Shameful Otaku Secret!

The best part about currently-airing anime is the “water cooler” factor, the ability to talk with people about what happened this week and speculate on the coming episodes. While older titles may have more appeal in general, the shared experience factor of new series is something you just have to miss out on.

But a re-release, such as the recently remastered Revolutionary Girl Utena, provides a great opportunity for a new group of people to share the experience they might have missed the first time around. One such person I’m fortunate enough to share this particular series with is animekritik, who’s braving a less than optimal computer to get his fix of swordfighting fantasy… shoujo?

kritik: I actually think when well done, shoujo is the most powerful of anime genres. What’s more powerful than the emotions of a teenage girl? rage, love, envy…
otou-san: you mean what’s more histrionic and melodramatic?
kritik: melodramatic, yes, overboard, yes. I like that in anime.
otou-san: I can’t argue that anime is a medium that does melodrama well.
kritik: What you do is you take all that emotion, which usually an outsider would think is plain silly, and make it the key to saving the universe or something of that sort.

He makes a good point. You want drama, teenage girls have it in spades. Though for some reason it surprised us both, Utena’s unmistakably shoujo— from the flowery borders, to the spindly, curly character designs, to the (cool and spicy) heroine in a boy’s uniform, this is aimed at the fairer demographic. Maybe that’s why it never made its way into my VCR the first time around — the shoujo overtones didn’t mesh with my more Kawajiri-focused taste. But if a pink-haired girl swordfighting amidst a metal soundtrack doesn’t sway you, I question your male status as well.

The story revolves around Utena Tenjou, who was given a rose ring as a child by a prince. Like any normal girl, she decides that she herself will become a prince. What? Utena has lived her life in a princely way thus far: she acts noble but never snobby, and she’s devoted to protecting the weak and bullied. One day she’s challenged to a duel — kendo, or so she thinks — for the honor of her friend Wakaba, but it turns out to be a bit more than a kendo match.

Neither kritik or I have a very clear idea of where this is going, but it shows up with all guns blazing and makes no apologies. The show doesn’t feel the need to over-explain just yet, it’s too busy exciting and confusing you. I thought that at the very least you could say that few first episodes were executed with incredible confidence:

kritik: Yes! Notice the show is done with the same confidence Utena shows in her dealings with the world… it’s like they’re in sync.

Then there’s the ballsy move to toss the viewers into a weird world without much explanation; it isn’t a move that a lot of anime tends to make. Recounting what happens to Utena from when she sets foot in the woods:

1. Bizarre door that appears to open via her rose ring.
2. Floating stairs that lead up to a surreal floating castle-like structure.
3. Anthy Himemiya in a dress, apparently engaged to a student council member, spouting a sword erotically from her chest.
4. A duel, between her with a kendo stick and her opponent with a real sword.

And not only does Utena appear ready for it, she manages to brush it off by the time she gets home.

kritik: [It's] fantasy after all. she wants to be a man (i.e., do as she wills, be strong) while she’s quite strongly against men (they travel in groups and beat the weak). She wants to be a prince, basically…
otou-san: but most fantasy has that grace period where the hero/ine, despite her dreams and imaginings, has to adjust to whatever fantastical situation she’s thrown into. I mean, I’d poop my pants, but the girl totally rolls with it.
kritik: it’s like a dream, where you immediately accept what’s happened and move on.

The dreamlike events and equally dreamlike logic of acceptance makes Utena’s opening episode one of the most unique out there. Where do we go from here? Well, our combination will start to take a more definite shape as the series itself does, and I hope that some of our volleys will unearth some thoughts and conclusions that we might not have come to alone. I’m sure that those of you who’ve seen Utena will enjoy reading our missed conclusions and wild speculation, but that’s part of the fun. Look forward to it — next week it’ll be kritik’s turn.

Few figures in animation are more divisive than Wackiyuki Akiyuki Shinbo, studio head and famously iconoclastic director at SHAFT animation studio. Some love his visually bizarre work, others loathe it for its apparent pretentiousness. Very few people tend to be in the middle. Plenty across the internet have weighed in already – and they tend to do so again every season that one of his series airs.

So what makes this wingnut/auteur so appealing? Let’s pick 5 and run with that (please note that after the jump this post may contain images of animated girls in their skivvies!):
[show me the skivvies]

Partially due to Crunchyroll availability, and partially due to JC Staff’s recent track record, I checked out Aoi Hana (aka Sweet Blue Flowers). I can’t say I’m normally into this kinda stuff — it’s not as if I’m the target demographic — but as has really been the case lately, JC Staff has taken something usual and made it shine through a solid execution.

Aoi Hana features, as Arudoc noted, Perky (Akira) and Pouty (Fumi), what I would imagine is a fairly standard pairing in these kinds of shoujo-cum-yuri series. They are, so far, not the most winsome characters ever. As is often the case with anime characters, assumptions are made and we’re encouraged to stick to them. The assumption here is that Fumi has something to offer as a friend, but in two episodes she’s really just whiny and needy. She cries constantly, she changes her mind quickly based on what she thinks a cute girl will be doing, and she puts ridiculous expectations on people like her cousin Chizu-chan. Akira is her foil — a reasonably genki-girl, at least within the slow and breezy pace of the series thus far (Minorin would be, obviously, out of place).

Character designs are nice, with a bent towards the plain you might see in less “sparkly” shoujo (if you know what I mean) such as Itazura Na Kiss. There’s nothing as exciting as the dynamic always-in-motion style of Toradora! or Hatsukoi Limited’s refined eye candy. There’s nothing particularly exotic about any of the characters, even the ones that I get the impression are supposed to seem slightly exotic. But there certainly isn’t anything terribly ugly either, and I never really worry about JC Staff making animation foibles so consistency is a plus too.

Everything here seems to be executed with soft focus — I suppose that’s the style, and even more than usual, the studio’s backgrounds are watercolored and pastel.

But even amidst all this, details of immersion are done really well: you can easily feel what it’s like to be at the train station, slump in defeated envy at Akira’s beautiful school, or climb under the downy covers of Fumi’s bed with her.

Now, maybe that’s not done quite as well as Bones has done it with their Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, which despite its cartoony style really has an eye for realistic body language and scenery. But Magnitude absolutely depends on a feeling of immersion — however interesting the characters might be, the earthquake and the world are the main characters here, or at least the main attraction.

Aoi Hana, on the other hand, is probably a simple love story and doesn’t require a level of believability beyond what any other basic anime might have. It only does what it does out of sheer devotion to a quality product, and here’s the kicker for me: if you’re not ready to dedicate yourself to an immersive, visual experience, what are you doing telling stories in a visual medium? Aoi Hana is proof that you can do that without action, mecha, fanservice, or psychedelic Shinbo-isms.