[spoilers for Crest of the Stars as well as the former portion of Banner of the Stars I (that's up to episode six)]

At first glance Baron Febdash — or Atosryua Syun-Atos Lyuf Febdak Klowal — is a pretty simple villain.  He’s got an inferiority complex, because his father wasn’t Abh, and he envies the Abh a whole lot.  He’s got his father locked up and does the same to Jinto.  Basically, Klowal shows up in the narrative at the perfect moment to throw Jinto into disarray, as Klowal’s roots are coming from the same place Jinto now is:  Klowal’s family started as landers and are recently Abh.  Klowal, though, looks the same as the rest, as he’s the product of proper gene-manipulation and Abh birth practices.

Our picture of Klowal complicates a little when we learn about him from his sister, Admiral Atosryua; she tells Lafiel and Jinto about him as a person, rather than a scheming no-good-nik.  He liked dogs, but owned a cat because it was more “Abh.”  He loved sweet food, and there’s a bittersweet flashback image of him eating pears.

On its own this wouldn’t be great shakes in character development — villains with cute/innocent/sad childhoods are all the rage in the third-rate RPG of your choice (also, the Harry Potter books).  The thing is, if we start to really look at Klowal just in Crest of the Stars we find that things aren’t as simple as they appear.

So Klowal is a douche who values his own little tract of land over the safety of the entire Empire.  Okay, that sucks.  But in a race full of peculiarities (the Abh), Febdash is just weird.  He has, at some point, presumably sworn fealty to the Empress, but he’s misogynistic enough to keep only female servants around.

He frequently makes one of them come in and wash his back for him (the question of sexual favors is unaddressed save through this minor hint).

He dares to invite Lafiel, relative of that same Empress, to dinner while he explains why he’s holding her hostage, but has Jinto tranquilized and imprisoned almost upon arrival.  This indicates not just douchebaggery, but a decent amount of The Crazy as well.

It gets weirder.  Suddenly he’s talking about seceding from the Empire, setting up his own kingdom.  It’ll be okay, he comforts himself by saying, he can live off synthesized meat.  He’ll just have to do without his favorite cider.  This is the same guy who was justifying his hostage-taking habits by claiming it will protect his barony.  Cutting off ties to the Empire would do more than lose his awesome cider and real-meat privileges — it might destroy everyone there.  They can mine fuel, apparently, but they live in a space station.  Where would the parts come from?  You can’t synthesize meat without machines, and those break.  What about the air?  There are a whole lot of people on that station.  He’s possibly damning all of them to a death much like that of someone stranded on an island, except the ocean is trying to get up onto the island at any time, and about thirty seconds of exposure to it is immediate death (this strained metaphor is driving at space vacuum, thanks for trying to make it to the end).

And then, uh…

Yeah okay, he’s going to make Lafiel bear him an heir?  We are now in Super Crazy territory.  Otherwise known as the dark realm of the Gothic Villains.

Seriously.  The first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, is about a usurping guy named Manfred who tries to marry his almost daughter-in-law after her marriage to his son is interrupted (by a giant helmet landing on said son and killing him).  Manfred’s obsessive about the sanctity of his little piece of land, exercising iron-fisted rule over it.  He goes progressively crazier, locking people up for no reason, imprisoning his sick wife (whom he is about to send to a convent, because she’s not bearing him any more male children).

 And his cover story — the story that makes all this better — is that it turns out Manfred and his wife are related, so the marriage is void.

Does any of this sound familiar?  Klowal is a perfect Gothic villain in a series that doesn’t do much with the tropes.  The Abh are very classical in some senses, letting rationality govern their movements and actions far more than their emotions.  They feel emotion, but don’t let it get to them as much.  Look to a people’s image of their leaders to see what they want:  the Abriel family isn’t allowed to cry anywhere they might be seen.
Klowal has all the earmarks.  He is absolute ruler of his domain, which he got by underhanded means (he’s imprisoning his father, the former Baron).  He can imprison whosoever he likes, the authority of the Empire is so distant as to mean nothing to him (indeed, he wants to be his own country).  He has a deep concern with lineage and bloodlines, both past and future (his obsession with his “sub-par” bloodline and his desire to continue that line through any means — don’t think it’s happenstance that his Crazy gets worse when he has the means to father a child on an Abriel).

Hell, his tomb is a ship hurtling toward the center of the galaxy.

He even has the Byronic aspects of the Gothic villain — powerful, dismissive of societal rules when they aren’t helpful, assertive, on his own plane (Nietzsche recognized Byron and the other Romantics and Gothics when he drafted his ideal of the übermensch [overman, often translated as "superman"]).  Despite how awful he is, one can’t resist enjoying Klowal whenever he’s on screen.  He commands.  Just as Manfred, Montoni, and any number of other traditional Gothic villains do.  Klowal and his antecedents are exactly why the Gothic was considered a terrible crime of literature:  no matter what happens to them in the end, we can’t help but like the people who are committing these terrible crimes; they have a power that makes them irresistible.
So it is with Klowal.  In a world of reason, politics, and agendas that are never quite wrong — it’s hard to fault the United Mankind’s desires even as we condemn their aggressive tactics — Klowal is different.  He’s not just angry, or a zealot, or cold.  He’s mad.  He is pageantry and the rotten core behind the pretty skin.  He is all the Abh Empire could become, glutted with power and nothing to do with it, no purpose to exercise it on.

In short:  Klowal is awesome.

You can make requests for “Showing a Bit of Character” here:  [->]

Further Reading:

In common SF (and fantasy) terms, “wonder” hearkens back to the Gothic: [->]

On The Castle of Otranto‘s position in the Gothic tradition:  [->]

The obsessive figure in Gothic, as seen by Northrop Frye: [->]

Ghostlightning on the awesome lady who inspires Baraon Febdash to Gothic rape, Lafiel: [->]

Here in this post is a list and a gallery of female anime characters I hold in very high esteem. I’ve profiled them without using spoilers when I can, and I’ve provided warnings when I cannot avoid spoiling. Recently otou-san asked if there’s a place for ‘real’ women in anime, and I had found it an interesting question. First of all, what could he possibly mean by ‘real’? Surely this cannot be a distinction of ‘real woman’ vs ‘super woman’ the way I’ve been talking about real robot and super robot anime.

Rather I suspect that part of what makes otaku a bit shameful is a (not that big of a) secret that female characters in anime exist primarily to titillate them as sex objects. A hasty generalization, I think; but it is undeniable that a vast number of female anime characters do serve this purpose. That said, it is not difficult to find examples of characters who, despite Rule 34 being in full effect, exist as excellent and exemplary fictional characters above any other consideration. After all, Miyazaki Hayao has made a habit of using heroines to lead his highly acclaimed films, from Nausicaa to Mononokie, from Kiki to Chihiro; Miyazaki makes women and girls who are inspiring to watch. Kon Satoshi does so as well with the likes of Fujiwara Chiyoko and Chiba Atsuko of the subdued maturity of adult characters; and even a notable downer like Anno Hideaki gave us Noriko and Nono, hot-blooded embodiments of hard work and guts.

But awesome as they are, none of these characters are mai waifu, but the any of the following could be:

Dianna Soriel and Kihel Heim, Turn A Gundam

Loran help me, I can’t pick between them. The dark and wretched history that makes up the Universal Century of the Gundam metaverse seems justified even only for giving us two of the strongest and most charming female characters in Gundam, Tomino or no Tomino. I’ve almost completed watching Turn A Gundam, which marks one of the biggest turnarounds in terms of my attitude over the show. In the case of Eureka SeveN I dropped it after 7 episodes out of indifference; I had dropped Turn A Gundam after 9 episodes out of disgust and frustration. Now it’s making its presence felt in my table of favorites and I don’t know what to do because I’m utterly captivated by it, recency bias be damned.

And yes, a big part of this happiest of problems (ranking awesome anime in a list of favorites) is the presence and dynamic of Dianna Soriel and Kihel Heim: two blondes who look dangerously alike and devastatingly beautiful. The survival and future of the human race is both delicately held and courageously championed by these two ladies, who, even if they may not have all the information to make the wisest of decisions, nor the smarts to best all their enemies, they have the compassion and humility to walk miles and miles in another person’s shoes. And how this plays out is nothing short of amazing.

Balsa, Seirei no Moribito

I wrote about her recently:

a rarity in anime: a 30 year-old woman that while is fit, strong, and handsomely rendered, is not fetishized nor portrayed sexually for fanservice. She possesses grit, resolve, courage, wisdom, and yet remains vulnerable which makes her hard not to love. I find this quite the achievement given that she’s quite quiet and untalkative – and yet the narrative establishes her character very well without resorting to shortcuts such as having other characters talk way too much about her.

Age-appropriateness for the freaking win (I may be forever 29 like Roy Focker in my mind, but yeah I’m actually 32)! She plays the single mother for most of the series, but without the ‘Erin Brokovich’ kind of pluckiness and histrionics. She had to be both mother and father to her charge, the delightfully written Chagum, while never having had a mother figure herself.

Endo Kanna, 20th-Century Boys

Yeah I know it isn’t an anime, but my she beat out Nausicaa, and Nina Fortner (Monster) as my favorite manga heroine. It’s so difficult to write about her without spoiling my favorite manga ever, but I’ll say that she is tough and resillient, has an excellent way with people despite not being gentle or refined. She gambles like no other pro, and takes on two mobs and the church. Also I find wonderful is her dedication to her family, notably her uncle Kenji (pictured with her) whose lone recording she listened to constantly on her beat-up Walkman cassette player every day as long as she possibly could.

Gin-Rei, Giant Robo: the Day the Earth Stood Still

Very little of what makes Gin-rei really awesome can be shared without spoilers. But what I can share without spoiling isn’t bad at all: a hard-hitting Expert of Justice who fights the good fight against The Magnificent Ten of the evil Big Fire organization. She becomes a good friend and guardian of Daisuke, who gathers and determines for himself what it means to fight for justice thinking of her and her own selfless acts.

One of the wonders of Giant Robo: the Day the Earth Stood Still is a core made of a specific kind of love: the kind that is for and about family, the kind that redeems and calls for heroism — and brings light in a world plunged into darkness. This isn’t some kind of moral that the show forced down on me. Part of why I enjoy it so much is because this very idea came to me while looking for something to say about a fetching woman in a dragon-print cheongsam.

Please trust me, I’ve kept the very best for you to discover in this gem of an OVA.

Cornelia Li Britannia, Code Geass

I totally stole her from mechafetish lol. If Kururugi Suzaku is the main rival of main protagonist Lelouch Lamperouge, Cornelia for a season was his biggest antagonist. She had valor, fighting ability, strategic and tactical competence, and political and administrative ability. To me she represents what was good about the Britannian Empire, her initial bigotry aside. There isn’t much discussion about family much, particularly familial love, as a theme in Code Geass; instead there is a lot of discussion about incest, partly due to the arguably blatant subtext in the show.

But there is a lot of notable familial devotion: from Suzaku’s guilt and subsequent mania about his father; Lelouch’s devotion and obsession with her mother Marianne and his sister Nunally; and Cornelia herself with Marianne (less notably for her brothers Lelouch, Clovis, and Schneizel) and most especially her sister Euphemia. It’s right there and it is quite powerful if you know what to look for.

[Minor Spoilers]

I particularly admired her when she spoke to Villeta Nu near the end of R2 and she said, “There are more important things than peerage,” speaking of her knowledge of what motivates Villeta and has driven her to multiple betrayals and overall compromise of her own character. Cornelia would never be compromised. She can be wrong, and can be beaten, but I do think she always acts from her own values and principles.

And yes, she upgraded her own Knightmare Frame by herself, in a cave, with a bunch of scraps.

[End of spoilers]

Hildegard von Mariendorf, Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Sure Frederica Greenhill is awesome too for many many reasons, but I was never attracted to her the same way I was with Fraulein Mariendorf. One of the things I noted about her is how her bold choices saved her own family from ruin, from her choosing to side with the Lohengramm faction at the onset of civil war in the empire. I remember her  penetrating insight into the empire’s strategical and political situation, which also convinced her father to devote their family’s allegiance to support the newer camp lead by Reinhard von Lohengramm.

Also, this bit: As she left for the imperial capital, Hilde thanked her father for having given her life at those turbulent yet captivating times, allowing her to witness the great tides of history. Wow, who does that! Despite her own brilliant talent, her appreciation is that of a witness, and he tells her father just as much. This humility is part of what I think allowed her to affect history herself, in no small way.

—

The organizing principle of this list is that many of the attributes of these characters, I find in my own 3D flesh and blood wife: a high appreciation for family and a devotion to its welfare; and work in public service (whether in the military, the administration, or enforcement). I find these things a happy coincidence, as I didn’t go through life looking for someone with a specific set of qualities in mind (except maybe for a few very important ones), but rather these are things I discover in people and characters the more I spend time with them, the more I observe them. I’m still getting to know my wife, and this is a good thing as I have the rest of my life to find out all about her.

Who’s NOT on the List:

I have made a pair of deliberate omissions. Here they are and why:

Lafiel Abriel, Crest of the Stars

Ultimate waifu material, with the very best qualities: the best of behavior, honor, breeding, and genetics. Problem is, the Abh don’t marry.

There were couples — people who loved each otehr and lived together — in Abh society. And sometimes, these relationships lasted long enough to resemble marriages, but a ” ’til death do you part” arrangement was extremely rare.

The Abh were more likely to burn with passion, hot and quick enough to drive themselves crrazy. Like incinerators, the fires of Abh love left little behind.

Because they tended not to remain coupled for long, the Abj had no real concept of what it meant to have a pair of parents [...]

–Morioka Hiroyuki, Crest of the Stars Vol. 1: Princess of the Empire

If they don’t marry, Lafiel can’t be mai waifu. That said, I would otherwise want her. I think she is one of the best characters in all anime.

Lynn Minmay, Super Dimension Fortress Macross

Yeah yeah, she’s a bit of a dimwit. She’s a fluff-headed idol singer obsessed with her own fame. Obvious reasons to not like her right? No, I actually find Minmay a lot more loveable than how many Macross fans see her.

[MAJOR SPOILERS]

Many Macross fans hate Minmay (most Robotech fans hate her with a passion). Not me. I wanted her to achieve everything she dreamed of. Kawamori himself said that “Misa is the Heroine, while Minmay is the Star [of Macross].” Yeah, well, not good enough for me. While Minmay achieved fame and stardom, the world shrunk instead of expanded due to the devastation of the Great Space War. Misa got her man and a starship to boot.

Minmay learned too late how weak and impaired she is as a human, in terms of her personal maturity. Whatever growth she has, will have to happen in the future because up until the end she was selfish and perhaps petty. She wanted Hikaru to give up flying, probably the most important part of his life — because she was at the time burnt out as an idol singer herself. Consider that she was the one who pushed Hikaru to join U. N. Spacy, when Hikaru was very much a pacifist. She argued then that it was the only way he could fly — which was true, but she was completely oblivious of the moral and psychological costs of flying into combat. Hikaru worked out his issues, but not because of her. She wasn’t much of a contribution to his life, though a good part of the highlights of his life were spent dedicated to her, spent proving himself to her. While this happened, she was mostly unavailable to him.

—

The organizing principle of this list of characters who I won’t marry (LOL) is that I feel very strongly about the ‘ships’ they have with their respective male partners (or male characters I want them to end up with).

Ichijyo Hikaru x Lynn Minmay

I’ve said above that Minmay was mostly unavailable to Hikaru. Mostly…

BUT NOT ALWAYS. She doesn’t get enough credit. Here’s a series of critical moments: Hikaru was shot down by friendly fire — coincidentally, it was Misa who pulled the trigger and Hikaru’s VF was shot down by an Itano Circus (best way to go down IMO). Hikaru was pretty much confined at the hospital for some time, and his aniki Roy Focker pulled a favor from Minmay to have her visit him. Guess what? It Minmay treated it as a favor to her. Hikaru’s bedside was the place she’d rather be. Consider that this was in the middle of her filming ‘Little White Dragon,’ leading to the peak of her idol career. So she went and visited Hikaru, who was of course so very happy to see her.

And then Roy got killed. I can’t forget how Hikaru found out while still on that hospital bed. He was playing with his yellow Fokker tri-plane kit, and when the news broke, he dropped it and it fell to pieces. Who was there with him? Minmay. This was probably the worst moment of his life, and Minmay was the one by his side.

Is this enough to counteract all of her petulance and insensitivity towards him? No. Even though she acted the part of the ‘famous too soon teenager’ and could get some slack on account for her age, it doesn’t justify Hikaru choosing her in the end given that Misa is really a wonderful person and is outright devoted to him. The tragedy is that I can’t hate Misa, and I can’t blame Hikaru ;_;

[END OF SPOILERS]

Lin Jinto x Abriel Lafiel

This is easily my favorite anime couple. From a series of seemingly coincidental events (no, it was JUST AS PLANNED by well-meaning individuals) a near instantaneous intimacy develops between very different beings, which is revealed to us slowly, deliberately, and very beautifully over three linear shows and an OVA. Lafiel is my favorite female character in anime, but I like the idea of her being with Jinto for the rest of his days even more. I think fans of the show have been remiss for not writing much about Jinto who is a very good character on his own and is totally a good man for Lafiel. I’ll see what I can do to address this.

If you haven’t seen Crest of the Stars yet, by all means do so. It’s a show set in a world that has exceptional breadth and depth, told in excellent dialogue and narration, and yet remains charmingly accessible to viewers not particularly inclined to science fiction or space opera.

Further Reading

This post was inspired mostly by my rewatching of Crest, and Banner of the Stars. But the method of it is very much influenced by the following:

1. A search for a place for real women in anime (Otou-san 2009/06/20)
2. A poll for the most outstanding anime babe of all time (Don 2009/05/07)

Love for Lafiel is not new to WRL [->]

A few things about Seirei no Moribito [->]

My childhood has been very much informed by Hikaru x Minmay, and I actually sometimes enjoy other works from them as a frame of reference [->]

—

Haven’t seen any Gundam at all? Don’t know where to start? Find your Gateway Gundam!

Earlier this week ghostlightning wrote up a post about how Gundam Wing had been mislabelled the start of the Bishounen aesthetic in male mecha anime characters, but really it was more of a reason to gush about Five Star Stories.  It got me thinking though, has anybody ever really sat down to try to look at the evolution of the two sexes in mecha anime, the change in their appearances and the degree to which they played a role (and what role they played) in the plot of the mecha sagas over the ages?  If so I would still like to take a look at it anyway and I think there’s no better place to start then what is commonly recognized as the first ever series where the characters played some sort of role in a mecha series versus the title robot.  Mazinger Z.

The Classic Era/Role Models (Early 1970′s)

Meet Kabuto Kouji, the archtype of the super robot mecha pilot.  Kind of plain and unassuming looking if definitely hot blooded.  This was the dawn of the mecha anime, where the male characters were there to be cool, but not to a degree that would distract from the recognizability of the title mecha, in this case Mazinger Z.  Kouji was a little dull, but the sort of athletic high school student that had the girls eyes on him and who kids could relate to in their own budding maturity, but who they also yearned to be more like.  The perfect hero to star in a mecha anime and draw kids into the idea of Mazinger Z without taking the spotlight away from it.  He would prove to be the precursor for the majority of Toei Super Robot heroes like Ryoma of Getter Robo and Voltes V’s Kenichi.

Contrary to what a lot of people might assume about the genre, women actually got off to a pretty good start with Sayaka Yumi, it’s just that….well….female roles didn’t quite evolve at quite the pace of male roles until a little later into the the 80′s.  Sayaka could best be described as a tomboy, but someone who still had a feminine appearance.  She refused to stay on the sidelines and would often do what she could to help Kouji in combat with her Aphrodite A, but simply couldn’t be as effective due to the weaker power of her robot.  Perhaps it could be argued that this wasn’t meant to reflect poorly on women or the idea that they weren’t as skilled as male pilots at the time, but simply that the focus was still on the robots more than the character at the time and she just didn’t happen to have the title robot.  It could also be said that Sayaka could hold her own with Kouji or at least tried to, which also set a good example for female roles, even if they were to remain mostly supporting characters for some time yet.  You could say that Sayaka was the precursor for characters such as Michiru in Getter Robo and Reideen’s Mari, always the enternal support to the hot blooded male hero, but never afraid to do whatever they could to make sure the day was won.

The Calm Before The Storm/The Reluctant Hero Is Born And Damsels In Distress (Mid To Late 1970′s)

Contrary to what some may believe, the first reluctant mecha pilot wasn’t born in Evangelion’s Shini Ikari (although it could certainly be said that he would take the idea of reluctant self-deprecating hero to it’s logical extreme) but in Kotetsu Jeeg’s Hiroshi Shiba.  While still carrying with him elements of the sports playing hot blooded types like Kouji Kabuto, unlike Kouji, Hiroshi had no real desire to bear the burden of becoming Jeeg and saving the world from the Jama Kingdom once it was placed on him.  Becoming a cyborg after a motorcycle accident that nearly cost him his life, Hiroshi would become uncertain of himself, his humanity, and his purpose and would have to find his way towards becoming that hero everyone expected him to be.  Of course he would find his way, but never before Hiroshi had this journey really been depicted along the way, it was just assumed that the hero would accept his role and get right into the action in the traditional hot blooded style and be able to perfectly balance their normal civilian life with that of a hero.  Following Jeeg this would really be the case anymore (especially with the oncoming advent) and heroes would have a bit more complexity to them that provided a layered experience for the viewer in discovering them.  He could be seen as the archetype for the traditional hapless Gundam pilot who would rather not have the responsibility of being the ships defender early on, specifically Amuro Ray

I had previously said that gender roles got off to a fairly even start with Kouji and Sayaka, but Nagahama’s Daimos would then give us Erika and the idea of the classic damsel in distress would make it’s way into mecha as well.  Erika could be said to be the first significant non mecha piloting female character and she would take on a different more traditional Yamato Nadeshiko role as an angelic peace loving figure who only wanted to see an end put to all of the fighting and for those she cared about to reconcile before they destroyed each other.  She also started the tradition of the enemy ace’s little sister becoming the lover of the main hero and hence sandwiched between two conflicting sides on a multitude of levels.  However Erika would portray a quite strength to never give up on the idea that her race and humanity could live in harmony together, even placing herself in harms way and being self-sacrificing in order to ensure that no harm came to either Kazuya (Daimos’ pilot) or Richter (his rival and her brother).  You could say that Erika showed what could be accomplished without a mecha and would be the archetype for many in a long line of peace loving characters (and the afformentioned enemy ace sister caught between two warring sides) in the likes of Linda Plato from Dragonar, Emily Luft in Dunbine and Lacus Clyne in Gundam Seed.

The First Advent/The Villains Step Into The Limelight/The Dawn of The Pretty Boy/The Female Leader (Mobile Suit Gundam 1979)

If Kazuya Hiroshi would give us a slightly more complex lead hero character template, then Char Aznable would do more for the villain character then any single other character in the history of anime.  A bold statement, but consider this, prior to Char Aznable the villain character could essentially be seen as little more than an obstacle, someone whose sole purpose was to be evil and destructive or to see to the whims of their superiors in whatever evil alliance they were a part of.  Some would eventually have a slight change of heart near the end such as Prince Heinel from Voltes V and lay down their lives once they finally saw the truth of everything and that their actions and views were perhaps not what they thought was reality based, but right from the beginning Char Aznable was his own character.  He knew what he wanted to accomplish and it would become immediately clear that his views and goals were not necessarily those of his superiors or even subordinates.  Char’s story wasn’t entirely tied to the hero Amuro Ray’s and lead along by it either (although their destinies would become inseparable by the end of the story) and it could be said for the first time that viewers were allowed inside the head of the villain character, to see their backstory and what made them the person they are depicted as in the story.   To judge for themselves whether they were truly unjustified in their actions compared to those of the heroes.  Viewers would be lead to question whether Char was truly a villain at all, or if perhaps Amuro might be just as much of an aggressor in their relationship/conflict as Char was.  Never before had the line between good and evil, just or unjust, right or wrong been blurred so much for the viewer of a mecha series as it was with Char Aznable.  Char’s story and the focus he was given as a villain would redefine the way mecha stories were told on a sub-level equivalent to how Mobile Suit Gundam would redefine the whole mecha genre, and despite my attempts to do so it’s almost impossible to truly measure the degree of influence he would have on not on mecha anime character portrayals, but on all anime character portrayals.  As such no list of who he was the precursor for can be listed as it would just go on forever and there are too many options.

Garma Zabi.  While some characters before him could be described as handsome, it was Garma who was arguably the first significant pretty boy character to grace (?) the mecha scene.  With his trademark hair twirl, almost too friendly relationship with Char Aznable, obsession with impressing his sister Kycilia, and daddy’s boy status Garma was about as feminized as a male character could possibly be at the time.  There it is, as ghostlightning said, Gundam Wing was indeed not the first show to bring bishounen into the mecha genre, and even if L-Gaim and Five Star Stories could be said to have had the first primarily bishounen cast of male characters, Garma was certainly the precursor.

Whoever said that female characters couldn’t make for the most conniving of villains and even be the lead villain in the end.  While Haman Khan is looked upon by many a mecha fan as the pinnacle of the strong female pilot/leader/villain character and there had been female villain leaders like Himika of Jeeg prior to her, they were just depicted in that status from the beginning and never held onto it until the very end like Kycilia did.  After Degwin Zabi is killed by Gihren and Gihren assumes command, Kycilia makes her move right before the end of the conflict and takes out Gihren to the surprise and shock of everyone, in the process assuming the leadership of Zeon for herself, however briefly before she is killed by Char and the nation crumbles under the Federations assault.  In the process though she proves that it was not Gihren, nor Degwin who was the top dog of the Zabi family and the greastest mastermind of them all, but herself, a female, the one that while given a position as head of the space attack fleet was always overlooked in favour of favourite son Garma, warrior Dozle, and political leader Gihren.  Sadly while Gundam would teach us that women could be just as manipulative and despicable villains as the oft scene male puppetmasters, she wouldn’t find nearly as many female lead villains to be the source for as some of the other character prototypes I have mentioned.  Some still do come to mind though, such as the previously mentioned Haman Khan of the Zeta Saga, Katejina Loos of Victory Gundam, Grace O’Connor of Macross Frontier, and Nami Shishidou of Sora Wo Kakeru Shoujo.

The Dark Ages/Anti-Heroes and Dying Girlfriends (Early To Mid 80′s)

Yoshiyuki Tomino didn’t just redefine how characters were looked upon, but also how they would be treated for some time to come.  No more was anyone but the main character and their main rival afforded more then a rare second chance as Tomino sought to try and depict a little more of the true effects of war in mecha anime.  Enter the suffering hero, Kill em’ all Tomino’s most famous contribution to mecha anime.  If Hiroshi was a little reluctant, Tomino’s characters would be put through hell on top of it.  Perhaps no more was this apparent than in the archetype of such suffering hero roles that was Cosmo Yuki.  Wrenched from his home and forced to watch the death of his immediate family and everything he had ever treasured up to that point Cosmo Yuki doesn’t mince words or ideals, he is angry and he wants to make the Buff Clan pay, and if the Ideon will help him do it then so be it.  Cosmo can hardly be described as the most relatable character to someone growing up now as he is simply so bitter and even racist towards the Buff Clan (even Karala who is shown time and again to be anything but the agressor that the rest of her race is) that his actions just as much as any other characters lead to the continuing conflict that escalates to the point where he is robbed of everything he has left that exists aboard the solo ship.  Amazingly and perhaps a sad reality that Tomino in his depression believed he ought to depict, Cosmo is only able to finally resolve his conflict and inner demons in giving in to the Ide and allowing it to destroy everyone so that they can start over reincarnated in a new life.  Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that Cosmo initially had trouble letting go of his resentment and anger even in death as only the embrace and reassurance of his loved ones allowed him to acknowledge that he can start over and follow the messiah to a new life.  A dark and depressing character never before seen indeed and one that showed for the first time in a raw and unfiltered manner that perhaps war and aggression is the true villain in the long run, not any race nor any person specfically.  Anybody may be capable of horrible actions as compelled by the forces of war and chaos, and the heroes side would no longer be an exception in mecha anime from this point onward.  Cosmo would be the prototype for many vengeful characters including Kamille Bidan of Zeta Gundam, Sho Zama of Dunbine, and Lelouch Vi Britannia of Code Geass.

Rest assured Kitty Kitten does not quite dress like this in Space Runaway Ideon and this is simply the best picture I could find.  If Lalah was a passing attempt at the dying girlfriend as a driving force for character’s trope that would later get it’s proper due in the movie Char’s Counterattack, then Kitty Kitten was the first time is was really given serious thought.  Portrayed as a simple girl who wants to look after the group of kids she has taken in, Kitty Kitten is an example of what can become of civilians in any major skirmish that happens to come their way at the wrong time.  Being in the wrong place at the wrong time and having nothing to do with a war doesn’t mean you are safe, and indeed Kitty after falling mutually in love with Cosmo is killed right in front of him (decapitation) as Cosmo watches in horror and swears revenge against the Buff Clan without any reservations.  Not all people are motivated in combat and some merely find themselves in these circumstances for a variety of reasons, but seeing the ultimate price of war can potentially motivate even the most reluctant or callous of individuals to seek an end ot it, especially when it affects the ones they care about.  As mentioned above this was the time when mecha series started getting darker, and not even the innocent or the major characters could be spared anymore.  Punches were no longer being pulled and mecha anime started to evolve away from the primarily younger kids fare that it had been up until the 80′s.  The dying or maimed girlfriend as defined by Kitty Kitten would become the source for such relationships as Kamille and Four Murasame, Hathaway Noah and Quess Paraya, Suzaku Kururugi and Euphemia Li Britannia and Saji Crossroad and Louise Halevy among several others.  It is to this day an enduring trope.

Mecha Gets Silly/Comedic Relief Characters And Tsunderes Abound (Mid To Late 80′s)

You’d think I would be done with talking about what Yoshiyuki Tomino helped introduce to the world of mecha, but honestly all of this is still barely scratching the surface even now.  Would you believe that the guy known as Kill em’ all also helped define the mecha comedy right around the same time as he helped define dark and depressing mecha sagas?  Here we have Jiron Amos of Sentou Mecha Xabungle, a hapless country bumpkin out to find the man who killed his parents, but who mostly just gets into wacky situations along the way and acts like a wild untamed dog with no concept of culture, politeness or the law of the land.  That’s what makes him so likeable in the end though, as you can’t help but like the guy even as he’s tripping, stumbling, getting pumelled and spazzing out and going wild in the title mecha with no concept of actual fighting tactics.  Why?  Well his heart is pretty much in the right place in all of his simplicity, and it always feels like he’s the underdog in an impressive society who just wants that shot at getting what little he wants in justice that he is continually denied.  He’s dedicated to his task through everything that is thrown his way, never loses sight of what he’s after even as he gets sidetracked on crazy adventures, and in the end it’s not necessarily the intellect that makes a man, but the will and the heart.  See the movie Rocky and you’ll see what I mean.  Jiron would be the prototype for such simplistic oblivious underdogs as Kain Wakaba of Dragonar, Sousuke Sagara of Full Metal Panic, and Dan JD of Basquash.

If Jiron is the folksy loveable dufus (Boke) then Elchi is almost certain the cultured and dignified lady with a surprising abusive streak a mile wide (Tsukkomi).  When we first meet Elchi in Xabungle she’s trying to introduce culture to the Plant Zora where the story takes place and just generally bitching out everybody that comes her way, including her own father.  Then Jiron comes along and she instantly plays him for a fool and traps and recaptures the Xabungle which he tried to steal from her father.  It is then we learn that while seemingly prim and proper, Elchi is arguably even more wild and untame when angered then even the likes of Jiron are ready for, and she decides to join Jiron’s little troop of Sand Rats so that she can tour the world and perhaps teach the “barbarians” a thing or two.  I can imagine many people can guess where this is going and yes indeed Jiron and Elchi are always seemingly at odds on the surface as a veritable odd couple with Elchi always coming out on top while finding herself inexplicably attracted to him at the same time, knowing he means well, but of course unwilling to show it.  Yes Elchi is the prototype of such relationships as Kain and Linda in Metal Armor Dragonar, Sousuke and Chidori in Full Metal Panic, Ginga and Eris in Dendoh and, Akiha and Leopard in Sora Kake Girl, and Dan and Rouge in Basquash.

Coming Of Age/Crawling Out Of The Heroes Shadow (Late 80′s To Mid 90′s)

Regrettably I know what I am about to say is something of a falsehood considering that it was 1977′s Zambot 3 that introduced the child lead character concept, but Alfred Izuruha of Gundam 0080: War In The Pocket came at the start of a trend in the 1990′s that would show a different point of view from which a mecha story could be told.  The idea here is simple, what if the warfare and violence as depicted in a mecha series were seen through the eyes of a child who merely tagged along with the true heroes.  That was the idea behind Alfred and Bernard Wiseman’s relationship as Bernie worked to carry out his impossible mission of destroying the Gundam Alex and Alfred tagged along because he thought it would be cool to see.  Of course the idea here is that Alfred ends up being forced to see firsthand the true horrors of war and the psychological trauma that it can wreck on the part of those of the survivors as they watch their comrades and friends die.  First he sees Bernie go through it with the death of the cyclops team, and just as he’s starting to realize the situation Bernie is in, he is forced to go through it as Bernie is cut down trying to destroy the Alex.  Yikes, tagging along with a soldier who could die at any moment isn’t quite the wacky adventure it had been portrayed as for characters like Shiro Kabuto of Mazinger Z and Katz, Letz and Kika of Mobile Suit Gundam anymore.  Well at least not in this case, for while the child meets robotic hero stories of the 1990′s Brave Saga and the Eldoran Saga that were to come would make use of the battle as viewed through the eyes of a bystander/child trope that Alfred kicked off, they would also strike a much lighter tone.

Here we have Noriko Takaya of Gunbuster, a surprisingly younger hero for the time at the age of 15.  Noriko’s story like Alfred’s is also one that can be described as a coming of age tale (something Gainax is extremely fond of) only in a much different manner.  Not only would Noriko become the first undisputed female lead in a mecha series, but she also gave birth to the idea of seeing the birth of a hero in a mecha series.  When we first meet Noriko we come to think of her as little more then a clumsy goof who can’t do much of anything right when it comes to mecha combat.  She’s constantly cast in the shadow of her much older and more experienced comrades in the form of Kazumi Amano and Jung Freud, and is constantly having to be rescued and chided by them as well for her carelessness.  We are lead to wonder why we are seeing events through the eyes of this character as she is constantly outclassed by everyone around her, but we begin to notice that Noriko is slowly growing, and like Coach had insisted, her natural talent is starting to show itself as she gains not only confidence, but the will to take the burden of being humanities saviour on her shoulders.  It is then in the second half that she rises out from under the shadow of Amano to become the main pilot of Gunbuster and to show what she is made of.  We see each individual step of this transformation and while at first it appears to be similar to the reluctant pilot trope of the real robot shows of the late 70′s-mid 80′s it really isn’t.  It is something entirely new when it comes to the idea of portraying character growth (more akin to what can be seen in sports anime) in that Noriko actually wants to be a pilot and protect her friends from the Space Monsters right from the get go, but needs to overcome hardship and her own immaturity and insecurities in order to do it.  Noriko would be the prototype for such characters as Simon of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Renton Thurston of  Eureka Seven and Haruka Amami  in iDOLM@STER Xenoglossia.

Moe On Mecha/Beautification Of Characters/A More Basic Appeal (Mid 90′s To The Present)

We finish off with one of the more recent developments in mecha anime.  Something I like to call the moe on mecha concept.  Rather, the idea of introducing moe moe characters into the realm of mecha anime for the purposes of broadening audiences.  If the bishounenification of mecha was foretold primarily by the likes of Heero Yuy and the cast of Gundam Wing who would bring in female audiences, then the moefication of mecha for the purposes of bringing in alternative male audiences can almost certainly be attributed to one character.  Ruri Hoshino of Nadesico.  Never before had a character been so clearly designed to be not only pleasing to the aesthetic sense of the moe otaku, but to end of inspiring that feeling in them as well.  Ruri was loli, tsundere, snark, intelligent, innocent, talented, cutesy, everything you could imagine would ever get a postive reaction out of people into all things moe.  The creators of Nadesico were apparently aware of her nature and potential standing with otaku communities as well since they sought to portray her perhaps partially in jest as simply perfet at everything and as being worshipped by the entire surrounding cast as infinitely desirable and worthy of affection.  Ruri was such a massive hit that it is said she inspired the movie sequel (no comment) that would be centred primarily around her character, and she evenwould go on to lend her name to the trope she helped inspire in sarcastic, dry and overly talented loli characters.  A gift from heaven if ever there was one <3 .  Ruri would inspire such moe moe loli characters as Anya Earlstreim of Code Geass, Roux Loux of Shinkon Gattai Goddanar, Sakura Shishidou of Sora Kake Girl, Coco JD of Basquash and many many more.  And thus with the end of this article I believe I have found my answer.  Hope you all enjoyed this trip down mecha character memory lane as much as I did.

—

Note by ghostlightning:

Kaioshin Sama regularly writes for Where Anime Past Meets Present blog, where you can find his archives about Gundam and mecha anime in general.

[Be thou warned -- some few Negima! spoilers lurk in the underbrush.]

I believe it was Socrates (the Plato version) who suggested that true knowledge begins with acceptance of one’s ignorance.

No, no, scratch that. This isn’t one of those posts. Let me start over.

As a fledgling practitioner of romance (as opposed to the *ahem* seasoned veteran I am now), I moved through three distinct attitudes. As a young teenager, I deemed things like soul mates improbable at best, but figured, given the sheer number of people in the world, that there must have existed at least a few girls above the mundane concerns of most, paragons of purity the likes of which KyoAni could only dream of mass-producing. Some years later, as the relationship of my late teenage life died its slow death, I settled upon the idea that human beings were, on the whole, frivolous creatures, given to base desires and whimsy, lacking in that union of motivation and inclination I called “vision” and utterly unconcerned with what romance could be. This second phase did not last long; as I transitioned, perhaps against my will, into adulthood, I realized that we humans are necessarily…human. We can try to follow some code of morality or righteousness or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, but at the beginning and the end of the day we are human.

We dream. We create art and meaning. We succumb to temptation, are powerless to resist bodily needs. We’re strong and weak, but never one or the other in isolation. There’s nothing we can do about it. And — lo and behold! — if we try, we can even appreciate humanity for what it is.

Accordingly, I’ve come to like reading about characters who feel human, characters whose virtues, vices, and unavoidable physicality more or less balance out, and this goes double (nay, treble) for romance. Perfection is tedious at best, and at worst intolerable; the characters I respect most are those able to keep themselves together through human quandaries, so I’m sure you can imagine how the absence or scarcity of human quandaries (or, alternately, the absence or scarcity of humanity in characters faced with vaguely human quandaries) might pose a bit of a problem for me. I must admit that I did not, upon beginning Negima!, expect the exemplars of humanity I prefer to show up with any frequency in a manga that begins as vaguely shotacon harem and moves quickly into shounen fantasy action.

I’ve doubted Ken Akamatsu before. I’ll doubt him again, surely. But I should know better by now.

If there’s anything unfortunate about all this, it’s that I can’t properly handle enough characters in a single post. Negima! boasts one of the largest and most fleshed-out harems I’ve ever seen; that both qualifiers manage to apply to the same story is a testament to Akamatsu’s fighting spirit. Though I may manage to sneak in references to a number of relevant characters, I’ll have to stick with my absolute favorites for the time being — which is fine, I suppose, given that these two have become two of my favorite haremettes in general.

And how could it be otherwise? Nodoka is quiet, bookish, and moetacularly shy, Yue fancies herself a philosopher and seems engaged in a continual struggle with her inner tsundere (she’s tsundere for tsundere, maybe, which would fit right in with the manga’s deconstruction of pretty much everything), and both belong to an organization called the Library Adventure Club. The Library Adventure Club.

Yes, this. It’s easy for me to love this on a purely visceral level. I want friends like these girls. I want to go on magical library adventures!

But where, you may wonder, do they show a bit of character, exactly? Well, all along, but since brevity is the soul of wit, let’s jump ahead to that unending school festival arc. Between bursts of shounen excellence (and you’ll rarely see me use that phrase as anything other than an oxymoron, as I am both jaded and a bastard, but it’s absolutely literal here), the romantic dynamics are in full swing. One by one, characters realize and promptly deny their feelings for Negi. Or so it goes for most of them — Nodoka, the evidently timid one (and the first to fall for Negi in an obvious way), somehow manages to be the only character who can deal with her feelings, and so handily does she deal with them that she ends up on a date with that slightly-younger wizard-teacher-gladiator-genius.

Well, that’s sort of odd, isn’t it? If only we could see what was going on in her head…if only she would use that mind-reading book of hers while waiting for Negi to show up…

That’s maybe a little unexpected. Nodoka is supposed to be demure, right? But, really, it makes a lot of sense — that’s the kind of thing healthy teenagers think about. Hell, that’s pretty tame in comparison to what most healthy teenagers think about, but the point is that Nodoka thinks about physical things, and I like that. It’s one step out of moeblob-land, one step into real people world. Who knows what we’d see if more anime and manga made us privy to the thoughts of characters who start out acting like stereotypes? More than some readers would care to see, probably (remember that Kannagi virginity debacle?), but Akamatsu has the right of it, as far as I’m concerned.

At any rate, Nodoka’s hard-earned date continues, and — actually, let’s pause for a minute for some Yue foreshadowing.

Everyone has bad intentions? Alright, noted.

Moving right along, we see that Nodoka continues to experience those youthful inclinations throughout the day. They’re mostly consistent, but the repetition seems to indicate that the early pages of chapter 83 aren’t just a throwaway gimmick for the sake of humor. Nodoka’s animal tendencies aren’t going anywhere, which is good, since I’d like to think she’s an animal like the rest of us.

Lest I’ve led you to believe otherwise, I’m not trying to brand Nodoka a nymphomaniac or a champion of sexual expression here. All I’m saying is that, for all her shame and self-control, she thinks about the kinds of things we all do. Her feelings for Negi don’t simply manifest as bishounen sparkles and the like; they’re multifaceted, multileveled. And that, says I, is a good thing.

Despite a few complications (we’re skipping a couple chapters ahead, in fact), Nodoka’s day goes well. Rather well indeed. In fact…

W-w-w-wuh?

And that’s not all — Nodoka initiates it! It’s Nodoka, the sort-of-dojikko, renowned far and wide for her reticence, who kicks the rules of One True Pairing to the curb and does what she wants. Remember, it’s not about the kiss itself (she’s a provisional ministra magus, after all, so it isn’t even the first time), but the implications thereof. In a moment of epic irony, it’s Nodoka who gets the first intentionally romantic kiss with Negi, and not because of some convenient turn of events, but because of her own actions, her own guts and effort.

But where does it come from? Nodoka clearly has a Buster Machine in her heart, but how’d it get there? I ask you this: would I really have mentioned Plato for no reason?

(Well, yes, but I didn’t.)

While her classmates deny their failings outright (and/or suffer from the failing that is denial) or cripplingly attribute themselves with failings they don’t or needn’t really have, Nodoka recognizes her hurdles — and, what’s more, she jumps them. She credits Negi above, but, really, his role is passive. It’s Nodoka who must accept those things about herself that stand between her and what she wants (i.e. Negi), and Nodoka who must use that acceptance as the first step of a process of growth. Her personality may make her seem meek, a reprisal of Love Hina’s Shinobu, but her accomplishments are arguably among the most impressive we’ve seen in Negima! so far. As of yet, few characters have proven so able to manage internal quandaries (which are, after all, often the worst sort of quandaries); even Negi isn’t very good at it.

Hopefully I’ve demonstrated sufficiently by now that bits of character are present in Negima!, scattered with surprising density throughout the best chapters. I realize, however, that I have yet to justify this post’s title. How might one pick up and throw a bit of character? It’s so easy, in fact, that those involved often don’t realize it’s happened until much later, until it’s far too late to call the whole thing off, which is what makes bits of character such deadly projectiles.

Let’s skip a few more chapters ahead. Through some combination of magic, technology, and coincidence, Negi runs into Yue even while a past iteration of himself spends the day with Nodoka. Understandably perturbed by the date’s outcome (he’s both ten years old and a teacher, after all), Negi consults Yue for advice, thinking she might offer some insight as Nodoka’s friend.

That sounds reasonable. It might even be reasonable. But reason isn’t the issue here — the sensible solution isn’t what Nodoka would want, and Yue realizes it moments too late to do anything about it.

“…am now a member of Negi’s obscenely large harem,” is more or less how it plays out.

Should we believe that she didn’t realize what she was doing all along? I don’t see why not; it really is hard to pin those feelings down sometimes, especially when you’re young and they’re relatively new, and, accordingly, actions that seem reasonable could become sources of lasting regret. Perhaps at some point, while engaged in long hours of magic study, Yue wondered if she wasn’t going through all the effort to get closer to Negi; no doubt she would’ve dismissed the notion as ridiculous. It’s difficult to consider what you might be capable of doing to a friend under the right circumstances.

But Yue (previously a not-so-important character) comes to consider it at last, which, in light of recent events, might be a hopeful notion. After all, when Nodoka allowed herself some self-reflection, she figured out how to take steps toward her goals. It’s a bit of a different situation, though, considering that Yue’s goals — helping her friend, getting closer to Negi — run perpendicular to one another, and disastrously so. Whatever happens, someone gets hurt, and the human mind seems especially good at improvising all sorts of logic to support self-interest. Maybe Yue was aware of the situation, but, being a fairly logical sort, successfully convinced herself otherwise, a tactic similar to the denial we see in other characters, but not precisely the same (insofar as it reminds me unsettlingly of myself).

This is, I realized as I read, a more complicated variation on the love rivals who become friends from having their rivalry in common. Nodoka and Yue are friends who become love rivals without realizing it. Had they been the former, they would have at least gotten a friendship out of the whole ordeal; as it is, every “good” outcome is fairly cringe-worthy. One gets Negi, the other doesn’t, there’s plenty of depression to go around, the friendship suffers, life’s unfair, deal with it, the end. And, hell, since neither Nodoka nor Yue is OTP’d with Negi, the more likely outcome is that they both fail. I’m reminded of that scene from the first season of Clannad in which Kyou and Ryou both realize they’ve been rejected in favor of that other one. Man, that was rough.

It’d be one thing if Yue managed to keep her feelings hidden for a while, but it’s hard not to wonder, perhaps morbidly, what would happen if Nodoka found out. Some forty chapters later (still in the school festival arc), Akamatsu clears up that line of inquiry by throwing a volatile bunch of characters in that Indiana Jones-worthy library.

It’s possible that this post should deal with Haruna in greater depth, given her role in these chapters. As a genre-savvy trickster character (she’s a manga-ka herself), it’s her job to dig up and expose information that might be better off in the open.

The context here is that Yue and Konoka have just discussed the possibility that Nodoka is practically incapable of jealousy (or that she simply respects and admires Negi more than she feels for him romantically; it seems likely that both are true, to some degree). This may be another testament to Nodoka’s character, insofar as it’s damn hard to avoid jealousy (unless you’re Mike Smith, I guess), but it doesn’t do much for Yue’s crisis; if anything, she feels more guilty.

Long story short, though, Haruna elicits a confession from Yue, and (as you may expect) Nodoka overhears. Which brings us to the next chapter…

Some readers really dislike awkward moments like this. For my part, I think they’re great. It may also be noted with some degree of aptness that I just like to see characters suffer, but moments of suffering are when people become themselves, isn’t it?

Eh, maybe, but it’s easy to be annoyed with Haruna regardless. It’s basically her fault that Nodoka knows the truth, and she doesn’t let up, citing examples of tragic literary love triangles to Negi and pushing Nodoka and Yue together more or less to see what happens. Then again, she doesn’t blame Yue, nor does she think Yue’s advice to Negi was anything more serious than good advice. And perhaps she figures all along that a secret would be more harmful than the truth, that Nodoka and Yue are strong enough to handle the truth — which is, as it turns out, the case.

This is, in a word, hard. I couldn’t do it when I was their age; I know that for certain. I like to think I could do it now, but who knows? People do strange, unreasonable things in those situations.

And one might argue for that reason that Nodoka and Yue’s accomplishment, their very friendship, renders them unrealistic, even superhuman. But I don’t think that what they do is impossible or even unreasonable, that we couldn’t strive to do the same. They aren’t throwing magic at some external threat; they’ve just won a victory over human pettiness — and they’re fourteen! If we try, shouldn’t we be able to do the same?

You can make requests for “Showing a Bit of Character” here:  [->]

This post is less about episode 02 than the first part of the episode, where I was rather arrested by the whole sequence between Senjougahara and Araragi in the playground. A lot of other things happen (or get talked about), but I don’t feel I can discuss all of them here.

Instead, I will focus on a particular consequence of Senjougahara gaining weight. She gained her weight back, which I postulated in my previous post on this show, is tantamount to ‘meaning.’ And indeed, she put a lot of meaning in Araragi being instrumental in her gaining it all back.

So much stuff was going on in this episode! Araragi’s ahoge could have had its own show.

So I bring your attention to this particular exchange near the beginning of the episode. Araragi was moping around in this rather awesome playground and Senjougahara found him, and ‘allowed’ him to see her.

S: I wanted you to see these clothes first if possible, Araragi-kun.

A: Hey, if you wanted to show them to me first…

Well, uh, that makes it sound like a stroke of luck or an honor.

S: I didn’t want to show you them, Araragi-kun.

I wanted you to see them.

The nuance is completely different.

Is it really? Perhaps we can say that Senjougahara ‘allowed’ Araragi to see her new clothes, as opposed to ‘show’ them.

The proposed probable nuance lies in the power relations. For Senjougahara to show (off) her new outfit, it speaks of an intention to please, to seek approval. Araragi would then have a power to deny Senjougahara some satisfaction.

To ‘allow’ him to see the outfit suggests an indifference to his approval (whether or not this indifference is true). The power is entirely with Senjougahara. She’s the one calling the shots, she decides what Araragi is fit to see.

The question is why this power play? Why the lengths to demonstrate nuance and show Araragi that he’s doing it wrong?

The inauthenticity that I suspect ties in with the titillation of the thing. I am being flirted with, through the idea that Senjougahara actually likes Araragi and wants his approval, and that this very exchange is flirtatious (look at all the fanservice, not only for our benefit but think of what Araragi is seeing up close).

This is happening in a playground, a supremely entertaining sequence that to me confirms the power relationship. Senjougahara feels that she owes Araragi a favor. After all, in getting her weight back, he’s not the one who had to be paid for services. Araragi’s apparent lack of self-interest in making things right for Senjougahara is treated as a significant act of generosity. The park suggests play, innocence. The actual dialogue is very raunchy, in that Senjougahara is offering her favors to Araragi, appealing to fetishes that to me clearly break through the fourth wall.

The steak cycles (yes, they are steaks) on the circular playground track rivals Senjougahara with nothing but an apron as ideas of superlative awesomeness.

There’s this moment where they talk about virginity. I could go on about the politics of sexual dominance here but for now I’ll let this underscore the jarring juxtaposition of innocence and all this dirty talk.

The whole objective of Senjougahara here is to “become friends on equal footing.” She cannot do so without returning Araragi a favor. She guesses that he with his rather weak personality would not ask for something sexual, and she intended to do something personal that would make a difference.

But, but, but, she does all sorts of violence on him with all this flirtation and titillation. He’s quite powerless, as he’s obviously attracted to her and he’s already at the threshold of gratification. But alas, he sees himself wanting something more of Senjougahara. I won’t be able to tell if there’s something really there as far as she’s concerned — especially as the new character is introduced (which creates ambiguity and even a harem tangent of a rather disturbing turn), but she cares enough to restore the balance of power to begin an authentic friendship.

While such authenticity won’t be available until after repayment. She dominates him mercilessly. That is the inauthenticity of Senjougahara.

A parting shot from our fetching heroine,

No matter how small a human being you are, I’m never gonna desert you.

A final note: Identifying the inauthenticity of Senjougahara is not a value-judgment on my part (read: I’m not hating on her); also, I chose not to discuss the glaring inauthenticity of our Araragi-kun, he who says he really doesn’t want a girlfriend. Who’s the more inauthentic character at this point?

Further Reading

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (a Monster in Bakemonogatari) [->]

More images from the wonderful playground of titillation [1] [2] [3]

A whole lot of Senjougahara from Panther — I mean there are other posts on BakemonogatariSenjougahara but this one has the most images and content (Panther 2009/07/20)

I’m new to ‘The Shinbo Experience,’ but I discovered this shameful otaku secret as a good introduction (otou-san 2009/07/20)

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (you know, the anime this blog is suddenly all about) seems to put a lot of value on realism. Research, realistic danger, microscopic detail on depiction of home life — it all serves to put us there so we can feel the experience of the Giant Quake. But without characters, the story just doesn’t work. Otherwise, it’d be called Documentary on Tokyo Earthquake in Animated Form.

Writer Natsuko Takahashi and co. went a bit on a limb when it came to creating their star, Mirai. And though I prematurely quit my blogospheric research due to laziness, anecdotal evidence tells me that people freaking hate her. She “pisses [people] off,” she’s a “depressive brat.” It goes on.

What are people seeing differently from me? Personally, I love the little shit, and here’s why I think she shows enough character to catch a break from you guys. Forgive me for taking a position, since that’s not typical ghostlightning style, but I’m not ghostlightning.^_^

Is Mirai a whiner?

Actually, in this case, I might vote “worse than a whiner.” But different. Mirai makes a lazy, skeptical EEEHH? noise when she encounters an order or event that displeases her. It’s as if Akari Mizunashi’s excited and wonderous EEEHH? triggered Newton’s Third Law (requesting Lelangir YouTube vid combining both). She can’t be assed to do anything — even whine or get pissed off — with too much enthusiasm. To me, that’s not annoying, it’s kinda hilarious, because it’s the epitome of adolescence. How can I possibly do all that? I’ve been awake since 11am now!

Does Mirai really care about no one and nothing?

Au contraire. While it’s possible she’d act the same given different circumstances, her early motivations don’t have anything to do with disliking her parents, her city, or her brother. She would really love to go on a family vacation, even if on the surface it’s just an excuse to be despondent in another location. She expects a little real family bonding. At that age, regardless of how adult she hopes to be, she still craves the care of her mother and father. Even a round cake, instead of some fancy-ass individual slices, would be ok. You can’t sing happy birthday and blow out the candles around those slices as a family (or whatever they do in Japan), and so the cake becomes a sad symbol of her family’s fracturing.

Is Mirai a total git to her brother?

Fu fu fu, you haven’t been watching. She teases, and she doesn’t always want to babysit. That’s natural. But when she chides him for being a “kid,” it means this: It must be nice to not be angry for no reason. It must be nice to look at the world without jaded eyes. It must be nice to love mama and papa without also hating them. She resents that — but not her brother himself. Notice how she has no problem giving him some of her ice cream (maybe not enthusiastically, but let’s not get too radical).

Notice that even before the earthquake has had a chance to register in her brain, her first thought is of Yuuki. And every subsequent thought is of him too, at least until she finds him. I’ll give you this: in a moment, Yuuki’s death would destroy what’s left of that childhood she’s been so intent to move past. And she realizes that she’s not so sure she wants that anymore. But I still don’t see much to that angle; it’s something an insightful person could come up with in retrospect, but a 12-year-old during an earthquake? Doubtful.

Is she really unrepentant?

This is the big one. For all of the circumstances that she deals with poorly, for all of her despondency, at least on some level she is a victim: She’s a victim of her own biology. I’ve joked before that instead of sending kids to middle school we should create cage matches for children of that age since it’s really the same thing and they’d learn about as much. When the little kid gets ice cream on her skirt, she nearly breaks down, so confused and frustrated about being confused and frustrated. She feels bad, but she doesn’t know why and she can’t help it. She lives daily in a hormonal nightmare, unable to effectively control her emotions. I still remember what that’s like, and I wasn’t even a girl.

Maybe more important than that moment, though, is her final cellphone diary entry before the quake: I wish the world would just break.

Of course it’s an obvious theatrical flourish to have that coincide in such a way, but it’s more significant than that. She’s a smart girl, and old enough to know on an intellectual level that she can’t cause an earthquake. But if it were you, do you think that could stop you from feeling maybe the first — almost certainly the worst — guilt you’ve ever encountered? I know around that age, being an angry confused kid, I wished for horrible things. And it’s heartbreaking to imagine how she must feel to have that horrible thing actually happen.

Mirai no Mirai

Episode three showed something that I think is really important: For Mirai to grow up, she paradoxically has to be a kid first. Even Yuuki knows it, while she’s at that age of denial, but the incredible danger of the earthquake and Mari’s motherly care are already breaking her down.

With the way in which Bones handles emotion — both delicately and intensely, depending on what’s called for at the moment — and the way this writing crew has handled realism, I’m banking on a coming of age story that will excite and move us, set against a backdrop unlike any we’ve seen before.

For every episode that goes by, I’m afraid the Bones crew will do more for converting people than my blog posts could ever do. Is it working?

My fascination is decidedly for Senjougahara. If there’s anything I feel about the Mayoi Snail arc is that I can’t feel invested in Hachikuji’s monster story. I felt that more than anything, it was a device by which the narrative of Senjougahara and Hitagi would move forward. In Mayoi Snail 1 (episode 03) half of the episode was spent on Senjougahara flirting with Araragi, this will also happen at the end of Mayoi Snail 3. Senjougahara’s courtship of Araragi form the rather powerful and impressive bookends to an arc that’s supposedly about a girl who met a snail monster.

Let me get this out of the way: I enjoyed this episode. I was moved to tears. To give some perspective: I’ve been in a Honey and Clover rewatch marathon all afternoon before I watched this. I didn’t think I was going to be emotionally invested in anything afterward. But man, I love how this episode, and by extension how the entire arc ended.

And I love how it started too! Now that I have a sense of the totality and the movement of the narrative (of the arc, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself), I can really appreciate the long drawn-out conversation in the playground by Senjougahara and Araragi in Mayoi Snail 1 that I had thought established little else but some characterization of the leads. I now see that it’s a rather interesting set-up for the romance.

As for Hachikuji, even while wearing my loli-goggles I found myself rather uncomfortable watching her [image ->] and Araragi. The violence, the groping, the sexually charged conversation, when run together with the mystery of her condition, obscured the progression. I literally had no idea where this was going until it was resolved. And the surprise was Mayoi wasn’t afflicted with a monster. She is the monster, and the afflicted is Araragi himself.

HNNNG? Really?

I’ve stated the inauthenticity of Senjougahara begins with the titillation that we are subjected to (the sparks between Senjougahara and Araragi). I’m given signals that Araragi is being flirted with, and I sense that he reads these signals the same way. This fanservice, or Araragi-service is done under the premise of wanting to “become friends on equal footing,”  that Senjougahara cannot be with having to owe Araragi a favor; that the balance of power must be restored. She seems to claim that there is a power deficit in Araragi’s favor, and yet she exercises all the power here. She submits herself to his will, and yet leaves no doubt who the real dominatrix is.

And then her flirtation is interrupted by Araragi pointing at a mysterious grade school girl in the distance, where he could read the name tag. Senjougahara couldn’t, and Araragi reasoned to himself that it’s because she doesn’t have his Vampire Vision. He gets drawn into the story of Hachikuji, and Mayoi Snail 2 was entirely spent in wandering the urban (re) development to resolve Hachikuji’s monster (as Araragi suspected it as such).

Through the assistance of Oshino Meme, Senjougahara explains the nature of the affliction to Araragi. Mayoi is the snail. Araragi can see dead people, Mayoi has been dead for some time. She can’t process new information, and only has access to a dead person’s static memory. She’s lost because her house is no more, the world has moved on. Senjougahara also reports that a snail like Mayoi is easy to shake. Araragi need only leave her, he just needs to walk away.

But then Araragi starts showing a bit of character. He couldn’t possibly leave her lost like that. That’s just not okay with him, and with Senjougahara he leads the little snail back home (now an empty lot).

Senjougahara comes to a realization: She’s not that special, as to why Araragi saved her. Araragi would save anyone. She no longer needed to frame the relationship in terms of owing favors to be repaid. Perhaps she could even see that despite Araragi’s self-image, that he wasn’t really that small a human being. And she owns up to her inauthenticity:

All that business about granting Araragi a blank cheque favor was her manipulation to make him confess.

She spells it out for all of us.

And so we have a formal beginning to a new romance. I really like it how Senjougahara is shown to demand a formalization of the relationship in words. Relationships are awkward that way, and this detail pleases me. Araragi also makes her promise to be always authentic, to tell him how it is (a reference to her withholding how she couldn’t see Hachikuji the whole time, and went along with him because she was concerned that it was herself who had the problem of not being able to see a visible Mayoi), “If our viewpoints are inconsistent, let’s talk it over.”

With the promise, the inauthenticity is over. It is important to note as well that Araragi’s own inauthenticity is overcome. He wants Senjougahara, how can he possibly go on not owning up to it?

Further Reading

The Inauthenticity of Senjougahara 1 [->]

A more comprehensive take on the episode and gratuitous fanboying on Senjougahara (Panther 2009/08/02)

They’re close to home. The surroundings are familiar. The shelter they’re headed to is none other than Mirai’s middle school, The Rikka School for Girls. The buildings are low, and the area doesn’t seem as ruined as those they passed by. Nonetheless an 8.0 magnitude quake doesn’t fale to leave its mark. The clock face is intact but it’s glass surface is lined with cracks.

Mirai recounts the memory of her welcome in the somewhat prestigious school, a moment of pride for her mother who falls down in an awkward moment of triumph (and redemption, as it’s said that she wasn’t able to go to this school as a girl). The Mirai in the memory is the Mirai we’ve come to know. Embarrassed and perturbed, seemingly incapable of handling any kind of attention, lashing out in her small and bratty manner.

But there are indomitable people by her side, who want no part in her self-indulgent negativity. Mari gives perspective on Mirai’s privilege to attend this school. Yuuki is excited to enter the forbidden: it is an all girls school after all. Mirai tells him he’d be allowed to visit during the school festival, but it’s not like she’d invite him anyway. This is the Mirai we know.

But episode 04 did happen; and all the indignities Mirai suffered — perhaps the shittiest day of her life, were rendered meaningless by how close she was to losing not only her own life, but also Yuuki — in all the ways and possible senses of loss. There is something she can show Yuuki though. There is something she can share, something all her own and only she can make happen for him.

She wanted to show Yuuki how beautiful the stained glass in the church of Rikka School for Girls looked like, but the church was instead filled with the injured and their forlorn loved ones. This drives home how the world is now broken: the familiar is changed. It’s the same place but if feels like something else altogether. And to take this further, Mirai recognizes her first familiar face, that of a classmate: Megu, the girl who’s taking it easy this year by going on a trip to the Caribbean with her folks during summer break.

Mirai didn’t like her that much, and isn’t really friends with her; but she was rather affected seeing this classmate sad, for having lost her mother. Mirai remembered enough to note how Megu invited another classmate over to share the soufflés her mother baked.

They catch each other’s gaze, but there was no further communication. What does one say from 15 feet away? How does one barely familiar approach the intimacy of loss at a time like this? Megu inconsiderate to other people’s means, could only act considerately in her way back in school: to advise Mirai to take a trip somewhere cool, because Tokyo will be hot.  I don’t know if it’s merely Mirai’s social incompetence, but there was little by way of consolation to be given. They leave the church, the stained glass has no light shining behind it. The candles on the floor don’t illuminate very high up. And even if there was beauty in the glass, it would be cruel to enjoy it amongst the wounded and the dead.

Now, is this the same Mirai we know?

I would’ve expected defeatist behavior. Her one good thing to share with Yuuki is now taken away from her.  But the encounter with Megu stirred something. Someone she knows is suffering. Despite not being her friend, or not liking her that much. She is saddened, as if she felt someone else’s pain. In human development terms, empathetic thinking is a milestone in growing children. It happens at around Yuuki’s age, when the child begins to see things from the point of view of another. There is no real graduation from this class. We never master it as human beings. So for Mirai to begin having empathy at this point is an event both big and small, but is something worth appreciating in the narrative.

There is a reward to this growth. It manifests later on she noted how the lights on the pool looked, and how it reminded her of how beautiful the stained glass in the church once was. This was the beauty she wanted Yuuki to see. In the contingency of her situation she found a way to share what she was prevented from doing, even if it was by a power that can topple the Tokyo Tower itself.

The changed world makes for references and memories intsead of the subjects. There is a pervasive, threatening thought; that there will be but memories. What was once beautiful is no more. The shimmering lights of the illumination in the school that contingent as a matter of necessity, of emergency. The school that keeps the unworthy away, is now a shelter for whomever who needs it; now lined with cracks all over its stonework. This is what Mirai has to make do with. A representation of the memory of stained glass.

Our attention shifts to an old man, one half of a kind old couple making themselves useful in the calamity; sometimes to offer kind words, sometimes to deliver water and other necessities, sometimes just to lead the tired to a cooler place to rest.

Being among the familiar, if not the intimately so, allows Mirai to experience the sorrow of others. I don’t know if enough is going on behind her eyes to appreciate the loss of old Furuichi who lost his grandchildren in the quake; but she does break down: seeing how indomitable the old man is, doing so much for so many despite his loss. There he is, congratulating the survivors for their fortune without bitterness. When he says how it should have been him who died in the earthquake, that life belongs to the young; he does not speak out of self-pity, but rather from a compassion for the injured and the dead.

In the face of this example, Mirai says to herself,

There are things I can do now.

The episode ends in a moment of discovery so carefully constructed by the narrative, so patiently laid. There was no rush at all, although the episode seemed to end when I half-expected the midpoint eye-catch to appear. If felt both like two episodes in terms of progress, but only half an episode in duration. I find this tremendously good. When I say how the narrative carefully constructs this moment of discovery, I mean that they could easily have brought this upon her after her near-death experience in the tower, after being so close to losing Yuuki again for reasons of anger and not just irresponsibility. She could have been given her ‘eureka’ moment there.

Yeah people change, but not by much, and not that fast. This not quite gradual, and yet carefully told change through both big frights and the accrual of smaller indignities and sorrows, is something good. It pleases me how a show named with so much bombast: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 can be so quietly moving.

Further Reading

The answer to the question is yes.

Last week it was okay to hate her, if you’re so inclined [->]

We’ve always found it fair to have sympathy for the little devil (otou-san 2009/07/29)

If you haven’t made up your mind about this show, let Mike convince you (Mike 2009/08/05)

Useless trivium: The 3 links lead to 3 Mikes. Shhh.

MAHJONG IS FUNNNNN TENPAI SUKI RI WAI WAI

ahem.

As I was saying…well, amidst the endless sea of Koromo monologues, she expresses that if she sticks with her gut, she’d win.

Well, in ways, she did win even though she lost. Thus came all the KAZOKU stuff, but I think the creators were a bit more clever than that, relying on a typical cliche to try and give more sustenance to the show’s sentimental side. What I found pleasant was that Koromo says she wins by her own will.

“I’m not just a puppet for my instinct!”

“My instincts just try to narrow the possibilities to a single choice.”

“But this time, I choose this one!”

“If I believe in this hand I can sense from Kiyosumi…even if she wins with it, Koromo will be the winner!”

So, it’s interesting because while Koromo, in the flashback, is portrayed as a meek loner, it’s almost as if she loses on purpose, subconsciously. Remember, Koromo said that mahjong was her everything, her entire world, and that people didn’t like Koromo for anything besides mahjong – Koromo thought she was mahjong. Her losing in herself means that it was somewhat of a false self, a self-imposed fabrication, and that she had the potential to truly “win” all along.

Her mahjong loss is a personal gain. “Even if she wins with it, Koromo will be the winner” – Koromo was correct, but in a different way.

Bakemonogatari is the kind of show that makes me liveblog. Instead of spamming melative and twitter, I went directly to my draft of this post. I went to this method because there’s so much going on — an illusion of subtlety ensues. What I mean is that I don’t think this show is subtle. There’s just so much information that it’s very easy to miss things.

It does give you a feeling of depth and more nuance than there really is, but this is not really a bad thing. I had a very good time with this episode. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It seems that eight episodes of the three shows I watched this season (yes, even Canaan so Crusader and digiboy can stop harassing me) are high points. This episode isn’t the highest peak in Bakemonogatari, but I think it ends up being my favorite, recency bias be damned.

What I take away from it is that the problems with these oddities, and of these characters who bear them, is rooted in inauthenticity; lies and truth. It takes characters being honest to themselves and each other, to break free from the affliction of a monster, and to break through the limitations of adolescence. In each arc, the afflicted resolves an inauthenticity within herself (yes, this show is harem that way), which leads to a breakthrough in Senjougahara and Araragi’s relationship (the issue always about authenticity, being straight with each other).

First let us look at the nature of Suruga’s oddity. We see that at the core of it is indeed an inauthenticity with regards to her own wishes and desires, as well as in acknowledging and taking responsibility for her behavior and its outcomes:

The Rainy Devil seems to be a violent devil. –More than anything, it enjoys the feelings of malice and hostility, grudges and remorse, envy and jealousy; put as a whole, negativity.

It sees, causes, draws out, completes people’s dark sides. It hears people’s wishes malevolently, and fulfills them malevolently. The contract itself is, as a contract–

In exchange for ones’ soul, it grants three wishes. When the three wishes are granted– it seems that it will take that human’s life and body. Meaning, in the end, that human becomes a devil.

That’s how it works.

I wonder if there’s a face that I can attach to the narrator of the text throughout the show. I want to put Oshino Meme’s face onto it. I think it works: he has a reasonable intimacy with all the characters, and the events are all given him by Araragi and by the girls themselves. So if these text narrations are delivered in past tense, he could be the second narrator (with Arararagi being the primary, voiced-over one).

If Kanbaru had wished to solve Senjougahara’s problem a year ago when she first learned of it that wish probably wouldn’t have been granted. Because the only wishes that a Rainy Devil can grant are wishes that are violent and negative. Devils read the hidden side of wishes. If there’s a side you show, there’s a hidden side too.

Destroy

She wanted to run fast because she hated her classmates. She wanted to be with Senjougahara because she hated Araragi Koyomi. Tes, it read the hidden side. Yes, it sees the hidden side. It sees her subconscious wish. I see it–the devil.

Even if I’m wrong and he isn’t really playing this role in the narrative, Oshino Meme is awesome. He doesn’t let Suruga play victim to be saved; holding her responsible for her own outcomes. Second, he does the same for Araragi. This is important since the narrative has established how Araragi tries to save everyone. Senjougahara pointed it out clearly, when she confessed to him.

Oshino tells Araragi.

First of all, there are two ways to handle this phenomenon. One is to let the Rainy Devil kill you, Araragi-kun. The other way is… The second is to lop off that beastly left arm.

He doesn’t mince words, this guy; telling the facts in a amused way without being particularly cruel. It’s a rather delicate, and I imagine difficult feat. I like it a lot. He casually quotes the price of survival: “Paying just an arm to settle this is a very cheap price.”

Araragi: ”Killing someone isn’t what Kanbaru wants. She just wants to be with Senjougahara.”

Oshino won’t have this inauthenticity. Authenticity and the lack of it is the business of the Rainy Devil. As mentioned, there is a side people show the world, and there is a hidden side. The fact that there is a hidden side makes for the inauthenticity.

The inauthenticity of people is how they say they value authenticty. There’s a value judgment attached to the tag ‘inauthentic,’ and it’s a negative one. But inauthenticity, is intrinsic to human behavior. LMAO.

He calls Araragi ‘being too kind,’ but the kind that makes him sick. And then Oshino shows the compassion, asking Araragi the workings of the monkey’s paw based on Suruga’s history — without spoonfeeding him the explanation (he only provides the distinction that the paw is really a lesser devil known as a Rainy Devil). This is good stuff.

He then pulls the monkey out of the bag: Suruga really wanted to smack her rivals up. She was having a hard time just after her parents died, and the bullying and persecution — Ohino points out, makes it very plausible for Suruga to have thoughts of revenge. And thoughts are all that’s required for the Rainy Devil to act on, really.

Oshino uses a binary of surface|what lies beneath. I’m not as fond of it to represent the binary of presented|hidden. I would prefer something like front/behind… a vertical representation of thoughs/behavior/personality as opposed to a horizontal one like surface|beneath the surface, which suggests depth, without necessarily substantiating it.

But Bakemonogatari seems intent on pursuing the pop-psychology angle; Oshino frames the events to Suruga in terms of the conscious and subconscious. He tells her that her conscious self tried to look for an explanation for her beat-up classmates different from her wanting revenge on them. It manifested physically: the Monkey’s Paw itself. It’s the paw that twists the wish, Suruga never wanted to do those things. This is shifting the blame, avoiding responsibility, a rather gross act of inauthenticity.

Suruga treats the paw as a seperate entity from herself. She didn’t do those evil things. The paw did! It’s an ‘other’ being. In turn, it started growing on its own, and within the context of the contract mechanics — it was consuming more of what’s left of Suruga’s soul as it grew (in exchange for each wish).

The mechanics of the contract, as Oshino tells us, work out that if the Rainy Devil cannot complete a wish, in this case the third and last wish that is to kill Araragi, the contract is dissolved, and it disappears to where it came from. However, if this means that Suruga’s arm needn’t be cut off, the show just led me on with some manufactured drama. It would’ve given me a false dichotomy just for effect. Talk about inauthenticity.

Araragi buffs up by having Shinobu bite him in the neck in a ridiculously erotic (and disturbing) scene.

Hating is a part of life. I’ll pass on getting killed, but if looking up to Senjougahara is the reason Kanbaru hates me, it’s forgivable.

Is this the authentic Araragi? I don’t know, really, but it’s nice to believe and trust in, isn’t it? Only that I find it remarkable that he didn’t involve Senjougahara in his life or death decision. This tells me he doesn’t really love her yet. If he survives this, Senjougahara should dice him with boxcutters and staple his parts on a school of fish. That’s what I think my wife would do to me if I pulled something like this (over another girl too!).

And just as I think this up, Senjougahara arrives apparently informed by Oshino.

CAUGHT RED-HANDED YOU LIAR. Araragi requested only one thing from Senjougahara when they started dating: that was to be straight with each other. The hypocrisy is obvious. This is delicious stuff. The inauthenticity of Araragi is that he thinks by dying he makes everything ok. He forgets that Senjoughara already rejected Kanbaru even before she fell for him; and doesn’t realize that she will kill Kanbaru whatever it takes.

So up to this point, when Araragi has bee dealt a thousand, ten thousand deaths by Suruga, it’s revealed how one-sided the relationship is. Araragi is unthinking and undevoted. He does what his instincts and helpfulness tells him. He is inconsiderate of how Senjougahara feels. It really takes her to spell it out for him, how he’s behaving, how much it doesn’t work if he’s serious about her. All the while making it very clear that she loves him, that he’s the one she chose; and that she gets his being difficult, meddling too much, and performing unwelcome favors. And then Senjougahara does even something more awesome, which is to settle things with the Rainy Devil, which leads to a tearful Suruga declaring her love to Senjougahara once again, accepting Hitagi’s terms, finding whatever happiness she could find there.

It’s kind of weak, but in his battered state Araragi gets to tell us how awesome Senjougahara is, calling her understanding when he was taling about her perceptiveness (but yes, Senjougahara is understanding and more importantly, forgiving). Well Araragi, we don’t need to you to tell us that. You need to say it to tell us that you get it. That you know how good you’ve got it. Because frankly, you suck at it.

Just like Hachikuji Mayoi, Suruga Kanbaru attaches herself to Araragi after resolving her matter with her oddity. And I expect Araragi to keep floundering, letting his messianic tendencies teach him about life and love while literally wrestling with monsters. I’ll be watching!

Further Reading

Vendredi caught The Monkey’s Paw reference first [->]

Wikipedia entry on The Monkey’s Paw [->]

The Dark Party Review asks if it’s the scariest short story in the world (DP 2008/10/27)

The other episode eight of awesome (I wrote 2 posts on it!): [1] [2]

In the conclusion of Nadeko Snake, we learn more about Araragi than Nadeko herself. More and more Bakemonogatari shifts its narrative focus to tell the story of Araragi. Luckily for me, he is very interesting on a number of levels. In this post I’ll point out something interesting to me in a disturbing way, in light of my conjecture that Araragi is a commentary on the viewers of this show or perhaps the readers of the source text (light novel) who are, more likely than not to be an otaku to some degree.

What do we know about Araragi at this point? He is:

• Compelled to save others.
• ‘Others’ are always female; this is a conceit of Bakemonogatari itself. It takes a harem approach to tell it’s stories. We can also take for granted that the character designs for these female characters are attractive, or meant to be so. Also, if we accept that the ‘gaze’ or camera focus on the particular attractive body parts of these females are Araragi’s, he is attracted to them on an erotic level.
• Unafraid to face danger; vampire healing factor or no.
• Always fails to complete the saving act; the completion is performed by a third party, who almost always saves Araragi from danger.
• Gets credit for the saving act, or at least the sincerity of the intention.

Let’s look a bit further into this, by taking into account his relationships with the females and their oddities.

In the first episode, Hanekawa says this to Araragi:

Guys like weak girls, right? Ah, how disgraceful. It’s so unfair.

This came after Araragi was showing interest in Senjougahara by remarking about her absences which may be due to some illness. Hanekawa is, I believe referring to the ‘sick moe’ type of attraction. There’s more to this, especially if we look at the natures of Araragi’s relationships.

Consistently so, ever since the first episode, Hanekawa is ‘superior’ to Araragi in some way. She is “the class representative of class representatives”, as he notes, while he’s her assistant. He always remarks on how she knows everything, in an admiring and not teasing way. Also, she displays her superiority throughout the narrative so far by being the advisor to Araragi, particularly in matters relating to Senjougahara.

Notably, she’s the one who catches Araragi ‘in the act’ of doing something (perverted). More on this later.

Senjougahara Hitagi is superior to Araragi in almost every way: socially, academically, intellectually, economically, and aesthetically. She knew this and used it to pick on Araragi prior to their becoming a couple. Even after becoming a couple, she represents an imposing physical threat to Araragi, who must live on his toes.

Kanbaru Suruga is superior to Araragi socially (popularity), physically, and in terms of self-expression (that is, she is self-assured and confident in dealing with him, relaxed about herself and her sexuality). Similar to Senjougahara, she is aggressive in flirting with Araragi and teasing him with her sexuality.

Looking at these three, I note that their characters are strong in terms of personality. Hanekawa aside, they present themselves overtly as sexual objects to Araragi. They present as a tease, but aggressively so. Even Hanekawa does this, if tangentially. The whole business in the bookstore in Nadeko Snake 1 makes for the best example.

Now pause for a moment and think about how Araragi reacts to these. He shouts in his head in both mock and real outrage, Kyon style. Part of him resents this teasing. He is bereft of initiative. He can do nothing but endure the flirtation and teasing. He has no ability to respond. He is powerless.

Now take note of the other two females that Araragi assisted. First, Hachikuji Mayoi… an grade schooler, small; a child in almost every way. Next, we have Sengoku Nadeko who is in middle school, barely out of childhood, completely submissive, and even calls Araragi “onii-chan.”

How does Araragi behave? Frankly it’s rather outrageous. As cowed and emasculated he seems in the presence of Senjougahara, Kanbaru, and Hanekawa, he is outright aggressive towards the other two. He not only groped the grade schooler, he actually fought her like a bitch. And when he’d win, he raised his arms and acted like a champion!

This is pretty disturbing stuff if you ask me. It gets worse. In the case of Sengoku Nadeko, Araragi didn’t do much even if  a good number of situations in Nadeko Snake appealed to his fetishes. He mostly jizzed in his head. However, when he found himself alone with Sengoku… he first tried to touch her… face, it seems. Then, suspensefully I watched in morbid fascination as he apparently tries to lift up this middle-schooler’s skirt, in public, in plain fucking sight.

This is when Hanekawa finds him, nearly red-handed; just like when she finds him in an almost post-coital breathlessness after having a scrap with Hachikuji, threatening to molest the grade schooler with impunity. Look at these little girls, played up for their moe. Araragi most certainly felt the need to protect them, to save them. He also felt the need to feel them up.

There is nothing, nothing appropriate about this.

Bakemonogatari is fascinating, isn’t it? We are presented with a character that is despicable, but is also made to be sympathetic — in that he is sincere about wanting to save anyone, and how powerless he is against females who are his social equals or betters. Why, what man wouldn’t be able to relate to having difficulty with women who are his, or more than his match?

Bakemonogatari is rather blunt with how it categorizes power and powerlessness in women. All we need to do is look at the two Shinobus (before and after the nerfing).

Powerlessness, or more specifically being harmless, is manifested in loli forms. Hachikuji and Sengoku are not coincidences. Through them we see what things Araragi can do, as opposed to what he can only fantasize about when he’s with either Hanekawa, Kanbaru, and of course Senjougahara.

But when he does have power over a female, what does he do with it? He is more than a match for Hachikuji’s feistiness — she’s just a kid after all; and Sengoku is the most harmless little thing we’ve met in this show. If indeed Araragi is commentary on the viewers and/or readers of Bakemonogatari (males who may think/want to be appreciated by a female by virtue of their ability to make anime references), how should we feel?

A Note Regarding the Oddities

Araragi is prey to:

• the Mayoi Snail (wanted to prevent him from going home).
• the Suruga Monkey (wanted to kill him to complete its contract).
• the Tsubasa Cat (wanted to suck his energy).

The Hitagi Crab isn’t interested in him, Senjougahara was. The Nadeko Snake is indifferent to him, until he intervened and tried to banish it. I can’t comment on Shinobu yet for lack of information at this point.

Further Reading

A fresh take on the idea of moeblobs and social impairment (2DT 2009/09/18)

I’m not dismissing this show due to the fanservice, only that it’s worth looking at ourselves as fans: what are we really enjoying here? Fanservice can blind us to what other fascinating things there are in the subject. (Owen 2009/02/18)

Beyond what I mentioned in this post, here’s what makes Bakemonogatari and 2D fascination interesting (Martin 2009/09/14)

Bakemonogatari is brilliant? Don’t fall asleep (Orion 2009/08/13)

The genesis of this post comes from a comment [->]

I visit my cross with conviction a fourth time: the concept of the guilty pleasure. For those unaware of my previous writing on it, allow me to distinguish my idea of the guilty pleasure from that commonly held one, that exists on the plane of enjoying levels of culture: that is one feels guilty a ‘low’ culture product like anime or manga (especially if such example is a fanservice show such as K-On! or Ikkitousen) as if one should be enjoying ‘high’ culture classical ballet, German opera, or at least Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

This kind of guilt isn’t what concerns me. Culture is flat as far as I’m concerned; subjectivity, taste, and all that. The kind of guilt that concerns me is a moral one. It’s that thing we feel when we take pleasure in something ‘wrong,’ from our relative and individual moral standards. We have such standards to some degree, most of us certainly do. When we think about the things we watch and how we enjoy them, we may not like what we find about ourselves. In this post we talk about Code Geass.

When I watch political rallies here and abroad, I often find myself on the shocked side of amused upon seeing people, voters, constituents get so emotionally worked up for the candidates and public figures that go on stage. I mean, it gets crazy. There are tears and screaming. It’s almost like witnessing a religious experience on a large scale.

I step back a little, and compare this spectacle to females displaying the same behavior in the presence of pop (music) idols. I still remember the Beatles’ first contact with their American audience. It’s one of the most awesome moments in entertainment. The fanatical shrieking, the tears, the grasping hands… it’s a similar spectacle; and it is repeated through the succeeding decades between female fans and their idols.

I don’t want to get much into the higher proclivity of females to display this kind of behaviors, as well as how men become feminine when indulging these. I’m more interested in why this happens in the first place. I’m going to speculate some, and see where I end up.

Part of it I think is that we tend to cast these individuals into narratives. And these narratives have conflicts: critics panning the musicians’ work, the Man keeping the voice of freedom gagged; almost always the object of fanaticism being unjustly treated, and made to look small, or at least small enough to be cast as the underdog. After all, why cry for giants? Why shed tears for the mighty? The fallen mighty must have a bigger foe that did the felling, to inspire sympathy. Self-destructiveness can be cast as ‘inner’ demons.

Almost always, the evil is externalized. Yes, evil. There needs to be some kind of moral righteousness for the pitying, sympathizing agent. We want to feel good about ourselves especially when we give compassion. It’s a virtuous spiral. But yes it is virtuous in that it must be reassured of its moral righteousness.

If this is so, why the popularity of anti-heroes? Why are Lelouch Lamperouge (Code Geass) and perhaps Yagami Light (Death Note) so popular?

Am I mistaken to assume that the people who ‘get’ these characters are people who don’t scream like fanatics during the political rallies of the candidates they support? I posit that the appreciation of anti-heroes comes with an appreciation for evil. Perhaps not just dispositional evil, but rather the evil sustained by exposure to compromise and corruption. After all, sophisticated voters are somewhat aware of how the political machinery works: trading favors, money, compromise compromise compromise.

What about the people who ‘don’t get’ these characters, and yet wildly support them? I imagine these people have a very limited view of these. Limited perhaps by self-delusions including but not limited to personal hopes pinned on the inherent goodness of humans. In political rallies, these are the people who are quick to call critics of their candidate libelous liars, and slanderers. They shout these things with tears in their eyes… righteous rage, and pity for their besieged hero.

Zero, the leader of the Black Knights and the righteous persona created by Lelouch Lamperouge, plays with these dynamics. Always Zero must be the voice of righteousness. People must believe in themselves to be righteous, and that their opponents to be unjust. The citizens of Britannia certainly consider themselves to be righteous; and that it is their right to subjugate the less righteous, the less rightful. This makes for a compelling narrative that Zero plays with: Britannians consider the Japanese not just less than themselves, but they consider themselves not better than humans, but to be the only humans. The Japanese are a sub-human species and are treated as such by their conquerors.

This is why Zero does not endorse the acquisition of ‘Britannian Rights’ or some half-assed citizenship within the empire for the Japanese. It plays within the narrative, the dichotomy of human/sub-human, master/slave, first class/everyone else class of citizens. What was the Japanese assertion? Explicitly or not, they believed themselves to deserve the rights enjoyed by the Britannian, people, the rights enjoyed by any human being or class thereof, because they are righteous. They as a people believed themselves to be morally strong, to be noble and righteous. This it is why the Order of the Black Knights required themselves to behave heroically, to be in the service of justice.

Zero needed to be a hero. This is the central conflict, the duality or inauthenticity of Lelouch Lamperouge.

• Lelouch vi Britannia: Vengeance upon the perceived murderers of his mother Marianne. This is the truth in the sense that this is what Lelouch believes in and desires most.
• Zero: Political leader and militant liberator of the Japanese people. This is the lie in the sense that more than anything it is the means to accomplishing vengeance upon his perceived enemies.
• Lelouch Lamperouge: This is the vessel that holds both, it is a lie to everyone; nothing truthful or authentic is in this identity.

The Japanese people, the oppressed population of ‘Area 11′ need to somehow believe more than anything that they are righteous, and therefore must be represented by righteous heroes. The resistance, the rebels, both lack a compelling call, a rallying cry that will make the people do more than wait for them to prove themselves. Zero and his Order of the Black Knights provided this call. This is why Britannia did what it could to discredit Zero, to show that he is unheroic, that he is without righteousness.

So how do we behave in following the narrative? What do we enjoy in following Lelouch’s story? Do we want him to win? If we do, WHY? Do we believe in his righteousness, the same way many of the Japanese did when they followed him to China; the same way how the Zero Requiem was designed to recover and then preserve his heroism in the eyes of the people? No. I don’t think so at all. The people who watch this show mainly entertained by the Lelouch narrative are those who are to a degree fascinated by his flawed character; his amoral devotion to his desired ends, his cleverness, and ultimately the strength of his will.

Those of us who ‘follow’ Lelouch, how did we get here? We are shown righteousness first! We are shown how Lelouch is a victim of injustice — from the chess player he defeated (representing adults, Britannians), to the ruthless troops of Clovis, we are shown a weak but clever individual against terrible odds. We are then shown the over matched rebels, and how Lelouch allies himself with them. But somewhere along the way, as early as the second episode of the 50-episode saga, we are shown how Lelouch holds contempt for his enemies, how little he values their lives. This culminates with his murder of Clovis.

This is a decision point for us. If we disapprove of murder in cold blood (and I assume many of us do), we need to ask ourselves if we should keep supporting this character. But at this point, the narrative makes it difficult for us to hold Lelouch in contempt. Clovis is evil. Jeremiah is fascist. It would take Suzaku later on to truly challenge us. And we were! Many of us hated Suzaku, calling him a ‘moralfag,’ as if his stand — to create change from within order and from within the law was despicable; as if Lelouch with his easy manipulation of others — his Geass power is even overtly manipulative, was the hero worth rooting for.

I theorize that this moral problem — the pleasure of rooting for a known murderer; a selfish, manipulating teenager on a revenge streak, does fill people with guilt. What can possibly make this guilt go away? A simple solution is to dismiss the show… and there are levels of dismissal.

The first level is a decisive and telling one: this is just entertainment. It’s just a show. It’s a silly anime with robots and fanservice. We don’t have to think too hard. It doesn’t really say anything about us if we don’t think about it.

See what we did there? That would have been enough, to be honest. However, many of us went further.

The second level is to qualify the entertainment: Code Geass is a bad show. It’s poorly written. We who cannot be bothered to think too hard about the moral implications of rooting for a character like Lelouch are suddenly blessed with the competence to dismiss it further as a show with terrible merit. How terrible? We convince ourselves that the best way to enjoy this show; and the only way we are still enjoying this show, is that it is funny unintentionally. The comedy doesn’t exist within the design of the narrative, but is rather outside it. It’s attempts at presenting a narrative is the object of the ridicule which is then the source of the entertainment value.

At this point we find ourselves rather distant from the moral problem. At this point it is easy to dismiss all the characters’ motivations and morals. These issues can’t be real, can’t be taken seriously… because the show is so bad. It’s popularity increasing exponentially, while the viewers keep telling themselves and each other that they’re only watching this because it is entertainingly bad.

I’m not here to defend the quality of Code Geass. I certainly like it, but nobody else has to.

What I’ve sought to map out is a speculative path of conflict avoidance. Very few of us can convince ourselves that the show is outright terrible after 4 episodes. At that point we are already compelled to watch, and chances are we were compelled by Lelouch. And we were all betrayed by him. By we, I mean the viewers who disagree with murder, and manipulative and malicious selfishness. Overtly or not, we are confronted by enjoying these things. Why do we enjoy it so much? And why do we still like this guy; and by like I mean we want him to triumph in the end. I’m sure we wanted him to redeem himself. That’s a carrot that I’m sure led more than a few of us donkeys through the valleys of Lelouch’s depravity.

I suggested earlier that some of us who went this far with Lelouch may have an appreciation for evil. Maybe some of us do, but I find this less interesting compared to those of us who tell ourselves that we don’t, and suffer guilt for indulging ourselves in it.

Some of us are reassured by his death. His death bought him redemption since it was in the spirit of sacrifice. There was no selfishness left: no legacy to build, nothing to clear or clean his name in history. He wanted to do right by everyone, and to a degree, he did — those who were left. But what of us who insisted that he was alive? Why do we want to keep him alive? Where is the justice in that? Have we distanced ourselves so thoroughly from the moral issues of his narrative that it’s okay for him to get away with everything he has done? All the blood on his hands, and perhaps more damning, all the lies.

Liars, even to themselves can probably go easier on a liar like Lelouch.

But if we acknowledge the lie, did the pleasure we took from watching Code Geass disappear? No. We already had it, enjoyed it. We already defended the show against trolls, or even endorsed it to friends whether as a ‘good’ show, or as a delightful pile of terribleness. It doesn’t matter. We had our fun. Only the guilt remains.

Further Reading

My own ‘fanaticism’ for Ikari Gendo of Neon Genesis Evangelion [->]

Narutaru turns the screws harder and deeper [->]

You should read Wolf Guy – Ookami no Monsho, it’s awesome, in a grisly, manly, action-filled display of ferocity. This post is not an endorsement of the manga, for that you had better read this badass post by Omisyth. But if you’re too lazy to check that out, you probably don’t deserve this work. You’re lucky I’m feeling generous so here’s one good reason to read Wolf Guy:

A (were)wolf takes on a crazy fricking lion in a park in Yokohama! Now READ IT, if you don’t then be warned that there are spoilers from this point forward.

While it is nothing new to read about  story of a character who deals with how different he is from other people, it can be quite interesting reading how he deals with how superior he is to other people. He knows it, and has contempt for those who are different (read: weaker) than he is.

Inugami Akira is different. He is a werewolf, but does not think of himself a monster. A monster is, to deep insult befitting to those who hurl it. He is a wolf, to him a noble animal. I find it rather comical to raise animals in a hierarchy or value system by anthropomorphizing them. Calling a wolf ‘noble’ – a completely human concept only traps the speaker within his own humanity. This is another important conflict in Inugami.

I find this very interesting. Humans ascribe value to non-human things by giving them human traits and attributes. What is to be noble anyway? Take away the heredetary definition, it means the subject possesses many outstanding qualities. This is general enough, and not necessarily anthropomorphic. But let’s look at the qualities of the wolf. (c/o Wikipedia)

Physical:

• wolf weight and size can vary greatly worldwide, tending to increase proportionally with latitude as predicted by Bergmann’s Rule. In general, height varies from 0.6 to 0.95 meters (24 to 37 in) at theshoulder. Wolf weight varies geographically; on average, European wolves may weigh 38.5 kilograms (85 lb), North American wolves 36 kilograms (79 lb), and Indian and Arabian wolves 25 kilograms (55 lb).
• wolves rely on their stamina rather than speed for hunting. Their narrow chests and powerful backs and legs facilitate efficient locomotion. They are capable of covering several miles trotting at about 10 kilometers per hour (6 mph), and have been known to reach speeds approaching 65 kilometers per hour (40 mph) during a chase. One female gray wolf was recorded to have made 7-meter (23 ft) bounds when chasing prey.
• Wolf saliva has been shown to reduce bacterial infection in wounds and accelerate tissue regeneration.

I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to ascribe nobility based on those physical characteristics.

Behavioral:

• Occasionally, single wolves are found in the wild, though packs are more common. Lone wolves are typically old specimens driven from their pack or young adults in search of new territory.
• While most breeding pairs are monogamous, there are exceptions.Wolves will usually remain with their parents until the age of two years. Young from the previous season will support their parents in nursing pups of a later year. Wolf cubs are very submissive to their parents, and remain so after reaching sexual maturity.
• Wolves are territorial animals. Studies have shown that the average size of a wolf pack’s territory is close to 200 km² (80 sq mi). Wolf packs travel constantly in search of prey, covering roughly 9% of their territory per day (average 25 km/d or 15 mi/d). The core of their territory is on average 35 km² (14 sq mi), in which they spend 50% of their time, Prey density tends to be much higher in the territory’s surrounding areas. Despite this higher abundance of prey, wolves tend to avoid hunting in the fringes of their territory unless desperate, due to the possibility of fatal encounters with neighboring packs.
• The majority of killed wolves are dominant animals, due to their greater assertiveness in confronting other packs. In rare cases in which a stranger is accepted into the pack, the animal itself is almost invariably a young specimen of 1–3 years of age, while the majority of killed wolves are adults.

So, the old and the weak are driven out of the pack and end up dying alone. They are often monogamous, and the kids are submissive to parental authority. They perhaps do not efficiently use their territorial habitat due to conflict avoidance. The weaker wolves band together to kill the stronger wolves.

By what standard can we say that the attributes above are outstanding, and abundantly so?

Inugami Akira likes being a wolf, and imagines himself noble, by distinguishing himself as not human. He identifies certain behaviors observed from human beings, and to not do such is to be noble. Among these are ‘taking pleasure in violence,’ (that is, bullying and beating up others), war and murder. These behaviors are to him, are those of a monster. The wolf is noble the way humans would like to be called noble, and humans are monsters the way they vilify the wolf. This is the truth of Inugami Akira’s life.

In the encounter between Inugami in werewolf form and the lion, Inugami viewed it as a fight between noble being and monster. The lion is monstrous in its crazed violence because captivity broke him. Captivity in a zoo, for the pleasure and gratification of humans caused the lion to lose its nobility and become a monster. Inugami blames this squarely on humans, and sees this as evidence of their monstrosity. A lion in the wild will not, at least in Inugami’s imagination, kill for the sake of killing. It will avoid fighting unless truly threatened. The lion in the park was beyond all this, and Inugami had to fight it to the death.

The principal antagonist in the manga is Haguro, the son of a yakuza boss. A powerful physical specimen, Haguro survived multiple gunshot wounds as a child, and has a disconcerting lack of ability to display emotion. This physical power and this lack of emotion inspired others to call him a monster in awe. Haguro rather enjoyed his reputation as a monster and relished displaying it in acts of brutality and violence upon his enemies and subordinates.

Then Inugami decided to reveal his true form to Haguro. It was an enlightening experience, to say the least.

Haguro laughed at himself with disdain after Inugami spared him. He now knew what a true monster is like. Now see here, Haguro sees monstrosity simply as the capability – in terms of physical tools to render violence upon others. Inugami sees monstrosity as the willingness to do so. In Inugami’s thinking, only human beings have this kind of will, independent from a survival instinct, a will that is gratified by the infliction of harm.

The thing about Wolf Guy, is that the conflict really isn’t between two monsters. It is more the conflict within Inugami – that he is confronted with the fact that he is human too, and has a need for humans. He hates humans and himself, the human part. More than anything this attraction and need is represented by his homeroom teacher Aosaka, who in turn is rather helpless against her own attraction to Inugami.

It certainly would be if I didn’t include at least one image of Aosaka-sensei.

What is a monster? Wolf Guy wouldn’t be the first, or even the best manga to raise the question. However, the path to the answer is full like the moon that makes you howl while reading; full of voluptuous violence, and something like the opposite of aggression and yet produces the same effect.

Notes:

Anthropomorphizing is ascribing human traits to non-human objects (e.g. “not even the rain has such small hands”); the subtext here is that even as we distinguish objects from humans in a value hierarchy, we end up giving it very human qualities, only positive.

This post is part of a series called Showing a Bit of Character, requested by ilikewhiterice last April 30, 2010. You can read the guidelines and make your requests here.

I think Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack is an exceedingly important movie in that every time I view it, my opinion of something I had thought to be fundamental to the Gundam franchise changes. The first time I watched it (2008) I was a skeptical non-fan of the franchise as a whole, and was intensely disappointed by what I thought was an unnecessary distraction to the whole narrative: the Quess Paraya sub-plot. I took this as an indicator of the weak, or silly plot craft of Tomino’s parts in the franchise as a whole.

I had seen it again last year, and by that time I was already won over by Gundam by and large. The significant change after this viewing was my attitude towards the Newtype conceit, and its close affinity with deux ex machina habits to end shows. I had accepted that this was fundamental to Gundam, and if I can’t get past my dislike for these, I will not be able to enjoy the franchise as much as I intended.

This would be such a waste, and would be inconsistent with my actual feelings of intense enjoyment of many of the shows. A big part of my enjoyment of the Universal Century is the very idea that it is the narrative milieu where Char Aznable did his deeds. Even during my most skeptical days, I had never not liked Char.

Yes, he was smooth and had incredible charisma – but these are superficialities to what I find so fascinating about him. For the most part, I agree with Iknight’s reading, wherein he compared the circa CCA Char to the Anti-Spirals of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:

The Anti-Spirals are not villainous; they are a dedicated and hard-working group who have sacrificed pretty much anything a human can sacrifice in order to protect the universe from destruction. Their resolve and integrity are unquestionable, which is why it takes an equally resolved set of heroes to defeat them. The Anti-Spirals are a pretty admirable bunch, in a funny kind of way. I term their unswerving (and wierdly selfless) integrity purity of purpose; they may be wrong, but you can’t call them hypocrites or simple powermongers.

Char Aznable, by the time of his Counter Attack, shares the Anti-Spirals’ pessimistic picture of human nature. He and Amuro agree that humanity has to colonise space in order to further their evolution into something less prone to war,¹ but Char feels that humans need some encouragement. Encouragement in the form of a giant rock crashing into the Earth and rendering it uninhabitable (this is anime, after all).² Amuro is prepared to, as he puts it, ‘wait for humanity to learn and grow’ and – just like the Anti Spirals puzzling over Simon’s continuing resistance – Char can’t understand Amuro’s faith in humanity

But Char, who (as I read him) has always operated on the basis that the ends justify the means, proceeds unwaveringly towards his goal. Again, not a self-interested antagonist, grasping for power, but a man marching onwards with the absolute conviction that he is correct. Neither Char nor the Anti-Spiral represent some dramatic revolution in storytelling, but they are both very well-executed examples of the villain who can oppose the hero while keeping his own integrity intact. I, for one, find this kind of opponent builds up the hero, too: it’s one thing to physically defeat your opponent, and quite another to challenge their whole view of the situation – and perhaps it’s most satisfying for the hero to do both.

All very interesting, because what this 3rd rewatch gives me is the opposite of this reading!

Perhaps, I should say that the second half of the film gives me the opposite of this reading. The first half of CCA set Char up to be this powerful and charismatic ideologist, who only so happens to find a scorched-earth strategy acceptable.

In the second half, the closer Char seemed to the resolution of all his plans, the more outright lies he told people: his allies! He lied to Gyunei about his interest in Quess, and lied to Quess about loving her back (“I’ll forget about Lalah and Nanai” LMAO), and lied to Nanai as well (“I need you here with me” I never thought for a moment that Char loved Nanai).  It’s interesting that what he told Gyunei is actually truthful in its twisted way: that he cared nothing about Quess and was really only interested in Neo-Zeon and defeating Amuro.

However, I don’t even fully accept his interest in Neo-Zeon. His suicidal bent at this point tells me that he doesn’t see himself transitioning humans into a post-Earth world; ergo, it doesn’t matter so much if Neo Zeon leads it. As it is, there isn’t a level of succession within it to ensure any form of a sustainable future. Neo-Zeon remains a cult of personality. He just wants to make sure that a post-Earth world happens. As we eventually find out, there isn’t much of a Neo-Zeon without Char.

The final confrontation between Char and Amuro is characterized by Char wanting to face the best possible version of his nemesis. Consider his actions:

• He leaked the Psycoframe technology to the scattered Anaheim Electronics organization, which in turn allowed Amuro’s Nu-Gundam to perform that which ultimately foiled all Char’s plans.
• When faced with the opportunity to destroy an unmanned Nu-Gundam, he instead dismounted from his own mobile suit to fight Amuro ‘on foot’ inside the Axis asteroid.

Char had his death wish. He ensured Amuro would get god mode levels of ability. While Char faced stronger suits at clear disadvantages (see the finale of Z Gundam, when he faced both Paptimus Scirocco’s The O, and Haman Karn’s Qubeley with his inferior and damaged Hyaku-Shiki at once), Amuro in the Nu-Gundam is on another level of ability. Amuro was simply untouchable in CCA, in one of the best if not the best performance of an ace pilot in Universal Century Gundam.

• He criticized Amuro for being no more than a pilot, never doing more to change history except by fighting in a mobile suit. While this is indeed correct, it isn’t a very powerful criticism especially given how Amuro did save the Earth by himself.
• He lashed out to Amuro about Lalah. Never mind Char’s weird reasons, what’s important here to note is how he never got past that event. This final confrontation undermined the touching moments in the end of Z Gundam 37 (The Day of Dakar), where Amuro gave Char confidence in sacrificing his personal freedom for the good of humanity over glasses of whiskey.

The feeling the final moments between Amuro and Char gave me is how Char revealed himself to be such a small human being. This wasn’t the hero (who is willing to be hated by history to do what he believed was best for the future of all) that the first half of the movie set up. This wasn’t the hero that fought valiantly during the entirety of the Gryps conflict (and on the side of the Angels too!). This was more like the revenge-driven slickster that did more than significant things to undermine The Principality of Zeon in the OYW.

Only now, his smoothness is marred by something in the province of pathetic. While it was easy enough to root for him as he took out Kycilla Zabi in A Baoa Qu with a bazooka, it’s disappointing to watch him lie to Quess and Gyunei, and how he led Nanai on.

I imagine myself to be one of the Neo-Zeon mobile suit pilots who attempted to push back the rear half of the Axis asteroid along with the Feddies, when they perhaps figured out that Char was already gone. I mean, why would they do that at all? I interpret this as Char not revealing how he really intends to accomplish his ends to the front line. It’d be similar to how Anavel Gato despite being an officer was kept in the dark about the actual strategy and plan of Operation Stardust in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory.

There were Neo-Zeon soldiers who didn’t think scorching the Earth was an acceptable strategy. Char wasn’t truthful to them as well. Char lied to everyone anyway. What I find remarkable and fascinatingly disappointing is how Char lies were. They weren’t great lies, they were small, petty, and manipulative things. They were lies of someone who perhaps felt close to the end, who was certain of death, and just stopped caring.

Char made everyone think that he was the one to change history, on both sides of the conflict. Blex believed in him, Amuro did too for a time; Bright and Sayla did as well, and Haman Karn gave him every opportunity to create a new world with her.

The thing is, Char wasn’t even selling anything. He never did, until Blex started filling his head with a sense of importance. In the One Year War Char just wanted revenge against the Zabis for killing his father. In CCA, beneath all this world-destroying for world-building theater, Char just wanted to beat Amuro on his own terms and die trying. Why? Revenge for Lalah – who Amuro didn’t murder: she sacrificed herself to save Char. Char’s just angry and hates himself and irresponsibly dragged so many people down.

It’s his soul that’s weighed down by the gravity of his own hatred.

Liking Char this much, is what I would call an authentic guilty pleasure. I attempted to describe here how my latest rewatch of Char’s Counterattack revealed to me how incredibly small a person this character was – not ended up being; he was this small and petty man the whole time. The guilt is for my incredible fascination for him, akin to my fascination for other anime ‘villains’ though outside of Macross characters, I still hold Char as my favorite character in all anime.

Further Reading

Char is fighting for our prayers (Charz 2008/03/16)

Pure Purpose in the Anti-Spiral’s Counterattack (Iknight 2008/03/18)

A similar guilty pleasure is my fascination for Ikari Gendo of Neon Genesis Evangelion [->]

My initial attitude towards CCA is rather unforgiving [->]

But I sure warmed up to it later on! [->]

I went on a Plamo run in Tokyo, the ‘wackiest’ city in Asia. I know this because I watch a lot of anime and read a lot of manga. I also read a lot of related blogs written by people who’ve visited it. However, visiting Tokyo in the summer of 2009 is a strange experience. I was warned that a huge earthquake will hit it, but luckily I haven’t felt anything as little as a shudder.

I was closing the door of my hotel room when a bandaged arm jammed itself from outside. I thought to myself, that’s got to hurt! But the arm continued to come between the door and the latch, and let the person attached to it in.

It was a rather attractive young girl with short hair.

“Excuse me, sorry to bother you but I was chasing this elementary school girl…”

Why would you think that I’d have an elementary school girl in my hotel room?

The teenager, nonplussed in her school uniform with its short skirt that showed her athletic spats from underneath it said, “She was really cute” as if it explained everything.

… (Yeah that’s right, how should I respond to that?!)

Um, can I look at your arm for a moment? That must have hurt and the bandages are coming off… I made a start to get a closer look at the arm when the girl rather forcefully swatted my hands away.

“Don’t touch me! …yet”

Gosh, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to touch you. I mean that was rather inappropriate of me. Oh my good lord  you have FUR ON YOUR ARM!

I didn’t even notice how my hands were hurting due to the force of her defense. Her left arm was covered in thick fur.

“The Monkey’s out of the bag now” She undid her bandages and rolled them up as if she’d be using them again.

I have a first aid kit here, or at least this hotel room should have one. Have a seat.

“Your chairs are full of shopping bags, you here on a shopping tour?”

Oh just sit on the bed then.

“I think I’ll sit on the floor.”

I took out the first aid kit and sat down on the floor next to her. I wasn’t any good at bandaging at all, but she didn’t complain at how I kept on fumbling it. Instead we ended up talking at length.

Are you chasing your sister or cousin or something?

“Nah I just thought she was real cute and I wanted to buy her juice or something.”

Ahhhah, are you… into younger girls?

“No I like older ones too. I think I love one older one, a sempai, the most. Too bad she doesn’t feel the same way, but I’m over her.”

Uh, ok. You don’t have to say any more if you don’t want to. Frankly I’m getting distracted and further embarrassing myself trying to bandage your um, arm.

Suddenly, this rather confident looking girl seemed like she was choking down sobs. She looked down and I couldn’t see her eyes, and then she started telling me this remarkable and very strange story…

So you’re telling me that this young fella risked his life to save you because he wants you to get along with his girlfriend again, who was and is the object of your love?

“Yeah, that’s how it was, or is. We‘re good friends now”

That’s quite fucked up. Sorry, I didn’t mean to judge you. But it’s rather him that I don’t get.

“He’s an odd one, sure. But he’s a good person to the very core. I think it’s why she loves him the way she does. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her devoted to anyone at all the way she is to him now. It kinda stings too.”

I thought you said you were over it.

“As much as I think someone can get over something, yes. Do you ever get completely over someone who doesn‘t love you back the way you want her to?”

Well sweetheart, I suppose you never do.

I almost completely forget about doing her bandages properly and proceeded to fuck it up some more. I look outside the hotel room window and see the city lights, and the cars on the road with their eerie uniformity. Something didn’t feel right. Something tells me I should end this conversation soon.

But I never tried to be friends with her boyfriend, you know.

A total lie. Inauthenticity feels like shit, but I’m playing it this way.

“I suppose you’re right. But I really want them both to be happy. I really do.”

Yeah I don’t doubt you. It’s just that I think it’ll be harder to convince yourself of that the longer you hang around both of them,

when they’re together or as individuals. The last thing you want is when both of them start telling you their problems with each other.

Think about it. That’s going to suck.

“Why? What’s the problem with that? Won’t that mean that I’m valued and important?”

True that. However do you really want to get off on how unhappy she is with him? Or how he’s fucking things up with her? And before you know it, how they move forward as a couple has too much to do with you. Is that what you want?

“No! No way! I’d rather that you think better of me.”

But that’s how you got this furry arm in the first place didn’t you?

“I think I’ve heard enough mister. I’m going to leave now. Thank you for offering to bandage me up, though you really suck at it.”

She expertly wraps herself up with the bandages, then stands up and leaves without shutting the door. I really wanted to wish her well, but somehow I couldn’t say it. I really should go home. I’ve overspent on mecha anime merchandise in this trip and I got responsibilities to return to back in Manila.

But from across the room I see this elementary school girl in her uniform peeking into my room from behind the doorway…

Further Reading

Martin’s view of Tokyo, part of a series (Martin 2009/05/28)

Usagijen attacks the Tokyo Tower (usagijen 2009/02/16)

More on Suruga Monkey [1] [2] [3]

You should read Wolf Guy – Ookami no Monsho, it’s awesome, in a grisly, manly, action-filled display of ferocity. This post is not an endorsement of the manga, for that you had better read this badass post by Omisyth. But if you’re too lazy to check that out, you probably don’t deserve this work. You’re lucky I’m feeling generous so here’s one good reason to read Wolf Guy:

A (were)wolf takes on a crazy fricking lion in a park in Yokohama! Now READ IT, if you don’t then be warned that there are spoilers from this point forward.

While it is nothing new to read about  story of a character who deals with how different he is from other people, it can be quite interesting reading how he deals with how superior he is to other people. He knows it, and has contempt for those who are different (read: weaker) than he is.

Inugami Akira is different. He is a werewolf, but does not think of himself a monster. A monster is, to deep insult befitting to those who hurl it. He is a wolf, to him a noble animal. I find it rather comical to raise animals in a hierarchy or value system by anthropomorphizing them. Calling a wolf ‘noble’ – a completely human concept only traps the speaker within his own humanity. This is another important conflict in Inugami.

I find this very interesting. Humans ascribe value to non-human things by giving them human traits and attributes. What is to be noble anyway? Take away the heredetary definition, it means the subject possesses many outstanding qualities. This is general enough, and not necessarily anthropomorphic. But let’s look at the qualities of the wolf. (c/o Wikipedia)

Physical:

• wolf weight and size can vary greatly worldwide, tending to increase proportionally with latitude as predicted by Bergmann’s Rule. In general, height varies from 0.6 to 0.95 meters (24 to 37 in) at theshoulder. Wolf weight varies geographically; on average, European wolves may weigh 38.5 kilograms (85 lb), North American wolves 36 kilograms (79 lb), and Indian and Arabian wolves 25 kilograms (55 lb).
• wolves rely on their stamina rather than speed for hunting. Their narrow chests and powerful backs and legs facilitate efficient locomotion. They are capable of covering several miles trotting at about 10 kilometers per hour (6 mph), and have been known to reach speeds approaching 65 kilometers per hour (40 mph) during a chase. One female gray wolf was recorded to have made 7-meter (23 ft) bounds when chasing prey.
• Wolf saliva has been shown to reduce bacterial infection in wounds and accelerate tissue regeneration.

I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to ascribe nobility based on those physical characteristics.

Behavioral:

• Occasionally, single wolves are found in the wild, though packs are more common. Lone wolves are typically old specimens driven from their pack or young adults in search of new territory.
• While most breeding pairs are monogamous, there are exceptions.Wolves will usually remain with their parents until the age of two years. Young from the previous season will support their parents in nursing pups of a later year. Wolf cubs are very submissive to their parents, and remain so after reaching sexual maturity.
• Wolves are territorial animals. Studies have shown that the average size of a wolf pack’s territory is close to 200 km² (80 sq mi). Wolf packs travel constantly in search of prey, covering roughly 9% of their territory per day (average 25 km/d or 15 mi/d). The core of their territory is on average 35 km² (14 sq mi), in which they spend 50% of their time, Prey density tends to be much higher in the territory’s surrounding areas. Despite this higher abundance of prey, wolves tend to avoid hunting in the fringes of their territory unless desperate, due to the possibility of fatal encounters with neighboring packs.
• The majority of killed wolves are dominant animals, due to their greater assertiveness in confronting other packs. In rare cases in which a stranger is accepted into the pack, the animal itself is almost invariably a young specimen of 1–3 years of age, while the majority of killed wolves are adults.

So, the old and the weak are driven out of the pack and end up dying alone. They are often monogamous, and the kids are submissive to parental authority. They perhaps do not efficiently use their territorial habitat due to conflict avoidance. The weaker wolves band together to kill the stronger wolves.

By what standard can we say that the attributes above are outstanding, and abundantly so?

Inugami Akira likes being a wolf, and imagines himself noble, by distinguishing himself as not human. He identifies certain behaviors observed from human beings, and to not do such is to be noble. Among these are ‘taking pleasure in violence,’ (that is, bullying and beating up others), war and murder. These behaviors are to him, are those of a monster. The wolf is noble the way humans would like to be called noble, and humans are monsters the way they vilify the wolf. This is the truth of Inugami Akira’s life.

In the encounter between Inugami in werewolf form and the lion, Inugami viewed it as a fight between noble being and monster. The lion is monstrous in its crazed violence because captivity broke him. Captivity in a zoo, for the pleasure and gratification of humans caused the lion to lose its nobility and become a monster. Inugami blames this squarely on humans, and sees this as evidence of their monstrosity. A lion in the wild will not, at least in Inugami’s imagination, kill for the sake of killing. It will avoid fighting unless truly threatened. The lion in the park was beyond all this, and Inugami had to fight it to the death.

The principal antagonist in the manga is Haguro, the son of a yakuza boss. A powerful physical specimen, Haguro survived multiple gunshot wounds as a child, and has a disconcerting lack of ability to display emotion. This physical power and this lack of emotion inspired others to call him a monster in awe. Haguro rather enjoyed his reputation as a monster and relished displaying it in acts of brutality and violence upon his enemies and subordinates.

Then Inugami decided to reveal his true form to Haguro. It was an enlightening experience, to say the least.

Haguro laughed at himself with disdain after Inugami spared him. He now knew what a true monster is like. Now see here, Haguro sees monstrosity simply as the capability – in terms of physical tools to render violence upon others. Inugami sees monstrosity as the willingness to do so. In Inugami’s thinking, only human beings have this kind of will, independent from a survival instinct, a will that is gratified by the infliction of harm.

The thing about Wolf Guy, is that the conflict really isn’t between two monsters. It is more the conflict within Inugami – that he is confronted with the fact that he is human too, and has a need for humans. He hates humans and himself, the human part. More than anything this attraction and need is represented by his homeroom teacher Aosaka, who in turn is rather helpless against her own attraction to Inugami.

It certainly would be if I didn’t include at least one image of Aosaka-sensei.

What is a monster? Wolf Guy wouldn’t be the first, or even the best manga to raise the question. However, the path to the answer is full like the moon that makes you howl while reading; full of voluptuous violence, and something like the opposite of aggression and yet produces the same effect.

Notes:

Anthropomorphizing is ascribing human traits to non-human objects (e.g. “not even the rain has such small hands”); the subtext here is that even as we distinguish objects from humans in a value hierarchy, we end up giving it very human qualities, only positive.

This post is part of a series called Showing a Bit of Character, requested by ilikewhiterice last April 30, 2010. You can read the guidelines and make your requests here.