Left-Handed Basis for Purchase of Anime Goods

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For many anime companies in the US, the million dollar question is, “Why are so many fans willing to spend so much money on anime-related merchandise but not anime itself?”

One avenue of thought says that because a lot of people download these shows or obtain them for free and do so for so long, a lot of them simply take having free shows for granted. Figures and posters and such, however, cannot be obtained for no money. But I think this is looking at things on too narrow a level. I believe there’s something that manifests itself in different ways according to different types of fans, from moe fans to Naruto devotees to mech heads.

I think there’s a strong desire to get closer to the characters and the world of the anime, beyond what an anime shows. Even if it’s not real, we want to get as close to real as possible. By buying that left-handed bass, a person can feel like they have a bond with Akiyama Mio. By buying that Temari fanart at a convention, a person can affirm their fondness for the sand kunoichi, and in a much more direct and efficient way than simply buying the Naruto anime (which as a whole has like, 2% Temari content tops). By buying that Master Grade Qubeley MK II, a person can bring the fantastic realism of a mobile suit into the actual reality of their home, with the tactile nature of model kit building also contributing.

For the most part, anime fans definitely enjoy the anime they watch, but the anime itself remains in its own world behind the TV screen or computer monitor. Fans want to pull that world past the 4th wall and engage it more directly. But it’s impossible to make the world of anime our own, so the best we can do is buy tangible products that let us get as close as possible.

You Mean There’s More than One?

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Kransom pointed me over to the Amazon page for the Genshiken novel, where one review in particular caught our eyes.

I really like Genshiken. I mean, REALLY like it. I own the comics in both Japanese and English, I have all the DVDs, and I regularly read blogs with the names of the characters in the titles. I’m prepared to give a LOT of slack to anything with the official seal of Genshiken on it, because they’ve earned that credit.

Now who could they be talking about, hmm?

By the way, I can’t really recommend the Genshiken novel to Genshiken fans either. It’s more Twilight Zone than it is a story about otaku.

If you’re reading this post, Gen Felal, then I’m here to give you an internet high five.

Otakumonogatari

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Today it occurred to me that there is more to Bakemonogatari than what’s on the surface. No, I’m not talking about the occult subject matter or the Nisio Isin writing which can give even Japanese people pause, or even that Shinbo touch that the director puts into most of his works. Instead, what I’m referring to is the way Bakemonogatari treats otaku, or more broadly, anime and manga fans.

Now I want to ask, who in Bakemonogatari is an anime fan? The answer is no one and everyone. In this story, everyone is able to just mention obscure manga titles and make equally esoteric references with the assumption that somebody else out there will get them, almost like how everyone in Beyblade knows about tops.

Within the confines of its own story, Bakemonogatari normalizes the otaku, something that is exceedingly rare. In titles about otaku such as Genshiken and Mousou Shoujo Otakukei, the otaku is still seen as something special or at least different. Other works take aspects of reality and soften them through layers of otaku filters. Bakemonogatari on the other hand assumes otaku to be the starting point and moves the story forward from there, adding in all of those supernatural elements.

It’s kind of like how superhero comics are traditionally a power fantasy, taking the real world and making it a little more fantastic, but titles like Watchmen take the fantasy and inject reality back in. Not that I’m comparing Alan Moore to Nisio Isin, mind you.

There Sure is a Lot to Talk About

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When it comes to presenting, while nothing truly prepares you for the main event, you still get a lot of mileage from just practicing in front of an invisible audience. That’s what Sub and I did for our mahjong panel today, and it really helped us a lot.

From the very start, we were well aware of one of the big problems of running a mahjong panel: there is simply too much information for an hour. But even after cutting a number of things from the presentation, important ones mind you, we still found ourselves eating up too much time. We really had to get down to the meat and bones of what we wanted to convey, but at the same time were conscious of the fact that being too boney-meaty might not get across some of the fun of mahjong. Still, after practicing a few times, I think we pretty much have it down. In addition to letting us adjust the slides for better flow and such, it also gave us a much better idea of what we really wanted to say.

Compared to the Ogiue panel, the content of the mahjong panel has to be razor-sharp in its focus. It does not forgive going off on tangents. But I think we’re ready for the challenge.

Showcase Your Manga Abilities: Manga as/in Essay

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This is a call-out to all of you artists, writers, and scholars who believe in the power of manga to convey ideas, and want to spread this belief to others.

The Modern East Asia Research Centre at Leiden University is sponsoring a new series of competitions for the next five years, with the goal of exploring the creative and expressive power of manga.

The first project up is  “Manga as/in Essay,” wherein contributors will create graphic essays about the theme of “ox herding” as a metaphor for the path towards Enlightenment in Zen Buddhism. It’s a heady and perhaps difficult topic, but that’s part of the fun, and I think it’ll be quite  interesting to see what happens when the imaginations and ideas of thousands(?) of contributors are focused upon a single specific idea such as this.

For the most part, contributors are free to interpret the topic however they choose. One page or 50 pages, verbose or silent, all manners of writing and drawing styles are welcome.

Of course, this is a competition, and there will be prizes for the winners: 1000 Euros for 1st place, and 500 Euros apiece for 2nd and 3rd place. On top of that, the winners will be published in an academic journal. According to the promotional material, the criteria for winning is as follows:

-originality of expression
-power of expression
-style of expression
-quality of imagery
-overall effectiveness

So keep them in mind as you create your projects.

I’m going to link you the project page one more time because there is a lot of stuff to read about it and I don’t want anyone jumping into it only to realize they made some serious error. It also explains what exactly the “ox herding” thing is if you’re completely unfamiliar with it like I am.

The deadline is October 31st, 2010, so get cracking!

The Hidamari Sketches

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While looking through my recently-acquired volumes of Hidamari Sketch, I found myself enjoying the comic well enough, but gravitating more towards the interstitial drawings that populate the pages in between the 4-panel comics.

“Wow,” I thought to myself upon first noticing them, “These drawings are really nice and and have excellent line quality to them. I kind of wish the whole comic was drawn this way.”

But then I wondered about how that would actually affect Hidamari Sketch. Part of why I like a looser, heavier brush style is that it gives off a good sense of vibrancy and energy; it’s really visceral in a way but also can be extremely elegant. However, all of that has to do with the drawing itself and connecting to the artist, as opposed to the art style being a way to connect with the characters. Given that Hidamari Sketch is a pleasant slice-of-life story, soothing like a spoonful of honey, drawing that much attention to the hand behind the art might not be the best thing for it.

I can still hope though.

How Diabolical!

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I think there’s more to the manga and anime series Zettai Karen Children than meets the eye, possibly some kind of elaborate conspiracy taking place over a period of years.

The series is about 3 young psychic girls defending the world alongside their adult caretaker (not pictured) Looking at the character designs, I think it’s undeniable that there is at least some lolicon appeal to these characters and that the creators are well aware of this element.

However, Zettai Karen Children does not run in some otaku-pandering magazine. It’s not like it’s from Comic High or Champion Red Ichigo or even Dengeki Daioh. ZKC runs in Shounen Sunday, the home of Detective Conan, Kekkaishi, Touch!, and Inuyasha. It’s meant to appeal to young boys first and foremost, though in a way different from Shounen Jump‘s more well-known approach of commercialized battling and the like.

Shounen Sunday has a well-established track record of introducing female characters who are on equal footing with their male counterparts with the goal of introducing the concept of males and females being equal to one another to children at an early age. There’s Ran in Detective Conan, Tokine in Kekkaishi, Minami in Touch!, and Kagome in Inuyasha. Having the main characters be the girls in ZKC means that the strength of females is readily apparent.

I have trouble thinking that Shounen Sunday would just let a series with lolicon elements run in its pages without some kind of ulterior motive to change or influence people, to just let it run to attract that older otaku audience.

As Zettai Karen Children has continued, the titular girls have aged. As of now, they are junior high age and their bodies have clearly matured. First, this implies that the progression of time is desired in the series, and second, that the girls are gradually moving away from being designed to have that very, very youthful appeal.

What I think they’re actually doing is an attempt to slowly create an  attraction to adult women in a group that might normally reject it otherwise. It’s using the power of the 2D complex to seize the hearts of otaku early on and then gradually wean them off of lolicon.

That’s Shounen Sunday, thinking long-term.

Yelling Till It’s Blu in the Face

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HD video is currently the next step in increasing the visual quality of moving images, and it is certainly more detailed than anything in the past, but it just makes me think about how in terms of visual clarity, video is forever doomed to lag behind still images and photographs.

Here is a fiction re-enactment of the interaction between video and photography.

Video: I’m bigger and sharper and better than ever! Maybe I’ll finally win!
Photography: Well that’s great! By the way, have you seen my new ultra mega resolution that lets me get in 100 times as much detail?
Video: DAMN YOUUUUUUUU

Or something to that effect.

Of course video is more realistic in its own way, but through time we’ve seen that increasing desire for more realism in it, but just by the fact that for every step in visual clarity that video takes, photography and the like are able to be at least twice or three times better just by virtue of being static images.

This might make for a good shounen manga, actually. Personally I can’t wait for the heroic team-up to vanquish a common enemy.

And by common enemy, I mean REALITY ITSELF.

Ike! Pin Panels!

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As Otakon draws nearer I’ve been steadily working on my panels, and I’ve come to realize that this time around I’m really concerned with giving good presentations.

That’s not to say though that I didn’t care about previous panels, nor that I haven’t ever presented in front of a crowd. I have plenty of experience for example defending my art portfolio for various thesis classes. But what feels different about this perhaps is that I really want to convey information in a way that really helps people grow as thinking fans. I want to make sure I do as much as I can with the time that I have so that everyone who attends can come away satisfied and feeling like they want more and want to do more.

I don’t have too many doubts though, as I think not only me but my co-panelists all have passions for the subjects we’ll be presenting, and so I think that once we’re in the spotlight we’ll do well. No pressure!

Otakon’s 21 days away, which seems like a lot but kind of isn’t. And then there’s that other thing looming on the horizon…

Which Genshiken Character Likes Soccer the Most?

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Tanaka.