Tokyo zOOm

It’s the two new Final Fantasy trailers that set me off. Yes, you can apply it to any character type; Yes, you can say that audiences are most familiar and receptive to these characters, which in turn reaps plenty of profit, blahdy blahdy blah. Nevertheless, it’s quite annoying that SE are so cocksure that audiences will lap up this crap as long as they keep dishing it out.

It’s all very camp and annoying, isn’t it? All these obnoxious pretty boys jumping and flipping around in slow motion, wearing zipper-covered jackets and whatnot, trying to ram their coolness down our throats. And then you get a million people whooping over how badass the character is, and before you know it, SE announces a new “project” comprised of spin-offs surrounding said badass character.

Oh, wait.

Though it seems that this entry is written under the pretense (delusion) that people know/care about this blog, this is more of a glorified “testing, testing; one, two, three” post written with the intention to get things moving again.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve watched anime. I’ve been through the “I’m Not Really Enjoying Anime/Manga Anymore” phase before, but I’m now drifting towards the “I Have Grown Out of Anime Completely” phase. Which isn’t really a problem, to be quite honest, but there are a few things I enjoy about anime that can’t be found in any other entertainment medium, so I’ll try watching it again for awhile. And I’ll write entries on a regular basis.

I think my watching of generic action/romance series, trying too hard to stick to the four-episode-policy, and listening FAR too much to people’s cries of “OMG WIN AND AWESOME!”  is what made me fed up in the first place. I mean, it’s taken me THIS long to read Monster (Which is written by my favourite manga author), although I can claim I’ve seen all the episodes of the absolute garbage that was School Days?

Cor blimey, something isn’t right there.

(Cor blimey - the very definition of rambling, and everyone’s already watching Fall anime and whatnot. So School Days talk is like, so yesterday, and crap)

School Days was already pretty popular amongst English speaking circles before the anime was announced. No-one really cared about the characters and setting — all of which were your typical eroge fare — School Days’ popularity rode entirely on the game’s two violent endings which found their way around English anime sites in the form of animated gifs and the like. And while it wasn’t entirely faithful to the game, the anime’s ending still contained the bloodshed that people wanted. But by the time that happened, I was already looking for a School Days replacement on the Fall 2007 schedule.

You see, the plot up to that point where Sekai slew Makoto was so surreal, or ridiculous, that I became desensitised to anything else the series could throw at me. The characters were so random and unrealistic, that it became hard for me to take them seriously (Taisuke’s raping of Kotonoha, for example, was no more upsetting than Frieza commiting murder in Dragonball Z). So while I did feel that Makoto attained a new level of spineless male-lead, I didn’t hate him as intensely as some of you out there.
The simple behaviour (and logic) of stock b-game characters makes sense within the context of Green Green or a series like that, where everyone lives these happy little trivial lives, but it didn’t work in a series which tried to be more serious (Except when the show attempted to revert back to its ‘innocent’ bishoujo game roots, by providing us with comic relief starring Makoto and friends. Nevertheless, the cast was so repugnant and horrible that every giant sweatdrop and slapstick moment felt forced and out of place).

Then again, the ending probably wasn’t trying to be shocking as much as it was trying to wank the people with yandere fetishes, with the constant “Dead-Psycho-Eye” shots and glinting kitchen knives. Ah well, on to CLANNAD.

“Wow,” I happily type into IRC as I participate in a discussion about new anime just before the arrival of a new season, “I might be watching, like, 15 SERIES this Winter/Spring/Summer/Autumn! Damn!!!!”.

I think you know what happens: the season comes and only two series really make an impression. I still, however, try to watch ten at once, usually because everyone says it’ll get better (Haha, look who’s talking. If my Bokurano entry hyped you for the series in any way and it turns out to be a disappointment, my apologies in advance) or because I feel I won’t be satisfied by watching only a few series at once. Before I know it, I’m half way through the uninteresting series, I STILL don’t really like it but I end up finishing anyway, just for completion’s sake. I go through this cycle FOUR times a year.

I think that there is an element of not being “in the loop” which made me hold keeping up with new anime to such importance. I admit that when I’m browsing anime forums, I check threads for currently airing series which I am not following. I’d just click on page 35 or whichever is the most recent, look at the thread with squinted eyes so I don’t get spoiled too much, just to see if I can pick out posts such as:

Moehunter234: “Wow. Just wow. Episode 17 was just the best episode ever.”
YoshiFossilx_X: “Episode 17: Best. Episode. Ever.”
Tsundere_It_Is: “Episode 17 is probably the turning point of the entire series…”

When things like this happen, it’s a big event - a kind of ‘party’ as someone put it once. Look at the episode where Kaede went crazy - I know I’m not the only one who dived onto the Shuffle! bandwagon when this happened. If the only shows I watched were Galaxy Express 999 and Touch!, then it would be somewhat difficult to participate in many of the discussion which occur in anime circles.

Not to say this ‘party’ factor is bad. New anime is exactly that - new. New to everyone who is watching it. No-one necessarily knows what will happen next, or how a particular scene will be executed. It’s kind of like a rollercoaster ride - anime fans experience the ups, downs at the same time, and are able to breathe a collective “Wheww, so what did we think of that?” when the series ends. Some may consider that experience vital to enjoying anime itself.

However, the problem I’ve found with watching new series is “You take what you get” . I was trying too hard to ‘keep up’ instead of trying to experience the things which attracted me to the medium in the first place. You know the whole dramatic I Think I Do Not Like Anime Anymore ‘crisis’ that many anime fans seem to hit at some point? I thought I had that problem, but now I know it’s because I contemplated watching Venus Versus Virus when I had the whole of Monster gathering dust on my bookshelf. There are probably so many brilliant series out there that I haven’t seen due to only watching new anime, and I’ll spend more time trying to find those.

I’m still going to sample all the new series which intrigue me, but I’m going to shed my sheep wool a bit: if I truly feel I’m not going anywhere with the series, I’ll drop it quicker than you can say “grand no sponsa teikyo de wo okurishimasu”.

I’ve noticed that recently people are beginning to notice Bokurano, a manga which will be getting an anime adaptation in Spring 2007. This is brilliant, as it’s a series which deserves all the attention it can get. The main appeal of Bokurano is that it plays with typical anime conventions, much like its predecessor did.

[I won’t actually go into a plot synopsis and such. The less you know the better.]

You see, the Bokurano manga was written by the same mangaka who created Narutaru” Mohiro Kitoh. Now, you might have seen the Narutaru anime, which broadcasted in 2003 (It’s also licensed, so you might know it as “Shadow Star”). If you have seen the anime, you probably have one of these opinions towards it:

A. “Narutaru is SO lame, I dropped it after the first episode, it’s like some stupid Pokemon crap!”
B. “Narutaru was a good series, but many plotlines were left unresolved”
C. “Narutaru was pretty boring, until the final arc”
D. “Narutaru is very disturbing and SICK”
E. “Narutaru is very disturbing, but was unique in the sense that it showed the darker side of human nature

I think that ALL of the above is correct, to some extent. I liked Narutaru because it took the typical childish ‘pokemon ripoff’ theme, and made it ‘adult’. ‘Adult’ in the sense that it showed us what would REALLY happen if kids had control of ‘Pokemon’. We all know that in real life, children wouldn’t be skipping around merrily, challenging each other to friendly Pokemon battles and spreading love. Could you imagine them treating these monsters responsibly? What do you think would REALLY happen if you placed a Charizard in the hands of a random pre-teen? The answers to these questions are explored in Narutaru.
The children in control of these creatures and the society they live in are closer to ours than the idealistic settings of anime like Pokemon or Monster Rancher. Narutaru contains themes such as child abuse, teen pregnancy and bullying, and the extremes in which they were presented surprised me and many others. What made Narutaru even more disturbing is the fact that on the surface, you would be fooled into thinking it’s a child’s anime because of the simplistic character designs, bright colours and a happy-go-lucky opening song.

So, let’s take Narutaru being “Pokemon - What REALLY happened” and replace the ‘monster training’ genre with the ” Super Robot” mecha genre (i.e.GaoGaiGar, Getter Robo, Mazinger Z). What do we get? Bokurano.

Finally, I really do not recommend reading the synopsis for Bokurano, as it may spoil the surprises. That’s assuming, however,Gonzo decide to stick with the manga. On a side note, the director of the Bokurano is Morita Hiroyuki, who also directed Studio Ghibli’s “The Cat Returns”. Take from that what you will.

Gaming and Watching Anime at the Same Time? IMPOSSIBLE.

In my experience, anime fans are also game fans. What I want to know is: how do you manage to balance both? Haruhi knows I’m trying, but I just can’t seem to do one without neglecting the other. It’s not a case of being interested in one more than the other, it’s just EXTREMELY difficult.

I don’t know, maybe it’s extremely difficult because both anime and gaming carry baggage. I may, for example, spend a lot of time on video game forums reading the hilarious bickering between Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo fanboys, or spend time on IRC discussing the latest episode of Nana.

I referred to those activities as “baggage” a few sentences ago, but I guess experiencing the ’scene’ which surrounds anime and gaming is as essential as watching or playing - in my eyes, anyway (I’m willing to admit that I visit Magicbox or IGN multiple times a day to see if there’s a new Smash Bros Brawl or Halo 3 video, or gallop towards my PC straight after watching a particularly twisty episode of Code Geass).

As for which one is getting my attention at the moment, let’s just say a certain spiky haired defense lawyer has objected to the idea of me watching episodes 16 - 21 of Kanon 2006.

So, like, I was at school, sitting behind my computer, doing class work (I doubt it, I was probably browsing youtube instead), and at the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something interesting on someone else’s computer screen.

What did I see?

THIS is what I saw.

it would have been nice if the story ended ended at this point, with me walking up to the guy sitting behind the Suigintou PC with the Suigintou wallpaper and asking him if he’s looking forward to watching Overture.

But unfortunately, this took place 5 weeks after the course started, and I had already gotten to know everyone in the class. The guy sitting behind the Suigintou PC was definately *not* a Rozen Maiden fan. He’s one of the guys who has seen one or two “manga films” but that’s it.

I was - and still am - sure that it’s no-one in my class. Because if Suigintou fan was in my class, then Suigintou fan would have come to my rescue when everyone else was attacking my taste in anime a week earlier. I’m sure Suigintou fan wouldn’t have thought that Nanoha was “girly babyish crap”.

I wondered who it could be, but I soon forgot about the whole thing because I figured that since Suiginfan was in another class, it would probably be hard for me to see who he/she was.

So, like, today, in school, I’m in class sitting behind my computer, doing class work (I doubt it, I was probably browsing tokyotosho instead), and at the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of something interesting on someone else’s computer screen.

What do I see?

THIS is what I see:

KO.

Now, that’s not fair. Especially since this happens after watching Nana 31 and 32 the night before. “Shit, Bob! (not his real name)” I say to my friend. “That computer’s got a wallpaper from one of my favourite series! There might actually be someone in our college who likes the same kind of anime I do!”
“Scott could have put it on there” he replied.
“Nah, he doesn’t watch anime. I know what I’ll do! I’ll write a note and leave it next to the PC so they’ll find it!”

He has no reply to this, and it’s obvious he’s thinking “wtf, freak!” But I don’t care, I’m determined to find out who this person is, and I will. I couldn’t be bothered to write the note at the time, so I’m gonna do something about it.

Any suggestions? I’m fully aware of the fact that I’m putting my neck out =D

.-MAJOR AIR TV SPOILERS-.

Though I’ve long since given up on “converting” people to anime fandom, it’s still nice when non anime fans say they’ve liked a particular series. It’s good to know that certain prejudices and misconceptions they might have had towards anime in general might have changed for the better.

My friends usually won’t give me the time of day when it comes to anime. A few of them won’t travel past the “Shounen Jump” line; anything I offer them that is slightly more complex is accused of being too boring (You should have seen the time when I showed them Tsukihime) or slow. This upset me, because when you’ve seen something good, you’re usually bursting to share that experience with someone else. Unfortuantely, I had no-one to share my love forcertain anime with. Except my mother. She can be one of those “yes, dear” types (except she never says that), who will do anything to entertain my enthusiasm towards things, even if deep down inside, she’s not interested. I was fully aware of this, so I decided to take advantage; I showed my mother AIR TV last year.

It wasn’t a case of me downloading the whole series and thinking “Hmm, maybe my mum will like this”. I was initially one of those viewers who were oblivious to the existence of AIR, until fans of the game sung praises of it and created hype. I wasn’t even sure what it was about really (I can’t be the only one that went ‘wtf’ after reading some gibberish synopsis about some girl “waiting in the AIR”). I think I was playing the trailer one day and my mum liked the intro.

Every Saturday or Sunday, I would load up Koi’s IRC channel, download the latest episode, then transfer it to the Xbox HDD, ready for my mother and I to watch. And we did. The first arc of AIR TV went over my mother’s head. Woosh. She enjoyed some of the humour, as well as Potato and his unique way of speaking, but she didn’t feel it was going anywhere. When the Kano story kicked in, it threw her into a state of confusion. Normally, I would have explained what was happening. In this case however, I was as confused as she was.

She gradually became interested by the time Minagi’s arc started, but it was most of the “mother-daughter” stuff that happened in the late Dream arc and Summer arc which intrigued her. She was upset when Kanna was rejected after finding her mum. In the AIR arc, she sympathised with Haruko when it was revealed that she was trying to keep her distance from Misuzu as to not get too attached. To my mother, the major plot twists were not Yukito ‘dying’or the revelation that Misuzu was fated to die, but the moment when her father returned to take her away. (One of her favourite moments in AIR was Misuzu remembering Haruko just before she was taken away). AIR is targeted to a certain audience; blah, blah, blah, but we were was pleasantly surprised how Misuzu’s arc gave my mum something she could relate to in a ‘deep’ way!

To me, AIR is the epitome of ‘anime-ness’. I wouldn’t usually consider sticking that on to get my mum to watch anime - If I didn’t spontanteously decide to make my mum watch AIR, I would still have a stack of Ghibli films queueing up beside the DVD player, pleading for her attention.

I’ll definately show her something again in the far future. What shall I try? Aishiteruze Baby? I showed her The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi the other day hoping for the same reaction, but I suppose I was pushing my luck!