Shameful Otaku Secret!

For those who don’t know, Reverse Thieves set up a secret santa project in which random people picked anime for other random people to watch. My benevolent giver of cartoons, whoever he or she might be, bestowed this lovely OVA on me.

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.

I’ve heard that Santa often brings War in the Pocket to you /m/en out there, so here’s my penultimate (that is, uh, 11th) Moment of Anime 2009.

Yesterday I mentioned one of the going theories about Bakemonogatari: that either in Nisoisin’s original story or in the mind of Wackiyuki Shinbo, protagonist Ararararararagi became a parody and an indictment of the spineless nice-guy semi-lolicon tendencies of the viewer. It’s potent stuff; after all, we love to be talked to directly, don’t we? And most movies, books, and anime would just as soon preach at you or humor your worst qualities, so it’s almost refreshing to be sneakily made fun of.

But Bakemonogatari isn’t the first time people have thought about this. IKnight, despite claiming to reach no definite conclusion, ruined pretty much anyone’s ability to write about Gundam 0080: War In The Pocket with his breakdown of the typical “war sucks” standard that most Gundam (supposedly) carries. But despite the excellent case he makes that it’s not always as simple as that, what little Gundam I’ve seen and enjoyed is at its best when it’s making that point. War does suck, especially in a world where even the basic movement of the military devices creates huge collateral damage. And while 0080’s Al might have managed to float through a lot of serious events without grasping the full weight of that, one moment stopped him cold, and probably did the same for you.

I’m talking of course about the harrowing scene after Bernie and Chris’s battle, in which Al finally realizes who’s inside that mean old Feddie mobile suit — and what she’s done to his friend. Al’s temporary catatonia paired nicely with my own shock at the brutality of execution of that scene. It was coming since the moment Chris first entered the Gundam, but I just didn’t expect it to be so intense when it happened.

You can say what you want about war-machine fanatics making the Gundam “war sucks” experience a big ourobouros of irony, and you’d be right. But in moments like this, it’s still the king of hammering home its grim message.

Brought to you by CCY, the 12 Moments of Anime 2009, and a lot of staples.

Whether you look at the online response or the crushing domestic sales of the DVDs, Bakemonogatari is not only one of the biggest shows of the year, it’s a huge win for SHAFT and Akiyuki Shinbo, the love-him-or-hate-him iconoclast director. Personally I think it’s one of his best works, and when you think about it, an adaptation seemingly custom made for him. And a big part of that success at large comes from the popularity of its lead haremette, Hitagi Senjougahara.

Now, whether you believe in her authenticity is up to you (thanks ghostlightning). And whether you believe in Shinbo’s version of protagonist Ararararararararagi as a vicious indictment of the viewer, well that’s up to you too. Personally, you can’t discount thinking about either angle. They make this scene that much more delicious. What is she getting at? Is it a giant joke? Why English? To emphasize the joke? Or is Senjougahara, underneath her scary stapler-wielding exterior, so uncomfortable expressing such a sentiment that she has to switch off to another language just to get it out?

Much of this was never quite answered, although Senjougahara finally showed more than just a hint of very real sincerity that gives us plenty of hints. In the end, she really was a girl, and a lovely one at that. And though that final episode was the crowning achievement in the whole surreal ball of wax, this bizarro world confession remains a standout moment that will probably stick in my head longer than most of this list.