Otakuism

IKnights article about his love of Karin got me thinking about if there was some forgotten or maligned anime I’ve seen that, despite my own high standards, I loved anyways. So I go to check out my MAL anime list and it turns out there’s not just one show that fits the bill, there’s a slew of shows that make me wonder how I ever finished them AND enjoyed them.

For instance, there’s Dragonaut, the most maligned series in recent memory (ie. from two seasons ago) and for good reason. It is a sloppy mess of a story filled with big boobs and bad CG. Admittedly it was probably the boobs that got me to watch the show, standards mean nothing before hormones, but I did finish it because I liked the characters and the story, however awful it was. There’s Grenadier, a show whose main selling point was that the heroine reloaded her gun just be swishing her breasts around. A pattern may be developing here actually.

Continuing on, there’s Elemental Gelade, which I doubt many remember. If there was ever a definition of generic fantasy anime then Gelade is it. Still, I watched all of it, no doubt helped along by how insatiably moe Rin is. Also had a great OP. Then there’s Gift ~eternal rainbow~, yet another eroge adaption that was probably forgotten because Kanon was airing at the same time. I can’t remember how I even started watching it or what drove me to complete it. It’s pretty average - there’s probably worse eroge shows - and to its own merit it has a few good Kaede moments towards the end. Keep in mind I also couldn’t finish ef, the eroge darling before Clannad started, which really says something about my slippery standards. Then there’s Mai-Otome…well, we all got duped into watching that so I can’t say much there.

Apart from the genuinely bad shows I enjoyed, there’s also the many goods ones that were for whatever reason tragically ignored. I will sing the praises of Bartender to the hills and back as one of the most brilliant adult pieces of anime ever made, but people easily dismissed it for not owning up to its epic hype, which admittedly I also fed. Betterman is the only anime I’ve ever seen that actually has horror that makes me huddle down in my seat, but because it’s old and mecha and had a somewhat whiny protagonist it’s forgotten.

Ufotable’s Futakoi Alternative is probably the best dramatic-romantic-comedy I’ve seen but many people just tuned it out, mainly for refusing to settle down into one category. Even when a show that defies genre conventions comes around people still ignore it for not following the same conventions they were already railing against. That’s more a fault with people in general, actually. Finally there’s Skull Man, which was a perfectly plotted dark and mature show. It was also based on a one-shot tokusatsu story written in 1970 from the guy who made Kamen Rider, so there wasn’t much hope for it to begin with. And then there’s all the old shows I’ve seen, but they’re old so nobody cares.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned after so much blogging and so much watching, of both good and bad, it’s that anime really is the most subjective form of art. Objectively people will point to some work - invariably Hayao Miyazaki comes up a lot - and say “look! That’s the best of anime right there,” but that doesn’t work out. Anime is made of so many diverse elements - design, animation, characters, story, voice, merchandising - that even the worse show can have one element that some person out there will love it for. So, really, none of us should feel guilty for liking one show or entitled to like another one just because it’s critically acclaimed. In my head I call it the Aesthetics of Likeability, but if I really understood aesthetics could I actually have watched and enjoyed Dragonaut? Now that’s a question that requires some deep soul searching, which I don’t have time for cause I’m going to go watch some Kamen no Maid Guy.

NPR did a short segment on the amazing popularity of graphic novels, and of course manga is featured as an integral part of that explosion. There’s nothing really new or interesting to the segment, but about halfway through a line from an anime is played, and as soon as I heard it I swore I had heard it before. Lo and behold, it was a line from Takemoto of Honey & Clover. He always did have such unique ways of speaking. But the interesting thing is, where did they get a recording of Honey & Clover when the anime isn’t out in the US? Is there some secret otaku out there in the NPR offices? You can listen to the segment here.

Now that’s a yell.

I open up my issue of TIME and find a complete article about 4chan and Moot. It’s 4chan, in print no less! There’s also the fact that the Wall Street Journal did its own article on 4chan earlier. My favorite quote from the TIME article:

You may not realize it, but 4chan has probably touched your life. Possibly inappropriately.

Way to be subtle there. I hope to god there’s no actual news going on in the world right now that needs reporting.

Clearly the only way for the Japanese to solve this problem is the way they solve every other problem: giant, crow-killing mecha. I’m sure the ministry of Agriculture is already on it.

Why are there four different sub groups for Kanokon? IT’S FREAKIN’ KAN-O-KON! There’s not really that much plot in between all the fanservice to understand. I know, some people want to watch this show, but only one group should suffice for them. Ideally, all these wasted translators could spend their time subbing things I actually want - Xabungle, Dragonar, Layzner, Kuuga, Agito, Might Gaine, J-Decker - and various other shows that send me into fanboyish glee. Even more ideally, I would actually know Japanese, but reality doesn’t work that way. Curse you, Reality!

Ok, so many of you probably have no idea what this is. Back when Gurren-Lagann ended there were a few threads on /m/ on how awesome it would be to have Kamina and Kittan as police officers in the afterlife. It was called Garhalla Vice (cause, you know, everyone in GL goes to Garhalla). Eventually people realized it’d be better to just make it all in an alternate universe, and a true /m/an stepped forward to actually draw the thing. That /m/an is captainosaka, and true to his word Double K has become a reality. View the first four pages and other promo art here. I hope this is the awesome beginning to many epic things to come.