Nakama Britannica

When people think of Japanese stereotypes, samurais and ninjas must be the most disseminated ones in pop culture. Ninjas were spies and assassins, warriors said to possess the powers of ninjutsu, the ninja techniques, and the image of the ninja dressed all in black is a powerful one.

Samurais in their full armour are also a very powerful image. But for aesthetic reasons, they usually appear in their kimonos in anime and manga.

There are no famous ninjas worth talking about, after all a known ninja is a ninja who blew his cover. But the same can’t be said for samurais. Many of them survived in history and legend and I dare say it’s impossible to like anime without meeting a character inspired by a samurai or even a romanticized version of one. Keep reading →

Sometimes you can just watch too much anime even if you don’t watch that much. The amount of new series being released can be overwhelming to the point where you just have to step back for a while because you can’t tell if a series is good or if a series is bad anymore, it just exists. Time for a holiday away from anime for a while.

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First off, apologies for the delay (and for the crooked images, wordpress is weird). I have exams this week and I was through in Glasgow watching The Kings of Leon rock the house at the S.E.C.C.

Anyway, earlier on during the week I had to endure one of the worst films I’ve seen in the last year or so. Speed Racer. I haven’t felt that my time has been wasted this bad since I reviewed Divergence Eve last year. (And no, I will never, ever get around to reviewing the third volume)

This two hour piece of crap prompted me to think about Hollywood and our favourite import from the east. Will they ever do a decent adaptation of anything to do with Anime or Manga?

The biggest problem that I have with this whole scenario is that we, as the regular punters, know that Tinsel Town can chuck out a decent adaptation of something. Insert Spiderman and Batman here. But when it comes to using source material from Asia, everything turns out to be like Daredevil, and the first Hulk, and the Fantastic Four. These three films on their own almost put the last nail in the coffin for comic related films until X-Men and Spiderman came along to save the day.

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[This article is my reply to Alex's excellent 'For the anime fan in 2008, is it essential to watch online anime?']

I came across this recent news article at ANN, ‘Dennou Coil Wins Award from Japanese Sci-Fi Writers‘ and more than anything else, it annoyed me. Here’s why.

‘Dennou Coil‘ was amongst the most acclaimed anime TV series of 2007, a beautifully animated, whimsical science fiction story with broad appeal and notable production values, often likened to the adventurous mainstream story-telling of ‘Studio Ghibli’. Naturally, it wasn’t a particularly big hit with the hardcore anime fans, or at least, not on the same level as something like ‘Haruhi’, but it is capable of capturing of the imagination of someone (or some kid) not usually swept away by the conventional tropes of Japanese animation.

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As the year draws to a close, I’ve been scanning the lists of anime to be released in the UK on DVD at Christmas with a slightly jaundiced eye. Don’t get me wrong – I’m more than grateful for what we have available now on R2, especially when I think back to the turn of the century(!) when all I could find in our local HMV was, well, next to nothing, and certainly nothing that I wanted to buy…)
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I’ll say at the start of this blog that I’m not the most knowledgeable anime fan around.  I like what I like, but I don’t have an exhaustive knowledge of series, directors, studios, voice actors, and the industry as a whole.  Nor am I the sort of person who has to watch things as soon as they come out – I’m happy to wait a while, and if there’s something I want, I know I’ll get it eventually.  The good stuff will always filter through, given time.  So this isn’t going to be an in-depth analysis of the anime industry - that’s beyond my knowledge at this stage.

I like buying anime and manga.  I like the feeling of ‘owning’ something, of building up a little library of releases, however modest mine may be compared to others.  I’m also in the lucky and privileged position of being a reviewer for AUKN, meaning I get review copies of DVDs and manga volumes.  Aside from that, I always try to watch anime when it’s on television.  I saw Cowboy Bebop for the first time on the ill-fated Anime Central channel.  And this winter period, I’m looking forward to Channel 4/Film 4 hopefully showing some Studio Ghibli films, as they often do.

But there’s one medium that’s always escaped me.  I have never got into watching anime online.  I’ve been thinking about this lately.  I think there’s a few reasons why this is.

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One thing that’s caught my attention lately is how, in terms of genre and target audience, categorising an anime or manga series is surprisingly complicated. Many titles are marketed along the lines of age and gender of the target audience or readership: namely shounen (young, male), shoujo (young, female), seinen (older, male) and josei (older, female). In fairness, it makes a lot of sense to divide things up like this when looking for a recommendation that is in line with you and your time of life. It goes without saying that Japanese writers don’t usually have overseas audiences and their differing expectations in mind so it’s possible that a title finds favour abroad in a completely different demographic to that was intended which leads to some interesting and unexpected results.

Bear in mind that for the sake of clarity I’m making some generalisations of my own here. I’m not knocking shounen shows by calling them unsophisticated and generic, nor am I implying that you should be put off by a title that “isn’t aimed at people like me.” There seem to be some differences in culture that dictate target audience between fans in different countries and because of these cultural differences, not to mention preconceptions among international fans and the differing ways in marketing, the genre boundaries seem to be all over the place. It’s a confusing issue but I think it’s worth thinking over because I honestly believe that trying to be aware of it helps in your appreciation of the medium.

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Welcome to final ‘Ghost in the Shell’: What’s inside the Shell? This time we skip three scenes which were not suitable for analysis, if you wish to though you could analyse these yourself and post them on here, and go stright to one of ‘Ghost in the Shell’s’ signature scenes: scene 13.  Oshii’s pretentiousness seeps through into most of work, tainting it and asphyxiating any attempt to make it watchable. Conversely, the Floating Museum cuts off that seeping ooze and rather allows Oshii to realise his perfect scene. This scene is the synthesis of complex animation and story line complimented by a stunning score and a truly perplexing ending. This last ‘Ghost in the Shell’: What’s inside the Shell? Will attempt to reconcile this synthesis in what is truly Oshii’s defining piece. ‘Patlabor’, and most of Oshii’s other work, cannot even attempt to reach the heights of what ‘Ghost in the Shell’ does! This scene is one of the reasons why.

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Albeit that when I had the epiphany, I didn’t actually intend it to be in anyway sequential, I realise now that one of the notes I most wanted to convey in my last article (that anime characters are strangely diverse, likeable and unique), must inevitably occupy the same territory as those at the heart of this one.

I’ve often worried, especially while watching one of my friends get overly excited about anime conventions and cosplaying Naruto characters, whether the people who passionately and proudly bring characters to life today - creating AMVs, drawing fanart and generally giving their favourites creative treatment - might not be doing the same for another series in a few years time. Essentially, whether my friend might be garbed in the clothes of the next big shounen series, and forget all about Naruto, or at least the emotional fancies that she currently lives jubilantly in.

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