Using Takarazuka Revue to Focus on Genre Tropes
Takarazuka Revue. Tropes. Get it?
Actually this is just answering a call from Gia, who wonders if people would play blog ping pong with her (ideally on AnimeVice, natch):
Find some Takarazuka elements in shoujo manga or anime series– OTHER than the following: Utena, Princess Knight, Rose of Versailles. Note that the mention or appearance of Takarazuka (such as in Ouran High School Host Club) isn’t the same as the series actually containing “elements of” Takarazuka!
Ok, so Sakura Wars isn’t “shoujo” but I think it makes a much more interesting question–how does elements of Takarazuka work in a shounen/seinen title like Sakutai?
All I could think about in terms of shoujo titles along that line (at first) would be stuff like Marimite, where a big key here is that the girls take on roles that a guy would–well, more like within a certain liberated confine (a walled garden if oxymorons are not your thing) in which the gender roles are reinvented in an unisex fashion to cater to certain mainstream fantasies about womanhood. (Or manhood.) We could find these “elements” in even perhaps shows like Natsume Yuujincho, which a real-life adaptation would fit its untamed, undead, and ungendered host of ghosts. It doesn’t matter if you carry one or two X genes in your chromosomes, as long as you can scream with your emotions in style it’ll sell. Actually Natsume would be a good example, and I always want to write about how Natsume the boy is such a patsy compared to his yankee [the Japanese slang] grandmother, and what does that signify. Maybe some other time.
To me, it’s clear that there is no one answer, or one mechanism or element that makes Takarazuka Revue attractive to its predominately-female audience. And short of mentioning that not all yuri fangirls think alike, it’s just common wisdom to pepper your work with all the elements of that genre you love. Because maybe more people would love your work if there are more elements of things people in general like to see?
Which is why the whole idea about pinning Takarazuka Revue’s charm points from shoujo manga a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. (Admittedly it’s a barrel I do not read, and do not want in general, so this is real “homework” to a degree.) It’s just much more exciting to see it play out in seinen/shounen works like Sakura Wars, Simoun, or Hitohira (does this really count?), or a very deep read of the Sola anime. Because you don’t expect to see it there, yet there it is.
(For Sola, I look at it from a context that there is a whole slew of late-night breed of anime that resemble stage plays from a script compositional standpoint. I am not sure if many of them have “Takarazuka elements” or whatever but those showgirls are relatively well known in Japan. They leave a mark in the mind of some, and it’s not just some superficial reference usually. Maybe sometimes it’s an subconscious imprint which affects people or the arts as practiced locally. At any rate it’s a long shot.)
But perhaps all of that is just a coincidence. To be honest, a major theme in Ouran High Host Club is Haruhi’s personal development through interpersonal relationships, and how that is a way of feminine empowerment in Haruhi’s own context. A big part of Haruhi’s story is invariably entwined with the identity of a woman lawyer, an identity taken by her mother. Suddenly Phoenix Wright seems a natural title for the Revue to do, and it is well.
This post is dedicated to all the women who practice law in Japan. Just by being so, odds are you have done more than I at changing the world for the better.
Chopping It with Marimite - Basics
This post is brought to you by the good humor crew, so a thank-you to Link, Muey, DeadKennedy, N and valvehead. At least you know who you are if no one else does…
Crying Lesbians
The Island of Lesbos is full of Lesbians. And they are crying foul because of the homosexual agenda.
Originally I just wanted to make a point that Author was misleading about the episode/disc count on the DVD you can’t buy Marimite as singles, so only Netflix tards care about how many episodes are on each DVD. And to be honest why the hell are you not buying it? I boughtpreordered it as soon as it came up for preorders, it must be good! [As a note, yes, Marimite does have a female audience (scroll down to the comments to realize the girls are the fans; the dad is just the gateway)]
Joking aside, I am going to address the greater problem Author casually referenced. There are actually very few anime out there that explores the whole homosexual thing, and somehow the few good ones that even dabble in that grey, ambiguous area of interpersonal drama get trumped up to be some dogmatic gospel for yuri or yaoi people. For better or worse, it causes an undesirable effect for other folks who do not want to associate themselves with it, or worse, become mislead.
I’m looking at you, Simoun. (Don’t I always?) For what it is worth, you ought to watch it regardless how you feel about yuri, if you are an anime fan with a knack for drama. Because that’s what is good about it. In fact, by the end of the series people generally wouldn’t care about who pairs up with who at all. And it’s a tragedy (although in this case not the fault of anyone else but the show’s creators) that most people will not be able to see past the yurilicious covers and the squad of pretty girls going to war in throes of angst and lust?
I don’t think the same can be said of Marimite exactly, but it’s the same microscopic interpersonal drama + moe elements with a yuri shell that is the core driving force behind its plot, charm, and popularity. I remember an interview (or was at a con?) with Ikuhara about Utena years ago, and he pretty much used the whole homosexual angle to illustrate the deeper theme about conforming to societal norms and not to make a comment about homosexuality. That attitude is still quite prevalent in the mainstream, and that includes far majority (99%?) of anime out there. It’s just a hook, guys.
Still, for fans I think that’s fair game. And just about everything is fair game for fans, I concede. But I don’t think everything is fair game in marketing and reviews. I’m tired of this sort of panning. The whole “judge a book by its cover” nonsense. Actually I take that back–it’s worse: “judge a book by its genre.” Or is it even genre? More like what tropes it reminds you of?
The silver lining is that we’re not at the “judge a person by her sexual preferences” level yet. Seiyuu maniacs excluded.
Thinking of Buying You
I’m thinking about the new Nozomi Entertainment licenses–Aria, Marimite, Emma.
How many people will buy these titles from them? They are priced attractively, albeit available only through Rightstuf’s own site, some select specialty stores and online stores. If you are reading this blog, odds are the retail availability hurdle is not a major problem (save, of course, international readers). In fact given Rightstuf’s track record we might be seeing some big sales on their titles as they have done with The THIRD and Piano. It’s not expensive. Waiting is not a bad option.
But is it a good option? The attractive bundles are 12, 13 episodes a pop, and you can get them below $40 USD as a pre-order already. It doesn’t beat out the prices of some really, really cheap, low profile ADV bundles, but considering that these are new licenses, it definitely means Rightstuf is skipping straight to just one kind of buyer–those of you who are looking for a reasonably priced DVD set (much like how a lot of American TV shows are bundled), and can live without a translated dub.
The lack of a dub is done as a business decision, it seems–dubbing costs a truck load of money and when you aim so precisely as Nozomi’s licenses are, you just can’t afford to hike up your production costs. Likewise, dubbing also take a truck load of time, and I think while some people are willing to wait for a nice release, just the way they want, no one would rather want something later if they can have the same thing now. Especially if you are investing into this product (aka. Nozomi themselves). A long production cycle means you could lose out on the hype and promotion that fansubs generate. It can mean the delay will eat into the shelf life of your release. More importantly however, you just won’t see any return on your investment until later. And that really bites.
To elaborate a bit on what I mean by aiming precisely, it seems that they are pushing for a very simple paradigm, that a relatively low-priced, reasonably speedy release of the entire series aimed at a select group of people who are already fans of the show. Hey, I dig that.
Having the right price is rather important. A millionaire can be a casual manga reader just like a struggling salaryman. In the same way, as anime aim mostly at people in their late teens and 20-something, you have some people who are already making steady money and also a lot of people who are living on low-end retail income while struggling in college. And everyone in between. The low price casts a wide web, and obviously that affects Nozomi’s bottom line in a very direct way as we all know.
Wait, I did say precise, right–so who the hell would buy Aria or Marimite if they don’t already know what it is? Recall Mamiko Noto’s visit to America last summer. The three Marimite cosplayers are fans of the show. And I think it’s exactly these people Nozomi is aiming for. Is it worthy to note that on that Otakon, I made a few rounds in the dealers room, only finding very few Marimite merchandise, period?
These anecdotes are there to let you know how I feel about this issue. Aria, Emma and Marimite are very much definitive niche titles. Especially Marimite. There is not a terribly lot of fanfare surrounding these titles (although Aria has a lot of fans overseas, I suppose), and especially in the US. It shows, with Nozomi’s fairly cheap but targeted approach in marketing.
Because “niche” is really another term for “it’s not going to sell many units.”
I would imagine as much as having a translated dub of Marimite would be lulz, or a properly-acted dub of Emma would be epic, but Rightstuf is selling these DVDs to people that largely have seen some of the fansubs. And if you can tolerate fansubs, you probably can live without dubs.
It might be worth noting that both Emma and Aria have a presence in the US as manga. In fact you can pick these up at your local big-box bookstores. I wonder how that change things… considering that buying 7 (or 9, I guess) volumes of Emma manga would cost nearly as much as buying the 2 DVD box sets…
WTB Marimite novels!
Or I guess, what I’m trying to say is, please buy Marimite when it comes out. It actually needs your support. Rightstuf could have charged a higher price on these babies as the market can support it, and then lower the price over time as per custom, but somehow they aren’t. Coupled with their “lol get your name in the credits” nonsense, maybe they’re trying to do something. I’m just slightly worried that they won’t get the numbers they are looking for.
Women Don’t Have A Thousand Faces in Anime
Sorry Yumi-chan, but a cat has even more.
Or in this week’s case, an alien bent on destruction of the Human race.
That must’ve been one of the most satisfying moment in anime that I ran in to for some time. It’s definitely one of the more satisfying thing to happen to a persistent pain-in-the-butt character (and Heroic Age’s got its share) that I’ve seen. It’s not even karmic, because to be fair Peato Ou does have the right idea (killing DNAra will lead to the end of the Human race), even if he’s blind about the end result. (It’s like knowing not to hit a tagged rogue in Area 52 on a PvE server, but you do it anyways because you are dumb.)
In the introspection of the nature of men and women, there are some anime that take it seriously, and there are some anime that don’t. For everything else, there are high quality key animation frames that captures the essence of the human spirit expressed through the art of body language translated into pictures. The exaggerated nature of anime art style only enhances the enjoyment of its audience when we see the actors on stage, normally being serious, break out in a show-and-tell of how badass something that may have just happened to them.
And this treatment is gender-neutral! Dropping your jaw is not a sexist behavior in anime.
