Extra: The non-traditional

Even though the series itself flopped, a combination of slow pace and overall stereotypical characters pulling it downhill, Glasslip did have one rather unique element I just don’t see that often in anime. Or, really, in media in general. An asexual character.

Now before you blow up my site, hold tight for a bit of a ride. Oh and uh, spoilers for this show, so ye be warned and stuff.

Early on in the series Sachi was proving to be a horrid stereotype: the silent bookworm who has a weird crush on her best friend and has some kind of illness that confines her to bed once in awhile. Cause that card is never played in anime, right? Sure enough, she only seemed to get worse as the story went on. Until a slight change began. Hiro, another side character, acted on his crush and started to hang out with her. And she actually… changed. Over time, I began to notice she liked and looked forward to his presence in her life, giving smiles when he was around and looking forward to suggesting new books for him to read. They never really “dated.” In fact, all their interactions where at her house, in her room, quietly reading and, occasionally, talking about what they read in the cafe or walking. It was a slow, yet comfortable new relationship. However, this is not to say she fell out of love with the main heroine, Touko. In fact, a burst of jealousy causes her to use her new relationship with Hiro in an attempt to refocus Touko away from the new boy in town. When the plan fails and she begins to lose her new relationship with Hiro, she realizes just how important both friendships are to her. And near the tail end of the series she makes a confession that made me blink quite a few times in surprise. Sachi admits that she loves both of them and does not want to lose her relationship with either, wishing always to be near both Touko and Hiro (while this could be seen as simple friendship, and Touko probably took it that way, the context of the rest of the show heavily suggests something deeper).

Now before you say, “hey doesn’t that make her bi, not an asexual?” recall that important part up above: she’s content without physical intimacy. In fact, at no point in the show does she initiate any kind of sexual or even sensual contact with her loves. Instead she seems happiest just being around them, being a quiet part of their lives, closer than simple friends, but not lovers in the traditional sense of the word.

Of course that could change in her future, but within the confines of the show, Sachi is an interesting and very diverging character from the typical anime tropes. Not only does she pose the idea that a character can be attracted to two genders at once, but she also is in no hurry, and might not ever even want, to seek out physical intimacy with her crushes. And for all the many short comings of Glasslip, I have to give them props for Sachi. While she still has some stereotypical aspects, she is perhaps the most well constructed character in the show. It’s too bad she was only the side character, as her arc actually had legitimate development and a small OVA set on her might have actually been more interesting than Touko’s slow and rather tedious trail (which I’m not sure really changed her much in the end).

Regardless of your personal position on sexual orientation, it’s a real breath of fresh air to see a character who wishes to be close to others, especially those of another gender, and not require said relationship to end in marriage and kids. Not everyone wants that in life. For some, all they want, all they really need, is to be understood, accepted and supported. I for one am happy such an idea was posed in a recent show. Although it would have been far better if the show Sachi was in was, well, a better show. Because even with her decent and different arc, it’s still not quite enough to justify slogging through the slow twelve episode trudge that is Glasslip.

Extra: If it was reversed

Reviewing shows like The World is Still Beautiful is a tad awkward. I mean, we’re talking about a supposed romance between a late teen/early twenty year old chick and a boy who is around fourteen or fifteen (ages are hazy in most shows these days). Even though nothing really happens, it’s still weird, uncomfortable and yet… surprisingly acceptable by most anime fans’ standards (very few commentors, for example, seemed that concerned about this point). Which is worrisome. After all, it’s not just about age laws. If it were, people could try defending it by saying the worlds in the shows are fiction or a different time, ect (a shaky argument in attempting to “ok” something most find instinctually wrong). But the real issue comes down to mentality/life goals. And that doesn’t just mean maturity, either. Most people have very different life goals at various stages of life. A teen, for example, is going to be interested in very different things than a late twenty/early thirty year old. One might be looking forward to adventures in a state they’ve never been in. The other might just want some days off to take some naps and get more reading done (ps – I have indeed noticed that the way people react to these things in anime is worlds apart from how they react to it in real life. That is a separate issue).

While the sun king often acts like a young man in a child’s body, having conquered and destroyed entire kingdoms during his short reign, it’s still an odd situation. Both come from very different places, both physically and emotionally. Although it’s not impossible for a healthy relationship to be had through this, is does put a huge block in the way.

But this all got me thinking. What if the roles were reversed? Like, what about far older guys going after (and marrying) younger girls? The idea itself tends to be more repulsive to anime fans, yet anime itself has tooootally crossed this line before. Let’s look at two of them.

Angelic Layer
Y’all have heard some manner of this rant somewhere on this site. Nearing the end of the show, the lead male Angelic Player (the only one you see more than once, really), falls for the heroine. Which is to be expected, right? Expect that he’s a high schooler and she had just started middle school. Meaning she had just left elementary school. Plus there was the very real possibility of his brother marrying her sister. Which would make this guy her uncle. Uuuuugh, so many levels of NO. And yet, I rarely see anyone commenting on this oddity. In fact, most fans just pair them up like it’s no big deal.

Sailor Moon
You smelt its approach, right? Now in the old school English dub, a looot was changed to make the show more easily acceptable. One of those things was to make Usagi (Serina in the dub) a high schooler. This made her relationship with Mamoru (Darien in the dub), who was assumed to be in his last year of high school heading towards college, a bit more reasonable. But that’s not the original ages. As the re-release subtitles of the old show reveals (and lovers of the manga should already know), Usagi is really a middle schooler around fourteen or so (what’s up with middle schools?) and Mamoru is… a high schooler going onto college? Ok, so this guy’s every day life doesn’t seem to be very well explained, but the point remains. He’s just too old for her. He’s looking forward to study abroad and she, well, she’s still not even sure how to pass her classes, let alone what she wants to do with her life. When you really think about it, Mr. Darien is a total creeper. An adult creeper going after a middle schooler. NO!

Of course, I realize that once one does the math, three or four years, in the long run, doesn’t usually affect things too much. A thirty-one year old and a thirty-seven year old have enough in common to perhaps make it work. And you could always say that personality has more to do with compatibility than anything. And that’s not untrue, but that certainly doesn’t override all the factors a serious age gap brings up either. It’s just a bit unnerving to see that these relationships doesn’t really make many think twice.

And I still wonder how well The World is Still Beautiful would have done were the genders reversed…

Extra: Bookworms have a voice

(Aka the Ritsu appreciation post. Considering most of her real character comes out in the last part of Kawai Complex, be prepared for a few spoilers)

As I mentioned in my post last week, I take what I can get. The last streaming season, as usual, didn’t really bring in anything that broke cycles in anime. But it did have some surprises and now I want to focus on one of my favorites: Ritsu, from Kawai Complex.

Ritsu is introduced from the very beginning as a stoic bookworm who honestly does nothing but read 24/7. In other words, a non-alien version of Yuki Nagato, from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Oh and without any super powers either. Which you’d think would make her boring. And for the first half of the series it does. But once the hero gets in a bad situation, one in which he is being bullied, Ritsu breaks out of that horrid stereotype and… speaks. Oh but she doesn’t mutter something short in a monotone. She looks right into the room and speaks, clear, strong and not to be argued with.

Now, I’ll admit, I was hesitant when this first happened. Sure she got shy again right after, wondering to herself how she managed such a feat. But it seemed so against her character type, I thought it might have been a simple easy out for the writers. Something they forced her to do to increase the romantic entanglement between her and the hero. Something they can brush off later as an oddity. But to my shock, this didn’t come to pass. As the series began to move towards a close, we got to see Ritsu stand for herself as well. She looks right into the eyes of a judgmental guy and states her differing opinion loud and clear. She then removes herself from an uncomfortable social position all on her own, without any aid from the hero character, or anyone else for that matter.

See, the problem I have with bookworm characters is that they are so often kept voiceless. Often opinion-less to boot. At best they might have a single outburst of feeling. Maybe twice. But more often than not it’s the main characters that must “stand up for them.” The bookworms themselves rarely, if at all, learn to stand on their own. And that’s pretty interesting considering that, in the real world, bookworms are actually pretty talkative. The invention of social media and various, rather nerdy, sites gaining in popularity have made it clear that bookworms have some pretty strong opinions in general. And as projects like the Vlogbrothers on Youtube have shown, nerds are very capable of speaking about those opinions. As a fellow bookworm myself, it’s pretty obvious that opinions run strong in us. You don’t read tons of books, all with different voices, situations, concerns and issues and walk away without feelings about such things. And while Japan is a super conservative culture as a whole, it still doesn’t excuse  the stereotype of “those that read hath not a voice.” It’s simply not true. No matter what culture you’re in, reading expands your world. It doesn’t make it smaller. It makes it larger. More vibrant. And while not everyone will wish to speak their mind openly on the feelings they have about the world around them, they will have an opinion. Often a very strong one, cultivated over years of looking at life through the eyes of hundreds of people who lead different lives than they do.

Ritsu still ends the series as herself. A shy girl, awkward and usually neck deep in a book. But she’s far more human than I thought she would be. Because she isn’t a voiceless bookworm. Not this one. Ritsu may be quiet as a rule, but she’s far from not having an opinion, let alone a voice. And that make her more real and a character deserving of the title “heroine.”

Extra: Shino and FPS love

Gratuitous fanservice aside, No Game, No Life had a nice thing going for it with some of its characters, namely with Shino. And, yes, I’m very aware that this particular show clearly has no intentions of going against traditional, and very sexist, anime cliches as a whole. In fact, more than a few are used per episode. However there was one fact, near the end, that caught me off-guard.

Shino is a first rate first-person shooter gamer.

And, yes, I realize that both siblings are good at pretty much any game, but as the series goes on it does become clear that each has their own ways of playing and thus each have different skill sets. And this is where I was pretty shocked.

For most of the show, Shino is shown as being the ultimate set of brains between the two, while her brother, Sora, often has a bit more in the imagination department. We see Shino handle numerous chess matches, for example. Plus there’s her general personality, which is largely quiet with deadpan quips here and there. Simply put: she just doesn’t seem like the type to be a FPS gamer. Yet not only is she one indeed, she’s also extremely good at it, something I didn’t see coming for the simple fact that genius in strategy doesn’t mean one can pull off complicated hand-eye coordination moves with perfection. Intellect only serves so far. But that’s not the only thing that threw me off.

If you’re not a gamer yourself, let me lay down some facts. 1) Female FPS gamers are rare. Although this has changed slightly over the years, the fact remains that those kind of games are nearly exclusively targeted and played by men. The good side of this often ends up being that female players that stick it out despite all the sexual prejudices tend to be extremely skilled and very thick skinned. Although the situation sucks, at least those that get through it get some hardcore training in. Which leads to point two. 2) Although it isn’t necessarily true to life, most female FPS gamers are portrayed has a bit masculine and/or hyper violent/confrontational individuals, likely in response to all that prejudice, though some might reason they get through it all because they were already so hardened.

Although Shino is obviously skilled, she certainly doesn’t fit into the traditional mold of what a female FPS looks like. Or what most people think they look like. Which is the real key here. If you had asked me near the beginning of the show which of the siblings was best at FPS games, I would have picked Sora for sure. Not because I think women incapable. But simply due to the fact that those games are dominated by men, marketed to men and, let’s face it, I would expect Japan, with its narrower view of male and female gender roles, to stick to formula here. But, low and behold, it is a girl who is the FPS expert. And she’s not some man-hating, body-building, condescending and confrontational jerk either. She’s quiet, manipulative, sometime sweet, sometimes tricky and almost always cute. And while some might say it was just a play of the creators to have a cute girl run around with a gun (and they might be right about that), the fact that Sora explained his sister’s skills as pure fact and was not ashamed or compelled to defend himself, gives me hope. Too often are male characters (to say nothing of men in real life) quick to defend themselves when a female is seen to be better at a traditionally “male” activity. Yet No Game, No Life wonderfully skips over such tripe. Sora feels no competition with his sister, neither does he feel any shame at her being better at certain things.

No Game, No Life may not be anywhere close to being called “progressive.” But I take what little gems of hope I can get. So if this show can impress the reality that girls can like – and be very talented! – at whatever they wish, regardless of whether or not society finds it “masculine,” I’m all over it. Even if it is just one baby step at a time.

(I planned on talking about Ritsu, from Kawai Complex, as well, but ran out of time. Plus that anime review won’t be up until Monday anyway. So expect to hear about her next week ^^)

Extra: Bad Girl

I’ve talked about the typical timid girl type in anime before, even about the disturbing trends that play off guys as chivalrous when they think girls must always “look down” to be acceptable. But I have yet to look at the “bad” ladies of anime. So, let’s lake a bit of a leer – look! – at two of the most, well, common and cringe-worthy. At the moment.

Sexy Laaaaady
This is by far the most common female villain type, and as we’re talking about Japan here we can’t blame comic books (they do have some serious issues in this area though). Big boobs, tight outfits and sultry voices are a staple here. They also tend to make leading comments to fluster the heroes and fight scenes waver between putting them and their foe in compromising situations and being hyper violent. Which is hilarious as any girl with a large chest will tell you that them things need serious binding before one can do any jumping around with a sword or gun. Seriously, that’s a lot of weight to deal with there. I mean, just look at poor Lust from Fullmetal Alchemist. Dang.
There are some very painful points to this type. Mainly in the fact that if a woman in anime is hyper sexy, and not in that kid innocent loli with boobs type of way but one who knows she’s hot and uses it for her own purposes, she must be a villain. This implies that women who are well aware of themselves and their sexuality are dangerous to society and cannot be trusted. This is more sharply driven into our brains as many anime heroines are pure and completely idiotic when it comes to sexy time, often looking down every other sentence, blushing constantly and getting flustered whenever a male looks at them for more than a second. Society’s little propaganda magic: innocence is good, sexuality is bad. Or, at the very least, earns you that coveted (enter sarcasm here) heroine’s overstrung and painfully single for good reason best friend role.

The Ambiguous
A more recent trend, these characters are pushed as male, but heaven knows if they are. Often they either identify as neither or may even be inhuman and thus don’t have a gender at all. Creatures like Envy, from Fullmetal Alchemist (revealed as originally male in the original run, but left a question mark in Brotherhood), and the main villain from Gatchaman Crowds (pictured above). I decided to go ahead and include this one as it posses another painful twist: that anything we can’t put into its proper box must, therefore, be bad. Which makes it really suck to be an alien who doesn’t even understand the concept of gender. Seriously now.
You can also dump the crazies into this category as many girls with extreme quirks and ticks end up in this weird, villain and not-sure-if-love-you-not-sure-if-kill-you ambiguous state.

Like most things in media, there’s a strong pull to conform to general society standards. In the case of anime, to conform to what Japan thinks is “normal.” Which means you unique ladies with extremes? Sorry, but you got two choices: crazy friend for comic relief or villain. Heaven forbid we have a heroine who is complex enough to be aware of her sexual appeal and be conflicted about it, knowing that using it to her advantage might be easier, but also being sickened by the thought that her chest is all anyone sees when all she really wants is just to run after her dreams, gender be damned. That’s a bit much for the populace to take in, it seems.

Extra: When does “unique” cripple a show?

I will fully admit to being on the slow bus for most, if not all, anime fads. I see big shows late, only remember studio names long after their debuts, and am completely ignorant of nearly all cutting edge anime styles. But despite feeling a bit lost when other fans talk about these things, I’ve found my sluggish pace to have an odd advantage. Because I’m often outside the hype around particular styles and fads, I often come across these shows with a (hopefully) neutral air. Which is why I am often just as at a loss when people are turned “off” a fad as when they were all on board.

This streaming season has bright up a rather bland collection of shows overall, but one title specifically has gained a bit of ire: Mekakucity Actors. Apparently, the studio (actually only one of many as anime shows are often collaborations of multiple studios) behind it, Shaft, is quite well known for its very distinctive styles, including sharp edges, odd camera angles and architecture that, while futuristic looking, is completely impossible/illogical. A style that’s a bit too well known now, it seems. While their first few shows made waves, the hate over this new series is pretty heated. Which brings me to my topic: When does “unique” cripple a show?

From the perspective of one who is only vaguely aware of Shaft’s previous works, Monogatari being the most notable, I’ve now watched two whole episodes of Mekakucity Actors and I honestly can’t put my finger on why the hate exists. Sure the series doesn’t seem to have a real direction yet, my biggest beef with it thus far, and heck the main lead being a shut in is just way too overused these days. But those crimes are common enough in shows these days and not too surprising. Certainly nothing to throw a desk over. And the addition of interesting camera shots, items standing in for people and crazy settings is actually helping starve off the fact that this show doesn’t seem to have a point yet. So, why the hate?

After reading more than a few impressions, it seems that this show is being too “heavy handed” with its messages. An interesting observation that does nothing to really explain the hate away. Utena, a show renown for preaching it up high and mighty without actually telling the viewer anything definite, doesn’t come under such fire. Neither do more frivolous shows like Magi, which have long, painful scenes where all the main characters do is preach on morals that often times they break themselves mere episodes (if not moments) later. Again, the hate for that show is far less than for Mekakucity Actors. So we’re still stuck with “why?”

Could it be taste? Unlikely, as Monogatari is still often praised for being revolutionary all over the web. So how is Mekakucity Actors different? Perhaps it boils down to the reason behind the symbolism. Where as the above series often have deep reasoning and social critique on which to base their symbols (Magi being a disgusting exception), Mekakucity doesn’t seem to be rooted in anything beyond the surface thus far. It’s almost painfully easy to read the symbols. That said, just because something is more simple doesn’t automatically make it bad. Simple can sometimes be better, actually. However, shows like Monogatari did seem to make a mark on how obscure one can be while getting away with it and perhaps that same level was what people we expecting, thus leading to hate when the show did not pull out the exact same card. Had this show stripped itself of all the symbols and obscurities, perhaps the show would have been better received. In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with the show. It’s not breathtaking, but not bad either. It’s just slightly above mediocre. Nothing to highly praise, but certainly nothing to hate deeply either.

So is it the “unique” elements that are killing it, forcing it to live up to far higher standards? Perhaps when a type of show stands out so much due to stylistic choices it’s inevitable that every show using that technique will come under unholy amounts of criticism ever after as a result. Maybe the fans are simply bored with the concept or maybe they’re just being stuck up pigs posing as critics. Is it even possible to be a critic and not be a stuck up pig (I say this with full acknowledgment that I can be quite stuck up myself when critiquing)?

In any case, I still have no idea as to that “why.” If you hate Mekakucity Actors (or love it!) and take pity on me, please let me know why you find it so distasteful. Because, from where I’m sitting, it’s simply a very mediocre, though fashionable, show.