Year In Review: N-Squared List
Just like last year, I guess some things have not changed. This could be a reference.
All You Need Is Kill Is All You Need for a Taste of Haikasoru
[If you’ve experienced downtime on this site the past day or two, it’s most likely due to DDoS coming from China. Why? I don’t know. Shady neighbors on a shared host ISP I guess.]
What is Haikasoru? It’s a marketing label. Imprint, as they call it. Same with the term light novel, except it’s more a marketing word to describe a release format. (Also, it’s the name of the Haikasoru’s website, which is a pretty interesting blog in of itself, once you learn how to navigate around the annoying, ad-like front page.)
Actually, there’s this rift or friction in the way marketing works for Haikasoru, and in marketing Japanese pop fiction to an American audience. The basic problem is how do we handle serialized works that are later published in a “lighter” imprint? They generally read quite differently than a traditional, mainstream novel, both in Japan and in the Americas.
The whole light novel marketing label doesn’t have a lot going for it too, in that right now people are using it on all sorts of prose that are probably not quite a light novel. Like Faust, for example. That’s a literary magazine-book, technically. And yeah, see the cause of the problem yet? The notion I get for light novels is like “hey I know you don’t care for manga, so read this book instead because it’s the same kind of trashy story people love to read” rather than something genuinely more interesting. At least I don’t insult Boogiepop (although I’m not sure I’ll hold back on its derivatives).
And all of this ignores the whole problem that Japanese pop fiction are like rockets trying to reach escape velocity from the planet called “MANGA.” At least in the eyes of Americans. Maybe this is why Haikasoru titles are to be found in the SF/Fantasy section instead of the manga shelves.
So Haikasoru is just another brand Viz concocted trying to push these pop fiction in America. Some of these are not very light novel-ish, although my first piece from the label is a genuine light novel piece. All You Need Is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, was originally released in book format under a light novel label.
If you want the low-down review on KILL, read Eastern Standard’s take. I agree with them completely pretty much, except I have a few things to add or elaborate on.
1. The uncredited, real translator. For what it is worth to us, the translation to KILL is a 2-man job. I am glad for the transparency at least, in the process? Or am I suppose to be like “wow, why isn’t he credited?” Whatever. Good job guys.
2. A lot of SF coming down the pipe from Haikasoru will be heavily influenced by western SF. Or Japanese SF in general is heavily influenced. What a big surprise. KILL definitely “wears its influences on its sleeves” but I’d go further and say it’s not all Western/American. If you read the comments at the Eastern Standard review you might see me gawk at the discovery of Sakurazaka’s role in Yokuwakaru Gendai Mahou. And then I did a quick wiki lookup and saw he also authored (and won an award) for Saitama Chainsaw Shoujo (which is now also a 1-shot manga). Ugh. Yeah. So if someone who is familiar with Sakurazaka’s works, please let me know if my gut feeling is right and that KILL is the off-the-path lucky hit that gets ported over and not his bread-and-butter type of work.
This is a slice of Japanamerica, certainly.
3. And not surprisingly, I think his influences are more in the feeling that some types of science fiction aesthetics have in terms impact. Like, for example, a thriller feeling in a tightly spun tale which involves the difference in technological development between two warring races but of different culture that played a bigger role in survival, or a more loosely told story driven more by affection and development of characters in a new, grungy and uncertain future. The whole science-fiction groundhog day concept is not new, nor is the whole military backdrop for armor suit pilots waging war on extraterrestrials, nor is the cliche romance surprised sidearm action. I think all of those contribute more to the feel and texture of the story rather than the “sci-fi-ness” of it all. In contrast to KILL’s sister release title from Haikasoru, The Lord of Sands of Time, KILL is barely science fiction; it’s like Starship Troopers the movie…
4. At any rate, Sakurazaka’s style and characters are fun to read. It’s definitely all you think a light novel is suppose to be, ironically. However it’s not nearly as cheesy as most other I’ve ran across, and the play to a honest narrative as a military grunt works…for the most part.
Yeah, cheese. At this point in the Japanese pop fiction invasion, less cheese is better, IMO.
5. I hate the price point. 200 pages or so for $15 is just ridiculous, for a paperback. Yes, the front cover is ABe Yoshitoshi. And yes, why do people never use that image when it’s easily way more awesomely drawn than LORD’s? I don’t know, maybe people who dig SF like exotic landscapes. Or girls carrying a stick. But it’s too expensive. I got to read it because I’m abnormal when it comes to spending on this Japanese crap, and had a 40% off coupon. It would not have happened otherwise short of a sale or as a present or sample. The saving grace here may very well be that the novel has a sensible text density. Maybe it would have been a more pleasant deal to have it in hard cover but at a small premium, at $18-20? Or price it like American manga at $10-11.
And…that’s that. Go read it, because it’s a cute light novel, an enjoyable pulp fiction.
Tokyo Plays Dress-Up for Summer 2009 Anime
Summer anime for 2009 is a good batch. It’s not extraordinary, but I would like to think every season is unique to some extent. It’s just some are more so than others and so far 2009 has been a little more so than others.
I might have said this earlier, but I’ve been reading some light novels that are translated and commercially released in America. I found that there are a few formulaic things that attract me–the writing style, the setting, and the characters. Somehow it’s always one (or more) of these that keeps me reading. Rarely it’s the plot or the funky philosophical worldview (unless it’s wrapped around some context that has to do with the setting or character) or mystery or suspense that keeps me flipping pages after pages. I think that’s basically why I found Bakemonogatari (and Nisioisin in general) worth following at all? Shaft really did a bang-up job on capturing the strangely whimsical but serious nature of the characters.
Naturally, I actually look forward to that Otsuichi adaptation coming out sometime in the future. His writing in the second volume of Faust’s North American release is a refreshing read as well. […and I owe myself a review of that too…] He’s one of the few that I liked both in terms of style and with good, solid character development.
At any rate, it feels that this summer, I’m also watching some of the shows for exactly those things–setting, character, and some kind of flair (as always)… Perhaps the best example of this is Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. If they’re going to spend 5 seconds to tell you “zomg we have meticulously researched this animu” every episode, you bet it’s gonna be meticulously researched, right? And being BONES, that research is likely to come out through the super-detailed background, and character animation as they contort their bodies in…rescue work or some such. Unlike Rescue Wings, this one paints plain disaster rather than merely those who rescues, so the feeling is very different even both have a lot of slow moments. But more importantly, instead of calm seas of some JSDF air base, Magnitude 8.0 kicks off with some version of Neo Tokyo in the OP cuts, as if Bethesda’s next Fallout game is going to be set there. Meticulously detailed and loaded with both researched indeed…?
But if that wasn’t obvious (how could it not lol), perhaps this new new version of Tokyo in Taisho Yakyuu Musume satisfies your fancy better. For those of us watching it for the Taisho setting and the twist, episode one serves up a trip down to the good ol’ capitol way back to 1925. The same city that we may be familiar with is no longer anything but what you find in history books. Asakusa lulz. Perhaps as much as how the physical layout of Tokyo has changed so many years ago, so were the way people behaved. It’s almost refreshing to watch an anime where the girls acted like they were girls, and guys were guys? But wait, I think that’s where the show sort of falls off-balance a bit. The guys don’t all act like what I expected people in the 1920s do, at their age. Either that, or some of them are just really cheeky.
The main cast of characters, however, are fun enough to watch. It’s a team of serious fanboying seiyuu at work, how can I lose… The baseball aspect is not too shabby either, even with the glove goof. They went back to good o’ fingered stuff right after that episode.
A more modern rendition of Tokyo comes alive in Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou, which is something about knowing (or not) “magic,” which in this setting is like old style magic but cast via computer software. Don’t ask me how. But what makes it interesting is how the whole concept of dempa town, or Akihabara, become sea of magic when the creators decide to equate wireless computer systems with nexus of magical power. Tokyo here becomes a more familiar place, since the story takes place in modern time, but the canned results are…canned. This is definitely a show I watch for the setting; it’s another light novel adaptation, and it shows via the complex world the first two episodes have painted.
Shangri-la is still running, right? And it plops the signature Ikebukuro billboards into both holograms and rain-forested ruins? That show is so all over the place. At least it’s got interesting characters, which is probably the only way one could forgive it.
