Because, really, Answerman wanted a ridiculously verbose, sourced response

Earlier today OGT pointed out the most recent Question of the Week from ANN’s Zac of “Hey! Answerman!” It’s near the bottom there. It is, basically, “Is Haruhi Suzumiya a masterpiece, a piece of crap, or overrated?” Not to grandstand, but OGT called me out as a kind of champion of justice (I watched a lot of Bamboo Blade this week, sorry about that). So I wrote in, and I thought, for your perusal, I would post my whole e-mail here. It’s too bad I’m not enough of a shmoozer to have linked my blog in my e-mail, because maybe I would get some more readers (and comments! delicious comments!) if I had. But you fine folks are enough for me, so I’m happy to let you see what horrors I might have perpetrated.

The time has come and gone, and Zac didn’t print my piece.  I will admit that I am a little disappointed, but it’s not too surprising.  For a lot of reasons, my long, rambling, poorly-organized venture into science-fiction criticism wasn’t crafted for the market — basically, what I did isn’t the sort of thing usually posted there.

Dear Zac,

Your most recent Question of the Week was whether Haruhi Suzumiya is a “masterpiece, piece of junk, or simply overrated.” “Masterpiece” might be a bit strong, but I’ll go with that here. I’m sure you’ll hear a lot about the animation, the moe, and even the structure of the show. However, I thought I would e-mail you concerning the elements of Haruhi that made me a fan, which are the sci-fi philosophy underpinning the series and point of view we’re offered.

Through the series, Yuki reads a series of novels by Dan Simmons known, collectively, as The Hyperion Cantos. In fact, the book she gives Kyon with her hidden bookmark message was Fall of Hyperion, the second of the four-novel sequence. These books deal, in part, with the theories of a 1950s Jesuit named Teilhard de Chardin, who tried to reconcile religion and science. He claimed evolution is an act of God, and that humans were meant to eventually evolve into godhead — what Joseph Campbell calls “apotheosis” — which Teilhard called “The Omega Point.” This idea is, I think, basically Hegelian, as seen through Marx: Hegel described a dialectic in which metaphoric “masters” and “slaves” fight with each other, with the slaves ultimately learning self-sufficiency and becoming fully human. Marx applied this to history itself, claiming all history moved humans closer to happiness — which, of course, for him meant socialism. Teilhard thought the movement was biological and that people were moving closer to becoming like God, that we would be the equals of the Christian Maker.

Haruhi Suzumiya, like Simmon’s Hyperion, advances this in its own way. Haruhi is effectively a god-figure — indeed, the ESPers of the show, like Koizumi, think she is THE God — she has evolved to Godhead, like Teilhard said. Darwin’s theories of evolution state that a trait or attribute usually starts as a quirk, an accident at the genetic level, and if it helps the creature who was born with it survive better, get more food, and be healthier, that creature will have an easier time reproducing and making more like itself, with the same genetic trait. Eventually those with the given adaptation will push out and possibly kill off the versions without the trait, as they cannot as easily gather food or reproduce, and now the species is different. Haruhi, then, is the fluke — the first person with the adaptation. What, an author might wonder, would happen with the first person to evolve into Godhead? In some ways the American X-Men deal with this, and in Japan we have Haruhi Suzumiya.

But the show is, in part, a comedy, so it’s not a hard sci-fi exploration of the theme, but an attempt to illustrate the situations that would occur. An unknowing God surrounded by people might indeed remake things as she wants. And a god of any sort, within an anime, might just remake things into the shape of an anime. Haruhi actively seeks to make the world around her into an adventure, into the show it secretly is. We, the audience, get to realize that through Kyon, who is us, and just like us. Like most science-fiction that’s about a different world, or a remade world, Haruhi Suzumiya requires a figure like us that can, for some reason or another, respond with wonder or confusion. At the basic level of structuring a plot, we need an excuse for a knowledgeable character to sit down and start talking about what’s different in the world. How confusing would Star Wars be if Luke already knew everything about the Clone Wars and the Jedi? If he did, Obi-Wan would never need to explain things to him, and we would never know what’s going on. In the same way, Kyon stumbles into Haruhi’s games and needs the sci-fi elements — Yuki, Asahina, and Koizumi — to tell him what’s going on. In that way, we get to know what’s going on.

Thankfully, our portal into the strange world isn’t a weenie. Some people, to keep the same reference, think Luke Skywalker’s a bit of a crybaby, but Kyon isn’t, not really. He complains a lot, but he’s sarcastic, and comments on what’s happening as often as he wants it changed. And it’s important that the club is, in a way, his fault. His conversation about creating things inspires Haruhi. So, in a world where strange things abound, it is the narrator, the representative of us, that starts the change. That reflects the theme of the show, of evolved Godhead. Kyon takes part in the divine, even though he is, as everyone assures him, normal. The science-fiction theme even buttresses the comedy and the romance. Obviously most of the comedy couldn’t happen if Haruhi wasn’t a threat to the fabric of the world — if she were normal, they could just tell her to shut up. Kyon learns to do that anyway — and Kyon effectively evolves in a different way, by engaging in a romance with Haruhi. The traditional idea of marriage is of two fleshes made one, and Kyon becomes part of Haruhi by show’s end. She integrates Kyon as her conscience, if you will. He’s her bad-tempered, sarcastic Jiminy Cricket.

Joseph Campbell claims that all mythology is a reflection of psychological values inherent to all people — that it springs from our reactions to our common experiences. Haruhi — as the internet “cults” that have sprung up have illustrated — is a form of mythology. It re-imagines the world. It does this by adapting older ideas of the evolution of man (a hot topic right now), of Hegel’s dialectic and Campbell’s heroic apotheosis, and placing them in a setting we’re familiar enough with to move through comfortably. Part of the appeal of Haruhi on a grassroots level is the high, hard sci-fi concepts running rampant in what appears to be a high school comedy-romance setting.

Best wishes — and good luck with all the replies I’m sure you’ll get,
Cuchlann

At least he’s playing a dude…

It’s difficult for me to talk about the space opera side of Macross Frontier. It just is, like clouds or sunlight. It is right, it is in place, and it buoys me — though, of course, the sun doesn’t just come round once a week. I actually watched this episode a few days ago, but I want to talk about it, rather than what I’m actually doing right now (which looks to be powering through Shakugan no Shana II, actually.

By the way — does anyone know what’s up with the missing episode of Spice and Wolf?

Anyway. Macross Frontier is made of poly-awesome fibers. But you already know that, you don’t suck. If you do suck? I don’t care.

The show continues apace, basically. Ranka is finally moving up in the world, and Alto is, uh, pretty much the same as always. Oh, and Sheryl’s sick, or something. This latest episode is almost entirely character stuff, which is just fine with me. Actually, the asides they take pains to include about the actual plot, the space, alien, war stuff (remember that?) are a little jarring; I appreciate them, but in the past few episodes we’ve been seeing so much about the characters that it feels almost superfluous.

Not that giant bio-mech aliens are ever superfluous.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I watched about half of Steamboy a few weeks ago, and I have yet to finish it. I will, but this does not bode well for my opinion on the thing.

Yes, I know I’m very random right now, hush.

I think it’s the point in the night where I’m forced to let you peek behind the great and wonderful wizard’s curtain: I don’t have a whole lot to actually say right now about Macross Frontier. I just wanted an excuse to use that wonderful, horribly embarrassing screencap of Alto. The topic I’ve been thinking about lately is the demarcation between anime fans and people who aren’t.

I don’t mean a border, though perhaps I should have used a different word if I didn’t want to suggest it. I honestly don’t believe there’s actually much of anything separating anime fans, otaku if you will, from other people. I have often said, in tones of sadness and pity, that some random person walking by will never know who in the hell [pick your anime lead of choice, I think the time I'm remembering I used Vash the Stampede as an example] is. People who wall themselves off from an entire venue miss a lot. I probably miss some good stuff because I pretty much won’t watch American romantic comedies. My girlfriend, in dire straits with her computer a few months ago, watched both Bridget Jones’ Diary movies back to back for comfort, and I liked them a decent amount. I probably would have never watched them otherwise.

Actually, let me retract part of that. I don’t categorically refuse to watch American romantic comedies, they just have to hint at something that will entertain me, and the typical “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again” arc doesn’t interest me too much. Unless the girl is an elf or something (I’m looking at you, Record of Lodoss War).

The thing I’m getting at in my own, awkward way is this: some people think there’s a difference. I have never thought there was. I have recently seen a little evidence to contradict my own opinion.

Where to start? Okay. My girlfriend and I have been going back and forth, foisting our favorite entertainments off on each other. She’s the reason I’m going to read Stephen King’s Dark Tower books, at least the first two. She’s finally going to try her hand at The Lord of the Rings (or try again, as is more accurate) because of me. In between her showing me movies I showed her The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. As my girlfriend’s pretty intelligent and into methods of storytelling, I showed her the episodes in the original air order. The arrangement didn’t bother her too much, though she didn’t think the first episode was all that funny.

I am assuming most of you enjoyed Haruhi. I know OGT enjoyed it, but wasn’t a huge fan. What I mean is that maybe you didn’t think the fake movie was funny either. I did. The fact that someone animated bad acting and film shooting is a joke to me, and it makes everything that happens in that twenty-some minute space funnier. I once did a project where some friends and I sat in our desks and read from scripts while a powerpoint full of pictures of ourselves, posed to match the scenes, scrolled by. No one in the class got the joke, ongoing, that we could have just done it in the classroom with no computer.

Moving on. My girlfriend enjoyed Haruhi most of the way through, but upon finishing the last episode was irritated and her opinion of the whole show fell. If you need a quick refresher, it’s the episode where Haruhi and Kyon go into closed space together, Kyon finally figures out that Haruhi’s into him, they kiss, and everything’s cool.

My girlfriend says she dislikes Kyon, that he never changes throughout the show.

Now, I don’t ascribe to the creative writing class axiom that a story must chart a character’s change — I think stories function just as well sometimes when they focus on how a character doesn’t change. I’m thinking of Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, as well as several of Terry Pratchett’s protagonists (like Rincewind and Carrot Ironfounderson). But I think Kyon does change. In fact, most of the characters change, with the possible exception of Mikuru — if you use her future self as one of the poles, then she does as well (unless you believe, as Koizumi does, that she’s faking the super-sweet act because Kyon likes that sort of thing). Yuki becomes slightly more human, finding a hobby and coming to like Kyon. Koizumi seems like the best example of a character who doesn’t change, but I think he opens up a little — he definitely shows how much he likes Kyon more as the months go by. Haruhi and Kyon each mellow in their respective ways: Haruhi becomes (believe it or not) less demanding, while Kyon becomes better able to deal with things outside his expectations.

This essay (if you can call it that) isn’t about defending my position, though. Not specifically, though I guess it does it in a roundabout way. My point, long time in coming, is that I can’t see how my girlfriend, who reads and watches complex things all the time, doesn’t see what I see in a show as relatively simple as Haruhi. One possibility is that it’s an anime. She doesn’t watch any on her own, despite being a fan of both fantasy and science-fiction. The prevalence of those two genres in anime — easier to get ahold of than on American tv — is what drew me to the whole world of Japanese cartoons in the first place. She claims that she’s not familiar with the way anime works, that it doesn’t make sense to her. That confuses me. Anime has never struck me as having a different way of working — it does different things than American media sometimes, but I felt it worked in the same way as a tv show or movie from anywhere else might. I am, perhaps, wrong.

I certainly know there are types, standards, clichés, and other things that are different. While we might be able to think of American analogues to the Genki Girl, very few people who don’t watch anime would think of her as a “trope.” Yet there’s her page on the tv tropes wiki. But, in the same way, it seems like knowing it’s a trope isn’t required to get the jokes she’s the butt of. A few meta shows, like Excel Saga, Pani Poni Dash, and Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei do that sort of thing, but America has its own parody shows and the like — such as Chappelle’s Show — wherein you have to get the reference to get the joke. But (hopefully) the specific isn’t the cornerstone of the general in those examples.

I will readily admit that I am a bit ignorant when it comes to motion picture analysis. Plot, story, so on, those I can deal with about as well as in a book, but things like animation, cinematography, they befuddle me. I’m getting better, and I’m much better at looking at the technical bits of anime than I am of live-action films, even concerning genres. I watched Hot Fuzz with commentary last night, and I was astounded at all the references to movies the director, Edgar Wright, made, both in the movie and the commentary itself. I had no idea what half the movies were, and hadn’t seen most of the others (Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, yes, but Point Blank? Chinatown?) Along with that, he talked about the visual clues throughout the movie. I don’t suffer from genre blindness — I often know what’s going to happen because of the curve of the story that I see, but I often don’t pick up on deliberately-placed clues in movies like that. I just seem to miss that kind of knack. Is the same thing going on with my girlfriend and anime? Could it?

With those strange, melancholic words, I must leave you. But, to reward you for plugging away at my ramblings, here’s a present:

Because what’s better than that expression on his face? Nothing, that’s what.

Blogohedron. Check the bottom of the post.

No. This has nothing to do with anything. But it’s amazing.

“They should have sent a poet”

Yes, I begin my Real Drive career with a graceless Contact reference. Push past the predictability: it’s perfect for the scene pictured above, and the show in general (based on the first episode).

My friend OGT, whom you probably know, lured me into this here anime-blogging bit (simply by making entertaining posts), and I bring him up at this point because his post about Real Drive is what got me to check out the first episode. I’m glad I did, and I was just a little surprised — he’s not generally a fan of cyberpunk. OGT, correct me if I’m wrong, definitely.

And yes, I would absolutely classify this (again, based on the first episode) as cyberpunk. They’re going around digitizing people’s brains; apparently it’s become so important that they did it to a comatose man without his consent, though perhaps he still had some family around then. Or, more probably, his friend told them to do it.

Warning: I’m still at the point where I can’t remember the characters’ names. So, vague descriptions may crop up. Now you know.

What I’m liking about this iteration of my favorite Gibson (and/or Sterling) -spawned genre is that it seems to be dealing with the effects of cyberization and (possibly) post-Singularity life on the environment.

Just in case you don’t know, let me go into the Singularity and all that stuff. I find it fascinating. Moore’s Law states that technology improves at an exponential rate.

I have no idea what this graph is for, but it’s a positive exponential curve. Moore claims that the speed and efficiency of technology improves, and will continue to improve, along that kind of line. The Singularity is one of the names for the eventual vertical curve of the graph. Eventually every basic exponential line will curve into a straight line, essentially going higher and higher without any time (in our case) passing. Infinite technological growth with no time involved. The practical explanation is that our technology will improve, and we will use that technology to take the next step up the graph. We never start from the ground floor.

This has some obvious and not-so-obvious repercussions. A lot of people believe that one of the keys to the Singularity will be intelligent AI. They will effectively start to design better technology, as they’ll be more capable of design than humans are.

Note — whether you believe this will happen or not isn’t important; it’s a popular idea in sci-fi.

Anyway. Nanotechnology and the like are all considered “post-singularity” tech. That is, designers will actually have to be better than they are now, through technological means, to design functioning nanotechnology. At least, they will need to be if they are to design the stuff we pine for, like houses that build themselves.

Another facet of folks who are into the Singularity is “post-humanism.” They claim that the next evolutionary step for humanity will be technologically driven. We will improve ourselves. That’s an even more common cyberpunk element, with digital brains, cybernetic body parts, et cetera. And post-humanists advocate improvement without disaster. We’re running into problems where people with prosthetics are beginning to be called “more than human.” With post-singularity technology, we could all improve ourselves in safety, as there would be no risk in the procedures, as medical technology will benefit from the upward end of the exponential curve just like everything else.

And so some people think the singularity also holds the answers to environmental issues, especially pollution and climate. Filling our oceans and atmosphere with nanobots that eat pollution and crap water would fix everything, they claim. And, well, yes — it would fix things. The problem isn’t necessarily the technology, but the timeframe. As Karl Schroeder explains far better than I can, the Singularity must have a certain amount of time, or a run-up if you will, and Earth will crap out before then.

Hopefully the connections to Real Drive are reasonably clear, and you’re not just angry at me for dragging you around for no reason. That’s assuming you’re still reading.

Real Drive appears to be in the setting of a typical post-singularity world, possibly with some mystical earth-force involved. Our characters may simply be personifying nature, which is common enough. Either way, we’re dealing with the problems of technology exacerbated by the Singularity. The technology seems to be screwing with nature more, not less. The show also points out an interesting point about tech. reliance: when your infrastructure can be screwed with by bad weather or something, you should build some fucking redundancies.

Hey, I have a little request for you folks willing to respond. As you might already know, I just finished Gundam 00 last night. So I’m wondering if there’s anything good right now to watch. I’m hopelessly behind, honestly. I’m still trying to finish Death Note, Fate/Stay Night (or however you punctuate it), and Bamboo Blade, among others. I really want to start Baccano! (properly start it — OGT showed me the first episode a few months back). But, anyway, because I’m a fool, I thought I’d get some recommendations. If you’re interested in hearing me write about something, or just think I really need to check something out, respond. However, stick to two recommendations. With all the work I’m trying to do right now (doing my thesis early, basically), I don’t have a lot of time during the day to watch anime, even though I have no real obligations, as I’m on break.

So, bring ‘em on!

“We start out with really awesome robots and kick some ass, but then the other guys get robots just as awesome and things go to hell”

A year or so ago I did a meme on my personal journal, where the point was to summarize a show, book, or something in one sentence, then let everyone guess at what they were meant to be. The subject line up there was, as best I can remember, my summary of Gundam.

As you might have guessed at this point, I just finished Gundam 00. And I haven’t seen many Gundam versions, I’ll admit. The only series I finished was Gundam Wing, and along with that I saw Endless Waltz, one of the OVAs (dunno which one), and a scattered few episodes of the original. I also tried G Gundam and Gundam SEED, but neither of those went too well for me. The point I’m making here, with this poorly-collated list of shows, is that Gundam 00 is my favorite out of all of them.

I’m sure, by now, most of the interesting topics have been exhausted. Yes, 00 seems to be a remake of W; it’s post-9/11, I get it; it was Gundam’s anniversary, super; people have even likely exhausted talking about the cute girls. My idea might be well-worn by now as well, but I don’t read many anime blogs, so bear with me for a while.

Examining Gundam 00 from the top down might offer some interesting insights. Or not. Yes, this is basically myth-criticism, or, at least, genre criticism, taking the premise and moving toward the fine points, rather than away.

the Gundams, as I implied in my summary above, start every series as massively-overpowered death machines. They destroy any competition. We could view them as the Greek heroes, if we’d like. Matched with everyday soldiers, they win every time. It’s when you get some heroes of your own, like the Trojans, that things get interesting. The technological aspect of this — that is, that the pilots aren’t really any more special than anyone else — always manages to highlight the futility of the arms race, just like in real life. But my point here is that several individuals begin the show having been imbued with godhead — indeed, “Celestial Being” is a name heavy-handed enough to make O. Henry weep. This seems like an odd way to begin a series, with the characters so powerful they have no competition. Of course, we all had confidence that they wouldn’t stay super-powerful for long. But as young gods the Meisters needed a bit of development — usually the story ends when the protagonists get that much power. There’s nowhere else to go. Of course, when that power is technological, it means we can screw around with the people involved as much as we’d like. The internal struggles within Celestial Being are worrisome, but in some ways not well-developed. I understood, right away, that Erde had some weird thing or other going on that made him question all the other Meisters. However, it wasn’t until he became comfortable with all of them, accepted them, that we were presented with what that would have meant: his ability to judge them. Also, by the way, it’s not good form to introduce an ability only to immediately negate it. Nadleeh’s Trial system activates and works for a good fifteen seconds, then gets cut off when everyone disconnects from the Veda system, which means there’s no hope of it being used again. Why doesn’t he ever try to judge Setsuna?

The structure is strange, that’s what I’m getting at here. And, consequently, even while the show delighted me it took a while to really draw me in. The latter half, when the stakes go up, the competition gets more powerful, and Celestial Being begins to function as a unit, that’s when things got interesting for me. This isn’t too surprising: the latter half of the show exhibits more mythic tendencies. Saji might be one of our heroes in the second season, as he’s bereft of family and has a loved one injured nearly unto dying. He’s got all the earmarks of a quester. I could be wrong. Erde confirms his status as “not quite human,” as does Allelujah, making them fairy babies, changelings. Setsuna gains a proper nemesis and quest of his own, which is largely in his head, as he finds what he needs by doing precisely what he’s been doing over the course of the whole show.

I would like to take a moment to say fuck you, Gundam director and writers, whoever you are. Why do the creators of awesome space operas have to always kill my favorite character? First Joss Whedon decides to use cheap tricks in Serenity and kill Wash, but then Lockon has to die as well? Yes, I spotted what might, might have been Lockon in the final montage, though the drinking would seem to suggest it’s Allelujah instead. I dunno. I just really liked Lockon. So bite me.

On the subject of Lockon, he seems to be the best-balanced Meister. He also has the most mundane story, that of “seeking revenge.” Allelujah rivals him with “irate super-soldier experiment,” but “angry revenger” predates science-fiction by kind of a lot, so Lockon edges him out.

If you look at the whole from far enough away, all the holes become apparent, though they also seem not to matter as much. The questions are obvious, for the most part. One has to wonder, for example, who “Ribbons” is hanging out with at the end, who’s been selecting people for Celestial Being, who the hell is Wang Liu Mei, and did any of the Meisters actually survive? Given that Erde isn’t, apparently, human, his easily-recognizable appearance in the ending montage might signal a move to Rei Ayanami mode.

My point about the gaps being relatively unimportant still stands, however. The arc completes itself in the only real way it can: with the (apparent, at least) Shakespearean death of everyone on stage. I’m glad I brought of Whedon earlier (I’ve just thought of this), as the guy in Serenity hunting our (Big Damn) heroes down professes a theory — that he’ll destroy all the monsters in the world, and then destroy himself, as he’ll be the only remnant of the pre-utopia world. This appears to be happening, in some way. Lockon, being possibly the most astute Meister, has grasped this on a personal level. Obviously things will go awry in some way, or else we wouldn’t need a second season, but the world has come together and the warriors are superfluous. The gaps exist to highlight their status as human beings, as almost all the questions — that I can think of, anyway — have to do with personal issues. The whole of the plot stands on its own. Intervention, divine or otherwise, creates a kind of utopia, it brings back the Garden. However, in a perfect, pre-lapsarian state, the rules and regulations are unnecessary. The Buddha had to nullify himself to reach Enlightenment; Jesus couldn’t stick around to poke his nose into everything, he had to go back to Heaven. Effectively, a hero who brings change for his or her world has to leave that world, as the hero is a product of the world before. I think the angelic, mythic overtones of Gundam 00 were well-chosen, and could only wish, as a nerd as well as a critic, that they gave us more to go on. Of course, that pretty much guarantees that I’ll be right here in front of the computer come October, doesn’t it, eagerly awaiting the fansubs.

Sorry for the dead air — I spent last week visiting my girlfriend, and now I’m back home. I’m making a push to finish Gundam 00, so you’ll likely hear from me when that’s done.

“You’ve got two legs and a heartbeat! What’s stopping you?”

I just finished watching the first Inuyasha movie, titled in English Affections Touching Across Time. Some other day I might not have bothered posting about it. Much of what I like about Inuyasha is old hat, as the series has been around so long. There is something, though, and if this essay goes in the way I’m planning, it’s a weird little trip we’re going on.

I’m not normally much of a post-colonialist when I read or watch things. I don’t want to devalue the field, it’s just not interesting to me personally. I like theories that unite, rather than divide (hence my attachment to genre theory, especially myth criticism). But I’ve been reading some of Lelangir’s essays, though, so it’s on my mind. I’m thinking particularly of “Blacks and the Convenience of Representation: Pt. 2 — Afro Samurai.” There are some interesting things in there about Japan’s media colonialism, if that’s what you’d like to call it. How many groups other than Japanese folks do we typically see in anime? And yes, of course you can think of exceptions, but in a country as famously uni-cultured as Japan (so famous some of it is undoubtedly true) people don’t seem to be overly-keen to watch characters unlike themselves.

Interestingly, and this is why I went off on that tangent for a moment there, movements toward integration do exist in anime, but they are, more often than not, occluded. Thus it is, I’m arguing, with Inuyasha.

First, a bit about post-colonialism. Now, not only have I not studied post-colonialism all that much, I’ve leant my book with all the important essays to my girlfriend, so I can’t really reference anything in a useful manner. We’ll just have to settle for general impressions. So, post-colonialists, especially the first generation, functioned on the assumption of what they called “the other.” Edward Said (yes, that’s his name, and it’s “sigh-eed,” not “sehd”), in his landmark text Orientalism, described the phenomenon, specifically concerning the eastern cultures of the world as portrayed by the western. That is, Said claimed western cultures had painted a picture of “the orient” (something Said went so far as to say never existed in reality) as this other place, full of strange people and, of course, fabulous wealth. The word “other” is often used in many grammatical forms, in this discourse, it’s not meant to be used in, so bear with me when I say that “othering” is typically a power gesture. “These people,” the western world claimed, “are other. They are different, unlike us [you see how othering assumes there is a baseline, and it is the speaker], and we can exploit them. You see, we have to, in order to make them more like us.” You may be familiar with the infamous phrase encapsulating this concept for colonial Europeans, especially in the British Empire: “the white man’s burden.”

You should notice that “othering” does not necessarily indicate the people are worse than the speaker, morally or otherwise. Only different. Most people through history have conflated the two, but in our modern world we have run into problems after separating the two. If you’ve ever undergone lectures in your school about “multiculturalism,” that is, the need to respect different cultures, you’re being indoctrinated in “othering,” which, in this context, is often called “new racism.” The thing is, most people are pretty much the same in a given place: blacks, whites, Asians, what have you. If they all grew up, say, in San Francisco, they’ll be pretty much the same. But “multiculturalism” makes the claim that they have their own cultures based on their skin color. It’s supposedly to help; it teaches students to respect other people. However, it also teaches the students that those people are truly “other.” Any Asian-American who has had to deal with people assuming he or she is from China, or would prefer to go out for sushi, has been dealing with this problem.

So, “othering” separates. If you imagine a person standing in a field, and further imagine that person forcing someone else off into the margin, perhaps near the tree line, you have a fine place to start (especially as the terms “margin” and “marginalization” have even greater use to post-colonialists).

So, Japan is fairly homogeneous (though, obviously, this could be an act of “othering” as well, just bear with me). By all reports Japanese people actively marginalize all non-Japanese people. Bloodlines, heritage, and the like are almost always important for people who pay attention to origins and who is “in,” who is “out.” There are many terms, almost always insults, for someone who is outside the norm — from the generally reviled “nigger” to the Japanese “gaijin,” which is short for “gaikokujin,” or “person from another country.”

And now, with little to no segue, back to Inuyasha. This show, on the surface, seems to have little to offer us on the subject of post-colonialism. All the characters are Japanese. Almost all the villains are Japanese, with the exception of a few demons fresh off the “continent,” which I assume means China. Menomaru, the villain in Affections Touching Across Time, is from the continent, actually. However, we can see a function of “othering” in the set-up of the show. Demons and humans are two differing groups, even though many of them look alike, at least in some way. Each group generally reviles the other. Simple othering, basically; Inuyasha, our eponymous protagonist, is a half-breed. He is half human and half demon. This presents something of a problem for him, as neither side welcomes him easily. He has been marginalized from both peer groups, something real “half-breeds” and bastard children have dealt with through history. However, the show itself does not adhere to this paradigm, and neither do the other protagonists. A modern schoolgirl (Kagome), a Shinto priest (Miroku), a demon-hunter (Sango), a young demon (Shippo), and various other characters all, after varying lengths of time, come to accept Inuyasha.

And then the healing begins.

Sorry. Dr. Phil aside, things begin to work for these characters after they accept at least some part of the world they have tried to marginalize. Kagome, being even more of an outsider than Inuyasha in some ways (she’s from 500 years in the future), acclimates almost immediately and pulls Inuyasha along with her. Each of the other characters has a quest, and each only makes progress along it after accepting someone from the other “side.” Even Shippo — harmless, gormless, hopeless Shippo — is suspicious of humans and “the half-breed,” but accepts Kagome in an older sister role to make up for his missing father. These characters overcome the margins and colonialism. Kagome is our filter, and she accepts everything — as being equally strange. She is not from a world of magic or demons, and so a demon is just as alien to her as a half-demon. It is the effect, and not the origin, that Kagome observes and values most.

How is this possible, an enterprising (and possibly facetious) reader might ask. Remember the alternate literary theory I mentioned earlier? That’s how this is possible. The rise of the hero on the mythic field creates a world in which the characters are valued for their intentions and actions rather than their origins and the fictional lines of demarcation between groups. Rumiko Takahashi was very open, upon creating Inuyasha, that she wanted to create a comic that would educate younger people about their own folklore. She felt they were losing their legends, and so she made a comic set in the feudal past. With an agenda like that and a pool of myth and legend vast enough to never leave, Inuyasha could easily have become one of the most nepotistic entertainments in Japan. However, it instead became a champion for integration and the destruction of the “other.” Myth and myth-heroes, you see, cannot functionally support such assumptions. Myth-heroes are uniters, essentially. Beowulf is the easiest example to use as an objection here. Post-colonialists have traditionally attacked Beowulf as being very colonial. The only crimes of the “monsters,” the claim, are to be different. Indeed, many like the argument that, had Grendel’s Mother been Grendel’s Father, his actions would have been considered just.

Never mind, by the way, how incorrect that is. Grendel’s mother never comes into negotiations with Hrothgar’s clan; she never seeks a peaceful remuneration, never asks for wyrgild. She attacks and kills with no warning and no communication.

Beowulf is a uniter, in fact. He brings together the Geats and the Danes, and not only while in danger. He counsels Hrothgar concerning his succession, and creates a bond between the two nations. Upon Beowulf’s death we are told that his people will scatter, as other tribes will invade when they hear of the hero’s death.

My point is this: the motions of myth necessarily underlying Inuyasha turn it into a polemic against marginalization.

Because why have reasoned debate and laws?

Sorry I haven’t gotten to you sooner. I just spent the past two days reading the last Harry Potter book for the first time. I know, I’m nearly a year late, never mind that now.

So, obviously, I wanted to talk, at least a little, about Toshokan Sensou. OGT has already mentioned to me that the main divide is about whether or not one buys the premise of the show, which is as follows: The Japanese government, for a reason as yet undivulged, passed a law heavily restricting information, basically destroying the freedom of speech that I’m not sure is currently guaranteed in Japan the same way it is in America. Anyway.

However, the government, realizing this would be what analysts might call a shit move, made another law, giving libraries autonomous power to protect themselves from the task forces sent to quell the spread of 1st-word-country learning and enlightenment. And so there’s been low-level warfare ever since. The media enforcement assholes are okay with killing folk, while the library enforcement folk seem to think that’s not so good. So we have a basic polemic about freedom of speech, right? Orwell smiles from his grave and everything’s dandy, right?

Except — governments usually have one position on something. If a bill gets enough support to be voted into law, it’s likely an opposing bill won’t get enough support. And that’s just my one attempt to explain why this is ludicrous.

Guess what? That doesn’t fucking matter. This show is amazing.

Kasahara is a bit like Utena, blindly trying to follow in the footsteps of a dashing hero who saved her years ago. She was, apparently, a book reader, though now she seems to loathe studying in all its forms. She’s tall, and violent, and athletic, and just really good at screwing up at just the right moment for hilarity, but still doing what she needs to do. In other words, she’s entertaining.

The animation features a lot of the wonderful expressions I love so much about anime. The above example is one: Kasahara tends to freak out, grumble, and moan a lot, so we get to see her face whip around like Stretch Armstrong’s fist. She has a Koizumi/Ootani relationship with her lieutenant, Doujou, which amuses me no end (I loved Lovely Complex). Of course, they’re not classmates, but an officer and a private, so that won’t go very well.

So, look. I know the premise doesn’t make much sense. Does it really have to? Let’s look at some of the starting points for anime you’ve probably enjoyed. A crazy chick is really god, but doesn’t know it (guess they were wrong about the all-knowing bit). People have giant robots, and shoot each other with them. People have giant robots and shoot weird aliens with them, but singers are better weapons anyway. A nerdy club sits around and talks a lot. Those all work because of their characters. Toshokan Sensou has the chops to do the same, if you’ll let it. I haven’t even gotten to all the other characters yes — some are a little stock, but it’s early, and I’m not looking for Shakespeare here.

Sheryl in Wonderland

Right now I’m reading R. A. Salvatore’s Starless Night, which is the eighth novel about his dark-elf ranger, Drizzt Do’Urden. It doesn’t have much to do with anime, I know, but if you’ll bear with me for a moment this post will make as much sense as any of my previous attempts at communication have.

I genuinely like Salvatore’s work. His writing is descriptive and clean while keeping some of the interest in language that American style typically doesn’t have. That is, he’s not emulating Hemingway. Salvatore plots well, has fairly well-rounded characters, and knows his biggest talent is crafting action. We know exactly what we’re getting with a Salvatore novel — at least, the Drizzt novels. Salvatore isn’t the most amazing writer in the world, but he’s ever claimed to be. I’ve met him at book signings twice, and he’s truly charming in person.

I’m bringing up Starless Night for the plotting, though. The matter of the book is so lean — little appears that isn’t needed — that an astute reader can watch the pins fall into place as his plot moves in the barrel (it’s a lockpicking metaphor). For example, Drizzt refuses to take a mask along on his quest that he’d been given in the previous book: it magically makes the wearer look like whatever they imagine, and his race, the Drow, are hated on the surface, as they’re evil nearly to a man (they’re a matriarchy, so woman, really). Drizzt used it for a while to look like a surface elf, but he came to terms with what he is and gave it to someone else. His friend tries to give it back to him as he’s leaving, as it would be very useful when he re-enters the Drow city that is so hostile to him. Drizzt refuses it.

Later, the girl kind-of in love with Drizzt insists on following him, and the friend gives her the mask, as she’s a human and will stick out even more than Drizzt. She also takes the dagger than an assassin that held her hostage used — she’s repulsed, as Drizzt was by the mask, but she’s more pragmatic.

Soon after — I read both these parts on the same day — she’s hurt, nearly killed, in a fight underground. She manages to draw the dagger and stab her foe, and the dagger, as readers who remember the previous book will know already, sucks out the poor goblin’s life and heals her. I could almost hear the tumblers shifting into their proper positions as I read.

I told you that story to tell you this one: Macross Frontier. I’m caught up with the subs, finally. The show is still a bit difficult to judge. It’s putting those tumblers into their locked positions; they haven’t started moving yet. Events are moving, of course. A strange-looking man ran after Ranka, apparently with a record contract (or at least paying performances) in mind. Alto has been accepted into the mercenary organization on Frontier, and Sheryl, well, she’s still rich. But the intro. track isn’t called “Trangular” for no reason: the past three episodes are setting up a delicious triangle between Ranka, Alto, and Sheryl. What I like about it in particular is that there’s an actual relationship between Ranka and Sheryl; they’re not just connected by their tenuous attachments to Alto. Alto, on the other hand, seems to be interested in both girls: a much more realistic possibility than being interested in neither, which would be the typical situation this early in a show (Maybe I should mention, at this point, that I prefer “Alto” over “Altoh,” probably solely because I played alto saxophone in high school). Like in the book I talked about, we can see the parts moving into place throughout the Macross Frontier setting. In fact, the Macross habit of Roboteching seems appropriate thematically, as all the different parts of the show are on their own tracks right now. I feel confident they will “suddenly synchronize” at the right time.

OGT has already pointed out that Ranka isn’t likely to be a more accident-prone Minmei. I was also impressed that she didn’t win the Miss Frontier contest. On a personal level I wish the mean bitch hadn’t won, but I’m not a big enough fan (or a fan at all) of American Idol for this to matter to me much. What I think is most interesting at this time in the series is that Ranka and Alto are on the same points in their respective paths. Alto still can’t function properly as a Valkyrie pilot. We’re meant, I think, to partly sympathize with the onlooking gay dude with the weird hair who adores Alto because he poses after making a “kill” in the giant, incredibly expensive paintball fight. However, I think we’re also meant to realize it’s an incredibly bad idea, and he needs to stop right now. Alto on the stick is amazing; he controls his Valkyrie with a skill that drives home his desire to fly. His paper airplanes (the series seems to have given up providing him with material; the paper just materializes, I suppose, and it’s always blank) do the same — Alto wants to be a fighter pilot, but not really a fighter pilot. I can only assume he will deal with this in some way, as he’s going to be doing a lot of fighting soon. Ranka, on the other hand, doesn’t seem interested in the “idol” side of singing. While Sheryl admitted she understands how she is “sold” to her audience, Ranka can’t sing without falling over. She doesn’t even think, on her own, of a way she can perform for other people. She habitually sings in a less-trafficked place specifically because no one comes there (except Alto. He’s weird).

In the latest episode, I particularly liked the glimpses of Zentradi life. Frontier has boutiques just for Zentradi, though I’m not sure why they’re set up so one could look over the ledge into the shop. It seems like the second story would be higher, or else the first story would be very uncomfortable. Particular things please me in general, though it’s weird to see them in a Macross series (again, I have only my early childhood, so far, to compare this to).

I really am intending to write about Hayate no Gotoku, I just haven’t yet. Also, I’m two episodes in to Toshokan Sensou, so there’s that to blog as well. Oops.