[Categories: Editorials]
Valentine’s Day post: zoom lens love vs. wide angle romance
The mission, should I choose to accept it: write a Valentines Day post without taking the Holden Caulfield-esque stance that I take towards most things IRL. I didn’t want to limit myself to a True Tears follow-up post so tried to make a list of romance anime I’m familiar enough with to write about; this didn’t get very far either. It did throw up an observation that I found interesting though: my limited experience of romance anime seems to show two main approaches which, in keeping with the anime blogging tradition of inventing new descriptive terms, I’ve decided to call zoom lens and wide-angle lens storytelling. Yeah, I know categorising things can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings but I had to call them something.
Cutest. Couple. Ever.
A good example of zoom lens storytelling is the currently airing and increasingly brilliant True Tears. In my previous post regarding this show I was unsure of Noe’s motives in terms of her feelings towards Shinichiro and couldn’t really warm to her at all. Ep #4 onwards blew all my suspicions out the water though when I finally allowed myself to think: yeah, Noe’s cool. For all her eccentricities it’s clear that she genuinely does care about him after all, and is a decent, interesting individual - she certainly isn’t just a tease. These plot developments were EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED in getting to like her as a character. That’s in both caps and italics for double emphasis there.
It’s hard to say what exactly overcame my cynical attitude born from years of hanging out with selfish, immature types who have enough emotional baggage to fill a Transit van, but it worked. I think what True Tears does above all is allow the viewer an insight into the characters’ heads or at the very least (we’re only half-way through, after all) let us see the respective situations through their eyes. To really get attached to a character and care about them, you need some grasp of why they act and think the way they do - as with being in love in real life I suppose, a certain degree of understanding is needed for connecting with someone emotionally. Visual prettiness can only take things so far.
In a very similar way, this is why I think Kare Kano is the standard against which all similar fare should be judged. The characters aren’t good or bad per se, but flawed in a natural kind of way; thanks to Masami Tsuda’s character concepts and the infamous Anno-isms, you’re drawn deep into the minds of Yukino and Arima to see what they’re really feeling at any given moment and see what really makes them tick. The pendulum swing of adolescent feelings, fuelled by the fast-forward feeling of the growing-up teenage years, makes for a rollercoaster ride whose emotional impact is only limited for me by the fact that my own experiences of that time of life happened longer ago than I would like. As in True Tears, it’s a realistic portrayal of romance that deals with the everyday and trivial…not that any of that sort of thing feels trivial at the time!
The problem with the zoom-lens take on romance, shared by the likes of Tokyo Marble Chocolate and Shinkai’s output to varying degrees, is that it shows small, everyday hurdles and individual moments in exquisite detail that forgets the bigger picture that surrounds them. The zoom lens is great for the little things but misses the broader and more universal aspects of romance as portrayed in film: this means that it either resonates with you or it doesn’t, which limits the appeal in terms of wider audiences.
Can’t stop the signal
The second type therefore is that of the more traditional ‘cinematic’ variety that isn’t as observational but gives a broader impression of romance and the associated problems. Unlike the realistic fiction of True Tears, Kare Kano and similar, it’s more of a wide-angle lens view that deals with concepts rather than individual events. There are still close-up moments in series and movies like this, such as heart-to-heart snippets of dialogue in Saikano and 5cm but the general way in which the feelings are shown differs somewhat: it’s better escapism but also conveys the messages and ideas with more metaphors and symbolism than the slice-of-life types.
Voices of a Distant Star may be lacking in a number of areas compared with what came afterwards but the concept of distance and longing is so perfectly captured that Shinkai has never quite matched that portrayal of the tugging pain of loss; there are plot holes of course, such as how Mikako can pay her phone bill or top up her credit from where she is (I’m guessing her mecha had an electrical socket of some sort to plug her charger in), but unlike the zoom-lens view of realistic fiction the general ideas are more important than the details. An upshot of this is that sci-fi and fantasy romances are more common in this category than drama and slice-of life, because animators can ‘get away with’ fantastical plot devices and ideas that wouldn’t work in a real-life setting. Again, there are exceptions: most notably Tokyo Marble Chocolate’s mini-donkey, which balances the realism and fairytale aspects so effectively, is a fantastical plot device that works in a situation that’s very true-to-life indeed.
Similarly Saikano is so full of metaphors and unrealistic plot devices that it feels like an allegory when it’s not in high school drama mode - there are many unanswered questions regarding the war, Chise’s condition and so on but they are beside the central points the series has about devotion and human nature; the distance theme that pervades most of Shikai’s work to date is evident in real life in the form of the distance between human hearts. Mikako and Noboru transimit their feelings across the light-years with cellphones: the same gadgets that everyday folk use to communicate each and every day. By the same token, no seventeen-year olds I know of have experienced relationship problems due to one of them turning into a One (wo)Man Army* as in Saikano, but the break-ups and uncertainties that result from this implausible situation are very real.
There is a mixture of both approaches in most anime romance productions of course but most lean more towards one more than the other; the key to the successful ones is making use of the advantages of each, without going too far and alienating the audience. Too much wide angle makes you feel detached from the events and feelings onscreen - it stands so far back that the plight of individuals is no longer discernable. Similarly too much zoom relies on personal experience and reactions to connect with the viewer, and the plot can get bogged down in trivial issues that are blown out of all proportion by tiresome melodrama.
*It’s a song by Our Lady Peace. Did you think I could write a post without the temptation of a music reference?!
Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll celebrate Singles Awareness Day by plugging my guitar in and helping myself to a beer. Happy Valentines everyone. ^_^
Just kidding. <3
Because this post is tl;dr and rubbish, here are the bloggers who wanted to share the lurve and wrote some better ones (list will be updated as ans when I’m able, so please don’t think I left your post out on purpose!):
Posted on February 14th, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
[...] you can find a new and useful romantic taxonomy at The End of the [...]
Posted on February 14th, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
This is a very interesting distinction [taxonomy? I'm trying to chain polysyllablics here]. Love the Tesco Valentine, by the way.
I imagine you could pick out a zoom lense vs. wide angle difference in the way that anime handles other things too, but romance is a particularly (emotionally) visceral plot element/theme/thingy. Almost unique in the intensity of feeling it can provoke, I think, perhaps only matched by death/grief and birth (though birth doesn’t feature very often in my anime experience - Seikai no Danshou excepted, and even in that case it’s present as a possibility rather than on-screen).
Eh, hatching, matching and despatching; I’d better stop before becoming too maudlin.
Posted on February 15th, 2008 @ 1:36 am
[...] BigN Karura Moe Check! Owen S Usagijen Crusader Martin JRoxas DeathToZippermouth Filed under [...]
Posted on February 16th, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
Ooh, a taxonomy post.
What your comparison reminds me of is the distinction between “hard” and “soft” sci-fi — assuming you’re not familiar with the concept, hard sci-fi generally emphasises real science and actual rules over the more fantastic and removed-from-reality approach favoured by its soft counterpart.
How this bears similarity is in the way hard sci-fi usually has its eye on the big picture, as opposed to soft sci-fi where the focus lies on the characters, and how its usage of science helps cast the spotlight on them all the better.
Glad to hear that Noe’s finally grown on you. I was beginning to get a little bit worried at the lack of true tears posts from your end, but that’s put paid to that idea, I guess.
Two other questions before I end this meandering comment: how’s your progress with the KareKano manga so far? I got distracted by many a shiny thing and haven’t obtained the discipline to sit down and finish the other half off just yet, so I’m wondering if you’re basing your comment on the manga or anime, although I’m assuming the latter more than former.
Finally, is it just me, or did you see the donkey in TMC as an allegory on love? I’ll be expanding on that in my post, but I’m just wondering if I’m reading too much into things.
Great post all in all, in addition to being a timely reminder that I still have all seven volumes of Saikano to read whenever I can get down to that, too. Memories of the anime remain faint from when I saw it about 5 years ago, and I wonder if a rewatch of that would help me appreciate it more (but it’s not like I didn’t then).
Posted on February 16th, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
’scuse the late replies, guys - I’m out of town this weekend and currently typing this in an internet cafe in Manchester!
@IKnight: yeah, I think it’s a way of looking at film that can be applied to a lot of genres, but romance in particular seems to be benefit from it - perhaps it’s the amount of character study that goes on.
The Tesco Value card gag gets me every time. ^_^’
@Owen S: a sci-fi related post sounds like a plan. I’m kinda going through the genres, what with slice of life, romance and hopefully soon a comedy-related editorial. Sci-fi is one of my favourite genres but I’ll have to spend a fair amount of research on it though. As for TT, I’m thoroughly absorbed into it now so I’ll probably make another post or two before the end of its run.
I’m onto the fifth volume of KK but yeah, I got distracted with other things. A Saikano post will be forthcoming too, but the viewing experience is too…intense? for a marathon session. As for TMC’s donkey, I’m not sure. If anything, it’s some sort of devine intervention or matchmaker to bring the couple together. Maybe…I haven’t really thought too hard on it TBH. That needs a rewatch too…damn, my backlog is shocking!
Posted on June 10th, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
[...] the mould through its macro, rather than micro focus that bears more than a passing resemblance to Martin’s zoom lens love v.s. wide-angle romance theory. I’m consciously tarring many a show with the same brush by saying this, but why bother [...]