The End of the World

[First Impressions and Retrospectives]

Autumn season 07: preconceptions and the element of surprise

Posted by Martin  [Tags: ABC]

With a forecast of chilly receptions, widespread mediocrity and a chance of a few scattered moments of greatness across all regions of the anime blogosphere the autumn season looked a little bleak, or so I thought. For sure, there’s been a lot of stuff that passed me by and provoked little more than a half-arsed ‘meh’ but now that some of the new shows are nearing their halfway points there has been a minority that’s significant enough for me to comment on at length…even though I’ve been preoccupied with other things and remembered the posting deadline at a shockingly late hour. Hopefully the likes of JRoxas, Mike, Raymond, Karura, CCYoshi, Hige, J.Valdez, Xerox and Owen prepared themselves a bit better than I did.

If Lucky Star taught me anything, it was how you should never be overly influenced by your preconceptions; this point was hammered firmly home by the likes of ef -a tale of memories. Thanks to the other joint blogging effort earlier on in the week, I’m now ‘all ef-ed out’ and can’t say any more until I’ve seen some more episodes. You’ve all read enough about that in recent days too, right? ^_^

One show which has so far left me a little cold however is the pretty-shiny but somehow underwhelming Gundam 00. Now, mecha fanboy logic dictates that any product of the Gundam juggernaut is at the very least worth a look - G 00 has proved that much. Yet, for all the visual coolness (plus an op theme courtesy of J-rock behemoths L’Arc~en~Ciel) and the novelty value of actually getting around to seeing some Gundam at last, it hasn’t truly won me over. The novelty value has left me more baffled than anything actually - if I haven’t seen any Gundam AT ALL prior to this, how in Char’s name could I possibly be in any way disappointed?! With any luck, this will prove to be nothing more than impatience at a slow-burning storyline and I’ll eventually follow the masses in justifying the franchise’s fame. Or not.

What’s wrong with this picture? Well, nothing really. It’s just…

So, that was a bit of a surprise in one sense. Another show that took an unexpected course was Mokke: I recall being really optimimistic early on but for whatever reason it got pushed down into Backlog Hell. The lack of interest on the part of other bloggers didn’t do much to jog my memory either, and as a result it fell by the wayside a bit.

This is a shame really because I’m quite enjoying Mokke and its light-hearted approach. The simple-but-effective visual style, and the premise which involves a character who can see spiritual beasties, garnered a few Mushishi comparisons; maybe this put some off after it didn’t meet the latter’s sky-high standards. After all, Mokke is not nearly as hard-hitting or as profound and tries to downplay the scary aspects…nevertheless, I don’t think it has been getting the attention it deserves and I can only agree with the view of the show from the insightful but ever-modest Jeff Lawson that it’s really quite good.

In other news my new-found confidence in bloggage diversification led me down some interesting paths: straying from hardcore sci-fi, wistful drama and realistic fiction, I decided to take on the animated adaptation of the Clannad visual novel. Maybe that was the reason or maybe also, as I’m beginning to suspect, there was so little on offer to cater for my existing tastes that I started to look around for other stuff in the hope that it was to my liking. The irony here is that a season full of shows that aren’t ‘my thing’ actually encouraged me to watch more…my intial complaints of slim pickings turned into no fewer than seven new additions to my (re)viewing schedule - twice that of what I’d planned, which is making my head spin a bit.

This is what can happen when you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing

I must confess that if there was another Dennou Coil or Bokurano this season I may not have given Clannad a second chance - I could have seen myself letting it go as a part of the Key franchise of which I have little prior knowledge or experience. Given that the free time was (more or less) available and that the opening episode or two promised more variety than expected, I gave it a try and became hooked enough to promise myself to see it through. Maybe it will prove to be generic and predictable, maybe it won’t - at least I’ll be able to say for sure one way or the other.

The crux of everything I’m trying to convey here is the combined effect of the two factors of prior knowledge and previous experience (incidentally, I’ve just filled in another job application…a task that requires repeating the two phrases ad nauseam, but I digress). Looking back on recent weeks it seems that needing an open mind when experiencing something new is stating the bleeding obvious: otherwise, you end up in a circular rut with nothing fresh, and run the risk of becoming a boring git. Because of the Autumn 07 schedules, I was forced further off the beaten track than usual, which is healthy enough but felt a bit uncomfortable at first. Note that I’m not discussing Kaiji, Ghost Hound or Moyashimon at length here; I just knew I’d like them just from reading about them/looking at screencaps. In time, I guess you get a feel for such things.

In terms of new things, unexplored genres and so on, my radar is not nearly as good at picking them up. This season has offered a lot of visual novel adaptations, high school romance/comedy and other stuff that I’d previously felt no interest in or avoided altogether. This was partly down to ignorance - not knowing the serious themes behind Clannad or the symbolism involved in ef for example - and partly down to prejudice against what’s popular. I’d already learned how to put preconceptions to one side and look past the saucer-sized eyes and saccharine themes; now was the time to put it into practice.

So, halfway through the season I’ve come to understand why SHAFT are the new GAINAX, why Key adaptations don’t have to suck and how the Gundam name doesn’t necessarily promise greatness. I do have a nagging fear though that this may have also heralded a new phase in my anime viewing in which I struggle to keep abreast with a baffling number of new series, many of which comprise of content I once derided; tastes change of course, but falling into watching stuff that’s so different feels so out-of-character for me. I can’t blame regular readers for being surprised and worry a bit for the future myself: could I be developing bad taste, or losing the ability to pick out what’s decent? Time will tell…

[Filed under First Impressions and Retrospectives]  [Tags: ABC]

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