Category Archives: trends

Modern Context

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Many times you’ll see people, including myself, pointing out that in order to properly judge a work, be it anime, manga, or something totally unrelated to that world, you should also understand the context in which it was made. This could be a historical context, like knowing how Evangelion changed anime. It could be a situational context, such as being aware of the limitations in animation in the 60s and 70s and understanding the realities of low budgets that resulted in the limited animation style used in anime today. And though we talk about it more frequently in regards to the past, who’s to say we can’t apply it to current anime as well?

Due to a number of problems in both the global and Japanese economy, there is not as much money and talent in anime as there used to be. In many instances, studios have to either fall back on something reliable that they know will sell well, or their ambition has to come at a literal price, with production values perhaps not being up to the level of the shows around them. If we understand this reality, why can’t we apply the same awareness of context that we do to older works? We know that not everything can be an artistic, creative, or technical masterpiece (and rarely is that the case in the first place), but we should be able to appreciate what anime continues to do with the resources they have. Yes, it might be disappointing that there are aspects of anime we will likely not see again in the near future as a result of all this, but that’s the case with anime over the years budget or no.

Now I’m not saying that all shows should be absolved of responsibility, and that quality itself should be a non-factor. This is not an excuse for anime to be terrible because we should be that forgiving of their situation. I think there is definitely a line to be crossed and to be toed, and that we should look at each anime we come across in context to understand whether or not a show is bad because of mistakes or because of unfortunate circumstances beyond their control. However, if we can at least try to understand, then I think it will broaden our views as anime fans who can see beyond accepting only the “best.”

My Academic Personal Interest in the Portrayal of Otaku and Fujoshi

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You may have noticed that I avidly pursue manga and anime about otaku, and enjoy writing about the topic. Ever since Genshiken and the Densha Otoko boom (and arguably before that with Comic Party), I have been trying to expose myself to as many similarly themed works as possible. You might ask, “Do you think that stories about otaku are a superior genre compared to others?” or even, “Do you have a fetish for fujoshi?” I will tell you that I do not, and that furthermore, these questions are irrelevant.

There are those who will watch a show and desire more of the same. They will become fans of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and be disappointed when every anime they see does not turn out to be like SAC. I have no such illusions. I may love Genshiken, and may even compare other works to Genshiken, but I will never expect another work to be just like Genshiken because I know how unrealistic an expectation that is.

Instead, what I am fascinated by is the very portrayal of otaku in anime and manga itself. I want to see the optimistic and the pessimistic, the highs and the lows, the strong and honest works and the exploitative cash grabs, and everything else in between, to get a better sense of how they are seen and how creators want otaku to be seen. The Fujoshi Files are a result of this desire, and also to track the extent to which the “fujoshi character” and “fujoshi personality traits” have become prevalent in anime and manga. I like Ogiue very much, yes, but it is not due to her fujoshi attributes, but rather the way in which they are indicative of her deeper personality and thoughts. It is an academic pursuit, but that doesn’t mean it can’t get personal.

That is why I dedicate myself to finding these works. I want to know more, and if I so happen upon a particularly powerful and moving story then I am all the better for it. If not, at least I learned something.

So Then Japan is All Like, “Oh You Crazy Ameritaku!”

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In case you couldn’t tell from all the posts I make about the Otaku Diaries, I dig any attempts by people to get a better sense of what otaku are like, be they in America, Japan, Germany, South Africa, or anywhere in the world. Recently, Famitsu revealed the results of a survey they conducted via the Otaku USA website which asked questions such as “Who is your favorite anime creator?” and “What would you like to see sold in the US?” I participated in the survey myself, though none of what I said ended up being put into the magazine. Not a big deal, the things I said probably didn’t make for interesting quotes.

The survey was answered by about 800 people. When you compare it to the 3000+ people who attend Otakon, of course it’s not exactly the most ideal sample size, but it still provides an interesting window into how (internet) otaku who at least know about Otaku USA. Even then, no one should be surprised that certain shows are more popular than others. Naruto is Naruto, Bleach is Bleach.

One pleasant surprise is that Genshiken of all things is apparently as popular as Rurouni Kenshin among these anime fans. While I loves me some Genshiken (and specific Genshiken-related character), I still did not expect it to do this well in America. If this is the case, maybe they’ll bring Jigopuri over!

Nah.

The Otaku Diaries and the Somewhat Forbidden Topic

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This past Monday saw the Reverse Thieves post their latest statistics from their Otaku Diaries project. The topic: Bullying. The original question basically asked whether or not you were ever bullied or were a bully, and probably to no one’s surprise the vast majority of those surveyed mentioned that they were at one point or another the target of mental and/or physical abuse by their peers.

One thing that Hisui is quick to point out that I find quite interesting is the sheer level of discomfort that otaku seem to be at when discussing a topic such as bullying. They are eager to share a long, detailed list of fetishes, but won’t elaborate on when or how or why they were bullied. It kind of sends a message that otaku have little shame when given an anonymous survey but are still hesitant to open up old wounds. It’s not surprising of course, but it really gives a good view of how otaku view themselves, and it basically comes down to a shunning of that which has hurt us, and a celebration of that which brings us pleasure (and in this case, pleasure).

I too was a victim of bullying for a number of years, and for many years after that I harbored a deep, personality-affecting anger towards my tormentors. Did it contribute to the person I am today? I think so, but in a different sort of way. As time has passed, I still do not look upon those days fondly, but with enough emotional distance and perspective available to me now, I realize that as much as I hated my bullies then, we were all stupid kids. How much can I blame a bunch of kids for doing dumb things, when all they really wanted was to try and grow up as quickly as possible and act like adults? Should I be blaming the kids for having a warped perception of what it means to be mature, or should I be questioning their upbringing?

Being bullied made me realize just how wrong it is to diminish another person. That’s not to say you should never criticize someone, kick someone out, or even get into physical altercations, but there better be a damn good reason for it, and it better not just be to pad your own ego.

Actually, probably the thing that made me more forgiving of my old bullies was when I began to see geeks bullying other geeks. This initially disturbed me quite a bit, as I believed that all geeks and dorks were inherently nice people who were just the victims of others’ malice, but then I found out that given the opportunity, those same geeks were capable of turning around and becoming bullies themselves. I truly believe that bullying with your intelligence is a far greater crime than bullying with your fists, especially when it’s by those who should know better, but what can I do about it aside from speak about it here and warn my fellow otaku to not fall into the same trap?

Please get along, anime fans of the world. I would hate to see any of you make the mistakes of those before you.

What Do You Mean I Haven’t Heard of These Shows?

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I recently discovered a Mahou Shoujo fighting game called Magical Chaser thanks to a link referral for my Comet-san review, and decided to play it for a bit. The first thing that surprised me though was that of the eight characters playable in the game, there were two I didn’t recognize at all. One of them was the title character of the late 90s/early 00s anime Kasumin, and the other was Popuri from Fushigi Mahou Fan Fan Pharmacy, an early 00s anime.

I don’t presume to know every anime out there, and I don’t think anyone would ever expect me to have watched every show, but having been an active fan for a while it still surprises me whenever I discover a show I have never heard of at all. It’s like there’s an uncomfortable hole in my knowledge that weakens my desire to be a well-rounded fan with a broad view of anime as a whole. I get over it quickly though, and what amazes me more is that both shows, from what little I’ve seen, are really appealing. They’re the sort of thing I definitely would like to watch more of, and I can only hope I’ll have the opportunity to some day.

No one I know had ever heard of Kasumin or Fan Fan Pharmacy either, and it made me realize that there’s this pit of knowledge in the western anime fandom from about 1998 to 2003 due to a number of circumstances. Digisubs were barely coming into their own at this time, and the chances of every show in a season being subtitled or even released untranslated were slim to none. It’s no surprise that these shows fell through the cracks.

I’d like to uncover more shows like this, to know that for everything available online today, there’s still more wonderful things to find, more to learn about anime past. I also want to watch more magical girl shows.

A Dance Opening is More Than Just a Dance: Haruhi 1 vs Haruhi 2

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Yamamoto “Yamakan” Yutaka tends to divide the anime community with the anime he’s worked on, especially with his reluctant reputation as the most well-known creator of “dance segments” for anime openings and endings. Think Haruhi, Lucky Star, Kannagi, and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about. Now there are those among us, including myself, who have decried the overuse of dances in anime intros and outros, criticizing them as being too much of a fad, a gimmick which other anime are trying to latch onto in order to give themselves more otaku cred.

And they’d be right, except it doesn’t disqualify any of the above-mentioned Yamakan shows from being catchy bookends to each episode. Simply put, they’re quite good and they deserve to be catchy.

What actually made me newly appreciate Yamakan’s work was the second season of Haruhi. Watching the new ED, it just did not have any of the pop or style of the first series’ infamous “Hare Hare Yukai.”

Haruhi Season 1 ED

Haruhi Season 2 ED

It’s not like I’m criticizing the level of animation in the new ED; in many ways the animation in the new ED is better than the old one. And I’m not comparing the full Hare Hare Yukai dance itself to the new ED either. However, I really feel that the new ED’s sense of timing is a little lacking compared to the original, and that it overuses certain visual elements (a problem that goes double for the new OP). It was a pretty good idea, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

I’m not promoting the proliferation of even more dance numbers in anime, but rather just pointing out an example in which we have to look beyond the fad and into the core of what makes an opening catchy or memorable. I think that if you gave Yamakan an opening to storyboard and told him “no dancing,” he’d still be able to create something just as visually engaging.

Ogiue: Definitive Fujoshi Icon

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Mousou Shoujo Otakukei Volume 3 has been out in America for a number of months now (under the name Fujoshi Rumi), and in the back of the book the author Konjoh Natsumi describes her experience meeting the guys who played her manga’s characters in the live-action Mousou Shoujo adaptation. In one of the panels, she talks about the fact that her “Yaoi Antenna” went off as a result of seeing these guys together, and I think it’s quite telling just how she decided to portray this Yaoi Antenna.

Interesting, no? Konjoh could have chosen plenty of other icons to portray the tingling of her Yaoi Sense. Ohno’s mole, a pair of glasses, a wheeled suitcase, a furry ball of a creature emerging from the back of her skull are all valid choices, but it is the Ogiue fude which immediately brings to mind the image of the “fujoshi.”

Now, Konjoh is not against making obscure references because she does so pretty regularly, but I wouldn’t count this as among the “obscure.” This is a clear sign that in terms of fujoshi characters, Ogiue is pretty much #1 no matter how you slice it, even if a million pretenders to the throne should appear.

Reductive Production

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As of late, I’ve felt that quite a few anime creators have been taking a reductive approach to determining what is necessary for a piece of fiction to actually work. They’re examining the innards of animation as a story-telling device, and removing seemingly vital organs in order to determine whether it was a heart or if it was just the tonsils. The three most prominent examples I can think of are Miyazaki, Oshii, and Kyoto Animation.

Miyazaki asks, “Do I really need a cohesive narrative when I just want to illustrate a series of events in animation?” and then creates Ponyo.

Oshii asks, “Does my movie really need to be actively engaging when I want to make a movie entirely about tedium?” and then creates Sky Crawlers.

Kyoto Animation asks, “Can a work be considered ‘new’ if everything BUT the story itself is entirely redone?” and then creates the Endless Eight portion of Haruhi.

In every instance here, creators are using their reputations to put surprisingly experimental animations in a public setting for mass consumption. In the case of Oshii and Miyazaki, it’s in the theater, and for Kyoto Animation it’s on TV in the form of one of the most popular anime in recent years. And with these experiments, they are asking a rather weighty question: what exactly is fiction? They’re asking themselves, asking the audience, asking the industry, and depending on the answer they receive, we may see more works like this or less.

How do you feel about this? Should creators be using such public settings to experiment to such an extent?

I feel like in every instance here, creators are using their reputations to put surprisingly experimental animations in a public setting for mass consumption. In the case of Oshii and Miyazaki, it’s in the theater, and for Kyoto Animation it’s on TV in the form of one of the most popular anime in recent years.

Four Kings Meet in a Room to Discuss the Meaning of a Punch Made out of Rocket

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If you were to ask someone informed what the most influential giant robot series of all time were, they’d probably give the following answer: Mazinger Z, Mobile Suit Gundam, Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Isn’t it amazing then, when you realize that all four of these series have had recent revivals, as if the Forces of Anime have deemed this period of time to be the celebration of all things humanoid and mechanical?

Mazinger Z has the new Imagawa-directed Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen, which takes elements of the entirety of Mazinger lore and its remakes (as well as much of Nagai’s works) and incorporates them into a single cohesive story that explores and brings to light the thematic elements which make Mazinger Z itself such a prominent part of anime’s history. As the first Super Robot to be piloted from within, and the first to declare its attacks with passionate yells, and then in 2009 to make such a show feel fresh and original, I think we’re all the better for knowing it exists.

Gundam received a new series set in our timeline (AD) in the form of Gundam 00, as well as a return to the Universal Century timeline that few expected after all these years in the form of Gundam Unicorn and Ring of Gundam. There’s also the massive celebration of its 30th anniversary in real life, which includes life-size Gundams, weddings on life-size Gundams, and musical concerts. Whichevery way you prefer your Gundam, whether you’re an old-school curmudgeon or someone who came in from Wing or SEED, there’s a message for you, and that message is “Gundam is Amazing!”

Macross Frontier meanwhile celebrated the franchise’s 25th anniversary. Unlike Gundam, Macross doesn’t just get animated series updates every year, so to have a full series emerge and capture much of the energy of the original Macross while still being true to its current era of anime made Frontier a joy to follow. The most interesting departures, so to speak, were the extremely current-era character designs (in contrast with the classic 80’s Mikimoto ones), and the ways in which the concept of  the “pop idol” has morphed over the course of two or three decades.

Evangelion is in the process of having its story entirely re-animated and retold in a series of movies which seek to do more than just cash in on an already perpetually marketable franchise, though that’s not to say that they don’t do so at all, and instead also transform the story in dramatic ways, from adding entirely new characters to subtle changes in the characters’ personalities and actions, everything is moving towards the idea that things will Not Be the Same. It’s also the newest series of the bunch, and thus the “freshest” in the public consciousness.

What’s also interesting about this is that when you step back and look, you’ll see that each of these series has influenced the one after it in very powerful ways, whether indirectly or otherwise. Mazinger Z set the stage for the super robot formula, which led to a young Tomino Yoshiyuki working on super robot series, then getting tired of them, eventually leading to Gundam, the first series to really push the idea of giant robots as tools, and to advance the concept of a war with no real winners that existed in series such as Daimos and Zambot 3. Macross is an evolution of this “real robot” concept thanks to a staff that fell in love with Gundam years ago, and now includes real-world vehicles transforming directly into robots, a much greater emphasis on character relationships, and an optimistic spin with the idea that the power of songs can influence two warring cultures and bring them closer to one another. Evangelion’s director Anno Hideaki worked on Macross, and the influence of both it and Gundam and even Mazinger Z permeate throughout its episodes and general design. The “Monster of the Week” formula made popular by Mazinger Z finds its revival in the form of the mysterious “Angels” in Evangelion, but the story and the monsters are merely part of a philosophical backdrop. Characters are entirely the focus of the series, and these children are so intrinsically flawed that some do not enjoy them as characters.

And now it’s like all of these series are sitting in the same room, feeling the weight of their years of fame, and standing shoulder to shoulder, eager to see what happens next in the world of giant robot anime. And then sitting in the same room is Tetsujin 28, which nods its head in approval.

Are giant robots still capable of capturing imagination and transforming world-views after all this time? I think so, and I think it’s happening as you read this.

Aim for the Ace Anime Adaptations Analysis

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The year was 1973, and a young anime studio named Madhouse began work on its first big series, an adaptation of a popular tennis manga called Ace o Nerae! or Aim for the Ace! as it translates in English. Running 26 episodes, it was directed by Dezaki Osamu and had character designs by Sugino Akio, a duo that continues to work together even to this day, including Rose of Versailles, the 90s Black Jack OVAs, and Space Adventure Cobra. They also worked together on every other anime adaptation of Aim for the Ace!

With that in mind, I thought it’d be interesting to just put the openings of each of the Ace series next to each other, if only to see how time, money, and experience have affected the same series over the course of two decades.

1973’s Ace o Nerae!

1978s Shin Ace o Nerae!

1988’s Ace o Nerae 2!

It might be a little unfair to compare openings, but I feel that doing so is a good indicator for seeing how an anime series wishes to be first seen. When you look at the 1973 opening vs the 1978 opening though, you can already see a world of difference. Character designs in Shin Ace are cleaner and more consistent, perhaps at the expense of some of the wild and untamed artwork that characterizes the original. Everything is also much-better animated, with fewer visible shortcuts being taken. Fast forward to 1988 and of course you can see a huge change, brought on by overall progress in anime, an OVA-level budget and changing visual trends in anime (and in real-world fashion). Keep in mind though that unlike, say, Cutie Honey, where each incarnation is done by a different studio and different people at the helm, Ace 2 has the same core team as the first Ace, and what you’re seeing here is direct evidence of how they changed over the course of 15 years.

I think the biggest difference between the original and the later series is that by the time of Shin Ace, the anime is actively trying to portray human figures in a three-dimensional space, and Ace 2 even moreso. If you look at the original TV series, even in the opening it never wants to tell you exactly where the characters are in any given moment. It feels closer to a manga brought to life, for better or worse. In that regard, I feel that the original has a certain charm that the others lack, the kind of appeal that comes from seeing just how much people could do with so little.

Really though, I just think they should have kept the hair from the first TV series throughout each incarnation. That includes the live-action series from a few years ago.