If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, call a horse a horse.

The beauty of a human-emotion based story is that it’s context-irrelevant. Mizuhito Akiyama, the writer of the light novel Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu (Iriya’s Sky, Summer of the UFOs) managed to create a tale of intense pathos and understated love can live inside a saga of manipulation, secrecy, and conspiracy.

I spent a bit of time early on worrying about how Iriya is not a sci-fi story: science (speculative) fiction generally means creating some sort of technology or alien-based situation — plausible or not — and speculating what might happen to humanity in that situation. Iriya, however, follows the pattern of moe-based bishoujo series and eroge: create a cute girl with a terrible backstory and portray the simple inevitability of what will happen. In this case, rather than some vague but potentially girl-killing disease, it’s a potentially girl-killing war between aliens and earth. Or is it?

It’s appropriate then, with this downward path to tragedy, that Toei’s OVA adaptation of the light novels was helmed by Naoyuki Itou, the director of their Kanon adaptation. The sickening sense of the inevitable that Iriya no Sora pushes in its second half is pretty similar to the Makoto arc of Kanon (though I didn’t see that adapation — I’m going by the Kyoto ’06 version).

But it’s pointless to bemoan what something isn’t. Regardless of your opinion of the bishoujo meta-genre and whether it has any place in your precious science fiction fandom, the OVA has its own merits and faults. Aaaaaand… the faults are many.

For one, Toei is not who you look to for balls-out great animation. Their heyday is long past, and even footage of Kenshiro was recycled quite a bit. It’s not awful, not by a longshot, but the CG is uninspired and character designs just aren’t that appealing. Newer guys like Kyoto and SHAFT can make a prettier heroine and a less irritating-looking male lead these days, and Toei’s generic shocks of hair in the front just aren’t doing it anymore.

The bigger problems, which probably stem from the short length of the OVA, are the baffling pacing and forced situations. The events of episode 5 are a bit of an enigma, not so much in the “what?” department, but the “why?” one. If you want to be an apologist, you can just let it be — the story is simple and you probably won’t have an issue following it. But if you really expect events to flow naturally, you’ll feel pretty jarred by a sudden change of heart that just as inexplicably changes right back. Ultimately, these events are water under the bridge in the overarching plot, but taking up a whole 6th of the series with badly conceived plot development makes for a bad ratio.

The good stuff is a little more sparse, and mostly comes from the strength of the original story. It’s nothing new (did I mention Makoto, or maybe inevitability?) but it tugs at the heartstrings at just the right times, and the characters have just enough guts to elevate them above the noncommittal Key-types. Punching, slicing out tracking implants from your own neck with a box cutter, even killing are all possible in Iriya’s world of love conquering all.

In the end, tragedy is inevitable, but it’s not quite that manipulative kind of tragedy from the “cry game” VNs. It’s still rich in moe, an attribute which in my mind will keep this from being completely sci-fi. And with all that pathos and cute-girl factor, I wish the character design was a little more appealing. But overall, you could do a lot worse than Irya No Sora, considering its small time investment and fairly consistent level of enjoyability.

It was written in stone before the series started. It was spelled out a thousand times. It was visible in the faces of all the characters.

Ryuuji and Taiga, your One True Pairing for the year.

So why did the English-speaking anihedron not get it at the time that Toradora aired? Blame shipping culture in general if you want, but that’s facile — besides, shipping’s not going anywhere. There are two more important factors here:

1. Toradora! twisted genre cliches and tropes to create a smarter version of the anime love polygon (it was more a rhombus or maybe a pentagon than a triangle). I suppose that, given the unexpectedness with which it delivered some of its plot points, viewers were led to expect that anything was possible.
2. We’re not used to such wonderful secondary characters. Part of the problem with the polygon or harem is the underdevelopment of the less-true girls — and I don’t mean in the chest. But the overly-cheerful Minori and the overly-crusty Ami didn’t fool anyone into thinking they were the simple characters that they pretended to be. And as a result, they won more fans than the average collection of fetishes that fill out the remainder of a harem.

But in the end, Ryuuji and Taiga made good on their celestially promised destiny. And boy was it wonderful. One of my big beefs with romantically focused anime is the lack of decent payoff for the 20-some episode wait. I want to feel it. If you didn’t feel this one, hang up your hat and give up on the genre.

I’m not going to go too much into why it’s made of awesome and win — many have seen it, plenty of blogs praise it even if they don’t agree on the methods, and most people already know lots about JC Staff’s occasionally brilliant skills of execution that can make something as rote as Hatsukoi Limited into a winner and something well written into animated gold. The true strength of Honey & Clover is not its humor, underplayed dramatic moments, or unwillingness to insultingly explain key points to you out loud; it’s the writing, plain and simple. As a fan you’ve probably spent at least a little time justifying why anime isn’t kids’ stuff, but you’re often repaid by archetyped characters bouncing around a high school and crying a lot. Honey & Clover is your true reward. Even the theme that I most wanted to talk about is a little more “mature” than what you normally see: That’s letting go, one of the series’ many central threads that runs throughout. I’m picking ONE because apparently I can write almost 2,000 words about it, so to take on the whole thing would be extreme fucking insanity.

Something atypical for me: I try to leave them out normally, but there will probably be big spoilers.

What do I mean, specifically, when I say “letting go?” Easiest way to explain is through the characters, and how their ability to “let go” is directly proportional to how much they grow as people.

Rika and Shuu. Rika’s pretty easy: she is still hanging on to her dead husband. In a way, Shuu-chan is hanging on to him as well. They both lived a depressed life, feeling half complete without their counterpart and unable to even be around each other. Rika fully planned to off herself after completing their last joint project, which seems counterintuitive to me (seems that finishing that would be the last thing she needs to move on, but she’s taking “move on” in a very different way). She’s the only person who’s somewhat unclear at the end of the story: did Mayama really open her eyes to the kind of love that can free her? Not sure. But she did get the benefit of a very shock-treatment method of therapy when they visited her childhood home. Shuu of course, freed himself by admitting his feelings about Hagu, — he’d already been dedicating himself to her, but to truly live for her was his way of finally facing the future.

Kaoru. He’s the next simplest to explain. Though his father specifically told him not to pursue a grudge, he dedicated his life to just that. Was it about redeeming his father, reclaiming the company, or revenge on the villain? It didn’t matter. He wasn’t even sure anymore, and besides, everything he did from a very early age was colored by his envy of Shinobu. He couldn’t stop his hanging on to the past until the deed was done, and then he was left without a purpose for quite a while. Clinging to something, especially a grudge, for so long causes you to really lose sight of everything and get serious tunnel vision.

Yamada. Speaking of which. Boys from her childhood, good looking suitors with successful careers, even a better job — they all existed outside her narrow field of vision that encompassed only Mayama. What was it that finally broke the spell? More than likely being around Rika and throwing herself into her work had the largest effect on her, but of course cool guy Nomiya’s clumsy and vulnerable persistence finally opened the door. She might be the most cartoony of the characters, like a shoujo heroine (Kotoko from Itazura Na Kiss, anyone?) who just can’t stop. But when she became free, it happened in a realistic enough way: not a snapping realization, but a gradual stepping into the light.

Mayama. Here’s the flipside of that equation. What is there to talk about? Mayama’s hangup is obvious. It’s Rika. Wrong. At least, not all the way right. Yes, he had a serious problem with his one-way feelings for Rika, but that (sort of) paid off in the end. The moment when his folly ended was when he loosened his iron grip on Yamada, the poor, beautiful bench warmer. Even he wasn’t 100% sure whether he was keeping an overly big-brother hold on her or if he really was keeping her on the back burner, but neither one was healthy. He found it very easy to blame her until Nomiya went on the offensive and he stopped bemoaning his own situation long enough to realize how badly he was fucking her up by maintaining his hold.

Shinobu. The younger Morita seems to have had the opposite problem of everyone here; instead of clinging to something that’s holding him back, his unwillingness to cling to anything is what stopped him for so long. His feelings went unexpressed, responsibility was an ignored nuisance, and he even tried to bring Hagu on that train of irresponsible apathy with him. In that way he’s actually like Takemoto gone unchecked, but more on that in a second.

Hagu. For most of her life, until college, drawing was her only escape. And when she was told that she was better at art than most people, she reacted in a way that infuriated her “fans.” But Hagu’s desire to move back to the country and spend her adult life painting the forest and the mountains shouldn’t be confused with a clear-headed decision or an adult way of thinking. She just hung on to that life from before, and the more time she spent in Tokyo the more she seemed to  block out her own opinions and keep her focus on that goal that she might not even want. Combine that with being unwilling to trouble her beloved Shuu-chan, and by the time of her injury she wasn’t even sure what she wanted and what she was doing for others anymore. Morita put a stop to that with his selfish but caring request that she just stop her art and be with him. Paradoxically, she was able to feel her love of drawing again just by being told that she didn’t have to do it. And that same paradox freed her.

Takemoto. Poor Takemoto. It’s easy to think of him as Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club (RIP John Hughes), the nerd who went through the same (actually, more effective) journey of self-discovery as the rest of the crew but who didn’t get the girl and ended up writing everyone’s report for them.

Takemoto was cursed by his own self-awareness. Every year since Mayama’s graduation was progressively more sad, and it became harder and harder to hold on to his memories of carefree days filled with the love of friends and dominated by the image of Hagu. For Takemoto, even the very literal journey of self-discovery brought him only to realize the value of the things and people he wanted to come back to. I thought sure he’d wind up replacing Shuu as a teacher, his attachment to the school and reluctance to commit to the future were so great.

At the end of the first series, it was in debate whether the naïve and crying Hagu was confused about her feelings or just plain couldn’t return his; by the middle of the second series the truth was heart-wrenchingly obvious. And that, long past the point of unequivocal defeat, was really hard for Takemoto to stop clinging to. It partially served as a reminder of how much different this is from most anime: as with Yamada, just working hard to win over your unrequited love won’t necessarily change anything. It just makes you lonelier and less tied to reality. But more importantly, this is about how the things that were holding Takemoto back were tied together. When he finally cut the ties to both his college life and his unrequited love, he could rest. Hagu let him do that with her trip to the train station and her goofy bittersweet sandwiches. And when Takemoto was finally able to cry and let it go, we the viewers finally got the chance to be free as well, left with our own bittersweet taste.

Close to home (do you remember love, and how it ruins everything?)

Putting aside the flowery talk that always sounds better in your head than in print, how does this contribute to me, my viewing, and the fearsome oyaji hate machine that is Honey & Clover? Simple, on one level. It makes for a story that someone like me (a bit older, out of school for quite some time) can not only identify with, but be hurt by in a way that more juvenilely focused plots (no offense) just can’t deliver. While that KeyAni gut punch is swell at first, it fades quickly. For the feeling to really sink in and last through time and repeated viewings, it has to resonate. There must be identifiable pain in your own life behind it.

I suppose that’s why Takemoto’s character creates a dull ache in my heart. He’s the reliable but not-too-sexy dude who doesn’t get the girl and can’t quite be okay with growing up. Eventually I did get the girl, but Honey & Clover showed me that I still haven’t quite shaken the Takemoto-like desire for things to just “stop spinning” for a while. That’s painful, as it refers to mortality, which is an even more agonizing subject than unrequited love — you cannot go back, no matter how much you want to. But even that realization is a beautiful thing.

And it means that for all those marvelous characters, great humor, and tasty music, the thing that really sets Honey & Clover apart is that it has the power to hurt, help, and look inside its viewers. You don’t see that too often. It also apparently has the power to end all the usual irreverence in my blog posts, so I apologize for that. Back to dick jokes and Macross references next time.

But that resonance was important for me to get across, and I know plenty of folks love the series for different reasons so I ask this: did Honey & Clover hit you very hard personally, compared to other anime? Was there a character that you identified with particularly, as I did with Takemoto? And might H&C help you move on from something?

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.

Shin Mazinger Z

A couple seasons ago, Madhouse breathed new life into an old franchise as well with Casshern Sins. That one was done in a very western-comic-book fashion though: He’s back, and this time he’s dark! Go Nagai’s Shin Mazinger, however, directly channels the spirit of the original and consequently transports you back to childhood — to a time when a Rocket Punch was a supremely cool thing. Hot-blooded pilot Kouji’s angst is a little overplayed in the past couple episodes, but retro robots maintain. The brick-shitting may be over, but the adrenaline rush that brought it on is still in effect.

Haruhi

What hasn’t been said? Despite my last post, this is at least partially true: For most people who enjoyed the first show, it’s requisite viewing. For the rest, it’s not.

Eden of the East

I’ve fallen really far behind on this one. It remains strong in my head, and it’s the kind of show that when I do get back to it (probably this week) I won’t be able to stop until I’m caught up. Sci-fi, mystery, a hint of romance — it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t come along every season.

FMA:Brotherhood

Funimation has not made it easy to watch (their streaming site is sorely unable to handle the traffic that FMA brought), but I’m officially caught up. The waifu and I both agree that the hyper-ramped-up pace is a lot of fun to watch. The sense of scope in the Elric Brothers’ quest is lost almost completely, but that sacrifice is made in the name of pure watchability. I might not have a lot of company in this, but I’m a fan.

Hatsukoi Limited

Talk about your dark horses. A JC-Staff-animated romance series just after the very good Toradora seemed too soon, but this one has delivered. You might even say it’s got a little something for everyone. Kei’s internal monologues give fascinating insight into the mind of the tsundere, Misaki provides cool and spicy, and the whole thing is just exploding with cute, engaging romantic story threads. And panties. Which helps.

Unlike the best shows of its genre, Hatsukoi doesn’t look like it’ll transcend the anime medium, but the series is doing a fantastic job within it. What I’m most thankful for is consistent payoffs. I think 12-26 episodes without a hand-hold or a kiss is a lazy trick employed by anime writers to keep people watching their poorly-conceived romantic series in anticipation of something happening; Hatsukoi keeps rewarding its characters and viewers with romantic payoff while still stringing us along brilliantly.

Noein

This isn’t current, but I recently started it, in dub, from the iTunes store. Sadly, I’m not very pumped about it. The animation is an example of Satelight’s worst offenses: a beautifully crisp, modern, computer-aided look marred by horrible anatomy and a near-perfect lack of character consistency. These are really distracting to me, but if the story picks up soon I’ll be happy to ignore them. One thing I probably won’t be able to, though: American dubs’ tendency to pronounce character names with second syllable accents, e.g., hah-ROO-ka.

Anything I’m missing? I fell off the Saki and Shangri-La wagons a while back, might try the latter again though. And I never did pick up Sengoku Basara, but I hear it’s pretty manly.

You see, she’s the source of the interesting things that are happening. Long the “girl next door” in every sense of the word to poor personality-deprived Zaitsu, now this stone-cold fox with supposedly no desire for dudes has another lame-ass suitor, Koyoi’s beloved onii-chan. Now, let’s not get too hung up on the whole brocon/siscon thing and how it, like boobless girls, is on the surface made to be the freaky but undesirable fetish but of course its very presence in modern anime constitutes a ringing endorsement and custom fetish delivery to stinky otaku. I digress like fuck.

The elder Besshou is no more interesting than the younger Zaitsu, and has just as little concept of where his league is and when he’s out of it. To top it off for this poor sap, Misaki’s ditched her sexual disinterest in favor of his tactless, uncaring, lollipop-wielding best friend (who happens to be Kei’s older brother). And, tell me you ronery fuckers that you’ve never been here — she calls him to the restaurant to find out what she should do about her crush on crass-a-nova. FFFFFFFFFFF.

All of this matters because it’s the harbinger of the change of tone that every romantically focused anime must make before it becomes part of its genre. In love, everything isn’t breasts and roses, and tragedy is the name of the game. Here, we have both Besshou and Zaitsu, hopelessly hung up on the mesmerizing Misaki, and we’re already treated to the earliest tragic truth of the series: One of them — perhaps neither of them — will have her. Bummer.

Because let’s face it kids, Misaki’s pretty bangin. And she’d have to be. In an anime where the 14-year-olds cause lelangir confusing feelings (and cause pan-ups to be pasted together into pinups, apparently), the 16 or 17-year-old (maximum age in anime, deshou?) can’t just be bomb, she’s gotta be nuclear.

I’m starting to wonder now, how much Misaki will be a character, how much we’ll see into her head (like the unprecedented tsundere-POV of Kei) or whether she’ll just continue to be an object of desire, a veritable walking nosebleed for the male characters of the show. Regardless, this is animation, so I think we can all rest assured she’ll stay sexful. How her courtship fares, well that might not be as positive but a rosy outlook for love doesn’t make for good TV so let’s see what kind of damage she can do.

Yep.

Anyway, seeing as how we’re not getting another Futakoi Alternative, I grabbed a couple episodes of Hatsukoi (”First Love”) Limited. I guess I kinda thought it was a shoujo, but the sort of pervy vibe that permeates the whole thing tells me otherwise. Now, I’ve never read the manga, and I suppose the writer, along with JC Staff’s director, might be going the Girls’ High route — i.e., kids are pretty fucked up balls of hormones so let’s reflect on their lives with low-ass camera angles and tight pink shorts. Fortunately, the first two episodes were far more entertaining than Girls’ High’s entire retarded run. Granted, that’s not saying much, but still.

Not what you think.

That said, what you have is a cute story of interconnecting first loves — so far, middle schooler Ayumi has a crush on charming Mamoru, who carried her fireman-style to the nurse after she fainted from the fear of being courted/stalked by Mamoru’s own high school-age beast of a brother Misao. Further exascerbating the convolution is Mamoru’s own crush: he and Misao’s childhood friend Misaki, who’s two years older, sees him as a little brother, and isn’t interested in gettng mixed up with boys right now. But wears tight pink shorts and crawls through his window. Good God, poor kid.

why, exactly?

Misao is a funny character (if not that original), a giant stubbly Ikki Tousen extra who can pound any kid in Japan but folds his laundry neatly, feeds the birds, and has an inescapable crush on a middle schooler. Yeah, it’s a tiny touch creepy but is painted as just pathetic enough to work. And when he nobly comes to her rescue, well, it’s a little touching.

touching.

Ayumi-chan is a little heap of moe who’s not so defenseless as to be annoying or even too typical, but her shimapan (which are usually symbolic of immaturity) give away her underlying personality. Misaki is the typical mature-girl archetype who of course will find out she’s not as adult as she thought, etc. I’m not sure how much any of the rest of the large cast will fit into this; are their stories going to be involved in the web of panties and love as well?

and I'll love her and hug her and squeeze her and call her George

At any rate, this was a bit dumb but a decent watch. I was sufficiently entertained by the light humor, cute story of poor Misao, and of course the tight pink shorts. The age of some characters is a little scandalous for my taste, but the show has some real production values so the pantyshots seem a little less gratuitous than if they were just thrown into a cheap-ass show to keep people watching (Gonzo, I love you still, but I’m looking right at you). Also, the thugs’ argument about taking a poop was gold. I’ll keep watching for now.

Basquash!

Pre-airing thoughts: I don’t like sports. Never have. To me the fact that I was always a scrawny dork who was never any good at them was the reason I ended up an anime fan to begin with. Eyeshield, Slam Dunk, Hajime No Ippo, none of these ever really held any interest for me (although I know Riex and Choujin shake their heads when I say that about Ippo). But Basquash! has something they don’t: Shoji Kawamori. Does that mean the basketball players all sing? Probably not, but they do ride mecha, so we’re halfway to something.

duckies

First episode thoughts: Wow. Kawamori or no, this was cool. Mr. Macross’s studio of choice for the past couple installments, Satelight, may have even upped the ante from their impressive start of Macross Frontier. The look actually reminds me of Manglobe’s sweaty, sunny setting of Michiko & Hatchin, but of course with a stylishly futuristic wardrobe department. Dan seems to be a decent Black Star-esque protagonist with a good seiyuu and a “[insert thing] Mask” alter ego. Then of course, there’s lots of really well done CG of the “bigfoot” mecha whose cockpits are all 50s hot-rod-looking cars. I guess that’s the rock and roll angle of Kawamori’s designs. All in all, a fun ride of an opening with lots of great action and sufficient boobs to hold visual interest. Everything moved so fast, it was actually hard to get a screencap.

Careful! Lest these things Gainax all over the cockpit

What will go wrong: Kawamori isn’t the story or script writer, although the whole idea and design is his. So he can’t blow the ending by forgetting to think one up until he’s writing the last episode. Satelight can, however, do what they must have done with Frontier. That is, they could animate the 5 most important episodes first and fill in the rest with whatever tiny amount of cash they haven’t blown. For every hyper-impressive visual tour de force like this one, let’s hope there aren’t three all-out shitfests to follow.

Eden of the East

Pre-airing thoughts: I can’t say as I had any. I didn’t know anything about this series other than it’d be animated by Production IG, and would have music by Kenji Kawai and… Oasis.

First episode thoughts: From the looks of it, Eden of the East is going to shape up to be a bit of a shoujo romance with a twist of intrigue, much like last year’s Library War. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that that series lacked in both Libraries and War, but the romantic aspect was really not too badly done. So far, my ability to believe everything in episode 1 was strongly tested, but I am always ready to put that aside in the name of setup as long as it doesn’t go too far. After all, the premise of armed librarians was pretty fucking hard to swallow too, but it turned out that didn’t matter.

George Washington's Phallus looms ominously over our Japanese protagonist. Coincidence? Or symbolism?

In the end, it barely mattered what I didn’t believe because the execution was staggering. Facial expressions and body language effortlessly pulled off without all that Lucky Star/A-1 pictures simplification of design. CG integrated near-seamlessly into the slick cel work, and the traced photo backgrounds didn’t put me off at all (except for the fact that I have to go to Dulles airport next week). The Oasis OP was marvelous — even though I’m not a fan, the slick Western rock added a level of polish that really helped the full experience — and the cut-paper stop-motion ending sequence even better. OH! Also, they hired English-speaking voice actors to do the American parts. Nice touch.

What will go wrong: There won’t be enough Eden, or East. Saki, who looks a little like Itazura Na Kiss’s Kotoko, will turn out to be just as pathetic. And strangers will give up their hard-earned pants without question when I flash my balls at them.

Saki

Pre-airing thoughts: There is a series on Crunchyroll. I pay for Crunchyroll. Maybe I should watch it.

This is right, isn't it?

First episode thoughts: Gonzo? Well, they can make it work when it counts, but they seem stretched pretty thin this season. Possible Yuri? OK, I’m listening. Loudmouthed fanged loli eating tacos? I dunno, I’m losing interest. Mah Jong? Whoops. Gone.

Screencap not available. Artist's rendition of Saki.

Also, already watching one show with a lead character named Saki.

What will go wrong: I will actually watch this. That would be a problem. I have better things to do. Like go to the taco truck down the street. It kind of pains me to think of what a taco would taste like in Japan, which is why no matter how large a weaboo I become in some parallel world, I will still never go there for any extended period of time.

Masks. Disguises. Hidden identities and covered up sentiments. They’re everywhere in anime. Geass, Darker than Black, ef-melodies — all of these and plenty more have made use of the mask in varying degrees of stupidity and obviousness. Of all anime’s tropes and clichés, this has to be one of the themes that bothers me the most. Why? Why not catching colds in the rain, little sisters, onsen episodes, sad girl in snow, pantyshots, or the lack of people over thirty? I think it’s because the “mask” idea lets writers get lazy without paying the price for it. It’s a faux-deep concept that, when done right, can transcend and cross over to True Depth, but when just kind of barely done, lets an otherwise weak anime slide by. And when, by the end, a character “becomes the mask,” how often is it really a surprise? Oh, joy. Lelouch became the mask. (or did he, etc)

Toradora is sitting pretty in plenty of fans’ best-of-’09 lists already, even though the new-car smell hasn’t worn off said lists. But it happens to be one of those series that uses the theme all over the place. It’s not broadcast, with half-baked Shinbo-isms hanging on the wall, but it’s there in spades. More junk after the jump.

What are they hiding?

Everyone in Toradora has something they’re hiding, some form of mask they’re wearing. From early on in the series, Minori was the obvious one. She was cute, she was comic, and she was easy to believe as the target of Ryuuji’s awkward love. But no one’s that genki. Lately her facade — which hides feelings for Ryuuji, feelings of inadequacy, feelings of betraying Taiga, feelings of envy, god knows what else — has become so multi-layered that it’s no wonder Ami was able to find a gap in her armor.

Kitamura, too, put on a multi-faceted front for a long time at the expense of his own sanity. It was memorable when he cracked, dyed his hair, and ran away from home, but have you noticed that he hasn’t quite been the same since? It’s been healthy for him to let some of his true personality hang out, just as it’s been refreshing to see Ami do the same.

“Bitch masquerading as cutey-pie” is obvious as all hell, and it’s where a lot of anime storytelling would stop. But what about her reasons for acting the bitch? Now that’s a truly intriguing question that we haven’t really gotten an answer to yet, even if the hints are there. For my money, Ami is one of the best characters in a lovecom/drama such is this I’ve ever seen.

Of course, the really interesting facades belong to Taiga and Ryuuji. And it’s surprising, but somehow Ryuuji ended up being the one who is hiding his feelings even from himself. He should be used to the concept, having had to put up with people misjudging him for his looks. But on the inside, this “best male lead in for fucking ever” (my words) is as mixed up and confused as any typical anime character.

It’s the culture?

I’m no sociologist, and I’m hardly an expert on Japanese culture, but from what I understand there are pressures from all sides for the Japanese to conform, be an effective cog, and not make waves. I’m sure this explains why the subject of putting on a front (especially the Minorin style) resonate so strongly with anime viewers, who probably already feel pretty different from the norm.

What’s the difference

If so many anime roll out the mask trope on a regular basis, what makes Toradora special in this respect? There are two main reasons in my mind.

First, In Toradora, we (the viewers) don’t get to see past the masks, either. We can suspect what the truth is — that Ryuuji has more of a harem than he thought — but keeping a little knowledge from us (the Eureka effect) just adds to our “must watch next week” zombification.

Secondly (and more importantly), the facades have created an intricate web of carefully plotted deceits and strained interactions that color the entire plot of the story. These characters are for real, and the world isn’t just black and white. So what if Ryuuji has finally realized that he might have feelings for Taiga? In a lesser story, Minorin would suddenly disappear from his mind. But that’s not how it works in real life, and thankfully that’s not how it works in Toradora either.

When I first started writing this post, I was going to say “I can’t wait to see what happens when we start to see the masks crumble,” as is inevitable, but I think episode 21 gives a pretty good partial answer to that question. The Dark Side of the Minorin, Sad Ami in the Snow — Toradora uses these twisted up tropes to further assert its superiority over its genre.

In short, let me be the billionth person to say: awesome show.

The Valkyrie

This one’s pretty obvious, right? For many of us, Robotech’s Valkyrie is the original mecha, and the one that was grounded in reality just enough that we could imagine it achingly clearly.

Hikaru wrecked a couple city blocks while learning to pilot one, but Guld and Alto gained ultimate freedom by flying in variable fighters once they became aces. While the Mobile Suit may have provided inspiration, Gundam put the focus on the robot. The VF allows the pilot to shine, since really it’s just an awesome plane at heart. Without aces like Max and Shin, there is no Macross.

Getting with the times

This could easily apply to the venerable Gundam as well, I’m guessing, but I’m just not schooled in Gundam ways. Macross is an old franchise, but with the weird retro-rock exception of M7, it manages to look like a product of its own time. And yet conversely, it also seems to be able to get newer viewers into the previous installments.

And as much as Frontier remains my least favorite Macross, it does seem to have accomplished that well. From character design to its school life arcs, Frontier manages to be part of Macross without sacrificing currency.

Computer Pioneering

Macross Plus was (rightfully) lauded at the time of its release for the computer graphic work. To this day, it still looks awesome even if it’s starting to seem dated. Satelight took it to the next level with Zero and Frontier, whose computer-driven Variable Fighter animation is unprecedented in how well it meshes with the more traditional character work. Massive animation fail might be an inescapable part of Macross (especially on TV), but success comes just as naturally — which is probably what makes the failures seem that much worse.

Bridge Bunnies

In the future, a girl in her late teens will be faced with lots of career choices. At least, unless it’s a Matsumoto future, where a girl will be faced with the choices “second fiddle,” “mysterious background figure,” or, I’m guessing, “barefoot housewife.” But a girl living on a Macross station need not train for years to find her way into the exciting world of space battle. Because apparently you can work the bridge of a Battle class Macross ship by the time you’re 19, as long as you’re cute enough.

If you were Global or Max, would you do any differently? Even if you were a woman, it’d only make your bridge look that much better. Eye candy is key to anime, and a good balance of transforming mecha and bridge-bound beauties can’t hurt. My faves? Sally Ford and Miho Miho of Macross 7, but SDF’s Shammy and Frontier’s Ram Hoa probably could out-cute most of the galaxy. Check out the bridge bunny trading cards and pick your own favorite, that’s what bridge bunnies are there for.

Kawamori is a big hippie

I know, I used that as a mark against Macross already, but this is my blog and besides, what would a Kawamori tribute be without some retcon? It was probably seeing Dynamite 7 after a recent fit of Manly Matsumoto that I realized: anime concerns itself with dark futures, high-strung romances between angsty teenagers, dramatic battles to save one world or another, and sometimes even vagina-shaped monsters. When do the gun-toting, love-confessing characters take time to smell the flowers, literally or figuratively? Rarely. But Shoji Kawamori’s realms of Mayan or Zola are places where characters can go to feel a “comfortable wind” against their faces. And that translates to us.

Even if the “save the whales” thing is a little silly, tell me you didn’t desperately clench your teeth when Mayan Island came under attack by missile-spamming Valkyries. Sometimes it’s best to show a message, not tell it, and though it might still get preachy, the impact of the no-nukes/pacifist message is stronger for being visually presented.

Basara

Oh, Basara. So easy to hate, especially at first. So easy to gloat at when his boneheaded rock assault doesn’t work. And for a guy who can write a 12-bar blues jam about whales pretty easily, he seems to love repeating “Planet Dance” ad nauseam — while wearing the same clothes constantly. But is there another anime hero like him? The combination of confidence, casual bad-assery, and that rarely-seen attribute, intense pacifism, makes him a truly unique character ideal for the unique franchise. You can easily hate him at first, and probably hate him more by the halfway point, but his Charging Love Heart will charm you by the end.

The idols

Iconic Minmay. Robotic Sharon. Cute but strong Mylene. Self-made Sheryl. And the mostly useless but expressively-haired Ranka. These girls are the heart of Macross’s character population. What would it be without them, and where would the universe be without their efforts? The idol characters exist in usually-uncharted territory somewhere between strong lead, damsel in distress, love interest, and unattainable goal. Without the singing beauties of Macross, we’d also be left without so many other great things: the classic Love Triangle, the Minmay defense, or uh…  “My Boyfriend is a Pilot.”

It’s about the music, man

Music. I don’t just mean the musical content itself. That’s part of it — a big part of it. I don’t really own any anime soundtracks (although I downloaded that YOU WA SHOCK song from Fist of the North Star), with one exception: I have all the Macross soundtracks. You can blame Yoko Kanno for a couple of them, but if you’re gonna call the fact that a series about music has lots of good music a coincidence, then you’re crazy. And if you don’t get a chill from “Arkan” on the Zero soundtrack, check your fucking pulse. Macross needs amazing music, it’s what makes Kawamori’s flagship scenes work, and it’s the one thread that ties everything together.

That’s great, because music happens to be a great way to tie us all together as well, and Kawamori knows it. Above all, Macross is about one all-consuming thing: the power of music. Sometimes, as in Zero, it’s a mystic power. Sometimes, as with Plus, it’s a dangerous power. And sometimes it’s a Power to the dream, a radical fire! But it unites us and makes us feel. There’s the dividing line. Other mecha shows, even the more light-hearted ones, tend to feature intellectual fanservice, interlocking robotic parts, and ethical angst. Things of the head.

Macross is about the heart.

To me, that’s gotta be the main reason why we can not only see through its faults, but why the franchise has managed to “remember love” for as long as it has.