Category Archives: thought exercise

The Divide of Time, Space, and Imagination: A Look At the Concept of Nostalgic Merchandise

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A few days ago, when I wrote about the direction giant robot designs have taken over the years, I received a comment pointing out to me the “Master Grade RX-78-2 Gundam 2.0,” which was a new model kit version of the iconic original Gundam, only designed to more closely resemble the mobile suit as it appeared in anime. When compared to previous RX-78-2 model kits, this means less details, different proportions, and a more “cartoonish” look overall.

Interested in how hobbyists took to this version of the classic Gundam, I looked at reviews of the kit. Any time its aesthetics were criticized, it was largely because the model was not as detailed as they liked. Being “anime accurate” was not a positive trait, and they would point out other kits, notably the “One Year War” version with a higher level of grittiness and detail, as a preferred alternative. In response to all this, I made my own comment, which was to point out that these fans appeared to be saying, “I don’t want the RX-78-2 to resemble the robot in the show, I want it to resemble the robot in my imagination!”

Then today, I saw the Toy Fair 2010 GI Joe toys. These action figures were designed based on the 80s version of GI Joe, the 3 inch figures instead of the giant doll-like ones. The only thing is, they are much more detailed and gritty than the 80s toys they were based on! It was also made clear that these toys are there partially for GI Joe collectors, adult men who look back fondly on their childhood toys, and I think it is all the more apparent that, like the One Year War RX-78-2, these GI Joes are trying to fill the gap between the actual toy and the collectors’ memories of what the toys were like as children, memories fueled by the power of childhood imagination. And there, in the attempts to make up for the loss of childhood creativity and thinking with skilled craftsmanship, lies the foundation of the nostalgic toy.

That is not to say of course that adults are incapable of having strong imaginations. Fiction as a whole would be incredibly boring if that were the case. Nor am I lumping everyone in as wanting more “realism” in their toys, as the original commenter I referred to above was all in favor of more toys like the MG RX-78-2 2.0. Instead, the issue is simply that the mind of an adult is simply different from the mind of a child. I am reminded of this fact whenever I look at drawings from my childhood and compare them to what I have done as an adult or even as a teenager.

When I previously touched on the subject of childhood imagination as it applies to animation, I talked about how children tend to ignore significant errors in animation and make up for these deficiencies through their imagination. But now when looking at a similar topic, that of toys and model kits, I realize that it’s not just a matter of childhood imagination “filling in the gaps,” but that childhood imagination, unlike adult imagination, cares little about “structure.”

If you look at the Soul of Chogokin series of toys, you will find everything I’ve been talking about, with its more solid and realistic redesigns of classic mecha targeted towards adult buyers, but if you want to really see what I mean by adults caring about structure, take a look not at the Soul of Chogokin line, but the original-style Chogokin toys, or rather, reviews of them by collectors. You will find that the way the reviewers talk about the features of the toy, about what is good and what is bad, is almost inevitably a very “adult-minded” way of looking at the toy, giving words to topics such as “points of articulation” and what-not. Even when referring to the nostalgia factor this happens, whether the topic is Chogokin, Jumbo Machinders, or Generation 1 Transformers.

It’s common knowledge among collectors, but the first generation of Mobile Suit Gundam toys, resembling the “neat gadgets”-style Chogokin toys that preceded it, were a marketing failure, as the toys did not really match up with what was on the screen. It really wasn’t until the concept of the giant robot “model kit” revolutionized giant robot figures that Gundam merchandise became the monster that it still is today, and people claim that this has to do with the fact that the audience for Gundam was skewing older than giant robot shows had in the past. I may be jumping the gun here, but what it looks like to me is that the older audience of younger and older teens were looking for more structure and accuracy in their toys, and that is what they got. As soon as Gundam hit that older demographic, I believe the Chogokin-style toys were dealt a serious blow, even putting aside the shoddy designs and inaccuracies of the original toyline. I think that the attitudes towards the 2.0 MG RX-78-2 are actually an extension of this over time and international waters.

Actually, more than even Chogokin reviews, if you really, really want to see the difference between child and adult mindsets and creativity, take a look at the webcomic Axe Cop. Promoted as being written by a 5 year old and drawn by his 29 year old brother, the artist admits to the story not being truly written by his significantly younger sibling, but that he asks the young child questions about the setting and events that occur, and then builds a story around it. The adult adds structure to the boundless imagination of the child, structure that is necessary to keep it all together, even if it doesn’t make sense entirely.

The child’s imagination says, “This is what happens.”

The adult’s imagination asks, “Why?”

But when it comes to reality, the child and adult’s responses reverse.

Wide So Serious?

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The above screenshot is taken from the final episode of Mobile Fighter G Gundam during the climactic battle against the Devil Gundam. The shot is done in a sort of cinematic, widescreen format, though G Gundam itself is a standard pre-digital 4:3 aspect ratio. While the way the image is framed would still make it too wide to fit perfectly within the now-standard 16:9 video format, it got me thinking about just how much the art of television is possibly changing now that widescreen is the standard.

“It’s just a little extra space!” you might say, or perhaps, “It’s just a little less space!” But framing the shot is one of the most fundamentally important aspects of any video or cinema, and now you literally have a point at which the game is changing, where there is a definite dividing point between “then” and “now.” Even now you can see it in the way anime is being made. Shows that have gone on for multiple seasons during this transitional period have older episodes as standard definition but newer ones as widescreen.

What subtle psychological effects on the human mind might this all have in the years to come?

In the future, if you tell a child to draw a TV, will they draw the screens roughly 16:9?

Will some shows purposely use a 4:3 aspect ratio to give the image a “retro” appearance? Will it be a tool used like the G Gundam screenshot at the beginning of this post?

I think we are going to see a subtle shift in the art of television, and by extension animation. The effects won’t be entirely immediate, but in time we will realize its profound impact on the way we look at the screen.

Giant Robots, Growth, and Evolution (or Lack Thereof)

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Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a fan of big ol’ robots (a technical term). I love the genre and nearly all that it entails. That said, I am not without criticisms towards my beloved mecha. When I look back at how giant robot designs in anime and manga have progressed since their inception, I get the feeling that robot designs have grown too much without evolving enough.

There was a time when giant robots in anime were mainly known for having cylinders for limbs and looking more like superheroes than weapons of war. As the years went by, however, the robot designs became more and more detailed, to the point that today when you think “giant robots” or “mecha,” complexity in design is something that comes to mind.

It was really an inevitability. Even as far back as the mid 70’s, we could see that Daitarn 3 looked a little more detailed and structured than Combattler V, and Combattler featured more complex design features than Mazinger Z. And it’s not a bad thing either; in many ways it shows how far along mecha design has come since Tetsujin 28. At the same time though I can’t help but lament that the giant robot fandom seems unable to reverse gears and bring itself back to those simpler times.

“But giant robot fans love Mazinger!” you might say. Yes, they might, and they might even refer to its design as “classic” or even “enormously influential,” but as the mecha fanbase has grown older and more concentrated, their heyday of being the go-to shows for marketing to kids having passed, the idea of presenting an old-fashioned robot design as a modern one is something that I think simply would not fly. All recent attempts to create super robot series, remakes aside, still do not match the level of simplicity in robot design that once existed.

So what I mean by mecha designs growing without evolving is that the giant robots of today aren’t that different from those of yesterday in basic design, and that the major developments in mecha design that have persisted over the years have mainly had to do with how to make robots look sleeker and more detailed, whether it’s with the more angular robots of the 80s or the muscle-like excess of the 90s. Compare this with character design development, which people can criticize as being worse today than it was previously, but it still feels like character design trends moved a certain direction.

I can’t entirely fault giant robots for the direction they took over time. Like I said earlier, it was practically inevitable, as one show tries to top another, which then inspires another. It’s just that I think a lot more people might get into designing robots if “robot design” wasn’t the massive undertaking it’s perceived to be because of expectation as to what a giant robot is “supposed” to be.

My Pursuit of Harsh Coaches and Fashion Sense

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Back when I was first really getting into anime, the thing I was into that a lot of other guys weren’t was shoujo. Sure you had your Sailor Moon fans and all, but it was the genre I truly enjoyed, even if others might make fun of me for it, and I was dedicated to finding more. I considered myself an aficionado of shoujo.

But that was years ago. When I looked back recently, I realized that my knowledge and experience with shoujo had been far outstripped by those areas in other genres. When I look at my manga collection now, the majority of it is seinen, and there are just a lot of titles and authors in shoujo that are unknown to me. What happened to the kid who loved his Cardcaptor Sakura?

That’s why as of late I’ve been upping my shoujo manga intake from all genres. Whether it’s newer stuff like Gakuen Alice and Penguin Revolution, or old classics like Attack No. 1, Swan, and Candy Candy, I’ve set a loose goal of bringing myself up to speed and having people say, “There’s a guy who knows a lot about shoujo manga!”

And of course I’m enjoying myself along the way.

No, Not the One That Makes Bad Puns

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Anybody who’s read or seen enough of Hokuto no Ken knows that there is a very specific point where the series jumps the shark: the time skip. It was very clear that the series was supposed to end, but editorial interference meant the series had to chug along even if it stopped making any sense at all. And it’s not like Hokuto no Ken was all that dedicated to establishing its canon in the first place, but it got ridiculous and it was obvious that they were running out of ideas.

Perhaps the best example of this shark-jumping is “Kaioh,” one of the major villains after the time skip who is design-wise quite literally “Raoh with a scar on his face,” only his armor is different. He was even voiced by Raoh’s seiyuu Utsumi Kenji in the anime!


The word bubble on this page with Kaioh actually SAYS “Raoh!”

So I ask, who says that the post time skip stuff can’t be cleaned up? It may be many years after Hokuto no Ken first debuted, but that doesn’t mean we can’t finally try to make something out of that material. Some cool characters appear and it’d be a shame to see them tossed away forever. Why can’t some of that pachinko and slot machine money go into, say, revamping Kaioh’s design and this time making him truly original? If there’s an anime, you could give him a different voice actor, change his facial features, etc. I think there’s much potential there.

If Your Mother Knew You Didn’t Like Giant Robots, It Would KILL Her!

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Over a year ago I explored the difficulties in recommending anime and manga to people, whether they were entirely new to the world of Japanese animation and comics or they were already in the fandom but looking for more. Since that time I’ve gotten a little better at the whole recommendation thing, but it’s still far from one of my strengths. Still, the dynamics of introducing new shows and series to people is a fascinating topic to explore, and seeing others’ recommendations posts as of late has revealed to me more and more of the tricky dynamics of suggesting shows.

Tim Maughan recently had a bunch of guest writers for his blog to provide content during his trip to Thailand, and among the articles was one by the Otaku Diaries creators the Reverse Thieves where they created a guide to introducing giant robot shows to people who are into anime but aren’t sure if they like mecha, or who avoid it entirely without knowing the variety of stories giant robot shows have to tell.

As if inevitable however, they received complaints that their list was not good because it did not contain enough of the classics, the things that brought people into giant robots over the decades. At that point, the problem became about the identity of the mecha fan. Shouldn’t someone who gets into giant robot anime like giant robots? But if they already like giant robots, then half the work is already done! The guide was clearly made for the people who don’t necessarily have that inherent potential to enjoy robot shows, the people whose interest in the genre has to be slowly cultivated over time. The classics are classics for good reasons, but they’re not beginner’s shows necessarily.

Over at comics blog Mightygodking, a more fundamental question was asked: “How do I start reading comics?” In his response, Mightygodking explains that, more often than not, comics fans go about it incorrectly, and make the same mistakes that many of those who questioned the Reverse Thieves’ guide did. He even lays out some criteria for recommending comics for newcomers, and though I don’t agree that a beginner comic has to be “fucking great,” I think he makes a very good point when he says:

…they’ll recommend something safe, like “you should read Sandman.” Or Watchmen, or Transmetropolitan, or [insert critically acclaimed comic by the Usual Suspects here]. Now, sure. These are great comics. But I’m not going to say “this is how you should get started with comics.” Watchmen should be nobody’s first comics read. Sandman has an impenetrable first volume. And Transmet is a commitment – not that Spider Jerusalem isn’t worth the ride, but I’m not going to introduce somebody to comics with it.

Even more than giant robot anime, COMICS!! can be such a gargantuan and daunting subject that even gaining the will to approach it can be an arduous task, and as such the problems with recommending the GREATEST gets magnified. And of course, this is in no way helped when the fans who are already there berate the potential new fans for not enjoying what they are “supposed” to enjoy.

I fully understand where people are coming from when they say the best place to start is with the classics. I have in the past recommended the ORIGINAL Mobile Suit Gundam when someone wanted to know where to start with the massive franchise. I have also lamented the fact that many newer fans in anime are unable to appreciate older shows because they cannot get past the older styles. But I also know that it is nearly impossible to attract people into a fandom or gain new enthusiasts by appearing obtuse and impenetrable. It’s one thing to have very firm ideas of what makes shows good or not, and to defend those ideas, but retreating into the folds of the existing insular fandom isn’t going to do anything but make it even more exclusive. It all comes down to how much you’re willing to not simply throw out suggestions from on-high, but to guide people, even if you can’t personalize it too much because you’re making broad recommendations.

In a way, I feel like recommending arguably difficult classics to beginners is not unlike being parents living vicariously through their children, like a soccer mom pushing her kids to the brink of competition.

“I never had it this good when I was getting into giant robots! I’ve boiled it down to everything you REALLY need to see!”

“But dad, I’m not sure I like giant robots!”

“How DARE you! I did not suffer through Magnos the Robot so that you could say you don’t like giant robots!”

But each generation is new, and casts off the bounds set by their predecessors, like a man with blue hair and stylish shades living in an underground village.

Hey Sunrise, You Know What Would Be an EXCELLENT Way to Celebrate 20 Years of Yuusha?

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MAKE PROJECT Z! DO IT!

For those who aren’t aware of Project Z, it was the proposed sequel to Gaogaigar Final that was included with the DVDs of Gaogaigar Final: Grand Glorious Gathering, which was a re-editing of the OVAs to fit the time slots of a TV broadcast. What was really cool about Project Z though is that not only was it to be a direct continuation of the GGG story, but it also was to incorporate elements from Betterman, which was this weird sci-fi horror series which took place in the GGG universe but hardly included any actual crossover with the main series.

It also gave off a very different mood. If Gaogaigar is CSI: Miami, then Betterman is CSI: New York.

So when last we saw our heroes in Gaogaigar Final, well, we didn’t, and the only ones able to return were Mamoru and Ikumi, the two children of alien origin whose abilities allowed them to purify the enemy. Once the kid sidekicks of the robot-piloting ultra heroes, as of Project Z they were to be teenagers who were now themselves the heroic super robot pilots. It had the potential to be this real coming-of-age story akin to Gurren-Lagann.

An interesting aspect of the whole Project Z concept from a mecha perspective was that the main robot of Project Z was supposed to be an amalgam of the robots from Betterman with the technology of Gaogaigar into a single cohesive design. The robots in Gaogaigar are sentient beings created based on alien technology called “Super Mechanoids,” whereas the robots in Betterman are purely human creations devoid of thought called “Neuronoids.” Joined together, they would create GAOGAIGO, a “Neuromechanoid” whose co-pilots would have been Mamoru and Ikumi.

They actually got pretty far with this idea, even creating an action figure based on the design.

Cool, no? Another interesting to point out is that the Gao machines used in the transformation are the ones remaining on Earth. That’s why you have Gaofighgar’s Liner Gao II as the shoulder armor, but also Stealth Gao II from the second half of the TV series.

In addition, because the robots in Betterman were anything but super, Gaogaigo’s design ends up being a mix of real robot and super robot technology. It’d be like if you took a Scope Dog from Votoms and cross-bred it with Gurren-Lagann.

And here’s what would have been really amazing. The base robot of Gaogaigo, called “Kakuseijin Gaigo,” incorporates the Neuronoid ability to change modes and appearance depending on who is the co-pilot. So if Mamoru was in control of Gaigo when it turned into Gaogaigo, then surely when Ikumi was in control we’d get a robot based off of King J-Der. If you look at the Gaigo mode that has Ikumi in control, it even kind of looks like J-Der!


Ikumi’s Accept Mode Gaigo (top), Mamoru’s Active Mode Gaigo (bottom)

So that’s what could have been, or what perhaps could still be. I’m holding out hope that some day our heroes will return to us.

“I Follow It for the Side Characters.”

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Years ago when I was more active in the Pokemon fan community, I noticed that there were quite a few people who loved Team Rocket. To them, Jessie and James were the highlight of every episode and every movie, and they generally only begrudgingly accepted Ash Ketchum on their televisions. “If only the show starred Team Rocket, then it would truly be great!” they’d say, or alternately, “The only reason I even watch Pokemon is for Team Rocket!” This wasn’t the first time I saw a show’s fanbase rally behind its supporting cast instead of its primary heroes, but it’s the most prominent example I can think of and one that seems to set the pace for other similar instances.

From what I can tell, most of the time the idea of following a series for the side characters happens primarily with people who love the setting of a show but for one reason or another cannot get behind its main protagonist. Most often, I see this happen with shounen series when the fans are not that young boy demographic that can most easily put themselves into the hero’s shoes. Uzumaki Naruto, for instance, is considered by some portions of the Naruto fanbase as being loud and annoying and difficult to relate to (or perhaps his detractors are unwilling to try and relate to him in the first place), and thus turn their attentions towards Kakashi or Rock Lee or whomever. And before you think I’m criticizing people for doing this, keep in mind that while I like Naruto as a character, my favorite character in Naruto is Hyuuga Hinata by an unbelievable margin, and she barely appears in the series overall.

What fascinates me about this whole matter is that prioritizing supporting characters in such a way can empower fans and their creativity. By following a series through its side characters, it’s like fans are saying that they are going to read and interpret the story their own way, that to some degree they know what’s better for the story than the original author, but that they also totally respect the author for giving them their favorite characters. It’s like fans have arrived at postmodernism without even knowing what that word means.

The Otaku Diaries and the Social Otaku

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February’s Otaku Diaries entry over at Reverse Thieves explores otaku and socialization in all its forms, whether it be hanging with friends after school or work, or chatting with them online. It should be no surprise that the friends otaku tend to find online are fellow otaku; after all, you don’t “bump into” people on the internet, but rather typically seek out like-minded people, or at the very least ones who can understand your interests.

I still remember the first time I had access to real (non-AOL) internet. The first thing I did? Look for websites about my favorite video game, NiGHTS into dreams… I always figured that I was the one and only fan of SEGA’s greatest game, so imagine my pleasant surprise when I found out there was an entire online community devoted to NiGHTS. Of course I joined, and it provided me some great memories (as well as some drama, which was perhaps inevitable). Memories are mainly what they are though, as I don’t really keep up with anyone from that period in my internet life. Still, I remember the joy of being able to actually talk to fellow fans from all around the world and revel in our mutual love of purple flying jesters. It reminds me of when I first started using e-mail, when I was so excited to use it that every night I would write up a bunch of thoughts and send them to friends and acquaintances and classmates.

Some might argue that the fact that online friendships tend to start from just liking the same thing makes them particularly flimsy , while others might give the counterpoint that sharing that common ground can make online friends as close if not closer than “real world” friends, especially if those internet buddies are more comfortable opening themselves up through chatting than through speaking. Of course, the line blurs when online friends meet in real life, or close real life friends interact mainly online, and evidently blurring lines are getting more and more commonplace. Personally, I’ve met some of my closest friends from online, and I have friends dear to me that I’ve met in the real world too. At that point, the internet is mainly a tool and it’s up to the person how they use it, whether it becomes a way of connecting with others, or a method of disguise and insulation.

I’d like to make an aside at this point and clarify something I said in the Otaku Diaries response I made about relationships. There I said that sharing a hobby makes for a “weak and flimsy foundation” for a relationship, and some took it as me saying that finding someone because you both like anime is no good. What I really meant was that I think sharing a hobby makes for an excellent starting point, and even provides some mutual understanding, but that it cannot be the cornerstone of a relationship, which is instead built on trust and compassion for each other. I hope that clears everything up.

Now another interesting point that came up is the question of whether or not the participants had ever tried to bring others into anime, and the response was for the most part a resounding “yes.” This I think links directly into that desire of wanting people with whom you can share your hobby. What’s more intriguing, however, is a comment someone made.

Is it really right to assume that 75% of respondents actively trying to draw in new anime viewers is a good thing?

What we have here is the idea that bringing in new anime fans to the fold might be a mistake. Think about that: once upon a time everyone would have agreed that trying to draw in new anime viewers was a good thing, even if fans might not agree on who they thought was good to draw in. I think that the very idea that the desire to introduce others to anime might somehow  be detrimental to anime and its fandom speaks volumes about where we are at the moment, this state of being more widely accepted and yet still very much niche, even if it’s just one person’s opinion.

Is it really right to assume that 75% of respondents actively trying to draw in new anime viewers is a good thing?

OEL Screentone Revelations!

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Long before Tokyopop started pushing the concept of “Original English Language Manga,” or “OEL” for short, something about western attempts at creating “manga” really bothered me, and not for any philosophical reasons. Something always felt off about the artwork, and I just couldn’t pinpoint why. Initially, I thought that it might be because the artists had no idea how to  draw “manga characters,” but I realized that couldn’t be the case, because 100 people drawing big eyes and small mouths “incorrectly,” so to speak, should result in 100 different ways to look not-quite-right. No, the thing that bothered me was something more consistent across the idea of “OEL” before it was called OEL. It had to be a shared trait.

Then last year while looking at OEL, something hit me: for some reason I was being bothered by the screentones. Again however, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I just knew it was something having to do with screentones. In fact, the initial draft of this post is from May of 2009, where the only contents of it was the title of the post, which read “BAD SCREENTONES.”

Finally though, through the keen of eye of the Reverse Thief Narutaki, my suspicions have been confirmed, and I now fully understand why OEL screentones had been bothering me so. I really recommend you read the article, but for the sake of summary: According to Narutaki, in manga, screentone is generally used for patterns or to pull elements into the background of a panel with shading primarily done in ink, but in OEL screentone is more often used for shading and used to excess, which ends up flattening the image.

I feel so relieved!

But this information brought with it a new question: Why is it, if OEL is trying to be like manga (which we all know it is), that it does something that manga almost never does, i.e. use screentone to shade to excess? There are very few examples from manga that would fuel this mass assumption on the part of these artists, after all.

That lead to another revelation: maybe the source of this trend wasn’t “manga” at all, but something closely related. Anime!

Anime is where you will find manga-style characters with some degree of shading, even if it’s a single tone to show a simple fold in their clothing. I can only conclude that the reason OEL shading looks the way it does is because the artists were influenced by the shading methods seen in animation, and then applied these methods to manga where they are in actuality quite foreign despite the fact that anime and manga are so closely related.


Ogiue Chika RANDOM STRANGER AT A DOUJIN EVENT

This is no surprise to me, as anime and manga are often spoken of in the same breath. Heck, I’m no exception, and you will often see me choosing one word or the other when referring to both, as after a while it gets irritating to write “anime and manga” every time instead of just “anime.” Still, it is a very good reminder that as similar as anime and manga are, they also possess a number of unique differences beyond the fact that one is animated and the other is not.