Category Archives: trends

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.

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.

The Manga Curmudgeon’s Manga Moveable Feast

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David Welsh over at the Manga Curmudgeon is trying out a new experiment he’s called the “Manga Moveable Feast,” wherein over the course of a week multiple bloggers write about a specific topic. For the inaugural MMF, David and others have chosen the topic to be Sexy Voice and Robo by Kuroda Iou. Seeing as Sexy Voice and Robo is one of my favorite manga, I’m quite glad to see it getting all this love, and to also to see the variety of opinions on the work. Naturally, I also submitted my 2008 review of the manga.

The first MMF started just this past Monday as going to continue until the end of the week, so there will be more and more reviews and analyses on the way.

I might also make another post once this is all over, analyzing one or more of the writings posted. And if you haven’t picked up Sexy Voice and Robo, I really recommend that you do.

“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.

Your Introduction to Anime GMILFs

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With anime these days, it’s always “lolicon this” or “high school that,” and amidst all this focus on youth I began to wonder if a certain segment of the population was feeling that anime provided nothing for them. I am of course referring to people who like their women with not just a little bit of experience, but a lot. I want to tell those guys who dig the really mature that anime has something to offer to them, even if it seems daunting otherwise.

Now I don’t partake in this particular preference, so I can’t tell you for sure whether or not they do the job, but I have set up a few criteria in compiling this list.

First, the women here have to look aged. There’s quite a few elderly female characters out there who never age past 35, and so hardly count as GMILFs. In fact, their appeal is no different from just plain MILFs. So in this respect, characters like Tsunade (Naruto), Kazami Hatsuho (Onegai Teacher), and Milia Jenius (Macross 7) do not count, even if Milia is actually a grandmother.

For that matter, second, they do not have to have grandchildren to qualify as GMILFs.

Third, the characters for the most part tend to be quite physically fit. I figure part of the issue is that a lot of times cartoons, be they anime or anywhere else in the world, tend to portray the elderly as comically old and decrepit and having seen better days. This is probably appealing to only a few, and so have chosen characters where age is not a barrier to active living.

Fourth, this isn’t really criteria but a lot of them are teachers or are in some kind of teaching profession. Don’t ask me, that’s just how it turned out.

So without further ado, your GMILFs.

Maria Graceburt, My-Otome

More commonly known as “Miss Maria,” Maria Graceburt is a teacher and advisor at Garderobe Academy where she trains her all-female students to become “Otome,” or nano-machine-enhanced super-powered royal bodyguards. Once an Otome herself, Maria has much experience in this regard, and has been tempered by her years in battle. Despite her old age, she is still capable of keeping up with the younger generations. She almost has to be seen to be believed.


Barbara McGregor, Taisho Baseball Girls

It’s the 1920s and Japan is at the height of the Taisho Era, where western influence is making in-roads into the society. Barbara McGregor is the principal at Touhou Seika Girls’ Secondary School, a school that prepares young girls to embrace both Eastern and Western influences and lead them to a wholesome mentality. When she finds out that a group of girls at Touhou Seika have decided to form a baseball team, she supports the endeavor but with a stern warning that it is not to affect their grades, or else. Calm and steadfast, Barbara sees progress in the future of womanhood.


Yukimura Tokiko, Kekkaishi

Tasked with protecting Karasumori, a land which bestows great power upon spirits and demons, Yukimura Tokiko is the 21st “Kekkaishi” or “Barrier Master” of the Yukimura clan. In addition, she trains her granddaughter Yukimura Tokine in the art of Kekkai while also maintaining a rivalry with the head of the Sumimura Clan, fellow Kekkai users with whom the Yukimura clan split generations ago. Although quite old, Tokiko has vitality greater than her talented  granddaughter, and is actually currently the strongest Kekkai user known.

Tamashiro Miwa, Koutetsushin Jeeg

In her younger days, Tamashiro Miwa, then known as Uzuki Miwa, was a skilled pilot who supported the cyborg hero Koutetsu Jeeg and the “Build Base” in their fight against the evil Jama Empire by piloting the supply ship known as the “Big Shooter.” 50 years later, when the Jama Empire resurfaces and her granddaughter Tsubaki becomes the pilot of a new Big Shooter for a new Jeeg, Tsubaki becomes the new commander of Build Base, lending her experience in combat against the Jama Empire for a new generation. Though she now sits behind a desk instead of a cockpit, it is apparent that age has only made Miwa stronger and more determined than ever.


Toudou Kaworu, Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

Toudou Kaworu is a visionary who seeks to transform education in Japan, and has implemented an exclusive revolutionary method of organizing students. As principal of Fumizuki Academy, Kaworu ranks students from A to F, with the A students at the top receiving the best supplies and the best teachers, while those at the bottom must claw their way up if they want to improve. To facilitate this Darwinian education system, Kaworu allows students to engage in holographic “battles,” where summoned avatars engage in combat and have strength proportionate to their grades and overall academic achievements. A cheerful, if mysterious woman, Toudou Kaworu challenges the conventional.

So there you have it, five women who have experience on their side and are capable of appealing to those who are tired of seeing nothing but young girls in their Japanese animation. Keep in mind that this is only a brief list; there’s more out there. If you’ve got any suggestions, speak up!

I Was Right About the Megaman 10 Robot Masters

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A few days ago I made a post about how the eight primary bosses of Megaman 10 looked quite different from their predecessors, most of which were in-story creations of either Dr. Light or Dr. Wily, and thus felt that these new robots were the work of neither. What I did not know was that the magazine which announced the eight robot masters, Coro Coro, also included basic information about them, and it turns out that all of them are robots who had normal jobs who were then affected by a virus which made them go berserk. In other words, none of the Robot Masters were designed by Wily or Light, and  my suspicions based on their designs turned out to be true.

“Congratulations,” I said to myself as my right arm patted my left shoulder, “You figured out a plot point in a game meant to evoke the nonsense plots of the NES-era.”

Avoiding the Shounen Power Creep

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Shounen fighting is quite possibly the world’s most popular anime and manga sub-genre. Whether it’s Saint Seiya in South America, Naruto in the US, One Piece in Japan, or Dragon Ball around the world, the idea of heroes fighting villains and getting stronger along the way is an idea just about any boy in any country can understand and get behind. But one of the common problems with shounen is the idea of the “power creep,” where newer and more powerful villains keep appearing to challenge the hero to the point that the earlier villains who once appeared legitimately threatening begin to look pathetic by comparison. Tao Pai Pai in Dragon Ball may have been one of the few capable of defeating Goku early on, but by the time Goku turns Super Saiyan 3 the assassin is little more than a distant memory.

I think all shounen fighting series creators are well aware of this danger, but only some try to circumvent it, at least temporarily. As such I’ve included a few examples of attempts to quell the Power Level beast.

The first two series of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure had some degree of power creep, but starting with the third and most popular series starring Kujou Joutarou the series became about outwitting the opponent instead of outpowering them. Here, characters were given their own power sets which changed little to none over the course of the entire series, and all advancements came from figuring out new ways to use abilities already known to the readers, instead of acquiring entirely new powers.

Hokuto no Ken saw fit to make its main hero Kenshiro already absurdly powerful. Kenshiro is not a youth who needs to learn the ways of fighting and to live up to his potential, but a man who already has received the title of master of the world’s deadliest martial art. As such, Kenshiro’s victories are generally won through willpower and using the right moves in his encyclopedic collection of head-exploding strikes. The other move Hokuto no Ken makes is to establish its main villain Raoh relatively early and make him a proper end boss, and also establishing the fact that as far as fighting ability goes, both Kenshiro and Raoh are at similar levels. Even when the series goes crazy with Kaioh and such, this is never quite a problem.

Digimon Adventure 02 saw a problem when it realized that, if left the way things were, the already powerful Angemon could just go Ultimate and leave an unfortunate stain where the evil Digimon Kaiser (Digimon Emperor in the English dub) was once standing. To get around having to make the villain more absurdly powerful than the final opponents in the first series, the concept of the “black rings,” devices which prevent digital monsters from evolving, was created. The solution was that the heroes had to find an alternate means to “power up” which, while incapable of reaching their old heights, gave them a fighting chance. Eventually they overcame the Digimon Kaiser and new villains appeared, but at least for a time the shounen power creep was stayed.

Those are three examples. Can you think of any others?