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The Problem With Netflix & Anime Strike

There’s been a lot of talk lately within the anime fandom about various streaming services.  Newcomer Hidive is jumping in, while Daisuki is jumping out permanently, RIP.  Funimation will presumably change significantly after the purchase by Sony is complete.  Netflix and Amazon are upsetting people left and right by doing the unforgivable sin of offering shows that people want to watch.  And industry darling Crunchyroll is jumping into the con business with yet unseen success.  Everyone has been asserting their own thoughts on how to improve Netflix and Amazon and I’d rather not sit here and describe at length the same points everyone else has brought up.  I’ll instead focus on what I think is the biggest problem with these two sites, and what I think helps Crunchyroll succeed.

The anime industry is less of an industry and more of a niche community.  It thrives on a select few willing to spend lots of money while the larger majority prefers to consume content through illicit means.  This is no surprise because of how anime was originally popularized.  Anime was originally very difficult to get over here in the West, and lots of things weren’t legally available.  As a result communities formed up to share anime.  Most longtime fans were once a part of an anime club at some point.  These clubs helped to form anime fandom and lived because the heads of the club would bring shows for the community to watch.  Tape trading of the 90s gave way to the torrents of the 20000s and finally into the streaming sites that dominate the internet today.  Fans of anime are used to someone telling them what to watch and then jumping directly into it.  The industry stays afloat because of people that are willing to buy figures and blurays and such.  It’s the same group that used to import laser discs and like having a collection of sorts.  For the record, I’m in that group.  I buy a large amount of blurays every month and enjoy having friends over to watch them like an adult’s anime club.

Crunchyroll succeeds largely because it is essentially an online anime club with a cover charge.  It succeeds because of the sense of community Crunchyroll provides.  It has done an incredible job of building a community, and engaging with the fandom at large.  The social media team over at Crunchyroll is excellent; kudos to Victoria Holden and Miles Thomas who helm the team.  The entire company is extremely active on social media, in particular twitter where they’re regularly talking about the shows on their site as fans rather than as a product.  They’ve also ventured into other social media sites like their live stream of Kanna eating on repeat which literally had thousands of people watching along.  Crunchyroll feels like part of the community more than it feels like a multimillion dollar business and that helps them greatly.  I genuinely think Crunchyroll could charge more per month for its service and no one would care.  Those willing to pay for Crunchyroll don’t do it because it’s worth the money; they do it because it’s something they want to support.  There are certainly those that pay for it out of convenience, but these are the more casual fans and not the bread and butter of the industry.  These fans arent’ the long time fans, they sign up to watch on their game console because Attack on Titan is airing.  They typically don’t stay active for long.  Those of us who have been fans for years and years are willing to obtain the anime we want by any means necessary and pay for Crunchyroll more because we like Crunchyroll.

And here in lies the biggest difference; people don’t like Netflix and Anime Strike (Amazon).  Neither site has any social media presence, and they feel so distant from the community.  The common complaints about these sites seem so obvious to those within the fandom, but totally alien to an outsider.  Take Netflix for example: Netflix is condemned for not simulcasting their anime.  Netflix prefers to share only polished products.  All of their anime are released at one point in time with dubs in five different languages.  This helps shows appeal to a more mainstream audience, but it hurts its appeal to the hardcore anime fandom.  Anime fans are used to unpolished messes.  Ping Pong launched without a real opening, Dragon Ball Super has some of the lowest quality animation Toei has ever aired (and that’s saying something we’re talking about Toei), and My Hero Academia got significant touch ups for the bluray release over its initial TV airing.  We as anime fans are used to this low quality and production value; hell I remember watching anime online ten years back in 240 quality because that’s what was available.  If Netflix had anyone working there that could represent and speak for the community it would go a long way.  Netflix does not have any community manager specifically for its anime content.  This is clearly a problem and a void because a fan page on twitter, @NetflixAnime, has to regularly inform people that the page is not official and suggesting anime on the page won’t help Netflix see it.

Anime Strike has its own twitter page but it is incredibly weak.  It only tweets out some of its shows episode releases, with minimal fanfare.  They don’t even do it for every show.  The page is inactive for days at a time and rarely has more than one tweet a day.  Crunchyroll is more active every hour than Amazon is active in a week’s time.  It would go a long way if it felt like anyone working there was actually watching these shows.  Amazon continually locks down some of the best shows of each season, and these shows are hurt because no one in the community is championing them.  If Scum’s Wish was on Crunchyroll it would have been the talk of the town; Welcome to the Ballroom should be blowing up online, but people only talk about the giraffe necks.  A cursory search online informs me there is currently no community manager for Anime Strike and it doesn’t look like Amazon isn’t hiring for one either.  Because there’s no one working to engage the community the burden is left on fans to communicate far too much.  Quick example, no it’s not $15 a month for Anime Strike, it’s $13 a month because you don’t need to sign up for full prime there is just prime video.  It’s not my job to correct people though, and this message isn’t being communicated by anyone.  This doesn’t necessarily fix the price issue people have, but it certainly helps.  The point being, there’s a lot of misinformation about Anime Strike and no one there is helping to fix it.  

It may seem like a simple thing, but I really think fixing the social media plans of these two services would work wonders to improve their standing in the community.  Anime fans remember these things.  Hell I’ll never forget Funimation’s awful tweet about Erased in which they liken a starving girl to college struggles.  I like anime and I spend a lot of money on it, both on various streaming services and on blurays.  I want to see these companies succeed.  I’d love for Anime Strike to be a good service I’m paying for it.  I’d love to legally watch Violet Evergarden as it airs.  Hopefully if enough of us keep telling them what we want they’ll finally listen.  

#anime #netflix #anime strike #crunchyroll

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Religious Symbolism in Kemono Friends

DISCLAIMER

I’m going to be discussing Kemono Friends and its comparisons to Christianity as I see them.  I feel it’s only fair to provide a short disclaimer here at the top.  For starters I mean no disrespect to those of faith.  I realize that I’m comparing your lord and savior to a cute anime girl named bag chan, but I hope you’ll understand and appreciate these comparisons all the same. Second, I do not think this show is in anyway trying to convert children, or anyone for that matter, to any religion.  I think that religion is used here as a guiding story structure.  The writers of the show simply pulled from the best selling story of all time, the bible.  Third, I’ll provide my personal context here at the top so you do not feel as a reader at any point that I’ve mislead you.  I’ll be writing using the capitalized letters for God and Father and the like because it helps delineate that I am specifically referring to the proper noun name used in Christian stories and not referring to any other gods in other faiths.  I am currently non religious and uncertain of my faith.  I have however previously spent years working for the church in various capacities, and I spent time studying theology both in early schooling and into my college courses.  I don’t write this article to try and change your mind about anything, or even to change how you think of this series.  I simply thought my perspective and insight was interesting so I wanted to share it with you all.  Lastly I’ll add that this was originally written at the end of March, but has been edited and posted here now since it never saw the light of day previously.  With all that out of the way let’s fall down this rabbit hole together.  

Kemono Friends is an exceptionally well developed children’s show that succeeds in creating an intelligently designed world where the story unfolds.   I don’t simply use the term intelligent design without reverence and understanding of its meaning in a broader context. Intelligent design is a term used by Christianity in describing God’s creations and plan, and I believe at its core Kemono Friends draws heavily from Christianity in developing its themes and characters.  At first glance when comparing the two my mind goes to the Old Testament stories of the Garden of Eden, where humans and animals cohabitate and communicate peacefully together.  There’s even an Apple representing knowledge in the Library, but the apple has already been eaten and the ceruleans represent a clear and present danger that suggests the story must take place later on.  I instead assert that the story of Kemono Friends is the story of the Gospels, the story of Jesus Christ himself, with Kaban acting as the savior or Messiah figure.  Furthermore I believe the entirety of the Holy Trinity is present in the show: Kaban as the Son, Lucky Beast as the Holy Ghost, and Mirai as the Father.   These connections vary in strength for these three, with Kaban’s comparisons to Jesus being the strongest and the focus of this blog post.  

We’ll begin with our protagonist, Kaban and her similarities to Jesus.  Kaban travels from area to area solving problems for the many Friends she encounters through her journey.  Others describe her journey as heroic; they say she stops wars and builds bridges, and a certain amount of mythos begins to form around her.  Though she is similar to the Friends, she knows that she is somehow different and ultimately her goal is to discover who she is, where she came from, and where she belongs.   While these are all clearly analogous to the story of Christ, right down to performing “miracles” in the eyes of the Friends she encounters, they are also the traits and story of most great heroes. The writers behind Kemono Friends knew for Kban to be a true Christ like figure the similarities needed to go further, and further down the rabbit hole we shall go.  Kaban is born from nothing and quite literally has an immaculate conception.  It’s not until the final episodes that we finally see how Kaban entered this world. She’s a spherical ball of light that forms into a person as the safari hat falls on to it.  There are no parents, hell there aren’t even any other humans near her when she bursts into existence.  Her birth isn’t the result of science, of some experiment taking place on the island.  Her birth into the world is a miracle.  An unlikely savior is impossibly born into the world to travel across it helping those she passes, teaching where she can, and at the end, through self sacrifice saving them from the evil that is threatening their peaceful lives on the island. Her death and revival are also miraculous.  

If Sin is the evil that Jesus died to save his followers from, then clearly the ceruleans represent that sin and evil.  The ceruleans look to consume and destroy the light and the life of the world they inhabit.  They eat Friends and return them to their “original” forms; in the series we are led to believe the Friends turn back into normal animals before the sandstar turned them into Friends, though this is never shown.  Think about that for a second though, ceruleans, or in this context sin,  comes and washes away the blessings given to the Friends that allow them to live and communicate effectively, reverting them back to more primal and basic animals without reason and understanding.  In Kaban’s attempt to rid the world of this evil, she is forced to sacrifice herself in order to save Serval from the beast.  She is swallowed up into the darkness where she remains for far longer than anyone.  While inside the monstrous cerulean her body returns to a spherical ball of light, just as she was at her immaculate birth.  When she is finally pulled from the darkness she transforms back into the girl all the Friends know and love.  The giant cerulean is defeated and light begins to shine on the island once more. All the Friends assume that because her original form is human and she was never transformed into anything, being eaten by the cerulean didn’t affect her and that all humans must turn back into humans after being eaten.  This assumption made by the Friends is of course false.  Only the Messiah could be reborn after being eaten by darkness, and we know this because all other humans fled the park in fear of the ceruleans. If the ceruleans truly posed no danger to the humans there would be no purpose in evacuating, and more knowing figures, like Lucky Beast, would not have been frightened for Kaban. There are even contextual clues of a battle foguth between the humans and ceruleans in the form of abandoned weaponry and empty bomb shells.  I think it’s fair to make the assumption these were used by humans against ceruleans because the show never introduces another threat, and it’s clear that the friends don’t know anything about these weapons cause they are never mentioned.    In the final moments of the show Kaban leaves to go where she believes and hopes she belongs, off into the unknown across the ocean to a new island.  If the first island represents our earth, covered in sin, then the new place she heads that is free from such hardship must be Heaven, and like Christ guiding his apostles, Kaban ventures forth with Serval and Friends close behind.  

The next figure in the Kemono Friends Holy Trinity is Lucky Beast acting as the Holy Spirit. Beforew e get too deep I’ll admit these connections are far weaker than those of Kaban and Jesus, but this is fun so follow along and be willing to perform some mental gymnastics along the way please.   In scriptures, the Holy Ghost is the omnipresent part of God that acts as the guide. Lucky Beast is very clearly the guide in this series, doing everything from driving the bus to explaining attractions and directions.  Lucky Beast is also omnipresent because there are a countless number of Lucky Beasts spread across the various areas of the park that can all at once act together to accomplish a singular goal as shown by Lucky Beast gathering all of the Friends across the many areas in the final episode.  Lucky Beast’s white colors are also reminiscent of the white dove the Holy Spirit embodies in scripture, though I admit this would be more evident if its shape was that of a dove, though perhaps that would be too on the nose. Similar to the Holy Ghost in the Bible, communication with Lucky Beast is facilitated through Kaban.  Lucky Beast only ever communicates directly with Friends upon Kaban’s initial passing.  The Holy Ghost is also seen in scriptures as the communicative vessel for the Father which in this series would be Mirai.  Mirai speaks through and is eventually seen through the eyes of Lucky Beast, and it is through this connection we find out what little we do know about the only older figure in the entire series.  

Mirai is the Father in the Trinity that is Kemono Friends. The connections here become even scarcer, which makes perfect sense.  If Kemono Friends is the story of the Gospels, then it makes sense that the Father is rarely shown, because that is similar to the gospels in the Bible.  The story of the father is written primarily in the Old Testament, and we’d need to see the prequel to Kemono Friends (oh please please please yes) if we’d like the full story on Mirai.  Here I’ll try and break down what we do know.  Mirai was part of the park staff, meaning she was part of the ruling body of the park in charge of attractions and Friends alike. To be more specific, she is the only known staff member of the park until Kaban assumes the responsibility in the final episodes of the show in order to overcome the ceruleans.  We know that she was doing research on the sandstars and was responsible for the discovery, if not creation, of the Friends. She lived among the Friends until the ceruleans began consuming the island, just as the Father lived among humans in the Garden of Eden until sin took root.  We also know that her hat is worn by kaban for the entirety of the show, and is the initial catalyst for kaban turning from a ball of light into the savior the world so desperately needs.  She is more knowledgeable than any other character in the series and thus appears omniscient.  She also embodies and represents the place Kaban feels she belongs, just as the Son must sit at the side of the Father, Kaban must go to be with Mirai.  Mrai’s character helps embody both what is good about the show and faith.  Her character isn’t fully understood, and the viewer is left thirsting for more knowledge. Just as Christians are taught that they do not understand God, they should want with all they have to be close to Him and to know Him better.  

To recap, Kban is born from nothing and resembles the only known authority figure in the world.  She sacrifices herself to protect her friends, comes back to life shortly there after, then ultimately succeeds in protecting her friends from harm.  Lucky Beast is a guiding figure that only communicates through Kaban unless otherwise ordered by Kaban, and has information on Mirai.  Mirai is the only known authority figure who is shown to be at least partially responsible for the creation of Friends, and is a ruling party over the park.  I’m willing to put on my tin foil hat for this one! Hope you’ve been following along at home if not I’ve got a very easy to follow wall of notes that will help this all make sense.  

Kemono Friends isn’t a show with a dark twist; it’s not a deconstruction of any existing genre.  Kemono Friends is a kids’ show that tells the same story countless parents and preachers across the world have been telling children for centuries, the story of a savior that came to travel the world, a savior that made many friends, the story of a savior who loves her friends so dearly she will give herself to protect them from evil.  Kemono Friends succeeds where other shows fall short because it is both extremely deep in its symbolism and themes, while remaining approachable and friendly towards children.  It’s incredible that such a great show was born from such a troubled past.  The series is based on a failed license.  The phone game it draws inspiration from was shut down a month before the show began airing.  The studio, Yaoyorozu, has yet to achieve critical or commercial success prior to this series.  The entire staff is rather unknown, and they should be celebrated and heralded as the most unlikely of success stories.  It seems unlikely that we’ll ever get to see the prequel Old Testament story of the park before ceruleans, and that might be sad, but ultimately it’s okay because the story told here is so complete and well done.  I tip my hat to you Yaoyorozu, you’ve made a fan out of me.  

PPPS. PPP is awesome just a pppublic service announcement 

#kemono friends #anime #religion

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Top 10 Tournaments in Anime

My Hero Academia is easily the hottest show right now.  It dominates my twitter timeline, cosplayers are showing up in force for it at conventions, and it’s popular with critics and a mainstream audience.  Its popularity far exceeds that of the first season, and there are a few reasons why.  First off, the production of this season was handled much better, giving the entire staff more time per episode.  The show is also better paced this season, progressing at a steady clip and not falling into shounen trappings of too much recap to waste time; something memorable happens in every episode.  Third and most importantly season two kicked off with a tournament! TOURNAMENT ARC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It feels like tournaments are built for anime, and anime is built for tournaments.  The structure of a tournament allows several characters to be highlighted, provides an established reason for conflict, and almost guarantees that our two strongest fighters are going to face off against one another at some point because they will both progress further into the tournament. It’s perfect and really every show should have one.  Tournament arcs are often the best arc of whichever show they appear in, and some series have built their entire show around tournaments.  I’m going to talking about and ranking my favorite tournaments in anime of all time.

Judging Criteria

·         Tournament structure

·         Quality of participants, how many do I know and care about, and how                   much do I care about them

·         Quality of the fights, both for the main character, and side characters

·         Resolution to the tournament: how different is the world for our main                     characters after the tournament

·         I will be ranking based solely on anime and not on manga

.         I will be judging animation quality, direction, music, and all parts that make          an anime unique from other media.  

·        Only one tournament per franchise.  It doesn’t matter how the franchise is            split up in anime form, there can be only one. I don’t want this whole list to           be two shows.

·        This should be obvious but I have to have seen the tournament in anime              form, sorry Dressrosa arc

With that out of the way let’s take a look at the list!

#10: Mobile Fighter G Gundam

The heart wants what the heart wants, and despite its numerous problems I still love G Gundam. It was one of my first giant robot shows growing up, and I became immediately hooked.  I thought Shining Finger was the coolest attack ever, and really twenty years later it’s still pretty damn cool.  The premise in G Gundam is that there’s a tournament held between Neo Japan, Neo American and all the other neo countries that now exist as space colonies.  Basically they send Gundam pilots down to earth to fight robot battles and the winning country gets controlling interest in space government.  The show is exactly as absurd as it sounds, and it’s filled with even more terrible stereotypes than you could possibly imagine.  This tournament gets points for its absurd premise and great characters, no matter how terribly offensive they are.  There are also a number of great fights in the series, such as the fight between current and previous King of Hearts, Domon in the Shining Gundam and Master Asia in his Master Gundam.  The show lasts far too long and the stereotypes are HIGHLY offensive, but it’s still a fun romp through 90s mecha that all revolves around an absurdly beautiful tournament.  

#9: Kill La Kill: Naturals Election Tournament

Kill La Kill is bad ass, every aspect of it is awesome.  The series breaks into a tournament starting in episode eight and lasting through twelve and it is every bit as awesome as the rest of the series.  The tournament format is simple, free for all with five ascending platforms; those that reach the top of these platforms compete in a king of the hill tournament.   Basically Ryuko has to work her way through all four members of the elite four with the promise of information on her father’s death if she wins.  As she progresses through the gauntlet we bear witness to some of the best fights the series has to offer, and a surprise fifth opponent shows her face at the end which acts as the catalyst into the show switching focus to events and characters outside the school.  The four major fights in this tournament are excellent.  Each is beautifully animated, and the accompanying music elevates the fights to unforgettable status, especially in the fight with Nonon. All of the fights with the elite four also provide a setting for a more in depth character introduction through well executed flashbacks and great character moments taking place both in and out of the ring.  I’m a sucker for a good gauntlet, and it’s a tournament thrown in the middle of one of my favorite modern anime; it scores major marks there.  It however loses points for the lack of motivation and overall impact on story.  This tournament acts primarily as a transition between arcs more than its own individual story.  

#8: Fairy Tail: Grand Magic Games

Do you guys remember when Fairy Tail was good? I sure do, this arc was great, you know until it was interrupted by another far worse arc…. Regardless I really enjoyed the Grand Magic Games.  It’s split into various stages, multiple of which have their highlights, but the tournament is best when the ensemble cast is given ample opportunity to fight amongst each other.  Stand outs include: Jellal vs. Jura, Natsu & Gajil vs. twin dragons Sting & Rogue, and my personal favorite, Laxus vs. the entirety of Raven Tail.  The arc introduces us to the Sabertooth guild, and reunites our main characters with returning supporting cast from Blue Pegasus, Lamia Scale, and others.  If this arc hadn’t ended in the extremely disappointing Dragon Festival arc it probably would have ranked higher.  This arc distills the Fairy Tail experience; extremely large ensemble cast with some fun ideas and good fights, but given enough time it will disappoint you.  

#7: Hunter X Hunter (2011): Heaven’s Arena

The first series where choosing a single tournament is a little tough, and that’s no surprise since it comes from famed mangaka Yoshihiro Togashi.  I’m a big fan of the Hunter Exam arc, but this arc dwarfs it entirely.  This tournament is the first example on this list of powering up during the tournament. This arc introduces nen, the primary power system in Hunter X Hunter.  Gon and Killua increase in strength exponentially during this arc and it acts as a baseline for their growth and abilities for the remainder of the show.  This tournament loses some points on tournament structure in that it’s not really a tournament.  The Heaven’s Arena is a tower of 250 floors where contestants compete for money until reaching floor 200; at which points all battles are fought strictly for glory. The highlight of this arc comes when Gon and Hisoka fight in an epic fist fight almost entirely void of super natural nonsense.  Nen is only used to bring the two fighters closer together so that there are only ever fists flying.  There’s even the much awaited first hit to Hisoka’s face at which point Gon returns his badge from the Hunter Exam, an excellent callback.  This series just barely misses out on the top five because of technicality.  While I love it, there’s no denying this isn’t a real tournament, and Gon and Killua only enter to earn money and train, but still earns its spot for phenomenal fights and great character growth.  

#6: Fate Zero

Let’s round out the bottom half with the best thing to ever come out of the highly popular Type Moon franchise.  The Fourth Holy Grail War takes place before any of the games and is written by Gen Urobuchi, setting it apart from the rest of the franchise’s many adaptations.  The story revolves around teams of two in an all out free for all using any means at their disposal to take out their opponents as they fight across 1990’s Japan.  The teams are comprised of a magic user and a summoned heroic spirit who is a reincarnation of legends of history and myth.  Gilgamesh, Alexander the Great, the knight king Arthur Pendragon all gather to fight one another.  This tournament is full of collusion, underhanded tricks, and betrayals. This is easily the darkest entry on the list, and that’s no surprise considering its author’s famed nickname, Gen the butcher.  It’s also the establishing anime for studio Ufotable who is now largely considered one of the best in 3D animation.  Gorgeous visuals, excellent music, expert fight choreography, phenomenal writing both in storytelling and conversational dialogue all add up to an unforgettable tournament.  The battle between Kiritsugu Emiya and Kirei Kotomine ranks among the best fights in anime of all time.  The end of the tournament asks more questions than it answers, but it still works as a standalone experience and sets the stage for the rest of the Fate series to take place.  

#5: Naruto: Chunin Exam

We head into the top five with the shounen big three.  Despite the original manga ending back in 2014, the series has lived on in new manga, anime and even light novels.  It’s been nearly eighteen years since the manga’s launch and it’s still, in my opinion, never gotten better than this gym from the original Naruto anime.  This tournament takes place before power levels get silly, and the cast is at a reasonable enough size where you can be invested in all of the major characters.  It’s also our introduction to so many of the most important characters in the franchise such as Negi, Kabuto, Orochimaru, and Gaara.  It’s also the first introduction of another jinchuriki. The test has three stages: a written exam, a survival game, and then finally an all out one on one tournament. The three on three nature of the first two phases are fun and all three of our main protagonists at this point in the story are given a chance to shine, but the tournament at the end is the icing on the cake.  Naruto has some good fights, especially his match against Neji, but Sasuke steals the show. Sasuke finally starts learning to use his sharingan and learns his signature chidori attack, and he also gets the final match against Gaara.  The arc ends in catastrophe and the first major battle to take place in the Leaf since before the events of the show.  Both arenas the tournament takes place in are awesome, with the second providing a large crowd for the entire village to watch.  This tournament gets points all around, great fights, great contestants, simple and yet elegant structure.  It only misses out on a higher position because of the strength of our next four entries.

#4: Dragon Ball: 23 World Martial Arts Tournament

Would it really be a list of the best tournaments without a Dragon Ball tournament on here? Talk about a tough choice, Dragon Ball is probably more famous for its tournaments than any other anime.  Just missing out on the top three spots, we’ve got my favorite tournament in all of Dragon Ball.  The 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, or as it’s known in English, the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament is the final arc in Dragon Ball prior to the release of Dragon Ball Z, and what a fitting end it is.  Throughout this arc Goku defeats the previous champion who defeated him in the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament, Tien, defeats the demon king Piccolo, and marries his childhood sweetheart Chi-chi. It’s also notable for being the only world martial arts tournament that Goku ever wins.  This tournament puts the emphasis on hand to hand combat over the bombastic energy attacks that dominate later Dragon Ball Z and Super tournaments, but it’s not devoid of power levels or threat.  Piccolo plans on destroying the whole world and even Earth’s guardian Kami comes to compete in this tournament.  This tournament is the good stuff, like eating your favorite home cooked meal; it’s nostalgic and pure in its goodness.  It’s hard to think of a better classic tournament in anime.  Hard however is not impossible.

#3: My Hero Academia: Sports Festival

We start the top three with the inspiration for the list in the first place.  The newest release on this list is phenomenal.  The festival starts with a few extra events, before finally breaking into a series of one on one fights.  The bangers in this tournament start in the first round and last through the finals.  The tournament is filled with incredible character building for characters that are all so strong they could play lead in their own show.  I could write lengthy character studies on everyone from minor opponents like Shinzo to heavy hitters like best boy Shoto Todoroki.  I could give an entire lecture on animation techniques in these fights and how lighting, line work, and color dynamic all help build a scene and depict power.  I could talk at length about how interesting the various motivations of each competitor are and why these varying ideals shape a more complete understanding of heroism and justice.  The point is I can sit here and talk all day about this tournament and what it does right, but honestly it’s deserving of its own blog post entirely if not several of its own posts.  I’ll certainly be revisiting this tournament and discussing it further, but I’ll state the simple, the obvious.  This tournament is incredible and should be watched by all.  The results of each fight make sense and nothing happens because of mere plot convenience.  Prior preparations, well defined powers, and clear consequences for every action help make this tournament extremely compelling.  I spent every week anxiously waiting for the next episode and I was far from alone.  The entire anime community seemed to band together to watch this because it was obvious something special was unfolding before our eyes.  Because of its recency I’ll avoid in major spoilers; I’ll simply say every fight in this arc is worth watching especially those with Bakugo and Todoroki in them, it’s really something special.  

#2: Ping Pong the Animation: Prefectural Qualifier

Would it really be a list of anime tournaments without some sports anime goodness? Our second place entry epitomizes what makes sports anime so good, and also goes on to achieve so much more.  This series is a coming of age story for five different incredibly compelling characters that all just happen to play a lot of ping pong.  It is significantly shorter than most entries on the list, the entire series clocks in at eleven episodes and the tournament takes place during the last five.  With that in mind it’s a feat of pure genius that it accomplishes so much.  This series tackles motivation, suicide, friendship, acceptance, burden of success, the difficulties of high expectations, the importance of friendship, and even what it means to be a hero.  In the last entry I stated that each character feels like they could be the main character of their own show; this series is similar except in that they are all each the star and main character of this show. The show does a phenomenal job of splitting time between each character so that the viewer fully understands their reasons for play, their life philosophies, and their personal relationships both with those they compete against and those that helped them prepare for competition.  The show shines because of its deep characters, but they aren’t the only part of the show that’s incredible.  The show’s music by Kensuke Ushio, who recently scored the excellent A Silent Voice film, matches the story perfectly with its odd blend of sounds and styles, mixing heavy base with upbeat pop, and calming guitar riffs with heavy synth and soft foreign language vocals.  The animation is distinct and gorgeous.  Strong character designs help clearly definite each character by how they walk, their simple body language.  The way and reason each individual smiles tells you more about their character than most shows tell you about their main character through their entire run. Visual metaphors litter the screen during matches, from Kong sighing out an airplane to Kazama literally embodying a dragon as he returns Peco’s balls from the other side of the net.  From impressive wipes, to gorgeous scene composition through splitting the characters with various panels and real world objects like the net, there’s a lot in this tournament for sakuga fans to love.

This tournament is also by far the most realistic of any entry on this list, and not only because it doesn’t have any super powers, but because of its attention to detail in preparation, and its love of its own structure.  We’ll start with the focus on preparation.  We get to watch each player extensively as they train for this tournament and we’re allowed to view the results of this training through the subsequent matches in the tournament.  Peco trains rigorously to change his style, and learn new moves, which ultimately results in his unique style of pips in or pips out depending on side of paddle that he uses to overthrow the unbeatable Kazama.  This training also however causes his knee injury that almost ends his tournament and his career before it even begins.  Kong and Kazama both train rigorously against robots, both with date from perspective opponents.  Unfortunately they are underprepared for Peco who inevitably defeats them.  Though Kazama’s rigorous strength and body training do allow him dominant games before the match finally goes the way of Peco. Meanwhile on the opposite end of the bracket Smile’s training has taught him more about life than about ping pong and this is good because his side of the bracket is remarkably easier.  His only “challenge” comes by way of Sanada until his finals match vs. Peco arrives.  His training however prepares him for this matchup against Peco as he has already been forced to ask himself what he’ll do in the event that playing at his best might ruin his best friend’s career as a table tennis player before it has a chance to truly begin.  The arc also pays special attention to the structure of a tournament, acknowledging that it’s not entirely fair.  Take for example Kong; Kong is an extremely talented player who should have travelled far, but he is eliminated in the second round.  We know Kong has the potential for greatness, he is shown to be a pro player in the series’ ending scenes, but his failure to properly prepare for his tough bracket ultimately led to a disappointing and premature end to the tournament for him.  Matches occur simultaneously and this limits who can watch which matches.  The bracket layout is used to tell the story to both the audience and the viewers of the tournament in anime such as Manabu. There’s an attention to detail and respect for the structure of a tournament that this show possesses that is so often overlooked when the magic of TV allows you to skip over so many of these details in favor of plot convenience. This anime is a personal favorite, and this tournament arc is exemplary.  I could go on gushing, but this section is already far too long and it’s time to talk about the grand daddy of all tournaments. 

 #1: Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament

Could there be any doubt? This list wouldn’t be complete without the quintessential anime tournament. Yoshihiro Togashi makes his second appearance on this list with his predecessor to the highly acclaimed Hunter X Hunter series, Yu Yu Hakusho.  Yu Yu Hakusho seems to solve all its problems with a tournament.  Genkai needs to pass on her super powers? Tournament. Some evil dude wants to have demons invade the world and bring chaos? Tournament. Political unrest in the world of demons? Let’s throw a mother fucking TOURNAMENT!!!! It’s no surprise with this much practice in the art of shounen battle tournaments that the best would come from this storied franchise that helped define the genre.  The structure is simple and yet brilliant, teams of five compete against one another in front of a grand audience of demons and unsavory humans till they are either forced out of the ring, give up or are unable to fight.  Killing your opponent is not required, but it is encouraged. Other rules are left to the discretion of team captains.  This freedom in rules allows for the series to take some liberties with its fights and mix things up when appropriate.  Most of the fights are one on one fights between combatants, but a strong one vs. five performance from younger Toguro does a good job of building up hype and establishing threat levels.  This tournament really has it all, gorgeous visuals, excellent character growth, powering up, death, and the most epic fights in tournament anime history.  Each team has a cast of memorable characters, there’s a reason I’ll never forget Dr. Ichigaki Team, Team Masho, Team Uraotogi, and of course Team Rokuyukai.  

The series also has some of the earliest directorial work of famed Director, and my personal favorite, Akiyuki Shinbo who clearly establishes his style with strong colors and trippy visuals with scenes like the first use of the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, and Yusuke inheriting Genkai’s spirit wave.  While we’re here let’s just take a brief moment to appreciate the fact that the Dragon of the Darkness Flame is probably the coolest attack in any anime with the best name and the greatest visuals! Okay I’m going to stop fanboying about how bad ass and awesome Hiei is, sorry about that.  The Dragon of the Darkness Flame attack however does highlight what’s so great about this tournament; so much of this arc would be an amazing finale to any other series.  Yusuke vs. Jin the wind god could have capped any tournament, Genkai vs. the younger Toguro brother has more raw emotion and power in it than nearly in other fight and takes place entirely separate from tournament audiences, and of course who could forget the epic knife edge death match between Yusuke and Chu.  These fights would all work as finales to most tournaments because they last the entire length of the episode.  While other tournament anime rarely gives this much time to earlier bouts, nearly all of the battles with our protagonists last the full length of an episode.  Fights are only cut short in order to emphasize the overwhelming power of a single fighter over his or her opponent.  

If all of these fights could so perfectly conclude any tournament, how do you satisfying end that feels even greater than all of the previous match ups? The final fight between Yusuke and Toguro is a four episode brawl that goes beyond the constraints of tournament rules to a one on one fight to the death with nothing left on the table.  Both competitors initially hold back and continue to power up as the fight progresses until finally we’ve reached peek battle shounen.  Between Toguro’s percentage based power levels and Yusuke’s spiritual training weights, there’s a lot of hyping up to be sure, but there’s also a lot of payoff.  These two trade fists with impact.  This fight isn’t devoid of large energy attacks such as Yusuke’s signature spirit gun, but it honestly feels like a strong right hook from Toguro causes more damage so the fight sticks to its roots and continues to be about a punk kid fist fighting the biggest baddest thug to ever walk the earth.  This fight isn’t all muscle and no heart though; both fighters have their own convictions they’re fighting for, and the recent death of Genkai still weighs heavy on Yusuke’s heart.  Though emotions run rampant and we reach our climax when Kuwabara nobly sacrifices himself so that Yusuke can break down his emotional walls and finally fully give himself to something.  Yusuke has always done everything half assed, and that won’t cut it here, so he needs a reminder of why he’s fighting, and who he’s fighting for. In true shounen glory Yusuke understands the importance of his friends and the fact that his friends are the only thing he has ever been willing to give himself to entirely, he just believes this to be a discovery made too late because of his own failings and immaturity. He’s angry; angry with Toguro, angry at the world, but more than any of that he’s angry with himself.  

“A mulberry is a tree and Kuwabara is a man,” what excellent final words as Kuwabara marches forward to face his final moments in order to help his friend progress and grow.  As we all know these are not Kuwabara’s final moments and he does make a triumphant return, but the words are powerful and are not the only quote I remember distinctly from this tournament.  One of the most important quotes comes when Kuwabara is talking to Keiko about why they are at the tournament; he explains that while yes they do have to fight in order to save the world, that doesn’t mean they don’t’ want to fight.  Yusuke wants to fight Toguro, and Toguro wants to fight Yusuke, separate from the ramifications of what this final battle means for the rest of the world and demon society, the two simply want to beat each other up.  Yusuke looks up to Toguro, he knows he shouldn’t and he knows he’s evil, but really he can’t help himself.  Toguro has power, more power than any human Yusuke has ever seen. Yusuke lacks a father figure, or any semblance of an older male role model, and it’s easy to understand why Toguro so easily slots into that role.  Toguro on the other hand has spent his entire life questioning his decision. It’s a decision he made long ago, and he’s had to live with the consequences.  He’s not necessarily unhappy with his current state, but he’ll always wonder if his life would have been better had he chosen to remain human and pursue power without demonic influence.  The only way for him to know if his decision was a mistake is to fight a human with the power and training of his old team mate and friend Genkai. Yusuke was perfect for Toguro, the thing he had waited his entire life for, the answer to his questions and doubts about himself.  And Toguro is perfect for Yusuke, a glimpse into the abyss; a depiction of what’s possible if Yusuke truly stopped caring about everything besides his power and his fighting prowess.  Yusuke gets to look over the edge of the cliff and see clearly before deciding whether or not to dive in completely.  

In this way, both Yusuke and Toguro accomplish their goals in this tournament.  Yusuke saves the world and protects his friends and girlfriend he cares deeply for; he also learns about himself and what he values most. He even overcomes the overwhelming obstacle that had seemed an impossible hurdle to him back at the end of the spirit detective saga.  Toguro on the other hand can finally accept responsibility for his mistake and answer the doubts that had plagued him over the years.  He willingly partakes in his own form of reconciliation for his acts through eternal damnation.  The two battle loving fighters are also rewarded with the most legendary fight to ever grace any tournament.  

The tournament through its run accomplishes so much I haven’t even talked about.  Sakyo manages to be a threatening villain in a shounen battle series without ever having thrown a single punch, and even gets a short lived but touching romance with Kuwabara’s sister.  Koto is a walking talking rule book and shoutcast extraordinaire in the form of a battle loving fox girl announcer, putting all other tournament announcers to shame.  The very brief training sequence for our four protagonists sufficiently powers them up during the arc without wasting anytime.  Even Yusuke’s extended training in the cave with Genkai as he inherits or energy is perfectly paced, and contains some of the strongest visuals in the tournament (compliments of strong direction by Shinbo) despite the lack of any combat.  The whole damn tournament is a master class in how to properly execute every aspect of a tournament.  It doesn’t succeed at one thing, it succeeds at all things: gorgeous fights, strong thematic overtones, a wide array of memorable characters, deep introspective on our main cast both hero and villain, properly building and managing hype all while maintaining an enjoyable pace, strict rule structure and formatting of the tournament that allows for variance when necessary but never strays to far venturing into side game territory, underdogs becoming heroes.  There’s literally no part of this tournament I dislike and it’s hard to imagine a series will ever do a better tournament, but you know I’ll be there with deep in depth analysis when time comes.

Recap

Well we finally made it to the end of this list.  Thanks a ton if you stuck around to the end, it ended up being way longer than I had originally anticipated.  I’m encroaching on five thousand words before editing, and to be honest I won’t have much time to edit this because it was supposed to be up days ago.  I will definitely be revisiting this list at a later date to make edits and elaborate where necessary.  When I started working on this I thought to myself oh this will be fun, I love hate top tens and I know tournaments in anime better than I know myself so should be easy.  Well that was extremely dumb of me clearly, I had even planned a dishonorable mentions and honorable mentions for shows like Tenjou Tenge and Flame of Recca respectively but I really don’t have time to get into how disappointing Tenjou Tenge is, just know it’s very disappointing.  I said a post a week and this one unfortunately took too long, which means I’m going to push out a second blog post this week to make up for the lack of one last week.  Again thank you for making it this far and I’ll see you again on Friday! Hopefully this time with something much much shorter.  

[d-dumais-blog]

Keijo!!!!!!!! Review: I Like Big Butts & I Can Not Lie

Keijo is awesome! It’s insanely stupid and yet, somehow it succeeds at nearly everything it attempts. Keijo’s success is quite honestly an anomaly.  A quick glance at premise, studio, and staff would suggest this show should have been forgotten before it even finished airing, and yet somehow it stuck around and resonated with fans, particularly in the West, in a way that no one involved saw coming.  Its success in the West isn’t only a surprise to me, it appears to be a surprise to license holder Funimation that currently has NO merchandise available for purchase. No posters, no key chains, no announced bluray release.  So let’s talk about why it works and why I love it so damn much.

Let’s start with the basics; this show is not for everyone.  Keijo is a show about girls fighting each other in bathing suits using only their boobs and butts atop a variety of floats in an Olympic sized pool. Yes it is as dumb as it sounds. Yes there is an obscene amount of fan service focusing primarily on the girls’ butts.  I completely understand why some people might be turned off by its objectification of the women portrayed.  You might consider the show sexist, and you might consider me sexist for my enjoyment. A quick note on that, I’m a fan of all fan service both male and female.  I’m a straight male with a particular affinity for the female rear end, check the title of this review, but you bet I appreciate some well drawn men in various states of undress.  Anime has the opportunity to unrealistically portray human sexuality and I think artists are free to draw all manner of people however they’d like.  I hope this helps you to understand why I won’t be talking about the sexism debate that surrounded this show.

 Keijo’s fan service is excellent, and a show so focused on fan service would never succeed unless it was good, really good.  The show focuses on a few girls, but has a great ensemble cast full of all sorts of girls of varying shapes, sizes, age, and color.  Two points of clarification, there are very few different colored women, none of which are black, and that’s a bummer, and two while they vary in age all girls in the series are over eighteen years of age which we’ll discuss further down this post.  Back to the subject at hand, how to properly handle “tasteless fan service.” Keijo’s fan service is omnipresent, leaking into every scene.  This means it’s not a major shock when a butt fully envelopes the screen, it’s expected and not even that distracting.  This differs from a majority of shows that feel the need to randomly insert their characters in compromising positions so that the viewer gets a better look at their body.  It’s low hanging fruit but let’s compare this to Sword Art Online, it makes an easy comparison because pretty much everyone has seen it and most know its flaws.  SAO II episode one while introducing new female protagonist Xion pans up her body while she lays down in a sniper position.  The camera literally stops and does a quick zoom on her ass before finishing the shot.  It’s disgusting, it’s distracting, and it feels completely out of place in a show that intends to be about technology and coping with grief.  

The other most important thing about the fan service, aside from the age, is the fact that all of the girls are complicit in the fan service.  They might be shy, and a bit embarrassed, but they are never forced into a compromising situation against their will.  There seems to be this prevailing idea in anime that anime characters are cuter if they are pure, but we also need to see them without clothes on because of course we do.  This results in a number of horrible tropes that need to stop, the most prevalent, light novel guy walks in on light novel girl changing.  It’s almost always the establishing shot for their relationship over the series and I just hate it.  The other trope is somehow even worse, girls in fan service shows need to stop being raped! People generally consider Asuna’s rape scene in the second arc of Sword Art to be the beginning of the decline which is absurd considering Silica was sexually assaulted by a plant in the first twelve episodes and no one seemed to care.  It’s so gross and so often over looked.  There’s nothing wrong with a girl being okay showing her body, and if an anime character is going to be undressed, I hope that character is willfully undressed. This goes a long way to help make your characters actual characters and not simply objects.  I think the girls are surely still being objectified, but there’s a difference between looking at a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and looking at leaked celebrity nude photos.  The context matters and Keijo gets the context right.  Our secondary protagonist Miyata even admits that she started Keijo because she wanted a cute swimsuit made custom for her and I think that’s something all of the viewers would also like!

 This show did far better in the west than in Japan, and that’s largely thanks to the way it was adapted. Xebec isn’t exactly known for its great adaptations; in fact I’d argue they generally suck.  Their best known for To Love Ru and Shaman King; two shows that don’t do a lot to improve upon their source material.  Most recently they were responsible for the horribly bad Clockwork Planet.  Apparently that’s actually a pretty good light novel, which should be no surprise considering it’s written by Kamiya Yuu, the celebrated author of No Game No Life. I can’t speak to the actual quality of the Clockwork Planet books because the first episode of the show turned me off of anything that has to do with it.  Point being adaptation is not a strength of Xebec, hell Xebec doesn’t honestly have a ton of strengths aside from their willingness to get smuttier than other studios if that’s your thing.  

This is entirely different in Keijo, the adaptation is immaculate, and makes it far more appealing to a western audience.  For starters, the anime skips the entire first arc where our two female leads are still in high school and under the age of 18.  The girls first appear in their bathing suits in the anime after entering the Keijo training school.  In the manga there are multiple battles that take place before this while the girls are learning Keijo for the first time at the stadium event shown at the start of the first episode.  This arc is also gross for western fans for a number of reasons on top of age.  For some reason at this point in the manga guys are allowed to compete in these non official Keijo matches.  Guys of course only compete for the opportunity to rub up against girls in swimwear.  Girls who, I’ll reiterate again because it’s important, at this point are underage.  There’s also a ton of guys in this manga, which is weird considering there’s really only one in the anime and he’s less of a creep more of a sports fan.  The men in the Keijo manga come to watch and gamble on Keijo and are depicted as perverse onlookers.  Nozomi’s teacher is one such male who has a gambling addiction and comments on his underage student’s physique more than once. The anime made the right decision removing him from the series.  This first arc also has an extremely uncomfortable and short lived love interest in the form of Nozomi’s brother.  They might actually be cousins, the translation I read wasn’t exactly clear on that, but still something western audiences always frown upon.  His feelings are never reciprocated by our star Nozomi, but the whole situation is uncomfortable, especially since he’s eager to jump in and battle her in her first mock Keijo match.  There’s also more preliminary try outs the anime totally skips and that’s to the show’s benefit because again the girls are underage, and it cuts out a plethora of characters that don’t matter at all.  The adaptation also does a great job with its references, choosing series that are particularly popular in western fandom. Attack on Titan and Fate/Stay Night are popular around the world, but really struck a chord in the states and Keijo very obviously references these shows multiple times to great effect. Other references to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, One Piece, and Dragon Ball are all also greatly appreciated and largely absent from the manga.  

Keijo performed very well in weekly viewership numbers, both legally and illegally, but was quickly written off by most.  Everyone who watched it seemed to enjoy it, but wrote it off as “just another fan service show” and that’s unfair.  It stands out among its peers, and should be celebrated as such.  It was ranked the fifth most popular show according to Myanimelist, beating out shows with more popular appeal in pedigree like Occultic;Nine, Izetta the Last Witch, and season 2 of Ajin.  It also beat out several truly spectacular shows in Sound Euphonium season 2, Flip Flappers, and the fifth season of Natsume’s Book of Friends. This wouldn’t have happened if it was “just another fan service show.” If you’re still in need of proof that season had just another an service show, it was Brave Witches, a fairly tasteless follow up to a reasonably successful show about young flying military girls who don’t wear pants for some unknown reason.  People talk about Keijo as if it’s like Brave Witches, and no one talks about Brave Witches because no one cares.  It might be easy to right it off if you don’t watch a lot of fan service shows, but let me tell you Keijo is special.  I’ve lived in Trash Mountain for some time and am an expert in awful anime fan service, please don’t compare Keijo to that garbage; it’s far too good for that. Keijo is excellent! End of statement, no caveats no excuses, it’s really great.  The show is easily the best thing director Takahashi Hideya has ever helmed. It’s arguably the best series Xebec has ever produced solo, inarguably the best this decade.  I love Keijo, and I hope someday fans look back on it with the respect it earned.  

 8.5/10

#keijo #keijo!!!!!!!! #anime #fan service

[d-dumais-blog]

Writing About my Hobbies

Writing about my hobbies has always interested me.  I opened my first Xenga blog before entering high school and only posted there three times, mostly about 3D Sonic games and my adventures with my chao.  In high school I’d attempt running a blogspot for a while where I archived my journeys through RPGs until League of Legends totally ruined my life and ate up every waking moment of my life.  Now at 24 I attempt this crazy fever dream at all, and I think you to the small amount going on this adventure with me.  I like to think now that I’ve grown older I’ve also grown more mature and hopefully a little better at this.  I’ve spent the last few weeks traveling to Los Angeles and Dallas and back again because of E3 and Anime Expo and was given a lot of advice in that time.  I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned, what I’ve been told, and what I plan to do here in the near future.  

 All of this is ultimately with the goal of getting some stuff published online! To be clear, I’ve been published online before, unpaid and unaccredited so I won’t link out to those; really what I want is my name on a by line.  That’s really the final goal here, maybe I become a regular contributor, or maybe I just do a small amount of free lance work.  I do not think writing about anime and video games will ever be a full time job for me, and if it does become a job that would be great, but really I’d probably be making less than I am making now, and less than I hope to make in the future.  This has just always been a hobby and a good creative outlet for me, since I’m far better at writing than I am at drawing.  It wouldn’t hurt to make a few extra bucks doing something I love doing, but as stated, this was successful if I get a by line on a website I read and respect.  Bonus points if I get to do any cool interviews or press badges at a con or something? That sounds pretty alright too.  

 With all that out of the way, let’s start with some basics, and I know I’ve mentioned some of this before but let’s try again! I’m going to post every week!!! I’ll need to figure out the best day to post for me personally, so it will be posting on different days for a bit, but the ultimate goal is to pick a day and stick to it! I know I’ve said that on ehre before and then disappeared but cons made posting difficult, and I didn’t think it made much sense to post my Keijo review immediately before seeing the Keijo panel because of the possibility of the panel changing some of my opinions, it didn’t look forward to that Keijo review soon.  I’ll be grounded for a while, spent too much money to do too much traveling over the next few months so it’s only Afest in my hometown to worry about.  As a result all my posts on here won’t be as well researched as others, I don’t have 10 hours every week to dedicate to researching the state of the LDP in the Japanese Diet, even though it’s extremely fascinating right now with preparations for the Olympics and current trade deficits, but that’s another topic for another day.  I’ll do my best to keep the quality of writing high, and any non opinion based statements will be based in some amount of research, I just can’t publish a research paper every seven days.  I was thinking of aiming for one research piece a month, but we’ll have to see how posting once a week fits into my work grind and such since I do work full time for my real job.  

Second, I’ll be making a second twitter page to spam links at all day everyday! I’ll still post on my personal page for anything I’m particularly proud of, but I don’t like spamming my feed with my writing and I should probably try and pick up a few more readers; shout out to the tens of you (22 counts as tens!) that have dropped by on my Gundam post.  The secondary twitter page will give me the ability to be super annoying and post about my stuff all the time without flooding my feed for people that follow me and aren’t interested in my opinions on the most recent Precure.  Creating a separate twitter page will also force me to come up with a better name for this thing because I honestly still hate the name. Naming things is really hard.  

 Next up, I’ll be changing the type of content I’ll be posting here.  I still hate that word and it feels wrong to type it without a # beforehand, but you get the idea.  The content will be changing for a number of reasons.  First, as I’ve stated before, I can’t post a research paper or political diatribe every week as much as I’d love to.  Also apparently if I want people to read my stuff and want to potentially get paid for it I should start aiming for 500 words.  That one is going to be tough for me, hell this update is over 700 words right now so you can tell I struggle with concise thoughts.  I’m going to try posting shorter pieces that might just be an episode review or something? I haven’t exactly figured that part out, but we’ll see and figure it out together!

 My first regular post will be early next week! I’ll be sharing my thoughts on Keijo!!!!!!!! Spoilers, I really love that show and it made my personal top ten list of anime from last year.  It’s another longer piece so we haven’t moved into the 500 word posts yet so hope you’re ready for some in depth opinions on shounen girls butt battles.  See you all next week and, ideally, every week after that for the foreseeable future.  There’s a ton more advice I’ve been given and more I hope to change about this little blog, but this should give you a pretty good idea of what I hope to accomplish here.  

[d-dumais-blog]

Update on when this will be updating!

SO I know in my first post I said I’d be updating weekly and I would still really like to do that, it simply wasn’t possible the last few Fridays due to personal reasons and won’t be possible in the near future for various reasons such as AX (see you there?) so I’m looking for a different day to post, trying out Wednesday today and will attempt to post next Wednesday as well while away at E3, please bare with me while I figure things out and we’ll have a consistent schedule soon!

[d-dumais-blog]

Mecha Anime is Nationalist and Japanese Propaganda

Today we’ll be diving into the writing of the Japanese constitution, the state of the Japanese military, and sweet sweet giant robots! That’s right, your favorite Gundam series is really all about the comparative strength of Japan as a global super power in a post World War II political climate.  I’m looking at you Mobile Fighter G Gundam!   The basis here starts with understanding that art rarely if ever exists in a vacuum.  There would be no punk rock movement without something to rebel against, and there is no mecha anime without Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution.

We’ll begin with an extremely simple look back on Japanese history, which I highly advise you supplement with additional reading.  During World War II Japan aimed to expand beyond its island borders in order to conquer more of the world.  Throughout this time they invaded into parts of Korea, South East Asia, and China.  Japan also attempted expansion eastward through the Pacific Ocean which ultimately lead to United States involvement in the conflict after an attack on Pearl Harbor.  This short lived conquest is an extremely fascinating point in Japan’s history that shaped a number of subcultures ; I’d like to circle back later to discuss some roots of Japanese racism here in regards to the Korean Hate Wave, but that’ll have to wait for another day because it’s fully deserving of its own post later.  The important thing here is that Japan lost the war, the previous government needed to be replaced, and the winning Western governments, in particular the United States, were going to help shape and create this new government.  In 1946 while under U.S. occupation the Japanese Constitution was written and ratified.  

Specifically we are discussing Article 9, more often referred to as the peace clause, so let’s read its text directly.  

(1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. (2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

The attempt here was to completely neuter Japan’s ability to go to war; instead if Japan was ever under threat allied military forces such as the UN would step in and protect Japan. Under these laws the Japanese people would never from an armed forces, but that clearly didn’t last because the SDF is currently among the largest standing armies in the world.  In the 1950s the U.S. occupying forces were Japan’s only defense against foreign threat and they were largely being relocated to the Korean War.  The U.S. chose to trust the leaders of Japan (largely because the U.S. put those people in power) and the SDF was formed.  The biggest problem wasn’t the approval of western powers, but rather the Japanese people.  It’s important to remember here that Japan lost the war and lost hard.  Over two million soldiers died not including those that died due to atomic bombs, and Japan was accused of several war crimes. So now we have the perfect setting, Japan is technically barred from building traditional military forces, and the people lack a military force they can rally behind; enter giant robots.

Giant robot anime, more commonly referred to as mecha anime is awesome and I love it dearly! Great mecha designs, deep political intrigue, expansive universes, mecha has it all; especially Sunrise Studios responsible for the Gundam franchise and their masterpiece work Neon Genesis Evangelion.  I grew up on these shows, starting with a deep appreciation of giant robots fighting each other in gorgeous 2D animation till later initially sparking my interest in global politics leading to my studies in school.  There’s a long history of mecha anime with largely varying degrees of success.  There’s a mecha show for every situation and every fan, well every fan that can get down with giant robots and I sincerely hope you do.  Like high school anime? Check out Gundam Wing! Need Shakespeare in space? How about Gundam Seed? Really into pop idol music? How about Macross.  Need a totally generic harem with a  bland protagonist, you’d probably like IS Infinite Stratos (please don’t actually go watch this show it’s the only bad one I’m listing and I’m only listing it to show there’s a mecha show for everyone and everything).  Really into model kits, and if you’re really into mecha I KNOW you are, give Gundam Build Fighters Try a chance.  Even recently we’ve had some modern classics in the genre.  Curious what happens when sweet jazz meets amazing mecha design and control, Gundam Thudnerbolt was the best anime of 2016 and I highly recommend! The most recent main entry in the Gundam Franchise, Iron Blooded Orphans, is a great lengthy watch full of compelling characters and a plot that dives in on the effects war has on a child soldier.  My point in all this is one to recommend some great shows for you to potentially go watch, and tow to clarify that not all mecha anime is propaganda, though I’d argue that even if the focus of the show is on something completely unrelated like wish fulfillment fantasy, mecha anime at its core is about depicting a powerful and just Japan.

Mecha anime wears its political influences on its sleeves and it only takes the smallest amount of attention to realize some of the most obvious parallels. Let’s start with a very specific, very obvious example: Mobile Fighter G Gundam.  Mobile Fighter G Gundam is one of my favorites despite being campy, and let’s be clear it is EXTREMELY campy.  The show focuses on a tournament (TOURNAMENT ARC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) where all the new countries founded in Space such as Neo America and Neo China send giant robots down to earth to fight amongst each other for political dominance in the next election.  Yes the premise makes no sense, why would government elections be determined by fighting robots? I don’t know.  Is it cool? Fuck yeah it is! It’s freakin’ sweet!  Our protagonist in this show is clearly the hero of Japan, a cool katana wielding badass that saves kids and gets the girl.  The stereotypes in this show are comical, the American robot is a boxer from Brooklyn whose robot shoulder pads turn into giant robot boxing gloves, oh and his mech rides a flying jet skateboard from a football stadium to his fight that takes place in the streets of Manhattan, at which point our hero’s mech literally erupts from within the statue of liberty before defeating American hero Jiminy Crocket and teaching the pilot some important lessons about the importance of a fair fight.  Yeah, it’s honestly this obvious sometimes, like with Code Geass where Japan is the only nation capable of standing up against the Holy Britannia Empire after more than half the world has already fallen under their control.  Code Geass has the added benefit of inevitably being about mechs vs nukes where the bad guys, of course, use nukes (which are called fleija warheads and act slightly differently but for all intents and purposes they are just anime nukes that don’t leave radiation around.

A more subtle detail, well more subtle than Jiminy Crocket, is the fact that the good guys in mecha anime never use nuclear weapons.  It’s reasonable to assume they exist in most of these fictional futures because their technology is clearly far beyond our own and we developed nuclear weapons back in the 1940s.  This is because even the hawks of Japan, those in government hoping for stronger military, are strongly opposed to nuclear weapons because of the devastation caused to the country.  If even the most hardcore of military supporters are against nukes, it’s pretty apparent that the public that is generally against all war would also be strongly opposed to nuclear weapons.  The good guys are often drawn with shades of grey, and they are shown to be powerful and destructive, but the good guys (Japan) would absolutely never resort to something as inhuman as nuclear weapons.  

 I hope this helps you have a bit better understanding of the climate within which mecha anime was born, and I hope you have a deeper appreciation for the genre because of it! Just because something is nationalist in it snature doesn’t make it bad, it’s just an important thing to know about. Also next tiem someone tells you that GATE was propaganda remind them that show is garbage and anime has been Japanese propaganda for years, GATE just rips off other works as it does with its entirely generic characters and cliché fantasy world! Suck it GATE fans

#mecha #gundam #japan #politics

[d-dumais-blog]

Political Climate of Persona 5

Persona 5 is awesome and I love it.  The deep systems, the extremely well balanced combat, the gorgeous sense of style, and don’t even get me started on that music; it’s currently playing in my ear buds while writing this.  I love just about everything about this game, and based on reviews, so do a lot of other people.  One thing that seems to be lacking from all these reviews however, is proper analysis of the primary antagonist of the game, prior to the true ending.  At this point I should mention that I will be discussing some Persona 5 spoilers.  I won’t mention the anything about the true ending, but I will be detailing and spoiling the identity of a primary antagonist, so if you care about spoilers, I recommend playing the game first.  

 With that out of the way, let’s talk about Masayoshi Shido, the corrupt politician that is so easy to hate.  His palace is excellent, and the multi stage boss encounter is fantastic, but those aren’t what I’m interested in talking about today.  Instead I’d like to examine the cultural inspirations for Shido, and how this game shines a spotlight on real world issues within Japanese politics. To understand this we’re going to have to do a rather brief history lesson on modern Japanese politics, so bare with me and we’ll get through it together.  

 First, we’ll need to understand a bit more about the political parties in Japan, and how they interact with one another.  The strongest and most dominant party in Japan is the Liberal Democratic Party, which I’ll be referring to as the LDP from here on out.  The Japanese political structure is very similar to Western governments; the West played a major role in rewriting the Japanese constitution post World War II so this is by no means a coincidence.  There are two houses in the legislative branch, or as it’s known in Japan, the Diet.  The LDP controls both houses, and as a result elected the head of the party, Shinzo Abe, to be Prime Minister.  The judiciary is the only branch of government not controlled by the LDP, which we’ll get back to.  Despite holding the majority, and controlling nearly all facets of Japanese government, the LDP isn’t well liked by everyone.  Well that’s actually an understatement; the party has less than 35% support.  To those unfamiliar with parliamentary systems this might sound crazy, but the simplest explanation is that in Japan there are more than two political parties, and the government operates on a first past the post system.  This means that even if the district does not vote majority LDP, as long as the LDP garnered more votes than the other parties in that district, they win the whole district and the other parties get no representation.  This compounded with the fact that Japanese districts make little to no sense has allowed the LDP to remain dominant.  Elaborating on why the districts are so horrifically drawn would take an entire report all its own, but to say it simply, this is not Gerrymandering, and the districts aren’t’ misshapen, they just don’t care how many people are in each district.  As a result Tokyo voters are worth about half as much as a rural voter, I realize this sounds crazy and unconstitutional, but that’s the system and we’ll get into why it still exists later.  The most important point here is that despite a majority of citizens disliking the LDP, they have maintained a stranglehold on the government since 2012, and only lost power for three years between 2009 and 2012.  

Now we know that the LDP is in power, and we have some idea as to how, but we don’t know why, and we don’t know who the LDP is.  The ladder question will help answer the former, so let’s start there.  Despite the name, the Liberal Democratic Party, the party is actually a conservative party.  I realize that this makes very little sense in the West, but in Japan the liberal parties are, for the most part, all socialist parties.  The LDP is actually the party of big business, with several big name backers attempting to protect their own interests from socialism.  You know who else wants to defend against socialism? That’s right it’s 1950s United States! We had just gotten finished installing a new government in Japan and had no intention of letting it succumb to the evil that is democratically elected socialism.  The CIA spent a lot of money bank rolling the party in its early years to ensure that capitalism won the day and would have the resources to sustain itself for years to come.  The Americans weren’t particularly interested in ensuring that the ruling party was just or above reproach, they simply backed the largest not socialist party. As a result we have the LDP of today, a party that, despite popular opinion, controls nearly all of Japanese government, and one that historically has thrived on corruption.

At this point we should briefly discuss the period of time between 2009 and 2012 when the LDP was not in power.  At some point the people became fed up with the government and finally elected another party.  Unfortunately for Japanese citizens, none of these parties were able to hold power for any significant amount of time.  There was a new Prime Minister every year and Japan suffered as a result.  Even if the people disliked and distrusted the LDP, it at least offered stability.  In these years between 2009 and 2012, at this point I’ll remind you that during this time Persona 5 was in development and about to receive its first delays, Japan was left out of many international discussions.  It’s hard to be taken seriously at the table when everyone else assumes you’ll be gone by the time the next meeting rolls around.  This was embarrassing to the Japanese, and this wounded pride helped bring the LDP and Shinzo Abe back into power at the end of 2012. Understanding the sentiment of the Japanese people, that even if things are bad under the LDP they would be worse under someone else, is paralleled in Persona 5.  After defeating Shido, which at this point you might realize is very similar to Shinzo, the people still think that he’s the best option, not because he is good, but because everything else is likely worse.  

 This period prior to the LDP’s return to power also saw the beginning and initial delay in Persona 5’s development and the political climate can help shine a light on that.  In the years prior to 2011 Persona 5 was in pre development, but after the release of Catherine in early 2011 the team began full development on Persona 5.  We know thanks to interviews with Katsura Hashino that the original plan for Persona 5 was to travel the world on a journey of self discovery, but changed his mind after the Tohkou earthquake in 2011. In an interview with 4gamer translated by USgamer “I felt that at once, my mood about Japan had changed as I rethought things, I wanted to refocus on Japan rather than direct my feelings to the outside world.” During this time, when Hashino wanted to place a spotlight on the issues of Japan, the government was at its weakest in years, and the LDP was on the rise again. It’s no wonder the game faced multiple delays, as the team scrapped prior planning in favor of focusing on more contemporary issues.  There are still some signs of this original game seen in the final product in Futaba’s palace and the school trip.  

 After the failures of opposition parties the LDP was able to reclaim power and considerably reshaped the political climate in Japan.  The party accomplished this through a rather strange merger with one of the larger socialist parties.  This sounds bizarre based on what we know about the LDP, but here’s where the party’s teeth really start to show.  The socialist parties were tired of losing, and assumed forming a coalition with the largest most successful party would allow them the opportunity to at least sit at the table and be involved in government.  The problem, the socialists underestimated just how ruthless the LDP is. The LDP is so powerful that most political discourse in Japan isn’t about party versus party, but factions within the LDP party fighting among themselves.  When   the socialists joined the party, they weren’t attached to any strong faction and were quickly drowned out.  Shinzo, current prime minister and head of the strongest faction, invented menial tasks for socialists that had rallied to his side and left them out of real policy discussions.  The former head of one socialist party is now the head of the Ministry of Rural Redevelopment, a program with an extremely small budget and no real bearing on policy, both foreign and domestic.  Any real position of power is given to a friend or family member of Shinzo; he has gathered his elite and protects them.  Sound familiar?

 This all sounds horribly corrupt, and the parallels between Shinzo and Shido are alarming, but it’s not all bad news.  The courts fully recognize the problems and have declared that things are currently “In a state of unconstitutionality,” but not unconstitutional.  This sounds like semantics, but the distinction is important.  If they declare any part of the current system, be it the horrible districts or the dynastic nature of powerful positions, as unconstitutional, then the LDP gets to rewrite the laws, and currently they won’t rewrite it to be any fairer.  There is however a new faction garnering power and support within the LDP.  Yuriko Koike is the current governor of Tokyo and has as of late gained a lot of popularity and notoriety, making Time’s persons of the year list last year.  She has gained some popularity with a few older members of the LDP who have less to worry about than most, and is looking to make a push for prime minister.  She has not been coy about her intentions, and is more than willing to go after members of her own party she feels are in the wrong.  She isn’t a rebellious teen with a stylish mask and rowdy friends, but she is Japan’s hope for a hero.  

 I know this article was a bit long and I want to thank anyone that made it this far.  It was my first blog post in years, and I spent a lot of time researching, it was hard to decide what to cut, especially with no editor.  I’m hoping that the next one is shorter, and I hope you continue to come back and read more! Next week we’ll be diving into article nine of the Japanese constitution, the peace clause, and its impacts on mecha and military anime and manga over the years, and how things for the first time might actually change.  

 Feedback is always welcome you can reach out to me on twitter @Dillon_DuMais or by email [email protected]

#Persona5