Category Archives: thought exercise

Return to Genshiken: Volume 6 – Eyes as Black as the Abyss

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Volume 6 of Genshiken is probably my favorite volume of manga ever. I think I’ve re-read it more than any other, so coming back to it for “Return to Genshiken” is almost like visiting an old friend.

At this point, it feels almost unnecessary to call it a transitional volume because it feels like every volume brings a major shift or two. This time, I’d say there are two especially significant events: the graduation of the old guard, and the first full dive into Ogiue’s head.

What is Return to Genshiken?

Genshiken is an influential manga about otaku, as well as my favorite manga ever and the inspiration for this blog, but it’s been many years since I’ve read the series. I intend to re-read Genshiken with the benefit of hindsight and see how much, if at all, my thoughts on the manga have changed.

Note that, unlike my chapter reviews for the second series, Genshiken Nidaime, I’m going to be looking at this volume by volume, using both English and Japanese versions of Genshiken! I’ll also be spoiling the entirety of Genshiken, both the first series and the sequel, so be warned.

Volume 6 Summary

Ogiue decides to try her hand at drawing a doujinshi for Comic Festival, but only after a series of wacky/traumatic mishaps. From cosplay to drawings of Sasahara and Madarame to getting caught red-handed with a bag full of doujinshi at ComiFes itself, Ogiue’s grudging acknowledgement of her fujoshi side is the very definition of reluctant. What’s more, Kasukabe thinks Ogiue has a twinkle in her eye for Sasahara, and refuses to believe otherwise.

Meanwhile, Keiko tries to get into Shiiou University despite years of neglecting her own education, Madarame has a nervous non-date with Kasukabe, and the classic trio of dudes finally graduate from college. Ohno feels a twinge of sorrow, but that’s eventually wiped away when she becomes the new president of Genshiken, with the hope of bringing about a true Society for the Study of Cosplay.

End of an Era, Dawn of a New Age

Madarame, Tanaka, and Kugayama are all classic images of otaku. Out-of-shape, awkward, and filled with trivia, they’re firmly in the camp of nerds who can never pass as “cool.” All three stick around to varying degrees for the rest of the first series and even in the sequel, but the fact that these “big children” are entering into the adult world is important for the tone of Genshiken. While all have made strides in previous volumes in different areas—girls, artistic progress, life in general—their graduation in hindsight feels like the moment when “more” might just be possible. They, and especially the younger members, are poised to break through the boundaries of the otaku identity, if only a little.

The buildup to graduation is filled with emotion. For example, when Madarame runs into Kasukabe chatting with friends on campus, a combination of his powerful crush on her and his general social awkwardness causes him to snub her. It’s such a painfully relatable scene, especially with how Kasukabe’s friendly “hello” gesture throws Madarame completely off guard. How could Kasukabe actually be that friendly? When did she even get that way? While re-reading Genshiken has helped me to see this change more readily, I recall it feeling almost out-of-nowhere the first time around.

Another moment comes from Ohno, who has a cloud of melancholy hanging overhead prior to the guys’ graduation. The reason is that, because she came back from abroad, she has to do an extra year at the university, and thus will graduate a year after Sasahara, Kasukabe, and Kohsaka. It’s a heartfelt moment where Ohno and Kasukabe grow even closer, albeit with Kasukabe promising to fulfill a cosplay request that she’ll eventually regret. What makes this moment hilarious in hindsight is that, as saddened as Ohno is here, she ends up delaying her graduation multiple times throughout Nidaime because she just doesn’t want to face adult society. Like Kasukabe, Ohno changes quite a bit over the course of Genshiken, sometimes so gradually that it’s notice. That doesn’t apply here, though, as Volume 6 is also when Ohno agrees to become the new Genshiken president so that she can shape it in her own cosplay-loving image. Later in Volume 9, Ohno even makes a comment that her character appears to have changed at some point, referencing her transformation from meek token girl otaku to confident motherly type.

Ogius Maximus

This volume is chock full of premium Ogiue content. It’s a constant barrage of scowls, dreams created and destroyed, misunderstandings, and burgeoning romance. What’s especially telling about Ogiue’s prominence is that we’re privy to her inner thoughts to a degree only a few other prominent characters share, such as Sasahara and Madarame. She has a brief moment in Volume 5, but this time it’s entire extended internal monologues that lay bare the true Ogiue lurking within.

  We have Ogiue going to Comic Festival incognito, i.e. half a chapter devoted to showcasing Ogiue’s mix of anger towards others, anger at herself, and the sense that she just really want friends but is her own worst enemy. As she stomps through Tokyo Big Sight in her winter coat and high school-era glasses, a snarly pout adorning her face, you can see her giving into her basest desires, mirroring Sasahara’s first voyage to ComiFes (though this is certainly not Ogiue’s first rodeo). When Ogiue’s hovering around the rest of the club, the lonely look she gives as they laugh over in the distance is almost heartbreaking. The subsequent silliness of her bumping into Ohno and having her doujinshi spill out of her bag for all the world to see is dramady at its finest. In other words, Genshiken.

The breakdown of Ogiue’s defenses is a recurring theme in this volume, seen not only in her ComiFes disaster but also in her very first cosplay. Kasukabe, having noticed that Ogiue’s a little weak to pressure, uses this opportunity to try and get Ogiue to open up. Ogiue dressed as Renko from Kujibiki Unbalance is probably her most iconic moment. Not only has it been replicated on multiple occasions across various anime adaptations and decorative covers, but it’s the subject of Ogiue’s only full PVC figure (which I own, yes).

Manga
Alter Figure
OVA
OVA Box Art
OVA Box Art 2
Genshiken 2
Genshiken 2 OP
Nidaime

Sasa x Ogi Continues

In Volume 5, there’s a moment that I believe is the subtle beginning of Ogiue’s obsession with Sasahara x Madarame, and by extension the catalyst for her eventually falling for Sasahara. In Volume 6, Kasukabe’s actions nudge it towards greater prominence.

In one of the doujinshi planning scenes, Haraguchi reveals that he’s already made plans for Genshiken’s book (he wants to turn it into a big seller by bringing on a ton of high-profile guest artists). Sasahara keeps trying to politely refuse Haraguchi’s “kindness,” as his tendency as a non-confrontational person. However, as Haraguchi keeps pushing and pushing, eventually Sasahara’s expression grows stern (similar to how he reacts to his own sister). He puts his proverbial foot down, saying, “I will personally call all the guest artists you brought on board (without my consent) and turn them down.”

It’s potentially easy to miss, but immediately afterwards there’s a small panel with an Ogiue closeup, and she has the ever-so-slightest blush on her face. Without later context, it can just seem like she’s surprised or shocked at Sasahara’s change of behavior, but now it’s clear to me that this was the catalyst for her perception of Sasahara as a a “seme” character, and also her eventual attraction to him.

Back when I first read Genshiken, I was actually mildly skeptical towards the idea that Ogiue was interested in Sasahara just because Kasukabe said so. Both on a personal level and as a consumer of fiction, I’d groan at these situations. Just because someone looks at someone else once or twice didn’t mean romance is in the air!

Those situations still get overblown in my opinion, but as I’ve re-read Genshiken, it’s clear to me that the hints were there. It’s not that Ogiue is madly in love with Sasahara from the start, but that she begins to notice his finer qualities, and this grows into something more. This, I believe, is what Kasukabe truly notices, even if she misinterprets Ogiue’s drawing of Sasahara as aggressive top as a more typical from of affection.

Kasukabe really is the “matchmaker” of Genshiken, or maybe she just loves goading potential/existing couples. Whether it’s grilling Tanaka and Ohno, or it’s getting Madarame to quit waffling and pick a girl, her thrill at seeing her nerd friends get somewhere is actually one of Kasukabe’s most charming qualities.

The Ogiue Maniax Moment

The top image in this post is probably favorite Ogiue scene ever. It’s where my original banner came from, and I’ve used it in posts such as “Explaining Decompression in Comics.” As Ogiue thinks about the logistics of a Sasahara x Madarame relationship, her mind wanders down deeper and darker rabbit holes. She tries to pull herself away, but she can’t. In an entire volume where page after page of Ogiue’s piercing eyes is like manna from heaven, this is like the main course.

Keiko Shows Substance

Ogiue and Keiko meet for the first time in this volume, and it’s hilarious to see how antagonistic they were at the time. Keiko softens up to everyone over time, even her older brother, but there’s just a certain pleasure I derive from seeing Keiko eventually call Ogiue “onee-chan.” She’s marrying her brother and Ogiue in her head before everyone else. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Volume 6 is probably almost as big a deal for Keiko fans as it is for Ogiue fans; it’s when Keiko really begins to turn a new leaf. Even if we learn in the next volume that her attempts to get into Shiiou University are fruitless, and that she quits college entirely by Nidaime, she’s genuinely trying to be more than just a dumb, shallow girl. I get the feeling a lot of Keiko lovers wouldn’t be so keen on her if she had never changed, but that’s the magic of Genshiken.

Mebaetame Amateur Figure Hour

Starting this volume of Genshiken, the between-chapters extras get creative. This time around, it’s Tanaka’s blog where he shows off his design and construction of a figure from Kujibiki Unbalance. The most amazing thing about this is that it’s made using real photographs of an actual constructed figure. This then later factors into the end-of-volume special, when Tanaka accidentally drops the figure and breaks it. Someone actually built it for real, and I don’t think we’ll ever know if it was Kio himself, an assistant, or an acquaintance. Did he actually break his own constructed figure for the sake of a gag, or was there a stunt double?

Final Random Thoughts

This is the last we see of Kitagawa, the Club Council vice president. She ends up marrying her senpai. I kind of wish we saw where she was in Nidaime, but she was always a pretty minor character. On a personal note, I knew a guy who really liked Kitagawa, but he passed away a few years ago. Rest in Peace, Cortana.

At graduation, someone is reading the end of Part 1 of the Kujibiki Unbalance manga. The pages shown are meant to be an indication of how far the story has gone, as characters portrayed as enemies earlier in the series are now getting married.

Kujibiki Unbalance in Volume 3

Kujibiki Unbalance in Volume 6

The end-of-volume special also features the crew hanging out post-graduation, and in one instance Sasahara and Madarame are checking the girls out. I like that there’s pretending that they don’t notice how attractive their clubmates are, though obviously they don’t say anything out loud. What sticks out to me here is Sasahara getting a little hot and bothered by Ogiue in a skirt. With Kasukabe, who’s dressed to kill in a short skirt and pantyhose, it feels like he’s seeing her as just “an attractive lady.” But with Ogiue, she’s wearing a pretty subdued outfit and a pretty long skirt. I’d like to think it’s that spice of beginning to actually have feelings for another, which turns even plain clothes into thrilling adventures in fantasy. In Volume 7, Sasahara really lets his imagination run wild, but that’s for next time.

Aikatsu Stars! and Nikaido Yuzu, the Ultimate Kouhai/Senpai

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At first glance, Nikaido Yuzu in Aikatsu Stars! is not an especially unique character. She’s an energetic, bubbly character in a show filled with energetic and bubbly characters, in a genre (idol anime) conducive to energetic and bubbly characters. One or way or another, however, she comes to stand out over time, especially with the slight shift in her role between seasons from kouhai to senpai.

I previously wrote a little about how the heroine of Aikatsu Stars!, Nijino Yume, undergoes a similar transition. At the start of the series, Yume’s the new girl aiming for the top. By the time Season 2 rolls around, Yume’s at the apex as a member of the elite idol group S4. In contrast, Yuzu starts off already a part of S4, going from the youngest member to the oldest between seasons. But unlike Yume, who has to get used to being looked up to, Yuzu’s personality and approach to life transitions almost seamlessly.

To the former members of S4 who graduate, Yuzu is a bundle of youthful enthusiasm. But to the younger members of S4 who come in after her, Yuzu is an eccentric wise man of sorts, her decisions seemingly bizarre but ultimately with some underlying purpose or reasoning—even if Yuzu herself doesn’t quite know what that is herself. This balance is on display in episode 67 of Aikatsu Stars!, when Yuzu sets up an elaborate treasure hunt on Aikatsu Island.

Yuzu tells the participants, many of whom are her underclassmen, to find a treasure that’s so well hidden that even she can’t remember its true location. As one hint after another comes up to help the hunters along, there’s a certain sense that they’re not just clues, but philosophical ideas about what it means to live. In a twist straight out of “The Purloined Letter,” the actual treasure is revealed to have been disguised as an overly obvious giant treasure box-shaped prop at the very beginning, and the treasure within is…friends. Literally. Out of the enormous box comes the three former members of S4. In that moment, between S4 girls new and old, Yuzu is simultaneously the wide-eyed “kid” and the experienced “adult,” so to speak.

Compare this to Yazawa Nico from Love Live!, a character known for being older but acting younger. Nico’s cutesy behavior is meant to contradict the fact that she’s a third-year in high school, and lets her act as a foil to the young-but-mature Nishikino Maki. Yuzu, on the other hand, isn’t really a “contradiction”; she just “is.” Her actions and behavior fit, whether she’s dispensing advice or giving it, because they reflect a generally positive approach to life that’s all about excitement without being beholden to “newness.”

Aikatsu Stars! is generally a fairly lighthearted show bordering on the wacky, and Yuzu fits well within that universe. Energetic and bubbly she may be, but those are surface qualities that open up to a sense of loyalty and adventure, rendering her a unique figure. She’s the kind of character who could thrive in any degree of prominence, whether main, side, or even background figure.

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This post was sponsored by Johnny Trovato. If you’re interested in submitting topics for the blog, or just like my writing and want to support Ogiue Maniax, check out my Patreon.

Ukiyo-e and the Concept of Anime Sameface

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One of the common criticisms of character designs in anime and manga is that characters often have the same face with variations in hair, clothing, and accessories to set them apart. This is viewed sometimes as lazy, or a sign of a lack of skill or talent, in other words a crutch in lieu of true character proficiency. However, in a number of instances it can be argued that “samefaces” aren’t the same at all, that subtle variations such as the angle of the eyes can suggest enormous differences between two characters.

While sameface certainly isn’t absent outside of Japanese pop culture, I’ve begun to wonder if Japan’s own art history has contributed to not only its presence but also its acceptance. I’ve taken a cursory look at ukiyo-e recently, and one thing that strikes me is that portrayals of both men and women, especially attractive individuals, tend to use very similar kinds of faces, with greater attention paid to—you guessed it—hair, clothing, and accessories.

I’m well aware that there’s a tendency to try and force a connection between ukiyo-e and manga, and I don’t intend to go that route. Stylistically, the two are very different, even if ukiyo-e is a kind of predecessor in terms of being a popular, mass-produced art that emphasized reveling in momentary pleasures. Hokusai manga doesn’t really have anything to do with manga, and the panel progression of manga isn’t really present in ukiyo-e. Also, there is actually quite enormous variation in the depictions of people in both ukiyo-e and manga when you look at the broader picture. That being said, in terms of character design and the priorities present in ukiyo-e I suspect that there’s some lineage at work that seeps into manga on some level.

Utamaro_(1793)_Three_Beauties_of_the_Present_Time.jpegUtamaro (1793): Three Beauties of the Present Time

What stands out to me about portrayals of women in ukiyo-e is the amount of attention paid to the hair. While the faces remain absolutely unrealistic (much like manga and anime but in the opposite direction in terms of proportions and what is aesthetically appealing), women’s hair in ukiyo-e prints are frequently rendered with such loving detail to the point of being in some ways hyper-realistic. Similarly, kimono are given bold colors and patterns, and so at first glance what distinguishes two women is everything but their faces.

There are a couple of other things that crop up when reading about ukiyo-e that wouldn’t sound out of place if the discussion were anime or manga. First, while many women in ukiyo-e were portrayed similarly, what was considered the image of the “ideal woman” changed as the years passed by. Second, small variations in facial features and expressions could mean all the difference between a “stereotypical” design and a “realistic” one.

How does this relate to an idea such as kyara moe, where characters’ stories are told almost entirely in how they look and through collectively accepted meanings behind visual elements? When looking at a series like Love Live!, it can seem to an outsider like the girls are just the same template, but those unique features relative to each other make a world of difference.

Of course, all of this is a very preliminary impression. Feel free to prove me ignorant in the comments!

 

 

The Dilemma of Casting an Esports Grand Finals

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No matter the game, whenever an esports grand finals rolls around, there’s contention as to the best approach for commentary. What is the best style of casting for the later stages of a tournament, when the audience tends to be the largest and the matches themselves tend to be the most high-level?

I don’t think there’s one true answer, because it really depends on the objective of a given tournament. Rather, I want to highlight to the esports-viewing audience what makes this such a difficult balancing act, and why commentary that does not cater to their own tastes is not necessarily bad or inferior.

The Top 8 and above matches of tournaments tend to get the highest amount of viewers. This means there are more non-experts watching. They might still be fans, but there’s a good chance that they’re not going to know the nitty gritty of the game. Things that a more experienced player and ardent viewer might recognize with little effort might fly completely over their heads. In this case, one sensible solution would be to cater to a relatively more casual audience. You might have to explain some of the more complex aspects of the game, or perhaps ignore or simplify them so that these viewers aren’t overwhelmed with information they can’t understand.

However, those final matches are also typically where the highest amount of skill is displayed between competitors. While earlier rounds might be filled with one-sided victories or lesser players making mistakes, by the time it hits grand finals there is a strong chance that the play will be on another level. If the accompanying commentary aims more for the larger, more casual part of the audience, it potentially alienates the more hardcore fans who want to know the small details. If a tournament wants to show the full depth of their game, it might be necessary for commentary to be more complex and high-level.

If going by a pure numbers game, the “obvious” solution is to aim for the larger, more casual audience, but there are a few monkey wrenches that need to be taken into account. The casual-hardcore dichotomy can be rather nebulous. Some fans who are casual might want to feel like they’re part of the hardcore audience, and the best way to give them that impression is through commentary. A “true expert” at a game probably does not need a commentator to tell them what’s going on, so they might find technical explanations tedious for the opposite reason that the casual viewer might dislike them. In that case, the dry delivery of top-level knowledge of a player like Mew2King can be more appealing, especially to fans of those players.

Depending on the game, there might be no such thing as a “casual fan.” After all, esports has a general issue with not being as obvious in terms of goals and objectives as traditional sports—compare looking at the score in basketball vs. trying to interpret who’s ahead in League of Legends without having any prior knowledge of either.

Professionalism is another factor. As esports scenes grow, a lack of professionalism might drive away new viewers, but at the same time a slick, polished product might come across as too sterile to maintain interest. Suffice it to say, different people want different things from commentary. There are so many conflicting values that some tournaments have even tried having alternative streams to cater to casual audiences, but that potentially leads to an inconsistent presentation for a tournament.

Any tournament, big or small, wants to put its best foot forward. The problem with reconciling all of these different factors is that no one commentary can possibly cover them all, not even a team where each commentator specializes in something different. Some consider play-by-play to be the most important. Others believe that emphasizing the human drama between the players is key. Others want deep analysis of every situation. Ultimately, it requires some sort of compromise, and I think it’s important to see it not as a concession or a loss of quality. Criticism of commentary is justified and should even be encouraged, but it should come with the awareness that one’s own perspective exists among many.

Spirit vs. Letter in Social Media Harassment Policies

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Social media platforms have been under fire by critics recently due to the way they’ve let radical groups take advantage of their platforms to attack and discredit others. People on Twitter are harassed, receiving death threats and worse, yet their harassers remain unbanned. Facebook has suffered from the inundation of fake news created by Russian propagandists, as well as racist advertising using their own ad system. A recent article by Sarah Wachter-Boettcher, titled “Facebook treats its ethical failures like software bugs, and that’s why they keep happening,” argues that Facebooks’s approach lacks a true human dimension, and fails to account for the subtle and nuanced ways that people end up using social media. In other words, using a wack-a-mole method to deal with this ignores, unintentionally or otherwise, the underlying issue of people being attacked online.

I concur with this sentiment, but would like to add something. It’s not just that treating problems like racist ad targeting as bugs or glitches is the wrong way to go, but that trying to govern social media platforms with hard and fast rules creates a rigid system that inevitably lends itself to loopholes that can be exploited.

I recently had a few discussions with friends and acquaintances, all programmers and software engineers. In one discussion, I had a small debate with a friend, who argued that laws should not be open to interpretation—what says, goes, ideally. Having “wiggle room” makes things messy. In another, the subject of self-driving cars came up. Among many of the programmers (but not all, mind), there was a shared stance that giving humans more control than self-driving cars would be to open up the efficient and organized traffic of the future to the unpredictable and poor decision-making of the average driver. Additionally, any problems that occur due to the incompleteness of the self-driving AI could be solved after they arise.

I don’t mean to stereotype programmers as all having a certain way of thinking or a certain set of beliefs (you’ll find them on all sides of the political spectrum, for example), but there’s a certain desire for the human-created mechanics of the world to make consistent, logical sense that I find common to programmers—i.e. the main people driving social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter behind the scenes. A faith (or perhaps desire) in these systems, and the idea that they can just increase the granularity of their rules, instead of trying to take a more humanistic direction, leads to holes that can be exploited.

No matter what parameters Twitter puts in for defining harassment, people will always find ways to attack others without “technically” breaking the rules. This, I believe, is the reason so many people appear to be unjustly banned while other accounts that spew hate and encourage online attacks can manage to stay active. One side is likely ignorant of rules X, Y, and Z, while the other deftly skirts them. Intent, something that requires a closer analysis, is left by the wayside.

Krang T. Nelson, a Twitter user named after a certain cartoon warlord from Dimension X, recently tested these limits. In a Vice article, Nelson describes how he decided to troll white supremacists by crafting the most intentionally absurd tweet possible, about “antifa supersoldiers” planning on beheading white parents and small business owners. Not only was it a clearly tongue-in-cheek call-out of alt-right talking points, it was also loaded with buzzwords that white nationalists actively look for. Nelson then discusses how the white nationalist movement understands the ways to take advantage of Twitter’s policies, and that they used this knowledge to get him (temporarily) banned over a facetious remark. Here, we see clear evidence that the groups known for Twitter harassment also know how to exploit its technicalities and parameters for their own ends.

Adhering to the letter and not the spirit of policies and laws is what fuels the abuse of online social platforms. Having actual people at all levels checking to see how Twitter, Facebook, etc. are being used, and relying not on hard and fast rules, is where things need to change. Granted, having “wiggle room” in rules means they can be exploited in a different way, but overly strict interpretations are also clearly not working.

 

“Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne” and the Transformation of Lies into Truth

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One of my favorite moments in the anime Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne is when we find out the truth about the Jersey Club, the seemingly do-anything, help-anyone group that the main character Kyouno Madoka leads. What we find out is that, whether or not Madoka realizes it, the club was created from a lie. In a time when a young Madoka was suffering from a traumatic event in her life, a local high schooler who happened to be jogging at the time created the idea of the Jersey Club on the spot, facetiously claiming that her exercise sweats were some kind of uniform in order to cheer Madoka up. The story of the Jersey Club, then, is one about how lies became truth, as Madoka took the kindness and altruism shown to her, and actually transformed it into a life philosophy. By the end of the series, it’s become almost literally a universal philosophy.

This idea of lies transforming into the truth through honesty and determination feels to me like a recurring theme in Japanese visual media. Fate/Stay Night‘s “Unlimited Blade Works” arc famously makes the claim that there’s no reason a copy has to be inferior to the original. Even knowing the origins of something, even when aware that something is a sham, it’s as if sincerity is the key ingredient to bend reality and perception.

It reminds me also of something I heard recently, which is that a sequel to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was published, which reveals Atticus Finch, the noble lawyer who defends a black man in a racist town, is actually revealed to be quite racist himself. The main character of the original book, Scout, turns out to have been looking at her father from the perspective of a child, only to realize his limitation as she grows into adulthood. It’s a controversial sequel, which was actually the prototype for To Kill a Mockingbird, but here we see too a “lie” becoming beneficial. Scout takes the ideals she sees from Atticus’s message and way of life, and transforms it into something even greater than the person himself.

Granted, this “bending” of reality is not necessarily without its problems. This is evidenced by the manipulation created by “fake news,” and the skewing of television news audiences, where viewers will gravitate towards the channels that cater to their beliefs almost regardless of the veracity of their reporting. The vital factor in determining whether an action is “good” or “bad” comes from what we’re seeing as “reality.” Is reality a construction of assumed cultural standards that resist change because of inertia? Or is it the foundation of truth that risks being chipped away by inaccuracies meant to exploit biases? The transformation of lies into truth can be heartfelt or diabolical, a risky double-edged sword that needs conscious tempering by both audiences and creators alike.

Ten! Ten! Ten!: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for November 2017

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This month is the tenth anniversary of Ogiue Maniax. I’ll have a special post for that occasion. In the meantime, I’d like to thank my Patreon sponsors, especially the following:

General:

Johnny Trovato

Ko Ransom

Alex

Diogo Prado

Viga

Sue Hopkins fans:

Serxeid

Yoshitake Rika fans:

Elliot Page

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

My favorite posts from last month:

The Precarious Balance of Tradition and Progress: Sakura Quest

A review of the unique P.A. Works anime

Love Live! Sunshine!! and the Complexities of Anime Tourism

A follow-up post of sorts to the Sakura Quest review, this one looks at the relationship between anime and influencing the movement of populations

Gattai Girls 7: Shinkon Gattai Godannar and Aoi Anna

The latest Gattai Girls is actually one of my favorite anime ever. (It was also a somewhat subtle hint towards me getting married.)

Patreon-Sponsored

 

Halloween Means Precure!

I was asked to write about my favorite Halloween anime, only to realize that most of them are Precure episodes. Go figure.

Closing

I’d like to end this month on a more serious note.

This past Halloween, there was a terrorist attack in lower Manhattan. While I did not know any of the people who were hurt or injured, my condolences go out to their friends and families. I went to school in the same area back in 2001, when 9/11 occurred, and hearing about the attack brought me back to what I felt then: the confusion, the need to evacuate, the unsettling feeling that the world will never be the same. Circumstances were different this time around, but I know the fear and unease that can linger over New York City in the face of such a crime. At the same time, just as then, I’m always surprised by the resilience of New Yorkers to just get back up and go about their day. On some level, it’s a product of being accustomed to the hustle and bustle of such a crazy metropolis, but I also think that it’s a semi-conscious effort to not let fear cower us into submission, or make us doubt each other as human beings.

Hate does not defeat hate. Trust, education, and openness to new ideas are the key ingredients to a better tomorrow.

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Love Live! Sunshine!! and the Complexities of Anime Tourism

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Love Live! Sunshine!! Real Escape Game in Numazu

Love Live! Sunshine!! is a media-mix property whose purpose, apart from pushing its stars and profiting from a match of anime fandom and idol fandom, is to promote tourism to the region around the city of Numazu in Japan. What I find fascinating about its approach, however, is that it not only encourages people to visit Numazu, but also reflects and tries to address many of the problems facing Japan in terms of the link between sustaining population, community, and business.

There are three main issues brought up in terms of population in Japan in recent years. First, and the one that gets the most attention, is declining birth rates. Whether it’s “herbivore males” or the difficult choice many women have to make between starting a family and having a career, theories abound as to why fewer Japanese people are having children. Second is the post-3.11 decline in tourism; a nuclear meltdown scares off not just international visitors, but those from within Japan as well. Third, and perhaps the most familiar to people around the world, is people moving out of rural areas into urban ones, leaving the old towns a shadow of their former selves with little new blood coming in.

Flying Witch

The ways in which anime have been used in response to these problems are myriad. Famously, the popularity of the anime Lucky Star led to people visiting the very shrine featured in the show, Washinomiya Shrine. The first Love Live! School Idol Project anime had a similar effect on Kanda Myoujin Shrine in Akihabara, where the character Nozomi works. But there are also anime which try to show the splendor of Japan whether directly or not. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Flying Witch was made into an anime a few years after 3.11 when Japan was trying to revive tourism to the affected Tohoku region. Taking place in Aomori (a prefecture in Tokyo), Flying Witch features lovingly crafted shots of picturesque landscapes as if to say, “This area is lush with life.” The studio P.A. Works used the series Hanasaku Iroha to create the fictional “Bonbori Festival” and then bring it into the real world. Their more recent work, Sakura Quest, is an anime explicitly about trying to deal with a declining population in a small town through tourism and promotion.

Official Love Live! Wish Board from Kanda Myoujin Shrine

Love Live! Sunshine!! takes place in the small town of Uchiura, near Numazu. Much like the first franchise, the main characters’ school is threatened with closure due to declining attendance rates. The girls, inspired by the group known as μ’s (from the original Love Live!) attempt to replicate the latter group’s success in saving their own school, and form their own idol group called “Aqours.” Already, it’s clear how Love Live! Sunshine!! touches upon issues of population movement and tourism, but it’s especially notable when comparing the series to its predecessor.

Consider where the two properties take place. The μ’s girls of the original Love Live! are centered around Akihabara, which is both the spiritual center of otaku in Japan and, as a result, already a popular tourist destination. The Aqours girls of Love Live! Sunshine!!, on the other hand, are situated near Numazu, which has a population of under 200,000 as well as a recent history of absorbing nearby towns—a major plot point in Sakura Quest and a potential future for Uchiura. Unlike Akihabara, Numazu is hardly world-famous. And yet, if Love Live! had started differently—if it had decided to go with Numazu from the start—then I don’t think it would’ve reached its original success. Much like AKB48, it relied on the notoriety of Akihabara to build itself up, and is now paying it forward, in a certain sense. Love Live! used tourism, and now tourism is using Love Live!

Love Live! Sunshine!! can be seen as another arm of the “Cool Japan” concept, which uses Japan’s fame as a symbol of cultures both traditional and popular to promote itself at home and abroad. It appears to be succeeding, at least in the short term. In fact, over at Apartment 507 where I also write, one of the most popular posts is a guide to visiting Numazu. But as Gundam director and Anime Tourism Association chairperson Tomino Yoshiyuki has warned, short term success is not enough; permanent change is necessary, even if it’s to come from anime. The fact that Love Live! went from being supported by pop culture to being a pop cultural influence that can potentially make a change is a big deal, and I’m curious to see if this experiment has any long-term impact that goes beyond the cute idols of Aqours.

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The World is My Canvas, and Competition is my Art: Splatoon 2 Thoughts

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The video game that has most occupied my attention lately is Splatoon 2. This comes as no personal surprise, seeing as I loved the hell out of the first one. The gameplay is mostly similar to its predecessor. The changes are mostly about quality of life. But even though both games are so similar, for some reason I find myself experimenting with the different weapons more in Splatoon 2.

My preferred weapon hasn’t changed since the first game: the N-Zap, modeled after the classic Zapper light gun from the NES. For me, t’s gone from a tool for Hunting Ducks to a jack-of-all trades tool whose relative lack of power can be made up for with smart movement and positioning. It’s also just accurate enough for me to effectively focus my fire, while still being forgiving enough to compensate for the fact that my aim is not that great. In Splatoon 2, the ability for it to quickly ink the ground synergizes well with the Ink Armor special, which temporarily lets the entire team take a few extra hits and survive. The N-Zap lets me support allies up close and from afar, and it fits like a glove. Finding the right weapon is just plain satisfying.

But much like characters in a good fighting game, the variety of weapons available, many quite different from each other, is part of the allure of Splatoon 2. Even if some weapons feel counterintuitive, there’s a certain thrill to trying to get into the right mindset for any given tool. When you’re using the Sloshing Machine, a bucket that launches spiraling volleys of ink, the focus is on using its overwhelming power and arching property to quickly kill, er, “splat” your opponent in unexpected places. Dualies are relatively short-range John Woo pistols that allow for unique evasive maneuvers. The Splat Brella is like a shotgun with as defensive shield, allowing players to pick off opponents while guarding allies.

Even weapons of the same class can be wildly different. The Dynamo Roller is the equivalent of trying to Falcon Punch everyone all the time, while the Carbon Roller focuses on mobility and turf coverage at the expense of battle strength. Sometimes using a different weapon means almost playing a different game, and every time I turn My Splatoon 2 on, I think, “Do I stick with the familiar, or try to transform my mind with another item?” Both ways are fun, doubly so when patches try to make everything worth using.

One of the major changes between Splatoon and Splatoon 2 is that the new special weapons–super moves, in other words–are significantly weaker. Where once they could flip a game upside down due to their sheer power, now they influence games in subtler, less pronounced ways. I think this might end up putting more emphasis on the main and sub weapons themselves, which contributes to weapon experimentation also being more fun.

In the end, gameplay is great, and all the modes are worth playing. My only complaints are shoddy Wi-Fi on the Switch (a common problem for the console), and the lack of the Squid Girl promotional outfit from the first Splatoon shirt.

No, really, give me my Ika Musume threads.

Why the Term “Toxic Masculinity” is a Double-Edged Sword

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“Toxic masculinity” is an extremely useful term. It describes a recurring problem with men and boys, which is that the societal pressure to appear and act “manly” can often harm not just others, but the guys themselves. Even the most naturally hyper-masculine individuals can benefit from awareness of this concept because they can at least know that crying, or not being confrontational all the time isn’t a sign that they’re not men. It’s also good for pointing out when media, be it films, video games, anime, etc., reinforce harmful notions of what being a “man” is. Unfortunately, the men who suffer most greatly from toxic masculinity, are likely least receptive to it. I believe the reason for this is that, ironically, the term “toxic masculinity” doesn’t sound masculine enough.

Many phrases that have come out of feminism, or have been embraced by feminists, take on a certain tinge that brings feminists to mind. This isn’t inherently a problem, but whether it’s due to association of just the word choice, it can come across as something concocted in a feminist lab (whatever that might be); perhaps it’s a little too clinical and, well, “feminine.” Part of coming  across as a “man’s  man” is one’s vocabulary, and I believe that the perceived feminist quality in “toxic masculinity” as a phrase prevents more men from using it.

On some level, I want to say, “Get over it and just embrace what the term is trying to say,” but I also understand that it’s not always so easy. Masculinity, toxic or otherwise, is tied to one’s identity. That being said, I think there already exists a phrase that embodies much of what “toxic masculinity” implies that is, for better or worse, more palatable to men concerned about maintaining their image of manliness: “When keeping it real goes wrong.”

Coming from an old Chappelle‘s Show skit, “When keeping it real goes wrong” is used to describe people who refuse to back down in even the most trivial or disadvantageous scenarios, which then leads to dire (and hilarious) consequences. Essentially, it communicates the idea that trying to be “real” 24/7 is a recipe for disaster because the need to have the world see oneself as a proper man who won’t take guff is going to, at some point, end in tragedy.

Do I think “When keeping it real goes wrong” should supplant “toxic masculinity” as the dominant phrase to describe the harmful aspects of male performance? Not really, as it’s kind of unwieldy and doesn’t match 1:1, but I think it has its place. The irony would be that using it could help more men understand the notion of toxic masculinity while also subtly reinforcing it.