Otaku, No Video

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon © Kodansha, Random House

Artist/Writer: Naoko Takeuchi

Published in: 1991–1997 (Japan), 2011-present (America)

American Publisher: Kodansha/Random House

Genres: Magical girl

Premise: A ditzy schoolgirl, Usagi, gains the power to transform into a magical girl. Oh, come on; it’s Sailor Moon. Next you’ll be asking me for the premise of Star Wars.

Volumes: 18

Is it dumb? Nope. It’s carefully structured, pulling the girls together one by one, introducing their personalities and hinting at the big plot.

How’s the art? Heavily stylized. The girls have very long legs, and the panels tend towards extreme zooms on faces. Some faces are actually too big for their panels.

So, should I read it?

I’ve been debating that question ever since I read this volume.

On the one hand, the story is carefully structured, pulling the girls together one by one, introducing their personalities and hinting at the big plot. Novice writers would do well to study the information revelation used here.

Besides, Sailor Moon is a classic. It inspired an untold number of shoujo series, so if you want to understand them, Sailor Moon will help.

On the other hand, the art is heavily stylized. The girls have very long legs, and there are very few backgrounds. The panels tend towards extreme zooms on faces; in fact, faces are often too big for their panels. The pages felt over-crowded to me, like an over-energetic children’s cartoon.

I also had a tough time with Usagi’s personality. She’s as much of a ditz as she is in the anime series, and while she at least seriously acknowledges this defect near the end of the volume, her energetic cluelessness has all the charm of a clumsy puppy: cute in short doses, but a real pain in long stretches.

Overall, the first volume of Sailor Moon is a good example of contrasts. It’s gathered legions of fans, and stands as a true classic of its genre, but its appeal remains limited to that genre. It showcases the best and worst of the shoujo style.

Combustible Campus Guardress © Production I.G.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Kazumi is a high school girl tasked with protecting her brother Takumi from evil. Both are re-incarnations of ancient folk who lived through an apocalypse. There’s a prophecy about the boy. The girl has powers, which she uses to fend off a never-ending stream of hellspawn.

Sound familiar? Well, that’s the fun of the 1993 OVA Combustible Campus Guardress, which spends much of its 2-hour runtime parodying these clichés. Not only is Kazumi secretly protecting Takumi with her magical powers, so is her mother. And her friends. And everyone else at the school. Each protector has been secretly developing their own unique powers, from their mothers’ frying pan attacks to the cheerleaders’ baton attacks.

Kazumi uses a sword. A really big sword. With enough power, it can split buildings in half.

Worse, she has a temper.

Moreover, much fun is had with Kazumi’s infatuation with her Takumi. In a previous life, she was his attendant–and madly in love with him–which has bubbled over into her modern Japanese teen life. She’s very protective of him, to the point that their friends tease them about being lovers.

Fortunately, the show’s staff keep this from being creepy, and instead focus on actual melodrama as the main plot unfolds: hideous demonic creatures attack the characters’ school, precipitating some kind of apocalypse undoubtedly involving the oblivious Takumi. But will he have to be sacrificed to put off the apocalypse?

This is the real emotional meat of the show, as Kazumi wrestles with her strong feelings for her brother. She’s pledged to protect him no matter what happens, but is that really what’s best?

Hilarity actually ensues, as does some emotional angst. Sadly, Guardress explores little more of its characters, focusing almost entirely on Kazumi and Takumi. Granted, its limited running time prevents much depth, but I felt like I knew more characters in Akira than I did here.

The action/comedy vibe is bolstered by the animation: fluid and frame-heavy, never afraid to throw the viewer into an impromptu action sequence. The series’ animation director, Kazuchika Kise, served the same role in Blood: The Last Vampire, and Guardress has a similarly kinetic action feel. The animation and direction hew closely to anime clichés of exaggerated poses and movement, but that’s central to its parody.

The classic 1990′s art style features all the standard elements of its time: angular eyes, lots of dark colors, and highly expressive facial expressions. The art does much of the acting.

The voice acting falls below the quality average, though this is partly due to most characters’ one-dimensional personalities. Kazumi was a particular problem, as she spends most of the final two episodes screeching her brothers’ name in reaction to just about everything. Again, that’s part of the parody, but the raspy pitch of her voice grated on my ears after a while.

But that’s a quibble. Combustible Campus Guardress is one of those strange discoveries that make anime fandom so enjoyable. On one hand, it’s a wacky parody of anime clichés. On the other, I found myself emotionally drawn in to the protagonist’s dilemma. It’s not often that happens.

Nasu ~ Summer in Andalusia © Madhouse

Nasu ~ Summer in Andalusia is an independent anime film conceived and directed by an ex-Studio Ghibli staff member, and tells the story of a bicycle race in Spain.

Let me be clear: this movie tells the story of the final hours in a professional bicycle race that’s happening in Spain. There are no fantastical powers, no moe girls, no fanservice, and no holes into other dimensions. The lead character, a professional bike racer, isn’t even a special bicycle racer.

But Nasu is about far more than that. Without spoiling the plot–and much of Nasu‘s pleasure comes in understanding its themes and philosophies as they’re slowly revealed to the viewer–the story touches on family, determination, courage, and loss. Take a Satoshi Kon film, remove the mind-bending questions about the nature of reality, keep his films’ meditations on human nature, and you’d get something like Nasu.

But Nasu sports the budget of a Mamoru Hosoda film. It’s not quite a Ghibli budget, since only Ghibli can guarantee the kind of success that warrants its budgets, but Nasu abounds with movement and carefully-crafted detail. Bicycles have weight, characters lean heavily, and the air shimmers with afternoon heat.

The film moves at the same relatively unhurried pace as the race; the competitors are experts in the conservation and application of energy. That ebb and flow is central to the film, as the racers must think not only about their effort this moment, but the effort required at each stage of the course and through the entire day. Is it worth pushing yourself to win this race and be too exhausted for next week’s?

Nasu has some of the strange “plotless wonder” of a Ghibli film. A movie about a bicycle race should be dull, but somehow the director manages to pile on sub-plot and tension without creating feelings of uncomfortable tension in the viewer. On one level, it’s simple, on another level, it’s amazingly complex.

I’m reminded of a moment near the end of the film, when the protagonist bikes alone to a rocky outcropping that overlooks a town below. He stops, gets off his bike, and looks down at the town. It’s a quiet moment of reflection that we’d never have in a Hollywood film–nothing’s happening!–but which sums up many of the film’s themes.

It’s the simple things that are usually the best.

Redline © Madhouse

There’s a thin skeleton of a story underneath the beautifully-animated skin of Madhouse’s 2009 anime film Redline. This is not a complaint.

Redline‘s A plot focuses on a ridiculous, over-the-top futuristic racing circuit. Imagine Car Wars combined with Star Wars podracing: vehicles out of Syd Mead‘s wet dreams drive insane speeds, firing heavy weapons and enhancements worthy of Gamma World. (If you like realism, put that preference aside while watching Redline.) The final race of the season is scheduled for a planet whose military dictatorship that doesn’t want the race, and so deploys the planet’s military against the drivers. Of course, the race goes on anyway.

The B plot is about a guy and a girl. They kinda like each other. Oh, and the guy’s right-hand-man is dodgy. That’s it.

There are absolutely zero surprises in any of these plots, but Redline is all about energy and presentation. Like the makers of any good action movie, the staff of Redline seemed to care most about pacing and visual flair. On those, Redline certainly delivers. The racing sequences have possibly the highest sheet count I’ve ever seen; the screen is absolutely jammed with movement. Many shots are full-frame animation, almost never seen in anime.

The movie’s hyperactive style results in tepid dialogue. There are many quiet moments, but since most of the characters are either rival racers or over-the-top gonzo military clichés, there’s little of substance for them to talk about. The guy and the girl verbally dance around each other. A few quiet scenes do provide a couple of lovely moments of character development, but that’s about all the complexity you get.

The Japanese voice actors fit their characters well, including the over-the-top ones. This can be a problem, as several characters basically scream their dialogue the whole time. It’s appropriate, but I found myself wincing a few times as my ears were assaulted by exclamations worthy of Dragon Ball Z‘s worst antics.

Overall, Redline is a visual feast that must be appreciated as a high-energy action story. It’s a bit more than that, but only a bit. Fortunately, the beautifully-crafted animation and unflagging pace remains entertaining for its entire run time.

Wandering Son © 2011–2012 Takako Shimura, AIC

There is a philosophical sense to the word “perfect,” in which a ”perfect object” is one that fully and correctly manifests its potential. So, there may be many perfect trees; the perfect tree is not without flaw, but its flaws are unimportant and its strengths are completely manifest.

In that sense, Horou Musukou ~ Wandering Son is perfect.

Wandering Son explores gender through its characters, children just entering adolescence during their first year in middle school. The story focuses on Shu, a boy who has developed an interest in girls’ clothes. His best friend is a boy-ish girl who wears shorts and shirts, and grows frustrated by her developing body.

From there, the story grows complicated. Nearly every character reflects some aspect of gender, from stereotypical “boy behavior” to homosexuality to transsexuality. Characters develop crushes on each other, which throws the idea of gender into even stronger relief — what does it mean when one boy seems to fall for a boy who likes to cross-dress? Does he like the boy that he sees, or the girl that he sees?

These issues are beautifully counter-pointed by the character’s inevitable physical maturation; boys’ voices break and they have wet dreams; girls begin to fill out physically. The tomboy cannot stop developing breasts. Is that fair? What does “fair” mean?

The cast’s plight is further complicated by Japanese social mores. Japanese society preaches conformity (though less so than in the past, and less than the popular stereotype of the conservative Japanese). This is doubly true in the pressure cooker of middle school, where kids seem eager to torture each other.

Which brings me to a remarkable element of Wandering Son: the social pressure to conform comes almost entirely from other kids, not adults. In contrast to the vast majority of kids’ stories, the adults in Wandering Son are not enemies; they are gentle assistants. Shu’s parents react to his “confession” about liking girls’ clothes with mild surprise, followed by complete acceptance. The teachers at his school are merely surprised and curious when various kids show up in the opposite gender’s school uniforms.

The only indication that adults disapprove of Shu’s interest comes near the end of the series, but I won’t spoil that fascinating plot point. However, it’s worth noting that no adults appear in that sequence; we’re simply told that it happens. Adults are consistently portrayed as source of information and helpful advice, not condemnation.

Which gets to the show’s approach to its theme: the writers present characters with problems, and the world’s reactions to those characters. While the writers are clearly sympathetic to Shu and present him as a hero, they does not portray society’s reactions as stupid or evil.

More importantly, the writers make plain that behaving against society norms is painful. Full stop. No apologies for society’s “failings.” This is the cross you must bear for swimming against society’s flow.

It’s a refreshingly mature approach. The writers don’t show Shu solving his problems and living happily ever after, with everyone accepting him. There are no big speeches in which all his peers accept him, Evangelion-style. He decides on a course of action and pursues it, and that’s it. That’s heroism. And that’s enough.

That’s why I feel ambivalent about labeling Wandering Son as non-conformist. On the one hand, its story positions gender as mostly a social construct, which undoubtedly turns some heads in Japan. However, Wandering Son is fundamentally a hero’s journey, and in that sense Shu is little different than Naruto, Ichigo, or Kenshin Himura. He’s pursuing his own path, an exhortation repeated ad nauseum in anime.

No matter. Wandering Son makes strong, clear points, with a deep and complex story that left me pacing my living room, my mind racing to collate its messages.

The animation is remarkable in its subtlety. There are no action sequences in Wandering Son; there’s never even a physical fight. Instead, the animators focus on subtle emotion; kids express annoyance, regret, confusion, and a whole range of subtle feelings that are often unaccompanied by dialogue. I’m amazed at how much I felt I understood of these kids’ inner lives without the support of dialogue.

The show can be difficult to follow. We jump from one conversation to another, from two characters in one bedroom to two similar character in a practically identical bedroom.

This is actually accurate to the original manga, which executes similar jumps in the middle of a page. As jarring as this is, it heightens the ambiguity of the characters’ views, and juxtaposes their statements in ways that highlight each characters’ different beliefs.

I listened to Wandering Son in Japanese with English subtitles, and I don’t know Japanese well enough to be able to truly judge the subtlety of the acting. The characters did feel admirably quiet and restrained, though.

However, that has more to do with the show’s direction than the actors. This is not a show about characters shouting at each other; it’s about a bunch of friendly kids. They rarely tell each other off, in fact. Because that’s a TV trope; we rarely do that to our friends in real life. And if anything, Wandering Son is realistic.

© Naoko Takeuchi

Artist/Writer: Naoko Takeuchi

Published in: 1993–1997 (Japan), 2011 (America)

American Publisher: Random House/Kodansha USA

Genres: shoujo, magical girl

Premise: A lively 13-year-old girl is given the power to transform into a magical girl and fight crime

Volumes: 2 (Japan), 1 so far (America)

Availability: Easily available on sites like Amazon and RightStuf.

Codename: Sailor V is both surprising and dull.

It’s the precursor to Sailor Moon, as well as its inspiration. Apparently, Sailor V was picked up for an anime adaptation, at which point the anime studio sat down with V‘s manga-ka Naoko Takeuchi to re-work Sailor V for the anime adaptation. The result was Sailor Moon. Takeuchi then began working references to Moon into V.

V is very much not Sailor Moon. It’s a traditional magical girl story containing only one 13-year-old magical girl, with a much lighter, goofier tone than Moon. It’s fundamentally a sitcom. Indeed, the heroine spends most of her time fighting crime rather than a long-form antagonist. While life lessons are dispensed, most of the story focuses on comedic misunderstandings and the protagonist’s silliness. There’s almost no larger story arc.

The art works; neither crowded nor sparse, it stays out of the way. Takeuchi’s characters do have a slightly elongated style common to shoujo.

Ed Sizemore pointed out that the artwork focuses on the clothing to an almost fetishistic level (my words, not his). While there is a lot of attention paid to this, it’s no worse than I’ve found in other shoujo works like Card Captor Sakura, and I chalk it up to many girls’ almost fetishistic attention to fashion.

So, the manga has a problematic dual problem. If you come looking for Sailor Moon, you’ll find instead a traditional magical girl comedy. If you prepare yourself for a magical girl story, you’ll find a very traditional magical girl comedy, with little to recommend itself beyond that.

(c) Nobuaki Tadano

Artist/Writer: Nobuaki Tadano

Published in: 2008–2010 (Japan), 2010–2011 (America)

American Publisher: Vertical

Genres: Slice-of-life, action, adolescence

Premise: A girl is inhabited by a sentient alien creature, which is itself seeking a xenocidal creature that can take any human’s form.

Volumes: 4

Show x Show: It’s Boogiepop meets Degrassi

What are the themes? The high school girl protagonist has blocked herself off from those around her–for very understandable reasons, it turns out. Because she now is forced to seek out this creature, she is forced to come out of her shell.

The result is a combination of seinen-like slice-of-life drama with shonen action sequences.

How’s the art? Modern and three-dimensional. Characters and backgrounds are rendered in loving detail.

(c) Nobuaki Tadano

Does the art vary from chapter to chapter? Not noticeably. Tadano’s got a strong sense of character design.

How complex are the characters? The protagonist is the most dimensional, and Tadano manages an impressive feat. This is a story about a character’s internal life, which is expressed visually and externally. While there is a fair amount of monologue inside her head, Tadano follows the ”show, don’t tell” maxim closely.

How’s the plot? Pretty evenly balanced between action and quiet drama. The second volume, particularly, is much more about the protagonist’s past.

Can I show it to my Mom? Yep, and this should appeal to adults. It’s about teenagers, but it’s about universal themes.

Can I show it to my kid brother? Sure. He’d probably get a kick out of the action, though the relatively slow, slice-of-life elements might bore him.

Can I show it to a non-manga fan? Absolutely. This is a perfect title to get them into manga, though it doesn’t have the rock-em-sock-em pace of, say, mainstream American comics.

Does it have any memorable moments? Yes.

Availability: Easily available on sites like Amazon and RightStuf.

© Stan Sakai

Okay, so technically Usagi Yojimbo isn’t a manga; it’s an anthro comic drawn in English by a third-generation Japanese-American.

However, it’s extremely Japanese, and uses manga pacing and stories.

Usagi Yojimbo tells the story of a ronin (master-less samurai), Usagi, in a world of anthropomorphic animals, such as rabbits, boars, and pigs. The small animals of this world are reptiles, so scenes are enlivened with 2-foot-tall apatosauruses.

These two volumes are entirely episodic. Other than a few recurring characters and a story that involves Usagi returning to his hometown, each volume contains a few stand-alone stories of Usagi’s adventures.

Usagi is a stereotypical samurai protagonist: pleasant, cautious, extremely skilled with a sword, and quick to moral outrage, with a strong sense of honor. As a result, the stories are more interesting than Usagi himself.

Some stories are comedic, others are serious, and some contain elements of both. Most deal with moral conundrums in some way. They feel very much like traditional samurai stories: ruffians threatening a village, overbearing lords, etc.

I was struck by how many Japanese language elements that Sakai put into the dialogue. Remember, this isn’t translated from Japanese. But the book is full of -sans and -donos. It certainly gives the book a foreign air, though I found it often unnecessary. Sakai does a fine job of getting across respect or familiarity without adding dialectical affectations.

The black-and-white art is clean and cartoony, with lots of round shapes and negative space. It’s a refreshing switch from the intense lines of manga and the crowded panels of American comics.