Protect Ya Blog (The Jump Off)

Anime Reviews

This weekend I was informed by a visiting friend of mine that I am ruining anime. I figure if 50% of the anime I'm currently watching are leading to the slow and moe death of an entire industry that used to pride itself on legitimate intellectual masterpieces I oughta at least explain why I like them.

YuruYuri episode 6

Well, here we go. I think it says a lot when I feel like I know what I can expect from Nichijou more than I can from this show. Chinatsu is becoming one of the most fascinating and unique characters I've seen in quite awhile. The depth and manifestation of her madness is refreshingly unrestrained and plot-changing. This is a general trend with this show that I really applaud. Usually the most extreme characteristics of quirky characters are restricted to little throwaway scenes instead of being the basis for whole plotlines. This is usually due to laziness. When you have weird characters interacting using their weird aspects instead of their regular aspects things get pretty wacky pretty fast. Now like sitcoms etc, those often get a lot of their humour from this setup, but they have a few advantages, the biggest one being the fact that actual live actors can improvise, really get into the scene, and things sorta just flow from that. Plus, since all they need are laughs, they don't have to try to keep up an undercurrent of any particular emotion which can require a more reigned-in plot. You might wonder what emotion is required here and you're right, moe isn't an emotion. It transcends that. It's like a whole other emotional plane. I'd like to explain this more later. I wrote a whole bunch about the idea of moe awhile back but I don't think it's a very good explanation yet. At any rate what you need to know is that the scene of Chinatsu's drawings is anti-moe in a very particular way that it is still moe, like, still in the spectrum of moe, just uh, not at all in the positive directions. And that Yui's niece was so moe because it was everything that those drawings were not. They managed to have all these conflicting and wacky characters and gags that either need to steal scenes or not involve themselves in scenes at all while still not losing touch with the idea that this is moe anime. They took very wide-open premises (drawing, playing with clay, entertaining the kid, etc) and fully executed them with hilarious results. In a sharp contrast to many of their contemporaries, they aren't getting lazy at all with this! If anything, they're going out of their way to avoid easy crutches, throwing themselves instead upon extremely difficult but potentially very rewarding crutches. Every character and scene is well optimized for otaku adoration, just like something like A-Channel, and really they could just toss the premises together and have a decent success like A-Channel did. But they didn't, they're really making this an actual show. I am very impressed. This is a boatload of laughs.

Usagi Drop episode 6

And amazingly this might actually be my third favorite current show now! Yeah I mean Nichijou has first in a lock but I think Yuruyuri might actually beat this out! Weird, right? Not that this isn't good, it's just, like, it's funny but not hilarious, and it's moving but not about to actually make me weep or anything. Which is uh good because I don't think I wanna weep. Or maybe I do. Anyways I guess I'd call this “pleasant” at the moment. The major arc with the mom seems to have settled and now they're going to more episodic adventures. I'm fine with this. I don't really want a lot of dramatics, to be honest. I want fun parenting adventures. Maybe not even so deep down I just unabashedly want this to be Yostubato: The Animation. Is that so wrong? Other times I think that there's the potential for a really poignant masterpiece of abandonment, coming of age across two generations, instinctive parental emotions, etc. but I dunno, it doesn't need to be that, and if it was that it really would need to sacrifice a lot of other stuff that makes it fun. I don't know where this will go from here, I sort of expect some plotline with the dude and the troublemaking kid's dad, but I don't think it'll be anything major. I guess some more stuff will happen with the mom, but it seems set up in such a way that the only progress will be through drama, like maybe even soap opera style drama, and I dunno if I really care to see that. Oh well. Still a very beautiful show, great art style and aesthetics and production. The tree is a nice plot idea. The adventures of them going to class were fun. The cereal incident was pretty adorable. Good stuff.

Idolmaster episode 6

Hm so kinda funny the way this spinoff group plotline cropped up. I mean the whole concept just seems so against the idea of the show, and the only like, hinted at idea of jealousy and such among the other idols seems like it's both impossible to ignore or write off and also seems like something I just don't want to see. Anyways uh accepting that they've done this for whatever reason, it does have the benefit of a rivalry-type thing, and now they can do like, failure-type things. All the scenes of the producer scrambling and screwing up and such I figure are the closest to how the actual game operates, although I don't have much of a sense about that at all. It just seemed very game-y to me. So I guess this was supposed to be a Miki episode but geez there wasn't a whole lot to do with her. There's some good Kotori scenes so I'm happy at any rate. But yeah, Miki has some sort of problem (has the talent but isn't putting in the effort) and then they solve that (hey she'll put in the effort too!) and there's even like, an incident (oh man double booked! Send Miki as a replacement!), so why is she not really in many scenes? They didn't even show the big event she was appeared at, even though she apparently did great? I mean I congratulate them on their restraint, I guess, and their faith in their story-telling abilities that they don't need to just do fanservice, but I dunno, it seems like they're losing touch with what I feel like most people are watching it for. She didn't even get her own ED! It was really more of a producer episode, and really, who wants that? At the same time though the number they showed from the like, mini-group, is probably the longest performance scene so far so I guess that compensates. Anyways if I was a big Miki fan I'd be a bit annoyed I guess? Oh well.

YuruYuri episode 7

So yeah, it's just that easy. I really gotta respect the way they acknowledge that no one really cares about the validity of the setup and the premise, it gives them a lot more time for the actual plot itself. And they've really gone even further than that! Now they realize that no one really cares about the plot, they just want character interaction. So here we have it! Honestly they could pretty easily do the next six episodes with this same premise and just different pairings. I liked the ones we had. Chinatsu/Kyoko was necessary 'cause at least someone has to get what they want I guess. I liked that Chinatsu ended up liking the movie. Akari/Chitose was very nice, very pleasant, quite funny at times. Sakurako/Himawari was completely inevitable but whatever they did their thing and it was okay. Yui/Ayano was the best, though. They managed to make their lack of a defined dynamic into a dynamic really smoothly, and their conversation was nice and almost legitimately touching. It seems like they're at a point where any given combination of characters will result into some laughs. Impressive stuff! Next episode looks like it'll be great too. I've heard a bit about Chitose's sister or whatever and she seems like she'll be a funny character too.

Nichijou episode 20

So only six more episodes! Geez. Anyways this one was a blast. Much more centered than it's been before, except for the first airship episode I guess. The whole plot of Mio's manga was hilarious. I've been reading a bunch of Bakuman again lately and I find the whole setting/premise of creating manga really engrossing. Actually any sort of “creative process” type plot, if done well and realistically, I'm a big fan of. It was interesting to see Mai “actively torturing” Mio instead of Yukko, sort of put the character in a different perspective? Like, you obviously expect Yukko to suffer, but really, Mio suffers in probably a higher percentage of her scenes, it's just that her suffering is usually a result of her own circumstances instead of the actions of another. Here it's probably the most blatant example of the latter seen in the series. Oh wait in the camping scene Yukko sort of screws her over too. I dunno maybe I didn't have a point. What else oh uh the hide and seek scene was adorable and hilarious. The “classic” Helvetica Standard is one of my favorites ever. Six episodes left! I can't handle that!!

Sitcom stuff

Curb s08e05

Brilliant. Brilliant! I keep writing stuff about The Shining and one thing I keep going back to that I guess I'll preview here is the idea of inevitability. When someone knows something is bound to happen in a plot, not like, predicting it, but just knowing that there's no way it won't happen, it creates what I would call the ultimate form of anticipation. It's difficult to get right. It's not like you want to foreshadow it. Nor do you want it to be some sort of discovery on the audience's part. It has to be completely obvious to them. At the same time, you can't beat them over the head with it. They just have to know, in advance, that it will happen. The sensation should be like watching something fall. There is no real prediction or analysis required to know it'll hit the bottom. It's just what has to happen. And yet, when it does, you can't be perfectly ready. You still react. If you can get that sort of dread in your films, that suspense, that anticipation, you will be all the more powerful for it. Anyways, this episode of Curb nails it. You know immediately that there will be a scene where they argue about what Vance means as soon as he opens his mouth and nothing comes out. You know that Larry David will end up in New York as soon as he makes that excuse (doubly true if you knew the season's hyped up premise beforehand). You know that Larry will miss out on lunch with Richard. There's more. All these things you are certain will happen and all that's left is for them to crush down on you. In uh a hilarious fashion.

Curb s08e06

Sooo he's IN NEW YORK. Well first there were the scenes on the plane, that was pretty funny. The real appeal was Ricky Gervais, I had a lot of hype for that. It was good, but there really could have been more. There could have been a full 22 minutes of just the two of them talking. There was really no need for a plot, no need for all these complicated jokes of money and waiters and shoelaces and bread and heroism and plays and contracts. That stuff wasn't bad, but save it for a guest star that needs it! The showdown between Ricky and Larry should be something isolated and above such trivialities, I think. Maybe he'll be back I dunno anyways it was still funny. Jeff trying to get him as a client makes me wonder why that aspect of his character was never really used “productively” before. Or maybe it has and I forgot. It seems like the plots of this episode were very Seinfeldy. Maybe this is intentional due to the New York setting? Should be fun, at any rate.

Bookz

Kafka on the Shore

So I finished this and now I'm reading Sputnik Sweetheart 'cause hey why not. Not sure if I'm just gonna plow through all the Murakami books now or what. They're pretty fun, at any rate, and getting addictive. I'm liking Sputnik Sweetheart more than Kafka on the Shore for various reasons that I'll try to explain here. I haven't finished SS so I should really just talk about KotS I guess.

The plot of KotS is sort of infuriating in the way it seems simple and yet is a bit too muddled to actually be cohesive. The text and events are presented somewhat plainly, as opposed to the dense and mysterious writing of, say, Pynchon, who gives you a sense of incomprehensible cohesiveness instead. It's like, jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing versus um, I dunno, no good way to come up with a Pynchon metaphor, something like a paint-by-numbers Pollack I guess. I think MAD Magazine might have made that Pollack joke before. Anyways. It's a pretty cool premise: Kafka is stuck into some sort of Oedipal loop due to some dissociation in time. Forces of cosmic righteousness implore him in both of his incarnations to fix this. There's some reluctance because the positive aspects of this are sorta nice. Themes of fleeting joy, being stuck in the last moment you enjoyed, living death, etc. Hey yeah I like it! Asano touched on a lot of this stuff in some of the stories of What a Wonderful World but he did it more generally I think. Asano's seems like a philosophical argument whereas this is more a specific case that can be contemplated to reveal a philosophical argument. I can't say which is better.

I guess what bugs me is that when you have a setup like this, especially when you have supernatural elements, you have a whole lot of freedom, right? However, um, “with great freedom of plot comes great literary responsibility”. Dunno why I put quotes around that perhaps it is a Spider-Man joke. But yeah, when you're not forced to make many choices, you have to make doubly sure the choices you make are justifiable. I don't even mean justifiable in terms of story cohesiveness or non-arbitrariness but just in terms of adding to the quality of the book. If I can summarize my main beef with this book as sufficiently as I can, it's that the motivation for adding a lot of scenes and elements seem too slap-hazard and unsatisfying. From sexuality to war to classical music to sufficiency to politics to happiness to geez I mean he really touches on a lot of stuff. It's not that he spreads himself too thin or anything, lots of great books have tackled even more on fewer pages, it's just that each subject seems a bit to arbitrary and disjointed with the rest of the book. Plus, his style's adaptability to these different subjects is a bit wonky. His three main perspectives are “the toughest 15 year old in the world”, an endearingly slow-witted old man and an uneducated trucker, and really, he's set himself up so that a lot of the things he seems to want to say can't be said by any of the characters he has. This leads to awkward interjections by Oshima or other devices constituting the various aspects of some unseen avatar of Murakami unsubtly wedging in all his opinions and ideas.

Furthermore, I'm not sure if I like the idea of these little references and mini-lectures in the first place. I think these sort of opinions should either occur in the reader naturally or are at least presented in such a way that it isn't so much of a fact but another question. Everything seems a bit too explicit, but not enough that it goes fully to primitive plot description. Murakami's style is pretty, that's for sure, and he has some interesting scenes that he describes quite nicely, but there's little style to the prose itself. Maybe that's just a fault of the translation, I'm not sure, but I almost feel like I'm reading a light novel or a VN at times. Stuff happens and we're told it happens. You can almost picture the CGs and insert pictures and such when they occur. Maybe that's a bit harsh. Maybe I'm getting pretentious and distant by reading only literature where nothing is given to you that easily. Really, the biggest thing is what I mentioned earlier, that the plainness of the prose doesn't parallel the mysteries within the plot. Like, stuff like talking to cats, or the coma incident, or the other world in the forest, or the weird little demon thing, or the cats' souls flute, like, okay that's all pretty weird, but I've accepted much weirder stuff in other books. Here I can't. Here it seems really arbitrary again. Something that, in Pynchon's wonderful fever dream of prose, or even Vonnegut's subversive edge, I'd think was a really cool idea and not question for a second, here is presented, plain as day, as “there is a man cutting cats apart so he can make a flute out of their souls” and I have to ask “wait, what, why?”

I dunno, I'm not sure if I'm getting this concept across very well. It seems like it shouldn't matter, right? But it really does and I'm not sure if I understand exactly why. I think it's similar to how, like, I'm reading Phoenix now, right? Actually I'm reading all sorts of Tezuka but Phoenix is my favorite. Anyways, I think there's sections where, if it was like, Miura or something, I'd be much more engrossed. Or like, I wouldn't question things that I do here. And yet I think in some ways my questioning it sort of makes me like it even more? It's strange. I mean, when you really feel like there's just a few missing pieces, you're really gonna try to look for them. And even if you never find them, it's not so bad, 'cause looking for them was fun, right?

Anyways enough generalities, here are the pieces I thought were missing. First off, the whole mushroom hunting thing that knocked Nakata out. Cool idea, but what was it really? I guess I see some thematic progression with menstruation and such, but am I missing something? Was Ms. Saeki supposed to be the teacher on that trip, too? Like there's some parallels or something but they don't go all the way, and as soon as they fail it stops being, in the language of the book, a working hypothesis. Same with this uh idea of who is his sister, who is his mom, what's with his dad, etc. There's no definitive answers, that's fine, but what's less fine is that the transition from these being like, “open mysteries” to more like “things to contemplate” isn't too satisfactory, there's no reason the reader should give up his desire for this information. In other books you eventually become too philosophically/aesthetically overwhelmed to care but here not so much. There's just too much stuff not explained or not fully linked, too many red herrings raining from the sky. And again, this stuff'd be fine if it really improved the book, by like, artistically demonstrating the prose style or moral system of the story, but it's more like they're being presented as clues in a mystery you aren't going to end up solving. Comparing to Pynchon again, Slothrop finds the little Impolex chess knight, right? That might get you all worked up about mysteries and stuff, but at the same time it's cool enough and presented so well that it's not really making you ask questions. It gets your mind going in some vague fashion instead of just prompting a “what the heck” that will never get answered. I feel like I might be repeating myself but I want to get this concept across in a decent way since nearly every problem I have with the book hinges on it.

As a result it probably seems like I disliked it or thought it was bad, but that's not right. I thought it was a lot of fun to read, a real page turner. I think the ideas for the plot and the concepts within are all very creative and individually well executed, even though it left me wanting a resolution it couldn't support. I liked all the characters well enough. His descriptions were nice, even though I think he went further than necessary at times, almost to the point of pandering. I guess I can't only complain about that when I'm not the one being pandered to, though, so it's forgivable. Even if it seemed forced, I think he has a lot of interesting ideas about a lot of issues, and I'm glad he included them in some form. So yeah.

As far as Sputnik Sweetheart goes, I'm liking it quite a lot more. I still have several of the same beefs, but without the supernatural element (so far, I'm like... 60% through now?) he's more restricted in terms of plot, and he's kept his topics down to more of a minimum and they're more natural. I find a lot of his views on love and writing and such very identifiable and interesting. I'll see how I like the rest of it. This is more what I expected from Murakami based on my vague understanding of him.

That's about it all for now. I've been busy with some stuff so I haven't finished a few other things for the blog.