The Yard Sale
It’s one thing to be prominently credited in an OP, it’s another to be prominently credited in two OP in the same season.
Oonuma Shin. He even storyboarded the OP for Watamote.
How does this work? I know this occasionally happened for some SHAFT guys but really now? If this is not a red flag, I don’t know what is.
Instead of watching giant robots beating up on kaijuu or EVO streams I went to a screening of Hentai Kamen the live action movie. Let’s get it out of the way. The manga is about the story of a superhero who transforms into the namesake crusader when a pair of used panties are put on his face. In fact the entire series basically operates on the principle of perverted energy drives some kind of physical power. All the bad guys are somewhat … abnormal, to put it lightly, but the hero is worse than them.
There’s a lot of man flesh in this movie. Lots. But at the same time I think the style of perversion is dominated by the male state of mind, so it’s only fair I guess. The original work was serialized in the early 90s, after all. I have to say a big reason why I went to see it because I heard Quarkboy offhandedly recommended HK because he subbed the film, at least for the festival runs. And it was a good time.
At the Japan Society x NYAFF 2013 screening one of the staffer got on stage to introduce the film…and stripped down into Hentai Kamen cosplay. Well, he has balls, let’s just say.
I watched the first episode and… To answer this
http://t.co/ZXoKe44Zkc — Seriously though, peeps. How many were disturbed by WataMote? Is this the right reading?
— Author (@ani_nouto) July 12, 2013
I’m going to say yeah, this reaction is not unusual. What’s weird is that my reaction was like Author’s. I think when I was a kid I didn’t have that kind of experience–to be honest it’s hard to see who did, at least on some sliding scale, because it’s not a binary determination. We homely and quiet nerds are often put into situations like this, and different people have experienced/suffered varying extents. What we see in Watamote is albeit an exaggerated version of something, but at the same time it’s easy to see how real people can have had it worse than Tomoko.
It “hits home” for some people, that is why they like Watamote. It “hits too close to home” for others, that’s why they think it’s humiliating.
But don’t you feel humiliated when you watch, say, Love Hina? I definitely felt that way about the nth time Keitaro walks into a half-naked girl, and I don’t really have any connection with K-taro in the way that Watamote is building things up. The odd thing is, the Watamote anime reminds me vaguely of B Gata H Kei, which is actually a story premised on the core idea of embarrassment (and I definitely don’t relate to Yamada). Watamote, so far, is more about self identity and pride. Well, that’s kind of related. But the tone of the two shows can’t be more different. Probably because one show is actually funny? In the riotous, raunchy teenage sit-com kind of way?
The irony, though, is that Watamote is the story of someone who struggles to connect with people because this “society” reacts to that sort of a narrative with embarrassment and shame. I didn’t really hear anyone get angry or passionate about Watamote, other than those who “hit home.” For those people God bless your souls and what not. For the “hit too close to home” people, please realize you are what Watamote is actually about–either as part of the problem (eg., society) or as a victim who just hasn’t quite gotten over it. I’m inclined to think all of us are one of the two types of people at some point.
Personally, I think this is all the by-product of self-depreciating humor for a crowd that don’t enjoy hurtful and self-depreciating humor. Basically, can you 8man? And it’s true–it certainly doesn’t have to be enjoyable and it isn’t for a lot of people. But the same goes for everyone else who can (including the people who created Watamote, who have the same problems, and wrote about them in such an open way) enjoy the humor in Watamote, the slow burn, the helpless flailing of arms. There’s a sense of helpless at play here, and you know how that goes.
TL;DR – One man’s joke is an insult to another man’s mom.
If there’s a theme to this year’s AX, it’s that things are just going to do and run the way they always have. But people change. Our perceptions, our expectations, and what makes us happy, all can change. Not that is a problem, but the convention exercise is ever the subjective introspection that brings out the best or worst in all of us.
Also, there was a tank. Continue reading
Little Witch Academia is this one-shot Anime Mirai short funded by some government money to encourage new and young animators to strike it out. Studio Trigger, which is a new studio made up of newbies and veterans, most notably for their Gurren Lagann Imaishi connection, are behind LWA. According to Trigger reps, they began exploring Kickstarter when people commented from oversea about LWA, as LWA hit youtube soon after it was done screening at various events. The energetic OAV-length episode was well-received.
At Anime Expo 2013 they announced that they will kickstart episode 2. Now that it has come here are some details that I find a bit head-scratching.
The Kickstarter is for just an extension of episode 2, which is already green-lit. I presume after hitting (more like pulverizing) their funding goal the bonus money will go into making more LWA in some way. This is Japan, after all, so they’re more likely to be responsible with public money in the private context.
There isn’t a lot of details as to what LWA episode 2 will entail in terms of its additional content, versus what is already promised. Compared to, say, Production IG’s Kick Heart, a thoroughbred art film, LWA is hella mainstream appealing. This is from a rising star studio that has the highly anticipated Kill La Kill on the horizon. I’m not sure if LWA needs Kickstarter, as much as Penny Arcade needs Kickstarter.
And this goes to the heart of the problem. I think if we just think of Kickstarter as a new way to raise money, it is probably a great thing that more anime studios are looking to Kickstarter as a way to fund their projects. Of course we still should extend the usual degrees of scrutiny upon any Kickstarter project, but I’m more likely to give anime studios slack because the current ways of funding anime is one of the core root of ills plaguing the industry. “Dealing with fans” is likely a gamble well worth trying, if that’s the only down side. That and face, maybe.
This post is brought to you by the fact that my AX writing-up is taking forever and at the LWA private screening they even tossed the possibility of LWA the TV, so there you have it.