Never Ending Comic Party
Reading about doujinshi in the form of Inui’s Comic Party manga is something I should have done years ago, but only because I didn’t opt for either the game(s) or the anime (dropped after 6?). In some sense, Comic Party is a good attempt to map the macrocosm of fandom into the context of something more applicable, something tangible.
By applicable and tangible, I mean that it really doesn’t mean very much on a practical basis to say you love anime or manga or really want to love Sakura Kinomoto for a long time or you are really gay for Archer. It does, once you act on it by making 18+ pictures of her and posting it on Pixiv or write some super long blog post about what GAR means in your personal context and fandom. It doesn’t mean much if you download anime and watch it, but it does mean a lot more if you download anime, watch it, and then proceed to do something productive. (Coincidentally, buying anime is automatically slightly more productive than getting it for free!)
By macrocosm, I mean that as within any human society, people do things based on varied motivations; and often multiple motivations, at the same time, drive a singular human act. It’s one thing if you draw doujinshi for an audience of one, versus over nine thousand. It’s another to draw as an expressive outlet for pent-up creative energies, versus as a means to hone your skills. These motivations exhibit in different behaviors. What’s more, some of these behaviors can contradict.
I mention this, because the simple and obvious epiphany I had while reading Comipa is that the anime blog scene is slowly transforming into something like a comic market (as parodied in Comipa at least). No longer restrained by space and time, it’s much like an anime convention panel that runs on forever. We are many, we are /a/ and /b/ and more alphabets than the colors of the rainbow. We are twitter’s failwhalers and MAL’s elitists and people who have nothing to do. We make AMVs and write articles for online encyclopedias. We make pointless online polls about moe. We even have pros moving into this space. You get the idea.
I like to quote the author of Japanamerica for saying that American fans party, but don’t pay, and only to follow up and counter that American fans do pay, but just not to Japan. Someone better versed with Japanese fan practices can probably even say that Japan don’t pay either, when they party. Comic Party manga, if it is any indication, suggests as much–you got fans that spend their time and money on making cosplay or doujinshi, but I don’t see them buy DVDs of anime they draw from. If Japan truly pays (or I should say, have a culture of paying for anime they can watch off TV) there’s just no way they can get away with the prices they charge on their home video releases.
But more importantly, from the fan perspective, fandom is merely a platform, a cause for unity, and a stage upon which we express ourselves. The potential problem is that what we do as fans seems to be in disconnect with creators–and this is beyond a physical sense, of money changing hands. For example, writing this blog post probably has no impact with Sekihiko Inui or Leaf. But it’s more than that. A random blogging guy has the freedom to say more or less whatever he wishes, but is it really productive? I think the Comic Party manga addresses this question much better than I can.
There is purity in a union through agreement upon ideals. Ideas that resonate among us act like glue to bring fans to fans, creators to subsequent creators, creations to willing buyers, and so much more. The Comipa manga, perhaps unsurprisingly, focuses on this notion as seen through the protagonist. It even idolizes this honest, pure feeling by making the girls around the protagonist react emotionally positively towards the protagonist because of his feelings about doujinshi. And of course, doujinshi is just one way fans do their things. It could be blogging or fanfiction or whatever (a sizable quantity of doujinshi is just text, after all).
At the end of Comic Party manga we see a transformation of our doujinshi slinger [I suppose this is a spoiler, but it’s a dumb spoiler so you’ll just have to excuse me while I go ahead] from a directionless college bum into a pro. The editor of the publisher coached him to display, through his manga, the same passion that she saw in his doujinshi as an expression of his own emotions. Is this what fans are after? Is this what motivated us to squander our youths in this particular manner? Or make career moves based on pure passion? Perhaps?
And it isn’t to say honesty is the best policy, or the only one you need. The different characters in Comic Party show you different sides and perspectives in which your own goals drive the feeling you want to express. It is only with so much vested human emotions that obstacles like needless drama and people resorting to hateful or dirty acts, driven by hurt feelings, can exist. It’s hard to hate what you don’t really care about, and Comipa deals with this, too. What’s more, this outpouring of honest emotion needs a focus. It might be that you only want to reach out to a narrow segment of like-minded fans. It might be that you only want to draw really hawt p0n0s. It might be that you only want to make a good joke. Who knows? But single-minded, whole-hearted devotion to whatever expressive end bears a fruit like no other. And you don’t even have to go to that extreme to accomplish your goals.
But with all that’s said and done, I hope none of you reading my post get away with the notion that Comic Party is a good manga. It is an honest manga that is sugar-coated with idealism. However I believe it doesn’t really care for those who don’t understand the ideals it expresses, because it isn’t about people off the stage of fandom, but to those who are trying to create something. Those who have tried to create something in response to their inner fan might just agree with something within its pages.
Merchandising in the Spring
I wrote in a post a while ago about OP/EDs, but I didn’t really focus on the music to exclusion of everything else (and why would you?). Thinking about it though, it might be enlightening to point out the singles that I decided to buy (in physical format…I think I’ll wait for Amazon or iTunes for any new Boom Boom Satellite just because of, well, other merchandising mechanisms available). [CDJ affiliate links zomg incoming.]
One thing for sure is Marble’s Hatsukoi Limited ending song, which is titled also Hatsukoi Limited. I wonder if that is a sign that they’re now true anison artists? LOL. It’s also a mysterious coincidence that most of their anime works are from shows I really like, namely the Hidasketch anime and Kimikiss anime. I mean if I actually liked the “I AM GOD” anime (koge donbo, not that other one) then Marble would be batting four for four, so it’s a small sample size thus far.
Natsu no Arashi has a killer Ryoko Shiraishi song. I know the girl’s got talent but this might be the first time I actually find myself liking one of her songs. And just as an aside, Shinbo et. al. really know how to make their OP/ED enjoyable, memorable, and even exciting sometimes. So many winners out there, and Natsu no Arashi is not an exception. Well, in this case they do it by changing it every episode >_>
And count me as one of those people who helped K-ON’s Don’t Say “Lazy” score high on the weekly single ranking at Oricon. But you know, the B-side track is much better than the A-side, which adds tremendous value to this little merchandising trick. You all know about its 4-cover limited edition nonsense right? Kind of like what Blizzard did for their World of Warcraft launch and Starcraft launch, different copies have different covers, so tedious otaku has to collect them all!
I would love to say “that is all” right now, and I ought to, but the jury is still out on a few others, such as the K-ON OP, Natsu no Arashi OP, and maybe even Eden of the East nonsense. Well, we’ll see. It might already be too late to snag Eden of the East soundtrack! LOL Kenji Kawai $$$. The more I know, the more I spend, it is true.
On Light Music
It would appear he is not the only one.
Real briefly, the term is 軽音楽, and as wiki would have it, it describes not just “light music” as a dictionary would translate the term. Accordingly, in common practice (as in, the exercise of labeling high school clubs), it’s anything that’s non-classical and non-traditional. It might be better defined as an alternative to ポピュラー音楽. Well, either way, keiongaku is a loose category, as defined by negatives rather than a prescriptive definition. And of course, “K-ON” is just a cute play-on-Engrish on a shorthand.
It shouldn’t be surprising to see a music nerd think “why Krauser?” when revisited by his visage in K-ON the anime. There’s nothing “light” about Detroit Metal City, so why did Yui think of it when she approached the keion club? Or for that matter, why did Mio and Ritsu join the club in the first place? Is it because the music they want to make categorically is keion? We can only presume there’s a lot of common sense baggage lurking in the background that somehow makes sense to those of us who never had that Japanese high school experience, but only in part.
Which is also why those KyoAni-tards should go catch a viewing of Linda Linda Linda. It’s a very good example of the common “HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS ROCK BAND” story concept, done in an East-Asian-Japanese way. As long as you can handle real moeblobs (as opposed to 2D), that is. Linda is a stereotype-confirming experience; it is both entertaining and aspiring, and might just make that rewatching of Suzumiya Haruhi all the more exciting.
This post is brought to you by The Last Arial, Author, Sixten, WorkPanda and tayu. If you know better about this than I do (I imagine that is an easy feat) please chime in if you want to add anything. Including killer M:tG deck types.
First Hop for Hatsukoi Limited
Funnily enough, the show taking up most of my attention this season is Hatsukoi Limited. I anticipated this anime for some time (about a year…I guess) so I know if it works out, I would be all over it. Still, I did not expected it to be so consuming!
I guess I’m just a big o sap. Otaku flavored sap.
There is very little in terms of basic information that I can tell you that you can’t find via Google and Wiki, so I’ll just say that despite what you may feel about Lilim Kiss or Ichigo 100%, Hatsukoi Limited is its own thing. Hatsukoi Limited is a relatively novel concept–basically you take a group of teenagers and you network them via friendships, family ties, and romantic interests. The end result is a comic-esqe web of one-shots, ongoing drama arcs, and an ecology of LULZ and AWWW featuring a diverse selection of personalities, philosophies, and emotional IQ. There is little in terms of the central focus in the manga, but due to format and time constraints we will probably see Ayumi take center stage a little more so.
I think reading the manga also enhanced my anticipation and excitement for the anime. I actually “dropped” it about 1 volume in when I first started, even if that one volume left a positive impression. As the anime picked up I ended up reading the other 3 volumes to satisfy my urges for the story and characters. It didn’t make things any better–the entire experience was sweet, if a little short. It didn’t outstay its welcome, at the least, but it left me wanting more.
(By the way, if you didn’t know, I don’t really read much manga. But at the same time, why did so many people interested in this anime read it? Just for the hot chicks?)
Despite all my positive endorsement, Mizuki Kawashita constructed Hatsukoi Limited in a typical, genre-trope blending way. The canned feeling that turned me away from Ichigo 100% surprisingly works with Hatsukoi Limited to provide a floor for the whole experience; it sets my perspective low enough that each…introspective moment into the psyche of these teenage girls and guys is like … an upskirt moment? Romantic fanservice? Shipping outlet? I’m not sure how to describe it. If anything, Kei Enomoto x Kusuda will be the darling couple this spring, I can almost guarantee it. Oh So Tsun. And Dere. But oh so what?
Yes, the girls are like walking boners–that’s par for the course in the shounen romance genre. Yes, the guys are doofs, since the story is built on the chasis of an average rom-com. But it’s about the nature of relationships (for both guys and girls), its varied offering and the trace satire hidden next to the aww moments that makes Hatsukoi Limited so interesting. (…And the walking boners, yes.) It’s no more spiritual successor to Kimikiss than it is the spiritual successor of Honey & Clover or School Rumble. The ability to ace the core comedy/romance arc, while rising beyond that, is what I am after. Hopefully the anime can deliver on that like the manga did.
In short, yeah, it is School Rumble meets Kimikiss. Or just a slapstick rom-com version of Kimikiss with some Honey & Clover thrown in there for good measure. Maybe even a sprinkle of Amagami for that edginess? I kid.
It’s definitely fresh, is what.
Too-Shy Shy-Girl from a Too-Shy Shy-Era
Do you still remember Kannagi? Takako Kimura? For some of you, there has been a lifetime worth of stuff since, but to me it is a whole heartbeat ago.
Takako: a catch-all catch-you fangirl?
Kannagi’s filler episodes are the true spiritual successor of Lucky Star IMO.
If the general concept behind Lucky Star is when you stick an otaku-type into a group of normal folks, then Kannagi is when you stick a few normal people into a group of otaku types. It strikes me oddly funny that the bulk of people talking about K-ON skipped out on this little not-KyoAni show. Maybe because it isn’t?
Anyways, for the reference of this post, let’s recall another show where you have fanboys and fangirls: Genshiken. It is like, a bunch of otaku types interacting with each other, and sometimes with the greater society. If you have not watched or read Genshiken, you ought to fix that pretty quick-like; not because it’s good entertainment, but it’s a honest-to-goodness otaku fantasy, with the realism dial set to the realistic half of fantasy rather than the more fantastic half. For us proto-otaku types, the enjoyment comes in with identifying the nuances in Shimoku Kio’s world with ours. A Dilbert or The Office, if you will, for you and me. Naturally the focus on the show will come down to some degree, on said nuances.
Back to Kannagi. There’s this succulent contrast between the backwards and low-tech of it all, if we take a look at one nuance, compared to the almost-foreign, advance tech representations that gets hoisted on Jin, Nagi and Tsugumi.
It’s not just a Sony. It made a comment, perhaps fairly categorized as a jab, about Sony’s sometime-solitary insistence on its own technological platform for media storage. Akiba made that comment to a poor kid living in a run-down apartment, watching TV on … what, a 24″ CRT feeding NTSC from rabbit ears. It’s a scene out of Kamichu minus the rolled-up newspaper and wintry laziness.
And if electronics tech is not enough, the assault continues with cultural changes. What does that say about Zange and Takako’s performance? Or Nagi’s in contrast? Of ad jingle, image songs from 80s OAVs, present day pop songs…and songs that’s not on any CD… It’s a diverse cross-section.
Is it at all coincidence that the Akiba-kei types stand on the cutting edge of consumer tech? I hardly think not. But the mentality of an otaku is not defined by what is loved or hated, rather, it’s, well, a mentality. One observed through looking at the little details.
In a way there’s a slope of increasing insularity. Characters like Konata and Takako are detached from reality to a degree (beyond the obvious fact that they are anime characters). They may be unreal representations (well, Konata is suppose to be real…) but ultimately they are not crushed souls like the various college kids graduating from Genshiken (which, well, are also unreal in their own ways). Ok, maybe high schoolers have more fun, but whatever. And it’s fun that brings all the fans to the yard.
They’re not shy!
