Serious Business

I’ve gotten more details about the final project we have for the Translation class, but while it seems simple at first it’ll prove to be something that’ll once again come down to the last minute.  The main issues are of course a) selecting what to translate (the criteria being ‘must raise academic interest’) and b) the methodology and theory that will have to be used.  Surprisingly a lot of the class share my problems with the former, though I’m more worried about the latter as literary theory has never been my strong point.  Although we technically have until the 25th of next month to finish and submit it, the clock is literally already ticking for us.  I really hope I’ll be able to come up with something before the end of the workweek, so I can start on it and avoid the usual cramming.

Speaking of ticking clocks, I have one inside me which I’m trying to ignore.  Yes, I’m terribly aware that it’s my birthday in about two days.  I’m trying to ignore that fact, thank you very much.  It’s also kind of hard to be happy when I only get to have money again just the day before it, and even then it’s not something I can actually spend.  It’s a good thing that both my father and sister are contributing for the barbecue and spaghetti, or else it’d be a very sparse celebration, ahaha.  

Oh well, at least I managed to secure a day off on the day itself as well as the one that preceded it.  Two days away from angry customers can do wonders, I suppose.

I took another walk around Makati today, as soon as it stopped raining in my area in fact. The tightness in my chest wasn’t as bad this time around, and I can job for six to seven minutes now before having to slow down and walk for around four minutes.  It’s not much of an improvement, and for some reason my right leg keeps cramping up, but it’s far better than my previous effort.  If I keep going, maybe I’ll be able to jog a straight fifteen minutes by next week?  

Ahaha, it’s always nice to dream, yes?

On the dieting side of things, I cheated a bit today, since I ate some rice for my breakfast and lunch, and ate half a cob of corn.  The rice wasn’t much, just a cup for each meal, but since I’m trying to avoid the ‘white’ carbohydrates it’s already a guilty pleasure I suppose.  That aside, I think I’m getting used to not stuffing my face at the first sign of hunger.  Though, for some reason I’ve been stricken by gas for the past few days, then again I suppose eating legumes in lieu of rice will do that.  At least my digestive cycle seems better, and it looks like it’s gradually going back to how it was prior to my binge eating.

Now for less yucky dieting-related matters…

Several episodes into my rewatch of Sora no Manimani, and I’ve fully thrown my lot in with the Fuumin camp.  I found Fuumin’s growing attraction to Saku (due to shared interests) far more compelling than Hime’s very high school-ish crush.  Hime might be a nice girl, but she’s trying a little too hard, whereas there’s obvious chemistry between Saku and Fumie.  Also, as Executive Otaku commented before, there’s just something fun in shipping two tsunderes together, ahaha.

My fangirl’s choice of ship aside, the coupling pictured above is almost inevitable.  Mii-chan’s immaturity aside, most of Saku’s thoughts gradually return back to the pint-size bundle of energy who just loves dragging him out of his comfort zone.  You know it, I know it; fate will conspire to drive Mii-chan and Saku together so that they’ll produce a bookwork of a kid, who will then be introduced to a genki older girl… At which the cycle starts anew. All is then right with the world.

I’m close to the end of the series of this point, and new developments abound, as well as new characters, one of whom puts a little wrinkle in Mihoshi and Saku’s relationship (as it is).  Still, it’s pretty much the same lighthearted fun, with a dash of character development. What else can I ask for in a rom-com?  Except for another rewatch or two of course, ahaha!

Survived To See The Rain

Today wasn’t as stressful as I worried about yesterday, but it was still pretty bad.  If not for the fact that one of my teammates was on overtime (on an insane twelve midnight-to-two in the afternoon shift), as mentioned previously there would only be three of us taking calls, and the third member would only come in around ten.  That said… the call volume wasn’t as massive as one would expect with only three people managing calls.  I’m not sure if some strings were pulled, or if it was just Workforce feeling particularly merciful, but there were points where I experienced long avail times in between calls.  Of course, these were counterbalanced with instances where the calls came in fast and furious, but those were expected (they usually spiked around nine in the morning, when most of the full-timers and CS people went home) and as such could be prepared for.  

Also, there is this thing we call ‘petiks’… suffice to say it’s something that call center agents learn to do eventually at some point in their careers, and doing it too much can get an agent in trouble…  I don’t do it often, but I think in this case it was merited, if only to preserve my sanity in the face of so many disgruntled callers (the company that I work for seems to attract that in droves).

That said, I managed to survive yet another stressful week-closer and somehow not collapse as soon as I got home.  That’s very rare in my case, since I get exhausted very quickly if I’m stressed out (though the humidity in the past few days might have contributed, which is why I welcomed the small bit of rain we had tonight).  Indeed I was not only completely coherent, but relaxed enough to indulge in another session of rewatching anime series archived in my external hard drives.  

And guess what series I’ve chosen to view, this time not as a neutral party but with fangirl shipping goggles completely on?

SHIP LIKE YOU HAVE A PAIR!

Why, Sora no Manimani of course?  A quaint romantic-comedy from 2009, the follows the experiences of bookwormish (yet not-apparently bishounen) Saku as he is dragged kicking and screaming into the Stargazers Club by his tormentor childhood neighbor (according to Keima’s guidelines, she doesn’t count as an osananajimi) Mihoshi, who could be described as Yui from K-On and Suzumiya Haruhi mushed together, minus the god powers: energetic, driven, but with the emotional maturity of a 12-year old (despite being a sophomore in high school).  At its core, the series is about Saku’s interactions with Mihoshi, the rest of the Stargazers Club, and the student council, and how he changes from his experiences from a stuffy bookworm who hates being noticed in public to… someone more comfortable in his own skin, I suppose.

BUT like I mentioned, I’m not coming into this rewatch as a neutral party, oh no.  Two years later, I’m going into this with fangirl goggles firmly in place, so I can finally squee with shameless delight as I ship characters with abandon.  Readers have been warned.

Now let’s get introduced to the individuals involved in the ships:

Where to start of course, but with the male lead and viewpoint character?  In this case, it’s one Ooyagi Saku, who despite apparently being extremely bishie (not too obvious in this adaptation) would rather hole up in a room somewhere and spend his free time reading books.  At the start of the story he’s been away from this city for around seven years, and if were up to him he’d rather be somewhere else.  Why, you might ask? Because the city reminds him too much of the two years of his childhood where he was terrorized made the acquaintance of an older girl living a floor above him…

Of course, the girl in question is Mihoshi. Energetic (if a bit dumb), she left a definite impression on a young Saku, primarily giving him the instinct to run away from her as much as possible.  She loves stargazing, and Saku discovers the years he hasn’t seen her has dampened her enthusiasm for watching the nighttime sky not a single bit. She shares the same quirks and type of personality as Saku’s mother — let that thought sink in for a bit.

Interestingly enough, despite being the designated ‘main girl’, Mihoshi is not the main ship of the series (at least as far as watchers are concerned).  Why?  Because, when you come down to it, she has a childish interpretation of relationships (she treats Saku more like a kid brother, for example), which doesn’t lead to interesting shipping fodder.  However the next two more than make up for it.

Now this is a ship.  The first serious contender, as far as watchers are concerned, is Hime.  She’s Saku’s classmate, and has been holding a small flame for him when he was nice to her during the entrance examinations. Of course he doesn’t remember, since she was wearing pigtails at the time, but his small act of kindness definitely made an impression on her.  She pretty much joins the Stargazers just so she could get Saku to notice her, at least in the beginning.  She has an obvious dislike of Mihoshi, what with the older girl’s casual and very clingy attitude towards Saku, and the fact that Saku tends to go along with whatever Mihoshi wants to do.

Hime’s main opponent in shipping wars is Fumie.  A member of the Student Council and the Literature Club (a group Saku would have gleefully joined if not for Mihoshi’s influence), Fumie is confident, and very much in charge. Her browbeating of the Stargazers seems to be her primary trait, at least in the beginning (with constant threats to downgrade the Stargazers’ standing from official club down to fan group, as it saves on the budget), as well as her apparent opposition to everything Mihoshi stands for, but she shows hidden depths later on.

Where do I stand right now on the shipping war? At this point, the flag on my mast is in favor of Fumie, given my own bookish personality, and the fact that Hime seems to be trying too hard right now but… We’ll see.  

It’ll be an interesting few days of anime rewatching, I think.

Not Too Long In The Coming

Give me a moment to gather my thoughts.

While I’ve been watching anime for as long as we’ve had a TV at home (although I was too young at the time to even know what anime was), I only really started to consider myself an anime fan when I got exposed to the twisted masterpiece that is Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion. Ignoring the fact that the cast was composed of, to be charitable, people with a some serious mental and emotional issues, and the narrative itself was mostly a slow spiral downward into darkness and despair (which I learned later mirrored the mental state of the director) without a hint of light to be found anywhere, I was hooked. There was just something compelling, I guess, watching all these terribly flawed individuals try (and fail!) to overcome their deep-seated issues, or at the very least make the most of their messed-up situation.

It would be really stretching it to say that I empathized with the characters, as while I was an overly-emotional teenager with serious self-esteem issues when the series aired, I lived in a mostly-stable middle class family (ignoring the fact that my father was almost always away from the house due to work). Compared to that, well, the characters in EVA really went through a lot of, pardon my language, shit in their lives. It was bad enough that the world seemed to be conspiring to make the lives of the characters as painful as possible, where even the best of intentions gets twisted and brings about the worst possible outcome. And you wonder how the cast wasn’t even more depressed or unhinged by the end?  

What was it again?  That a false hope is still hope?

Okay, there’s some hope (as typified by both the television and movie endings), but oh it’s a bleak hope, so much so that one wonders if it wasn’t just a lie to mollify angry viewers. 

I was one of those few people that came off watching the original TV run and the movies wondering if it was even possible for these characters to even have something that could be considered a ‘happy’ ending. For all my excuses, I think this wasreally the impetus that pushed me intro writing fanfiction; I wanted for the characters to have a light to look forward to at the end of the long and dark tunnel. I guess that, underneath all those mood-swings, I was just a sap at heart.

And you wonder why most of the stories I’ve written are either light-hearted in tone or otherwise, well, positive.  It’s one of my greatest failings as a writer, I think, in that for all the bad or depressing things that’ve happened in my own life, I’m just unable to make my characters go through the same.  Kurt Vonnegut is probably laughing at me from the grave.

Speaking of sappy (not to mention overtly optimistic) … I’m not sure of many of the Western fandom know (or remember) the doujin series above. Done by Shizuki Michiru/しづきみちる (more known by the pen name Pengel), the doujin series was published over the course of nine years, from 1997 (almost literally after the airing of the End of Evangelion movie) to 2006, released at a rate of two books per year. A compilation was finally released in 2008, just six months shy of the premiere of the first Rebuild of Evangelion movie. Now that’s dedication. It puts many fanwriters (like myself, who had to stop writing because of real-life issues) to shame.

When I first learned of the series, I knew it was something I wanted to follow. However real-life constraints made that plan (like many things) fall on the wayside… Which is why you’ll excuse my joy at finally finding out that someone completely translated the compilation.

If you’re looking for a psychological drama much like the other famous EVA doujin (for shame if you haven’t read that one), then you’ll be disappointed.  If I were to describe it, it’s kind of like what happens when you cross Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō with a post-3rd Impact story.  Indeed the plot could be summed up in one sentence: After EoE, Asuka and Shinji decide to leave the ruins of Tokyo-3 behind, and go on a (I kid you not) cross-continental journey to Asuka’s homeland of Germany, hoping to find other people on the way.  The comic follows the journey of the two teenagers as they learn not only of the harsh truths of the world they now live in, but also about themselves.

For something that was written over the course of a decade, it’s expected by many that the artist would of course be influenced by the changing trends in anime… And yet, aside from some tongue-in-cheek references here and there (one gleefully ribbing a particular event between Kaworu and Shinji in the Sadamoto-penned official EVA manga), the themes of the story have remained surprisingly constant: that the world… is not a nice place, and might not be one for a really long time, but happiness can still be found if one is willing to work through the awkwardness of being a separate person.

Heck yes that’s sappy.  But I wouldn’t think it would work in any other way.

Bloated

It’s not surprising that I’m feeling a little down even after I’ve done submitting my revisions for the Fiction Workshop class.  Which isn’t good, as whenever I feel even a little depressed, I tend to stuff myself silly with food.  Thanksgiving turkeys have nothing on me when I’m feeling blue, oh yes.

Needless to say, this afternoon was a massive loss.  It was so bad, that at one point I could feel the drinks I had with the food sloshing near where my diaphragm should be.  That was how full I was.

Buh, I think I’ll just skip breakfast tomorrow.  And lunch.  And afternoon snacks…  Oh heck, I’ll just subsist on water for until the bloat subsides.

Hmm, aside from that what else happened today?  Well, it was yet another stressful Sunday, only this time the stress levels were exacerbated by the fact that I was also taking in Customer Service calls on the side.  Blah, it would have been ignorable if my pay had increased to compensate for the extra work, but no…

Speaking of stressful, our HP 3-in-one printer at home apparently kicked the bucket.  I had to bring it to a shop to be checked, but it’s looking like a lost cause for the technicians.  Stupid built-in-obsolescence.  I kind of miss how the turnaround time before you needed to replace your appliances was more than five years.  Tsk, just another expenditure that we didn’t need.

It looks like I’ll have to wait longer before I have my third molar taken out.  Or order bits for yet another Model Conversion project.  Buying a new 3-in-1 Printer isn’t going to be cheap, I think.

For all the suck that occurred today, it was balanced out by the very nice feeling I had after marathoning Hourou Musuko/Wandering Son. Now that was a show that new what it wanted to present, in the time it was given (as a noitaminA show, it only had eleven episodes for its narrative) and did it very well.  It wasn’t perfect, but it might as well have been.  For all its slice-of-life pacing, it deals with a somewhat sensitive issue (that is, gender disassociation) in a sensitive yet mature manner, at the same time following what it means for a boy or a girl actually having to deal with such an issue while growing up.

Needless to say I’m jealous.  I mean, why can’t I write something like that?

Low ratings be darned, this one is a keeper, and a series I will HEARTILY refer to anyone looking for a well-constructed anime.  I hope a brave company in the US gives it a R1 release.  It deserves all the attention it can get.

And… That’s it I guess.  Oh, and I’m working on my fanart again, but I can’t post any results just yet.  Hmm.

Packets Full of Ideas

I’ve spent the good part of the day seated in front of my PC, and while I haven’t actually finished typing any pages yet for the short story I have to submit next week, I haven’t been idle. Fifteen pages can be enough for some people, but I quickly realized that a lot of the concepts I’ve been mulling about over the past few days aren’t quite self-contained or, more importantly, compact enough for the page limit. I understand how Dr. Tuvera is giving us leave to ignore the page limit this time around, but I feel that if there’s something I have to obsess on this time around, it’s that very factor.

I suppose it’s a self-imposed challenge, as my works have always seemed too wordy for their own good (kind of an overcompensation, since I’m so quiet in person I guess). Just fifteen pages for something complete, and makes sense, instead of a rambling stream of loose ideas? Yes, please.

Anyway, I’ve decided on two concepts that seem to be limited enough in scope for those fifteen pages. Both are, in a way, slice of life pieces, focusing on Cristina Mendez.  One concept focuses on her first few days at work, as she deals adapts to the new environment she’s thrust into, as well as the people she will have to interact with from that point on… as well as that particular branch’s peculiar traditions when it comes to newcomers. When she wakes up after an afternoon siesta and finds the office building not only empty of people, but seemingly sealed from the outside world, well what’s a girl to do?  Get to the bottom of things, of course.

The other focuses entirely on what she does on her day off. I admit to liking this concept better, as it’s a pure slice of life piece, so to speak, without the mystery angle I’d be forced to follow through in the first concept. Almost all of the action happens in the limited setting of Cristina’s apartment (and more specifically her living room), as our rank-3 accredited Aetheric User tries to relax by catching up on her journal writing, and maybe start on her backlog of books.  And the plot?  Visitors–specifically her boss, then that weird girl who’s been hanging around the office all summer. Will our hapless heroine actually finish what she’s supposed to be doing on her rest day, I wonder?

I think the first concept will appeal to the tastes of my classmates more (point: writers sometimes write with their audiences in mind), but I really like the second concept because of my own preferences (point: writers write about stuff they like) so… I dunno.  I’ll probably reach a more concrete decision after I come home from work.

Hmm, although I think that the fact that I have concrete story ideas is a gain of itself, I somehow feel like it’s been also a net loss for me, at least with regards to my battle against my waistline and my weight is concerned. Why? Because I’ve been stuffing my face almost nonstop while I’ve been in front of my PC. Easy come, easy go. I guess that means it’s an afternoon jog again, plus limiting my intake, plus minor weight training. Geez.

P.S. I’m adding my cheers for the brethren of Bolter and Chainsword who have stuck with the Dark Angels and Black Templars. Although two years late, the latest FAQ restores parity between the variant Space Marines codecii by standardizing Wargear effects, and gives the non-4th Edition variant codecii some unexpected boosts as well. No more of this ‘no, Storm Shields of Ultramarines work differently from Storm Shields of Dark Angels/Black Templars’ nonsense.

Better late than never, right?

The Great “Slice of Life” Argument

It just had to happen sometime.

I think my own opinions on the nature of what defines a ‘slice of life’ show were made clear, but it’s interesting to see what some of the members of the blogosphere think about the matter.  The fact is, the term ‘slice of life’ is used more and more these days as a word of convenience, for shows that don’t seem to fit the expected forward-moving narrative mode.

The thing is, this doesn’t really fit with how ‘slice of life’ was defined just a few years ago, where a ‘slice of life’ show in one way or another demonstrated the concepts of mono no aware and wabi-sabi, a fixation on the ephemeral nature of objects or events in one’s daily life that gives a better appreciation for existence as a whole.  That is why shows like Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō/ヨコハマ買い出し紀行, ARIA,  and Sketchbook count as ‘slice of life’ shows for older viewers, due to the use of a mono no aware-focused storytelling style.

These days, however…  As mentioned, the term has been used more recently for its convenience, at least in anime.  To give an example, the anime K-On!! has been categorized as a slice-of-life show (I call it a 4koma comedy myself), by virtue of the fact that very little ‘plot’ is apparent over the course of its airing.

It should be interesting to see where the discussion goes, especially if or when it goes into the minutiae of the term’s contemporary definition (or what some would say its misuse by people who don’t know better).

Here are the bloggers participating in the exchange as of this edit:

• Novajinx, who got the exchange going.
• Omo, who comments on the artificiality of the recent use of the slice-of-life ‘metaphor’.
• Kurogane, who posits the use of an alternate term instead of slice-of-life.
• BigN, who talks about the essence of the metaphor (Don’t think. Feel. Then Think.) compared to how it is commonly misunderstood.
• Lelangir points that the argument, in a way, is moot, as definitions shift.
• RyanA comments on the discussion itself, and the controversy behind the use of the term.
  

Slice of Life: Examined, Part 2

Well, I did say that I’d have a lot to think about.

Continuing on from my previous post about the topic, the Slice-of-Life genre, at least in anime, has its share of shortcomings that, and unlike what a certain Canadian friend of mine would like to think, are fairly obvious.  I’ve already talked about three of them in the article that preceded this one, and for today I would like to add a few more.

Life… Is Boring

For myself at least, this statement is pretty much true.  Nothing exciting happens in my daily life (which makes for awkward conversations with my mom whenever I call her), at least in the way people expect ‘exciting’ to be defined.  It’s certainly something that happens to other people, since my daily routine (when I had still been working, and not studying full-time again) was pretty much as follows:

• Wake up early
• Get out of bed and prepare breakfast
• Take a bath and dress for work
• Ride my bicycle to work
• Process documents at the office for eight odd hours
• Ride my bicycle home
• Change, and eat dinner
• Do idle Net browsing or gaming for a few hours
• Go to sleep.

See what I mean?  Nothing out of the ordinary (barring a flat tire or a sudden squall with accompanying flood) happens to break the monotony of my daily routine, and I suspect this is (with some variation depending on location) true for many people.  Not everyone has work like Bear Grylls; it’s just the daily, boring grind.  That’s how life works.

Most of the time anyway.

A typical Slice-of-Life show will be like this.  It will present very mundane situations, possibly ones that the viewer has had experience with… And expects the same viewer to spend a good amount of  their time watching such ordinary situations.  It brings up the question, why would someone who has or is still experiencing the same, very boring life watch a show built around the same really boring premises?  Most entertainment is escapist after all, and why would one want to be reminded that their common and generally non-exciting existences?

Insight? What?

Okay, so the scenarios typical of Slice-of-Life shows can be terribly mundane, but surely there has to be a point to it, otherwise a viewer might have felt that they’d wasted twenty-four minutes of their time?  There has to be something that could taken from the viewing, some insight into personalities or sub-groups in a specific time or place, right?

I’d have to say, that’s expecting way too much, especially from more recent productions.  To paraphrase another blogger, in describing a currently-airing series, it’s like they’re presenting situations (like, say, an afternoon tea break or a trip to the marketplace) just for the sake of showing those situations, and nothing else.  Unlike, say, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, we neither learn or realize anything of import from these situations.

That is not to say that that there aren’t any insights to be gained from a Slice-of-Life show, but depending on the presentation used, those insights  — about the setting, or just the personalities of the characters  — won’t be made apparent right away.  A fine example would be the significance of the camera that Alpha receives from Kokone near the beginning Yokohama Kaidaishi Kikou, a package from her long-missing owner.  At first she considers it a bit of a curiosity, before it becomes a sort of accessory she brings with her whenever she goes out, and uses to take photographs of scenery of people that happen to pique her fancy at that time.  Only much much later, when the viewer has become more familiar with characters and the setting — Alpha lives in an Earth where Humanity as a species is slowly dying out, whereas she, as a robot, will remain unchanged as time changes everything else — that the camera’s importance becomes apparent.

Given the slow pace of the series, many people would not have made it to that point of realization.

Move Along, Nothing to See Here

I didn’t set out to answer all questions regarding the shortcomings of the Slice-of-Life genre, at least in relation to anime, nor did I set out to support the claims of those who criticize the genre for the attention its getting, despite the exact same flaws I’ve just named.  I just thought that it was an interesting intellectual exercise, given the fact that I’m a self-admitted enthusiast of the said genre, in broadcast or print form.

I guess I’m just more forgiving of the shows I elect to watch (and there are a lot of them each season), those included in the Slice-of-Life genre (which I watch to relax) included.  As I’ve mentioned, when you’re enjoying something that you’re watching, it’s easy to ignore the shortcomings of a show.  And the enjoyment you get out of the show is often what really matters, otherwise why would you watch it to begin with?

Slice of Life: Examined

This post comes as a result of another conversation I had with a familiar acquaintance.  This time around, the topic swung to the so-called Slice of Life genre of animation.  Okay, it didn’t begin there (rather it started with a surprisingly excited misreading of a previous post), but eventually it ended with Slice-of-Life, or rather, why is it that people easily dismiss the flaws apparent in the genre when compared to something like Mecha anime, which always seem to just attract (in his opinion) unwarranted criticism.  While I think it’s really just due to his personal tastes (and dislike for the simple, which Slice-of-Life shows often are, structure and narrative-wise), it got me thinking about the shortcomings of the genre, and if they could critiqued  (aside from “They’re simple! So there!”) in a more (pseudo) formalized manner.

Of course, before we can even begin looking at the flaws of the genre, we would have to define the term ‘Slice-of-Life’ first.

According to Wikipedia, a Slice-of-Life Story (tranche de vie) is defined as “a story that portrays a ‘cut-out’ sequence of events in a character’s life.  It may or may not contain any plot progress, or little character development, and often has no exposition, conflict, or denouement, with an open ending.  It usually tries to portray the everyday life of ordinary people, sometimes but rarely with fantasy or science fiction elements involved.” Wikipedia also adds that, “the term (slice of life) is considered a dead metaphor,” as originally it seemed to mean an author literally taking a ‘cut’ out of a characters life to focus on, without concern for narrative placement.

Merriam Webster defines the term much more simply, calling it an “…adjective relating to, or marked by the accurate transcription (as into drama) of a segment of actual life experience.”

Finally, TV Tropes (what might be the biggest time sink on the net) calls it “…life, observed, and examined. A cast of characters go about their daily lives, making observations and being themselves,” adding “Slice of Life series don’t usually have much of a plot or, if taken to extreme even the omnipresent Conflict, but they don’t really need one.”

Just by their definitions, it is easy to see what might be considered shortcomings of the genre for some, and a draw for others.  Bear with me here, as I’m no expert (it’s why I’m taking up a Master’s Degree after all) in the presentation of Literary Theories, but I hope to be able to, hmm, shed light on these shortcomings.

Slice-of-Life not as a Simulacra of Reality

One of the criticism’s heaped upon the genre by my very determined friend was the fact that, for (anime shows) that are supposedly based on everyday lives of real people, they don’t seem to be very ‘real’, in a sense that they present events that not many people have actually experienced.  For example, while many of us have undergone the pains of going through elementary school and high school (and hopefully college), not all of us have experienced going to an all-girls school (I have, to my detriment), or a co-educational institution where the male side of the equation are just faceless placeholders.  Or gone to a school that still follows the Victorian system of educational advancement.

Put plainly, most of the recent shows connected to the ‘genre’ follow just the adventures (and misadventures) of a group of teenage girls.  And since this is Japanese anime we’re talking about here, the setting is almost always a middle-school or high school.  If there are males, more often than not they are not the focus at all of the narrative.

The inevitable focus on just the female side of the equation also gives some watchers the feeling that a show (or comic) is pandering to a very specific demographic — that is, love-starved single otaku.  For these poor souls, the shows that showcase these girls become a strange (and creepy) kind of vicarious living, where emptiness is filled with images of cute females that may or may not fill their specific expectations of real (’3-D’) women.

This gender imbalance when it comes to character focus might just be a case of author’s fiat (where the author or manga artist might be a girl herself, and is just writing what she knows), but for many viewers it’s not an accurate representation of how they might have experienced high school for example.  Sure it’s based on reality, but on a heavily idealized reality, that many of us will never have gone through when growing up.

Speaking from experience, my school uniform was never as nice as the ones in these shows.  Sheesh.

Plot, or Lack Thereof

For those who are used to an Aristotelian Plot Structure, Slice-of-Life shows could be trying indeed.  There are expectations in a story after all, where events in it all move toward a specific end point — characters and setting are first introduced, then conflict is introduced that inevitably drives the characters (and the story) to a culmination or climax, before we are treated to the aftermath of the climactic event and the inevitable resolution to the issue, and a return to normality for all the parties involved.  It might be as mundane as Mr. Juan DeLa Cruz going to work and accomplishing a task his boss dumped on his shoulders, to as epic as the Ibalon’s Bantong vanquishing Oriol.

Slice of life, frankly, has little to none of that.  One could very well begin a story in the middle of an event already happening, in media res, without due introduction to the setting or the characters, with very little context to go on (at least at first).

The first episode of ARIA the Animation, for example, plunks the viewer in the middle of a place that seems like Venice, in a company of gondoliers… who just happen to be women.  The viewer has no means of knowing that the setting is a) not Venice, but a facsimile located on Mars, b) why all the gondoliers are women, and c) the significance of the gondolier companies first introduced.  What conflict there is in the episode amounts to an curious little girl trying to blackmail the female gondoliers into showing her the sights of the City of Canals, and that’s it.  And even then it’s resolved relatively simplistically.

People who live for complex (or ‘proper’) plots will, obviously, be disappointed with the example outlined above.

There is also a matter of Resolution: a proper narrative, at least to many people, will need to have some kind of resolution (the hero dies, the hero goes home, etc.).  Many Slice-of-Life shows don’t have that.  Indeed they just continue on, often leaving it to the viewer to think of a possible ending.  For the characters, and the world they live in, life goes on, but for many a non-resolution just would not do.

Teenage Life isn’t Everything

People grow up.  It’s as inevitable as the rising of the sun and the coming of night, despite what many would like.  Many Slice-of-Life shows however focus on this particular span of life to ‘take a cut out of’.  It might be a practical and demographic consideration — most of the source material for these shows happen to be manga written for teenage readers, so obviously they would like to read what they’d expect to experience (idealized or not).

As mentioned however, people inevitably grow up.  Our teenage years, which sometimes we wistfully remember, are just a small chunk of our lives.  And yet many (but not all) anime slice-of-life shows just love focusing on this particular span of time in the lives of their characters.  Is it because it’s more exciting/interesting than the period where someone properly joins society as a responsible (I would hope!) adult?  Or is the fact that becoming an adult things start to lose their color, their excitement factor?

It’s not something I could answer myself.

Not the End of Things

Those are just three of the shortcomings of the Slice-of-Life genre of shows that came to mind, but I’m sure that many of the older hands in the anime blogging community can name some more.  Much like any SF-descended genre, it’s by no means perfect, and indeed the fact that it has shortcomings is something to be pointed out.

Still, inasmuch as I’ve described some of the genre’s flaws, I’m nowhere close to answering that little question my friend posed to me just this afternoon: why do Slice-of-Life shows, despite the fact that they have flaws, still come off as ‘better’ than some other shows?  What makes them seemingly ‘immune’ to criticism, or rather, what makes the viewers just accept the flaws without as much as a complaint, where something like, say, a Mecha anime would be pounced on like a heretic by the Inquisition?

My answer, which boiled down to “When you’re enjoying yourself, you don’t sweat about the imperfections,” feels incomplete.  No wonder I still have a lot to think about.

The Show that Everyone Likes, but No One Talks About

The ARIA Cast, with the supporting Characters in the background

I’ve always wanted to do a post about the ARIA franchise (which consists of the ARIA manga of course, as well as its animated adaptations The Animation, The Natural, and The Origination), but there was always something that would come up that would prevent me from putting down my thoughts on it.  ARIA is one of those shows that, at least for me, is hard to quantify in words, and is the sort of thing better experienced than described.  I mean seriously, how would you describe, in a way that would interest a casual anime watcher, a show where nothing really happens (but, in the words of one of the voice actresses that worked on it, in a nice way), and the viewer is merely a witness to the daily goings-on in the life of a group of girls (as well as their close acquaintances), who happen to be female gondoliers-in-training in a copy of Venice?

It’s definitely a hard sell, especially to (younger) people who are used to fast-paced and action-packed Shounen or Seinen offerings, and the series itself seems to appeal more to old-hands like myself (I hate to admit, but I’ve more than a decade and a half of anime watching under my belt) who, for one reason or another, have realized that fast paced (or extremely convoluted) plots aren’t for them anymore.  These days I watch anime to relax, and not to be reminded about office politics or how hard my work is, darn it.

Alicia Florence, Ai-chan, and Akari Mizunashi

And that’s just about the effect ARIA has on me: it gets me to loosen up and relax.  Of course, I do like so-called Slice-of-Life shows, but there’s just something especially soothing about ARIA… I guess it’s because the setting is as close to a Utopia as one could imagine, where the pace of life doesn’t move at a breakneck speed, and everyone is nice to everyone else.  Call it an escapist fantasy if you wish, but I think there’s nothing better to spend my free time after work than to partake in the daily adventures of Akari and her friends in Neo Venezia.

What I’ve Been Watching during my Vacation

Supernatural Slice-Of Life: Natsume's Book of Friends and Mokke

Aside from walking around and taking in the various sights of Singapore once again, I also took advantage of the the WiFi in the area me and my father were staying in to download and catch up on some series that I’ve wanted to watch, but never really had the time to while I was still working.  So I fired up my torrents for both seasons of Natsume Yuujin-Cho/夏目友人帳 (also known as Natsume’s Book of Friends, which I will use to refer to it from this point on), while I picked up where I last left off with Mokke/もっけ.

Both series are, at first glace, rather similar, dealing with the experiences of youth with the ability to see and interact with the supernatural beings, all set amidst the glorious scenery of the gradually-vanishing Japanese countryside.  In Natsume’s Book of Friends, we have Natsume Takashi, a quiet young man in what seems to be middle school or high school; in Mokke, we have a pair of sisters: reserved and yamato nadeshiko-lite Hibara Shizuru, who like Natsume is at middle-school or high-school in age, and her tomboyish younger sister Hibara Miyuki, four or five years her junior.

The powers of the protagonists seem to stem from their bloodline, with Natsume inheriting his ability to see, speak, and touch ayakashi (怪) or youkai (妖怪) from his grandmother (it is not mentioned if she is Natsume’s maternal or paternal grandmother, but given the surname I’m assuming it’s paternal) Natsume Reiko, though he seems to have inherited a few other traits as well, while Miyuki and Shizuru seemed to have gotten theirs from the grandfather, who they live with along with their grandmother.  There is an important difference between the powers of the protagonists of the two series however: the abilities Natsume inherited from Reiko are very powerful, surprising even practiced exorcists, allowing him to sometimes knock around some of the weaker youkai/ayakashi even with a  simple punch, while Shizuru and Miyuki’s abilities are relatively weak, limited to seeing, hearing, and speaking with youkai/ayakashi (for Shizuru) or hearing and being able to speak with (but unable to see) as well as being easily possessed (for Miyuki).

It is no wonder then that Natsume, while not being trained and particularly physically-impressive (indeed for higher-tier youkai he asks for aid from his bodyguard-come-irritant Madara, a powerful wolf-like spirit who seems to love spending more time in the shape of a maneki neko/招き猫), sometimes actually takes a more pro-active stance with regards to his interaction with youkai, whereas the sisters often have to ask for their grandfather’s aid with their supernatural troubles.

Interesting enough for all the trouble his past interactions with Youkai had caused prior to his acquisition of the eponymous Book of Friends (a very VERY thick diary filled with the names of all the youkai Reiko had bullied or defeated, subsequently granting her power of them) as an inheritance, Natsume creates strong friendships and bonds with some of the more benign spirits he interacts with in the course of returning the names of the very same youkai listed in the diary, his gentle nature making him reach out to them when another exorcist would have simply destroyed the youkai out of spite or duty.  The same cann0t really be said for Shizuru and Miyuki, barring one isolated incident with a kamaitachi.

It’s relatively light-hearted fun about growing up for the most part, though both series deal with some serious themes, in particular ostracism from one’s peers.  Y’see Natsume is a quiet loner for a very good reason: for most of his early childhood, he had been teased and bullied by the people around him because of his powers, being called a liar being able to see what other people can’t.  Where his grandmother Reiko reacted to such jibes and accusations by just ignoring them and having fun by herself anyway (one wonders how the heck she was even able to produce a family line that led to Natsume, though since she kept her surname one might assume that whatever relationship she formed never lasted), Natsume retreated emotionally inward, something not helped in the least by the fact that Natsume has spent most of his life (after the death of his parents) shuffling through the care of one distant relative after another, until he finally settled in with the kindly Fujiwaras (a couple distantly related to his father).  Likewise, the Hibara sisters seemed to have been sent to live with their grandparents by their mother for the fear of the ostracism that might occur if other people found out of their abilities; indeed for a good part of the series, the elder sister, Shizuru, muses on whether or not she would still be treated the same if her friends learned that she could see and speak with spirits.

Both series are worth a look for fans of more slower-paced anime.  They certainly need more love, I think.