Year In Review: N-Squared List
Just like last year, I guess some things have not changed. This could be a reference.
A Yuri Epiphany, Podcasts Ship
It took me nearly 3 years to realize why Simoun is so awesome. Partly because I had to borrow something that didn’t exist until just recently.
It is Marimite plus Macross Frontier.
I was going to talk about yuri but I think talking about Simoun is just a lot more fun for me. And maybe for you, too. Because it’s a great show even if you can care less (like I do) about yuri. I suppose that is the one of the two obvious ways to approach the subject.
The purity of yuri is an attractive notion. Mouryou no Hakou gives us a glimpse as to the madness of such and somehow that show never gets subs! (What gives?) Hallucination mixes well with flowery and poetic images, and such are of note for the somewhat-famed director Akiyuki Shinbo. It’s not a surprise Maria+Holic turned out the way it did if you are familiar with both the source material and that SHAFTxSHINBO nonsense. Perhaps what is surprising is how much it is like Shinbo’s prior works. Few would ever compare Hidasketch manga with Maria+Holic manga, to put things in perspective. The audience needs no understanding of yuri to enjoy it, even if not fully.
But as much as the yuri fanbase is generally enamored with Utena, it makes you wonder why nobody (of course the yuri fanbase wouldn’t, but nobody?) champions Melody of Oblivion with the same vigor. Is it just me who enjoy anime for their animated nature? Of direction, scripting and acting? The fancies of designs? The love for spontaneous transformation into motor vehicles? The things that separate one medium from another? Dare I say, edgy stuff?
Maybe that ambiguity, that emotional tension which threads the drama within the Chor Tempest is what pulled me through Simoun like few other anime has. And the same can be said of many of these yuri-licious dramas that focus on the interdependence within these select societies. Perhaps that is why people watch these shows. And maybe that is why yuri cannot be so simplified with terms like homosexuality, even if that is part of its essence. A Maria+Holic juxtaposition is very anime-like; taking familiar tropes and give them new life by playing shuffle with its elements. The first question of the series is simply to ask who is the wolf in sheep’s skin?
And that is just a reworded way to ask who is the harem lead?
Why, it’s clearly FloeWauf! Nev-chan is definitely Sheryl and Aeru can fight Lodoremon for Ranka’s spot. Not sure where to put Dominura, Ozma maybe?
A love for the drama and of socially relevant issues? Count me in. And despite that it feels like people pissing in the pool I swim in when some go the distance with shipping in Aria, it’s almost curious to see this cultural exchange between young American people trying to fathom ancient concepts of love that forms the core of the Japanese notion of such ideals.
But sometimes Japan is only doing its usual tricks of shuffling cultural expectations and extracting its own meaning from within. It’s like how Golgo 13 works no matter where he is.
