2023: The Infinity Dreams Award

So I don't do a whole lot of "networking" on this blog, since I primarily use it as a personal outlet/journal sort of affair. I should probably do a bit more, though, particularly as I'm quite active on other forms of social media such as Twitter, where I've found a great number of people who are interested in the same sorts of things as me — which, believe me, is really important.

These blog "award" things are posting prompts that I've seen before, but never really participated in. They can be fun, though, so when Nick of The Skycorps Blog mentioned The Infinity Dreams Award on Twitter yesterday and was looking for people to pass it on to, I volunteered. So thanks, Nick! Me stepping up may not be quite the same thing as someone nominating me without prompting, but I'm grateful for you following through (and the links!) nonetheless.

So what is The Infinity Dreams Award? Well, unlike other blog awards that do the rounds, this isn't a list of questions to answer followed by the opportunity to send on some of your own questions. Instead, it's much simpler: all you have to do is list seven dreams — as in ambitions, not night-time dreams — that you have, and be as personal as you want about it. Well, you all know I have no problem in laying myself out there on this here blog, so let's get intimate.

In no particular order, then, here are my seven dreams.

Dream 1: Finish and publish one of my stories

Shamelessly stealing this from Nick here, but since his first couple of dreams resonated strongly with me, too, I thought I'd give my own thoughts on a similar situation.

I absolutely love writing, particularly creative writing, and so it would be fantastic to actually finish a complete novel-length story and publish it somehow. As long-standing readers will know, I have actually finished several stories in blog format on this here site, but those are largely improvisational and unplanned in nature, and as such would require some heavy editing in order to be publishable.

I do, however, have a number of different stories floating around in my head, some of which I've started writing and others of which are just an interesting idea. The main barrier to me actually knuckling down and finishing one is the fact that I can do Beginnings, and I can do Endings, but it's the middle bit that leads from one to the other that I find myself struggling with a bit. My absolute favourite story that I've been writing for years now has a very clear beginning and a very clear end, but I have absolutely no idea how to join them up together.

Dream 2: Find a good job

Nick's second dream also very much applies to me, as regular readers will know. I'm currently in a situation where I know that "conventional" employment is not a particularly good fit for me, but where freelance work isn't enormously forthcoming for one reason or another. As I noted the other day, there's the possibility of going into business by myself as a Slimming World consultant, and that's something that very much appeals — though the start-up costs for that are significant, and that, frankly, frightens me a bit. As the days go by, though, I'm starting to think more and more that I need to face that fear and just jump in; the job itself, I feel, is something I could do well at and be happy with, so I'm inclined to pursue it and see what happens.

This is, of course, assuming that they interview me and want me in the first place, which remains to be seen, so all of the above may be a moot point.

Dream 3: Publish a successful magazine

Matt at Digitally Downloaded and I have been working hard on our first edition of our magazine, which we're aiming to try and get out of the door at the end of this month. I'm really pleased with what we've developed so far, and I'm very, very excited about the future.

I believe there's absolutely a market for what we're doing, because it's very distinct from what websites offer. I much prefer the sort of thing we're doing — in-depth readings and criticism rather than questionable journalism — and I feel the whole "make the sort of thing you want to see" philosophy is a good basis for creating something. Because chances are you aren't the only one to feel the way you do, as lonely as opinions outside the "norm" can feel sometimes.

Dream 4: Build up my music teaching client base

I already have two piano pupils, with a possible third and fourth coming later in the year. That earns me a few quid each week, but by no means enough to actually survive on. I would love to have more pupils, though in order to do that I know I need to make more of an effort with promotion — it's figuring out where to start with all that. This is one area where the Slimming World job could potentially help me out — a big part of that job is promotion, so it would give me some great ideas on how to get noticed.

Dream 5: Become fluent in Japanese

This is a long-term one, but I'm making the effort. Since my evening classes are no longer running, I have to self-study, which at times can be challenging, but I've found the online courses at YesJapan.com work well with the way my brain works and offer a variety of activities to learn in different ways, so I'm going to continue with those as long as possible. The natural realisation of this dream is the point where I can import a game from Japan and be able to understand everything that is going on in it at the same speed I can do with an English game. In the short-term, I'll just be happy with getting my head around both hiragana and katakana, the former of which I'm getting reasonably confident with, the latter of which is still a mystery.

Dream 6: Reach my target weight and continue losing

I'm still a few stone off the "target" I set for myself when I joined Slimming World, but I've already lost over four stone since February and am continuing to lose, on average, at least a pound every week. I already feel way better about myself than I have done in years, and I can't even imagine how much more self-confidence I will have with a few more stone off my body.

Dream 7: Conquer my depression and anxiety

I don't know if this one will ever come to fruition, but in many ways it's the one I most hope will come true. Depression and anxiety have absolutely crippled and almost destroyed my life up until this point, and I despise them for it. I am better than I was, but my horrible experiences with my last job set me back a good year or two in the "recovery" process — a fact for which I will never forgive those responsible. One day, I would like to be free; for the moment, however, I'll be happy with the odd day of contentment.

I'm supposed to nominate some people now, who will then run with this and continue in their own way — or perhaps ignore it completely. Either way, then, I nominate the following people and blogs:

Pete Skerritt of Consoleation
awesomecurry of カレーまみれ勇者の冒険 Curry Chronicles
Chris Schilling of rudderless
Jud House of Jud's Game Reviews and Jud's Jottings

Not sure quite how many people I'm supposed to nominate, but four is probably fine for now. Drop me a comment or pingback if you decide to participate in this; I'll be very interested to read what you have to say.

2021: Pondering the Future

I went along to a Slimming World recruitment event today, partly out of curiosity and partly because on reflection I had been feeling that it was a possible career direction for me. I say "career"; I can barely call the procession of jobs I've had since leaving university a "career" in good conscience, really, but what I saw today gave me pause, and a feeling that this might actually be something I want to do and that I'm interested in exploring.

Becoming a Slimming World consultant involves going into business for yourself — including forking over a not-insubstantial amount of money as a franchise fee — and having to put in a fair amount of work for promotion and whatnot. The prospect of running a business that is more complicated than I Do Stuff, You Pay Me has always been pretty daunting to me, but looking over the information today and thinking about it made me realise that it's perhaps not quite as scary as what I've been imagining, and that it might well be something that could work well for me.

I make no secret of the fact that I've struggled with what I'd refer to as "conventional employment" over the years. Classroom teaching nearly drove me to suicide on several occasions — though thankfully I didn't come close to even attempting it — while working retail frustrated me at the lack of progression after a certain point if I didn't want to become a manager. Working an office job, meanwhile, was so tedious I was literally bored to tears on an increasingly frequent basis as my time with the company progressed — and, of course, I was ultimately bullied out of the place by people who don't understand depression and anxiety as mental health issues. And freelance writing work, the work with which I've had the most success over the years, lacks the stability I need to feel truly comfortable that I'm "surviving" as best I can.

The prospect of running my own Slimming World business, then, although scary, is appealing. And the main reason for that is that it gets around one of my key problems with full-time positions I've held in the past: the fact that they monopolise all of your time, and that even when companies have explicit policies in place to supposedly maintain a "work-life balance", you still find yourself doing little more in the week than going out at some ungodly hour in the morning, going somewhere you hate to work with people you despise, then coming home in the evening to do little more than the bare minimum required to keep yourself awake and vaguely entertained until the sun sets and it's an acceptable time to go to bed, at which point the whole hideous cycle repeats itself over and over again.

Err, where was I? Oh, yes, the reason running my own business is an appealing prospect. Yes, with all the above in mind, the fact that running a Slimming World business, once you're established and you get your metaphorical "machine" up, running and well-oiled, only takes up a relatively small proportion of the week means that I can pursue all the other things that I might want to do. I can support my income from Slimming World with the irregular freelance work I've been doing. I can continue teaching piano lessons. I can work on the magazine I'm working on with Matt at Digitally Downloaded. In short, I can balance my life, do a variety of things and hopefully not drive myself into the pit of despair that the aforementioned "conventional employment" has ground me down into more than once in my life.

I don't know if I'm the right person for the Slimming World job in the eyes of the recruitment team. I don't know if they'll even interview me, so I haven't got my hopes up or anything. But if the opportunity presents itself, I'm going to give it very serious consideration indeed. It's a job that I think I'd be good at; it's a job I think I'd enjoy; it's a job that I actually feel strongly about and believe in; it's a job that actually uses the skills I've built up and been trained in over the years.

There's just the prospect of that initial start-up fee that's a bit scary. You have to spend money to make money, or so they say, and every new business is faced with start-up costs. I've never had to confront them myself, though, and it's this part that's making me hesitate more than anything else; everything else, I feel, is something that I can handle — perhaps with some training in some areas — but all that means nothing if I can't clear the initial hurdle.

I have thinking to do, and a decision to reach relatively quickly. Perhaps, anyway; it may be that I'm rejected outright, which will suck, of course, but at least it will let me know that I need to pursue other avenues instead. We shall see; I feel I'm on the boundary of something important here, but it remains to be seen if I'm able to make it through onto the other side or not.

2020: Original Content

I've been watching a fair bit of Netflix's original content lately. I'll freely admit that I'd been resistant to the idea of an online service's exclusive content through irrational prejudices, but I'm pleased to have been proven very, very wrong indeed.

Let me explain those irrational prejudices first.

I grew up in a bit of a golden era of TV, full of popular shows ranging from Friends to Star Trek: The Next Generation via Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. These shows ran for a long time, attracted passionate fanbases and, in many cases, were big-budget productions that put out some impressive stuff on a week-by-week basis. Conversely, in the early days of Internet video, Internet video series tended to be done on the cheap; there's nothing wrong with that per se, of course, but that cheapness didn't just extend to production values — it also extended to quality of talent in all aspects of the production. A side-effect of the whole "suddenly everyone is a content creator" aspect of Web 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever it is we're on now.

So, then, I didn't make much of a habit of watching regular Internet video series for quite some time. To this day, there are very few YouTube series that I follow, and I generally preferred to grab a DVD or Blu-Ray box set of a favourite TV series and binge-watch it over the course of a month or two. No waiting for new episodes, no having to watch according to someone else's schedule — just literally content on demand.

With my lack of involvement in Internet video, then, I maintained the assumption that Internet-exclusive video would be cheap, shitty productions that weren't really worth bothering with. I even continued with this assumption as people started praising Netflix's first original series House of Cards — largely because the subject matter didn't really interest me — but just recently, I've finally come around to it, and I'm impressed.

The two shows that have made me a believer in Internet-exclusive content and convinced me that Netflix is absolutely a contender in the original TV programming department are Bojack Horseman and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I watched both on the recommendations of other people, and both have been highly enjoyable, not to mention well up to the standard of the stuff you get on TV or in DVD box sets.

Bojack Horseman is an animated show about a washed-up '90s sitcom veteran who just happens to be a horse-man. Not like a centaur, he's just literally a dude with a horse's head. Over the course of Bojack Horseman, we're introduced to a number of different characters, some of whom are regular human beings and others of whom are, like Bojack himself, anthropomorphised animals. This is a wonderful source of comedy: for the most part, the animal people act just like normal humans, but just occasionally — just often enough to be funny without feeling like a forced joke — they'll exhibit some sort of behaviour that their animal counterpart would do.

Bojack Horseman isn't just cheap laughs, though. It's one of those "adult animation" shows that looks ridiculous and silly on the outside, but which has a heart underneath. Bojack is a deeply flawed yet somewhat sympathetic character struggling to come to terms with the fact that he 1) isn't as famous as he used to be and 2) might actually be a horrible person. The series explores his character in great detail — partly through the eyes of his biographer Diane — and we learn a great deal about him. He's certainly much more than — and I'm sorry — a one-trick pony.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, meanwhile, is a live action show from the pen of Tina Fey. It concerns a young woman who was kidnapped and kept underground for fifteen years by a ne'er-do-well claiming to be a "Reverend" saving them from the Apocalypse. Since Kimmy was kept sheltered from all of existence for these fifteen years, she knows pretty much nothing about how the world works, and gets into numerous entertaining misadventures in New York as a result.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, like Fey's other work, is sharp, quick witted and frequently scathing. Kimmy is lovably naive without being irritatingly stupid, and the supporting characters are all strong in their own right — albeit often being somewhat exaggerated caricatures. It's a show in which not a great deal actually happens from one episode to another, but the whole thing has a ton of heart and soul to it, and the entire story arc is nicely and neatly wrapped up by the end of the run. I wouldn't be averse to another season of it, but the beauty of it as it exists right now is that it doesn't really need one, since it's told Kimmy's story pretty much from start to finish over the course of 13 episodes.

And that's sort of the beauty of what Netflix is able to do here. Without the pressure from networks and advertising, the teams coming up with this stuff have a lot more freedom than they would if they were composing for traditional television. This, in turn, allows them to be a lot more experimental, daring and interesting with what they're coming out with, and we're already starting to see what a positive effect that has on output.

I'm over my prejudice towards Internet-exclusives, then — though a ton of YouTube-exclusive stuff is still a load of old wank — and am now much more inclined to check out Netflix's original content than I would previously have been. I'm sure there'll be plenty more of Bojack Horseman and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's calibre in the future, and I'm looking forward to watching them when they appear.

2014: Making Connections

Although I'm not pretending to have any real understanding of social interactions in general — in fact, as I often mention, I go through life feeling like I really do't know what to do in a lot of "everyday" social situations — I find the way little communities and cliques develop to be fascinating, both to observe from the outside, and to be a part of from within.

I have a few examples in mind. First, and most prominent, is Twitter. I've drifted from group to group a bit since I originally joined Twitter a number of years back. Originally, my use of Twitter was primarily to have a means of talking to my online friends with whom I used to interact on 1up.com. After "The Great Exodus", when 1up's specialised forums were mashed together into a NeoGAF-style monstrosity of just "Games" and "Not Games", a significant proportion of the community left the site's forums, and many of them found themselves on Twitter. Over time, people changed, moved and became involved in different things. Some gave up on Twitter altogether; others started using it for professional purposes; others still "rebranded" themselves.

I fell somewhat into the latter category. After suffering a fairly serious instance of doxxing and harassment back in 2013 — see, it's not just women it happens to, contrary to what the media would have you believe — I left Twitter, initially intending not to return, but after realising what a pile of crap Facebook is for actually interacting with people in a meaningful manner, I returned. After realising that the interminable social justice yelling on Twitter was setting off my depression and anxiety, I left again. This time when I came back (they always come back) I decided to "reinvent" myself a bit, and follow fewer of the people I felt I "should" be following, and instead focused on people who posted things I found interesting or enjoyable to interact with. Consequently, these days I find myself on the fringes of "anitwitter", a subculture on the social network that discusses, posts screencaps and generally enthuses about anime and games. I, as you might expect, fit right in.

Elsewhere on the Internet, the Discord server I mentioned the other day (which, dear reader, you're still welcome to come and join) has been developing slowly but surely, but it's our Final Fantasy XIV Free Company server that is perhaps the more interesting example. Taking cues from the in-game friend who introduced me to Discord in the first place, I added an "NSFW" (Not Safe for Work) channel to the server. It immediately became the most active channel in the place, though initially people weren't quite sure what to post in there, i.e. whether or not it was okay to post filth. (It was, though someone stumbled accidentally into it and complained a bit at being confronted with a wall of hentai, so we've since made it invite-only — community management at work!)

What's interesting about the NSFW channel is that the usual boundaries of "politeness" that are up when interacting with other people online in real time — in my experience, anyway; I tend not to hang around with the sort of people who hurl insults and abuse at one another — are nowhere to be seen. I don't mean that people are rude to one another; quite the opposite, in fact. The NSFW channel is a place where everyone can be open and honest about the things that they like, and where no-one judges one another for the things they talk about and post. (Or, if they do, they keep that to themselves.) It's pretty refreshing and liberating, actually, and makes it abundantly clear that there should probably be more places for people — particularly, it has to be said, men — to be able to talk about things like sex, fetishes and all that sort of thing without fear of judgement or anything like that. I shan't go into any further details than that, but suffice to say we're all having a jolly old time in there.

Anyway, yeah. Online communities. Just as interesting as real communities, I think you'll agree…

2012: Tentacle Bento

It occurs to me that I haven't yet written about Tentacle Bento, a card game I picked up at PAX but have only recently had the opportunity to try for the first time.

Tentacle Bento is a fairly simple game whose concept made the Outrage Brigade piss their collective pants a while back, which these days, to be honest, is enough to make me want to check anything out. Essentially, it's an anime-inspired (all right, hentai-inspired) game in which you and your friends take on the role of ill-defined tentacle monsters of some description, and your task is to sneak into the all-girls' school Takoashi University and "capture" as many nubile young ladies as you possibly can before the end of term.

Lewd premise aside, Tentacle Bento is actually a pretty fun game. It's largely based around playing sets of cards — known as "captures" in the game — in order to score points at the end. In order to play a capture, you have to play a location, a capture event and a character at the same time. Playing a location, capture event and character of two or more different suits is a "sloppy capture" and allows you to get something on the table, but only lets you capture one girl at a time. Playing a complete capture of the same suit, however, is a "noble capture" and allows you to capture up to three girls at the same time. It also allows you to add extra girls of the same suit to a capture from your hand once you've put it on the table, up to a maximum of three girls per capture.

Alongside the basic location, capture event and character cards are a few special types of cards. All-Star cards can only be captured through a noble capture — and, moreover, can be the only girl in that capture. They have specific special effects once they're played; normally a noble capture has a special "mayhem" effect (ranging from changing the direction of play to passing cards around the table) according to the suit it was, but All-Stars override and replace this effect.

Special character cards, meanwhile, have (usually negative) effects to play on other players. Some prevent players from playing certain types of captures, others need to be dismissed via meeting a particular condition, and some can be passed around. Several of them complement and interact with one another nicely, making for some enjoyable moment-to-moment strategy.

Finally, Event cards occur immediately when someone draws them on their turn. These have immediate — and often game-changing — effects. They also act as the game's timer — once the fourth Event card comes up, the game is over, and players score points according to the captures they have on the table, and lose points for the girls and All-Stars they still have in their hand.

It's a pretty simple game to get to grips with, and there's a fair amount of randomness involved — particularly with the events — so it's not especially deep, all told, but it is a whole lot of fun, primarily for the impromptu mini-narratives that the capture combinations inspire. Once capture might see three girls having a wardrobe malfunction in the headmaster's office; another might see a lone girl attempting to have a cuddle party by herself on the school racetrack; another still might see two girls having a pillow fight in the nurse's office.

Despite the morally questionable premise — if you know what tentacle monsters typically get up to, you know what I mean — the game is designed with good humour and wit. The cards all incorporate entertaining little snippets of flavour text, many of which are genuinely amusing both to people who recognise anime tropes and normies alike.

All in all, it's very much a filler game rather than something you'd take particularly seriously, but I like it a whole lot and am looking forward to giving it another shot at some point in the near future. I was surprised how much my regular gaming group — most of whom aren't particularly involved in anime culture — took to the game, so hopefully it will hit the table again soon.

2011: Let's Talk!

A little while ago, I wrote about chat app Discord and how I thought it was a jolly fine piece of software that had all but replaced Skype and various other solutions for, among other things, in-game voice chat.

Besides high-quality voice chat, Discord is also pretty great for creating text chat servers with custom channels (each of which can have their own permissions set if you so desire) and various other bits and pieces here and there. The app is clearly largely designed with the Final Fantasy XIV community in mind, given its built-in commands to search sites like XIVDB and Gamerescape, but it's also a flexible, lightweight, easy-to-use and cross-platform chat app that is super-easy to get signed up for and really easy to use.

So I'd like to invite you along to come and chat! I created a server named after my other website MoeGamer, along with a bunch of channels. The server is primarily intended for people to talk about Japanese video games, anime, manga and the like, but there are a selection of other channels for people to talk about what they might be interested in. I've had a few people sign up over the course of the day, but not really much participation as yet; understandable, really, since no-one wants to be the first person to say something!

A request, then, dear reader. If you'd like to have a chat with me and hopefully some other like-minded individuals, please do two things for me.

Firstly, join the server here. (You can use Discord via the Web, but I recommend downloading the standalone app for the best and most flexible experience.)

Secondly, participate! Jump into a channel you like the sound of — the invite link I've provided will take you to a "welcome" channel that gives you a summary of what all the other channels are all about — and start talking. Even if no-one seems to be saying much to begin with, people who join the server and channels will see the conversation history when they come along for the first time, so if there are some comments, thoughts and even pictures for people to respond to when they sign up, new members will be more inclined to start participating themselves.

I'd love to build this server into a nice little community where we can chat, share stories, share pics and share our thoughts on all things anime, gaming, manga and whatnot. Discord is a great means of doing just that, and I'd love to see more people making use of it and supporting the great work the developers are doing — it's currently only in alpha, and is already a really well put together piece of software. And who knows? You might even make a few new friends or discover a few new interests in the process.

See you there!

2010: Monster, Monster, Mon, Mon, Mon, Mon, Monster

One of the highlights of the current anime season for me right now is Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls (typically shortened, as appears to be the custom nowadays, to MonMusu).

MonMusu is a show that I wasn't sure about when I first heard the concept. I enjoy a harem-type show, I enjoy fanservice and I enjoy slice-of-life, so all the ingredients were there to interest me, but one thing made me hesitate a little: the "monster girls"¹ part.

Don't worry, I'm not going to go back on the thousand and one rants I've made on the subject and brand it "creepy" or anything, but the idea of monster girls is an aspect of anime that I simply don't have much experience with. Typically, I've found the harem/fanservice/slice-of-life shows that I've enjoyed the most in the past to have characters that I either find relatable or so overflowing with moe that it's impossible not to fall in love with them. And, I assumed, part of this would be dependent on me finding them physically attractive.

Papi's introduction in the original manga.

The reason why I was hesitant about the idea of monster girls is that they're a peculiar, striking phenomenon — at least as they're depicted in anime. The girls of MonMusu are all relatively typical, pretty anime girl tropes of various descriptions "up top" — Miia is a ditzy, adoring "childhood friend" type, Papi is a loli, Centorea is a haughty, aloof, "presidential" type with huge knockers — but below the belt they're… well, monsters. Miia is a lamia, Papi is a harpy, Centorea is a centaur.

If you, like me, have no experience with the concept of monster girls, this is initially jarring. Miia, the first to be introduced, is a delightfully adorable (if somewhat clingy) character… and then you look down and she has several meters of giant, thick, scaly snake tail. Papi acts like a little kid despite being a lot older than she looks… but she has wings instead of arms and bird legs. Centorea… well, her arse is a horse. This takes some getting used to — with no small amount of thinking "i-is it all right to find them kind of hot…?" along the way — and I wouldn't be surprised if there are people out there who fall at this first hurdle.

But it may not surprise you to find out that this reaction is, I feel, entirely intended, and in fact a core aspect of MonMusu as a whole. The overall concept for the show concerns "non-human" individuals such as the aforementioned (and a few others who will be introduced in later episodes) engaging in cultural exchange with human society, primarily through homestay visits such as those foreign students sometimes do in the real world. The show's protagonist, as harem shows tend to go, finds himself with a house gradually filling up with chaotic monster girls, and having to come to terms both with their ignorance about aspects of human society and his own feelings towards them.

Protagonist Kurusu is a remarkably tolerant individual who takes most things in his stride — and he proves himself early on to be a dependable, reliable sort of person who stands up to people he feels are "wronging" those that he cares about. The main concept of MonMusu is, of course, a thinly-veiled racism allegory, and Kurusu represents an idealised interpretation of what a truly tolerant, inclusive sort of person should strive to be. He doesn't treat the monster girls any differently to how he would treat human girls; he doesn't refer to them as "monster girls"; he's patient and he explains things to them when they don't understand — which is pretty often, as you might expect. But he's not perfect, either; he's a young man who has no experience with women (and even admits outright that he's a virgin in an early episode) and consequently has hormones going pretty crazy in his body — particularly as the girls engage in provocative behaviour or fight over his affections. He's a good protagonist for this type of show, in other words — and mirrors the journey the audience goes on as they overcome the initial hurdle of trying not to judge the monster girls by their "monstrous" aspects and instead see them as just people.

There's a lot to like about MonMusu so far — and, like most anime shows I've watched that initially seem to be fairly throwaway, dumb fun on the surface, there's a lot more going on than there might appear to be at first glance. I'm really interested to see how it develops, and I'm no longer concerning myself with whether or not I'll have developed some sort of snake fetish or the like by the end of the season!

¹ Monster Girl: Girl inspired by mythological creatures; a mermaid would be a popular, recognisable example. Instances in MonMusu range from lamia (snake-tailed woman) to centaur (human head and upper body, horse legs and lower body) and some sort of scary spider lady thing.

2007: Rias is Love

In between the "current" anime shows I've been trying to keep up on this season, I've been gradually working my way through High School DxD (no, I still don't really know what the DxD is for — likely something to do with devils) and like it more with each episode.

It's very much an acquired taste — it's very in-your-face with its nudity and violence (particularly the former; the latter isn't especially gory as such, but it can be pretty brutal, and there are some fairly strong and unpleasant threats made at the very least) and consequently both of those things are something you have to be 100% on board with before watching, but if you are, it's a wild and thrilling ride with some stunning fight scenes, an amazing soundtrack and some extremely memorable characters whose "iconic" status in the world of anime fandom is well-deserved.

I've found High School DxD an interesting show to watch because it's one of the few anime I've watched to date that is largely action-focused rather than slice-of-life. I'm a big fan of slice-of-life, because it appeals to that part of me that is fascinated by watching relationships unfold (and, sometimes, collapse) but as my love of JRPGs and Japanese shoot 'em ups in the video gaming world will attest, I'm certainly not averse to some high-octane action, too, and High School DxD delivers that in spades.

One thing that feels a little jarring when you first come across it in a show like this is how much like a Japanese role-playing game the action sequences are. I don't literally mean that they're taking it in turns to do things, but they do do things like shouting out the names of their moves, unleashing attacks that level the surrounding scenery and take impacts that would flatten a real human being in an instant. It's a particularly Japanese stylistic element — Western superhero-type stuff, which is kind of the closest equivalent, doesn't seem to be quite so overblown in its action sequences except when it's being specifically inspired by anime (the final battle of The Matrix trilogy springs to mind here) and thus it's a bit of an adjustment you have to make. Even as a fan of the aforementioned Japanese role-playing games, where this sort of thing is de rigueur, it took a little while for me to embrace the fact that yes, they were doing these things absolutely unironically — and it was awesome.

Special mention should be given to leading lady Rias Gremory here. While the show is a textbook "harem" setup — pervy main character, bevy of beautiful ladies inexplicably throwing themselves at him, eventual and gradual redemption of protagonist into a generally decent person — Rias is a highlight. If this was a visual novel (which it probably is in Japan) then she would be the "true route". She's a strong, interesting character with plenty of depth to her that is gradually revealed piece by piece over the course of the show's episodes. Her relationship with protagonist Issei is intriguing, too; she knows full well that he is overflowing with teenage hormones, and knows just how to take advantage of this fact — but she also clearly comes to regard him with genuine affection.

And yet she's a devil. This is probably the most interesting thing about High School DxD: it's a show that centres on ostensibly "evil" characters and portrays them as "the good guys". And it's not even portraying them as anti-heroes; when they're not battling in alternate dimensions to figure out whether Rias has to marry Lord Phoenix, the devils are shown responding to peoples' requests for help. Okay, accepting a devil's help does come with a price — making a pact with them — but this is not portrayed as anything that is especially bad for the people involved, and in many cases — particularly when Issei is concerned — the "help" involved is little more than being there for someone who is lonely, or upset, or distressed about something. There is, I feel, some sort of message about religion bringing comfort to those in need here — albeit from the opposite angle to what is typically portrayed.

You may well feel I am reading too much into a show that starts its credits sequence every episode with its entire female cast being completely naked (and concludes each episode with all of them doing various stripper dances) but, as I've argued on numerous previous occasions, embracing sexuality in an artistic work doesn't preclude it from having meaningful things to say — and in this respect, DxD is absolutely more than just fanservice. It's an exciting, thrilling show that I'm very keen to see more of. Fortunately, I have another two seasons to enjoy yet…

2003: Sound! Euphonium

Anime, as a medium, is most well-known for its more exaggerated aspects. Exaggerated action in titles like High School DxD, Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online; exaggerated comedy in shows like To Love-Ru, Squid Girl and Monster Musume; exaggerated horror in shows like Hell Girl and… uh… some others (horror is one angle I'm not massively familiar with as yet). Even pornographic hentai anime tends to be exaggerated, with participants screaming in pleasure (and usually narrating the action just in case it wasn't already abundantly clear what was going on) and gentlemen ejaculating with the force of Niagara Falls several times in the space of five minutes without any need for recuperation in between.

Uh, what was my point again? Oh, right. Anime is most well-known for being exaggerated. But occasionally something comes along that subverts your expectations and proves that not only is anime a particularly good medium for this sort of exaggerated action — the use of animation means that you can depict things that are physically impossible and/or impractical to show with traditional live-action special effects, as I discussed some time ago — but it's also a really solid medium for down-to-earth, human, heartfelt and honest drama.

There are a number of good examples of relatively "low-key" drama anime; the most well-known ones are things like Clannad and AnoHana, which are both notorious for being particularly emotional, particularly towards their conclusions. More recently, I've been very much enjoying a curiously named show that was fairly popular last season: Sound! Euphonium, also known as Hibike! Euphonium or simply anime-eupho depending on who you're talking to on which platform.

Sound! Euphonium is a show, like most anime, about high school kids. (There's a very good reason for the perpetual use of school as a setting for anime, but that's a subject for another day.) As the peculiar title suggests, it's also a show about music. But this isn't an exaggerated Love Live! kind of affair, where the kids involved have unrealistic goals that they manage to magically attain without any real explanation (not that there's anything wrong with that; I adore Love Live!) — Sound! Euphonium focuses on the rather mundane experiences of a school concert band.

Sound! Euphonium centres largely on Kumiko Oumae, a euphonium-playing girl just starting her high school career shortly after her middle-school concert band just missed out on attending a national competition. Kumiko is wracked with guilt over her last words to her former bandmate Reina Kousaka, who was utterly convinced that their band deserved to go the distance — Kumiko disagreed and incredulously asked Reina if she truly believed that they would have ever made it to Nationals. Reina, understandably, was upset at this line of questioning, and the two parted on bad terms.

Kumiko is surprised to discover that Reina is also attending the high school she chose; she's surprised because Reina has a great deal of talent on her instrument — the trumpet — and the ambition to compete at a national level. Meanwhile, the school they are both attending has a concert band that, upon their arrival, is best described as somewhat mediocre; Reina had her pick of the prestigious schools in the area, many of which have much better concert bands, but she chose the same one as Kumiko for some reason. It later transpires that the reasons for her decision were something to do with the teacher who takes over coordination of the concert band — and who encourages the students within to push themselves as hard as they can through some harsh but fair methods — and perhaps even something to do with her feelings for Kumiko herself.

What I particularly like about Sound! Euphonium is the fact that it's one of the most realistic depictions of high school music I've ever seen. It takes great care to show characters using their instruments correctly and realistically — and not just while they're playing them; incidental footage during scenes shows characters cleaning their instruments and performing proper maintenance, too. Having lived the concert band life at school — including some competitions and tours, though nothing at a nationally recognised level — I find Sound! Euphonium's depiction of this aspect of high school life enormously compelling and pleasantly nostalgic.

One thing it captures particularly well is the inherent romanticism and intimacy I've always found in making music as an ensemble. During my hormonal teenage years, the majority of people I found myself attracted to were somehow connected to me through the arts in one way or another — primarily through music. While my feelings were usually unrequited, that never really mattered too much; the thrill of sitting next (or near) to someone I liked and making music with them was usually more than enough. The feeling of "butterflies in the stomach" I'd get on the evening of a concert performance as I shared my nervousness with my friends and the object(s) of my affections was something I found intoxicating and exciting; while it was never the primary reason I enjoyed making music — that was always the simple joy of… well, making music — it was a happy perk.

Sound! Euphonium captures this feeling particularly well in its later episodes. An extremely intimate moment between Kumiko and Reina in one episode in particular makes for one of the most honest, heartfelt scenes I've seen in any story for quite some time — and after this scene has taken their relationship to a new level (no, they don't get it on or anything like that, before your filthy mind starts running away with you, pervert) the chemistry and electricity between these two characters is palpable: every glance between them becomes wistful and lingering; every touch becomes sensual and exciting; every unspoken understanding between them clearly deepens their connection without a single word being said. I haven't yet seen the entire run so I don't know how — or if — their relationship resolves itself or pans out, but at the stage I'm currently at, it's enormously exciting and compelling to see.

Sound! Euphonium is well worth a watch, then, particularly if you're a fan of somewhat more understated drama. Kumiko is a fascinating character, clearly struggling somewhat with a degree of social anxiety and depression — which, as you may well expect, makes her enormously relatable for me — and her relationships and interactions with her friends and bandmates make for compelling drama. It's a very honest, heartfelt show, and a marked contrast to the more exaggerated end of the anime spectrum — and for that reason, I have a feeling it will stay with me long after I've seen the final credits roll.

2001: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist

I'm keeping up to date with a few current anime series at the moment, partly in an attempt to be able to join in the conversations surrounding them online while they're relevant, and partly because I liked the look of them.

One that I've found particularly noteworthy is called Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist, typically shortened to Shimoseka as an abbreviated form of its original Japanese name Shimoneta to Iu Gainen ga Sonzai Shinai Taikutsu na Sekai.

Shimoseka is an interesting concept. At first glance, it looks as if it'll be fairly straightforward slice-of-life material, but there's an interesting dystopian future angle to it. The story is set 16 years after the passing of a law in Japan that made all lewd and coarse material and language illegal, all in the name of public decency and healthy child-rearing. All citizens are fitted with a device which can detect when they're using inappropriate language or even drawing inappropriate pictures. The price for this lack of freedom is a constant connection to the world's information at the tip of your fingers — everyone's wrist sports a neat little holographic computer thingie that acts as the natural extension of today's smartphones.

The protagonist Tanukichi is the son of a notorious "terrorist"; in actual fact, said "terrorist" was guilty of nothing more than expressing his (sexual) frustration at the prudishness of modern society. We're introduced to Tanukichi as he starts his new high school life at an institution he'd chosen primarily because of Anna, a girl he liked: a girl who, unlike much of the rest of society, didn't judge him for being his father's son, but rather appreciated him for who he is. That was many years ago, however, and she doesn't initially remember him, so doubtless the series will explore their developing relationship and why she means so much to him.

As Tanukichi makes his way to his new school, however, he encounters "Blue Snow", another notorious terrorist who habitually shows up clad in nothing more than what appears to be an artist's smock (with no underwear underneath) and a pair of panties on her face. Blue Snow allows him to flee from an unfortunate misunderstanding on the train to school that could have seen him landed in prison, and Tanukichi is very surprised to later discover that his "saviour" is, in fact, Ayame, a member of the school's student council who presents her public face as being somewhat quiet, stern and hard to approach.

Ayame's "public face" couldn't be further from the truth, however. She has a filthy mind and a foul mouth — plus, conveniently, a device on her elderly flip-phone that allows her to freely use as much coarse language as she likes for just a few minutes each day. Ayame quickly recruits Tanukichi to her cause in an attempt to educate the ignorant masses in the wonders of sexuality and "body-melding", since the student body is so ignorant of basic biology that it's clearly going to be a problem for future generations.

Shimoseka is interesting in that it feels like a direct response to several things. In some respects, it feels like it's an interpretation of Japan's notoriously low birth rate — modern day Japan's enthusiasm for erotically charged and explicit material is often attributed to this. In others, it feels like it's a take on Japan's curious censorship laws, in which sexually explicit material isn't outright banned, but instead makes use of the most half-hearted censorship in which things like penises and vaginas are still clearly visible, but blurred out with mosaics. In another sense still, Ayame in particular feels like a literal interpretation of the concept of honne and tatemae, the division of the "private" (honne) and "public" (tatemae) faces: putting up a respectable façade to the world while being as deviant as you like in the comfort of your own home.

Speaking from a Western perspective, Shimoseka feels even more curiously relevant considering the growth in "moral policing" that there's been over the last few years. Given that Japanese media is often on the receiving end of these tedious tirades from self-appointed "think of the children" moral crusaders, it's entirely appropriate that it would be a Japanese work that shows the inevitable consequences of allowing this sort of behaviour to continue unchecked. It's obviously an extreme example, but it's powerful and relevant given the climate of "criticism" (and I use that term loosely) that we live in today. I find it hard to believe that this angle couldn't have been deliberate; while Japan generally doesn't give much of a shit what prudish Westerners think of their pretty cartoon girls with big tits, many creators have doubtless run into these attitudes at one time or another, and Shimoseka has — so far, after two episodes, anyway — acted as an excellent smackdown to such criticisms, albeit in a fairly heavy-handed manner.

So far it's been a really good show, then. I'm looking forward to seeing more, if only to hear more of the creative obscenities that Ayame habitually hurls forth. Cock-a-doodle-pussy, indeed.