Category Archives: Franchises

May 12, 2012

Sengoku Warrior Michael Moore?

By omo

I was half falling asleep trying to catch up on Sengoku Collection (not the show’s fault, well, mostly) when I stumbled on episode 5 as the latest spacetime-meandering warring state legends find themselves at the end of a camera. But as cute as Bokuden Tsukahara is, it was more amusing to see this large Caucasian dude trying to film a documentary, named Mike Morse. Do they spring their boom ops and camera dudes on unsuspecting Japanese folks in real life when they do these things like how it is in this anime? I can imagine David Gelb popping out a half dozen technicians in on this after walking into that little sushi bar.
But more like, I think this is almost like when that Studio 4C kickstarter promises that for their top-tier backers, they’ll make you into anime characters. And it may be a villain; who wouldn’t want to be a villain in a Studio 4C music video?

But really, taking a step back, is it more ridiculous to see a parody of a famous American filmmaker in an anime about little moe girls as the embodiment of historic generals from Japan’s warring states period; or, as anime girls that embodies said historic generals? I’m not sure. I thought the episode between Kanetsugu and Uesugi was already a bit over the top, but seeing idol Ieyasu ad trucks parading up and down the street put things in perspective. [To put THAT to perspective, I think Las Vegas is the only town in America where you’ll see moe girls on truck ads up and down the street.]

There’s an unstated subtleness to Sengoku Collection that even its mundane plot, which normally would cause clinical sleepiness, makes you want to take notice what it isn’t telling you. The ensemble cast, too. I mean, it is suppose to transpose historic situations with 2012 sensibilities, and I think most of these episodes do that. You get to think about shady documentaries that spins the dangers of ownership of sharp objects in one way, leaving me to think “oh man all my NRA-card-carrying friends would get a laugh out of this.” Except I don’t think any of them would enjoy Sengoku Collection unless they needed sleeping aid.

I suppose the whole point about cameras being weapons can be the message that gets lost in this, but to me that’s the compromise for all the liberal bleeding heart trying to enjoy this week’s historic hysterics.

There are some other random things:

One: If Sengoku Collection is an anime based on the same-named Mobage mobile game for phones, does this qualify it along the lines of:

  1. anime adaptations made from actual games (eg., Disgaea, Halo),
  2. anime adaptations made from galge (eg., Futakoi, Futakoi Alternative), or
  3. anime adaptations made from dumb things (eg., Queen’s Blade, Umi Monogatari)?

I mean an anime based on Angry Birds or Tiny Tower would be the kind of thing that makes you think the source material is dumb, so I’m leaning towards category 3.

Two: This is not even that funny, albeit in a funny way. Worse I don’t even know how many people who reads his site get this.

Three: Can we agree that this is the most underrated anime this season? At least, at 6 episodes in. The show kind of reminds me of Seraphim Call, which is Mochizuki’s strange TV series based on an equally trite 2.5D premise that turned out to be one of my favorite moe-era work (way back in 1999!). I think it’s not an entire coincidence that Keiji Goto is at the helm on this one. That brand of simple and subtle in Sencolle is very much his.

PS. DAT MasaMUNE must be something carried over from Devil Kings or some such.

3 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture, Sengoku Collection

May 10, 2012

Wave of Unbelievably Random Novels Invade Japanese Shores

By omo

[Inspired by this intrepid list of insipid plot-generator-type titles. So, here goes nothing.]

Wave of unbelievably random novels invade Japanese shores

Tenth grader Rinko Kobayakawa is just your average, middle-class Japanese high schooler who likes rock music, fashion and walks to school every day. She, like millions of others like her in junior high school and high school in Japan, spent on average dozens of hours a month reading on their commute or spare time between classes.

“I don’t really remember when it started, but I’ve been reading these light novels ever since fourth grade. All of the sudden these new sorts of books are everywhere and I can’t even find a normal book, like that book about vampires that’s so popular a couple years ago.”

Rinko is more avid of a reader than most, and in a month she can read up to 10 of these light novels–pulp novels in a small form factor, made for teens to read on their commute, often featuring mystery, fantasy and romance as subject matters. Although teens of Japan flock to video games and shows on TV as much as their counterparts in other developed nations, Japan has always been a country that treasured its print media, boasting the largest newspaper in circulation and a publishing industry at about 1.8 trillion yen, or over 21 billion US dollars. However, as with other print markets in developed nations, it is slowly giving way to similar things–games, and mostly, the internet.

“This is an emerging market,” said a mid-level executive at a premiere publisher, name withheld to protect his employer’s image at his request. “Over the past three years we have seen nearly three-fold growth in our light novel imprints, and while the growth is slowing it remains highly profitable. Kids will eat this up, and it gives a wide variety of authors a lot of opportunity to publish something interesting.” Compared to the short period when cell-phone published works like keitai-shousetsu was popular, light novel was still, after all, printed on paper. It gave this particular print publisher some comfort in an increasingly uncertain world in print publishing.

Cellphone novels are not the last attempt for Japanese publishers to make way into the digital realm. However unlike other bigger pushes in recent years, or even Amazon’s recent deal to bring the Kindle to Japan, the cellphone novels attained popularity from its young writers and their convention-breaking styles. Usually using a pseudonym, these writers were able to reach the teens and connected to today’s youth trends and styles. Compared to more traditional print published works, which are stiffer and takes a less familiar tone to the reader, these cellphone novels are written with a casual, if entirely informally or with an experimental voice, as they were given more leeway with what they could write. It narrowed the gap between the reader and the writer, and for many teens that was the connection they were looking for in their entertainment.

Light novels, naturally, quickly took to this style and have also seen its popularity rise as a result. “There are all kinds of light novels out there, but some of them I really don’t understand how or why they could ever be published. I mean, I understand a few of these little sister novels are pretty popular, I read one series and it is pretty funny. But these other ones, I don’t know.” Tabata, another 10th grader, is much more skeptical. “Why are these stories are being published? I mean it feels like anybody can write a light novel these days, and some publisher will print it, and worse, someone will always buy it.” Tabata’s concerns are not unfounded; during the years of explosive growth, new titles are in high demand, and the forgiving readership made it possible for a wide variety of mediocre performers to stay on the market.

As with most pulp fiction, the racy and controversial often sell best. How would parents react to this trend of light novels? Governor Shintaro Ishihara of Tokyo Prefecture, a published author himself, proposed a bill in 2010 that pushed the formation of a government panel that deems certain print work to be adult only. The controversial ordinance, prefaced to protect the youth from exactly the seedy and questionable print content in manga and pulp magazines, solicited mixed responses from the public. “I’m not for censorship, but sometimes I wonder if the comic and novels my son buys in the convenient store are really okay for a minor.” Yoshino Kousaka, the mother of a teenage boy and girl, does what she can to support their hobbies and development. “I know my daughter sometimes like to buy some of these very girly, urban fantasy and romance books, but somehow I’m just more worried about my son getting into it. I mean he is at that age, you know? Maybe it would be best to limit those things. Sometimes I read the titles of these books and I really wonder what is going on.”

Mrs. Kousaka’s concerns are not uncommon. Titles such as I Love My Older Brother But as Long as We Have Our Love It’s OK Right?, A Sister’s Virgin Lips Are Only for Her Brother!, It’s Not Like I Love My Brother at All!!, Am I Not Allowed to Play Footsies with My Sister?, or Why My Tsuntsun Koakuma Sister Became Dere Before Becoming My Waifu are just a small sample of a much larger pool of today’s light novel offering that may draw a discerning parent’s eyes. It’s with caution that Japanese children, teens and parents approach this new trend of media proliferation in the new decade.

[This post is also called “My Big Brother/Boyfriend Is Also an Idol Producer.” I guess that could be the subtitle.]

[And if you can’t tell this is a fictional work, well, you have bigger things to worry about.]

4 comments | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai

May 7, 2012

Racism By Polity, Racist Jazz

By omo

Japanese people have a reputation when it comes to music. This is clearly not the case as Japanese students seek to hone their arts in world-class schools all over the globe, on an individual basis, but as a culture we do stereotype that group with certain inclinations. Well, from the eyes of Americans, maybe it extends to all East Asians.

I mean, here’s another way to say it. If you want to talk about the music in Sakamichi no Apollon, you better be, at the minimum, racially aware of the things that comes out of your mouth. Because saying things like this is…unfortunate. Please just don’t.

Let’s try again. Talking about jazz in Sakamichi no Apollon is fundamentally a discussion that will involve race. And what makes me laugh is when I heard that “coon” language in episode 4, I laughed. It’s an Inception meme of a Japanese attempt at portraying American White-Black racism IRT jazz. Which is to say, Sakamichi no Apollon plays like an Asian when it comes to racism. And in case my point isn’t clear, that phrase is no praise. But just like Japanese automotive engineering, it is almost invariably the case that we’ll get a quality product that will satisfy many, but doesn’t quite get to the heart of it. The soul. There’s nothing wrong with Sakamichi no Apollon, certainly no more wrong than being Japanese can be wrong. But it reminds me more of your average shoujo manga than anything that I’ve seen or read in media that deals with racism. Much like hot rods like the 2014 NSX or the IS-F are likely no match to their European or American counterparts.

But as far as the game of race-music association goes, I think much can be said of jazz music and who played it in 1912, as well as who played in 2012. That it has got some kind of race tag to it. Except it’s kind of like how more white people listen to rap than black people in America?

Personally I could not really get myself to care about Apollon’s race themes, as I mentioned before, it feels like fanservice. Repeat it with me:  a Christian, half-American [boy] born out of wedlock. When I visited my alma mater a few years ago the undergrad jazz majors were putting on a show in the atrium of the building where I was. It is a school with a strong tradition in jazz, and the jazz majors there were predominately black (more because it is a cheap state school located in an urban area). But I saw a couple white dudes at the drums–which reminded me of my undergrad roomie who played the drum for the jazz club (at a different school), a white, upper-class New Englander. Does it matter? Do we even know what it means, as Akira pointed out?

Now when it comes to classism, I can expect anime and manga to get it right.

22 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture, Sakamichi no Apollon

April 26, 2012

Wolves and Koko Puffs

By omo

When I was reading about people’s first reactions to Jormungand the animation, some compared it to Spice & Wolf. I didn’t really see the comparison being valid beyond the superficial similarity of having a strong personality of a woman in the context of the intrigue of bartering. But after 3 episodes, I see where the real similarity lies.

Koko is a wolf. In fact she is the wolf that Horo never seems to be, at least after 3 volumes of the novels. It’s how far I’ve read in Spicywolf before giving up.

By wolf I mean, perhaps, the best example of wolf that anime keeps on using: the fable of the Little Red Riding Hood. This is the human wolf–a wolf pretending to be a person in order to achieve the wolf’s wolf-y goals. Which is usually about being a wolf’s survival, or desire to eat somebody, or some such.

An example of the Little Red symbology in play is Jin-Roh. And Jin-Roh is, by all means, the best fictional depiction of what it means to be a wolf, in my humble opinion, in the context of Japanese pop culture. It’s a little more psychologically edgier than the simple “ronin” or lone wolf concept, which is more about the individualism that we Americans associate with our cultural heritage. Indeed, in order to appear wolf-like, these individuals have to exist alongside with normal human beings, and even work with them. It is very hard to act aloof and deceptive if there’s nobody close to you. It’s why the Big Bad Wolf gets to have a conversation with Little Red Riding Hood. The culture of fitting in, as it is in Japan, makes the wolf blend in to his or her environs easier. It’s the wolf’s disguise.

Koko is rather the exception in that regard. She stands out like a sore thumb at a glance. Her manic smile is clearly a sign of something is odd about this one. Some might even consider her moe, which is probably running against the grain in a Black Lagoon-like setting. Koko’s wider-than-usual mouth makes me asks why she has such a wide mouth. The childish and girly exterior betrays the calculating and pragmatic mind it carries. To that extent it is already less of a wolf-in-sheepskin as much as just a wolf (as opposed to Jin-Roh, where the “wolf” is actually a wolf pretending to be a sheep inside a wolf’s skin). She is clearly a wolf among wolves, except this wolf looks like a sheep.

Indeed, Koko, why do you have such a big mouth?

The setup is pretty nice given that we’re seeing the story developing as a relationship between Koko and Jonah. Jonah looks like a wolf, too, but I suppose we’ll get to see if Jonah only looks the look or not. For starters, he might not even rock the look that Koko does.

There’s a lot to like, for me, about Koko and Jormungand the anime. It’s great to see Iwasaki being fun to listen to again. It’s unfortunate that the radio drama cast didn’t carry over again but I’ll live. Koko’s shotacon ships also adds to that wolf-ness, don’t you think? Like, she’s gonna eat him whole? LOL. I think White Fox’s got a solid hit on their hands again.

PS. If you’ve never seen Oshii & Okiura’s masterpiece Jin-Roh, go knock yourself out on Hulu. Or import the re-release Blu-ray!

4 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Jormungand, Modern Visual Culture

April 24, 2012

Lorejacking for Nubile Virgins

By omo

Is this a spoiler? You all know about King Author right? This is kind of like that, but spelled better. But if you’re watching Fate/Zero this is then not a spoiler.

  • Dusk maiden of Amnesia – Casper is now some hot 15-year-old grandma who likes to strip naked and hug you, but still maintains her ghastly side upon viewer’s choice. (Also, she is Takane.)
  • Nyaruko-san: Another Crawling Chaos – Nyarlathotep is now a cute alien girl trying to get inside your pants.
  • Upotte! – Assault rifles are now cute, military girls.
  • Sankarea – Is this a zombie? I mean, the tragically beautiful girl you share a secret with is now your undead girlfriend.
  • Is This a Zombie? – You became a zombie, but the necromancer who raised you from the dead is this quiet, timid and cute girl who now lives with you to take care of you. You also live with a magical girl who is more like your long-lost childhood friend, and this vampire ninja who looks like a pin-up model that part-times as a dominatrix helps you care for the home.
  • Mouretsu Pirates – Well.
  • Fate/Zero – Saber is King Arthur? “You’ve got to be kidding me” is what I would say, if it was year 2001. But to spell it out for you, man summons the kight of Britons, who is a cute if stoic girl who is bent on business and, well, in Fate/stay night, also gets in bed with the protagonist. Thankfully in Zero she just stands pretty for Archer, for the most part.

I guess I could say something about Tsuritama but that one is pretty tricky. Maybe later on it’ll reveal itself more to make this simpler a comparison.

I think if I go back every season I’ll probably find a handful of anime that follows this sort of tact where you take a existing genre trope and spin it in some weird way to make a new story that eventually gets made into an anime. It is nothing new. It’s the sort of stuff Hiroki Azuma put in his book over 13 years ago. What I want to point out is also nothing new, but is there any reason to believe that there are some people out there who likes girls like these? It’s one thing to see someone like Rea or Yuuko as attractive human beings, but I see it as otaku pandering. I mean, when confronted with the plot elements of the undead, am I suppose to be more amused with this setup? And it doesn’t have to be undead. It’s like anything (a horrific elder god from Call of Cthulhu is as good of an example as any) can turn into your moe-moe girlfriend. And in the land that is culturally animistic, that means anything from doorknobs to the parking lot can have some kind of deistic representation and that mechanism enables the possibility of a matching moe mascot to go with, well, just about anything.

All that separates from scenes from a daily life and a moe harem is corporate funding and backing.

On the bright side, a lot of the times these shows do make a big effort tying in those strange database decisions (lack of a better word) to the core narrative so it is somewhat meaningful. This is why, for example, Nyaruko-san is a reference-heavy show. Because how can you possibly work in the fact that Nyaruko is Nyarlathotep? It’s immeasurably easier to see how you can like Rea before and after her passing; it’s even written into the plot, the secret of her resurrection. On the other hand, in Yuuko’s case, I think we’re kind of given it as taken, the idea serving as the part of the mystery driving the overall story forward. But will it actually explain why Yuuko is who she is?

Is this why we were asked “Is This a Zombie?” in “Is This a Zombie”? Because, well, that show gives it to you in the title and that is it?

It’s times like this that I appreciate books by Nasu or Kyogoku because they drive at this sort of thing. And are also the biggest offenders at this sort of thing. I mean, Nasu made King Arthur into a moe-moe character. I suppose that might be not so bad compared to what went on in Fate/Extra. What am I saying? It’s horrible.

There is clearly no escape. Or rather, what do you want to see next? How can you tie the act of moe-ification to the story?

PS. Certainly, doing this with little sisters seem awfully mundane these days.

4 comments | posted in Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, Kore wa Zombie Desuka?, Sankarea, Tasogare Otome x Amnesia, Upotte!!