The Exciting World of Ron Sharks: Akagi

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When you first look at an anime like Akagi, there might not be much to grab you especially if you’re an anime fan. The art style is very unusual, some would even say “awful.” You’re not even entirely sure what the show is about, and all you’ve seen of it are screenshots of a guy with a chin so pointy he could use it to assassinate people. But that’s when you look at the full title and realize that’s all you need: It’s not just Akagi, no it’s Mahjong Legend Akagi: The Genius Who Descended Into the Darkness.

Akagi is based on a manga about mahjong by Fukumoto Nobuyuki. This might be an unusual topic for you. “Who would make a comic about mahjong?!” However, unlike most cases where this might be shocking (“Who would make a comic about breadmaking?!”), what you have to know here is that mahjong manga are actually quite common in Japan. There are entire magazines devoted to the subject, like if you took Shounen Jump or Shounen Magazine and instead devoted all of the content to how-to-play mahjong guides and mahjong comics. This is the world Akagi comes from.

The titular character is Akagi Shigeru, who when we first see him is a boy in his early teens, who the narrator (voiced by Furuya Tohru i.e. AMURO RAY) tells us will “some day” be a legend in the underworld. Akagi is a lad with a penchant for deadly games which push his body and will to their limits. At this point, Akagi has never played mahjong in his life, but his intelligence, fearlessness, and incredible capacity for gambling with all of his soul without succumbing to pressure make him a perfect match for a game like mahjong, a game where your entire psyche is mapped out in the actions you take. Needless to say, the entire show revolves around Akagi playing Mahjong with a) Yakuza b) people known by the Yakuza c) Yakuza-esque people, and every moment at the mahjong table is filled with the kind of intensity you can only get when your life can be decided by a single, seemingly insignificant action.

You might think that with all this talk of mahjong, you would need to know how to play the game in order to properly understand Akagi. This is not the case at all, and I will attest that I watched the whole show before ever learning anything about mahjong. There’s a lot of strategy involved, but it has little to do with the actual rules of the game and everything to do with human psychology. The way the show is presented makes every moment as tense as possible, as the characters’ minds are assaulted by doubts and fears that come from trying to read another player’s moves.

The art style for Akagi is pretty unusual, but my only complaint about it is that the anime doesn’t quite match up to the art style of the manga. Neither one is very conventional, but when you look at the manga, you’ll see that it has a vibrancy and “ugliness of the world” that is lessened due to the consistency of the animation in the anime adaptation.

The Akagi manga practically looks like a gag manga, but it only makes the comic better, especially when combined with the game of mahjong. One advantage of the anime though is that they were able to create a CG set of mahjong tiles to use throughout the show, and are able to do some pretty creative things with it.

It does seem like the animators got a little bored with the show after a while and began to do more creative things. In the early episodes, Amuro Ray would describe a metaphor for how a character was feeling at the time and that was it. Towards the end however, it ends up being a situation where the narrator will describe a metaphor, and then the anime will shift to a visual scene to accompany the metaphor. So if the narrator says, “AKAGI’S SITUATION IS SIMILAR TO BEING A COBRA IN A DESERT WITH ONLY A CAN OF PICKLES AT ITS SIDE,” you will be sure to see a scene with a cobra, in the desert, with a can of pickles. Some might call it stalling for time, I think it’s the animators wanting to do something special. This would continue into the next anime adaptation of a Fukumoto work, Kaiji.

Ultimately, Akagi might be about mahjong but what they’re playing matters less than how they’re playing it. Again, if you’re worried about not understanding it, do not let that stop you. This is Initial D with mahjong tiles instead of cars. This is Yu-Gi-Oh! for 40 year olds (especially the early chapters of Yu-Gi-Oh!). If either of those descriptions make you hesitant, don’t let them stop you either. Watch this show.

Mager

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Sakura-con (was) Live on Nico Nico

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Sakura-con this year decided to broadcast a stream LIVE directly to Nico Nico Douga, giving Japanese viewers perhaps their first REAL glimpse at American otaku. I jumped on the stream, eager to see not only what the con itself had in store for us, but also what everyone REALLY goes on Nicovideo for: the comments.

The camera was at the con karaoke bar, and it’s amazing just how much the song selection was indicative of the American fanbase. I jumped on a little late, but highlights include the first Naruto ending theme, the first Inuyasha ending theme (TWICE!), BOTH “Simple and Clean” and “Hikari” (English and Japanese versions of the Kingdom Hearts opening respectively), the Sakura Taisen opening and the dub Pokemon 1st opening sung by almost everybody. The show stealer though was a 10 year old girl who sang the entire 1st Japanese Pokemon opening, Mezase Pokemon Master. Showing more showmanship and honest love of anime than any of the other singers, the Japanese crowd cheered her on, knowing that this was truly a fan, a fan of anime.

Of course, not all of the comments were nice, as they referred to an overweight girl as “Totoro” and “Pizza.” But they were also enamored by some of the more attractive cosplayers. And there was also a bit of a clash between Japanese viewers and non-Japanese ones such as myself, as the latter tended to send comments in English and the Japanese did not appreciate this. Still, things managed to cool down and karaoke continued.

After karaoke was over, the camera hovered over some people organizing their figure collection, which was an unusual mishmash of Warhammer, moe PVC figures and shounen action. At this point I had to stop watching, but I began to wonder if the Japanese people would want a convention like this in Japan. I asked on Nico, and at least one person said he would definitely want to see something like this. The American fanbase’s lack of shame is both its greatest weakness and its greatest strength.

The Mean Among Ends

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Looking back at the anime that concluded in Winter of 2009, I have to say that I was quite satisfied with how all of the shows I watched had finished. I did not watch every anime that came out, but out of those I did, I felt there was a general trend of decent to great endings.

A funny thing about anime is that it has the reputation of giving the viewer incredibly good endings and incredibly bad ones, and often times fans can’t even agree on which endings are which. I could come up with a variety of hypotheses as to why people so vehemently disagree on the quality of certain conclusions (or lack thereof), but it really all comes down to personal experience, personal experience that says, for example, whether wrapping everything up by the end is a Good Thing, or if it would be better to leave some things open or to the imagination.

I think the mixed reputation for Anime Endings has very much to do with anime shows actually ending in the first place. I’m not saying this is a good or bad thing, but one of the oft-touted qualities of anime that got fans choosing it over cartoons and TV shows in their own countries was that anime tended to have endings which built upon events which occurred in previous episodes. Of course, as the general level of writing in TV shows has improved over the years there’s less of a discrepancy, but anime seems to rarely get canned outright with no warning to the writers and staff the way American TV shows do. The trend instead seems to be that if a show is getting canceled, the anime staff is told in advance so that they may try to cobble together something to finish the series off with, be it a cliffhanger ending or even the Ideon TV series’ Narrator Exposition Ending (it has to be seen to truly be experienced).

What makes a good ending? Something that says your viewing experience was worthwhile.

Ogiue’s Favorite Show from Spring 2009

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I think it’s pretty clear to everyone who’s seen it that Ristorante Paradiso would be Ohno Kanako’s favorite anime of the new season. Going with that, I began to wonder what, then, would Ogiue’s most anticipated anime of Spring 2009 would be. Ultimately, I decided that it would have to be the new Fullmetal Alchemist series, known in English as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (though I still enjoy calling it 鋼の錬金術師 Fullmetal Alchemist).

This might be too easy an exercise in hindsight. We already know that not only does Ogiue tend to prefer shounen series with lots of cute guys, but that she’s already a Fullmetal Alchemist fan. For those of you who don’t recall, in the manga Ohno slyly revealed that she was well aware of Ogiue’s burgeoning “Haregan (sic)” obsession (this was replaced by “Reass Mood” in the anime). On top of that, Ogiue is a fan of Roy x Ed, and was even originally planning on doing her first Comic Market erotic doujinshi of Fullmetal Alchemist.

I’m sure she’d have read the manga already, but that she’d still tune in for each episode in order to further fill her fujoshi reservoir, a reservoir for which there is no bottom. Well, not that kind of bottom.

Anime Fangirls Unable to Handle Geriatric Hunks

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Let’s face it, most girls are not Ohno Kanako, first true female member of Genshiken and lover of bishounen who are not shounen at all (“biteinen?”). So with an anime like Ristorante Paradiso, a sort of “Ouran High School Host Club” starring men ages 40 and up set in Italy, streaming legally (for free!) on Crunchy Roll, it’s only natural that the viewers on Crunchy Roll seem unsure how to handle this unusual setup.

“These are not beautiful people by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, they are all very plain. Hope the action picks up.”

“well they are old and the girl is so ugly i will not be waching these sorry..”

“They emphasis too much of the double eyelid, with the depth and shadow, it gives them an aging look. *sad face* Either way, the plot is interesting and it’s rereshing. For those who are used to the whole shoujo thing, the art grows on you.”

“their mouths are huge, like freakin’ muppets. Their smiles are awful”

…among other comments.

What I find really interesting here is the amount of comments that basically amount to, “Whoa they’re old! Old men aren’t supposed to be handsome!” as if they had totally been entrenched in the Expanding Bishie Empire and its doctrine of “youth=beauty.” Of course, anime isn’t the only source of this belief, it’s something a part of most cultures in the world, but here it’s referring specifically to that type of effeminate beauty that one can usually see in series such as Fruits Basket or even Saint Seiya.  Nor is it gruff manly manhood, or rather what GUYS think sexy men who get all the women should be like. Ristorante Paradiso sits in a unique position, especially in American anime fandom, and I look forward to each episode teaching you young whipperotaku a thing or two about what it means to charm the ladies when all you had was a spoon in your pocket and a chip on your shoulder.

Aim for Mediocrity

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There’s two new shows this season where the apparent premise is that the main characters do not strive to be the very best, like no one ever was. One of these is the moe-powered 25-minute mahjong commercial Saki, and the other is the latest Kyoto Animation cute girls fest about a high school band K-ON! While the titular Miyanaga Saki is simply a mahjong genius who has found a way to merely seem mediocre, and K-ON!‘s Hirasawa Yui is simply a no-talent clumsy girl who’s trying to find something she can sort-of kind-of do, both girls are clearly going for the same goal, which is to be okay.

While both shows are clearly aimed at otaku with their ensembles of adorable girls with relatively harmless personalities, I don’t think it’s necessarily a case of “otaku are afraid to succeed and that’s why these girls aren’t striving to be the very best!” How I personally feel about it is that it’s actually kind of refreshing to not have characters who are entirely about toppling their opposition in a given field. Even if the story turns out that way eventually (a likely scenario for Saki), the fact that it started out that way is pretty nice.

Also, Saki is basically Takumi from Initial D only with mahjong tiles instead of a AE-86 Sprinter Trueno.

Burn, Gundam, and Cut a Path to the Future

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Gundam is now a whopping 30 years old. From its humble beginnings as an almost-failed giant robot show that was just a little different from its predecessors to its current status as one of the most significant and influential franchises of all time, Gundam is synonymous with anime around the world. For me personally, Gundam carries many important memories, ones I cherish to this day. Allow me to tell you the story up until now of my own journey through Gundam.

I don’t remember when exactly in high school it was, but one day my brother (who had gotten me into anime in the first place) brought home a couple of series on VHS he had borrowed from a friend: Gundam W and Gundam. This was a year or two before Wing appeared on Cartoon Network. Watching these series, especially Wing, I was taken in by the combination of gorgeous giant robots and politics and dynamic characters.

Really though, the content of Wing and 0083 isn’t important so much as where it took me, as soon I would meet some fellow mech-heads who would bring me further into the world of mecha, even introducing me to Evangelion. You know who you guys are. Practically every day after school we would go into the high school’s computer lab and watch anime clips (with a good portion of that devoted to Gundam), discussing mobile suit specs and which ones were our favorites, and getting our first taste of shows such as Gaogaigar via video clips from that old site Best Anime. I remember thinking that the RX-78-2 design was so dated, and thought the more modern Gundam designs were far superior, falling victim to the shine and polish of the “new.” The computer lab attendant tolerated us as best as he could, and for that I thank him (rest in peace Mr. Clancy).

At this point I was hooked on Gundam in a big way. I went to Chinatown, where they sold bootleg anime on VHS, and purchased the original gundam movie trilogy as I wanted to see how it all started. I also bought Char’s Counterattack, as it was the source of the Sazabi and the Nu Gundam, two designs I had fallen in love with. Char’s Counterattack became my favorite Gundam anime, and I still hold it in quite high regard today, though the original trilogy has risen in rank quite a bit. After that, I watched X, F-91, G, 08th MS Team, a few episodes of Turn A (whatever was available in Chinatown at the time), Zeta, and even G-Saviour of all things.

I remember getting free model kit catalogs from one of the anime sellers in Chinatown, and looking at the pages over and over. I remember buying model kits and cherishing my Gundam X, my Virsago, my RX-78-2, my Qubeley, my Sazabi, my V Gundam, and especially my Nu Gundam. And I remember finding the Mecha Domain, a site which listed specs of Gundams and robots from other anime (known today as the Mecha Anime HQ) and Mark Simmons’ extremely informative site the Gundam Project (Mark Simmons would go on to actually run the official Gundam website). Naturally, my friends and I would use this information to debate who would win in fights and what our favorite designs were. We’d laugh at the ridiculous design of the Devil Gundam (“It has a head for a body!”). We’d go over to each other’s houses and play Gundam: the Battle Master 2 (I loved using Char’s Red Zaku, as it was (obviously) very very fast). When I think of being a mecha fan, hell, an anime fan, these are the times I think about first.

At the end of high school, after having spent a year as the anime club’s president and having my yearbook photo appear with a Char Aznable quote (“One chooses not to acknowledge the mistakes of one’s youth”), I went off to college. With the magic of bittorrent began to watch SEED. At this point I was separated from my Gundam-loving friends, but we still managed to talk about it. I was quite fond of SEED, and my stance to this day is that it starts off seeming like a clone of First Gundam but gradually becomes its own beast, with a unique, more romantic feel compared to other Gundam series. What really brought out this feeling towards SEED though was the introduction of Cagalli Yula Athha. Never before had I seen such an incredible female character in a Gundam series! I had previously considered Emma Sheen to be the most attractive Gundam heroine, but that was no longer the case. Cagalli’s aggressiveness and kind heart won me over in a way only Maetel, Daidouji Tomoyo, and Ogiue have been able to surpass.

This of course is why SEED Destiny was that much more painful.

I began watching SEED Destiny the semester before I went to study abroad in Japan. Watching it in America originally, it was an incredibly worthy successor to SEED. By the time I got to Japan, I was fearing for its safety and continually waiting for the episode where the crying, moping Cagalli would be herself again. That episode came, but by then it was too late. I learned a valuable lesson with Destiny, as I had originally claimed that there was no way Destiny could become worse than SEED: don’t assume things you dumbass!

It wasn’t all bad times, though. Through college, though I did not have nearly the number of mecha-loving friends that I used to, I still met a few through happenstance. I remember having an argument about Coordinators and whether or not they were a good concept. Again, if you’re reading this, you know who you are.

Now we’re pretty close to the present, and you can track my shifting views on Gundam 00 right here on Ogiue Maniax. One big thing is that early on, I still felt burned by the failure that was SEED Destiny, and I was hesitant to move onto a new Gundam series for fear that it would happen again. I’m happy to have been proven wrong, and to know that one bad show cannot take down the juggernaut that was birthed from Tomino Yoshiyuki’s head.

If you were to ask me why I was so into Gundam 10 years ago, I’m not entirely sure I would remember. Nowadays, I can see Gundam as an ambitious franchise which changed the way people looked at a genre of Japanese animation, that continually transforms itself for every new generation of fans, but I did not think about it like that back then. There were the awesome characters, and the legendary robot designs, and the fact that the villains were never stock villains, but I think what was most important for my Gundam fandom was being able to share it with friends.

The False Decline

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The new anime season’s gotten off to an excellent start. From Basquash!, a rare international collaboration basketball-robot-themed anime created by Kawamori Shouji (Macross, Aquarion), and Thomas Romain (Oban Star Racers), to celebrations of anime’s history with shows such as Shin Mazinger and Before Green Gables, I’m finding this batch of Japan cartoons to be really fun and varied and imaginitive, just like last season’s. And the season before that, too. And so on.

As always, there are naysayers who will point out how once again the new shows are proof that anime has been on a decline and that it needs to capture the glory days of when anime was good. However, you might notice that the people who talk about anime’s golden days of quality are not all talking about the same period of anime, and begin to realize that anime has never hit some horrible slump no matter how much some would want you to believe.

Budget allotments may rise and fall, the economy may see dark times and periods of prosperity, and old staff may die or retire while new blood replaces them, but I feel like there are constants, such as the desire to succeed and the desire to express an idea, that make it so that there is always something to hope for with anime.

It’s one thing to be saddened that the types of shows you like are no longer being made. I for one sometimes wish that we would get more bad 80s OVAs and good 70s-style ultra-melodramatic shoujo, but I understand that this is just a preference, and I can appreciate every new anime that comes out and know that as a collective whole the anime industry does not want to fail. Yes, there are shows that are not good at all, and others that cater to niche audiences, but even within those shows and genres that are criticized as being vapid or devoid of content, progress is still being made. It might be the case that the popular shows are overshadowing the better ones, but this doesn’t stop the good shows from being good, and it certainly doesn’t mean popular show can’t be good either.

Criticism is necessary, as is discourse, as is the ability to express one’s opinions on shows and how the industry is doing. However, anime does not need doom and gloom, nor does it ever actually invite such a mindset when you look at it as a whole.

Hey You, Watch Shin Mazinger

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Episode 1 of Shin Mazinger aired in Japan, and I am telling you right now: Watch it, watch it, watch it.

Some of you I can convince to watch Shin Mazinger when I say it’s Mazinger Z as directed by Imagawa Yasuhiro, director of Giant Robo the Animation and G Gundam.

For you others who are unsure, or may not be familiar with Mazinger at all, let me explain it this way:

You know how a lot of shows, especially giant robot shows, have like 20 minutes of setup per episode to lead to a 5-minute climactic fight at the end? Shin Mazinger replaces all of that setup with MORE FIGHTING. Or rather, to put it more accurately, every moment in this first episode is SIMULTANEOUS SETUP + FIGHTING.

Things are HAPPENING in this show, and they’re happening on the field of battle where a boy can become a god or a devil. Whether you’re a big fan of Mazinger or you’ve never even heard of it, know that this show has potential to go places and the visionary force to take it there.