Life with the Body Electric: On Railgun and Superpowers

“One should not think of Superman as a Peeping Tom. A biological ability must be used. As a child Superman may never have known that things had surfaces, until he learned to suppress his X-ray vision. If millions of people tend shamelessly to wear clothing with no lead in the weave, that is hardly Superman’s fault.”
- Larry Niven, “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex”

So I guess I was wrong.  I’m not done writing about A Certain Scientific Railgun after all.  To be fair, I hardly expected there to be an OVA continuation when I wrote my climactic two-part finale (see below).  But I can’t say I’m unhappy, really.

I find this scene so fascinating.  The characters don’t treat Mikoto’s constant awareness of electromagnetism as a huge revelation, but it opens up a whole new dimension of understanding about the Index/Railgun universe (at least for us poor plebes who only watch the anime version—the literati need not apply).

You see, up until now I assumed that their abilities worked like an on-off switch.  You either access your “Personal Reality” to break the laws of physics or you don’t, and levels determine how well you can do it.  But if Mikoto’s not an uncommon case, then that means an esper’s powers are always on, all the time… What is that even like?  Mikoto’s sixth sense for electricity is one thing, but for example, what does the concept of distance mean to someone like Kuroko, for whom being someplace and visualizing it is virtually the same?

To put this another way: How are these kids still normal?

"This is merely superconductor electromagnetism. Surely you've heard of it? It levitates bullet trains from Tokyo to Osaka. It levitates my desk, where I ride the saddle of the world. And it levitates... me!"

Larry Niven asked this kind of question when he wrote the essay “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” in 1971.  To put it bluntly, he wondered about the physiological possibility of Superman having sex with Lois Lane, and concluded that she would be gutted like a fish upon climax, killed by his indestructible sperm, or any number of unpleasant possibilities.  In short, unless his bedroom lamp gives off the light of a red sun (don’t forget, that’s one of his weaknesses too), it isn’t a good idea for the Last Son of Krypton to get laid.

That’s the sad reality when your superpowers are so intrinsically linked to your life.  Superman must always consciously choose to remain human.

In the case of Railgun, the main control mechanism, ironically, comes from Academy City.  I know I’ve knocked on the institution before, but herding all the psychics into one space actually makes it easier to enforce a mundane status quo than if they were among normal humans, and free to style themselves as gods with complete impunity.  It still smacks of internment, and I’m making it a point NOT to say that Academy City offers humanity.  But maybe the Orwellian surveillance culture has some benefit.  Maybe.

Further Reading
My long and sordid love affair with A Certain Scientific Railgun:

- On Crazy Lesbians and A Certain Scientific Railgun
- The Delicious Cheesecake of A Certain Scientific Railgun
- Shibuya-kei and A Certain Anime Soundtrack
- The Victim Obscured in Railgun and Denpa Teki na Kanojo
- Psychics and the Science of Sleep: Two Mini-Entries on A Certain Scientific Railgun
- Closing Thoughts on A Certain Scientific Railgun, Part 1: Wild Talents in the Brave New World
- Closing Thoughts on A Certain Scientific Railgun, Part 2: Fighting the Future (or, A Love Letter to the Electric Girl)

And if you just can’t get enough Kryptonian science, this article offers an intriguing unified theory of Superman’s powers.

 

Oh God That Face! Explorations of “Seriousmile” Moe

Here’s a story: Some time ago, I was minding my own business at the office, when one of the teachers trotted over and very carefully picked off several dandelion bits from my clothes.  I quipped, “Thanks, mom.”  But that turned out to be a mistake, because I had to spend the next five minutes trying to explain to confused Japanese staff why I had just called another man my mother.  Lesson learned—Humor’s hard to translate.

But on the other hand, it’s pretty fascinating that facial expressions are nearly universal. We may not agree on what constitutes a joke, but a laugh is a laugh is a laugh.  Same with crying, or expressing disgust.  It’s amazing that these things are coded so deeply in our DNA that we don’t even have to think about them.

Well, most of the time.  There are some expressions I find absolutely baffling.  See above.  And below.

Just what is this face?  According to Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System, it’s kind of like some variation on the Outer Brow Raiser combined with a Lip Corner Puller.  In other words, furrowed eyebrows with a smile.  And I think the eyes have to be open, too, otherwise it looks like an evil smile, which it really isn’t.

After watching anime after anime where this face appears, I’m now able to parse it as meaning something like, “lighthearted, yet halfway or possibly all-the-way serious about the subject at hand.”  Also kind of impish and curious, if that makes sense… So we can explain what the seriousmile signifies, sort of.

But could you make that face yourself?  Go ahead, give it a try.  Remember, no evil smiles.

K-ON! favors this face, as does Haruhi Suzumiya the character.

You might recall the time I wrote about emotional recognition, the autistic spectrum and emotions in anime.  I think this is something like that, or it might even be a strange new evolution of the concept.  Anime and manga, by their nature, are already divorced from many physical realities (like bad skin, or cottage cheese thighs).  But is it possible that now we’re even trained to empathize with expressions that don’t exist on real human beings?

Well, since we’re on the right thought-train, consider how many people get turned on by ahegao.

Borderline case.

I don’t think this development is necessarily bad.  As consumers of art, maybe we need these markers of emotional complexity in a medium where fully human expression can be kind of difficult.  Or I could just be kidding myself.  But in a genre so well-known for its unreality, it’s interesting to take note of the times when that unreality is surprisingly subtle.

 

Closing Thoughts on A Certain Scientific Railgun, Part Two: Fighting the Future (or, A Love Letter to the Electric Girl)

Fair warning: This entry contains mild spoilers.  Click here to read Part One.

“Have a laugh at the horror of things to come.”
- Brazil

I’m still ambivalent about the way Railgun shifted its story in the second half.  We got hints of a vast conspiracy, but in the end everything got narrowed down to the evil machinations of a mad scientist.  It feels like it’s missing the point, because this shouldn’t be about just a few bad eggs.

Speaking of conspiracies...

Academy City is a giant R&D lab for psychic powers, and once you look past the nifty cleaning bots and fancy schools, the place is a technocratic nightmare. It’s been built from the ground up to encourage people to value powers, and to shun and ghettoize the powerless.  Level Zeroes (the people left behind by the technology gap) desperately want the power that they’ve been promised.  Meanwhile, the low-levels are reminded every day that they can reach Level Five, if only they tried a little harder.  If they keep working at it, they can get to the top, and then…

Then what?  Who benefits here?

I’ll tell you who: The same people who decided it would be a good idea for teachers to know how to efficiently combat and neutralize their students if needed.  The same people who appoint school-aged psychics as wardens and stoolpigeons to keep the others in line.  They run the entire system, and yet this one doctor (who actually pursues one of Academy City’s dream goals) is supposed to be the big bad guy?

The flip side to the empowerment offered by technology is simply a bigger, more sophisticated cage.  Bringing it back to what I talked about in the first part, we can hardly imagine life without the Internet, but it’s unfortunate that the Internet is slowly becoming just another arm of the same consumer interests that have controlled us since day one.  At its worst, the Internet is no better than any other fantasy-peddling device before it.

(Remember, if you’re a good enough blogger, maybe someday you can be the next Danny Choo.  Don’t forget to have a Facebook group!)

Railgun came very close to being a sharp critique of the world we may become, but it wasn’t quite.  Still, even with such flaws, I loved the show, primarily because of the Railgun herself.  Misaka Mikoto is the best hope for Academy City: She worked her way up and paid her dues in the establishment to become the best and brightest of Tokiwadai JHS, an esper par excellence.  But for all her awesome Level Five powers, she doesn’t get entangled in the institution.  She hasn’t internalized Academy City’s silent doctrine of power for its own sake.

Mikoto uses her powers with passion (with the notable exception of the bikini camping episode).  When she fights with Judgment, it’s not as a peacekeeper, but as a girl who cares deeply about justice and doing the right thing.  Mikoto has both the power to make change happen and the will to stay on the righteous path.

In this strange and exhilarating age, only her railgun can shoot it.  She is who we all should be.  And that’s all I have to say.

 

Closing Thoughts on A Certain Scientific Railgun, Part One: Wild Talents in the Brave New World

I’m no esper.  I can’t see into the future and know that I won’t write about A Certain Scientific Railgun ever again.  But I have a non-psychic hunch that this is the last hurrah, so we’re going to do things a little differently this time.  This is part one of two; I anticipate the finale to be next week or thereabouts.  So let’s get to it.

Screenshots from Random Curiosity. Cheers, Omni.

Railgun takes great pains to remind us that Academy City is special, with good reason.  This is a city of children, a bit like Japanese school life writ large.  It’s an interesting society, maybe an implausible one.  But when you think about it, appointing a superpowered kid-Gestapo and having teachers do overtime in a SWAT team is probably the only way they could maintain something resembling normalcy.  After all, we’re talking about a world where anyone can develop freakishly powerful psychic abilities, a Fortean dream come true.

This is going to seem like a sudden shift in topic, but bear with me:  It struck me recently that today’s young people (that is, people younger than eighteen) were born after the introduction of the Internet in 1992.  They were learning to walk and talk as the great wonder of the modern world was beginning to hit its stride.  Now we still can’t teleport or make railguns out of pennies, obviously, but the average person can do things that would have staggered our predecessors.  And kids take it all for granted, not in the sense that they’re ungrateful, but in that they’ve simply never known a world without these wonderful toys.

But I wonder, does the ubiquity of information sharing require extra vigilance?  I’m not talking about the FBI catching pedophiles in chat rooms, though I’m sure there’s still plenty of that.  But as it stands, technology is moving at such a fast pace that the children growing up with it are basically on their own.  They aren’t getting instruction from their parents.  They certainly aren’t getting it in classrooms.  So what are they learning?

In the social sphere of the Internet, people have amazing new abilities, but how that power and attendant personal responsibility affects young people (and the people responsible for raising young people) is still a development in progress.  They may not be unlocking psychic abilities, fighting giant floating embryos made of embodied teen misery, but that’s the power of allegory in anime form.  Some things become easier to see this way.

Postscript: Aniblog Tourney Round 3

It’s that time again.  Tomorrow, 2-D Teleidoscope will go up against Tenka Seiha.  My opponent hardly needs introducing (I was reading Aroduc’s episode reviews long before I even considered blogging anime), but if by some chance you haven’t seen his work yet, by all means visit.  He’s pretty amazing.  Voting happens here.

 

Psychics and the Science of Sleep: Two Mini-Entries on A Certain Scientific Railgun

To the bafflement of my friends, I’ve been faithfully watching Railgun every week.  I guess I just like it that much…  But the show hasn’t inspired me to write anything about it lately, not like those heady early days of mad lesbians and sexy cheesecake. Fortunately, though, that’s just changed.

Espers?  Blame Haruhi

The Japanese word for psychic abilities is “chou-nouryoku.”  In A Certain Scientific Railgun, they refer to powers as “nouryoku” and power users as “nouryoku-sha.”  I’ve seen some fansubs translate the latter as “Ability User,” which is precise and functional, but really rather dry.  The more popular term by far seems to be “esper,” which I find terribly interesting.

When did this term gain such widespread acceptance to refer to people with psychic powers?  It’s a loanword from Japanese, a foreign-made portmanteau of the English abbreviation for “Extra-Sensory Perception” and the Anglo-Germanic “-er.”  But Railgun’s espers do a lot more than ESP; they’re more akin to the mutants in X-Men.  We already have the word “psychic” to describe that sort of thing, so why the odd translation choice?

I believe I can point to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya as the source.  Specifically, I mean the fansubs released by a.f.k., which made extensive use of “esper” in its current definition (as opposed to, say, the summoner espers in Final Fantasy VI).  I don’t have those fansubs on hand anymore, so I couldn’t tell you if it was the original Japanese or not.  But those subs were incredibly popular, and when the official license came out with those “ASOS” videos on YouTube, professional translators kept the word in use.

And now it’s just part of our culture.  You could say it’s American Anime Fan English.

Anime and Sleep-Talking: A Reality Check

The hows and whys of sleep are still a mystery to science, but there’s one fact of human psychology that people should know: The content of your dreams has zero bearing on what you say as you sleep-talk. While you’re in that stage of sleep, you could just as easily dream about eating hot dogs and talk about flying at the same time.  That’s even assuming your sleep-babble makes any sense.

I remember this happened in Darker Than Black 2 as well, when Kurosawa Gai was sleep-talking about his mom.  It’s that trope where you know somebody’s having a nightmare because they’re thrashing in their sleep and saying “No… No!”  Unfortunately, it’s fiction and nothing more.

 

Anime and the Greek Foot: A Pediaphilic Odyssey

Today, as I was making my blog rounds, my attention was drawn to this post on Ogiue Maniax, not necessarily for the subject matter (though his experience with live mahjong is a fun read; I recommend it) so much as for the opening picture.  For ease of reference, I’ll reproduce it here:

Now, I’d like to draw your attention to Saki’s foot.  Notice that her second toe is slightly longer than the “big” first toe.  In podiatry this condition is called Morton’s Toe, and it occurs in approximately one in ten people.  So it’s not terribly rare, but it is an unusual trait.  Chalk it up to one more moe trait in Saki, I suppose…

But wait– This reminded me of the last scene in episode 12 of A Certain Scientific Railgun, where Saten embraces Uiharu and apologizes for all the trouble she’s caused.  Let’s see, I had it here somewhere.

It’s less pronounced in her left foot, but Saten Ruiko also has Morton’s Toe.  Interesting.

But wait!  Durarara!! episode 2 also had bare feet!  In the scene where Rio gets saved from the brink of death.  I remember this distinctly because she had a pedicure, which is unusual in anime.  Pink, no less.  Does she…

Yes, Kamichika Rio also has it!

Oh dear.  So what’s going on here?

Rape of the Sabine Women, by Pietro da Cortona, 1627-29.

Well, outside of medicine, this condition also has another, more colloquial name: the Greek foot. Supposedly this comes from the fact that the later rulers of Egypt, who were Greeks (e.g. Cleopatra), possessed this feature as part and parcel of their famed beauty.  On a more practical level, the name probably comes from the fact that statues from the Hellenistic and Roman periods nearly all possess this trait.  Naturally, when the Renaissance and Neoclassicism arrived in western Europe, the trend was revived and passed on.

Sora no Otoshimono, by Studio AIC, 2009.

So, here’s my pet hypothesis: The Greek foot as a symbol of beauty has survived in the western art world for hundreds of years.  As western art techniques were brought into Japan, so too were these memetic artifacts of western culture, dictating that a long toe on a girl is attractive.  Today’s Japanese artists, who benefit from two cultures’ worth of training, then proceed to incorporate the Greek foot into their projects.

Here's an interesting case from Seitokai no Ichizon: One girl has it, the other doesn't. It's some proof that this isn't careless, at least.

Of course, I could be completely missing a separate history of the Greek foot in Japan.  I could also be overaccounting for a simple moe trait, making too much out of minutiae (it wouldn’t be the first time).  But assuming foot fetishism is alive and well in this country, it’s kind of interesting.

As a parting note: Nagi from Kannagi doesn’t have it, and Nana from Nana & Kaoru most certainly does.  I’ll leave you to find those on your own, though.

 

The Victim Obscured in Railgun and Denpa Teki na Kanojo

(Fair warning: This entry mentions a major plot point of Denpa Teki na Kanojo/Electromagnetic Girlfriend.)

The last few days I’ve been playing the catch-up game, because even one week away from the computer means the shows I want to watch start building up.  I saved Railgun for last, because it’s never failed to entertain.  While that’s still true right now, once again I came away from Railgun a little disturbed.

Let me paint a picture: A boy gets bullied, extorted by thugs in his school on a regular basis.  But instead of seeking help, he internalizes his hate, obsesses over power and becomes a mad bomber: a terrorist and would-be cop killer.  He’s even willing to target young girls and put children in danger.  How wretched—obviously the passive-aggressive little punk deserved to get bullied in the first place.  Right?

Or how about this: A girl is raped and beaten by her neighbor, a mentally ill man who believes he is protecting the world from alien imposters.  Thinking no one will help her, she decides to follow him on one of his “missions.”  She quickly becomes addicted to the thrill of photographing the victims before he kills them, and eventually she becomes her rapist’s controller, encouraging his madness to continue the game.  Even without him, the girl discovers a newfound taste for violence and death, inflicted with garrote wires and aluminum baseball bats.

I wish I could say this is a clever “the abused becomes the abuser” meme, but I don’t think it is.

"The moment when one discovers their true nature."

Bullying was a problem for Japanese schools all the way back in the 1980s.  Bruce Feiler, the author of Learning to Bow, noticed it when he was teaching during the very first years of the JET Program.  I read that book when I was a child, and now here I am to find that 2009 Japan isn’t any different.

Just last month, for example, I listened to an English speech given by a girl who was a victim of bullying.  She described being shunned by her classmates, receiving graffiti and death threats in her mailbox, and yet the most shocking part to me was that she blamed herself for not being sensitive enough!

Victimization is treated differently here.  There is some value to it– nobody gets completely off the hook just for being a victim.  But at the same time, I can’t help but feel like there’s a parade of media (Railgun, Denpa Teki na Kanojo, certain episodes of Shigofumi, almost the entirety of Jigoku Shoujo) that tries to justify violence against others by implying that they brought it on themselves.  Victims are rendered weak or evil, and bullying appears to walk a very fine line between catalyst and pre-emptive punishment.

I can’t stand that.  But it is what it is.

On the flip side, Denpa Teki na Kanojo has some interesting things to say about voyeurism, exploitation, the nature of madness... It's just the vehicle that's bothersome.

 

Shibuya-kei and A Certain Anime Soundtrack

I sometimes wonder about the people who compose anime soundtracks.  If you don’t have someone on production like Yoko Kanno, an anime composer will usually leave very little of themselves in the work.  Especially lately, shows often have such an eclectic mix playing in the background that it’s hard to sense the rhyme or reason.

Take, for example, A Certain Scientific Railgun.  Of course action and techno go hand in hand in this show, which is a holdover from A Certain Magical Index.  But when something kind of wacky is going on, out of nowhere we’ll hear some ska.  And during one of the calmer moments, when Mikoto was drinking curry soup with the scientist, I was surprised to hear background music that sounded ever so slightly like shibuya-kei.

Please don't say you are lazy.

Shibuya-kei is hard to describe.  Fortunately, I don’t really have to, because anime songs have recently become rife with examples.  Listen to the first ending theme of Pani Poni Dash!, for example, or the opening of Chibi Maruko-chan sung by Kahimi Karie.  Of course, the most famous example by far is probably “Neko Mimi Mode” by Dmitri From Paris, the opening of Tsukuyomi Moon Phase. Most people seem to hate it, but mixing fluffy samba music with a seiyuu’s random little girl noises is certainly unforgettable.

Exhibit A: Girluppi

Exhibit B: Humming ga Kikoeru (no anime footage online, sorry)

Exhibit C: Neko Mimi Mode

As you can see, there’s a wide range.

Shibuya-kei is also interesting from a postmodern perspective.  As far as anyone can tell, the blending of jazz, vintage French pop and electronica has no other purpose than to sound classy and cool, and it does so by cutting apart and reassembling previous classy and cool music.  The resulting pastiche is like the musical equivalent of a collage made from photos of famous paintings:  It’s art that relies on the emotional power of other art.

What does that mean in context of the modern mercenary anime soundtrack, which uses any style from anywhere as long as it sounds good and evokes a specific mood? …  Well, I’m not prepared to make any grand conclusions.  But shibuya-kei’s increasing appearance in anime is interesting, don’t you think?  I almost want to say it’s appropriate.

This is completely unrelated, but I appreciate the fact that this lady wears a proper bralette and not some ugly stretch-fabric discount thing.  Even awkward sciencey types want to feel sexy.

 

The Delicious Cheesecake of A Certain Scientific Railgun

I had another entry planned for this weekend, but it’s getting pushed to next time, because I simply must write about A Certain Scientific Railgun again.  This will be short, because while I love reading episodic blogs, I don’t necessarily want to become one.

So, during the latest episode, this scene immediately got my attention:

The thing is, Saten is right to be excited.  Uihara (the flower-headed naysayer) probably wouldn’t know this, but Japanese cheesecake is quite different from cheesecake in other parts of the world.  Whereas New York or Italian cheesecake is dense and creamy, Japanese cheesecake is light, fluffy and decidedly more cake-like.  This is because the Japanese style, unlike others, uses separated eggs and cornstarch.

I used to believe that this was an adaptation of the French style, which is also a lighter variety, and which I had heard uses flour.  The Japanese have an odd fascination with all things French, so I wouldn’t have been surprised.  But it turns out I was wrong.  Actually, in terms of texture, preparation and even appearance, Japanese cheesecake is more likely a descendant of castella (or “kasutera“), a popular dessert that was brought to the country by Portuguese sailors during the 15th century.

So for once, rather than something “Japanese” proving to have other-cultural origins, in the case of cheesecake we have something “foreign” proving to be a lot more uniquely Japanese than we may have first thought.  Mind you, this is based solely on my limited experience as a baker, combined with a bit of food trivia.  But still, it’s interesting, right?  I think so.  Anime’s good for this kind of thing too, once in a while.

… What, you thought I was going to talk about something else?

 

On Crazy Lesbians and A Certain Scientific Railgun

“You see, I’ve always wanted this.  A night just between us, an eternal night in which I conduct the symphony that is you.  I don’t want it to end yet…  So please stay quiet.”
- Himemiya Chikane, Kannazuki no Miko

I’ve decided against writing impressions of the new season.  Other people are doing it better than I would.  But I’ll make an exception for A Certain Scientific Railgun, because I’m enjoying it a lot, and also because I can’t help but be very critical of it.

Kuroko's no Ingrid Bergman, but I still loved this scene to death.

There’s a long history of gays in fiction, but we haven’t had much in the way of selection:  Generally, homosexual characters are either flamboyant, asexual fops, or they are strange and dangerous people who have become unhinged by their unspeakable desires.  And if they aren’t doomed to die, then at least they will spend the rest of their lives alone and unloved.  There’s a bit more diversity nowadays, but I don’t think we’ve ever totally moved away from this choice between neutering gays and turning them into monsters.

When we think of the latter trope in context of anime, two shows should come to mind: Kannazuki no Miko and Mai-HiME.  The crazy lesbian in one (Fujino Shizuru) is merely a subplot, while the other has its sapphist (Himemiya Chikane) front and center stage, but in other respects these characters are largely the same.  Both ladies are elegant, aloof “ojou-sama” types, who end up doing some truly desperate and awful things to be recognized by the women they love.  We’re led to believe that abnormal lusts pushed these high society girls to hysteria.

Fun fact: Psychiatrists used to treat homosexuality with electroshock therapy.

So what does any of this have to do with A Certain Scientific Railgun?  I’m thinking about Kuroko’s portrayal in the two episodes we’ve seen so far.  In a way, our tempestuous twin-tailed teleporter is the inheritor of Chikane and Shizuru’s madness.

Kuroko’s a bit of an ojou-sama herself, at least as far as her delightful speaking style goes.  But more importantly, she’s a massively “out” lesbian who expresses herself by stalking and trying to molest her roommate.  Her perverse obsession with “Mikoto-oneesama” is a running gag, but sadly, one doesn’t need to be a psychic to know that it’s never going to go anywhere. I would be speechless if we got even a shitty pretext-kiss in the final episode, like Mikoto drowning and needing CPR.

Unlike her predecessors, Kuroko hides absolutely nothing, which ought to be a positive thing.  But her hyper-lust is in fact worse than Chikane and Shizuru’s furtiveness, because it neutralizes any hope we might have of seeing a healthy take on alternative sexuality.  Kuroko’s desire for women is a joke, nothing more.

In short:  The crazy lesbian is denied, the doujinshi circuit finds its new target practice, and the sinister hetero agenda triumphs again.