Gundam and Retail Potato
I mouthed out some nonsense about True Tears, but in reality I was just cheering for joy. I don’t understand why people don’t grasp that the typical anime otaku who would buy True Tears in the first place won’t stand for a DVD unless it’s dirt cheap (ie., a throwaway purchase). That is, once they’ve tasted what that show looks like in HD! And of course, I’d suspect most anime otaku who could afford buying anime (in Japan) in the first place have a PS3 by now.
That said, it wouldn’t be fair to say that every high-def title out there is worth it. We have things like Bakemonogatari, which is more like an OAV since the TV airing was significantly different; it’s a worthy buy but it’s not because of production values per se. We have shows that probably don’t look any different on 1080p than 480p because the production value is too low. And then we have shows that actually look good enough on DVD that a Blu-Ray doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. We also have some upscales. Once you remove all of that you’re left with the shows that truly make a difference on a big screen.
Did I ever mention that Simoun had a high-def broadcast?
Well, no matter. I hope that Gundam Unicorn thing is at least a step in the right direction. Yeah, the price point is no good, but that puts Xam’d’s costs in perspective I say!
Lastly, some Dance in the Vampire Bund music (aff. link) for Momotato. I neglected this title from the last post because the first episode was clearly not enough to make an opinion on the show. I can’t even say if I could make up my mind at all after the second episode, but that is probably not a good sign.
A Last-Minute, Visual Review of 2009
I wasn’t able to squeeze in these “year in review” pictures in my earlier posts, but here they are anyways. These are some screen caps w/ captions that somehow I have kpet around this year. Minor spoilers are present. Enjoy at your own risk. I may have an odd sense of humor, but I believe it’s at least backward compatible!
Why I watch Bakemonogatari in a nutshell.
Year In Review: N-Squared List
Just like last year, I guess some things have not changed. This could be a reference.
True Tears for Fears
Two little Bandai Visual tidbits:
1. People whines about Kurokami’s reverse-importation schtiks. Do you care about Kurokami? Most people don’t. Which is why this nonsense continues, IMO. If it was a top selling title then I seriously doubt Bandai USA would let the Japanese have their way. Which is to say all this righteous indigination, while sensible, is not really worth much in dollars. Most of these high quality releases are for those old-timer otaku, who are generally not a force to be reckoned with or a voice to be heard nowadays. Plus, far most people watch dubs. I guess this is what happens when the Bandai Visual USA thing failed–they have to resort to some other way to pacify fears! But the whining is awfully reminiscent of the people who complained that BVUSA titles were too expensive. Of course, the true villains are those Japanese execs who are afraid of reverse importation. It happens, sure, but just how much does it hurt? I don’t know.
All bets are off when it comes to Gundam Unicorn, namely because of its profile and it being one of a kind in terms of release format. [By the way, Gundam Unicorn Japanese BD will have English dub and subs]
2. True Tears Blu-Ray box is pre-order only, and it is made only after a x number of units have been preordered. Given this special case, you can preorder it only from Bandai Visual directly. And you have to pay in advance! If the prerequisite unit of preorders (2000+) is not reached by the time the preorder deadline has past (November 10 to December 16), then that’s all folks…probably. You can find the website here. Note, they obviously do not allow oversea orders (since their payment methods are kind of limiting and they say they don’t ship out of country), so get a proxy if that’s what you want to do. As mentioned elsewhere, it’ll come with additional animation and bonus material.
At least you know Nagare-san is happy about it! That is one very BD Hiromi right there.
Gundam 00 - Once More, with Feeling
Despite the server problems I experienced yesterday, I ended up writing a ton of crap this week that has nowhere to go. I feel sorry for you to have to read it here. Twice so if you tried to make a comment.
Anyways, yes, civilians. Noncombatants. Well, not the same exactly. But them darn things that you can’t shoot while in a war. I think. Perhaps better put, the everyday person in society. Gundam 00’s audience is squarely, as you can tell, college kids and younger. Just old enough to join the army amirite? (Yes, that means Saji and Louise–I believe they are the focal couple in this show as society’s measuring stick. Perhaps a perfect world is one where you could have a good-natured spoiled brat drag her Japanese BF to go to the mall IN SPACE and carry her crap.)
In fact, it might even be that unless you look at it from the eyes of an innocent civilian, you might not understand what the point of the exercise was.
I’m pretty close to 100% sure that, actually, Gundam 00 is about peace. It’s not really about war, or rather, war is merely an aspect of peace. It might be a human force, it might suck, it might be hell; war is a lot of things, but that is not the key message. It might not even be the key message in more Gundam show than one. Turn-A is the one other that comes to mind.
I think it’s also important to keep in mind the creators and the audience of these shows. For example, if you want to talk about pacifism, that’s fine, but I don’t think anyone cares about pacifism besides that it exists, and people should be sympathetic to people who are pacifists. On the other hand, people who make giant robots that blow stuff up (hi Billy!) are cool because giant robots that blow stuff up are cool! To people who like Gundam, hurr hurr.
The changing face of war, however, proves to be something anime has to change to match. That’s just how life is today. Something like Full Metal Panic might work as a good example. However I think Gundam 00 does a better job because it goes a step further and actually subverts the nature of authoritative nation-states and present us with the bigger picture. [I could explain more about the rightness or wrongness of consensus, the detached decision making process based on imperfect information, and all that. I hope you should be able to understand this on your own. But this assumption is important.]
A common trope in military anime is the “secret government project.” This trope helps writers to come up with expensive, above-the-law yet plausible operations that could only be given blessing by the government (should it be in-house or contracted). This is to be contrasted with the “autonomous militaristic force” trope that might color fear of abuse a shade closer to the hearts of today’s world (eg., ALAW). I think Gundam 00 goes yet another step further with “the terrorists are actually right” concept except, obviously, the protagonists are the terrorists, so we don’t realize the absurdity of it.
But are they really terrorists? The Celestial Beings remained an armed and militant organization to the very end, that applied violence as they wish. If there was order to the world they should be brought to justice. The ending of the show gave them an ambiguous status, like, I don’t know, Batman. But I think that might make them terrorists.
Which is actually a relatively rare concept in Gundam. Most of the time we’d expect more Switzerland (or the Vietcong) than Batman out of something that operates out of Just Yet Another White Base–that it should carry the sovereignty of a nation-state. At least that’s how Gundam SEED handled it, for another post 9-11 Gundam. I guess it’s a Mithril-style compromise, just like how in FMP they were sanctioned by nations but were also officially (in secret) recognized, and Swiss-like, even if they were just a bunch of mercenaries.
These organizations of military intervention (I don’t think calling this war-anything is productive) have to find a face and a role in a mostly-at-peace world. In FMP, they fought normal terrorists, armed with suicide bombs and typical motives–greed and vengeance. But in Gundam 00, our protagonists existed for the sake of military intervention (but not in the fight itself, as we saw in Mr. Bushido or Ali Al-Saachez). In practice, Mithril in FMP provides just a setting, an interface that puts a crazy guy like Sousuke in an environment like an anime high school. It provides Sousuke with war funds, toys, and a reason to do something irrational (as a guy who is totally rational otherwise. Recall that FMP is foremost a high school hijinks, comedy concept…). In Gundam 00, the notion of Celestial Being puts our Meisters more along the line of cult-ish, brain-washed soldiers. That was Setsuna, after all. Why are they going along willy nilly by the plans of some dead guy? Just how much genetic engineering and tinkering of the brain did they do? Quite a bit, for Tieria and many others.
The face of violence is no longer about men with messed-up upbringing or strange motives. It’s not about normal people who turn into criminals. Our enemies are ingrained, inconsolable from some perspectives, and born to kill (or to give you tender, loving, HILLING CARE LULZ). They are like Setsuna before his encounter with RibbonJesus. And after RibbonJesus, too. What’s more, our enemies could be anywhere. They could be your next-door neighbor, or your lover. They could be your brother, parent, or old friend. They could be your god. (This is a key thing about terrorism, actually.)
This is why Setsuna has to change. So he can kill his god. Or whatever that is your god in your life (to put it in Protestant terms).
And why do that? Not because those things lead to war and war sucks–well, maybe that’s a motivation for Setsuna. I believe when we start to ask why war sucks, we’ve already failed. Perhaps we can better ask: why did Lockon felt like he has to change? Because he knows that’s the price. Price of what? I think peace is a good, stock answer. But Sumeragi actually nails it better–it’s the price of a future that you desire. And I think that’s why we get this flashback like three times in the second season. I believe Setsuna realized why during that exchange and it started him on this weird, deus-ex-machina-y path. Of course, it helped that he actually changed thanks to magical GN particles or whatever. LULs.
To summarize, three things:
- War is contextualized in many ways; the portrayal in Gundam 00 paints a new war. The enemy of this century.
- It’s still GAR and cool to protect those you love, but that’s just one out of several possibilities as presented in Gundam 00. Setsuna (and Lockon, similarly) fought for a future that wouldn’t victimize people like him; Tieria fought for humanity’s future in general; Sumeragi did it for herself and her ideals (it’s her alcohol in a way). Everyone in the show had a reason. Gundam 00 paints an intensively personal concept of armed conflict. [This is also the FMP: The Second Raid in a nutshell.] Perhaps this is the face of war today versus of our parents’ generation, where we are no longer just grunts–no one is truly innocent if he is empowered by a system of government or a way to do something to change and strive for the future he desires.
- The nature of conflict, because it’s so personal, is also pervasive. The conflicts themselves are smaller in scope but they are just as significant in consequences. The battle is for the heart of people in a world increasing interconnected.
