Author Archives: Bobduh

Attack on Titan – Episode 1

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Shingeki no Kyojin! Very excited for this one – this director can handle action scenes fine, all the problems of Guilty Crown were in the writing/characters. And what I’ve read of the source is very fun, intelligently crafted stuff. Let’s do this.

Episode 1

0:25 – Wow, I already love how strictly they’re adopting the weird visual style of the manga. Those incredibly heavy lines separating characters from the background, those deep, ever-present shadows, the very distinctive and kind of off-putting facial designs… nice.

3:36 – I didn’t want to pause because the transition into the OP was so well-done, but that first scene pretty much confirms they’re willing to shift the adaptation around to better fit the anime medium – within one scene, they established as much about the “stakes” and “rules” of the action to come as the manga did across several conversations. I mentioned this in one of my Maoyuu posts, but I think one of the most important thing an action scene can do is always present clear stakes and rules – you need to know what powers each side has and what their objectives are before you can clearly empathize with the conflict, or understand why some particular action is impressive, dangerous, or awesome.

By the way, it’s occurred to me that it might be kind of hard to do the play-by-plays without murdering the pacing in a show like this, so my comments might just come when the show gives me a moment to breathe.

5:04 – Love the colors, vivid line work, and backgrounds. They’re using their budget well.

11:20 – It’s weird seeing cartoon characters overact this badly. At least the director’s into it

11:34 – “Well, that was heavy.” Yeah, that was metal as fuck, dude

12:35 – That’s a really graceful way to fit in this supplemental, world-building material. I can’t remember another show that used its ad break screens (what’s the actual world for them?) in such a useful way

Also, unrelated, but for some reason I really like Mikasa’s character. We haven’t gotten into her backstory at all here, but she just completely makes sense as a person – I never have to question her motives, or disbelieve her reasons for having them

14:20 – Eren’s dad has a pimp suit.

14:40 – Goddamn do I love this town’s visual design

15:19 – “You’re beating me up because you know I’m right and you can’t prove me wrong.” Wow, what a succinct explanation for downvotes

15:34 – “Enough with your crappy explanations!” raises downvote

21:19 – Difference between this dramatic scene and the last one? Everything. Stakes established, characters established, sympathies established, tension already in place – this is effective drama.

And Done

Welp, my expectations were met in a couple ways, and exceeded in a couple others, and only one of my actual hopes was disappointed. First, it was definitely smartly paced, and made slight changes while adopting the essence of the source – I feel that overall, this will be a Good Adaptation. Second, the visuals were just great in general. I really love how much they kept of the actual character designs and line work while working to make their world more lush and evocative. Finally, it seems this director might just love his melodrama a little too much – the only real offender here was that “here’s your son!” scene, but man did that scene ever come off as ridiculous to me. Hopefully that doesn’t crop up again.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I like a good story told well, and I think the source for this one is strong – I really like the dynamic between the main three, as well. If the director can keep his indulgence in check, this will be a fun, consistent ride.

Aku no Hana – Episode 1

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Wow, I actually thought that was a really, really good first episode. This isn’t even my kind of show – this one is allabout tone and mood, and I much prefer stories about characters I’m meant to empathize with. But man did it ever convey that tone well.

I don’t have a traditional writeup for this one, because frankly I only downloaded it out of morbid curiosity after reading all the responses here. I didn’t like the manga at all – from what I read, I thought it was pretty much mean-spirited for the sake of being mean-spirited, and didn’t have much of a point. But this – the direction was fantastic, way ahead of the curve for anime, with lots of well-chosen shots and little perspective tricks. That droning music was perfect. Incredibly slow, dread-building pacing across this, which works perfectly for conveying that something’s-not-quite-right feeling. And I honestly thought the rotoscoping was perfect for this kind of show – it results in a kind of uncomfortably intimate distortion of real-life features, which works in a show that’s gonna be covering a whole lot of uncomfortable intimacy, and the only actual weakness was the semi-choppiness, which also kind of works fine with this sort of creeping-horror mood piece. I think rotoscoping results in almost uniformly semi-grotesque characters, and thus choosing a story about people engaging in the most grotesque baseness of their nature was perfect. That said, I honestly didn’t think the characters came off as hideous or anything, and that single frame people keep referencing was far from indicative of how the visual style actually panned out – it’s the equivalent of basing SAO’s artstyle on this one. Plus the actual background art was uniformly beautiful.

That was kind of tiring and uncomfortable to watch, honestly, but that’s exactly what it was going for.

OreGairu – Episode 1

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OreGairu (or whatever). Yet another romantic comedy, but unlike many studios, Brain’s Base actually makes good things. The synopsis seems pretty standard, but these things are all in the execution anyway – I don’t want gimmicky twists, I just want believable characters having believable conversations that result in believable drama. So let’s get to it.

Episode 1

3:00 – Hah! That’s awesome. Start off with one of those standard “nothing ever happens to me, I’m too mature for high school” speeches every back-row-seat-next-to-the-window protagonist starts with ever, and then have it immediately be ripped apart for the juvenile tripe it is by an actual adult. Beautiful.

3:29 – Oh jeez, a female teacher insecure about her age? Fresh!

5:47 – Remember what I said about “believable conversations?” I don’t think this whole premise-establishing one qualifies. Come on, Brain’s Base – impress me.

6:17 – This stuff I like. Establish him as actually coming from a place of actually caring about things, so his current personality isn’t just “Angsty Protagonist,” but a person who’s been led by circumstances to their current premature cynicality.

6:40 – My god, they truly are starting this protagonist as a full-on Fedora-wielding Nice Guy. Alright, I’m intrigued.

7:50 – Wow, these little asides are really sharp. The believability meter is wavering well into the green.

8:26 – Waving that fedora flag high! I’m kind of surprised there haven’t been more characters that are ostentatiously this archetype, but I guess that might be either because it’s kind of hard to make them likeable, or because they’re basically the opposite of a self-insert or power-fantasy protagonist.

I’m a big fan.

9:45 – “Isn’t changing yourself the same as running away?” An excellent retort, undercut visually by his self-satisfied look. I think that first conversation was an outlier, this stuff is really sharp.

11:47 – “The type that doesn’t have friends even though people would kill to talk with you…” This show is brushing off with single genre-savvy asides concepts that would literally take up full episodes of weaker shows. It actually reminds me of the first episode of Tonari – hopefully this one can keep up the pacing and intelligence.

13:00 – Maybe it’s just because I can deeply relate to protagonists who are as inwardly focused and self-analyzing as these two, but I’m loving this so far. Normally “the world is cruel, people suck” character types are written as much more shallow in their ways of viewing the world – these two are both intelligent, but they’re young and insecure, and so that intelligence doesn’t result in friends or happiness, it results in self-consciousness and isolation.

13:57 – We’re introduced to a new character’s tits before her face. Okay.

15:54 – “I can’t be this serious with my friends, either.” Another line that cuts to the core of high school in one offhand aside.

17:20 – The amount of good points this show is making is kind of unnerving now – that “talent is kind of a fake concept” speech so mirrors my own thinking on the subject that I’m wondering if I’ll be able to maintain objectivity reviewing this thing.

18:05 – And now she’s impressed by the honesty of our jaded protagonist, a turn perfectly foreshadowed by that offhand remark about lacking honesty with her other friends.

20:50 – I love how both of them have very logical and well-reasoned trains of thought, but his emotional immaturity causes him to form that into some kind of superior shield, while her lack of experience and insularity causes her to project absurd standards onto the world. These are the kind of characters I want to follow, and watch learn from their mistakes.

And Done

Damn, this is shaping up to be an incredible season. After this ridiculous feast of immature but well-reasoned philosophies, sharp comments on youth, and incredibly believable characters, I can’t believe I spent last season filling this niche with Kotoura and Sakurasou. I don’t want to jinx it, but I think this might be the one I’ve been waiting for – the mythic romantic comedy with as much brain as heart. Congrats, Brain’s Base. I think you’ve arrived.

Hataraku Maou-sama! – Episode 1

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Hataraku Maou-sama! This will be the fourth show I’ve gone crazy on in the last 24 hours, and it’s almost certainly the most speculative. And honestly, it was barely on my radar earlier – two other shows I was interested in, Karneval and Photo Kano, have simply slipped off my radar. Karneval because all the comments here are like, “Whoa, this is pretty solid… for a BL distribution platform,” and Photo Kano almost strictly because retrobrigade, one of the bright lights in our community, made a comment that basically confirmed the sum of my fears. But I have my reasons.

I love comedy. I think it’s a critically under-respected art form, I think it’s goddamn insanely difficult to do well, and I think it can contribute to truly lasting, powerful, incisive, important, emotionally resonant things. I also think a finely crafted joke in the abstract is a beautiful machine, regardless of its power or resonance. Unfortunately for me, most anime comedies fall into the same routines they’ve always trod – heavy slapstick, wacky misunderstandings, extremely broad gags, refrains on single-note characters. All really easy, obvious, frankly tedious stuff. And yeah, there are good anime comedies out there, but when I think of “anime comedy,” I mainly think of a lot of shows that put me to sleep.

So, fair warning. The concept of this show sounds rife for great jokes to me (or at least is itself one single great joke that could be riffed on successfully for a while), but if this show is pretty much a standard anime comedy, this comment will likely get kind of brutal. I’m just a guy who likes a good joke, and thinks they are a fine topic for craft discussion. So let’s see what we’ve got here.

Episode 1

2:00 – Wow, this is some remarkable production value being expended to set up this conceit. A good sign.

5:10 – Wow again. They’re using this exactly as hilariously as I think it could be possibly used.

10:00 – I… pretty much can’t even comment. The deadpan gags, the overwrought narration, the urgent, pulsating soundtrack, the overall tone – it’s perfect. By playing this running gag entirely straight from their perspective, but oh-so-occasionally veering out and letting the cinematography/soundtrack undercut their self-seriousness, it is absolutely searing this joke. So far, this is a show I am happy to have exist.

11:03 – Ermahgerd that scene. “CALM yourself, Alsiel! WOULD YOU EXPECT ANY LESS?!” Why is this so funny.

16:00 – Amazing crazy smile.

Also, I didn’t talk at all about the immediate transition to their complacent life, because it just fucking worked. The show slipped immediately from taking itself seriously as a fish-out-of-water story about two pompous ex-demons in the modern world, to taking itself seriously as a lighthearted slice-of-life within the working class of everyday existence. Despite the huge genre shift, the tone remained consistent, and framing both the establishment of their standard of living and the new social dynamic between the pair of them as jokes to us that are far from news to them both smoothed that vast gulf of a transition and immediately attached the audience to the new reality, all while making great use of this shift for some cheap, reliable gags.

Another thing that these creators clearly understand is that one of the great strengths of humor in a show that actually cares about its characters is its ability to humanize characters without dissecting them. Because we’ve seen these characters act ridiculous in a consistent way in a variety of circumstances, it doesn’t matter that we don’t know anything about their pasts – their goals are clear, their personalities are self-evident, and, most importantly, we’ve seen them fail in ways we can relate to and empathize with. Empathy is the most important variable in character-driven stories (and yes, I’d argue that most of the best comedies happen to also be character-driven stories), and one of the easiest ways to create empathy is to reveal characters making fools of themselves in ways the audience can relate to. Done and done.

20:30 – And now they’re applying the stakes of an overwrought high fantasy drama to the life of a fry cook. The joke is fairly obvious – this one’s all in the execution. And man, does this show ever know how to nail its executions.

And Done

Damn. Really, really impressed by this one. In fact, I’d say that of what I’ve seen, this is easily the most impressive show of the season, at least craft-wise. RDG is also pretty solid, but it suffers from some generic elements – this show is both fairly unique and pretty much a perfect articulation of why this idea is funny. A couple important components comprise that, and the most important by far is its level of commitment. It wholly commits to the idea of these characters, and plays it so very close to straight throughout the entirety of the run. This is good – the idea is what is funny, and the more it sells the viewer on the reality of that idea, the better. Secondly, it doesn’t settle for generic gags – all the humor in this show is a natural extension of the specific characters and the specific situations they encounter. So many shows start with an interesting premise and then tell the same story/jokes as every other show (I dropped it pretty early, but from what I saw Nyaruko was a pretty standard example of this). This one goes deep on its “protagonist,” and most of the humor comes from his very funny and very singular interpretation of the world. Plus, it all makes sense – I can completely believe that someone from an absurdly unrealistic, good-versus-evil fantasy world would believe that the regional contest regarding Spicy Fries is the most critical battle in the universe.

I hope this show keeps it up. This episode was really, really good.

Devil Survivor 2 – Episode 1

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Devil Survivor 2! I never played this one, but I loved Persona 3, and I’m interested in how this kind of work can survive an anime adaptation. Let’s get to it!

Episode 1

0:25 – Dat hat.

2:00 – These Lelouch poses in the OP are getting me kinda antsy. What kind of show is this, exactly?

2:58 – Dat inhuman character exposition dialogue. “Hey friend, you go to college practice tests because you are a student practicing for college, correct?” Gotta make that stuff organic, writers.

7:07 – This videogame adaptation stuff is weird. So many conventions that seem standard in a player context come off as an odd affectation in anime. I actually kind of like how much of these influences they’re maintaining, but itdoes seem to distance me from the story, in a way. Did they do something like this for P4, as well?

9:25 – Yeah, really weird. I’d need to see more VG adaptations to see more ways they handle the artificiality/arbitrary nature of so many videogame necessities, but it’s an odd thing for sure. The way this show embraces its videogame routes is definitely distinctive, but drawing attention to a story’s construction certainly doesn’t help immersion.

15:12 – Mysterious organization lady lays it on the line. Again, this feels like a really ineffective way to establish exposition. None of these words mean anything to the audience at this point, and far worse than that, none of our actual protagonists (or at least our current ones) have any access to this infodump. Maybe it’s included to build suspense for what’s going on behind-the-scenes, but talk of spooky organizations and “Judgment Day” is far more generic than the phone-app demon stuff anyway.

15:35 – There. There’s an example of one way shows organically can introduce exposition (such as character names) – introduce a character who’s new to the situation, and thus must have things explained to them, as the audience surrogate. Classic trick, still useful. Psycho-Pass does this… hell, almost the entire point of Ellen Page’s character in Inception was to be This Person.

16:00 – An example of the weird disconnect between storytelling in videogames and anime. The videogame-esque indicator of the current location pops up just as the camera does a classic establishing pan across a sign revealing the same information.

20:03 – Daaaamn, that is one styling secret lair.

And Done

Well, that was fine. So far, the actual story and characters seem pretty generic, and the animation/direction merely “perfectly serviceable,” but the ways it very obviously mirrored its videogame origins were pretty interesting. That’s not enough to sustain my interest, though, so unless this one does something to prove it’s either smarter than average or has something interesting to stay, it’ll probably be three episodes and done.

That said, Persona 3 started extremely slowly as well, and that only got better and better. But it also started with more distinctive style and more vibrant characters – we’ll see where this one goes.

Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge – Episode 1

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This first week is going to kill me.

Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge. The concept makes no sense, and the conflicts as portrayed in the PVs looked generic as hell, but they had plenty of style. Let’s see what’s under the hood.

Episode 1

0:55 – “There was a Hair Queen at that place…” This is gonna get weird, isn’t it?

0:57 – Whips out scissors. Yep, it’s gonna get weird.

1:46 – I thought the overwrought pauses of the PVs were just for the sake of that format, but it looks like that’s the modus operandi around here.

1:55 – Also, bewildered eyes + “PONY CANYON” = comedy gold

3:24 – At this point, I’m beginning to realize making jokes at the show’s expense is just silly – the show knows it exists in a ridiculous world, so I just gotta go there with it. I’ll get my scissors.

3:50 – Okay, what is this terrifying shot of his family demanding he stop “cutting?” What the fuck did he do?

5:21 – This show isn’t playing with the weird space it occupies as well as Mysterious Girlfriend X did, but I do like these tricks of deflecting the weird awkwardness of young sexuality onto hangups like this. I think adding some random fetish like this helps to externalize the emotional vulnerability of these situations.

5:38 – Hah! Then they make the metaphor explicit with Hair Queen’s “Sigh. Can’t get it up?” face

6:46 – DAMN is this show ever going there.

7:57 – Can’t quite decide if I like the combination of overt anime-ism and the melodramatic intimacy stuff yet – whether they keep each other from going too far, or just clash.

8:30 – Well this is some ham-handed exposition. I guess there’s no graceful way to say, “This show will be about an absurd criminal organization based on a lineage of murderers, and also hair”

9:18 – I have to say, these melodramatic camera angles, lighting choices, and songs are starting to grow on me. It’s an endearing kind of ridiculous.

10:11 – Sees a woman, is consumed by hair-cutting lust… falls in love with the woman with uncuttable hair… learns to manage his urges…

Dear god, is this show an abstinence metaphor? Is that hair-fondling virginity he just lost this show’s version of good, Christian, “heavy petting?”

12:30 – Day after day, I pray to the gods of anime for a romance that involves a couple actually in a relationship. Today I get my wish, and the show’s about hair-cutting fetishes and secret murderers.

CURSE YOU, MONKEY’S PAWWWW!

14:51 – “UWA! K-K-KILLING GOODS!” God this show’s so stupid. I love it.

15:22 – “What can I do for her? I can’t even cut her hair!” Anime of the year.

16:08 – “I wasn’t gonna mention it, but… we’re the descendents of a cult of secret murderers. Just FYI”

17:39 – They must have had so much fun making this show. That absurd slow-pan across his terrifying scissors, contrasted against the full moon, as the organ plays its operatic funeral march. This is like the JoJo of daytime soap operas.

23:14 – I don’t think I’ve ever been more confident an episode would end with a “cut to lurking sinister forces” shot. My god this show.

And Done

AHAHAHAHA YES. Wow. So entertaining. Gloriously stupid, gleefully melodramatic, reveling in the tropes of its genre while taking them way, way too far in the lighting, in the lethargic directing, in the standout absurd musical score. JoJo is definitely the right word for it.

Also, that “hair as sex metaphor” stuff was actually pretty unique, and the million ways they kept making the parallel (the two of them stretched out on the bed after her first “death” (oh hey, there’s another parallel) – all that scene needed was Kiri smoking a cigarette) were really entertaining to me. I kind of doubt actually commentating this one will be worth it, since I get the feeling it will just continue to be ridiculous in the same ways, but we’ll see. It turns out what was “under the hood” was a mass of weird sexual hangups, self-seriousness, and self-indulgent lunacy. My expectations were certainly exceeded on this one.

That Whole Sakurasou Thing

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I guess I should probably include at least one piece of my Sakurasou commentary – after all, despite my incredibly mixed feelings towards that show, formalizing my criticism of its narrative and character failings was basically what taught me my current writeup format. So here’s a “greatest hits” collection from the final “What did you think of Sakurasou?” thread

As xRichard implies, I’ve already spilled way too much imaginary ink over this series, on basically every conceivable topic. So let’s see what past me has to say about this show, say… fourteen episodes ago.

“Regarding the comedy. It’s true that there is no such thing as “bad comedy”. However, there is “easy” comedy, or “dumb” comedy, or “commonly used” comedy. A key element of great humor is the unknown – jokes you have heard a thousand times lose their element of surprise, and thus their impact. One way to avoid this trap is to be brilliant, and have great, unique gags. Standup comedians are pretty much forced to do this. Another way is to weave your humor into the very specific personalities of your characters, so your jokes are both fresh and ride on the sympathy your audience has built for your cast. Sakurasou does neither of these things, and while this doesn’t make its comedy objectively bad, it does make it objectively routine.

Regarding the drama. I personally like subtlety in my character relations and dialogue, but I also enjoy a ton of unsubtle things (Chuunibyou isn’t subtle at all, but it still excels in pretty much all fields). My complaint with some of the drama/dialogue isn’t that it’s unsubtle, but that it comes off as false – that it feels like the writers are putting words in the character’s mouths to spell out the themes and the messages of the show. This was most egregiously done with Childhood Friend as they were running away from the pool, and when it does happen, it immediately pulls me out of the show by drawing attention to the raw mechanics of the story.

By the way, Shiina is one of the worst and most discomfort-inducing romantic leads I’ve ever seen.”

Whoa, whoa! That sounds pretty harsh! But that was a while ago, and as we all know, it takes a while for these romances to really get cooking. Let’s check back in a month later…

“Jin seemed like the most interesting character for a while there, but they’re doing serious damage to that relationship by prolonging this drama of false expectations while avoiding a real conversation between those two.

It feels like J.C. Staff believe that if they shake these characters hard enough they’ll get another Toradora, but I think there just isn’t enough substance to their emotional conflicts. They’re artificially prolonging the melodrama – treading water.

I think my biggest problem with this show is that almost none of the characters can have actual conversations with each other. Sorata and Aoyama? Nope, Sorata’s too oblivious and Aoyama too tsun for them to actually talk. Jin and Misaki? Certainly not, both of them avoid talking honestly to each other all the time. Sorata and Shiina? Yeah, those are really incisive discussions between intellectual equals. Romance requires give and take – you show romance by revealing how two people interact with and compliment each other, not by telling the audience these two people love each other and then only showing them avoiding real conversation.”

Jeez, this guy is mad! Maybe another couple weeks could fix things?

“Speaking of forced drama, my eyes just glaze over during every single Aoyama scene. She exists to fail, and to have it be sad when she fails, and to create little hurdles for Shiina to dither about then effortlessly, obliviously sail over. When a love triangle is this transparently lopsided, I don’t think “I wonder what will happen next,” I think “get on with what I know will happen next”. Maybe if she were a bit more distinctive of a character, I wouldn’t have this problem.

Overall, I am desperately hoping next week sees the drama come crashing down. This emotional status quo needs to die in a fire.”

Hah, oh man, did Sakurasou kick this kid’s dog or something? Jeez, what a whiner! Okay, let’s wrap this story up. Episode 20!

“Damn! This was definitely one of the best episodes so far, with great character moments from Akasaka, Rita, and Nanami… none of whom I really thought had it in them. Akasaka’s speech in the first act displayed an awareness and individual perspective that more characters in this genre need, and I still have hope that Sorata’s clinging to an ephemeral present will be called out in some larger way. Plus Nanami’s results weren’t dragged out or used for cheap melodrama – she reacted by bottling all of it, just like she always does. Shiina is still a holy terror of an uncharacter, but outside of her, it looks like the show is emerging from its incredibly rocky middle stretch with some dignity and sense of purpose intact. I’m actually feeling pretty optimistic about the conclusion now.”

What? Something positive? Well, that’s boring… in fact, it looks like most of the comments for the next three episodes are positive, with only vague references to this… Shiina… character. Oh, wait, here’s the ending.

Oh.

“Regarding the entire series, well… I mean, that kind of is what this series has always done, right? It’s almost like an American sitcom in its fear of disrupting the status quo, to the massive detriment of its characters. The main trio were by far the worst offenders in this regard, and it doesn’t help that they were the most thinly and stereotypically characterized as well – Sorata, Shiina, and Nanami all spin in the same dramatic circles for virtually the entire series. Some of the side characters fair better, though Misaki is pretty generic as well (but she gets good speeches on occasion, like when she confessed how tired she was of chasing Jin to Nanami). The comedy was predictably hit-or-miss throughout, leaning too heavily on tired slapstick and exhausted embarrassment gags, but occasionally pulling out a snappy aside or distinctively silly reaction face. The themes were… well, I guess “underserved” would be the diplomatic way to put it. “Used, cheated on, and ultimately abandoned” would be my actual diagnosis – every idea about self-worth, creativity, and the callous nature of the real world this show promotes ultimately gets taken for a ride and then forgotten in the pursuit of reliable melodrama and a universally happy ending. There are good ideas here, ideas a better show would have run with and respected, and there are many scenes scattered throughout that ring personal, distinctive, and true. But they are the exception, not the rule.

I guess, ultimately, I can’t accuse JC Staff of not trying, but I can certainly accuse them of not trying very hard. Picking a love interest like Shiina was obviously the first, most central, and clearly largest mistake – her core personality is “helpless, doesn’t know how to interact with others,” and the only growth she experiences is “learns to love Sorata and Sakurasou.” That isn’t a character arc – her initial flaws are never addressed, never challenged, never risen above. Sorata, for instance, has to change from lacking any real goal, to truly wanting something, to gaining the discipline to pursue his passion through hardship, to dealing with the jealousy and anger of being close to others who are more talented than him (compounded by his quick temper, a definite and convincingly articulated flaw), to dealing with the pain of true failure, to (okay, as I said, they kind of skip how he reaches this, but…) being at peace with trying his hardest while knowing failure is the standard result (actually, they don’t really make him accept that either… okay, so this show sucks at characterization and being consistent with its themes, but the point remains). Shiina? Shiina is an object. Shiina is a goal. Shiina is a reward. And so all the dramatic plot points about her are things like “find the Shiina,” “deal with my feelings about the Shiina,” or “explain this very simple concept to the Shiina” – her own agency is pretty negligible, because she lacks the personality to really bounce off other characters and the intelligence to have goals outside of “staying with the people who are nice to me.”

I honestly hope they realize how big of a problem this is – I mean, they’re not idiots, writing and directing any show is a ridiculously difficult process, and having to work around a human-sized lump like Shiina only makes that task that much harder. And there were still sparks of good stuff here, as I said. But ultimately, Shiina’s character, the cyclical drama, and the way it either abandons or fails to meaningfully follow through on its interesting themes all drag it down. I don’t regret watching Sakurasou, but it wasn’t a good show.”

And back to your narrator

Sorry I didn’t rewrite all my thoughts, but I stand by the thoughts I had in the first place. Good base themes, some good characters, a scattering of solid episodes (mainly 8-12 and 20-23), but it goes in dramatic cycles to no actual effect, it abandons its own themes for the sake of a cheap happy ending, and Shiina is both offensive and by her base nature allergic to romance or meaningful drama.

That said, it’s been a pleasure discussing it with all of you.

A Brief Dialogue on Clannad and the Reason Reddits Gotta Be

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Here’s a brief exchange that started on the topic of /r/anime’s heated feelings regarding Clannad, but quickly diverged into a musing on the motivations of forum posters in general. Since the time of this posting, I’ve had several stress-testing discussions on my psychological desires theory, and have adjusted/refined it in a number of ways – but I still believe there is a decent amount of insight into people versus their media here.

 

OP:

Why does it seems like there’s a rising hate for Clannad’s popularity on r/anime?, Ive even seen people say its almost a circlejerk…

If so then fuck that. Clannad is popular because it is unbelieveablly amazing, its why its so highly rated, recommended and genuinely loved. You can hate the mainstream stuff if you believe they are dragging out series to earn more money. But how low you must be to feel the need to hate a short finished anime that people treasure simply for that exact reason.

Bobduh:

Clannad is the most popular show on /r/anime. Here, Clannad is the mainstream.

OP:

I believe the term mainstream has far more meaning than just popular. As Wikipedia puts it, its a cultural construct. its a Factor that affects media throughout production and has several causes, such as profit, popularity and largely shared tastes.

Mainstream is the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct.

So no, I believe Clannad is popular here, its the most liked if the latest polls are still valid, but I still believe mainstream isnt a term you can use to describe a sole entity, but rather movement and actions of that entity. For example, Dragon Ball Z Was mainstream, its still super popular, all over the internet and even in /r/anime[1] (sure its not liked that much), I mean every DBZ movie post gets like 100+ upvotes on ave (one got 2000+), however mainstream is used to define how that anime came to be, how it consistently stayed popular and sold well, but thats all in the past, and it wouldnt be entirly accurate to say its mainstream anymore (the same way how saying Elvis’ music is mainstream now inst right). And I believe it’s the same case is with Clannad (even if Clannish was never mainstream to begin with), it ended, it wasnt that popular, but it was good enough to create a massive fanbase and be treasured in a highly valued status, that inst mainstream, not here or there.

Bobduh:

Interesting response, and this is an interesting subject. Let me think “out loud” for a moment here…

Mainstream is a cultural construct, but I don’t think it only has to apply to macro-cultures (I don’t think that’s a word, but you get what I mean) – I feel that once any community reaches a certain size it can be described as having its own “culture,” and I also feel /r/anime[1] is large enough that you can describe it as having “cultural trends.” I feel like the backlash you’re describing (people mocking the “DAE cry at Angel Beats/Clannad” posts, etc) is a predictable response to a large, definable subset of the community.

Hm… I automatically typed “subset” instead of “culture” there, and I think that actually points to an issue with my own first thought. In my opinion, /r/anime[2] doesn’t have one culture, it has at least three, and they’re each partly responsible for a very different piece of the puzzle – I think the largest populations of new post creators, upvoters, and commenters are three very different groups of people, and that those populations are partially reflective of whether they approach anime (and by proxy, both media and communities in general) for entertainment, enrichment, or emotional resonance.

Okay, I am getting way off topic here. I’d actually like to write a full larger post about this specific topic, but ironically I’m pretty sure if my thesis were correct, that larger post would be downvoted into oblivion. But I think the points I should be making here are that:

A. Backlash to something that is very popular and inspires rabid adoration (which, in the context of /r/anime[3] , is true of Clannad) is to be expected.

B. I personally don’t see an issue with using the word “mainstream” to describe a work or opinion’s position within a smaller culture, though as I’ve said the case is somewhat more complicated than that here.

C. While Clannad may be considered “unbelievably amazing” to one of the largest subsets of the /r/anime[4]community, that is not necessarily a reflection of its inarguable qualities, and more a reflection of how well it satisfies the needs/desires of that subset. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I feel like your original post was implying that people were hating something inarguably amazing just because other people loved it, which isn’t at all necessarily true.

Sorry this got so long; it’s just a reflection of how interesting I find these arguments.

OP:

Fantastic response. You do raise many valid and interesting points. I’ll admit that I may not be presenting mainstream entirely accurate, it does seem like it’s possible in smaller communities, but it’s much more vague. You describe the backlash perfectly, and my original point was that it seems to be growing. I’m not entirely sure why? Is it because people are sick of hearing about Clannad? Is it simple the possible mainstream v hipster factor unlikely leaking into r/anime? Sure, not many people like it as much, but I’m certain only a tiny few hate… So then where is this backlash growing from?

I guess we can only speculate. But keep an open mind, because lately more and more Clannad posts and comments and being downvoted without giving reasons (that I’m curious to find out)

Bobduh:

I actually disagree with your “downvote without reason” claim here – in my experience, the votes and threads are normally in favor of Clannad, but the comments trend against it, at least outside of the (and I think we can both agree on this) circlejerk recommendation threads where Clannad still comes up with pretty overwhelming regularity. So if people are in the middle of a discussion unrelated to Clannad and it comes up, it might be viewed unfavorably – but if someone brings it up in a vacuum, or in the context of a circlejerky thread, it will receive all the upvotes.

-As a quick addendum, I do think part of the backlash is because so much of the support for Clannad exists in the form of either anonymous votes or swarms of people within recommendation threads – neither of which lend themselves to actual discussions of a show’s quality. But anyway…-

Personally, I think the idea of a hipster is kind of a fake one (at least outside of a tiny, statistically insignificant subset of super-self-conscious people), and this Clannad thing is far more fundamental than that. In my opinion, most of the very distinct pro/con divide comes down to these groups I was discussing. Clannad is a “feel-good” show, designed to evoke a fundamental, emotional resonance with the viewer – it attracts people who want to relate to shows emotionally, and these people often view online communities in a similar way, gravitating towards emotional confirmation (DAE Feel This Feeling, etc). In contrast to this, I think many of the people who find this situation aggravating do so because they take the show purely at face value, by surveying its objective merits without being swayed by its emotional intention. The way these people often view online communities is a reflection of their approach to media – they look to find new ideas and viewpoints, and to see their opinions either refined or challenged. From this perspective, the idea of a “DAE Feel This Feel” thread is a tedious waste of time, which results in no new perspectives of any kind, and basically clogs a center of discourse with intellectual static.

I think this fundamental disagreement on the essential point of media is the foundation of a lot of the arguments we run into in places like this.

On Art, Emotional Resonance, and Understanding Your Audience

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This was a discussion I had with Imperialx regarding his excellent blog post. The context is GJ-bu, but the discussion is really about the nature and purpose of art.

My (pithy, unnecessarily nasty) initial response:

So, GJ-Bu is a mathematically formulated printout of the variables required to make a successfully meaningless SoL/comedy?

Yeah, that’s something. I’m not sure “brilliant” is the word for it.

Imperialx (gamely):

Then what word would you use?

Bobduh (still in snarky asshole mode):

I’d say it’s a tossup between “cynical” and “inevitable”

Imperialx (with ungodly patience):

That doesn’t do the show enough justice though.

Bobduh (finally acting like an adult):

You’re right. I’m being glib and dismissive because your thesis represents what I find worst in anime, but clearly you’re just candidly talking about a show’s “effectiveness” and not really its merits in any way.

Fundamentally, I completely agree with you – the market for these “empty” SoL shows does not demand distinction or creativity, it really just demands the absence of variables that break their illusion of security within the world of the show, or their utter understanding of how that world will continue to act. This is why Tamako Market failed – it didn’t reign the camera into a “comfortable” safe space with the main characters, the prospect of romance represented the prospect of drama, change, or character maturation, all of which are death to that illusion, and the bird represented a glaring fantastical variable that intruded on the nostalgic dream shows like this are trying to manufacture.

But calling an understanding of this dynamic “brilliant” still seems kinda crazy to me – it’s really just knowing your audience, and the fact that this particular audience basically demands exactly what they’ve seen before, with no sharp edges, means works like this work best when they don’t even try. I guess sanding off all possible points of contention or illusion-breaking in a work is a kind of craftsmanship, but it’s just not something I find all that impressive or meritorious.

Imperialx:

This is easily the best counter-point I have read so far in this thread so far as well as one of the most intellectual comments I have ever read on /r/anime. Thank you for taking the time to put down your thoughts in your comment.

You’re right. I’m being glib and dismissive because your thesis represents what I find worst in anime, but clearly you’re just candidly talking about a show’s “effectiveness” and not really its merits in any way.

It’s interesting that you find the action of omitting subtle annoyances as something that hampers an anime’s effectiveness as an entertainment medium. Mind you, I was only talking about this action as part of the subset of Slice of Life where nothing happens only. I don’t believe that simply omitting bad things in other genres can warrant brilliance.

Fundamentally, I completely agree with you – the market for these “empty” SoL shows does not demand distinction or creativity, it really just demands the absence of variables that break their illusion of security within the world of the show, or their utter understanding of how that world will continue to act.

I don’t really like the use of the word “empty” due to its negative connotation, but I can’t say you’re wrong in the way you’ve used it, at least literally. These shows are not “empty” because for viewers that resonate with them, they are absorbed into the lives of the anime characters, filling the “emptiness”. That’s what I personally think are so attractive about “empty” Slice of Life shows that are done well.

This is why Tamako Market failed – it didn’t reign the camera into a “comfortable” safe space with the main characters, the prospect of romance represented the prospect of drama, change, or character maturation, all of which are death to that illusion, and the bird represented a glaring fantastical variable that intruded on the nostalgic dream shows like this are trying to manufacture.

I applaud you, dear sir. The most accurate deconstruction of Tamako Market’s failure I have read to date on the Internet. If I had spare money I’d buy you Reddit Gold for this.

But calling an understanding of this dynamic “brilliant” still seems kinda crazy to me – it’s really just knowing your audience, and the fact that this particular audience basically demands exactly what they’ve seen before, with no sharp edges, means works like this work best when they don’t even try. I guess sanding off all possible points of contention or illusion-breaking in a work is a kind of craftsmanship, but it’s just not something I find all that impressive or meritorious.

Indeed, all it takes for this dynamic to work is “knowing your audience”. However, is it really that simple? If it were truly as simple as doing exactly the same things they’ve seen before, then why did so many other SoLs fail? I used the Acchi Kocchi example, so something must have gone wrong.

People do get bored, and they get bored very, very easily when it comes to Slice of Life shows confined inside a club room. If someone makes another anime with characters with all of the same tropes as GJ-Bu, people will get bored and they won’t gobble it up in the same way again. That’s why Lucky Star sold so many units, and its copycats did not.

In conclusion I do believe the successful “sanding off all possibly points of contention” to require craftsmanship. It involves a deep understanding of statistics and your target audience. Otherwise it will just be another Acchi Kocchi or Ai Mai Mi.

Looking at GJ-Bu’s sales, I think we can safely say that it has passed the hurdle, getting a majority of the population to resonate with it. That is a “empty” Slice of Life which has achieved “brilliance” in my opinion.

Bobduh:

Jeez, thank you for that ridiculously generous complement! I actually think this article and the previous one from your blog have been two of the most incisive anime critiques I’ve seen here, so I very much appreciate it.

It’s interesting that you find the action of omitting subtle annoyances as something that hampers an anime’s effectiveness as an entertainment medium.

I think you’re misunderstanding my intention here – I’m not saying that the process you’re describing hampers a show’s “effectiveness” as a commercial success that this audience responds to (in fact I’d probably agree with you), I’m implying a show’s “effectiveness” is a value unrelated to its “merits,” which I am correlating with its artisticaccomplishments, not its commercial ones.

These shows are not “empty” because for viewers that resonate with them, they are absorbed into the lives of the anime characters, filling the “emptiness”.

This is a fair point, and making a story that can resonate with the widest possible variety of people is a noble goal, but I’d argue there are ways to do it outside of this process. Characters can be distinctive and unique, and their experiences can refuse to follow the generally accepted conventions of a genre, without losing the audience’s resonance – resonance can always be attained if the emotional states underlying these elements are still something the audience can understand and relate to. For instance, Evangelion is a show about a boy piloting a giant robot, which is a situation no-one can relate to. However, the topics the show is really interested in talking about are Shinji’s feelings of isolation, his desire to please the people who matter to him, and his inability to breach the emotional walls of the people around him. Those base emotional states are incredibly resonant, regardless of the surface details, because everyone can relate those feelings (which are, in my opinion, always enhanced by a thoughtfully crafted and distinctive set of surface details) to some elements of their own life.

Indeed, all it takes for this dynamic to work is “knowing your audience”. However, is it really that simple? If it were truly as simple as doing exactly the same things they’ve seen before, then why did so many other SoLs fail? I used the Acchi Kocchi example, so something must have gone wrong.

I haven’t seen Acchi Kocchi, but I assume it fails to resonate with the audience because it fails on both these possible approaches – it doesn’t go for the absolutely honed “empty” dynamics of GJ-bu, but it also doesn’t manage to present believable situations and emotional stakes that an audience could relate to in the tradition of conventional narrative.

Looking at GJ-Bu’s sales, I think we can safely say that it has passed the hurdle, getting a majority of the population to resonate with it. That is a “empty” Slice of Life which has achieved “brilliance” in my opinion.

This is the kind of reasoning that caused me to respond so viscerally to your post in the first place. I honestly find the conclusions of this results-based thinking kind of frightening, and the equating of “successfully caters to an audience we have an utter understanding of by never challenging their existing preferences” with “brilliant” is incredibly alien to my way of evaluating art, and feels almost Orwellian (keeping the proles happy and content with soma that never broadens their horizons, etc). Maybe I was just never the intended audience for so-called “healing-type” shows, but I feel the shows that solve this equation you’ve proposed are kind of fundamentally soulless, and that you can create works that appeal to this audience while still maintaining individual creativity, while still infusing your characters with distinct emotions and the capacity for emotional development, and while still giving your show some fundamental purpose or (fairly light and airy) themes.

And I don’t feel this is just a result of me overthinking a simple comedy – I think Chuunibyou succeeds as a simple comedy while still maintaining all these other narrative “merits” and appealing to this core crowd, for instance. Or, to pick a truly pure comedy, classically sitcom-y example, I think the show Community knocks this out of the park, existing perfectly well as a feel-good, “healing-type” half-hour dose of reliable comedy while also incorporating themes of trust and identity, while also regularly performing incredibly ambitious formal storytelling experiments that you don’t even have to understand to find the show funny. In fact, I think a strong emotional resonance with individual characters only improves the impact of humor, far from making it more difficult for a wide audience to relate to. And I think relegating the definition of “brilliant” to “was successfully embraced by its target audience” kind of devalues standards of criticism in general – I think we should always ask for more than that from our art, even if the audience doesn’t. If we don’t, who will?

Regardless, I totally respect your viewpoints here, and absolutely love these kinds of tough questions and discussions. I sincerely hope you guys keep writing and crossposting this stuff.

Little Witch Academia (plus added commentary)

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So! Studio Trigger. Gurren Lagann. First serious independent release. That’s all I’ve got, I’ve been waiting for months, let’s get this shit on.

Little Witch Academia

7:23 – Man, I’m really enjoying this, but I gotta pause or these thoughts are gonna vaporize.

First, I absolutely love this guy’s visual style and use of animation. Everything he creates feels like a living sketch, and the way he infuses a wide scattering of anime character designs (drawing back way further than the current standard of very similarly designed body types and faces) with divergences into Western-cartoonish exaggeration makes for an incredibly vivid visual feast. We need more stuff like this, or mainly things that simply diverge from the standard styles and embrace how anime can be wildly stylized and draw from a vast vocabulary of visual influences.

Second, the themes of this thing immediately remind me of Gurren Lagann, and paint a very strong picture of how this guy feels about art that is just so clear in the style of the things he creates. He revels in the absurd, the over-the-top, the gleefully melodramatic and the unabashedly pulpy. That first big line – “believing is magic” – says it all; he wants the viewer to embrace his vision without a hint of cynical doubt, loving it the way only a child can truly love a story. His art is an expression of that love of truly unquestioned, un-self-conscious, exaggerated storytelling. And the protagonist here clearly mirrors his own feelings, with her passionate defense of a showman widely considered gaudy and beneath serious magical (or, by proxy, artistic) consideration. Life is too short not to love what you love, or to start making apologies for it.

8:22 – Another point on that front – the value of childhood heroes in inspiring a lifetime of dedication and emulation. I think this is more than a little autobiographical.

13:04 – Normally it’s impossible to make an action story with a vaguely-defined magic system and still maintain actual stakes/tension in conflict (because the audience doesn’t know the actual extent of Our Heroes’ powers). This show neatly sidesteps that because it’s not at all interested in that kind of tension, and is just a visceral ride, so they can have fun giving the characters whatever vague, visually interesting powers they want.

20:08 – Sucy’s design is sweet. I love how her arms just fade into her wobbly profile when she isn’t using them, as well as the very tidy progression of her potion tricks.

22:55 – Dragon’s unhappy face is perfect.

And Done

Well! Not much to talk about in closing; that was just a really fun, well-constructed ride throughout. Trigger have successfully proven the world needs more of them; now please, fund yourself a full season of something. We’re all waiting.

That was my original post on the topic. However, an unrelated discussion brought the issue of this OVA’s “point” back into question, and so I clarified my positions there. I’m paraphrasing the person this discussion was with for clarity’s sake – I hope not to misrepresent anyone’s viewpoints, but this is primarily about explaining my own interpretation of the text, and nothing should be drawn from the prompts beyond their serving to prompt my explanations. Anyway.

Question:

Wasn’t Little Witch Academia just another cliched shonen success story? And why did all the other characters hate her idol, anyway?

Bobduh:

Regarding Little Witch Academia, I read that show as a direct defense of that kind of exuberant, obvious, elevated storytelling. The entire episode itself was a mirror of what the protagonist loved about her childhood hero, and the fact that both of the rivals were inspired by her to go into that field was, in my opinion, the director saying “the ultimate defense of the cliched, exuberant, and absurd is that it will inspire future generations to strive to create that same kind of connection – and I’m living proof.” The hate the community had for her inspiration isn’t really about magic, though I think the metaphor works – it’s about the disdain shown in the real world towards so-called “low art” like Little Witch Academia. The story was standard but well told, the craft was vivid and very unique (we need more experiments like that art style), but probably my favorite thing about it was its strength as a metaphor and a very personal statement of purpose from those creators.

Question:

How can a show have a point if the main character does undergo any kind of emotional journey? The heroine of this show didn’t grow up in any way, or learn anything about herself. The only reason she wins is because she randomly finds an overpowered wand – what is it promoting, materialism?

Bobduh:

I don’t think she actually learned anything within the actual adventure – there was no character arc there, you’re right. I think the point was that the spectacle of a crowd-pleasing entertainer inspired both her and Diana to follow that path, and the show as a whole is supposed to argue for the same thing regarding art and animation – that art as inspiring spectacle can be a noble goal on its own, and helps accomplish the critical task of inspiring the next generation of creators.

Her finding the actual wand of her role model seems like shorthand for “we are all held up and made greater by the passion of our influences” – it was discarded as junk (low art), but made priceless by the person it inspired to follow that path.

Question:

But how can this show say anything about the real world if it has no grounding? Everything in this show happens almost at random, or for plot convenience’s sake. Doesn’t the show need to have more believable stakes and narrative to actually say anything effective?

Bobduh:

The events are not given weight or tension because it’s irrelevant to the point they’re trying to make – in fact, if the show had been anything other than an unrealistic spectacle, it wouldn’t have mirrored the role her childhood idol fills in her world (flashy, but without substance), and thus would not actually work as a metaphor in the first place. I’m not sure what message you’re talking about them trying to convey here, but her “earning” some narrative victory is not the point of the show – the point of the show is made as soon as she transitions from a child idolizing a vapid entertainer to a mage in training still inspired by that entertainer. The rest is just a fun, flippant adventure that maintains that symbolism (like the thing with the wand – it’s useful as a thematic symbol of her relying on the inspiration of her childhood to forge her own path, not as a marker of emotional growth) while essentially acting as an animated form of the performance that inspired the protagonist.

You keep picking at the narrative flippancy of the adventure they go on, but I’m saying all that stuff is basically unrelated to the thematic point of the show in the first place, and is in fact perfect for the kind of art the show is arguing has the right to be respected.