The Yard Sale
They’re the cutest, more adorable ones on the block.
They melt in your mouth, not in your hands.
They’re soft to the touch, like heaven wrapped in plastic.
They’re Darry Buns. Now available at a local anime blog near you!
Despite urban legend, these won’t last forever!
I was thinking about School Days. As of episode 5 things were coming to a point where it actually fits the mold of a naive school story about stupid teenagers boning each other for whatever it’s worth. It’s so rare to see an anime about something that’s probably not at all rare in this day and age. Depends on how ghetto your high schools are, I suppose.
The funny thing is, while some people I talked with online say that Makoto (or Sekai or Kotonoha, for that matter) may be more like an average 16 year-old than we’d like to admit, just how often do we see that? Recalling my own adolescence, I came from a school that’s probably somewhat ghetto for an American suburban fare and I have certainly heard a fair share of these kind of things. But my impression was, like most people, I made my business to not mind these kind of business. I mean, what good does it do? In some ways the preliminary setup for School Days is just, well, setup for the outrageous crash that is yet to come. And it’s because of the crash that School Days is worth watching. The stuff before that is nice because it might be what you’ve experienced, maybe not, but it’s rather better for the dark subtext sewn into the puppy love story.
It’s good to wonder how much weight that appeal to personal experience one should give. Because, after thinking about it, there were more personality disorders that I’ve seen coming out of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei that matched my own recollection of high school than just guys and girls having sex, and breaking up.
In fact, I recall one classmate who was like Fuura. A few Kaga were to be found. Definitely some Otonashi (boys more so), two Kaere, a Tsunetsuki, a Fujiyoshi, and even a Komori. I’m exaggerating a bit (or maybe Kumeta is rather?) but a lot of these personality flaws are more common than you think.
So nuts to people who had memories of casual, innocent sex in high school. They’re really missing out on the comedy.
Ugh, sort of busy lately. But since I was doing this on my own time, I figured I can share with you some choice videos from Otakon this year if you haven’t had the time to look them up yourself.
Mamiko Noto
Tomokazu Seki
Kyoani Dance Mania! (I imagine this is a fraction of what AX got)
4chan is Madness
The Steve & Vic Show
AAA
Eminence
Others
Feel free to add more~
I know what I was going into when I popped in Nana on the tubes, and I got pretty much what I expected: a trashy shoujo romance story that reflects well with its audience while being glamorous and exciting. When the anime ended it didn’t really make any impact for some reason. I’m not sure why.
Earlier before I finished watching those illicit fansubs I was thinking about my own obsessions. I think it would be fair to say that anime and game takes up a large chunk of my “mindshare”–I think about anime and games often. Perhaps it’s because I do a fair amount of both, but I think it’s more because I’ve structured my life around these two things too much, in a way that’s unhealthy. I guess I believe there’s a thing as “too much anime.”
There’s not much similar between a boring otaku’s life and a slutty rock n’ roll lifestyle. They are thematically similar in that there is some kind of balance that’s at the core of it. Nana is a show with a lot of strong and passionate characters who go a little too far and suffer as a consequence. I guess I have nothing to say about that aside from it’s a fun take for a 21st century Japan’s view on glamor, while trying hard to not stray from the poetic, karmic expectation for Newton’s Second Law.
But are we so strained by this reoccurring force of nature that we cannot enjoy our fantasies outside of this expectation? When you realize you’re spending more time playing games and watching/writing/reading/surfing/talking about anime than the necessary and proper things you ought to be doing, it’s a sign that you’re doing it too much. But when you realize you’re obsessed with someone that you lose sight of what’s best for both of you, is it really okay, in a fantasy, to indulge that even at all? What if Nana wasn’t about friends and lovers, but about spending 14 hours in the office to make big bucks and be a power spender? Would it just be Speed Grapher without the LOL superpower nonsense? Isn’t Lucky Star just Nana with a fangirl?
Maybe I should watch less shows like Nana and do more important things.
The “jist” of 5cm is really summed up by an analogy of distance and quantifying the things that we can’t say.
In short, 5cm is about people being able to love and come to embrace each other in an ever growing-closer (or farther) circle-strafe dance of understanding each other. If we were to talk about UT2004 deathmatches, words are like bullets and rockets–it’s always good to throw a lot of them at your opponent, but it doesn’t mean you will “get through” to the other side. In Makoto Shinkai’s masterpiece, this is really the same analogy he is drawing except with physical distance.
Yea, bear with me for a second, because distance is both the ammunition and the representation of how close the hearts are between our main character and what his heart longs for. Sometimes it doesn’t take much but a timely-delivered snailmail letter. And ironically 5cm refers to thousands of text messages! Ahh don’t you like that little nod at Hoshi no Koe? I did.
But I suppose most of you reading this post probably hasn’t seen all three episodes of 5cm? Or maybe you have? Subs of it are on the usual pirate-y places now with the R2 DVD release only a couple weeks ago.
The one thing I would rail on is that despite the fact 5cm is clearly drawn up to be 3 separate parts connected by a chronologically consistent main character, the last piece doesn’t quite deliver because the narrative was a bit unclear. We see the “very end” in the first part of the third episode, then we see some of the “beginning” time-wise for episode 3, then we get a musical montage which explains how it all relates to each other, and how the first 2 episodes relate to episode 3.
Sure, if you take a second to think about it, you know what is happening. But considering how episode 2 spins out, the way episode 3 comes about goes against what you are expecting to see. It would’ve helped a lot to make it simple for the viewer if they just bother to explain it for us more, I guess. Overcoming poetic denial? Plus, the ending song doesn’t really hit home for everyone. It wasn’t too bad for me, but some of my companions didn’t connect with it.
In a way, I feel the same about this film as the film itself–words just don’t do it justice. Shinkai’s work this time is not merely a bubbling surge of rushing emotion but a calculated narrative of forward-moving regret. 5cm carries a heavy burden on its shoulders, but when you look as awesome as 5cm, you’re willing to both forgive it and let it take you to wherever it’s going. It’s definitely a more mature piece from Shinkai, and for that he deserves a lot of props.
And boy, is it beautiful. Don’t just watch it on DVD. Go see it on 35mm, you’re going to regret it otherwise if you know how shockingly awesome it is suppose to look.