Author Archives: Bobduh

Clannad – A Critical Overview on Character Development, Dramatic Structure, and Thematic Dissonance

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Question:

What’s your problem with Clannad? Have you no soul?!?

Bobduh:

Quite likely. However, my main problems are that up until halfway through Afterstory, it’s a combination of cliched, one-note characters, repetitive slapstick, and maudlin sub-Angel Beats melodrama. Then it gets very interesting and unique for about ten episodes, then it flips the audience off with an ending that invalidates all the good parts.

Question:

But isn’t that just, like, your opinion, man?

Bobduh:

Let’s take this one item at a time.

Cliched one-note characters and repetitive slapstick, I don’t think you can really defend against. It’s hard to dispute that for the greater part of the series, most of the characters are defined by one core attribute – Kyou is a tsundere, Kotomi is the Rei-clone, Nagisa is straight moe, etc. The “repetitive slapstick” is even less arguable, since that just is true – some people find this more funny than others, but the fact is this show repeats its jokes constantly, and most of them are of the broad physical comedy variety. Easy, broad humor is a problem common to a lot of anime, but that doesn’t make it less of an issue.

The problem with the drama is that the show doesn’t give you a reason to care about the characters before telling a sad story – it introduces them as their character type, and they remain that type, but sad things happen around them. Fuko is only ever “ditzy girl who likes starfish”, but we are expected to feel sorry for her because life is sad. That’s not really how characterization and empathy work in storytelling – this is clearly subjective (I mean, a lot of people think Angel Beats is good), but I can pretty confidently say this show hasn’t learned the give and take of characterization and drama that Disappearance of Haruhi or Toradora have a mastery of. A tragic backstory doesn’t create character depth unless you see that depth in the characters themselves, and the side-arc characters are pretty uniformly shallow.

Then there’s Afterstory. For the second half of this season, I was actually extremely impressed with the show. It went beyond the usual high school daily life experience, showing things like the pressure/pride of personal responsibility and the tiring but satisfying honor of a manual blue-collar job. What other anime covers this stuff? It was also handled with much more grace and subtlety than the prior arcs – it felt like the show had an entirely new, much more talented director. The death of Nagisa actually struck me, since the second half had been full of great character-building moments between her and Tomoya, and the episode where Tomoya doesn’t know what to do with the daughter he’s abandoned is in my mind one of the strongest episodes of any anime. Even the stuff with his father is deftly done.

When Ushio became sick, I figured the show was finally pulling its strands together – the themes of nostalgia, of embracing the past while accepting sadness and moving forward, and the recurring references to the hospital/hill that saved Nagisa were all going to come together, and Tomoya would just barely save Ushio by getting her to the hospital, the “place where dreams come true” – this would be Nagisa’s last gift to him. It would be bittersweet, since Nagisa would still be gone, but life is full of sadness, and you have to learn to cherish your past without being captured by it.

Instead, all of that raw character building and sharp reflection on the earlier themes of the show turns out to be a dream because magic, and everyone lives happily ever after. Not only is this literally deus ex machina (god just decides to save them because they’ve been good all year), which is never good storytelling, but it also undercuts the themes of the show. The entire strength of the last act had been built on mono no aware and the idea that unlike high school, life doesn’t have any easy answers… and then it concludes with an incredibly easy answer. Not cool.

I think there are many moments of this show that are well-directed, and I think when it’s working on the main Tomoya/Nagisa plot, it’s actually a pretty good and sometimes extremely good show, minus that ending. But I also think it’s a very flawed show, that it makes a lot of too-easy narrative and character choices, and that many parts of it simply don’t work storytelling-wise.

Question:

So basically you’re a heartless monster. But adapting Visual Novels is really tough, as you’ve discussed in the past. Are Clannad’s problems even solvable?

Bobduh:

The answer here is, “yes, but not easily.” Still, let’s see what we can do.

The main, huge problem is that by adopting all the paths of a Visual Novel, they destroyed the pacing of the storyline and added a huge amount of superfluous plot and very poor melodrama. From the first season, I would cut all episodes from the Fuko storyline up through the end of the Kotomi storyline. I would also cut those two characters entirely, since they’re the worst offenders on the “just exist to be moe” scale and add nothing to any other part of the series. I’d perform the same surgery on the second season, cutting out all the episodes from the second until when they finish the superfluous side arcs.

This would condense the series to roughly one 26 episode season, and do wonders for the pacing already. This would also indirectly help Nagisa’s character a great deal, as her character development would now be continuous, as opposed to randomly stopping for 10-12 episode stretches. Tomoya would also lose a lot of his generic VN protagonist Woman Fixer absurdity. There’s still work to be done, though.

Sunohara would have to be fixed. His character is two jokes repeated over and over (Sunohara likes girls LOL, Sunohara gets hit LOL), and his character development arc requires him to randomly become an asshole for several episodes and then be “fixed” by Tomoya. Cut his sister, give him one or two actually good traits, and set his motivation arc in place from the first couple episodes. The resolution of the baseball team storyline was actually one of the better moments of the early stuff, so focus on what made this strong – his temper, his convictions, his bond with Tomoya.

Nagisa also needs work – she eventually comes into her own as a character, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a couple more defining traits than “cute, helpless moeblob” for the first half of the series. No, liking the dango family is not a personality – but it might be the lead-in to one. Find something to make her stand out and have a better-defined character arc of her own – right now, character arcs happen around her, but her own agency is very minimal.

Tomoyo is fine. Kyou is a generic tsundere, but she also gets some of the most honest conversations with Tomoya, so she’s also probably fine. Ryou probably doesn’t need to exist… no, actually, it would probably be better if Ryou were Kyou’s male twin. This would kill any last vestiges of haremness, and delete the last unnecessary moeblob. I’d suggest something even more drastic, like give male Ryou a crush on Sunohara, but anime writers apparently can’t handle gay characters without making them into tasteless jokes, so I’ll just leave that alone.

Finally, we’d have to fix the ending. Adding a “magic fixes everything” ending cheapens the themes of honest work, perseverance, and helping to hold each other up that are present all throughout After Story. Bringing Nagisa back to life destroys the significance of Tomoya’s character growth in the last, best act of the show. Instead, have that scene where Tomoya questions if he should have met Nagisa at all simply inspire him to get back up. Tomoya runs to the hospital on the hill, cradling his (unconscious, but not dead) daughter as he reflects on his time with Nagisa and all the people he’s met in this city. He wants to hate this place, but he can’t; like Nagisa said, this is where they were born, and there’s too much of him, too much of Nagisa in this place. He reaches the hospital where Nagisa was saved and begs them to save Ushio; she just barely pulls through. Nagisa is still gone, but his memories of her helped him save the daughter they were meant to raise together, in the city he’s come to love.

This maintains the strength of the last act while actually tying together the earlier themes and foreshadowing. Plus, by cutting the magical glowing balls, Tomoya’s early helpfulness can be resolved by something that actually helps the story – have it be his way of attempting to be the opposite of his father. If Nagisa makes him realize this, it would even help her character, too.

There’s an incredible show hiding somewhere in Clannad, but the humor, pacing, and early melodrama make it very hard to find. I think as a one season show that abandoned directly adopting the VN and instead attempted to tell a single story well, it could be something truly great.

Quick Aside on Critical Media Appreciation

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Question:

I feel that my experiences talking with the anime community have forced me to acknowledge too many flaws in shows I used to enjoy, thus lessening my enjoyment of anime. Do you think this is a necessary consequence of engaging with the anime community?

Bobduh:

The process that you’re ascribing to the internet here is basically “forcing me to apply critical thinking to my media”. To me, this is the opposite of a bad thing; stress-testing my opinions on and off the internet has helped me become a more discerning and critically-minded human being. Moving from simply enjoying or not enjoying a show to appreciating the thousand pieces that make up its artistic DNA is like stepping out from black and white Kansas into technicolor Oz.

There are so many shows that really reward a deeper look, and you can still enjoy any show you connect to while also being aware it’s not a perfect work. In fact, sometimes I actually enjoy shows for their flaws – often what a director was trying to say is most apparent in the way their show fails or overreaches, and if I weren’t looking for things like this, I’d just think “bad” and miss the humanity of the show. For me, a critical eye for media only enhances my appreciation of anime.

On the other hand, I think the specific point that discussion on the internet has helped me realize is that enjoyment and aesthetic respect or appreciation are two very different things. I can enjoy mediocre shows because they appeal to me while acknowledging they’re mediocre; I can respect well-crafted shows that don’t appeal to me without feeling obligated to watch them. Being able to look at media critically shouldn’t stop you from liking what you like.

Aku no Hana – Episode 4

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Welp, I guess I better take a break from drinking the tears  of disappointed moe lovers to fester in our inherently wretched and filthy human nature for a while. Buckle up kids, it’s Aku no Hana.

Episode 4

0:42 – Man, screw those dumb, dirty Alaskan seals. You never needed them anyway!

1:40 – God, those “their faces are hideous” comments were so freakin’ off-base. If they want a character to come across as attractive, they definitely have that power, as Saeki demonstrates here – most of the discomfort this show likes so much is in the framing, not the actual physical design

2:43 – Oh man, a whole new, also wildly tonally inappropriate OP? I like it – it’s got a great “circus funhouse of demented horrors” feel that does indeed describe this show

5:05 – Nakamura’s wise to his bravado. We can’t have him going and developing any self-worth on us here!

6:08 – That same argument with mom, that same wistful shrug from dad.

I think the formal structure of this show works really well for its goals as a mood piece. The way it settles into these rhythms of specific establishing shots, specific points in Kasuga’s day, specific repeated conversations – not only does it very sharply illustrate Kasuga’s changing mental state (since it’s contrasted against a situation where all the other variables remain familiar), but it also works almost like a slowly building song, where the melody remains the same but new elements frame it in harsher and harsher context as the tension rises. I wish more shows gave few enough fucks to attempt structural tricks like this

7:09 – Oh man, Kasuga’s flailing, derpy-armed happy run. That guy

8:18 – See, now it wants these characters to look awful. These weird, off-kilter closeups highlight the style, making them more like abstract animals with shining teeth. Because to Kasuga they’re just a bunch of uncomprehending animals anyways

12:55 – Omigod her faaaaace. They picked a really damn good Nakamura – her smile is terrifying

17:23 – Kasuga nooo. God, he lets her have so much power over him.

20:20 – He’s not you, Nakamura. Even if you get him to think he is, he still won’t be you.

I was actually very impressed by Kasuga’s defense of himself here – not only did he make a strong guess at Nakamura’s motivations, he also displayed the kind of honesty even his interior monologue tends to avoid when he asked her to let him enjoy a normal date. But Nakamura’s psychological issues are far worse than his (in fact, his aren’t even really issues, he just has the pompous faux-intellectual superiority of precocious, introverted teenagers), and her personality is far stronger as well. She’s gonna do some damage to this kid

And Done

Whew! Survived another one.

I think the direction wasn’t quite as powerful in this one, and the variety of necessary plot-advancing conversations kinda made the claustrophic mood a bit less pervasive (partially because it meant we couldn’t get as much of Kasuga’s painful inner monologue, and partially because they had to cut back on the incredibly creepy music), but even a not-incredibly-uncomfortable episode of Aku no Hana is pretty damn great.

I get the feeling next week’s will be perhaps the most uncomfortable one yet – they’ve set up the episode so it starts precisely as Kasuga would begin to panic about this date situation. I’m very much looking forward to it, in that way you look forward to things which will be horrifically painful. What’s that called again?

Oh right.

Masochism.

Well, shit.

OreGairu – Episode 4

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First, a brief anecdote from this morning. I promise it’s relevant.

So, I was out jogging this morning, listening to the endlessly classic Emergency & I[1] . It’s a defeated, cynical album, and most of its songs are drenched in the panic, ennui, and loneliness of mid-20s existence. Frankly, it’s kind of a weird choice to go running to, and it’s not doing anything to make the miles easier. But then I hit You Are Invited[2] , which always seems to come out of nowhere – a sappy, hopelessly optimistic reminder that “You are so needed / if you really want to go / you are invited, for all time.” I come panting to a stop at a traffic light, and as I look down to hit the button, I see someone has placed a sticky note on the pole reading simply “You are beautiful.”

Seriously, that actually happened.

But anyway, that’s kind of how this show makes me feel. It’s relentlessly cynical, and it doesn’t pull any punches, and life is not easy for Hiki, both because high school sucks and because his personality naturally sets him against all the wonderful things he could be experiencing. But if anyone were to ask why I love this show, I’d say it has to be because all this great writing and wonderful characterization and brutal cynicism works in service of an inherent, underlying optimism that I can really respond to. I can’t buy optimism untested by experience – optimism like that has no relation to my own life, and doesn’t make me feel like a show understands me. But optimism in the face of all evidence? Optimism in spite of everything life’s thrown against you, in spite of your own personality’s attempts to shield you from pain by suppressing hope?

That’s fucking beautiful.

Anyway. Sorry. I really like this show.

Episode 4

0:58 – “When I see her underwear, I just think, ‘Yep, that’s 100% cotton.’” – Thank you, OreGairu. Jesus christ.

2:07 – Okay, this little sister actually does totally come off like a Monogatari character. I’ll give them that one

4:00 – Goddamnit, I go through that whole sappy opening monologue, and of course the OP just outright states, “Fairytales are rarely full of happiness – I know that, but that’s where I want to go.” Thesis established

7:10 – “She was a healthy, graceful girl.” Goddamnit Hiki you can be so gross sometimes.

9:00 – Ooh, glad to see this guy again. Hiki will hate it, but he’s a good influence on him

10:12 – Man this stuff is so well done. Of course Hiki sees self-confidence and charisma as some magical force that requires a title only he’s perceptive enough to articulate

10:45 – I also love Yuki’s “Source: Me” bits of wisdom. They’re a funny gag, but they’re also perfectly appropriate for someone who’s attempting to basically become a living model of superior human behavior

13:35 – Goddamnit this show is impossible to write about. How useful is it for me to just continuously point out “Smart, funny, well-written, smart, I know that feel, good characterization, smart” at every little thing? Screw you OreGairu

14:32 – Okay, I guess I can at least say that I think this episode conceit is another great angle to attack teen psychology and how much your experience is based on perception. It’s a graceful way to bring our protagonists’ acidic perspectives into contact with social dynamics they normally wouldn’t have any interest in, and would merely trivialize in the way Yuki already did.

15:22 – Trying to grill your alpha-girl friend? Bad idea, Yui. You are so much worse at this than she is

18:10 – Very cute, Hiki. Define friendship in such a specific way that you automatically exclude anyone even vaguely similar to yourself. Man, high school’s hard enough, why we gotta make it so much harder on ourselves?

18:38 – Does this work? They’re barely even playing his androgyny for laughs, now – or at least, if there’s a joke here, it’s that Hiki has just decided he’s totally comfortable with being into it. It’s not a real comment on sexuality as a spectrum instead of a tally mark (or, god forbid, a choice), but I think anime is still probably a good fifteen years away from progressive sexuality anyway

…though KyoAni is developing that swimming anime… hmm…

18:55 – Oshit, Hiki can see it [RES ignored duplicate image][3]

19:47 – Every episode of OreGairu there are like five moments that make me think, “How has no other anime made this point before?” This thing about a group friendship being dependent on its catalyst member is something everyone has experienced, but it’s just one of those awkward life truths that never makes it into media

21:30 – This is also great. It would be too easy to just let Hiki grow with people like Yuki around – he needs to learn to respect and appreciate friendships with people utterly unlike him as well

And Done

Welp, not much to reflect on here. This show is still the best, and still finds new ways to frame identity and social structures in high school, as well as new insights into how people think and behave, as well as further exploration of Hiki and Yuki’s self-defeating attitudes. And the dialogue’s great, and it’s really funny, and weekly problems are diverse and well-executed, and it has a genuine love for all of its characters. Keep doing your thing, OreGairu

Hataraku Maou-sama! – Episode 4

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Maou-sama! Last episode had a whole lot of exposition and worked hard to develop starting relationship dynamics between everybody except Maou. I thought that stuff honestly dragged the episode down a little, at least comedy-wise, but I accept that stuff like that kind of has to be established. So, now that all the story homework has been done, hopefully the show can cut loose and be fun and endearing and hilarious all the fucking time. Let’s get to it.

Episode 4

1:42 – This is the first time I notice the brutal irony of those classic derpy OP lines like “Put a smile on!” and “Your future’s waiting for you!” in the context of main characters working minimum wage to hold down a shitty one-room apartment. Ouch

Am I just projecting all this cynical class commentary here? I mean, the jokes wouldn’t work otherwise, right?

2:15 – Flashbacks?! Character development?! Be still my heart

3:15 – “The priest’s prayers will protect us.” Oh yeah, that was cynical class commentary alright. What was I thinking, doubting this show? It has about as much faith in modern society as I do

5:28 – She’s the daughter of an angel?

Okay, am I allowed to start thinking this show is actually smart, and does stuff for real reasons, at this point?

Because that concept gives me all sorts of ideas.

Like… her expecting to live within a just society where they are guarded by larger, benevolent forces, has now been replaced by her understanding that any peace (advancement) she gains will only be gained by her own hands, which itself is only possible because she was born into a position of importance. Meanwhile, her father, who was born into a position of no importance, is swallowed by the system and forgotten by its caretakers

Is the thematic relevance of that to the class-structure stuff on the human side too much of a stretch? It seems pretty solid to me

6:15 – Omigod, what is Maou’s backstory gonna be? Are we really gonna hit “we are all products of our environment, trapped within arbitrary and uncaring structures, and only through human connection can we hope to rise above?” Oh man I’m getting thematic poignancy shivers

6:52 – “Is that the Sasaki you’re referring to?” Yesss coherently weaving exposition into the natural requirements of their conversation yesss. It’s so easy to forget in a comedy (well, this episode hasn’t actually been funny yet, but regardless), but no show can get away with poor dialogue fundamentals. FUNDAMENTALS!

8:25 – I said in the pre-text that I was hoping the show could get back to straight comedy now, but this drama is all just… kinda… good. Hm.

9:30 – “My lord, please punish me!” Alsiel when will you stop being Best General

10:04 – Way too much dramatic tension here. Emilia’s coworker is gonna go crazy on her any second now

11:40 – Nevermind, it was an Emilia’s-character-arc moment. False alarm!

13:28 – I really love how Emilia’s default evil stare comes off with that silly-ass bandage on her head

14:35 – It’s weird, this episode isn’t really all that funny, but I’m still really enjoying it. I just like these characters, and think the dialogue is really natural and good, I guess. It’s also nice to watch a show where, even if there’s fantasy stuff thrown in, most of the runtime is dedicated to adults dealing with adult problems

15:21 – “May I unleash the Dullahan?” There’s a point

16:20 – This is awesome. They’re basically outlining the “humor” conceit of the show – that it’s ridiculous a dark lord would be living as a model working-class citizen – but because of the context this episode has provided Emilia, it doesn’t come off as funny at all – it’s devastating to her to have the force she’s built her identity around living in opposition to betray her expectations this way. And it’s actually working. What is this show doing to my heaaad

17:35 – Oh man, and now they’re taking it from the other side – sure, this show’s cynical streak casts it in terms like burning fields and murdering fathers, but the obvious parallel here is the callous obliviousness of the upper class to the realities of the system that supports them. When did this show get so driven and smart?!

19:30 – Oh, awesome. I was hoping they’d use Miki-T for something like this

And Done

Hm. That was really interesting. It wasn’t really funny, or… well it did have some good jokes, but it didn’t come off like an episode of a comedy at all. It was a slice-of-life/supernatural drama/character story/biting social commentary.

And a pretty damn good one.

I don’t even know how to feel about this. It doesn’t feel like the show we started with, but it’s certainly also a show I really like. Maybe this will be a brief arc before establishing a new status quo? Maybe the creators are wary of running their same base jokes into the ground with repetition, and are curving towards drama, theme, and character to give the show more staying power? I can’t even guess yet… but I’m still eager to see what happens next. They certainly have my attention.

Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge – Episode 4

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I trust those echoing cries are but a figment of my ever-fraying mind. I welcome the madness, now; perhaps it might offer succor, some measure of release from the guilt of what I’ve done.

I warned him, the damn fool. Gods be merciful, I warned him. And yes, I admit it – I followed him down that hair-streaked path. Aided and abetted; perhaps my complicity may in some measure make me culpable for those unearthly events, whose creeping specter haunts my waking hours. But as I pen my recollection of those spine-crawling phenomena, memories which even now summon the distant snipping of phantom clippers to my tortured ears, I beg you to believe me ignorant of their true import – I knew not then the bewitching danger of that siren Hair Queen, nor the hideous strength of those damnable Killing Goods.

I first encountered my associate Kiku in a ramshackle salon, seeking shelter from the pelting rain of one more malevolent New England downpour. Oh, how the hills of that forsaken land breathe with foul intent! But I digress.

Steeped in shadow, his distinctive hair-tuft mutton chops and the ominous shears at his side branded him as some manner of ne’er-do-well. He had a wild look about him, and spoke like a man possessed – like a man whose very actions were driven by the contrivances of poorly conceived narrative inevitabilities. However, his easy manner and clear passion for our mutual craft won me over in short order. We passed the time talking lightly of our trade, until, in a sharp crack of thunder, the figure lurking in his shadows was illuminated in sable and gray. As her frightful ebon tresses crossed my eyes, I could swear the wind whispered, gently, softly…

Episode 4

0:00: Her form mimicked that of a young girl, but I remained unconvinced. By some lamentable trick of her summation – perhaps that too-girlish curl of her cheek, or her bulbous, dinner-plate eyes – she came across as almost too much a young girl, like a proto-girl conjured by unpronounceable sorceries to disarm and provoke some feral protective instinct. She clung to my new companion with a tightness that belied all agency, as I struggled with my own unwelcome urges to pet her head.

0:15 – Gesturing wildly, he spoke in whispers of a great discovery, and I was forced to still my excitement. Could he have discovered some clue to reviving the dead, or perhaps a map to that accursed Lost City of Leng? No, he assured me. Apparently, his scissors could cut her very special hair.

He begged me for my aid, nigh-hysterical with the burden of these cutting shears, and also the hair. How could I refuse a fellow craftsmen?

Thus began, through a series of events remarkably improbable yet surprisingly tiresome and unworthy of recollection, my time shadowing Kiku and his majestic Hair Queen at a Japanese finishing school.

2:45 – In hushed tones, he haltingly admitted to having been cutting her hair on a daily basis. I laid a reassuring arm on his shoulder even as my mind reeled at the staggering depths of depravity to which my companion had descended. Yet I could not deny my own fascination with his journey, and perhaps even a hint of jealousy at the reckless abandon with which he had surrendered himself to the carnal pleasures of unchecked hair-cuttery.

3:03 – That silver-haired girl. Byouinzaka, she called herself – or at least, that was the pronunciation given her name by our course, mortal tongues. Her slack-eyed stare and lack of all emotional affect brought that Innsmouth look sharply to mind, with all its foul, fish-faced connotations.

3:21 – “You’re just a difficult person to approach,” my friend responded reassuringly, deftly failing to address her twin addictions to syringe injections and incestuous heavy petting.

3:47 – Kiku smiled at her, and for a moment I wondered if he himself were beginning to think her behavior normal. How far had his hair-raving madness spread?

4:25 – As the Innsmouthian needle-addict extended her arm towards the Hair Queen, I could not help but see the situation as some achingly misguided perversion of a classical love triangle. A cruel joke indeed

5:15 – A smile cracked the fish-woman’s face as the Queen forgave her, brightly forgetting her earlier attempts at obvious murder. But, I glumly reflected, in a world marked by Hair Queens and needle-obsessed fish-women, what’s a little attempted murder between friends?

6:37 – Despite all my protestations, as well as the direct premonition of the obvious consequences by the gutter-voiced fish-woman, Kiku resolved to accompany his Queen to an antique dealership her father frequented, despite living within a world whose sole distinctive feature was the presence of antique murder tools, murder tools which had in fact been used to kill that selfsame father who frequented that exact dealership. I resignedly shuffled behind, though my own steps were not marked by dramatic slow-pans and resolute sepia freeze-frames

6:57 – As the golden-haired maiden spoke, I could not help but wonder at her intonation. Could she be a child of fabeled kTsun Dhere? That lost land fabled for its mighty walled citadels and tendency towards swift, utterly disproportionate retaliation? I quelled my excitement forcefully, well aware of the danger any unchecked emotion might provoke in a kTsun Dherany rage-maiden.

8:05 – As Kiku gazed at the piano, my own thoughts turned to darker concerns; how simple would it be commit murder with such a device? After all, if syringes and hair shears were somehow comparable murder-tools to a sledgehammer, surely a piano might contain equivalent murder-relevant potential?

8:55 – Kiku’s steely gaze confirmed my own thoughts – he too had realized we were in the presence of an Author. I readied myself for action, but was struck dumb as Kiku continued his stare, which I now saw was in fact blank, and had not realized anything at all

11:41 – A second glance confirmed both our suspicions – the man did in fact have triangles for teeth

12:25 – The man’s words confirmed what I had suspected all along, the only rational conclusion – that the woman whose hair grew really long every night had the power to grant wishes

12:45 – Despite my distrust of saw-tooth’s sneer, I had to admit he had a rakish, anti-heroic charisma

13:09 – Sawtooth sneered, and then helpfully exposited both the first and last name of the woman who he already knew. I was grateful to receive the information

14:30 – As the rope dug in to the remarkably inept policewomen’s neck, Kiku stared grimly, waiting until all possible strangely sexualized camera angles could be exhausted. As the woman finally passed into unconsciousness and possible brain damage, he smartly cut the noose

14:55 – As the man explained his unearthly power, I realized Kiku had in fact not cut the rope, and had been merely standing and watching the woman die. The rope cut itself

15:14 – Did sawtooth consider himself Batman? Or perhaps Rorschach, but with a better suit? I pondered these questions gravely as a freeze-frame of Kiku’s face flashed backwards in a crude imitation of dramatic foreshadowing

16:33 – As I glumly wondered if my companions had realized the obvious implications of the amply bussomed woman’s song, the irritatingly PowerPoint-derivative freeze-frame once again answered the question for me

17:11 – As the policewoman lustily confessed to her perversion, I breathed a sigh of pity, confident in the relative mundanity of my own hair-related fantasies

18:15 – The stern fire-haired girl exposited glumly on the dalliances of the upper class, but my attention was drawn to the neon-painted ears, eyes, and lips that floated lasciviously before me. Was I losing my own grip on reality? Would I escape this hell with my sanity intact?

20:07 – “I’m deaf, so I wouldn’t understand that,” he explained to his lover of some number of years.

20:32 – Her lips parted in a seductive blush as they romantically explained to each other their roles and Killing Goods-related titles

Epilogue

As I tossed and turned in my unyielding bed, I reflected on the events of the day. What import could be drawn from their scattered and relentlessly sexualized nature? Perhaps some message on addiction… or perhaps… high society… or… the nature of perversion, and the commonalities of our human lusts?

No, I decided, breathing a sigh of relief and sinking into merciful slumber.

They didn’t mean anything at all.

And Done

Jesus christ you guys. Don’t expect me to do that again. Fuck.

This show’s still awesomely terrible though. See you next week.

Thoughts on Formulaic Storytelling and Critiquing Entertainment

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Management: This discussion was prompted by the creator of this blog post reflecting on the role repetition plays in enabling climactic and satisfying reversals in storytelling, and how our repetition-bred expectations can lead to more resonant moments in media. It’s a great article and a fascinating subject, and I only begin to explore the artistic implications here.

Question:

Do you consider the formulaic structure so much anime adopts a problem for you?

Bobduh:

I really like the point your article raises, about formula-breaking moments containing that much more power and significance by virtue of how established those formulas were prior to that point. The problem as I see it is that those moments don’t actually validate all the formulaic stuff that came before – sure, they lend it added significance, but they don’t make it in and of itself worthwhile or artistically interesting. I don’t know if there are any easy answers here, either… hm… let me cover some other facets of this, and then I’ll try to loop back around to that.

Alright, first, I do think formula does in fact have a place in certain works. It’s generally not that compatible with tight storytelling/character-building/thematic explorations, but not all shows are about those things, or need to be – for example, I think Madhouse’s Hunter x Hunter reboot is just a very fun exploration of the shonen genre, and most of the arcs follow semi-typical shonen structures, but the show is meant pretty specifically just to entertain. Well-crafted popcorn can be its own reward, and I think formula can be used to great effect there.

But regarding shows that actually want to say something, or develop characters with emotional resonance? There, I think it’s much more difficult to argue for formula, but there are still examples that kind of ride the borderline. For example, I think Cowboy Bebop is a great show that articulates a classic but still solid theme about the difficulty of rising above your past self and redefining/rebuilding yourself, but I also think it uses formula to great effect – many of the episodes are just “bounty-of-the-week” adventures, but they work very well as independent storytelling vignettes, and they contribute both to the mood/world-building as well as the slow-building empathy the audience is meant to feel for the emotionally distant/reserved protagonists. And many great shows are built almost entirely of similar thematically related vignettes (Kino’s Journey), and many other shows use a series of utterly unconnected and similarly structured conflicts to slowly build a mood and set of characters for the underlying story (Hyouka). There are endless examples of degrees of this, and frankly, the fact that anime is an episodic medium means that for most shows, the mere necessity of an initial conflict, rising tension, and resolution each episode will result in a number of semi-similar structures. This is just how storytelling works in mediums like this.

But I think your point was treading on more difficult ground – if the formulaic structure is useful purely because it provides a structure that can create suspense and surprise if deviated from. Honestly, within a single work, I don’t think this leads to incredibly successful art – it might lead to great moments, but as I said at the beginning, the subversion doesn’t retroactively grant all the prior material meaning, character, and distinction if it didn’t have those things to start.

However, I do think the meta-narrative trick of subverting expectations with the entire scope of a work can be effective and lead to consistent artwork, as long as that work is internally consistent. This is where I think shows like Eva and Madoka fall – even if part of their power comes from changing what came before, all the parts of those shows are solid on their own merits, and in fact the first few episodes of each provide some of that original context (though obviously well-written and tonally/thematically consistent with the later parts) to provide a portion of that dramatic turn even for people not well-versed in the relevant genres. Most of what makes these shows good is not their deconstructive or genre-defying nature anyway – it’s the fact that they’re well-written and well-produced stories with a lot of good inherent ideas, regardless of their position within an artistic tradition.

Incidentally, I think another interesting example of a similar effect is Aku no Hana – I don’t think it would come off nearly as effectively if audiences were used to rotoscoping, and that the art style intentionally serves to unbalance viewer expectations. But again, I think that art choice also results in a mood that works in that show’s favor outside of medium-conditioned viewer expectations, which makes this another example of “it works partially because of this expectation-subverting trick, but it also just plain works.”

Question:

Management: I’m rewriting this question so my response makes any goddamn sense – it wasn’t even really a question initially, but the subject is so interesting that I kind of went off on it regardless.

I think there may be differences in our standards of evaluation. I look for anime to succeed first and foremost as entertainment – and that moment of unexpected subversion results in great entertainment for me, regardless of whether it succeeds as “high art.” Also, you’ve covered a variety of ways formula can affect anime, but isn’t the phenomenon I’m referring to with Mazinger a little different from the craft arguments you’ve put forth?

Bobduh:

I don’t really mean to deny or demean the role of entertainment in media, I just feel that even (in fact, sometimes especially) shows that exist primarily to entertain still work within structures that can be examined and discussed – they have “goals” just like any message-oriented art, those goals are just different. For example, I think Redline is a pretty perfect piece of entertainment and nothing more, but it’s far from a stupid work – it displays an incredibly high degree of craft through its mastery of propulsive storytelling structure and economy of characterization/dialogue. Its “goal” is to entertain, but it entertains by doing what it does very intelligently and well. I don’t think saying “this work is just meant to be entertaining and nothing more” means it’s not useful or interesting to critically examine that work – it might not have deep themes to discuss, but storytelling is an art form worthy of discussion even if you disregard “message” works. So when I talk about whether a work is “successful” or not (I also don’t really like the high art/low art divide, and don’t find it all that meaningful), I’m mainly talking about whether I think it did the best job it could to succeed in its own goals, be they tell a taut and entertaining story or illuminate the nature of the universe or whatever.

But your point about entertainment being a relative value is a sound one. As much as I believe there are definite ways mastery and execution of craft can be close to objectively measured, art’s effect on the viewer, and what specific elements that viewer responds to, will always be a subjective, personal thing. It’s always good to keep that in mind.

I also agree that the specific situation your article describes is different and distinctive from the ones I’ve been discussing. There’s something more fundamentally shocking there, something that really seems difficult to quantify according to classic storytelling models… if I understand the kind of series Mazinger is, it seems like it conditions you to love these characters in the context of one entire genre over years, and then flips the table on you. That’s not just deconstructing a preexisting genre – that’s changing the stakes of a world you’re already emotionally invested in. The only example of that kind of thing which immediately comes to mind for me is Clannad, which is basically one story and genre of anime for 35 episodes, then abruptly shifts to another story and genre of anime, while keeping the characters you’ve already associated with the first mode. The thing is, I don’t think Clannad actually works in the way I talk about things “working,” because, well, first the writing is just not very good, but more fundamentally because the kinds of repetition that characterize the early arcs are not the correct kind of repetition for the emotional turn it’s hoping to provoke – they reflect more on tangential side characters, and their emotional stakes are not tied tightly enough to the actual protagonists, at least not often enough.

But if a story did do that… if it used the kind of repetition I mentioned Bebop or Hyouka employing for many episodes, and then veered into a turn in the way Clannad or Mazinger does…

Yeah, I think there’s a whole goddamn lot of resonant storytelling potential there.

Damn, now I’m getting all kinds of crazy ideas…

Thoughts on Art Appreciation, Anime Culture, and the State of the Medium

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Question:

How do you think anime and manga have affected your view of Japan and its culture/people?

Bobduh:

It hasn’t really influenced my perspective on Japanese culture, because most anime don’t try to be realistic, the ones that do tend to paint Japan as a nation of people just like any other (with some cultural quirks, obviously), and anime is generally not created to cater to the sensibilities of the “average Japanese person,” if such a thing can described of any person of any nationality (it can’t).

What it has done is give me a pretty solidly negative impression of the relevant, anime-watching market. But again, that’s still not a monolithic group.

Question:

Can you you elaborate on your negative impression of the anime market? I’m curious because I always see you give pretty insightful analyses of anime in general.

Management: I promise, I would have rephrased this question to be more neutral if my own response didn’t actually address the choice of words – and I think the tone of my response is kind of critical to keeping these discussions civil, so I’m leaving it as it was originally written

Bobduh:

That’s a dangerous question, but you also flattered me, and that’s well established to be my only weakness.

Let me preface this by saying that these are all my opinions, and most of what I’m talking about are things that are frustrating for me specifically as a consumer of media who would like to see more media that appeals to my interests. They are not value judgments on anyone outside of myself, and obviously people like media for different reasons, and that’s totally fine. People find their bliss in all sorts of ways; that’s totally cool. And I’m being reductive here as well, and I admit that, and I understand people are complicated organisms. And in addition to that, I don’t personally live in Japan, so everything I’ll be talking about will be inference based on the media I’ve seen, the ways I’ve seen audiences interact with that media, and the news surrounding fandom that has reached my distant, obviously not-fully-informed ears. One more time: these are all just my opinions, based on what appeals and matters to me. Alrighty.

Well, first there are the issues that could be leveled at the general audience of virtually any medium: the audience places a heavy premium on works that don’t really challenge them, they highly value familiarity and specific, sometimes problematic, sometimes just storytelling-averse tropes, they judge shows based on a variety of surface details as opposed to their underlying quality and nature, they judge all shows within similar frameworks of their own media desires, and will condemn or simply not engage with shows that have goals and ideas outside of their specific avenues of appreciation…

But as I said, that’s pretty much every medium. Anime seems to combine this with a few distinct and in my opinion negative additions: a pervasive acceptance of and even desire for sexist works, a particularly virulent desire for catering to their specific media and cultural preferences (Sakurasou getting attacked for containing a Korean meal, of all things), a predilection for “untroubled worlds” that don’t reflect any aspect of real experience and are generally storytelling and meaning-averse, a strange conflation of their media preferences and actually real-world identity and opinions (which is fine in moderation, but that’s not what I’m referring to here – and when you combine this with that fetishizing of “untroubled worlds” that don’t reflect reality you get things like the Aya Hirano slut-shaming scandal or the general idea of “idol purity” as something to be valued), and a related near-idolizing of various elements of their media (Love Plus vacation experiences, etc). Basically it seems like a portion of the audience’s attitudes and the industry’s need to cater to those attitudes to survive creates some kind of media obsession feedback loop that strikes me as socially limiting and also predisposed to result in awkward, artistically uninteresting media (which brings us back around to this being a problem primarily because I’m mad not enough people like what I like to dictate the majority of what gets produced, not because people don’t have the right to be who they are and like what they like, which they obviously do).

Question: 

It seems like you’re implying that anime will only continue on a downward spiral due to continuous re-enforcement of what you view as negative tropes (although I say “what you view as,” I’m pretty sure 90% would also regard those same tropes as negative). Think there’s any realistic way the current models can change?

Bobduh:

I honestly don’t think the situation is quite as dire as my post possibly implies – in fact, although many shows do seem to reflect the things I bring up, I’d say we’re actually entering/living within a period of relative artistic vitality.

Many people complain of desiring a return to anime’s “good old days” of the late 90s/early 00’s – perhaps there is something to this, but I personally I think this is partly nostalgia infusing old shows with merit they didn’t actually possess, partly a compression of the greatest hits of a ten year period and disregarding of the actual “average show” of that period, and partly a fact that the mainstream entertainment back then just catered to a different audience – the action and adventure shows that came across as more popular then weren’t necessarily “better” than the current trends (less psychologically questionable might be a decent argument, though), they were just different trends that appealed to different people.

It seems to me that, although the anime-culture trends I’ve referred to aren’t really positive ones, there’s actually a greater variety of solid works coming out these days, and certain studios are taking creative risks, whether they end up being rewarded or not. And there’s a whole gallery of talented and creative writers and directors who are being given a great amount of artistic free reign in spite of any ostensible market trends. The market also seems to be growing – charts like this one seem to imply more people are buying anime in Japan in general, which can only be good for the diversity of productions. And though obviously some people could happily watch shows catering towards the market I was describing forever, I think the law of diminishing returns applies here, and most of the audience will move on towards the next big thing soon enough. Regardless, it seems like there’s still room for shows to make at least reasonable profits without bowing to any perceived fandom needs.

Most things in most mediums will not be that artistically profound or interesting, and I don’t think anime’s entering any kind of death spiral in that regard. I just think some mainstream views within anime culture/fandom are pretty problematic in a very specific way, and that appeals to those attitudes tend to be reflected in too many works.

Suisei no Gargantia – Episode 3

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Gargantia!

Man, I have been eagerly awaiting this episode. That dramatic finale last week has proven the unstable nature of Ledo and the Earthlings’ temporary peace, as well as given the Earthlings (I should probably switch to “Gargantians,” but referring to them as Earthlings remains funny to me) a much sharper understanding of what they’re truly dealing with. Did his obliteration of the pirates violate some general understanding of acceptable violence in their world? Will they try to use him now, or assassinate him in some way that prevents retaliation? They still don’t necessarily believe in the existence of the AI – I could see that truth become clear to them in dramatic fashion if they try to go behind Ledo’s back. But this is all conjecture, and this show is awesome, so I’m just gonna get right to it.

Episode 3

0:10 – Wow, we’ve never gotten a full pan of the city like this before (probably because the show’s been trying to keep us mentally trapped with Ledo on that crane arm). It’s beautiful

1:00 – I think this is the first time I’ve heard “____ no baka!” in response to pirate genocide

2:32 – God this show is gorgeous. How does Urobuchi always gets these incredibly colorful, very distinctive art pallets? Do talented artists just flock to him?

3:40 – I really like that our heroine is smart enough to immediately recognize her own partial culpability in what happened. “Help us” was something that needed to be translated across cultures, not just languages

4:42 – Consuming carcasses left and right. Ledo’s a champion

6:20 – Pff, everybody contributing to a humane, prosperous society? We don’t need none of that commie-talk here, Bellows

8:28 – Ahaha, my god, those trollish pirate thug designs

13:53 – This is a little weird. I just can’t feel much tension here when Chamber exists as a being of essentially limitless power in their world. And obviously the show knows that – but it’s dragging out this conflict quite a bit considering the context. Perhaps the tension is more supposed to be drawn from him using this conflict to make or break his alliance with the Gargantian commanders? If so, I’m not sure that’s being entirely successfully conveyed

14:48 – This I like. Using Ledo/Chamber only as support, because what the Gargantians really need to convey is the normal fleet’s willingness and ability to fend off the pirates themselves

18:25 – It’s weird seeing Urobuchi’s staple ideas and storytelling get mixed with more lighthearted stuff, like a freaking pirate queen riding a surfing lobster mech

20:30 – And now they’re spinning the lobster in circles while politely asking it to surrender. Okay, I’m totally on board with this

And Done

This show is so great. This episode got much sillier than I was expecting, but it totally worked – at this point, considering how rarely the tone has gotten all that serious, I’m thinking this might be something like Urobuchi’s stab at a Ghibli-esque production – just a wonderful, continuously enjoyable adventure in a vivid, beautiful world

This is what pure entertainment looks like to me. It’s light, and it’s happy, and it’s propulsive, but it’s never stupid – the writing never betrays your trust in the characters, world, or storytelling. This is entertainment done right

Attack on Titan – Episode 3

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ATTACK! On TITAN!

Pointless intro paragraph deleted. There’s no time for that, there’s Titans at the gates! Let’s do this.

Episode 3

2:55 – Already liking this episode. Getting its Full Metal Jacket on all over these pigshits from shit city.

5:35 – Wow, the reports of Potato Girl’s fantasticness were not exaggerated. I think the last expression was a little more absurd and hilarious in the manga, but using this anime’s super-dramatic pans and close-ups to heighten the tension of Potato Girl’s Last Stand was pretty amazing

7:00 – And here’s another scene I like – the cadets all crowding around to ask for scenes from the war front, since it’s still just a far-removed adventure to them. I really enjoy when this show just re-contextualizes classic war film tropes into the Titan world – they’re familiar, but they’re well-written, help to ground this world in something tangible, and help to round out the personalities of our suddenly formidable cast of characters

9:00 – Maybe it’s just the highlighted lips, but I feel they’ve made Mikasa more classically anime-beautiful than she was in the manga, which I don’t really like

10:40 – “Is this… BREAD?!” I’m so happy this show’s aware of the way drama can turn to silliness with these melodramatic close-ups, and is actually using it that way. If you understand the effect of your own shots well enough to use them for comedy, you’ll probably be fine when it comes to actual drama as well

12:12 – Eren what are you doing that is not how you belt-fly.

Wow, the last thing I expected was an episode full of actually pretty solid jokes. I also appreciate that they’re using the 25 episode runtime to dedicate serious minutes just to establishing their system of training and combat, so when shit goes down, it’s not just “woo, crazy action, woo,” you actually understand the stakes and powers of our protagonists, so you’ll know when something is impressive, dangerous, or foolish in the terms of their world. As I’ve said before, action scenes are just noise if you can’t tell who’s winning or losing

14:51 – Damn, Potato Girl is getting a dramatic workout this episode.

I don’t even know what to say about the drama to comedy tonal shifts going on here – because the humor is mainly created through setting these scenes with the same dramatic tricks the allegedly tragic scenes of the first two episodes used, it seems like the show is kinda making fun of itself. Which is a weird place to be

17:30 – I really like this guy’s speech. I really like a lot of things about this episode, actually; it might be the first one that’s really sold me on this show as its own thing with its own tone and ideas, and not just this season’s action spectacle

18:15 – This show keeps hammering in that theme of not being truly human if you don’t have the strength to choose your own destiny. Very interested in seeing where they go with that – this show is too dark and has too many long, character-focused conversations for an idea as simplistically optimistic as that to go unchallenged for long

21:35 – Okay, now I’m starting to see the JoJo argument as it applies to this show – it goes crazy with its dramatic angles and reaction shots, but it’s still honestly committed to those scenes, and understands it’s kind of going overboard. The contrast between those scenes, the comedy scenes where it actually makes fun of that kind of trick, and the actually very traditionally effective quiet drama scenes, is a little jarring, but I’m not against it – the show is doing its own thing, and I always appreciate that

And Done

Fun stuff! I had some misgivings about the way the comedy and drama bounced off each other, but by the end I think I just had a better grasp on what this show is actually about, and so all that stuff kind of fit into place. Overall I very much enjoyed this episode, and it gave me a great deal of confidence in the show going forward. I’m interested to see if they maintain this seemingly self-aware tone (well, the comedy makes it obviously self-aware, at least) going into more dramatic stretches, or if this was just to build a false sense of security – I honestly hope it does, cause I think I personally will enjoy the show more if it tries to have a little fun with its storytelling, and doesn’t try to make us feel the weight of all this tragedy all the time.