The End of the World

[Categories: Editorials]

On plotting the perfect (anime) murder

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Chaos;Head, Mouryou no Hako]

I’m a huge fan of mystery stories, which meant that I was overjoyed that there was not one but two murder-mystery series this season in the form of Chaos;Head and Mouryou no Hako. The likes of CSI and NCIS are good fun with their Hollywood sheen (the cool music, the SHADES OF JUSTICE and so on) but I particularly enjoy stuff like the Marlowe novels from Raymond Chandler. In addition to the deductive processes the devil is in the details: things like the rendering of Marlowe’s world, and to a certain degree CSI’s environs of Las Vegas, Miami and New York for example, make all the difference.

An important rule of classic detective fiction: the more beautiful she is, the more dangerous she will be

Since the murder-mystery genre is steeped in tropes and clichés, any new contender has to bring something new to the table, whether it’s an unusual setting, a film noir-inspired aesthetic or high-tech and psychological twists. The problem is of course that going after a serial killer is a stock premise: it’s dependable enough but can sink or swim depending on the execution (sic) of the story. The point where Mouryou no Hako and Chaos;Head part company is the way in which this tried-and-tested premise/plot device is handled; although my appreciation of the specifics are less-clear cut, I’m loving the former but on the verge of dropping the latter.

[9 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

Anime elitism: why I’m cooler than you and why that doesn’t matter (shockingly delayed editorial #2)

Posted by Martin  [Tags: community, Random thoughts, Rants]

Maybe it’s the nature of the Internet that ‘elitist’ behaviour and views are so widespread, no matter how much they are derided. I believe that a contributing factor to the perception of elitism among anime fans though is that the fandom is a niche community: simultaneously small enough to have a sense of ‘us’ versus ‘everyone else’ yet large enough to contain cliques, lingo and who knows what else. Within this relatively small group of individuals there still seem to be borders in our minds that separate each of us, including those who are in our eyes, or consider themselves to be, ‘elite’.

Walking the line of good taste without falling into the trap of ignorance and arrogance is walking on a knife edge, like our hero here

Unfortunately, the assumption of elite groups implies superiority and inferiority, so I think the ‘elitist’ term is inaccurate and should be used only for reasons of convenience (which is why I’m resorting to using it in this post). What I’m examining here are the people who are seen as ‘top of the heap’ and how that manifests itself; furthermore I’m questioning how their position may not be a ‘horizontal’ separation of superior and inferior…using my elitist self as an example because I rule (sarcasm intentional).

[18 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

The apologist-eye view (shockingly delayed editorial #1)

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Random thoughts]

I miss doing editorials, I really do. Inspiration is often more of a problem for me than the motivation to sit down and write; the concept of anime apologetics is quite close to my heart though. The first time Owen brought the subject up I felt like I’d identified some sort of long-standing medical condition at last, although my stance lies quite close to Jeff’s mantra too. Due to my current limited internet time coupled with the resulting boredom, when I’ve had the chance I’ve been c/p-ing other bloggers’ past posts that interested me, reading them at my leisure with a mug of sencha and a bit of Pink Floyd in the background when I get home, and putting my own thoughts on the respective subjects together for editorials; admittedly months later than I originally intended, but at least I’ve now been able to set out my thoughts on the issues that arose way back whenever.

This isn’t me. I’m not a girl

With the consensus that a high proportion of ‘meh’ titles fill TV schedules and store shelves while truly great stuff worth making a big fuss about is in a relative minority, it might seem a bit pointless to make the effort to defend certain series when, if one isn’t up to standard, there are plenty of others to choose from. I suppose my naiveté and lack of confidence in my early anime reviewing days goes some way to explaining my apologist approach (I’ll admit some of my first efforts were pretty shoddy) but now I’ve seen more of what’s on offer, read a lot of others’ blogs and developed a certain detachment when assessing criticism (or, to put it another way, being able to take constructive criticism while learning to ignore trolling fucktards), I can afford to be harsher in my appraisals of what I watch. So, why am I still so goddamned soft-hearted about it?

[8 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

Flame Hazes and misanthropic medics: in defence of the tsundere

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Full Metal Panic, Over-analysis, Shakugan no Shana]

I’m not a huge fan of character archetypes at the best of times but if I had to pick one out that offers the most potential the tsundere is possibly the lesser of however many evils there are out there. Unlike the moe personality types and similar stock characters that I’ve grumbled about in months past, the tsundere concept has more going for it than the straightforward aggressive->gentle personality change or sensitivity behind a façade of belligerence. I’ll admit that these two are its main defining features, which is why many of us roll our eyes at yet another convenient blanket term to argue over. Nevertheless, it offers some things that stock characters rarely do: character development and some measure of depth.

You wanna argue with that? I thought as much

The tsundere is an extreme personality type and is somewhat over-used but it brings about effective insight into - and evolution of - a character’s personality when done right. Unfortunately I’ve yet to see the idea used much outside of the teen comedy or harem genres, which is a shame when the possibilities cover a wide range of character backgrounds and storylines (I’m not on about female characters exclusively, either). It’s also a manifestation of a character with depth; someone often suffering from some sort of inner conflict whose thoughts and feelings are, for whatever reason, not reflected in their words and actions. Both of these scenarios are to my mind interesting in themselves, and certainly shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand purely because the tsundere term is used to label a character or fit them into a pigeonhole.

[11 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

Valentine’s Day post: zoom lens love vs. wide angle romance

Posted by Martin  [Tags: ABC, Kare Kano, Makoto Shinkai, Random thoughts, Saikano, True Tears]

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.

[6 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

Epic fail: the worst anime ever

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Rants]

Thanks to my apologist leanings I’m prone to fanboy raves and ‘best evar’ lists but often I’m quicker to recommend stuff I like rather than warn people off stuff I don’t. I’m not rude by nature (not intentionally anyway) so I’m more likely to make recommendations than indulge in bashing and ranting. Until now.

For one night only, I give you my rundown of the barrel-scrapings, the colossal misfires and fabulous flops that I’ve had the misfortune to see in my experience as a fan. Some anime is great, most is watchable but some is nigh-on unforgivable…in the best-case scenario it does carry some entertainment value, if only for the reason that its inherent badness is in itself hilarious. As in all top-X lists, you won’t all agree with what I have to say here so make use of that handy comments box to present your own choices of Epic Fail - if nothing else, you can spare others the pain you experienced.

[13 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

Musings on horror

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Random thoughts]

Yeah, this is as near as I’m likely to get to a Halloween-themed post…and I know it’s a day late as well. I actually couldn’t care less about Halloween but it’s good inspiration for another editorial. The genre of ‘horror’ has left me a bit apathetic in recent years, to the point where I’ve questioned the definition of what makes a horror movie or TV show from my own point of view. What I consider to be ‘horror’ is an umbrella term for a variety of subcategories, which probably differ from other people’s.

[8 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

Love is blind but apathy is myopic

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Lucky Star, Over-analysis]

I haven’t done an editorial in a while I know, but as so often happens inspiration fails to materialise until a flood of vague ideas appear and begin to take some sort of shape. What you are reading is the third rewrite in what was intended to be a more general waffle but turned into an appraisal of Lucky Star instead. It was a productive train journey in the end - I recommend taking your laptop with you on days out too.

[3 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

Bad journalism has left me in despair!

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Over-analysis, Rants]

This little gem by a stateside student paper columnist Elon Glucklich cropped up over at the AUKN forums and since no comment I could make on it would either fully express my feelings nor indeed get through to its author, I’ve decided to set them out here. I haven’t edited or abridged this at all: it’s cp/ed from the source and I’ve merely added footnote numbers that refer to my own thoughts in order to keep this monument to journalistic ignorance intact and preserved for posterity. You can either use it as a case study for your own written projects related to misconceptions of anime in Western culture or in a more general sense use it as a reference in How Not to Argue Your Case. Or just laugh yourself silly because I, like A Geek By Any Other Name, suspect it could be written as a April 1-style joke, albeit a weak one. Cheers to Bateszi for the find - click the MOAR tag to read the full madness.

[10 Comments]

[Categories: Editorials]

Gender and anime: the follow-up

Posted by Martin  [Tags: ABC]

Well, I guess you could call it a success. There have been some excellent posts in reaction to this from the likes of Stuff Happens and PinkuBentoBox among others but the quality of the original posts had me flabbergasted too. So much so that I’m still visiting and commenting on each in turn, and I’ve had trouble getting it all into a more coherant type of mess in my head. As an overview, this topic was…well, not so much a topic per se as a general theme that covers a number of issues. We wanted to do the opposite to the first attempt but I think we’re still seeking the elusive middle ground that provides both room to avoid overlap and a common thread to all the contributing posts - it was a bit vague in retrospect but worth doing for experience’s sake. We’re happy to have other bloggers on board too, so drop one of us an e-mail and you can join the Google group to have a say on what to do next. One particular area of improvement for example is to come up with a more intuitive and comprehensive means to link all the posts together.

[2 Comments]