Anime

Ouran High School Host Club’s rape culture issues

Published on April 15, 20161 Comment

Ouran Highschool Host Club: rape threats as argument

That was the moment I found the metaphorical turd in the punch bowl and realised that there was indeed a shitty taste to my refreshing harem rom com anime series. A pity, because up until then I had been enjoying the story about a scholarships tudent at a very elite highschool who is mistaken for a boy and financially blackmailed into working for the school’s host club after she broke an expensive vase –nobody in Japan has heard of insurance or the story would’ve been over before it could start. Until then I could sort of ignore the sexist subtext behind Ouran High School Host Club, but when you get rape threats (fake or not) used to “prove” to our heroine that she’s a girl and should be more aware of that, a line is crossed. Though a certain amount of sexist assumptions is a given in a shoujo manga and for the most part it’s not that noticable in Ouran High School Host club, this particular scene and episode made it hard to continue with the series.

Ouran Highschool Host Club: not a strong sense of gender

What made me keep watching was Haruhi Fujioka, the fish out of water at the very rich and very elite Ouran High School and also the one sane woman in a bunch of amiable idiots, often the unwilling centre of their plans. She’s interesting because she isn’t the usual blushing heroine existing only to be romanced. Not bothered by which gender people see her as, she passes as male in school and the club to be able to be a host and pay off her debt. And I uses “passes” advisedly, as there is something genderqueer about her, especially at first. What’s refreshing is that she doesn’t change that much over the series even when she becomes more lovey dovey.

Ouran Highschool Host Club: girls cannot fight guys

Is episode eight then just an isolated misstep, just a bit of awkward sexism, excused by the quality of the rest of the series? Not entirely. The idea that Haruhi should keep remembering she’s a girl and act like one crops up in other parts of the series as well and is one of those pernicious bits of gender essentialism that anime & manga, especially in the romance & harem genres, seems extremely fond of. In the context of the episode it also comes across as victim blaming, of Haruhi being responsible for being thrown off a cliff or of being threatened by rape because she trusted her friend and “wasn’t cautious enough”. That’s not something you can defend no matter how good the rest of the series is.

Erased is neither a time travel nor a mystery story

Published on April 12, 2016Leave a comment

It seems nobody remembers Quantum Leap anymore, because otherwise fewer people would’ve complained about the time travel in Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi/Erased. The time travel mechanism isn’t important to the story it wanted to tell, it doesn’t matter how it works or where it came from; just as in Quantum Leap you might as well explain it as an act of god. The world needed to be put right hence Satoru travelled back in time. A tool, not a theme.

Similarly, the more I think about, the less I think that this was ever meant as a real mystery. Again, the serial killer aspect and the need to prevent his mother from being murdered is a tool to get to the real meat of the story, which is that Sataru gets to do over his life not only so that he can save his class mates and mother, but especially so he doesn’t end up in his mid-twenties as a failed mangaka. He learns to make friends, learns to trust people and learns to accept their help when before he tried to do everything on his own. That’s why the thriller aspects of the plot are the weakest and the heart of the story lies in how he learns to get along with his friends, not to mention his relationship with his mother.

Delta stands for love triangle

Published on April 11, 2016Leave a comment

Macross Delta: this time the love triangle is two girls and one guy

The opening of Macross Delta ends with the most important element of every iteration of Macross: the love triangle. This time it’s two pilots and an idol, as opposed to a pilot, a bridge bunny and an idol (Macrosss) or a pilot, an idol and a pilot/idol and all around jackass (Macross 7) or even two idols and a pilot (Frontier). We’ve had two pilots fighting over an idol before in Macross Plus but then they were both male and the idol was actually the understudy for the AI superstar she was the manager off. So straight off the bat Macross Delta offers something new. Also new: the male lead character is not a massive tool, though the female pilot is mildly tsundere. But then she’s a Farina Jenius, so it’s no more than expected. Gotta have one of those in there of course or it’s not Macross.

Macross Delta: Draken in spaace

The two main elements of any Macross show are love triangles and mecha, with Delta not lacking in the latter. The good guys are flying the usual variations on what once started out as F-14s that could transform into giant robots, but the bad guys (relatively) for once have the cooler planes, a double delta inspired by the Swedish Saab Draken Cold War fighter plane. It looks absolutely gorgeous in the dog fights. The Viggen would’ve been even better though.

Macross Delta: love songs can change the world

The three main elements of any Macross show are love triangles, mecha and music being able to stop wars. Or in this case, cure people possessed by Var Syndrome which makes them hyper violent and supernormally strong. The Walkure combined idol group/fighter squadron uses the power of love songs to fight the syndrome and our second heroine, Freyja Wion, wants to join them, proving her mettle during the first episode’s main battle and the second episode’s test.

Macross Delta: Hayate Immelman is not as obnoxious as most Macross leads

Among main elements of any Macross show are love triangles, mecha, music being able to stop wars and cocky, obnoxious male leads. Hayate Immelman is rare in that he’s not a total douche, though he is somewhat confident in himself, shall we say? But he helps Freyja escape the police in the first episode, then rescues her from the enemy’s attack doing the time honoured “jump into a conveniently abandoned mecha and grab the girl in its hands, then blast off” Macross manoeuvre and for the most part is more a tease than a blowhard. There is some drama with Mirage Farina Jenius, especially since he lusts after her plane, starting the second love triangle of the series, but nothing on the level of Basara’s attitude in Macross 7, to name the worst example.

Anime Japan doesn’t have Child Protection Services

Published on April 10, 2016Leave a comment

well that is a cheery start

As you can tell from the opening shot, Shounen Maid is a comedy. it’s just that Chihiro’s mum has to die with no childcare agent in sight to take care of an elementary school kid just bereft of his only parent, so that he can be taken in by his uncle who suddenly pops up.

frilly frilly uniform

Said uncle turns out to be from a very rich family and Chihiro’s mother hadn’t been entirely truthful when she told him she had no relatives; it’s just that she was estranged from her family when she had Chihiro. So obviously he rejects his uncle’s offer because he doesn’t want handouts if his mother never took any either. The good news is, uncle has a solution: use Chihiro’s innate talents to work as a housekeeper in return from room and board. The bad news is, his uncle has made him a maids outfit. The worse news is, it’s very frilly.

cleaning is hard work

This looked godawful from the description and I wasn’t going to bother with it, but this comment convinced me to give it a chance. As long as it doesn’t stray into problematic yaoi material (seeing as the protag is in elementary school and his uncle is … not) i’ll keep watching.

Flying Witch

Published on April 9, 2016Leave a comment

the countryside is boring

Trust me, having grown up in the countryside, time going slow is not an unadulterated joy. In anime form it is indeed relaxing to look at. Relaxing is the keyword for Flying Witch. Not so much Kiki’s Delivery Service as Non Non Biyori.

trying out brooms at the DIY store

It takes ten minutes for the Flying Witch to actually fly. This is a very slow anime. But not a dull anime. it just takes its time with everything. Nothing much happens other than that the titular witch moves to the country to live with relatives, goes to her new school and gets to meet the childhood friend of her cousin.

trying out brooms at the DIY store

Anime is not often subtle with showing emotions and expressions. What makes the reaction shots to seeing our witch fly so funny is how understated they are, as well as how slow the childhood friend — and earlier, the cousin’s younger sister — are to react. And how low key and natural the responses are.