posts tagged “ABC”
[Anime Reviews]
16 Dec 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: ABC, Darker than Black, Twelve days of Christmas]
Hell’s Gate!
My viewing of Darker than Black was cut temporarily short at its licencing but from what I’ve seen it climbs right up to the top of my DVD wishlist. I can’t say I was surprised at how this, effectively a Wolf’s Rain staff reunion of sorts, grabbed my interest from the get-go; my only reservation being the frustratingly short nature of each story arc (some would have easily filled the alloted two-ep segments several times over with ease).
Tensai Okamura first came to my attention with his darkly comic Stink Bomb feature but I feel he came into his own with Wolf’s Rain; Darker than Black takes the more serious approach of the latter for the most part, although the The Gardenia Shoots the Fragrance in the May Rain… arc flips into screwball comedy at times. What I especially enjoyed was how Okamura’s sci-fi/fantasy themes blended with a Chandler-esque film noir aesthetic and mystery subplots, especially concerning the nature of the Contractors and Hell’s Gate…not to mention the delightful Kirihara… 
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[Anime Reviews]
15 Dec 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: ABC, Bokurano, Twelve days of Christmas]
Day 2: Uninstall, uninstall…
The series that launched a thousand flames…mainly in the direction of the hapless director, it has to be said. The choice of Hiroyuki Morita as director for Bokurano was an unexpected one considering the feelgood family-friendly nature of The Cat Returns, and as it turned out it was also a healthy source of controversy with his decision to deviate from a manga whose plotline he wasn’t too keen on. Cue fans of Mohiro Kitoh’s manga being up in arms and cries of sacrilege when he said he was going to change the ending. Wait a minute, guys…wasn’t the manga actually unfinished at the time of broadcast?
First impressions are misleading…
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[Anime Reviews]
14 Dec 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: ABC, Makoto Shinkai, Twelve days of Christmas]
Day 1: One More Time, One More Chance
As part of the ABC’s joint 2007 retrospective, we’re all taking on one post per day for the twelve days leading up to December 25th itself, each one centred around a special moment in the last twelve months…just as Epic Win did, except they started early, being the keen rebels they are. Don’t worry folks, this effort isn’t synchronised so your feedreader shouldn’t collapse under the weight of cross-linking and simultaneous posting. I’ll also be running through them in alphabetical order of title because I’m boring that way. First up is what is possibly my pick of the bunch, 5cm per second.
“Breathe in your own light/dream of your own life/I miss me/I miss everything I’ll never be…” *
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[Anime Reviews]
23 Nov 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: ABC, First Impressions and Retrospectives]
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? ^_^
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[Anime Reviews]
19 Nov 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: ABC, ef -a Tale of Memories, Over-analysis]
ef -a tale of memories is already at its halfway point, which means that the premise is well and truly set in place so (I think) I have a pretty clear idea now as to where it’s heading. In my previous two appraisals of the show I never really paid much attention to the events and characters, instead trying to get a general overview of the concepts and ideas. This post is part of an informal mini joint-blogging exercise though, so if my views coincide with those of TheBigN, Demian, Moogy, J.Valdez, JRoxas, DS (in a roundabout way) and Owen S it’s merely a case of great minds thinking alike, ok? ^_^
The story is not taking the ‘intertwining arcs’ approach that I expected, at least not yet. Rather, the three situations are running parallel so while they’re connected in the sense that the characters are in a vaguely-defined social circle, they’re linked in more of an abstract and thematic kind of way. Maybe I’m just glad it didn’t turn out to be a harem show…at any rate, the respective ‘scenarios’ are all different angles on the same core themes.
Chihiro and Renji’s arc seemed a bit contrived to me at first but the tragic explanation as to why Chihiro is the way she is gives an interesting set-up to her relationship with him. It makes perfect sense, really, that he should suggest that she writes a novel to while away her free time; after all, she’s already doing the same thing in order to maintain a grasp of what’s going on in her own life. It’s the most obvious analogy to the idea of memories that permeates the whole show - whenever I’m a bit stuck with understanding a series, I turn to the title for inspiration; in this case I don’t really think it’s primarily a romance per se. Instead, I’m beginning to see it as an observation on, well, memories. Chihiro is trying to keep hold of pleasant memories of the time spent with Renji, as Kyousuke is trying to do in carrying his camera around everywhere in an effort to capture and hold onto a transient moment for posterity. As an aside, I thought naming Renji’s mother Sumire was a nice touch*.
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[Editorials]
11 Sep 2007
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.
I’ve tried to comment on the blogs themselves as best I can but since time and energy are in short supply I’ve probably missed out on a few..if your post isn’t talked about in this one just leave a comment to that effect and I’ll sort it out.
My own thoughts on each post
One recurring theme was, perhaps inevitably, the stereotypes of anime characters, especially the female ones, and how it related to/reflected on the types of viewer. DS over at Daijoubu wrote in-depth about the rationale behind the appeal of the ’safe’ type of female character in the eyes of shy otaku; it was one of several astute observations of how anime panders to fans’ desires and expectations. JRoxas at A Stone and a Small Ripple brought up some enlightening study material that sheds light on possible reasons for this fascination with gender stereotypes in terms of the attitudes exhibited by Japanese youth - delivered with the sharp stick of common sense. Someone’s been doing their homework…
Anime Diet’s Mike went really in-depth with his analysis of the categories of characters and what appeal they hold amongst their fans, even drawing from the results of a poll he held concerning what fans see in the likes of catgirls, moe and so on. I strongly urge you to read the post in its entirety despite its length because it hits a lot of metaphorical nails on their heads - he also appears to share my concerns about anime’s image overseas with so much moe floating around.
Drastic My Anime Blog zoomed in on a slightly different area: that of the characters who take on roles - and appearances - of the opposite gender, and comments on the effects of such events in various shows. It introduced the concept of the Trap and Reverse Trap to me, so thanks for that. Renegade approached this angle too, giving some good examples of characters such as Eva’s Shinji and Love Hina’s Keitaro who definitely don’t fit the macho image of male characters; equally, it exemplifies female characters who do the opposite. The concepts of moe and tsundere, not to mention their merits and appeal, reared their heads again too, which proves to me that whether we as viewers love or hate them they make enough of an impression for a large number of us to comment on them.
Marmot gave an emotional and downright hilarious rant on the characters she found annoying and unlikable; although she regretted being unable to type out an in-depth essay on the subject I can only agree with her sentiments that sometimes, these characters are bloody infuriating! Sasa at Heterochromia jumped in at a late hour to put forward the interesting observation that while manga fans are still divided along the male/female line, anime straddles the boundary a lot more. Reasons for this are identified as factors including genderless elements and the old favourite of humour; given the higher production costs (and therefore higher risk if its popularity does not meet expectations) of animated productions compared to their in-print counterparts, it’s easy to see why these listed factors are so important.
Conclusions and later ideas
One thing that came back to me while reading these posts (beyond “Where will I find the energy to give each the attention it deserves?”) is how gender roles are portrayed in anime. I’ve considered the possibility that, because Japan is a culture that values politeness and manners, characters who appear to behave polite and timid are merely reflecting the norm for acceptable behaviour over there; after all, the brash and outgoing type of female is portrayed as obnoxious and out of the ordinary. Even so, this does not explain the submissive female character who is much more timid and polite than her male companion(s) so I’m putting that down to certain shows’ attempts at placating their target audience and playing into their fans’ desires. As far as I’m concerned, the jury’s still out on whether this somewhat outdated view of men’s and women’s roles in a number of anime shows is representative of views held by Japanese people; I’m sure as hell not going to brand them a sexist nation based on a few TV shows! It’s an interesting question though.
Daijoubu showed how merchandise helps perpetuate the idea of the female form as an object to be owned and appreciated visually amongst otaku, which I think we all agreed isn’t a healthy thing for all concerned. As Jroxas rightly pointed out however, anime IS intended to make money so will continue to base its intended success on giving what fans want. This can either be material intended for a wide audience as I (and Sasa, albeit in a bit more detail) suggested, or it can go all-out to hit a niche market with its own, very particular, preferences.
A lot of conclusions, then. The use of gender archetypes to push the popularity of anime was an important one, as were the reasons behind what fans want from an anime show and why. I’m just scratching the surface of this very vague topic so go ahead, read the posts and chew on what they’ve said for a while…and to the fellow participants, thanks for giving so much food for thought! It’s been mentally taxing but great fun. 
[2 Comments]
[Editorials]
10 Sep 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: ABC]
Yep, it’s time for me to once again jump on the joint blogging bandwagon and attempt to keep up with people of superior intelligence and insight…this time we’re taking on the issue of gender in anime. It covers an even wider field than the last joint blogging exercise did so I’m going to narrow it down to my own experiences and thoughts on the validity of the division between anime that’s intended for male and female viewers. I’ll be using the traditional labels of ’shounen’ and ’shoujo’ for simplicity’s sake but I’ll try to address the problems with those definitions too.
Is gender important? Maybe you should ask this guy.
shounen Vs Shoujo
There’s a line that’s drawn between the two but in these enlightened times of equality is it nearly as pronounced - or even relevant - as it seems at first glance? Sure, there are extreme examples that fall squarely into the ’shounen’ or ’shoujo’ categories: Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon are prime examples but there’s a proportion of shows that deserve recognition for not restricting themselves to one side or the other.
As the old saying goes, you can’t please everyone. Targeting a series at one audience runs the risk of alienating another: dashing bishies and pastel shades is as offputting to male viewers as panty shots and giant robots are to females (some male viewers find excessive fan service detrimental too, myself included). While it’s impossible to make something everyone will love, it seems the importance of carefully mixing bits of both isn’t lost on writers and animators.
Why not have it both ways?
Escaflowne is a good example of this. Aside from the fact that it’s very concept is pure win to start with, it expertly blends disparate themes and ideas that you wouldn’t expect to see in one show. Hitomi’s abilities and personality are magical girl through and through; add some handsome bishies and knights in shining armour and you have the quintissential girls’ adventure. In addition to this though, there’s a political slant, some excellent mecha action and a catgirl…fully ensuring that the fanboys are catered for too. The end result is a series that exhibits the cliches of both shoujo and shounen, but not to an excessive degree.
A more recent example, brought to light after ruminating over the significance of the Huerrgh! factor, is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. This show is a boisterous, testosterone-fuelled mecha-fest but because it mocks these themes as much as it celebrates them, it has garnered a female audience whose number may be surprising (also explained by the fact that Yoko kicks major ass). Of course, Gainax’s MO has an enviable reputation for not playing by the book - the stunning Gunbuster, one of my all time favourite anime series, places female protagonists aboard a giant robot that would normally have a male pilot.
Who cares whether you’re a boy or a girl as long as you can offer hard work and guts?
Girl power!
Telling a story from a girl’s perspective like this, but including sci-fi elements that appeal to guys too, was something of a masterstroke that Escaflowne made great use of several years later. The presence of a strong female lead is also a great idea: both sexes tune in for a butt-kicking female protagonist, which has become a refreshing change from the male heroes of yore.
Nausicaa, the archetype of a gutsy heroine
The best heroines are well-developed characters beyond the looks. The Miyazaki heroine, such as Nausicaa and Mononoke Hime’s San, is a beautiful and independently-minded figure who shows female tenderness but without being the helpless damsel in distress for the male hero to rescue; similarly the all-female central characters of Bubblegum Crisis, not to mention Masumune Shirow’s love of drawing gun-toting attractive females, means that science fiction isn’t necessarily ‘just for boys’. And if you think mecha can’t be girly you should check out Idolm@ster Xenoglossia sometime.
Limitations of the definitions
This topic also drags up the recurring problem of slapping a label on or trying to pigeonhole things. My own experience of this dates back to a conversation with the writer of Hopeless Sensei’s Anime Views (whose blog is now sadly offline) when he recommended me Kare Kano. I reluctantly agreed to look into it, with the preconception that it would be saccharine, tame and difficult to enjoy from a male perspective. Not only did it burn through my embittered cynicism like a hot dramatic knife through butter but it gave, as its title promised, a balanced account of both sides of Yukino’s and Souichiro’s relationship and feelings. I realised that dismissing Kare Kano for its shoujo aesthetics would have been as foolish as avoiding Escaflowne because the characters’ noses look weird!
Kare Kano’s Arima and Yukino
…and an additional point to round things off
The ever-helpful ANN also points out that seinen, which forms a significant proportion of my collection, is occasionally mistaken for shoujo because male-friendly shows for a younger audience (i.e. shounen) are less thematically complex in comparison. Seinen has a level of character development that is more associated with shoujo than shounen, yet is in fact intended for a male audience. Because it has so much in common with shoujo, there are plenty of reasons for female viewers of a similar age group tune in as well. With this point in mind, perhaps some shows that are associated with the seinen category belong in a different one that’s more widely-encompassing. At a younger age the material is simpler in theme so is easy to lump onto one side or another; it is harder to justify doing the same for more ‘grown up’ fare.
Maybe this pic’s relevant, maybe it isn’t. I just wanted to post a pic of a gun-toting female.
After growing up on movies and TV shows that feature car chases, guns and heroes that exhibit the Huerrgh! factor only to settle on drama and slice of life more recently, perhaps my (an albeit incomplete!) turning away from gung-ho action has more to do with age than gender in terms of viewing habits.
Related articles
[18 Comments]
[Editorials]
05 Aug 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: ABC]
Firstly, an apology. My article that dealt with the theme “Anime isn’t deep It’s just entertainment.” was timestamped with the wrong hour and I was out of town over the whole weekend (partly because I was here but mainly due to important and unforseen family commitments) so I didn’t get time to answer and read the discussion that followed. Just so you know why my promised articles on Macross Plus and Excessive Manliness in Anime aren’t online yet either.
Before I get onto the topic itself, I ought to point out that the resulting shitstorm that knocked the blogosphere’s climate out of whack for several days was as much to do with the joint blogging concept as much as the subject matter itself. Being something that was planned via e-mail rather than being publicly posted on the participants’ blogs, quite a few readers were understandably confused and misunderstood the object of the exercise, which was to bring a topic to everyone’s attention by a number of us posting simultaneously and having fun with healthy and lively discussion. There are one or two points that came out of it, and will be addressed by those of us who took part before we take on a similar mission in future; it’s something we’re working on and I hope we can do it again. My own ‘take home’ messages I’d like to share are:
- It was an experiment born from so many members of the blogsphere getting into frequent discussions with each other and getting our heads together to try something new. It’s not an exclusive club: it was merely a list of people on an e-mail that can easily be lengthened through others showing an interest. The more the merrier basically, because it can be fun.
- As always, I’m more than happy to get a discussion going with what I personally write but if your beef is with another article from the same ‘joint blogging venture’, please leave a message under theirs, not mine. I’m afraid I can’t speak for them since we all wrote our respecive articles independently of each other and can’t give more than a personal opinion on what they wrote.
- This was an effort in highlighting an interesting topic and alerting visitors who visit our own blogs to other blogs that they may not have read before. Although it may be clear to some, others saw it as some sort of linking-orgy (nice imagery, there :shock:) or self-promotion or something. It wasn’t. I admit there are a few problems to be addressed before we do any of this again (including one blogger who was sadly excluded in the end…I hope your thoughts go online at some point because I was looking forward to reading them) but I think this sort of thing could work in a setting that has a good sense of community like the anime blogosphere does. Watch this space.
Okay, so onto clearing up misunderstandings and misconceptions on the subject itself.
The first problem is that the definition of depth in a story is really subjective. It’s akin to justifying what makes something funny: I can laugh myself silly at Blackadder, Spaced or Scrubs but chances are quite a few people I know will not see the appeal. It’s easy to see why disagreements occur when everyone has a different definition!
Another impression I’ve had as a result of all this is that the showing of thematic depth is associated with being pretentious or inaccessible to the majority of its audience; I didn’t help myself much in using Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell movies as an example when the Stand-alone Complex incarnation makes the point I was making so much more effectively. In Hige’s article he rightly points out that the SAC is not only more fun to watch, but retains the complexity and philosophy, which makes for a more balanced and rewarding piece overall. That is not to say that shallow stuff is less important, which may have been an impression some readers got from my first article (I was trying to argue the opposite); I think being entertained is of paramount importance when you’ve spent money on a DVD or cinema ticket, but the extra meaning drawn from some pieces matters too.
Another sticking point is that ‘deep’ anime has to be depressing. In the same way that the genre as a whole is a minority, there are a few select titles that do not fit this description at all (again, the definition of ‘depressing’ is itself subjective!). Getting back to Makoto Shinkai for the umpteenth time, his work has immense emotional depth but the bittersweet and profound endings to Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in our Early Days left me with an overwhelming sense of hope.
In closing
The ‘essay title’ we were set, as it were, turned out to be a trick question: anime CAN be deep (my reading of the companion articles gave me much food for thought but my general stance has not changed a great deal) AND be entertaining at the same time. The importance of this extra ‘depth’ clearly matters to a different degree depending on the viewer, but I’m still getting the impression that ‘thoughtfully written’ is being mistaken for ‘pretentious’ or ‘too clever for its own good’; I also believe that some people mistakenly see fans of complex anime declaring mere entertainment as somehow inferior. Sadly I can’t think of a solution to that but ventures such as this rather disorganised but enlightening joint blogging exercise seem to be good at bringing issues like this into the spotlight.
[3 Comments]
[Editorials]
03 Aug 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: ABC]
It’s the typical retort to the old chestnut “Why are you watching those, um, cartoons?”. You take a bold stance, look *intelligent* and declare: “Because this stuff’s deep.” I mean, what better way to beat down those non-fans than to claim that they don’t ‘get’ it? The biggest hurdle (in my experience anyway) of getting people to actually sit down and appreciate an anime show is to prove that it’s mature, intelligent and fun to watch. Now, the ‘fun’ part isn’t the one that’s hard to prove…giant robots blowing stuff up, samurai and ninja fighting it out with breathtaking, poetic choreography…the likes of Appleseed and Ninja Scroll provide all the action and adventure of a Hollywood movie, they do it well and there’s no harm in that.
In the realms of fandom though, we don’t see mere entertainment as enough somehow. I include myself in this: many of us look beyond the explosions, the swordplay or even the everyday drama or comedy to view certain movies and series above the normal fare you see when you visit the cinema or switch on the TV; the character interactions, the social commentary, the philosophy, you name it. My core argument is this: SOME anime (note the capitals, people) matches the classics of cinema and television in highlighting issues that are scattered along the full spectrum from home truths of the everyday to questioning our place in the universe. Some, but not all, is mature and intelligent. In the same way that Battle Vixens or Legend of the Overfiend can scupper your argument that not all anime is all sex and violence, certain selected titles can prove that Japanese animation can, and does, say a lot about how and why the world is the way it is.
Haibane Renmei: much more than just pretty pictures
There is no reason, none at all, why anime cannot provide more than entertainment in the same way that any other art form can. Let’s face it, when moving images convey an idea or feeling they fall under the definition of ‘art’ by default. Take a frame from a Shinkai movie and you can hang it on your living room wall; yet anime can be more than just pretty pictures. Shinkai’s movies provide an insight into how humans feel and interact at an emotional level but there are other, very different, examples, of anime that fall into the broad category of ‘deep’, providing the expected, ’surface-level’ for the casual audience but including more complex issues for viewers who wish to look for them.
Kino’s Journey: It’s quite profound, you know
The adaptations of Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell combine taught, impressive-looking action sequences but also revisit the musings of Philip K Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and Isaac Asimov (I, Robot) - sadly, some viewers are so engrossed in the Major jumping off buildings half-naked and blasting the heads off terrorists with an assault rifle to notice that Mamoru Oshii is suggesting how A.I. and the exponentially-rising power of computers could affect our lives in the future. Many anime shows address social issues too: Satoshi Kon is (in)famous for his cynical views of the media, fame and the superficial nature of popular culture and historical events such as WWII are brought painfully and eloquently to life by Grave of the Fireflies and Barefoot Gen.
“I’m downloading ani…erm, philosophical musings…”
An additional problem with justifying anime’s ‘depth’ is that some viewers search for meanings in some shows that aren’t there in the first place. After several rewatches, much discussion and reading around, I see the notorious phenomenon of Evangelion as deep - admittedly, the ‘depth’ hides behind fan service, cool mecha designs and technobabble. It’s not deep because of the pseudo-science or freudian philosophy that some claim to divulge from it though; it’s because it gives a very important and profound observation of human nature. That is, facing your responsibilities in life head-on rather than running away from them is less painful and is a sign of emotional maturity. Simple, huh?
The sad fact is, for every anime show or film that has something worthwhile to say, there are countless pieces with less lofty ambitions; those that are designed to look cool and while away a little of your spare time (not to mention help you part with your spare cash) in the same way that ‘mainstream’ film and television does. I’m not saying that this sort of thing has no place on our shelves and screens; my point is, although it is relatively rare (going by numbers of features and franchises available to us as viewers, at any rate) anime can, and sometimes is, more than this. Rare as these are, sit an assorted load of them together and you have yourself a strong case…just don’t blame me if your parents or the guy you’re sitting next to in the pub look at you funny afterwards. I’m an opinionated and pretentious git but most people don’t believe that this level of analysis is healthy outside of a classroom. They maybe right on that one but hey, everyone needs a hobby!
*EDIT*
Full list of related articles for this topic:
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