YES! Kaede Sushi: Aikatsu! Season 1 Follow-Up Review

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Though I was originally asked to write about Aikatsu! through my Patreon, I quickly found myself hooked on the show. Despite the sheer length of the series, I finished the first 50-episode season in less time than I usually take to watch shows half that size. Thus, I want to give an update to my previous post to talk about some of the later developments that I enjoyed.

Summary

Aikatsu! follows Hoshimiya Ichigo on her quest to become an idol. She enrolls in Starlight Academy (a school specializing in idols) with her best friend and idol fan, Kiriya Aoi, and over the course of the series they climb the ranks and make many friends. While girls’ shows such as these tend to not work in dramatic narratives, the lack of a very concrete goal leaves the series without any continuing driving force other than the sheer personalities of its characters.

However, with respect to those characters Aikatsu! is immensely entertaining. Though none of them are particularly complex, the way they bounce off of each other and the way that even the most gimmicky characters exhibit a great deal of heart and vibrancy in their personalities helps the show along immensely. When the show is being episodic, it’s still entertaining. When it allows its characters to grow, Aikatsu! is home to a number of memorable moments.

Great New Characters aikatsu-kaedesushi

There are three major changes since my previous post that make the show better overall. The first is the growing of the cast into something rather enormous, and yet Aikatsu! is able to keep it from being unwieldy. Of the later additions, I think Ichinose Kaede and Kitaouji Sakura are fantastic. Kaede is a scene stealer with her constant Engrish (she comes from America after all), ability to make sushi appear out of thin air, and just the way she represents the idea that, at least in the Aikatsu! universe, being an idol in the US is rough business that requires you to be on your A game at all times. For Sakura, I love how her running gag, the fact that she will just break into Kabuki-style talk when discussing important topics, is weaved into moments and then quickly transitioned out of back into normal conversation.

If there’s one thing that I think was a lost opportunity with Sakura, it has to do with the fact that she originally appears as Ichigo’s fresh-faced freshman (whereby Ichigo is supposed to guide her), but Sakura is already way more talented than Ichigo in a variety of ways. What Ichigo is meant to teach Sakura is the sense of exuberance that Ichigo is known for, and I think they could have directly developed that more.

Improved CG

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The second upgrade is the improved 3DCG dance sequences. CG at the start of Aikatsu! was pretty bland, something it shares with rival series such as Pretty Rhythm. But it gets better as the show progresses, and with both more natural-looking movements and better camera work the dance numbers go from tedious to pretty entertaining. The only strike I hold against them is the fact that they’re often meant to be competitions but no differences are really shown in regards to how each character is dancing (they do the same moves at the same time all the time), with the exception of the “Special Appeals,” which are essentially fanciful cut scenes that act as special moves (this is based on a game, after all).

As someone who is neither a dancer nor rhythmically inclined in general maybe I’m not getting it, and I also don’t expect a show for little girls to cater to my adult sense of continuity, but I think this is exactly the sort of thing anime and manga tend to be good at. It’s hard for an ignoramus like me to enjoy ballet, but when it’s ballet + shocked expressions + exposition, even I can enjoy Swan Lake.

Hoshimiya Ringo, an Awesome Mom

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The third improvement is the way that they build up Ichigo’s mom. When the series begins, Ringo is shown owning a simple bento shop and having no connections to the idol world. Over the course of the series, it blatantly hints that she’s not what she seems, and while it’s quickly made obvious to the audience that Ringo was a member of the most famous idol group in history, Masquerade (along with Starlight’s headmaster Orihime), seeing Ringo hint at her past in conversations with Ichigo by dispensing advice only when necessary, or exchanging knowing glances with Orihime kept me wanting more. In the end, the payoff for this little plot thread is well worth it.

The show actually hints at this right from the opening, as Ringo is shown pretending that her rice scoop is a microphone and posing for her son Raichi’s camera. What is supposed to be a mom playing at being an idol is actually Ringo very briefly delving back into her past.

Final Thoughts

It’ll probably be a while before I watch the second season, but I can easily see now why Aikatsu! garners such a loyal fanbase. It’s a genuinely entertaining series that never really has any low points, and stays consistent throughout even if it doesn’t have any kind of massive involving story arc. Let’s look back in a year or two and see if I’ve come back to the world of Idol Activities. Alhough, I feel like I’ll miss the first opening and ending themes; they really were the best.

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By the way, I spent a bit of time in Japan recently and got to play the actual Aikatsu! arcade game. What stood out to me most about the game is that the awkward idol poses in the anime are just there to directly reflect the game elements. Without the visibility of success and failure in those sequences, however, some of the impact is lost on TV.

I also got a couple of sweet cards for my trouble, and I rocked Kaede as my character. While I was indeed playing a game for 5 year olds, the only other person playing was a salaryman in a suit and tie. Perhaps Idol Activities truly are for everyone.

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Minus World: Kimi xxxru Koto Nakare, Chapter 5

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It’s the aftermath of a love scandal in Kimi Nakare Chapter 5. How will Hayato and the rest of his band mates deal with it?

Summary

Jirou, one of Hayato’s fellow members in the idol group WARP, was discovered with a girl. In this chapter, we learn that it isn’t just any girl, but the love of Jirou’s life. Resolving to choose love over his career, Jirou decides to quit WARP and marry his longtime girlfriend.

Hayato in the meantime finds that his school has now become a target for paparazzi, specifically so that they can catch him in the act. Ironically, Nobuko’s “ugly but passionate admirer” gimmick works out in their favor, as she’s able to chase off a gossip mongerer.

However, despite Hayato’s protests and even his own threat of quitting the band to chase love himself, it turns out not to be necessary. WARP is disbanding.

Young vs. Old Idols

The topic that I found most fascinating in this chapter is the distinction between younger and older idols. At one point, Hayato points out that there are idols that have gotten married without any backlash, and their manager responds that only established idols can do that. As a group, you have to reach a point where you basically become a fan’s first love, so even as those fans grow and perhaps get married themselves, the idol will always have a special place in a woman’s heart (and the woman in the idol’s). In other words, a relatively new group like WARP hasn’t built up the cache.

Most of the time, the thought over idols is that love is forbidden because they must forever be locked away as long as they indeed hold the status of “idol.” However, this implies that idols are a kind of evolving phenomenon that can choose to either stay as they are or grow with their audience. At the same time, the path to the “married idol” is fraught with danger, and appears to be only the domain of the true veteran.

It’s still kind of weird that Japan’s most famous idol manager ended up marrying one of his idols, but I digress. I’m also perhaps being unfair; if Celine Dion could find happiness with her manager, why not?

Not Enough Hayato and Nobuko?

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While I previously mentioned being curious over the side characters, and Hayato’s scene with Nobuko protecting him from a prying photographer is rather charming, I do feel like I didn’t get enough of the two of them this chapter. I think that speaks a lot to how appealing they are as main characters, but perhaps I’m not giving the rest of the cast a fair shake. Jirou being a sweet guy is a welcome surprise, as is his decision to choose his girlfriend over his job. Not to say that it would be the right decision in every case, but I was convinced that it was what he personally should have done.

It also made me aware that there are two different love conundrums at work in this series: the career-based one, and the psychological one. Even this brief interaction lets the two sides play out beautifully.

Last Thoughts

I wonder if the loss of WARP might spur Hayato to begin a full-fledged career as a comedian, so that he can stand by Nobuko’s side. Wouldn’t that be nice?

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[Apartment 507] Japanese Manga App Review: Shonen Jump +

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I wrote a review of another Japanese manga app! See if it’s up your alley.

Ogiue Maniax at Otakon 2016, August 12-14

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It’s time for another year at the east coast’s largest anime convention! It’ll be Otakon’s final year in Baltimore for the foreseeable future, so I’m hoping to make it a memorable one.

I’ve also got a couple of panels this year, and I hope that you can attend.

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Saturday, August 11, 8:15 – 9:15pm

Panel Room 5

“Such Dog. Much Anime. Wow.”

It’s a panel celebrating dogs in anime! See your favorites, and some you’ve probably never even heard of! My co-presenter on this panel will be Kate from the Reverse Thieves.

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Saturday, August 11, 11:45pm – 12:45pm

Panel Room 1

“Greater Uglier Manga.” [18+]

The sequel to last year’s “Great Ugly Manga” panel. Once again, my co-presenter and I will be showing manga that’s great not in spite of how ugly they are, but because of how ugly they are. As a warning, this year’s iteration is 18+, but keep in mind that this is not just some pornography/hentai panel. Most of the content will still be all-ages.

See you there!

Love Live! Sunshine!! and the School Idol Median

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What does it mean to create a follow-up act to a multimedia franchise as successful as Love Live!? That’s the challenge facing  Love Live! Sunshine!! To fans, each of the original girls is something special, something unique, and renewing that fervor can be like catching lightning in a bottle. Of course, a franchise like Love Live! is designed to do just that, across different characters and different iterations of the concept, but it’s still not necessarily an easy task. Though I might be jumping the gun with what I’m about to say, I think the people in charge of Love Live! might now have a much clearer idea of what is most effective, and this potentially manifests in the physical appearances of the characters themselves.
I decided recently to see how the physical characteristics of the μ’s girls stack up to those of Love Live Sunshine!!‘s Aqours. Thanks to Reddit, I found a convenient chart comparing all of their heights and bust sizes. What’s noticeable is that the Aqours members are all closer to each other physically. Toujou Nozomi and Yazawa Nico are at the extremes in terms of bust size (to no one’s surprise), but a character like Hanayo who is above average compared to the rest of μ’s is decidedly normal in the world of Love Live! Sunshine!! Similarly, while half-Italian American Ohara Mari is the tallest, the other girls are also relatively close to her. Keep in mind that the disparity is not especially large, especially when it comes to height. The difference between “tiny” Kunikida Hanamaru and “towering” Mari is a mere 4 inches (or 10 centimeters). Already, there’s a certain narrow range median that reminds me of something anime voice actress Nonaka Ai once mentioned when I interviewed her: she wanted to be an actress but was considered too tall. Similarly, Hanayo’s voice actress Kubo Yurika is the tallest of the μ’s cast. Like Mari, she is 5’4″ or 163 cm.

I think it’s worth entertaining the thought that the success of Love Live! School Idol Project, which grew gradually from a modest success to a cultural phenomenon, has informed the current version in terms of what is the best median to take, at least in terms of physical traits. Moreover, given the seaside venue of Love Live! Sunshine!!, I believe that there is a greater push for sex appeal, though I’m sure they’re aware that keeping the fanservice from going too overboard is important for maintaining Love Live!‘s large female fanbase.

That being said, while they’re more similar in size, I’m not sure the same applies to the characters’ personalities. In many ways, they feel more extreme and more adhered to certain archetypes, such as Yohane’s chuunibyou identity, Kurosawa Dia’s “Kanzuki Karin” levels of haughtiness, or her sister Ruby’s ultra moe shyness. The closest we have to Ruby in in the original was Hanayo, and at this point we’re aware that Hanayo is kind of a maniac. That doesn’t mean the Aqours characters are bad, however. In a way, perhaps it helps to distinguish them further from each other.

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Quotable: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for August 2016

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August is full of fun and surprises. For one thing, I have two panels at Otakon 2016: “Greater Uglier Manga” and “Such Dog, Much Anime, Wow.” The schedule isn’t available yet, but when it is I’ll be making a post.

Another bit of news is that Ogiue Maniax has, for the first time ever, been quoted on the back of a manga! The title in question is Sweetness & Lightning:

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I consider this quite the milestone, and I’d like to thank my readers, but especially my Patreon sponsors in particular for supporting me:

General:

Johnny Trovato

Ko Ransom

Alex

Diogo Prado

Sasahara Keiko fans:

Kristopher Hostead

Yoshitake Rika fans:

Elliot Page

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

I’d also like to congratulate Johnny for winning my Love Live! contest.

Perhaps the biggest news of all for the blog is that Genshiken is ending! I’ve written my review for the penultimate chapter, and I already have emotions welling up inside of me in anticipation for the final conclusion. You’ll be certain that I’ll have a lot to say at the end.

If nothing crazy happens (like a third Genshiken being announced soon after), I’m considering doing a series of nine posts to review the original series volume by volume. What do you think?

Other notable posts this month include my Patreon-sponsored article on Purity in Anime, my reviews of the Kyoto subway tourism light novel, Kyo Girls Days, and Girls und Panzer der Film, as well as a report on my visit to the university on which Genshiken is based.

It’s kind of a hectic month looking ahead, so I haven’t had time to think of any new projects for the blog. For now, I’m still watching and reading through quite a back catalog, with the intention of clearing up some time to finally review Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross for Gattai Girls. Luckily, it’s now on Amazon, free for Prime users and 99 cents per episode for non-Primes. So, I have no excuses left!

Once again, I’ll be at Otakon, so if anyone wants to come up and say hi at a panel, feel free to do so! I’m actually a tad shy in real life, and it can come across as surliness, but don’t let that scare you.

[Apartment 507] Why Are There so Many Redhead Fantasy Anime Heroines?

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I’ve been thinking for a long while about the ubiquity red hair as a feature of prominent female characters in fantasy anime. That’s what prompted this article. It’s a bit sparse in terms of exploring the concept further, but I think it provides a nice basis for future posts (which will most likely be on Ogiue Maniax).

Trinity Tempo: The Idol Franchise Where Money Literally Equals Success

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tritem_index_3Anime-style idols (and of course idols in general) have been of the most enduring trends in current Japanese pop culture. Between franchises like The iDOLM@STER, Love Live!, Ensemble Stars, and King of Prism by Rhythm, more and more pop up seemingly every week. Trinity Tempo is one such franchise, but what makes it unique is the degree to which it takes the AKB48 “vote with your money” concept to the next level. That’s because Trinity Tempo exists almost purely in terms of merchandise, with nothing else to anchor it.

Ever since AKB48 and their annual elections, the idea of idols competing against each other with fan support has been prominent within that world. Fans vote by getting CDs because one purchase equals one ballot, and the idea is that the more you love your favorite idol the more you will buy buy buy. Currently a little over a year old, Trinity Tempo‘s premise is that different schools compete against each other in idol competitions, and you get to determine who wins by buying merchandise for your favorite team. You literally get to influence how the overall story progresses by spending cash on character-specific goods, with certain items giving you more “votes” than others.

“Where does Trinity Tempo come from?” you might be asking. The iDOLM@STER began as a game with visual novel elements. Love Live! got its start as a series of songs. All of these properties aim for the media mix, with anime and manga adaptations, coverage in magazines, and more, but they tend to have at least one or two initial starting points. After all, how would you know who your favorite characters or what your favorite songs are?

The answer is… there is nothing. No CDs. No anime or manga or games. Trinity Tempo exists almost purely in “merch space,” where potential fans are supposed to be drawn into it based primarily on their attraction to the concept and the characters themselves. Since release there has been at least one Drama CD, but that’s about it.

I think this speaks to the idea presented by Azuma Hiroki that fans take bits and pieces of characters, worlds, and stories and merge them together in what are known as “database narratives.” I’m oversimplifying the idea, but I think it can be argued that Trinity Tempo aims to commercialize the otaku desire to gather these fragments together on a level even beyond something like Kantai Collection. Whether or not they’ll succeed in the end remains to be seen.

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Pent-Up Penultimate Supernovas: Genshiken II, Chapter 126

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In case you haven’t heard, Genshiken Nidaime ends next month (!!!). Nevertheless, we haven’t reached the finish line quite yet.

Chapter Summary

After a bit of haranguing, Kasukabe and Ogiue finally manage to get Madarame and Sue on the phone together. At that moment, Madarame confesses his feelings for Sue in the one language she truly understands: internet memes and anime references. Deftly avoiding his statements, Sue finally gives pause when Madarame says the magic words—”I think you’re ridiculously moe.” Madarame explains that, while moe, love, and sexual attraction aren’t necessarily the same thing, he wants to believe in moe as an important facet of being an otaku, and Sue is basically the manifestation of his 2D interests in 3D. Finally, Sue agrees, and the two officially become a couple.

That same day, Madarame reveals that he’s finalized the deal on his new apartment, and is moving away, further from the university than he’s ever been. With a new home, and a new girlfriend, Madarame finally moves on from the past but without abandoning his otaku pride.

A Bit of Hindsight

Is this the true nail in the coffin for the canonicity of Spotted Flower? Maybe, maybe not.

I’m pretty shocked that Genshiken is coming to a close once more. Given this sudden news, it makes me think a bit differently about these past few chapters. While I’ve seen complaints that the Madarame harem story took too long to reach its conclusion, I was okay with that length while under the assumption that we’d get to see a lot more. Now, however, we won’t even get to witness the younger Yoshitake sister’s college debut. We won’t get to see how Madarame and Sue’s relationship grows. We won’t get excited as new members of Genshiken are made. Because of this, a part of me now wishes that the harem arc would’ve finished sooner so that we’d have room for more stories. I know manga publishing doesn’t necessarily work that way, but a guy can dream, right?

The Case for Susanna Hopkins

Moving onto Chapter 126, this one hits with the force of a battering ram. Where once we thought Madarame’s romantic life would fall back into stasis for the time being, here it is, pried wide open by the power of Kasukabe Saki. Seeing as the series is ending so soon, Kasukabe’s actions might be construed as a kind of deus ex machina. However, can a character be simultaneously a deus ex machina and a realistic character at the same time that all of her actions are perfectly in-character? In Genshiken, it seems, anything is possible.

The lines that Madarame uses this chapter are as follows: “The moon is pretty,” which is an indirect way of saying, “I love you”; “About Sue, Madarame- !”, which is the romance manga standard for many interrupted confessions, and finally, “Sue makes me pig out! Oink oink oink!” All of these are varying forms of otaku communication, and it shows what about Madarame and Sue makes sense as a couple. Madarame is an otaku, through and through, and Sue is the only one truly capable of matching him in terms of power level. That’s not to say that none of the other potential partners would not have made sense, and I think this is in the manga’s favor. We’re left with one of four possibilities, and when looking at the outcome, a particular set of messages is conveyed.

Liberty, Equality, and Moe

I think it’s very telling that Madarame’s explanation about his attraction to her revolves around the idea of “moe,” and how he contrasts it with erotic attraction. While he doesn’t position them in a dichotomy—moe can lead to sexual attraction and vice versa, as was the case with his feelings towards Kasukabe—Madarame’s decision to go with the “moe” one is an embracing of his continued desire to be an otaku. Madarame feels like he needs to grow up. Times are changing, but that doesn’t mean that Madarame has to “graduate” from being exactly the kind of otaku he is, which is an old-school geek with old-school geek tastes.

In other words, Sue lets Madarame be himself in a way the others wouldn’t, even if they would have made nice couples anyway. Sue not only possesses all of the features that Madarame loves in anime characters, being a “blonde loli with a rude attitude,” but she’s also his equal where it counts for Madarame: as a fan of anime and manga. Because of this, Madarame is moving on with one aspect of his life by separating himself from Shiiou University as the anchor he could not (or did not want to) escape, but he is still projecting his core being as he moves ahead. Where once Madarame was an otaku tied to the past, now he is an otaku looking ahead to the future. Also, Sue still attends the university so he’ll probably be around sometimes anyway.

Madarame’s decision to go where the moe is doesn’t have all that much in common with the other couples in Genshiken. Ogiue projects her BL version of Sasahara onto the real person, but this acts more as a kind of intimate bonding (and implied foreplay). and she increasingly shows how much she loves the actual Sasahara. Ohno and Tanaka came together over their shared hobbies, but it’s in the space of passion and community. Kohsaka and Kaminaga both have non-otaku partners who are fairly different from each other. And even though it doesn’t really count, Kugayama wants to get to know his beloved Cabaret Club girl Rino better. To put it differently, Genshiken presents many possible avenues of romance for otaku. There is no one size fits all, whether the significant other is an otaku or not, and so Madarame’s choice to embrace moe (and Sue in the process), is the path he, as an individual, takes, and his way of navigating the nebulous border between 2D and 3D.

I know the Madarame/Hato dynamic and the end of that possibility leaves a bitter taste in many fans’ mouths, but I do want to point out something very noteworthy in this chapter. When Madarame is comparing his prospective partners in terms of moe, he mentions that everyone but Sue would better be categorized as “sexy.” When asked about whether that includes Hato, Madarame says, “Hato too.” In other words, Madarame feels sexual attraction towards Hato (though whether it’s Hato the boy or Hato the boy dressed as a girl isn’t clear), and his decision for going with Sue is something that almost transcends the flesh. Madarame being very quite possibly bisexual is something I don’t think anyone expected from Genshiken originally, and it’s kind of amazing to say at all now that it’s come to this.

Sue’s Meta Powers

Before I bring this review home, I want to talk more about Sue as an entity of fiction. Though it isn’t ever explicitly stated who the most popular character in Genshiken Nidaime is, many signs point to either Hato or Sue. It’s Sue who was made into a DLC costume for the game Akiba’s Trip, who was made into a hug pillow, and who is increasingly prominent on the store-exclusive bonuses for buying new volumes of the manga in Japanese. Could this popularity have been a factor in deciding the final couple?

Another aspect of Sue that bears mentioning is the fact that she’s able to make not just anime and manga references, but references to Genshiken itself. Sue’s way of saying, “Yes, I will go out with you Madarame!” in this chapter comes from twisting a quote from Zenigata from Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro: “He stole something quite precious: your heart.” Except, Sue replaces “your heart” with “my panties.” One might think she’s just being weird, but this is actually the very line that Ogiue thinks when Sue flies back to the US in the first series while still wearing the underwear she borrowed from Ogiue. As one might remember from early on in Nidaime‘s life, Sue was somehow even able to reference Ogiue’s self-introduction (in spite of her not even being there at the time!). Sue actually might just be some kind of metatextual alien.

In Closing

One more chapter, and next month is Kuchiki’s graduation. In the meantime, enjoy these Ogiue moments. Though it’s a Sue-centric chapter, it was actually rife with Ogiue goodness.

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The Fujoshi Files 159: Black-haired Fujoshi

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Name: N/A
Alias: N/A
Relationship Status: N/A
Origin: Happy Fujoshi: Fujoshi no After 5

Information:
This un-named fujoshi joins her friends at a karaoke joint after a doujin event. She participates in the singing of anime themes and is into the pairing of Randy x Gerdt.

Fujoshi Level:
When looking in music stores, she actively searches for “Randy x Gerdt-esque” songs.