Anime – Page 71 – Wis[s]e Words

That Kuma Miko ending

Published on July 1, 2016Leave a comment

Kuma Miki: no thinking needed for girls

Kuma Miko was billed as a light hearted, cute comedy about Machi, a middle school priestess of a tiny little village out in the sticks and Natsu, her bear guardian/god of the temple she leads, as she wanted to start high school in the big city and he was doubtful about whether she was up to it. From the start there were hints of something nasty lurking in the show’s background: Machi was less of a protagonist and more of an object of suffering as Natsu sets her challenges while her uncle Yoshio ropes her into his schemes to revitalise the village. In the process what looked first like a typical anime foible turned into something more serious as it becomes clear Machi suffers from some sort of social anxiety disorder, not being able to cope well with anybody from outside her tiny and aged village. It all felt mean spirited as none of the adults in the series seemed to either take Machi or her obvious issues serious.

Kuma Miki: no thinking needed for girls again

It all came to a head in the series final. Episode eleven saw Machi entered into a local idol competition in Sendai, freak out and run away. You’d expect that the final episode would feature some sort of resolution, as everybody comes together and give Machi the strength to overcome her fears. Not the most original of endings perhaps, but it would’ve been decent enough. Instead we got Machi fleeing back home after she made her comeback to the stage and everybody delighted she did so. Ibless, among others, thinks this was a deliberate sendup on the part of the anime team:

from whatever motivation, the anime staff decided to manifest a certain perceived subtext within the original manga and highlight it through the show in a subtly deconstructive way designed to examine the disturbing implications of the source material’s setting.

I’m not so sure. It might’ve been deliberate satire, a rejection of the conservative and somewhat vile subtext in the original manga, but I never quite got the impression the animators disapproved of this subtext, unlike frex this Twitterer. Rather, it comes over a cackhanded attempt to craft an original ending to the series that re-established the status quo in the spirit of the manga. And even had it been intended to mock, Poe’s Law comes into effect, as clearly a lot of people including me did take it at face value rather than as satire. Moreso because its ideology isn’t that far removed from other anime series, just more open. That idea that community is more important than your own personal wishes, that girls especially are just happier and better off staying home, that’s not that far from the surface of other slice of life series. It’s just that Kuma Miko is especially nasty about it.

Not that I actually disagree with any of this

Published on June 30, 2016Leave a comment

It takes a ten minute video for professional John Lennon crossed with Sasquatch impersonator/Youtube anime critic Digibro to grope towards the same idea as Damon Knight managed to express in one simple sentence: “science fiction is what we point to when we say it”. In other words, that on a certain level the quality of a given anime is determined by the sum of opinions about said anime and that as opinions shift, the critical consensus about this anime will also shift. Not the most stunning of insights, but anime criticsm is indeed roughly on a par with science fiction criticism fifty years ago.

Farewell Flying Witch

Published on June 28, 2016Leave a comment

Flying Witch: flying for once

Flying Witch went out on a double bill last weekend, having kept up its high quality throughout its run. This was a show that if I had my way, would’ve run forever, the perfect way to start a lazy Sunday morning. Especially since one of my favourite gags from the manga hasn’t been used in the anime yet. It’s been funny, it’s been relaxing, a real balm to start the week with, as engaging in its everyday life scenes as in its more supernatural aspects.

Flying Witch: flying for once

What I especially like about Flying Witch is the sense of family it has. You can see that five out of the six people in that screenshot above are related. Akane (extreme right) and her aunt (extreme left) have the same sticky out bits of hair, while they and the titular flying witch, Makoto, share a *ahem* similar build. Kei too, to the right of his mother, shares her hair style, while Chinatsu looks more like Makoto again. When they’re in motion these similarities are even greater and it helps set the series apart. Their interactions which each other too are natural in a way that you don’t see often in anime. Chinatsu is the most believable little sister/niece character I’ve seen in a long time in how she acts around her brother Kei and her two cousins Makoto and Akane. I hope we get a second season, or at least an OVA of it.

Macross Delta 11: grief and remembrance

Published on June 21, 2016Leave a comment

Macross Delta: the return of Messer

After the battle, the mourning. We open on Messer’s homecoming as his team mates and Walkure crew salute his coffin. It sets the tone for the rest of this episode. Walkure and Delta Squadron have been dealt a heavy blow. Apart from the loss of a comrade and friend, there’s the simple fact that their best pilot was brought down with a single shot through the heart. Despite their conquests Windermere until now hadn’t yet directly attacked Walkure, but rather skirmished with them. This was the first time they could bring their full power to bear and they managed to not only kill their enemy’s ace pilot but also to overpower Walkure itself through the song of the Wind Singer. It’s no wonder we see Windermere plot further attacks, while everybody in Walkure & the Delta squadron wonders what they could’ve done to prevent Messer’s death.

Macross Delta: grieving for Messer

Much of the emotion in this episode is understated, controlled, but not the grief that waitress from episode four feels. It’s interesting that she’s the only one grieving openingly when his old flame Kaname remains stoic, though perhaps only on the outside. But of course Kaname is military as well as an idol, not a civilian like our waitress. She still has a job to do. And as the occassional cutaways to Windermere show, that job is only to get harder from here on.

Macross Delta: sending Messer back to the jellyfish

What I like about this series of Macross is how it has attempted to give Ragnar a distinct culture, as also seen in the previous episode’s jellyfish festival. Floating people out to sea for their final voyage is an old tradition among many seafaring peoples so it makes sense that the Ragnarians have something like it as well. Though here it’s symbolic, as the Nyannyan kids created a model of Messer’s Valkyrie to float out. It’s an emotional scene as the entire crew of Walkure and Delta Squadron, as well as the Nyannyan staff say their farewells.

Macross Delta: Kaname shows her emotions

And of course it’s only right and proper to have the fallen warrior be sent off by Walkures singing a final song to him

Kiznaiver: “science did it”

Published on June 13, 2016Leave a comment

Nick Creamer’s view on Kiznaiver here is something I think that’s shared by many of its viewers, myself included:

Learning the reason for Sonozaki and Katsuhira’s emotional issues was definitely a bit of a letdown; instead of their issues being reflective of their characters in some meaningful way, it was simply “the science stuff made bad times for everybody.”
[…]
“Why is Sonozaki so distant but emotionally curious?” “Because science did it.”

kiznaiver: that is nineteen children tortured for world peace

But science didn’t do it. Science didn’t take, operate on and torture children in service of some dubious programme to link emotions: scientists did. What’s missing in Kiznaiver and what makes the premisse too light to bear the emotional weight of the characters is the moral dimension. Apart from the two teachers, who were only low level caretakers in the original project and Sonozaki, we never get to see any of the people involved; even the thugs involved in the current iteration are faceless, hiding behind the costume of the city mascot. There’s no sense in episode nine or ten that the project was immoral, not tragic, that what was done to Sonozaki, Katsuhira and the seventeen other children involved twelve years ago wasn’t an unfortunate accident but a deliberate crime. These were people who were given unnecessary, unconsented to medical treatment and who were tortured as a result; worse, these were at best five year old children who could never hope to comprehend what was done to them.

kiznaiver: Sonozaki pushing Katsuhira down the stairs

But the show isn’t really interested in exploring this moral dimension; key to this is its treatment of Sonozaki. A victim of the first Kizuna Project, she’s the instigator of its second incarnation, its driving force, with the tenth episode being her crisis point as the experiment is over and the powers behind it want to withdraw funding, which leads to a suicide attempt on her part. It’s clear that we’re supposed to be at least somewhat sympathetic to her, to see her as a tragic figure rather than as a villain. That she pushes her fellow victim Katsuhira down the stairs to test the Kizuna system on their first meeting, after having kidnapped and operated on six new Kiznaivers without consent, then follows it up with both physical and mental torture through the expedient of repeatedly shocking Katsuhira every time somebody answers a question “wrong” –all in the first two episodes– is largely swept under the rug. She doesn’t have to atone for her actions, instead the conflict is the struggle to re-establish the emotional connection between her and Katsuhira, with the worst consequence she’s had to suffer so far being Katsuhira’s disappointment in episode six.

kiznaiver:

This seeming refusal to even start considering the moral consequences of the Kizuna project is what makes it into little more than a macguffin, a plot device without weight or merit. To me it’s a flaw, something that unbalances the show as it attempts to explain the history behind the project without acknowledging the responsibility of the people behind the project. There cannot be an emotional payoff with this backstory if the show can only answer that “science did it”.