ExecutiveOtaku’s Intro: Honey and Clover is a series that has been written about fairly extensively in the anime blogging community. It’s also a favorite of many. So when, as a brand new blogger, I found out that Scamp from Bokutachi no Blog was currently working his way through the series, I proposed that once he was done that we make a post comparing how two different people viewed the series. Having just recently finished it, he and I ended up having fairly different opinions on it. From my viewpoint as a huge fan of Honey and Clover, and he as someone more mixed in his opinion, we have collaborated to bring you this post displaying and contrasting our opinions on such a widely well regarded show. While the series ended three years ago now, I feel that it is rich enough to be worth a (semi) retro-editorial especially given our different opinions on it. I’ve also just always wanted to write more about it despite joining the blogging community a few years late, heh. We both hope you’ll enjoy this inter-blog, international collaboration between Scamp and myself and our differing opinions. We also invite your own comments and opinions in the comments section whether they agree with one of us, with neither of us, or with both of us (somehow…).

Just a word: it should go without saying that this will contain some amount of spoilers.

Overall impressions

The growth and experiences of the characters as they go through this time in their lives is so well done that someone who is also at that point in their life can identify with all of the characters at different moments. Sometimes Takemoto’s feeling of emptiness is something you experience, other times you’re in Yamada’s shoes, or at a particular moment you might feel more like Mayama trying to pursue your dreams but still confused or clumsy in doing so. Maybe you know a Morita (or are one), or are under pressure like Hagu, or stuck between trying to be cool and trying to be genuine as Nomiya was. At different times you are, or you know people who are, all of these characters. And even with so much else to love about this series, this ability to identify with the genuine emotions being conveyed through the screen is the true strength of the series.

Analysis

Conclusion

The AFA 09 in Singapore is here again, and I was thankful that they actually emailed me to offer me a media pass. Honestly, work has been so tiring these days that I had to sadly ignore NovaJinx’s calls on Friday because of intensive meetings at work. On a pleasant note, I didn’t expect the communications team for AFA to remember a random folk here. I mean, I am not exactly employee of the month, I couldn’t go to the press release because I am at work (2 pm is not a friendly time for a working adult) and I didn’t even promote on AFA at all. I promise I will be diligent next time at the very least.

After visiting the conference, I will probably be making a simple post about the overall state of AFA. I am quite sure that many blogs will offer you the sights and sounds of the conference, while I will probably do a more boring entry about the improvements and regressions from AFA08 to AFA09. Stay tuned if you are keen to hear what I have to say.

For now, I am still fully engrossed in Kimi no Todoke and Kobato, both good series that never fails to have that fuzzy feeling in your heart. I remember a comment from my girlfriend who noted that this season would make GAR lovers squirm in agony from all the lovey-dovey moments in the better animes. I am PERFECTLY glad if that happens every season. The bad news is that I will then haunt this blog much more than you wish for it. Whether it is a good thing or bad thing, I wouldn’t personally know myself.

I do apologize if people are expecting me to blog systematic articles of particular episodes. I believe the other bloggers could cover it. I also find myself hard to devote onto a specific series these days, considering my time constraints and workload. It’s definitely fulfilling to find a job you enjoy that surprises you everyday, yet it can be tiring at times when you struggle to figure out how to make it work. I am not sure if anyone could give some advice, but I will be glad to hear from you about your work-life balance.

Side note:

I have been enjoying the blog entries about the PSC scholarship through DarkMirage’s entry and Moto’s entry, who were/might have been high fliers within the public service. As I am hardly of that caliber myself, I find it fascinating to see how differently they consider things from the elite point of view. Perhaps, this is why they and many others might have left. Still, I cannot dive in deeper to publicly voice my views due to the confidentiality of a currently hired civil servant. Those who might be interested to listen to my views could always contact me on my MSN when I have some spare time to come on.

As fans we all have certain moments while watching anime that really capture our hearts. A moment or a scene that we really experience as closely as is possible with a fictional event. Everyone has their own. They may not always be the most technically well done scenes, the most artistic, or those with the most significance to a story. But something about them connects with each of us in a very strong manner. In this editorial I list ten of my own, and invite you to list yours in comments. Or even to write your own post and put a link to it. Join me as I nerd out about my favorite moments and hopefully communicate some of their significance to me as a fan.

NOTICE: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. I have chosen images and headers that are not spoilers in and of themselves, but if you haven’t seen the series (and don’t want anything spoiled) for Char’s sake scroll down to the next one! I would also ask comments to be setup in a similar way so that people can read the first line and know whether to skip it for spoilers or not.

The idea for this article originated from Scamp over at Bokutachi no Blog. He wrote a similar list of his own favorite moments after an off-topic comments exchange in one of his posts that we had concerning Code Geass episode 22 (though the post was about an episode of Hetalia, go figure.) Just so you know, he’s cool with me stealing using the format, heh. This is why the fandom is great: conversing with each other, sharing ideas and influencing each other in turn! *clenches fist to chest and cries manly tears of respect* Now, my ten moments, in something of an order leading up to my singular favorite. As a note, I attempted to find a video link for each scene, but in some cases it wasn’t possible to find one that doesn’t need to be fast-forwarded to the scene I wrote about, or in two instances clips that have no English subtitles (I could have picked an English dub for one, but it was pretty terrible.)

10. Kidou Senkan Nadesico episode 16

SCENE 8:24-9”25, sorry, couldn’t find English subtitles in an online video and you wouldn’t want to hear the dub.

Megumi: “We’ve all been tricked! These people are…”

Akito: “Human beings. Descendants of those expelled from the moon.”

…

Megumi: “Why are you stuck fighting such an old war?”

Akito: “You don’t understand. This has become our war!”

The crew of the Nadesico has just discovered that Nergal has been hiding the fact that the Jovian Lizards are actually humans that were forced off of the moon and then Mars a hundred years ago. Megumi and Haruka find the escaped pilot of one of their Gekigangar mecha and aid him in his escape, leaving with him to try and find out what’s really going on. But Akito has seen enough of the war that the Jovians have brought and now is solely focused on their destruction.

The fight with Akito in the Lunar Frame against the Gekigangar sent to destroy the Nadesico as it undergoes refit was perfectly grim and tragic because it was understandable. Akito kept fighting against the Jovians, humans or not, with a fury born of his personal experiences in the war. Mars, the death of Gai, the refugees in the lunar base. He’s not like some typical anime characters (usually antagonists) who keep fighting because they’re convinced that they’re right, or won’t listen to anything that contradicts their ideals, or because it’s all they know how to do. Akito started out as a cook not a solider, he’s listened to the broadcast, and he knows that his enemies are humans that have been wronged in the past. But he doesn’t care. The war is starting to turn against the Jovians, he’s endured and witnessed suffering at their hands, why turn back now when they’re finally getting what they deserve for what they’ve done? The way Akito’s change from reluctant to dead set was presented suspended that rational part of my brain for a time, the part that would go along with what the rest of the crew was trying to do (stop the war), and made me feel his hatred towards the Jovians control his actions, facts be damned.

9. Cowboy Bebop episode 05

SCENE, PARTIAL.

Fay ends up captured and used as bait to lure Spike into an ambush as we get our first major glimpse into the history that Spike and Vicious share. The scene in the abandoned cathedral still echoes through my memories. It wasn’t so much for content (though it is important to the story) but for the way in which the scene was presented. The organ music combined with electric guitar during Spike’s walk to the cathedral, the lack of music during the action scenes, and the choir music as Spike fell through the window set up a great atmosphere in terms of sound. Visually I thought the episode was the best combination of two of the major visual and thematic influences in the show, Film Noir and Hong Kong crime/shooter movies. The cathedral was cast mostly in slanting shadows and the color scheme almost entirely black, purples, and blues. The way the fighting was done reminded me more of the classic A Better Tomorrow instead of later films that often added a little too much (or way too much) stylization and acrobatics to the gunplay. Spike and Vicious have their personal duel and exposition ending in a draw when bombs go off and throw Spike from the building amidst flashback to his past and of Julia. Though the beginning really made the scene for me. “In the Rain” being played while Spike walked up to the front of the cathedral under an overcast sky has stuck with me ever since.

8. Toradora! episode 16

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Several important events happen during the school festival in this episode, but to me the crowning moment of awesome of the Taiga X Yusaku arc was when Yusaku was dejected from his (seemingly) one-sided love for Kanou, and Taiga decides to do what she can for him. Despite being in love with him, Taiga takes out her boken and hunts down Kanou after telling Ryuuji to stay by his side while she helps him the only way she can. Finding her in a classroom, lit with heavy, yellow beams of late afternoon sunlight, calls her out for being a coward about her feelings and challenges her to fight. She accepts and the fight goes from shinai/boken to fists, each combatant powered by their feelings for Yusaku even though one turned him down and the other know he’s not interested in her. Eventually Taiga calls Kanou a coward and she then admits that she turned Yusaku down because she knows he would follow her even if it wasn’t in his best interest. While it was melodramatic to express their opinions on each other and Yusaku by fighting, it was a hell of a powerful way to do so, and not so far fetched given the intensity of their feelings and their personalities. And it was the high note that the original Taiga X Yusaku arc went out on. As Taiga and Kanou are restrained by their classmates, Yusaku enters, saying that he was glad to have fallen in love with Kanou, and Minori also watches from the sidelines. The beginning of the next drama arc begins here just as the previous one ends, as Ami returns Taiga’s photos to her and speaks some story altering words to Minori.

7. Gundam 0083 episode 12

SCENE (fast forward to 20 minute mark).

Kou races to catch up to the colony and the Zeon forces guarding it, engaging in fierce combat as he makes a desperate run in the GP03 Dendrobium straight for the colony. The countdown to the point of no return, past which it will be impossible to divert the colony from Earth, is announced several times in the middle of the battle. But despite the best efforts of Kou, the Albion and other EFSF forces, the hijacked colony passes the point of no return. The defining moment for me was when the operator on the Albion announces “The colony…has passed the point of no return.” Absolute silence on the bridge and in the GP03’s cockpit. At that moment, despite all they did, there was no more that could be done (to their knowledge, Bask Om had one more card to play) and it sank in quietly, with just those words and silence. The silence spoke more than anything that could have been said by any of the characters, it descended over the Albion and over my mind like a fog. It was shocking and confusing and made you feel how despair and the desire to do something were straining against each other in the characters’ minds. Whether or not you had seen Zeta Gundam first or not (I had not), what happened was both dire for the characters and those on Earth, but also went against your expectations as a viewer. What do you mean the bad guys win?

6. Initial D Fourth Stage episode 08

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There were several moments of pure awesome in the various seasons of this show (if you’re a car fan like I am), but this one has always been my favorite and has always impressed me with how several great components all come together to make a great decisive moment in this race. Keisuke in his twin turbo FD3S Mazda RX-7 vs Kyoko in her nearly identical model FD, only modified with a large single turbo. Always a hothead to a degree even with his more recent training under his brother, Keisuke is having a difficult time with the roughly paved roads that he races Kyoko on. But slowly he starts to understand and learn, slowly adjusting the pressure he applies on the accelerator by tiny increments to stop from spinning the rear wheels. As he does this ‘Right Now’ by Dark Angels starts playing, a wonderful combination of eurobeat with some rock guitar. The two FDs are very close, making the same moves and as the music continues there’s even a point where Kyoko’s taillight light trail stays on screen after she breaks and then Keisuke’s brakelight fits the exact spot and brakes at the same point. SO COOL! Kyoko wants to keep racing with her crush, hoping to bring the match to a second round by keeping ahead. But while she’s thinking about this she’s distracted and lets her tires slip on the rough pavement, and letting off the gas causes her boost pressure to fall. Keisuke instantly notices and figures out the weakness of the single turbo, that it takes more time to spool up. Going around a corner, he slightly bumps her rear fender with the nose of his car, causing her to let off the gas for an instant, bringing them neck and neck as they exit the curve. Here Keisuke’s twin turbo system has the advantage, using its greater acceleration to get ahead before Kyoko’s more powerful single turbo can spool up. The music, the matching moves, the importance of the different turbo systems, Keisuke learning to control himself despite his brash nature, it all just came together to form a nearly perfect moment of racing.

5. FLCL episode 01

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From the first ‘tap tap tap’ of drumsticks as the instrumental version of Bran New Lovesong began, the scene where Naota runs feverishly to meet Mamimi on the bridge struck me and carved a place in my mind for the density, melancholy, and futility of what was expressed in it. The everyday life where ‘nothing extraordinary happens’ that Naota is both discontent with and accepting of is challenged by the arrival of Haruko, but what does do about it? He runs full speed back to it by running, out of breath to meet with Mamimi again. She’s once again smoking, and the first closeup is of her crumpled cigarette with “never knows best” written on it, seeming to comment on both her and Naota’s lives and their weird proxy relationship with each other. After this visual, as the song continues, Naota arrives with the left over, stale bread for Mamimi and he brings up the basis of their relationship and Mamimi’s with his brother in a way that was not spoken of before. He first asks if she likes him, and she replies with a list of similes “like a panda with a mean face…or the smell of a chalkboard eraser, or a Sunday when you wake up and it’s been raining”, an odd list that is still very real in its sublime and melancholy descriptions. She embraces him in the one-sided way that they’ve been doing things, and the atmosphere of the scene is just absorbed by watching it. Naota as a proxy for his brother, Mamimi not letting go now that he’s left for America, the desperation of Mamimi’s life, and their mutual acceptance of such a hollow but still desperately important relationship. They’re sad and kind of despicable, but you certainly feel the static desperation of the characters, accentuated by the music and set on the streetlight-lit bridge in the middle of the night.

4. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann episode 26

SCENE, key part starts at 3:50, sorry no subtitles.

Nearing the end of the fight, the crew of the Chou Ginga Gurren Lagann is caught by one final trap and imprisoned in a false reality that’s meant to give everyone their own personal dream and trapping them in this appealing illusion. But eventually Simon sees through the recreation of his childhood, breaking the illusion’s grip on his mind. As this happens he meets Kamina again. There they stand in rays of sunlight breaking through the clouds, the two leaders and friends together once more. The line that brought the moment to the highest point for me was when Kamina, after a word of encouragement, remarks to Simon that he’s grown taller than him. The time shift and aging of the main characters was one of the best parts about this show, but here is the culminating moment, when Kamina, great though he was, has now finally been eclipsed by his former younger follower. He’s now a hero in his own right, leading everyone on after Kamina and no longer the kid idolizing his brash sempai. His old friend is obviously proud of him, and they share a parting look and moment before Simon says it’s time to leave, leaving both the illusion, his best friend, and the shadow that he grew up in.

3. Honey and Clover season 2 episode 12

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This scene! It’s the last moment of my all time favorite series and it was so bittersweet that I’ll never forget it. All the other storylines, characters, and dramas have been resolved, and now Takemoto boards the train to leave Tokyo for his architecture restoration job when Hagu comes to see him off at the last minute and hands him a gift. They embrace, then place their hands next to each other on each side of the window, and as the train moves away Hagu chases it smiling and teary-eyed until she reaches the end of the platform. Sitting alone in the empty train car Takemoto opens the gift to find a stack of bread…and in between each slice honey and a four-leaf clover. His memories of her come flooding back as tears stream down his face and “Inaka no Seikatsu” by Spitz begins to play. All his memories of Hagu and thoughts about their failed love come back as he stuffs the bread into his mouth as if both trying to take in the memories like the bread and as a way to ease his emotions. Despite their love never materializing, the last line of the series is Takemoto’s “I’m glad that I fell in love with you.” Finally there’s a last montage of the other characters as the ending theme plays. This whole episode was an emotional experience just for the fact that a series I loved so much was ending, but the final scene at the train stations/on the train was the peak of it all. I cried. I felt emotionally and physically drained of all energy. And I still can’t listen to “Inaka no Seikatsu” or “Split” anymore. Hearing the music just brings back this scene and feels like my insides are being twisted. It was a great ending, keeping with the genuine emotional expression of the entire series as well as its realism; not everything works out for a happy ending, but you should still treasure the moments anyway. Gah, I need to finish up the part about this scene, I’m starting to feel that emotional drain again just from writing about it.

2. Code Geass season 1 episode 22

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Where were you when Season 1 Episode 22 happened?

Talking about this scene is what inspired Scamp to write the post that inspired this one, and I think I’ll reprise some of  the comments I made on his blog for this amazing moment. While on a much smaller and infinitely less serious level it’s kind of like one of those historical milestones that otaku point too like the regular public would the Moon Landing, Kennedy Assassination, 9/11 attacks, etc. The moment it happened kind of crystallized in everyone’s memory. Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first saw it. And after it happened, everything changed. Eupehmia has put together a plan for Japan to be run autonomously, Zero/Lelouch is onboard with his Black Knights, and all of a sudden his Geass becomes permanently active and a casual remark forces Euphie to order the killing of any and all Japanese. Not only was it a huge and sudden plot twist, but Euphie’s death at Lelouch’s hand early in the next episode began Suzaku’s journey to hatred and nearly Titans-level obsession with rooting out the enemy (which just made him even cooler in my eyes, both he and the Titans had good reasons even if they went overboard at times.)

For me I was in my Temple University Japan dorm room on study abroad one afternoon after class. It was a nice sunny day outside and I was relaxing after class and catching up on the shows I was following that season. It was such a rush of emotions as I had no way of knowing that it was coming. My mind just kept racing between ‘WTF’ ‘what now?’ and ‘OH S*** THEY DID FORESHADOW THIS SLIGHTLY!’ while I kept alternatingly yelling ‘what the f***’ at my computer screen and laughing at the insanity of it. It was by far one of the best moments in my years of watching anime.

1. Honey and Clover season 1 episode 15

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It may not be as overtly intense as some of these other moments, but when I think of moments in anime that I’ve watched over the years, this one scene has been the one I think back to the most, the one that can definitely point to as a favorite above all others. Maybe it’s because I was a big fan of Mayama and Rika throughout the series, maybe it’s because I’m just a cheesy romantic who is composed entirely of mush on the inside. But this scene just brought things from the depths of despair to the heights of hope and kyyaaaaa for me. After visiting Asai in the hospital Mayama finds out from him that Rika came to visit and mentioned seeing him in the park over the summer, something Mayama though was just his imagination at first and was driving him nuts. In the lobby he runs frantically to find her, finally spotting her in an elevator and running, shaky, slanted camera angle as he does so, to reach the elevator doors and holds them open as “Yoru wo Kakeru” starts playing. Throughout this series the use of insert songs was particularly amazing, this episode being the pinnacle in my opinion along with the scene where “Tamagawa” plays during episode 07. Upstairs they talk, and as Mayama has guessed in his internal monologue, things are still the same and Rika pushes him away again against the beautifully done backdrop of the huge windows and rainy skies outside. After she leaves to visit Asai again Mayama thinks to himself that things need to start again, and hours later that evening he is there waiting with a rental car to give Rika a ride home. But he intentionally (and he admits the selfishness to himself) drives the wrong way to give himself more time with Rika as the car spirals down the Daikoku Fuutou on the Wangan highway amidst the rain and orange lights.

Things start to change with this, though the rest of their relationship is by no means straightforward or easy. But it was a stunning combination of mostly restrained, subtle emotional content, Mayama’s dramatic chance taking, great music, and rich, artistic animation in the still backgrounds and rainy color palette, the placement of the characters both on the bench and in the car, angles from which they’re viewed, and the objects in motion parts such as the car’s blurred taillights. There was a great visual metaphor used in this scene too, contrasting stillness and motion. Mayama and Rika sit still on the bench, discussing the same things and having the same result as their relationship moves nowhere. But then as Mayama makes his play to change the status quo with the car ride, there’s a great deal of movement with the car, the windshield wipers, passing lights, and moving shadows on their faces as their relationship begins to ‘move’ again. And not only was this scene wonderful to watch the first time (and again and again), but elements of it will always be in my mind.

I'm back!

You should see how much I’ve grown. Or not.

Yeah, it’s been almost a year since I last blog anything. 3 more papers till I’m finally free from my nightmare of having to take paper after paper after paper after paper after paper…

Oh, sorry. Did I rant too much? Silly me.

Yeah, so while I was away, I still get the chance to see quite a few anime series, some as good as Kimi ni Todoke, Umineko and Eden of the East and the crappy ones like Asura Cryin’ (Did not cry, you piece of junk), Miracle Train (Man, I don’t anyone watches it, but I only watch it for the sake of boredom.) and 07-Ghost (I’m starting to hate Studio DEEN ever since I watched Vampire Knight, but I’m still respecting it due to their involvement in Umineko, which is still as awesome as the 1st episode.)

Before I began ranting how much I’ve struggled over the year, let’s get into it. (Note: List of anime I’ve watched is not in order of the worst to the best and vice versa. I just jot down things that my brain pops up.) Erm, I’m getting extremely loquacious, let’s move on.

Note: Will be listing a number of series from Production I.G, Studio DEEN and Bones. It’s a good year for them, fortunately.

Eden of the East

Ahh…before it was aired, I thought it was some kind of unoriginal crap I’ve been getting after watching crappy anime series again and again. But the 1st episode proved me wrong. Love the ED sequence especially, with the creative use of paper, paper and more paper. And the best way for our main protagonist Akira to suffer from amnesia. (Why is he naked in the first place? D:)
Unfortunately, the story suffers in the middle and towards the end, but it get me some time to get used to the terminology of the series and know what on Earth is going on. But I shall praise for the clean animation (Though I’m not used to the character design. I guess that’s me.) and the decent use of CGI as many series which used CGI turns out like shit in the end.

Score: 8.5/10

Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood

My friend and I sometimes compared this with the original series that aired a few years ago. Coming to a conclusion, this series is very, very faithful to the manga (With some minor changes of course, but it doesn’t affect largely on the series.) unlike some other anime series like Vampire Knight and 07-Ghost which butchered the plot in the face of fans of the manga series. This series mixes humour and seriousness together quite well, keep it up, BONES (Thumbs up.) and also triggers my emotions at certain scenes (Such as Winry meeting the murderer of her parent Scar and the recent Ishbal massacre that made me feel sympathetic towards the soldiers who are involved in this war and angry for those who started it.)

Yeah, it was good with unexpected plot twists (For those who avoid reading the manga or just too lazy to check it out. I’m one of them) and the animation was crisp and detailed. It’s still ongoing, so go check it out if you can, though you have to tolerate the violence and gore in some of the episodes (Warning to those who can’t stand gore.) The music is good, anyways. (Rush to check out OPs and EDs.)

Score: 9/10

Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Man, it’s getting more and more exciting. Until now it has been a very one-sided match between Battler and Beatrice, but episode 19 has gotten my feet up together to see the awesomeness once more, most of all the inclusion of Battler’s half-younger sister, Ange, and the use of blue text, which pars the power with Beatrice’s red text. Of all the WTF moments they have, this series is probably the 1st of all series I’ve listed to have it (Next to FMA: Brotherhood.) Though some parts Studio DEEN cut are also very crucial to the story (Which there are too many of them to list down.), they still do quite a great job on it and keeping as much consistency as possible, all thanks to the director who also did on Higurashi. (At least they did the right thing to picked someone experience to do Umineko, or else I would have switched this series off long ago.) I love the OP, but I don’t really get what the ED has to do with the series though I’m starting to get the hang of the ED. And unlike VK and 07-Ghost, they avoid showing their flaws as much as possible.

Score: 8.5/10

Kimi ni Todoke

Feels so familiar, now that I’m leaving school after my papers are over. Time for me to get a part-time job before my magic paper pops right in front of me before I know it. Back to the topic, it’s unique in its own way and the character design is on par with the manga. The pacing is good, as least for those who just want to chill in everyday life and make yourself happy. But most of all, I feel the same way as Saint Sawako Kuronuma, feeling the same way of being somewhat of an outcast and starts to open up to have friends who really care about her. Like FMA: Brotherhood, I’ve cried several times in the series, just like how Ouran has made me laugh of their shallow jokes and nonsense.

The only problem with the series is the male lead (Don’t bash me up, it’s only my opinion, not yours.). Don’t really know if a person like Kazehaya can exist in reality, but to me, he’s trying to be to please everyone (Or not) but he could just be trying too hard or become a yes-man to everybody (Except for a few instances.) But other than that, the characters are quite lovable, especially Pin, the temporary homeroom teacher of our fellow main characters. Just really wish that an anime series can stand out in their own way rather than being just carbon copies of each other.

Score: 9.5/10 (Yes, call me biased, or whatever.)

CANAAN

With plenty of bitches (Liang Qi), woman that fight and show off their guns (Alphard and Canaan) and very annoying girls who always acts as damsel in distresses (Maria Osawa, Yunyun but not as much as Sugoi Girl as some of our members in THAT put Maria as), I only watched the series for its animation awesomeness and the UA virus that has been affecting very important people, such as the Vice-President of Japan and the villagers who were infected by it. Well, it’s the only Type-Moon series I’ve watched, aside from the Kara no Kyoukai movie series, so I don’t know if this series is a miss or hit. I empathize how many of you by your reaction of Maria’s character (And speaking of Osawa, I almost mistaken from a pr0n star by the same name, only that her surname is Ozawa instead of Osawa). Also, that reminds me of a girl in Miracle Train that somehow talks like Osawa at the beginning of episode 5 with sugoi, sugoi sugoi!!!! Still, once again, P.A. Works has prove us right that they can do action scenes as well.

Score: 7.5/10 (All because of Maria. That’s why.)

Asura Cryin’

This series is trying too hard to squeeze too many things, mainly a mecha theme, a harem (And a very stereotypical one in that.), science fiction, magic and way too many things that I found myself unable to count after 5.

The animation doesn’t really stand out (Seven Arcs, why???) and the only reason why I watched this series because I thought it has potential aside from it’s animation, but I was wrong. Let’s not talk about all these things, shall we? At least it has the guts to try out something new, but the 2nd season has pushed the series in oblivion. So I’m going to end my rant here, once and for all.

Score: 4/10

Shangri-La

I only start watching this series till the end at the middle of the series, ’cause the earlier parts has turned me off. Despite GONZO in the brink of bankruptcy and all (So sorry if I am inaccurate at GONZO’s position of that time. I was away from the anime world at the earlier part of the year.) and it was quite consistent, from the looks of it. This series gives us some time to get used to the world they are living in, and imagine what will happen to the world. (Please do not talk about 2012 all over again for me. I’m somehow sick and tired of this prediction, may it be true or not.) But they pulled a rather rushed ending, but I think that’s GONZO for you.

Score: 7/10

Valkyria Chronicles

Probably one of the most decent anime adaptation from a console game. Been very wary of reviews that anime adaptations from a console game doesn’t live up to an average anime standard (Maple Story, Ragnarok etc.) but for Valkyria Chronicles, it’s still quite acceptable (I don’t own a PS3, if you ask.). But also, I’ve been doing some research about the game too (And it’s sequel releasing next year in Japan.) and found out that some parts in the game are missed out but there’s no way for us to do anything, now that the damage has been done. But unfortunately for me, I stopped watching the series halfway (One reason was that I was too stressed if I am able to continue this series, so I didn’t really see the later half.) but it was still quite both a surreal and refreshing experience for me.

Score: 8/10

07-Ghost

This series has left my friend crying and lamenting in a corner, for obvious reasons. The anime doesn’t live up to the standards as the manga.

At first, before the airing of the anime, my friend encouraged me heavily to catch this series, “’cause the manga’s really good,” she says. Then, after the 1st episode aired, she went fuming away, and only stayed to watch it to compare the difference between the anime with the manga. Me, like she said, I picked it up, but the 1st episode gives me a feeling that it’s gonna suck. (Sorry, fan girls, if I have hurt your feelings about this series, which I will explain later below.)

Now and then do I pick up any random episodes as for and when I like and watch it, but seeing the characters and story unfold very slowly and painfully has got me click ‘back’ whenever I get really upset. Speaking of which, whenever I watched any of the scenes in any episode, I always have this Vampire Knight (anime) vibe onto me, telling me to stop watching this piece of crap and do more useful things instead of hogging in the computer all day long. It was a bad experience watching all the characters having stale personalities, but the animation and special effects are still decent. (When I asked my friend about it, she told me that the anime is only the exam arc or something, ’cause I never want to try getting into the series, fearing that the manga will hurt my feelings more.)

Score: 6/10 (At least the animation and special effects are decent.)

And there are some series that aren’t worth mentioning, but since mentioning, I’m only giving a three-sentence review about it and only watched them out of boredom and curiosity. So don’t ask why.

Note: I’ve only watched a glimpse about the shows, or read about others review of the series’ below either from word-to-mouth or from random sites :

1. K-ON!: Too much moe blob, GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! (Especially Mio, I don’t see why so many Japanese otaku or whatnot picked her as a waifu if she exists in real life.) but it doesn’t appeal to me. Dropped.

2. Haruhi Suzumiya: Didn’t bother to watch it. I’ve heard from several reviews that the 2nd season is quite bad, especially the Endless Eight arc. Dropped.

3. Phantom: I’ve heard from some anime sites that said that the story and action is pretty good. I shall pick it up someday, though I don’t know if this is a good time.

4. Pandora Hearts: Again, some anime sites actually praised the plot as an underrated series. The animation reminds me of those 90’s anime style. I was still very young then, about 5 or 6.

5. Saki: MAHJONG POWAR! Reminds me of the Yu-Gi-Oh series, which I don’t really even bother. Oh well, epic fail. (Only watched the 1st episode, and then it turns all crappy of yuri undertones and the WTF power-up like those seen in typical shounen titles.) Dropped.

6. White Album: Only watched the first episode of season two, shut the series down after completing the same episode. A no-no for me. Dropped.

7. Cencoroll: Impressive, given that this is done only by one person (Besides Makoto Shinkai). I was still quite confused what the plot is about rather than fighting one another with monsters or something.

8. Higurashi OAV: It was really well written both humorous and serious. I kind of loved the last episode of the OAV, at least the mahjong part was not as creepy as Saki. (Should pick it up, even if you don’t know what on earth is going on in the previous 2 seasons.) Unlike all the other series, I watched the entire series from the 1st to the last.

9. Maria Holic: At least it was funny and the animation style kind of separates this from the rest (Except for Kimi ni Todoke, which also uses their own unique style). I would want to catch a second season if they have it, despite the yuri theme, gender bender and Catholic schools aspects.

*10. Bakemonogatari: Fine. Some of you insist on this series, I shall talk about it in 3 sentence (Or not.). Okay, I confess that I didn’t have time to watch this, but I’ll definitely watch the entire series when my paper ends on Wednesday. Back to the topic, I only watched episode 13 of the series, and I was pretty surprised (In a good way) of the way the characters speak and the artistic style. (I guess Director Akiyuki Shinbo has many series in his hands this year.) Do I intend to write this within 3 sentence? Yeah, so I shall check back to Bakemonogatari within this week, if I have the time.

So there you go. Maybe the few anime series may not be so few after all. Yikes! While I was away, I too picked up my obsession with Avatar: the Last Airbender (Ya, I know this sounds out of the blue speaking about non-anime stuff in an anime blog) and I can’t wait for Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep to be released early next year in Japan after some disappointment with 358/2 Days from some fans of the series (But I’m still quite happy the story and gameplay turns out in the end.) with plans to get my on PSP, in which my brother has one but often uses it when in the army.

Three more thing before I forget. One, I won’t be blogging any series from the beginning till the end (I’ve learnt my lesson after Vampire Knight and World Destruction did to me.) and may just pop out anywhere as I like. Two, I need you guys to comment and mention the worst fathers (Sorry, no non-fictitious names of dads here.) in animation history (That includes video games and non-anime series, such as Avatar. Movies outside Japan are not allowed.), though I have some on my mind. I’ll tell you the reasons why I’m doing this later on when I come up with the post. Three and lastly, I’m having the urge to change my name in THAT, but I don’t know if it’s possible till I ask one of the THAT writer, so until then, sayonara.

Hi all random THAT anime blog readers,

My nick is Impz and I currently reside in a place known as the abyss of bloggers. You know, the place where retired bloggers think about how cool they used to be and brag about their former glories. Obviously, I cannot even say that I have ever been popular, what with no one possibly remembering me. Self-pity is probably my greatest trait right now, so bite me. I want my random attention from random online people! With that out of the way, I can proudly announce the arrival of the newest afk blogger in THAT Anime Blog.

Nonsense aside, it has been a long while since I step into this blog. It’s really strange how I suddenly decided to pick up my keyboard, and decided to type some random things on this space. I thought I have gone past the hill and over the mountain when it comes to doing any form of blogging. A few days ago, Crusader messaged me and said that I have not blogged for three anime seasons. It suddenly dawned on me that it really has been a while since I last dealt with anything anime-ish. That is, if you exclude the obsessive reading of Skip Beat (DARN YOU, DICKTARO!) AND the rampant kyaa-ing for Kaichou wa Maid-sama manga. I also finally transited from a lazy student to a working adult in the Ministry of Education. It’s definitely a huge change. You will never appreciate weekends that much until you start on your first real job.

Anyway, fast forward 9 months to the present (I love totally terrible attempts at Segue). This season came with a bag of surprises. Kimi ni Todoke was hilarious, with Sawako an extremely adorable lead. I mean, who doesn’t like leads that are adorable without trying so hard to be the cute-kawaii anime girl? I am sick of anime girls who are pandering to anime fans simply through extreme crazy forms of cuteness. In addition, it has been a while since side characters become side characters instead of decorations. Come on, you have to admit that most side characters in shoujo series are like generic stereotypes that can be easily substituted with a dog… or a cheesecake. In addition, how can a shoujo fanboy find shoujo fare boring?

Yumeiro Patissiere is another shoujo, albeit more of a food series. It is hardly a form of artistic excellence by any measure; in fact you can even consider it rather childish. The main lead, Ichigo, is a very standard shoujo female lead. When I mean standard, I mean stupid, clumsy and generally a typical damsel in distress that needs her food knights to save her from getting fat screwing up all her baking and cooking. Yet, I find myself enjoying the silly childish antics. I might eventually grow to dislike the show, but currently I am lapping it all up.

Amusingly, I also found myself enjoying Kobato. Perhaps it is the light-hearted approach of the show. Perhaps, Kobato has that innocence that manages to penetrate this old cynical man. I cannot even accurately pinpoint what is right about the show. Is it the beautiful lush animation? Is it the fact that I enjoy Clamp works (I disliked Tsubasa Chronicles though)? I do not know, maybe you have an answer?

If you ask me if I will actually start blogging (or if anyone still cares to hear what I like to say), I don’t know. Still, it’s good to be back. If only for one post. That’s what all semi-retired unpopular bloggers like to say when they make a comeback, don’t they?

p/s: I also succumbed to the greatest sin of all anime bloggers: Watching Bleach with my girlfriend and actually liking it. It’s depressing, I know.

Empires in anime are a fairly common phenomenon, especially in science fiction series. Looking at Japan’s history with being an empire and encountering others, here’s a rather too long post about how I see history perhaps influencing anime in the portrayal of different kinds of empires. This editorial is reconstructed from the main ideas of a paper I wrote during undergrad but have since lost everything but the images from, so bear with it if it’s not as polished as it was in its original form. It’s also been cut down heavily to save space, but it’s still a pretty long post. Since it’s been heavily cut, if you’re interested in the full version just contact me and I can send it to you.

I. Japanese Historical Experiences with Empires

Japan entered the international scene at the height of the ‘golden age of empires’, after the country opened at the prompting of the Americans in the late 19th century. The Meiji Restoration which soon followed created the political change necessary to begin looking outward into the wider world. At this point in history the Japanese leadership saw two main things. One, Japan was far less advanced than the imperial powers in terms of technology and political theory. And second, they looked to their neighboring countries and saw Western colonies and encroachment. A strong state and industrialization were seen as the means to both defending Japan from foreign interference and as the path to prosperity. Following a Prussian model of a highly centralized state with the individual subservient to its will, and combined with military inspiration from the fellow island nation of Britain’s command of the seas, Japan rapidly industrialized and developed. At first seeking to secure itself against the other colonial powers, it later joined with them to make territorial gains in Asia as well as competed with them in a realist sense and on an ideological level where Japan viewed itself as a ‘protector’ of Asian peoples against the Western powers. This ideology was sincerely believed by some, and used by the less sincere to gain their support for imperial expansionism.

II. British-styled Empires in Anime

Given that the British Empire was one of the most threatening empires to Japan as it first opened to the outside world, it is not surprising then that British-styled empires in anime are often portrayed as conquering, corrupt, and ‘the bad guys.’ However, possibly due to the British Empire’s preeminence during most of the imperial age, these empires are also often shown as the most refined and sophisticated. The members of the empire may be conquerors or ruthless, but the imperial citizens live in fabulous estates, host grand ballroom gatherings, practice chivalry, and live the romanticized aristocratic lifestyle that is often associated in both Japan and the West with the golden age of empires. The setting of Hakushaku to Yousei, for example, while not overly concerned with Victorian politics and international relations, still sets up the ideal vision of Imperial Britain at its height, technologically advanced, elegant, and cultured. The Read or Die OVA features an alternate timeline where the British Empire exists to the modern day, and while adding the more modern touches to the concept, it is notable the protagonists work for a British Empire and not the modern nation-state. In R.O.D. the TV the British Empire becomes an antagonist to the main characters, changing form from cool and elegant force for good to the more common antagonistic form.

Case Study: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion – The Holy Britannian Empire

The invasion of Japan by the Holy Britannian Empire showing Britannian holdings and bases.

The premise of Code Geass is that, in an alternate reality, Great Britain remained an absolute monarchy and also never lost its colonies in North America, expanding further into at least 18 ‘Areas’ including Japan via the power of its Knightmare Frame mecha. However one day a 17 year old student become caught in a recovery attempt by Britannian forces and receives an experimental power to force others to obey his orders. This boy, Lelouch, is an illegitimate son of the current Emperor and blames his mother’s murder on him. Thus he begins to utilize this power to realize his plans of destroying the entire empire, uniting various factions of the as yet unsuccessful Japanese insurgency.

The Holy Britannian Empire represents a common portrayal of the British influenced empire in anime. It is an expansionist empire that is also in competition with other large nations, the EEC (presumably mainland Europe) and the Chinese Federation. The Britannian Empire is also discriminatory and aristocratic. Elevens, the new name for the Japanese, are discriminated against and most live outside the settlement areas, in places like the Shinjuku Ghetto. Rule by the emperor is absolute, and positions are often based on birth. Suzaku Kururugi, the son of the last prime minister of Japan, is a gifted Knightmare test pilot and Honored Britannian, but still faces discrimination. While Suzaku attempts to prove his worth and reform the system from within, his long time friend Lelouch takes on the hidden identity of Zero with the goal of bringing down the empire through “the path of carnage.” He lives in the dormitory of his private academy, a huge, mansion like building. Complete with rose garden and landscaping reminiscent of a British estate, the academy is the bright side of Britannian rule. A sense of nobility also comes across in the Britannian military, as seen in the uniforms and titles of its members. Knightmare pilots are referred to as 騎士 (‘kishi’), or knights, and a common acknowledgement of orders is “Yes, My Lord” or “Yes, Your Highness” especially when a member of the royal family is commanding in the field.

III. German-styled Empires

German-styled empires in anime are often shown with a wider degree of variance between good and bad guys, reflecting two major perceptions of Germany from the 19^th to mid 20^th centuries. And there is as well a third strand relating to Germany’s and Japan’s shared place as defeated nations of WWII, as I will address at the end of this section. German-styled empires modeled after the Prussian and pre-Nazi German states are more often shown as strong, militaristic, but enlightened empires that protagonists often work with or alongside. Fullmetal Alchemist for example has a very Prussian state, and although problems develop involving its leadership and some of its past actions, the perception is that it is not on balance a negative force. The Reich/Empire in Legend of the Galactic Heroes also uses this model, to beautifully illustrate one of the main themes of the series, the advantages and disadvantages of dictatorship vs. imperfect, but rule-of-law oriented democracy. Given that Japan used this model to successfully industrialize, it is not surprising that it is often viewed favorably.

The other concept often used for a German-styled empire is based on elements of WWII Germany’s Nazi regime and is obviously an antagonistic state. Since they are so, at most we get protagonists who serve them out of loyalty to homeland, because they’re just caught in the middle or drafted, or because knowledge of the terrible actions committed are hidden from them. From this model though, we can find some cases of ‘sympathy for the devil’ or even downright historical revisionism. And this latter phenomenon is somewhat troubling, as it seems to be on the same wavelength as some of the historical revisionism seen in the fringe right-wing of modern Japanese politics and even among some otaku.

Case Study: Mobile Suit Gundam (U.C. 0079 through 0083) – The Principality of Zeon.

Left: Gihren Zabi giving his famous speech. Right: Oliver May striking a heroic pose at the end of the revisionist MS Igloo: Apocalypse 0079.

In that classic of anime, Mobile Suit Gundam, humans have expanded from an overcrowded Earth to orbiting space colonies. A peaceful independence movement led by Zeon Zum Daikun emerges in the colonies, but after his assassination by the Zabi family they seize power and declare the authoritarian Principality of Zeon independent. Utilizing their newly developed mobile suits, Zeon uses poison gas against several Earth-loyal and neutral colonies, dropping one dead colony on the Earth as a weapon. The Earth Federation eventually turns the tide with its own mobile suits, and with the death of the Zabis Zeon surrenders at the end of UC 0079. Remnant forces, feeling betrayed by this surrender, persist and in 0083 use a stolen, nuclear-armed Gundam prototype to destroy a large portion of the EFSF fleet and drop another colony on the Earth before being wiped out.

Connecting with Japan’s past, we have a high-minded philosophy and political movement taken over by militarists using the same language to rally support. The surrender of Zeon when it was not utterly defeated could be seen as either Germany’s position after WWI or the feelings of some in Japan after WWII was ended by nuclear blasts and surrender instead of grueling, bloody invasion of the home islands. There are also some material influences from both this era in German history and some from Japan’s experiences. The Zeon weapons are drawn to look very much, or in some cases exactly like, WWII German weapons, as are uniforms, helmets, and symbols. The EFSF symbol looks very much like that of the Japanese naval infantry anchor symbol, EFSF rank tabs are the same as Imperial Japanese ones, and the standard color scheme of the RGM-79 mobile suit is somewhat reminiscent of that of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s naval infantry uniform (red chest section on the MS with lighter colors elsewhere, subdued reddish-brown vest/jacket for the infantry with khaki for the rest.) We also get from this franchise a bit of the historical revisionism of the sort seen by right-wing extremists in Japan with the first two MS Igloo series, Hidden One Year War and Apocalypse 0079. Revisionist Zeon propaganda, these OVA series show the Zeons fighting a hopeless yet noble, mostly defensive war against the cackling, merciless EFSF forces while acting shocked when they witness the colony drop and thereafter even the worst characters like Cuspen are redeemed as being at worst fanatics in defense of their homeland.

IV. Japanese-styled and Pseudo-Japanese Empires

This type of empire in anime seems somewhat less common, but it is still noteworthy. Japan’s rise to becoming a great power was an amazing achievement. In a short amount of time the country went from a small, feudal, insular country without modern technologies to a centralized state with modern industry, new laws, and a military on par in most respects with that of the Western powers. All this in comparison to what was happening elsewhere in Asia: colonization by Western powers, the splintering of China into various warlord regions, the Unequal Treaties, and territory trading among the great powers (which later included Japan as it took control of various holdings on the Asian mainland.) It is a tantalizing prospect to imagine what might have been if Japan had continued on its initial path and/or made different choices, and some series directly play with this scenario while others seem to take inspiration from it. Sakura Taisen is an example of the former, with the protagonists part of an elite imperial corps of soldiers, agents, and mecha pilots. Set in the 1920’s in an alternate timeline, we see an idea of what the Japanese Empire could have been. Although this does ignore the expansion that had already taken place at that time (Korea was annexed in 1910 for example), it is still an idealistic picture of Imperial Japan as a benevolent force in the world. Less clearly connected, but I believe still influenced by Japan’s history, is a sort of pseudo-Japanese-styled empire. I would define the characteristics of this type as having some or all of the following: new and/or advanced technology, a monarch with a central role or influence in policy, benevolent policies in general, and a disposition towards neutrality or only reluctantly taking sides. While I wouldn’t in all instances say this is a one-for-one comparison, I think this type of empire is influenced by the Japanese perception of an ideal empire that might have been. The Abh Empire in Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars would be an example of this.

Case study: Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars – The Abh Empire

The crest of the Abh Empire.

The Abh Empire in Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars is a bit different in that they aren’t exactly normal humans, though they do readily accept normal humans from vassal planets into their ranks if of important birth or political standing such as Jinto Lin. This empire is technologically advanced, tries to remain neutral, generally treats its subjects well, and has a strong role for its royal family. The three other spacefaring powers in CotS/BotS all make demands of the Abh Empire, though they clearly plan from the beginning to militarily make territorial gains at the Abh Empire’s expense. This can be viewed in two ways. The idea of ‘foreign pressure’ (外圧 ‘gaiatsu’) is very common in Japanese politics and popular perception to the present day, often used by politicians in relation to Japan’s post-WWII relations with America in particular, by saying that they have no choice due to pressure from their US ally. The argument is also made by some as to how Japan became involved in the Pacific War (WWII) against America, that it had no choice due to resource embargoes in retaliation over Japan’s invasion of China. The other way to read this is that the human powers, seeming either devious or clumsy (and whose clothes look rather Western whereas the Abh wear futuristic garb. And the ambassador from the United Mankind looked like Mikhail Gorbachev for crying out loud) are a way of presenting Japan’s feelings of being surrounded by other, older empires who were ethnically different from Japan. In the ideals of the early Japanese Empire, Japan was as strong as the Western empires but a benevolent protector of other Asian countries (a common propaganda phrase was “Asia for Asians”.). One of the ambassadors specifically refers to the Abh Empire as “the professed protectors of [the regions in dispute].” Perhaps these historical ideas have influenced in some ways the construction of the Abh Empire and its society.

V. Other Points of Interest and Conclusion

What of other empires, such as the Roman, Persian, Russian, Chinese, or others throughout history as models of fictional empires? Or an American Empire, if you want to get all Andrew Bacevich (though given the modern predominance of US power, this would take us into a more modern concept of empire than the traditional ones I’ve mostly discussed. Perhaps Union from Gundam 00 would fit this concept.) One could argue (and I would) that the East Europan Empire in Valkyria Chronicles is as much Imperial Russian as German both by geography and organization. We have a bit of a Chinese empire in Code Geass R2, but in the scope of the story it is rather insignificant.

In sum, anime is a product of its culture, as is all fiction. I hope that I have presented here the points of my argument that the portrayal of empires in anime is linked to Japan’s history with them and with being one, and that there are three predominant forms of portrayal. As this is not an academic paper I haven’t included citations (digging up all those old citations would have been much more work than I’m willing to do for fun), though I am drawing from various courses, readings, documentaries, and personal perceptions over the years in writing this. I welcome your own insights and interpretations on this topic (if you’ve managed to read this whole damn thing.)

Recently, ANN of all places posted this interesting article of a survey conducted in Japan on which anime characters the respondents wished to marry. Most of the characters on the lists shouldn’t be particularly surprising, and its somewhat tilted toward currently running shows, but it’s amusing nonetheless.

For those of you too lazy to click, here’s the waifu list:

1. Mio Akiyama (K-ON!)

2. Hinagiku Katsura (Hayate the Combat Butler)
3. Taiga Aisaka (Toradora!)
4. Rukia Kuchiki (Bleach)
5. Yuki Nagato (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)
6. Azusa Nakano (K-ON!)
7. Chrome Dokuro (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)
8. Sheryl Nome (Macross F)
9. Yui Hirasawa (K-ON!)
10. Asuka Langley Sohryu (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Three of my top 5 waifus are shared (namely Mio, Hinagiku, and Yuki, and not necessarily in that order), but none of the rest approach top waifu status for me. The other members of my top 5 would be Rin and Kagami, of course. It’s unfortunate how fickle fans are, as the majority of choices are from currently running shows. Toradora was likely still running when this survey was conducted, and Macross F only ended a few months ago with a movie coming up. As for Eva, Anno is currently releasing all of those new movies that I haven’t seen…

Husbandos:

1. Kyouya Hibari (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)

2. Gintoki Sakata (Gintama)
3. Toshiro Hitsugaya (Bleach)
4. Mukuro Rokudo (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)
5. Sougo Okita (Gintama)
6. Date Masamune (Sengoku Basara)
7. Tsunayoshi Sawada (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)
8. Ichigo Kurosaki (Bleach)
9. Sebastian Michaelis (Kuroshitsuji)
10. Toushirou Hijikata (Gintama)

What also amuses me is the popularity of the Gintama men. I mean, the show’s humor is very, very low brow, with tons of toilet and sex humor. I would have figured that females would be turned off by that kind of material. Perhaps they are just so enamored with the sexy men that they don’t care? Is that like me watching K-ON because of Mio even though I find the quasi-plot to be dull and often just stupid?

Well readers, what are your thoughts and selections?

A Zeon worth fighting for.

Well now that work is out of the way and I am currently waiting for orders during Spring Break I am finally able to fully address IKnight’s “War Sucks!” post in a fuller manner. IKnight raises an important distinction between the war sucks theme and the prevalent misnomer that it essentially means that such a work is by nature anti-war. For the most part Gundam is anything but anti-war and with exception to a few animated works such as Waltz with Bashir and Grave of the Fireflies there aren’t many animated works that are at their core anti-war. For the most part Gundam is not anti-war since all mecha is a glorification of violence on some level and not an out right rejection of violence as a means to an end. In most cases those who do writing probably have never fought a war nor have ever served in uniform, even then there is a great deal of difference between a conscript and a volunteer. The only widely read writer that I can think of (note there are many more that may or may not have seen combat) who actually fought in a modern war was George Orwell, given that anime is done almost exclusively by Japanese writers and given that they hardly talk of the full scope of the last war that they fought it is unlikely that they are capable of fully understanding the great big mess that is war. IKinght is largely correct in deducing that opposition to one war does not automatically mean that such a person is anti-war, the notion that there can be a just war is proof enough that there are few true pacifists.

If there were to be an anti-war Gundam the protagonist would have to be a GM pilot, not some invincible kid.

I’ll be honest I don’t think that most civilian can even begin to understand what war is and how it is possible for decent people to irrationally enlist. Even if IKnight says that all the conflicts he hears about were in far off places he does ignore the situation in Northern Ireland or what it would have been known to him as “the Troubles” thereby demonstrating what I think is a fundamental issue with civilians in general and idealists in particular, willful ignorance. War is at its core death on an industrial scale nothing will ever change that, not the Geneva Convention, weapons bans, or the International Court of Justice. The creation of such institutions is simply a mark of the notion of a just war and a clean war which is in my experience rather prevalent in the     better off places in the world but by no means universally held even there. What mecha, and in keeping with IKnight’s example, such as Gundam does is vindicate acts of war on the part of the titular heroes, with notable exception to UC. In the case of UC it was the chronicle of a long running war with distinctions between good and evil harder to define as it dragged on since both the Federation and Zeon engaged in atrocities of one sort or another at various times. Most importantly of all is that no matter how great a pilot Amuro, Char, or any one for that matter none of them could put an end to it. For all of the heroism, camaraderie, and nobility none of mattered in the grand scheme of things, it was all in vain. More recent Gundams aren’t anti-war as they amount to little more than power fantasies of the lone teenage hero doing superhuman things on par with curing blindness there by dumbing down the issue of war down to moralistic platitudes of little if any value. Nevertheless ‘War Sucks’ is a universal theme in Gundam, along with all the romanticism associated with war adventure, romance, and heroics, and for good reason, since mecha in Gundam are machines of war and not machines that play basketball.

These days it seems child conscripts are quite fashionable, and as such there will be much tomfoolery and SNAFUs.

‘War Sucks’ is common enough sentiment but because morals differ from place to place making moral judgments on war is largely a futile exercise. The idea that there can be a just war ought to confirm to everyone that war will not be going out of fashion anytime soon. In the case of the Neo-Conservatives the 2003 invasion was justified, not every one agreed and heated and ugly arguments were tossed about across the globe largely over the rather pointless issue of whether or not it was right. Herein lies the crucial divergence of how a soldier and a civilian would think, for the civilian having the moral high ground is important, for the soldier the thing he/she cares about most is victory and how to live to see it. I know for me that once the die was cast there would be no take backs and the only thing that really mattered is and always will be victory, since in all honesty I’d rather deal with the consequences of winning than the consequences of losing and like Patton I’d don’t give two shits for some one who lost and laughed. Even if an indeterminate number of servicemen take issue with the dice being tossed in the first place assigning blame doesn’t help me or anyone else who is in country, but for any civilian that cares about politics (which is pretty much everyone) being right helps them in ways I don’t fully understand. The fixation on moral high ground and moral justification plays a large role in Gundam, sure the side they are on can be wrong, but the hero is always right and largely free of any sort of misbehavior and if there is even the slightest bit of ambiguity there is usually an excuse which is harped upon constantly. In addition the in the recent Gundam series there is a distinct lack of death on the hero faction which automatically removes much of the PTSD factor further making war a mere backdrop for mecha beating each other to pieces.

As for the those who actually volunteer there is much less bitching, though a lot more trash talk.

Within the mecha genre the most glamorous of all soldier subtypes is already chosen, the pilot. There is a great difference between a pilot and infantry, after all a pilot will rarely see the first hand the results of his/her handiwork in the same way a ground pounder would, the fact that pilots do put kill markers on their planes is indicative of how each group has different views on killing. Moreover a pilot is usually an officer with better pay and better facilities than the enlisted. Things are easier for a pilot since IFF is usually good and for the most civilians don’t go off getting in the way in fighters or mobile suits, hence by default a mecha pilot will rarely if ever accidentally kill civilians as opposed to the infantry whose environment is far more confused and IFF is depended sole on a snap judgment measured in milliseconds. For the most part if a pilot does pull off a blue on blue it’s because he/she hit a ground target that was misidentified. So by default Gundam and mecha can’t ever really be anti-war because they deal with a sanitized aspect of war the only more sanitized version would be something about sailors on ships bravely swabbing the deck, not to say that their contribution is unimportant (as the Carrier Battle Group is the primary arm of force projection) but rather that they do have a sanitized environment which they swab on a regular basis. Moreover pilots don’t as a rule have it any where near as bad as the infantry since the idea of digging a hole to shit in with toilet paper being a luxury item is often enough to disabuse anyone with a romantic notion of war.

Damn civilians always getting in the way, this is not a photo op people!

While IKnight is right that every serviceman thinks that war sucks, the important difference is that for the most part those who choose to enlist or accept a commission broadly fall into the following categories the guys with no where else to go, mild misanthropes, guys who want the benefits, the guys who believe in their nation, and any combination there of. The guys who only sign for the benefits are often the first to desert and flee to other places seeking asylum and as a result their thought processes are utterly alien to me. Of the remainder for the most part there is the prevailing belief that while killing is bad letting the Jihad-kuns of the world to go about unopposed is far worse and war being war casualties, even collateral ones, are inevitable since fitting everyone with IFF would be impractical not to mention hard to implement on consenting people given potential overtones of Orwellian Dystopia.

As distasteful as civilian casualties are, it is militarily difficult to solve the problem. First off since the advent of fast moving columns in the post blitzkrieg years armies can move faster than civilians can run (also since civilians have more fat people, children, and senior citizens among them speed is further hampered) and even when they can run some for various reasons choose to stay put or are abandoned, speed being a critical to the success of any campaign seizing the objective is going to take precedence over letting every civilian get a good enough head start. Secondly moving all civilians into camps away from the baddies only sounds good in theory even if they don’t die from bullets they can still die from neglect. Thirdly the Jihad-kuns of the world do like to hide out amongst civilians and since Mao wrote the latest best selling book (to get rich is glorious) on guerrilla warfare every revolution in the making makes a point to get civilians involved in a People’s War. You can make a smart bomb but even then it still relies on a kill radius and there is no guarantee that civilians won’t simply get in the way. Then there is the issue of a huge amount of dumb ordinance that militaries all over the world use, and sadly bullets are very democratic in that they generally don’t give a toss about what they pass through or what they end up in. More often than not any killing of civilians is almost always portrayed as a deliberate act, when the reality is that accidents do occur and a slight shift in the wind can result in unintended consequences.

Sure they look magnificent, but we all know how tough they really are…

Then there are the mild misanthropes like me who consider the entire concept of innocent civilian to be a farce, it’s not so much that the civilian label is disagreeable but the notion that humans are in any way innocent is something I for one consider blatantly disingenuous. In Gundam and most series dealing with war there are plenty innocent civilians to be killed by the forces of evil they are little more that objects to be killed and then mourned for so that the forces of evil can be made all the more abhorrent and ultimately easier to kill while remaining “noble” and “just.” Truth is in war civilians will screw each other over to get what they need, crime doesn’t stop, theft goes up during duress, misdemeanors are committed, felonies continue, and for the most part a declaration of war does not put an end to the petty squabbles and crimes of non-combatants. Profiteering also occurs, so I fail to see how every civilian can be considered innocent when you can have Ann Coulters, Al Frankens, Bernard Madoffs, Charles Mansons, and Josef Fritzls amongst the civilian population. You also have the Janjaweed Rifle Association and the Hamas Rocket Society under the aegis of civilian organization, even then even if captured the members of such associations can’t be shot as spies without some controversy. Lastly I am sure most if not all of you have bought stuff with the Made in China sticker and even with Made in USA the truth is perhaps it too was made in a sweatshop, so if you think about it the ubiquitous presence of Chinese goods means that most of us have taken advantage of sweatshop labor at some point. Given the complexity of the civilian label and the general treatment of most civilians as innocent civilians, most shows dumb it down any anti-war message is already compromised.

Freedom means different things to different people.

While the average mecha protagonist in the recent Gundams is an idealist, the prevalent cynicism within most formal all volunteer militaries, is absent. (I’d imagine that it be much worse for a conscript, but I wouldn’t know) It’s fairly easy to become a misanthrope, I used to believe in human decency and the notion of innocent civilian, but 9/11 changed everything (doesn’t it always). I remember clearly, I woke up at about 0630 local time heard about he attack over 106.1 FM, thought it was bullshit, turned on the news to see the second plane go right into the tower, went to school, attended my advanced algebra class, and then the announcement at about 0830 is made to go home. To my shock and surprise I hear the loud cheers of high school students at the early dismissal, only one girl was crying in that class showing any hint of grief her name oddly enough was Mary (who I am sure was a virgin at the time, the Virgin Mary), and it was then I came to the conclusion that humans are savages.

War ages people in unexpected ways.

It’s my belief that decency was only possible when people were given the chance to be decent and if that loud cheer I heard was indicative of anything it was that not all of us even choose to be decent when given the choice. After that I had no doubt in my mind what I was going to do after high school and in 2003 I started the enlistment process. Having venerated Prussians and reading books about war, and now that a war was inevitable, I answered the call that I had felt for most of my life. The question of whether or not I could live with myself after having participated in so cruel (and uniquely human) an endeavor that might harm innocent civilians was answered with a thunderous cheer, which resulted in a general loss of faith in the human species. I think that is something no one else can understand and as a result most character development from civilian to ace is, to me, fanciful. Fundamentally my reasons for enlisting were irrational, and perhaps that is the thing that is glossed over, humans are irrational. While everyone wants peace the caveat is that we all want it on our terms, and that’s the point of violent disagreement across the globe. It’s easy to say you will die to protect your countrymen, but if given the choice to take a bullet for David Duke…I’d rudely decline. Moreover no one ever won a war by dying for his country, he won it by making the other poor bastard die for his, as such the issue is not whether one is willing to die to protect people, but if they are willing to kill to ensure their safety.

Pretty much sums up Pumpkin Scissors, the setting is depressing, but her antics are odd to say the least.

While Gundam and mecha are not anti-war, what does come to mind when I think of anti-war themes is Pumpkin Scissors, though admittedly not the best series in the world, it nonetheless went to a place few anti-war themed works go, the post war period. It’s a romantic notion that once the guns fall silent that the worst is over, on the contrary, the widespread destruction of infrastructure, displaced persons, the break down of order, botched demobilizations, and in the case of the defeated nations that signed a mildly Carthaginian peace, occupation or reparations. Most worryingly of all is the emotional ill will and anger of the populace after a war, if it is long perhaps the feeling of relief will allay the worst of it, but in a short war hatreds persist because the sacrifices more often than not were simply minimal. Unless of course the victor was waging war in someone else’s backyard in which case the post war period needn’t be painful at all. Even if it was not handled superbly Pumpkin Scissors at least covered many aspects of the shitty post war period, wide spread unemployment, loss of infrastructure, meager harvests, continued rationing, banditry, women turning to prostitution, a generation of women who may not even find a husband, disease, illicit drugs, organized crime, etc. Had it been GRIMDARK it certainly could have succeeded in that regard, but a bubbly happy overtone makes it more digestible since the any overly serious treatment of it might have been to depressing to slog through for 24 episodes.

Tl;dr C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. C’est de la folie.

Philosophy of adaption

Well, I think Kyoani and its creative minds were surely in a syncretic state – they had to balance viewer satisfaction with satisfying their own artistic minds. They had to balance – what Cuchlann and I fight about – the meaningless of art and the superimposed politics of art, entertainment. [This would probably apply to everyone who's ever had to publish something.]

So then let us say, “to excise, or not to excise, that is the question.” In order to provide the viewer with a narrative that avoids resets Kyoani would have needed to remove arcs, ends, and possibly rewrite some material. Yet they decided to include all the original material in the adaptation. The relationship between these two choices – that of “chastity” or “adulteration” – is not hierarchical. This is not a political question, it is a philosophical question¹, and as such, the significance is not in the result of the deed (higher or lower viewer ratings, more or less money) but in the inseparable morality of the deed itself – the two are merely artistic choices devoid of any intrinsic meaning, therefore, both having no meaning, they are equal to one another.

So for some reason I don’t like bringing up talk about the VN and aspects of adapting material. Yeah, Clannad is an adaptation, yeah, aspects of linearity fail sometimes, that’s inevitable. I’ve been working under the presumption that it is literally impossible to encapsulate the aspect of VN replayability in anime, therefore it’s rather silly to compare an anime to something it is intrinsically incapable of doing because, remember, we’re operating under the philosophy that, basically, the means justify the ends (not a typo). Even if you were to reverse the position, say that Kyoani alters source material, rewrites a few endings, there would still be things that version would be intrinsically incapable of doing, like providing those very reset ends you removed and so forth. [hear hear!]

Psychology of time

Valsiner (2005) writes that

[t]he co-existence of different bases for time measurement in human cultural practices reflects the historical complexity of measuring time. Efforts have been made to turn time into reversible units, similar to measures of length, weight etc. These static depictions of time can be seen as examples of “reversible time”. Surely such units are convenient cognitive illusions, yet they have their practical utility. Thanks to that, continuous events can be turned discrete (for example, there can be specifiable “end points” to experiences such as sitting in a lecture hall…). By trying to measure time, the duration notion is lost and time becomes represented in ways similar to space. Practical needs for social organization of life activities in societies guide the thinking of persons about time in the direction of overlooking the irreversibility of the duration.

In sum – time is irreversible as it flows, intricately linked with our experiencing our relations with our worlds. As a result of human cultural history, we have attempted to describe it in terms of stable units, which have served practical purposes. For the understanding of development, units of time that are used in science need to retain some features of irreversibility.

The take-away message is that in our viewing of Clannad (or any sort of time travel) we have to separate psychological time from narrative time.

fig1

[There are some epistemological nuances here - the narrative as a whole doesn't "regress" because the progression of the narrative is tantamount to a developing human psychology within irreversible time, but the narrative does indeed return to events that happened within a past that was established within the framework of relative events of the holistic narrative.]

Previously, Pontifus had written:

I’m having a hard time convincing myself that Clannad is tragic at all, ultimately, when all its tragedy is erased by magic.

But this is a reductive view which equates constant psychological time with narrative time. If we were to say truly that specific events onto which we have attached personal meaning were erased it be tantamount to memory loss of the viewer. Thus we can expand our graph:

fig2

Here, because excel sucks for 3-axis graphs, psychological time = ∆0 because it is always constant. For every instance of psychological time we establish a narrative event, that ratio is 1:1. But narrative events can regress, so even in a ∆0 of psychological time there can be a +/-∆x narrative time. Finally, emotion is always situated in irreversible time (psychologies cannot transverse time) and thus, for the sake of this study², we can set up some syllogisms:

∆emotion = ∆0psychological time
∆narrative time = ∆0psychological time
+/-∆emotion ≠ +/-∆narrative time

A change in emotion equals no change in constant psychological time.
A change in narrative time equals no change in constant psychological time.
A +/- change in emotion does not always equal a +/- change in narrative time.

Figure 2 is a hypothetical calculation of Pontifus’ psychology of Clannad. His psychological time is constant, yet as narrative time regresses his emotional level drops drastically. This is because, as he stated, “tragedy is erased”, which is just to say that narrative time regressed within a constant psychological time. But, as opposed to an Aristotelian notion of tragedy as an end product, it is clear that even a regression in emotion is a process that cannot disregard one’s history.

Even Nazarielle said:

…after what happened, it’s hard for me not to think that they were just trying to hit us as hard as they could, knowing that they could later reverse the sadness and make us all happy at the end. In hindsight, I can’t help but feel that it’s all rather artificial or fabricated. [emphasis added]

But for Nazarielle to explain his discontent, he must first explain the process by which this discontent arose. The process of emotion-building is invaluable because irrespective of what these emotions entail, they are always the basis for a developing psychology. And to explain more fully the process model within this developmental psychology, a fourth data series is need: reflexivity.

fig3

For someone like Pontifus or Nazarielle, or nearly everyone in the ’sphere, reflexivity is crucial – it’s writing, blogging. If there is one thing that is not altered by emotion in irreversible time nor narrative time it is reflexivity – it is cumulative, you cannot erase it (unless you perform a frontal lobotomy or something).³

notes

“You are both extremely excellent students. Your grades and living habits are flawless. Eventually, you’ll both become capable people who will heighten this school’s reputation even more. I look forward to it.”

Theory

It’s a trope of anime to portray high school administration as cold, aloof and mechanically bent on setting students on “the right track”. With typical recourse to half-gendo-glasses Kare Kano paints this one Kawashima-sensei’s administrative functionality as a suppressor of love, love being the general premise of the show. Others have noted that Kare Kano stands out because it subverts the cliché that all overachieving class representatives are prickly assholes lacking terribly in empathy and invigorating youthfulness! I do enjoy the show in this respect – it provides a fresher, deeper perspective into the (more or less) “complicated” psychologies of high school students and their particular personal histories.

What Kare Kano seems to be indicate of, however, is a certain mentality of the role of the student. The role of the student is to study, to achieve, to perform up to the discursive status quo of your socioeconomic class, race, gender, age, ability, and so forth. This the show addresses clearly. Miyazawa and Arima challenge the administration, stating that they have the ability, the agency, to subvert the institutionalized, coercive norm that has established irreconcilability between academic and nonacademic life; apparently, they can do both.

In one sense, Kare Kano misses the larger picture because our protagonist duet uses their agency not to combat the hegemonic ideology of the student, but, on the contrary, to reinforce it by raising the standards to which students deemed as “excellent” (see opening quote) must meet. Now, not only must you conform to the overly-rigorous academic standards in order to fit into the ideology of the exemplary student, but your social life must be teeming with youthfulness. Briefly, yet in more complicated terms, this is when hegemony appropriates counter-hegemony (when does fighting the system actually hurt us more than them?)

So, on the one hand, perhaps you could say that Miyazawa and Arima did an excellent job of using their agency to fight the suppressive ideology of the student by making visible the fullness of their identity – they’re not merely “students”, but individuals as well. And on the other hand, you could say that the two only made the ideology of the student that much worse.

This is the larger mentality which the show is indicative of – the intent not to rewrite the boundaries of discipline but merely to contract them. Kare Kano is so very acutely aware of the larger discourse in which it is involuntarily situated because it does not bring the ideology of the student fully out of the dark. Why? – because Kawashima-sensei’s consequentialist rhetoric (nonetheless pertinent) on “the future” and “your goals” is, incidentally or otherwise, a diversionary tactic which curtains the hegemony of educational institutions by placing blame on students instead of the institution. Thus, the more leftist answer is educational reform – install “critical pedagogy” (please, don’t get me started -_-’) in order for “students” to become more than mere “students”, those passive receptacles for academic knowledge which instill in youth this problematic ideology of institutionalized identity.

Practice

So, where’s the practicability of all this, you ask? For the most part, I can only extrapolate and provide some basic data:

(source)

Nor does this graph alone say anything, but let’s pretend that near 100% of the age group 15-24 is comprised of students. It’s also important because, apparently, Japanese high school freshman are 15 upon entering, and through a series of convoluted causalities would explain the huge jump in suicide.

Given, these are statistics from 1992. Kare Kano, the manga, was published in 1995, the anime was produced in 1998. There’s really no reason for me to try and get all “scientific” based on such deplorable evidence (alas, my tongue is not of the runes!), so I’ll just say that an overly-intense Japanese work ethic is the cause for a number of youth suicides every year. One way to prevent suicide is to, well, make school a bit less suicide-inducing for Japanese students. Recently, the Japanese government initiated a counter-suicide white paper to reduce suicide by 20% within a decade. The referred to article states:

“The White Paper exposes the traditional approach in Japan of ignoring the issue altogether and presses for the kind of basic research into causes that is standard in most developed nations.”

This alleged “ignoring [of] the issue altogether” seems highly reminiscent of the anime we were just discussing – how Miyazawa and Arima merely try to prove themselves worthy of the institution’s status quo instead of trying to change the institution and its coercive status quo. That could count, if not as “ignoring the issue altogether”, then “ignoring one significant cause of the issue.”[1]

Ethics

RELEVANT!

Kawashima-sensei is surely not a pernicious conservative whose aim it is to destroy the lives on his liberal students. Perhaps I’ve portrayed him that way, but I’m certain that he has his own ideology and personal history. He’s probably from the war era, when times were tough, when, perhaps, love was secondary to financial security – love is indeed a sociopsychological privilege (more like burden?) of those affluent enough not to be worried about how many children it will take to farm your fields when you’re not able to anymore. So Kawashima-sensei’s “consequentialist rhetoric” is very important – unless you change the very structure of the global economy, you should indeed be concerned over the future of your financial security. Here is the main ethical concern of discourse (or as some scholars like to floridly call it, semiotic demand setting): should we be concerned with the immediate or the long-term? How do we reconcile the two? By directing discourse towards the suppressive features of Japanese pedagogy we then label the positive aspects of such pedagogy as “diversionary tactics”. On the flipside, ignoring your financial future in favor of high school rabu rabu could indeed ruin the rest of your life (possibly leading to suicide!). Whatever the most pragmatic answer is, I think the first step (and in related scenarios) is to be aware of the extent of the situation and all its possibilities of development. The first step, at least for me, is political consciousness.

Back to the damn anime

Does Kare Kano directly address most of the aforementioned stuff? No (nor any other anime I’ve seen). The anime is a love story about two high school students overcoming obstacles that impede their love, it’s not about complex social theory. I don’t think the anime sympathizes with Kawashima-sensei as I have. That makes the anime that much more shallow – it’s an empathy based on cliché binaries of good and bad. The anime does not present complex and problematic ethical questions, but merely an easy way for the viewer to relate to the typified struggle of high school romance. Finally, this is not to say that all I have just excreted is false – cultural texts are always situated, involuntarily or otherwise, in political and ideological terrains. Blah blah blah, watch the show, it’s enjoyable!

To make the template easier to follow, this time our collaboration has been formatted as a chat.

Crusader: Well while Sei is keeping her hair short and looking rather masculine it seems that Yoko has stayed largely the same. Sadly Eriko was absent, I wonder what became of her and her eccentric target, but perhaps another time, one thing I kind of don’t like is that we never see much of life after Lilllian though I suppose it prevents the cast from getting BIG and HUGE. As for the young mother scaling the wall…well if she was going to do an urban assault she lacked the upper body strength.

lelangir: Yoko’s appearance was interesting. She was kind of this “dominating” maternal figure when she was at Lilia Gakuen, though now she’s, at least in appearance, the quintessential business lady: trousers, blazer, big purse, dress shirt. It does make one ponder, as you said, about life after highschool. Is her change in appearance not really a change in her personality (because we rarely see the girls out of their uniform), or what else does it signify?

Crusader: I wouldn’t call Yoko a business lady it just seems to be casual dress and nothing too formal, besides she just graduated last year unless she has connections she either in college too or at a low tier position. Gotta love how Sei made the aspiring infiltrator squirm. If I had to make a judgment on what their new civie clothes signify it’s that hey have gone into a new world probably the real world in relation to Lillian. The universal use of pants instead of skirts is probably the real significance if you think about it, most women I see these days don’t wear skirts.

lelangir: But…this is Japan. TvTropes tell us that “[e]ven the author admits that the series should best be seen as a fantasy story. None of the girls even use a mobile phone, even though it’s obviously set in the present.” I was getting a strange 90’s vibe from the clothes. Especially when Sachiko got jeans with Yumi. As for skirts, I guess in the American northeast, as it is fairly cold, I never see pleated skirts. Though the Catholic all-girls school as fantasy vis-a-vis “the real world” makes sense.

Crusader: Actually I went to high school near an all girl’s Catholic school, and an all boys school too. Catholic School Girls are really mean spirited and a few are public school rejects. The rotten bastards think otherwise, but they got the money to hide the fact they got kicked out of public school. Rich Bastards. I digress though, still I like this fantasy the reality sucks. Still how did Yoko come to the conclusion that Yuuko Hosakawa looked like some one she knew? Neon green is a rather hideous color though, they stick out but so does a county jail jump suit.

lelangir: They put a lot of emphasis on Yumi’s squirrelish behavior, and it’s partly her “duty” to balance out the other polarized personalities in the Yamayurikai, like the Twin Drills Tsundere, etc. I don’t know how Yoko drew a deeper connection between Yuuko and Yumi though. Any thoughts?

Crusader: None at the moment, though since Yumi is one of those meddling kids I suppose she shares that much in common with Yoko given how Yoko was into meddling in the affairs of others while she was Queen of Lillian. Despite bieng bigger poor Kanako retreated before Touko, I guess there’s just no fighting fate. Poor Yoshino has to hold the fort while Yumi is out and about, though I guess having Yoshino make a funny face was worth it.

lelangir: This episode did a lot more to subtly establish that Touko takes precedence over Kanako. Kanako was reduced to a “sub-plot” within this episode, she was the focus of the filler, while, despite the brief contact Yumi had with Touko, such contact helped develop Touko’s deredere side. I suspect that Kanako’s relation with Yumi only provides for a memetic “journey to find the true self” as Kanako eases up more and more to others.

Crusader: Lord forgive for some vulgar thoughts had crossed my mind when Yumi had two hotdogs on a stick. Kanako, I suppose find her own way, and stand tall on her own, not that she needs to be any taller. Still maybe someday Kanako will end up being tall, dark, and bishoujo. Lack of fullbody shot of Shimako was a tad disappointing. Though if Yoko is to be believed then Yumi might end up banging a coach and drive Sachiko into a jealous rage. Still for Yumi and Yuuko to be similar it’s bit of stretch. Comparatively I was a bit surprise that Kanako beat out Sei in stature.

lelangir: What surprised me most was that this Yuuko-senpai had a child with Kanako’s father. I have no idea how old Yuuko is, but she looks fairly young; young enough to be hailed as “-senpai”. This is the second time we’ve seen a fairly controversial relationship, the first being Eriko’s love for a weirdo paleontologist. It is perhaps also significant that Kanako was comforted by such a small girl, Yuuko is Yumi’s height, so the appearance there would suggest that Kanako’s stature only emphasizes her small confidence and insecurity. She’s more vulnerable.

Crusader: Yeah it seems Kanako’s dad is living the dream. In terms of age gap Yuuko is is at least one year older possibly two or three years older, but still that’s pretty young given how old Kanako’s dad looks. Hey if nothing else at least Kanako has an awesome step mom. For me age isn’t much of an issue, it’s just that Yuuko was his student after all not to mention his daughter’s friend, but hey they’re happy I hope that is what really matters. Still Sachiko was deliciously duplicitous this time with her half truths, way to wind up Kanako.

lelangir: Sachiko’s playful deviousness did indicate quite well how she was keen not to sake things too seriously. She had the insight to make a mess out of things, but I wonder if her perceptiveness will last until she’s able to make sense out of the ensuing Yumi/Touko drama?

Crusader: Also I just realized that Kanako’s dad was crying too. Reunited and it feels so good, indeed. I am all for a yuri three-some, and I doubt Sachiko is unwilling to share Yumi. Sachiko certainly had mellowed out a bit and I think that she understands how Yumi will need to have a souer once she is gone. Yumi can’t be the last to hold the torch. Was it wrong of me to think for a moment that their crying was coming from the bag? In any case some one needs to shop Sachiko from pointing off into the distance, either Objection or Fleet Engagement will do. BTW I have to ask comrade how much did you enjoy Touko with her hair down or are you only in love with the twin drills?

lelangir: I thought that was a wig lol. She looked weird with the long hair, and the old fat mom dress didn’t help. But on another Yumi/Touko note, there was their short exchange concerning gifts: Yumi gives some food tickets to Touko as a gift, but Touko refuses her generosity, saying there’s no need for such a gift, then Yumi retorts by saying that Touko helped the Yamayurikai with the play and that she would go see Touko’s performance later. When Yumi says she’d watch Touko, we get a slight Touko Facial Contortion, coupled with her forgetting about the gift entirely. Touko is soooo tsundere.

Crusader: You wanted more hopes and dreams I take it? Touko won’t last much longer… I love how Sachiko reaffrimed her onee-sama rights before telling Yumi that it was time for her to find a souer. Still next ep looks like Eriko will be making a return and I wonder how her life has turned out.

After lelangir poked holes into the notion of a team blog as being a team I started reading about pirates for 18th Century English Literature. Certainly even here at THAT and elsewhere we are not a finely tuned military machine (blog) that ensures the best cooperation between all arms (members). There are many things that prevent a team blog to have the sort of efficiency that allowed the Wehrmacht to roll over most of Europe with Blitzkrieg. Instead even in the digital age I suppose most collaborative efforts are marred by communication problems, be it time zone differences or generally that it takes us days to respond to requests. Even lelangir, espouser of teamwork, was hard to get a hold of for a marimite post. While I am sure that a higher level of team work might be achievable, the limitations imposed simply because generally each blogger has real life obligations that we can scarcely move beyond a loose coaltiion.  Just as Blitzkreig would have been impossible without the radio so too is the kind of professional teamwork seen in such places as say 1up beyond the reach of most team blogs simply because we have our own schedules. At most we can probably attain as sort of Wellington and Blucher dynamic rather than a Patton and Abrams.

Ideally I suppose every team blog or multi author blog would be organized along Prussian/German lines (because no matter what the Germans are notoriously efficient). There would be a General Staff that would have prepared piles of posts or ideas for posts that only needed a bit of fine tuning and a time stamp. Each team would be distinguished by the formal selection of its authors by intelligence and proven merit rather than élan, and the exhaustive and rigorously structured training which authors undertook. This training would be designed not only to weed out the less motivated candidates, but also to produce a body of writers with common methods and outlook (grammatical standards essentially with variation in diction and prose), and most importantly an almost monastic dedication to posting. That aside most responsibility would be delegated to each author in the field with resources and aid allocated as dictated by the needs of the post in question. The overall objective is to institutionalize the work (and perhaps genius) of those who came before, those who now serve, and those who have yet to come. In reality, there is no casual anime blog that even comes close to this nor are we in the business of declaring that “there can only be one” or other such nonsense. In order to be a team in the true sense every person on a blog has to become a cog in a machine with a specified role along with latitude given to field operatives who have the best assessment of a changing situation, otherwise you have micromanagement and that makes for a shitty command structure as the Syrians found out in 1973. (Note that this passage is not indicative of the views of THAT or in anyway a reflection of the collective prejudices of THAT, it is only a sorry excuse for me to rant about Germans in a manner most tangential)

While publicly there is probably little indication of combined effort, logistically (behind the scenes) there is much more team work to be seen, blogroll maintenance, checking e-mail, and for me what I dub Black Bag Operations and spam control (I am, after all, the NKVD here). Being part of a team means being able to get a second opinion on a post before publishing it, or otherwise fine tuning it a bit. It allows for extended leave by changing of the guard so to speak. Logistics aside generally speaking team blogs are not finely tuned posting machines that seek to steamroll over other blogs in campaigns of conquest. Besides not all of us are tech savy and choose to pool our efforts in order to avoid the ground work for setting up a blog with all the bobs and whistles.

Rather in terms of, for a lack of a better word, society I suppose bloggers are essentially pirates. Sure most of us have dabbled in copyright issues, but beyond that superficially at least we do share some traits with the likes of Black Bart and Calico Jack. You see pirates back in ye olde days were essentially social misfits who got sick of being beaten by ship masters in “respectable” occupations, and if you know anything about what life was like for the impressed sailors of the Royal Navy, one would conclude that it was not a decent living. Not to say that we have it as hard a life as those poor sea dogs, but given that we even discuss the merits of “adult” loli hentai as CP we don’t exactly fit in with the mainstream either. Still if you look at the code of conduct drawn up by one fellow by the name of Bartholomew Roberts (you may have heard of him), as listed here:

1. Every man shall have an equal vote in affairs of moment. He shall have an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized, and shall use them at pleasure unless a scarcity may make it necessary for the common good that a retrenchment may be voted.

2. Every man shall be called fairly in turn by the list on board of prizes, because over and above their proper share, they are allowed a shift of clothes. But if they defraud the company to the value of even one dollar in plate, jewels or money, they shall be marooned. If any man rob another he shall have his nose and ears slit, and be put ashore where he shall be sure to encounter hardships.

3. None shall game for money either with dice or cards.

4. The lights and candles should be put out at eight at night, and if any of the crew desire to drink after that hour they shall sit upon the open deck without lights.

5. Each man shall keep his piece, cutlass and pistols at all times clean and ready for action.

6. No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man shall be found seducing any of the latter sex and carrying her to sea in disguise he shall suffer death.

7. He that shall desert the ship or his quarters in time of battle shall be punished by death or marooning.

8. None shall strike another on board the ship, but every man’s quarrel shall be ended on shore by sword or pistol in this manner. At the word of command from the quartermaster, each man being previously placed back to back, shall turn and fire immediately. If any man do not, the quartermaster shall knock the piece out of his hand. If both miss their aim they shall take to their cutlasses, and he that draweth first blood shall be declared the victor.

9. No man shall talk of breaking up their way of living till each has a share of 1,000. Every man who shall become a cripple or lose a limb in the service shall have 800 pieces of eight from the common stock and for lesser hurts proportionately.

10. The captain and the quartermaster shall each receive two shares of a prize, the master gunner and boatswain, one and one half shares, all other officers one and one quarter, and private gentlemen of fortune one share each

11. The musicians shall have rest on the Sabbath Day only by right. On all other days by favor only.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a pirate’s life for me
We pillage, we plunder we rifle and loot
Drink up me hearties, yo ho
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot
Drink up me hearties, yo ho

You will see that like pirates, we bloggers of fortune are generally egalitarian in our decision making, in the case of THAT even Captain Impz is answerable to the rest of us and his authority derives out of common consent. Not that we ever had to deal with a mutiny or anything…Though I wish I could have acted as quartermaster for a duel or two. Otherwise this is a collaborative effort with each author contributing his/her time to write up a post. Sadly most of the articles laid forth by Roberts do not apply, seeing as we have no cutlasses or any of that cool jazz. Also we allow girls to be apart of these enterprises, and I’d like to believe that we are not in the habit of seducing children, but I suspect otherwise. Still for the most part organizationally we are spread out across the globe without any formal union. Like pirates we (and that includes single author blogs) often make loose alliances to raid (blog) series in concert and rob the ship masters (writers, directors, studio staff) of those blockaded (viewed) series of all their dignity or to see them off handsomely as perceived quality allows. Most importantly the ability for each of us to separate or retire is sacrosanct. So in many ways we share some similarity to pirates, we have little love of stratification, and value our own independence. The degree of desired independence will vary from person to person, not every one wants to be a free booter, despite the jokes of Impz’s Army and accusations that blogomerates are sucking up all the traffic, as in the age of sail we are all at the mercy of the winds of fortune. The only real advantage of being on a multi-author blog is the reduction of logistical difficulties, and perhaps mild feelings of camaraderie.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a pirate’s life for me
We extort, we pilfer we filch and sack
Drink up me hearties, yo ho
Maraud and embezzle and even high-jack
Drink up me hearties yo ho

I don’t find lelangir’s entourage theory and venn diagrams to be entirely precise defining the author in relation to the reader, mostly because I think that the average reader is reading mostly because said reader is interested in the series being discussed, with any fondness for the author being secondary or even tertiary. After all like the Battle of Guadalajara there are many writers of fortune who see the same thing but each can derive an all together different conclusions. Just as the French and Russians felt that the problem with the Italian Mechanized Warfare was deficiencies in the concept of mechanized warfare, where as the Germans felt that the problem was deficiencies in Italians; we the audience can at the same time give a standing ovation or merely hurl rotten tomatoes. The reader themselves can decide what to make of an episode, their participation is by and large voluntary and have no need to visit a blog instead of heading off to a forum. The same loosely applies to the editorial as the issue might be the same, but the conclusions might vary wildly. As such I don’t read all of IKnight’s posts since his delving in mecha have brought out stuff older than me or series I have never even heard of, I read only on things that I can somewhat relate to. I don’t read all of lelangir’s editorials because he uses technical language that is beyond my peasant comprehension just as I suspect most of you will know nothing of Waterloo, the Prussian General Staff, the Spanish Civil War, or the Golden Age of Piracy. In the end maybe it’s not fondness for a writer’s style that appeals to the average reader but love for a series and then discriminating from there. Maybe like the general public readers take interest simply based on the notoriety of the writer of fortune in question, after all Omni is usually at the tip of the spear so naturally we go to RC for spoilers since many do not speak moon. There are other ways of achieveing noteriety of course…

Personally I don’t think people read my posts because they like tl;dr posts, rather they simply like Gundam 00, Ture Tears, and Macross Frontier. Maybe my notoriety derives from being the only one who actually liked Alto-hime, or perhaps I am the only one who is openly sick in the head (Hell my date of enlistment was in 2004, anyone who knows anything about world events knows what connotations that might carry), perhaps that is why the wandering minstrel lelangir has declared me a test subject and marked me for observation. Since there is some mild hostility to the term blogosphere, I propose that we rename it Pirate Helltown (Mos Eisley or some other hive of scum and villainy would also do), blogs become ships, and bloggers become writers of fortune. Besides finding innovative ways to spend huge amounts of money in a short period of time was also a pirate trait as was the perpetual search for loot.

lelangir’s take

As for these “team posts”, they are admittedly in an experimental phase. It is certain that the format needs refinement, as there are communication problems within the GATTAI post. But from the three I have done, they have been wonderfully productive for the authors, though, as Crusader mentions, a post being productive for the reader is just as or more important.

In the end, this nascent idea of “teamwork” needs refinement and expansion, not abandonment.

Omisyth: black
lelangir: blue ←[109]

First thing I noticed was that the OP got kind of a generic pop sound to it. Yeah, I wasn’t fond of it, but the lyrics were significant. It’s very similar to the OP change in Marimite – there’s a line that says something like “embrace the fact that you can laugh honestly and run,” which signifies Natsume’s development from totally scared of Youkai to his more open relationship with them. I tend to ignore lyrics in most shows for fear that the fansubs are wrong or the original meaning is lost in translation, but even when thinking of that I see your point. Yeah, although you see him walking across a bridge and looking back, reminiscing, so that metaphor is definitely relevant. Either that or the creators just wanted a shot of him in repose. He seems a bit more fabulous than I remember. I actually liked the OP, the fact it’s more energetic and bold than the original seems to reflect what you said about his relationship with the Youkai. A great technique they used in the OP was that it was half without Youkai and half with Youkai. It demonstrated how much of a silent presence they are in Natsume’s world, especially with the Youkai creating a ripple on the water’s surface.

This show is all about reciprocity, the giving and receiving of things. This theme spans generations too, which is why all the Youkai confuse Natsume with Reiko. Reiko’s obligation to reciprocate the deeds of the Youkai (giving her their names) is transfered down two generations. But it’s not Reiko’s obligation. We haven’t learned enough about her relationship with the Youkai to get an accurate grasp of why she was taking their names in the first place. Natsume feels that he needs to give back the Youkai’s names to make up for the deeds of his grandmother. I don’t know if they’ll ever really get into Reiko. Nyanko-sensei can transform into her appearance, but they haven’t said anything about that at all. And on another note, I like the metaphor of giving/taking, but a lot of it just seems like a contrived way to “bishify” Natsume and produce lots of melodrama. I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that Natsume’s going to be the sensitive upstanding mediator between the Youkai and the humans, uncompromising in his feelings of protecting each race (most of the time from each other). There are times when the drama just comes off as cheesy, mostly due to the dialogue, like that line where he says “there’s an important reason I need to get that book back”. It seems like they’re just re-stating the same thing over and over with that aspect of the show. That is one reason why (perhaps one of two) that I don’t like this show – it’s redundancy: then again, that is a reason to savor it each time.

One aspect I didn’t like was how conveniently the “high spirits” are beautiful and the lowly ones ugly and grotesque. That’s a common symbol though, it’s in Bleach, with the Espada taking human form, but the less powerful not obtaining that appearance. It’s an easy way to signify personality, virtue and conscience through appearance. That’s for sure, even the lesser spirits who aren’t on the same level as Bishie Angel look more human, and they’re shown to be emotionally deeper than, say, the likes of those rioting Youkais. Though there was that huge ugly one that Madara fought in the first season… Yeah, it’s “the masses” of spirits that are in anime form, some are just ghastly looking too. Those are the ones that, as Natsume said previously, seek the Book of Friends for their own devious ends. The more humanism a Youkai contains, the more “noble” his/her deeds appear to be. We could even look at this as pity for those masses of Youkai, though that may be going too far. Due to their weakness and horrible appearance, what do they have to hope for in their lifetime spanning hundreds of years? A life of solitude and decadence, living on the bottom rung of their society. They must aspire to something, and the Book of Friends seems to be it. Yeah, that’s seems implicit without the show. Ironically, in the first episode of season one we see a semi-ghastly looking Youkai, but her history is revealed, and the melodrama is produced by pity, as you said, for how can such a haggard looking thing be as emotionally refined as a human? – but it’s precisely the dissonance between ugly appearance and beautiful soul which makes the show powerful. It’s no coincidence that the ones that involve the most bishie-fied characters are the least engrossing.

It was interesting to see how easily Natsume fit in with the Youkai, despite his smell. It suggests that the border between human and Youkai is very thin. I think this type of scene just takes the cake. I understand that this is meant to be a disguise, but it’s just a piece of paper. That he can see through. That also seems to partially cover up his smell. Bit too ridiculous for me in this show about transforming cats and magical books. Well for all the other “high” Youkai, the artifacts marking difference to humans is small. There was the super hot Haru Youkai that was a firefly, and she just had a mask. There was some butterfly mask Youkai in this episode too. And the lord, Riou-sama, just had wings. The difference is only skin-deep for all the Youkai, really. They act as many humans would, albeit less civilised than today’s society. They fight for their lord like many people would back in previous eras (perhaps feudal Japan).

And what would you say about Natsume keeping his Youkai-seeing ability a secret? He said that he didn’t want to trouble his foster parents, and I suppose that ties in with the theme of obligations/reciprocity. It once again brings up this image of him as a selfless person. He doesn’t want to stop others from seeing him as a freak (something which comes up a lot with a protagonist having a secret ability), he just doesn’t want to bring down worry upon his foster parents, who evidently love him more than his previous ones. You could see it as a trading of affection and consideration, I guess.

So we’ve reverted back to the classic NYC ED, replete with sexy art and even sexier music. I love how he’s walking in snow, and it actually is winter (in the northern hemisphere), so that’s a little bit of fourth wall there. I’ve always liked the use of sketchy animation; the lack of definition gives everything more of a calm and collected feel, perfect this show and perfect for the music. One thing NYC does excellently – they start playing the ED music before the animation sequence starts. It really makes you keep watching and sit through the ED every time. Kimikiss also did this. I don’t think there are many shows which round off an episode in such a good way as Natsume. There’s always a sense of conclusiveness and satisfaction at the end of each episode(which is crucial for an episodic show), supported by the use of the traditional pan-up camera shot towards the always blue sky.

OMG! A hawt new rival for Sasada’s love?!

In the above case, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (a text of the opinion is located here) affirmed a trial court conviction of Mr. Whorley for “knowingly receiving on a computer 20 obscene Japanese anime cartoons depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.” Does this mean you are going to get carted away for your massive loli gang rape doujin collection?

Disclaimer: this post can only be considered the ramblings of a law student on this particular case and First Amendment jurisprudence. Don’t be an idiot and take it for actual legal advice.

I. Background

Senator Orrin Hatch, the bill’s sponsor and moral authority douchebag

A bit of preliminaries here, the model citizen in question was convicted under the cutely named PROTECT Act passed by Congress in 2003. Don’t think this was Congress’ first time at the child porn rodeo however. The Supreme Court had already struck down large swaths of its predecessors, namely the Communications Decency Act, the Child Pornography Prevention Act, and the Child Online Protection Act. But Congress was not about to let the Constitution to get in the way of getting votes, and once again voted to “protect the children.”

The law imposes criminal sanctions on anyone who knowingly possesses a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that:

1) Depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and is obscene; or
2) Depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

Also note that “it is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist” and that Mr. Whorley was convicted under the bolded clause.

Note that many of the words in this statute do not mean what the dictionary says; they are legal terms of art that can only be explained through case law. And Congress was very, very particular in this drafting to skirt around the Supreme Court’s prior rulings, something that this Fourth Circuit court endorses. Because in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, as the court here points out, the Supreme Court held that “a statutory provision prohibiting any visual depiction that ‘is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct’ violated the First Amendment insofar as it prohibited virtual imagery of minors that was neither obscene nor involved actual children.” This distinction is explored two sections below.

II. Facts of the Case

In 1999 Mr. Whorley was convicted of other crimes involving the download of child pornography (of real children I believe). However, he apparently was not able to “make a good faith effort to control his sexual deviance.” He repeatedly violated his supervised release which forbid him from using computers without permission and required him to get a job and attend various child porn rehab programs, none of which he did. The court also soberly noted that Mr. Whorley was often found “at local malls and public libraries frequented by children in direct disobedience of his probation officer’s instructions.” This fellow was basically a bona fide pedophile.

As for the conviction at issue in this particular case, the facts are roughly as follows. The defendant went to the local state employment office and used the on-site computers for his porn fix. In view of everyone, at a public terminal, he both viewed and printed out underage hentai. Unsurprisingly, the staff noticed and stopped him, seizing the materials in the process and kicking him out. However, his Yahoo e-mail account was left open and the staff printed out several dirty e-mails (which is probably an illegal search, but his attorney failed to object at trial, and the FBI went after the e-mail account themselves regardless) in addition. After the incident was reported, the FBI investigated him thoroughly, finding that he conducted internet searches for “child sex play” and obtained explicit images of both real and drawn minors, all of this at the public terminal. A pretty open and shut case from an evidentiary standpoint, and unsurprisingly he was convicted on multiple counts.

III. Essential Distinctions- Obscenity

The First Amendment may say that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech” but it doesn’t really mean what it says. There are several exceptions to freedom of speech, including obscenity (others include incitement, fighting words, and libel), which the Supreme Court has concluded are not the types of speech the framers aimed to protect. The government is allowed to regulate those types of speech that are not protected, subject to court review. For those of you unfamiliar with the way things work in the States, Congress can write any law it feels like, but the courts can throw it out if it doesn’t follow the rules laid out in the Constitution.

I won’t spend a lot of time on whether possession of child pornography depicting actual children is illegal, because the Supreme Court long ago found it so, albeit with certain restrictions. There are also some other holdings here on what constitutes possession and receiving that I’m going to skip over. My focus is on the holdings regarding whether the government can restrict pornography depicting children that are not real.

First, child pornography depicting real children can be restricted by the government regardless of whether or not it is considered “obscene,” as decided in New York v. Ferber. On the other hand the court here cites the more recent Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, which as previously stated, held that a statute that did not distinguish between real or actual children “violated the First Amendment insofar as it prohibited virtual imagery of minors that was neither obscene nor involved actual children.” The court reads that to indicate that the PROTECT Act language stating that “it is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist” is constitutionally valid because the crimes Mr. Whorley is charged with under the Act dealing with depictions of non-existent children require the depiction to be obscene.

Note that Mr. Whorley was only convicted under 1466A(a)(1) (“receives or possesses with intent to distribute . . . depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and is obscene”) and not (a)(2), (b)(1) or (b)(2). The court makes no ruling on the constitutionality of those sections since the question was not before them.

So the question becomes whether or not the depictions at issue are obscene, a word which has a long history of cases behind it. The widely cited Miller test from Miller v. California lays out the three guidelines for obscenity:

1) Whether the average reasonable person applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests
2) Whether the work depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, either actual or simulated, such as sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sadism, masochism, excretion or lewd exhibitions of the genitals, or “hard core.”
3) Whether, considered in its entirety, the work lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value

Wow, that’s a lot of BS huh? Obscenity is one of the most flimsy areas of constitutional law, as Justice Stevens famously remarked that there isn’t a real standard for obscenity, but that he’d know it when he saw it. And each of those standards has its own line of cases defining the “rules” that would take me a very long time to talk about. What I think you should come away from this is that it’s really not that difficult to find that most hentai would be considered obscene if you really tried. Do you trust the overzealous U.S. Attorney who’s eyeing a run for Congress on a law and order platform and the “family values” judge with lifetime tenure you may get? I wouldn’t, frankly. I guess the more story your porn has the better you’d feel, as the classic examples of depictions of Constitutionally kosher children and sex with literary value are Lolita and Romeo and Juliet.

Overly Simplified Post-Whorley Table for the Lazy/TL;DR Types

IV. The Future

Who knows, right? Well I suppose we can always guess. First note that this ruling is technically only binding on the Fourth Circuit (see the map here for the states involved). However, it is also important to note that most of the time the other circuits will come to similar conclusions. There’s also a decent likelihood that if Mr. Whorley’s lawyers decide to appeal this that the Supreme Court would take it up, and such a ruling would be binding on the entire country. They have ruled on the constitutionality of all of the PROTECT Act’s predecessors (striking vast portions of them down, as previously noted). I’d certainly like them to take it up and strike it down because I feel that the Whorley opinion and the PROTECT Act go against what the Supreme Court was trying to say in Ashcroft, but that’s hard to predict. Today’s court is much different from the court that decided Ashcroft, with an extra couple of conservatives now sitting on the Court.

Now some of you may be thinking, well is the FBI going to come and arrest me for my porn collection? Well first think of the situation here. This individual was an actual pedophile who was previously convicted of possessing real child porn, and in fact was convicted of possessing real child porn in addition to hentai in this case. He also was accessing it on a public computer; it was not the result of one of the FBI’s child porn sting operations. Consider also that there are domestic commercial hentai out there that depict minors, many of them with really great stories (Crescendo or Figures of Happiness, for example) and I haven’t heard of anyone being arrested for them. Both depict high schoolers having sex, along with the laughable statement that everyone in it is 18 (which holds very little weight in court). On the other hand there’s plenty of tentacle rape hentai with no story that are probably obscene in this context.

You may also want to consider another recent case of an Iowa man charged under the same statute for importing some sort of underage hentai. He got caught not because he was on a public terminal, but because he was importing manga from Japan and some bored post office officials decided to inspect it. The article indicates that the lower court ruled some parts of the PROTECT Act unconstitutional, but you can pretty much ignore that since it’s at the lowest level and the other judges can merely ignore it (not to mention it only affects Iowa’s district). I can’t really provide much insight into that case as I have no access to more of the details of the case.

In the end I think readers should realize that maintaining freedom of speech is a continuous fight for us. We take many things for granted in today’s society, forgetting the struggles of our past and the things our predecessors had to endure to enable our freedoms. How far do you think it’s ok to push the sexual envelope? Is loli ok but not scat porn? Do you think that people should have their fetishes judged by others? Do these fetishes harm other people? Whether it’s your gang rape loli hentai or Bono saying “fuck” on live television, First Amendment jurisprudence is alive and kicking. Don’t let it pass you buy without understanding your rights.

“Ne, lelangir-san, lelangir-san~!”

“Nani, eruke?”

“For the awards, do you nominate your favorites or the ‘objective’ best?”

“wut”

Here, lolikit and lelangir take a look around the ’sphere and discuss whom they would nominate for what if the Anime Blog Awards were to take place this instant. We only address those categories we thought would give us things to talk about, and, of those, some are more organized than others. Please weigh in with your own thoughts on the topics at hand in the comments, as this is more than a popularity contest.

Best Editorial

Editorial is a broad term. I guess in my own view, you have the bateszi/IKnight/Lawson style of commentary, and then there are the more analytic pieces. Not that styles and bloggers are mutually exclusive, of course.

Lawson-style is, in more cases than not, just fanboying about something with airy diction that makes said fanboying sound harmless. All the while it infects his readers and turns them into automatons of love and moe! It is a disease! A diseeeeeeeease!!

Favorite (non-meta) commentary: IKnight & bateszi. I’m not surprised it’s the brits with the flowerly writing. I don’t read bateszi, I think because Owen’s hero-worship turned me off. If you hold him in such high regard, maybe I should change my ways? I guess it’s like eating, as IKnight would say, a very dark, rich chocolate cake.

Well. I’m going to throw some nomnomnominations the way of Mike and jpmeyer, because I am living in the past. Take that! I remember jvaldez being an enjoyable read, but he’s been kinda dead lately.

Most Thought-Provoking

For little old me, thought-provoking in the ’sphere has come to mean “RyanA, ghostlightning, Cuchlann, and lelangir debating something on a grossly meta level, replete with literary references and the names of psychologists.” That gives me over nine thousand directions to go in for listing blogs, as we’ve got RyanA’s one blog, Cuchlann’s two, ghostlightning’s three four, and… well, I can’t even begin counting all the blogs lelangir posts at. Ten, I think.

If you were to put a gun to my head, however, I’d list the following three for most thought-provoking:

Super Fanicom

It’s a powerhouse of insight. It’s got three of the deepest writers in the ’sphere. I must admit that I am not too familiar with Kaiserpingvin, but to be fair he’s only written on the site twice. I’m a special fanboy of Pontifus because he waxes literary on Aria from time to time, which gets me bothered and hot. I’d say, no offense to ponti-dono, that Cuchlann is easily the most thought-provoking blogger in the ’sphere. I think OVER 9000 WORDS can attest…if you’ve read it. He basically kicks my ass and proceeds to rape me. I never said Pontifus was deeper. Just sexier. Not everyone has a rape fetish (to the relief of my next pick!). LOL, I finally get that joke after reading “public enemy #2″; priceless, really.

Anime Almanac

No, this isn’t a joke. Nor is it a troll. The reasoning behind this pick might not be what our “ever lovable blogger” SVS might hope for, but I think it’s justified: Anime Almanac gets me thinking about why certain lines of thinking fail and why certain styles of blogging are better than others. I guess it’s harsh to say “your failure has made my mind stronger,” but it’s true. Thanks, Scott. Ah, you see, this is one reason why the category “thought-provoking” fails. A blog you find stupid can be very thought-provoking. Hell, I find Sankaku Complex fairly thought-provoking at times. Does that mean it fails? I don’t think so. We still have “Best Editorial” for those blogs that have truly good… well, editorials.

We Remember Love

ghostlightning, beyond collaborating with lelangir and others (myself included), has helped me reexamine my place in the ’sphere. He has given me reason to continue applying “lolikitean understanding” (IcyStorm’s testicular prespiration helps (ønlÿ For WôRMs LIKE Yöu who dó nOT Understand!)) in my reading of anime, and he has caused me on multiple occasions to pause and… for lack of a better word… think about things more than I otherwise would. In other words, he’s kept me in check, kept me pondering, kept me sharp. That’s thought-provoking, and that’s ghostlightning’s ever lovable (no joke here) blog. Well, what would you expect from a 30 year old dude who’s studied philosophy and literature? You could say, “just as planned.” He’s like the Kamina to my Simon…

Coburn at Claiming Ground

Coburn was one of the first blogs I frequented when I was starting out. What I like about his writing is that it is very theoretical, often providing frameworks with which to analyze anime. I don’t see this very often, but another great case is IKnight’s seminal pieces on GAR. I will specifically mention coburn’s “Reaction Porn” theory which insightfully distinguishes between character “development” and “revealment,” though he’s told me elsewhere the distinction thereof has more to be said.

Best Meta

If there’s one important lesson that the recent crop of metablogging has yielded, it’s that “blogs” don’t define blogosphere content as well as “bloggers” do. As such, it would almost be counter to the teachings of meta-anibloggery to nominate blogs in this category.

Actually, fuck hedging.

It would be counter to the teachings of meta-anibloggery. [but that's why I said the ABA should nominate bloggers not blogs...]

There, I said it. And I make no nominations.

I think you’re forgetting ani-nouto and anitations. Yes, author is probably the best meta-blogger out there. If you don’t like his trolling, don’t take him seriously. I’d like to say anitations has great meta value because it’s a proxy. I lens content, as RyanA would say. So far, these are two of a kind…

I don’t know if I’m forgetting them; mostly I’m thinking about you guys as bloggers rather than blogs. I don’t see how that makes a difference… It’s hard to divorce lelangir from lelangiricism. Meta-anibloggery essentially preaches separation of aniblog and aniblogger. Wait, we need to expand “meta”. I’d take “meta” for discourse on discourse. Introspection counts too. And in that case, I’d nominate usagijen for her awesome introspections. BigN and Jacob Martin come in close as well. Doesn’t TheBigN say the same thing everytime, though? Something about love, peace, and pancakes? No, =p =p =p =peace =pancakes Q.E.D..

Best Music

I’ll let you handle this one, lelangir. I don’t read music aniblogs; as far as I’ve heard there aren’t many, they aren’t diverse, and they tend to suck. All yours, capitan. Zzeroparticle. He’s like, the only person that writes consistent music reviews. I don’t think I’ve ever seen musical analysis besides mine either…

Then we are agreed: this is a category that actually fails. Yes, that’s kind of a shame, because the music community is so pathetically underdeveloped. I wish it were developed, but sadly, it isn’t… I’d love to see that, too—I hear you’re thinking of starting something up? But – and this is a constant debate in the metaverse – society isn’t up to the level of technology. Usually technology is a product of society. But I can’t just go make a music blog if there’s no plausible readership or niche there. It’s like that Heisei Democracy post where there’s this manga cafe in San Francisco. It can’t work because they’re attempting to transplate Japanese culture in America – they’re trying to force society to adapt to them, and it’s like trying to move an elephant with a toothpick. Makes sense, yeah. Well, best of luck should you try in the future!

Rookie of the Year

ghostlightning, digitalboy, and lelangir all seem like fairly solid choices to me. I’m not familiar with too many of the newer blogs, but those three are all rookies who bring a fuckton of positive energy to the table. ghostlightning is Mizunashi Akari if she were to fangirl about something. digitalboy is Mizunashi Akari if she were to make home videos and introduce profanity into her vocabulary. lelangir is Mizunashi Akari if she were the biggest slut ever. And as you all know, I love Mizunashi Akari. Yes I am a whore.

What? … digitalboy isn’t a rookie? Older than one year.

Fuck that shit. He’s a noob, and I’ve got no one to refill his place. The halo glows away…

You’re forgetting coburn, pontifus and itsubun – they’re my three picks. It’s a shame that itsubun died off so quickly, but she made quite a large impact on me when I was starting out, especially with the dorama surrounding her and Sasa, lol. The pointless, idiotic drama between two idiots who just can’t leave well enough alone… sigh. Do they at least get points in the drama category? You’d be surprised, I took quite a bit out of some posts, as they really were great food for thought. That was not the impression I got from reading Sasa’s posts and talking to Mr. Pippers. The impression I did get was that some people were overreacting to each other and accomplishing little. There was one post by adventure_killy which was one of the most insightful posts I’ve read to date. It really got me thinking about the “location” of the otaku, and how we use loan words and how culture is transplanted.

I can’t say much for coburn nor do him justice, only that his intelligent editorials are always a pleasure to read.

Best Multiple-Author Blog

Oi! Hayaku [hands down] [my hands are down too]

Yes, you may think that OH is really a team blog but their content isn’t – as far as the reader is concerned – heterogeneous. I have heard there is quite a bit of teamwork behind the scenes, but if that teamwork is used only to produce homogenous content, I can’t see much difference. In any case, OH has the most awesome content (and at a prodigous rate) on an aggregate blog I’ve seen in a while. Did you somehow miss the two weeks of team posts (lame example)? In any event, you’ll be changing your tune by the ABAs… OH! has some sick shit to unleash! I’m concerned about these GATTAI posts, whether they’re actually any good or not…oh shi- They would be if Riex had us using Google Docs for collaboration. Talk about underused utility!

Aaaand… who else? I’m disinclined to give awards to the would-be shoe-ins THAT or Yukan (THAT isn’t even qualified this year, right?), for the sole reason that they’re just same-old, same-old. An aggregate blog gets a bit tedious after a while, especially if the authors come and go without changing much.

How’s it like over at Calamitous Intents? To be honest I don’t read them much, but they seem fresher than THAT-spawn. I don’t read them much either since I don’t follow the media they blog, VN’s and the Naruto manga.

Super Fanicom is good aggregation I guess, since it’s the home of a lot of awesome posts by a lot of awesome people. And what, ghostlightning hopped on board while we were writing this post? Shit man, this is what I mean by a “fast-paced” aniblogosphere.

Shall we move onto true team blogs now?

Best Team Blog

I’m stumped. Did we decide there are no true team blogs? OH! is trying to be one, other aggregate blogs aren’t trying, and whorish team bloggers are sort of wrecking the status quo’s shit. Fun stuff! Yes, I haven’t seen any true tream blogs, per se (I don’t know if epicwin counts), though many blogs and their constituent bloggers exhibit teamwork. Oh. Epic Win! Why did I forget them? They definitely count.

GO TO EPIC WIN!! GO TO EPIC WIN!! I’ll show you the true meaning of epic win…

Most Influential

I’m calling #1 right now – derailedbydarry.com Its influence should be obvious; “we hold these things self-evident.”

And my favorite influential blog would be lovelykitsune.com

I’ve said this a million times in a million posts, none of which I’ll link here, that Lovely Kitsune was the one person who introduced me to anime blogs. While Jason Miao is technically the catalyst of the reaction that created “lolikitsune,” if it weren’t for LK-senpai I never would have even gotten that far. I never would have discovered the then-AOMM, I never would have begun blogging, and, as I point out in my most digustingly self-loving post ever, the aniblogosphere would have developed very, very differently. You make a point – it’s hard to determine “influence.” I can’t say I directly copy or strive to emulate any particular blogger to the point of fetishism, and because I don’t read Danny Choo or Dark Mirage or Jason Miao I’m kind of clueless on how these big guys have influenced the entire sphere over the years. It’s not that we aspire to emulate (though I did emulate Miao as a joke for a while), it’s that these people used to be big players in a very small sphere. Now that the ’sphere has grown, the percentage of said sphere that is these Ancient Ones’ penises is smaller. So they’re less directly influential on new people… but they shaped the sphere in big ways.

Hm, well, I guess I have to give credit for IKnight for being my gateway blogger. If it weren’t for his MAL profile and “Colonial Code Geass & Narnian Nerve Gas” I might not be here today. I can see IKnight being a huge influence, especially for the editorial types who came before him and were like “OMG! I gotta shape up!” (here’s looking at you, Mike *clink*). I…I…I..it’s n..n..not that I’d call blogging about soap influential or anything!

Best Dorama

I make a point of ignoring this shit as best I can because more often than not it’s sparked by spiteful elitists. My favorite drama would be Omo x Owen on Twitter, but does that count? I don’t know; it’s certainly not a blog, though. Perhaps we could award Owen with something for sparking so much drama (he was getting me good, at least, in mid-November), but that might be erring on the side of “too close to home.” Actually, these past few months, I’d give best dorama to a sort of plane of bloggers revolving around the fansub thing, Von Schilling et al. It even gets IcyStorm all hot and bothered. Oh yeah. SVS. Sigh. I guess… I guess I WOULD give him this award. (Let’s see how that affects his self-perception as “ever lovable.”)

Best Satire

Obviously I think I should win in this category. I won’t make any nominations here because I don’t want it to look like I’m setting up losers, but I will gladly comment on lelangir’s picks. I also like lolikit’s satire because, while it is hilarious, it is also lucid and insightful. Though I enjoy lolikit’s meta-satire moreso than when he satires anime. Of course Baka-Raptor is up there when he makes fun of anime. Who’m I kidding? Baka-Raptor is a king of satire. Hinano is also quite sharp quite frequently, as is JP (and now that they’re on a single blog it’s only one nomination! Take that, blogger’s bloggers!). I was never really into HINANO RAEG… Her blog posts are usually better than her tweets. Maybe it’s just the emoticons? They make me laugh while thinking, “man, this shit she’s posting about, it’s so shitty.” You know I’d put IKnight up here too. His satire is subtle (it’s British), but boy is it hilarious. Didn’t he quit blogging or something? lol he’s been alive for quite a few posts now. He was pretty active while in blogohiberation anyway. Not to say inactivity’s going to stop me from making my third nomination in this category…

LovelyKitsune.com

I’ve beaten this dead horse to the metaphorical pulp, but I’ll beat it again. Lovely Kitsune is my hero. If it weren’t for him, I never would have discovered three important things: loli, yuri, and a sense of humor. Oh, and a fourth: the aniblogosphere. He’s a shoe-in for most influential, but the important thing here is how he roped me in, and that would be masterful satire played to its fullest. His wit broadened the anus of my sense of humor and left me wanting more. … “dial-up would never suffice again.”

OmoxOwen aka HarukaxYuuta

Yeah, well, him and Owen having sex is pretty funny to watch. Especially on twitter. Agreed, but refer to what I wrote under Best Dorama. Their bickering isn’t satire… it’s high school girl idiocy.

“WHORE! WHORE!”

AAAAAND that’s it. This is lolikit bee tee dubz, stealing lelangir’s color briefly. Just wanted to wrap stuff up with extremely awkward and un-funny words such as these. I hope you read everything, as there’s some good stuff up in there. Again, please weigh in on the “discussion”—this is more than a popularity contest; there’re issues addressed in the above with implications affecting the entire ’sphere. Also, could we get some applause for Google Documents? An omiclap, perhaps? Thank you.