“Liking Less” vs “Disliking”

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While not something I see as often as of late, I remember for a while noticing how people’s tastes in anime shift, particularly in their transition from new fan to fairly hardcore. What may sometimes accompany this transition is a desire to do away with the past and to deny how one used to be, specifically by ridiculing one’s former self for liking certain specific anime titles. The most common form of this is, “I used to like Anime X, but now I like Anime Y, and so Anime X sucks.” It’s that mindset I want to specifically address.

Obviously people’s tastes change over time, and the things you may have been in love with at one point may not hold your fancy years down the line. This applies to many things beyond anime, from food to relationships. I just find it funny though that people, in this case anime fans, would be so quick to divorce themselves from their pasts, to say that liking certain titles is not something they should be doing once they’ve discovered finer entertainment. Again, I’m not saying you can’t end up disliking something you used to like, but that to do so actively only leads to an endless cycle of dissatisfaction.

To this end, I was considering the life of a manga artist. Manga artists in general get better over time. Their art and their ability to tell a story via visuals improve or at the very least might change. Sometimes the shift is so subtle that you don’t notice how different the artwork’s become until you compare Volume 1 with Volume 20. Now let’s say a person fell in love with a manga at Volume 1 and kept reading throughout, and arrived at Volume 20 and then looked at the artwork in both. To his surprise, Volume 20 looks much, much better and by comparison Volume 1 looks unrefined, perhaps almost amateurish.

Then let’s say the fan, having been exposed to the quality of Volume 20, went and read another manga with art on the level of Volume 1, he would reject it because his tastes have become “better.” Which is all well and good, but what happens when he reaches the superior artwork of Volume 40? Or Volume 60? Does Volume 20 no longer meet his or her criteria? When will this ever end?

I’d like to believe that there’s a distinct difference between liking something less and disliking it altogether, but I know that people’s emotions, even my own, are not so easy to bottle and tame and act as if everything and everyone can get along. Even one of my heroes, Megaman creator Inafune Keiji, said that if one of his artists today brought artwork on the level of what he himself drew for Megaman 1, Inafune would call it terrible and reject it immediately. That’s the way it goes.

Slap a Teenager: Maturation of the Creative Process

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I’ve been doing quite a bit of drawing lately, and it’s gotten me thinking about the whole creative process, and the influence of one’s own age.

Recently, an old friend of mine found material for a video game we were creating back in elementary school. It had everything kids (or rather, we specifically) wanted in video games: tons of levels, tons of bosses, tons of neat gadgets and enemies. It was a game we’d spend time on nearly every day during lunch, thinking up new ideas for it. Honestly, looking at the stuff we came up with, I’m a little jealous of what we created back then. These were the unfettered mindsets of a pair of 10 year olds, where anything was possible as long as it made video game sense, and back then video game sense wasn’t very sensible.

Then one day something happened: we started to become teenagers. Now, when we looked back at our materials, everything seemed so kiddy. We thought, if our game was to go anywhere, we’d have to update it to make sure it didn’t look like the game was only for kids! Keep in mind we were like 13 or 14, and of course the hilarity of kids trying to make a game not for kids practically writes itself. This was the age of people accusing Nintendo of not appealing to the older demographics enough, and when Rare decided to revamp Jet Force Gemini and slap a few extra years onto its characters. So we made the characters cooler and tougher. We tried to give the bosses more realistic proportions, closer to Dragon Ball Z than Dragons of Blue Land. It wasn’t exactly 90s extreme, but it was something close to it.

Eventually high school came and we worked on it less and less until it dropped off entirely until more recently when we began to uncover our old materials. Now of course, looking at the things we came up with early on, and then how we tried to change it as we got older, I sort of want to slap my teenage self for accidentally trying to ruin a good thing. Not that I think my ideas as a teenager were all that bad either, but in this one case that teenage mentality was trouble.

I truly think that what we were thinking up at the lunch table back then could still appeal to kids today, though we’d have to apply a more cohesive design philosophy to everything. The goal would shift from trying to replace the products of our childish maginations with something more “mature,” to trying to refining or childhood imaginations and keeping it from exploding out the sides.

Then I hear people say, “Why do you watch an anime that’s meant for KIDS?” and the answer is obvious.

Apparently I Wanted Street Fighter for the NES When I Was a Kid

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When the Visitor is the Tour Guide: Reviewing Unfamiliar Genres

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I spent last weekend watching some awesomely bad anime with friends. One title that stood out though, that is the very opposite of bad, was the OVA Baoh, based on the work of Araki Hirohiko, creator of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. This was not my first time watching Baoh, as it was actually one of the seminal titles that made me into an anime fan when my brother brought it home years ago, but it’d been well over a decade since I last laid eyes on the blue man who shoots needle lasers from his hair, and I was eager to revisit. It was an uproarious time, and it sports one of the best dubs ever. Listen to the Anime World Order review of it to give yourself a better idea of the glory of Baoh.

Just for fun, I decided to look on Anime News Network for a review of Baoh, and what I found was a terribly misguided summary of the OVA, with choice quotes such as this:

Making matters even worse is the show’s ludicrous habit of freezing the action mid-battle to display the names of BAOH‘s attacks. Do we really need to know that BAOH has just performed the “Reskini Harden Saber Phenomenon”? Is there a quiz after the show?

Now, I can obviously forgive this review as it comes from a less enlightened era of anime fandom (2003) and most likely the original writer has improved and matured since then, but it does bring up a recurring problem in the realm of anime discussion: Those who know little about a show’s content or genre discussing the work from a position of authority.

Anyone who’s watched action-based anime knows that the Special Move Name Displayed at the Bottom of the Screen is a common theme in such shows, and is often used for dramatic effect in ways similar to the combination sequence for giant robot anime. This is why the above quote is so off-putting; it shows a lack of knowledge of the type of show Baoh is trying to be, even if it doesn’t pull it off perfectly. I feel that it’s like criticizing a Power Rangers show for using spandex and rubber suits, or a harem anime for featuring lots of attractive girls. It’s a problem which still plagues ANN from time to time, though I understand that when you review professionally, you can’t always pick what you want to review.

I’m not saying that people should not discuss or review anime of genres and tropes to which they’re unfamiliar or for which they have a strong dislike, but that to do so while assuming a position of authority just makes a person look uninformed and trying to toot his or her own horn, rather than actually look at the work.

In summary, if you’re going to give a negative review of Twilight, you can complain about how you think the writing is awful. You can complain about characterization. You can complain about the portrayal of vampires in the story, or even lament the popularity of the suave, handsome vampire. What you can do but should not however, is complain about the fact that there are vampires in Twilight in the first place, because–Surprise!–this series is about vampires.

Moe Anime Girl Gets Pregnant, Has Baby – Jigopuri Volume 1

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Kio Shimoku is a manga author who is best known for his work on the 9-volume Genshiken series, about the members of a college anime/manga club. It’s personally my favorite manga series ever. It may come as a surprise then to know that Kio’s latest manga, Jigopuri: The Princess of the Hell, concerns itself with a topic normally far-removed from that of watching anime: Teen Pregnancy.

Well, not teen pregnancy per se, but it does center around a widowed 18 year old mother and her newborn child. The mother is Okiura Ayumi, her daughter is Okiura Yumeko, and living with them is Ayumi’s twin sister Hino Kaname. The raising and nurturing of young Yumeko, who is less than one week old when we first see her, is the central focus of Jigopuri, and the manga’s approach to a topic which is incredibly common in the real world but incredibly rare in comics is rather unique.

Despite its realistic tone and content, the art style of Jigopuri is closer to that of Kujibiki Unbalance than it is Genshiken, and it might be difficult to reconcile the fact that doe-eyed moe anime girls are discussing topics such as diaper-changing and the unbearable stress that comes part and parcel with raising a newborn. What can be even more jarring is the fact that Yumeko is drawn in a rather realistic style, more closely resembling a photograph than a kawaii anime infant.

No, Yumeko is not an ideal entertainment baby who is ten parts adorable and one part cuddles. She is a wrinkly, crying, pooping baby who needs attendance at all times because she’s a baby. Everything revolves around this fact, from the deliberately slow pacing of story (chapters generally span only a single day) to the way it handles all of its seemingly incongruous artistic elements, and understanding why Yumeko is portrayed in this manner is the key to understanding Jigopuri.

From the start, Jigopuri puts a young, inexperienced mother with no time or desire for romance in the spotlight, and in doing so makes Ayumi, and by extension the whole of Jigopuri, into something partially meant to stand against the tide of common trends seen in moe anime and manga. Although Ayumi at times feels helpless, it is never because she can’t do anything, but rather because she does so much. That doesn’t mean Jigopuri condemns moe, but it does remove much of the glamor and fetishism that accompanies many tropes of modern anime and manga. Nowhere is this more evident than in the comic’s portrayal of breasts.

As one might expect out of Jigopuri, breastfeeding occurs frequently, but the sight of an attractive woman exposing her large, shapely breasts (with nipples shown) begins to lose its erotic appeal once you are made aware of how inevitably their appearance is attached to the shrill cry of Yumeko as she wakes a sleep-deprived Ayumi up in the middle of the night. After a while, you begin to really feel for Ayumi, as you think to yourself, “She has to take out her breasts again?” And further cementing this un-fetishizing is the fact that Ayumi’s breasts are visibly veiny, an effect achieved through smart use of screen tones, and an indicator that these are not the idealized breasts you’d see in other works willing to show them with the same frequency as Jigopuri.

That’s Jigopuri as of Volume 1, and I really do recommend it, though I understand it’s not for everyone. Its cutesy art style combined with its realistic content can throw people off quite a bit, but if you can read Japanese or if it comes out in English, I think you should give it a chance.

A common sight in Jigopuri is a tired and weary Ayumi with deep bags underneath her eyes, a sign that each day wears on her even if she truly loves her daughter.

The Fujoshi Files 10: Asai Rumi

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Name: Asai, Rumi (浅井留美)
Alias: Asa Matsu (アサマツ）
Relationship Status: Complicated
Origin: Mousou Shoujo Otakukei

Information:
The students of North Haneda High are baffled by how the unassuming Asai Rumi can attract some of the most interesting friends, not least of which are the hottest girl in school, a ladykiller heart-throb and his best friend, as well as the hulking captain of the Judo club. However, what few know is that Asai has made her friends through the power of being a fujoshi. While not quick to admit to the fact, Asai does not deny herself as a fujoshi, and that honesty attracts friends and breaks down the mental barriers, including those of her tormentor-turned-best-friend and fellow fujoshi, Matsui Youko.

Bedridden as a child, Asai Rumi discovered manga thanks to a kind neighbor, a discovery which eventually led to her world being impacted by an un-shrink-wrapped BL title in a bookstore. Since then, she’s worked hard as a fujoshi, attending the major event known as Comic Banquet and even co-creating doujinshi of her favorite series, Fullmetal Prince, with the help of Matsui. Her favorite character is the titular Prince, but only when he is the “uke” in the pairing.

Fujoshi Level:
Asai Rumi’s presence as a fujoshi is so strong that she is able to make fujoshi who are in denial confront their own feelings about the stories they love. However, this comes at somewhat of a price, as Asai is so steeped in the world of BL and yaoi that she has trouble understanding normal romantic relationships. It is to the point that while she finds herself mutually attracted to her good friend Abe Takahiro, she manifests her interest by pretending to be an aggressive guy putting the moves on her yaoi lover.

That One Show that Will Never Get into Super Robot Wars

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When it comes to the Super Robot Wars series, there tends to be an unspoken rule. For the big-budget main games in the series, such as the Alpha series, the cast lists are for the most part breadwinners and series that people have been anticipating to be in SRW, while for the games on other platforms they don’t expect to do really well with, they let the cast lists run wild and free, as is the case in the recent Super Robot Wars Neo, as well as Compact 3.

So I was thinking, “What series has practically NO chance of getting into SRW?” It’s getting kind of difficult to determine, with more and more shows managing to find their way in. Then I remembered one.

Getter Robo Go, Anime Version

The Getter Robo Go anime, adapted loosely from the manga of the same name, came out in the early 1990s and centered around a team of new Getter pilots in a new Getter Robo which didn’t use Getter Energy as its power source. The concept alone isn’t the problem, however, so much as the show is really, really lame.

Some will complain that the original Getter Robo anime was de-fanged compared to the manga, where Ryouma and friends are all literally violently insane people, but even with a nicer cast they were still pretty extreme, and they don’t compare to the character neutering that happens in Getter Robo Go. You don’t even have to read the manga to know that something is amiss here. It looks and feels like a failed attempt to bring Getter Robo into the 90s.

That opening I posted up there can be misleading, because with the vocals of Aniki the show seems awesome. Let me show you the FIRST opening (which people mistakenly label the second opening).

It’s no wonder they changed the opening!

So, the reasons Getter Robo Go has no chance in SRW (at least in its anime incarnation) are thus: Practically every SRW has Getter Robo in it, and with so many Getter anime available, why would producers pick the lamest one? On top of that, if you want that same robot design but awesome, you can just go with Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo, which is a sort of retelling of the Getter Robo Go plot but with characters more in-tune with the original Ishikawa manga vision of them.

Of course, in the end, I would be glad to see Banpresto prove me wrong. C’mon guys.

Let Me Tell You About Comic Market 76 Which I’m Not Attending

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…But maybe someday!

It’s Friday evening in Japan right now, and that means the first day of Comic Market 76 has ended. Not living in Japan and not being able to fly over means I can’t join the hustle and bustle of sweaty nerds inching their way to tables full of fan-made comics, but for those of you who are and have been, I wish you the best of luck.

What’s most important though is the fact that people are still making Ogiue doujinshi. They’re not great in number, and apparently according to the catalogue they’re all located at the same table, but to you fine artists who are keeping the dream alive, I salute you wholeheartedly. I may or may not have friends who are willing to exchange my money for your goods, acting as a  proxy for those of us with a passion for Ogiue and a love of supporting those who also understand Ogiue’s position of superiority in the world of anime and manga.

Even More Podcast Hijinks: Ogiue Maniax on Anime3000

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Two in a row! Who would have thought?

In case you didn’t tire of my voice yesterday, here I am again.

On this Anime3000 podcast, Hisui from Reverse Thieves, Moritheil, and I discuss the Summer and Fall seasons of anime, mainly what shows we’ve watched and what shows we’re looking forward to. More info at the Anime3000 site.

Ogiue Maniax and the Reverse Thieves Talk Otakon on Ani-Gamers

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A while back I was on the Ani-Gamers podcast along with the Reverse Thieves where we talked about our experiences at Otakon 2009 this past July in Baltimore. There’s some overlap with my written review of the invent, but I invite you to listen anyway and hear us crack wise in Real Time.

This episode of Ani-Gamers can be found here.