Shameful Otaku Secret!

Wow! Every one of my posts begins with something about how I haven’t been around, so I’ll just skip that and say hey… how about the new season? Lots of talk so far on these series, but so far I’m way more excited than I was last season. More legal streaming for US viewers, more remakes of popular series, and if all else fails, at least there’s more Nyoron Churuya-san.

K-ON

Pre-airing thoughts: The script writer from Aria, Ghost Hunt, and quite a few other fantastic light-hearted series adapts a musical manga. OK, I’m listening. But when it’s animated by Kyoto animation, whose beloved status comes at least partially from Haruhi’s Super Effective rock concert scene, even more ears start perking up. This information tells me I can expect: Cute girls, animation accuracy in musical scenes, and a solid script. Will it deliver? Dunno.

You get the idea.

First ep thoughts: Holy shit. If you want moe, you got it. Looks like our lead girl is the Ultimate Dojikko, constantly tripping, falling, failing, crying, being afraid, etc. I can’t tell if I want to squeal in delight or shoot myself. The art looks a lot more like Kyoto Animation defectors A-1 pictures than Kyoto themselves, which is interesting but I’m unsure why. I’m also not sure if I hate this or not, but I’ll continue for the moment. I’m not expecting another Lucky Star by any means (I think we have Haruhi-chan for that), but let’s hope it’s just more than “[insert series] plus music.”

Shangri-La

Pre-airing thoughts: Well, I think Range Murata’s designs are great. A weird mix of cute and hot that you can only get in anime. Of course, that goes for the post-apocalyptic setting as well, and the two should add up to the kind of sexy action adventure that Gonzo does best (when they don’t overdo it).

You get at least part of the idea.

First ep thoughts: Gonzo has taken the Murata designs and simplified them, Druaga-style, until they lack most of their imagination. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but the sweeping cinematic style of some of the opener’s scenes and setup is promising. The future based around the extreme but somewhat-logical conclusion of global warming is intriguing, but could go in either the “effective world-building” direction or the “overcomplicated nonsense” direction. A technical note: Crunchyroll shows TV Tokyo’s uninteresting (to me) offerings in 720p, but Gonzo’s simulcasts are in SD. What gives?

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Pre-airing thoughts: Wait, there’s a new Fullmetal Alchemist?

You get the idea.

First ep thoughts: I seriously noticed this 5 seconds before downloading. Oh wait, Funi’s streaming it? No wonder their video portal site is down. So I was surprised to find that it’s not really a sequel. Is it necessary to reuild FMA as a true-to-the-manga update with slightly more CG and different character design? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll sniff anything Bones shits out, but I’m not sold on this yet. The series isn’t even very old. I’ll continue for a while though, because episode one featured some familiar characters doing their thing, and the action was solid and fun.

Shin Mazinger Shougeki Z Hen

Pre-airing thoughts: So, it’s not a sequel. It’s not a remake. Right. Well, either way, it’s a trip down memory lane for me, with arguably the first robot I ever watched on TV. I’m not certain whether it was Voltron or Mazinger Z (Tranzor Z) but the Rocket Punch will forever stand out in my mind.

HOLY JESUS FUCK SHITSICLE

First ep thoughts: I… wh… um. It just… holy — motherfucker. FUCK. OH MY GOD.

11:14:23 PM otou-san: thanks for writing a half sensible post on mazinger
11:15:00 PM ghostlightning: lol thanks
11:15:14 PM otou-san: I was reduced to sputtering idiocy
11:15:39 PM ghostlightning: i did notice people were just shitting bricks and calling them posts
11:15:56 PM ghostlightning: but i don’t blame anyone
11:16:11 PM ghostlightning: awesome show is awesome

Here I am, calling this brick-shitting a post. Remember a few seasons ago when Soul Eater started? It was an insane ride from minute one of style and action. It was something new, and it was exciting. This, however, is something old and exciting. It drops you, the viewer, into the dead middle of a situation that you can’t possibly begin to handle and then throws as many robots, heroes, villains, explosions, and called-out attacks as it can at you until you’re reduced to a stuttering, drooling, mess of Super Robot lover. Again I’ll invoke ghostlightning, who led me to the conclusion that my beloved Gainax SR beasts like Gunbuster are made to bring about a child-like state, but reward your adult love with cleverness and references. This Mazinger, along with Imagawa’s Giant Robo OVA (which I’m in desperate need of seeing) are actually for the kids. That doesn’t mean you’re too old for it, though. Check this shit out, it’s so brutally amazing. I’m gonna go watch it again.

Electric Boogaloo!

OK, I get it. You can’t write a short little tossed-off post about how you don’t like some sacred-cow anime series and toss in a questionably humorous infographic. You’ll just get trolled, then accused of trolling, and what’s more, zaitcev won’t even link to you (update: seriously? Now he does? What does that do to my point?).

So here’s a more thought-out post, because I wanted to talk about how Clannad sucks/does not suck, not how much I am/am not a troll, which is frankly retarded. First off, an assumption: I don’t necessarily believe in this supposed Kyoto Hype Machine, and I won’t cite it as an argument. Not because I think it’s mythical or overstated, like “liberal media,” but because I have faith in the ability of people to form their own opinions. That’s probably my first mistake, but oh wells.

I’m also not going to take an ultra-stubborn stance on this, either — I’ve watched 30-some episodes of this series, and if every last thing about it sucked, what would that say about me? Don’t answer that.

Now, time to make an honest woman out of this topic. Hopefully reasonable discourse will keep Owen the trolls out of here.

The Characters

A commenter, tai, who seemed to actually want to talk about it, cited “character” as the driving force behind Clannad, specifically “being able to understand how they feel in the circumstances provided.” Now, they say the secret to writing good fiction is developing good characters and then placing them in a situation, where they act for themselves because they’re real enough. With visual novels, I would assume that good characters are important for a quality product because the narrative itself is mutable and characters need to believably fit into multiple situations. When I say “good characters,” though, sadly what passes are “serviceable characters,” and too often in anime that means resorting to archetypes.

I’m not feeling any of the supposed character traits of Clannad’s cast, beyond those archetypical attributes (with a few exceptions, mostly in the Furukawa clan). Let’s not get caught up in Kyoto’s execution: realistic body language and uncompromising animation tend to instill even the cartooniest of characters with faux-realism that makes up for their shortcomings as well-rounded, well-written characters.

The Family Element

One of everyone’s favorite things about Clannad seemed to be its focus on family. But I can’t quite get what it is about family that it’s trying to say. I feel like I’m watching Clannad waffling between two points: One is that family is very important, and that we shouldn’t lose or take for granted those bonds of blood. The other is that family can be whatever you want it to be, and the important people around you, about whom you care, are in effect your family members. Which of these is what matters? In the end, it all seems pretty vague.

I’m not asking for one of Takashi Miike’s deranged dissertations on the nature of a family unit, or even Judd Apatow’s lame whitebread confirmation of family values, I just want folks to give this a real evaluation before they vaguely cite “family themes” as a great strength of Clannad.

Doing too much, yet not quite doing enough.

Clannad’s scope is admirable. While on one hand it focuses on a fairly close group of people, that’s a lot of characters to explore if you go into any depth. It’s nothing like delving into the backstory of some Imperial planet’s viscount’s daughter for an entire episode in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but then again, what is.

The scope in each of Kyoto’s adaptations has grown immensely both in cast and episode count. In fact, Clannad is the longest series in Kyoto Animation’s history, if I’m not mistaken (excepting their work on InuYasha). Air was compact and efficient in delivering a sucker-punch of emotion that was old hat by the time Kanon came around, so Clannad aimed to work things a little differently.

But step one was a stumble, with Fuko’s arc taking up way too many episodes (and plenty of people agree with me there). What that says to me is from the get-go, Kyoto were struggling to effectively fill up all 50 episodes. The beginning of After Story has proven that again, but instead of a recycled Kanon story, we’ve been so far treated to a wash of meaningless ho-hum stuff that lacks any emotional impact or the humor (both intentional and otherwise) of season one’s best moments. There were a couple laughs in that boring baseball episode, but what do you remember after watching — that you chuckled a couple times or that you just watched a boring-ass baseball episode?

Representation

This is the real story behind my realism argument. Did anyone really think I demand 100% regular-old believability from my anime? If so, I’ll go quit now and go watch some show about giant robots, space pirates, or guys who make peoples’ heads implode by punching. I briefly mentioned that I think Clannad is guilty of representing, or talking about, the situations in which its characters find themselves, rather than showing them for real. This might have been a mistake on my part — not because it’s not true, though. It might be a mistake because on a purely objective level, I could be judging with a double standard. After all, what anime doesn’t resort to symbolism, archetyping, and short-cutting to some degree?

But it does irritate me for some reason in Clannad, subjectively. I feel like every story, every character, every situation is encased in a thick fuzzy-bunny layer that I would have to tear through in order to get to the real essence. Are we meant to perceive this as dreamlike or memorial, since inevitable tragedy will strike somewhere down the road and shit’s gonna get “real?” Or is the Key world just one of gauzy soft-focus fantasy that happens to resemble the real one? We already know that supernatural events can happen, but somehow that doesn’t even bother me. It’s the lack of feeling like anything matters, since they’re all essentially good people for whom real strife just plain doesn’t exist — though it’s hard to nail this down to a “why,” it doesn’t feel as if any person can actually affect another. And with that supposedly being the series’ main thrust, what’s left for me?

Counter

In service to Clannad, I’ll say two things: It’s always well-animated (except for brief drops in the final bits of season one), and it’s refreshingly low on pathos compared to its predecessors. Air probably worked on me because it was my first; with Kanon I sort of let it work even though I was watching it work. Now with Clannad, I’m just plain cynical, but we have been mostly rewarded (past the Fuko arc) with more humor than weepy-weeps. That isn’t likely to last, though.

Sure, visual novel adaptations aren’t really my preferred genre. It’s no surprise that the series that try to look less like VN adaptations are more my cup of tea. Kyoto Animation has made that their M.O. since Air, or at least it’s seemed like that. But for some unfortunate reason, the more they attempt to downplay the harem/VN style, the more it’s called to my attention.

And… I’m spent.

Anyway. Obviously plenty of people take issue with my opinion, some even take offense. What I want to hear is people convincing me I’m wrong, not telling me i’m an asshole. Step up! I believe in you.

Update: Misplaced belief FTL! Here’s a news flash: I’m not important. I’m not worth talking about. I just wanted to talk about Clannad. Before anyone else unoriginally says they agree with Baka-Raptor, read my response to him.

Approximately 744 minutes wasted

I hate the opening girl and robot. I used to like it, but probably for its extreme smooth CG-ness. Now it’s a lot of empty pretense with nothing to back it up. It’s not like this is ef.

I hate the OP. I’ve always hated the Key OPs with their rundown of girls and their names. I think we can keep Airhead Mamiko Noto, Ass Beater, Weaksauce Main Girl, Tsundere and her sister straight. For real. So just continue fading scenes in and out like in a real drama. A real shitty drama I wouldn’t watch. And the music sucks. Generic and bland, with the barest hint of melody, it passes by so irritatingly inoffensively, it actually offends me.

That bland softness carries to the rest of the show, too. From friendly street gangs to Okazaki and Sunohara’s implied deliquency, everything seems to have a fluffy coating around it. Actual pain, trouble, and strife are for different anime. It’s almost as if Clannad is just representing everything that happens, rather than simply showing it to us. And maybe that’s a fault of anime in general, but maybe it just sucks.

I’m sure you can think of plenty more.

I just can’t deal with this silly chaste world anymore. American licensors like US Manga always used to run those commercials at the beginning of their tapes, with fun slogans like “this shit’s not for kids yarrrrrrrg” while showing some tooth-encrusted vagina-like orifice swallow up a guy (probably from Wicked City). How accurate that statement might have been, I dunno. But Clannad? Kids’ stuff. I’m gonna go watch Pokémon now.