The Perils of Human Interrelatedness
Go give the springboard of this post a read if you had not yet the chance. I think I may just be parroting what Owen said there, but I think the subject deserves a very good scrub on its own. It’s hard to find a good beginning to tackle this multi-threaded concept, so I’ll start with the boring stuff that comes from my personal life. Or even more boring, classic English literature? Oh, also Longcat Post warning!
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
- Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
The near-cliche “what’s in a name” comes from Shakespeare, but the last time I used the term was in a debate in regards to legalizing homosexual marriages. In the US, this is a debate that has been going on for some time. The state I live in is now the latest state to legalize it, although the local legislature decided to give gay “marriages” a different name.
But name is really at the stake here. Or rather, the representation of a social status. Quite frankly no one really care about names; but names and labels have practical significances and real-life ramifications. I am not a baptist I have been schooled in the way some American baptists [and look how I avoid that label, lolz] school their kids in regards to dating and, uh, I think the term is “courtship.” To be honest I’m not sure I get all of it, but the takeaway was some pretty practical and pragmatic things people don’t do because it can be difficult to talk about your relationship in the meta with someone you are infatuated with (puppy love). And of course, the teaching was a way to do these things.
One of the things I learned is to define the context and boundary of your relationship. Ever use the “it’s complicated” tag on Facebook? It’s good to know we can define our relationships that way in this day and, but that’s a copout. What’s nice is that the social networking smartasses at Facebook gave something that doesn’t have a label a label (and more to their credit, that they recognize the need for such a vague label; many others before it did not), so people can be comfortable about it. But what’s not nice is that this copout trivializes what’s truly important about a relationship–the relationship itself, and not the social status it gives.
The conservative Christian babble goes on to talk about how kids need this education because they just follow what they see on TV and do whatever that they like (which is true); and without properly defining and understanding the relationship, kids are vulnerable to emotional trauma as a result of poorly handled relationships they experienced from the past (which is also true). But I think the jury is still out on what the cure is for this kind of stuff, if there is one.
From way left field, when I was reading this book a year or two ago I ran across a similar thread in the context of providing a perspective for copyright industry/law reform. The point is human beings do things out of a wide variety of motivation. And it differs from person to person even if two people are doing the same thing. When two people take a vow of marriage, they may define marriage differently than the next couple who booked the same chapel the day later. And as I alluded above, homosexual marriage is not the same as heterosexual marriage by the accounts of many, as an example.
The same concept applies to labels like “boyfriend” or “friend” or “it’s complicated” or “Capulet.”
And which is why I’m 100% supporting Eriko’s experiment, although she’s doing it wrong. I’d expect a real genius to be more methodological about it. But anyways…
Right, Eriko jokes aside, back to anime romance. Honey & Clover is mind blowing in some ways. Granted, in the genre of josei romance drama, this is not at all unusual, but as anime, it’s rare. For those of us who follow TV anime closely we know shows like H&C is quite rare. Too often the breeds of josei shows take the more shoujo route and gets deep into introspection, and frankly the internal workings of a woman-to-be is like Latin to a penguin for many others–puzzling and incomprehensible. To contrast I thought Ai Yazawa’s Nana’s main strength (if not Ai Yazawa’s primary strength as a storyteller) is a balance between the introspectives and the external perspectives, so it was not a surprise that the show itself was a fun watch with a lot of fans. It was able to engage the audience in more levels than just the inner struggles and conflicts of a couple girls tied by fate.
I suspect one reason why most shoujo/josei anime take the introspective route for the same reason why shows like Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei works so well in this medium–because labels make good caricatures. When the whole scope of your dramatic tension rests on the intersection of social norm and personal goals, it’s hard to draw it out short of going on the Nice Boat. Indeed, Nana is filled with soap opera level trash drama, and that’s really what the Nice Boat was about, sans the violence.
Unlike those shows, Honey & Clover, to be specific, is a show about a bunch of strange people. I think that’s one thing we often forget when we watch this show, as strange people are dime a dozen in anime. What makes the strange an important factor in Hachikuro is how, actually, they live in a normal world. It’s no big deal to harbor a vampire when you are made of paper, right?
To pull it together some, a big part about Nana is about the two women (and the people around them) and how they relate to the web of people around them. It’s no surprise that this modern drama deals a lot with people’s self image and how it reflect on the people they relate with. The same is also true with Hachikuro and Kimikiss anime, but unlike the typical josei/shoujo variety, we’re spared with much of that introspection from the feminine perspective. Instead, we’re just seeing what people are doing, how they may be “fighting.” And in good shounen style, even commentators who give insights on others’ relationships and struggles. When we do introspect, it’s from a guy’s point of view. And that’s just a wonderful breath of fresh air for both genders.
Fact remains, romantic relationship can be complicated; and it’s those complicated ones that draws viewers and readers to your story as they appeal to real people with real relationships. Simple labels are helpful in real life but they rarely are precise or sufficient when things get complicated. (If you can even get two people to agree on how to define a label like that with workable precision…) In fact, the biggest charm of Hachikuro, for me, is how it totally destroys the common sensibility of putting labels on your relationships. Instead, Hachikuro focuses on relationships first and foremost; on the interdependence of people and the drama that arise as these interdependence change and evolve along with the characters themselves. People’s needs are met, and it is brutally honest about it while done with respect for modesty and good character; a sense of humbleness in spirit of how we are never more than the people who got us here in the first place. It’s the anti-Nice Boat.
That contrasts well Nana, I think, which is more of a common-place, self-centered “fight” between passion and pride. It appeals to the realist but one has to question the theme behind it all. It’s got the girl talk aspect down.
So where does Kimikiss land? It’s really a shounen romance, but why does it feel so different from your harems and the typical galge adaptations? Does it show its mainstream roots?
I don’t know for sure, but I guess at least two things:
Like Hachikuro, there is some degree of introspection. It’s less, but it’s split between the main cast–especially Mao. The involvement of Mao in the double-triangle that plots out the romance polygon in Kimikiss anime seems heavy at this point. Her struggles actually gets externalized a little more than what you’d expect if she’s going to be a major impetus in the latter part of the series as she faces off with Kouichi, so it’s expected to see Yumi take up some screen time and see the focus of the show swing away from her now. Basically, Kimikiss anime has a narrative progression not unlike Hachikuro in how the different plot threads resolve in a balance manner between boys and girls.
Second, to go back to the long ass nonsense in the first half of this post, we deal with labels in a way that eludes the bulk of anime and manga out there. What kind of relationship does Yumi have with Kouichi? Kouichi with Mao? Kazuki with Eriko? Mao with Kai? We are no longer concerned if they are going to “hook up” although Kimikiss clearly acknowledges this when Yumi and Kouichi was “affirmed.” It’s a weird compromise. Feelings and relationship first, labels second.
Well, it’s hard to say for sure at this point. I need more! And not just because so I can find out what happens; Kimikiss is this gem in the rough that has been charming its way on to the top of my mind’s stack. Only if it wasn’t just half an hour per episode. This is the kind of show that I can go for in the hour-long format.
Election Year
If Saimoe is like the US Presidential campaign (it sort of is, and it even ends around November!) then we’re sort of doing something like the Primary here. Except for another country. And it is irrelevant for the most part, with each other. Plus, we’re about March Madness.
It’s sort of off topic, but I just want to share a few insights about moe elections and, well, this kind of fan activity in general.
1. Purpose.
One thing I really like about Saimoe is how it is impeccable in terms of getting a large group of people on the same page and voting for what they want. I guess that’s the Japanese for you. However it’s a terribly poorly designed contest even compared to its Korean counterpart. But that’s really only half the story. The purpose of Saimoe is somewhat tangential to the purpose of Korean Saimoe in that the latter is really just a popular vote-off. The former is almost a community building event as there is a standardized platform (2ch) where the fan community on the whole recognize as “official.”
When planning something like a moe election, you need a clear goal as to what you want to accomplish, and design around that goal. I like fun, fresh madness. I don’t care so much who wins. I do care about heated competition and excitement and entertainment generally. YMMV, I guess. I think it’s good to have a selection of stuff like this, Touhou Saimoe, SaiGAR, whatever.
2. Design
This is something that’s a little harder and require people who think it through, with experience. But it’s not hard–just get a good feeling as to who are your participants and take their interests into account. Usually after doing it a few times, you get pretty good with it.
3. Promotion
Don’t even bother. Just pick a group of people you want to do this thing with, and do a darn good job. People who enjoy it will just get others to join you. Maybe you want to throw the good word to the people around you just so they know it’s happening, but that’s really all you need.
4. Rules
It’s good to have well-communicated, clear rules. It doesn’t have to be fair, even, but it can’t appear to be partial. In fact even with sucky rules, if people playing the election game think it’s fun, they’ll do it anyways. And usually when their favorites are at stake, there’s plenty of motivation already. Don’t be afraid to take people’s suggestions freely, and freely reject them too. As long as you think it through before committing.
It’s a different bag when it comes to moderating the actual polls. It’s good to be familiar with what technology can offer you, and find people who can work with you. It’s great if people know what’s going on, that there’s transparency in the process. People like fair contests, and they’ll enforce things themselves if it’s made possible that way.
5. Incentive
It’s good to have incentives beyond the mere exercise of the contest. It’s optional for the most part, but sometimes it just makes life a little more fulfilling, even if what you get at the end is a bunch of fanart doodles you don’t like. The way I see it, if people are going through the motions and effort to make it happen, you might as well ride it as much as you can. For the little contest we’re running, we have some used goods. YMMV.
Year in Review: Conclusion
Decidedly, the word is that 2007 is not as exciting as 2006. We did not have Haruhi, we did not have Simoun, we did not have Black Lagoon. In fact, I’m going to talk about shows I didn’t see in 2007 (and some that I did see, but not like Haruhi, Simoun and Black Lagoon).
WTB Good Industry Blogs
I know they are out there, somewhere.
I figured this is the place to ask since people who read blogs…know blogs. And if you come across mine from somewhere I don’t know, odds are you’ve been to other places I’ve not on the vast internet worth visiting. So I beseech you: Where are all the good English-language anime industry blogs? I’ve seen glimpse of manga blogs that are actually helpful and insightful, but anime? What’s anime? LOL?
Heck, even if it’s just PR nonsense. Good PR nonsense, to be specific. For a while I read Broccoli USA’s blog because that’s what a good (maybe “good” is too vague of a term…a blog worth reading?) industry blog should look like. I stopped only because about 1 out of 30 entries (and I think I’m being generous) contained anything I really cared about, as, you know, most of it is just manga news and I barely read any manga. I usually take a peek there before going to a con though…
But yes, anime-related please. In my limited knowledge most anime-centric industry blogs look like this. And it’s kind of, well, sad. Not that it’s bad or anything, but I might as well go read AoDVD, at least I get something useful out of them.
Which is to say AoDVD’s own blog effort is lolz, but that’s fine since the main purpose of the news/review site runs the same way as a good amount of bloggers. It’s a whole different business to run a news/review site as a blog, and if things comes down to that, well, oh well. They have an active forum community so it makes up for it. But it doesn’t read like a blog, and the community is different enough that I’d not want to get tangled up with it too much. Maybe AnimeNation’s community or ANN’s community is better, but I fear for their astronomic SNR.
Speaking of ANN, with the open letter nonsense, I found these blogs. I guess if you host it on your secure server Google is going to have problems indexing it. Forget about pingbacks and trackbacks. And why is it like that anyways? That said those blogs are less than 2 months old, so it’s kind of an unproven effort. But at least they have cool pictures. And the same Broccoli blogger writes this, I’m guessing. Pretty nifty I’d say.
I would link to the old Geneon USA blogs if they were still around, just so you know how sad American anime industry blogs are. I know the past couple years podcasting has been tried (Rightstuf puts out the only one worth listening to but others put out random con-related stuff too), but I don’t listen to podcasts really. Especially pretty much all but two English-language podcasts about this stuff are weaksauce.
AAAANNNNYWAYS. Do you know some cool industry blog that I don’t know? Please do tell! And it doesn’t even have to be actual industry. Just ones with real industry bloggers going at it would be fine. If it’s worth reading.
Year in Review: Makoto Shinkai
You know, Makoto Shinkai made this short which debut on NHK this week about cats.
Unlike his first known work, She and Her Cat, this colorful skit about cats is probably his first comedic work. Aside from the shared namesake of Chobi, anyways, there are not a whole lot in common. A Gathering of Cats is part of a program on NHK that highlights notable animators and have them put on a show for us. The short is merely 60 seconds long, so be sure to grab it and take a look!
Anyways, back to Year in Review: Shinkai is indeed one of the shining beacon of light dotting the landscape of the anime scene for me. This year was particularly remarkable with the release of 5cm. This will be the first post rounding out my favorited spotlights of this ending 2007.
One thing I love about anime is how it takes a very eastern, humanist message and package it in a candy shell. I don’t really care about the usual story so much that drives American television (but sometimes they do offer something interesting), so I take particular notice at this kind of thing. Unlike my more adventurous breathens I don’t steep deep into it; the random jpop tie-in of Studio 4C’s Amazing Nuts is as far as I go with the really weird this year (I didn’t watch it until 2007, bleh), I guess.
But more about Shinkai. I think 5cm is really his first film that he could be truly proud of. Hey, it won foreign film fest awards. Regardless how you like it compared to his earlier works (which definitely depends on your tolerance and affinity to the lo lo sappy romance happy end), Shinkai actually managed to tell a story with his film. In his last movie, Beyond the Cloud, he merely told us a story as a normal film did, and his film played second fiddle (albeit in Tenmon’s orchestra that is still pretty awesome) to the colliding mystery and the romantic reunion of the protagonist couple. In 5cm, the film carried the story like a master chef going at miles long of ramen dough, or insert some other familiar culinary analogy about kneading…things. The three-way partition throws people off, but I believe this all the more highlights the impressiveness of his narrative through telling us a story with what we experience overall, and not merely what we see or hear.
Plus, it sure as pretty. And I mean Pixar/Studio Ghibli pretty. I am dying to see this on 35mm. Com’on ADV!
Makoto Shinkai is definitely the most exciting prospect on the scene right now for independent anime filmmaking, and he’s just starting to make waves. Will he ever shed that arthouse aura? I don’t know, but I don’t care! It’s good stuff.
This is the first part of a series of blog entries highlighting some of the memorable and remarkable points of 2007 in review.
- Introduction
- Part 1 - Makoto Shinkai
- Part 2 - Baccano!
- Part 3 - Sola
- Part 4 - Hitohira
- Part 5 - Gurren Lagann
- Part 6 - Code Geass
- Part 7 - ef, Hidamari Sketch, Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei
- Part 8 - Manabi Straight
- Conclusion
