Imagine your high school days, where you went to class, talked with friends, did normal student things. Now imagine what it might have been like as a war-zone between your class and all the other classes in your year. This is the world of Baka and Test, and it's probably one of the funniest anime's I've seen in awhile. The premise is that in this particular Japanese high school, the students have been placed into classes based on their scores for their entrance exams, ranging from Class A which is the geniuses of the school all the way to Class F, the idiots, losers and overall scum of the earth. The classes have equipment of varying quality: Class A has a luxurious classroom with comfortable chairs, laptops and coffee station; Class F has broken down tables made for Kindergartners in a drafty, dirty classroom.
The twist is that during the school year, a lower-leveled class can declare war on a higher class and if they succeed they can claim their stuff for their own. Of course they don't fight each other physically, instead they have a new state of the art system that allows students to summon an avatar of themselves in a summoning field controlled by a teacher. The strength of the avatar is tied to the student's latest test scores, and the summoning field uses the subject the teacher teaches. So a Math teacher would supervise a battle using the student's math scores. A student loses when their avatar's score becomes zero and they must take a remedial class as punishment. If a lower leveled class looses the war, their equipment gets downgraded as a result, since the higher leveled class wouldn't want to take their stuff.
So the story follows our main character Akihisa Yoshi, the titular baka, in his second year of high school in Class F. Alongside him are: his best friend the brilliant but lazy Yuuji; flat-chested tomboy/tsundere Minami Shimada; pervert ninja, with a camera, Kouta; extremely feminine-looking male Hideyoshi; and the pink haired girl he likes and seems like the typical first girl in the harem Mizuki Himeji. There are also other characters the pop up quite alot, like Shouko (Yuuji's yandere sort-of love interest), Akira Yoshi (Akihisa's very strange elder sister), Aiko (major tease), Iron Man (the craziest teacher ever, he drags students off for the remedial classes and presides over them), Miharu (Minami's lesbian stalker), Kubo (Class-A student with a crush on Akihisa), and even the FFF Inquisition (a bunch of Class F losers who torture guys who get the tiniest bit of affection from girls, since they can't be happy and decided that no one else would be either).
Akihisa is a refreshing sort of main character for a series like this because he's an idiot intentionally and there's really nothing more special about him than that and his sincere good heart. That's not to say he's perfect, like other leads in this kind of show. Akihisa is a major pervert, teases all his friends pretty harshly and when he inevitably gets retribution for his teasing it feels more justified, though still overboard. He wants to do the right thing a lot of the time and for once the fact that he's oblivious to love is justified. His harem is barely existent, only two girls actively show their interest, another is just a kid, one is a shy gay guy, and the last is his own sister, which he is understandably creeped out by. He doesn't realize Minami even likes him at all, since she is rather violent toward him and he primarily thinks of her as another friend, and the girl he does like he doesn't ever try to get with because he feels she deserves better, and that's his driving force throughout the first season at least: trying to improve Mizuki's lot in school with the wars.
Mizuki is fairly bland, though she also feels a bit more nuanced then a character I could normally expect from an anime like this. On the day of the entrance exam Mizuki fell ill and couldn't finish the exam, landing her with 0 points and Class-F. In truth she's Class-A caliber and her grades are on par with the top students in the school. She isn't treated as flawless by the anime either, there's a running gag about how lethal her cooking is and she's quick to join Minami in punishing Akihisa if he so much as looks at another girl. It's just a shame that in the two seasons of the show I've watched we get relatively little insight into her, she's just kind of bland as a result.
Minami is a pretty stereotypical tsundere tomboy; her chest is flat and she gets teased for it, she responds to said teasing by putting Akihisa in incredibly painful wrestling moves, she gets easily embarrassed when her feelings are addressed, etc. She's in Class-F because she's recently moved back from Germany, and while she's picked up speaking the language, she still can't read Kanji worth a damn (I so know that feeling) and thus her only class that she does decently in is Math, which is numbers and something she can understand. Unlike other tsundere characters she's not always hostile, she gets along with everyone, even Akihisa, until he does something really stupid, which is pretty often, but she's not defined by that hostility toward her crush.
Yuuji is the representative of Class-F, so if he gets taken out during a war then it's over. He's brilliant at strategies and tactics but has a tendency to not carry out his own plans at times. His and Akihisa's relationship is very amusing and he really comes off like an older brother of sorts to the group. He has does end up being abused by Shouko, which is something I have a bit of a problem with but I'll discuss that later. When Yuuji does put his mind to it, he has the intellect of at least a Class-B student, which is pretty darn good. He has a tendency to sacrifice Akihisa a lot of the time, tricking him into thinking he's the conerstone of a plan when he was just the distraction.
Hideyoshi is the most fan-serviced character in the show for guys... and he's a guy. There's a lot of great gags over this that I won't spoil here, suffice to say that both Akihisa and Kouta both perv over him like they would a girl, or more so. Aside from being in a somewhat genderless state, Hideyoshi is notable for being an amazing thespian with incredible range, and has the most common sense in the show. Kouta is a ninja pervert, his score in physical education is the single highest score in any subject in the school, outclassing the Class-A students. He always has a camera and is around to snap photos at opportune times and acts a surveilance/tech specialist when the group needs one.
These are the main characters we're with over the course of the series, along with many more minor characters, some of which I've mentioned up above. The series itself pretty often seems to forget about the Avatar system, it's not uncommon to go some episodes with no appearance or battles of any kind. It's also very hyperbolic in nature, on the verge of being satirical. A lot of the abuse dished out by the girls is like this, it's supposed to be over the top and funny how much they hurt the guys for even the most minor infractions. There's also the premise, banding groups of students to help each other do better so they'll get better grades and become stronger to get luxuries other classes have. Then there's a second season premise that takes up a few episodes that's essentially a war between the boys of the second year and the girls/teachers to spy on the girl in the bath. It's a concept that sounds good, a literal war over peeping on girls, but it plays out very dully and it's repetitive.
I have a problem with this show and it's fairly serious, despite it's hyperbolic nature. The abuse that goes on in anime always makes me uncomfortable, but this series dials it up for the sake of comedy and I just can't laugh at it. Sure, the boys fairly often behave in such a way that it makes sense the girls would get angry and "punish" them for it, even though it's not their place to do so. But almost all the time it's disproportionate and a number of those the guys didn't even do anything wrong. I so detest abuse anywhere in media, regardless of who's doing it, and it really concerns me when I see something like that played for comedy when if the genders were reversed it'd be dramatic and the abuser would be a monster. The problem with this anime is that this is almost satirical and laughing off anime that does this kind of stuff seriously. It is over the top, the girls are shown to be kind of crazy when they do it, but the fact is it's still supposed to be funny for the audience. I'm very mixed on what to think about it but it detracts my enjoyment of the series overall.
I don't intend to turn this into a discussion of sexism though, that's for another time and place and probably not by me. Baka and Test is a really interesting anime, it's pretty funny even with the problems I have with it and I would recommend watching it if you're a fan of comedy and especially comedic anime. It's a fun ride for the most part and it even manages to get some decent drama and sentimentality into the mix without making it melodramatic and sappy.
-Subtle
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Aliens Vs. Predator: Resurrection
Recently I went about watching every single movie in the Alien canon, the original four, the AVP movies and Prometheus, and I'm not sure if there are more. This was my first time seeing them and for the most part I liked them all (except Alien3), but Aliens Vs. Predator Requiem is a weird one. There are parts I liked in it, despite the problems, but there was one thing about the movie that continues to bug me quite a bit about it, despite it being more like a SyFy made for TV movie than a feature film starring two major monster franchises.
Okay, so if you haven't seen the movie I'm not going to take great pains to describe the setup, it's honestly not that important. My problem is with the scene where the pizza boy delivers pizza to his crushes' house. Her douchebag boyfriend and his friends (and I guess her friends) are there and the douchebag insults the pizza boy, you know, because he's a douchebag. The pizza boy shrugs it off and fires an insult/taunt back at him. When he's leaving, the pizza boy gets jumped by the three douchebags because of his insult. Which is awful writing!
Note to the writer(s) of this script: conflict like this needs to be built up more! No one is going to jump someone over a minor insult like the one pizza boy said, it can fuel the conflict but that is not going to spur someone to action! It's just a stupid method of trying to get you to sympathize with pizza boy and hate the douchebags, but it's done so poorly that it honestly bugs the heck out of me, We're not given any indication these guys have a rivalry outside of their mutual attraction to girl who dies by running into a predator attack (SPOILER ALERT), not that anyone cared...
It's just that bit of stupidity that makes me hedge toward not liking this movie. If you're going to make a movie with terrible lighting and never focus on the Predalien and only have one Predator in the movie then at least know how to write some characters so I don't get sucked out when stupid shit like a kid getting jumped over a pizza-related taunt happens!
-Subtle
Okay, so if you haven't seen the movie I'm not going to take great pains to describe the setup, it's honestly not that important. My problem is with the scene where the pizza boy delivers pizza to his crushes' house. Her douchebag boyfriend and his friends (and I guess her friends) are there and the douchebag insults the pizza boy, you know, because he's a douchebag. The pizza boy shrugs it off and fires an insult/taunt back at him. When he's leaving, the pizza boy gets jumped by the three douchebags because of his insult. Which is awful writing!
Note to the writer(s) of this script: conflict like this needs to be built up more! No one is going to jump someone over a minor insult like the one pizza boy said, it can fuel the conflict but that is not going to spur someone to action! It's just a stupid method of trying to get you to sympathize with pizza boy and hate the douchebags, but it's done so poorly that it honestly bugs the heck out of me, We're not given any indication these guys have a rivalry outside of their mutual attraction to girl who dies by running into a predator attack (SPOILER ALERT), not that anyone cared...
It's just that bit of stupidity that makes me hedge toward not liking this movie. If you're going to make a movie with terrible lighting and never focus on the Predalien and only have one Predator in the movie then at least know how to write some characters so I don't get sucked out when stupid shit like a kid getting jumped over a pizza-related taunt happens!
-Subtle
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Grave of the Fireflies
I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to my feelings on Isao Takahata's film Grave of the Fireflies. It's a sad film to be sure, and it's filled with a lot of emotion and messages, there are worthwhile things to take from it. It's just that it can be hard to take them, considering the film was made for the Japanese youth in the 1980s, a culture and generation removed from now, and while some things are universal in the film, at its heart this film is Japanese and speak mostly to the Japanese, which is perfectly fine, it just makes it harder for an American like myself to fully appreciate it.
A bit of backstory on the film, it was adapted from a novel written in 1967 by Nosaka Akiyuki, a semi-biographical narrative of his experiences in the latter days of World War 2 in Japan, particularly the incendiary bombings by the US. The story and film are quite similar in content, so this can serve to summarize both, and I'll be spoiling the story here, not that it's all too important, since knowing what happens doesn't take any of the emotional punch away.
The story follows a 14 year old boy, Seita, and his 4 year old sister, Setsuko, as their home is destroyed, their mother is killed, and they go live with their Aunt. Though the Aunt is at first nice and sympathetic, the two orphans begin to frustrate her as the rations of food get smaller and Seita spends all of his time with his sister and being unproductive, during the middle of a war. She gets rather harsh and treats them pretty badly in a passive-aggressive sort of way, so Seita eventually decides they'll go live in an abandoned shelter. Though they try to make it home and survive on their own, Setsuko gradually gets weaker and sick, and Seita resorts to stealing crops and during air raids so he can take care of her. Their situation gets worse and worse, and Setsuko dies despite Seita's attempts to take care of her. This is the end of the story and film, but I haven't actually talked about the beginning, because it depicts Seita's end. Some time after Setsuko died, Seita lived in a train station with a bunch of other orphans, and gradually weakened himself, not getting enough to eat, he dies alone along with 20-30 other children. After this death we go back to see how it started, with the initial bombing of Kobe.
Nosaka had a 18 month old sister during this time, and he was unable to keep her from dying, but he survived and partially wrote the story as a way of atoning for this, but also a societal critique of the people who let those things happen, the Japanese bystanders who did nothing for the war orphans. Like Takahata's film, however, it also gets treated as a sort of plea to the Japanese youth to remind them of humility. In both releases, the 67 story and 88 film, Japan experienced an economic boom, and the youth were being spoiled by it; juvenile crime was at its height in those two periods. By those times the war was pretty removed from the youth, a cultural memory more than anything, and none too important to their lives. These works, especially the film, were trying to get the youth to respect what they had and their elders, by showing them the hard times they went through as well as how fleeting things can be, ala the fireflies.
I'll explain what I mean by that last point. Throughout the film, fireflies are shown constantly, generally providing some comfort to the kids in their struggle for survival. The first night they live on their own they fill the place with tons of fireflies to light the dark shelter, and it's beautiful for the night. Come the morning they're all dead, and Setsuko buries them in a grave. The fireflies come to symbolize the children, all the war orphans and such, as short lived beings. The end of the film shows the fireflies flying around and the backdrop of a metropolitan Kobe, tying parallels to the current economic boom. JesuOtaku on thatguywiththeglasses.com pointed out that what the film says there is that this, the metropolitan city, the wealth and all the things you're taking for granted, are only temporary like the firefly, and that they needed to remember what was important in life. As I mentioned this was made for the youth of Japan at those times, and it represents a cultural experience that, while can be appreciated in 21st century United States, doesn't have the exact same impact it did for those people at that time.
Most people who watch it nowadays see the film as an anti-war film, for its honest depiction of events that happened, but Takahata has gone on record as saying that he never intended for the film to be an anti-war film, and that no such message existed in it. Now that seems pretty conclusive, so why do so many people seem to think it's anti-war when the director disagrees? Cultural differences may be the answer, it certainly doesn't help that Grave of Fireflies is mainly for the Japanese, the intent can be lost upon international viewers. There is also the possibility that even if Takahata doesn't see the message in the film, it could still be there. For my money I don't think it's an anti-war film, if anything the war seems to be treated as a sort of natural disaster, something that just happens and the characters have to endure it. There aren't any anti-earthquake or anti-tornado films out there, just ones that deal with survival during them. As much as the war effects them, the characters rarely seem to acknowledge it, Seita and Setsuko disappear more and more into their own world as the film goes on, they don't confront it.
In the same vein of being a plea for humility, it's also a warning against pride. Seita is a 14 year old boy and he's becoming a man, growing up quickly, and he's finding his ego. We see through his interactions with his Aunt that he doesn't think highly of his elders, he doesn't understand their reasoning or listen to their wishes, and eventually decides he's better off taking care of Setsuko alone. This dooms them both, as his pride keeps him from turning back to his Aunt even when things get dire, and they begin to starve. Essentially he kills his sister and himself because he refused to go back and swallow his pride. The youth of Japan during the time of the film's release were like Seita in this way. They grew up in prosperity, and they didn't understand their elder's frustrations with their lifestyle, and they grew rebellious. The film is an example of what can happen when you let pride keep you from listening to your elders. Seita tries to survive with them alone and cut off from their older generation, and they died.
There is a lot in the movie that isn't said outright, there is much symbolism and subtle messages but it's all just draining. There's a lot to discuss about it but my feelings on it are confused and jumbled. On the one hand I appreciate the work put into the film, I appreciate the intent and the messages placed in it. On the other, there may be a problem with it being for such a specific audience at a specific time. There are certain universal truths to it, but knowing that it was for all intents and purposes a film to guilt the younger generation into being more obedient and less rebellious in Japan in the late 80s is difficult for me to get around. It's like I'm being shut out of a conversation, I can still hear it but I'm not involved. Considering how many people found it to be an anti-war film, I don't think the message got through very well outside of Japan anyway. and I think that's what keeps it from being truly great. It's not a universal film, and that's okay, but it limits just how impacting it can be to other cultures. I truly don't know how I feel about this film, you should watch it to see for yourself. Just don't watch the dub, the original Japanese is kind of important, since this is a very Japan-centric film.
-Subtle
A bit of backstory on the film, it was adapted from a novel written in 1967 by Nosaka Akiyuki, a semi-biographical narrative of his experiences in the latter days of World War 2 in Japan, particularly the incendiary bombings by the US. The story and film are quite similar in content, so this can serve to summarize both, and I'll be spoiling the story here, not that it's all too important, since knowing what happens doesn't take any of the emotional punch away.
The story follows a 14 year old boy, Seita, and his 4 year old sister, Setsuko, as their home is destroyed, their mother is killed, and they go live with their Aunt. Though the Aunt is at first nice and sympathetic, the two orphans begin to frustrate her as the rations of food get smaller and Seita spends all of his time with his sister and being unproductive, during the middle of a war. She gets rather harsh and treats them pretty badly in a passive-aggressive sort of way, so Seita eventually decides they'll go live in an abandoned shelter. Though they try to make it home and survive on their own, Setsuko gradually gets weaker and sick, and Seita resorts to stealing crops and during air raids so he can take care of her. Their situation gets worse and worse, and Setsuko dies despite Seita's attempts to take care of her. This is the end of the story and film, but I haven't actually talked about the beginning, because it depicts Seita's end. Some time after Setsuko died, Seita lived in a train station with a bunch of other orphans, and gradually weakened himself, not getting enough to eat, he dies alone along with 20-30 other children. After this death we go back to see how it started, with the initial bombing of Kobe.
Nosaka had a 18 month old sister during this time, and he was unable to keep her from dying, but he survived and partially wrote the story as a way of atoning for this, but also a societal critique of the people who let those things happen, the Japanese bystanders who did nothing for the war orphans. Like Takahata's film, however, it also gets treated as a sort of plea to the Japanese youth to remind them of humility. In both releases, the 67 story and 88 film, Japan experienced an economic boom, and the youth were being spoiled by it; juvenile crime was at its height in those two periods. By those times the war was pretty removed from the youth, a cultural memory more than anything, and none too important to their lives. These works, especially the film, were trying to get the youth to respect what they had and their elders, by showing them the hard times they went through as well as how fleeting things can be, ala the fireflies.
I'll explain what I mean by that last point. Throughout the film, fireflies are shown constantly, generally providing some comfort to the kids in their struggle for survival. The first night they live on their own they fill the place with tons of fireflies to light the dark shelter, and it's beautiful for the night. Come the morning they're all dead, and Setsuko buries them in a grave. The fireflies come to symbolize the children, all the war orphans and such, as short lived beings. The end of the film shows the fireflies flying around and the backdrop of a metropolitan Kobe, tying parallels to the current economic boom. JesuOtaku on thatguywiththeglasses.com pointed out that what the film says there is that this, the metropolitan city, the wealth and all the things you're taking for granted, are only temporary like the firefly, and that they needed to remember what was important in life. As I mentioned this was made for the youth of Japan at those times, and it represents a cultural experience that, while can be appreciated in 21st century United States, doesn't have the exact same impact it did for those people at that time.
Most people who watch it nowadays see the film as an anti-war film, for its honest depiction of events that happened, but Takahata has gone on record as saying that he never intended for the film to be an anti-war film, and that no such message existed in it. Now that seems pretty conclusive, so why do so many people seem to think it's anti-war when the director disagrees? Cultural differences may be the answer, it certainly doesn't help that Grave of Fireflies is mainly for the Japanese, the intent can be lost upon international viewers. There is also the possibility that even if Takahata doesn't see the message in the film, it could still be there. For my money I don't think it's an anti-war film, if anything the war seems to be treated as a sort of natural disaster, something that just happens and the characters have to endure it. There aren't any anti-earthquake or anti-tornado films out there, just ones that deal with survival during them. As much as the war effects them, the characters rarely seem to acknowledge it, Seita and Setsuko disappear more and more into their own world as the film goes on, they don't confront it.
In the same vein of being a plea for humility, it's also a warning against pride. Seita is a 14 year old boy and he's becoming a man, growing up quickly, and he's finding his ego. We see through his interactions with his Aunt that he doesn't think highly of his elders, he doesn't understand their reasoning or listen to their wishes, and eventually decides he's better off taking care of Setsuko alone. This dooms them both, as his pride keeps him from turning back to his Aunt even when things get dire, and they begin to starve. Essentially he kills his sister and himself because he refused to go back and swallow his pride. The youth of Japan during the time of the film's release were like Seita in this way. They grew up in prosperity, and they didn't understand their elder's frustrations with their lifestyle, and they grew rebellious. The film is an example of what can happen when you let pride keep you from listening to your elders. Seita tries to survive with them alone and cut off from their older generation, and they died.
There is a lot in the movie that isn't said outright, there is much symbolism and subtle messages but it's all just draining. There's a lot to discuss about it but my feelings on it are confused and jumbled. On the one hand I appreciate the work put into the film, I appreciate the intent and the messages placed in it. On the other, there may be a problem with it being for such a specific audience at a specific time. There are certain universal truths to it, but knowing that it was for all intents and purposes a film to guilt the younger generation into being more obedient and less rebellious in Japan in the late 80s is difficult for me to get around. It's like I'm being shut out of a conversation, I can still hear it but I'm not involved. Considering how many people found it to be an anti-war film, I don't think the message got through very well outside of Japan anyway. and I think that's what keeps it from being truly great. It's not a universal film, and that's okay, but it limits just how impacting it can be to other cultures. I truly don't know how I feel about this film, you should watch it to see for yourself. Just don't watch the dub, the original Japanese is kind of important, since this is a very Japan-centric film.
-Subtle
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Shirokuma Cafe
So here's the thing, I don't like exploring anime too much. If you're into it then you should know why, there are so many and the quality between them is inconsistent, it can be hard to tell what you're gonna watch will be worth it. So I often try to heed the advice and words of other internet goers and judge their opinions and compare them to my own tastes, but sometimes something will just appear out of nowhere and surprise you with its quality.
Shirokuma Cafe is an shojou anime (meant for women from teens to 40s I think) that focuses on a teenage Panda named... Panda, and this guy hits really close to home for me. He's apparently not in school, because he's a Panda I suppose, and is unemployed as well, so he just lays around his house all day eating bamboo and sleeping. One day his mother, Mama Panda, gets fed up and tells him to look for a part time job. To avoid getting sucked up by her vacuum, Panda goes out into the city to look for work. He calls some places, but they hang up on him, and he can't find anyone who will take him or meets his own lazy criteria. Lost and tired, the young Panda stumbles upon a wonderful cafe run by a Polar Bear named Shirokuma (which is Japanese for Polar Bear). While enjoying an iced coffee, since they don't serve bamboo, Panda overhears Shirokuma saying he's looking for a part timer to help out, so Young Panda decides to apply.
Unfortunately for both parties, Shirokuma needs someone to work at least four days and actually do work, and Panda is only looking for a part time job for two days and doesn't want to do any work, so Shirokuma naturally does not hire him (and a host of other animal applicants who were unsuited to the task). Someone does get the job though, a young human woman named Sasako (bet you thought she would be named Human, didn't ya?) who just brought a sloth to a more comfortable location outside the cafe. Panda continues looking for a job, and Shirokuma, Sasako, and a cafe regular who's friends with Shirokuma, a Penguin named... well I bet you know, suggest positions for him, and Panda decides to check out a position at the zoo. Good news for him, Mr. Handa the zookeeper is willing to hire him for the panda position for two days a week, so starts Panda's part time job working along side Jyoukin Panda (full time Panda, and that is the only name he's ever referred to).
This series is delightful, I can't really think of a more apt word. It's fun and funny, none of the characters are too annoying, but each have their quirks. Panda is quite lazy in a special way, he wants to be lazy on his own terms, and frequently gets bored at the zoo just being the panda because it's boring, and he is quite naive and self-centered, but not in a way that seems malicious, he seems to genuinely believe his own well-being should go first (not to mention his obsession with how cute pandas are), though he sometimes does come off as a brat and a jerk, but it's never too bad. Shirokuma is a laid back character who seems to be a lot wiser than the rest of the cast, but he has a habit of teasing people and making puns that drive Penguin especially crazy. Penguin is pretty level headed for the most part until he starts talking about his love interest, Miss Penko (another penguin), which when mentioned he will get crazy over her (and there are a few funny parts to how it unfolds with her). Sasako is a kind woman who generally just seems to want others to be happy, so she can come off as a more boring character but is a great contrast to the quirks the others bring to the group.
There are other characters, many others, but I've covered the main ones. Separate the characters can get a little grating at times, but mostly they balance each other out well, and it helps that they all look like real animals instead of cartoonified versions of animals. The plots generally revolve around Panda and his adventures to do things in the laziest way possible, from wanting a Smart Phone to having a full time schedule at the zoo for a week and forced to ride crowded trains to get to work on time. Penguin will also get his own episodes frequently, generally about his failing to ask out miss Penko or trying to prepare for an ideal date with her (getting his license, practicing how the date will go, trying to talk to her, all with less than stellar results). The characters with the worst luck on the show are Penguin and Mr. Handa, Panda's boss, who wants a wife desperately but just doesn't seem to have much going on with the ladies.
I want to say so much about this anime but I don't want to spoil parts of the show beyond the first couple of episodes, so I will just end this with an explanation of why I like it so much. It's a funny thing, it's a slice of life anime so there is a lack of a main plot going through all the episodes, though there is a great continuity, but there isn't much for lovers of anime like Death Note, Naruto, FMA, or something like Sekirei or Rosario+Vampire. This is a show that did seem designed for female audiences (NOTE: I am not saying only women would like it or that men can't or women can't or any other sexist thing), but it's just got a charm to it that even if it does seem slow at times it still has me transfixed. Mostly though, watching this show helps me pick up on the Japanese language, I've been learning it for over two years now and it's got such a basic feel to the sentences and grammar that I'm able to recognize a lot of what's being said (though the subtitles helped) and it really made me feel good realizing I can understand a part of the language already.
For those interested in checking it out, the series is available on Crunchy Roll, but it is in Japanese with English subtitles. I don't know if it will get an English dub (the puns Polar Bear pulls out are based on Japanese words so I don't envy whoever would have to try to get around that for English audiences), but I think as it is it's already worth checking out. Feels nice to have something positive to say for once!
-Subtle
Shirokuma Cafe is an shojou anime (meant for women from teens to 40s I think) that focuses on a teenage Panda named... Panda, and this guy hits really close to home for me. He's apparently not in school, because he's a Panda I suppose, and is unemployed as well, so he just lays around his house all day eating bamboo and sleeping. One day his mother, Mama Panda, gets fed up and tells him to look for a part time job. To avoid getting sucked up by her vacuum, Panda goes out into the city to look for work. He calls some places, but they hang up on him, and he can't find anyone who will take him or meets his own lazy criteria. Lost and tired, the young Panda stumbles upon a wonderful cafe run by a Polar Bear named Shirokuma (which is Japanese for Polar Bear). While enjoying an iced coffee, since they don't serve bamboo, Panda overhears Shirokuma saying he's looking for a part timer to help out, so Young Panda decides to apply.
Unfortunately for both parties, Shirokuma needs someone to work at least four days and actually do work, and Panda is only looking for a part time job for two days and doesn't want to do any work, so Shirokuma naturally does not hire him (and a host of other animal applicants who were unsuited to the task). Someone does get the job though, a young human woman named Sasako (bet you thought she would be named Human, didn't ya?) who just brought a sloth to a more comfortable location outside the cafe. Panda continues looking for a job, and Shirokuma, Sasako, and a cafe regular who's friends with Shirokuma, a Penguin named... well I bet you know, suggest positions for him, and Panda decides to check out a position at the zoo. Good news for him, Mr. Handa the zookeeper is willing to hire him for the panda position for two days a week, so starts Panda's part time job working along side Jyoukin Panda (full time Panda, and that is the only name he's ever referred to).
This series is delightful, I can't really think of a more apt word. It's fun and funny, none of the characters are too annoying, but each have their quirks. Panda is quite lazy in a special way, he wants to be lazy on his own terms, and frequently gets bored at the zoo just being the panda because it's boring, and he is quite naive and self-centered, but not in a way that seems malicious, he seems to genuinely believe his own well-being should go first (not to mention his obsession with how cute pandas are), though he sometimes does come off as a brat and a jerk, but it's never too bad. Shirokuma is a laid back character who seems to be a lot wiser than the rest of the cast, but he has a habit of teasing people and making puns that drive Penguin especially crazy. Penguin is pretty level headed for the most part until he starts talking about his love interest, Miss Penko (another penguin), which when mentioned he will get crazy over her (and there are a few funny parts to how it unfolds with her). Sasako is a kind woman who generally just seems to want others to be happy, so she can come off as a more boring character but is a great contrast to the quirks the others bring to the group.
There are other characters, many others, but I've covered the main ones. Separate the characters can get a little grating at times, but mostly they balance each other out well, and it helps that they all look like real animals instead of cartoonified versions of animals. The plots generally revolve around Panda and his adventures to do things in the laziest way possible, from wanting a Smart Phone to having a full time schedule at the zoo for a week and forced to ride crowded trains to get to work on time. Penguin will also get his own episodes frequently, generally about his failing to ask out miss Penko or trying to prepare for an ideal date with her (getting his license, practicing how the date will go, trying to talk to her, all with less than stellar results). The characters with the worst luck on the show are Penguin and Mr. Handa, Panda's boss, who wants a wife desperately but just doesn't seem to have much going on with the ladies.
I want to say so much about this anime but I don't want to spoil parts of the show beyond the first couple of episodes, so I will just end this with an explanation of why I like it so much. It's a funny thing, it's a slice of life anime so there is a lack of a main plot going through all the episodes, though there is a great continuity, but there isn't much for lovers of anime like Death Note, Naruto, FMA, or something like Sekirei or Rosario+Vampire. This is a show that did seem designed for female audiences (NOTE: I am not saying only women would like it or that men can't or women can't or any other sexist thing), but it's just got a charm to it that even if it does seem slow at times it still has me transfixed. Mostly though, watching this show helps me pick up on the Japanese language, I've been learning it for over two years now and it's got such a basic feel to the sentences and grammar that I'm able to recognize a lot of what's being said (though the subtitles helped) and it really made me feel good realizing I can understand a part of the language already.
For those interested in checking it out, the series is available on Crunchy Roll, but it is in Japanese with English subtitles. I don't know if it will get an English dub (the puns Polar Bear pulls out are based on Japanese words so I don't envy whoever would have to try to get around that for English audiences), but I think as it is it's already worth checking out. Feels nice to have something positive to say for once!
-Subtle
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Think LIke a Man... Or just think!
I recently viewed the new rom-com movie starring mostly black actors/actresses based on a self-help book by Steve Harvey, and boy oh boy did it really manage to push my buttons. Admittedly anything involving some unspoken intrinsic difference between man and woman that forces them to deceit or being unable to coexist the way they are just always manages to anger me. I hate that people believe that you can't be open and honest with your partners, that you have to lie or deceive or do anything other than be honest with them, and that women have to trick their men into doing what they want them to do, as if men are just animals they have to train using their intimate parts as rewards.
I intended this to be a bit of a review, but honestly the movie isn't worth the effort. It's funny in places, but you know the routine by now. Four guys are fit into a stereotype of men: the dreamer, the non-committal, the player, and the Momma's boy; and get a girl partner who has her own stereotype to bounce off of: the woman who's her own man, the woman who just wants a ring already, the 90-day rule girl (hate this kind of thing with a passion, putting a number of days on how long you won't have sex with a person is ridiculous), and the single mom. Hey, just a quick question, can you guess which of those four women will actually turn out to be the 'wrong' one? Anyway, the women are abiding by Steve Harvey's book, because thinking for your self is a waste of time, and have the men on the ropes, trying to change them for the better (except the woman who's her own man, who doesn't follow the book much and ends up being the 'wrong' person in the couple), until the guys find a copy of the book, and start turning the tide of war.
Yes, war. They make this comparison a bunch of times in the movie, they are at war with each other, sex is a weapon and they are essentially enemies. Because that's what a relationship should be like, a constant battle with your partner! God, I have been single my whole life and I can tell you that is not how things should be! Oh, and in the background we've got two other guys, the Happily married man (a 'clear'(white) guy who doesn't quite get how to relate to his black friends but espouses the bliss of being married) and the Happily Divorced man (stand-up comic Keven Hart, who spends the majority of the movie giving awful advice and generally being a dick), who each try to advise and guide the other men through their relaitonship problems, with the divorced guy getting listened to more (mostly by virtue of being around more often, the married guy is, y'know, married), not that they really follow his advice anyway (good thing, the guys is divorced, he obviously didn't do it right and his example isn't the one you should follow).
So, I'll just go and describe each couple and how much I dislike them. Fun times, right? First up, we have the Player and the 90-Day girl. Okay, to be fair, this couple might bug me the least, because it's pretty clear from the start, once she rejects his advances, he really does start to care for her, even after he finds the book it doesn't seem like he's insincere at any point after.He was in it for the sex at first, but he genuinely changed pretty quick, even though he bitched about her rejections to his friends, he still made dates with her even though it clearly annoyed him. That rule, on the other hand, is frankly ridiculous. Now, I agree that women shouldn't let a guy sleep with them unless they're comfortable in knowing that he will stick around after that happens. You don't need to set up a time frame though! It's not like you're on a time limit or anything, like your reproductive organs will go bad if you don't "do it" in a certain period of time. You should take as long as you need to in order to size a partner up. I also get that people like having sex, but unless both parties are looking for something quick and without too much emotional attachment, then both parties should be willing to wait until they're sure that they are with a person they can see a future with. So a date rule or day rule is kind of silly, and ultimately at least this woman didn't adhere to it completely. Anyway, after they have sex, the woman finds the book she had been reading and he had been reading to know how to circumvent her, and she gets pissed about it. Y'know, because he had a copy of a book sold everywhere that had gotten major publicity and that she had been using tips from without telling him. You fucking said this was war, and you get upset when the opposing side gets your playbook? It's hypocrisy, inserted so the guy could make up for it in a romantic way, because it's a rom-com and all the people who like that don't want complicated ideas in their movies, like maybe both of them could have been a little wrong and both could have to apologize! Or maybe Hollywood just thinks you're too stupid to understand something like that!
Next up, the Momma's boy and the Single mom. Honestly, this should have been the perfect couple, since it was a man who grew up having a single mother now in a relationship with a single mom, I mean that practically writes itself! So, despite both women being in similar positions, they don't get along, mostly because his mother is a bitch to all the girls he brings home, and he's too devoted to her to put anyone else before her. Which is a legit concern for the single mom, who needs a man to support her since she's got her own kid to worry about. What happens here is that, instead of actually stepping up and putting his new woman as a priority, the guy pretends he's doing that, except he's got his mom's business masquerading as 'work' so whenever he has a mom-thing to do it's a 'work' thing to his woman, which for some reason isn't as bad as neglecting her for his mom, even though he's still leaving her high and dry at times. The guy really just doesn't make much sense though in the context of the book, it really only told the woman that he wouldn't put her first as a priority, and he just faked that, but it's not like he wouldn't have done that even if she had gotten the chance to tell him that before he 'pretended' to step up anyway. It really just made the lies come up a bit earlier. But he finds out his mom is doing a deacon and doesn't really need him around anymore so he's free to be with his woman now. Woo. Why were they in this movie?
Up next, the non-committal boyfriend and the woman who just wants a ring already. An interracial couple (white guy whose friends with the four other black guys and the 'clear' guy and a black woman) who've been together for nine years, since college, living together in an apartment that is basically a frat house. The man is a slacker, still has action figures/figurines and posters of all things nerdy, has a beaten up old couch from his college days and it's basically a mess. The woman has feigned interest in his nerdy pursuits because she's wanted to make him happy, and he's really content with the life he has, not trying to look for anything better (including a better job or upgrading his relationship status to married). The woman reads the book and decides that she has to trick her man into 'manning up', and she does this first by getting rid of all his decorations (which she does without discussing with him), and then redecorates their apartment (which he admittedly said he wanted no part in but she still made the decision to do it without him). Basically, my problem here is that we're never shown her trying to talk to him about her issues with their life together, she's silently holding it in until the magic book tells her to not even bother with that and just manipulate him into becoming a better person. And it works! At first he just pretends, like the other guys, but then when she finds out (by finding the damn book again, why is it that gives them away? it's not like owning a copy of that book is illegal or anything, and she's been using it to manipulate him, but I suppose since it's for his own good that doesn't matter?), he actually does it because "it's what he wants". Which is fine, I mean he was a pretty awful roommate to her (and that's all it did feel like they were at some points), but still it would have been better if at least it showed her trying to talk to him about stuff, and if he didn't listen than fine, try manipulation, it makes for good watching, but you don't get to take the moral high ground on this shit without trying some good things first.
Finally, we reach an irritating couple, the dreamer and the woman who's her own man. Why do successful women always get portrayed as completely incapable of finding a man? Is this a serious problem, or is it just something writers think is a relate-able problem for the single-female-CEOs out there? This is the couple where the woman is 'wrong', and she's portrayed as this cynical, high-standard holding female who wants an Adonis (or probably anyway) who makes six figures a year, or as she puts it, "her equal". The guy admittedly starts out being 'wrong' here, he lies to her about his job, since he's a chef but has been floating between jobs trying to find what he wants to do. However, it's sympathetic since she's stated pretty much every time she's on screen that anything less than her standards is immediate qualification for dumpsville, so he lies to see if maybe she'd like him for him, despite that he doesn't meet her standards. It's wrong, but not stupidly so like some of the other guys. What really bothers me though is that this couple had the perfect opportunity for both of them to be wrong and have to accept that he shouldn't have lied, but that without doing so she wouldn't have given him the time of day so maybe her standards were too high, and she should think outside the box. Maybe better, they could have broken up and stayed broken up at the end, but with each coming away with experience that will help them from that point on. But no, it's a rom-com, so the woman has to make up with the guy, since she was "wrong". They paint her being masculine and successful as something negative, that she should let the man "be a man" instead of trying to be the one in charge. If you're familiar with some of my rants, you'll know how well this goes over with me (not well).
But really, it's the fact that the movie thinks only one member of the couples were wrong really irritates me. If you're going to make a statement about relationships between men and women using stereotypes as a method of easily getting across what kinds of people they are, the least the movie could do would be to break conventional rom-com stereotypes. No one has to be completely wrong, both people in the relationship can make mistakes and have reason to be angry with one another, but the fact that all but one woman are treated as though she's completely justified in following a fucking self-help book religiously and is 'right' in her situation is just really aggravating. I get the feeling a lot of my hostility towards romance and rom-coms in particular is that the idea that in any given conflict, one member is going to be completely wrong, and that it's usually the man because women are just so fucking smart and know everything and men are dumb and mess up everything because they don't know how good they got it and women can do no wrong ever except when they don't think they need a man in which case they will be wrong and BLAH!
Look, I know women have had it rough through history, and to a large extent still do. The world we live in is one dominated by men, and not only that, but white men. Old white men who hate change. Were it up to me the world wouldn't be decided by who knows the most people, who's got the most favors owed them, who's the richest because they inherited stuff or exploited other people, it would be based on merit regardless of race or gender or sexual-orientation. So I'm sorry that so many people get the shaft when it comes to stuff like advancement in workplaces, there's a lot of sexism that still goes on that I'm sickened by, it's not right and I don't want anyone to stop fighting it. But there's just this trend in media that women are these perfect saints who have to put up with men who are obsessed with sex and are lazy and don't want to do anything else with women aside from that, so women have to manipulate their dumb men to get them to do what they want. It's rather frustrating because I'm not that guy, but I feel like I'm being told, "No you shithead, you are that guy, and whatever woman ends up with you is going to have to put up with your shit, so she's gonna be a lot smarter than you and trick you into doing what she wants." God, being gay has never looked so good! Communication people! Seriously, if you have problems communicating you need to find some way to do it, and if you can't then maybe you're just not in the right relationship!
Also, it's really unfortunate that black people can't seem to get a decent movie to relate to. Tyler Perry and Martin Lawrence in drag are really the only ones I can think of besides the odd Gangsta films, and while this movie is okay, it still is rather sad that we can even say there is such a thing as "black movies". I'm not black, so I don't really want to stick my foot in my mouth on this, but I honestly don't think there could be one movie that could encompass all that is 'black'. There's this idea that all black people are united in being black, at least here in the states, but you aren't all 'one people' any more than all white people are 'one people'. You are a diverse people, there don't need to be black movies, there need to be more black actors getting feature roles in Hollywood, movies that can speak to more than just a black audience, even though they star black actors/actresses (not saying that there shouldn't be movies celebrating cultures though, just not every movie starring a black cast has to be a black movie, that it should be a good movie that has black actors/actresses who do a damn fine job of saying something about the human condition). This could be another topic for another day, but I don't want to be accused of being racist or ignorant or a stupid ass white boy who don't know shit about the struggles of other races, so I'm just gonna stop here.
-Subtle
I intended this to be a bit of a review, but honestly the movie isn't worth the effort. It's funny in places, but you know the routine by now. Four guys are fit into a stereotype of men: the dreamer, the non-committal, the player, and the Momma's boy; and get a girl partner who has her own stereotype to bounce off of: the woman who's her own man, the woman who just wants a ring already, the 90-day rule girl (hate this kind of thing with a passion, putting a number of days on how long you won't have sex with a person is ridiculous), and the single mom. Hey, just a quick question, can you guess which of those four women will actually turn out to be the 'wrong' one? Anyway, the women are abiding by Steve Harvey's book, because thinking for your self is a waste of time, and have the men on the ropes, trying to change them for the better (except the woman who's her own man, who doesn't follow the book much and ends up being the 'wrong' person in the couple), until the guys find a copy of the book, and start turning the tide of war.
Yes, war. They make this comparison a bunch of times in the movie, they are at war with each other, sex is a weapon and they are essentially enemies. Because that's what a relationship should be like, a constant battle with your partner! God, I have been single my whole life and I can tell you that is not how things should be! Oh, and in the background we've got two other guys, the Happily married man (a 'clear'(white) guy who doesn't quite get how to relate to his black friends but espouses the bliss of being married) and the Happily Divorced man (stand-up comic Keven Hart, who spends the majority of the movie giving awful advice and generally being a dick), who each try to advise and guide the other men through their relaitonship problems, with the divorced guy getting listened to more (mostly by virtue of being around more often, the married guy is, y'know, married), not that they really follow his advice anyway (good thing, the guys is divorced, he obviously didn't do it right and his example isn't the one you should follow).
So, I'll just go and describe each couple and how much I dislike them. Fun times, right? First up, we have the Player and the 90-Day girl. Okay, to be fair, this couple might bug me the least, because it's pretty clear from the start, once she rejects his advances, he really does start to care for her, even after he finds the book it doesn't seem like he's insincere at any point after.He was in it for the sex at first, but he genuinely changed pretty quick, even though he bitched about her rejections to his friends, he still made dates with her even though it clearly annoyed him. That rule, on the other hand, is frankly ridiculous. Now, I agree that women shouldn't let a guy sleep with them unless they're comfortable in knowing that he will stick around after that happens. You don't need to set up a time frame though! It's not like you're on a time limit or anything, like your reproductive organs will go bad if you don't "do it" in a certain period of time. You should take as long as you need to in order to size a partner up. I also get that people like having sex, but unless both parties are looking for something quick and without too much emotional attachment, then both parties should be willing to wait until they're sure that they are with a person they can see a future with. So a date rule or day rule is kind of silly, and ultimately at least this woman didn't adhere to it completely. Anyway, after they have sex, the woman finds the book she had been reading and he had been reading to know how to circumvent her, and she gets pissed about it. Y'know, because he had a copy of a book sold everywhere that had gotten major publicity and that she had been using tips from without telling him. You fucking said this was war, and you get upset when the opposing side gets your playbook? It's hypocrisy, inserted so the guy could make up for it in a romantic way, because it's a rom-com and all the people who like that don't want complicated ideas in their movies, like maybe both of them could have been a little wrong and both could have to apologize! Or maybe Hollywood just thinks you're too stupid to understand something like that!
Next up, the Momma's boy and the Single mom. Honestly, this should have been the perfect couple, since it was a man who grew up having a single mother now in a relationship with a single mom, I mean that practically writes itself! So, despite both women being in similar positions, they don't get along, mostly because his mother is a bitch to all the girls he brings home, and he's too devoted to her to put anyone else before her. Which is a legit concern for the single mom, who needs a man to support her since she's got her own kid to worry about. What happens here is that, instead of actually stepping up and putting his new woman as a priority, the guy pretends he's doing that, except he's got his mom's business masquerading as 'work' so whenever he has a mom-thing to do it's a 'work' thing to his woman, which for some reason isn't as bad as neglecting her for his mom, even though he's still leaving her high and dry at times. The guy really just doesn't make much sense though in the context of the book, it really only told the woman that he wouldn't put her first as a priority, and he just faked that, but it's not like he wouldn't have done that even if she had gotten the chance to tell him that before he 'pretended' to step up anyway. It really just made the lies come up a bit earlier. But he finds out his mom is doing a deacon and doesn't really need him around anymore so he's free to be with his woman now. Woo. Why were they in this movie?
Up next, the non-committal boyfriend and the woman who just wants a ring already. An interracial couple (white guy whose friends with the four other black guys and the 'clear' guy and a black woman) who've been together for nine years, since college, living together in an apartment that is basically a frat house. The man is a slacker, still has action figures/figurines and posters of all things nerdy, has a beaten up old couch from his college days and it's basically a mess. The woman has feigned interest in his nerdy pursuits because she's wanted to make him happy, and he's really content with the life he has, not trying to look for anything better (including a better job or upgrading his relationship status to married). The woman reads the book and decides that she has to trick her man into 'manning up', and she does this first by getting rid of all his decorations (which she does without discussing with him), and then redecorates their apartment (which he admittedly said he wanted no part in but she still made the decision to do it without him). Basically, my problem here is that we're never shown her trying to talk to him about her issues with their life together, she's silently holding it in until the magic book tells her to not even bother with that and just manipulate him into becoming a better person. And it works! At first he just pretends, like the other guys, but then when she finds out (by finding the damn book again, why is it that gives them away? it's not like owning a copy of that book is illegal or anything, and she's been using it to manipulate him, but I suppose since it's for his own good that doesn't matter?), he actually does it because "it's what he wants". Which is fine, I mean he was a pretty awful roommate to her (and that's all it did feel like they were at some points), but still it would have been better if at least it showed her trying to talk to him about stuff, and if he didn't listen than fine, try manipulation, it makes for good watching, but you don't get to take the moral high ground on this shit without trying some good things first.
Finally, we reach an irritating couple, the dreamer and the woman who's her own man. Why do successful women always get portrayed as completely incapable of finding a man? Is this a serious problem, or is it just something writers think is a relate-able problem for the single-female-CEOs out there? This is the couple where the woman is 'wrong', and she's portrayed as this cynical, high-standard holding female who wants an Adonis (or probably anyway) who makes six figures a year, or as she puts it, "her equal". The guy admittedly starts out being 'wrong' here, he lies to her about his job, since he's a chef but has been floating between jobs trying to find what he wants to do. However, it's sympathetic since she's stated pretty much every time she's on screen that anything less than her standards is immediate qualification for dumpsville, so he lies to see if maybe she'd like him for him, despite that he doesn't meet her standards. It's wrong, but not stupidly so like some of the other guys. What really bothers me though is that this couple had the perfect opportunity for both of them to be wrong and have to accept that he shouldn't have lied, but that without doing so she wouldn't have given him the time of day so maybe her standards were too high, and she should think outside the box. Maybe better, they could have broken up and stayed broken up at the end, but with each coming away with experience that will help them from that point on. But no, it's a rom-com, so the woman has to make up with the guy, since she was "wrong". They paint her being masculine and successful as something negative, that she should let the man "be a man" instead of trying to be the one in charge. If you're familiar with some of my rants, you'll know how well this goes over with me (not well).
But really, it's the fact that the movie thinks only one member of the couples were wrong really irritates me. If you're going to make a statement about relationships between men and women using stereotypes as a method of easily getting across what kinds of people they are, the least the movie could do would be to break conventional rom-com stereotypes. No one has to be completely wrong, both people in the relationship can make mistakes and have reason to be angry with one another, but the fact that all but one woman are treated as though she's completely justified in following a fucking self-help book religiously and is 'right' in her situation is just really aggravating. I get the feeling a lot of my hostility towards romance and rom-coms in particular is that the idea that in any given conflict, one member is going to be completely wrong, and that it's usually the man because women are just so fucking smart and know everything and men are dumb and mess up everything because they don't know how good they got it and women can do no wrong ever except when they don't think they need a man in which case they will be wrong and BLAH!
Look, I know women have had it rough through history, and to a large extent still do. The world we live in is one dominated by men, and not only that, but white men. Old white men who hate change. Were it up to me the world wouldn't be decided by who knows the most people, who's got the most favors owed them, who's the richest because they inherited stuff or exploited other people, it would be based on merit regardless of race or gender or sexual-orientation. So I'm sorry that so many people get the shaft when it comes to stuff like advancement in workplaces, there's a lot of sexism that still goes on that I'm sickened by, it's not right and I don't want anyone to stop fighting it. But there's just this trend in media that women are these perfect saints who have to put up with men who are obsessed with sex and are lazy and don't want to do anything else with women aside from that, so women have to manipulate their dumb men to get them to do what they want. It's rather frustrating because I'm not that guy, but I feel like I'm being told, "No you shithead, you are that guy, and whatever woman ends up with you is going to have to put up with your shit, so she's gonna be a lot smarter than you and trick you into doing what she wants." God, being gay has never looked so good! Communication people! Seriously, if you have problems communicating you need to find some way to do it, and if you can't then maybe you're just not in the right relationship!
Also, it's really unfortunate that black people can't seem to get a decent movie to relate to. Tyler Perry and Martin Lawrence in drag are really the only ones I can think of besides the odd Gangsta films, and while this movie is okay, it still is rather sad that we can even say there is such a thing as "black movies". I'm not black, so I don't really want to stick my foot in my mouth on this, but I honestly don't think there could be one movie that could encompass all that is 'black'. There's this idea that all black people are united in being black, at least here in the states, but you aren't all 'one people' any more than all white people are 'one people'. You are a diverse people, there don't need to be black movies, there need to be more black actors getting feature roles in Hollywood, movies that can speak to more than just a black audience, even though they star black actors/actresses (not saying that there shouldn't be movies celebrating cultures though, just not every movie starring a black cast has to be a black movie, that it should be a good movie that has black actors/actresses who do a damn fine job of saying something about the human condition). This could be another topic for another day, but I don't want to be accused of being racist or ignorant or a stupid ass white boy who don't know shit about the struggles of other races, so I'm just gonna stop here.
-Subtle
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, The Karate Kid and Anime Theme Songs
As the title of this post implies, I have three main things to say today that don't really have anything to do with each other but are things I just want to get off my chest. Why now? Eh, the ideas just keep rolling around in my head, writing them in this blog seems to make them stop, so without further to-do, let's get this post started!
I played Mass Effect 3's new DLC, the one that adds more cutscenes and closure to Mass Effect 3's ending, which you already know about unless you live under a rock. Long story short, I thought it did help the ending a lot, it satisfied me and I feel like it at least was a suitable ending to the game, instead of that mess they released at launch. It gave the closure I wanted and I ultimately feel no residual anger anymore over it.
Whether or not that ending's good is a bit harder to answer, and I'm not going to bother to go into whether or not I think the ending should have been different. I think it was standard fantasy fare, I liked how the ending could possibly use the antagonists to actually end up being one of the organic's greatest allies, it makes everything seem a bit more hopeful and optimistic. I guess I don't know whether or not on the whole I liked it, but I wasn't unsatisfied, which I think might have been the biggest problem for most people whether they admit it or not, rather than it being a bad ending.
Switching over to my next topic, The Karate Kid I'm going to be talking about is the new one that stars Jayden Smith and Jackie Chan, though I've seen both and The Karate Kid 2, though I only saw the originals after the first one. But that's aside from the point, and what I'm here to talk about is the weird thing about the remake's name, that the kid is actually learning Kung-Fu, and I don't think they even say Karate in the movie once. A lot of people have asked, "well if he's learning Kung-Fu, shouldn't the title be 'The Kung-Fu Kid'?" To which I have the following response: That sounds really stupid.
Just say it aloud, The Kung-Fu Kid. Does that title really sound like something you want to see? I think why it sounds off is because Kung-Fu is pronounced as two words, the Fu kind of breaks the flow that the two K words, Karate and Kid obviously, have going that makes it sound more dynamic, and it's ultimately why Karate Kid sounds better. There's also the legacy thing, this is a remake of the Karate Kid, and though it has a different martial art it's still the same basic story being told, though there are differences enough to make both movies really good in different ways. The title debate has always just been a little silly to me, but I do get where the argument comes from, it just doesn't matter as much to me and so I'm perfectly fine with what it was called.
Now we enter the final topic of this particular post, Anime Theme Songs. Is it just me or are they all the freaking same song? I know that's too general but honestly, I can't remember a single one from another one, it always just seems to star the main girls dancing to some J-Pop thing with some weird animated scenes that don't particularly do anything for me and don't appear in the show. The lyrics all seem to be similar as well, not really pertaining to the show except maybe symbolically, opting to usually sing about light or hope or friendship or something like that, and don't really seem to bind it to the particular anime. A little more diversity would be nice, though it is entirely possible I'm watching the wrong anime, and there are a number that I can recall not having this kind of theme song, and I should probably pay more attention to them.
So yeah, that's that. I thought about making these three separate posts but aside from not having too much to say about any one, it would also be kind of weird to make three posts back to back like that, so I just lumped them all together. Of course, no one reads this blog anyway. No, not even you, you just think you are. Or are you?
-Subtle
I played Mass Effect 3's new DLC, the one that adds more cutscenes and closure to Mass Effect 3's ending, which you already know about unless you live under a rock. Long story short, I thought it did help the ending a lot, it satisfied me and I feel like it at least was a suitable ending to the game, instead of that mess they released at launch. It gave the closure I wanted and I ultimately feel no residual anger anymore over it.
Whether or not that ending's good is a bit harder to answer, and I'm not going to bother to go into whether or not I think the ending should have been different. I think it was standard fantasy fare, I liked how the ending could possibly use the antagonists to actually end up being one of the organic's greatest allies, it makes everything seem a bit more hopeful and optimistic. I guess I don't know whether or not on the whole I liked it, but I wasn't unsatisfied, which I think might have been the biggest problem for most people whether they admit it or not, rather than it being a bad ending.
Switching over to my next topic, The Karate Kid I'm going to be talking about is the new one that stars Jayden Smith and Jackie Chan, though I've seen both and The Karate Kid 2, though I only saw the originals after the first one. But that's aside from the point, and what I'm here to talk about is the weird thing about the remake's name, that the kid is actually learning Kung-Fu, and I don't think they even say Karate in the movie once. A lot of people have asked, "well if he's learning Kung-Fu, shouldn't the title be 'The Kung-Fu Kid'?" To which I have the following response: That sounds really stupid.
Just say it aloud, The Kung-Fu Kid. Does that title really sound like something you want to see? I think why it sounds off is because Kung-Fu is pronounced as two words, the Fu kind of breaks the flow that the two K words, Karate and Kid obviously, have going that makes it sound more dynamic, and it's ultimately why Karate Kid sounds better. There's also the legacy thing, this is a remake of the Karate Kid, and though it has a different martial art it's still the same basic story being told, though there are differences enough to make both movies really good in different ways. The title debate has always just been a little silly to me, but I do get where the argument comes from, it just doesn't matter as much to me and so I'm perfectly fine with what it was called.
Now we enter the final topic of this particular post, Anime Theme Songs. Is it just me or are they all the freaking same song? I know that's too general but honestly, I can't remember a single one from another one, it always just seems to star the main girls dancing to some J-Pop thing with some weird animated scenes that don't particularly do anything for me and don't appear in the show. The lyrics all seem to be similar as well, not really pertaining to the show except maybe symbolically, opting to usually sing about light or hope or friendship or something like that, and don't really seem to bind it to the particular anime. A little more diversity would be nice, though it is entirely possible I'm watching the wrong anime, and there are a number that I can recall not having this kind of theme song, and I should probably pay more attention to them.
So yeah, that's that. I thought about making these three separate posts but aside from not having too much to say about any one, it would also be kind of weird to make three posts back to back like that, so I just lumped them all together. Of course, no one reads this blog anyway. No, not even you, you just think you are. Or are you?
-Subtle
Monday, May 7, 2012
Rosario + Vampire
Ok, so I just watched an anime titled Rosario + Vampire, which the plus is actually "to" in Japanese, pronounced "toe", and means "and". Frankly, I'm underwhelmed by it. I don't know why I watch some harem anime, I mean once I figure out that's what it is, since it's somewhat of a cruel reminder that I don't attract anyone while whichever loser the anime is focusing on can attract around four or five, possibly more, girls at once, all of whom are incredibly attractive. Whatever some might say, not all guys want a bunch of girls fighting over them, I frankly would be glad to have a deep connection with one person, and not have a harem or anything like that.
I suppose the big thing that bugs me about them though is that the main character is almost always going to like the first girl the most, because generally she's the sweetest and kindest of them all (not to mention really hot), and no matter what the other girls do, he won't show any more affection for them than he would any other friend. And then there's the awful melodrama between the two, with miss-communication abundant despite the fact the they're supposed to have such a close relationship that realistically they would be able to tell if they other was acting weird or was angry and not just assume they did something wrong or whatever. But it's all futile anyway because most of the anime won't settle the question of who he'll end up with because, A) that would ruin the harem part of it and B) it's so obvious in most cases that it doesn't need to be said, but it just ends with the status quo of the other girls not being able to take the hint.
So what makes Rosario + Vampire different? Well for one it's a monster girl harem anime, the first I've encountered and that was enough to keep me watching. However, it became quickly apparent that my conceptions about this anime were going to be wrong, since I thought with the girls being monsters it might mean there was some more deeper connection between them and their boy-toy, but no, that turns out not to be the case. While they are monsters, they are all human-looking monsters, which means that even in their monstrous state they still always look really attractive and cute. Which is all the more maddening when there are shown to be scary and unattractive monsters around, it's just none of them enter the harem, it's only the ones who looks cute all the time, which wastes a lot of potential for the touchy-feely main character to exercise his sensitivity chops and actually prove that he will accept people for who they are despite how they look. Instead we get a look at a guy who earnestly accepts all the hot monster ladies who always look hot.
Another problem I have with it is that they do go to a boarding-school of sorts for monsters, which should mean that a monster-view of beauty should be prevalent. Instead, we get all the school boys still going gaga over the girls human forms, which makes absolutely no sense. Unless every single monster male has a human fetish (and I don't think that's the case, since there is a lot of talk of eating humans amongst them, and they even want to kill the main character when he's revealed to be only human SPOILER ALERT), then they should all be such perverts when in human form since logically it would be their monster forms that they should be attracted to. It's a serious case of baffling logic, hatred for humans yet oogling human forms, and no one makes any mention of this of course. But I suppose that can only be expected from a fan-service packed anime like this.
Honestly, after all the anime I've watched, I'd have to say if I were a girl in Japan I'd be very nervous, because it seems like all Japanese men (except the four or five genuinely nice guys who populate the main character slot of these kind of anime) are huge perverts and always trying to look at a woman's boobs or panties. Of course the girls just have to wear revealing clothing too, but then get all up in arms when anyone tries to look at them. I seriously don't know if this happens much in real life/Japan, but I would suggest wearing more modest clothing if you really hate perverts that much, because all you're doing with that is encouraging them. Back to the men part though, almost every single guy in these kind of anime is shown to be a huge pervert. They will stare at their classmates and fantasize about them and show no indication they think anything more about them at all, but will fume when the one guy gets attention of any kind because he obviously doesn't deserve it, despite the fact that he's not trying to oogle the girl to death. But then he always will get his fair share of accidental pervert moments, for which he will never be shown any sympathy despite the "close" relationship he has with the victim (or from anyone who happens to see if his love interest likes it). I just can't imagine that all of the guys in high schools in Japan are always obsessing over their females classmates like that, or are constantly trying to oogle them. But that it the impression I've gotten from these kind of anime.
I guess what I find most unrealistic and troubling about this and other anime is that the guy is just kind of handed relationships. He's always just some normal guy who happens to be decent enough to resist the temptation to stare at a woman's chest and the world just kind of rewards/curses him for it by sending women to relentlessly fight for his affection (despite the fact he'll really only give it to one person, and of course he'll never want to try to take it to any other level than just some quality time holding hands). Admittedly Tsukune, the main character in this anime, never really acted like he wanted anything beyond friendship from those girls, but it's just so stupid that each one of them would fall for him, just because he was nice to them. I'm a nice and kind person (shut up I AM!) and I have a lot of friends who would tell you that (or alternatively that I'm kind of an asshole), but that's never led to anyone showing me undying affection (though admittedly I've never come across people who have powers or special abilities and have been denied a lot of true kindness for most of their lives) and so I find it hard to be invested in how much these girls supposedly "love" Tsukune just because he was nice to them (Hell, in one case he was only the second one nice to them, the little witch girl for some reason decided to pursue him even though she spent her whole intro episode obsessing over the vampire girl, though she did admit to wanting a threesome with both characters so... by the way, that witch is like 11, and she is just as sexualized as the 15-17 year old succubus with a huge rack, so tell me someone else feels really weird about an 11 year old having an obsessive older stalker and given frequent panty shots).
Inner Moka is honestly why I kept watching the anime, aside from the fact I tend to get a bit obsessed with any anime or show I start watching. The fact that she seemed to be disinterested in Tsukune aside from him serving as a source of blood for her was interesting for me, especially since she kept having to save him from stupid situations. I thought she might get fed up with the situation at some point, but unfortunately she stuck to her role through the end as a protector who would only come out near the end of the episode (not counting the end of season 2). What was interesting was how she eventually came to love Tsukune at some level, despite that she was initially disinterested in him, being the only character who didn't fall for him at the end of their first episode (if they ever did). Therefore it galls me that the anime treated the situation as if Tsukune actually felt anything for anyone besides outer Moka (though occasionally it implied he did feel something for inner Moka), when he was always obsessing over Moka, never the succubus or the Yuki-onna (snow woman) or the loli witch (thank God!). Don't pretend that this guy is in some kind of moral delimma, and don't pretend he's stringing them all along either, he clearly only cares for Moka in a love kind of way, the other girls are clearly blind to the truth. The only thing he's done wrong is just not say what he feels, which is obvious for anyone who watched even a little of the anime. There's no choice, except for possibly inner or outer Moka, but it's always Moka he's going to choose.
And I guess my final grievance with this and other anime is that it treats me as if I am a huge pervert who wants to stare at cleavage and big naked boobs and panties. I actually had to look away at parts because they would just not stop showing me the panties of these girls. Their skirts are short yet they get pissed when someone sees their underwear, it's like someone getting angry at a neighbor's dog because they were walking around in the neighbor's yard wearing meat-flavored pants. Don't feed the trolls, in other words. I do not want to see these underage girls' boobs and panties, I am admittedly not much older than they are but that still doesn't mean I want their sexy areas presented to me constantly. I honestly wouldn't have much of a problem with it if it were just an occasional happening in a circumstance which would call for it to logically happen, but it's like the audience is being constantly assaulted with these girls' sexy areas like we're unable to get enough of it. I find it insulting, and the only reason I'm not outright offended is because I'm not actually the target audience. I don't know who is but it's someone in Japan and the culture clash would explain maybe why I find such problems with this. There's nothing wrong with fanservice, but this is just going too far, it treads its way to the opposite: I do not want to see these girls' panties, especially not the 11 year old's, I want to see them as characters and people with real personality and emotions, not sexy bodies. I especially hate it when inner Moka gets this treatment because I would expect her to sucker punch or Falcon Kick anybody who dared try to make her wear a skimpy skirt or look at her panties, yet they're shown to us constantly and worse yet one of the intermission scenes actually shows her naked. So much for making a strong female character who doesn't need to expose herself to be sexy. You might argue I'm looking in the wrong place if that's what I'm after, but I have to ask why have a character like this, who constantly tries to teach people where their place is, and yet she's being paraded around naked.
I'm just tired of Anime thinking it's giving me what I want (it isn't) and then calling me out on it by proxy of being one of the pervert boys who the girls will beat up for being perverts. I didn't want to see her panties, but the fact she's getting mad at other people seeing it would mean she doesn't enjoy having her panties looked at, so you're trying to make me feel bad for looking at her panties (and assumingly enjoying it) while in reality I wish you would stop! Don't treat me like I'm a pervert for watching an anime that I thought was going to have more monsters and less panties.
-Subtle
I suppose the big thing that bugs me about them though is that the main character is almost always going to like the first girl the most, because generally she's the sweetest and kindest of them all (not to mention really hot), and no matter what the other girls do, he won't show any more affection for them than he would any other friend. And then there's the awful melodrama between the two, with miss-communication abundant despite the fact the they're supposed to have such a close relationship that realistically they would be able to tell if they other was acting weird or was angry and not just assume they did something wrong or whatever. But it's all futile anyway because most of the anime won't settle the question of who he'll end up with because, A) that would ruin the harem part of it and B) it's so obvious in most cases that it doesn't need to be said, but it just ends with the status quo of the other girls not being able to take the hint.
So what makes Rosario + Vampire different? Well for one it's a monster girl harem anime, the first I've encountered and that was enough to keep me watching. However, it became quickly apparent that my conceptions about this anime were going to be wrong, since I thought with the girls being monsters it might mean there was some more deeper connection between them and their boy-toy, but no, that turns out not to be the case. While they are monsters, they are all human-looking monsters, which means that even in their monstrous state they still always look really attractive and cute. Which is all the more maddening when there are shown to be scary and unattractive monsters around, it's just none of them enter the harem, it's only the ones who looks cute all the time, which wastes a lot of potential for the touchy-feely main character to exercise his sensitivity chops and actually prove that he will accept people for who they are despite how they look. Instead we get a look at a guy who earnestly accepts all the hot monster ladies who always look hot.
Another problem I have with it is that they do go to a boarding-school of sorts for monsters, which should mean that a monster-view of beauty should be prevalent. Instead, we get all the school boys still going gaga over the girls human forms, which makes absolutely no sense. Unless every single monster male has a human fetish (and I don't think that's the case, since there is a lot of talk of eating humans amongst them, and they even want to kill the main character when he's revealed to be only human SPOILER ALERT), then they should all be such perverts when in human form since logically it would be their monster forms that they should be attracted to. It's a serious case of baffling logic, hatred for humans yet oogling human forms, and no one makes any mention of this of course. But I suppose that can only be expected from a fan-service packed anime like this.
Honestly, after all the anime I've watched, I'd have to say if I were a girl in Japan I'd be very nervous, because it seems like all Japanese men (except the four or five genuinely nice guys who populate the main character slot of these kind of anime) are huge perverts and always trying to look at a woman's boobs or panties. Of course the girls just have to wear revealing clothing too, but then get all up in arms when anyone tries to look at them. I seriously don't know if this happens much in real life/Japan, but I would suggest wearing more modest clothing if you really hate perverts that much, because all you're doing with that is encouraging them. Back to the men part though, almost every single guy in these kind of anime is shown to be a huge pervert. They will stare at their classmates and fantasize about them and show no indication they think anything more about them at all, but will fume when the one guy gets attention of any kind because he obviously doesn't deserve it, despite the fact that he's not trying to oogle the girl to death. But then he always will get his fair share of accidental pervert moments, for which he will never be shown any sympathy despite the "close" relationship he has with the victim (or from anyone who happens to see if his love interest likes it). I just can't imagine that all of the guys in high schools in Japan are always obsessing over their females classmates like that, or are constantly trying to oogle them. But that it the impression I've gotten from these kind of anime.
I guess what I find most unrealistic and troubling about this and other anime is that the guy is just kind of handed relationships. He's always just some normal guy who happens to be decent enough to resist the temptation to stare at a woman's chest and the world just kind of rewards/curses him for it by sending women to relentlessly fight for his affection (despite the fact he'll really only give it to one person, and of course he'll never want to try to take it to any other level than just some quality time holding hands). Admittedly Tsukune, the main character in this anime, never really acted like he wanted anything beyond friendship from those girls, but it's just so stupid that each one of them would fall for him, just because he was nice to them. I'm a nice and kind person (shut up I AM!) and I have a lot of friends who would tell you that (or alternatively that I'm kind of an asshole), but that's never led to anyone showing me undying affection (though admittedly I've never come across people who have powers or special abilities and have been denied a lot of true kindness for most of their lives) and so I find it hard to be invested in how much these girls supposedly "love" Tsukune just because he was nice to them (Hell, in one case he was only the second one nice to them, the little witch girl for some reason decided to pursue him even though she spent her whole intro episode obsessing over the vampire girl, though she did admit to wanting a threesome with both characters so... by the way, that witch is like 11, and she is just as sexualized as the 15-17 year old succubus with a huge rack, so tell me someone else feels really weird about an 11 year old having an obsessive older stalker and given frequent panty shots).
Inner Moka is honestly why I kept watching the anime, aside from the fact I tend to get a bit obsessed with any anime or show I start watching. The fact that she seemed to be disinterested in Tsukune aside from him serving as a source of blood for her was interesting for me, especially since she kept having to save him from stupid situations. I thought she might get fed up with the situation at some point, but unfortunately she stuck to her role through the end as a protector who would only come out near the end of the episode (not counting the end of season 2). What was interesting was how she eventually came to love Tsukune at some level, despite that she was initially disinterested in him, being the only character who didn't fall for him at the end of their first episode (if they ever did). Therefore it galls me that the anime treated the situation as if Tsukune actually felt anything for anyone besides outer Moka (though occasionally it implied he did feel something for inner Moka), when he was always obsessing over Moka, never the succubus or the Yuki-onna (snow woman) or the loli witch (thank God!). Don't pretend that this guy is in some kind of moral delimma, and don't pretend he's stringing them all along either, he clearly only cares for Moka in a love kind of way, the other girls are clearly blind to the truth. The only thing he's done wrong is just not say what he feels, which is obvious for anyone who watched even a little of the anime. There's no choice, except for possibly inner or outer Moka, but it's always Moka he's going to choose.
And I guess my final grievance with this and other anime is that it treats me as if I am a huge pervert who wants to stare at cleavage and big naked boobs and panties. I actually had to look away at parts because they would just not stop showing me the panties of these girls. Their skirts are short yet they get pissed when someone sees their underwear, it's like someone getting angry at a neighbor's dog because they were walking around in the neighbor's yard wearing meat-flavored pants. Don't feed the trolls, in other words. I do not want to see these underage girls' boobs and panties, I am admittedly not much older than they are but that still doesn't mean I want their sexy areas presented to me constantly. I honestly wouldn't have much of a problem with it if it were just an occasional happening in a circumstance which would call for it to logically happen, but it's like the audience is being constantly assaulted with these girls' sexy areas like we're unable to get enough of it. I find it insulting, and the only reason I'm not outright offended is because I'm not actually the target audience. I don't know who is but it's someone in Japan and the culture clash would explain maybe why I find such problems with this. There's nothing wrong with fanservice, but this is just going too far, it treads its way to the opposite: I do not want to see these girls' panties, especially not the 11 year old's, I want to see them as characters and people with real personality and emotions, not sexy bodies. I especially hate it when inner Moka gets this treatment because I would expect her to sucker punch or Falcon Kick anybody who dared try to make her wear a skimpy skirt or look at her panties, yet they're shown to us constantly and worse yet one of the intermission scenes actually shows her naked. So much for making a strong female character who doesn't need to expose herself to be sexy. You might argue I'm looking in the wrong place if that's what I'm after, but I have to ask why have a character like this, who constantly tries to teach people where their place is, and yet she's being paraded around naked.
I'm just tired of Anime thinking it's giving me what I want (it isn't) and then calling me out on it by proxy of being one of the pervert boys who the girls will beat up for being perverts. I didn't want to see her panties, but the fact she's getting mad at other people seeing it would mean she doesn't enjoy having her panties looked at, so you're trying to make me feel bad for looking at her panties (and assumingly enjoying it) while in reality I wish you would stop! Don't treat me like I'm a pervert for watching an anime that I thought was going to have more monsters and less panties.
-Subtle
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