Comments on: Tsuyokiss Aria REVOLUTION: Genre Kings x Delineation

By: omo

omo — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 13:28:32 +0000

School Rumble doesn’t have plot–just a bunch of evolving relationships expressed through an unending chain of slapstick jokes and “aww Pyotr is so cute” type moments. What you like is probably the relationships. Anyways, regardless if you like Tsuyokiss or not, my point is that it really is the type of show that gets mistaken for a trashy crap harem anime, but it isn’t what you expect. I think a lot of people sees the poor production value and kind of that B-rate campy setup and it triggers stuff in their minds, and that’s what I’m kind of talking about and what you seem to be saying. Big reason why I didn’t watch Suzuka after ep2 was just that. And I think I stopped watching Tona-Gura the same reason why you stopped watching Tsuyokiss (although I got through 4 eps of Tonagura).

Which is to say, the reason why I do watch Tsuyokiss religiously but not Suzuka is just that: a female perspective instead of a male one, a more fluid narrative than a religious adherence to a manga source, and simply an overall better lead character.

JP:
>> but I loooooooooooove works that fall in the revisionist time period in the classical generic cycle of primitive/classical/revisionist/parodic.

I think we’re really at the later part of the revisionist period. When I heard Kanon is getting remade into 26eps I thought, wow. You can’t get more revisionist than a remake like that; and things like Futakoi Alternative and Dokkoida (and all the genre meshing that involves harem norms)…

I think it is fairer to compare films with anime than with video games, it’s just that I am more familiar with game marketing and design theories. Market concerns do play into it all, still…especially given people’s purchase habits in Japan and the vibrant secondary market. Given the fact where older titles still compete with new titles when it comes to sales, it kind of boggles my mind as to the type of works still being produced this day and age. There is a level of disposable-ness that seems to exemplifies anime more so than normal films.

But if there is a genre that “suffers” from “maturity” it is totally shoujo, especially certain types of it (Ouran Host Club is totally a revisionist/parodic work). I think as long as guys get to ogle at pretty girls, harem anime will survive to some level.

By: Hinano

Hinano — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:13:02 +0000

The problem here is Tsuyokiss just sucks.
I don’t know if it’s the annoying eye catches, the crappy animation, the horrible voice cast and the idiotic fanservice or the combination of both that made me delete the show and quit it after the 2nd episode.
Even though stuff like Tonagura & School Rumble might as well be serious, I actually ENJOY them because there seems to be an undergoing plot between all the fanservice/haremness etc…while Tsuyokiss is just as hollow on the inside as it looks on the outside.

By: jpmeyer

jpmeyer — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:24:56 +0000

Er the difference between the genre model commonly used in film studies and the one in that blog post is that it’s based on an increasingly more-savvy audience rather than market concerns (although market concerns can be a reason, for example slasher movies ended during the 80s because they weren’t doing well in overseas markets). This model is similar to that video game one through what they call “maturity”, but then changes. The difference becomes that now the audiences become able to see through the generic conventions, and in turn the movies then start to become transparent and focus on giving this sort of reading. There is also no association with decline during the revisionist/parodic phase. Just look at the assload of money that movies like Scream/Scary Movie made (for horror) or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid/Blazing Saddles (for westerns).

By: jpmeyer

jpmeyer — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:16:06 +0000

I’m hoping that the whole harem anime genre follows the common generic progression and goes into a revisionist mode. Maybe it’s just because I really really like genre theory and writing genre analyses, but I loooooooooooove works that fall in the revisionist time period in the classical generic cycle of primitive/classical/revisionist/parodic.

Although I’m not sure which direction exactly to go here. Two of the common revisionist strategies are to deconstruct the genre or to strip away all of the “arbitrary” parts in order to get to some kind of generic “essence”.

Also, if I have to hear “genres are best conceived of as processes”, Imma scream. I had to write one of my exit exams on that.