Actually, the title is a lie. This is not a Behind the Music spoof but more an analysis of the show’s leading character, Souichi Negishi, and his more famous Death Rock alter ego, Johannes Krauser II. If you don’t like it, get lost before I summon Krauser-sama from the depths of Hell to murder you and do other bad unspeakable things to you. Mwa ha ha ha ha! Rock on!

I recently watched the music comedy, Detroit Metal City based on recent recommendations and laughed my ass off at every minute of it. The show focuses on an indie Death Rock/Death Metal group matching the show’s name and the subsequent woes of the band’s lead singer, guitarist and songwriter, Negishi. Behind the music and the laughter lies a tortured soul, and we see the portrait of a man slowly coming embracing a heavily repressed part of himself. Much of the humor of the series stems from Negishi’s unwitting relationship and subsequent disdain with his Death Rock alter ego, Krauser. On one side there’s Souchiro Negishi, an overlooked mild mannered pansy and Swedish Pop enthusiast, quite frankly the epitome of normalcy. Johannes Krauser II, a terrorist demon from hell with a satirically fancy European name, as well as the Emperor of Japanese Death Rock that regularly kills and rapes unsuspecting people to satisfy his insatiable lust (according to the crazed DMC fans anyway). The two are as opposite as humanly possible, yet they are the same person. Negishi is Krauser just as much as Krauser is Negishi, two distinct personalities in one body, two sides of the same coin.

In a lot of ways Negishi’s relationship with his other self mirrors that of super heroes, the most easily identifiable being Bruce Wayne to Batman, Clark Kent to Superman and Peter Parker to Spider Man. For convenience sake I’ll only refer to Batman hereafter in my comparisons because he’s my superhero of choice when it comes to characters that assume a distinct separate persona to fight crime. When a character assumes an alter ego it becomes increasingly difficult to tell who the real persona is as the alter ego develops an identity of its own. Such is the case with a complex character such as Batman. Bruce Wayne is still technically Bruce Wayne, but the superhero persona is the true identity with Batman assuming the identity Bruce Wayne.

It was a dirty slut anyway.

Furthering the Persona discussion is the fact that characters with alter egos typically wear masks to transform from ordinary to extraordinary (or vice versa depending on your point of view). Though Negishi doesn’t wear a mask proper, the face paint still serves to transform him into the infamous Krauser, and he does become another person. The change is so drastic that not no one outside the immediate DMC group knows the true identity of the fearsome Krauser.

While Negishi is neither a serial murderer rapist nor a demon from hell, it’s the public persona he needs to survive. First, he begrudgingly assumes the mantle as a source of income. Second, though he may not realize it himself, it’s a healthy vent for the anger of his dark side. He gets to terrorize the general populace with no consequence while spreading DMC’s legend further. Examples include but are not limited to inadvertently assaulting and “raping” police officers, members of rival bands, tambourines and even Tokyo Tower. Negishi is mostly in control of his alias both as himself and as Krauser, but there are times when the inner demon inadvertently takes control.

Though Krauser is the antithesis of a hero, he is sort of heroic in a way in that Negishi regularly has to become Krauser at a moment’s notice to keep DMC’s rowdy fans in check, even going so far as to offer life lessons to his brother and old friends while in character. Much of the show’s humor stems from the fact that Negishi himself is often verbally abused by his loyal fans who often tell him to piss off in some fashion or another, both in person and even on the internet, when not disguised as Krauser.

Murder, Death, Kill. Murder, Death, Kill. Don’t forget to brush your teeth!

Furthermore, if Negishi didn’t have such a creative outlet to vent his anger, there’s no doubt in my mind he would have actually gone completely loco a long time ago. He did try to walk away from DMC once but found himself coming back to reassume the mantle. He claims to hate everything about DMC, but he won’t hesitate to defend Krauser and his music when confronted by DMC’s many challengers and detractors. Negishi takes pride in what he does and as much as he hates to admit it, he needs Krauser and actually enjoys the wanton chaos. I’m speaking strictly for myself, but if I would gladly become Krauser if I could get away with all the things he does.

When we think of the legends of Death Rock, guys like Gene Simmons and KISS, as direct inspirations, and Ozzy Osbourne and Meatloaf, as indirect inspirations come to mind. These guys were truly wild with drugs, women and dangerous stunts akin to those pulled off by Krauser. Such legends of Death Rock are embodied by the Second Emperor of Death Rock, whom was promptly overthrown by Negishi in the show’s final episode in a rock off to determine the next Emperor of Death Rock. Negishi is none of the things we associate with rock stars. He’s never done drugs, and for all we know he’s still a virgin, but he is nonetheless a rock star in his own right with his own legend. Whether he likes it or not, and he unconsciously really does, he is inseparable from Krauser.

One of the many inevitabilities with watching anime is that much like real life, you’ll eventually fall in love. The concept of love is a strange thing isn’t it? It’s something we’ve constantly tried to define throughout our relatively short history on this planet. It’s a concept so abstract it still can’t be properly define, but the concept of love is a gender and culturally universal theme we love to explore, bad pun totally intended. While hard to define, it’s something we intrinsically understand when we see and experience it.

We all get several crushes of varying intensities, but one thing that holds true is that crushes usually don’t last very long. A week, a month, a year maybe. There’s no set amount of time for a crush to last. Much like real life, anime crushes pass over time, and one day you’ll look back and wonder why you ever liked a particular Flavor of the Month girl/guy — You’ll remember it was fun while it lasted but wasn’t anything too special in retrospect.

With the sheer variety of characters in anime, there are bound to be several characters that catch your fancy from voluptuous vixens to clumsy bespectacled maids. There’s a character for everyone, and you’re bound to find a few that absolutely capture your heart. I’m personally a big fan of amnesiac gun-toting girls that kick lots of ass, but the pickings are plentiful for all manner of tastes. Through the course of your anime journey there’s no doubt you’ll have many crushes, usually passing fancies from new shows that come and go like the wind, but there will only be a select handful of characters that you will genuinely love. Everyone has a different definition of love. I don’t claim to have the correct one, because no one really does, but one measure of love is that it doesn’t fade over time. Love is different from a mere infatuation in that it’s a more lasting feeling than the fleeting pangs presented by a passing crush — You’ll feel the same way about a specific person, or in this case a character, forever.

We all show our love for our favorite characters in different ways. There are those that proclaim their love by claiming waifus on various forums. There are also those that support their favorite girls by pestering persuading everyone to vote for Girl ABC in Saimoe, even though it’s just a stupid popularity contest (Remember kids, what is popular isn’t always right). Then there are those people that don’t feel the need to publicly announce their loves every minute of every day like the more fanatical fans and keep it to themselves (and in their pants). It’s perfectly healthy to express which characters you rabu, but just don’t be too annoying about it. Constantly telling us, “Feito is mah waifu” does get annoying.

For outsiders looking in and even among the casual anime community, there’s a misconception and stigma perceived with admitting love for a fictional character, deemed the 2-D complex. Though the 2-D complex only rings true when an individual exclusively prefers anime/manga/VN characters to real people, it has become an umbrella term of sorts to describe anyone that professes love for 2-D characters in general. I do understand their sentiment as it’s always the fans that take 2-D love to the extreme that get the most attention. There’s nothing wrong with loving a 2-D character in and of itself, but as is true with most things it’s only detrimental when taken to the far extreme. There’s nothing wrong with falling for a 2-D character, and I’d even say it’s a healthy part of being an anime fan as it means you’ve made emotional connections to shows and characters. You become more involved with the plights that befall your favorite character as well as rejoice in their accomplishments as if they were your own. When you invest emotions into your favorite characters, it really does enrich your viewing experience that much more. In fact it would be weirder if you’re an anime fan that’s never been smitten with an anime character whatsoever, and you’d be missing one of the intangible things that makes watching anime a great experience.

I don’t have a 2-D complex, or at least I prefer to think I don’t, but it’s not that different from, say… Falling in love with a movie or TV character. There are a lot of instances of people specifically falling in love with fictional characters and not the actors that portray them. The only major example I can think of is Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, though I’ll add more if I can think of other examples. I’ve known plenty of girls that absolutely… fangirl for lack of better word for Jack Sparrow but don’t particularly care for Depp. Are they considered weird for technically only liking a fictional character? That depends on who you ask, but the answer is generally no. It shouldn’t be any different for 2-D characters. People in general should be more open minded, and I say do whatever makes you happy. As said earlier I condone liking 2-D characters as long as it doesn’t blow up into a full blown 2-D complex, which isn’t healthy and at which point you’ve lost the game.

…Oh. Are you expecting me to talk about which characters I love? I suppose I could indulge you a bit. My first anime girl love happened to be a certain amnesiac assassin by the name of Kirika Yuumura from a certain anime called Noir. When I started watching the show, I found myself inexplicably drawn to her in a way much different than previous characters I liked. To me there was something intangible, something special about her that I couldn’t explain and still can’t. It just inexplicably happened, hence the term love blossoms when you least expect it. Most recently Hitagi Senjougahara from Bakemonogatari appeared on my radar, which I’ve made pretty obvious ever since the show aired. I want to say that I’ll continue to like her long after Bakemonogatari is over, but only time will tell if she’s just a Flavor of the Month or the real deal.

tl:dr: Come on, it wasn’t that long. I intentionally kept it short.

PS: Kirika is mah waifu.

Maybe there would be licensing issues involved with such an endeavor, but George Lucas really shouldn’t care as long as he gets to pad his massive wallet with royalties. Also, the Star Wars license is nothing new to Japan, as they get all manner of merchandise from X-Wing model kits to R2-D2 soy sauce bottles, and even a relatively obscure manga series following the original trilogy was published back in 1998-99.

The normal train of thought is to think cartoony manga and the relatively realistic and serious Star Wars aren’t compatible, but I can attest the manga adaptations of Episodes IV-VI are quite good. Star Wars with manga flair worked surprisingly well, and it was fun to see the Japanese take on the series with some manga cliches tossed in such as the exaggerated face faults and sweat drops. Nothing against Carrie Fisher, but the manga’s much cuter, somewhat tsundere Princess Leia didn’t hurt either. While the manga has long since been forgotten, it was an enjoyable read, faithfully sticking to the narrative while the manga-ka (a different artist for each Episode) made small liberties here and there to make the experience distinctively Japanese. Scans from starwars.com below.

An anime would be perfect for the franchise. Western properties have been adapted to anime before. I wasn’t too crazy about Witchblade and Batman: Gotham Knight, but they were decent at least. I’m positively stoked about the upcoming Iron Man and Wolverine anime recently announced at Comic-Con though. With what look like two decent comic book-anime adaptations on the way next year, this is as good a time as any to see a Star Wars anime with anime’s increasing recognition and popularity here in the US. It’s also a great opportunity to expand the franchise even more in Japan, because you can never milk the Japanese fanbase enough. Lucasarts would practically be printing money with all the ensuing merchandising opportunities.

The big foreseeable snag right now is there’s already an animated Star Wars series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which relies on the popular 3D CG gimmick that’s all the rage now. The show itself isn’t bad, in fact it’s pretty decent, but it’s very… Kiddy. Let’s just say that while it’s not bad, it could be much better.

The lesser foreseeable snag is story and casting. Star Wars is rich (almost too rich) with lore in the realm of novels and video games. There are several prospects to focus on from the ever popular bounty hunters to the dogfighting aces of Rogue Squadron. Even a story about fodder Stormtroopers could be remotely interesting too, but the big draw of Star Wars has always been, and always will be the Jedi. Just as well too since Jedi are pretty much samurai in space with cool beam swords. I’m more of a Sith man myself, but every SW fan has to like Jedi in some form or fashion.

An original semi-canon story in the vein of Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) would be perfect. Canon enough to be accepted by the fans, far enough removed from the movies to be an original property. Heck, this could even be a straight up KOTOR adaptation, and I wouldn’t mind since it’s such a great franchise. I’m also tempted to recommend this theoretical anime be an original property more closely related to movie canon ala The Force Unleashed or Shadows of the Empire, but prominent main characters from the movies should be avoided because I think they would be out of place. There’s a wealth of Expanded Universe novels available such as the Thrawn Trilogy too, but the process of adapting novels may be more trouble than it’s worth and again, main characters should stay as far away from an anime as possible. I don’t work in the industry, but it shouldn’t be too hard to make even a relatively successful anime. The only thing the studio would have to do is not screw it up, which should be impossible with big brother Lucasarts scaffolding the process along.

I’ll pray for the day we can see a Star Wars anime, preferably focusing on the franchise’s badass Bounty Hunters, but a Jedi story (much like a cat) would be fine too. I would then do cartwheels all the way down the street either way. Who wouldn’t want to see hotblooded Jedi and Gurren Lagann/Sengoku Basara-esque lightsaber battles? My blood’s boiling to a temperature meeting or exceeding 9000 degrees C just thinking about it. You would have to be dead or comatose not to get excited. Or you’d have to not like Star Wars, in which case I e-slap you in the face for not being with the program. Get with the program, okay?

PS: Check out the Star Wars Manga/Comic comparison at the official Star Wars site for the original scans (and because it’s a fun read for SW nerds anyway). The original manga are pricey at $10 a volume and 4 volumes per episode, about $120 for the whole original trilogy. If you can live with flipped manga from the old days, they’re well worth reading.

This is probably something anime fans don’t ask themselves too often, but why do we like anime? I know I obviously like anime since I watch it and have an animu blog, but things get murky when trying to explain why I like it. The first response would be that it entertains me, but that’s still a pretty vague answer.

So going further, what makes anime entertaining then? I pondered this for a bit and then pondered it some more. After much pondering, I still can’t give a clearly defined answer. I feel the same way about video games to an extent, but I can more easily pinpoint two big focal points of good games — Story and gameplay. With some exceptions, good games have one or the other, and great games have both. Lesser factors like characters, music and voice work are important too, but story and gameplay take precedence in games.

Anime obviously doesn’t have gameplay since it’s a passive experience, so that leaves story to carry the weight for good anime, leaving other factors like characters, animation, music and voice work to pick up the slack. A lot of great anime rely on epic, sometimes convoluted story lines to carry the show, but story often isn’t everything. Several anime don’t even have a story in the proper sense of the word. You probably know what particular genre I’m getting at — The Slice of life. Slice of life shows do technically have a story as they do follow a series of events revolving more around small-scale characterization and social interactions, but SoLs are no less enjoyable than the more traditionally “story” oriented anime out there.

That kind of flushes my story thesis down the drain when it comes to anime. So after all this ranting, I still can’t explain why I like anime. Story is obviously important, but not all anime have a “story”. Characters are a close second in importance. A likable cast helps a show immensely, but they still need the story to dictate what they do, otherwise they would just sit around having tea and crackers. So good anime focus on story and characters. Everything after that is gravy.

All said, this rant got way off track from its original purpose. Even after all this conjecture I still can’t say why I really like anime, except that it’s simply enjoyable and there’s a lot of variety to suit lots of tastes. A groundbreaking story isn’t truly essential to liking an anime, so it’s very arguable that characters are really the most important component of an anime. Furthermore, an anime doesn’t even have to be “good” to be entertaining, as I’m often entertained by shows that are sheer crap. Thus, this article/rant was just me blowing hot air and wasting your time. That’s a good five minutes of your life you’ll never have back. Just as planned.

In this post, nostalgic memories of the Indigo League and the anime’s steady decline thereafter. Time to nerd it up a notch!

Note: I will use the English dub names for convenience. If you want to be a weaboo about it, just pretend I’m saying the Japanese names instead.

An overdue admission, I’ve long been a closet fan of the Pokemon franchise ever since the release of the original Gameboy games and the subsequent anime hit syndication. Even though the first generation was released well over a decade ago, I remember it like it was yesterday. Catching Pikachu for the first time back in Viridian Forest, foiling Team Rocket’s plans at every step along the way, and finally becoming the league champion after knocking your smug rival (Gary) off his high horse. Good memories.

Likewise, the anime that accompanied the games was, dare I say, pretty damn good. It might be nostalgia speaking, but nearly every episode of the ‘original season’ that covered Ash’s journey through the Indigo League along with Pikachu, Brock, Misty, and Team Rocket was pretty damn good. Yes, even the massive amounts of filler that outweighed the story episodes by a fair margin and resulted in more one-episode characters than I care to count were fun to watch. It was just fun to follow Ash and company on his journey be it fighting gym leaders, battling Team Rocket (back when they were halfway competent), helping an episodic character with a problem, or dealing with a recurring Jigglypuff that just couldn’t take a hint. I really, truly can’t think of anything bad to say about the original series because it was good with plenty of action, drama and comdy. I might be exaggerating a bit, but I stand by my word that the first season was good all around.

Eventually Pokemon lost its way along the line somewhere along the line. The quality of the show as a whole dipped in the ’second season’ in the Orange Islands arc with the arrival of newcomer Tracy temporarily replacing Brock to shake up the roster. While The Orange Islands was a significant dip, it was still watchable. If I had to place my finger on when the show became crap, it had to definitely be somewhere near the beginning of Johto, going through all of Johto and Advanced Generation (Hoenn) and spanning a time period of six years from 2000-2006. During this time period rampant, boring filler was the norm, Team Rocket gradually became nothing more than a running gag, and even the once vaunted gym and league conference battles lost their glory. Quite frankly, the anime was crap. While its purpose was always, first and foremost, to entertain children, it wasn’t very good but apparently did well enough to keep chugging along.

For the most part, Johto and Hoenn were unwatchable to me. Maybe part of the reason was growing up, but I did catch episodes here and there to see if it was still crap — And it was. The point was the show had lost its magic though. What made the first season so fun was sorely missing from the newer seasons. Post-Indigo League, the show degenerated into a cycle of repetition, mostly involving Team Rocket trying to kidnap Pikachu with lame scheme after lame scheme. I continued to play the games through this time period while mostly avoiding the anime.

When Diamond and Pearl were announced, I decided to give the anime another shot while going through the accompanying game. Surprise, surprise. The Diamond and Pearl anime was actually halfway decent. It was still nowhere near the first season, but at least it became fun to watch again. Some semblance of drama returned to the show with the introduction of a badass new rival, Paul, whose views and morals totally clashed with Ash’s. The point of a rival is to be a total prick, and Paul has the part down pat. The new baddies of the show, Team Galactic, have actually made their presence felt as well. It’s refreshing to have competent villains back in the show. A good villain is something you take for granted when you have nothing but Team Rocket to deal with for years on end. Yeah, Team Rocket is still around, but their antics are more bearable. D/P does have some excruciating filler, but as a whole is a drastic improvement from the previous years of crap. It must be doing something right though, because I do make time to watch it at least.

Bonus round. I think the Pokemon anime as a whole could stand to benefit from a complete reboot by following its manga adaptation, Pokemon Special. It’s friggin’ awesome with a much darker and violent story that more closely follows the games. Pikachu blowing Brock’s Onix to bits and Charmeleon slicing Arbok in half FTW. Best of all, there are more protagonists than just Ash. Seriously, the series needs a new protagonist every now and then to stay fresh. If you think Pokemon is too kiddy, go try the manga. You could easily find scanlations at one of those manga sites out there.

Well, that’s enough nerding out for one day. I don’t know why, but I just wanted to talk about Pokemon for some reason. It was fun to reminisce. Now that I got that off my chest, I’ll return to talking about moe moe girls and the usual stuff, whatever that may be.

The epic space opera, Tytania. A tale of the intergalactic power struggle between the mighty Tytania clan and the unassuming yet charismatic rebel, Fan Hyulick, the universe’s sole beacon of hope against the oppressive Tytania regime. There were space battles aplenty, but the real focus was on character motivations and lots of political maneuvering. The readers are already crying out, “Oh no, politics!”, but politics can actually be… Interesting. With the conclusion of Tytania’s first season, I wanted to talk about various aspects of the show from the characters to various plot points.

Ariabert Tytania. He loves fighting and a good cup of tea.

To explore the aspects of the plot, first we will take a look at the principle players in this opera, starting with the Tytania clan’s Duke Ariabert Tytania. He is the initial character we are introduced to, as well as the first to be humbled by defeat at the hands of Fan Hyulick. Ariabert started as the archetypal Tytania, prideful and arrogant to a fault, which culminated in the first loss Tytania had experienced in 200 years when his fleet was crippled by the resourceful and crafty Hyulick. Ariabert was utterly humiliated but eventually swallowed his pride and utilized the same tactic that defeated him to quell a rebellion in another system, showing some growth as a character. Aside from these two events, Ariabert hasn’t done much in the story yet, so it’s difficult to say much about him besides the fact that he admires Jouslain and doesn’t seem to particularly care about becoming the next clan lord. However with the death of Zarlish, he will soon get his chance to shine with his new appointment to field commander of the Tytania armada. I don’t know how many of our readers are familiar with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I’ll make an analogy here nonetheless. I see Ariabert as something of a Zhao Yun kind of character. Ariabert is a valiant field commander with a solid grasp of the fundamentals of battle while having a good head on his shoulders, such as knowing when to put his ego aside and when to retreat.

The ambitious Idris Tytania. He’s always scheming some kind of plan.

Next we move on to Duke Idris, the youngest of the four dukes. One word comes to mind when trying to describe him. Snake. In popular lore, the snake is thought of as being deceitful and vindictive, which fits the machiavellian Idris perfectly. He is constantly scheming, using people to his own devices, and isn’t afraid to dispose of those that have lost their value to him. You can judge a person by the people they keep around him, and Idris doesn’t exactly keep people of high caliber around him as demonstrated by his willingness to use and dispose of Alses and Berthier for his own ends. Alses was the black sheep of the proud clan, and no one wanted anything to do with him due to his vanity, incompetence and cruelty. Berthier betrayed his countrymen and sold his country and cheap loyalty to Tytania. Idris’s deep-rooted ambition stems from his desire to become the next clan lord after witnessing how devoted his father was to Tytania only to die a dog’s death in the end. Essentially, Idris’s motivation is to become numero uno and push everyone else around, and he doesn’t care who he steps on to get there. Case in point, Idris used Alses as the sacrificial lamb so that Tytania could finally declare its personal war on Fan Hyulick. No matter how evil or stupid Alses was, it was still Idris that orchestrated the events that lead to Hyulick killing Alses. His youth and desire to prove all his naysayers wrong makes him extremely brash, almost at the level of Zarlish. His combination of intelligence and brashness makes him extremely dangerous and unpredictable. On several occasions he will often sabotage the other dukes for his own advancement, and his actions often help Tytania in the short-run but are detrimental in the long run. While Fan Hyulick destroys Tytania from the outside, Idris is destroying Tytania from the inside. While Tytania the show has no true villains, Idris comes pretty darn close. In keeping with my RoTK analogies, Idris is a Cao Cao. Cao Cao is most known for being cunning and deceitful to achieve his ends, not caring who he stepped on to get there. Perhaps his most famous line in RoTK was, “I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me”. It perfectly fits the way Idris thinks.

Zarlish Tytania. A “shoot first, ask questions later” kind of guy.

Next up is Zarlish Tytania. Brash courage is his calling card, and in a show where intelligence, strategy and deceit win the game, his days were seriously numbered. After his mother sent him on a blind hunt for Fan Hyulick to avenge the death of Alses, I had the foreboding sense that Zarlish was going to bite the bucket before the end of the season. Zarlish didn’t have a mind for politics, as he always advocated the iron fist approach to everything, but shined on the battlefield with a zealous, almost reckless abandon. The man had courage in spades, but he often failed to fully analyze a situation before rushing in, which was both his greatest strength and weakness. All in all, he wasn’t stupid nor was he a bad guy. Despite the fact that his brother was a narcissistic nitwit, he still cared for him. Although he didn’t always listen to his subordinates, he did genuinely care about his men, which shows the strength of his character. The other dukes didn’t always agree with his one track mind, but he was an important pillar to Tytania. Valiant, headstrong, a man that only knows war… I’ll say Zarlish was Tytania’s Guan Yu. He gave his everything to Tytania, and it took no less than a platoon of armed soldiers to finally take him down. It was regrettable that Zarlish came so close to his goal of capturing Hyulick on multiple occasions only to meet with failure, especially since it was all at the behest of his foolish mother.

Jouslain Tytania. Enigmatic and brilliant.

Last is the enigmatic Jouslain Tytania, considered by many to be the greatest among Tytania’s four dukes. Several characters in the show have said outright that he is the most talented of the dukes, and the only successor worthy to become the clan lord. However, Jouslain himself said he wished Tytania would never require he fully utilize his skills, as it would entail Tytania being in danger. Though he is generally known as a peacemaker, he has shown on several occasions to be utterly brilliant and ruthless when necessary. He truly is the most balanced of the four dukes, excelling in all aspects of strategy, politics, and social skills. He has demonstrated he possesses a multitude of soft skills the other dukes lack by taking care of Princess Lydia and shaping Bal’ami to be a respectable man. Before talking about Jouslain further, I’ll use this opportunity to talk about Lydia and Bal.

Princess Lydia, one of the few female leads in the show.

Lydia is the spontaneous and spunky princess that is surprisingly mature for her age. She’s a bit naive yet seems to have a deep understanding of politics and the workings of Tytania. She’s supposedly supposed to be a major focus of the story, and the plot looks to be ingratiating her with the Tytania clan, especially Jouslain who sees the passion in her heart. Her true role in the series still remains to be seen as most of her screentime thus far has been devoted to character development, and she hasn’t done anything too major.

Bal’ami to me started out as a cookie-cutter Tytanian; ambitious, arrogant, foolish, and looking for advancement. Bal tried convincing his father, Marquis Estrades to start a coup against Ajman and take his rightful place as clan lord. Seemingly aware of Bal’s ambition, Jouslain took the young Tytanian under his wing as an adjutant and fostered positive growth in the young man. Bal soon realized the error of his ways and tried to dissuade his father, but it was in vain as Estrades continued with the attempted coup and lost his life. Bal could have just as easily lost his life or become another Idris due to his blind ambition, but it was Jouslain that guided him on the correct path.

Jouslain has demonstrated aspects of his personality that the other dukes lack through the way he interacts with other characters, especially Lydia and Bal. He’s not ambitious. He doesn’t even want to be clan lord, a position of unlimited power. Unlike Zarlish and Idris, power is not his motivation. He desires peace and works toward that end tirelessly. Though the show has played a large focus on Jouslain as the yin to Fan Hyulick’s yang, his calm demeanor makes him difficult to read, even to those that know him best. I will refrain from Jouslain’s RoTK analogy until I get to Fan.

Ajman Tytania… What to say about Ajman? He really hasn’t done much besides sit at his desk looking cool. At the very least we know he’s comfortable with delegating the day to day running of Tytania to the dukes. Otherwise he just sits around looking cool and badass, making comments amount how the bitterness of coffee suits defeat and such.

Galactic goofball and savior of the universe, Fan Hyulick.

I’ll wrap up the character analysis portion of this article by examining Fan Hyulick. In the first episode he was appointed to the post of Admiral by the Eurian government to essentially fight and lose the battle against Ariabert. On a whim, Fan Hyulick decided he wanted to win the battle and handed an embarrassing loss to Ariabert and the whole of Tytania. Fan’s renown as hero and savior of the universe helped him gather a motley crew of talented individuals after getting discharged by Euria. Fan essentially wandered around as a vagrant for half the season until the death of his beloved (and useless) Lira spurred him into taking vengeance against the equally incompetent Alses Tytania. Lira’s final wish to see a universe without Tytania is now his driving motivation. Though he is a goofball with a strange penchant for omelets, it is often shown that Fan Hyulick is truly something special. He has proven that Tytania is not invincible by delivering heavy blows to the Tytania regime by defeating Ariabert and killing the “impervious” Zarlish.

As a whole, Tytania as an organization is the galactic bully that beats up smaller, weaker kids (planets) and takes their lunch money (through contributions and resources). Fan Hyulick is “that” guy that stood up to the bully and gave him a bloody nose. He has inspired others to stand against Tytania, though these outside efforts often end in failure. Case in point, Doormat Doorman’s little rebellion with the Blaze Flag army was utterly decimated by Zarlish. Even competent people can’t stand against Tytania. Albert Kanack gave Zarlish trouble by impeding the latter’s progress in his hunt for Hyulick but ultimately succumbed to Tytania’s fear tactics.

Jouslain and Fan meeting face to face.

Now I didn’t forget about the analogy I skipped earlier. Jouslain and Fan are like two sides of the coin. Jouslain is the only true rival of Fan, and Fan is the only true rival of Jouslain. They are equally talented as demonstrated through their acknowledgment of each other at the end of episode 24 with their spiritual face off and again in 26 when they finally met face to face. Fan and Jouslain are equal, one is not greater than the other, so with that I’ll say both are like Zhuge Liang, RoTK’s peerless strategist. I know the RoTK buffs are saying, “Hey Noirsword, hey Noirsword, Zhuge Liang did have rivals like Sima Yi and Zhou Yu, and he did have an equal in Pang Tong”. Sima Yi, Zhou Yu and Pang Tong were inferior to Zhuge Liang in various degrees, so they don’t really compare.

The dynamic between Tytania and Hyulick is very much a war of class. Clan Tytania is regal and full of nobles. Fan represents the everyday man, the middle and lower class people resent being oppressed by Tytania. The people will soon rally against Tytania as Fan continues to win battles and gain popular support.

We know Tytania is destined going to fall, ushering in a new age for the universe, but the drama stems from how Tytania will fall. Mainly how Fan will go about gathering his army, how Tytania will respond, and the strategies both sides will employ in battle. The house that Tytania built still stands strong, but Fan has quite literally knocked out one of the house’s major pillars. The foundation is also starting to rot with rampant incompetence and greed among Tytania’s lower ranks (See: Corrupt officials and a willingness to hire turncoats that betray their countries and comrades). The first season was just the tip of the iceberg, and many more exciting battles are sure to be in store.

One of the major complaints about the show is its slow pacing. I consider it more methodical than slow because a rebellion against the galaxy’s super power isn’t going to happen overnight, it takes time. Fan has also needed time to find himself as well as a reason to fight. If I had to wager a guess, this story is only 1/3 over. There are still three dukes left, and they will only get more dangerous as Fan defeats each and moves on to the next, eventually culminating in a battle for control of the universe with Jouslain and/or Ajman. I can’t wait for the next season to see what happens next.

I’ve noticed a recent trend that’s been affecting contemporary anime comedies, namely the emergence of the hardcore anime comedy. By hardcore comedy, I mean comedies that deliver barrage after barrage of industry related jokes, and are obviously intended for the hardcore otaku segment.

The first aspect of appealing to the hardcore crowd is constant use of references and parodies of existing anime and games. With that statement, I know some titles easily come to mind. Lucky Star, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Hayate no Gotoku and Paniponi Dash. While this handful of titles is a small sample of comedy shows, I consider them the most successful comedies to hit the scene in recent memory.

Becky! Wait a sec…

Miku Hatsune auditioning for the voice of Meru in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

Code Zetsubou.

Yes your majesty!

Cultural jokes and pop culture references in anime comedies are nothing new, but the major key to the humor of hardcore comedy is the frequency with which they indiscriminately reference and parody the anime industry. Current anime comedies have been increasing the focus on the hardcore otaku segment with tons of anime and game references and parodies. Casual audiences can still watch the hardcore comedies, but many reference jokes require an extensive anime knowledge to find funny. Who else would have extensive anime knowledge besides the hardcore fans?

Mmmm… Bacon.

Hayate as Shigeru Akagi.

Just as keikaku.

Kansai dorifto!

All shows are subject to parody, but popular subjects tend to be various shounen (particularly the Super Saiyajins of DBZ), Gundam (and the Newtype flash), Code Geass, Death Note and popular visual novels. These references can lightly poke fun at other anime, as in how Kyoto Animation loves to constantly reference their older show. However studios like SHAFT are notorious for blatantly mocking the industry in their comedies, most recently blasting Kyoto Animation and Key in the Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OVA.

Kotori Shirakawa from Da Capo. Sort of.

Ramba Klaus.

Director Yutaka Yamamoto flips the bird at KyoAni with Kannagi’s infamous karaoke scene.

No further explanation needed right?

Seiyuu jokes are an emerging form of referential comedy that cater to the hardcore otaku that actively follow seiyuu careers. By far and large, seiyuu jokes stem from fan creation, but some shows will feature a couple seiyuu jokes here and there. The most common type is acknowledging a seiyuu’s past role by having their character dress up or imitate a prior role. Konata Izumi cosplaying Haruhi Suzumiya, Maria dressing up as Suigintou, and Nagi’s quick Shana impersonation are a few examples.

Seiyuu jokes don’t get any more blatant than this.

Maria as Suiguntou

Urusai urusai urusai!

The high points of hardcore, reference based comedies like Lucky Star and Hayate no Gotoku comes from the parody skits. The non-reference humor is frequently hit or miss and often not as funny. Overall, the writing relies on parodies for laughs, but does the hardcore comedy overuse parody as a crutch to cover for weak writing? Hmm… I wonder.

All said, casual comedy is still alive and kicking though. Hidamari Sketch, Minami-ke and Ichigo Mashimaro relied more on situational comedy rather than references and all were reasonably successful, but they’re not especially prolific either. They do have their followings but at least to me, they are far overshadowed by the hardcore comedies.

PS: Most of these screen caps are borrowed from Random Curiosity, so credit goes where it’s due.

PSS: There may be a part two to this article soon.

As part of the February Round Robin, I’ll take a serious look at the many nuances of the lolita complex. This post will remain mostly serious in nature and is fairly lengthy. Grab a Cherry Coke and make yourself comfortable. tl;dr territory ahoy!

The lolita complex is a phenomenon that has swept over the otaku masses in the past decade, give or take a few years. In the past few years there has been an outbreak of shows focusing on casts of young girls, all varying widely in how much they sexualize the girls. Some shows are more or less fairly “innocent” like Ichigo Mashimaro and Manabi Straight while others are much more sexual in nature such as Kodomo no Jikan and Moetan. Of course when you boil it all down, all these shows share a commonality — the focus is on the young girls.

Why are lolis so popular? A lolita is symbolic of innocence and purity, and there are certain types of people that want to… “Pick the fruit before it’s ripe,” as Malzias so delicately puts it. I’m inclined to agree with his logic. The increasing popularity of the moe archetype also plays a part in the popularity of lolis. When I think moe, I think loli. To me, moe embodies a character that is supposed to be innocent, pure, and maybe a little naive, basically a character with a childlike personality. Something I’ve been thinking about is that when we assign the moe tag to a girl with breasts, the term suddenly becomes curvy moe (ex. Mikuru Asahina, Kotomi Ichinose). We don’t intrinsically think of a girl with breasts as moe unless she has childlike properties like Clannad’s Kotomi.

Though only somewhat related to this argument, I also wanted to discuss DFC, better known as the Delicious Flat Chest. Why is it we have an acronym to describe a flat chest? Any otaku worth their salt knows what DFC means, thus the word has ingrained itself into our subculture, and is further indicative that the DFC has become a coveted characteristic. All lolis are DFC, but not all DFC girls are lolis.

In the not-so-distant past, shows with young girls as protagonists used to be aimed at a predominantly female audience. Of course there were also males that watched these shows, but it wasn’t cool to admit it. The stigma of a show centering on young female leads has faded over time, and somewhere along the line liking young girls has become less taboo. Anime producers discovered this and began pandering to the new lolicon demographic.

Ten years ago the thought of a magical girl show for guys would have sounded preposterous. The most prominent magical girl show back then, Cardcaptor Sakura, was clearly intended for a female audience no matter how you look at it. Sure there were guys that liked it here and there, but it was uncool for males to talk about the genre openly. Fast forward to 2004 when Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha hit the scene as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It looked and sounded like your typical magical girl anime focusing on a couple 9 year old girls, but something was very different about it… Mainly the fact that it mainly targeted the teen-adult male demographic. You can make the argument that the MGLN’s shounen action is what oriented it to a male audience, and that much is true, but the characterization and presentation tell a different story.

There was something about how Nanoha and Fate were portrayed that was very sexual. The transformation sequences in the first season were fairly milquetoast but became very sensual in the second season, MGLN A’s. Fate’s original costume, with the skintight bodysuit, thigh-high stockings and super short skirt that left little to the imagination, was extremely provocative, especially for a character that was supposed to be 9 years old. You can’t deny that Fate was designed to turn normal guys into lolicons and make them gush gallons of blood from their noses.

The first two seasons of Nanoha had a fair amount of sexuality, but aside from the points above was quite tame overall. We’re just opening the floodgates because there’s an abundance of shows that sexualize lolis to a much greater degree. Kodomo no Jikan and Moetan are two very guilty culprits, so let’s go with those. These two have been around for awhile and are notorious for the amount of loli ero in them. Those two can pretty much be summed up as a whole lotta loli ero and not much else.

Lower on the loli ero spectrum are Koihime Musou and Strike Witches. Koihime Musou doesn’t focus exclusively on lolis but is still quite raunchy and indiscriminate in the ridiculous amounts of fanservice which includes lolis in addition to all manner of boisterously buxom females. Strike Witches fans affectionately refer to their show as Pantsu Witches while the denouncers call it Pantsu Witches with a different tone in their voice. Strike Witches is certainly no stranger to fanservice and makes a point to flash tons of panties (with an occasional bath scene) at the audience.

A decade ago I know we would never have seen loli fanservice shows hit the airwaves. Who would have ever guessed shows focusing on pre-pubescent girls would ever be so popular? The loli phenomenon has swept over the anime industry like an unstoppable tsunami and has prominently established its own niche. Have we gradually grown accustomed to the emergence of loli fanservice shows? The mentality of anime has changed. Lolis are almost an obligatory requirement for anime now, especially school dramas and slice-of-lifes. They’ve really become a fixture in current anime. When I watch any current anime, it’s surprising when a show doesn’t have the obligatory loli show up in the supporting cast.

Have we grown accustomed to the presence of lolis and loli fanservice? Is the emergence of shows pandering to lolicons a fad or has it firmly cemented itself into the fabric of the anime industry? We can speculate all we want, but the answer is we don’t know.

The lolita complex is the otaku community’s worst kept secret, the elephant in the room if you will. It’s neither taboo nor condoned in the main community, and there are those on both spectrums that make their arguments for or against it. I will say one thing though. It’s only in the otaku community that people regularly express lolicon pride.

It’s easy to just lump all lolicons together, but there are different classifications in the lolicon segment. There are those that adore lolis without sexualization and simply think of them as cute (or moe if you prefer). Then there are those that sexualize lolis to the nth degree. It’s the latter that I would more strongly implicate with pedophilia than the former. The textbook definition of pedophilia is someone that is sexually attracted to children, which the lolita complex encompasses regardless of the “lolis are only 2-D/fictional argument”. Yes, it’s an ugly word but the truth is the truth.

All said and done, I would be a hypocrite if I totally blasted lolicons. After all, Fate Testarossa and Shana are two of my favorite anime girls, though they’re exceptions to the rule (and it’s debatable that Shana is merely just DFC). Most lolis are cookie cutter moe and dropped into a show simply to boost ratings. I’m generally indifferent to lolis and don’t care about them unless they do something to really distinguish themselves from the cookie cutter pack. I’m neither for lolicons, nor am I against them. I don’t care if you like lolis or if you hate them. What you do is your own business, and you’re probably mature enough to know the implications of being a lolicon.

Space, the final frontier. The vast unknown, the only realm that still remains mostly unexplored by modern man is a popular subject for various aspects of popular culture. Space is a popular subject, and the setting is ingrained in television and movies from the famous Star Trek and Star Wars franchises to slews of TV shows ranging from obscure to slightly less obscure in today’s popular culture.

Anime is certainly no exception as the science fiction/space setting pervades the medium. Whether space plays a small part in the story or is actually the focus of a show, it is a well ingratiated setting. Take Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star for example. While these shows are mostly about the episodic exploits of their motley crews, they both involve planet hopping across the universe on their adventures.

Space opera is no stranger to space as its name suggests, but the foundation for that genre is a focus on politics and militaristic themes. And you know what? It’s actually more interesting than it sounds.

Mecha shows generally favor the space setting, the most prominent franchises being Gundam and Macross. Mecha and space are familiar bedfellows and go together like peanut butter and jelly. We really don’t think twice that space is usually the setting of choice as angst ridden teens continually find new ways to hop into the military’s finest mecha to do battle with masked ace pilots, massive alien threats, their brainwashed father/brother/mentor/hairdresser, or whatever it is the writers choose for them to fight for one reason or another. In fact I think you’d be more hard pressed to find mecha shows that take place solely on Earth with no space travel. It just seems more natural for mecha to be in space.

Perhaps space is such a popular setting because it’s mysterious. There’s nothing left on Earth to truly explore except the ocean, and to be honest, there’s nothing appealing about that unless you’re a marine biologist. We already know what’s there; Fish, coral reefs, a lot of volcanos and a whole bunch of boring. On the other hand, the ocean of stars has fascinated mankind since ancient times because of its mystery and majesty. There lies the possibility for infinite exploration and creative imagination. Space usually lends its services to serious shows like mecha and space opera among other things, but it can also be used for comedies like this season’s thus far unintentionally(?) comedic Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo.

I would bet my Star Wars action figure collection, except for Boba Fett, that wish fulfillment also plays a big part in why space is so popular. We will never conceivably leave the Earth in our lifetime, but it is inevitable that humans will eventually want to colonize other systems for a variety of reasons. Adventure and the desire to explore mankind’s final frontier is an obvious reason for wanting to go to space. Another popular reason is that we all know in the back of our minds that the Earth can’t sustain our exponentially growing population forever, and we may leave the Earth to expand our pool of resources — Worst case scenario is that the Earth becomes totally unlivable for one reason or another. I digress though, this is not an environmentalist article, and I’ll try to curb my inherent pessimism. Just as humans have always wished to fly, getting to explore space would be just as exciting if not more so.

Of course more often than not in shows that take place in space, colonies and terraformed planets have already been established, and there isn’t much left to explore. Interplanetary travel often becomes an ordinary, almost mundane, occurrence. Traveling from point A to point B in space becomes much akin to taking an airline flight to another country. Among the anime I’ve watched, there aren’t a whole lot of shows based on pure exploration of the galaxy ala Star Trek. Most space anime tend to be more action oriented ala Star Wars with a focus on fighting in an already established universe. I’d actually prefer more space shows to be like Star Trek with an emphasis on exploration and colonizing, but that would be much too slow for today’s ADHD youth that crave explosions and condemn slow pacing.

The space setting is very much a blank canvas, and every writer has their own take on what it could be like. You can have “realistic” space shows like Cowboy Bebop, Gundam, Macross, Tytania and Legend of Galactic Heroes. On the flip side you can suspend realism in favor of absurdity with shows like Kiddy Grade, Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo and Outlaw Star among others. That’s not to say absurdity is bad, it’s just that the absurd shows aren’t realistic. Space truly is an interesting setting if you take a step back and look at the sheer amount of anime that take place in space. There are far too many to name off the top of my head. It has a consistent presence in an assortment of shows, and we get to experience what it might be like to travel among the stars and see worlds much different than our own.

tl;dr version: Space is cool.

Oh, umbrellas – you dirty scourge, you.

Once upon a time, the umbrella was a sweet symbol, used sparingly in anime to denote the sweet affections young people often hold for one another. Umbrella scenes either occurred to move character relationships forward, or were imagined in the minds of young men and women pursuing another young man or woman. It was a trope that we could live with, because of how small it was, and of how universal its appeal was – how many of us haven’t imagined such a scene for ourselves?

But no more! That has all, sadly, changed – now the umbrella operates as a harbinger of doom and boredom, particularly for those watching a yuri title.

This isn’t to say that the umbrella cannot be properly utilized within a yuri title – there is certainly a right way to go about it. Yumi’s umbrella operates as a crucial part of the plot of the latter half of Maria-sama ga Miteru~Haru~, and never becomes a point of boredom for the viewer. The umbrella in this case avoids this predicament by not hijacking the plot itself, instead reinforcing the events that are already occurring – namely that Yumi is worn down by Sachiko’s emotional distance, along with Touko’s belligerence, and the disappearance of her umbrella on a rainy day as she shops is merely the last straw for the young woman – this is a situation we can all relate to, where something seemingly minor simply stacks the deck against us too high and we take a fall. This use of the umbrella in the storyline earns a check-plus, and should operate as the standard to which other shows aspire whenever they whip out the umbrellas.

Unfortunately, Marimite is probably the reason we’ve ended up with as many dishwater-dull uses of it in yuri anime since.

For example, Strawberry Panic – if you’ve seen it, you know the umbrella episode. This episode was a mind-numbing affair, with the young ladies spending the entire episode trying to first figure out who lent one of the girls an umbrella, and then to determine who took another of the girls umbrella. There is no plot movement. There is no change in relationships. One character is introduced, but she contributes absolutely nothing ever to the story at all. Instead, we watch a bunch of girls acting out an Encyclopedia Brown-type adventure with none of the charm. Yawn. It’s as if they were so desperate to include the umbrella since it was part of the successful Maria-sama ga Miteru that they figured they could jam it into the storyline however they pleased and still get the same results.

Moving along, we find ourselves at the Candy Boy ONA. This series also features an umbrella episode, with similarly disastrous results as Strawberry Panic – the difference here is that the viewer only had to put up with a scant ten minutes or so of it as opposed to the twenty minutes in SP. Basically, it rains one day, but both the sisters have forgotten their umbrellas, much to the chagrin of the elder, who had been looking forward to sharing an umbrella with her younger sister. They end up having to share with a girl who has a crush on the younger sister after the elder sister scrambles around a bit trying to desperately locate one. It is just as boring as it sounds.

What do these two botched efforts share? They try to use the umbrella as the sole propellant in the plot of the episode in question, when truly the umbrella works best when used as a reinforcer to larger plot structures.

So what can we do to alter this dastardly arc of fate? Go forth and take back the umbrella, by force if necessary! You can save our yuri titles from the mistakes of these titles and others unmentioned, but only if you act now! Banzai!

Edit by Yamcha: Yuri for great justice!