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Omonomono

Adaptation, Take 2

I was just exploring the contextual cavities in the American anime fan experience and this train of thought occurred to me. Most anime on the market are adopted from manga, which is already a graphical medium. The change from manga to anime can be very straightforward, and it usually is.

From the perspective of a fan of a manga that is subsequently translated into anime, why would I be interested in it? From the perspective of a fan of the anime who is now posed the question about buying the original manga or not, why would I select “buy” instead of “don’t buy”?

When I say contextual cavities, I mean the missing bits of context that a Japanese fan has to think of in terms of their consumption experience, that I do not. Or we do not.

Is this why I am a seiyuu and anison fan? Take Negima! for example, the manga is long-running and has an established fan base. What does the anime add to the overall experience? I think if you are of a certain persuasion, lack of a better word, the allure comes naturally. But this is not always the case.

Taken in this context, that Dai Sato rant actually makes sense. It’s almost like “official” doujinshi in how some of these OADs or TV spinoffs are. Worse, good chunks of it isn’t even made in Japan, and it is Japan exploiting foreign laborers.

Of course, not all manga adopted into anime are like this. Sometimes it takes a life on its own. Miyazaki’s Nausicaa is a good example of two entirely different things, as if one merely is a branched snapshot build from the same software project suite and the other is an ever-developing baseline. They serve very different purposes.

Well, it goes back to some kind of subjective sense. We all have very different, wide variety of reasons that we buy some anime. We all have very similar reasons, too. In fact the only one thing I can almost say for sure is that all of us have more than one reason when it comes to buying a video of the anime that we like. Because we like anime for a variety of reasons. But when we weight these things, I believe a rational calculus rules; what we plug in as variables differ, but the net is similar.

In the aggregate, however, in the past 10 years the best thing that’s ever happened to TV anime and adapted anime is the lift from pulp fiction–the proliferation of light novel adaptations. I believe on the whole (and there are plenty of exceptions), the distance between a work of prose versus a work of cinematic presentation is large enough that it is tough to dismiss one or the other on the comparative basis. Now that doesn’t mean nobody do it; people do it all the time still, but it becomes a matter of seeing the forest for the trees. When the anime sucks, people will say it sucks. Not because they just wasted their time getting the exact thing that they’ve already read.

Of course, again, there are exceptions. And there are exceptions to the exceptions. Like Haruhi. But I think adopting light novels flips the manga adaptation model around so that more often than not, you end up with something new and different enough, something someone might end up wanting to buy. And it’s not because they’re the fan of the source material.

[Here's some more food for thought. Scanlation may hurt manga sales in English-speaking regions on a per-title basis, but has anyone considered it may hurt anime sales as well? Speaking personally I have foregone anime purchases because I found the manga to be superior in doing what I think is what I want out of a title. I suspect having the scanlation context to baseline your experience with a particular franchise restores that bit of missing context in your otherwise happy gaijin life, but it highlights the shadow of the upcoming anime adaptations, possibly making them less desirable. Well, I'm not saying it happens in a notable way even in the aggregate; who knows? And on the same note, an adaptation can go well with the source material even when the gap between them is small, so in essence cross-advertising between manga and anime works as planned, increasing a fan's likelihood to buy. Again, it's just food for thought.]

Sometimes I wonder how did anime become popular in America in the first place. It’s an epic display of the tail wagging the dog when it comes to examining franchise and marketing strategies.

[What about video games? Worse, what about visual novels? If video game adaptations suck and novel adaptations don't...]

Mid-Summer’s Afternoon Chatter

2010 is an eventful year in anime-manga-whatever-land. If there wasn’t a Bakatest tumbler to remind me of its passing existence earlier this year I probably wouldn’t even talk about it.

Bakatest interests me. Within the ongoing procession of anime based on print matter with a stress on the meta, this anime adaption showed a particular finesse. Compared to the way-more-meta SeiZon from last year, Bakatest left its mark for being generally amusing, where as Seitokai no Ichizon left its mark only on those who keyed in on the excess meta. I mean, it would not appeal to this gentleman, and rightfully so–it’s not he could understand why it’s funny anyways.

I singled Author out because, first off, I don’t think he’s going to find much in Seitokai Yakuindomo. Second, I don’t recall if he elucidated his distaste for SeiZon, as the excessive meta is hardly expected to have much appeal outside a small group in a demographic of anime maniacs–a clique within a small group of people. That’s obvious. But precariously so, what determines which anime title leave what in our grey matter after we watch it depends on a balance of freshness, interest, execution, expectations, hype, fetish points, and the countless things that goes to determine the internal state of the mind. SeiZon was overpoweringly meta to the exclusion of other factors, and to those who have enough of mind and mental wherewithal to withstand its assault of inside jokes, in order to be able to converse with it on some kind of metaphorical level, it was rewarding. You kinda have to be at least a little M to get Ken, after all.

What I call “internal states” is what hype is all about nowadays; ideas and minds are not simply fetid pools of infectious entities whose purpose is driven purely by evolutionary survival. That’s what hacks do. Because, in fewer words, over-expecting something leads to a let-down. True craftsmen do better.

This is the attitude I take re: Dai Sato’s ranting. WAH has an even keel take; I think it is a matter of personal interest if you are pandered to, or not. While I think I do applaud, in whole, of what Sato is saying, there’s nobody to blame other than possibly himself and his works.

Internal states of others and how it react to pre-determined expectations give me a hard time figuring out just how to gauge the response to Asobi ni Iku yo. AsoIku is really entertaining; it even offers something for my mind to chew on, so far, in the form of Beautiful Contact. I mean any anime that name-drops Sir Arthur C. Clarke in spoiler text format within the show is worth at least another episode, and by then AsoIku already sold me with its 90s,  slapstick adventure style with high stakes and humorous juxtapositions.

I am being pandered to!

And I think if not for Erisu’s cat ears, furry tail and large, bouncing breasts, people might have taken AsoIku seriously. The thing is, as ideas fester in one’s mind, there are consequences. So you get this curious case where you want to hype, but you don’t want people to over-expect; you also want people to have a good time, but not turn away people from a “quality” experience. I think this is why shows like Sunred and Bamboo Blade have the positive fan buzz that they have, on top of being amusing. (There’s probably some Japanese anime lit crit term for this?) High School of the Dead presents an alternative to this conflict–just make it exactly as people expect it to be. As is, it’s exactly what we expect it to be; it isn’t to say there are no surprises to the show; sometimes the experience itself is a surprise, as in the case of a horror flick.

You might know that Summer is the season of horror in Japan. I guess when you break into cold sweat it feels good during heat waves? After AX I felt that Funimation got the short end of the stick in the US/Canada simulcast game in this genre. TAN has High School of the Dead, Crunchyroll nabbed Occult Academy, and Funi got Shiki… Nothing against Fuyumi Ono’s thrillers, but one is not like the other two. But hey, Kuroshitsuji 2 is on Funimation, and that show-with-undead will make more money than the other three combined. Maybe. And Occult Academy, being one of those Anime no Chikara things, is not the sure thing on paper, so Funi still “did the right thing” from a corporate-purchasing perspective.

Expectation strikes again!

Kuroshitsuji 2 is also the only anime that is important to North American fandom that I’ve yet to watch a single episode of that I’ve listed in this post. I just can’t get myself to care, even with Nana Mizuki now at the helm. And all this talk about zombies gets me thinking: why isn’t Shikabane Hime more popular? It really is not a bad show, just probably too out of bounds in terms of aesthetics for most? I don’t know.

Relics from 2009 aside, Mitsudomoe, Amagami SS, La Campanella Della Benedizione (I just like the full name), Denyuden, Strike Witches, and Ms. Wolf and her seven companions rounds out the new shows I’m watching. At least for now:

• I’m hoping Denyuden (The Legend of the Legendary Heroes) breaks into some kind of sekai-kei (to make a joke) parody about its redundant name. Which is redundant on purpose, I guess, until you begin to watch the show and realize there’s a thing about Legendary Heroes, as a noun phrase.
• Shukufuku no La Campanella is secretively a fantasy anime, much like some cheap-ass game I’ve been playing recently. Probably because it was that sort of game originally. Minus the cutthroat economics. Harmless, boobies, no shame in dropping when schedule squeezes them too tight and someone has to go.
• Amagami SS is the bee’s knees. And I’m not the first one to make that joke.
• Mitsudomoe is surprisingly robust, but sort of like what he said, I am afraid of dissecting that show too. At least it holds up better than Seitokai Yakuindomo.
• Strike Witches 2 is fairly straightforward. Pulls few to no punches.
• Ookami-san & Shichinin no Nakama-tachi is pretty general pulp stuff. I am sort of disappointed by it yet it is very inoffensive and soothing, while offering a variety of simple stories on a weekly basis. Com’on the fables you’re riffing off of have better punches than this otaku trash!

And that’s about half of the anime-relate stuff on my mind. Sigh.

Otakon 2010 Staging Post

Stuff I want to do at Otakon this year, in no order:

• Chat with Hiro (but I guess can I do this via forums and twitter already)
• Get 2 other souls to do Someone Else with me. Because this song is made for 3 people
• Fried pickles and a half-smoked
• Masunari and his Space Show
• Say hello to the Jtor staff
• Heckle at Jabel and Colette’s panel
• Yoshida Bros.
• Say hi to Maruyama at least once.

Otakon this year has a “music” theme, which may be why they have all this stuff involving X-Japan, An Cafe, Yoshida Bros, Home Made Kazoku and others. And why they produced a music video with the musicians at the con, selling their CD singles and what not.

If you’re a serious fan(girl) about that stuff you should already know what’s going on–the masquerade half-time show, the various small-time plays, plus the panels and autograph sessions. But that’s not my dig, that’s not my friends’ digs, so I can only wish you the best of luck.

For the rest, there’s the good o’ Otakon Schedule, which came out sometime in the past 48 hours. Anime Expo, I have to say, did the schedule thing right by using a 3rd party service that let you export your customized agenda into iCal format, which works for Google Calendar and iCal. (I’m presuming nobody is going to use Exchange for this right lolol.) In other words, my Android phone’s calendar widget can give me scheduling information based on time of day, and it is way better than a printed schedule. Granted that is just a local copy of the schedule and doesn’t quite do the update thing, but it’s a huge step up than using a pen and circling what want to go see. In fact I prefer this over an app.

I mean with my phone, it’s in my hands half the time anyways, for text, tweet, web, email or photo. Maybe I should invest in a second battery after all.

So far the only real note I have to share for the general con-goers are:

• Don’t miss the opening ceremony. Yura and company are going to perform, plus there’s this year’s opening animation from Production IG. (And yes, it conflicts with Masunari’s autograph session orz)
• On that note, I haven’t done it yet, but I need to follow up with Eminence to see what they’re bringing to sell. If you know anything about Eminence, it’s that it’s annoying to buy their CDs over the net.
• Mangagamer has showed their hands already.
• If AX is Eden of the East, Otakon is about Hetalia for Funimation. Ugh. I mean, awesome!
• Bandai After Dark, be there, should be fun. I can’t promise but that’s a good hunch.
• There’s an autograph jamboree at Otakon this year, presumably AX-style. Too bad it collides with Jabel’s figure panel orz.

Looking at my schedule, the panels are placed well, but it’s like all the guest stuff I want to do clash with something. With Otakon this year being quite sparse for me, it’s hard to see why I am having this many scheduling conflicts. I don’t even care about majority of guests this year!

I think I’m just about fully recuperated from AX (not including the work I have to do for them), so I guess a con a month is not too much! And yes, someone please join me in wan wan goodness. Email me or leave a comment.

The Best Sorts of Shows Pass the Three Episode Test

With Just Two Episodes.

If you’ve not followed anime in the 90s, you can get a good taste of what some of the best was like–pop in the first two episodes of Asobi ni Iku yo, kick back, and relax. That said, the first two episodes are so good that I have doubts that it can be representative of the rest of the series. Maybe.

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Oshiruko

Inakaya NY serves up a deluxe, fried version.

Good enough to run for.

It isn’t the first time I’ve had oshiruko of any sort (first time with fried mochi though), but this Japanese treat is a rare one for me. The timing couldn’t have been better as a reminder of its sweet goodness.

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