Category Archives: review

Secret Santa: Patlabor: The Movie, Where Oshii Mamoru Says, “Trick or Treat!”

Posted on by

This review is a part of the Reverse Thieves’ Secret Santa Project for 2010.

Mobile Police Patlabor: The Movie is a film by Oshii Mamoru, director of Ghost in the Shell. Though it predates Oshii’s most famous film by a few years, there is no mistaking its pedigree.

In the world of Mobile Police Patlabor, mankind has embraced the use of giant robots to help with large-scale construction and manual work. Referred to as “Labors,” it wasn’t long until some people started using them for less altruistic purposes, creating a new problem in the form of Labor-related crimes. In response, the police begin deploying their own Patrol Labors, or “Patlabors” for short. One such force is the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Special Vehicle Section 2, Division 2, a group of misfit officers whose ranks include a tomboy who names all of her pets Alphonse (her Patlabor being the latest), an overly aggressive gun nut, and a seemingly dull and lazy division chief. Nevertheless, they do their best to serve and protect despite their spotty reputation.

Given this scenario, you’d probably expect some combination of cop show drama and ensemble comedy with a dash of mecha, and you’d be right, normally. But while most of the Patlabor franchise falls along those lines, Patlabor: The Movie is instead a cerebral mystery. A recent string of “berserk” Labors threatens the completion of an important project and the most likely suspect, programmer Hoba Eiichi, is already dead, confounding Shinohara Asuma, the Division 2 member who has taken it upon himself to investigate. All the while, the film explores the continuing onset of technology and the eternal struggle of new vs old, with numerous biblical references strewn throughout. Given the tone and content, Patlabor: The Movie is like a stepping stone towards Ghost in the Shell and the eventual direction Oshii’s oeuvre would take.

The film still has a lot of the requisite elements of Patlabor; it has those same goofy characters (all of whom act as they should), robot fight scenes, and a personal feel to the setting. In fact, you need not have watched any of the previous material to understand the movie or to get an idea of the personality quirks and relationships of the characters. However, those aspects of Patlabor are either more subdued or less frequent in the film, instead putting the spotlight on the mysterious culprit, “E. Hoba” (Jehovah), and his motives. In this respect, it reminds me of another movie, Sengoku Majin Goshogun: The Time Étranger, a sequel to a super robot anime featuring a decidedly different tone and absolutely no giant robots, only Patlabor: The Movie is somehow both more extreme and less in its deviation. Patlabor: The Movie really feels as if Oshii (who also directed the Patlabor OVAs) was trying to push the franchise beyond the limits of its basic premise and bend it to his own personal will. It actually works pretty well overall, maintaining suspense throughout and giving quite a bit to think about, but I’m not sure if Patlabor was the place to do it.

In short, imagine Oshii Mamoru trapped in a giant paper bag called Patlabor, trying to punch his way through until he ends up wearing the bag like a Halloween costume, and you have Mobile Police Patlabor: The Movie. He’s pretty dashing in that getup.

Anime! The Cause of, and Solution to, All of Life’s Problems: Genshiken II, Chapter 58

Posted on by

It’s a big day for the newest members of the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture, as the three rookies spend their very first chapter almost entirely independent of Ogiue and the others. Can Yajima, Yoshitake, and Hato carry the story without backup from the Genshiken veterans? Do they have what it takes to garner their own fans? And is Sue a fan of Hellsing? All these questions and more (or not) will be answered in Genshiken II, Chapter 58.

Ogiue, Genshiken chairman that she is, decides to foster camaraderie among the club members and revive an old tradition by having everyone write/draw their own profiles for Genshiken’s defunct club magazine, “Mebaetame.” If you’re not sure what that is, try to remember the little blurbs they had in between chapters of Genshiken where they talked about their favorite Kujibiki Unbalance characters and what-not; that’s “Mebaetame.” If you’ll recall, Ogiue never actually participated in the magazine, and perhaps we’ll finally learn just how to pronounce her pen name, Ogino/Okino Meisetsu/Nayuki/Nariyuki.


Yes.

Yoshitake thinks this is a good opportunity for some healthy bonding, and invites herself and Hato over to Yajima’s place to work on their profiles together while having some beers. Yajima (kind of) agrees, but is uneasy about alcohol. Hato doesn’t seem to mind either way. Here is where we see our first bit of additional insight on the new members: Yoshitake, cheerful and bubbly, has no qualms about knocking a few back (which creates anticipation for the inevitable drinking session/contest with Ohno) and breaking some rules, whereas surly and practical Yajima, citing age restriction as the primary reason to not purchase alcohol, turns out to be more naive than expected. In fact Yajima’s naivete and confidence (or lack thereof) seem to be a major topic for this chapter.

Lacking faith in her own artistic skills (“I said that I draw, not that I can draw!), Yajima, whose first name we find out is “Mirei,” is arguably the most “typical” of all of the girls in Genshiken at this point, especially in terms of looks. When she compares herself to members past and present, including a curvaceous cosplayer, a fashionable “normal” girl, and an impossibly attractive male cross-dresser, you can see how it impacts her self-image. Even Ogiue is likely included among the “beautiful,” as Yajima has only ever seen her as Ogiue Chika, Well-Dressed Professional Manga Artist with Boyfriend, and wasn’t around for the Ogiue who wore clothes two sizes too big, or her gradual and awkward transition to her current state. You can see Yajima thinking, “Wait, otaku aren’t supposed to be this way! If even my fellow nerds are this attractive, where does that leave me?” It’s all the more troubling for her when she remembers that Hato indeed has a Y-chromosome, and that a guy is passed out in her apartment from drinking too much. Being the innocent straight-arrow of an otaku that she is, when she accidentally/intentionally confirms Hato’s gender via skirt lift, it’s clear that it’s far outside of Yajima’s comfort zone.

Seeing as it’s a chapter taking place in Yajima’s apartment, it’s no surprise that she’s getting the most development of the three, though we still learn a few details about the other two. In addition to Yoshitake’s excited, yet nonchalant attitude towards life and its vices, we learn that she has an appetite on the level of Kobayashi Takeru and equates “profile” with “personal essay.”  And with Hato, we now know that he 1) is an Economics Major 2) has quite good taste in anime, and 3) is pretty damn hardcore with the BL. Among his favorite titles are Hetalila, Doarara!!!, Winter Wars, Fuyume’s Book of Friends, and Sweets Basket. He also likes a series called Femto, which I’d like to believe is some Berserk spinoff all about Griffith but might actually be a reference to Boku no Pico.

So overall, I think that Yajima, Yoshitake, and Hato held their own, though next chapter seems to be focusing on Madarame, which is also welcome. Until then, I’m going to try and popularize the phrase “Dai Ogiue.”

G…lee…COOOOOOOO

Posted on by

When it comes to the musical arts, I have to admit that I am quite lacking. I’m a novice in regards to musical theatre, and I am far from knowledgeable about popular music from my own era, let alone from decades prior. So it might seem unusual that I consider myself among the many who enjoy Glee, a show about a high school glee club populated by misfits which combines both of those elements and adds a large dose of teen drama to boot. But not only is Glee fun, it appeals to me on both artistic and intellectual levels as well.

The vast majority of fictional TV shows and films attempt to mimic reality. This does not necessarily mean that they are realistic or that they could be confused for anything but fiction, but that they attempt to create a simulacrum of the real world to facilitate their audiences’ suspension of disbelief, whether it’s Law & Order, The Expendables, or The Andy Griffith Show. Glee is different. Whereas most other shows want you to ignore their existence as “television programs,” Glee revels in the fact that it is fiction first, a portrayal of high school second. The method of characterization, the cinematography, the storylines, the acting, and, yes, even the music, all work together to create an experience where the viewer can practically see the strings and enjoy it for that reason. Its candor is something I can really appreciate, and when watching it I can feel myself picking up on the clever elements of its production while also engaging its story and characters.

Going back to how Glee fosters its self-image as fiction, I want to highlight how characterization is handled in particular. Let’s take Rachel Berry, the talented singer so driven by the pursuit of perfection that she can be incredibly abrasive even to the few friends that she has. In one episode, you learn that she is so constantly focused that she wakes up early every morning to the tune of Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride” and jumps on an elliptical for half an hour while staring at a self-made motivational note. Here, you can see how the show really exaggerates her personality traits almost to the point of tangibility. Other good examples include Sue Silvester, the cheerleading coach so Social-Darwinist in her beliefs and so ruthless in her methods that she practically comes across as a supervillain, Emma Pillsbury, the attractive guidance counselor whose neurotic obsession with cleanliness leaves her incapable of eating her own lunch without wearing gloves, and Kurt Hummel, a male soprano so accustomed to being bullied that he can plan his day around it and still remain outspoken. However, while these aspects make up a good portion of their characters, it doesn’t dominate their portrayals. They’re still allowed to grow and develop over the course of the series, and maybe learn an important lesson or two along the way.

If anything, the characterization in Glee reminds me of how many anime and manga approaches characters. There is a similar sense of over-the-top portrayals that are still able to create strong emotional connections and give room for genuine character growth that you might see in 70s sports shoujo (Aim for the Ace!, Swan) or the works of Imagawa Yasuhiro (G Gundam, Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still). In fact, I think that if someone were to adapt Glee into an anime, they would barely have to change a thing, and I mean that in the best way possible.

So despite the fact that I can’t recognize songs 9 out of 10 times unless they’re anime-related, I can recommend Glee. Well, at least the first season. I’ve yet to experience the second.

Source

Shudou Takeshi, Pokemon, and Me

Posted on by

*NOTE: Turns out some of the information I have in this post is inaccurate. Check the comments below for the correct information!

Shudou Takeshi, anime writer, has passed away at age 61. To fans of magical girl anime, he may be best known as the writer for Fairy Princess Minky Momo, and giant robot fans may associate him with his work on series such as Sengoku Majin Goshogun, but as for me and for millions of others all over the world, our first true exposure to Shudou was through his work on the Pokemon anime. Pokemon is undoubtedly one of the most successful anime series of all time, having penetrated popular culture down to its core along with the games on which it’s based, and while a good portion of its success can no doubt be contributed to effective marketing, underneath it all you will find a surprisingly engrossing story that can attract people of all ages, particularly in the beginning. It is Shudou’s work on those early seasons of Pokemon that helped to give it so much character and memorability.

Pokemon wasn’t always considered the evergreen franchise that it is today, and Shudou’s writing on Pokemon in those early days reflects that. Let’s go back to the very first Pokemon series, to the time when it was just 151 Pokemon; if you were to ask someone who watched the series avidly during this time to list their most memorable moments with the show, what would they say? Most likely, they would recount moments such as Pikachu defeating an Onix by activating ceiling sprinklers, Team Rocket giving their famous speech for the first time, a Bellsprout with expertise in martial arts overwhelming opponents many times its size, and a mysterious and absolutely menacing Pokemon in cybernetic armor asserting total domination over Gary Oak. What these events and many others have in common is that they not only broke the rigid logic of the Pokemon games but also created rules where there were none.

Before the games told us that Pokemon lay eggs and that Rhydon’s horn can act as a lightning rod, the anime gave us a story about how Ash’s Butterfree had to leave to find a mate and showed us that Rhydon’s invulnerability to electricity could be bypassed by attacking it through the horn. Before female main characters were an option, the anime saw fit to turn a water-loving boss character into a supporting cast member. Unorthodox creativity characterized those early seasons of Pokemon under Shudou, and while it meant that kids who believed the show’s every word tended to do poorly when playing against their friends on their Game Boys, on a storytelling level it was a complete boon. I believe that it is this dedication and relative freedom that Shudou and his fellow staffers were able to exercise is that enabled the anime to capture the imaginations of people everywhere and bring them into the Pokemon franchise. They wanted, above all else, to tell a good story.

Nowhere is this desire to entertain and inform more evident than in the very first Pokemon film. Placing Ash, Pikachu, and their companions against the formidable armored Pokemon which so soundly defeated Gary, Mewtwo Strikes Back on its surface seemed like it would be the story of Ash taking on a villain and coming out victorious, but it turned out to be far more profound than perhaps anyone anticipated. Watching the movie through a VHS fansub, I was introduced to Mewtwo, a cloned Pokemon genetically engineered to be the ultimate fighting machine. Having come into the world fully grown and told of its purpose as a living weapon, Mewtwo first destroys its creators and eventually sets out to show that clones are inherently better than their natural counterparts, or at least that’s the initial story. While perhaps even Mewtwo believes that its own goal is telling the world about the superiority of genetic enhancement, in actuality Mewtwo’s true desire is to find worth in its own existence. Ultimately, the important message to take from the film is as follows: the circumstances of why you’re in this world don’t matter nearly as much as the fact that you’re alive and have the right to keep on living.

As the man responsible for the story of Mewtwo Strikes Back, Shudou Takeshi gave us an amazingly complex antagonist in Mewtwo, by far the most well-developed character in Pokemon to date, as well as an amazingly intelligent children’s movie, and his only cues from the original games were that Mewtwo was an offspring of a Pokemon named Mew, that Mewtwo destroyed a lab and escaped, and that Mewtwo is designed to be the strongest Pokemon ever. The manner in which Shudou was able to weave these simple story elements together into an existential tale of a being cursed with incredible power is nothing short of amazing, and it is this very reason that I consider Mewtwo Strikes Back to be the best movie of the franchise, with or without nostalgia. This is also why I was so disappointed at the English release of the film back in 1999 and still am today, as it almost completely whitewashed the actual message of the movie, replaced it with a thematically inappropriate “fighting is wrong” moral. But even with such a compromised story, the light of Shudou’s script is able to shine through, at least a little.

Pokemon was and is one of my first great obsessions, and I cannot understate how beneficial my time with Pokemon has been. I have made lifelong friendships through it. I have interacted with fellow fans about it, and through those interactions established the roots of both my writing style and my approach towards anime as an artform. Without those early seasons of Pokemon, I would not be who I am today. Thank you, Shudou Takeshi. You have made my life.

The Not-So-Gentle Path: Genshiken II, Chapter 57

Posted on by

From the moment I began this blog, I’ve established the fact that I am a huge fan of Genshiken. After reading the inaugural chapter of the all-new Genshiken II however, I realized that this is the first time that I’m actually reading fresh material alongside all my fellow Genshiken enthusiasts. Sure, there was the second TV series, but that was mostly existing material, so in a sense this new “limited series” acts as a kind of return to basics for Ogiue Maniax, a starting point for me to share my thoughts so to speak.

So to celebrate this small revival and to welcome back this blog’s namesake to the world of serialization, I am going to give my thoughts and impressions on this first chapter. As more chapters come out there’s a possibility that you’ll be seeing Ogiue Maniax’s first ever instance of episodic chapter blogging, but I’m not making any guarantees.

New Genshiken feels different. I won’t pretend that it doesn’t. The cast is mostly different and is now populated primarily by women, replacing the “awkward men’s club” vibe that kicked off the original series. At first this seemed a little jarring, but Ohno’s off-handed mention of the soul patch guy, aka the Genshiken member that never was, reminded me that prior to the arrival of Yajima, Yoshitake, and Hato the membership barely ever increased. Ogiue and Kuchiki arrived together, while the following year Sasahara’s sister Keiko entered, and in the case of Kuchiki and Keiko both of them were already introduced previously. Sue is Sue. If anything, with such a large cast change I’d be surprised if the series didn’t feel a little different.

The focal point of Chapter 57 is the cross-dressing Hato Kenjirou (who might be a reference to Hayate the Combat Butler author Hata Kenjirou), or rather, everyone’s opinions of Hato. I think Hato’s inclusion set off alarms in a lot of readers’ heads more than anything else, creating a bit of fear that the series would lose its heart and pander too much to otaku at the expense of what made Genshiken good in the first place. As the chapter went on, I could feel that fear growing in myself, but I think it was actually all just set-up for a really pointed reminder that Kio Shimoku did not forget what made Genshiken tick in the first place.

While I clearly favor Ogiue, I think the real star of the chapter was Yajima. Throughout most of the chapter the club feels almost uncontrollable when it comes to the topic of Hato and cross-dressing in general despite Ogiue’s best efforts, sort of like the impression you might get at an anime con seeing a bunch of young attendees with no supervision. Then Yajima comes out and says that she’s kind of uncomfortable with Hato’s cross-dressing. By presenting this point of contention, Yajima manages to bring the club (and the manga itself) back down to Earth and keeps the club environment from getting completely out of hand.

This sort of conflict is actually a pretty persistent theme in Genshiken, whether it’s in the earlier days with Kasukabe’s mean-spirited attacks on the club, or later on with Ogiue and her own inner demons. In a way, Yajima’s somewhat direct personality and her unfamiliarity with the beast that is the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture makes her the “Saki” of the new bunch, even if she can’t match Kasukabe in looks. Whereas Saki was a normal person experiencing the world of otaku for the first time, Yajima, who is already an otaku, has to deal with an anime club unlike any she’s ever experienced. That’s not to say that the other characters are unrealistic, though. Hato is developing well, and even the way in which Ohno, Sue, Yoshitake, and Kuchiki get carried away is not that unusual. It’s simply that Yajima, as well as Ogiue, act to rein them in a little, creating a new and different character dynamic.

On the topic of Ogiue, I found it quite interesting that, aside from a small bit of pictorial exposition by Sue, Ogiue goes through the entire chapter without her signature paintbrush style. Even the one-shot had Ogiue tie her hair up, something that was established in previous material as a habit of hers when drawing. Though I’m sure it’ll return in at least one future chapter, it still feels like a break of sorts with the previous series. In terms of her character, it’s interesting seeing Ogiue as Genshiken chairman. After all, back when the original series ended it was one of my greatest wishes to see the continued appearance of Ogiue as head, and in this situation I find myself to be quite fortunate.

Ogiue isn’t a natural leader. In fact, none of the previous chairmen were, with the possible exception of the mysterious First Chairman. However, all of them were able to develop their own natural strengths into leader-like qualities, whether it was Madarame’s strong self-image as an otaku, Sasahara’s subtle confidence and understanding, or Ohno’s gentle guidance, and Ogiue looks to be doing the same. Though not always consistent, Ogiue can have quite a forceful personality, especially when she puts her foot down about something, and I think that this aspect of her personality, combined with the fact that those new members are all freshmen, will result in her being more and more comfortable with her position of authority as time passes.

So that’s the start Genshiken II, and I look forward to more. Of course.

Heroman? What About Villainman?

Posted on by

Question: What’s the difference between Anpanman and Heroman?

The answer is, Anpanman has an arch-enemy.

I recently finished Heroman, the BONES collaboration with American comics legend Stan Lee, and while the show had some positive qualities to it, it fell flat overall, due in no small part to a long run of episodes in the middle which pretty much just meandered about. But in the list of things the show could have done better, what really stood out to me was how Heroman and Joey Jones never got a proper supervillain to call their own. Sure, Heroman and Joey have adversaries and rivals, namely the insectoid Skrugg and their leader Gogorr, as well as Dr. Minami and “Anime Flash Thompson,” but none of them felt quite right, even if two out of the three turned out interesting in the end.

Gogorr had the most potential to be an arch-enemy.  As a galactic conqueror that can augment and evolve his body for combat, he bears a great resemblance to Vilgax, the primary villain in the American cartoon Ben 10, but the main difference here is that, unlike Gogorr, I would most definitely consider Vilgax to be Ben Tennyson’s arch-enemy. With Ben and Vilgax, not only could you sense a greater degree of personal animosity between the two, but Vilgax’s actions directly cause Ben to get his powers in the first place. In contrast, Gogorr feels a little too distant from Joey both emotionally and thematically to be a proper nemesis. Another factor is that the way Gogorr is presented makes him feel a little too powerful to be an arch-enemy, too much of a Goliath to Heroman’s David, and too much of an Archmage to Heroman’s Goliath.

Left: Vilgax, Right: Gogorr

A lack of arch-enemies might seem like an odd thing to single out, and to be sure the inclusion of one wouldn’t have solved all of Heroman‘s problems, but the reason I’m focusing on the concept is that the arch-enemy is a near-integral part of what makes superhero stories feel like superhero stories, and as a show at least partially based on the American superhero concept, Heroman could have benefitted from such a character. On a more intellectual level, they provide a nice foil for the hero, holding up a mirror to the hero’s own abilities either through being the opposite or being the same (or sometimes both), but on a simpler level supervillains expand the world of the superhero by having a great evil that can be vanquished by a great good, highlighting both protagonist and antagonist. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that Heroman needed a relationship with a villain on par with Superman/Lex Luthor or the Fantastic Four/Doctor Doom, but just having someone to stand in contrast to Heroman and Joey would go a long way in highlighting the “What does it mean to be a hero?” theme that persists throughout Heroman.

Ogiue Maniax on the Otagal Podcast

Posted on by

In case you weren’t aware, I appeared on a recent episode of the Otagal podcast, talking about your favorite subject and mine, Genshiken, or at the very least Genshiken 2.

Viga was my co-host for the Ogiue panel at Otakon 2010, and we have some good discussion for this podcast.

Hope you all enjoy my distinctly non-radio voice.

Somewhat Less Perilous: MD Geist the Comic

Posted on by

Rarely do I get review requests for Ogiue Maniax, but when I was told to review MD Geist, I knew I had to take on the challenge.

MD Geist is somewhat of an anomaly in anime. Largely ignored in Japan, this OVA found success in the United States in the 80s and 90s and helped to define “anime” as something more adult (or at least indicative of hormonal teenagers). With the titular character eventually becoming the “face” of anime through his role as mascot and “spokesmecha” for the anime company Central Park Media, you will find that a certain generation of anime fans feels a close connection to the title. Years later Central Park Media would fund a sequel.

But wait, this isn’t actually a review of the MD Geist OVAs, but of the American-produced comic adaptation by artist and VOTOMS expert Tim Eldred. And through the lens of Mr. Eldred, interesting things happen.

Before I get into the comic though, I have to state what is a commonly-held truth in anime, restated time and again over the past few decades: MD Geist is bad. Its designs are unsuited for animation, its story is paper-thin, its action scenes are only really enjoyable on a surface level, and its characters are poorly realized. At the same time however, it is an enjoyable sort of bad. In many ways it represents a generation of mediocre straight-to-VHS anime.

But it’s difficult to recapture that sort of accidental magic. Tim Eldred understood this well, I assume, as he doesn’t try to bottle magic. Instead, he takes the patches strewn across the floor in disarray and attempts to sew them together into a complete quilt. He adds a back story, he adds character motives, he turns MD Geist into a “real” story rather than an incongruous facsimile of one.

The MD Geist comic is divided into two parts: an origin story for MD Geist and a retelling of the first OVA, with the intent to flesh out Geist’s character. Not only was he a “Most Dangerous Soldier,” but you learn why exactly he was imprisoned and about the woman who first assisted/controlled him. Through this, you get the same impression as one would reading fanfiction. I do not mean that negatively. One of the great strengths of fanfiction is that fans of a series can take the odds and ends of their favorite series and then speculate until their brainstorming session has gone far beyond the original source.

On its own, the MD Geist comic is decent. The only issue with that is that it comes at the expense of the extreme amounts of ridiculousness which pervade the source material to the extent that the original creators cannot even remember why they made any of their creative decisions (check the director’s commentary track on the DVD). Reading the comic over seeing the anime will get you a better story, but it won’t necessarily get you MD Geist.

Otakon 2010: I Don’t Believe It. That’s Unbelievable.

Posted on by

At this point, having gone to Otakon for the past four years, I feel it safe to call myself an Otakon veteran to some degree. In terms of what to expect, this year didn’t feel that different from all the previous times I went, but a lot of things have happened to me over the past year or so, makes me think I’ll reflect back on Otakon 2010 particularly fondly.

Ogiue Maniax’s Panelist Debut

Otakon 2010, from July 30th to August 1st, was the first time that I came to the convention as a panelist. And I had two to boot!  It may have been obvious from all the posts I made about panel preparations, but I really wanted to do a good job and I really wanted people to come to the panels, so up until I finished both of them, I had been very nervous.

The mahjong panel, titled “Riichi: Japanese Mahjong, Anime, and You” was a collaboration between me and Sub over at Subatomic Brainfreeze. With a 9:30am Friday timeslot when a good portion of the con hadn’t even been registered, and a fairly obscure topic like mahjong, we were both worried that our panel attendance would amount to our friends and acquaintances, and while we would have been glad to teach them about mahjong, our real goal was to reach those people who were only barely familiar with mahjong anime. Fortunately, the turnout was better than we had ever expected, and while I am to understand that our panel room was the smallest of the bunch, we still managed to pretty much fill the whole room, getting approximately 160 people to listen to us talk about an old Chinese tile game and the way it works in Japanese cartoons.

The Riichi panel itself also went far better than we expected. Knowing how much information there was to convey despite the fact that we had already decided to cut large amounts of information, we had practiced the panel on multiple occasions, barely finishing on time. But while our practice sessions felt kind of strange and awkward, the actual panel itself had an amazing energy to it. Both Sub and I were playing to our strengths, playing off of each other, and we managed to give all of the information we wanted to while also keeping the audience entertained. We even finished early and had a good amount of time for questions! From this experience, I have learned that Sub and I make a good paneling team and I look forward to the next opportunity we have to do a panel together.

By the way, for those of you who were at the mahjong panel but were unable to copy down the URL for the additional mahjong resources, here it is.

My second panel was also on Friday, but at the opposite end of the day at 11pm. Entitled “Portrait of a Fujoshi: The Psychology of Ogiue Chika,” this joint effort between myself and Viga the Otagal was in many ways a culmination of what I had been doing on this blog. Last year, Viga challenged me to do a panel all about Ogiue, and that’s how we ended up on stage.

I understoood well that even if a good portion of the convention was into yaoi and Hetalia and the like that they would not be interested in deep character analysis, so while the panel attendance wasn’t as high as it was for the mahjong panel, it was still quite impressive, and once again we managed to play off the energy of the audience and each other and give a good presentation, with me giving a more subdued approach. Also, once again, where practice netted us a panel that had about 10 minutes worth of Q&A, the actual thing gave us three times the amount. While I wish we had prepared more, I think we did a good job of expressing what makes Ogiue such a great character and why we connect so well to her (and why you should too!).

When I think about it, doing a panel on a single character is unusually rare at an anime con. You have panels about Evangelion, but never is it a panel specifically about Ayanami Rei. I hope we can start a trend at anime cons, as I think it’s a worthwhile way of running things.

I don’t know if any video recordings are available so I apologize for those of you who were unable to attend but wanted to see them. I also want to say thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart, to all of you who attended my panels. I hope you enjoyed them.

Now having panels at both extremes of the day has its drawbacks, but it also had the great benefit of avoiding conflict with the majority of events, thus freeing up the rest of the con for me. As is the case with every year, my primary mode of entertainment at Otakon is the panels, both industry and fan. Fortunately or unfortunately however, I found that there was still too many entertaining things crammed into a single weekend and I still had to sacrifice one panel for another.

Industry Panels

In terms of guests, I was not looking forward particularly to any of them this year, but I’m glad I attended the Q&A’s that I did as all of them provided incredible insight into the industry, with Mitsuya Yuji’s panel perhaps being the most informative of all. Attending his Friday panel, the voice acting veteran told us how voice acting became a “profession” rather than a side job for dramatic actors and how voice acting should come from the entire body and not just the voice. He also talked about how in the old days, if you flubbed a line, rewinding the film reel and readjusting everything was a huge pain, so mistakes were a big deal.

Throughout the panel, Mitsuya showed us what it was to truly be a voice actor, from passionate yells (he delivered a passionate “CHOUDENJI SPIIIIIIN” on more than one occasion) to voice changes to even the change in jobs given to you as you age and can no longer be the handsome male lead. Also, seeing as his debut voice acting role was as Hyouma, the main character of Combattler V, I asked him the question I had asked of Macross director Ishiguro and Gundam creator Tomino: What were your experiences with legendary anime director Nagahama Tadao?

Mitsuya gave us the impression that Nagahama was an incredibly passionate man. Gentle and understanding, he took his role as director very seriously and pushed Mitsuya to improve his performance. Mitsuya had originally tried out for both the lead Hyouma and the rival Garuda, and Nagahama made him redo his Garuda takes ten times. When asked if this was typical of a mere audition, everyone said that this was highly unusual. Mitsuya would later find out that all of this, from the audition to the strict voice sessions, were all signs of the fact that Nagahama had seen the amazing potential Mitsuya had and wished to nurture it into something greater.

Maruyama Masao was back again this year. The head producer over at Studio Madhouse, in my opinion the best anime studio there is, Maruyama is a staple of Otakon, but despite the fact that he comes pretty much every year, I look forward to it every time. This year we finally learned that Redline, the series he had been working on for six years which he also mentioned at numerous past Otakons, is finally getting a theatrical release in October, though its director also passed away before it could debut. Redline is  high-intensity anime, resembling the most elaborate portrayal of F-Zero ever, and Maruyama claims it will be the last truly hand-drawn anime ever.

Otakon was also the American debut of Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW, a feature-length film from the animation team which brought us Read or Die and Kamichu. As such, the creators were also there at Otakon, and managed to have an informative Q&A session. I gave a question targeting mainly Ishihama, the character designer, asking if he felt there is a trend in anime films to move towards simpler character designs which lend themselves towards looser and more whimsical animation. Ishihama responded that he believed there is indeed such a trend, but that there is also a counter-trend present, where more detailed, less fluid animations are also becoming popular.

As for Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW itself, the movie is quite fun but is too unfocused. The story of kids who travel into outer space in a way reminiscent of Galaxy Express 999, the film had opened up many good directions the story could have gone but ended not taking very many of them and losing a good deal of its potential. The film also dragged on after a while in a way where even the expertly animated sequences and wonderful set of aliens felt less exciting overall. At the Q&A session, we learned that this was the team’s first feature-length work, and in hindsight it really showed.

The only American industry panel I ended up attending was the Vertical Inc. panel with Ed Chavez and Peepo Choo author Felipe Smith. Ed, responsible for all of those Vertical Vednesdays I keep talking about on the blog, is about the most personable marketing guy in manga. While giving hints at interesting new titles coming in the future (including another Tezuka title), he also showed that he has some strong opinions on manga, stating that Vertical would not license Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou because “I don’t like it.”

Fan Panels

I had a lot of fun with the fan panels I attended, which mainly focused on exploring elements of anime and manga but I also attended some fun ones too. In the “elements” category there were three panels:  “You Don’t Like Moe and Here’s Why,” “The Changing Faces of Anime,” and “The Life and Times of Akiyuki Shinbo.” In the “fun” category, there was Anime World Order‘s “10 11 Anime You’ve Never Heard of But Must See,” the “Mecha Fan Panel,” and Megaman in Anime and Manga.”

The moe panel focused on the concept as a phenomenon and the meanings it gains as it has become a part of the industry itelf. It took a while to get off the ground but eventually found its footing, and the best advice I can give to the panelists is that more can be done to bridge the gap between what they are talking about and what the audience understands.

The Changing Faces of Anime panel, run by Evan Minto of Ani-Gamers, was a literal look at faces in anime, discussing changes in character designs over the years. It was a good panel which generated even better discussion, and it’s a difficult topic to tackle in only an hour.

The Shinbo panel, presented by wildarmsheero, showed that he had clearly done his research on the eccentric director and took a look at all the stylistic elements Shinbo loves to employ in his works. It ran a big long, forcing the Q&A session to be cut.

The “Must-See Anime” panel was very entertaining, though it was focused less on recommending good shows to anime fans and more about showing amazingly obscure anime that were difficult to obtain and had a lot of excitement value (but could still be good shows). I know that I’m going to track down Natsuki Crisis and other titles. Also, while obviously the clips themselves say a lot, it also doesn’t always convey some of the more overarching positives of a title, so more talking might be a good idea.

The Mecha Fan and Megaman panels meanwhile were fairly similar, giving the history of mecha and Megaman in Japanese graphic fiction. I won an old issue of Nintendo Power at the Megaman panel, and enjoyed the liveliness of the mecha panel, but I think that both could benefit greatly from delving even more into their topics. The Megaman panel also suffered from everyone reading from their scripts too much. It was very obvious that everyone at the panel was an expert in the field of Megamen, and I think removing the script would have made it more personable. On the other hand, it also showed the best Rockman.exe opening, so it’s all good.

Entertainment

While neither was truly the start or the end of the convention, I find that the opening ceremony and the Home Made Kazoku concert act as nice bookends to the con proper, mainly because of the positive impression Home Made Kazoku made on the audience at the former, which led to great anticipation about their performance for the latter. A hip hop-oriented Japanese group, their music and live performance was really infectious, and I think that music-wise it was a great success for Otakon this year, especially when I found out that the shamisen-playing Yoshida brothers managed to fill the concert area so tightly as to nearly be a fire hazard.

Speaking of fire hazards, the talk of the town was clearly the fire alarm Saturday Afternoon which forced all of the nearly 30,000 attendees to evacuate the Baltimore Convention Center. Given the general immaturity of the con crowd (including whoever actually pulled the fire alarm), I was pleasantly surprised to see people doing the right thing in the even of the fire: leave in a calm and orderly manner. Even the most rambunctious anime teen knows not to mess with this sort of thing, which brings a smile to my face.

Food and Friends

But going to a con isn’t just about the anime or the guests, it’s about meeting people and having a great time doing so. The con begins on Friday, but the con experience truly begins the Thursday before, from the point the bus arrives, and only really ends when we get back home. This year’s Otakon featured the return of glorious Brazilian Buffet, being amazed at the evergreen awfulness of G-Saviour while watching it in the hotel room, large gatherings with people relaxing and joking about, and amazingly deep discussions about everything anime and manga.

As I rode the bus home with my travel companions, we discussed for about four hours straight the very nature of enjoying anime and manga, as well as their qualities as creative forms of expression, and it made me realize just how much better conventions are when you add the human element to it.

I love it, and love makes Otakon better, I can guarantee you that.

The Soul of Doujinshi: Why I Like the Comic Party Anime

Posted on by

As more and more dating sims and visual novels have gotten adapted into anime, the question of what makes a good adaptation frequently comes up. When I’m asked this, the title I most often mention is Comic Party.

I’m going to get into specific story details to express the strengths of Comic Party, so I’m going to be spoiling a good deal. Also, I have never played the original game, so while I am aware that a number of differences between the source and the adaptation exist, I do not know to what extent, aside from the very fact that the main characters seem to have been de-aged from college to high school.

Based on the dating sim by To Heart creators Leaf/Aqua Plus, the first Comic Party anime is not that different from a number of similar titles. A single guy finds himself surrounded by a variety of girls, including one childhood friend, one bespectacled jokester, one quiet girl, and so on, only this time the guy is a fledgling doujin creator and the girls are fellow doujin artists, cosplayers, and otaku. But what sets apart Comic Party from other dating sim adaptations is its approach to that single guy, that protagonist around whom the story revolves.

Kazuki, amateur artist, is introduced to the world of doujinshi by his enthusiastic otaku friend, Taichi. Although a rocky start, Kazuki ends up being inspired by a number of other doujin artists and eventually creates his very first doujinshi. A square-jawed violent tale of gangs and guns called “Not Hundred,” Kazuki’s isn’t exactly a crowd pleaser, but still manages to sell a few.

The joy of having his own artistic work purchased and read by others gives Kazuki a new determination. For his second attempt, he would do some serious research, learning what people wanted in doujinshi and how he could best incorporate all of it into a single work. Full color, twice the size (and price) of his first doujinshi, and featuring a big-breasted giant robot pilot as its main character, Kazuki was confident that his follow-up would be a smash hit, but failed to realize that in his attempt to make a big seller, his work lost its soul in a way that was recognizable to anyone who picked it up.

Feeling dejected, Kazuki abandons the world of doujinshi. However, with the help of the friends he made along the way, Kazuki is able to regain inspiration and draw again. Though his third work is rougher than the last two, even being made by xeroxing copies at the local convenience store, it is clear that his enthusiasm and spirit are stronger than ever. Kazuki learns what it means to be an artist of doujinshi.

Kazuki’s character is remarkable, particularly when you compare him to other dating sim heroes, where most protagonists of these adaptations are primarily viewer surrogates who act as guardian angels of sorts to help solve the problems of the girls around them. While this exists to some extent in Kazuki, what’s more important is that Kazuki has a significant character arc. He finds a goal, grows, falters, and recovers, and comes out of it a better person. I know that dating sim anime are not exactly where people look for anything more than wish fulfillment, but I was glad to have gotten an actual story and a much more active main character. This is also exactly the reason why I dislike Comic Party Revolution, as the anime went from being a tale of artists to just a nudge and a wink to the existing fans and an excuse to see all of the characters together.

Comic Party was also the first anime which introduced me to the concept of doujinshi (incidentally, also the concept of moe). It told me that doujinshi were comics created by fans for fans to celebrate the joy and love that comes with being a creator who sees himself not above his readers but as a peer. It wasn’t about money, it was about loving anime. And while I know that there are many doujin artists out there who do manage to work for profit, that doesn’t tarnish the ideal Comic Party presents.