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.
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.
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.
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.
I watched Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance over the weekend and I have a whole smattering of thoughts to put down on the subject. It’ll be part-review, part-editorial, and it will contain a ton of spoilers, so watch out.
Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance is the second of four movies whose purpose is to retell the story of Studio Gainax’s Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of the most influential works ever in anime history. Fueled by hindsight and merchandise profits, Rebuild brings it all back while taking into account changes that have occurred in the world and in anime since the original series ended back in the 90s.
The basic premise of Evangelion is that a cataclysm in the early 21st century has left most of the world unpopulated. Ikari Shinji, a quiet, passive teenager, is tasked with defeating otherworldly monsters known as “Angels” through the use of unusually organic-looking robots called “Evangelions.” However, his nature and personality make him perhaps the least qualified person in the world to be engaging in battle, let alone defending the Earth. He is supported by the organization NERV, which houses the Evangelions as well as his fellow pilots, the mysterious, stoic Ayanami Rei and the aggressive and competitive Sohryu Asuka Langley.
The idea seems fairly simple, but Evangelion would eventually become a whirling dervish of emotional trauma and introspection that sucks you into the characters’ thoughts and fears, and that characteristic of the series is by far its main strength, and according to some, also its main weakness.
Shinji especially is a pile of neuroses and doubts, which can make him an aggravating main character but also establishes him as quite a bit of an “anti-protagonist.” In watching the first Rebuild of Evangelion movie I found myself unable to engage Shinji, as they tried to build him up to have just an ounce more confidence and determination, but failed to spend enough time on his inner thoughts. His change of heart at the end of the movie comes so suddenly that it rings false to some extent as a result. Luckily, You Can (Not) Advance solves this problem with grace and artistry, which is to say, I liked this second movie. Now on to why.
While the movie opens with a fight between brand new character Makinami Mari Illustrious and an equally brand new Angel, I feel like the movie truly “begins” with the scene immediately after. Here, Shinji and his father Gendou, who is also the head of NERV, are at the grave of Shinji’s mother. Prior to the first movie, father and son had not seen each other in years, and so their relationship is justifiably awkward. Walls have been erected towards each other. However, here at the grave of Ikari Yui, both show that the walls are not absolute, that they are willing to express their feelings towards each other, if only briefly.
While Evangelion has always been about humans relating to one another, this idea of taking just that one tiny step towards trying to connect with others is what really sets apart the Rebuild of Evangelion from the original TV series. The characters aren’t significantly different from who they were in previous incarnations, but by attempting to reach out to others they encourage others to do the same as well, which keeps everyone from retreating into the comforting shell of personal insecurity. Ayanami Rei is seemingly without personality in the first film, and could have very well remained that way, but Shinji is able to reach out to her. In turn, in this film when Asuka (now sporting the surname “Shikinami”) confronts Rei and accuses her of being a “doll,” Rei is able to reply that she is not, but more importantly tries to help Asuka, who she sees as being much more human than herself and thus able to foster relationships outside of their “work.”
I really became aware of this element when Rei invites Shinji and Gendou to dinner to try and have them grow closer (or perhaps less distant). Amidst all of the talk of Angels and Human Instrumentality, I began to care a little more about this dinner, as I felt it skirted closer to the heart of the movie than anything else. The film follows a minor variation of the motto for success from another Gainax work, Gurren-Lagann, “Believe in me who believes in you.” Everyone is portrayed as a thinking and feeling being, even the Angels, who are not one-trick ponies but instead contain backup plans which are augmented by contingencies, hinting at the idea that they have brains underneath those monstrous facades.
The dinner ends up being canceled, as a disaster leads to Asuka and her new experimental Evangelion being possessed by an Angel. Shinji is sent out to fight the compromised EVA, but cannot act out of fear of hurting Asuka. Despite Shinji’s protests however, Gendou is able to override his controls, causing Shinji’s unit to go on auto-pilot and crush the Angel, with Asuka still inside. Shinji is justifiably upset at the whole ordeal, but what he curses most is that he ended up doing nothing. When Shinji is faced with a similar situation again, this time with Rei being the one at risk, Shinji is determined to not repeat the same mistake. Even if something terrible happens as a result, it’s better than having stayed on the sidelines.
The final scene of the movie mirrors one of the most famous scenes in Evangelion, that of Shinji falling unconscious and the EVA rampaging out of control, ultimately leading to it consuming the Angel in an orgy of violence and “evolving.” In this instance however, Shinji does not fall by the wayside and instead is fully in control. His desire to do something and make a difference where he once could not causes the EVA to transcend into a god-like state, visually captured by the movement and posture of the EVA. Neither hunched like normal, nor craven like when berserk, this divine manifestation stands with shoulders apart and head raised, as if to say that it has transcended into another level of existence. Its movements are steady and deliberate, with a clearly conscious mind behind them. In the end, Shinji is able to succeed because he has grown as a person with the help of those around them, who were themselves made better by knowing Shinji.
Whether or not I like this more than the original TV series is still up in the air, but seeing as there is so much to this film, so much to discuss and address, I am quite surprised that so much of the discussion going on about You Can (Not) Advance tends to be rather lacking. Instead of exploring the characters in-depth or talking about themes and story, the conversation revolves around talking about whether or not Asuka is tsundere, the levels of fanservice in the film, and how much merchandise the whole thing generates, as if to say that the movies do not contain any merit beyond being cash grabs. Why is that? I understand that Evangelion, being the classic it is, has been discussed to high heaven by anime fans the world over, but I don’t think any of us are too cool for school that we cannot bring about that fervor again.
Actually, a better way to put it would be to say that people seemingly do not allow the discussion to move beyond the idea that Rebuild of Evangelion is tapping into that pool of devoted fans. It is doing that of course, but no one ever said that they cannot still put heart and effort into the whole project.
So let’s talk!
(And if you’ve talked already, kudos to you.)
Felipe Smith is an American artist who found his way to Japan and became serialized in an actual manga magazine. His resulting comic, Peepo Choo, is a fusion of the two cultures, feeling like both and neither at the same time, but unlike many others actually manages to succeed in creating something unique.
Peepo Choo follows a young otaku, Milton, living in the south side of Chicago. Forced to hide his anime fandom to survive the harsh urban environment, Milton finds reprieve in anime, particularly his favorite title, Peepo Choo and sees Japan as an ideal paradise from which he can escape his life in Chicago. When he wins a ticket to Japan, he sees it as an opportunity to really be himself, but learns that his dreams and reality don’t quite line up.
The first volume of Peepo Choo can create an odd initial impression. The art is very in-your-face. The heavy amount of sexual content and violence can seem out of place even knowing that there are plenty of sexual and violent manga out there, and the way in which it makes fun of geeks can be a turn-off for the geeks reading it. However, there are reasons for all of this, and it’s not simply to offend everyone.
Peepo Choo appears to glamorize sex and violence, but does so in a way that also simultaneously removes much of the fetishism in both. The “Peepo Choo” meta-series itself that Milton so adores resembles superflat artwork crossbred with Pokemon, looking not like anime so much as the impression someone completely unfamiliar with it might get from watching an episode. And while Milton comes across as pathetic, he’s also a very good and righteous person in his own way.
Most, if not all of the characters in Peepo Choo are horribly flawed in different ways. Paralleling Milton is a yakuza member who has so fallen in love with the “American gangsta” aesthetic that he has adopted a wardrobe (cowboy hat included), attitude, and name (“Morimoto Rockstar”) that is a garish parody of the lifestyle, essentially trying to obtain the life that Milton is trying to escape. Supermodel Reiko has an as-of-yet unexplained violent streak to her. Comic book store owner Jody lords it over his customers by telling them how pathetic they are, but is only covering up his own insecurities. Everyone wants to be more than they are, or at the very least feel like there are two conflicting sides to them.
Yet, despite all of these human faults, all of the characters show some degree of goodness and altruism through their otherwise broken personalities. And so while the message one might initially take from Peepo Choo is “hopelessness,” there is also a glimmer of progress and growth in all of them, or at least the potential for such. In a way, it reminds me of Ressentiment, which also has a similar theme of the beauty in ugliness.
Is Peepo Choo going to be uplifting, or is it going to be a heel to the face of fans? Honestly, as of Volume 1 I cannot tell. The story can easily go in either direction, and while I hope for the former I can’t make any guarantees.
Pick up Peepo Choo Volume 1 if you feel like something different. It’s not like any manga you’ve ever seen, and it also goes to show that perhaps the way to achieving that manga dream is to do something unique.
Thanks to Vertical Inc.’s Ed Chavez for providing this copy.
Back when I was buying issues of Monthly Afternoon to get my Genshiken fix, the magazines would occasionally come with packaged mini-manga. Each small book has one or two self-contained stories and it seemed like a pretty good extra. It wasn’t until kransom’s post about the Afternoon Four Seasons Award that I realized that these manga were exactly that: winning entries from the competitions.
Though anyone is allowed to enter, amateurs can still manage to win, as was the case with Winter 2005 when then-rookie manga artist Imai Tetsuya won the Winter 2005 Grand Prize for his entry, entitled Traveler.
Portable Four Seasons Winter 2005. Traveler is the one on top.
Looking at Traveler, it most definitely deserved to win. The basic premise is that a boy wakes up one day to find that he’s four months in the future and that apparently in those four months he’s turned into a complete jerk who left his band and broke up with his girlfriend. The story is less about returning back to the proper time and more about dealing with responsibility even when it shouldn’t have anything to do with you. It’s pretty intriguing, and everyone loves to say, “Fuzakenna!”
Imai makes mistakes. Some of the characters and plot development seemed tacked on and unnecessary. But what I find really interesting about this is that the faults of Traveler feel different from the mistakes that tend to happen in OEL manga.
When we look at criticism of OEL manga and the whole movement behind it, one of the factors is how much it just doesn’t “look” like manga. Artists try their best to live up to the series they love, but something typically feels off. In the past I’ve talked about some of the reasons why I think this happens, and Narutaki over at the Reverse Thieves pointed out the abuse of screentone in a lot of OEL titles. But I think there’s a more inherent cultural difference, one that’s not really a matter of talent or experience.
The art in Traveler hits bouts of inconsistency, particularly with the characters, as they sometimes suddenly look like they have no bones underneath their skin and muscles. I think you can see this in the image from earlier. Faces go out of proportion, too. A lot of western artists probably even have a better grasp of anatomy and motion than Imai, but the way in which the artwork turns out inconsistent is different from the way it happens in most OEL titles.
The story’s faults are also different from the issues that occur in OEL manga. In Traveler, some characters and plot threads sometimes seem unnecessary or perhaps given too much time, a problem when it’s just a 32-page one-shot, which are problems which occur in OEL titles too, but the plot issues with Traveler seem very much like the kind of mistakes that would happen in manga. There’s a sense that Imai and other manga-aspiring artists in Japan, when compared to their counterparts across the ocean, are simply aiming for separate goals; whether they reach them or not is another matter entirely.
I think the lesson here might be that when you judge two things, comparing the very best of one to the very worst of another doesn’t really get you anywhere. It’s far more interesting and fruitful to look at the middle ground; avoid the absolute greats for a little bit so you can see what most people are doing. There, you’ll find a good snapshot of the state of manga, or whatever it is you’re looking at.
I also know that “across the ocean” leaves out countries and products like Korean manhwa. I’ll leave that for another day though.
As of late, it seems like podcast after podcast is discussing Summer Wars. Speakeasy podcasters Hisui and Narutaki use the movie as an impetus to talk about how getting taken out of a movie causes you to more readily notice its faults. Andrew on the Veef Show talks about how the hype for Summer Wars is met by backlash, while also stating that he finds the movie to be good but not great. Anime World Order’s Daryl and Gerald also disagree on the merits of the movie. Overall, the two big questions seem to be 1) Why do the people who love Summer Wars love it and 2) Why do the people who hate it do so?
Now I am on the side of thinking the movie was fantastic, so the best I can tell you about why critics deride it is hearsay and conjecture, but I can tell you about why I think Summer Wars is a very strong movie on par with Hosoda’s previous work, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Summer Wars‘ greatest strength comes from its overarching theme, centering around the idea of closing gaps, be they generational, technological, or even familial. A super advanced online world is contrasted with old-fashioned ways, the celebration of family is contrasted with the desire to move beyond the home, and young is contrasted with old. But in every case, Summer Wars doesn’t say that one is better than the other, instead giving a message that each is equally useful and that everyone can work together for the common good. It’s a very optimistic view of where we’re going as a society and as a planet, and I think that optimism is what keeps people cheering and praising the movie.
A lot of reviewers seem to neglect mentioning these themes, and I find that to be quite odd. It’s pretty much the heart of Summer Wars and for all of the praise and the criticism, how is it not mentioned more often? And it’s not like the themes are particularly subtle to the point of invisibility either. When I went to the New York Children’s International Film Festival showing of Summer Wars, there was a Q&A session with director Hosoda. In every case, it was the kids who nailed the most important theme of the movie, as well as a lot of the lesser themes. Now, these kids had to be fairly smart, being able to keep up with the subtitles on-screen, but they were still about eight years old on average. Surely the great minds of the anime internet can’t be outdone by a bunch of elementary school kids, right?
Re-reading my glowing review of the film, I am forced to realize that I too forgot to mention the overarching theme of Summer Wars and so am just as guilty of obfuscating the discussion as anyone else. Looking at my own words, I get the feeling that I was so caught up in trying to describe the enormous amounts of effort clearly put into the film and its potential for wide appeal through juggling many different elements that I simply forgot to actually say why I think the film is great. Perhaps everyone else experienced the same problem, like a collective mind fart from thinking too much about anime without actually thinking about it.
Introduction
This look at Takemiya Keiko’s 1970s shounen manga To Terra… is inspired by the “Manga Moveable Feast,” an ongoing project dedicated to having a variety of manga-passionate minds discuss a specific title. I owe a lot to To Terra…, and have been wanting to talk about it for a long time, and I believe that this is my best opportunity. I’ve included a synopsis of the story to make for easy reading, but this month’s MMF host, Kate Dacey, has written an incredibly informative introduction to To Terra…, and I really do recommend that you read it, whether it’s before, after, or even during my post.
Personal History
My very first experience with Takemiya Keiko’s To Terra… came in the form of Frederik Schodt’s book, Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Animation. Displaying a single page on the margins of that book as an example of science fiction manga, the image of a young boy moving through what appeared to be a futuristic network of clear tunnels was like a visual shock, telling me that there was more to the anime and manga that I loved than the few shows I had seen. “Toward the Terra,” as its title was originally translated, had me not only wishing to someday see this series but also to look more closely at anime and manga as a whole. and it all came from an image.
That was in 2000, and it wasn’t until 2007 that I finally got to see for myself what To Terra… was all about. After the initial shock of actually seeing To Terra… in the bookstore, I picked up the first volume, consumed it, and finished the saga as the rest of the series came out. As I look at the series again, however, I become more and more aware of its influence on future manga artists, and though I cannot trace the exact path from Takemiya to the creators of today, I want to talk about the connecting threads that are visible to me.
Synopsis
To Terra… takes place in a time when man has polluted the Earth (Terra) almost beyond habitability and has moved into space. Their goal is to slowly re-cultivate the planet over many generations, but in order to ensure that humans do not repeat their past mistakes and let their greed and unchecked emotions overwhelm their need to save Earth, humans have turned to computers to regulate their lives. One tragedy that comes from this “Superior Domination” or “S.D. Era” is the fact that the “Mu,” children with ESP who are able to resist some of the programming that all “normal” humans receive, are perceived as a threat and thus eliminated in order to preserve the integrity of the new society. Through all of this, a 14 year old boy named Jomy Marcus Shin becomes the bridge between the humans and the Mu and eventually a revolutionary, discovering the truths and lies behind Superior Domination and Terra itself.
Thoughts
One of the first aspects of To Terra… that throws people off is the fact that To Terra… is indeed a shounen title, even if Takemiya is more well-known for her work in shoujo. To Terra… was written for boys, and it shows in many ways. It is a science fiction epic full of action and intrigue, spanning a long period of time, skipping years between parts. Jomy himself is portrayed as having a lot of power and potential but also as extremely unrefined in those respects, qualities you see even in today’s shounen protagonists such as Uzumaki Naruto and Sumimura Yoshimori (Kekkaishi). But the shoujo influence is still there, and though I cannot say this with 100% accuracy, I truly do feel that Takemiya’s shoujo experience manifests itself in To Terra… in a way which paves the road for many of the shounen titles which have followed it.
While the most obvious sign of Takemiya’s experience in the genre of “girls comics” may be the expressive art style so indicative of 70s manga for girls, the shoujo influence can be felt much more profoundly in the way that To Terra… makes you very aware of the relationships between characters. This is not meant in the romantic sense, though some of the closeness between the mostly male cast could be interpreted as such, but in the way the characters are portrayed relative to each other. As you read To Terra…, you are constantly aware of the differences in philosophy and overall outlook on life that characters possess, the parallels that exist between them in terms of history and personality, and anything that really makes you notice that To Terra… is a personal story about people existing alongside other people, even if it is steeped in a grand narrative.
The heavy emphasis on relationships was rare then for shounen manga, and it is still somewhat rare today, but you can see great number of titles that, even for the briefest of moments, take a play from the book of To Terra… and have you thinking less about battle and competition and more about the interplay between two individuals, from the early banter between Ichigo and Rukia in Bleach, to the works of authors such as Adachi Mitsuru (Touch!, Cross Game) and Takahashi Rumiko (Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha).
Again, I cannot tell you if any of these creators actually looked directly to Takemiya Keiko for inspiration, but I do believe that the example she set in To Terra… nudged shounen manga along the path that would unite it with many of the facets of shoujo manga and vice versa. Though we think of the fusion of genres in manga as being a relatively recent thing, To Terra… shows that it has been a long process, and personally speaking I believe we are the better for it.
I watched Iron Man 2, and just to put down a quick review, it was very entertaining and a worthy sequel, though not as good as the first and the action scenes tended towards the disorienting. What I really want to talk about though is the film’s villain , Ivan Vanko.
Iron Man suffers somewhat from a lack of really memorable supervillains, with few outside of the fanbase even knowing who the Mandarin is, let alone someone like the “Iron Monger” or “Whiplash,” the official name for Ivan (though it’s never mentioned in the film). Strictly speaking, there is no “Ivan Vanko” in the original comics, and is instead an amalgam of two existing Iron Man supervillains, Whiplash and the Soviet-themed Crimson Dynamo.
What an intriguing idea! If your villains aren’t that interesting, try to take elements from at least two, and try to create a more developed character out of it. I feel like it could go a long way.
So then I think, what if we applied this to film adaptations of anime? Let’s just say, HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING, that there was some kind of Dragon Ball “film,” if you will. While there are plenty of strong, iconic adversaries Goku and friends have had to face over the course of their tale, I just have to wonder about the possibilities of “Whiplashing” it.
Merge the Saibamen with the Little Cells to have an ultimate team of deadly jobbers.
Incorporate elements of Android No.19 into Tullece and have a guy who looks like Goku because he is a robot.
Better yet, mix Zarbon and Bacterion into a handsome, self-centered alien whose true form is ugly and also smells.
The possibilities are endless
OGIUE MANIAX 