Idols in Love: The Blogosphere x The Idolm@ster (Part 1)

If you hate Internet community inbreeding posts, prepare for some quality teeth-gnashing.

Akizuki Ritsuko

The grand conflict of Ritsuko’s heart is that she invests so much in a Type A, go-getter professional life, when in love she yearns to be taken by the hand.  Passive would-be romantics need not apply; with Ritsuko, you must lead.  Ghostlightning would be the perfect dinner date, but his wife would have his head on a pike by morning.

Ganaha Hibiki

Hibiki’s love is gravitational.  In many ways the opposite of Ritsuko, she’s the stronger half of a relationship, a pillar of joy with unshakeable loyalty.  With AJtheFourth, Hibiki’s energy and overflowing genki-ness would be balanced with a fine-tuned sensitivity.  They would go to an aquarium to see the otters.

Hagiwara Yukiho

Here’s a needy girl.  Yukiho brings out the best in those who have not just a gentle touch, but also a touch of patience.  TWWK would make her feel safe, read her poetry and talk her out of digging holes.  They would visit a fashionable promenade for lunch and window shopping (Also, again: Wife, head, pike, et cetera).

Futami Ami

Ami is fun.  Ami is energetic.  A romance with this Futami twin demands an appetite for new things, a sense of adventure… or perhaps a sense of responsibility.  KylaranAeldin would be more than her match in both respects.  They would invade a karaoke center at noon and sing themselves hoarse until dark.

Futami Mami

Who loves the shadow?  Being with Futami Mami means not only having an eye for subtlety, but also a supportive personality, to shine light on beauty overlooked.  Bikasuishin/mt-i would make her feel loved and appreciated for who she is.  They would watch movies at his place, sharing a blanket.

 

Podcast #4: The Dirty Show

What do our fantasies say about us?  In this episode, we go deep into the rabbit hole.

This episode covers adult/mature themes.  Listen at your own discretion!

Direct Link to MP3 (19.4 MB, 21 minutes 16 seconds)

Links

Girl Cartoons (8C)
Tsurupeta.info (mt-i)
My Sword is Unbelievably Dull (21stcenturydigitalboy)
“Lolicon: The Reality of ‘Virtual Child Pornography’ in Japan” by Patrick W. Galbraith (file: PDF)

Sound Credits

Opening (00:00 – 02:12)

“A World of My Own” (audio excerpt, Alice in Wonderland)
“Tandem-Holiday” (Heinz Kiessling)
“Black Dada” (Fantastic Plastic Machine)

Part 1: Lolita no Ai (02:13 – 13:01)

“Hajimete Shimasho” (Rizelmine OST)
“Ai no Lolita” (Nanako SOS image song)
“Tsuretete” (Boku no Pico OST)
“Dancing Star (off-vocal)” (Urusei Yatsura OST)
“Yuna Mochizuki” (junior idol video BGM)
“Neko Mimi Mode (off-vocal)” (Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase OST)
“Sekai wa Odoru yo, Kimi to. (off-vocal)” (Ikoku Meiro no Croisée OST)
“Himeji Mizuki” (Baka to Test to Shokanjuu OST)
“Cutie Honey” (GO!GO!7188 cover)

Part 2: The NEET’s Tale (13:02 – 20:12)

“Ano Ko no Kare” (Kojima Mayumi)
“Milk” (Penguin Café Orchestra)
“Fight For Your Right (To Party)” (Beastie Boys)
“Inori no Kanata (instrumental)” (Tales of Symphonia OST)
“Quiz” (Skalpel)
“This is Onii-san Essence” (audio excerpt, Imouto Jiru)
“Ii Yume Mite Ne.”  (K-ON! OST)
“Future Gazer (off-vocal)” (To Aru Kagaku no Railgun OST)

Conclusion (20:13 – 21:16)

“Kaze ni Azukete” (Advantage Lucy)

 

Looking Back on 2011 (AniBloggers’ Choice Anime Awards)

Hello again, dear readers.  Sorry for disappearing unannounced; sometimes reality intrudes.  But let’s get right back to it!

I’m extremely skeptical of the perennial claim that anime is fading.  If 2011 is anything to go by, we’re in a beautiful heyday, more satisfying in some ways than even the Akiba-kei boom of 2006-7.  Creativity is in abundance.  Things are good.  Let’s sit back and appreciate that today, shall we?

So, without further ado, here are my picks for the ACAA, arranged by season.

Image source: Pixiv ID #20317045

Winter: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

This takes home the trophy for tight, economical storytelling.  Even now, well into the age of the twelve/thirteen-episode show, most shows toddle around as if they had many more, only to crash headlong into a flaccid conclusion.  Studio SHAFT didn’t waste a minute with Madoka Magica; once the ruse of the first three episodes was up, we were taken on a thrilling ride to despair and back.  And at the end, like all good tragedies, there was bittersweet catharsis.

Shortlist: Hourou Musuko, Dragon Crisis!

Image source: Pixiv ID #19927855

Spring: Steins;Gate

So many adaptations crash and burn.  Either that or they collapse under the weight of references to the original, a natural consequence of a market that favors hardcore fans.  So Steins;Gate was a true rarity, taking its ambitious source material (conspiracies, time travel, the fate of mankind and the love of a woman — things geeks take to like a fat kid to a pudding cup) and making a TV adaptation that was faithful, thrilling, but most importantly, accessible.

Also, this.

Shortlist: Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai.

Summer: Usagi Drop

For characterization and scripting, Usagi Drop is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but where it really shines is its visual direction.  Rin and Daikichi live in an organic environment, full of lush colors and detail.  Little things, like the fact that people change outfits, do more to vivify the world than any number of gimmicky character designs.  In a medium so little-known for subtlety, in Usagi Drop subtlety is king.  Or queen.

Shortlist: The Idolm@ster, Mawaru Penguindrum

Fall: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

In some ways Akirascuro did a better job of explaining why I like this show, but I’ll still give it a shot.  If you look at the above image, it’s pretty much all there: Kobato the goth-fantasizer, unable to call on her dark persona when she has to deal with an overly-friendly stranger.  On the other side is Sena, the socially awkward beauty, who wants to be loved like in the erogames she adores, but who doesn’t realize that she’s failing at it and making Kobato very uncomfortable.

It’s a beautiful schadenfreude.  Haganai wins for characterization.

Shortlist: Un-Go, Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing

 

Satori in a Sound: The Nature of “Ah.”

“All conditioned phenomena
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows;
Like drops of dew, or flashes of lightning;
Thusly should they be contemplated.”
- The Diamond Sutra

Nothing compares to the moment of discovery.  When the senses encounter something totally new, or when puzzle pieces have been laid out and clicked into place, and the only thing that remains is to witness —  Suddenly, voila, understanding!  Realization!  It’s a beautiful, fragile instant.

In Japanese, this has a sound.

Source: "Love and Devil," by Yanagi Masashi (H).

 

Ah. My cough is getting better now.—
高橋栄佳 Haruka Takahasi (@takhsiru) November 26, 2011

 

Source: "Anata wo Sutte mo ii desu ka?" by Itou Ei (H).

I feel that, similar to ehhhh??, this is a quintessentially Japanese expression.  Native English speakers might say, in its place, “ah-ha,” or “what,” or even “oh crap.”  But that substitutes options for elegance.  The ah encompasses a myriad of emotions.  Like the mystic aum that  Hindus say gave birth to the universe, the sound embraces both subject and object, questioner and the questioned.

Truth isn’t even necessary.  For example, after Masato’s ah in that first chapter of “Love and Devil,” Megumi proceeds to completely misunderstand the situation.  But if you catch your childhood friend having sex with a lolita succubus mere minutes after you stormed out of his house (or if you are said childhood friend, realizing that your goose is cooked), does any quantity of words suffice?  Can any explanation equal the absurdity of the moment-as-it-is?

No; I submit that nothing can.  Hence: Ah.  There it is.

 

A Personal Note #26: The New Art of the Off-Kai

“Here’s the way the pros do it: ‘offkai.’
It means a meeting, offline.”
- 2chan.us, Dear America: Learn to Offkai 

“The saddest image in the world,” he said, “is a man alone, gargoyled over his computer, watching anime.”

I was at Koko’s Café with Akira.  He stirred condensed milk into a cup of coffee as he talked.  “I mean, it’s horrifying, isn’t it?  I really hate that.  That’s why I drove over an hour to meet you.”

Akira on The Idolm@ster: "Not enough Miki."

The drive for me was ten minutes, but I understood the investment.  In many ways it was like preparing for a blind date:  Did I pick nice clothes?  (Yes, the night before.)  Did I shave, do my hair, apply a spritz of cologne to my wrists and pulse points?  (Check, check, check.)  Scribble down the directions, grab my wallet, one last check in the mirror (Gorgeous), and off I go…  Yet one can’t help being nervous.  This is, after all, a meeting with Internet People.

Stepping into the café, I felt disoriented.  Who was I looking for?  A flesh and blood person and not a Hoshii Miki avatar, I reminded myself – Not that I did him any favors, giving him literally nothing to go on but a 128-square-pixel icon of Amano Ai.  The real Akira, when I spotted him, was an imposing young man with a masculine voice.

“This guy here’s a legend,” he said to his friend, the café owner.

He laughed.  “Are you?”

“Apparently?”  I squeaked.

Contrary to my fevered nightmares of awkward silence, we had a lot to talk about.

“If there’s anything wrong with anime, it’s that it plays too safe.”  He sucked a bit of condensed milk off the end of his spoon.  “It isn’t curious.  Curiosity saves us, but geeks are actually some of the most un-curious people out there.”

“ ‘Just give us more high school chuunibyou.’ ”

“Exactly.  If you think about what an otaku is, it’s a person who is completely fixated on this one thing.  The few shows that push the envelope are great!  And they inevitably do really, really poorly.”

“Not a lot of auteurs in anime, I suppose.”

“We’re definitely more inclined to think of studios.  In fact, if you think of the directors in the otakusphere who have name recognition value, you’d have: Shinbo, arguably Ikuhara, and…” he took a little breath.  “Yamakan.”

“Poor guy.”

“Sena is much more believable than Kirino ever was.  Look, here’s this beautiful girl who’s obsessed with eroge, and guess what?  She really has no friends!  The people she hangs out with barely tolerate her hobbies!”

“Like when Sena compares Kobato to such-and-such game character, and Yozora goes, ‘Uh, can you not?  That’s really gross.’”

He laughed.  “Great show.  It says so much.”

…

The sun was setting when I had to go; I was running late for work.  We had talked for over four hours.  Our fingers jittered; the magic love spell of multiple coffees.

“This was good,” I said.

“Yeah, thanks for coming,” said Akira.  ”We should do this again.  I won’t be back for a while, but maybe in the spring.”  We shook hands.  And as I walked out the door, he said the most inevitable goodbye:

“See you online.”

I gave a little salute.  ”Yep.”

 

Using the Enneagram of Personality on Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

“Fours often…  feel they are missing something in themselves, although they may have difficulty identifying exactly what that “something” is. Is it will power? Social ease? Self-confidence? Emotional tranquility?—all of which they see in others, seemingly in abundance.”
- The Enneagram Institute

Part one of a series?  Maybe?  Because everybody loves a personality test.  Especially when it tells you exactly why you’re broken.

Yozora: Type Eight (The Challenger)

Her bluntness is symptomatic.  It isn’t simply that Yozora is awkward and doesn’t know tact from the back of her hand (though that certainly doesn’t help).  She says awful things to people because her ego dictates that she’s above the consequences.  Even when Yozora’s protective, as in the childhood flashback of episode three, she plays at being the more powerful guardian of a weakling.

Type Eights are about authority and dominance, and Yozora is a perfect example of someone with these traits in overdrive…  However, this also means that she’s remarkably good at taking leadership and getting things done.  That’s about all I’m willing to give her, really.

Sena: Type Three (The Achiever)

You have to admire her for one thing: Whatever Sena does, she throws herself into it completely.  New game?  Master it in three days.  Swimming?  From doggy paddling to freestyle in a day, ain’t no thing.  She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she’s stylish, pretty much perfect in every way…  and that’s exactly how she wants to be seen.  Sena can’t live away from the spotlight.

Unfortunately, that’s what shoots her in the foot when trying to make a social life.  She blames her popularity with the boys for scaring off potential girl friends, and it’s true — high school girls can be quite nasty about that sort of thing.  But it’s just as likely that her perfectionism intimidates people.  As Hugh Prather once put it, ”To err is human — I’m uncomfortable around gods.”  It’s lonely being a goddess.

Further reading

Here’s a comprehensive Enneagram info site, complete with practice test.

The Enneagram Institute has the same test, but with different names and a relationship matrix.

 

The Citizen Kane of Visual Novel OPs: An Initial Inquiry

This is an experiment in film historiography.  Bear with me.

We begin with Key.  Of course, there were many noteworthy VNs before they arrived.  But leaving aside smash hits like Leaf’s To Heart (1997), I’m ill-equipped to say what’s representative.  Key produced a body of thematically related works within years of each other, which makes the perfect timeline.

Kanon (1999)

 

We see the hallmarks of classic a VN opening in their first game: Lengthy bits of scenery, followed by a roll-call of the characters superimposed on distinctive scenes.  Kanon deserves a nod for its music and sense of design, but visually, this is merely standard.  It’s the point of origin.  (Note the snow.)

Air (2001)

 

Their next game is very similar — There are some innovations in “motion” (namely, the way the faces move into view in the roll-call, the moving legs around 01:23, moving up the stairs around 01:55, and moving hair around 02:10), but the method is mostly derivative of traditional animation.  That is, it’s a simulacrum of motion based on the difference between several images in sequence.

Now, a few years later, we introduce the wild card: The very first game from Navel, a new VN company.

Shuffle! (January 2004)

 

Right away, you can see an amazing difference in the roll-call sequence; the vector arrows go every which way, and the camera shifts in space to follow.  Not only that, but check out what happens around 01:57: The camera runs backward through a field of sunflowers, stopping when it reaches the girls from behind.  Use of CG and a sequence that fully acknowledges all three dimensions!

Clannad was released only a few months later.  You can see that there isn’t much difference from its opening and Air‘s (though note the clever visual trick of moving from widescreen to full, and the higher-quality “snow” compared to Kanon’s).

Clannad (April 2004)

 

But.  Check out what Key made a few years later.

Little Busters! (2007)

 

Nowadays, this kind of opening is standard.  Two of my favorites:

Hoshizora no Memoria (2009)

 

SuMaGa -Star Mine Girl- (2008)

 

Obviously, I haven’t accounted for advancements in technology…  But again, Clannad was released four months after Shuffle!, so technology can’t account for the entirety of the evolution.

Here’s what I think — and I welcome VN experts to tear me down with counterexamples, because that’s what this is for: I think that Navel, in making the OP for Shuffle!, hit upon the true visual uniqueness of the VN, and they pushed it to a new level of flatness-in-space.

The modern-day VN OP almost bursts from the screen with motion.  A fine irony when you’re watching them all on YouTube.