The first anime series I can remember watching I don’t actually remember watching, I just remember playing it in kindergarten afterwards, in what must’ve been 1980. The series was the original Gatchaman, or rather the Dutch dub of the American reworking Battle of the Planets, Strijd der Planeten, with the heroic adventures of the Giefors team. I think I mostly played either the princess or that one fat dude, setting up some expectations for later life.
That’s obviously long before I ever heard of anime, or even Japanimation as it would still be called once I did learn about it, sometime in the later half of the eighties. Before that it was all just cartoons, mostly dubbed into Dutch and often edited for a children’s audience, not that different from all the French or English or Canadian co-productions that we would watch back then. That was in a time when we only had two national channels in the Netherlands, no cable and if you’re lucky and lived close enough to the border, perhaps you’d get a Belgian or German channel too. I remember one glorious Spring afternoon when conditions were clear enough to receive BBC one for five minutes. It was cricket.
For the better part of two decades now I’ve been following Andrew Weiss, first for his comics blogging, then for the mix of insightful commentary on pop culture and autobiographical examination of same. One of the things I envy in his blogging is his dedication to long series of posts on a single subject and ability to see them through even if they take years to complete. One of those series was about albums that mean something, looking at the circumstances in which some of his favourites albums were purchased. When I started thinking about doing a series about the anime that influenced me it was this that came to mind as a template. I’m not sure yet how regular this feature will appear or how many installments it will take, but I’ll try and do it in a rough sort of chronological order.
The best recent isekai series is about an enlightened Japanese incel who gets reincarnated as a slime in a fantasy world and teaches all the grateful natives how to live in harmony with each other even though they’re different species.
Is this a fantasy of colonialism? Well, it’s not a million miles away from something like Tarzan. As you know Bob, isekai is a rather popular fantasy subgenre, where the protagonist either gets transported from modern day Japan to a fantasy world, or gets reincarnated into it after dying in an accident (usually courtesy of Truck-kun) or something similar. Sometimes they’re summoned, sometimes it’s an accident and if they’re reincarnated, it’s usually as a reward or apology for dying. Sometimes it’s a light hearted power fantasy, where protag-kun defeats all sorts of threats without breaking a sweat while collecting a harem of grateful fantasy girls, sometimes it’s a grim and gritty revenge fantasy where his seemingly thrash power is revealed to be game breaking because of how cleverly he applies it while seeking revenge on those that done him wrong and defeat the evil overlord menacing the world (the harem is still there of course). Sometimes it’s much more innocent; two recent examples where both of restaurants being transported to a fantasy world and teaching the natives about the wonders of Japanese food. But through all of it runs an imperialist, colonialist streak, as this Pause and Select video argues:
Sometimes this is very obvious, as in Gate, which starts with a dimensional, well, gate opening up in Tokyo through which a fantasy army emerges to attack the city. After initial panic the police and Japanese Self Defence Forces rally and defeat it, with an expeditionary force sent to the other side of the gate to prevent a second attack. A series of battles there results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of imperial soldiers for little loss on the Japanese side. Once a base is established, the series follows the protagonist, who also helped foil the initial attack on a series of what are essentially hearts and minds missions. A comparison with the US War on Terror and its continuing occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is obvious. Especially when it quickly becomes clear Japan would very much like to ‘develop’ the new ‘Special Region’.
But usually it’s a bit more subtle, just the idea of a random Japanese person being better at being a hero than the actual inhabitants of fantasyland. That’s colonialism in a nut shell, familiar from Tarzan and decades of American science fiction. The latter makes for a good comparison. The Campbellian/Heinlein science fiction of the socalled Golden Age was cheerfully imperialistic, manly men conquering the stars and engaging in the occasional bit of genocide to make the universe safe for Anglosaxons. Coming from a country still high on manifest destiny it was no surprise that alien races were there only to be conquered or pitied.
Modern Japanese isekai fantasy isn’t this aggressive in its colonial fantasies, as that Pause and Select video explores. It’s more about ‘soft power’, about Japanese culture being superior to the indigenous cultures of fantasyland, as seen in the two “restaurants trapped in fantasyland” series (Isekai Shokudou & Isekai Nobu) we’ve seen the past two years. In both the Japanese food is so obviously more tasty than the fare the fantasylanders are used to even though both are bog standard restaurants serving bog standard food. The latter series was actually commissioned to promote the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Cool Japan in Another World. The most blatant example of this Cool Japan imperialism was 2013’s Outbreak Company, where a shut-in otaku is given the task of selling anime culture to a newly discovered secondary world in a government sponsored attempt to ‘conquer’ this world through culture.
Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken, which we started with, is less blatantly otaku pandering and therefore more interesting as an example of soft colonialism. Our protagonist Rimuru is a fairly average isekai protagonist, stabbed to death defending his friends/co-workers from an attack, reincarnated as a slime who has the power to swallow up bigger monsters and copy their power. It’s a classic power fantasy, the meek looking person (or slime) being much more powerful than they look. When he encounters a group of goblins driven from their home by dire wolves, he takes their side, takes out the leader of the wolves and becomes the ruler of both sets of monsters. From that humble beginning he builds up a country where all sorts of monsters can live together in peace under his benevolent dictatorship. It’s a very seductive sort of fantasy and I can’t say I don’t like it, certainly moreso than something like Goblin Slayer, but it remains a colonialist fantasy.
Nothing makes this as clear as the naming scenes. It’s a bit of a fantasy gaming cliche that ordinary monsters are nameless while named monsters are more powerful. And indeed, the low level monster tribes Rimuru encounters are almost entirely nameless, untill he sets out to name them, at a cost to his magic. The results are spectacular, with ordinary goblins becoming super powered and much more human looking. This repeats with every race Rimuru names: the men always become buff slabs of beef while the women gain bouncy bouncy chests, even when they’re lizard people. The unnamed people gain recognition and value only when named by the colonial authorities. Before that, they’re just a mess of small fry.
As an European, this sort of attitude is not new in the stories I’ve consumed, just the way in which this Japanese variant differs from what I’ve read in French comics or seen in American movies. A series like Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken is fairly innocuous in context, if patronising towards fictional species and with an attitude that can be traced back to Japan’s WWII era imperialism. Few of us do better here in the west. It’s not vile like Goblin Slayer or Shield Hero which wallow in resentment, but it does pay to keep the background of its particular narrative in mind. It’s not necessarily bad to watch this sort of series, as long as you acknowledge its less savoury aspects.
Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai is a manga about two supposed super geniuses in love with each other, who each want to make the other confess to them because to confess is to lose. I tried to read it but it was the cringiest of cringe comedy and I’m not good with that. The anime series so far however has been a lot easier to handle. The presence of pure cinnamon roll Chika here helps a lot. Unlike the two protagonists, she has no side for her and her innocence completely ends up destroying most of their intricate schemes to trap one another. And this ending to episode 3 is the most addictive I’ve seen since Hisone to Maso-tan‘s. A brilliant piece of animation too from a studio most people consider workman like at best.
Each episode so far has had two to three little stories in which student council president Shirogane Miyuki tries to get his vice president Shinomiya Kaguya to confess to him while she tries to do the same to him. All while their poor secretary looks on in bewilderment. It’s usually Kaguya who loses and starts blushing, which is cute but slightly annoying; it seems unfair to have only Kaguya lose. Even if she blushes cutely. Comedy wise it’s all a bit meh. I haven’t really had to laugh too much. My main complaint is that it’s not absurd enough, a bit pedestrian, especially when you compare it to some of the comedies from last year, like e.g Hinamatsuri. The romance is a bit stuck as well because of course the whole gimmick is that neither of these two can ever admit to their feelings and their schemes will always backfire. Nevertheless I like it enough to continue watching.
Speaking of cringe comedy, Ueno-san wa Bukiyou, about a scientific genius who tries to get her club mate to fall in love with her using dubious scientific experiments. Like in the first episode, where she attempts to get him to drink her (scientifically filtered) urine. Gods know why she bothers though because Tanaka is an insensitive dullard. Again, not something that’s really that funny but it’s short and interesting enough to keep my attention.
I was prepared to give Girly Airforce a chance, despite its utterly boring premise and mediocre looking animation, until this sorry excuse for a CGI Mig-21 showed up:
And that is clearly a Mig-21 and not say one of the Chengdu J-7 variants that the Chinese airforce is actually still flying. A minor detail perhaps, but telling. When I first heard this I thought this was going to be like that fictional series from Shirobako, where you have a bunch of cute girls flying interesting planes defending the world against alien invasion. Well, that’s sort of what’s going on here, but a) the planes are butt ugly and a bit boring and b) the girls are actually AIs that need the protagonist’s manly touch to work properly and now I’ve lost all interest. Dude’s an asshole too, spending the entire first episode screaming his head off at everybody and anybody about how he wants to fly. There’s just nothing to keep me here, nothing that hasn’t been done before and better.
One day, fifth grader Hinata Hoshino brings her friend Hana Shirosaki to her house, and Hinata’s sister Miyako, a college student, falls in love with with Hana at first sight. Miyako manages to get along with Hana somehow, but her clumsy behavior and shyness, makes Hana wary. Even so, Hana gradually opens up to Miyako, who wants to become closer to her.
It’s another pedo yuri series, where a cute little girl is menaced by an adult woman overcome by her cuteness, just like last season. This series is not as over the top as that was, which I’m not sure is an improvement to be honest, making it all more realistically creepy. A shame so much talent and effort is put into something like this. Can’t we just have a proper yuri series, with actual consenting adults falling in love, rather than this pedoshit?
