Category Archives: Modern Visual Culture

February 21, 2011

Mardock Scramble Is an Extended Metaphor about Eggs

By omo

I’m sure every worthwhile review will point out the eggy-ness of Mardock Scramble. If you can get over that and the casino talk, then this book is worth your time, all 770+ pages of it.

It’s not immediately clear what the hell is Oeufcoque for this non-French-speaking person, but once you realize it is suppose to be like œuf à la coque, then, well. I had a hard time taking the book seriously after knowing the main character is named after Balut, and was literally because people thought she was like the delicacy she was named after. It was small graces like my ignorance of French that kept my beliefs suspended from collapsing, as I don’t know how I could have reacted.

Sure, it’s the same kind of lame name schemes some other anime/manga/light novels have gotten away with. I don’t hate on Magic Knight Rayearth because they use car maker names, for example. In fact I think I prefer it in that particular way–when the names are just names and are not some kind of extended metaphor about the psychology of the characters. It makes me laugh when Mr. Boiled wants to cuddle with Soft-boiled, and Ms. Balut has a bone to pick with Mr. Shell. It seems just ridiculous to take these names seriously. Later on when the soft-boiled, half-bromance triangle came into focus, I just basically stopped taking it seriously.

On the other hand, it works well when the psychos Boiled hired were named after different kind of conditioning on meat. So there you have it.

Balut would have made an excellent Range Murata heroine; the character concept fits his style to a tee. Too bad it just wasn’t meant to be.

As to the book itself? I don’t really think it stands up to scrutiny despite being a character focused piece meant to guide us through an array of futurist moral problems while entertaining us on a more basic level. Read it for the Hollywood-inspired action and drama, and for characters that you care about despite their mutilated backstories and charred personalities. In fact, it’s best to read it; I’m not really equipped to discuss the nuances of it, although I suppose some could be said of breaking down casino gambling into the pieces of math and human social behavioral study pieces. Unfortunately that is also exactly why most SF/urban fantasy readers might find a quarter of the book totally out of place. Still for one I am glad they didn’t quite walk down the well-trodden road that the likes of Hideyuki Kikuchi has made a good living out of, even if Ubukata has a foot in it anyways.

On the other hand, Ubukata does have a very interesting, almost pacifist message in it. One that made me appreciate Heroic Age even more. And once taken into account, it makes the casino pieces much more amusing, especially as proxy for violence. So (as expected) you could have this half-boiled egg product in more ways than one.

PS. Bell Wing is totally 2+ metaphors together. I mean, I also thought of Rio and Misuzu. LOL.

Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture

February 15, 2011

Pinpointing Miku’s Success

By omo

This post is more of a gag reflex over John’s usual wax poetic treatment over some simple question. This time I think he missed the boat by a good measure that it triggered some kind of motor reflex. It’s probably unhealthy, but here goes.

For those who didn’t read the original post, it goes like (my TL;DR paraphrasing):

Q: Why is Miku so popular?

A: Because she embodies a lot of stuff anime fans (lack of a better term) have liked since a long time ago, and she is the best version given the elements of such database animal ecology.

I think it’s a pretty feeble answer. This is because I believe there are 3 key elements to Miku’s current status as an icon that John doesn’t really get.

One of the three elements is the participatory culture. The first comment in John’s post hones in on this aspect immediately, and it is sorely absent from John’s post. By participatory culture I mean several things, all together. First is something John touched upon, that Miku is an avatar that carries with her the things befitting an virtual idol, in how people would like to see her as imagined. But even then it’s not quite right. Miku is a canon character, and her fans largely agree and obey this canon. A better analogy is that Miku is more like an entertainer or actor, and while she takes up a wide variety of roles,  in the end she is still one unified identity. This is distinct from the Rei Ayanami example in the sense that Rei is still Rei even if you give her a ballerina dress or just a bunch of bandages. In other words, as an idol, she is pretty much the same character, just given the liberty to pretend (lack of a better word) to be something else.

And yet this is just one facet of the first tenant of Miku’s underlying success. In fact I think in order to unify her fanbase to the extent that it is, she needs to have a uniform core identity, while allowing a variety of expressions. This is distinctly different than John’s model. As to John’s point about elements, I think that’s pretty much an obvious observation. What’s less obvious is that I think Miku has gone beyond merely just a list of database entries; she is more of a mirror that enables people to project whatever they think is apporpriate or desirable. We are the database animal, in which we expresses ourselves through Miku. She wasn’t created to express all of this from the get go, after all. In order to invite us to participate, she can’t possibly be already doing it all for us. Rather, Miku is the blank slate that we pen our desires and creativity upon, to express whatever the hell we want.

Besides, Crypton never commissioned Miku for this purpose from the onset. It is all a happy coincidence.

To be fair, the visage of Miku contains straighforward elements befitting of a mascot, and some of these factors are taken from the same toolbox the rest of Japan’s modern visual pop cultural creators draw from. A mascot is who Miku originally was (and still is). So this entire idol identity, too, is a function of fans projecting what they wanted onto Miku. Given that she adorns the cover of a second-generation vocaloid software I think that is a logical and natural conclusion. And hey, we can’t forget that at least the software wasn’t horrible; it is easy enough to use and it became a real enabler to some indie and amateur musicians.

The rest to the nature of participatory culture is fairly well written. We can talk about behaviors of fans, the youtube generation (or NND in this case), that YOU are the TIME’s person of the year in 2006 (2 years before Miku, FWIW). There’s also the meme factor, both in terms of Miku herself and the music she took part in. You are better off reading stuff written by academics, so I won’t rehash too much more.

The second and third factors, well, maybe for another time. I don’t think John touched on them, or maybe just in an indirect way, so I’ll keep them to myself. I’d like to write more posts about Miku’s phenomenon, after all; it’s fascinating.

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture

February 12, 2011

The Best Part of Being a Grown-Up…

By omo

…is [insert beverage] in your cup.

[polldaddy poll=4537822]

The best part of waking up, on the other hand…

Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture

February 11, 2011

Puella Magi Erandis d’Vol

By omo

I like my tea and cake anime, but I like my high brow drama anime too. Too bad the latter require some major spoilerage to get flushed out. Thus, warning, spoilers, let there be.

It is the oddest sort of connected thoughts, but when Quebey discussed the nature of magical girls in Madoka’s universe (episode 6), it spelled out much like a more logically constructed D&D-style lich. In other words, QB makes them into liches.

And once I made that connection, there is nothing really shocking about it. I understood why it is a dramatic moment, that it broke even Kyoko’s poker face, but it wasn’t a big deal. It’s much like how Homura just went and got it, what’s the big deal?

When Urobuchi’s magical girls polish off their soul gems-slash-phylactery with magical grief seeds, what is really happening? What is QB doing with them in his magical container sort of thing? I guess souls are delicious.

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, Modern Visual Culture

February 9, 2011

Compulsion about the Star Driver Puzzle – Vanishing Age

By omo

Star Driver is kind of like a fable. People in the show act out stuff, in representation of higher concepts and ideas, in service of themes. Or at least, that is how it is represented with characters larger than life and brighter than a shooting star. Or something. The problem is these characters all clearly are employed by somebody, and it has become irritating when they don’t say who that somebody is. It’s like when you are being told a fable, you kind of just want to get to the bottom of it, to spin that wheel of morality already and see what the final answer is.

I’ve been pretty okay about Star Driver when it comes to that compulsion, so far. However the recent episodes featuring the Vanishing Age really tickled my fancy. I mean, let’s look at the names of the Kiraboshi Juujidan factions. Unlike Urobuchi, we know Yoji Enokido is not trolling us, right?

  • Filament – It’s bright, but more importantly, it burns out. It also makes Kiraboshi Brigade what it is, or at least the Kiraboshi part. We’ve had the episode about the “glittering of youth,” so perhaps this symbolizes the literal glittering part of youth. Also, filament, an man-made creation, is great foil to the naturally-apprivoise-able Galactic Pretty Boy. It’s tough to beat fusion for brightness.
  • Adult Bank – I thought this one is obvious. But why “Adult” when there are no adults in it? I can’t say for Bouganville, but Vanishing Age and the Science Guild surely have adults? I could also point to the relationship between Leon Watanabe and his teenage bride, but that would be obvious, so the not-as-obvious point here is something about the wealth kids have that are not really theirs. Kanako lives in the shadow of her husband, that much we know for sure.
  • Science Guild – I thought this one is even more obvious. And this one is also the most over-the-top. Can I have Rinko as my First Stage?
  • Bouganville – Besides being the largest of the Solomon Islands (now an independent nation) and that Japan occupied it during WWII, the only thing to say about it is that it is actually an “island in the south.” It makes sense in that it has a flavor of locality and tradition behind it, as applied to the members of this subsection. (Human civilization on the Solomon Islands do date back pretty far.) All two of them, at this point, anyways. Maybe the events of WWII can serve as a possible hint.
  • Vanishing Age – Well this is where…I stop bulleting and start to make the point I was trying …to make.

When I was thinking about putting the puzzles together, I was influenced by this NY Times piece. Generation gap is actually a big issue facing American society today as well, but Japan is really getting screwed–so screwed, that we use a more technical and all-encompassing term, “Generational Inequality.” The socio-econo-political aspect aside, the Times piece paints an image that, hopefully, resonates with Japanese college pre-post-grad/super-seniors struggling to find happiness in their line of work and their near-future. It is a future that is, not unlike Head’s sunset, turning darker each passing moment.

The old boys club, the high-class lounge, the back-room deal made under a cloud of cigarette smoke and over some fine Suntory whisky are a thing of the past. There is your Vanishing Age. That is your modern vice that rocketed Japan to its global economic plateau, perhaps at the cost of its first-born sons and daughters. Looking from that perspective, the Kiraboshi section titles become

  • People who tries, even if it looks like they’re faking it
  • People who can’t get out from under their fetal silver spoons, no matter how accomplished they are
  • Otaku
  • People stuck in the old ways
  • People on elevators

But that is just one interpretation, and you might be able to do better. Also, we clearly see that Vanishing Age represents a group of people who are truly elite, who are born with “the mark” and who use it to reinforce its own elite status. Injecting a dose of real world problem into this fairly modern fable is more nuanced than one might imagine.

All this, just to capture that spark. Will it cure Japan’s problems? DUN DUN DUN.

Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Star Driver