Anime

Slime versus Slayer

Anime
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This is going to be a tad unfair, as I’ve only watched the first episode of Goblin Slayer, but I think it’s still interesting to compare its worldview as shown in that first episode with that of Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken. Both after all are variations on the standard Japanese RPG inspired fantasy story and its trappings, but their politics are quite different. Whereas in the first goblins are depicted as mindless raping monsters, the second has them as people to protect and nurture.

Goblin Slayer: ethnic cleansing is okay

What I despised about Goblin Slayer was not just that it used rape as a cheap way to create drama in its first episode, but what that was in service off: ethnic cleansing. And it doesn’t matter that were talking about a fictional species here, because it draws on some very real world history. A race of insatiable rapists lusting after your women has been used against everybody from Black people in slavery America to Jews in Nazi Germany (and long before). The idea that the only way you can deal with that sort of people by violence and indiscrete murder? Also not new. Goblin Slayer justifies it by saying that this is just how goblins are, being all male they need to rape women of other species to reproduce, their innate nature being such they have no choice. But all that is just bollocks that the author made up to justify having a jolly old tale of genocide. We like that sort of thing in science fiction and the list of excuses we find to justify genocide is impressive; nothing gets an sf writer’s blood pumping faster. Just in case you thought Goblin Slayer was unique in this.

Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken

By contrast Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken does something much more interesting with its goblins. As with Slayer, goblins in the fantasy world it’s set in are some of the weakest monsters, always threatened by more powerful ones or humans. The only thing less impressive is a slime, but our protagonist slime is no ordinary slime, but a reincarnation of a virgin salaryman whose dying wish was for his friend to erase the porn on his computer. As per usual with this sort of story he gets a boat load of special powers and blatant cheats and he ends up taking the goblins under his wing as their protector. He becomes their ruler, evolves them by giving them names and helps upgrade their living situation. Other monsters too join him and his protection, with the main plot just having kicked in a few episodes ago as an invasion force of orcs is threatening to destroy everything.

It’s a much more positive portrayal than Goblin Slayer — even that evil horde of orcs is brain washed and under a magic spell, not inherently evil. Yet it’s still a colonial fantasy, of the White Man (well, Japanese Man in this case) coming to the aid of the noble suffering savages and teaching them the wonders of civilisation. Therefore, while it is more benign than Goblin Slayer, it’s still something not to watch uncritically. It’s still rooted in old habits and ideas, still a bit orientalist. It is possible to enjoy either of these series — and I certainly enjoy the slime anime — while being aware of these problems. It’s when you don’t notice it that there’s danger. For me personally the rape justifies genocide elements of Goblin Slayer are vile enough not to want to watch more, while with Slime-kun the white saviour parts are overshadowed by the sheer novelty of seeing several fantasy races work and live together in a way that rejects the social darwinist mindset of so many other fantasy stories.

This is the fourth post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: more trans zombies.

Marco Polo was the first weeb

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La Japonaise: a satirical painting by Claude Monet

As with a very many things we think are new, weeaboes have actually existed long before we had a name for them. As I’m sure you’ve learned at school at some point, when Columbus ‘discovered’ America he was actually looking for a quicker route to Asia; but even Columbus wasn’t the first weeb. That would’ve been Marco Polo, the first ever westerner who travelled to a far away exotic Asian country to come home and write books about it, the fourteenth century equivalent of the American college student going to teach English for a few years in Yokohama. More seriously, Europe and later America have always been fascinated by the ‘exotic’ Far East, have always sought there for something we don’t have ourselves and arguably anime fans are just the modern version of this.

And as with a lot of things, what we get from this more often than not depends on what we put in. Western fascination with the orient has always had an element of projection in it, imposing our own views of what it should be like, a mirror to reflect our own society back at us. Yesterday I argued that many of the critics of the new She-Ra series would’ve loved it had it been an anime, but why is that? Because of exactly this process of projection, of what Edward Said called Orientalism. Going looking for something in Japanese pop culture you cannot find in your own, only to get tangled up in your own prejudices and assumptions about Japan is the essence of weebdom. It explains why, even when Japanese creators e.g. explicitly state that yes, it was not a coincidence that Lily was a trans zombie, certain ‘fans’ still insist it was Crunchyroll wot did it. (More on that in a later post.) It’s an attitude far older than anime fandom, something satirised in Claude Monet’s La Japonaise (right) almost 11/2 centuries ago. (Said painting caused a bit of a ruckus about cultural appropriation a few years ago, when the Boston Museum of Fine Arts got people to dress up in a Japanese made replica of the garment in the picture and some Japanese Americans objected. More over at Metafilter).

To be clear, appreciating and seeking out Japanese culture isn’t a bad thing; anything that gets you to look outside your own borders is a good thing. Where it goes wrong is if you insist on painting your own assumptions and prejudices over it, to insist that your interpretation of Japanese culture is more correct than what actual Japanese people say. That’s the trap in which 4-chan culture and rightwing anime stans threw themselves into. They’ve build up this image of Japan as this naturally ultra conservative country free of everything they fear or hate and they ignore any evidence to the contrary. They want to escape feminism so they believe there are no feminists in Japan. They’re homophobic & transphobic so they reject anything that even hints at LGBT people existing in Japan too. Hence the conspiracy theories about the SJW mafia at Crunchyroll changing subtitles.

In a more benign way, I sometimes think most if not all of western anime fandom tends to misunderstand what is and isn’t important, glomming on to series and studios because they seem to pander to our tastes. Did Darling in the FranXX really deserve all the attention we spent on it earlier this year or did we assume it was important because it was a mecha series that ripped off Evangelion just enough? Is the disdain for moeblob shit actually justified or just a lazy assumption on our part that it’s all bad because it doesn’t suit our tastes? Aren’t we missing out on where some of the most interesting things in anime are happening because of our preconcieved notions? Does our idea of what makes for an important story actual make us miss what the truly important stories are?

This is, in a low key manner, what I’m trying to use the 12 Days of Anime for, by looking at those anime genres that are usually dismissed by mainstream criticism: your slice of moe, your kid shows, your pretty boys series. There’s a lot of things happening there but it’s hard to miss it when grim ‘n gritty schlock like Goblin Slayer is held up as important.

This is the third post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: lets look at Slime versus Slayer.

You would call She-Ra your waifu if she’d been an anime

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Is it a girl, is it a boy? No its another genderfluid checklist character. Those people in charge of the new she-ra realy must hate feminity. I saw not one character in this show that actually looks feminine. Yep thats representation

Let’s be honest. Half the neck beards whinging online about how the new She-Ra and the Princesses of Power destroyed their childhood would be having equally loud arguments about whether Adora, Catra or Entrapta was the “top waifu”. But because of who made it and where it was made, you got all this utterly fake “SJWs ruining television with their agenda driven entertainment. Like this jackass complaining about how Scorpia isn’t feminine enough. Buddy here would be drooling about wanting her to crush him between her thighs had she spoken Japanese.

Sport has a pretty dumb idea of what feminine means as well, but that’s as expected of rightwing man children upset somebody else is the target audience for a change. That picture is from episode eight, in which both She-Ra and her allies as well as her friend turned enemy Catra go to the Princess Prom and we spent quite some time with Catra and Scorpia getting the right outfit together, which ends with the latter in a dress and heels that actually look pretty good on her. We see the same with Adora and Glimmer on the other side and on the whole it’s a great little sequence of how to dress for your body type & personality. But pal here of course is disappointed he can’t wank to them, though he’d be the first to download the doujinshi had the series been made by A-1 Pictures rather than Dreamworks. All the while insisting that there’s no gay subtext in butch princesses twirling their frenemies around on the dance floor while enacting their nefarious plans.

She-Ra and Catra: pretty gay

To be fair, it’s pretty much text by now. Heck, there’s an explicitly lesbian couple turning up in the last two episodes.

Now She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is not actually an anime, but it is a magical girl show. I watched it in mid-November when for various reasons I was both unable to and a bit burned out on watching anime. Thanks to the rightwing crybaby crowd I actually knew about She-Ra and I blasted through it one Saturday when I wanted to watch something anime like but not actually anime, if that makes sense. This new series is the perfect reboot, taking the original plot and characters, extending them and giving them a depth and appeal the original never really had. Both the original She-Ra and He-Man were just glorified commercials after all, full with naff characters and not done all that well.

The new She-Ra is all about creating families, which makes it more interesting than the simplistic good versus evil take of the original. You got Adora finding out her whole life is a lie and needing to find a new home with the princesses, with Glitter and Bow having to get used to her and with finding more people to join their family to fight the Horde. That’s more or less a given in this sort of stories, but more impressive was seeing Catra, somebody who always knew what life in the Horde was like, creating her own family, with Scorpia and later Entrapta and even Shadow Weaver portrayed as having motherly feelings towards Adora and even Catra.

It’s this what reminds me most about Japanese series like Precure. There’s good and evil and it really would be bad if the Horde wins, but that doesn’t mean the people in the Horde are beyond redemption. Even the nameless goons are shown to be actual people with actual feelings, especially in episode nine, when Glimmer is held captive and wins the trust of one of the Horde soldiers. Said episode also shows that the heroes are not infallible, as in the rescue mission they have to abandon one of their own, who later switches sides. It’s the sort of thing that used to be rare in ‘western’ kid shows; it’s not necessarily a direct anime influence, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Really, this is such a cool and fun show I don’t understand the vinegar pissers who have to make it all political. Just shut up and watch and stop moaning about “having to see” lesbian couples. As if your porn isn’t full of it.

This is the second post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: Bring on the trash.

Netflix Genesis Evangelion

Anime
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The news that Netflix had picked up Neon Genesis Evangelion for streaming was greeted as good news by most people, but some were a little salty:

“Honestly, Netflix is willing to significantly overpay for something like [Evangelion] and outbid anybody by multiples, no matter what their ROI is,” Fukunaga tells Polygon, shortly after Netflix announced that it will distribute the mid-’90s classic. “I’m 100-percent sure that we’d have done a much better job brand-managing it and turning it back into what it was.”

You know for whom it’s an unalloyed good that it was Netflix, not Funimation who picked this up? Anybody living outside the States who now actually get to watch it. Also also, it’s not true the DVD has been unavailable for years: 17 euros gets you the entire series, though you’ll have to parlai Francais to read the subtitles. A bit of unconscious US bias coming out there in that article.

Those quibbles aside, as well as the fact, like B0bduh pointed out on Twitter, Evangelion doesn’t really need marketing under anime fans, Fukunaga has a point that Netflix will very likely not market it as well as his company would’ve done, but there’s a reason for this.

Netflix is fundamentally uninterested in catering to anime fans. Not even Anime Strike levels of uninterested in what anime fans want, completely uninterested. What Amazon wanted to do with Anime Strike was to create a premium channel for a niche audience to be able to charge them more for the favour, but they didn’t put enough time, money and attention in it for it to even have a chance to succeed and when they realised another episode of Not Actually Top Gear would be a better return on investment, they cancelled it. Netflix doesn’t want to serve niche audiences at all: they want to be television.

Calvin running to his televison: pander to me

Not a particular channel, or station, they want you to use it the same way you used to watch television: zonk out and keep watching. And it doesn’t matter what you watch, as long as you keep watching. Sure, they have their prestige projects, but for the most part they’re just looking for any content they can shuffle at you to keep you watching. Which is why Netflix treats anime the same as any other tv series and dumps it all in one or two bunches for you to binge watch. And again, the way it’s presented, listed along all the other things the holy algorithm thinks you want to see, shows they don’t want you to consume it as anime, but as a Netflix show. For Netflix all of this is business as usual; that we see it as some huge threat is due to how small the anime watching audience still is in Europe & America. Netflix can afford to pay relatively huge sums for its series because it’s still so much cheaper than buying live action shows.

Which is annoying if you’re an anime nerd like me, having to wait weeks or months to get a series to show up so you can watch it legally (other not so legal options are available). Not to mention that the way we tend to watch and discuss anime, it takes an exceptional series to get some buzz going in the community — last one to manage that was Aggressive Retsuko, which actually came out in Japan in late 2016 and only got track here in 2018. Series, even good series get lost among the noise of seasonal watching and having a zillion new series coming out each time.

But really, that is a minor quibble. Because there’s one huge advantage to anime on Netflix, that nowhere else can do (or do as well): it gets non anime watchers to watch anime. There’s Aggressive Retsuko for example, which had a lot of ‘normies’ tweeting about it as well as anime nerds, because the humour and subject (work frustration) touched a nerve with people. There are series like Little Witch Academia or even Glitter Force, watched by kids along with the usual Disney or other kids shows. At least some of those kids will go on to become interested in anime as its own thing and if not, at least they got to watch some good shows.

Having Neon Genesis Evangelion show up on Netflix can only be a good thing therefore. It means it’s available both to the people who watched it back in the days but drifted away from anime and wouldn’t be caught dead at funimation.com and to a new audience, for who it’ll hopefully be a great new discovery sparking an interest in watching more of that stuff, just like it did some twenty plus years ago.

This is the first post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: You would call She-Ra your waifu if she’d been in an anime

This zombie is trans and there’s nothing you can do about it.

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Not that it hasn’t stopped the troglodyte part of anime fandom from trying up to and including self styled Japanese speakers proclaiming Crunchyroll translators made it all up.

Zombieland Saga: sleeping Lily

Nu-uh.

Lily is a trans zombie girl. Not a crossdressing boy, not a fetish, not anything else. Zombieland Saga episode eight makes that very clear. It turns out Lily died in the middle of an argument with her father, when she had locked herself up in her room and discovered she was starting to grow facial hair and died of shock. She literally died of gender dysphoria. And when she explains this to the other girls, the episode takes great pains to establish that Lily is Lily, and while Saki does roll around laughing at Lily’s deadname — the most masculine of masculine names — they’re quick to accept her as she is, the voice of reason coming from their manager/ressurrector of all people. Hell, they’ve got Sakura, the main protagonist wearing pyamas in the colours of the trans flag. Subtle this is not.

Zombieland Saga: Sakura is a trans ally

I’m not sure what angers me the most about the attempts to deny all this, the casual transphobia and erasure or the even more casual racism that underscores it. There’s a particular kind of weeb who is attractive to anime and Japanese media because they believe all cliches about Japan being a conservative nation and how that measn there isn’t any SJW crap there, who refuse to accept that Japan has feminists and activists and LGBT people too, just like any other country. It’s this sort of person who believes that anything that contradicts this view is the result of meddling by activists translators at Crunchyroll or whatever. Even when the voice actor of Lily almost literally confirms Lily’s trans, she’s not believed. This is rather insulting to the original creators who set out to and succeeded in creating one of the better portrayals of a trans girl in anime, zombie or not. Anime has done a lot of flirting with genderqueer characters, but usually doesn’t go much farther than having cute boys crossdress without explicitly coming out as trans/genderqueer. That we get a wave of socalled “fans” throwing a tantrum the moment a genuinely trans character shows up is not surprising but still disappointed.