Aikatsu! and Idol Franchise “Experiences”

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As Aikatsu Friends! inches ever closer, I find myself thinking about the longevity of Aikatsu! as a franchise. By this October, it’ll be a whopping six years old—a lifetime when it comes to children’s anime. Where other similar series have tried to compete, few have managed to hang on as Aikatsu! has. One of its closest competitors, Pretty Rhythm, eventually pivoted towards the male-idol-centric King of Prism series. Either by outlasting or outmaneuvering other idol series, Aikatsu! feels as if it’s conquered its own niche—though the exact nature of that niche is what I’m trying to figure out.

There are, of course, key differences between Aikatsu! and other idol character franchises. Series like King of Prism and Idolish 7 utilize male idols in a desire to capture a different market. Love Live! and The iDOLM@STER feel like they skew older. Macross Delta and Symphogear have idols as thematic flourishes as part of a greater science-fiction story. They cover various demographics, as well as various degrees of idol presence. Yet I feel there’s another element of difference that isn’t accounted for, as if Aikatsu! and Love Live! occupy different compartments of mental space, at least personally.

While this is only a tentative thought exercise for the sake of categorization, if I had to describe that difference it would be as the following: With Love Live! or The iDOLM@STER, I’m most interested in how the idols will react, but with Aikatsu! I’m most interested in the actions they’ll take. The way I phrased it makes it seem as if it’s a contrast between more passive characters and more active ones, but that’s not quite right. Instead, it’s more that the girls of Love Live! seem to draw their appeal from the way they behave and influence each other, while the girls in Aikatsu! feel as if they influence the environment around them.

Perhaps the reason I see Aikatsu! different is because of the fans and how they express their love for the series on social media compared to other idol anime lovers. Other series appear to celebrate cuteness and style. Fans of Aikatsu! revel in an aura of power and excitement. At the heart of this fan output remains the indelible images of Ichigo, that very first Aikatsu! heroine, as she climbs those cliffs and wields that axe. It’s as if Ichigo and her successors reshape and navigate the land while other idols move through it.

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This post was sponsored by Johnny Trovato. If you’re interested in submitting topics for the blog, or just like my writing and want to support Ogiue Maniax, check out my Patreon.

Really Funny, Really Real: The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales

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This review is part of coverage for the 2018 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

As much as fans of animation might sometimes want cartoons to be treated as merely humorous entertainment for children, there’s something downright impressive with a work that works as kids’ comedy and sticks the landing. Benjamin Renner and Patrick Imbert’s The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales succeeds so well that to talk about it as a “funny cartoon” seems inadequate—yet it’s the perfect description.

Broken up into three segments, The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales is an anthology centered around a farm and the Looney Tunes-style animals that inhabit it. The first segment sees a pig, along with his well-meaning but incompetent duck and rabbit friends, try to deliver a human baby to her parents. The second features the ironically titular “big bad fox,” who ends up having to raise the very chicks he’s trying to eat. The third is a Christmas special, where pig, duck, and rabbit try to fill in for Santa Claus and deliver presents to the world. All of them are loosely connected, presented as if all the animals are performing a stage play for the audience for comedic effect.

What makes The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales work so well is that the humor is very much a part of the narrative, giving the jokes a proper sense of continuity. In many other cartoons, humor consists of a series of jokes (sometimes references, sometimes not) that come one right after another. If they’re too reliant on single punchlines or winks and nods, the whole thing starts to feel less like an experience and more a joke-delivery system. But the film sets up, executes, and nails both its major and minor gags, even throwing in some sensibly heart-warming moments in the process. Contributing to the levity of the entire experience is the art style of the film, with varying widths in the line work and a bright palette that looks as much picture-book as it does comic strip.

My favorite segment is The Big Bad Fox, and I assume that the creators thought the same if they decided to feature it in the title. There’s a constant turning of expectations centered around the fox’s relationship to his “children,” and the sight of three adorable little chicks fully believing they’re apex predators never stopped being entertaining. It’s sort of like if the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons featuring the chickenhawk were taken up a notch and then given a bigger heart.

After the film’s screening, the creator Benjamin Renner was interviewed. He described the origins of the film as comics he used to draw for his family as Christmas and birthday presents, often about how the animals lost the “real” presents along the way. While answering the audience’s questions (all from kids), my big takeaway is that Renner provides a strong example of how the ideas and inspirations of one’s childhood can still thrive and inspire in adult, professional life.

Faithfulness Without Adherence: White Fang (2018)

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This review is part of coverage for the 2018 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

The winding story of a wild wolf-dog that endures multiple hardships and discovers civilization, Jack London’s White Fang is a vivid and compelling adventure practically made for film. But adapting London is a challenge in this age, given his starkly racist views—they may not have been prevalent in this particular novel, but they still permeate his legacy. Director Alexandre Espigare’s 2018 White Fang is a visually rich 3DCG-animated feature-length interpretation aims for a spiritually faithful yet more sensitive version of London’s narrative to notable effect.

I want to be clear that I did not go into the film with a clear memory of the novel or any previous adaptations, and at first sought to enjoy it strictly as a children’s animated movie. In that respect, it succeeds. The animation, resembling somewhere between an oil painting and wood carvings, is consistently beautiful. Any visual hiccups are fairly minor and do not detract from the overall presentation. The subject matter is prone to violence, but the violence is given context and is presented respectfully without glorifying carnage.

But when looking back at the original novel and comparing, it’s clear that this film takes great pains to update the narrative to emphasize the positive aspects of cultural exchange without making it a one-way street. White Fang’s time in the wild with its mother shows a strong familial bond that does not fade away as it does in London’s book. Human characters are shown in all lights, but it is largely kindness and good will that stay with White Fang. At the same time, White Fang does not “progress” from “savage” to “civilized,” but harnesses aspects of both his origins in the wild and his experience with other species in order to survive.

Overall, the 2018 White Fang is a smart and respectful update to the original that adapts to the times. It’s more culturally considerate, with a message that soundly goes against the modernist/enlightenment push that can be interpreted from the novel. Yet it’s still a thrilling and moving narrative that embraces the awe and terror of nature and humankind alike, never faltering as a classic story.

Black Panther and Anti-Colonialism

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In my view, Black Panther might very well be the best Marvel film ever—a stance the majority of moviegoers seem to agree with, given its astounding critical and commercial success. The movie’s strengths are many. It’s a compelling story about two black men on opposite sides who both want what’s best for their people. Its diverse range of characters and its lush environments work to portray its setting as a living, breathing, and evolving entity. Black Panther celebrates black identity while pointing to the injustices of history and the daunting challenge of fighting to change things. But one point that sticks out to me in particular is the way it holds a mirror up to reflect our ugly assumptions on the effects of colonialism in the world.

These days, I think the majority of people have been taught that colonialism was responsible for a lot of harm in the world. Whether it was the slave trade, the subjugation of subordination of entire peoples, or just the exploitation of resources, European nations forcing other cultures to conform to their “superior” standards left scars around the world. At the same time, the general narrative states that, while these were certainly problems, there were ultimately many positives to the whole endeavor. Technology progressed, especially with the industrial revolution. Cultural exchange became commonplace (albeit in a lopsided manner). Europe, i.e. white people, gave the world much, and we’re supposed to believe that it was for the best.

Black Panther calls out that notion of Europe being the birthplace of modern technology somehow justifying its conquering ways. The film is set primarily in Wakanda, an old African nation founded on a near-endless supplies of the miracle metal known as “vibranium.” Because of this advantage, Wakanda developed isolated from the rest of the world while also advancing science and technology to the point of surpassing every other country on Earth. In other words, Wakanda is an African nation entirely without white influence. The image of the “native” or the poor African villager who wears donated t-shirts and jeans does not exist here, as that is founded on the persistent idea that European influence removed the “savagery” of Africa, that African cultural markers are backwards and embraced merely out of inertia or personal history.

Instead, Wakanda is a place where technology and tradition walk hand in hand. So when characters are dressed in non-Western clothing surrounded by soaring skyscrapers unlike any other, it is not presented as some kind of incongruous image. When T’Challa the Black Panther engages in ritual combat for the throne the day after he got off his cloaked airship, it feels completely natural. Moreover, because Wakanda has never tried to conquer or control other nations, this means its growth and development did not come from pillaging other cultures. Black Panther and its portrayal of Wakanda run counter to the narrative that what colonialism did was perhaps necessary for us to get to a better world. While not without its own problems (and in fact its isolationist policies are a major plot point in the film), it gives people of all races and histories the opportunity to look an alternative world and to imagine a better tomorrow.

Wakanda, vibranium, and the Black Panther might all be fictional, but they have the power to inspire thought and action. Could we ever reach a place where the world progresses without the seeming need to exploit others? The only way to find out is to try and make it happen.

Faces and Feet: Lu Over the Wall

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Director and animator Yuasa Masaaki has gone from being the darling of animation connoisseurs to mainstream success story thanks to the success of Devilman Crybaby. In many ways, that series embodies what Yuasa is best known for—experimental animation that moves and undulates with a dream-like quality. His 2017 film (and the subject of this review), Lu Over the Wall, tackles a different yet challenging audience in its own right: children.

Kai is a middle schooler living in Hinashi, a small fishing village known for its sheer lack of sunlight. A DJing hobbyist, his online videos are discovered by two classmates—Kunio and Yuuho—who try to get him to join their band. Uninterested at first, Kai discovers that practicing with them will give him the opportunity to explore the merfolk legends surrounding the town, which results in the three meeting a real live music-loving mermaid named Lu. What ensues is a popping, lyrical exploration of the way dreams and curiosity affect generations of families, as well as the power of discovering when to uphold traditions, and when to move on from them.

There is a very human quality to the movie, especially in the way that Kai’s mood swings are never explicitly explained. When he transitions from deadpan introspection to energetically enthusiastic, is it that the legends he’s been reading about are real? Or is it that Yuuho and Kai are providing him the peer emotional support he never realized he needed? The characters shift and evolve in subtle and realistic ways. Growth doesn’t come as one continuous wave, but in ebbs and flows that only truly stand out when stepping back to view an individual (or a community) as a whole. Perhaps it might be better to compare their development with music—at times fast, at times slow, but with a sense of rhythm that says something is going to happen, and you’d better be ready for it.

As expected, the animation quality itself is big on expressiveness. Characters move and emote constantly, their motions feeling akin to a more subdued and subtle Ping Pong: The Animation. That is, until the dancing starts or the action gets moving. At that point, it veers somewhere between Yuasa as seen in Kaiba and the classic cartoons of Tex Avery. While his non-standard aesthetic might garner worry that it would not fly with kids, this wasn’t the case at all. Laughs and voiced indicators of understanding could be heard throughout the young audience viewing the film. As impressive as the visuals were, they never eclipsed the story nor the theme of small-town dreams.

While it’s easy to assume that his form of twisted and eerie animation could only work on an audience of refined animation experts, Lu Over the Wall shows how Yuasa’s style is more versatile than first impressions give. It’s uplifting, thought-provoking, and still just plain fun.

Interview: Masaki Tachibana, Director of Princess Principal

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This interview was conducted at Anime NYC 2017. Masaki Tachibana is the director of works such as Princess Principal, Barakamon, and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0.

Princess Principal is an alternate-history London. It’s a popular theme, to tell an alternate history. What do you think differentiates Princess Principal from other shows?

With regards to how it might be different, on a technical level, how we approach it and how we make the anime is actually not all that different. Whenever we make things, we actually take into account how the characters would react and what would be realistic in that world. In that sense, it’s not that different from other what-ifs we do in anime.

You’ve directed a few shows now, but looking at your history, you’re still contributing as an animator to a number of projects. Do you prefer directing or animating?

In a sense I do enjoy directing more because the director is the one who gets to make the world that the story happens in, as well as think about things like, “How would this character react?” and “What would this character do in these situations? I could also do choreography and other related things, so in that sense being a director is fun. However, I also have my share of fun as an animator, because when I’m an animator and someone else is the director, I can draw the things I want and let the director take care of all the nitty-gritty.

In Princess Principal, the female characters tend to look very different than the male characters, in the sense that the male characters tend to be much taller and tougher and the female characters tend to be much smaller and cuter. Is there a reason for this?

Since the idea of the story is about cute girls being spies, the girls are, in a sense, drawn intentionally cute–as opposed to the men in the show, be it an enemy or an ally. The people in the control room will be drawn to be more trustworthy figures, while the enemies will be drawn to more opposing statures. In that sense, it does have a certain meaning.

To follow up with a related question, Princess Principal works off of a combination of cute and cool. As you made reference to, it’s almost an unexpected contrast within the main cast. Do you think, when trying to combine cute and cool within characters, is it better to have a greater contrast, or is it better to have more of a balance between the two values?

If it was only cool, for example, then you wouldn’t have something all that fun. You would need something like comedy to balance it out. But you can’t put so much of one or balance it so much that it breaks the reality of the setting. So there’s a fine line between keeping the balance and making it enjoyable.

Other shows you worked on, like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 and Barakamon are very different shows compared to Princess Principal. Do you have a consistent approach to each work, or does it require you to bring something different to the table each time?

What I like to value most is the characters in the story. Even if they need a drastically different touch, I value the characters, how they would deal with hardships, and how they would react to things. I would like them to be as if they were actually there, and then think about what they would do. In that sense, my approach remains constant.

The composer for the music in Princess Principal is Yuki Kajiura. What is it like working with her?

So what actually happens in the sound-making in Princess Principal is, once the scenario is done, the producer, as well as the various people from [Studio] 3 Hz and Actas come together with Kajiura-san to talk. They give her a rough list of what tracks they need. We talk about what we need, and then we let her loose. So in that one meeting, I pretty much convey all of the types of music I want in the various scenes, and I have her do what she likes.

Is this your approach to her, or is it how everyone works with her?

When it comes to this approach, this is mainly what the animation industry is usually like. For example, when we talked earlier about the various people representing each side, there are usually sound directors and others to flesh out the list. That list usually contains 30-40 tracks, and everything is done in that one meeting. Though, right now, there are some other types of anime that focus more heavily on music, like those that focus on vocal aspects or music in general. So those anime might take a different approach.

My final question is maybe the simplest one. What work, anime or otherwise, inspired you to get into a creative field?

When I was a child, I actually watched lots of movies. They ranged from Miyazaki animations to movies by Spielberg, George Lucas, James Cameron, you name it. When I watched them, they ignited the fire in me that made say, “I want to make a movie. It doesn’t matter if it’s anime or live action–I want to make a movie.” This is a generalization, but in Japan, animation requires less of a, how do you call it, less of a period to become to go on to the front lines of production. That’s specifically why I went into anime.

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure interviewing you. Best of luck in your future work!

Movie Madness: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for March 2018

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Is it possible to see too many movies in a single month? It looks like I’ll be testing that out. Not only is it the start of the 2018 New York International Children’s Film Festival, but we’ve got the recently released Black Panther along with Pacific Rim: Uprising, Isle of Dogs, and A Wrinkle in Time. I’m a bit concerned about the sheer quantity overwhelming my ability to engage with each movie, but we’ll see how it pans out.

As a general rule, disengage before you start to feel yourself burning out. This applies to not just anime or entertainment, but even work. Managing your health mentally, emotionally, and physically to the best of your abilities!

In other news, I’ve started a Ko-fi page for Ogiue Maniax. It’s basically an online tip jar, ideal for those who want to support Ogiue Maniax now and then, but either won’t or can’t commit to a Patreon sponsorship.

So from now on, my monthly list of supporters will include both those from Patreon and from Ko-fi.

General:

Johnny Trovato

Ko Ransom

Alex

Diogo Prado

MagiGold

Sue Hopkins fans:

Serxeid

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

My favorite posts from February:

“I Go High, You Go Low”: Hashikko Ensemble

Kio Shimoku’s new manga! Expect to see this every month for the foreseeable future.

Join the Bakery: Kira Kira Precure a la Mode

Another Precure series concludes. How does this one stack up to its predecessors?

The Legacy of a Knight. Mazinger Z: Infinity

The 2018 sequel/revival of history’s most important super robot. A must-see for giant robot fans.

 

Patreon-Sponsored

The Unreality of Virtual Youtubers

Thoughts on the success spawned by Kizuna A.I. and those who followed her.

Closing

Watch A Place Further than the Universe. It’s not just “girls doing something,” it’s “girls getting something done.”

Defying Assumptions, Fujoshi-style: Kiss Him, Not Me

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Kiss Him, Not Me (aka Watashi ga Motete Dousunda in Japanese), a manga about an overweight fujoshi who suddenly finds herself with a harem of handsome classmates after losing weight, recently concluded in Japan. For those who might have been alarmed by the seeming shallowness of the initial premise, I believe this series to be worth a second look. Instead of a series centered on fat-shaming and mocking female anime fans, Kiss Him, Not Me is thoughtful, intelligent, and emphasizes the importance of self-image, all while remaining delightfully humorous.

I can definitely see why readers might have been worried at first, because I was as well. It’s true that most of protagonist Serinuma Kae’s suitors initially are drawn to her due to her dramatic “makeover”—the result of her favorite character’s death causing her to not eat. The apparent shallowness and lack of concern over how the series might interact with perception of eating disorders made me wary, but as the series went on, I found that it addressed my criticisms almost without fail.

While many of her suitors are taken in by her dynamite body, one in particular is an exception. Most of them initially cannot recognize Kae post-weight loss, but it’s her senior in the history club, Mutsumi, who immediately knows who she is—as if Mutsumi had been viewing her as a human being all along. Eventually, all the other guys understand that it’s her personality that makes Kae beautiful, but Mutsumi’s presence is the first sign that body positivity is an underlying message in the manga.

Throughout the series, Kae’s weight yo-yos for humorous effect, showing that it’s just as easy for her to regain all her weight as it is for her to slim down. This might make it seem like Kiss Him, Not Me is either dealing in weight gain/weight loss fetishism, or emphasizes a certain body type as being “authentic,” but there’s even a plot point dealing with that subject. When a new character claims the old, chubby version is the “real Kae,” it’s an opportunity for the manga to tell a story about the perils of tying identity to appearance.

In general, Kiss Him, Not Me shows that it puts more consideration into its themes than one might expect at first glance. I don’t intend to spoil the ending, but I will say that the series stays strong even as it concludes. The finale feels a bit rushed (as if the series needed to wrap up sooner or later), but it’s not nearly enough of a blemish to ruin all of the positives and positivity this manga offers.

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Kio Shimoku and Genshiken Trivia, Courtesy of “Mou, Shimasen Kara”

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Over the past year, the manga magazine Monthly Afternoon has featured interviews in comic form with its own serialized manga authors through the series Mou, Shimasen kara. Afternoon Gekiryuu-hen by Nishimoto Hideo. This past month’s issue puts the spotlight on Genshiken and now Hashikko Ensemble creator, Kio Shimoku, so I’ve taken the liberty of summarizing all of the Kio factoids in it.

-For the first time ever, Kio actually reveals his “face” (albeit in manga form). He’s known for being a private person, but he decided show himself through this manga. He reasons, “I’m over 40 now, so what does it matter if I show my face or not?”

-Kio used to work analog, but has been an all-digital artist ever since Jigopuri. He does everything, from thumbnails to color, all on his Wacom. He doesn’t customize his pen or brush settings much.

-He almost never uses assistants. Kio had one assistant on Genshiken Nidaime and none for Hashikko Ensemble, his new series. For those who don’t know, this is highly unusual.

-Kio got the inspiration for Hashikko Ensemble because his daughter joined a vocal ensemble, and he happened to listen to an all-male group.

-He was never a musician, but knew a local group, so he did do some singing for them about once a month, and even had a voice trainer. He’s a second tenor, which was the basis for Akira’s baritone in Hashikko Ensemble. Kio has a fairly deep voice himself, so he decided to exaggerate it for the manga.

-Once, in school, he saw two kids harmonizing on the way to class, providing further inspiration. “I want my manga to make readers want to sing.”

-Kio was in the softball club in elementary school, the judo club in junior high where he was the captain, and the art club in high school.

-He submitted his first manga in high school, for Shounen Sunday. It was about a high school student who works at a used bookstore and discovers an ancient text that he then tries to decipher.

He drew a lot when he was kid, and was an otaku in middle school, where he imitated Doraemon, Kinnikuman, and Captain Tsubasa.

-However, he stopped drawing between 4th grade of elementary and the start of middle school. This was because he was really into Miyazaki Hayao as a kid, and when he couldn’t copy Miyazaki successfully, he got depressed and stopped trying for those few years.

-In middle school, he helped a friend out by drawing backgrounds for his manga, only for Kio to realize he was also better at drawing the characters too. One day, when he tried to draw Miyazaki characters again, he noticed he had gotten way better.

-He wanted to be an animator, but Ghibli only wanted people 18 and up. Once, he created a manga based on the Laputa novel in a couple of notebooks.

-In college, he majored in Japanese art because he thought the pencil and brush skills would translate to manga.

-Kio’s dad worked at an insurance company, and while he wasn’t flat out against Kio’s aspirations, he would constantly ask him to consider the risk of being a manga creator. This made Kio want to quickly win a manga reward, to help his parents accept it.

-The school he went to had a club called the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture, becoming the inspiration for Genshiken. Surprisingly, however, Kio was actually only a member for half a year. He didn’t quit because if anything in particular, he’s just not good with group activities.

-Despite what it might seem, the Genshiken characters are not based on any real life counterparts.

-In response to the realism of his characters, Kio says he tries to convey a sense of “presence” with them.

-Kio feels Genshiken came at the perfect time, matching the zeitgeist of the era. However, it makes him feel like a one-hit wonder. If Hashikko Ensemble fails, he’s going to feel enormous pressure.

-He didn’t attend a technical high school so he needs more research. One of he authors of Mou, Shimasen kara. did, and the other has a sister who attended one, so they try to help out.

Thoughts

Kio’s done a lot!! He sort of seems like a renaissance man.

That bit of surprise aside, it is fascinating finding out just how many aspects of his own personal life and career have made their way into his manga. The attending a Genshiken-like club is one thing, but it’s notable that he was in the judo club and then the art club—just like Hato. He also converted to using a tablet monitor for manga at some point—just like Ogiue. While his characters aren’t based on any real people in particular, he takes bits of himself and places them in his creations. While not stated outright, I think it’s pretty clear that Jigopuri (which is about raising a baby) is the product of firsthand experience.

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“I Go High, You Go Low”: Hashikko Ensemble Chapter 1

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Genshiken author Kio Shimoku has debuted a brand-new manga series this month, and it’s a bit of a departure from the otaku-centric tribulations of daily life that he’s known for. Fan that i am, I’ve decided to start doing monthly reviews for it, much like my previous Genshiken Nidaime posts.

Summary

Fujiyoshi Akira and Kimura Jin are new students at Hashimoto Technical High School. Akira sports an unusually deep voice that cracks when he tries to raise it, so he generally avoids speaking if he can help it. Jin is anything but quiet. Notorious throughout the school for his undaunting enthusiasm and his loud, boisterous tunes between classes, Jin wants to recruit fellow students to form a vocal ensemble.

When Jin notices Akira’s exceptional baritone, he sees Akira’s voice as the perfect complement to his own alto-soprano range, and becomes dead-set on having Akira join, all while unaware that Akira was actually a singer himself in middle school before his voice changed. While Akira is reluctant, he ends up having second thoughts for one major reason—Jin thinks he knows how to fix Akira’s voice.

A Dynamic Duo

Although Hashikko Ensemble has only just begun, the concept of a pair that’s greater than the sum of its parts has me intrigued. It’s not exactly new territory, with titles like Haikyu!! and Kuroko’s Basketball among the more famous, but I am curious to see how this turns out in a non-sports, non-shounen narrative.

Making Akira’s voice extremely deep is a simple yet unorthodox character choice. While I’m no expert on singing manga, my experience is that main characters in such series tend to stand out because they can sing extra high (such as in the manga Shounen Note) or powerfully. It’s also uncommon, despite the commonness of teenage settings in manga, for the voice-cracking that comes part and parcel with puberty to actually come up in series.

One aspect of Akira that isn’t entirely clear is whether his reticence over his voice is because of the attention he receives from the other students (who inevitably remark how “manly” it sounds), because it’s a painful reminder of when he could sing, or some combination of the two. Whatever the reason, it helps to give Akira a strong sense of character and presence, despite his fairly generic appearance and demeanor.

In contrast, Jin stands out tremendously. Because of the way he looks, comparisons with Onoda Sakamichi from Yowamushi Pedal feel inevitable, but two differ in two important ways: Jin seems immune to embarrassment, and he’s a “music otaku” rather than an “anime otaku.” There’s something about a guy who so overwhelmingly looks like a dork while being utterly fearless in the face of his peers that instantly appeals to me. It’s what I aspired to be in my teenage years, so I find Jin quite admirable. As for what being a music otaku means, Jin has a scientific understanding of sound and voices, speaking of vocal cord vibrations and decibels, which is why he believes he can help Akira.

“Ensemble” Cast

While the main focus of this opening chapter is Akira and Jin, there are plenty of side characters with potential to enrich the story. As with Kio’s other series, realistic portrayals of human relationships look to be one of Hashikko Ensemble’s strengths, and I look forward to seeing how the cast at large develops. From the first chapter, the stand-out character has to be Hanzan, the wisecracking son of a Buddhist temple who actually wore a wig to school on day one just so he could reveal his bald head during class introductions.

One factoid about their high school is that boys outnumber girls by about 11 to 1. I have to wonder if this will play a major role in the story, or if it’s just for realistic flavor. I wouldn’t mind seeing some female characters join the cast (there’s already one who shows up briefly), but would also be fine if it remains guy-centric.

Songs

Originally, I was going to list every song that shows up in this chapter, only to realize that Jin sings so much that the number of tunes encroaches into the double digits, and I’ll leave it to someone who’s more of a music buff in general. Here’s a sample:

Hashimoto Technical High School Anthem

“My Grandfather’s Clock” (Japanese version). English lyrics by Henry Clay Work, originally performed by Johnny Cash.

“Te no Hira o Taiyou ni” (Sun in the Palm of My Hand). A children’s song originally featured on the weekly television program Minna no Uta in 1962.

“Kanade” by Sukima Switch.

“HEIWA no Kane” (Bell of Peace) by Okinawa Yukihiro.

“Country Road” (Japanese version) by John Denver. This is the version from Whisper of the Heart.

“Country Road” is particularly significant to the story, as it’s the point where Akira is finally drawn in by Jin’s singing—particularly Jin’s ability to handle traditionally women’s roles.

Final Thoughts

This series definitely has potential, and I don’t mean that just because I’m a Kio Shinoku fan. It’s somehow both low-key and energetic at the same time, reflecting the different personalities of its two central characters.

There’s another manga that also runs in Monthly Afternoon titled Mou, Shimasen kara: Afternoon Gekiryuu-hen, which features interviews with other Afternoon manga creators. This month’s is Kio Shimoku, and in it he mentions being especially invested in Hashikko Ensemble because he doesn’t want to be a one-hit wonder after Genshiken. I hope Kio finds new success with this manga.

As for the rest of that interview, it’ll be the focus of my next blog post. SEE YOU NEXT POST.

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