Xam’d Episode 6 - Wisdom Is Scarce
Tenderness
It’s been bugging me for a while now, but to distill the charm of Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret into discernible words has been something I’ve got brewing on the back burner. Except it’s like watching water boil on low heat–that moment of clarity has not yet come.
At first I simply thought, to be precise, that this is the kind of romance anime made for heterosexual guys who reads shoujo and josei comics. I mean it in a way that there’s something feminine about the entire experience that makes it attractive for guys. Kind of like how a guy can find a feminine girl attractive?
But that’s not quite it. Really stretching things, I thought about all those confused fanboys and fangirls in the west that confuse genres entirely, thinking manga like Love Hina or anime like Popotan are for girls. Maybe my explanation from before points at the root cause of the confusion.
There’s more, however. The word I’ve been coming to, seeking for help, is tenderness. Looking back, I have only considered this in the context of Touka Gettan’s wiles, but I think that is an appropriate starting point.
In some way, Touka Gettan is about tenderness. Well, beyond the visuals; both of the lead roles had chips on their shoulders. That tenderness is what weaves them together emotionally despite their transcendental destinies and the nonsense plot.
The story of Haruka’s Secret is thankfully easier to digest. Ultimately, it is about our nice guy protagonist. He’s reasonable, level-headed, even if not the smoothest kid on the block. In fact, in a lot of ways Yuuto’s stubbornness and old-fashioned (dare I say, normal?) way of life is what makes this show appealing. And it is about his tenderness towards Haruka that makes the character interaction blossom.
And since there is no real alternative to handle Haruka (but nicely), the buck really had to stop there (to the relief of many and the chagrin of those who’ve already dropped the show like the bag of cliche they think it is). Being nice to the girl you like is, after all, normal.
I think this is really what I mean by “shoujo manga.” From a certain level of abstraction, the composition of the primary relationship that drives the story is a version of the social ideal. Without much probing or pretense, Haruka’s personality as revealed to the audience is simply an idealized persona with a dark underbelly. It is the secret. However what is dark isn’t her cynical or doormat personality, but a fear all too common to many, otaku or not.
But with all that said, the underlying character drama and exposition become one that is built upon understanding and maturing rather than one about evolution and discovery as partners in a relationship. In other words, this is going to be a very fluff story that hinges on people getting over themselves rather than actual, growing characters. It’s a story of becoming who you are and not becoming something more beautiful? It’s a subtle distinction.
Then again, this sort of treatment is probably unfair. Haruka’s Secret doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a bag full of late-night anime references and romantic cliches that appeal specifically to that audience. In fact one of its obvious redeeming point is its shamelessness in cross-referencing other works. With just 6 episodes we were graced with at least 3 voice acting crossovers, and the seiyuu fanboy in me squeals. We’ve gone through entire calendar years with fewer such occurrences!
Anyways, I tried. And I think that moment of clarity has not yet come. So while we’re waist-deep in this summer’s seasonal offerings I will continue to dwell on this little fluff show rather than talk about the other interesting offerings on the air right now. Beats talking about Otakon again at any rate. And by the way, I do have something for WAH as I promised in his podcast. Maybe later.
Saimoe 2008 = Sigh, More? In 2008.
[Update: Certifiably Insane has an updated tutorial if you want to check it out]
Despite my apathy, the fanboy in me cackles with glee at the chance to put down fans of inferiorcharacters I dislike (a.k.a. all of Negima’s cast), and scream into the open mic that is 2ch to champion those worthy underdogs.
Reason needs not apply. Unless you are a weeaboo like myself trying to navigate the excessively xenophobic (well, all-phobic really) voting system for Saimoe. Let us review the basics.
2. The table of brackets and contestants can be found here thanks to cheerful and helpful English-language fans that I wish I can credit correctly.
3. My old voting guide is here. It still applies mostly even if the pages have changed somewhat. I drew an arrow to the major link you need to hit:
And the rest should look familiar with its text-only things you can cut and paste, the 2ch search, and the anoying code generation page that gives you your code after 61 minutes or more.
I’m not much for half-assed commentary on elections, but this year I’m going to, again, cheer for Mika Inamori. It’s Mikan sandwich this year for round one against the not-so good girl of Zero no Tsukaima. Well, we’ll see. That one is on September 7th. As for hard matches, I will have to choose between Eriko Futami and Aiko Endo right off the bat, tomorrow. That’s not an easy choice for me…
I think the past year, Mao Mizusawa is probably my most “moe” character. Upon seeing her, just by looking, I got that moe feeling. Yeap, she’s got me by the balls. Her first match is September 19th.
It’s a good way to warm up to the US presidential election I guess.
Otakon 2008 Wrap-Up: Media Mania, LOL
Last year I did a youtube scan for a week or so, for interesting material that came out of Otakon 2007. This year video blogging has really taken off and I’m not going to sit through hours on end of youtube nonsense (most of it are just slide shows anyways) to bring the good stuff. Still I will try to highlight some.
That was the best in-character cosplay I didn’t see.
Crunchyroll had a panel at Otakon, and I had to miss that, but some interesting things were said there. You can read about it at your usual news sites.
Wildarmsheero has already posted this on niconico, which I thought was funny because it is a karaoke of nico nico kumikyouku. Too bad he basically sings over the girls doing it half the time in the nico version. It’s a bit you-had-to-be-there. Just to note, Otakon karaoke has a time limitation where they will stop a song if it runs on for over 6-7 minutes. That’s why the guy had to let them. Waaaaaah has other crap videos linked that you might want to check, ideally while drunk.
CalAggie a while ago asked me about Caramelldansen at cons and I think this answers the question. The music is courtesy of this Japanese synth dude called seobon who went on with his keyboard at the karaoke room per Otakon’s band night tradition. Yea, he had real speakers. Speaking of which, Cal’s “I wasn’t at the con” con report is worth a glance too.
Gorgeous, delicious, deculture! Link has a picture.
There are more “better” karaoke goodness on youtube from the Otakon idol show that I try not to attend every year.
Bayoab’s con reporting thigmabob is good if you want to read the line-by-line reports of what happens at various industry things. Including the fansubbing panel.
Kappei Yamaguchi is a popular man. As a result I didn’t want to swim against the current of rabid nerdraging fangirls to get to his programming. Have some videos instead. Like the hentai one.
And of course there was JAM Project. You can find some con pics as well with some of the more choice shots of the JAM Project show here.
I think I am just going to link to some random cosplays and call it a day. Like this Ranka with iSlug. Or Toe Hoe cross plays. And that vocaloid thing. I’ve been looking for more pictures of that Aika S. Granzchesta cosplayer flaunted on the Os con report, and I also spotted this very nice Triela cosplay (probably was walking around with this) that I wasn’t able to take a picture of. If you can hook a brother up please help me out.
Most others, you can find a lot of the others right here at these two links. Macross Frontier was well-represented by cosplayers this year, so I was happy. Only saw one Sheryl though.
Have a kitty cat.
Xam’d Episode 5 - Boy Love, Old Maids, Man Eaters
Ugh. I had pictures and all! All ready to be posted last night! But alas the technical difficulty and sleep deprivation monsters struck in tandem, rendering me helpless. I’ll try to (but probably not) put up some more pictures later today [edit: updated!], but I think Nakiami “Don’t Cry” Cloud Rider will have to do.
Some notes:
1. PSN Video store was late with this episode. I went to bed Tuesday night (ugh long tuesday was long) at the usual time and this episode was not up then. Episodes 2-4 were up well before 10pm Eastern time the previous weeks on Tuesdays. As a result I wasn’t able to pull the file until Wednesday night after I got home.
2. With these massive downloads, it would be great if there was a “shut down PS3 after download finish” option so I can leave the thing for overnight downloading. The PS3 draws a lot of power, so they say, so it’s not something I want to leave idle over a long period of time.
3. I decided to keep blogging Xam’d. It seems over the course of years on the internet I’ve slowly lost my skill in writing expository stuff. If you told me to write about a rock I would write about my own notion of what that rock is, and not so much what it really is as communicated from a neutral and helpful perspective. It’s boring, but I figured this is one way to practice paraphrasing the plot. Another big reason is that how I’m watching this show as a 24-hr rental is playing a part with my overall experience, and I suspect I’ll write more on this later.
4. But I’m not going to go do what you can read off RandomC or Star Crossed. That’s just too much. Because someone has to go pop all those juicy Ishu jokes! That woman is really the LULZ. I don’t know how many more pan-up shots of her they can do. ..More
