As you guys well know, I really like Konosuba a lot—and I think it’s fun to reflect on what exactly about the show works so well for me. One of the major themes that’s stuck out to me from the show (yes!! themes!! in an anime comedy!!) is that of failure, accompanied by a stark depiction of an unfair world and the main cast’s response to all the troubles they encounter. This column contains my reflections on that idea, so I hope you enjoy it!
Generally speaking, I don’t recommend writing fandom-related pieces from outside the fandom, but today I threw out my own rule for the sake on indulging my fascination with the super interesting artifact that is Digimon Adventure tri. As you’ll read in the article proper, I’m not much of a Digimon fan (by not much, I mean not at all), but Adventure tri proved to be interesting on a number of text-internal and audience-external levels. I dunno if any of you guys have much interest in Digimon, but I hope you’ll check out this post anyways; I think the stuff I talk about it relevant (and hopefully compelling) whether or not you have attachment to the franchise.
Whew, it’s been a while, huh? Apologies for the delay—weekend trip and video games have a bad habit of messing up my routines so thoroughly that I can’t get other things done even if I have the time.
Ah, where to start with this bounty of good anime that is the Winter 2016 season (and, looking ahead to Spring 2016, it seems this trend of goodness will continue in sync with the beauty of spring weather, which has finally arrived in the Midwest)? I suppose, to make sure I have to end on a high note eventually, we’ll cover the downers right at the beginning here.
Dimension W saw its departure from my weekly schedule this week, as being behind by two episodes and the general lack of presented reasons to care about anything finally outweighed my fondness for Mira on the “should I keep watching this” scale. The show’s collapse since episode 4 has easily placed it into the top spot of disappointing shows of the year for now, as I was genuinely excited for this project before the season started and even more so after the first three episodes. But, alas. I suppose there had to be at least one let-down in this otherwise wonderful season. I’ve also entirely given up keeping track of Phantom World—Guppy or no Guppy. That…actually might be old news, but I sort of forget when I actually chucked that one off the list.
There have been other shows with less-than-glamorous showing over the past two weeks, but I’m at least still continuing to keep those shows on my schedule for now.
Pictured above: me, continuing to watch GATE.
I jest a little bit about GATE S2, but the fact is that this show continues to fascinate me by its holistic and entirely devoted commitment to its particular set of ideologies. A new high-point was the most recent episode’s introduction of a hilariously overdone skeevy journalist straw man that is just another piece of the show’s hyper-suspicious worldview, aggressive-defensive worldview. In fact, it was good enough that I feel like I’m finally at the point where I have enough ammunition (intentional word choice, that) to actually put together that post on GATE that I’ve been promising to write since the end of the first season. That’s more of a reflection of my own mental processes than those of the show, though, as the most recent episodes have wildly varied from so boring I skipped through the whole thing (episode 8) to mostly boring but also kind of fun (episode 9). Lelei is still the best, by the way.
Speaking of shows of varying quality, Durarara!! x2-3 continues to march towards a potentially compelling finale without giving any strong signals as to whether or not its actually going to cash in on all the build up its been doing for almost three full seasons now. In all honesty, my hopes aren’t super high, but with only a few weeks left I feel I might as well finish it out and appreciate whatever goodness I am able to eke out of the show. There are a ton of loose ends still flopping around that I feel aren’t likely to be resolved, but as long as we get a somewhat satisfying ending for Kida, Anri, and Mikado, I’ll be happy enough.
Another show with a lot of loose ends and not much time left is ERASED, which I’m no longer as down on as I once was—but I think it’s far to say that my emotional investment in the show, even in Kayo, has frayed quite a lot. It’s sad, really. Episode 8 should have been a genuine watershed episode and episode 9 should have been the warm conclusion, but I feel the show continues to trip over its own feet with stuff like Kayo’s grandmother showing up out of nowhere and the continued hints at the teacher being the murderer. I really don’t care at all who the killer is—I just want to see who Satoru is able to turn the tables on him, particularly now that the emotional core of the story (Kayo) is gone. ERASED certainly hasn’t lost its ability to be tense and thrilling, but no longer works on the emotional level it once did. But, I have some hope! I think Tomohiko Ito and crew can still make it a fun watch, and if they’re able to pull that off I’ll be plenty happy.
Of course, ERASED has a long way to go if it wants to catch up with the intensity of Haikyuu!!, which has turned on the afterburners the last two weeks with the Karasuno versus Seijoh game. I’ve made no secrets either here on the blog or on my Twitter that I think Tooru Oikawa is hot and a super fun personality, so getting to see him in glorious action has been awesome. And, more generally, the match itself has been as much a battle of personalities as it has been volleyball, which adds a layer of fun to the game that has been missing from battles past. I’d frankly be more than happy to watch this match stretch out through the end of the season, but I’m sure that’s not going to happen and I’m sure Seijoh isn’t going to beat Karasuno (sadly, since I’m genuinely rooting for Seijoh to win at this point). “Push it, push it, push it, push it, Tooruuuuuuuu!”
And with that, I’ll stop spinning my wheels and start talking about the shows that really matter most to me this season: Mahoutsukai Precure, Konosuba, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, and Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash—all of which have continued to be varying shades of unique excellence in the time I’ve been away.
I’ll start off with MahoPri, which continues to delight me with its feeling of freshness despite continuing to (sort of, I think?) follow the franchise formula. From the imaginative battle choreography to the crisp visuals to the ongoing loveliness that is Yui Horie’s performance as Riko to the whimsical feeling of the world, MahoPri has had good episode after good episode without ever letting up. I suppose it still remains to be seen how the series holds up over the long run, but if the misfits in Riko and Mirai’s supplementary class are destined to be the other Precure, I think things are going to work out just fine.
Likewise, Konosuba continues to hit comforting and joyful notes for me, even when its on what felt to me like a bit of an off week in episode 8. Aqua’s powerful on her own, but the rest of the cast really is very good and watching them derp around the world together just makes me really, really, really happy. As you’ve seen, I continue to write about the show for Crunchyroll, but no matter how many logically reasoned articles I write I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to fully express why Konosuba resonates so much with me. Some of it is tied up with Aqua, but some of it rests in the pocket of the show’s mood/atmosphere. And that’s okay, I think. I don’t need to completely articulate from top to bottom why I like something. I’ve done enough. I’m satisfied with that.
On the more serious side of things as this post draws to a close, I finally caught up with Rakugo Shinju and oh. my. land. What a show, people, what a show. It’s tragic, it’s sad, it’s insightful. It’s beautifully, heartbreakingly storyboarded and directed, and every movement of the camera, cast, and sound is precisely and delicately calculated. Just in terms of sheer artistic thoughtfulness, Rakugo Shinju is a marvel, but the maturity of the story is similarly powerful in effect. I’m in awe, I’m in love. And I’m so immensely thankful I didn’t try and do something crazy like blogging this show weekly—it’s one of those things I think I’ll have to sit on for a long time before I’m really able to write about it well (forget about the post I wrote at the beginning of the season).
And we’ll finish off with Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash today, which finally drew the post-Manato’s death arc to a close in episode 8 and started to look forward to a new healing for the party in episode 9. I feel like I remember someone in the comments of a past Anime Weekly saying they were going to write about Grimgar and grief (and they may have tweeted the link at me), but I wasn’t able to find it and read it—so if you’re out there reading, send that post my way again! Anyways, the conclusion to the Manato’s death arc was as satisfying and sensitive as I’d hoped—placing Grimgar up there along with Blast of Tempest as one of the best depictions of the grieving process in anime. That’s high praise.
ERASED may have fallen in my esteem as of late, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still things about it that I like. In fact, the first part of the most recent episode is probably as much as I’ve liked the show since the end of episode three. And it got me thinking about director Tomohiko Ito’s other work that I’ve seen, Sword Art Online, which is of course a dangerous path to go down. But I walked it nonetheless, and what follows are my conclusions. I hope you guys enjoy it!
In which things, aside from one prominent outlier, stay mostly the same.
Someday, I will learn to leave inferior sequel series alone and just rewatch good things. Today is not that day. But, lest you get the wrong idea from the combination of this opening paragraph and the lead image, let me note that Akagami no Shirayuki-hime is unequivocally not one of those shows. In the last few weeks I feel my thoughts on Shirayuki-hime have really started to come together in a coherent fashion, and if I have get out of this blogging slump I’m in, I think I’ll have some really substantive to say on the series as a whole once it’s finished. In particular,the idea of unchanging people has been recurring with far more frequency than I expected it to, confirmed that Shirayuki-hime‘s chief concerns are not really those of “telling a story,” per se. It’s not even what I would consider “character driven,” as it seems more interested in changing the world around Zen, Shirayuki, and the others than in changing them.
I think that’s okay. Good, even. We humans are kind of terrified of stasis (and not for good reason), but the facts are that the changes we experience are constantly minor—and constant. This is the kind of reality Shirayuki-hime depicts, the little ups and downs of relationships. In this week’s episode, specifically (and aside from Ando’s continued use of the window motif), the real highlight for me was the moment when Shirayuki says she wasn’t worried about the marriage interview. It’s a recognizable impulse, to downplay your own emotional turmoil to keep a strong face, but in this case in backfires when it causes Zen confusion and worry. Of course, they work out the misunderstanding and reconcile, but that little motion of weak humanity… I loved it. And I love this show. This is one of the “sames.”
Grimgar is another show that’s dealing with the little piece of humanity that bump up against each other (although I don’t love it the same way I love Shirayuki-hime). And the fact that it’s coming via Ranta is cool, because Ranta doesn’t really deserve it, all things considered. He’s a jerk, hard to work with, and thoughtless. His perspective on the party is the antithesis of what Haruhiro is trying to create in the void Manato left, but just because he’s different doesn’t mean he’s entirely wrong. He’s certainly not completely right, but neither is Haruhiro. The really interesting thing about the situation, as I see it, is that Haruhiro’s ideas about being a party and a group of friends necessarily means that he’s inclined to give ground to Ranta, but Ranta’s ideas mean he’s never going to do the same. It’s an uneven, and Ranta’s a fool if he thinks they can continue on like this without serious consequences down the line. But, to some extent, you have to feel for Ranta—the way he is now, he’s likely not going to be happy, no matter where he goes or who he’s with. (This is another “same.” Duck.)
Yume continues to be a joy, かな~.
This week the subs for MahoPri got released earlier than normal, which means I have two episodes (5 & 6) to talk about! Although… both episodes kind of covered the same ground, so that doesn’t mean I have twice as much to say. It’s not a bad thing, though, as we’re continuing to explore Riko’s insecurities as a magician. Precure isn’t really a show you should go to for nuanced characterization and journeys, but it still typically does a really nice job of taking its characters seriously and sympathetically. I think Riko’s character is such that she could hover dangerously close to being insufferable, but the material with her sister this week was a nice pivot from her tantrum from last week. I don’t expect she’ll ever entirely give up her mild tsun traits, but I think we’ll likely see a much more confident, fun-to-watch Riko in future weeks. Now for some Mirai drama… (Duck.)
It’s been a long time since Rakugo Shinju has been this far down the list and I want you all to know that is in no way a judgement on Rakugo‘s quality this week. After last week’s vivid colors and flaring emotions of separation, anger, and pain, this week was all about the stark and drab and empty appearance of loneliness. It wasn’t just Kiku’s climactic performance and his willing(?), thankful(?) adoption of solitude, but everything about the way the episode was shot and handled. From Kiku’s rejection of the student to the current (now deceased) generation’s Yakumo’s death and guilt over his name, Rakugo plumbed into the depths of isolation—but it seems it can only stay there so long, for humans are built to be in community with each other. And so we see Kiku take a break from his beloved rakugo to seek out Sukeroku and Miyokichi… what will he find there? A child. The sheer product of human togetherness, no matter what pain it was borne out of. (Duck.)
(Goose!) The outlier appears! It’s Konosuba! As I said in the comments last week, you guys were wise to warn me of episode 9. It was… huh, not quite as bad as I was expecting it to be, but it was still deeply uncomfortable in many ways. To be honest, I do think there was more to this episode than just off-the-rocker uncontrolled fanservice and nasty attitudes, but what was there was buried somewhat deep. There was almost a sense of bitterness to the scene of Kazuma in the succubus shop and the scene with Darkness in the path was profoundly horrid without gloss. Somewhere in there, with all the “pick your sexual perversion” and the “inability to distinguish between dream fantasy and reality, and the ugly effects thus enacted on a real person” and the “boy guards the fetishized deliverer of his sexual fantasy form actual women” is a pretty scathing, maybe even angry, critique of otaku sexuality, but I think it unfortunately got lost in the execution. So it goes.
The rest of the week, as I’ve said, kind of held par for the course. ERASED started really nicely (so nicely that I actually wrote my weekly column for Crunchyroll on it!), but then dove straight into emotionally empty (albeit it totally fun) thriller camp. Haikyuu!! continues to use three-deep flashback in the most tension-breaking way possible, while Durarara!! x2 spun its wheels for yet another week. I couldn’t honestly tell you what happened in this week’s GATE besides Lelei being good and Shandy (whose name I finally learned by tweeting it a whole lot) being good, too.
And that about covers it for me. I’ve banned myself from playing video games during the week to keep myself more productive, so I’ve gotten back on track with Dennou Coil and have started Gunbuster (which I kind of wanted to do a weekly series on, but my early impressions are that it wouldn’t hold up to that kind of analysis well). I’m also clipping through Puchimas, which is delightful if you’re an idolm@ster fan, and eying finishing up the second half of Fullmetal Panic soon.
That’s about all from me, but here’s a picture of a robot balancing on one foot with tires on its head.
As I promised, here’s my full review of Hanayamata. Or… a close to a full review as you’re going to get, because I honestly didn’t have a ton to say about the series. I have most definitely seen shows in this genre before (I was even thinking about how Love Live!‘s structures follow many of the same patterns), and I honestly don’t think Hanayamata does much to rise above the general motions of the genre. That doesn’t mean it’s bad; in fact, I quite enjoyed most of the show. But it did mean that the show was very reliant on the effectiveness of its characters within the larger superstructure—aka Yaya is good.
I’m always sort of amazed how just watching one show can trigger a series of thoughts that tie a bunch of disjointed ideas together in my head. Thus it was with Hanayamata, and now here we are with a new Aniwords column on slotting in character archetypes into genre shows and why it all actually works.
The end times approach.
So, Konosuba ended this week, marking the beginning of the last hurrah for the surprisingly good Winter 2016 season and inviting all of us to look ahead to the upcoming bounties of spring. But before we allow Winter 2016 to give up the ghost, let us remember the good times we’ve had (and are still having!).
The aforementioned Konosuba left us first, thanks to its tragically short 10 episode run (thankfully, we already have a season two coming our way). It was pretty much a vintage Good Konosuba episode, complete with great Aqua moments of both the triumphant and not-so variety, some explosions, and Darkness even showing a bit of legitimate character! I’ll reserve my overall thoughts on the show for a later date, but as finale episodes for episodic comedies go, I dunno if you can do much better than Konosuba did. It checked all the boxes of a grand finale without forgetting its greatest charms, which was delightful to see and experience. And, unlike some of the other episodes, this one was mostly devoid of wider satirical comedy, although the complaining of the wizard over not being granted enough funds to actually complete his assigned government project seemed to have more than a shade of real world commentary.
And, to close out the Konosuba section, remember: Aqua is the best.
Haikyuu!! S2 officially still has one episode left, but given that an S3 is coming and there’s not enough time to really get into anything else, I think we can more or less consider this somewhat disappointing season of cute volleyball boys close. And that feels weird to say, because Haikyuu!! ended the Karasuno–Seijoh match with what was, hands down, the sequel series’ best episode. Although Karasuno won, it was really Oikawa (that point to Iwazumi!!) and Seijoh who stole the show for me. At some point in the middle of this episode I forgot I was watching a story and started reacting to the episode as if it were a real sports game—complete with the intense bitterness over Seijoh’s loss that I feel when my real life sports teams lose. Oikawa’s not a genius, but he has worked harder than anyone to hone the talent he does have and so it hurt to see him downed by plot and circumstance so Karasuno (who have really become pretty dull as a unit, in my opinion) could truck on. Well, you can’t win them all.
One clear winner out of this week’s crop of episodes, though, was Grimgar, which successfully closed the emotional-personal side of Mary’s arc with grace and then shifted quickly to give Ranta the long-coming character redemption he’s deserved. I was talking with a friend on Twitter about Ranta earlier this week and we were both in agreement that we really don’t want Ranta to die. As I see him, he’s just as much of a scared kid as the rest of the crew—and just because he’s a jerk and a wannabe peeper doesn’t mean he’s rotten to the core. In fact, this week proved my suspicions correct that Ranta would sacrifice himself for the rest of the party if needed. I’m glad they’re going to be coming back to get him and that he’ll likely live, because that seems like the necessary conclusion to Grimgar‘s season-long musings on understanding others.
Akagami no Shirayuki-hime continued its own (albeit somewhat shorter) streak of success with a hilarious comedy episode this week that not only provided laughs, but also left us with a whole lot to think about in terms of the ways these characters relate to each other. There’s a lot of love between Zen, Mitsuhide, Kiki, Shirayuki, and Obi, but there’s also loyalty and kindness and friendship. It’s a whole range of good relationship behaviors and attitudes piled together, but I think it’s notable that even in the midst of this Zen and Mitsuhide can find room for a petty fight. Love and trust aren’t automatic antidotes to all relationship woes—even a well-established relationship will always need constant work to stay afloat and healthy. But, to come back to the main quintet, I have to say that my favorite thing about this episode was how everyone was present as Shirayuki passed her exam. Everyone was right there alongside her. It wasn’t overdone or dramatized. It just was. And it was lovely.
Somehow Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju finds itself all the way down in the middle of the post again this week—and once more, that is absolutely no comment on the episode’s quality. It was a bit lighter in tone, but the things Rakugo Shinju do are all important, even down to Konatsu being a cute little thing and getting her haircut and having rakugo performed for her. In a way, she represents the fascinating ideal of the audience, an innocent, perpetually entertained, fresh, and bright image. But the flipside to Konatsu is, in a weird way, her mother, as Miyokichi incarnates the angry, damning, unforgiving audience. They both give and they both take and they both have their reasons. Tragedy’s grim specter hangs over the theatre of life once more.
I can’t keep writing paragraphs on how wonderful Mahoutsukai Precure is, but here I am again, this time to praise how the show is handling its multiple henshin sequences. This week’s Sapphire was definitely my favorite of the three we’ve seen so far, but what really struck me when watching was how different it was from the other two. Not just because of the colors or the animation, but because it had an entirely distinct feel to it. It was elegant, graceful, and dignified, a nice contrast to the bombast of the Ruby henshin and the crispness of the Diamond henshin. We’ve presumably got a whole bunch more of these henshin coming with numerous Linkle Stones left, and I’m really excited to get to see what the staff can continue to cook up for Mirai and Riko.
And in the overtime round, we have Durarara!! x2-3 well and truly plunging into an inscrutable muck of character motivations. If Mikado has been slowly going insane, the show’s done an absolutely horrid job of cluing us into that. And if he’s doing it for some reason, it’s done a similarly terrible job making those motivations clear to the audience. My hopes for a satisfying conclusion have been pretty much dumped. GATE‘s paradrop episode was dull and featured infuriating blushes from lady knights who shouldn’t be blushing, while ERASED continued its slow march towards irrelevance with more entertaining-in-the-moment thriller camp and sadly abbreviated emotional material.
And that’s all from me! Let’s gear up for a week of finales!
I’ve been somewhat remiss about writing on my love of theatre, drama, musicals, and performance in general on here, so I’m pretty happy Rakugo Shinju gave me both the inspiration and the motivation to do a little bit of that with this post. I’m also counting this piece as my final reflection on Rakugo Shinju, as I feel it expresses my most pressing thoughts on the show well enough that I wouldn’t have much to say beyond talking about it on a craft level (which would be a phenomenally huge undertaking). You get this instead and I hope you enjoy it!
The Winter 2016 season of anime was a weird one for me—one where the unexpected winners of the season were shows I had fully intended to ignore from the start and one where old standbys didn’t manage to impress me the way they had in the past. That all being said, I’m pleased with this season, even as I look forward to the bounties of spring.
[If you want to recap the entire fall season, from my first impressions all the way through the penultimate week, you can hit up everything I’ve written in the Winter 2016 tag!]
Ultimately, being kind of fun sometimes can’t hold your show up underneath the weight of bearing numerous ugly philosophies. For every scene of Lelei being awesome, GATE throws in a scene of chilling violence. For every fun moment with Rory being Rory, the show constructs outrageous strawmen to perpetuate its regressive views on the world, humanity, and might. I’d say I had a positive experience watching GATE, but that experience was largely due to what I brought to the show (a fascination with the absolute lack of nuance in its ideological positions and a fondness for the characters I’d met in the first season—most of whom weren’t really given all that much screentime in this one).
So, while GATE is certainly a unique product of a specific kind of worldview, I can’t at all recommend it in good conscience. There are moments of fun, but there is altogether too much in the show that tends towards the dark and the disturbing and the gross.
I said early in the season that ERASED was an 8/10 show at best, but then it proceeded to upset me in a way only matched by GATE with its treatment of Airi in episode 4 and 5, and my opinion of the show never really recovered. ERASED was a show torn in half between a thoughtful character drama (which was, generally quite good) and a part-good, part-bad thriller. It was never able to reconcile these two distinct and opposed selves in a satisfying way, which meant I was never really able to connect with the stuff I wanted to like. This is no way to watch a show, really, and with my emotional investment and trust in the show shattered, it kind of stumbled along to the end until it finally fully embraced WIXOSS-style camp and suddenly became entertaining on the most base level a show can be without being utter garbage. I don’t bear ERASED any ill will, but I wish they’d started tipping people off roofs earlier if that’s what they were going to do.
Awards: (Honorable Mention: Best ED—”Sore wa Chiisa na Hikari no yō na” by Sayuri)
I’m left wondering if Durarara!! x2 might have felt like a better, more successful show had I marathoned it rather than watched it weekly. The extra distance between episodes made an already disjointed and scattered story even more difficult to follow, and keeping tabs on the various characters’ physical locations (let alone their psychological motivations) nearly impossible. However, I don’t think even a marathon could have saved Durarara!! from the character saturation that continually teased brilliant concepts and just as frequently withheld satisfying conclusion. There’s both a poignant human story and an incredibly smart sociological tale in Durarara!!, but it never manages to really articulate either of this elements clearly—and that’s a real shame. None of this reflects negatively on my thoughts on Durarara!!‘s first season, but it would have been so cool to see this story ends its run in a better fashion.
Speaking of sequels that didn’t live up to the charm of their original seasons, Haikyuu!!‘s second season wound up being a show I’m quite ambivalent on. The highs—Yachi’s wonderful arc and the entire Seijoh-Karasuno match—far outstripped the first season’s best moments, but the lows were far lower. From the tepidly paced training arc to the meaningless matches in the first part of the tournament, Haikyuu!!‘s consistent entertainment value from the season vanished, replaced by occasional burst of excellence in the midst of long stretches of dull. Worse, the previously charismatic Karasuno team (not a deep bunch of characters even in the first season) suffered greatly as the show expanded its focus on side-characters, leaving them feeling almost unlikable by the end of the show. My outrage over Oikawa and Seijoh’s (inevitable) loss to Karasuno is, I think, indicative of how completely my feelings on Haikyuu!! since the first season. Will I watch season 3? I’m honestly not sure.
Awards: Best Sports (Honorable Mentions: Best OP—”Fly!!” by BURNOUT SYNDROMES, Best Male Character—Tooru Oikawa)
I wasn’t even intending to watch Konosuba at the start of the season. While I liked the character designs, the promise of overbearing ecchi content had made me decide to leave it alone. And then, suddenly, people started talking about how the first episode was great fun because of two jerks being jerks to each other. I was in the mood for something like that at the time, but what I found was something completely different. I found a show with a sense of benignly acidic humor… and I found Aqua. I could talk about the other elements of Konosuba, but my overall feelings on the show are so colored by my immense love for Aqua that it would be impossible to talk about it without talking about her. Aqua’s one of my favorite anime character of all time. She’s lazy, petty, naive, rash, foolish, and she walks into dumb situations without a second thought. She gets beaten down by the world thanks to her own idiocy, but she bounces back. She’s all of the worst (and some of the more neutral) parts of me and I love her for that.
On the whole, Konosuba wound up being a show I laughed at a lot, but not one that really is going to stick with me the way other pet shows might. But Aqua. Aqua will remain in my memory and my heart for a long time.
Awards: Pet Show of the Season, Best Comedy, Best Female Character—Aqua, Best ED—”Chiisana Bōkensha” by Sora Amamiya & Rie Takahashi & Ai Kayano
While the kidnapping arc was a significant blemish on Akagami no Shirayuki-hime‘s second season, it wasn’t enough to keep down the best parts of the show—which bloomed in the first quarter and absolutely flourished in the final few episodes of the season. This is a remarkable show. A special show. One with a character that it unparalleled, at least amongst the anime I’ve watched. What we got in Shirayuki-hime was an elegant, intimate pseudo-narrative (but, certainly, a story) of two friends who became lovers and how their love and kindness spread to those around them. Massive credit is due to both director Masahiro Ando, whose wonderful touch made the show sparkle visually beyond the shoujo glimmer, and composer Michiru Oshima, whose score was absolutely divine and a pivotal element in making numerous scenes work. This is one I can’t wait to buy.
Awards: Best OST, Best Romance (Honorable Mentions: Best Visual Aesthetic, Best Female Character—Shirayuki)
An unexpected treat that came short and late in the season, She and Her Cat deserves the spot its getting here for its quiet depiction of a young adult going through the difficult transition from college to the real world through the eyes of her cat. Although I had a few minor issues with the way the Daru’s narration was handled throughout the series, overall it was a lovely piece of atmospheric anime. Highly recommended alongside the Animator Expo short “tomorrow from there.” as required viewing for young adults struggling through the pains of transitional life periods.
Awards: Best Short, Best Slice of Life
Another fantasy light novel adaptation I didn’t even intend to watch at the season’s start, somehow Grimgar found its way almost to the very top of the metaphorical seasonal pile. The merits here, I’m told, are almost entirely due to the scriptwriting and directorial efforts of director Ryousuke Nakamura, who transformed a run-of-the-mill light novel that peaks through the cracks ever now and then into a far more mature, intelligent, and valuable production. Grimgar‘s certainly got its flaws—irritating fanservice, insert songs that take over the scene at inopportune moments—but it’s also got huge strengths in its notable aesthetics and thoughtful writing/pacing. There’s a lot to enjoy here, and a lot of heart. And Yume is a joy.
Awards: Best Fantasy, Best Adventure, Best Visual Aesthetic (Honorable Mentions: Best Story, Best Female Character—Yume)
And so we arrive at the best show of the season—my pick for the title from week one, and a pick that never wavered. Although we had our fair share of good (and even great) episodes from various shows this season, Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju was consistently a cut about everything else that aired this season. While, at the time of this writing, the finale hasn’t yet aired, that doesn’t matter. Rakugo Shinju is a show that inspires absolute confidence. Although well-written, it was truly carried by the excellent cinematography under the direction of Shinichi Omata, whose command of close-ups, blocking, and impressionistic shots gave us a rich and varied visual tapestry on which to see this story play out. It’s a beautiful show, and I highly recommend it.
Awards: Best Story, Best Drama, Best Male Character—Kikuhiko (Honorable Mentions: Best Visual Aesthetic, Best OP—”Usurahi Shinjū” by Megumi Hayashibara, Best Male Character—Sukeroku)
Mahoutsukai Precure (8/48 – currently, 7/10)
And that’s a wrap for the Winter 2016 season (although we’ve still got an episode of Rakugo Shinju left). On the whole, I’m pretty happy with it, but I’m excited for spring to come! See you guys next week for some premieres and stuff!
The Lost Village wasn’t my favorite premiere so far, but it was probably the most interesting first episode to anything that’s aired from the Spring 2016 season so far. My love affair (not literal) with Mari Okada is well-known, and while my feelings on Tsutomu Mizushima (Shirobako) are more ambivalent than you might expect, putting them together on a show was something I was looking forward to. Apparently, rightly. And so, this post on writing and horror and using characters for a very specific purpose was born.
I knew it was coming, but I still feel like this spring season took me by surprise. Maybe it’s because this is the first season that I can remember since I started watching seasonal anime where I didn’t have some kind of major life transition or important obligation concurrent with the start of the season. Maybe it’s because I was so focused in on Macross Delta‘s premiere that I forgot to emotionally prepare for everything else. Whatever the case, it’s here now and it’s time to take a look at what we’ve got!
Look, I’m not going to try to play coy here. There was one show I was looking forward to above all others, very nearly to the exclusion of all others. It was Macross Delta, and although I’d already seen most of the premiere episode (approximately twenty times, but that might still be low) thanks to the pre-air from three months ago, the premiere proper delivered on the promise almost beyond my wildest dreams. I mean, sure it was basically the pre-air episode (minus some cuts that I actually really missed!) up until the very end, but when you love an episode enough to watch it twenty times and then get a burst of incredible fun crazy enough to have you literally pounding the arm of your office chair so hard you’re afraid you’re either going to A) bruise your hand, or B) break your chair, little details like that don’t matter.
I’d actually like to write about Delta intelligibly and intelligently, so I’m considering writing episodic posts for it. I also hear it has much akin with the much-maligned Macross 7, which I want to watch somewhat soon to get a little bit closer to completing my watch of all the main Macross TV series (and Macross is nothing if not a franchise both self-referential and constantly in conversation with itself), so it seems the stars might align for me to start blogging about a show episodically for the first time in quite a while. I mean, other people are already writing really great stuff about Delta. I want to keep up! And also Delta is great so far, and I have things to say!
I also really enjoyed Mari Okada and Tsutomu Mizushima’s Mayoiga (on Crunchyroll as The Lost Village), which truly had… well, it certainly had a premiere. Ballads were sung of hippos. A girl puked her guts out a bus driver. A guy was named Speedstar (I mean, sure, it was his internet handle [cool post on that here], but still. All in all, it was certainly an adventure of a first episode even though nothing really much happened. I actually already wrote up some thoughts on the first episode for my weekly column over on Crunchyroll, so go check those out if you haven’t already if you’re interested in checking out my specific take on the show. The long and short of it is that I think Mayoiga‘s destined to become some kind of crazy ridiculous trainwreck (maybe intentionally, maybe not) and I want to be there to witness it when things get weird.
Joker Game seems to be the “responsible and mature anime fan” show of the season, following up Rakugo Shinju‘s period drama—albeit with the relationship drama replaced with a large crew of super arrogant, super hot spy dudes in suits doing cool spy dude things. That… makes Joker Game sound a lot less legit than it actually is, though, so what you should know is that I was quite impressed by Joker Game‘s first episode for reasons deeper than the superficial. What Joker Game seems to be is a very well-executed thriller with the undeniable style of cigarette smoke in the air, slick haircuts, and I’m back to style again. Okay, it was a stylish premiere and I really dug that. Who knows if it’ll have non-nationalistic themes (GATE was enough for me on that front) and continue to be good. And this premiere didn’t even hint at what the actual story will be. But style like this is a rare thing, so we gotta appreciate it when it comes.
Space Patrol Luluco: One of the dangerous secrets I hold within me is that I have never much liked Trigger’s stuff. Kill la Kill had many issues even excluding all the fanservice, Ninja Slayer was totally lame, and even Little Witch Academia failed to engender much affection from me beyond simple appreciation. The fact is that Space Patrol Luluco‘s director, Hiroyuki Imaishi, generally seems to have a sensibility to his stuff that is pretty oppositional to what I like in my shows. It’s got a lot of flash and color and personality in the presentation, but I often feels there’s a lot of emptiness behind it. This doesn’t just go for his Trigger work, but also for some of his other stuff, too (like Abenobashi and his Animator Expo short, “SEX AND VIOLENCE AT MACHSPEED”). Without the substantive spirit of something like Gurren Lagann (or even FLCL, which I didn’t care much for when I first watched it) behind his stuff, Imaishi feels like so many banging pots. And so it is with Luluco, sadly. Dropped.
Pan de Peace: On the other side of the short spectrum, we have something that’s largely lacking in ambition—but also something that exists in a universe where people carry baguettes in their backpacks to school, and for that alone I’m sticking with Pan de Peace for another episode. Plus, I happen to really, really like bread. So, feed me.
And now for the pure fun stuff, starting off with My Hero Academia, which had a great first episode that stuck really closely to the manga. All my hopes for this show were more or less confirmed by this premiere—Kenji Nagasaki (Gundam Build Fighters) was absolutely the right choice to tackle a show like this. Nobody in the industry right now understands the kind of naive glee of innocent youth the way he does. And man, if there is a show that embodies the naive glee of innocent youth, it’s totally My Hero Academia. This anime LOVES heroes, and it loves them deeply, generously, and honestly. I’ve had some good conversations with people already about some of the deeper genre and media landscape implications of HeroAca (partially in relation to One Punch Man), but the core essence of My Hero Academia is one entirely without guile and completely given over to hope and kindness. We can talk about some of the other stuff later; for now, let’s just root for Izuku.
We’ll finish off the day with Bakuon!!, which is certainly an anime I watched. On the whole, I enjoyed the premiere. There’s a bit of dumb humor in it that I appreciate and it’s fun seeing the mangaka geek out and run his mouth about these bikes through his characters, but I’m not sure if it’s got enough hook to keep me watching throughout the season. In fact, the most fun I had with Bakuon!! was actually on Twitter when a couple people I follow who actually know about and like motorcycles in real life started tweeting about the episode. I felt like I learned something, which is cool and actually a bit unique.
And that’s all I’ve got for the season so far! Macross Delta is here and that’s all that really matters to me right now, but there’s a bunch more stuff I’m looking forward to on the horizon.
In a real season of anime that isn’t as stupidly stacked as this one this, a lot more the premieres I check out that usually flop so I can leave them behind without feeling bad. This season, some of the cuts I’m making to my schedule feel like chopping down a sapling before seeing what kind of tree it will become.
As with the first installment of this season’s first impressions, I’ll start with the obvious winner: Concrete Revolutio: Superhuman Phantasmagoria – THE LAST SONG. As you may recall, Concrete Revolutio‘s first season was both my favorite show of the Fall 2015 season and my top anime for all of last year. It’s an intelligent, thoughtful, and sharp-edged musing on a gigantic pile of issues relevant to human cultures in general, but also a deeply emotional and personal character-driven story just as capable of delivering poignant character moments as it is grand (or, perhaps more appropriately, grim but hopeful) ideas about what is means to pursue peace, justice, and just doing the right thing. I didn’t really have any worries that this season would fall apart or fail to live up to the success of the first one – like Rakugo Shinju last season, Conrevo now exists in a plane where I trust it fully and without reservation.
This premiere was just proof of that, kicking off this season with yet another one of those emotionally draining, thematically rich kind of episodes only Concrete Revolutio is capable of achieving. There were quiet and more pronounced callbacks to the events of last season, a whole bunch more of Shiba’s compelling personal struggles, the reveal that the Bureau Chief is still alive and now paired with Jiro, cool action, and just another reflection on the same themes Conrevo‘s been wrestling with all along. In short, it was really excellent and left us with great hope for the rest of the series.
The other elephant in the room is obviously Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, the new show from the director of Attack on Titan and very clearly the new show from the director of Attack on Titan. However, in my opinion, Kabaneri is already better than its predecessor for the simple reason that it appears to have actual female characters (potentially in lead roles??), which I’m aware may be a slightly controversial opinion to have. As for the rest of the premiere, I had more fun with it than I expected without having to drift into watching it for comedic purposes. There’s just enough weight to things here that I’m willing to take Kabaneri seriously for now. My main concern for the show is that it’ll get bogged down in overwrought drama between the brave zombie fighting crew that the OP promises and the fearful, conservative establishment. In other words, the more action and the more bigness Kabaneri has, the better it will be. Do the right thing, Araki.
Elsewhere in “fun but possibly insubstantial” land rests the final BONES premiere of the season, Bungou Stray Dogs. My expectations for Bungou were actually relatively unambitious—all I wanted was for it to be fun, pretty, and potentially cool, and it managed to do all three. There’s really no sense of story here at all yet (and perhaps there won’t ever be), but that’s fine by me because these kinds of supernatural comedy anime generally work pretty well for me (see Blood Blockade Battlefront, a show with plenty of obvious similarities to Bungou). Aside from Kunihiko Ikuhara protege Takuya Igarashi’s pretty lighting-based direction and frequent collaborator Yoji Enokido’s writing, the biggest staffing headline here is Mamoru Miyano finally taking another true lead role – because holy crap Miyano is a very good seiyuu and I like listening to him. Bungou‘s overall more of a crapshoot as to whether or not it’ll actually stay good than BONES’ other shows this season, but it’s got enough going for it for now for me to feel optimistic.
It’s interesting that my two slice-of-life comedy picks for this season both ended up airing on the same day and both hit the same sort of tone. Of the two, Tanaka-kun is Always Listless was actually the one I was looking forward to most – and it wound up being the stronger offering of the two as well. The dozy lovechild of One Week Friends and Non Non Biyori (and directed by the latter’s director), Tanaka-kun is infinitely pleasant and cozy, embodying well the sleepy mood of its eponymous lead character. There’s already an easy, comfortable relationship between Tanaka and his friend Ohta, and the side cast look to be both cute in design and appropriately well-matched in personality. Everyone in Tanaka-kun is cheerful and kind, so it should be a delight to see them all come together as friends. And as a closing note, I’d be remiss not to mention that Tanaka-kun‘s OP-ED combo is easily the best this season.
Flying Witch is my other down-to-earth slice-of-life comedy for the season, and while I don’t think it’s quite as well directed to atmosphere as Tanaka-kun is, the family themes and the rural setting seem like they’ll present opportunities for Flying Witch to have much higher overall ceilings than its fluffy Saturday compatriot. As with Tanaka-kun, Flying Witch does a really good job of not overselling its jokes, leaving the comedy as a second priority to maintaining a warm tone. Even the more absurd or fantastical bits (like Makoto pulling out the mandrake) still perpetuate a quiet sort of attitude towards its overall execution. I’m not quite as sold on Flying Witch‘s main cast as I am on that of Tanaka-kun, but the lack of established relationships here means that makes sense. I’m looking forward to seeing this group slowly grow closer. And to more witch activity.
The last show that’s made my Spring watchlist is Mari Okada’s collaboration Studio Trigger, Kiznaiver. Okada and Trigger are two entities who like to loudly make their respective presences known within the projects they tackle, and Kiznaiver is no exception on that front. From the first post-OP scene being totally full of classic Okada dialogue to Trigger’s distinctively cartoony approach to character animation throughout, it’s quite a sight to see these two bullheaded creative forces coming together. After this premiere, I have some doubts about whether the Triggerisms (the Kamina clone, the Nui clone) can coexist well with the angst-filled setting Okada has created here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it can all work.
Aside from artistic influences, Kiznaiver also seems to be the most conceptually rich show I’m watching this season after Concrete Revolutio and Macross Delta. Okada has always been obsessed with material that deal with the relationships between people and the difficulties of understanding others (heck, even Mayoiga, as dysfunctional it is, riffs on this theme), and Kiznaiver is possibly more laser-focused on this idea than anything else she’s ever created – although through disparate fractured perspectives. Empathy and understanding have been taken out of the abstract and made painfully real in Kiznaiver, and I’m really hoping Okada can keep herself on-task enough to come up with some real emotionally resonant stuff and intelligent reflections on this theme. Cross your fingers, friends!
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, this is a big season. Too big. After really falling off my blogging pace following the completion of my Hyouka write-ups, I’m really starting to feel jittery about how lax I’ve been about my posting. I want to change that. And so, some shows, most of them strong enough that I didn’t really want to drop them, had to go. The following didn’t make the cut:
Out of the last post’s batch, Joker Game, Bakuon!!, Twin Star Exorcists, and Pan de Peace all hit the drop pile. Again, none of these shows had particularly bad premieres and I’m not dropping any of them because I didn’t care for them (Bakuon!! in particular was hard to let go), but I had to prioritize. I might still try out Dogokobo’s Three Leaves, Three Colors, but chances are good this is my final watchlist.
Let’s have a good season!
I’m continuing my coverage of the My Hero Academia manga over at The Fandom Post, which means I’m not officially Relevant thanks to the anime airing this season. The anime’s reportedly only scheduled for 13 episodes, which is a bit weird for me as a manga reviewer—the manga, despite being fun, still doesn’t feel like it’s totally hit its stride yet in this third volume. Anyways, the manga is still good and I’m having a ball watch it get adapted into an anime.
Check out the full review here!
I’ve been waiting since Non Non Biyori for a show to inherit its specific kind of slice-of-life bent, but I didn’t expect we’d get two of them in the same season (on the same day, no less!). As you already know, they are Tanaka-kun is Always Listless and Flying Witch, and I took some time on this week’s Aniwords to chat about how Tanaka-kun and Flying Witch are inheritors of the Non Non Biyori spirit and why the three of them work so well.
The point upon which all of this hinges is: humans are not built to be idols.
This post has been a long time coming. AKB0048 wasn’t my first idol anime, but it was the first one that connected with me on a deep emotional, intellectual, and spiritual level. There are a lot of reasons why this was so, and while the bulk of this post is intended to address AKB0048 and its treatment of idols on a thematic and what I’m calling a theological level, I hope it will also function well as a descriptor of why I love AKB0048 and how the series has shaped my interpretation and vision of fictional animated idols.
But first, a few important notes about where I’m coming from and about where AKB0048 is coming from.
I call this post a discussion of “the theology” of idols because I have come to a point where I am unable to entirely separate my interpretation of AKB0048 from my worldview as informed by my Catholic faith. As such, this is going to be a distinctively Catholic take on the show. While I have, at times, attempted to gain enough detachment to assess whether this weird conflation of my deeply held religious beliefs and my overpowering adoration for a piece of East Asian popular media is justified or simply me imposing my perspective for the sake of dodging cognitive dissonance, I’ve not had much success in that area. It may very well be both, to some degree. You all are likely better judges of this than I – dare I dare you to give me your opinion on this matter in comments?
As for AKB0048, the first three letters of the title give it away: this is no less than a advertisement for the real life girl idol group AKB48. At least two of the major production companies involved with AKB0048‘s creation (Starchild Records and GANSIS) have obvious ties to AKB48, and it’s likely that any other companies possibly hidden under the label of “AKB0048 Production Committee” would be related to the group in somehow, as well. Thus, AKB0048‘s very existence is indebted to the realities of Japanese idol culture. This is admittedly not a great starting point. The horrors of real idol culture are well-known (dating scandals, sexual abuse behind the scenes, acts of violence, death threats and online harassment, and the much maligned purity complex sustained by idol fans and the rules of being in an idol group), and I feel I must acknowledge this, if only to make clear that I do not remain willfully ignorant of the context out of which this show arises in the interest of preserving my feelings about idols.
Despite this awareness, my feelings on real life idols remain quite conflicted. It seems to be very easy for people to condemn idol groups and idol culture holistically – and while the final judgment may be shown to be correct in time (I rather suspect it well be), the selective gathering of evidence in opposition to idols bothers me. Why? Because, as I see it, such bias deliberately ignores seeing any potential good that may exist within the flawed structure (such as the genuine fun the idols may have along the way or the very real joy their performances bring to fans). Idol culture may be untenable generally, but I maintain that it is not evil at each specific point. As with most everything in life, it’s heterogenous – good and bad coexist, sometimes in paradoxical ways.
This serves as a pretty good platform to begin talking about AKB0048, and so we’ll begin with the episode that embodies this most fully, Season 1 Episode 6, “The First Handshake Event” (more commonly known as the “hater” episode). I had quite a bit of queasiness when I first watched this episode, as the handshake event is about as down-to-earth real as AKB0048 gets in terms of specific idol industry parallels. Superficially, the message of this episode seems to be, “Don’t let haters get you down! Haters are actually good for you because they can inspire you to do better!” There’s certainly a good argument for how this kind of thinking might be naive, potentially dangerous, and perhaps entirely impractical (or, worse, enables these kinds of people in real), but it’s a bit more complicated than that because show’s view on the audience. In the world of AKB0048, there are no enemies – only fans who have yet to be converted.
The hater episode also illustrates another point relevant to the way real life idols are scenes, which is that of ownership. The hater in Episode 6 lashes out at Orine because he sees himself as a custodian of the image of Sachiko, the idol Orine declares she wants to succeed. In other words, there is a particular ideal that the idol Sachiko must be for him, and because Orine does not align with that ideal in his mind, she is trampling on private property (or, perhaps, sacred ground). As I see it, the idol system actively encourages this kind of possessive behavior through a number of mechanisms – the primary one being the perpetuation of the idol purity complex.
This also intersects with the idea of image, as the elimination of romantic relationships and sexuality from the idol’s life allow them to remain pure and unsullied in the minds of the fans (that is, to remain ideal). And because an ideal is essential an conceptual object, not a person, this reduction of the idol’s humanity facilitates the fans’ ability to claim ownership. Because the idol belongs to no one specifically (and yes, in ownership seems to be coded to sex), she can belong to everyone generally – which provides enough vagueness that the individual fan can imagine that the idol does belong to him particularly. The benefits of this for the system of obvious: ownership equals investment, both financial and in terms of customer loyalty. The idol truly is truly an idol, a product manufactured for sale. As such, being an idol carries with it an element of inherent dehumanization, as the reality of human flaws, desires, and needs is sublimated into the image of inhuman perfection. Again, humans are not built to be idols.
But AKB0048 (the in-show group) differs in one important way from the real life AKB48: it is an ideological resistance group (and more! 0048 is basically a religious force by the end of the show), not a commercial outfit – and it’s here that the show begins to distance itself from the ugly realities of the industry. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that AKB0048 deliberately appropriates many of the discrete aspects of the idol superstructure to recontextualize them within its own setting, in the interest of molding them to fit its own ideal of what an idol should be. Haters, centers, dance lessons, elections, concerts, and more all become part of Shoji Kawamori’s proposed idol matrix, the crux of which is as follows:
0048 is the system by which the good of idols is maximized and the bad of the idol system is minimized.
This is a bold move by Kawamori (who is credited as Original Creator/Concept and Chief Director), but not an unexpected one from the man who has been obsessed with the efficacy of pop idols as methods for spreading peace for decades. What is more surprising, though, is the extent to which AKB0048‘s thematic concerns end up aligning (although imperfectly) with a pretty recognizable theology. Note here that I’m not arguing on the basis of creative intent – but even if they’re coincidental, the parallels are there.
One of the major theological implications of the Genesis creation story and “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26) is that, as beings who reflect the image of the Creator, we have been instilled with a deep and abiding desire for God. The practical upshot of this teaching is that every human desire is in some way a desire for God. To wish for good things that bring us happiness and joy is not simply a quest for the thing itself, but for the goodness within it. And, as God is the ultimate Good, the pursuit of these minor goods is nothing more than a subset of the human search for this God of Goodness. Taken a step further, even the want for things that are not good (in other words, sinful things) is bound by this truth. Every sin is a perversion of humanity’s need for God.
How does this relate to idols? The bible verse I referenced in the title of this post is from Exodus 20:3-5.
I am the Lord your God […] You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath […] for I am the Lord your God am a jealous God.
In other translations of the Bible, “graven image” has been translated as “idol” or “false idol.” The moral theology here is pretty easy to grasp: don’t worship other things as God because such devotion should be reserved for God alone. This, of course, includes offering pop idols the kind of absolute devotion that ought to be given to God. But the interesting thing here is that the nature of the idol-fan relationship strips away many of layers in other twisted pursuits of goodness, leaving the (False) Image of Perfection and the onlooker alone.
Yes, I propose that idols are the most approximate simulation of humanity’s need for God we’ve yet created for ourselves.
And this is doubly true, I feel, for fictional idols due to the distance their non-realness affords them from the reality of the industry. A human being can make a mistake, through negligence or intent shatter the foundational illusion of perfection on which their idolhood stands. But a fictional character? They can truly be perfect, as they are not subject to the weaknesses of free will that living human beings are. Humans are not built to be idols, but we certainly harbor the capacity to create them. In our quest for God, we have created inferior substitute after inferior substitute until we arrived something so very near the truth that it seems to point directly to it.
This is the beauty of AKB0048. It is, yes, something born out a hopeless quest to replace God, and yet it is simultaneously a wondrous reflection of that desire for Him. Shoji Kawamori’s vision for the idol has created fictional beings so very close to the Real Thing that I cannot help but stand in loving awe. It’s akin to witnessing an archer land a shot at the very edge between the innermost ring and the bullseye. The very core of Christian theology rests on the belief that born out of the ugliest of events in human history arose the most beautiful. I see a similar impulse in AKB0048, which asks, “What is the greatest good that you can find in something as dangerous and wrongheaded as unhumanizing people for the sake of propping them up as near-gods for the gratification of others?”
The answer: by ripping away the artificiality and the exploitative nature of the industry and replacing it with an pseudo-divine quest to bring love to the universe, idols can be transformed into a force of supreme goodness. Idols become a simulacrum for God.
Well, they almost do (and here is where the discussion of AKB0048 proper begins) – as I said, the parallels aren’t perfect. Within the context of the show’s universe, it’s really Sensei Sensei, the formless, indeterminate being who creates the lyrics of 0048’s songs who occupies the role of a Godlike being. The idols for 0048 and NONAME really serve more as prophets and saints, vessels who willingly take on the task of conveying the benevolence of the spirit of love and hope to the people. Music has long been recognized within a multitude of religious traditions as a method for communing with the divine, and although the J-pop tunes of AKB48 bear little resemblance to Gregorian Chant, their status as a channel for uplifting grace remains.
The pinnacle of this calling is a sort of ascension (and I use that word deliberately, as the perpetuation of the individual will and consciousness aligns the disappeared Center Novas with a far more Christian conception of heaven than something like the Buddhist Nirvana), where the idols who have most fully embrace the generous giving of themselves live on in perpetuity, singing for the sake of those who remain behind. And notice that the conditions for meriting entrance into that realm is not predicated on desire, but on action. “A life-threatening battle and concert,” that is, a situation which necessitates that the Center Nova be willing to give up everything for the sake of protecting the light of hope, is one of the setting conditions – but, as Yuko discovers, she must actively embody the person of a Center Nova in order to activate the Kiraras and open the gate. She must give it all up.
Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Notably, though, the effects of the Center Novas aren’t relegated merely to a steady pulse of song beneath the fabric of existence. Rather, their memory continues on in the minds and hearts of those who remain behind, inspiring others to following in their steps. For all her efforts to become a center Nova, Yuko’s real desire all along was the join Aachan on stage and sing along her. As brilliant as Yuko’s will to protect and serve was, she never quite achieved the purity of purpose that Aachan (and later Nagisa) demonstrate. So she falls just a bit short. A person, although they may inspire us along our path to the ultimate goal, can never quite serve as our primary focal point. It’s a childish, selfish desire of Yuko’s – her undoing, as it were, although I continue to love her dearly anyways.
Next, and while there’s been some contention over this, I don’t think it’s a debatable point that that the acquisition of the Center Nova status is positioned as the very pinnacle of any idol’s involvement with 0048. And yet, it is discontinued – out of fear. This I find resonates well with the distrust of self-sacrifice modern society has incubated. When an idol becomes a Center Nova, she disappears, subsumed (willingly!) into a grander purpose not comprehended by those left behind. It’s a death by two standards: a death to self and a death in the eyes of the world. Two characters—Tsubasa and Michan—even run away from the terrifying gift that the Center Nova becomes.
But that is a very grand kind of self-gift, and most of the personal losses suffered by the members of 0048 don’t scale this way (although that’s not to diminish their significance). Of these, the one that stands out to me most is Yuka giving up her sweetheart Mamoru in order to pursue her dream of becoming an idol. In the first episode of First Stage, Mamoru flatly tells her he’s in love with her but won’t be able to continue loving her is she joins 0048 – an arc resolved in episode 12 of First Stage when he tells Yuka he now only loves her as a member of 0048. Likewise, Nagisa sacrifices being with her family, and many of the other girls have given up other things for the sake of pursuing idolhood. The endurance of personal tragedy gives way to galactic heroism; the sacrifice of self paves the way to reach people (and the way successors are defined by their adherence to the spirit of the original members of AKB48 reminds me of the Christian quest to conform the self to Christ).
But I think I’ve unintentionally conflated self-sacrifice (the giving up of something) and self-gift (the giving of something). It’s the latter of these that AKB0048 focuses on most, as the core idea behind 0048 is that they are idols who “go to see you” (a bit of a twist on the real life group’s initial conception as “idols you can meet”). 0048 goes out – for what? To spread love, hope. Entertainment becomes the kind of catch all metaphor for these kinds of positive abstracts, as well as being the mechanism of transmission. But it’s all something given, and given, and given. Most accurately, I suppose you’d call it self-gift by way of self-sacrifice. As Nagisa says in the final episode of the show, “But even if you hate us… please don’t hate music or entertainment!” In other words, the messenger is willing to be killed as long as the message gets through, as long as love’s goal is achieved. Hm.
Self-gift through self-sacrifice is the kind of giving that does not require reciprocation. It’s unconditional love, as 0048 proves again and again by singing even to those who regret them. And this, you know, is an impossible thing for human beings to do. To give and give and give… humans are not limitless, not self-sustaining. AKB0048 manages to get around this issue by pushing idols to their maximum good and minimizing their bad. In real life, the dehumanization of the idol is a moral evil in the service of profit. But AKB0048 liberates the best of idols, the inspirational and generous power their carry by being super-human ideals. Humans are not built to be idols, so to become an true idol a human being must find sustenance outside of themselves (be it through God or through the power of fiction).
In other words, AKB0048 invents a form idolhood that allow idols to “un-humanize” themselves in the positive sense rather than be dehumanized in the negative. The will to good and see people, the will to sing of hope, the will to become a true Center Nova, is free. Catholic theology teaches that true freedom is the “freedom to good” (virtue) as opposed to the “freedom to do anything” (which nearly always results in vice). Nagisa, Yuko, Takamina, and the rest make choices to limit their “freedom to do anything,” which results in a detachment and an increased “freedom to do good.” Human nature is to indulge the self, but the pursuit of achieving the will of the divine is a recursive cycle that enables the individual to move beyond haters or weapons or personal weakness.
What does it mean to be an idol in AKB0048?To be an idol is to share love and hope with those who need it. Why is AKB0048 the best idol show about idols? Because it sees beyond the grime of idol reality and takes idols to their most inspiring and beautiful peak.
I will speak of hope / … / if you are lost in your tears / instead of consoling you / shall I tell you of the sky / which will soon grow light
These lyrics are from the first opening, “Kibou ni Tsuite,” and to me these are important as a kind of ethos for AKB0048. There is a sense of “looking beyond” in these words – an extension beyond the physical reality to something more. To me (and I’ll close with this), this is critical to the way AKB0048 communicates its messages about idols, love, and hope. In Kawamori and Mari Okada’s hands, AKB0048 goes big. Tonally, atmospherically, and in scope of imagination. Next Stage Episode 10, “Shouting Paradise,” features a scene where 0048 sings with a bunch of space gorillas to defeat the mechas of DES. It’s absurd, but it’s grandiose and expansive and magnanimous – “great-souled.”
To be an idol in AKB0048, it’s not enough to just be pretty or good at dancing or good at singing. You must have a great soul. If seeing great souls in others isn’t enough to inspire us to hope in the power love, I don’t think anything will be. And that’s what the idols of 0048 bring. That is why they go to see us. Not just so that we can hear their songs of love, but so that we may witness their all-encompassing, unconditional love for us and the gentle generosity of their great souls.
Am I putting AKB0048 on a pedestal? Of course. But becoming a beacon of hope is what it means to be an idol.
Closing Notes:
[1] All Bible quotes are from the Revised Standard Version.
[2] If there is one real worry AKB0048 presents in terms of real life implications, it would be as a propaganda piece that preaches idols can find perfect personal fulfillment within the idol structure.
[3] Ghostlightings’s write-ups of the first season’s episodes are far less effusive than this piece; I agree with him on many points.
[4] My first piece on AKB0048 came from a vastly different place than this one. It’s interesting to see how things have changed since then.
[5] Yack…deculture…
You guys wouldn’t know this since I haven’t done a weekly round-up post in a while, but Kizaniver‘s probably my third or fourth favorite show this season—besides being the first Studio Trigger show I’ve actively liked. As such, I took my chance with this week’s Aniwords to explore one of the things that’s most fascinated me about the series so far: the use of scar imagery as a symbol for human connection.
People told me I would like this, nobody told me I would like it this much.
As part of my ongoing quest to diversify my blog offerings, I’ve chosen possibly the least appropriate show possible to do episode impressions blasts of: Princess Tutu. There are several reasons for this. The first is that I’m sick of being in a blogging slump and the best way to break such slumps is to write. The second is that Princess Tutu makes me want to write about it, but waiting until I have fully-formed essay ideas to write will likely mean it would take me a year to write about it (like what happened with that AKB0048 post, which you should go read – despite the fact that is has nothing to do with Princess Tutu besides the fact that they’re both in the top 10 of Draggle’s anime list).
I read somewhere in advance of starting Tutu that it’s a “metafictional” story, which means jack squat unless you’ve actually seen an episode of the show. Having seen two episodes, though, I get it. Tutu is a story within a story, or maybe like 30 stories inside one story. This is cool, partially because the literariness of it coupled with the cartoonyness lets me feel like an educated consumer while also getting to giggle about how ducking cute Duck is and how silly her faces are. Are all Junichi Sato shows like this? If so, I’ve been doing myself a disservice by unintentionally keeping my distance from him.
I also found out during “research” (aka I was looking at the Wikipedia page for the show to remember Luci Christian’s name) that the original story concept, character designs, and chief animation direction are all done by the same man woman, Ikuko Ito. This is interesting because such a trio of roles might make you suspect a kind of harmony between the story, designs, and animation, but I certainly don’t have the verve to try and make an analysis of how the formal qualities of Duck’s design are inherently synchronized to the story.
Anyways, my first impressions of Princess Tutu are that Sato finished storyboarding Utena 34 for Ikuhara and was like, “What the hell’s this tryhard artsy grimdark junk? Your henshin sequences are pointlessly inscrutable. Nanami was the only character in your show with halfway decent silly faces. Let’s give this another go, but cuter.” Between weird marriage threats from Cat-sensei and Duck effortlessly being cuter than Utena and Chu Chu combined, I’d say Sato and co. have successfully modulated the Utena mold [J.A. Seazar is playing the background as I write this; I am chastened].
I’m pretty darn fascinated by the ballet school Duck attends. It’s obviously tiny and apparently resides within a town, but you would know about the latter point until the second episode, which is interesting. The pond she keeps seeing in her dream apparently has its “real life” (lol) parallel outside the town, so it’s the story that liberates her from the confines of her reality (personal and physical).
A word on role-playing and the theatre: the point of acting is that the actor effaces the boundary between self and character for the audience. It’s not clear yet to the extent which Duck is doing this. She’s a duck, Duck, and Princess Tutu at alternate times, but when she’s one how much is she the other? If Princess Tutu is a character in a story that Duck has to play (or is that backwards? has Princess Tutu been forced out of her proper role into being Duck), she’s got to erase Duck or else risk failing to convince the audience, which is Mythos primarily now I suppose. In other words, it’s the opposite of method acting, find the self in the character. Of course, that boundary is ephemeral – it all bleeds together.
Last word: Rue’s gonna be the school-world incarnation of the Raven? Drat. Why is it always the cool beauties?
I stumbled upon Princess Nine while trying to see if Crunchyroll had Princess Tutu. Baseball is not as good as ballet, but it’s pretty good even so.
It’s always an interesting experience revisiting shows that I watched relatively early on in my anime-watching career, and Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere (somehow, probably because it was on Hulu at the time, which is where I started out watching anime after my free Netflix trial was over) is certainly one of those shows. While it didn’t have quite the same effect of being over the top ridiculous as it did back then, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Horizon remains fun and easy to watch. Watching things with my blogger/critic hat on rather than my uninhibited fan hat is always something of a risk, I feel, but things panned out pretty well!
Ordinarily I wouldn’t recommend just watching the first two episodes of a show as a last ditch effort to try and come up with a post, but that’s what I did for Aniwords this week and I think it turned out okay! I’ve never watched any JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure before (its particular brand of craziness just never struck me as something I’d care a ton for), but I was surprised and pleased that I enjoyed the first two episodes as much as I did. A large part of that was the dynamic between Dio and JoJo and the unexpectedly rich texture of their rivalry. What exactly that texture is… well, you’ll have to read the post to find out!
