Round 3: Where I weigh in on more of this season’s anime, and talk about some random stuff. And also realize there’s a lot of shows now airing.

NouCome

So this anime is off to a great start. For such a ridiculous name and concept, choosing to spend a solid portion of the opening episode on a ridiculous SERIOUS CHOICE MONTAGE was pretty great. Furthermore, with the entire idea being so absolutely ridiculous (side note: the fact that this ridiculousness has become the norm in LN adaptations is kinda interesting), the really over-the-top execution and “not taking itself too seriously” vibe turned out pretty well (as opposed to Yuushibu, where I think this didn’t seem to work out). Feels a lot like Outbreak Company, actually, with a clearly ridiculous setting playing off tropes/cliches, having fun and not taking itself too seriously. The characters are also impossibly crazy and filled to the brim with tropes, as expected, but somehow end up coming off as surprisingly unique. The actual portrayal of the “YOU MUST CHOOSE NOW” mechanic also earns points for being quite hilarious. And simultaneously deep.

I also have to admit, I died when this came on screen.

Also, the Sensei is pretty great.

On a less positive note, I tend to not like humor where someone gets pretty much shafted all the time, as the MC does in this case with his multiple choice dilemmas throughout the course of the opening episode; however, the results were so ridiculous (and clearly not so negative) that I think this series can work for me. Plus, they were kind enough to offer us a choice as to whether to watch or not at the end of the episode! Draggle, Froggykun, and I seem to have picked the former; Flawfinder the latter (although very more justifiably so).

Tokyo Ravens

Male blushing too strong. Actually, the blushing in this opening episode was a little bit over the top, but hey, there are much worse things to be nitpicky about. Like ‘dat traumatic past and lack of drive in the MC, which is obviously a clear parallel to today’s youth and the current economic recession, a message to the Japanese youth today who are lazy, escapist bums that have led Japan to decadence and ruin: THE OTAKU GENERATION (this makes sense because it’s in anime and thus targeted towards otaku – it all fits!).

Right. So stepping back a little, I’d have to say overall this was actually a pretty strong showing for a show I hadn’t even considered watching going into this season. For me, I liked the way overplayed and overdramatic nostalgic piano background music – added a nice touch to the show and MAXIMUM PANGS OF NOSTALGIA FOR TIMES GONE BY. And it’s even set in summer, that season anime loves to use for nostalgic, life-changing transition periods (i.e. melodramas)! Plus you get a love triangle set up from the get go, with the two childhood friends and the HAUNTING PROMISE OF THE PAST. The third wheel dude is also pretty great.

And then they go from a sad nostalgia show to flirtation at the summer festival and blowing bubbles. BECAUSE THE SHOW’S JUST WAITING TO BURST THEIR BUBBLE OMG TOO CLEVER.

And lol dramatic flashback drama soon after, followed by drama – saw that coming. But what I hadn’t seen coming was the random hot blond chick licking a lolipop and followed by LOL CGI SUVS. And then it suddenly went from sad piano to banging awesome dubstep COMPLETE WITH SENSUAL LICKING OF A CHOCOLATE BANANA. And then they enter this random fighting magic scene, the chick captures the guy, and then kisses him just to piss off his “girlfriend”. Under fireworks. Held in the arms of a giant glowing machine robot who seem to have cyperpunk Buddhist overtones.

God I love this show.

Diabolik Lovers

I’m a bit late to the party here, but thought I might as well chip in anyway. I originally saw all the talk about the ”rapey” nature of this show and went “Pfttt – I’m a terrible, perverted otaku with all sorts of strange fetishes and a raging inner fujoshi who managed to make it through all the Fifty Shades novels, so I’ll probably be fine.” Then I watched the opening episode. Only two words:

My. God.

This show is everything that it has been advertised to be. And, after watching the next 3 episodes, it doesn’t get any better (if anything it gets worse, and you don’t have to just take my word for it). I totally do not judge if these types of fantasies are your thing, but I know I’ve met my match – I’d have to sit down and watch/play these types of things for a while to get acclimated. And, for a guy who actually liked Crime Edge and managed to make it through all three Boku no Pico episodes without cringing too much, this came as a (un?)pleasant surprise. Side note: Tomoko from WataMote had a picture from the game/show in her room, which, given what we learned about her, fits her personality quite well. It’s actually a pretty cool use of indirect characterization that also appeals to the fanbase.

Which means, actually, that I’ll probably be following this. The reasoning? My goal with anime is to become not only a critical academic, observer, and/or critic but also simultaneously stay a real fan - I want to be able to understand (and either enjoy or remain neutral towards) most genres both internal and external to the fan base. (This also is the reason I find a lot of Western writing on anime “lacking”, since they’re mostly written by people who just don’t viscerally “get” otaku, but that’s a discussion for another time.) So, I’ll keep watching this and see how it goes. Maybe by the end the idea of crying from abuse and/or torture, getting death threats, and being treated like an ugly sack of potatoes only good for consumption (but by people with tragic pasts, mind you!) will start to become more appealing than it sounds.

Beyond the Boundary (Kyoukai no Kanata)

Let’s get this out of the way first: Kyoto Animation did this show. And everything you’d expect from that comes out of it, such as similar leads, similar (fantastic) art and animation, great scripting, great body language, etc. It’s all there.

That said, let’s talk about some the show itself. The concept here looks cool, with the ideas of Spirit Warriors and youmu. The plot looks like it’s going to move at a decent pace, given the progression of the episode. Plus the fight scenes look like they’re going to be really good. Finally, the central conflict over heritage, bloodlines, tradition, and all that is a really interesting one, especially considering the Japanes obsession with blood types and whatnot, plus many of the class differences (which essentially amount to the same thing) that permeate our society today. It also does some cool meta-stuff and involves the supernatural, which might inevitably lead to comparisons with a certain other show.

All in all though, the show itself seems to be doing some really cool stuff, so count me in this season.

Yozakura Quartet

Woah – panty shots! I’m actually surprised that I’m surprised at this – I hadn’t realized they’d been mostly phased out until I started looking elsewhere (and I wouldn’t have even noticed the panty shots in the first place if a friend hadn’t pointed them out!). Camera angles have been replaced by more direct upskirting methods, it seems.

The series actually looks pretty nice though. We had a lot of action going on in the first episode, which, combined with a cool (and decently sized) cast, a very interesting magic system (the giant fishbowl conjuring was pretty legit, as was the giant goldfish outbreak), and a nice color palette (I love lots of light colors), among other things, is more than enough to keep me watching for a few more episodes yet.

Nagi no Asukara

The underwater thing is pretty cool idea, and the world is interesting. The role of tradition and magic actually reminds me somewhat of Tsuritama, even if the premise seems completely different.

I do have to say though, a huge turn-off for me is the really tsundere male lead. Which is odd, because, looking back on it, many of his actions were actually the exact same ones a tsundere female love interest might do, except I see those as endearing. Makes me think a bit about some of my preferences and judgements here. I think part of it is that in a tsundere female love interest situation, her behavior frequently has little impact on the male lead, who sorta puts up with her. Plus, the embarrassing nature of her “tsun” quality is amplified much more than I see here, which makes her actions seem more “loveably”-driven rather than just “being a bitch”-driven. But still – seems I’m a little bit hypocritical.

That’s a little bit off track though. For the actual first impressions, however, I don’t have much to say that hasn’t been said, so I don’t think I can add too much there.

—–

Right. Got one more round of these coming up for Samurai Flamenco, Galilei Donna, and maybe another show or two that I’ll try and get out in the next couple days. Otherwise, I’m pretty much done with the new season taste testing at this point.

Like everyone else cool on the anisphere (look at that peer pressure), I’m watching Kill la Kill  this season. So I thought I’d chip in my two cents on some stuff in episode 2.

I also wanted to showcase my newfound discovery of the joy of screenshots instead of Google image search!

First, we have this bit on school uniforms as the backstory for the Goku uniform and Lady Satsuki’s quest to take over Japan and “rule over the pigs in human clothing”. It’s actually a pretty interesting tidbit, all of it true, about the origins of Japan’s current school uniform style. Kill la Kill is interesting, however, in how it uses this history: as sort of a “back to its roots very skewed and selective reinterpretation” thing.

Because nowadays, the school uniform (especially for girls) has been completely rebranded – as a icon of purity, of nostalgia, and – most importantly – as the root of a fetish that dominates anime, manga, and the whole shebang in general.

The cool thing about the show also is that not only does it pull this “militarist” card for a cool backstory (and in doing so follow the tradition of quite a few shounen that tend to selectively reinterpret history; Samurai Champloo does a fantastic deconstruction of this), but at the same time capitalizes on the whole seifuku fetish for fanservice. And pulls it doesn’t pull it’s punches on either end, which adds to the parody/absurdism/awesomeness.

Having both the real fans (us) and the “fans” (in the show) take part in the fanservice is also pretty slick.

As was the “making fun of fanservice and itself and anime” obligatory upskirt scene.

On another note, Kill La Kill is also not the only show that has rebranded history this season. Samurai Flamenco does some of this too, and in a very positive way I think.

Second, we end up with the “in your face but so obvious you might’ve missed it” social critique of education and the Japanese “system” (how ubiquitous are exam rankings in high school-based anime?) and/or Japanese society at large, if not global society. By establishing a system where your family gets better living conditions simply based on your position in school, KLK is pretty much directly calling out the way that education in Japan works. It also provides a nice contrast to what many people will think of as something not only obvious but “right” – that education leads to a better life for both you and hopefully your family, both present and future. I thought that was pretty clever.

Also, in case anyone missed it, here’s a picture of two cats having sex.

Watching this so you don’t have to.

Things didn’t get too much better for our heroine this week. Kanato (the dude with the teddy bear) first bullies Yui into bringing a bunch of roses to his mother’s grave, and then gets angry and abuses her when she tries to leave. Afterwards, we get a short visit from an uncle and some mysterious dialogue about “the awakening”, followed by Yui getting abused by Reiji (the polite, formal, butler dude) after she wakes him up from a nightmare.

BUT THERE’S ALSO PLOT FOLKS. For we get some hint that maybe Yui is tied up in the vampires tragic pasts! We also get more flashbacks to help justify their abuse.

Relevant screencaps below, peppered with some commentary and synopsis stuff. Quality is pretty bad because I streamed the episode. I’ll probably try and watch it in higher quality in the future so I can FULLY SAVOR the suffering.

[After the OP, we come across Yui and Kanato in the yard. Yui is picking flowers, when Kanato orders her to come with him, noting that she should hurry or else he'll be displased and probably hurt her. He then shows her his mom's grave, and admits to killing her. After this conversation, Yui drops off the flowers and then tries to leave. Kanato then screams at her for being selfish and inconsiderate, and starts beating his mom's grave with the flowers. After trying to tell Kanato to stop beating his mothers grave with them, we get this.]

Oh man – she’s done it now!

Wait what just happened?

[Yui tries to back away, but trips over.]

I think this might’ve been a little bit uncalled for.

[Kanato then climbs on top of her]

You know it.

That seems like a completely logical response. 

Look at that loving caress. *shudders*

Although this totally isn’t right, I chuckled a little bit here since it looked like he was biting her boob instead of her shoulder. It was a good break – I’m not sure I could’ve watched the episode non-stop without it.

[Afterwards, we have some dialogue, Yui is ogled by a visiting uncle, and then she wakes Reiji up because he is having a nightmare. He then goes to make tea, after which this delightful conversation takes place.]

I do like the reiteration here, just in case “conceited” wasn’t enough.

IS THAT A FLASHBACK TO REIJI’S PAST I SEE?! PERHAPS HINTS AS TO WHY HE HATES SHUU (the headphone wearing dude who saved Yui in episode 1 and then sucked her blood in a bathtub in episode 3)?!?!?! OMG!!!

Oh – what a nice change of heart!

Oh god – that can’t be good.

Wait – what? He gave her tea just so he could poison her or something?!

2romantic4me.

FOR SHAME YUI – FOR SHAME.

[Yui's cut her hand quite badly, which is what Reiji sees.]

Mhmmmmm – ‘dat wide-eyed terror.

OH DAMN NOW IT’S SERIOUS BUSINESS.

This, I think, sums up the show pretty well.

If only this were Nana to Kaoru…

I…did not think of that. 5 POINTS TO REIJI.

I can’t imagine a better fate!

OMG IS THIS ANOTHER DEEP FLASHBACK INTO REIJI’S TORTURED PAST?! LOOK AT ALL THOSE PARALLELS!Ok – now everything’s forgiven because Reiji’s just a hurt child who needs Yui’s help to be made whole again.

I think I’ve found the short-term solution to watching Diabolik Lovers. Eventually, I’d like to be able to take this type of show completely seriously (and fujoshi-ly, if that’s a word); however, in the short term, I’ll treat this the same way I initially treated Crime Edge - as a “Bad Movie” sort of thing that you watch specifically to make fun of for your own entertainment. Hopefully as the episodes go on, that mentality will wear off, but for now I think it’s necessary. Because, god knows how miserable/disgusted I would’ve been right now if I actually took the entire episode seriously.

After this last burst, I think I have a good inkling about what shows I’ll attempt to stick out until at least episode 3.

Samurai Flamenco

Like many others, I thought, “Man, this feels a lot like Kick-Ass“. But here it actually works. We end up with a cool take on the superhero genre, much in the same way Tiger & Bunny did before, that showcases both the idea of modern disillusionment with the idea of the superhero and the nostalgic yearning for a time when that disillusionment wasn’t present. Plus it deals with some interesting societal stuff, especially given that it deals with rules and rule-breaking and the law in a society as rigid as Japan (appears to be). So count me a fan on that note.

As for the show itself, the character interactions work well – there’s some good writing here. The banter between Goto and Masayoshi was quite nice overall. The “live action directing style” of Omori Takahiro also comes out here, and I think in a positive way.

I talked about in a previous post how “Harikiri Samurai” seems to be doing something really clever here, and is probably the coolest thing about the show I’ve seen so far. It manages to both honor and satirize the genre while simultaneously showing the power of media to transform the past.

For all this positive stuff though, something about it just didn’t pull me in. I definitely enjoyed it, but for some reason I just didn’t really enjoy it. But consider me in for the next couple episodes at least.

Galilei Donna

This was pretty weird, but in a good way. The fish AI was hilarious. The random terrorist was hella-classy. The action scenes were good, and the humor was so bizarre that I could take it. An interesting homage to Galileo, with each of the family members seeming to showcase different portions of his talent/personality.

I’ll give this at least two more episodes. Besides, the animation is pretty baller.

Meganebu!

First off, this show is the most bonkers fujoshi bait I’ve seen yet. An entire club centered around hot guys who live for the GLORY OF MEGANE? That’s a pretty simple, yet possibly effective, premise. I mean, I watched the first two episodes, so there has to be something going for it. Right?

First off, I love the color pallet – bright colors everywhere is definitely my style. Still, part of the IMPACTO is reduced because I harbor this never-to-be realized wish though that a show will one day be animated in the style of the Rinne no Lagrange OP/ED, and shows that come close but don’t get quite there just leave me going “ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHYYYYYYYYYYY”. Because that shit was the bomb.

The budget on this show is so low, and it does show; to compensate, it pulls a lot of interesting visual stunts to keep viewers interested (like Shaft, but not as weird), many of which are cool manga/comics-like visual effects. It gives the show an interesting vibe.

The mecha scene was pretty great – I was a little bit let down that it wasn’t going to be an actual scene in the show.

The flying glasses scene in episode 2 did make up for it though.

The best part of the anime, though, is the sound effects. I don’t know how or why they got an a capella group to sing “Megane!” all the time, but it’s AWESOME.

All things considered though, the show isn’t really that great. It pulls some cool stunts here and there, but overall doesn’t leave me going “MEGANE FOR LIFE” after every episode.

Legend of Korra (Book 2: Spirits)

Note: Misfortunedogged has essentially summarized most of my critiques of this show (or if not we’ve discussed it in the comments), so I’ll just be hyper-linking to him for the more substantiate stuff. I do tend to view the show more positively than he does though.

Thought I might as well throw this in here, even if this is pretty much halfway done with its current 2nd season. I really like the new season over the first one.  This season seems to have dealt with a some of the pacing issues (fast but not blazing) that plagued the first season, among other problems, and has really started to home in thematically both within each episode and overall. Although I still have some issues with the show, I find much of the drama is believable (and tolerable), and the characters for the most part much improved over their Season One counterparts.

Also: Varrick is THE MAN. Just wanted to put that out there.

—

I’ll probably be updating my “Currently Watching” page in the next week or so once the third episode for many of these shows rolls around, but for now I’ll just throw up my MAL page in case anyone wants to comment on my taste ;). (Note: For me, a “2″ means that a show is so horrible it’s amazing. 1′s are reserved for truly horrible stuff.) Let me know if there’s something I’m missing and should be watching!

——

Random final thoughts:

- Everyone who dropped Little Busters! should go watch the new season. It’s so much better than the first in almost every way, shape, and form.
- Kill la Kill is definitely worth the watch if you’re into pretty much anything. Also much cleverer than it first appears, much as TTGL is.
- Infinite Stratos 2 I think is the best anime for harem-building and male-oriented shipping this season, and possibly the whole year.
- Kyoukai no Kanata shouldn’t just be viewed as “typical KyoAni” stuff – because it looks pretty good and deserves to be treated better than such. Man, even Hyouka had to put up with this nonsense, and I feel it’s time we stop applying this type of mindset to everything the studio puts out. Because they put out some damn good stuff that gets downgraded for seemingly no reason (my “ranting glasses” are on now though, so I could easily be missing something obvious).
- Monogatari: Second Season is absolutely excellent. Also, if anyone can actually explain to me how apparitions works in a coherent, internally-consistent manner, I’d be most grateful. Because they’re pretty crazy.
- Walkure Romanze deserves a medal or something. Biggest sleeper of the season that’s taken me by storm.

This week, the spotlight was on Kanato (the purple-haired teddy bear loving “looks 12 but really is 17″ guy) and Raito (the “I wear cool fedoras and call you Bitch-chan” guy), with some appearances by Subaru (the white/pink-haired “I should be the lead singer of a visual kei band” guy). There’s wasn’t as much crazy abuse as last week: we start to see some character development and melodrama emerge, as well as some hints at the underlying “plot” that supposedly will be revealed at some point. So that was a bit of a bummer. My bet is that this “plot” will probably revolve around some strange past trauma associated with their mother and/or father that Yui is somehow related to, but at this point I’m wondering if she’ll survive to even see the light of day!

Anyways, all legitimate/critical talk of the show aside (and 6 episodes in, it is getting easier), let’s get down to business.

Our episode starts with Yui hearing someone singing on the balcony in Engrish. It’s some old children’s song, because those are all creepy as fuck, so of course she goes to investigate. And who else is singing but the great Kanato, sitting on the edge of the balcony railing no less. Of course, Yui’s pretty concerned about his well-being, because he’s been so nice to her and all, and pleads with him to get down because he could fall off and hurt himself. Kanato quickly derails that conversation. My thoughts exactly. KOWAI IS THE NEW KAWAII YO. So, after complimenting her on her appearance, Kanato shows he has a heart and takes her concerns seriously. See? So considerate. And because Yui is such a kind person, and because this is the totally reasonable thing to do, she spends some time actually pondering whether to take Kanato up on his request. Kanato is amused. I can’t imagine anything more arousing or romantic than this. INSULT ME MOAR KANATO!

After this, Kanato decides to fall off the balcony for fun. Yui runs down to the grounds in a panic hoping he’s alright, but, since he’s a vampire, he of course is completely unharmed. He then mocks her for being an idiot and thinking that fall would harm him, and then decides to take her to go see one of his favorite/special places.

OH. EM. GEE. IT’S A DATE KYAAAAAAAAAA I’M SO EXCITED. ヾ(＠゜▽゜＠）ノ

The location? A mausoleum of wax doll brides. After which Kanato essentially proposes to her. Wait wait wait. So these wax dolls were actually PEOPLE you killed and then framed in wedding dresses? And you want Yui to become one? I can’t imagine a more attractive proposal! Oh you – you had me at “silent corpse”. There’s no need to tell me more – I’m already on the verge of bursting into tears of joy! Well, I just can’t refuse now, can I? WAIT. TEDDY X YUI OTP. WHY DIDN’T I SEE IT BEFORE?! Oh, just take me now Kanato! Okay, so maybe I wasn’t quite serious about the “taking me now” part… Wait, what? I just…I can’t. This is too much for mai poor kokoro to handle. TOO MUCH. See? The fact that he specifies “neat” and “tidy” shows he does care! Kanato really loves her! I personally think “blood red” would be a good pick – it’s presence would be a nice contrast to her drained and lifeless corpse, and, since it’s similar to her current eye color, would provide a semblance of life that otherwise might be lost!

Oh, and speaking of her appearance, Kanato informs her about her future possibilities as a silent corpse even moreso than he already has. What a wonderfully joyful image. Thank you Kanato. Oh god, here it comes! Thanks for the clarification, Yui – I was afraid I could misinterpret this scene. TAKE ME KANATO – MY BODY IS READY.

Right at this point, Ayato shows up to save Yui from her betrothal, telling Kanato that Reiji wants to see him. Kanato leaves in a huff. Ayato then leans down, ready to bite Yui…but then pulls back, saying he’s “not in the mood”. CLEARLY A SIGN OF GROWING EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT AND HOW YUI IS MAKING HIM A MORE CONSIDERATE AND BETTER PERSON AND HELPING HIM OVERCOME HIS PAST TRAUMAS. Character development too strong sometimes.

After this, we fast forward to later that night. Yui is wandering around and runs into Subaru, posing at the windowsill. It’s almost a new moon that night, and the sky is cloudy. For some reason, this means that Yui has a chance to escape the house, and so Subaru tells her that if she wants to go she should do it now. Yui starts packing her things, but then decides “I want to get to the truth about my father” and so decides to stay. She’s so brave! Subaru then pretty much goes “what a fucking bitch” and asks her random questions while Yui fidgets around. BUT THEN THE INTENSE EYES GO OFF. And then you know we’re in for a TRAGIC PAST FLASHBACK. Followed by possible revelation that is then never explained. Because of this, Subaru decides to give her a silver knife that he’d been permanently carrying around on his person at all times which CAN BE USED TO KILL VAMPIRES. Which totally makes 100% sense. Yui, who’s a little bit confused, then heads back to her room, where she’s greeted by this site: I don’t know about you, but I think I need a change of underpants after such a blisteringly erotic scene. We then have some short banter before Raito notices the knife. Which brings him to this rant: Awwww – that’s so morbidly romantic! What could be hotter than stabbing your lover through the heart with a knife to show how much you care? Ok – that was a bit of a strange transition. Were you going somewhere with that, Raito? [Warning: some triggering stuff below] YES RAITO YES I WANT YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! This “conversation” is then immediately followed by Raito trying to come up with reasons for Bitch-chan to give in to her clear desires for him. His logic went something like this:

• God doesn’t exist, because vampires.
• Therefore, you don’t have to obey the rules.
• Therefore, you should give in to your sexual urges for me.

The flow of logic was impeccable, and so I was expecting to see Yui scream out her clear desire for him any second. Instead, however, I got this rebuttal: *slow applause*You said it.

Bathrooms (or similar places, like onsens) come up in a ton of anime, so I thought I might as well talk about their possible significance beyond the fact that they’re incredibly common.

Thoroughly describe and demonstrate for us please.

Note: This post should be SFW, although it toes the line a little bit.

The basic appeal of of bathroom scenes is easy to pin down: fanservice. Bathroom scenes are an incredibly easy way to get a great amount of this. Camera angles, steam, soap, etc. ensure that you can reveal as much or as little as you want, which gives shows a lot of titillative (that’s a word, right?) power.

The Monogatari bathroom scene between Senjougahara and Hanekawa says it all.

Shows (via their directors) can take advantage of the bathroom to  reveal a lot of skin without too much trouble. This is pretty much never a bad idea, and almost guarantees you’ll please a decent amount of your fanbase (or at least the ones that buy all your related goods).

Freezing never pulls its punches when it comes bathroom scenes. Or any other scene, for that matter.

However, shows can also choose to show very little of the “actual stuff”. This can be even more provocative because it tends to leave things up to the imagination rather than relying strictly on visuals. And the imagination can be a powerful thing – much more powerful than actually explicitly shown anything on screen.

The steam simultaneously lets us preserve Rihoko’s innocent aura while indulging our baser desires and letting our imaginations do the dirty work.

Essentially, bathroom scenes allow the use of the camera as a “male gaze” to maximize our voyeuristic tendencies, and thus provide a lot of bang (in terms of fanservice) for our buck.

As Asuka shows, however, this might not always be a good thing.

But there are a lot of ways to provide fanservice besides the bathroom (I mean, High School DxD or Freezing don’t tend to leave too much to the imagination in general, and they seem to have done pretty well), so why are these scenes so prominent?

To Love-Ru tends to be obsessed with everything related to bathing or water, not that I’m complaining.

First, they’re extremely cheap to make. Most bathroom scenes involve only a few stills and run mostly on panning shots with minimal effects. For an industry that is generally strapped on cash and tends to use as little frames as possible (see Sehnng’s post on A&V for a nice overview), this is a nice plus.

For instance, the whole exchange probably only involved a few key scenes.

Second, they’re generic. They can be utiilized in pretty much any show without seeming too out of place, even in ones that aren’t focused heavily on fanservice. They provide glimpses into a very routine part of people’s lives and can provide an element of “normalcy” for many settings that are often in some way fantastical. This can used, for instance, to heighten the idea of the “everday” in a slice-of-life anime, provide a sense of contrast in a more action oriented show, or provide some laughs and/or sexual tension in a romcom/melodrama. They can also serve as a way to help us relate to extremely powerful/distant characters by “humanizing” them (sorta). On top of this, in almost every setting/plot you can throw in something like a bathroom scene without too much extra effort and without having to majorly shift the mood. From this perspective, bathroom scenes provide an easy way to provide fanservice while still keeping in line with the mood/tone of a show, and even possibly some interesting character development!

Alternately, they could just be awkward.

Which brings me to my next point – a lot of bathroom scenes are coupled with “revealing” dialogue and often some sort of angst. When guys or girls are featured, usually they’re featured (when actual dialogue is included, rather than just silent panning) in a state where they are emotionally vulnerable. If you want to wax extremely literary, you could say this is because laying yourself bare emotionally parallels the action of baring yourself physically. Furthermore, when you go to take a bath/shower, you strip away the parts of yourself that are “extraneous”, that tend to cover your “true form” – in this way, you tear down your emotional walls until all that’s left is the vulnerable, uncertain core.

Naegi, normally strong in public, only allows himself the chance to really grieve in the shower.

In this view, bathrooms are in fact private sanctuaries where we are allowed to fully be ourselves. They’re short but essential periods of our everyday lives where we prepare ourselves for our interactions with others. Thus, bathroom scenes also can be seen to serve a different purpose: to makes us feel like we’re getting an inside look into a character’s thoughts and actions. We, as viewers, feel as though we are seeing that character at their most vulnerable - we get the sense we’ve been provided with secret, privileged information (both physically and emotionally). While the effect this has on us may vary, by and large this is intended to make us feel more “connected” to the characters in question, and help us become invested in the show. Just let that thought slowly wash over you.

This bathing scene really helps the viewer understand what exactly is going on in Iwai’s head, and thus our ability to connect with her as a character on a visceral level.

Note: just in case this gets lost in reading, this post is meant to showcase the thin line between “real” analysis and what is usually termed “BS” (in this case, Bathroom Scene), and the extent to which our style and/or framework of interpretation can influence what we perceive in a medium, no matter how clearly ridiculous it is.

Shounen is not an intellectual genre by any means. Nothing wrong with that, since it doesn’t tend to be in its nature. While there are panty shots and running gags and oaths of eternal friendship galore, seldom do you encounter and intelligent, thoughtful characters.

Magi surprised me in this aspect. It was also impressive that at the same time, the show managed to maintain an air of lightheartedness, without the seemingly perfunctory slapstick humor and gags to propel it along. I haven’t seen too much shounen, but just from what I’ve seen and in talking to Josh about it, he also seemed to agree that it was unique in that.

A quick synopsis courtesy of MAL: (This synopsis is of the overarching series, but I’m mainly going to be focusing on events in the first season if I mention anything specific.)

This story is about the flow of fate and the battle to keep the world on the right path. Aladdin is a boy who has set out to explore the world after being trapped in a room for most of his life. His best friend is a flute with a djinn in it named Ugo. Soon enough, Aladdin discovers he is a Magi, a magician who chooses kings, and he was born to choose kings who will follow the righteous path, battling against those who want to destroy fate. Follow his adventures as he meets others from 1001 Arabian Nights, like Alibaba and Sinbad, and fights to keep the balance of world in check!

Okay, so you expect maturity in older characters, right? Isn’t that the normal assumption? When I think “mature”, I tend think about someone who’s at least in their late teens, early twenties. An eleven year old kid is definitely not the first thing that comes to mind.

At first glance, Aladdin may not seem particularly mature–running around grabbing boobs tends to not fall under this category, but if you continue watching, the show will prove you wrong (for the most part).

Yea, the only kind of maturity this expresses is sexual (maturity). Even still, please tell me I’m not the only on who found it really creepy to see a prepubescent motorboating a girl.

Aside from the innocent guise, Aladdin knows what’s going on. He can read people. He can decipher subtext in the words and plans of adults. If anything, his youthful appearance is to his advantage–no one suspects he has any power or is anything more than a scrawny, annoying kid. However, behind the guise of innocence, he seems to know a lot more than most of the other characters on the show. (Of course, he is supposed to be gifted with ‘Solomon’s Wisdom’, but that can’t account for everything.) Up to this point, he proves himself to be a superb judge of character, and will often test people before deciding to intervene. The most obvious example of this is when he only helps save Morgiana and the child from the alcoholic plant after seeing what Alibaba will do first.

Aladdin cares about who he associates with. He does not make alliances lightly and takes his promises and commitments very seriously. This is impressive for a kid! When I was eleven I’m pretty sure I was still having PTSD from not having received my Hogwarts letter. Maturity of any kind was so not on my ‘to do’ list. 

He looks all responsible and grown up right? Not near any boobs.

I think it’s useful to draw a comparison between Magi and Fairy Tail. I enjoy both shows for different reasons, but the latter definitely lacks character maturity relative to the former. For the sake of this post, I’d like to make a one-to-one connection between Aladdin-Natsu, Lucy-Morgiana, and Alibaba-Grey. I think those would be the most analogous character comparisons. Obviously people who are familiar with both shows can immediately contrast the pairings on a very fundamental level, which I’ll detail in the rest of the post.

Aladdin is not a particularly brawny guy, and his magic is still under development. Don’t get me wrong, it’s obvious that he has a lot of it, but at the same time, he is not invulnerable to things like being captured and taken into slavery etc. No, Aladdin relies on more than just his giant Djinn (Ugo) to save him. When Ugo disappears, he’s upset by the loss of his friend, not the loss of his protector. The thing is, his burgeoning magic that he learns to use after Ugo disappears is uncontrolled and unfocused, but he doesn’t get frustrated or impatient: he just does his best to harness it to the best of his ability. This is one example of how patient Aladdin is and how willing he is to go along with any situation.

Then we have Natsu, who is the first to try and literally burn away his problems. This is in stark contrast to Aladdin, who is patient and tries to find more practical ways of doing things than simply blowing up everything in sight. I mean, Natsu does get the job done and there is more humor involved, but I would by no means classify him as intelligent or mature. I have not seen too much shounen, but I can imagine that characters like Natsu are much more common than characters like Aladdin.

The best solution to life is to burn everything in your way.

Then we get to Alibaba. Yea, he has his moody arc where he decides he’s incompetent and can’t do anything (I feel like almost every character in this show has one of these except Aladdin and Morgiana), and there’s the whole issue with him leading the Fog Troop and feeling inferior to Cassim. However, for the most part he is a relatively mature character and definitely intelligent, despite the fact that he’s probably about 16ish (I think), and displays a good amount of character growth during each of these arcs.

This is probably the thing I like the most about Alibaba. While he may start out as childish and money grubbing, he slowly matures into a potential candidate for kingship, or leadership in this case, which I definitely appreciated.

This stands in contrast to Grey, who spends most of his time fighting with Natsu and breaking things. I feel like that’s pretty much all the people in Fairy Tail are good for–breaking things in the process of defeating baddies. Alibaba also struggles to fully develop his powers, whereas Grey seems to understand the full extent of his abilities. I think the struggle is good for Alibaba. It would be too easy if he was naturally talented with his djinn like many of the other characters.

The extent of Alibaba’s djinn mastery. At the very least, those are some pretty impressive muscles.

Finally, there’s the difference between Morgiana and Lucy. Where do I begin with this one? Lucy is a total bubble brain. Sure they try to make her look smart by having her write novels, etc., but when it comes down to it, she’s a total ditz. Morgiana, on the other hand, may not be particularly book smart, but more than makes up for it by being clever and resourceful, another extremely useful type of intelligence. And she has to be, in order to escape from captivity so many times.

I think Morgiana is one of the better female characters I’ve seen in an anime, and definitely better than any of the ones in Fairy Tail, largely due to the fact that she isn’t a sexually objectified within the show. Morgiana is appreciated for her strength and loyalty, rather than her boobs. She is also an incredibly mature character and for the most part completely in control of her emotions. The only time you see her overwhelmed is in the dungeon where she is driven by a passion to save her friends and ends up overextending herself.

Look! She’s fully clothed AND in control of the situation.

In sum, I don’t know if I can make a fair statement about shounen in general just because I’ve seen so little of it, but what I know of the genre seems to suggest that Magi is an anomaly in terms of character intelligence and maturity. I’ll be interested to hear what you guys think about this anime compared to other shounen shows!

On a totally unrelated concluding note, is anyone else actually familiar with The 1001 Nights? If so, what do you think about the way it’s utilized in this anime?

So Kill La Kill is a PRETTY AWESOME show. But it actually turns out to be even more awesome and clever than even I had realized.

The same goes for Studio TRIGGER, which started sending newsletter subscribers absolutely amazing artwork like this.

First off, it turns out that Kill La Kill actually makes a ton of covert anime references. And it does so in a way that I really like, namely because if you miss the reference, the show is still good! It doesn’t fall into the trap of so many anime nowadays where referential humor has almost become a crutch, and is obsessed with parodying and emulating the most recent trends. The references it makes are frequently to older shows (ans it seems stuff related to Gainax in the past), and more recently genre archetypes. Episode 4, for instance, went to great lengths to parody shounen tropes in ways that were hilarious to those of us who knew them but not essential for the episode to be hilarious.

Second, it seems the fanservice in Kill La Kill was in fact even cleverer than I had previously noted. Namely, it represents some recurring themes present in many of Go Nagai‘s works and has some pretty deep significance in the show.

Third, it’s actually inspired a ton of differing reactions around the blogosphere, many of which are evolving responses to other responses, including some of the ones listed above. On almost every level, there seems to be a hell of a lot going on other than just absolutely wacky antics, and it might be useful to keep this in mind to prevent the same thing that happened to Hyouka (essentially being pigeonholed) happening here. There is some value in seeing the connections between Kill La Kill and say TTGL, but we should try and judge it on its own terms I think. That’s just my opinion though – you’re more than welcome to just screw all this nonsense and just enjoy the ride!

Lastly, I wanted to throw out some random stuff from the weekly TRIGGER newsletter/magazine (which is really cool – can I fall more in love with this studio?!) for anyone who’s not currently subscribed. Much of what they send us each week is interesting and helps me put the show in context, both on the production side and on what it seems to be trying to do. If these snippets look interesting, you can subscribe here.

Issue 1:

Higuchi: ”KILL la KILL is a very distinct series, and I think we can agree that the talking sailor uniform got everyone’s attention. To those who are familiar with very old anime series and I mean “really” old series might have caught on to the similarities with Dokonjo Gaeru. Yes, KILL la KILL is influenced heavily by anime from the Showa period. Other series such as Sakigake!! Otokojuku,Harisu no Kaze, and other major titles from the Showa period was brought to topic numerous time in the production meeting as well.”

Tatsuru: ”Since Higuchi was talking about the Showa period anime, I would like to introduce a frame with the “Harmony” process applied. Sadly, I wont go into details since it is out of my expertise, but it is a frame that is colored and completed by the background artist. It is a style of process that was popular in the older anime series. Some of you older folks might find these cut a bit nostaligic.”

Issue 3 (they skipped one):

Higuchi: “In this week’s episode we were introduced to Mako’s family. I believe the word ‘crazy’ best describes her family. No wonder she grew up to become such a unique individual. Whenever I watch KILL la KILL, it reminds me of this specific act from Mr. Nakashima’s theatrical play Hana no Kurenai Tengu. This act also happens to be Mr. Imaishi’s favorite, and the title is ‘I will take the path I trust. Vigorously, even if there are no roads.’”

Issue 4:

Higuchi: “Some of you may already know, but KILL la KILL was originally planned to become the typical monster/villain of the week style of anime. The first time I attended the staff meeting was a year and a half before the airing of KILL la KILL started. And, that just happened to be the time when the staff decided to throw that style of composition out. With the static format gone, the weekly meeting became even more hectic, and it was almost impossible to keep up with the conversation if I were to take even one week off. It got a little long, but what I wanted to say is that KILL la KILL will really fire up after episode 3! Starting with episode 4, I bet it will sucker punch you with the out of the ordinary taste!”

Issue 5:

Higuchi: “It may be a surprise but all of the KILL la KILL episode titles come from popular Showa Japanese songs! Mr. Nakashima carefully picked out the most fitting song title for each episode, taking in the artist and the lyrics itself into account. The main staff would gather early to a meeting and listen to these songs to further discuss about the episode the individual songs were bound to. Believe it or not, these song titles were taken into account from a very early stage of production. To those who are familiar, the song title will feel nostalgic. To those who aren’t, the title should definitely leave a strong impression. For example「とても不幸な朝が来た」(Totemo Fuko na asa ga kita; Dawn of a Miserable Morning) the episode title for the fourth episode is a great example. I’m sure for those who saw the fourth episode can agree with me! If you have never listened to these songs before, it’s definitely worth your time! Many of these titles are catchy and unique, and pack a punch that contemporary songs do not have.”

Oh, and here’s a random interview.

Just in case you missed anything, Diabolik Lovers has hit the standard mid-season recap episode. The episode was divided up brother by brother, showcasing Yui’s romantic encounter(s) with each of them in turn.

I apologize for the ridiculous amount of screencaps below, but there are just too many good scenes in this show for me to pass up!

On a side note, I just discovered a this hilarious review of Diabolik Lovers the game. It’s absolutely worth the read.

Sakamaki Brother #1: Ayato

Cue lightning flash for dramatic intro.

Quick – call the police!

Ugh – so possessive! Although it shows he love hers <3

So assertive!

That was quick.

Ayato x Yui 5eva

Kyaaaa – those eyes are making me blush *hides face in hands*

Scene change.

Ohmygawd SO HAWT

Oh shoot. Maybe things went a little too far?

Nah – Yui’s just a masochist. <3

Sakamaki Brother #2: Shuu

His sleeping face is just 2 uguu kawaii 4 me.

Scene change.

Wait – how did this happen again?

I don’t know how I can handle all this romance. These one-liners are going to be the death of me!

A WHOLE NEW WORRRRLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Oh yeaaaa – keep it coming Shuu!

Uhhhhh…ok. So that was NOT the finisher I had anticipated, but I can live with that.

Ok. Round 2!

Oh – THAT’S what he meant. Defying my expectations every time clearly makes Shuu #1. I SEE THE LIGHT NOW.

Sakamaki Brother #3: Laito

Yui’s got this. You go girl!

LOL

LOLOLOLOLOLOL 2great

Scene change.

Well, that was quick. Yui’s being a little promiscuous, don’t you think, clearly tempting all these guys to attack – I MEAN SHOW THEIR UNDYING AFFECTION FOR – her?

I don’t know about you, but I’d like neither option please!

These two sentences were made to go together.

For some reason, this scene just makes me want to laugh.

Awwwww – he’s so considerate!

Ok, ok – that can work too!

I personally can’t think of an expression that turns me on more myself.

Sakamaki Brother #4: Kanato

No captions here, as this part is essentially a rehash of episode 5 and 6.

Sakamaki Brother #5: Reiji

No captions here either, as this is a rehash of episode 5.

Sakamaki Brother #6: Subaru

So, like, Subaru’s pretty boring. He hasn’t done anything to Yui as far as I can tell, except informing her of an opportunity to run away (which she passed up) and giving her a silver dagger that can be used against them.

What a tool yo.

I’m going to die of boredom watching you be all nice and shit. Why can’t you be a jackass like everybody else?

And we’re back this week, with more things happening, and more rambling about the show, my reactions to the show, and my reactions to my reactions.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

After last week’s recap, we’re back and we’ve hit the ground running. Or, in Yui’s case, walking slowly in a daze after seeing a woman standing outside in the rain.

We then get a flashback/dream sequence to the childhood of all the Sakamaki twins. I think it was supposed to be deep and revealing or something, but I was totally ~ uguuu ~ over how mothereffing kawaii they were.

AHHHH KANATO I’LL CATCH THAT BAT FOR YOU

OMG THEY’RE SO ADORABLEEEEEEEEE

Ok – so here’s the woman of the courtyard. I’m assuming she’s Ayato’s mother. What’s she lecturing him on?

I don’t know about you, but I spot a totally completely clear metaphor for the current Japanese schooling situation here. What apt social commentary!

On another note, I could not imagine a more motivational or uplifting speech. What a kind and caring mother.

Onto the next scene…

Is that a little Reiji I spot?

AHHHHHHHH 2 CUTE. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

Oh no – GIVE ME SOME TIME.

MAI HAATO HAVE MERCY ON MAI HAATO

The disapproving/condescending stare was in place early it seems.

NO DON’T LOOK AT SHUU LIKE THAT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nice try Reiji – better luck next time yo.

We’re still missing young Subaru at this point. Luckily, the show remedies this pretty quickly.

Ok. Casting my vote now – Subaru absolutely #1 kyuuketsuki kodomo yo.

More okaasan troubles

So all the Sakamaki brothers it seems are the way they are today because they have mommy issues and Freudian complexes of some kind. If I were a “loyal fangirl”, this would probably be the point where I go “I FORGIVE THEM ALL NOW WHAT TROUBLED SOULS I JUST WANT TO PROTECT THEM AND MAKE THEIR LIVES HAPPY AND YUI YOU GO GURLLLLL”.

But, although I can get in touch with my inner fangirl at times (which is why Kill La Kill is absolutely fabulous on both sides), I guess I can’t get that in touch. What these guys do is pretty crazy. And, while this helps put it in context, I’m not sure it completely absolves them.

This is anime though, not real life, so it’s not too big a deal in the end though. If it tickles some people’s fancy, who am I to judge, especially without first judging myself? I watch a bunch of shows like Kyoukai no Kanata (which A Day Without Me tore apart here) and Crime Edge (which Windyturnip tore apart here), so I’m definitely not blameless here – I actively take part in other parts of anime culture which also can be viewed in much the same way. Lambasting Diabolik Lovers for being disturbing and disgusting would be pretty hypocritical of me then, don’t you think?

Anyways, guess that’s my small realization of the day. Back to the episode.

Ok. So not only do we have weird tensions between differing responsibilities among siblings going on here, and a bunch of mommy complexes, but we definitely have some Freudian shit going on if they show a scene where Ayato watches mommy Cordelia flirting around with someone who’s clearly not his father.

And wait…I think I’ve seen that guy before…

Yes! He’s the uncle (I think) from episode 5! LOOK AT THAT PLOT.

After this, everything turns grey, Coredelia stares at Yui, and then she passes out in typical dramatic fashion.

She wakes up in normal otome fashion, hot guy dominating her field of view.

Man, I want to wake up like this! Look at the way his shirt is just slightly unbuttoned, so you can see hints of his chest. *drools*

Of course, the next scene plays out a little bit differently than I would have envisioned.

Not suspicious in the slightest.

Well, that was random.

I would buy reams of that shit.

I’m sure Yui’s overjoyed.

That was quick.

Wait, NOT YOU TOO AYATO NOOOOOOOOOOO

MHMMMM – FEAR. MOTTO. MOTTO!

The next series of scenes speak for themselves.

Ok – I can’t do this anymore. BWAHAHAHAHAHA. That’s such a great line. Now back to the hot steamy borderline rape action.

Cut to introspective heavy rain scene to symbolize inner turmoil.

Beautiful end card. Thus ends episode seven. Is anyone else watching this show? And, if so, what do you think so far?

Seeing as it’s almost the end of the year and I’m a bit burnt out after a catastrophic final exam (8 mini essays in 3 hours=never again), I thought I’d get all touchy feely with you guys and talk about my feelings haha. This is also my way of getting out of doing analytical writing since I don’t have the capacity for it tonight.

How I feel about life right now.

So as many of you guys know, those who have been following us for a while anyway, I haven’t been blogging for that long, only about 7 or 8 months at this point, but I feel like I’ve really grown since my first post and I wanted to thank you guys for sticking with me for the ride. Hopefully it hasn’t been too tedious ;). Blogging has been an interesting outlet for me in terms of writing and expressing myself. I’m not sure if I shared this before, but I used to write fantasy novels as a hobby (none published) and was going to be a creative writing major. Going into college I was super set on this and convinced that I was going to be the next great fantasy novelist (aren’t we all at some point?).

Then about halfway through my freshman year after my third round of query letters and millionth round of edits, I decided I was done. Writing was making me unhappy and I couldn’t do it anymore without wanting to drive a bullet through everything I wrote. When it got to the point that I would just stare at the computer screen, write a paragraph and then delete it over and over again I knew that it was time for me to stop, or at the very least take a break. This was an excruciating transition for me. I had built myself around my writing–I had made it my identity because I was so convinced that I was one of the lucky ones who found their passion at an early age and stuck with it for ages (I wrote my first novel when I was eleven!) Unfortunately, starting so young meant that I also got burnt out quickly.

It was like a bad breakup. For a while afterwards I wanted nothing to do with writing. I switched my major to environmental studies, even though I knew I wouldn’t be happy with that either, and tried to put the entire thing behind me. That’s where blogging came in. Even while trying to doff writing completely, I was still writing on this blog. At times it was like pulling teeth and I remember on several occasions Josh nagging me to finish a post I’d been dawdling on and me being apathetic about writing it and getting frustrated at my writer’s concrete wall block. However, I’ve kept at it. It helps to have a schedule and to have something to write about, that way I don’t have to constantly fight with my creative ideas. Blogging about anime is a bit more tame, and I think it has really helped me get my thoughts together in a more streamlined manner than they ever were before.

That being said, I still have mixed feelings about writing, but I don’t regret the blogging. I feel like it keeps me in the world just enough that I won’t be completely out of my depth if and when I decide to go back to writing seriously. Sometimes I get little twitchy urges to jot something down, but for now that’s about it. I don’t have my incessant cravings to sit down and pound out ten pages of a novel anymore, and maybe I won’t again. I’d like to think that I’ll go back to writing fiction again one day–I know I still have the capacity to do so any time the desire strikes. For now though, I’ll keep blogging in the hopes that one day it’ll turn back into something more, but if it doesn’t that’s okay too. Thank you all for putting up with my rants and ramblings, it really means a lot to me that people actually read what I have to say.

It’s good to be back. Let’s get to it.

As Rebecca’s mentioned, I’ve been off working on some astronomy stuff for the past few months, which essentially consumed my life. Luckily, since the semester’s wrapping up and finals are almost over, I’ll now have more free time to both post on here and continue my research. So look forward to more activity in the coming weeks!

AKIHITO I FEEL U BRO – HALF-SPIRIT BROTHER FROM ANOTHER YOUMU

I’ve talked about light novel (LN) adaptations (LNAs) beforehand here, and I’d say for good reason. A casual glance at any of the seasonal anime lists shows that they tend to grab a pretty decent chunk of airtime, and since I seem to enjoy them (much more than seems to be warranted at times), I tend to think a lot about why exactly I like them so much. Or, on the flipside, what about them tends to infuriate me. While I’m not the only one who really tends to enjoy them in the aniblogging community (at least, going by Froggykun’s posts on the subject), I do feel I’m in some weird minority, because–in all honesty–most of the time they seem (and are) pretty juvenile.

2MATURE4ME

I say that, but my personal tastes tend to say otherwise. This season, I found that my most anticipated shows each week were (in order): Kill La Kill, Outbreak Company, Strike the Blood, and NouCome. (I’m stalled on Walkure Romanze at the moment, but that would be up there otherwise if I had time to continue it.)

What is up with that list.

Like seriously, wtf–every single choice after Kill La Kill (which is a given, pretty much) is a LNA.  Why do I keep coming back to them? Ultimately, I think it’s because, out of most of the anime that’s out there, LNAs feel the most like, you know, anime, to me. They seem to exude this nostalgic feel, throwing in tropes, character designs, plots events, dialogue, etc., that just seem so unique to anime. Or, at least, to the harem/romcom genre as a whole (dramas are a different story).

But that’s not all, because many times LNAs are actually quite clever and underrated. Take Infinite Stratos and NouCome for instance. At first glance, they seem ridiculously stupid. One involves a guy somehow gets access to this exclusive mecha only women could get, so he enrolls at an all-female school. And there’s no real worldbuilding here – only HAREMBUILDING (infinitely superior, of course). The other centers around a guy who has a multiple choice complex (yes, that’s right – if he doesn’t choose one of the options that pop up all over his “screen”, he’ll die), where he’s forced to do ridiculous stuff like sniff a porn mag in the street (harhar so funny!). And, of course, he’s surrounded by girls who he all accidentally romances (and, of course, one who he lives with), even though he’s one of the complete loser “Reject 5″. Those both don’t seem SODEEP to me. However, as Froggykun points out, it’s actually some good stuff that can make us think about the importance (or lack thereof) of choice in our lives and on the objectification of anime characters, both emotionally and physically. We just have to see them that way. I actually have a good story to tell about Date A Live earlier this year, where the show inspired a similar, eye-opening experience (and discussion)–but that’s for another post.

Look at that super intense social commentary right here.

So LNAs aren’t all garbage. But they’re not all great either. Many of them fall into the trap of becoming too dependent on the exact tropes that they’re drawing from or ripping off, and thus fall flat while trying to be deep and funny and/or meta at the same time (Maoyuu Maou Yuusha is a prime example of this). In fact, the meta-callback nature of most LNAs is becoming so common that it itself has essentially become a meme. And its one I think that has actually inspired some responses, both from Kill La Kill (which just doesn’t shove them INYOURFACE and actually has a memory longer than a season or two) and from Monogatari: Second Season (which called out other adaptations for doing it early in their run). I think this type of thing tends to piss me off the most, because it seems like they’re being posers rather than just admitting to what they are. But then you end up with shows like Unbreakable Machine Doll, which could use a little toning down of some of their tropes (especially Yaya).

Yaya x Raishin 5eva

It’s a fine (well, maybe not so fine, but it has a finite width that some anime tend to miss!) line that LNAs–and most anime in general, actually–have to walk down. You want to draw from a database of elements to not only give the fans that “anime” feeling I talked about above, but you need to make sure that, within such tropes, elements, etc., it still feels like genuine characters exist. This is true from a story perspective (you need people to be able to empathize or self-insert somewhat), a comfort-level perspective (tropes in anime make me feel warm and fuzzy inside most of the time), a marketing perspective (there’s a reason they’re still around), a fan-participation perspective (people will only participate in fandom surrounding characters they genuinely care about), and a host of others. I mean, even for all the crap that Guilty Crown gets on the anisphere, I think the reason it is genuinely popular among most of the anime community at large is because the characters (with some “minor” inconsistencies) feel like real people. Even if they turn out to be reborn, incestuous, world-destroying imoutos.

10/10 would do again

But that’s a lot of rambling, and no so much actual anime. I’ve already mentioned a bit why I liked NouCome, so let’s talk about why I look forward to Outbreak Company and Strike the Blood.

Outbreak Company, I’d say, is probably one of the most pleasant “meta”-esque LNAs I’ve seen in a while. Part of the reason is because it avoids many of the pitfalls I’ve mentioned above. I don’t think at any point during the show does it seem to take itself “too seriously” or impart some meaningful life lesson on us all. The characters don’t feel like walking tropes (although they are, and the show even deliberately points this out to us), but rather like trope-y characters, which I’ve come to realize is a huge difference. Plus having a protagonist who is not only the perfect otaku stand-in (in both a good and bad sense) but who also has his own personality and actually earns his harem is fantastic.

What a champ.

Furthermore, most of its anime references, while profuse, aren’t blatantly pandered around in your face while the show intimates something along the lines of “Isn’s this funny? Yea – this is funny. WE’RE SO CLEVER!”. As a further bonus though, Outbreak Company is the first show outside of OreImo that I’ve seen which very actively involves itself with the whole shebang of otaku culture, and not just otaku tropes. It simultaneously parodies both itself, its audience, and its source material, while paying homage to all three at the same time.

For example, there’s this great part where a video from a soccer game (excellent) at Shinichi’s school in the Holy Eldant Empire gets leaked to the outside world. So Shinichi comes up with this brilliant plan to disguise it – make a horrible rip-off movie around the soccer scene that’ll piss all the otaku back home off and get the “project” cancelled, which’ll dispel suspicion on anything weird going on. In doing so, he rips copious amounts of scenes not only from recent shows (such as Crime Edge), but also Rental Madoka (clearly a parody of the actual Madoka, sorta). But, beyond just having small snippets of scenes, they go through the effort of recreating whole entire scenes from said parody of a “real” show, hence making a parody of a parody, a simulacra, which is integrated seamlessly into the plot. This is in much the same vein as Stardust Witch Meruru was in OreImo, and in my opinion is pretty well-done. And the whole premise, with its entire basis on self-referencing and otaku culture, is meta at a level above simply making callbacks, in a way I very much enjoy, because this, for all its ridiculousness, is actually quite a clever to both comment on, parody, and pay homage to the fanbase all at once.

10/10 on being originally unoriginally unoriginal.

It would be criminal, however, to overlook the main theme of the show: soft power. Cultural influence, soft power, indirect/persuasive power (or whatever you might call it), is fascinating, especially since it has a ton of real relevance to very involved members of the anime community like us. The draw of “otaku culture” is strong, and the idea of Japan using it as a type of real (and universal) force rather than just having it spread naturally (as it sort of does now) has been a big thing in Japan (at least in the government) for quite some time. And, for the most part, has not been a great success story since most of us overseas barely even know about it.

Because of this, the idea of having the government back an “Outbreak Company” (clever clever) in Eldant, headed by an otaku, and helped by the Self Defense Force (JSDF), which is actually successful, is quite the intriguing story idea. I’m still undecided if it’s meant to be sort of an escapist novel (in the vein of LNs as a whole) for those who are entranced by the idea of government-led anime-backed soft power, a critique on the current government’s stance, an actual endorsement of the idea, or even possibly some combination of all of the above (or none of the above – I could just reading too much into it!).

Clever use of the JSDF, as it appeals to military otaku while also making an interesting, possibly political, statement. Plus is just plain hilarious.

So…judging by the length of this post, ad the fact that I missed midnight, I’ll probably end things here tonight. I’ll just have to post about Strike the Blood later. Glad to be back guys, and thanks for sticking with us! :)

So let’s talk about the best light novel adaptation (LNA) I’ve seen in a long time. After Outbreak Company, of course.

Also, updates: we now have a brand spanking new Twitter account (@i_for_an_ipiece) and Facebook page! Feel free to follow us there, since we should be using them more in the future.

Shoot, was I supposed to be talking about Kuroko no Basket?

Now, when I say best LNA in a long time, I’m referring more to the genre that the show occupies rather than the show itself being the best adaptation of its source material (I’d probably have to give the latter award to the Monogatari series). As I’ve talked about before, for me LNAs today tend to fall into 3 groups:

• The “normal” LNAs, which are similar to young adult (YA) novels except with a lot of anime-esque influence. These are just plain old stories, without many explicit additional meta-narrative additions taken from the surrounding otaku culture (as opposed to meta-narratives inherent to, say, writing in general). Sword Art Online and Durarara!! are probably the best examples of this, and shows like High School DxD also fall in this category. If we’re looking back even further, the original LNAs like Kino’s Journey and Boogiepop Phantom (hence  why I call them “normal” LNAs) also tend to belong here.
• The “meta” LNAs, which are obsessed with showing how aware they are of the meta-narrative structure in which they are embedded and actively participate in it. Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, OreShura, and Henneko are the most recent examples that come to mind, along with NouCome, although there are a billion others out there.
• The “meta-meta” LNAs, which are more generally meta not only about their immediate environment, but also about their own footing in regards to said environment. I made a decent case for Oregairu and OreShura as good examples a while back, and Monogatari falls here almost by default. I probably would also add Outbreak Company to this list.

Out of these, the majority of LNAs I see today tend to fall into the later two divisions, since an emphasis on meta-ness seems to be the “hot new thing” on the market today. Which is fine, except that the medium has since been absolutely saturated with them, such that the “typical” LNA today is not anywhere close to what used to be a “normal” one. So there’s a little bit of cognitive dissonance (and overall irony) here, when the LNAs that are meant to be “meta” and clever are somehow becoming the norm, and the culture they are parodying is becoming relatively scarce. Because of this trend, I tend to have a soft spot for LNAs (and anime in general) that don’t try and pull any of that fancy meta stuff. Which brings me to Strike the Blood.

My thoughts exactly.

The reason I like the show so much is simple. If someone asked me, “What’s the most ‘anime-like’ anime you’ve seen recently?”, I would without hesitation say Strike the Blood. Every week when I sit down to watch it, I end up saying things to myself like:

“This is so ridiculously ‘anime.’ IT’S GREAT!”

Like this scene lol

Nice reaction.

or “This is the most generic crap I’ve seen in a while. I LOVE IT!”.

SAVE ME FROM MYSELF HUGE AXE-WIELDING MONOCLE-WEARING VILLAIN CRYING TEARS OF JOY.

yes. Yes. YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! GIVE ME MOAR!!!!!!

I find this to be really interesting. Anime in general tends to be dominated by a lot of in-bred tropes, much to the enjoyment of many of its fans and to the annoyance of directors such as Shinichiro Watanabe. And these tropes are pretty much a fundamental, established, often celebrated part of the culture. So much so that, in fact, a huge minority (possibly majority) of shows that come out today actually rip off and/or openly participate in this trope culture, rather than simply drawing upon it.

Reality be rent. Synapse break. Banishment, THIS WORLD.

I just caught myself wondering just the other day how anime today would look like to a total newcomer, and how they would take in shows like Outbreak Company, NouCome, and even Kyoukai no Kanata, which are so much inundated with playing off an existing database of tropes that takes a lot of time to work your way into.

Like Kyoukai no Kanata’s idol gag, for instance.

Like, how weird would this be to someone who had no idea about any of this stuff?

Probably pretty bizarre (BUT NO LESS MOTHEREFFING KAWAII).

And this would just be (still is) creepy.

Within this culture, I’m not certain how exactly these elements combine to form an impression of what an anime should be like, or what anime most (arche)typically is. However, somehow Strike the Blood seems to have gotten pretty much everything right, to the tropes, the characters, the setting, the harembuilding, the plot, etc.

The following dump, for instance, is how the show does some worldbuilding:

God I love all this bullshit. At a time when most anime are obsessed with what it means to be typically “anime”, having a show just be typically anime is refreshing.

I should probably go finish Highschool DxD New now.

Besides just being “typically anime,” I also just just really like the atmosphere and general style of Strike the Blood, so take this as a part recommendation/part review from me that the show is worth watching if you’re not looking for anything really deep and don’t mind seeing the usual tropes (including standard harembuilding/fanservice-y stuff).

Earlier this year, Rebecca and I ended up watching Danganronpa with the anime club here. It was quite the experience. So, to share in the love for what might have been one of the most ridiculous shows this year, we decided to dedicate our seventh 12 Days of Anime post to talking about Danganronpa. We split our review up into two parts, similar to our discussion of RWBY. Rebecca goes first, and talks about the show in general and her general thoughts on how things played out. I then follow up with some musings on Danganronpa‘s misleading genre implications.

Rebecca’s Thoughts

Usually, Josh and I will invent our own titles for our posts, but I thought that the show’s original title, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, did more justice to this post than anything I could invent myself.  We have decided to tackle one of the most ridiculous shows we’ve ever seen. I’m going to include a synopsis, but don’t expect it to help much if you haven’t seen the show yourself. (It’s that convoluted and insane.)

Here’s a brief and completely (un)comprehensive synopsis courtesy of MAL:

A group of 15 elite high school students are gathered at a very special, high class high school. To graduate from this high school essentially means you’ll succeed in life, but graduating is very difficult. The school is presided over by a bear called Monokuma, and he explains to them that their graduation hinges around committing a murder. The only way to graduate is to kill one of your classmates and get away with it. If the other classmates discover the identity of the killer, the killer is the only one executed. However, if they fail to catch the killer, only the killer graduates and the others are annihilated. Which of the 15 will survive the bloodbath to come?

I warn you now that there will definitely be some spoilers in this post so if you’d like to watch the show and see the mystery unfold for yourself, I suggest reading this at a later date.

Let me give you a brief overview of my thoughts before I launch into my full-blown commentary, which can be summed up as follows: THIS SHOW WAS ABSOLUTELY BATSHIT INSANE!

Moving right along. Let’s talk about the fact that Danganronpa was in a hurry to kill off the characters like I’ve never seen before. ‘Trigger Happy Havoc’ sums up the show pretty damn well in three words. Although, I’m pretty sure no one actually got shot? I can’t even remember–everyone seemed to die in a really gory way–wait no someone definitely got shot. Hell, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, the characters dropped like flies, pardon my cliche, with at least one dead every episode. AT LEAST. As soon as you started to like a character even remotely, their corpse turned up dripping with pink blood (don’t ask me why the blood was pink). I do realize that it was only 13 episodes, but I wondered why there had to be so many characters to begin with. Fewer characters means fewer necessary deaths right? The show was based off a video game so that probably did have something to do with it, but anime adaptations tend to take plenty of liberties regardless. My biggest issue was the ridiculous  nature of some of the deaths and the pains that the show went to make the motive/method of death a mystery. For example, in one of the early deaths, it turns out that the dead character was actually a cross-dressing guy, which led to this whole ridiculous plot twist surrounding why she/he was able to get into the girls’ locker room, which is where his/her dead body was found. And of course we only know this because Naegi, the main character, has an uncanny and unrealistic ability to solve all of the murders by screaming “Objection!” and shooting the incorrect evidence with metaphorical bullets.

Yea…stuff like that. I told you the blood was pink!

Now maybe this makes me sound like a terrible person, but I found the show to be surprisingly amusing–at least, until it got to the last 2-3 episodes where I just started going like ‘what the actual fuck is going on here?!’ And it wasn’t just me who thought it went crazy, since we were watching this show in anime club and everyone there had a very similar reaction. The show’s synopsis made it out to be very The Hunger Games-esque and there were definitely aspects stolen from it. Can we talk about the fact that the big twist was that they were actually on television program being broadcasted to further the suffering and misery in the weird dystopian world? On the other hand, it was also nothing like The Hunger Games because at least the book was pretty good (I’m not going to get into the movie, although I did like Catching Fire).

I’d really love to know how many drugs the people who made this show were on. Yes, I understand that it was based off a video game, but the same question applies there too. My biggest issue with the show was the fact that it kept pulling things out of its ass in order to make the premise work. The twists were exquisitely forced and it kept pulling over-abused tropes like amnesia and someone switching places with someone else. The whole ending of the show was based on identical twins switching places and the evil twin deciding to kill her sister “just for the hell of it”. Essentially things that no self-respecting show should pull more than once.

Not to mention, the show seemed to have no point. People died or were sentenced to execution and were then pulled into this weird virtual reality to be killed. I mean I’ll give it to the show that the deaths were creative. One of the first deaths involved the Super Duper Baseball Star (his name was something like that) being bludgeoned to death with baseballs. Something like that was twisted, but the one death that really got me was when Monobear put this one guy on a motorcycle and had him ride around this course until he liquified. Monobear then turned his remains into butter and ate him. Even for a show like this that’s a bit egregious!

Yep, Monobear eats this kid with his pancakes.

This show was majorly trolling. There is no way that it could possibly take itself seriously. I mean if you even look at the character design some of the students look ridiculous. Focus on the hair, first and foremost, and it should be pretty obvious. But then adding in having everyone called “Super Duper High School [insert something ridiculous]” made it even more apparent. Plus the fact that no one seemed to care that one of the main characters was Super Duper High School Murderer Genocider Syo. She was running around unhindered for the entirety of the show and ironically never murdered anyone, but the fact that no one was bothered by this or really seemed to care was a bit ridiculous. All of the other characters had some pretty bizarre personalities as well, so I guess Genocider wasn’t too out of place alongside an Arnold Schwarzenegger-esque girl named Ohga, but still.

Can we also talk about how the show would throw in these random potential leads and then use them for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING?! The guy/girl who gets killed early on was apparently a computer genius and left behind a monitor with an AI on it to help out the other students (which actually becomes a whole arc). A few episodes later, Monobear decides he doesn’t like it and the AI is taken completely out of play before it has a chance to do anything remotely useful other than get people to kill each other. And then it miraculously comes in at the very end to save Naegi’s life OUT OF NOWHERE.

So no one cares that this one is running around…

So should you watch this show? Maybe. Depends on what you’re looking for in an anime. If you don’t mind things that are clearly ridiculous then go for it. If you have a few hours to kill it’s amusing enough until you get to the last 2-3 episodes. If you’re looking for my overall opinion of it–it was terrible, but I was moderately amused by it while watching it. I’d suggest you don’t waste your time, but if you must then I can think of a few shows that are worse although most of them are the weird ecchi shows that Josh watches…

Josh’s Thoughts

So I think Rebecca’s pretty well summed up most of my feelings on the show, although I need to add a little addendum:

Monobear is the shit. Like actually.

Just look at these moves!

Oh man.

Mhmmmmmmm.

Smexy.

But Monokuma wasn’t the most interesting part of the show for me. I actually found it most interesting how Danganronpa marketed itself as (or at least, I was under the impression it was) a mystery show, when actually it turned out to really be a weird sort of thriller thing, much like the new Sherlock movies with Robert Downey, Jr.

In my eyes, a mystery show is one that in spirit tries to follow some of the supposed 10 or 20 “Commandments” on detective writing, which essentially boils down to a couple main points:

• The mystery needs to have a solution that isn’t bullshit.
• The keys to solving the mystery must be in the narrative and accessible to the reader.

Many of the commandments are arbitrary and really just conventions used in establishing a certain type of detective writing (centered around stories like those of Sherlock or Arsene Lupin), and a cool discussion on the genre actually can be found in Hyouka during the “Closing Credits of the Fool” (i.e. movie) arc. The most important thing to me though is this. Minus all the tricks that authors can pull, from unreliable narrators to storytelling tricks to obfuscating evidence, in a mystery series, the reader technically has the ability to try and solve the mystery alongside the detective. It doesn’t really matter if you actually try to do this, or if you just wait for the finisher and see how everything fits together, or whether there even is a detective in the first place, or whether the mystery is ever solved! It’s the idea that if you tried, technically you could also have solved/solve the mystery–you had access to all the same information the detective did, even if the author was trying to be clever and mess around with it.

Ahhhhh.

So natsukashiiii.

Good times.

And a really nice overview of detective fiction.

Irisu pretty much sums it up quite effectively too.

And, of course, cuts to the chase.

In the end, what makes a mystery novel great is the detective pulling a fast one, seamlessly taking all the information you knew and bringing it together in a completely surprising way. (It’s also the joy, afterwards, of admiring all the hard work the creator has gone through to make such a good mystery). I’ve heard it likened to watching a magician at work, except that he amazes you with no fast ones and you can see everything he’s doing. It’s also a good deal of what goes into big scientific discoveries–new data is great, and often does lead to cool discoveries, but more often than not, I find that it’s the clever scientist able to see things in a new way that makes the most insightful breakthroughs!

Now that I’m done being all science5eva <3<3<3 though, let’s come back to Danganronpa. Although I went into it expecting it to me a mystery (and I’m pretty sure in the game is a bona fide mystery), the anime actually isn’t at all. First, the investigations and evidence gathering scenes are rushed, so that while the viewer technically gets the same clues as Naegi does, we get absolutely no narrative framework to relate them to each other. On top of this, it turns out to be impossible to use these clues to solve the mysteries. Why? Because during the trials, new evidence the viewer didn’t have access to is brought up. And this new evidence is frequently really, really important evidence that completely alters the picture of what really happened.

This, unfortunately, isn’t a one-time thing. It happens routinely, so the viewer actually has no chance to really solve many of these mysteries except in retrospect with the additional knowledge that they’ve gained. While this is fine from an entertainment perspective, and happens all the time in thrillers and action movies, for a show that seemed to market itself on being a detective story (albeit a wacky one), this was a bit frustrating. It’s cool and all seeing characters debate things on stage, but realizing this makes it much harder to pay attention and really just care about all the investigation stuff that happens in-between. Especially when characters are just going to slowly monologue it at the trial anyway.

This, however, never failed to amuse me.

None of these remarks are meant to ding the show at a fundamental level. There’s absolutely no problem if you sit back and watch Danganronpa as a entertaining melodrama, or ridiculous thriller, or just overall “so bad it’s good” anime. It just means that the initial impression you get–that you’re in for an entertaining mystery thriller something-or-other–is wrong, which for me led to some uncomfortable cognitive dissonance in the first half or so. Once I settled down to watch it without the expectation that the clues they were giving us could theoretically constitute the whole framework of the murders that were taking place, I enjoyed the show much better (I even enjoyed the complete bullshit nonsensical ending!). These are also pretty much the exact same reactions I had to the newer Sherlock Holmes movies (not the BBC series), which are really action flicks. In contrast, something like Hyouka actually does work as a mystery show (in addition to everything else it does) for the very same reason–Oreki gets the same info we do (they go to great lengths to realize that, in fantastic ways), but he just puts it together much better than most of us seem to be able.

Look at that beautiful stand-in character for the viewer.

So beautiful.

And then Oreki drops the bombshell.

And we’re all left wondering how’s he going to do it. Because we know the same things he does, yet we just can’t seem to do it. No matter how hard we try.

I FEEL YOU SATOSHI. Q_Q

So, in sum:

• Monobear is the shit.
• Hyouka is the mothereffing shiznit.
• Thorinduil = OTP.

OTP.

Kotori just can’t be beat. Imouto end = best end. IMOUTO END = TRUE END.

ALL HAIL WINCEST.

ALL ABOARD THE IMOUTO EXPRESS.

BEST GIRL HAS JUST ARRIVED.

I originally didn’t watch Date A Live as it was airing. I was pretty busy at the time, where the number of series I was following dropped from something like 22 to 12. I also found myself pressed for time at the beginning of the season, which meant that, for the first time, I forsook the 3-episode rule. (I have since abandoned it altogether, and feel better off for it, but at the time I thought I had died a little bit on the inside!)

Such was my terrible predicament. But then, lo and behold, Draggle posted a review of the series:

Our hero is awakened by his sister jumping on top of him in bed, and he spends the day flirting with cute girls at school. Then he learns that his sister commands a flying battleship and his love interest is a cyborg who fights aliens. He has to date all the aliens or they will destroy the world!

This premise sounds completely retarded at first glance. But I enjoyed it immensely. It’s quite funny as a parody of dating sims. The crew of the ship will get some choices, as in a visual novel, and the main character will execute the one they vote on. Usually it’s blindingly obvious but they’ll debate it anyway. Sometimes all the choices are idiotic. There are tons of other ridiculous things going on, like an NGE-style town transformation where all the food stalls are actually missile launchers.

As you can imagine, as soon as I read this, I slapped myself on the forehand, downloaded the series, and marathoned it over the course of a few days along with Btooom! and Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride (because I missed those when they were airing as well–what a n00b and clearly best taste). And I gotta say: Date A Live was well worth it. I was pretty entertained by much of the premise (although, like Draggle, Tohka did grind on me after a while too), and finished up the show without too much ado.

For some reason though, a small part of me was bothered by what I had watched. After thinking about it for a while, I finally managed to pin my finger on it: I was put off by the explicitly “fake” nature of the “romance” in the show. I somehow felt that the whole choice paradigm had made things…hollow, in a sense.

Which makes absolutely no sense. Harem shows, visual novels, and all the other things in Japan’s “media mix” employ routine and recognizable tropes that work precisely because they’re incredibly scripted. In fact, they frequently are great because they’re so predictable, cliched, and recognizable. And half the stuff I post on here is about reveling in them! The only thing the show had done was bring the process to the surface and draw this facet of dating sims and other similar media out as a central element. In fact, this core premise is the reason the show works as well as it does (and is so ridiculous)! So I was a little bit disconcerted: had I deluded myself all this time into thinking that, if a show didn’t deliberately state the very obvious choices and cliches they chose to implement in romantic encounters, that somehow that was more “romantic” than when they did? That, if I was playing a dating sim, the “constructed” nature of the romance was somehow “genuine”, while in an anime it wasn’t?

Small digression: At some point during Azuma’s Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals, there’s a small discussion within the larger context of his “dataabase” theory about visual novels, explicitly eroge. In it, he essentially claims (correctly) that Air just drew off a bunch of tropes, that simply seeing all those tropes triggers emotional responses in otaku, and that otaku are able to simultaneously fool themselves into temporarily “believing” romantic themes such as “true love” and “destiny” even while the eroge in question has multiple “routes” and a bunch of flags triggered by conversation choices. I remember first getting really pissed at him claiming Air was really just a bunch of recycled tropes that we (otaku) had bought into, since that was one of the first dramas I’d watched and I was particularly fond of it. But, after much raging, I realized he was right (and was also shocked how strongly I reacted to his claim, which also convinced me he was right). But the most important part was his secondary point, which I quickly noted and tried to commit to memory, since it really gets to the heart of much of otaku culture. Obviously, I hadn’t really done a good job, considering that this realization I had in response to Date A Live parallels the one that Azuma hit on (and that I had read) a while back.

I haven’t seen this before.

Wait – what’s this?!

Oh god.

Oh gawwdddd.

It can’t be…

It IS.

roflmaooooooo – oh wait…

After some more thinking, I realized this wasn’t the full picture–the problems I had ran far deeper than that. My problem was with the concept of “romance” itself.

What is romance, exactly? And what does it mean to be romantic? I realized that I never had really asked (or answered) that question, and that, most likely, it didn’t actually deserve a rigorous answer. The loose answer I settled on was something like “a created atmosphere of love, feelings, and emotions between people who likely care for each other”, linked it to a bunch of movies I’d seen and books I’d read (because those, to be honest, serve as the anchors/priors to what I consider romantic), and tried to call it a day.

But that wasn’t it. I realized I was missing an element in what I pictured as romantic, based on the ways that they were portrayed in film and general media: naturalness. The environment had to be natural, spontaneous, an outgrowth of the current situation. You couldn’t make the atmosphere romantic–it had to become romantic on its own accord. If you tried to make something romantic, it would then be a hollow shell of what I could be, a deception, a lie, a social construction. It would lose its romantic meaning to you, because you would be aware of what you did to make the situation romantic for the other party.

But this, obviously, is a huge problem, especially for someone who watches and reads as much anime, movies, books, what have you, as I (and probably many of you) do. Because then you recognize the tropes, the cliches, the “flags” that make a situation romantic. And what you inherently find romantic is predicated on these same flags, by construction. So you’re kinda in a Catch-22. This, I realized, was the reason that in my own relationship (we’ll actually be having our 1st-year anniversary soon!) I am a sort of anti-romantic–generally, I have tended to be either not romantic at all, or romantic in a meta-but-not-cynical way that would frequently “break” the romantic mood. I was a little bit disheartened after this realization, since I thought then that my understanding of what was romantic meant that I had robbed myself of the opportunity to experience “real” romance.

Fast forward about two months, to the middle of August. My time in Japan was winding down, and one of my friends from high school had come to visit me in Japan. (We actually travelled around China and Japan for about 2 weeks both our fathers, doing a cool father-son thing, which was really cool. Plus I got an opportunity to see my mom’s side of the family again, and to try blogging about it.) During one of our last days touring Kyoto, we ended up climbing Enryakuji, the temple that Oda Nobunaga burned down during the Japan’s Warring States (Sengoku) Era in his drive towards unification.

A small portion of the sprawling mountain-top temple complex.

As often happened during the long walks on our trip, my friend and I got around to talking about anime. For some reason, Date A Live entered the conversation and, during our discussion of the show, we got around to talking about dating in real life and romance in general. I essentially bemoaned what I perceived to be the paradox that the show seemed to highlight for me, and that romance would forevermore feel “unnatural” and “false” to me.

His response was perfect: “But isn’t all romance that way? I mean, if you’re choosing what to say in order to be romantic, then doesn’t that mean you care?”

Although it seems blindingly obvious to me now, that one phrase actually was a revelation. There was nothing wrong with romance being spontaneous or premeditated. Romance is–and will always be–a little bit of both. On the whole, romance is somewhat of a delusion, where people self-knowingly dupe themselves and others to create a situation where they try and show that they care. It’s a perfect example of bad faith. Essentially, however, what this boils down to was the realization that the only thing holding a situation back from being romantic was my own standards for romantic being untenable, and that there was no reason I had to abide by them because they clearly were impossible in the first place.

After recovering from this shock, I weakly thanked him for helping me realize how stupid I was. He laughed and told me I was an idiot so it wasn’t a problem at all.

And that’s why we’re best friends :)

And thus, we have the best of all possible ends.

So ends my story of Date A Live, ridiculously stupid sounding light novel adaptation.

So Josh and I were nominated by Appropriant over at Perpetual Morning for the Liebster award! We’re both quite excited and appreciative of this honor and would like to send a shout out to the anime blogger community for their support.

The Liebster award is intended to give some exposure to small blogs with less than 200 followers. The rules are as follows:

1. Link back to the blogger who nominated you
2. Answer the 11 questions given to you by the blogger who nominated you
3. Nominate 11 other bloggers with less than 200 followers
4. Go to the blogs you nominated and notify them of your nomination
5. Give your nominees 11 questions to answer.

In turn, we also have a list of blogs that we’d like to nominate (many of them repeats from Appropriant) and they are:

• Atelier Emily: We can’t add anything to Appropriant’s description of her blog, because we feel the same way, so we quote Appropriant here: “Infinitely more eloquent with the English language than I, Emily articulates her burgeoning appreciation towards the denser anime with such grace and love. All I can really do is continue reading all this perfection with the burning envy of a thousand suns.”
• Compass on My Field Trip: A blog dedicated to reblogging great things Foxy Lady Ayame has found while touring the web. It’s great for discovering new places and interesting ideas, and I’ve definitely found several blogs I now follow thanks to her hard work.
• Fantastic Memes: Assuming Froggykun doesn’t already have 200 people following his blog, like Appropriant, we’re also going nominate him for this because he’s pretty great. Whether discussing the baser levels of anime, or some of the more adademic aspects of fandom.
• Isn’t It Electrifying?: Between the varied viewpoints and excellent writing of Illegenes, Wendeego, Gallifreyians, and Vestenet, you can’t really go wrong here.
• Standing On My Neck: The best “oldfag” you could ever ask for. Loud, proud, and unapologetic, Flawfinder really epitomizes his name.
• SatchiiKoma: With clever posts, great taste, and a love of everything HOT BLOODED, BokuSatchii is always a pleasure to follow.
• Omonomono: Omonomono is the perfect place for the veteran anime viewer. His casual discussions and rambling on fandom, interpretations, j-pop, idol culture, and in general anything “anime” is always entertaining provided you can keep up.
• Subdued Fangirling: As the name implies, Muse is none-to-secret with her fangirling! Plus just generally awesome.
  
• Things in the Fridge: Although long, rambly, and confusing at times, Misfortunedogged really manages to dissect anime from a delightfully academic, literary perspective. Plus, as the primary blog that inspired this one, he deserves some recognition!
  

So not 11, but at least we tried! We also tried not to nominate other blogs which already “accepted” the award from someone else, which limited us a little bit.

And here’s our list of questions!

1. If you could be an additional character in any anime, which anime would it be and why?

2. What is your favorite sweet treat?

3. Pick one thing you would change about your hometown and tell us why.

4. What would you say is your greatest flaw?

5. Have you ever had an unrequited crush on someone? Did you do anything about it or just let the person go?

6. If you had to be locked in a room with one other person for the next five years, who would that person be?

7. Favorite movie?

8. What website is your biggest time suck?

9. What is one thing you’d like to do differently in 2014?

10. If you could live in one type of weather all the time what would it be?

11. Do you believe in soulmates?

Our Answers to Perpetualmorning’s questions:

1. How much interest do you hold towards foreign countries, excluding Japan? When given the opportunity, would you like to move to one of them?

Rebecca: I’d really love to travel to foreign countries some day just to try out some authentic cuisine (and by cuisine I mean desserts haha). Not to mention I think it would be a great experience to go somewhere other than different states. I should definitely try and be a bit more cultured than I am. In terms of moving to and living in another country–I wouldn’t be averse to it depending on if I was moving with someone else (significant other or something) and if I had career prospects/something to do there, but staying in the US would be okay as well.

Josh: The world’s a really big place, and I’d love to see as much of it as I can. My biggest draw is definitely towards Europe, especially countries like France, but I’d love to see it all. If given the opportunity, however, I don’t feel a draw towards moving to any particular country at the moment. So a nonresponse there–I’m not sure, and will find out when the time comes!

2. Think about a Mary Sue/Gary Stu crafted in your image. What would not change between you and your ideal?

Rebecca: Hmm I think I’d stick to my guns in terms of my values and personality and for the most part physical appearance. Although I do think I’d like to be a little bit less shy and indecisive haha.

Josh: While I might want some tune-ups in the physical department (three cheers for Masato!), I definitely would not change most of what’s on the inside. I’m happy with my personality and my core values :). Unless someone told me I could be Kirito. Then I’d be sold.

3. Consolefag, PCfag, or CandyCrushfag?

Rebecca: I guess PCfag? I technically have a Mac, but I spend all my time on the computer.

Josh: Probably PCfag (LoL2stronk), although I also enjoy consoles quite a bit.

4. What’s your favorite kind of noodle?

Rebecca: Angel hair. Definitely angel hair. I’m originally from NJ so I’m a pasta snob.

Josh: Whatever they use to make real ramen. That stuff is the shit.

5. Have you ever watched anime in a group larger than one? If so, how does it compare to when you watch anime alone?

Rebecca: Indeed I have! I went to anime club with Josh twice a week so a bit larger than one XD. I don’t see too much of a difference, except for the fact that when I watch anime alone I’m horrible about multitasking while doing it whereas in the club oh wait, I multitask there too haha.

Josh: As Rebecca said, watching anime in a group tends to work well for shows that are more discussion-oriented or less serious, and I really enjoy those when people comment on things like “Oh, that’s an interesting parallel” or “LOLWHATJUSTHAPPENED”. For the more serious, philosophical, drama-ish stuff, I prefer to be alone.

6. What songs in your current playlist are you not necessarily proud of?

Rebecca: “Call Me Maybe”. Just a little bit of shame.

Josh: Since I mostly just listen to a bunch of anime stuff, I’d have to say probably the Kotoura-san OP and the WHO IS IMOUTO OP. Because that’s where it’s at.

7. Suppose a “____ Note” came into your possession. What would it be, and what would you do with it?

Rebecca: Ooh this is a tough one. Let’s go for a Wish Note. If I had a Wish Note, I’d probably wish to be 5’9, blonde, and busty. I’m only kidding–that’s Josh’s wish for me ;). Nope, if I had a Wish Note I’d want to solve the Global Warming crisis, have enough money to live comfortably without having to work a job I hated, and probably eradicate all serious infectious diseases along with some other icky ones that just make my skin crawl.

Josh: Ouch – that first part hurt :p. If I had something, let’s go for a Music Note. It’d be like composition paper, except the melodies you’d compose would do things. Wait, this sounds an awful lot like Jakazure in written form…

8. What does it mean when you love an anime?

Rebecca: It means that I will be able to watch more than 2-3 episodes in one sitting and will actively try to finish it as quickly as possible.

Josh: That it not only is great to watch, but becomes an experience that I dearly treasure.

9.  How optimistic are you about your future?

Rebecca: Eh, relatively optimistic I guess. It would be kind of sad if I wasn’t.

Josh: I’m in general pretty optimistic about my future, although I try not to look too far ahead most of the time.

10. What is a positive and negative impact that your schooling/campus life has contributed to your personality?

Rebecca: I’ve definitely chilled out a lot since getting to college. I used to be much more uptight about things and now I kind of go with the flow more. I think it’s better for me since I don’t get stressed out nearly as often as I used to. In terms of negative: I don’t think I’m as awesome as I used to. Before college I thought I was the shit, but now eh my opinion is lower. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Josh: One great positive impact is that, through my friends and my time in school in general, I’ve really learned how to think critically, which has been great. One negative thing that’s come out of it though is that I am much more academic and prone to discussion, which sometimes leads to a bit of a disconnect when I come back home and hang out with many of my friends from high school who just don’t really care much at all about anything academic.

11. Do you prefer chests or booty? Or are you fine with plunderin’ both?

Rebecca: Uh…neither? They’re both fine? I go for face/height in a guy over anything else physical.

Josh: ALL HAIL OPPAI.

Tch. Another post about a light novel adaptation. How original.

In all honesty though, Oregairu is both supremely original while at the same time  stunningly unoriginal. There’s absolutely nothing I can say that Draggle (and Froggy), Aquajet and my long rant about the show haven’t pretty much already covered, so I won’t try and rehash them here.

Instead, I’ll just leave this here and call it a day.

Clearly the best pairing in the show.

I am not too incredibly inundated in anime culture (which is why I feel a bit out of my depth on this blog sometimes XD), but since I am planning on heading to Anime Boston this year–hope to see some of you there!–I thought I’d try and tackle what I think the differences and causes of female vs male fandom in a brief post. Josh and his friend seem to already have plans for a trio costume…I think that’s the part I’m most afraid of. Anyway so let’s launch right into this since I’d like to keep this post somewhat short.

Josh has written much more analytical and academic posts on this subject, but I thought I’d keep it somewhat obvious and amusing since it’s much easier to read and write for the most part. 

What girls ‘fan’ about in anime:

1. Cute, sensitive boys: we want a guy who is potential boyfriend material, someone who we can envision ourselves dating. This character is usually a childhood friend and it blossoms into a super sweet romance.

2. The perfect, brooding, sexy guy: Why do we swoon over this one? Do I really need to explain? I mean he’s probably got magical powers and he’s totally damaged, which means that we want to fix him and make him our loyal, devoted slave lover.

3. Cute animals: Um it’s adorable and we kind of want it for a pet, scratch that we absolutely want it to the point that if it actually existed we would beg someone, probably our super sexy, cute, perfect, brooding slaves boyfriends, to buy it for us.

4. Shonen ai? Yaoi?-I don’t know what this one is actually referred to as because I’m not really a fan, but I think I can understand the mentality enough to include it on the list. The formula is simple 1 hot boy+another hot boy= 2 really hot boys all over each other doing things that are super hot. Something like that? You’d have to ask a true fan about this one, but I think I sort of get it.

What boys ‘fan’ about in anime:

1. BOOBS

Picture courtesy of Josh’s Christmas FB album.

*I’d like to note that this post is intended to be tongue in cheek and horrendously unfair to both genders.

(Josh’s quick insert comments: On the subject of an Anime Boston cosplay trio theme, my friend and I are currently trying to decide between something FMA [e.g. Roy, Riza, and Armstrong],  Kill la Kill [e.g. GamagOOOOoooori, Inamuta, and Jakazure], Magi [e.g. Morgiana, Alibaba, and Aladdin], or Zombie desu ka? [Ayumu, cross-dressing Haruka, Yuu]. At the moment, we’re slightly leaning towards the first two but are pretty much on the fence about all of them, so feel free to let us know what you think would be cool to see!)

I haven’t seen too many anime, but out of the ones I have seen, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is by far the best. I was hesitant to start watching it mainly out of spite (Josh nagged me on a biweekly basis to watch it and drove me crazy), but I am SO glad that I finally caved and agreed to watch it with him. There are a million reasons why this show is the best thing ever, but unfortunately I don’t feel like writing a novel of praise so I’ll limit it to the one element I thought was the most successful: character development. This version of FMA was also based on the manga, which I thought was a definite improvement on the “original” FMA anime.

Here’s a quick synopsis of the show, courtesy of MyAnimeList, for those of you who haven’t seen it yet:

In this world there exist alchemists, people who study and perform the art of alchemical transmutation—to manipulate objects and transform one object into another. They are bounded by the basic law of alchemy: in order to gain something you have to sacrifice something of the same value.

The main character is the famous alchemist Edward Elric—also known as the Fullmetal Alchemist—who almost lost his little brother, Alphonse, in an alchemical accident. Edward managed to attach his brother’s soul to a large suit of armor. While he did manage to save his brother’s life, he paid the terrible price of his limbs.

To get back what they’ve lost, the brothers embark on a journey to find the Philosopher’s Stone that is said to amplify the powers of an alchemist enormously. However on the way, they start uncovering a conspiracy that could endanger the entire nation, and they realize the misfortunes brought upon by the Philosopher’s Stone.

For me, characters are of the utmost importance in terms of my enjoyment of a show/novel. I can love the plot and love the world, but if I hate the characters then it’s all over. Let me define what I mean by ‘hating a character’. It’s fine if I dislike a character as a person–they  can be an odious person and still a likable character. Does that make sense? Let me give an example: let’s say there’s an antagonist who is so insidious and vile that you want them to fail and want them to die, but at the same time, they are so well-crafted and nuanced that I enjoy them as a presence or force within the story. Using that definition, I don’t think I hated a single character. Even the homunculi and characters that in most other anime would have been overlooked were given back stories and brilliant personalities.

Of course the main characters–the Elric brothers–are made into complex characters, but that isn’t unique: the main characters of shows for the most part tend to be detailed and fleshed out if the show is even of middling quality. What really makes FMA Brotherhood unique, however, is how it gave the same level of attention to all the characters in the show, which is what I’d like to focus on. Every last member of the enormous cast of the show had a back story and a fleshed out personality, which made me ecstatic. I would never have expected someone like Major Armstrong or Envy to have enough of a motive/backstory to make them real to me. An entity like Envy usually occupies a place in a show where they are an evil humanoid force without any real likability, but when he goes from this:

Ok, yea it’s really hard to feel anything other than disgust and loathing for him when he’s in this state.

To this:

It’s legitimately sad and depressing. He is just so pathetic and even confesses the reason behind his bitterness that it’s impossible to hate him even though he’s kind of a jackass. I was honestly depressed when he killed himself, the depth of his desperation and self-loathing was so poignant and tangible that his suicide really touched me. It was an emotion I never expected to have for an antagonist in a show. Yes, he did horrible things and was overall an awful creature, but there was just enough humanity in him to evoke a powerful emotional reaction from me upon his death.

Then someone like Major Armstrong–usually the stock ‘muscle-head character’.

I am beautiful and my muscles grow flowers. Clearly.

Someone like this is usually in the show for comic relief and that’s it. Ok, I’ll admit he was mostly for comic relief, but at the same time, he wasn’t the standard bumbling buffoon that one usually finds in this type of character. Armstrong had a legitimate past involving the Ishvalan War and that gave him a complex in which he feels inadequate because he backed off from the front lines and ran away. This follows him throughout the show and you can see how it impacts his character and fuels his redemption at the end of the show during his showdown with Sloth.

Another thing I’d like to point out is how awesome the female characters in this show were. I mean first you have Winry a badass female mechanic–I  know that it’s a common cliche to try and buff up a female character by giving her a manly profession, but it really worked for Winry. She was definitely passionate about what she did and the show made her passion believable and refreshing. Also, on a tangent, can I just talk about how upset I would have been if she and Ed didn’t get together in the end? End tangent. Then there’s Risa Hawkeye. She’s a freaking sniper I mean come on (and apparently I’m potentially cosplaying as her or something) and she manages to keep her humanity and composure throughout the entire show even after all the people she has to kill and all the insanity of being Roy Mustang’s right hand (wo)man. The last one I want to talk about is the bossest of them all. That’s right. Olivier. She is probably the coolest female character ever and probably could have taken out the entire pantheon of homunculi all by herself if she had alchemical abilities. I think that would have been a perfectly viable show: make Olivier an alchemist and then have her steamroll everyone and bring an early conclusion to the show. ‘Nuff said.

WHAT A BOSS

Of course it wasn’t just the characters that made the show amazing. I’d love to write up another whole post about how much I loved the mythology and mysticism used in the show (hey maybe I will!) and talk about how the world was awesome and the plot was brilliant and complicated without being too contrived. AGH! So many feels! This show was amazing and if you haven’t seen it please do. I won’t nag, I promise, but I’ll make puppy-dog eyes and strongly encourage it ;).

Please watch me–you won’t regret it!

This post is part of the Secret Santa project over at Reverse Thieves that also doubles as the last 12 Days of Anime post.

First off, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and that the holidays have been good to you so far :).

In typical procrastinating fashion, I waited too long to watch my Secret Santa picks, and instead spent the last couple days trying to finish up a bunch of other shows like Meganebu! (why did I ever stop watching that?!) rather than watching my stellar recommendations. But, after a late-ish couple of nights of anime marathoning, I finally finished! And so, after some frantic writing, a wonderful Christmas (complete with fuzzy socks), and some more editing, I am proud to say that my first Secret Santa review is done (if a little late)! It was a great experience, and I can’t wait to do it again next year :D.

Note: I hope this post is readable. This is what I get after marathoning anime all night lol.

For my Secret Santa picks, I was given a choice between Haibane Renmei, Omae Umasou Da Na, and Mononoke. The first consists of a bunch of angel people and deep philosophical, slow-moving, contemplative stuff. The second is pretty much the anime version of The Land Before Time. The third was the adaptation/exploration of some interesting Japanese folk legends, and is the one I ended up going with.

I’ve been meaning to watch the first of the trio for forever, but for some reason inexplicably decided to skip over it again in favor of the other two options. The second, which I knocked out yesterday, is very cute but nothing absolutely revolutionary. It’s definitely worth a watch if you’re into those kinds of cute, life-lesson, “leaves you with warm fuzzy feelings” kids movies though. The third, which I’ve just finished, is a little bit more complicated than that. First, in order to better appreciate Mononoke, I followed the additional recommendation from my Secret Santa to watch the last three episodes of Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror first, as the plot of the former actually is a sort of spin-off from one of the stories in the latter. Of course, since I couldn’t just leave it at that, I also watched the entirety of Ayakashi. I review them both here.

Ayakashi

Quick overview: The show is divided into three main stories, each of which comprises 3-4 episodes. The first is ”Yotsuya Kaidan,” the story of a wife betrayed  by her husband and the vengeful curse she lays on him after death. The second is “Tenshu Monogatari,” the tragic story of forbidden love between a Forgotten Goddess and a human, and “Bakeneko,” the story of a mysterious cat monster with a vendetta against a certain family and the peddler that comes to exorcise it.

Oiwa, from “Yotsuya Kaidan.”

Tomi Hime, from “Tenshu Monogatari.”

The peddler, from “Bakeneko.”

Ayakashi, besides being an adaptation of some traditional Japanese tales/legends, likewise sets a very traditional-esque atmosphere. The animation style and color palette tends to resemble wall scrolls and older Japanese artwork more than many of the shows being animated around the same time (2006-7, around the same time Haruhi was airing for the first time), while the soundtrack and dialogue too tend to be in an older/more formal style. While the animation can be a little bit rough at times, on the whole the style of the show very well suits the source material its drawing upon. The only part that–ironically enough–is not traditional turns out to be the OP, which has a pretty slick mix of traditional sounds mixed with a hip-hop beat.

Trying to discuss the storytelling pros and cons of the base stories as well as each adaptation would be a bit tedious, especially since these are drawing from “folklore” (which I will use quite broadly here), as several Nakamura Kenji directed shows seem to do. So I won’t be doing that here, except to say that the last arc (eps. 9-11) is by far the best of the three (indeed, it proved popular enough to warrant the Mononoke spin-off adaptation, and I can see why!). Instead, what I’ll do is talk about some of the things the show tries to do on top of that (i.e. the themes it plays with), and compare it with a few others to put it in context.

Speaking of context, that’s one of the things Ayakashi tries to do with these folktales, especially in the first arc. Much in the same way Samurai Champloo places itself as meta-commentary over the changing ways we perceive and ultimately use history, Ayakashi tries to talk about the ways some of these legends have developed and are used today. The biggest ones I caught on to were:

1. Folktales and legends are essentially simulacra at heart: largely fictional, although usually with some small element of truth.
2. The 1st- and 2nd-order impacts of these folktales (such as their cultural impacts, prominence in theatre, pop culture, and even its expression in the Ayakashi anime itself) are even more tenuous–being simulacra of simulacra–leading to an environment where “falsehoods”/”fictional elements” become more “true” than the “real” truth itself.
3. The difference between the what is classified as “truth” for tales of these nature is very blurry and, most importantly, doesn’t really matter.

The second two points are best covered by an example. Let’s say that you’re a director asked to do an adaptation of a Japanese folktale. You have many places to choose from, because the canon of tales is extensive. However, there are so many variations and renditions in theatre, stories, etc., that you could choose to adapt from. What determines which version you should eventually choose to show on screen? Is it some quest for the “true” or “original” folktale, before cultural variations and retelling started taking over? That might be the academic’s response. But just showing a true story isn’t useful, because then you’ve lost what made that story a folktale (obviously figuring out how it has evolved it very useful too, but not to just figure out the original). In other words, the falsehoods/fictional elements are an essential component of what makes a folktale or legend or fabled historical story or anything similar what it is. Furthermore, part of what makes that folktale what it is is the culture that it has spawned. Regardless of whether or not a character/image was actually the way it was represented in the story, the way it is perceived after the story is a crucial element that should not be overlooked. Not including the culture surrounding the folktale might be “unfaithful” to the folktale itself. In addition, your (upcoming) version of this folktale will further add to this culture. Given all these circumstances, questing after something like “the truth” is difficult, and might in fact be meaningless. This point is also further enforced by the hybrid, modern style of the OP vs. the traditional style of the ED.

In terms of useful anime comparisons, Ayakashi is probably most similar to something like the Aoi Bungaku series, and feel like it was animated in much of the same vein. Both are animated adaptations of classics, after all, and have very similar serious/dramatic atmospheres. You can also see some similarities thematically with elements in Tsuitama and Samurai Champloo, although both shows are about as far away in style from Ayakashi as you can imagine. Unlike shows such as The Ambition of Oda Nobuna or other historical adaptations, Ayakashi is a much more faithful adaptation in terms of both style and tone, and feels a lot more like animated ukiyo-e or byoubu and the like (especially in Bakeneko), although quite a bit more fluid than the moving-picture episode 18 of Monogatari: Second Season.* The elements of horror it contains (it does have Japanese Classic Horror in the subtitles, after all), are a very traditional, theatrical style of horror, and so not anywhere near as ridiculous as Another or as raw as Shiki. In general, it’s not really all that scary, and the horror is  meant to stem from disbelief and disgust over some of the actions the characters rather than what we tend to classify as horror today. In addition to all of this, there’s obviously also a lot of really cool Japanese history and folklore here as well, if (like me!) you’re interested in getting to know some more of that type of thing.

*On that note, the last Bakeneko arc actually feels a little bit stylistically like Monogatari, with interesting usage of repetition, sound, and camera angles. Nakamura Kenji directed that arc. The other two arcs do not do anything of the sort, and use much more conventional animation techniques. 

In sum (∑): If you liked Aoi Bungaku, are a fan of folktales, legends, or Japanese history, enjoy Japanese-style theater, or enjoy more traditional/serious/dramatic/tragic stories, then you’ll probably enjoy Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror.

Mononoke

Quick overview: The show is a spin-off from Ayakashi Bakeneko story arc that follows the Medicine Seller as he deals with various spirits (Mononoke) in feudal Japan. As in Bakeneko, he can only slay the Mononoke when he uncovers its form (Katachi), the truth behind its appearance (Makoto), and the reason for its unusual behavior (Kotowari).

Mononoke is an all around fantastic show that takes all the great things about the original Bakeneko arc of Ayakashi and executes them beautifully. At heart, it’s a story about demons (well, mononoke to be exact), people, and the relationship between them. It’s a fascinating and disturbing trip surrounding how mononoke are born and the people who spawn them that takes you on a through the lands of the mystic and supernatural to the darker parts of the human condition. And one that leaves you wondering who the “real” mononoke are.

First off, Mononoke is not necessarily a preachy, philosophical show that aims to “educate” us about the human condition, or something of that nature. There are a fair number of those types of shows in anime and elsewhere, and I can confidently say Mononoke‘s place is not among them.* Many of the stories in the show are strange, bizarre, and seemingly amoral. The situations that take place are gruesome, disturbing, and–of course–horrifying (all in a more theatrical sense; by today’s standards, they’re not really any of these), similar to classic fairy tales, folklore, and mythology (which are often relatively devoid of any real “moral” or “message”). The peddler is never portrayed to be a good–or a bad–guy in the slightest, and remains a mysterious character throughout the entire series who always just kills the mononoke regardless of the circumstances. While there are central themes to each of the stories, there never is any real “THIS IS A BIG REALIZATION AND MESSAGE FOR HOW TO LIVE YOUR LIFE” type of thing outside the main Katachi/Makoto/Kotowari thing.

*This isn’t to necessarily ping other shows for being preachy, since I personally don’t mind preachy shows very much as long as it’s well done (which I why I love something like, say, Cloud Atlas). It’s just something to point out, since many other people I know dislike media that seems to “talk down” to them in some way, or that is too “high brow”.

That doesn’t make it any less entertaining though. Mononoke does a lot of really interesting things aesthetically that seem eerily Shaft-esque,* even though it was produced by Toei. Here’s some more quick screenshots from the first episode, to show what I mean:

*The irony (or whatever you call it) that I’m using something more recent to compare/anchor my impressions for something older (i.e. looking backwards rather than forwards) doesn’t escape me.

Besides the face being slightly off-center, the coloring and design of the walls are quite bizarre.

The woman’s head is not only off-center, but far enough towards the edge of the frame that the eyes are completely off camera.

The faces in the background are more like flowered patterns rather than real human faces.

Instead of focusing on the people talking, the camera instead pans to a bunch of differently colored spinning umbrellas.

I’ve left out many other examples, which include text on screen, “page-flipping”, abrupt scene transitions, and shots/scenes that seem right out of some avant-garde film. It also displays a lot of Satoshi Kon-esque blending of “dream” vs. “reality” sequences, which abrupt transitions between the two so that the viewer (and probably actors as well) can barely tell the difference between them. And the most ridiculously facial expressions I’ve ever seen in an anime in a long time.

Above all else though, Mononoke is an absolutely beautiful show, and probably would have warranted a watch from me from aesthetics alone if I’d known about it sooner.

The dialogue in the show also tends to be similar to Monogatari in some sense. As the peddler is trying to uncover the truth behind the mononoke’s traits, much of the talking in the show naturally dances around the hidden truth that makes all the pieces come into place. From the stilted dialogue that makes it seem that something’s just a little bit off, to the slightly-too-long pauses that indicates that something’s being hidden, the dialogue in Mononoke is riddled with the feeling of being just slightly “off” in that uncomfortable way you sometimes can’t place. The peddler’s slow, deliberate questions and responses (frequently with long pauses) further helps reinforce the mood. I’ve included a sample dialogue below (not that any screenshot with no words is one where there was a significantly long pause, not just unfortunate timing).

Besides just quirky dialogue, frequent screaming and panicking by everyone else who’s not the peddler also adds that extra bit of ridiculousness.

Unlike Monogatari and many other Shaft shows, however, Mononoke doesn’t lack for action when it counts. Besides much more active scenes and dialogue in general, the encounters with the mononoke (in their most crazed forms) and their exorcisms are whirlwinds of movement and color between the spirit form of the peddler (who is somehow even more badass than the already badass peddler) and the mononoke.

Besides lending itself to a really surreal, dream-like atmosphere, Mononoke‘s heavy usage of Japanese folklore, mysticism, and superstition is an integral and fascinating part of the show. While many modern fairy tales and other forms of folklore tend to be more reactions to culture and our current values (or at least, the Disney versions and their cousins), more traditional fairy tales/folklore are really embodiments of society and culture, a sociocultural microcosm that emerged over time. As folklore–and how it has evolved over time–can then provide really interesting insights into the culture–both past and present–of a region/people that you don’t often get from history,* Mononoke‘s strong connection to Japanese folklore tickles my fancy quite a bit.

*Stories about vampires, for instance, turn out to be quite interesting and insightful.

In sum (∑): From it’s unsettling dialogue, surreal atmosphere, and its heavy usage of Japanese folklore, mysticism, and superstition to the unique aesthetics and intense exorcisms, Mononoke is a fantastic show all around and is definitely worth a watch.

The OP is also…quite interesting.

Thanks for the recommendations, BokuSatchii! All the other Secret Santa posts (and all the people who participated) can be seen here.