Category Archives: Modern Visual Culture

December 4, 2017

The Hardest Things to Animate, Fall 2017

By omo

…Are cute girls cooking.

Before my mental gear switches into “all retrospectives, all the time” for the rest of the month, let me just talk about this season’s slate and other related things. As a bonus for each episode I will give it two ranks, how much I want to watch the episode as it airs, followed by how often I do end up watching the episode as soon as a new one is available. For both values, 1 is the highest/soonest and 5 is the lowest/slowest. The goal is to give a numerical representation on how competing time and interest factor in how I view these shows. Some week/weekends I’m out all day and have to prioritize my down time, you know!

THE IDOLM@STER SideM – When I returned from Japan after attending IDOLM@STER 10th anniversary event, I felt that the franchise has become a “home” where my “heart” returns to. SideM’s Jupiter-focused episodes are a great summary of this concept, this past week and from the start. In some ways this show is exceedingly watchable for a male-idol franchise, for a more general audience. Watchability rating: 1, 2 – Because I want to be in a good state of mind when I watch it, so I don’t always do so ASAP.

Wake Up Girls Shinso – The franchise reboot without Yamakan now gains Yamakan as the most annoying cheerleader. I think the series does feel different without his involvement, and it unfortunately suffers from some severe production issues. The focus on MayuC is okay, as with the introduction of RGR (Ranga…neo ranga…) and looping in the large I-1 cast and all the spinoffs. It’s still WUG and it’s still something channeling the ideas presented from the original, but more tightly written because it doesn’t have to couch itself with depicting a post-311 Tohoku. As a fan I have a lot to say about this show but nothing is really important? LOL.Watchability rating: 2, 2 – Too many live action episodes that don’t get streamed on CR, because of production issues, throws off my timing on these.

Imouto Sae ga Iire ba - I know it’s written by the Haganai guy, and I found Haganai generally disturbing and at times offensive. ImoutoSae is like the same pivot the Oreimo guy did to bring us Eromanga Sensei, and I am really enjoying it. It feels like instead of debating politics of shooting people and blowing up things, it’s much more interesting to debate video games where players shoot people and blow up things, as an analogy? This is the meta level take on an already really meta thing, which is “that database” I occasionally refer to. It deserves its own post later. Watchability rating: 1, 1 – My favorite this season.

Kino’s Journey is good for just being something very easy to watch, can’t say the content is good or bad…probably because it’s a mixed bag. Watchability rating: 3, 2 – Easy to watch does mean I end up watching it sooner rather than later.

Food Wars is always a delight, a modern shonen battle story. Not much to say besides this new turn of event is kind of meh.Watchability rating: 2, 1 – Not top of my list but such a page turner, plus I can watch this with company.

Netjuu no Susume is a ton of fun in a good J-drama kind of way. I call it the soul food anime this season.Watchability rating: 2, 1 – What happens next? LOL.

Just Because is good on a technical level, but a little hard to watch. It’s great once you can get into it though, and I like how it manages around the typical pitfalls of adolescent romances. And that animation…Watchability rating: 2, 2.

12 Taisen is a fun, filtered Nisioisin thing. The upside is people die, the downside is that it becomes a guessing game, and not a story? The high production value makes it not that annoying, with somewhat a toned down Nisioisin-ness? Watchability rating: 3,2 – I kind of dread watching it, but once I start it goes down easy.

Blend-S fanservice is top notch, but I hope they lean into that shipping stuff which made Working compelling. It’s doing it so very slowly… Watchability rating: 2,1- Mostly compelled due to social networks.

Girls’ Last Tour – I picked up this show from SNS word of mouth. I am slightly biased against this seiyuu cast, but the story is a little compelling and it’s a good show to relax to. Also, I’m not up to date on it, LOL. Watchability rating: 3,5 – 5 because I’m behind by like a month plus.

Urahara – Another show high on concept and I like it for that, but execution is lacking–not in the way you think. It’s just the fully lack of tension makes it a little hard to follow. And it isn’t because nothing drastic happens in this show…well, maybe nothing is really that drastic. Like when aliens invade earth in Kekkai Sensen versus when aliens invade earth in a Barbie movie? I don’t know. Watchability rating: 3,4 – I’m a little behind.

Kekkai Sensen – It’s going into “same o same o” territory which means it’s great for fans but so so for everyone else. Still fun animation, as TV anime go. Watchability rating: 3,3 – I just don’t feel the compulsion to watch this, and at the same time you can pick up or drop this series at any time in any fashion, it’s so easy to get in and out.

Magus’s Bride – Sleigh Beggy? More like Slight Boring. When people hyped this up in the early goings of this season I was interested. Now I’m just letting out some giant yawns. It’s not even a let down, I expected this too self-important of a show to miss the mark, if the 3-episode OVAs are any indication of the story. So far it hasn’t really deviated much, if anything, it was better when the story came and went without all this magic-setting pretension. Maybe the manga is better. Maybe people should have just not hyped this show. Watchability rating: 2,2 – For healing type anime it works pretty okay, a little more upbeat than your usual variety.

Konohana Kitan – I like it but more for seiyuu and for cute being cute, otherwise this story of otherworldly hotspring hotel run by foxgirls is sort of just okay. Tho if it can produce episodes like episode 8, consistently, it would get promoted. Watchability rating: 2,2 – Maybe 1.5, 1.5 rather?

Houseki no Kuni would be higher tier if not for the most uzai Kurosawa Tomoyo ever. This is one of those cases where while I appreciate the acting, having pre-animation dubs removed some limits on how annoying she is. Also the story is just kind of silly even half way through? Like, yeah I know Phos is different later I still cannot take this show seriously. It’s not even a matter of the visual language (eg., oh noes she’s gonna go Kizuna Ai on us), but just the attempt at tonal shifts in the show is not something I can take seriously. Watchability rating: 2,3 – I end up getting to this later because it’s not on CR so I have to pirate it the old fashion way, sigh.

Anime-gataris – Big bang theory the anime. It’s full of really peak jokes, so just for those I can say I am glad Anime-gataris exists. But it’s got a taste of what I remember from the late 90s when Japan makes anime with a western audience in mind. Now it’s China, I guess. Watchability rating: 3, 2 – I end up watching it because it’s on CR and I tend to have more free time on Sundays, after all.

Two-car is by no means bad, but yeah who would watch this show? Other than me? Or yuri fanatics? Or people actually into the sport? It could be more of a comedy I think, and that would really make this show ring. As is, it’s got a mandatory low-conflict tension every episode and I’m not sure if anyone should care. It’s kind of an elaborate exposé, maybe. Watchability rating: 4, 4 – It’s not bad, just hard.

Ousama Game: LOL what is this trash. I guess it’s fun but it sits at the bottom of the “I have no time to watch anime” ladder of shows to cut. Watchability rating: 3, 5 – I’m a month behind I think.

Fate Apocrypha – A bigger yawn than slight yawn. To be fair I’m only halfway through and haven’t watched any in a couple months. Watchability rating: 3, 5 – This is an Anime Strike show, and you know how that is.

Mahoujin Guruguru – I’m still like, just 1/3 of the way into the series. Probably because I want to marathon this and have not had the time. Watchability rating: 2, 5.

Some other random stuff this season:

Pri Pri Chi-chan still delivers. The Rietion anime is really fun and even not totally stupid always, just sometimes. I don’t think I would watch this show not for seiyuu purposes, but I can see myself doing so if it’s something I end up watching on regular TV for some reason. Watchability rating: 1,3. – It’s short.

Cingeki S2 is fun. More of the same from the first set of episodes but I like how it gets awfully meta. Watchability rating: 1,1. – It’s super short.

Osomatsu-san S2 – When I saw that first episode I knew it was time to call it quits, and the subsequent episodes played out my expectations. You can’t go over the top the same way twice. Open to coming back to this show if it gets better though… No rating for shows I’m dropping.

Welcome to the Ballroom – It’s a good show but I think I’m going to drop it, despite the delicious interaction between the dancers. I’m not opposed to catching up but I don’t like this particular angle they’re going with in terms of the sports and character development. No rating for shows I am dropping.

I watched that Blade Runner anime. I would not dissuade anyone from watching it but it’s just okay. No rating for movies and one-shots.

Man I wanted to watch Heaven’s Feel but missed the local show dates. It’s still going to be in theaters when I go to Japan though, so lol. I guess the new Garupan movie series will start this month as well, so that’s something to look forward to. No rating for movies and one-shots.

I finally got to watch Genocidal Organ, despite missing it earlier this year (twice?). It looked good. It is a bit neutered compared to the book, not for graphic violence but for the implication it makes at the end. Also, the effect of the plot device doesn’t really come across to me that well, which is unfortunate. Otherwise it’s a solid action vehicle for animation? For all the fun we make of the verbose expositions you see in Type-Moon works, sometimes that is exactly what’s good about the thing and it’s nice to have a heavy dose of it as long as it doesn’t ruin the film. No rating for movies and one-shots.

Leave a comment | posted in Animegatari, Blend-S, Fate, Genocidal Organ, Houseki no Kuni, Idolmaster, Imouto Sae ga Ireba Ii, Just Because, Kekkai Sensen, Kino no Tabi, Konohana Kitan, Mahou Tsukai no Yome, Modern Visual Culture, Netjuu no susume, Shokugeki no Soma, Two-Car, Urahara, Wake Up Girls!

November 16, 2017

Here’s Another Manhattan Anime Con

By omo

I’m going to Anime NYC this weekend, but I’m not going to be there for most of the con. Such is when real life collides with hobby.

Anime cons in the NY area is really a mixed bag. Outside of the city there has been a handful of small events, and a couple big ones. In the early 00s we’ve had the CPM-associated cons, then NYAF, then part of the NYCC, and now not much else. Basically in 3 years of absorbing NYAF, NYCC had become kind of a hollow shell for anime content. I went there more to see bkub and random JP vendors than anything. Anime merch game in general is kind of lame out here, and most things you can buy online anyway, similarly priced without having to deal with a sea of people. I suppose NYCC is still OK for freebies (I’m long out of this game) and exclusives (too niche for me). The last NYCC I attended years ago all I remember was playing janken to get GSC photo posters of their figures.

The difficulty of running an anime con within NYC is multifold. It really comes down to not having a big enough space that’s affordable and have the amenities, and in a good spot. Javits Center is really the only place big enough and central enough, but it’s near a bunch of crummy construction things and tunnels. Things have improved somewhat over the years–now there are more food and open spaces nearby, plus a subway stop–but it’s still one of my least favorite event venues, with the only real benefit being all the things not in Javitz center that’s in the same city. That’s an attendee’s point of view, but the cost of putting a bunch of kids in a same spot in a city like New York is pretty high, high enough to make this kind of a challenge, I suppose.

Maybe an alternate approach for otaku exhibitions in an old and busy city is to break down the events by subcultural tribes, which is what teases New Yorkers more regularly. It’s like, instead of a circus coming into town you just have a clown march on one day, and go to the zoo the other day, and watch some broadway show the next. Yeah, there are some obvious downsides to this approach but so does every other approach that we know.

Anyways, I’m mildly excited to finally see Chihi, True and Ishida Yoko overseas, and going to a live with Chihi performing in it. I’m also kind of interested to get an autograph for Chihi but if it conflicts with my RL plans, maybe I won’t…

I wonder if Agent Hazap will send anyone there. Time to practice their salute? LOL.

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

November 6, 2017

Letting Yourself Go: Netjuu Is Neat / Sakura Quest In a Nutshell

By omo

“Lets herself go” is exactly what I’d say is happening to Morimori. I’ve been watching Netjuu and while it’s not my favorite of the season (ImoSae is by far my favorite) I think there’s a lot to be said about this show.

This reminds me a lot of another anime I watched recently: Re:LIfe. There is an element of fancy that largely sets on a mundane configuration that makes more sense as J-drama material than anime would. In this case, it’s probably easier to do a MMORPG look in anime than it would with live actors, and on a certain level anime and voice acting do a better job than, say, showing the same deadpan shock face of Aragaki or something.

I think what makes Netjuu work is not just the delightful voice acting that Evirus pointed out (and it’s not just Noto and Ueda, much of the cast is good as well, but man are those two great like this), but it’s a nice headtrick compared to the other video games relationship stories of recent. Gamers is the one that sticks out to me, and along those lines there are others you can think of, probably. It’s cliche to have a romance budding from MMORPG buddies–10 years too late I’d say–but in some ways the deal of having an ikemen becoming interested in you to begin with out of a chance encounter, and then having to overcome that l33t NEET barrier is what drives, well, mainstream hits like Densha Otoko. It’s a makeover. It’s just nice that gaming is so in nowadays!

===

Related to my last post, check out ChaosT’s post on Sakura Quest, as if you didn’t watch the show. There are a few other notes I want to drop, mainly on immigration and population growth.

Using USA as an anecdote, population growth by demo generally slant towards immigrant sectors. I think the trend globally has been that towards established economies, population growth via natural birth have slowed when breaking into demographics and ignoring immigrants.

From an outsider point of view, it’s a no brainer as to what’s happening to Japan. Maybe nobody really knows why some people stop having so many kids or whatever, and this is something that could be caused by varying things differently for different people groups. And maybe it’s not satisfactory to just call Japan’s isolationist and xenophobic tendencies as “racism.” It’s a lot deeper than that term now has come to mean things. I can only speak for myself, but the feeling has long been that some of the people of Japan would rather perish than to change their ways, and now they are getting their wish. It’s a form of racism, I suppose, but it’s not really about discrimination, and it’s not even an unwillingness to compromise–it’s more like they’re unable to seek alternatives. It’s like a form of racial segregation gone wrong, or in evolutionary terms, when a society or set of cultural customs become unable to change in a way to continue its existence, it will eventually goes away and become extinct.

It’s not insidious per se. It’s like in a hypothetical world where everyone rides buses, only white people can sit in front of buses. Unfortunately for the hypothetical bus riders, it turns out sitting in the back of the bus drastically improves your survival rate in bus accidents, and these buses have accidents all the time. And the hypothetical people deciding who gets to sit where on the bus aren’t evil about discriminating against non-whites, compared to their greater desires to have white people sit in front of the bus for some other reasons not connected to continuous survival of white people in this example. Hopefully the people in this hypothetical can take a lesson from Sakura Quest and get bus-on-demand via their iOS apps; the racism can be dealt with later when people stop dying.

Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Netjuu no susume, Sakura Quest

November 4, 2017

Anime Pilgrimage and Tourism

By omo

SDS blurs Cool Japan and otaku pilgrimages! I don’t know, they’re not the same to me. Maybe from a 10000-mile view in the USA, you can hand-wave the two, since it’s kind of neat to go to Japan’s countryside and enjoy its traditional cultural entertainment neglected by its changing domestic demographic be in an anime, but please.

I think a more reasonable starter is this Kelts write-up of the Bonburi festival, and you can compare it to the Crunchynews take as both were invited to attend this year’s festival in Kanazawa via JETRO and PA Works. I like Kelt’s write-up because it gets at the key issues that resonate with me. I like the CR write-up because, that’s what it is like when you go as an anime pilgrim. (Although with that said you can do much better than to just post screenshots next to the photos you take. This is why HPT is…a mistake….)

  1. Good luck booking a room at one of the traditional ryokans! In general, there are not enough accommodations in Japan for foreigner visitors. By this I mean housing availability is domestic market-based; you have to have some amount of savvy to deal with it. Part of it is a matter of being able to find places to book even if they are available, as there are few centralized sites you can access overseas, in English, and be able to remotely lock in a reservation. A good number of the more traditional places can be only booked by phone, even if you know where to look. I’ve not booked any hotels by phones since the 1990s. Festivals (and in some of the more touristy parts of Japan, it’s seasonal) generally have high demands for out-of-towners, so those rooms sell out fast–in other words, because the demand spikes, it’s hard to justify building a lot of capacity when only a couple days out of a year that the rooms will sell out. This applies pretty much all across rural Japan, as only business-type hotels tend to be the kind of accommodations available on demand within not-months-out for any peak season. So on the bright side, if you want to pilgrim out of season, there will be places to stay even last minute. On the other hand, when the nice traditional experiences sell out half a year ahead sometimes, it’s hard to book and go for anyone, foreigner or not. Tokyo itself is a different story, in the sense that foreign tourism actually significantly impacts the hotels in the region (see: busloads of Chinese people, although this might be more significant out in proper tourist destinations like Hokkaido and Okinawa). Tokyo in general needs more hotels if you ask me, and Japan overall needs better booking portals, especially out in the boondocks.
  2. What is there to do besides taking photos? When I went to Oarai I did that, I ate and stayed the night there, and I did a stamp rally (which would have taken a full day)–only because I was able to book a ryokan there. It kind of goes to #1. To have that full “Kino’s Journey” experience you need to stay at least a night or two. And frankly unless all you want to do is take comparison photos (some people I know do mainly this on pilgrimages, and it actually irritates me), it can be challenging to find things to do. A few gaijins can stick out like a sore thumb at any local small mom & pops shop, say, for dinner, but this is kind of the charm some want from such an experience: that awkward exchanges with other pilgrims or locals who know you’re a pilgrim. At the same time, it’s easier at some places because they’re very used to seeing it year round. Oarai is a good example because it has long been a big pilgrimage site, and it’s not far from Tokyo. I imagine Yuwaku not so much. One of the things that makes Sendai attractive as a pilgrimage location is that there’s all the amenities and things to do a bigger city offers. There is actually nightlife at Sendai, for start.
  3. The degree of success of these otaku pilgrim pitches vary, but I think Oarai is exemplary because you can go during off season and still find pilgrims, even in 2017. Will you find pilgrims in Yuwaku during January? I have no idea. In some ways, this was one of the recurring, unspoken themes in Sakura Quest: PA Works throws some parties, it’s a huge effort for the organizers, but its impact is not lasting. Rural Japan will continue to shrink.

I feel the real spirit of otaku pilgrimage is actually completely missing in this discussion–you’re a tourist in all of these cases, so go and have fun, broaden your sights and knowledge, and experience something new. It takes a degree of adventure but also a degree of reservation, if only to give respect to the locals and do as the locals do. If there’s something fun and enjoyable you can do once you get to the place you want to go, things should work out by themselves. If you’re a culinary tourist type like myself, Japan in general should be pretty fun!

3 comments | posted in Modern Visual Culture

October 31, 2017

Streaming Business, Autumn 2017

By omo

I remember supporting Crunchyroll when it turned legit in 2009 and started to charge a subscription. Now, it’s the incumbent, to answer the irony-note. There is nothing incumbent to Daisuki–it’s a new venture by a bunch of Japanese companies to try to stream internationally. Crunchy beats them by like, what, 4 years? A …decade (lol) by internet streaming time. Not that it really matters.

When Funi sold to Sony for ~150M USD it was a sign that CR is worth a lot more than that. Maybe $250M? When Chernin bought half of the company in 2013 it was valuing CR at about $100M, and today Chernin’s company owns about 80% share of the Crunch. It’s really hard to say how much more it is today in exact terms. Part of the reason is because not only we are long in the era of Warring Idols, we are squarely in the heat of combat during the era of Warring Streaming Services. Netflix’s random number drop here is a stake in the ground. This explains a major reason why Daisuki is going away–why would the production companies like Bandai Namco, several who are likely serving as middleware for Netflix and other foreign interests, compete with their customers? 30 anime is a lot of work that probably will go very far as far as engaging production pipelines largely controlled by the same o’ stakeholders that has been pumping out the animes that we know of since the late 90s. Plus, more competition will make Daisuki more difficult of a proposition when its owners may be better served with more “remotely-local” money participating, as it always is the case of doing business in a foreign country. By that I mean, why would Japan spend the extra effort and extra money courting Americans (or other foreigners) when American companies can spend that extra stuff courting Japanese licensors and production companies?

So, then, Netflix. Netflix is flexing this muscle because 1) they’re in a hurry for attractive original content and 2) they’re newcomer in the anime space, yet they have a major leg up over the other American competitors like Disney or Amazon. Anime, after all, is cheap, and its cheapness is possibly the strongest suit about this type of media. I can’t imagine how many live-action American Netflix Originals $8B can get them, maybe 10? 15 tops?So yes, Author is right, the incumbent will slap Daisuki, Crunchyroll and every anime-specific simulcast service in the world silly with $8 Billion. Why did FUNi and CR merge their streaming effort? Gotta hunker down when giants roam your town, I guess.

Crunchyroll is the incumbent in this space. It has some strong competition, but more because streaming giants are going further to reap margins and build walls to protect their revenues. Daisuki serves its masters more by folding and having CR do their deeds, or whoever else is paying more. Anime is just a growingly important area that has long been neglected. You can kind of tell that when big guns start to target the smaller fries, the market is maturing as margins thins enough so deeper niches are being courted, because now they make economic sense.

It’s worth taking a moment to also think about why Sony bought Funimation. Their FAQ explains a lot, but it’s basically because everyone wants a pie in the Streaming Wars. Sony’s stakes in the ground begins probably with Playstation Vue, and extend to their on-demand offering like Crackle and whatever you see in the Playstation Store. More importantly the rest of the world is fertile battlegrounds, where Netflix’s anime streaming worldwide will clash with licensed content from the usual folks, including Sony, eventually armed with a bunch of FUNi stuff. It’s been 9 years since I watched Xam’d on PS3. God damn.

Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Popular Culture