Marketing Otaku Anime
An alternative take at the eternal struggle of copywriting (read the comments there!) anime for an American audience–the shoppers of America’s big-box heartland–is that it really doesn’t matter. At least not in the way fans think of it.
Let’s take a well-known import of Japanese media in America–wacky Japanese game shows in which the contestants are battered and embarrassed by a barrage of otherwise unimaginable activities if not for the fact that somebody out there had to imagined them first for it to exist. It’s on par with weird sex videos from Japan in terms of sheer otherworldliness.
It’s not unexpected for the people who gave us the high school girl that asked for nobody other than aliens, time travelers and espers to befriend her, perhaps. But the subtlety of that concept is already a mile beyond the veracity an one-liner could express, with the likes of “octopus porn” or “a story of love, dreams, and perseverance” or “watch silly Japanese get dunked in goo!”
Let’s re-examine this divide between works that are layered and works that are less so. Author gave us some other examples which goes to the heart of the matter. For instance, Manabi Straight, he says, is a political thriller. I’m in no position to disagree, having claimed it being one of the best demonstration of the Kingdom of God I’ve laid eyes on. Religion and politics! (No wonder nobody licensed Manabi Straight.) These forbidden family dinner topics would hardly be the first thing one expect to grace the cover of such DVDs, I admit, but it’s there if you choose scratch deeper.
But what is probably a better example is Simoun. It is light years beyond the likes of Divergence Eve’s “come for the tits, stay for the sci-fi thriller” fishing. It’s a show where you don’t need yuri goggles to see the yuri, but the yuri is actually a lie. It’s the kind of anime that even a 500-word post would fail to really get to the heart of what makes it a great story to a wide range of viewers. It’s unreasonable to expect 1-liners to capture even a fraction of Simoun’s glory.
Perhaps another way to think is that copywriting is just some cheap marketing. It’s like the barkers that work out front of strip joints and gentlemen’s clubs. Do we expect people to purvey works that pander to immediate gratification or through thorough research, sampling, and the testimony of critics, fans and friends? In the case of most anime, it’s both. But copywriting obviously is just one form of marketing, to aim for the former. All this is to say, if we take the frame of mind of a fan we would naturally feel ill towards copywriting, like how some feminists may feel ill towards women who work those joints and the related forms of degrading marketing.
But when it comes to anime, there are notable exceptions–when a show it’s constructed with a certain disposition in mind. Say, Excel Saga? Divergence EVE? Or Simoun?
If I want to make just one point, it would be that otaku anime (unlike, say, Saiunkoku Monogatari) aims at a specific audience who are familiar with the work pandering to them. It isn’t to say no one else would like otaku anime, those outside of the target audience, but those kinds of shows generally dispenses the pleasantries and instead exercise their art within the difficult-to-define space within that genre. It’s like saying a $15 bowl of ramen is the best ramen you’ll ever eat in NYC–how do you justify it? And how can you explain it with a simple 1-liner? It’s extremely difficult to do copywriting for a general audience for a niche work, that’s just how it is. So why fret?
And we see that not all anime does this. Excel Saga is a good example of a gag anime that has some universal appeal but is very otaku in terms of its target audience. People ate the humor and the gags up, but to understand its full excellence requires an appreciation for the numerous in-jokes that most people just would not understand, let alone finding them an important addition to their Excel Saga experience. It’s a step up from Divergence EVE, which has this fanservice factor, a candy shell if you will, that dresses something probably more substantive, filling for the audience that enjoy that sci-fi space genre. I mean, that’s true for a lot of anime that use fanservice as a way to get people interested, to try out the show in the first place.
Simoun, ultimately, is the kind of show that plays to this marketing limitation. There’s no point trying to say how awesome a show is just on the cover. It can cite to reviews (or better yet, awards it won…LOL) but for most anime in America, it’s a crap shoot. The only thing Simoun got going at first is just the very natural girl-on-girl covers with all the naughty poses and body positions. It is the only barker speak Simoun has. Those quick, tender kisses and flowing tresses might have a certain appeal, but I don’t think that’s what makes the show worth watching.
At the same time, fans of the show may read and see those things and think “hey this is not (quite) what the show is good for!” And they would be right. However I think the series itself is a bait and switch, so when that marketing speak reaches the eyes of someone who is curious but ignorant, it actually accomplishes the proper effect. The misleading copywriting actually sets up the lies. It is a trap.
And Simoun is better off with its traps, I think we all can agree. When the traps are not so good, that’s when copywriting becomes misleading and people whine and all that. Worse, you get the people buying something totally misleading!
It would be perfect to wrap up this post with some copywriting from Simoun’s R1 DVD release, but the blurbs on the DVDs read more like, well, honest-to-goodness plot summaries. All that is to say, I think, whoever wrote them actually saw the show? It’s a wild guess, but in the end fans do the best at promoting the shows they love, right? Modern technology transforms copywriting via things like customer reviews might work better!
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.
Year in Review: She’s Going the Distance, a Great Feat of Strength
Going to mention a list of 12 lists of 12 items each. So a nested list. All 144 items. Annotated for the most part. Don’t ask me why I use these pronouns the way I do…
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.
True Tears Is a What?
[Okay, so wordpress just ate the ‘finished’ version of this post and spit back at me the revision prior to completing, so I lost maybe 2-3 paragraphs worth of blargh. Which is disturbing why it happened. Sigh. Anyways, here’s as much of it as I can recollect.]
I think I got True Tears, but I’m not sure. Something didn’t click.
I finished watching it a week ago, and I’ve been thinking about it when I could. Maybe it would be helpful to watch it alongside Simoun’s bonus material (thanks Media Blaster!) where the director, Junji Nishimura, gave some insights into why Simoun was the way it was.
I looked towards Simoun for answers because the two are actually quite complimentary. The key difference between the two is that Simoun did not follow a standard, dramatic formula; True Tears was a straight forward love-triangle. The rest of the two shows, from abstract reads of the mood down to the use of still-frame, traditional illustration stills, are quite similar.
They are also different, of course, but what puzzles me about True Tears is the purpose of the tears allegory. In a nutshell it simply symbolized [and I quote myself] the exchanging feelings, expressing them, and appreciating the other person. Shinichiro even got to appreciate his mom and dad; his mom appreciated what Hiromi is going through; and Hiromi with Shinichiro’s struggle with Noe.
But is that it? What does it mean?
Of course there’s also the Raigomaru/Jibeta story. The problem with that is the story itself is a parallelism for the character development pattern in the show, for the audience, and yet at the same time the characters projected themselves onto the chicken in a conscious manner. Both Noe and Shinichiro looked at Jibeta and Raigomaru similarly and expressed themselves through the chickens, identified with one or the other chicken throughout the course of the show. It got complicated when you start to think too deep; how did Noe know what Shinichiro drawn in the book before the last episode? Why did she wanted to throw Jibeta into the sea? And if seeing Shinichiro dance is her “Raigomaru sees Jibeta fly” moment, why did she jump afterwards? Or are they switched?
I guess understanding the last couple episodes symbolically will be key to understanding True Tears. Too bad I don’t.
I’ve read elsewhere that Simoun is much like a WW2-era war drama involving airplane pilots and attached love interest pining for their return, looking longingly down the stretched runway and into the skies. I suppose, fittingly so, such was exactly how True Tears ended. Minus the runway.
