Category Archives: Franchises

December 18, 2010

Year in Review: The Funnies

By omo

Over yonder at the blog-in-data-recover, I’ve written a list of the amusing stuff that happened this year. I guess I could have added the bouncing boobs from High School of the Dead on the list because it’s one of those Grenadier moments. You know? Except it only looks amusing and really doesn’t do anything. I don’t think breasts are good absorber of recoil, and whats-his-face Komuro should have gotten beaten over the head by Miyamoto for giving her purple boobs. That’s just the beginning, and the one anime probably everyone watched (outside of JUMP crap).

This year is an amazing year for comedies in anime. While we never had an outstanding title this year on par with FMP: Fumoffu, there were scores of great shows that will make you laugh out loud. At least it made me. Then again I laugh a lot.

The one I want to highlight is Seikon no Qwaser. It’s like Yosuga no Sora but without the pretense of seriousness. Plus, it’s got none of the “boning your twin sister while your girlfriend (soon-to-be-ex) stands and watch, along with ero-minded Iichou-san” big ball of fire mess; or rather, how do you top that? On the other hand, I thought the “keeps on going” thing works better with Nao being boned and Sora watching, but that’s just how she is. Qwaser just has unslightly people being unslightly, mostly doing all kind of weird stuff that defies imagination. I mean in some sense, the whole walking-on-the-sex-scene bit was not unexpected. It’s gawking, but it isn’t out of mind. Stuff like boob hypnosis is.

It brings up this notion that you can bridge the gap between awful and comedy. It’s kind of like how Fist of the North Star is enjoyable, but it’s also enjoyable. You get what I mean? There are too many shows making that gap this year it is starting to bleed into proper comedies.

But with offerings like Seitokai Yakuidomo, I can’t really blame them.

To wrap this point up, I’m just going to say that 2010 is an abnormal year in anime comedies in that I’ve seen more moments in anime this year that made me laugh than probably 2009 and 2008 combined. Maybe it speaks as much to how bad 2009 and 2008 was in terms of comedies, but really, if you are not laughing this year, you are not watching the same anime I’m watching.

The sad thing is there really wasn’t just one show that stood out besides the Qwaser, which is remarkable for other qualities besides that it’s hilariously over the top. That it’s terribly hilariously over the top.

Leave a comment | posted in Introspectives, Modern Visual Culture, Seikon no Qwaser, Seitokai Yakuindomo, Yosuga no Sora

December 15, 2010

Kouhei Hasekura and Anti-Establishment Drama

By omo

The archetypical traditional romance for scandal is the thing that makes Romeo and Juliet sensible, as star-crossed lover where a gap beyond their reach separates two true lovers. That gap could be circumstances or fate or whatever. In Fortune Arterial it’s vampirism…except it is not.

So it goes, Ms. Veep obviously feels for Hasekura, and vice versa (in this animated branch of an eroge). Erika doesn’t want to live like a traditional “vampire” or whatever that gets labeled as that in that universe. Erika has her own thought about how to live, how to live like a human, and how to live with humans. For drama, her mom makes some familial rule about it however, and there’s this conflict/pride nonsense which acts as the main point of conflict in their story, arising from the conflict of the expectations upon her as a vampire and as a human. And also there’s the whole vampiric blood and biology doing its job making Erika wanting to suck Hasekura’s blood.

To put it in other words, it is like as if Erika’s mom is trying to get her wedded off for their family’s fortunes, she resists because of pride, except she’s OTP with Hasekura. In eroge speak, you (Hasekura) are actually going after her and trying to get inside her gym shorts or whatever, and her vampiric urges that she is trying to suppress with her foremind is trying to get her p0n0’d. Oh wait, it just means she wants to suck some blood. Same difference.

I’m not sure how this is suppose to work. Or rather, I think I know how this is suppose to work and it is ringing the “this is not a feminist work!” bell in my mind. I mean think about it, Hasekura is a nice guy and all, but basically he is a tool for tradition and against independent thought, that his kindness torpedoes not just Erika’s human dignity (if she had any), but is both on the surface what he ought to be doing (encouraged) and underneath what he should be doing to unlock the CGs.

Such a pleasant story about unpleasant regression of individual’s power to choose as an underlying theme, yeah? Aren’t female vampires suppose to be exactly the opposite? Or is this just the logical offshoot of what happens when a Japanese family of vampires raises a kid like how Japanese humans do? What does that say about conservative Japanese family values? LOL.

Leave a comment | posted in Fortune Arterial, Modern Visual Culture

April 22, 2008

CLANNAD the Movie or Incremental Upgrades Leaves the Heart Wondering

By omo

I enjoyed the CLANNAD movie. But I realize it became a very narrowly tailored exercise in, well, dramatic reenactment of something that’s probably more powerful.

The problem with CLANNAD, and to some extent the Key anime adaptations we’ve seen so far, is that there is no way to traverse through all the key “checkpoints” without making a mess of the story. The story either loses some of the impact because of that, or the story just gets too convoluted for a straight-faced narrative.

In a more general sense, multi-pathing visual novels are like arcade racing games. Specifically, it’s those games that takes a couple tokens to play where you have to not only beat your AI opponents, but make various checkpoints to get more time. When you run out of time, even if you are ahead of the pack, you basically lose.

In this modular way to look at drama, where trying to hit every gut wrenching twist and turn becomes the purpose of an unstoppable, artfully sly narrative, we should see quite a few of those checkpoints in the duration of the story. But when as applied to visual novels, the difficulty arises when your checkpoints are not dotted across one race track, but in a city of one-way roads that necessarily limits you to only a subset of all possible checkpoints available in the game out of the total.

The approach in a theatrical adaptation is necessarily much more single minded. We want to go in and get it done in an hour-and-half. TV series can pursuit forks in the road, but movies lack the luxury of time to backtrack (so much).

And in exchange, the CLANNAD movie took us deeper and all the way through with Nagisa’s story. But at what cost? Was it worth it?

I think how you answer those questions will be the litmus test to determine what you enjoy the most out of an exercise in drama.

Perhaps more relevantly, with each iteration, each Key adaptation, both Toei and Kyoto Animation do a better job. At least that was my impression.

1 comment | posted in Clannad, Modern Visual Culture

April 9, 2008

Kallen Eleven

By omo

I know why Kallen in episode one of Code Geass R2 was mad cool.

LOL WAH. And November 11 !=? Kallen Eleven

I was never much of a Kallen fan back in Code Geass season 1 days, probably because the show didn’t take her seriously until later on. Perhaps I didn’t take her seriously (as a result, or just because). She always seemed like a silly girl yet she is quite dead serious about her goals and her feelings. Hardly a paragon of competence, Kallen is the contrast to that “JUST AS PLANNED” hook some Code Geass viewers dig about the show, so her popularity is spotty as well.

But why the bunny girl outfit? Well for starters CLAMP can design very sensual, attractive characters. Priming their MID-AGER LAZERS to “lol shounen anime” the results are somewhat annoying if boobs are not your thing. But at the same time CLAMP excels at clothing design, so the combination of a bunny girl outfit, which is a fairly spartan uniform if you think about it, and a CLAMP character in a shounen anime, is just jarring.

All the more that’s why there’s already like, 5 pages of this crunk on danbooru?
Season 2 Design docs!

Well, if I was Kero-chan I would’ve definitely checked:

1. The neck piece. It looks fairly generic but even the shape of the neck cuff is fairly distinctive

2. The adornment on the waist. It helps that we’ve got two other bunny girl models to contrast poor Kallen’s costume, both with slight differences in terms of their … loadout. It adds a bit of character to something so generic, and anchors the various lines going on that you see on a bunny girl outfit. If her boobs aren’t doing that for you anyways.

3. The ears. The ears are one of the most important part of the outfit, and in Kallen’s case it doesn’t sit drooping as it would in most other instances of such an outfit. Of course, she was bouncing around quite a bit.

4. And yeah. Gainax Bounce anyone?

The first episode of Code Geass R2 is almost a tongue-in-cheek self-reference crossed with pop-anime-cultural reference. At least, it is if you look at it that way–with all things Kallen, and with the parallel in respect to the first episode of Code Geass season 1.

The real objection I have is that, ultimately, Kallen in the first episode is just a distraction. It’s a distraction so maybe the viewers forget where we are plot-wise. And maybe that’s a good suggestion, since we’re kind of missing all of that in the pilot episode. Let’s rejoice in the return of one of our favorites from last year, and its ensemble cast. Let’s rejoice in boobs and bunnies. Let’s rejoice in hot school teacher jumping on her student. Let’s rejoice, just as some have planned.

 

Leave a comment | posted in Code Geass, Modern Visual Culture

April 7, 2008

Never Running Out of Things to Say

By omo

Some people are very detail oriented, directed, motivated, focused and ultimately, verbose.

I can’t quite say that about Makoto Shinkai, but that is how he came across when I spent the good half hour reading the wall-of-text interview on the 5cm DVD (R1 release, thx ADV!). He doesn’t ramble–in fact it seemed like it was well-planned, almost as if he has had time to think up answers to the open-ended questions these interviews tend to make them answer.

What was impressive was seeing the same degree of attentiveness to detail to his works. And it’s not so much in the animation but in the degree of control he exercised over the work that made it seem like he knows what he is doing–what exactly he wanted to say to his viewers, and how he wanted it done.

I won’t parrot what he said in there, but I will say there was even a lolcat moment.

Even though it was well planned, it seemed that he did not have anything to read back from, so the speech was natural (and at parts, edited for brevity) when he hits the various points to answer a question. The question he gets asked all the time (such as “are you telling us a story from your own life?”) he answers rather concisely; but some of the more descriptive questions surrounding 5cm’s production gets much more fleshed out.

And how he transitioned from what lifts him up from his daily grind as an office guy to a way of life; a hobby turns into a full time job. It’s probably worthy of being told in a film all by itself.

In a nutshell, while some advertisers may jump quickly and claim Shinkai’s successorship as the next Miyazaki, I see him as someone who has simply mastered storytelling in this one particular style. Perhaps today’s media industry lacks people who knows how to tell stories, especially in this style, but it will be up to him to combine his talents, dedication, and finding the story that he wants to speak to us about. That’ll be the defining prereq of his true masterpiece.

Still, I have a hard time running out of things to say about 5cm. Sure, it really spoke to me, and many others, but much like Satoshi Kon’s works (and he’s another very detail-oriented person) there’s just a jam-packed amount of stuff in the film. Not only it takes a long time to unpack all that’s in the film, Shinkai has made it fun to do so. In light of the new Spring 2008 offerings, I am still mostly ambivalent about that in light of what has transpired in an year-old film that ran just a tad over an hour.

In one of those soul-searching moments, a stroll in the valley of introspection and self-reflection, things like 5cm is exactly what props me up and reaffirms that there’s something worth being a fan for in this business.

And 5cm says it so simply. Concisely.

5cmmoon

 

Leave a comment | posted in Byousoku 5CM, Modern Visual Culture