Category Archives: Franchises

July 31, 2013

Genshiken Second Generation Episode 4

By omo

Jäger Madarame

I just want to talk about the preview segment chatter. For sake of convenience I’ll scribe from Crunchyroll. This also has a little to do with the train of thought passing by in my last blog post.

Madarame: The summer anime shows has already finished four episodes? Time flies.

Tanaka[?]: I’m sure everyone’s talking about which shows they’ve dropped online.

Kuchiki: I always give a series three episodes!

Madarame: So you actually drop shows? That’s nothing to be proud of.

Tanaka: You always get mad when something gets popular after you drop it.

Kuchiki: That’s when I say everyone else on the board is a shill!

Madarame: You’re horrible.

Kuchiki: Viral marketing! Viral marketing!

Kuchiki: Any time that something sells that I don’t like, it’s due to viral marketing!

Kuchiki: The anime I like should sell a lot, and the ones I don’t shouldn’t sell at all!

Madarame & Tanaka: I don’t care!

I think this piece is relevant in a particular sense. There always have been an interest in sales figures among certain fans. I would go as far as to say that there are “industry figure” style otaku that, for example, write rage posts on how to interpret Amazon sales ranks on preorders as indicator for…well not very much. You’d think these are the people made fun of–not quite. It’s the people who understand the importance of sales and such, but don’t grasp the interpretation of this data in the larger scope of things. It’s these kind of people that are being made fun of in the segment. Of course it’s actually just a cross section of a greater range of people, some who don’t really care about sales figures, but creatively interpret them for their own uses to justify their own narratives. Plenty of people who follow sales ranks understand how it fits into the bigger picture in terms of who’s footing the bill and the way anime is produced in Japan. But a lot more people don’t. And in fandom, that’s what sales ranks operates as–some straw validation of one’s belief or ammunition to attack someone else’s.

Thanks to this little skit now whenever someone shills for Redline, I laugh. Good Game, the Kuchiki-kuns of the western otaku-internet-o-polygon. And it brings us back to what makes Genshiken so charming in the first place–it is able to connect with a certain layer of fandom’s doubled-rainbowing layers of meta that few other first-party (in the official/3rd party/doujin sense) animation or manga can.

I suppose it’s asking too much for people to “get over” the whole sales thing. After all the trend is more direct participation by the end consumers, and more  direct funding. Well, maybe that could help people get over the importance of sales ranking and Oricon and stuff like that.

6 comments | posted in Genshiken, Modern Visual Culture

July 29, 2013

Gatchaman Crowds Is the Tumblr of Social Media Anime

By omo

This post contains content up to episode 3.

Rui

I’m not going to get into the whole “SJW” thing but I think there’s a visual aesthetic at work in Gatchaman Crowds. I think it’s not a coincidence that MESS looks like a bunch of tiny, moving single-color cubes of various colors. Nor is that the offkai is a collage party. [I wonder how much of it was inspired by gaijin train hijacking customs.] I guess this is as close as themes can intermix with visuals? It’s about the sort of visuals, the clipart-style of sharing, the unit of information. The way we exchange them today and how they do it in the anime.

Personally, Tumblr and Pinterest remind me of what feels like Gatchaman Crowd’s latest social networking efforts–labor organizational platform can be summed up as a colorful pipe collage-dream. I mean, at least GALAX has shortcomings that are well-recognized. And it’s kind of odd that episode 3 is labeled “Futurism” because the only visible people that call those who don’t believe in altruism as “enemies” are Futurists. I don’t remember if communism is compatible with such principles, but it sure didn’t require a logistical supercomputer powered by Tange Sakura. Well, maybe that’s why communism doesn’t work so well in practice.

I’m exaggerating, of course. Topologically, twitter and live chat-style (think DOLLARS) forums are always the closest realization of these common Web 2.0 fantasies. (And it’s good to pause and credit Eden of the East for something a little more original there.) GALAX, for better or worse, starts out ballsy. If students fighting their teachers (the establishment) to save their friends not symbolic of what GALAX is up to in the big picture, then I quit Kenji Nakamura. DRRR seems comparatively spineless in comparison, in terms of the statements of what it is trying to say. Maybe it’s more tribal-status-quo, rather than something like GALAX that unites people across class and age boundaries. In a more altruistic way.

And it’s this sympathetic backbone–that Hajime and company demonstrated–that the sjw types lack. This is what all the old people complain about. This is why the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

But it’s all too unreal. When that one sketchy lawyer leaned over to talk to that mom, I was like, LOL LOLOLOLOL. I don’t know what that is but pass the pipe please.

8 comments | posted in Gatchaman, Modern Visual Culture, Popular Culture

July 24, 2013

A Wall-top View on Reference Humor

By omo

So, in Watamote ep2, there’s an elaborate Whisper of the Heart reference. You can see some of it here. I want to look closer at it.

Jerks

The scene starts at around the 13:10 mark. For the unfamiliar let’s just say that our naive protagonist had a run in with a strange boy and she suddenly got into the frame of thought, a frame that becomes possible after several repeated viewings of Whisper of the Heart. The trigger is that Tomoko mouthed off a chain of “jerks” not unlike when Mr. Concrete Road sang along earlier on in Whisper and threw its female protagonist in a similar fit of consternation.

Suddenly, Tomoko realizes that she can make a Whisper of the Heart reference.

Sunrise

Please bear with me if this is obvious to you (in fact, please tell me so in the comments if this is the case). The joke, here, is not so much that Watamote makes a reference to a classic Ghibli flick. Well, that is a big part of it–the animation reproduces the lampoon accordingly. That in itself is humorous. The fact that it is a reference is also humorous, much like those Genshiken Nidaime viewers feel about Sue, assuming they enjoyed Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari. Or insert whichever reference of reference humor you prefer.

The funniest thing about this scene, for some, is that how Tomoko is self-aware about the reference in a way similar to how the audience finds such a reference coming across something they’re watching. In reality she is just daydreaming about some idealistic romantic encounter (thanks Ghibli) because of her own disposition. She isn’t actually making a joke (like Sue, again). However the joke-ish daydream Tomoko makes is natural, and the one Sue makes is superfluous to the plot and story.

So to diagram it–you have the joke/reference, you have the level of actualization of the reference, and you have the degree of self-awareness of the reference. It’s rather complicated once you take a serious look. We know reference humor runs the gamut from chalk drawings on a blackboard to shaping an entire episode to match, so in 2013 terms there is a wealth of things we can draw from analyzing these sorts of references. In Watamote’s case, it clearly speaks something about people like Tomoko. But what does it say about people who watch Tomoko enjoy herself? Do I (or anyone) want to think about this?

PS. If you haven’t seen Whisper of the Heart yet, do make time. It’s probably my favorite Ghibli movie, although 18 years might not be long enough of a test of time  yet? It’s neck and neck with Porco, which is my default answer when asked about my favorite Hayao Miyazaki movie. Here goes hoping that Kaze Tachinu topples Porco.

5 comments | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Watashi ga Motenai no wa dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!

July 23, 2013

Determining Determination: C^3

By omo

Yachiyo Hinata

I was reading the internet and someone made a comment about Stella Jogakuin C^3-bu and how it talks about having determination. The end of episode 2 featured our timid girl stiffening up and joining the club of weirdos, fearing that she wouldn’t fit in. Well, the easiest place to fit in is in the midst of weird people, right? To the extent that you can tolerate them–and I think Yurayura will be just fine.

But on the other side, when is airsoft this serious? Or an airsoft club? Are they going to Koshien too? Are you kidding? It’s fun to play and roleplay but this is not some kind of identity crisis as far as a plot device goes. Rather, C^3-bu is calling on the oft-played, timid-girl cliche where it takes a considerable amount of determination to overcome that barrier–comfort zone or whatever you call it–so she can make some friends.

I wonder how much I can twist and turn this little device and squeeze it in thematically. After all, airsoft is not quite like paintball. It probably hurts less if you are properly dressed. I mean you probably want to play either sports wearing as much covering as you can comfortably put on, plus the goggles and headwear. Do real hardcore otaku dock points when Sonora jumps out of the shower naked but without any “badges of honor”?

Did you? Because like, this is cartoons, so we are going to not take this so seriously? Are you kidding?

Aside: There’s an another show that is largely about determination this season. It has a line like “Show you guts cool say what” or some such. In that story determination is framed as an adult quality, that some grown-ups do not have.

To take it to the next step, homework would be compare and contrast with Girls und Panzer.

PS. Maybe I should write about moe English. Maybe by Thursday.

8 comments | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Tokurei Sochi Dantai Stella Jo-Gakuin Koutou-ka C3-Bu

July 22, 2013

Summer 2013, < Three Episodes After

By omo

The anime blogging ritual continues.

whitecats

Overall I thought this season yet again features a lot of solid shows. Even questionable entries like Fantasista Dolls or Inuhasa (for different reasons) give me reasons to want to watch it week after week, even when I wish just the opposite. The problem, if there is one, is that the shows with the most potential, the ones I like best, can only be engaged at an arm’s length.

By that I mean it’s hard to cheer for them. Let’s take Genshiken Niidame or Watamoe or the Monogatari series as a counterexample. These are pure otaku fodder. I can sleep with them in bed, carry it with me and read it on the train, what have you. That’s the typical case for late-night style anime. But entries like Gatchaman Crowds and Uchoten Kazoku, both fascinating pieces of work, require a level of rigor in order to engage them fully. It feels wrong, for example, to indulge in making dirty doujinshi of, say, Benten (but maybe not Utsutsu). Not that it won’t be done, of course, but there’s just something off kilter about theses two works. Maybe it’s the visuals? Maybe it’s just me? Probably it’s just me. It makes me want to watch them in theaters, or talk about it at cons with like-minded people. Or blog about them in a way to distinguish them.

I can’t say how it feels to engage all these works from a distance further than that, though. It must feel kind of ordinary and boring when, at a large enough distance, invariably everything seems to be the same thing, day in and out.

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1 comment | posted in Danganronpa, English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Fate, FREE, Gatchaman, Gen'ei o Kakeru Taiyou, Genshiken, Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi, Kiniro Mosaic, Kitakubu Katsudō Kiroku, Majestic Prince, Ro-kyu-bu, Rozen Maiden, Servant x Service, Shingeki no Kyojin, Tamayura, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, Tokurei Sochi Dantai Stella Jo-Gakuin Koutou-ka C3-Bu, Uchuu Kyoudai, Watashi ga Motenai no wa dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!