Ohikkoshi – Hiroaki Samura does comedy in a modern setting

by dm00

Ohikkoshi is an anthology of short stories from Blade of the Immortal‘s Hiroaki Samura.

Blade of the Immortal has always looked too violent for me, so I’ve never looked into it — though I can appreciate the artistic talent of the creator.

Ohikkoshi, published by Dark Horse, is a collection of three comic short stories set in the contemporary world.  The title story is about a collection of college-age ne’er do-wells drinking, forming bands, encountering Italian assassins, and missing connections when it comes to love.

Yumekui Kenbun — Nightmare Inspector

by dm00

A recent Jason Thompson column about Yumekui Kenbun — Nightmare Inspector sent me off to the library. This is a delightful mild-horror series. The art is very nice (with some wonderful dream concepts). In the first three volumes, at least, I’d say the writing is stronger than that of xxxHoLic, in a similar genre. xxxHoLic makes better use of drifting smoke and textiles, Yumekui Kenbun is a little better at the fantastic, I think.

Hiroku is a baku — a dream-eater. He hangs out in the Silver Star Tea Shop (which basically destroys the shop’s business, as only people afflicted by nightmares go there). While at first the series seems pretty nightmare-of-the-week episodic, by the third volume we’re seeing links among some of the dreams and dreamers. After reading the first few volumes from the library, I’ve decided this is a series I want to add to my collection.

Animating tactical genius: Miho, Marika and Shinon

by dm00

I came to Girls und Panzer very late and for an odd reason — the soundtrack amused me.  I’d written the series off as moe fluff (it is that), but something about the soundtrack on top of all the enthusiasm for the series prompted me to give it a try.  I started watching the series a week or so ago, and found myself plowing through all the episodes.

Between its production values and charm, it’s no wonder so many people rated the series so highly.  I’m sure it’s been talked to death.

But I want to express my appreciation for one thing the series does that’s rarely done so successfully: we see a brilliant tactician at work.  We see Miho being brilliant, we aren’t just told how brilliant she is.  We see her scanning the landscape through her binoculars, we see staring at her knees as she mentally tabulates her resources and the resources of her opponents. We see the flash of inspiration that leads to the audacious move that carries the day.

Anime (nor any other fiction) rarely pulls this off.  After all, it takes a bit of genius to show us the work of a genius (you can borrow some of that genius though: I suspect the military otaku have dissected each of Oarai High School’s battles and found possible inspirations in the history of tank warfare for Miho’s successful maneuvers).

Fortune favors the prepared.  We rarely see genius, even less often do we see the 99% perspiration that accompanies the 1% inspiration that makes up that genius.

We see it just a bit in Girls und Panzer as Miho spends a late night contemplating the forces tomorrow’s opponent will array against her.  We saw it as Marika in Bodacious Space Pirates struggled for sleepless days to hatch a plan to take on the shocking new opponent who had appeared and was destroying her fellow pirates.

One of the best renditions of the genius-by-sweat-equity was portrayed by the character Shinon in Starship Operators.  Throughout the series we see her strategic cunning at work. Then at the end of the series, when the odds looked hopeless, Shinon spends several days in the simulator, running battle plan after battle plan, looking for one that has a prayer of keeping them alive through the coming conflict.  She emerges with a plan that uses her ship in a completely unexpected way, and they live to fight another day.

(I guess we do see a lot of the “hard work and guts” school of winning the day through sheer determination and strength of will. I’m not talking about that, here.)

Girls und Panzer does this subtly and well.  It was a joy to watch.

Six years. Hm.

By TheBigN

In 2012 I watched about 30 or so series, OVA and movies related to anime, and while I thought that was a lot, according to this handy page, it barely scratched the surface. Time flies, work calls, and other stuff seemingly keeps coming around the bend in terms of this pastime. How I’ve watch anime  has changed by necessity, with my laptop currently on the road to brickdom and utilizing streaming to the fullest extent on my Kindle Fire. That being said, there’s been plenty of stuff that’s piqued my interest, but it’s been hard to write more substantially about them other than “WOWTHATWASCOOL“. I’ve tried to stay away from that sort of writing style because it felt to me like people wouldn’t get much out of that. And crazily enough, most of the time I try to write, I want whoever reads the finished product to get something out of it other than, “so that’s what TheBigN thinks”. It’s hard to get out of this way of thinking, though I should, especially since there’s fun stuff that happens over the year related to anime, both in the medium, and in the culture surrounding it (like the Otakon Music Festival. Fun times that). So I’ll try at least to shift the quips about anime I drop on Twitter and IRC onto here a little bit more. Whether or not that will be a good thing will be determined, I guess.

As always, I give a big thanks to dm00 for dropping his own bits of experience, excitement, and exposition to this endeavor. Thanks to the readers/glancers/etc. who stick around or follow this blood for our impressions.

It’s interesting to get to a point where the question “what else is there to say?” jumps around. I feel like there’s more to come than what’s been done so far here (although there’s been less and less as the years have gone, I think), so I’m hoping to never find out that answer.

Happy six year anniversary, DMAB.

Though I still like to think of DMAB as a blog of many hats. Picture by 腔子: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=19196614

The Anime Paradox: Anime and the traditions of Noh and Kabuki

by dm00

Slow, fast, faster: Sengoku Collection will ensnare even the most jaded.

If you are interested in Japanese history, you should check out The Samurai Archives, particularly if you are interested in the Sengoku era.

(Not so) Recently, they hosted Stevie Suan, talking not enough about his forthcoming book, The anime paradox, in which he examines anime through the lens of traditional Japanese theater.

Part one. This episode is mostly about the idea of viewing anime through the precepts of Japanese dramaturgy, in particular, the idea of Jo-ha-kyu, “beginning, break, rapid”, or “slow, fast, faster” — a fifteenth-century framework for Noh that has been inherited by kabuki, and plausibly applies to anime as well. Sadly, they just touch on the thesis and evidence for it, but they certainly make the book sound interesting (I haven’t looked to see if there is any discussion of the podcast in the Samurai Archives Forum). Stevie Suan sounds like he knows his anime, and is on to something in comparing anime to traditonal Japanese drama.

(Amusing aside: one of the podcasters, a military historian known for his disdain of anime, spends a bit of time marvelling at the way he’s been sucked into Sengoku Collection — and how Sengoku Collection illustrates part of Suan’s jo-ha-kyu framing.)

Part two. This episode is mostly about anime as a gateway drug for Japanese cultural studies, and the general trend in the humanities of cross-fertilization (e.g., 16th-century Japanese politics through the lens of modern political theory).

The book is forthcoming enough that Amazon doesn’t yet have it up for pre-order, but keep your eyes out for it.

And check out the Samurai Archives podcast. I spent many happy hours last year going through their archives. There’s some great stuff in there, especially if you’re interested in the Sengoku era.

Update: Here’s the publisher’s prospectus for the book. Eek, $133. Maybe a university library near you will get it.

Kotoura-san and the Power of Emotional Manipulation, Successful or Not

By TheBigN

So far, of the shows  I’ve watched so far this season (a list which slowly grows the more free time I have and the more interesting statements I hear about it from others), Kotoura-san two episodes in has been the one that’s grabbed me. It helped that I didn’t know anything about the show before hand, as a large part of it is the pathos that they try to induce by quickly dropping misery on the namesake character, and whether or not they’ve done too much with depends on the eyes of the beholder, I guess. While I can easily seem some moments in both episodes so far that could give me a feeling of “they’re trying too hard here” (in episode one, DAT CAT. In episode two, the lonely house as examples), I haven’t come out having that feeling as of yet.

The show’s been trying to advance the idea of  ”how someone with psychic powers is ostracized in today’s society” with the heavy dump life takes on Haruka in the first half of the show, as well as how it still affects her (and Yoriko) in episode two, and it’s been effective for me. In fact, I wish they could have been more visceral in some ways, such as actually showing Haruka’s emesis in episode two instead of a discretion shot. If it went that far however, I’d assume many people would be scared off by watching something that intense (might be too serious for something that’s supposed to be a romantic comedy). That being said, it’s hard not to notice that I’m trying to be played like a violin in order to care for Haruka as she comes out of her shell. And it’s pleasant for me that I know this and (so far) I don’t care about that.

So far, it’s hard for me to fault her. Picture by muneyuki: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=32893426

Do androids dream of electric teddybears? Gunslinger Girl manga omnibus v6

by dm00

Triela armed for bear.

Well: that’s pretty conclusive.

There’s not a lot one can say about the sixth omnibus collection of Gunslinger Girl without bringing in spoilers, but I am going to try to avoid them.

This book is full of ghosts. You know it’s going to be grim by the time you get to page three.

Triela, whose self-awareness has always been a critical part of this series, has a couple of truly wonderful moments in conversation with Hilshire. The bumbling Hilshire (along with Petrushka’s Alessandro) has replaced Jose as the center of sanity among the fratelli. The choices that Hilshire and Jose make in this volume might not be the ones you have been expecting.

And damn, Alessandro (Petrushka’s fratello) is in full Sherlock mode. In a book that’s been nonstop action for 200 pages, I think it’s a brilliant move to have the climax come in the form of a drawn-out conversation.

Triela, Hilshire, Petrushka and Alessandro appear to be different replies to the stories of the characters who find themselves using others as tools. Some embrace that exploitation, some are torn with guilt as they see themselves doing it, some reject the exploitation at first, but then their focus returns to the ends they think justify their means.

The action is just a little confused — there are a lot of second-generation cyborgs in the action sequences, so there are a lot of new characters. There’s a lot of young people among the Padanian terrorists, too, so it’s sometimes hard to know who is who, especially when you add the new fratelli to the mix.

The book has many pages of “the world of Gunslinger Girl” — cultural notes about Italy.
Jason Thompson just mused on the topic of manga as travelogue in his column at ANN. It’s easy to see Aria as a tourist brochure, but surprisingly, maybe Gunslinger Girl is one, too.

There’s one more volume to go, even though there aren’t many loose ends left (and there are a surprising number of threads brought into play in this volume). I’m wondering if the next volume is going to be a “20 years later” sort of epilogue to the series.

The final volume of the series will be released in July. When it is, I expect to re-read the series from beginning to end.