The Many Faces of the Bionic Commando

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Bionic Commando, originally an arcade game from 1987, found its way onto the Famicom/NES, where a new plot involving Nazis Badds and an improvement on gameplay features made it a hit, particularly in the United States. Since then, while not a super popular franchise, Bionic Commando has gotten a number of remakes, most notably the HD 3-D retooling of the original game, Bionic Commando: Rearmed and the 2009 Bionic Commando sequel.

In each game, you control a man with a gun and a bionic arm, whose goal it is to climb and swing through levels while eliminating enemy soldiers and reach the end of the level. While the gist of gameplay has remained fairly consistent, the art direction has not, resulting in a very different face for our cyborg hero over the years.

Our hero from left to right: Bionic Commando (Arcade, 1987), Bionic Commando (NES, 1988), Bionic Commando (Game Boy, 1992), Bionic Commando: Elite Forces (Game Boy Color, 1999), Bionic Commando: Rearmed (PS3 and 360, 2008), Bionic Commando (PS3 and 360, 2009)

Here you can see the Bionic Commando go from a simple blue-haired arcade hero to different degrees of fantastic and realistic, producing about as wide a range of portraits as a franchise can get. Note that portraits two, five, and six are all supposed to be the same character, i.e. Radd Spencer, bane of mustached fascists. What is immediately evident is that the NES Bionic Commando was originally made for a Japanese audience with his vaguely manga-style 80’s looks, while the newest Bionic Commandos are both conscious of the fact that the NES version built a sizable American audience, and are attempting to appeal to a childhood image of the NES game being a fairly gritty and serious affair. Square jaws are the name of the game here.

Now, compare the Game Boy version to the Game Boy Color version. Can you guess which was done by a Japanese development team and which was done by an American one? Yeah, pretty hard I know.

What I find so interesting about the GB and GBC incarnations of Bionic Commando relative to each other is that they are both trying to achieve the same aesthetic goal: a far-flung whiz-bang high-tech laser future setting for the game that appeals to the audiences in their native countries. The GB Bionic Commando is a full-on early 90s anime bishounen hero with big eyes, small mouth, and hair reminiscent of Cyborg 009 or Soldier Blue from Towards the Terra. The GBC Bionic Commando meanwhile is a rough and gruff 90s X-Treme superhero akin to Marvel’s Cable or DC’s Lobo. “Yes! This is exactly what kids want!” both development teams must have thought as they approved the designs.

If Bionic Commando gets remade again in a few years, I look forward to how the cultural fashions of the time influence our hero yet again. Who knows? Maybe he’ll be some kind of strange amalgam of realistic muscley dude, superhero, and anime protagonist.

Vocabulary Power Up with Otaku Mind

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If you’ve been paying attention to my Twitter, you’ll have noticed that I’ve been doing some vocabulary study over the past few days, and that I have been distinctly anime and geek-themed in constructing my example sentences. For example, yesterday I wrote that Jagi fomented Shin’s decision to take Yuria from Kenshiro.

Good laughs for all, this anime vocabulary buildup, except I am conscious of the fact that it is actually helping me to study. I think that says more about my mind and my anime obsession than anything else, and I worry a little about my future sanity.

I’ve used a similar method for memorizing other things, including rules of Japanese grammar as well as vocabulary, but when I try to explain these mnemonic devices and such to other people they just look at me blankly. “That doesn’t help!” they might say. In short, I’ve created a study system that works only for me because I’m a huge anime nerd.

You might be asking, “Why are you sending these sentences to Twitter?” And to that I say, I’m not entirely sure. It’s definitely not because I want it to be noticed however. I think I just concentrate and remember better when I feel like my example sentences have some kind of target or purpose, and sending them online into the great Twittering Beyond kind of accomplishes that.

Momoiro Kakarichou and the Anime-niacs

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I recently have had the fortune of watching Animaniacs dubbed into Japanese. It was a fun experience to say the least, seeing Yakko, Wakko, Dot go about their antics in another language entirely, but one part of Animaniacs stood out to me in Japanese: Pinky and the Brain.

Upon initially watching Pinky and the Brain in Japanese, nothing seems amiss. That is, until you notice an odd aspect of Pinky’s speech: his tendency to put the non-word “Naafu” into his sentences. In English, this is obviously Pinky’s famous catch phrase “Narf,” but in Japanese it ends up being more akin to Ayu’s “Uguu” or Stealth Momo’s “~ssu.”

Then you start to think. Pinky’s primary traits are being dumb, naive, and prone to clumsiness, but his secondary traits are being honest, kind, and strangely wise in a roundabout sort of way. You see Pinky, for all of his goodness and his desire to support the Brain in world-conquering endeavors, essentially to stick together forever, and you realize: in a different setting, with his distinctive catchphrases and wide-eyed innocence, that Pinky could have been a moe character.

I’ll let it sink in for a moment, and also remind you that Laura Winslow is a tsundere.

The Different Perceptions of “Realism” in Anime Among Fans

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What does it mean for an anime to be “realistic?”

It’s a question which seems simple, until you realize that different people interpret and prioritize different aspects of an anime as “realism” based on their own personalities and beliefs.

Take the Gundam franchise for instance. Depending on who you ask, you will get different answers for what is the “most realistic” Gundam series. Let’s look at just Universal Century.

Some will say First Gundam, because of the complex morals the characters possess.

Some will say Zeta Gundam, because it shows how easily government corrupts.

Some will say Gundam 0083, because of the grittiness and detail of the technology and battles.

Some will say 0080 War in the Pocket because of its depiction of what impact war has on the innocent.

Some will say 08th MS Team because of the way it follows the down-to-Earth “common soldier.”

And so on.

In every case, the supporters are correct, but only when they define “realism” by their own standards. Just as easily, I can accuse First Gundam of being unrealistic for having characters realize things a little too quickly, or Zeta for its over-the-top characterizations. I can accuse 0083 of being unrealistic for a lack of depth in its characters, and 0080 for being too preachy in its anti-war message. I can even accuse 08th MS Team of not being about the REALLY common soldiers, i.e. the ones NOT riding in Mobile Suits, or simply say that Gundam as a whole is nowhere close to “realistic” because the concept itself is preposterous.

The idea of “realistic romance” also has the same issue. Is a show realistic because the characters talk like real people? Is a show realistic because it conveys emotions in a way that is easily relatable? Is a show realistic because nobody falls in love (provided you believe true love isn’t realistic)?

You can already see some of the different ways to define “realism” in regards to fiction. There’s an external realism, where everything looks and acts as it does in the real world. There’s an emotional realism, where the characters’ feelings appear to be so genuine that they mirror your own. There’s a conceptual realism, where complex ideas and ideologies show a world of shades of gray. But in these cases and beyond, how we define realism is of course based on our experiences in life.

It’s just up to us whether or not we want to understand everyone else’s “reality.”

Chase the Lightning

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As open as I try to be with anime fans, I occasionally still have bad reactions upon seeing my fellow otaku. In some cases it’s because I don’t want to see them making fools of themselves,  or more specifically, making fools of themselves in a way that can obstruct or harm others, as is the case with some of my previous comments on the Anime Convention Scene. I’ve come to realize recently though that what bothers me possibly the most is seeing anime fans purposely constrict their exposure to anime.

Whether it’s the Naruto fan who cannot see beyond ninjas and jutsu, or the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex fan who deems any show not similarly themed and animated to be inferior, I feel that people such as these would be served well by expanding their horizons and looking for anime that is beyond their current myopic scope. I’m not asking anyone to really go out on a limb, or to watch absolutely everything that’s out there or even 50% of what’s out there, but what I am suggesting is that those who call themselves anime fans (and I consider the above Naruto and SAC fans “anime fans”) to try out other anime, to get a real sense of what the medium has to offer. You don’t have to go from Violence Action Fest Razor-kun to Fruity Mangirl Vampire, but even a small step is okay. Does your anime have to be mind-blowing? Does your anime have to be an action-adventure? Does it have to feature cute girls or cute guys? Give more shows a chance (provided you have a feasible way of obtaining them of course).

The real problem though is that to expect one show to be like another show is unfair. Both Naruto and SAC are big hits, but you cannot expect lightning to hit twice. If you really want to be electrocuted that second time, you should be chasing the lightning, not the other way around.

I also understand that as an anime blog, my content and scope may seem limited to those who ask, “Why don’t you just blog about comics and animation as a whole?” And to that I say, because I’ve only got so much time, and anime alone is a deep enough well to drink from, and I already do occasionally talk about other animation and such, but always in regards to how it relates to anime.

Where Do Bosses Go to Post Job Openings?

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kraidslist.org

(Yes the URL does exist, but the contents are nothing special)

The Colors of Modern Fanservice

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As part of the ritual of watching new shows at the start of a season, I decided to check out the show Kampfer. Immediately upon watching it, I got this strong feeling that I knew exactly the kind of show it was going to be (and I was right). Sure, the character designs are what you expect out of this sort of otaku-targeting fanservice show, but it was something much more fundamental than that. Then it hit me: It was the color scheme.

Lots of anime throughout the years have had bright or cheerful color schemes, but there’s something very distinct about the kinds of shows that are made in order to get otaku in a tizzy. When it comes to art, color and color theory were never my strong suit, so I cannot speak with any real authority or learned foundation, but there is a certain optimistic quality to the colors used in Kampfer and shows like Kampfer. Even if terrible things happen to the characters, it comes across as a fantasy that wants the viewer to become engrossed in, but at the same time makes it easy to remove oneself from that fantasy if one desires to do so.

kkitousen is affected by this to a lesser extent, due to the fact that it uses colors with greater saturation and contrast, but it still shares a similar fondness for bright colors combined in specific ways. These shows appear to be aiming for an ideal, trying to tap into a core color scheme that is attractive to otaku on some deeper level.

The reason, I suspect, is that they are getting very close to the colors commonly used in erotic PC games.

Here we have Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien aka Rumbling Hearts. The soft gradients seen here which are common to erogames are also pretty much impossible for any anime to achieve on a consistent basis. It looks as if the staff working on these “erogame color” shows try to achieve the same effect by choosing bright colors with a little less contrast than normal.

I also suspect that this color scheme also exudes a very negative connotation among people who dislike these sorts of shows inherently. It’s probably something which jumps out at them subconsciously and tells them that they may be in for a rough ride should they continue to watch.

Color is such a huge topic that obviously I can’t cover it all in one post. For that reason don’t be surprised if I return to the topic again at some point in the future.

“Upon Then Fighiting Master But an End is a Beginning…”

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Street Fighter II is by far one of the most influential video games in history, and all but singlehandedly launched an entire genre into the forefront of the general gamer consciousness. With SFII there came a new term, “fighting game,” and with it a whole host of companies eager to jump onto the bandwagon.

Among those games is a 1991/1992 (depending on where you live) Sega Genesis game called “Fighting Masters.” Now I had Fighting Masters as a kid, and I loved the hell out of the game, but even then I knew it wasn’t up to the level of Street Fighter II. Still, as I look back on it, I maintain fond memories of the whole thing.

These days, when we see a second-rate fighting game hit the market, be it professionally or as some sort of doujin soft, we can tell that the game makers understand the basic grammar of a fighting game. Or at least, they understand the grammar of the fighting game they’re trying to imitate. Doujin fighters all want to be Melty Blood or Guilty Gear, so they have super crazy air combos and fairly simplified button layouts. Games that want to be 3-D fighters follow suit with either Tekken or Soul Calibur. However, back in the early 90s, when Street Fighter II was just knocking players’ socks off in best 2-out-of-3 matches, companies clearly were unsure of just what a fighting game was supposed to be. This is how we got Fighting Masters.

Fighting Masters features 12 galactic warriors each representing their species in a furious tournament. Their goal? Well actually, that depends on the version of Fighting Masters you have. If it was the 1991 Japan release, it was a tournament to get the chance to defeat the dreaded demon alien Valgasu. If it was the 1992 US release, it was a tournament set up by some elders to save one species from being wiped out by a supernova (while the other 11 are out of luck). Keep in mind that you  still end up fighting Valgasu anyway.

Another difference is that most of the characters had their names changed between versions. The humanoid grappler Larry became Dirk, the cyclops boxer Eyesight became Uppercut, and so on, in an effort to both un-Engrishize the text and provide names that kids in early 90s America would deem “totally radical.” The best one is arguably the horse man Equus, who was once known as Flamer, featured in the previous screenshot.

The gameplay itself is quite unique as far as fighting games go. It wasn’t trying to be a closed-off beat-em-up like, say, “Street Smart,” and its engine seems closer to that of a wrestling game. Every character has two different types of moves, striking and grappling, and your goal is to use your striking moves to stun the opponent long enough to walk up to him and perform a badass piledriver or overhead throw. In all but one case, when a character is knocked against the floor or the walls, they take additional damage. There is no blocking involved, and the game doesn’t even use one of the buttons on the 3-button Genesis controller. In the end, it makes the game awkward, and slower characters have a distinct disadvantage in that opponents can break out of stun much more easily before the slow character can reach them, but it’s still a unique system.

And that’s really the best thing about Fighting Masters. Much like how early manga was by necessity a test bed for all sorts of crazy and wild ideas, Fighting Masters tried to be a fighting game in its own unique way. In fact, I think that the engine itself has plenty of potential, and if only it was a little deeper and provided more options for the players and the characters, it could have its own cult following.

Anyway, enjoy the final boss of Fighting Masters as well as its ending. Valgasu is a very, very frustrating boss, and even though I beat him, you can tell that he can quickly turn the tables. Evident here is Valgasu’s dream of conquering the galaxy with his Mad Skillz on the court, worthy of Magic Johnson, Clyde Drexler, or the All-Star Monstars. Also of note is the text scroll upon Valgasu’s defeat, which provides some of that good old nostalgic video game Engrish that has sadly diminished ever since Japanese and American pop culture have begun to cross over.

Rating: SUPLEX 50T

The Fujoshi Files 13: Kinon Bachika

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Name: Bachika, Kinon (キノン・バチカ)
Alias: N/A
Relationship Status: Ambiguous
Origin: Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann: Guren Gakuen-hen

Information:
Kinon Bachika is the third-eldest sibling of the Bachika family. She, along with her brother Kittan and her sisters Kiyoh and Kiyal, attend the highly unusual Daigurren Academy. As the assistant to the head of the School Disciplinary Committee Rossiu Adai, Kinon can frequently be seen at his side helping him to administer the rules properly, a necessary task given the high number of delinquents at Daigurren Academy, though the unique rules of the school mean that fighting is not only allowed but encouraged.

In her free time, Kinon finds the opportunity to draw racy images of her male classmates and teachers in romantic congress with one another. These include well-known figures such as Kamina and her own brother Kittan, but also her boss Rossiu, for whom she has feelings.

Fujoshi Level:
Kinon Bachika can be seen carrying around her sketchbook constantly, always eager to think up new pairings to whet her fujoshi appetite. However, Kinon is also somewhat embarrassed by her obsession, and tends to keep her sketchbook close by.

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.”