomfortably nervous when interacting with others, but it becomes much more difficult when these otaku are faced with the situations that Genshiken finds itself in.

There is one character in particular responsible for bringing the otaku of Genshiken out of their shells, and she arguably has the most influence on the entirety of the manga.

Did you guess Ogiue? You know me well, but this time you’re mistaken. The girl I’m talking about is Kasukabe Saki.

Saki is initially brought into the club by her boyfriend Kohsaka. Saki is not an otaku and has no interest in becoming one nor the subconscious will to do so. As Narutaki points out, and as I’ve seen numerous times, it is not so unusual for an otaku or a geek or a gamer to bring his non-dork girlfriend into his club. And it’s also not so unusual to have at least one otaku who is charismatic or handsome. Saki initially dislikes Genshiken and finds opportunities to insult its members or to devise ways to separate Kohsaka from the club, but what she inadvertently does is expose them to forces outside of Genshiken, outside of their comfort zone. It is their encounter with the “real world,” so to speak, and as anyone who was once debilitatingly shy or awkward will tell you about what was responsible for their change, increased interaction with others is central to that success.

Further still, you would find that having to confront someone with opinions different from your own when you have no way of escaping will affect you and make you grow as a person. This is the case with Genshiken, as the club itself is regarded as inferior to the Manga and Anime Societies of Shiiou University, making it a club dedicated to outcasts among outcasts and thus the end of the line with no points of escape other than to abandon clubs entirely, and to lose that opportunity to be around others. This is clearly something that none of the members want, and the result is growth and change.

As a fellow new member, Sasahara finds himself positioned opposite Saki through his status as a burgeoning otaku. Becoming chairman of Genshiken simply because he seemed the best fit for carrying on the lackadaisical spirit of Genshiken, his assumed role at the top of the chain and the responsibilities given to him result in his confidence and maturity growing accordingly. He is able to win Ogiue over because he represents someone who is comfortable with himself, something he learned from being with Genshiken for so long. Keep in mind that he applies for the position of manga editor out of desperation, but then realizes that it’s a position he’s already had similar experience in, and is able to use his sincere love of manga and status as an otaku to convince the interviewer of his qualifications. And it all came from having to be Genshiken chairman every day for an entire year. Do something every day and love what you’re doing, and it’s almost impossible not to improve. This is reality.

Similarly, Tanaka goes on to a fashion college after graduating. Tanaka was already interested in making costumes, but the arrival of Ohno gives him the opportunity to constantly improve his craft with a willing partner and to devote his personal time and energy to it. We the readers are not entirely sure when Tanaka began to actually have feelings for Ohno beyond simple physical attraction, but we can be certain that they interacted with each other often and became very good friends who were able to share and understand each other’s ideas and feelings. While you might say it’s unrealistic that a hot babe like Ohno would go for a scruffy tubby guy like Tanaka, would you say the same thing if you knew a guy and a girl in real life who hung around each other practically every day and were united by common interests, and the girl was given the opportunity to see that the guy was not only pretty decent but had creativity and ambition, albeit in cosplay form?

Saki herself meanwhile undergoes significant changes too. Just like how the members of Genshiken were forced to confront opinions different from their own, Saki became exposed to the world of otaku and understood that people are defined by more than their hobbies and interests. While success and confidence were hers from the start, they were incomplete, as Saki was initially embarrassed to reveal to others that her boyfriend is an otaku. However, by being with Genshiken she not only accepts the idea of a boyfriend who will never stop being an otaku, but is able to proudly show that it’s not something she simply tolerates but is another aspect of the man she loves.

In the end, the X-Factor of Genshiken is Genshiken itself. Gather a group of people with different personalities and outlooks on life, and have them interact with each other every day for years on end, and people will change. It’s inevitable. Genshiken just happens to be fortunate enough to be comprised primarily of people who, while socially awkward, are interested in friendship and being able to share moments with others. While it’s impossible for me to be a part of Genshiken, I can personally say that my own experiences as a geek and as an otaku do not fall far from this example given in fiction. Even those who find themselves subject to the pit of despair would be hard-pressed to resist personal transformation in such an environment.

“I’m an Anime Scholar! Why Should I Watch Anime?”

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I love the idea of applying a scholarly or academic approach to anime and manga. If you’ve been reading Ogiue Maniax, I think that”s obvious. Whether it’s studying the works themselves, tracing parallels between fantasy and reality, observing the effects of fan subculture, or any other number of relevant topics, I welcome such discussion and discourse and I think that it’s beneficial to anime and manga overall. There’s just one problem.

Every so often you’ll see scholars writing about anime without taking the time to actually understand it. These are not stupid people, but their approach to anime can be misguided. I want to explain why.

The first issue relates to a problem I posted about previously, the “false positive.” This is where you believe you’re making insightful comparisons, but your lack of experience with anime and manga (and by extension analyzing anime and manga) results in what amounts to grasping at straws of logic and connection. This in itself is not that bad, but we all know that at least in the English-speaking community scholarly exploration of anime is a relatively recent development. The result is a lack of accountability, as writers, whether intentionally or accidentally, try to cover their topic in broad strokes and there’s no one to call them out for the moments where they reached just a little too far. This needs to stop.

The second issue again has to do with understanding the topic you’re studying. It’s one thing to take a detached approach to studying anime so as to avoid being influenced by bias, but become too detached and your words become baby’s first anime lesson only using a more complicated vocabulary. In other words, you begin to say things that are either obvious to people who actually KNOW anime and manga, or that come across as vagueries resulting from again, not actually looking at your material and investing your time in it.

That brings me to the third and last issue, which relates very much to the first two. One should not presume to speak authoritatively about anime and manga without at least understanding a little about the “language” that accompanies them. I of course am not saying you should literally study Japanese (although it can certainly help) but that you should not pigeonhole anime and manga entirely into the context of your own field, subordinating it to your greater topic while simultaneously denying its own creative and artistic language and structures. Even if you do not develop the “vocabulary” commonly used in anime and manga, what’s important is that you develop the ability to convey and translate those ideas. You do not have to be completely “fluent,” but if you’re only a first-year student of this “language” don’t be surprised when your translation is full of errors, and do not try to deny those errors in the first place.

Here’s my overly simplified solution to alleviating these problems: WATCH ANIME. READ MANGA.

Don’t sit back and watch it from the sidelines, engage every show you watch, and when it’s over, grab another and get to work. Love it, love the thing you’re studying even if you don’t think the actual works you’re looking at are any good. Let it become a part of you so that when you do talk about it the words flow naturally. Instead of sounding stiff and awkward, your words will carry the proper weight because you actually WATCHED it instead of just reading about it.

Studying the Realism in the Fujoshi Character Design

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Ever since the mid-2000s the fujoshi character has seen an increase in overall presence in anime and manga, as evidenced by my Fujoshi Files, an ongoing project where I catalogue fujoshi characters. While comparing various fujoshi characters, especially in seinen manga, I began to realize something interesting about their portrayal, and that is the fact that they are often the characters closest to how a Japanese girl would actually look: dark, straight hair, possibly wearing glasses.

There are series such as Genshiken and Zetsubou-sensei where the fujoshi characters having dark hair is not unusual given the rest of the cast also sporting dark hair. My discussion focuses on those shows where characters’ hair styles and colors tend to be the anime rainbow stereotype.

When you look at Lucky Star as a whole, you’ll see that bespectacled fujoshi Hiyori is the only female character to sport straight, dark hair. Contrast this with Konata, who is the biggest otaku in Lucky Star and her unrealistic blue hair. Patty, while a fujoshi, is an “American” character first, so she’s blonde. Again, I want to mention that Hiyori is the only example of a character with a realistic hair color and style mainly because of how much the rest of the cast isn’t. In a world where bright pastels rule hair colors, the fujoshi is the exception.

Similarly in Kannagi, Takako is also a dark-haired glasses-wearing fujoshi, though her hairstyle is arguably more unrealistic than most of the other characters. However, it cannot be argued that most of the rest of the cast, especially female characters, have hair colors that do not occur at all or much less commonly in reality among Japanese girls.

Meanwhile in Mousou Shoujo Otakukei (Fujoshi Rumi), the main character of Rumi also stands out as being much plainer than the other girl characters out there and even a lot of the guy characters. Part of this has to do with the fact that she is the main character and that this visual plainness is a part of the story being told, but it speaks to this desire to make her a more realistically accessible character even if it’s only at a shallow level at first.

“There’s plenty of characters who look like that who aren’t fujoshi!” you might be saying, and you’d be totally right. The dark-haired, straight-haired glasses girl predates the fujoshi character boom, and arguably falls into the same category as the “iinchou” class representative character. Adachi Hana from Yankee-kun to Megane-chan is a character who is actively trying to achieve that iinchou look, even going as far as to wear fake glasses. She also bears some resemblance to Asai Rumi from Mousou Shoujo. So in a sense, the author of Mousou Shoujo, Konjoh Natsumi, and the fictional character, Adachi Hana, are attempting to reach the same goal: design a character with the look of a realistic Japanese girl. The main difference of course is that the iinchou is characterized by an ultra-clean look and  responsibility, while the fujoshi is characterized by being somewhat disheveled and a tad irresponsible.

You might then be saying, “Ah, but that’s really how fujoshi look.” But then I have to ask, why is it that in these shows where all other characters are not beholden to reality that the fujoshi ends up being how fujoshi “actually look?” And why is this occurring in comics targeted towards guys?

Most other character types in moe or moe-ish anime tend to be fantastic versions of possible real-life people: childhood friends, reticent girls (tsundere), little sisters, etc. Everyone knows that little sisters in anime are rarely like actual little sisters, and even if you compared the imouto character in an h-game to an actual incestuous younger sister the two images would not line up. In this sense, a fujoshi character can be as unrealistic as the others but it is often the case that a certain sense of realism is desired in fujoshi characters in a manner different from other character types.

Looking back at tamagomago’s essay for which I provided a translation, one line in particular jumps out at me: “No matter how realistic it gets, it’s still a fantasy,” or in other words, no matter how realistic a female otaku character may be, they are still just a character in fiction. What this sentence implies is that there is to some degree a push to make female otaku characters have a sense of relatable realism, perhaps more than other character types, and fujoshi fall into this category by extension.

Perhaps the answer to the question of “why are there these realistic aspects in the fujoshi design” is that having a member of the opposite sex also be an otaku makes them more accessible, gives the male otaku a glimmer of hope brighter than previous. Also, by making them a fujoshi instead of just an otaku, a useful distinction is created. And of course, if applied to actual reality with real girls, it is not in itself a realistic goal as long as the male otaku does not confuse his image of 2d and 3d girls.

Analyzing the X-Men Manga and What It Says About Manga and American Comics

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This is a follow-up to the images from the X-Men manga I posted yesterday. Now that I’ve given people time to ruminate over those pages, pages which I selected partly to show how various characters are portrayed but mostly to show how the artists took a very “manga” approach to the material, I’d like to go into further discussion about them.

I’d also recommend checking out my post about what I think is a recurring defining trait of American comics.

There’s two things we can say about this comic. First, is that it’s based off of the 90s X-Men cartoon, which was actually shown in Japan with new openings specific to the Japanese broadcast.

Second, is that this isn’t a terribly good comic. It’s an interesting piece of cross-cultural collaboration and all but of course isn’t nearly as high-profile in America as, say, Nihei Tsutomu’s Wolverine comic “Snikt.” It is, to put it simply, okay but not great, and there are many, many runs of the original American X-Men comic which are better and more influential. But of course that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it.

While this page doesn’t really show any X-Men and in fact just has Mystique in disguise, I think it tells us a lot about some of the fundamental differences between manga and american comics, and it has largely to do with the fact that it is such a low-profile throw-away comic. It is not the pinnacle of manga achievement, but that’s what makes it so useful.

After all, if you only try to learn from the very best you’ll only end up seeing a fraction of the whole image.

Here we have Mystique disguising herself as per her shape-shifting powers. Clearly the goal of the artist here was to portray an attractive female so that when the thug accosts her she can turn her head into a grotesque abomination for contrast. The result is an almost Matsumoto-esque female figure, particularly in the face. She’s disguised as a mysterious, alluring sort of woman, and it’s one far more in line with the Japanese version of such a concept as opposed to the more American va-va-va-voom type, despite this being an adaptation of an American property.

Now what I find to be even more interesting than the character designs is the panel arrangement of this X-Men manga. Again, it is not the best example of panel flow in a manga, but it is a very good example of what is considered “standard” for panel progression.

Panels are arranged as if they do not all exist on the same plane. Intra-panel depth cues are not nearly as important as seeing the panels placed one on top of the other to achieve a smooth progression throughout the page. A lot of emphasis is placed on shifting facial expressions, and those faces help to carry the reader’s eyes through the page.

Of course, this is only in a page with no action and how could I make a proper comparison without some fighting going on?

Below is an example of a fight scene from this manga, and an example of a fight scene from popular X-Men artist Jim Lee’s run, which was going on at around the same time.

Now it’s not exactly a fair comparison as Jim Lee is considered among the best artists who have ever worked on X-Men and there simply aren’t a lot of X-Men manga to go by, but what’s important here are the small differences.

Notice the degree to which the characters separate from the backgrounds. In the case of the manga, the separation is much more stark despite the Jim Lee panels having color on their side, color generally allowing an artist to much more easily separate foreground and background compared to black and white.

Then there’s the vertical progression vs the horizontal one, which admittedly this is not a good example for. This is perhaps my own pet theory, but I believe that a comic in a language which is generally written vertically will tend to have a vertical progression, while comics in a horizontal language will put an emphasis on the horizontal just short of having books actually being wider than they are tall. The most prominent example is the Japanese 4-Koma vs the American 3-panel strip, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Basically what the X-Men manga here has shown us is what features are so naturally a part of manga and people’s and artist’s perceptions of manga that they crop up in a comic based on American superheroes.  Because this is a comic based off of the X-Men with obvious attempts to match the look of the cartoon and comics, the Japanese and manga influences in the drawing style come out even more.

Once Upon a Time, a Girl Finished Her Grape Soda: Up

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Up once again shows that when it comes to mainstream 3D animation, there’s Pixar and then there’s everybody else. Or to put it differently, the only studio not trying to be Pixar is Pixar itself.

People sometimes ask me why I like anime so much, and though I’ve mentioned in the past that to an extent it is a very personal thing independent of average level of quality in anime, there are still certain recurring traits that keep me coming back: emotional sincerity, respect towards the viewer, respect towards the medium itself, the ability to take simple premises and elevate them. Up manages to fulfill all of these and more. That is of course not to say that the reason Up is good is because it’s “like anime,” because it really isn’t, but its approach and understanding that even for a kids’ movie (or perhaps especially for a kids’ movie) not everything has to fall neatly into place remind me very much of the reasons why I got into and continue to enjoy animation. You can do so much when you’re not limited by reality, and to understand that is to understand that what I just said applies well beyond the visual aspect of animation.

Like Wall-E, Up is a very emotional movie which dares to use a hero that is not just unusual because of the way they look, but because of how the entertainment industry has restricted the roles of certain character types. In the case of Up it is Carl Fredricksen, an old man who used to sell balloons who decides to use his remaining stock to float his house to South America to fulfill a lifelong promise. He inadvertently brings along a young boy scout analogue named Russell, an eager but physically inept boy.

Carl’s curmudgeonly demeanor masks the fact that he was once a wide-eyed but shy boy dreaming of fun and adventure (somewhat similar to young Russell), as well as a man who was very much in love. It’s a mask that we are allowed to peer behind throughout the movie, giving Carl a very strong presence in every scene he’s in. We can see in his current attitude and actions the life he has led up to that point. His interactions with Russell show how easy it is to perceive the elderly as distanced from the rest of society, as well as how incorrect that notion often can be. Carl is an interesting and deep character, and I do not use the word “deep” lightly. He moved me, moved me to tears and smiles and left a deep impression.

Placing an elderly man in the main role of a movie animated or otherwise is a bold move in an entertainment industry which tends to devalue the elderly. Even when they are featured prominently in movies, they are usually placed in teacher roles, or meant to be comically cranky old men. While there’s been a recent trend for older main stars in movies as Hollywood’s big names realize their years are catching up on them (e.g. Sylvester Stallone in Rocky Balboa), most often the message these movies send is “check us out, we can still hang with the young guys.” Up however is different. Carl Fredricksen is not an old man trying to play a young man’s game. He is doing what he feels is necessary precisely because he’s old. There is no denial, there is no shame.

While I said that the movie’s strengths go well beyond the visual, there is no denying that the movie also looks good. Its style is something that I think registers with everyone no matter your age. It’s bright and colorful without bombarding the viewer and overwhelming the retinas. Character designs and backgrounds, are soft without seeming entirely innocuous. The overall three-dimensional design is of course excellent, as expected of Pixar, and if you decide to watch it with 3-D glasses, Up never overwhelms you with shots designed to tell you JUST HOW 3-D THIS MOVIE IS, unlike many other 3-D movies. The use of recurring symbols in Up is also excellent in a way that I rarely see from movies. This is not abstract symbolism, but rather the movie establishing the significance of small but emotionally precious objects, and whenever these objects are referred to or used in any way you know how much weight is put behind them, much like anything Carl says or does.

Up is exactly what a family movie should be, in the sense that it is not just a family movie. Go by yourself, go with your friends, go with your kids or your parents. It’s an intelligent movie which respects the intelligence, both mental and emotional, of its audience, and engages them with such sincerity and power that anyone who sees the movie will feel like they’ve come away from the movie well-rewarded. It will be a reward well-earned because it is almost impossible to feel like an idle observer with Up.

Emotion, Intelligence, and the Comics Ambassador

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In writing my two responses to the Christopher Handley case, I worked very much from my own feelings and thoughts on the whole situation. However, when I read Newsarama writer Jeff Trexler’s blog entries about the Handley case, particularly his post titled Handley, Comics and Obscenity, I began to think about my approach to talking and writing about censorship and obscenity in regards to comics.

While I do put emotion into my writings, particularly the two Handley posts, I know that I come across as emphasizing the logical and the intellectual, trying to use my own knowledge in conjunction with my desire to increase my understanding of the situation. However, as Trexler puts it, this can be considered a case where I am seen as a “liberal outsider” who is simply not understanding the fundamental truths as perceived by, say, an Iowa jury. I want to be able to convince not just the people who think in the same fashion as me, but also those whose value systems and deeply rooted beliefs stand much further away. I want to be able to change my writing style accordingly, but I don’t think it’d be a surprise to anyone literate in any language in the history of man to say that changing one’s writing style as well as one’s mode of thinking can be extremely difficult. The way this post is going so far should tell you that already: I’m trying to reason out how to write in a way which appeals to the heart rather than the head; irony in itself.

I’ve mentioned what I’m about to say when I previously talked about the Geek Logical Fallacy, but we as people often run into situations where the values we subscribe to in trying to make sense of the world or convince others of an important truth that are seemingly irreconcilable. No more does this arise than with the topic of religion, especially on the internet. A believer and a non-believer enter into an argument about the existence of a higher power, and both can be dense in their own ways. The believer will quote his religious text, which he deems as the source of Truth with a capital T, and that clearly everything comes from this Truth. However, to the non-believer these are all irrational beliefs full of contradictions and appeals to emotion. The non-believer meanwhile will start trying to use his self-proclaimed intellectual and logical superiority to lord it over the believer and show through this “logical” progression that everything the believer believes is false and wrong. Of course, the believer will take this as a direct attack and will stand his ground. The non-believer is trying to convince the believer using intelligence, while the believer is trying to convince the non-believer using logic, and both parties regard the others’ core value as being less important than the one they themselves emphasize.

This is part of the reason why so-called “Intelligent Design” has been able to make in-roads at all into harming the teaching of Science in public schools. The people in charge of the movement know their target group, and they are able to prey on their fears and prejudices. When Scientists representing Science come in and go, “Well that’s not how Science works you see, I have these facts to support my claim,” it can all come across as white noise, it’s not hitting the people where it matters because Science thinks it can logic its way to victory.

And that may be the situation manga and comics as a whole may find themselves in. Sure, comics are not exactly science, and there is a very emotional aspect of them, but in any future cases similar to Handley’s that may pop up, we may end up in situations where the people we’re trying to convince cannot be convinced in the way that we normally would convince our peers. A scientist can convince another scientist using science, but it takes something more to branch out to the rest of the world.

What we basically need are Ambassador of Comics, Comics versions of Carl Sagan, if you will. Though I would not even begin to presume I can fill this role, I write now to try and see if I can’t help just a little bit.

Christopher Handley’s Guilty Plea and its Implications

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Christopher Handley has plead guilty for possessing obscene manga. While on the surface it seems a simple matter, the implications are enormous and complex, and to tell the truth I’m not sure I can get around to everything that I feel is worth saying, but I will at the very least try to get people to think about the causes and effects and consequences of this decision.

Handley was threatened by the government through a variety of means. While it is legal to have obscene materials in the privacy of your own home, they tried to get him on charges of having obscene material shipped across states, which it was because it came from Japan. However, that material was never meant for others, it was Handley’s personal pornography, and it involved no actual people, only fictional characters, concepts in a story. Of course, that’s not how the government prosecution wants you to see it.

The whole matter comes down to underage pornography. While there is the matter of the government never being too specific on the manga that caused Handley to be charged in the first place, ultimately they want you to think that it’s child porn even if it isn’t, even if all the characters are well over 18 and have adult proportions, even if they mistake Gaogaigar for lolicon. That’s where this discussion will take place.

A minor in the United States is someone under the age of 18. I am perfectly fine with that number. It’s different in other countries, sometimes higher and sometimes lower, but 18 is fine. It is fine, that is, when applied to real people, and that’s what the law should be about. However, anyone would be daft to believe that teenagers under the age of 18 do not have sex. Legally, it would be ideal if this did not really happen, but it is the truth and it is reality, and fiction should have every right to depict an aspect of reality while not being completely beholden to it or the law. In other words, if fiction were to be forced to depict a world where everything is legally okay or turns out that way, fiction would die. Imagine Death Note without murder. Imagine Kare Kano without sex between its high school-age characters. Both are possible, but both are enriched by these acts which can be deemed wrong by some, and while both are not considered “obscene” normally, when you start to hack away at the “obscene titles,” what you might not realize is that you’re also chipping away at more “innocent titles.”

Luckily, the US is not controlling all fiction. Shows about teenagers dating and having sex have been a staple of television since the 90s, the most prominent example probably being Beverly Hills 90210. And sure, they eventually grew up and become full-fledged adults, but the start was always the sexualization of teenagers, even if those teenagers were played by adults. Here we are in America, sexualizing teenagers while also saying that it’s wrong. Again, I am perfectly fine with the law saying that a guy who is 30 should not be fooling around with a girl who is 16 along as this law is for real people and not fictional characters where that huge age gap and all the implications behind that age gap can possibly factor into the story. And it seems like for a lot of entertainment in America, the government understands this, but something is particularly dangerous about comics.

I have to wonder if the the idea of comics being “for kids” has influenced this perception in any way, that comics should not have the ability to go that far when in fact it might be more suited to taking things a step further than perhaps any other form of media or art or entertainment. Purely text fiction would not so nearly incur the wrath of the government or normal people as the potential for obscenity requires some digging; it is not as immediate as visual imagery. I do not ask comics to be like literature or high art, but what I do hope is that comics, comic creators, and comic readers as a whole can achieve all of the possiblities of the medium without having to worry about their ideas being considered too “obscene” or “wrong.”

If you think the material is bad, you are allowed to say so, but it should not be possible to run to the government and tell them on someone with whom you disagree, even if the “you” I mentioned IS the government.

I understand that not everyone is as closely connected with the world of fiction as myself or others, and they may see this guilty plea and its consequences as being very cut and dry, very black and white. “What does it matter that there are a few less stories out there,” one might say, “If it protects people from getting hurt?” But the “matter” is that ultimately these are ideas put on paper, and you are trying to protect people from harm that may or may not happen based on a fictional work where the motive of the work may fall entirely out of step with the perceived harm that it could potentially generate. It is thought crime, and while the term thought crime is bandied about and misused constantly, this is a very valid example and I ask that you consider the idea that your own private thoughts, thoughts which may exist only in your head and in a diary or journal in your home, could be turned against you without there being any actual evidence of intent to carry it out in reality.

As a final note, I want to talk about the manga Ressentiment. It is a title where people have the ability to have virtual sex with virtual girls, and the main virtual girl is depicted and designed to be around high school age, and it’s all designed to be a part of the story. It can be offensive, but it’s all there aesthetically to give the reader a sense of disgust or sadness. When she’s naked, or put into an obscene position, she is a fictional virtual minor. Who is harmed by this? Can the law extend so far as to protect a character who is part of the fictional world of another fictional world, and punish those who read about it?