Month: August 2009

Fandom

Living up to my name with the obligatory Mai Waifu post

If you’re reading this, you should already know that I’m a moe fan. As a proud newfag Not Oldfag, I don’t see anything wrong with fluffy VNs and pointless harems. However, as most moe fans know, it’s not quite as easy to create an appealing character as you might think. There are tons of characteristics to think about, almost like planning a storyline: which tropes to use and which to subvert? Should there be a major plot twist, or should the effect sneak up on you? Despite the fact that so many shows star characters that are meant to appeal to male viewers, very few make a genuine impression that lasts more than a few weeks. Thus, after being reminded by digitalboy’s post, I have decided to perform a rite that every self-proclaimed otaku ought to perform at some point: create a list of my 5 favourite anime girls and explain what sets them apart from the fields of osananajimi and the seas of tsundere.

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Editorial

When Subjectivity and Objectivity Clash: Looking Back on Hatsukoi Limited

When 99% of the population consumes some form of creative media, we do it from our own perspective. When we think about what we liked or what we didn’t like, our own personal opinions are likely to hold more sway over the quality of the work itself, and our final opinion is usually somewhere in between the two extremes. Since anime bloggers are not professional critics trained to ignore their opinions for work, we usually do the same.

As you can figure, though, this can lead to trouble. J.C Staff’s Hatsukoi Limited was praised quite a bit while it was airing in the Spring, and I don’t deny that it has its own unique charms, but try as I might, I can’t seem to change my opinion that something didn’t work for me.

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Fandom

If you don’t want to be protected, then I don’t want to be served

I like maids. You like maids too, right? We all like maids. Everyone likes maids. There’s nothing wrong with that, as far as anime fandom goes. But sometimes, the whole goshujin-sama concept can be a little…disconcerting. No, this isn’t about taking the concept too far and why moe is the cancer that’s killing anime; it isn’t a rant about sexism in Japan, or an elaborate way of saying that my fetish > your fetish. It’s simply a voicing of opinion: a short complaint on the ironic little subdivision of moe called maid moe.

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Analysis

On Visual Novel Structure

The time it takes to pick up on the structure of the average VN is more or less equal to the time needed to realize that Key will either make you cry or die trying. Whether it’s in the recurring truths of the anime adaptations, where the Little Sister Always Wins and the harem lead is a veritable failure, or in the basic tree trunk/branch analogy that’s used throughout the medium, it goes without saying to visual novel fans that the structure holds little surprise. Such familiarity with the way VNs are written and programmed can help when playing a game for the first time, aiming for the route you want, but the repetition can work against itself. So, how can visual novels maintain a standard branching or linear storyline and not be utterly predictable in terms of structure? At the very least, I’m sure the writers of Brass Restoration know the answer to that question.

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Editorial

Age, Innocence, and an unnecessary comparison between Card Captor Sakura and Kyou no Go no Ni

Innocence in fiction is a funny thing, depending on how you look at it, because everyone’s definition is different. Some might say, I don’t know, that something like this is innocent; others might only see innocence in a thing like that. A lot of that has to do with perspective, but in my viewing of Card Captor Sakura – believe it or not, it’s only my first time through – I realized that there’s one very important variable that can be attached to a person’s definition of the word. I’m talking about age, and how it ties into a viewer’s experience, triggering emotions like nostalgia or admiration, even if the work never requested it.

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Analysis

The Dual Perspectives of Saya no Uta

I won’t bother praising Saya no Uta outright: a quick glance at its ratings should tell you a thing or two about the quality of the story, without even factoring in its reputation. My Nitro+ experience is currently limited to this game and the Chaos;Head anime, which most people would rather forget, so I’m not sure how Saya compares to their other stories, but suffice to say it does a good job of electrocuting the mind more efficiently than a Satoshi Kon film.

In retrospect, however, the story contains a strange kind of tenderness to it; a sort of delicate interior beneath the harsh, rotting-flesh-coated exterior. Most wouldn’t notice it initially – or at least I couldn’t, considering my sanity was severely compromised at the time of playing – but there’s a bit to be said about the game after one has finished it, and after they learn the startlingly innocent truth behind the game’s namesake.

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