Fanservice, Redux

(INSERT MANNOSUKE HERE)

And this is why  looking at entries older than the Internet is bad for you.

This is not helped by the fact I’m, erm, playing Katawa Shoujo, approve of Strike Witches, and wonder if a good part of my youth was spent watching animated T&A, along with animated BLOOD AND GORE and only one episode of Eva (plus reading Love Hina and Negima) was worth the short time I’m spending writing this instead of reading Joel Bakan.

I have had a blast writing about the topic of fanservice in anime and (mostly because it’s one of those MOCK THE UNMOCKABLE moments) without flattening the fragile egos of your everyday Internet citizen. Not because I write in a manner that makes everyone laugh (or in this case, cringe with horror due to shoggoth sex) but uh, I just plain enjoy writing about it.

TO THE ARTICLE

It’s one of the most recognizable things about animé.  Instead of being recognized as animation from Japan (since Studio Ghibli is pretty much above and beyond the scope of discussion), it has become synonymous with robots and porn. Partly due to the fact that during the period when anime was the hot in-thing, there was more animated porn, if anything, than the other stuff we see today, anything that gratuitously shows nubile female flesh gets stereotyped immediately. Queen’s Blade notwithstanding. I stand by the fact that it is softcore.

And since we tend to categorize everything we see, we fall into stereotyping and expectations. For people who want more from their entertainment, they are sorely disappointed when they see gratuitous pantyflashes and giant breasts (or lack thereof) instead of something “deep” and “engaging”. Also most of these people have seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, but that’s another kettle of fish. Or Feesh. Like LEETLE THEENGS.

And everyone complains about said fanservice, mostly without understanding a fair bit of Japanese Culture (or many, many visits to Cracked.com, which is obviously recommended), mostly because we tend to stereotype things and expect a lot out of our entertainment. Arguments about how TV rots the brain and is generally bad for you notwithstanding, it’s because we tend to either set too high a bar on entertainment or expect so little when it’s nothing but “harem” and girls.

Stereotyping isn’t all bad though. It allows us to expect some things, and when broken properly, it could develop into something a lot more wonderful. (I mean, who woulda thought Nekki Basara, being your typical SUPAA ROBO pilot,
be so hilariously wonderful as a character whose noble intentions are misunderstood by friend and foe alike? That’s proper deconstruction, folks, no need for whiny, horribly messed-up heros whose “crowning moment” is giving an unconscious girl BUKKAKKE.) But stereotyping can lead people into not discovering a lot of series, like Negima, which almost became a combination of Yu Yu Hakusho and FIST OF THE NORTH STAR with mages and kung-foolery. With LESBIANS.

I do have to agree that fanservice as a hook is horribly clichéd. Even when one understands why Japan loves it so much. Not mind-numbingly bad or anything, but horribly overused and people are getting tired of it. Then again, it could end up like ENDLESS EIGHT. DIFFERENT CUTS. DIFFERENT CAMERA ANGLES. DIFFERENT SWIMSUITS. SAME FUCKING EPISODE.

Macross and culture: Why you can’t force one’s opinions or religious affiliations onto someone else

Or Why do people sometimes don’t want to see from my point of view.

ALRIGHT, CUE G GUNDAM OP

UNCUE G GUNDAM OP

There are a hundred things so very wrong with including G Gundam into what is essentially a Macross post, but eh. There’s a ton of things that’s about to go very wrong in the show by episode 33.

There’s the fact that Hikaru now has 2 women who want him (Misa and MINMAY), Minmay realizing that Kaifun is a massive dickbutt who’s becoming more pronounced in his visceral hate over the military (and yes, letting the PRIME OBJECTIVE of the terrorists stay where it is IS considered a RETARDED strategy, no matter what one says), and well, CULTURE SHOCK does not work on the enemy anymore (Seeing Quamjin kiss Lap’lamiz and showing Kaifun whatfor has never been this satisfying).

There’s also the pile of awesome when Hikaru realizes that Misa OBVIOUSLY has feelings for him and Minmay, who pretty much redeems herself by stopping Kaifun from being a bigger dickbutt (WHEN WILL YOU BREAK UP, MINMAY, HE’S GONNA KICK YOU NEXT).

But I’m kinda losing the point here.

There are rare moments where everything clicks into place and then you learn something new from the experience.  That point was in episode 32 (or 33, memory’s fuzzy) where Minmay’s singing stops working and Kaifun’s impassioned (and annoying) speech about peace falls on deaf ears.

Quamjin haughtily mentions that the same trick won’t work on him again. Same trick being Minmay’s singing and the culture shock thing the Earthlings use against rogue Zentraedi. He then proceeds to “make culture” by making out with Lap’lamiz after Kaifun fails miserably.

For those of you in the audience who think that you can make a race “more cultured” by importing culture, you’re in for the worst possible shock. Quamjin proves that you can expose people to a different way of living, and that for some of them, the old ways are a lot better.

Let’s put this quandry in perspective of the show by then. A bunch of unhappy Zentraedi are rioting on Earth because they don’t like working for their keep. Remember that these people were originally warmongers and knew nothing of peace. (Which leads to a lot of mechanical breakdowns that even MORE COURAGE can’t fix. No Guy, if you can’t maintain your super robot well enough, MORE COURAGE won’t fix it.) The Earthlings hoped that through exposure to Earth culture, or PROTOCULTURE in the Zentraedi lexicon, they’d lose their warmongering ways and settle down peacefully, which most of them do. There’s still the violent minority that refuse to do so, however, and it is this violent minority that forces the New UN Spacy to increase defensive spending.

What strikes me as odd and illuminating is that even exposure to a better way of living (or the truth) can’t change some people, and that people have to make a decision to either stay as they are or acknowledge that they might have been wrong and may have to adopt to the new way. And that forcing it down their throats (like Kaifun, who does it all the time with varying results) is pretty much a good way to make enemies.

So then, how should one go see this? Well, in my opinion, culture here is like a gateway one can enter. The gate may look very nice, or may have visions pleasing to the eye, or other things, but ultimately, it’s your decision to step into the gate. It’s hard to swallow that there will be people who will disagree with you, but that’s their problem. You’ve already done a lot by showing them the way, whether they choose to follow or not is another matter altogether.

And now I think I lost my point. But the point isn’t religious in nature, even though it helps.

And here we have prime examples of the fans helping out

This mouse can kick your ass.

MICE OF THE SUN. MICE THAT GLOW LIKE MOTHERFUCKERS AND CAN GIVE YOU DEATH BY BURNING AWESOME. BECAUSE YOU ARE TOTALLY UNAWESOME. EXALTED IS AWESOME.

Ahem. Exalted pandering and product placement aside… (EXALTED IS AWESOME AND YOU SHOULD MAKE LOVE TO WHITE WOLF FOREVER)

There are rumours almost-confirmed decisions going about that fan translators are either working together or working out agreements to work together in a limited scope. Or something.

Which is just PLAIN WONDERFUL.

(On a similar note, White Wolf really love their fans as well.)

As far as cons go, lol Daicon and LOL Cosfest

I’m probably the only dude to actually stay at Cosfest for at least 15 minutes. LOL

And man, it was pretty empty. Oh sure, the crowds were OUTSIDE, but inside was a different matter.

Still, NERF GUNS.

And I’ll leave it to tj_han to cover DaiCon, LOL (mostly because I WAS NOT THERE)

Yeesh, I never knew that in Malaysia, the con scene is just as fucked up as in Singapore.

Thank goodness I’m planning the HAMSTER WORLD TOUR, starting from next year, to go see the world and have cookies with pretty much everyone I know on the Internet. Problem would be funding and shit. Oh well. One at a time.

I accidently a Katawa Shoujo

In between bouts of boredom, Dwarf Fortress, Macross, and the occasional scream of torment, I had forgotten I had a pile of visual novels to burn through while waiting for my BESM game to start. After I run my Exalted game, that is.

And then I accidently a Katawa Shoujo. Have I mentioned I briefly considered writing for the game? No? Nevermind.

But by now, everyone and their mother would have heard about the game. Let me be the latest in a bunch of people to tell you THIS GAME ROCKS. It is made of AWESOME, HIGH QUAILTY, AND WIN. Also, this is just the first act.

And then I decided to be a Twat and put my thoughts as I played the game on Twitter. Will be a Twat every Saturday or when I feel like it, depending on which comes first.

Stuck between choosing Lilly or Hanako. I CANNOT CHOOSE D:

Why Kadokawa can get away with making Endless 8 so many times and still have the guts to shove more Haruhi in our asses

ENDLESS 8 4 – MADE MIKURU CRY BECAUSE OF THE ENDLESS TIME LOOP. ALSO LOL KYOANI (Shitty motivator is shitty, I KNOW.)

Unsurprisingly, Kadokawa’s newest dick manuever to further alienate the people who pay their salaries hasn’t gone down too well with all the hardcore fans. And even more unsurprisingly, the there’s no 10th Haruhi book out.

Unfortunately, calling Kadokawa dickbutts and screaming about Endless 8 until you’re blue in the face isn’t going to solve anything. Even if some actually liked it.

Dare I say it, Kadokawa is showing the traits of your typical corporation. The utter disregard for pretty much everything, the brutally honest manner of catering to the bottom line, the rumours that it was they who told KyoAni to do 6 or more episodes as cheaply as possible… It’s like a nightmare for the hardcore otaku who anticipated more annoying Haruhi goodness. I just hope they aren’t listed on the Japanese Stock Exchange or something, or worse still, it’s parent company is. Because that would pretty much affirm what I’ve been reading about.

Here’s a little background info: I’m currently thumbing through this book called The Corporation, by Joel Bakan. It’s a book about the corporation, the history and legislation that created the entity known aas the corporation, and reveals to us the sick, disturbing traits of a corporation. It’s also a documentary, and it’s on Youtube. Go watch. It’ll help.

For the impatient ones, here’s the tl;dr: The corporation has only one goal, to earn more money in order to please it’s shareholders. Anything and everything they do must be related to making a bigger profit margin. Worse still, it’s LEGAL for them to dick people over, and if they even show a shred of concern over the people  and whatnot, they’d better be doing it with their own money and time, because doing it on company time is ILLEGAL and can get your CEO arrested, unless they’re doing it so that they can make a bigger profit. Sweatshops, Enron and WorldCom notwithstanding. The results? ROCKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES. Yeah, that’s the reality of the situation.

Applying the above information (and the fact that postwar Japan is basically aping the West in terms of EVERYTHING), we can simply assume that Kadokawa has no interest in listening to us as long as this dick manuever makes them a whole lotta cash. And cruelly enough, it does, in the short term. Since people actually buy Haruhi and Kadokawa stuff.

Even sadder is this: none of our opinions count, unless we all decide to stop buying anything with a Kadokawa label or anything tangentially related to Haruhi and animé until Kadokawa fixes it’s schtick. Even doujin. Until the entire animé community in Japan and abroad decide to do so, we’re going to see more stunts like Endless 8 (and pretty much the Haruhi ad strategy until now) Kadokawa knows it’s goldmine is safe.

The corporation only speaks in terms of money. Until we realize that and speak on it’s terms, we’re not going to effect change until we learn to speak with our money, not with angry rants and veiled threats of violence. Unless you wanna hijack tanks and proceed to blow up Tokyo. That’ll be hilarious.

Sad, isn’t it?

PS: On a slightly happier note, Honey and Clover in the iTunes store. About time, Viz. About time.

PPS: Of course, seeing as the books are about a girl who has to have her way or else ROCKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES and everyone has to pander to her no matter how annoying, stupid, or offensive her antics are, I am simply surprised as to how it has become not just the hottest IP since Macross and Gundam, but has become some sort of psuedo-religion. I mean, I know some religions have either a deity who either is too far away to care or too much of a dick to bother about people, but really, the worst of the Greek pantheon in a girl? With the combined powers of the Greek pantheon Arcueid and THE EMPRAH put together? The mind seriously boggles. Maybe Kadokawa has unwittingly adhered to the spirit of Haruhi. That would be creepy.

MangaGamer updates

From awesome Twitter news:

MangaGamer update: Shuffle release date August 15th (50 Euros), Higurashi aiming for October release. Solid turnaround from announcement.

O HAI CCY :3

You know what, check their site (NSFW), me too lazy to-
No wait, here’s the link to the game on their site. The lack of Kareha saddens me.

THIS IS BEST YEAR TO BE A BATTLETECH FAN EVER

FUCK YEAH!

MECHWARRIOR 4 TO BE RE-RELEASED FREE FOR DOWNLOAD, ALL OF IT!

MECHWARRIOR SERIES TO GET A REBOOT, FUCK YEAH!

DID SOMEONE JUST SAY THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF SEEING THE SDF-1 IN BATTLETECH? FUCK YEAH!

THIS IS THE BEST TIME TO BE A BATTLETECH FAN, EVER!

(For those not in the know, Battletech is what happens when you kick out the Valkyries and let the Destroids get all the AWESOME. Battletech was originally inspired by mecha animé, most notably the SUPERDIMENSIONAL FORTRESS MACROSS and Gundam, but more on the MACROSS part in terms of robot design. Have I mentioned that I am a huge Macross fan partly because of Battletech?)

Haruhi Endless Eight 4 – EPIC TROLLING

I know I’ve been missing out on what seems to be the hottest show since 2006. Yeah, the Army tends to do that to you.

But yeah, I just caught the latest episode of Haruhi And my comments on IRC, because Twitter is fail and IRC is easier to tab into.

At the start if the stream:
<DrmChsr0> OH SHIT ENDLESS RECURSIVE FEEDBACK LOOP
<DrmChsr0> END IT YOU BITCH

Probably 2 minutes later:
<DrmChsr0> Endless 8: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF GET ON WITH IT

Probably 5 minutes later:
<DrmChsr0> KYON SLAP HER
<Shizuka> I think we got trolled again
<DrmChsr0> SLAP HER
<DrmChsr0> KYON SLAP HER
<DrmChsr0> SLAP KOIZUMI AS WELL
<DrmChsr0> Cake? CAAAAAAAAAAAKE?

THE END:
<DrmChsr0> FUCK YES CTHULHU
<DrmChsr0> LOL GAIJIN 4KOMA
<Shizuka> wat
<velocity7> trolling again lol
<Shizuka> hahaha
<DrmChsr0> LOL
<Fuchikoma> Jesus… relax people
<fiendmaw> Haruhi 5 out

Ads after the show (Yes I watched those):
<DrmChsr0> lololololol
<DrmChsr0> You’ ve watched the show, now BUY OUR SHIT
<DrmChsr0> And now, FULL FRONTAL YUKI
<DrmChsr0> …Project DIVA ad
<DrmChsr0> Also, what was the show after Haruhi?
<Shizuka> pandora hearts
<DrmChsr0> Ahahahahahahahaha
<DrmChsr0> ’tis just an ad.

ENDLESS 8 4: SAME AS ENDLESS 8 1, 2 AND 3.

Now off to bed I’m supposed to go.

Comparing two jerks: Nekki Basara and Lynn Kaifun

And yes, we are still talking about Macross. Because Macross is AWESOME.

Most of the time, when we talk about the most hated characters of the Macross series, two names will always constantly stand out. And no, we’re not talking about Ranka Lee (hated motly for her character design and BLATANT PANDERING  rather than force of character) and Alto-hime Grace “I’m a cookie-cutter villain” O’Connor (SHE IS NOT FUCKING IRISH, SHE IS FUCKING COOKIE-CUTTER VILLAIN).  I’m talking about NEKKI BASARA and Lynn Kaifun.

Ironically, Basara’s hate is extremely justified, even though I think he’s a wonderful character. He shows up late for concerts and practice sessions, scolds Mylene for no good reason (to be honest, Mylene kinda does the same to him), pisses off his fans for no apparent reason, and gets in the way of combat (there is a good reason why Gamlin initially hated this dickbutt).

Kaifun gets the same end of the stick. He hates Misa even though, you know SHE SAVES HIS ASS, beause he seems to hate the military ON PRINCIPLE. (Even though no one got hurt) He makes civilians sit in a WARZONE just to prove a point, he verbally abuses Hikaru even though he’s the one who protected Minmei before he even gets on board, and yeah, Kaifun, kissing a girl who does not wants to be kissed does count as rape in some countries.

However, when you do get down to it, Basara and Kaifun are completely different characters.

Basara may be a royal pain in the ass of a pacifist, but he actually cares for the people around him. And animals. He sang to a bunch of giant space DONGS whales, lectured (kinda) Mylene and Gamlin on respecting the environment (DON’T KILL THE ANIMAL IT IS ONLY ACTING ON ITS NATURAL INSTINCTS, while Gamlin is fighting the creature, but hey, Gamlin is an awesome pilot, so it evens out). He’s so conscious of civilians that he would take the battle AWAY from the civilians (LEETLE CHILDREN in one event) in order to not see them get harmed. He flies out into battle SINGING (taking “living your ideals” to the extreme) and disagrees on the creation of the Jamming Birds (to be honest, Captain Max and Dr. Chiba also agree with Basara on this) simply because Colonel Barton has gotten the wrong idea about the power of song (Gamlin suckerpunched that jerk, thankfully. It was either him or Millia. Personally, I wanted to see Millia break his nose.), and well, when you do finally get him to do something, he does it WITH ALL OF HIS HEART AND SOOOOOOOOOOOOUL. He also hates the fact he used force, and well, he does try to settle SOME disputes. He’s crazy enough to live his ideals (to the point where he actually disobeys orders from the military, another sticking point with a lot of people) to the point where everyone around him gradually come to like him because he’s just that earnest about it. Also of note: He does get slightly better as the show progresses.

Kaifun forced Minmay into kissing him, put a whole bunch of civilians in danger, pours out NERD RAGE on Misa for SAVING HIS ASS, and keeps going on about war sucks due to rocks fall, everyone dies from the safety of the Macross without risking his ass to protect people. (Unlike Basara who flies out and annoys all the military men, HEY, AT LEAST BASARA LIVES HIS IDEALS.) Can someone tell me how “pacifist” Kaifun is when he’s almost as warlike in personality as the Zentraedi?

To be honest though, he saves Minmei that one time. Probably the only redeeming thing I can say about him.

I know people hate Basara because he’s such a jerk at times, but really, when you see him pour out his HEART AND SOOOOOOOOOOOOOUL into everything he does (even to the enemy, note that when Gigil punches him, he just SINGS IN HIS FACE, forcing Gigil to SHED MANLY TEARS because of his HEART AND SOOOOOOOOOOOUL. Also, I don’t think Basara hates anyone, Colonel Barton excepting. Also he’s just tsundere for Mylene), you can’t help but feel your rage melt away just a little bit. Kaifun, on the other hand, doesn’t exactly have this for him.

So, um, who’s the bigger jerk here? My biased opinion here says Kaifun, on account for dissing Misa and the whole STAY IN THE WARZONE WE ARE GOING TO SING AS A FORM OF PROTEST AGAINST WAR thing. Even if Kaifun managed to play his role in helping some Zentraedi defect.

Kung-fu Dandy my ass. more like KUNG-FU JERKWAD.