2465: Keijo!!!!!!!!

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I watched the first episode of a new anime called Keijo!!!!!!!! today. This is an anime that I became aware of after Kotaku did one of its sadly predictable outraged articles about, dubbing it “deplorable”. (After that, a number of people I know actually watched it, and had good things to say about it.)

“I don’t care that it’s well-animated,” writes the apparent latest “name to avoid” on Kotaku, Cecilia D’Anastasio. “I don’t care that the women have discernible personalities—no cookies for you. It is beside the point that Keijo!!!!!!!! was previously a manga. It could have died in obscurity. Now it’s on Crunchyroll.”

But what has got this angry young woman so infuriated? Well, here’s the premise: Keijo is a fictional sport somewhat akin to sumo wrestling, only on platforms floating on water. The aim of a Keijo match is to be the last one standing; if you fall into the water or touch the platform with anything other than your feet, you lose. It is a contact sport, but you are only allowed to touch other competitors with either your arse or your chest. In other words, it’s Dead or Alive XTreme’s “Butt Battle” taken to the next level.

Keijo!!!!!!!! is a sports anime through and through, focusing on protagonist Nozomi as she strives to realise her dreams and be the best at a sport she has come to love. Like most sports anime, there’s a heavy element of exaggerated action in there, with the Keijo battles themselves incorporating all sorts of physically improbable/impossible stunts, including a girl who is so fast she can smack people in the jaw with her arse and knock them out before they even have time to react to her presence.

I’ve only seen the first episode so far, but it’s already clear that each of the cast members introduced are there for different reasons. Nozomi is there as the typical “underdog” that we’re supposed to root for through the series, and she’s a likeable, spunky character that sits well in the lead role. Besides her, we have the older woman that everyone looks up to, the “rival”, the clumsy idiot, the shy one (who is inevitably going to “snap” at some point, since she was already showing signs of it when Nozomi got a bit too close for comfort in this episode) and plenty of others besides.

There’s a wide variety of different personality types on display — and a wide variety of body types, too, unusually for anime that focuses on female characters. Nozomi is relatively “normal” in stature; her best friend is small but with a formidable butt; her comrade from trials is a tall, muscular young woman and their instructor — dubbed “The Siren” — is a rather portly mature woman who would doubtless be a formidable opponent in a Keijo match; the first episode ends just as Nozomi and her classmates are preparing for their first training session with her.

Inevitably, given the subject matter, there’s a fair amount of fanservice going on, but any lingering boob or booty shots come during the Keijo matches themselves, which kind of makes sense, given that’s where the “action” is, so to speak. Outside of the Keijo matches, we get to know the girls themselves and see that, so far, they all appear to be well-defined, likeable characters that I’d certainly like to know more about.

Keijo!!!!!!!! may not be an entirely original concept — aside from the fictional sport that it’s themed around, the show seems to follow the standard “sports anime” formula fairly closely — but it proceeds with style, charm and so many likeable characters that I find myself wondering quite how joyless you have to be to dub it in any way “deplorable”.

But then, if you read D’Anastasio’s article you’ll see that the sort of person who does think Keijo!!!!!!!! is “deplorable” isn’t exactly the sort of person who seems willing to even attempt to engage with it or see what’s really going on. Much easier to judge it purely on its premise than to actually do some research, after all.

Sigh. One day we’ll have “critics” who actually care about their jobs… maybe.

2423: 15 Reasons Moe is Awesome

With love to The Mary Sue

Apropos of nothing, here are 15 reasons moe — the art of character design intended to instill empathy, sympathy and feelings of affection in the audience — is awesome.

1. Colours!

It’s become increasingly fashionable to use what is often mockingly referred to as a “grimdark” aesthetic these days — all dark blues, browns and greys. Moe anime and video games are a stark contrast to this by remembering what primary colours are and how nice they can make you feel.

2. Characters!

Moe anime and games tend to have deliberately exaggerated rather than realistic characters, but these exaggerated characteristics can make for highly impactful, emotional moments when they reveal their deeper secrets. And it’s pretty rare to find a character in any anime who is exactly what they seem — even in the most fanservicey, perverted, filthy ecchi thing you can possibly think of.

3. Girls!

You want awesome female characters? Look no further. Many moe anime and games feature all-female casts running the gamut from confident, loud types to introverted, intellectual types. The whole point of many of these shows is to demonstrate that these all-girl groups are capable of doing absolutely anything from winning a local talent show to saving the universe — and they certainly don’t need no man to do their thing.

4. Story!

Related to the characterisation issue, it’s hard not to get drawn in to a moe anime or game due to the emotionally engaging stories they typically include. A core part of the “empathy” part of moe is making the audience root for the characters, and there’s no better way to do this than seeing them overcoming all manner of adversity to come out on top.

5. Mood!

Miserable? Watch an episode of Love Live! and I defy you to still be miserable afterwards. (NB: do not apply this challenge to Clannad or Ano Hana.)

6. Easily parsable visual language!

(I knew I’d regret doing the “one-word heading” thing as soon as I started it.) Moe anime is easy to understand, even for beginners to Japanese media, because it makes use of such clear visual language alongside its writing. Everything from hair colour to eye shape is designed to give us an immediate understanding of a character — and perhaps subvert our expectations at a later time.

7. Blurring gender lines!

Here’s a contentious one for you: looking at moe anime through less enlightened eyes, it would be easy to consider it somehow “girly” — compare and contrast toys “for boys” and “for girls” in the ’80s and ’90s for a good example of what I mean. “Boys'” toys would use muted, dark or aggressive colours whereas “girls'” toys would use bright, vivid colours. Moe is something that, according to this stereotype, should be “girly”, but there’s enough to appeal there to men as well as (not instead of!) women.

8. Always something new!

You’ll never run out of moe stuff to enjoy. In fact, you’ll almost certainly never be able to catch up on all the moe stuff that already exists, even if Japan in its entirety stopped producing it altogether.

9. Music!

Moe anime has some of the most catchy, memorable music in existence, even if you don’t speak Japanese. Doubly so if it’s a music-themed anime such as Love Live!

10. Talking about stuff that doesn’t normally get talked about!

Moe anime isn’t all ditzy girls blathering on about bullshit in an airheaded manner — though, of course, such examples do exist and can be enormously entertaining in their own right (hello, Yuru Yuri). Nope, sometimes moe works can deliver an emotional gutpunch by combining cute, cheerful visuals with surprisingly dark, even harrowing storylines. See The Fruit of Grisaia for a masterclass in how this is done.

11. Community!

The community of moe fans on the Internet is one of the most passionate, enthusiastic communities around; become a part of it and you’ll always have something to talk about and someone to talk about it with.

12. Waifus and husubandos!

For those who like to pin their allegiance to a particular person or thing, moe as a cultural phenomenon has you thoroughly covered. Declare a waifu and/or husubando and you’re making a clear but light-hearted statement about yourself. (Declaring everyone else’s waifus as “shit” optional.)

13. Cultural osmosis!

While exaggerated media such as anime and video games can give you a somewhat distorted view, they can be a catalyst for the audience to learn more about a culture other than their own, in turn leading to greater mutual understanding.

14. Relatability!

Tied in with the waifu/husubando equation is the fact that most moe anime will feature at least one character that at least one member of the audience will relate to in some way or another. By extension, this can help some people feel more comfortable talking about certain issues by being able to put them in some sort of context rather than feeling like they’re dealing with them alone.

15. An international cultural phenomenon!

Moe anime has given broader culture a lot of things to chew on — mostly with regard to character and narrative tropes. It can be particularly interesting to see people from outside Japan attempt to make use of these tropes and put their own spin on things — the wonderful visual novel VA-11 HALL-A from Venezuelan developers Sukeban Games is an excellent example of this.

2253: It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires

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I’ve already written generally about how much I like yuri/shoujo ai slice-of-life anime Yuru Yuri, but I wanted to single out a particular episode as a great example of what this genre does really well: the third season’s eighth episode, boasting the impressively Engrish title It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires.

Yuru Yuri has a few aspects in common with other, similar slice-of-life shows, but the show it reminds me of most is Squid Girl/Ika Musume — a show where, despite its fantastical, ridiculous premise, manages to be oddly believable and comforting in how it depicts its relationships between characters. It’s not so much the thematic similarities that I’m concerned with, more the format: Ika Musume explicitly splits each of its “episodes” into several smaller vignettes that tell miniature stories in their own right, and within these vignettes the show often experiments with form, structure and even aesthetic. Its most striking episodes are the ones where it goes completely off-piste, such as those that feature the “miniature Squid Girl”, whose sequences are completely dialogue-free, and which make wonderful use of music and animation to produce surprisingly evocative, emotive scenes.

The similarities between Yuru Yuri and Ika Musume struck me during the pre-credits opening of It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires because it adopts a similar approach to the aforementioned “miniature Squid Girl” episodes: it’s completely dialogue-free, focuses on a character that isn’t normally at the forefront (or, in the case of mini-Squid Girl, isn’t normally in the show at all in that form) and does all its storytelling through its soundtrack.

In the case of It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires, the episode opens by focusing on the student council president, a character who is so meek and timid that we only ever see her mouthing words in regular episodes; she has no voice, so far as the audience is concerned. The characters always understand, her, though, which is the core joke of her character, but this opening sequence approaches it from a different angle, showing how she understands people — and makes herself understood — without the use of words.

Yuru Yuri already has a wonderfully evocative soundtrack that complements its on-screen action perfectly, but this opening sequence in It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires takes things to a new level: adopting an almost programmatic approach to its music, with distinctive themes and instrumentation being used for the individual characters who show up over the course of the sequence, it’s a fine example of how words, sometimes, simply aren’t necessary: you can make an interesting and heartwarming piece of art using only visuals and sound. (You can make an interesting and heartwarming piece of art using only one of those things, too, of course, but this is a TV show we’re talking about here; to deliberately refuse to use one of the core features of the medium is noteworthy.)

The rest of the episode is entertaining in itself, too, but somewhat more conventional for the most part; this pre-credits sequence, however, was so striking I felt I had to write something about it. I’d share the video here if it was on YouTube, but no-one appears to have ripped it; you can, however, watch the full episode on Crunchyroll at this link, and I can highly recommend the whole series from the very beginning if you want some enjoyable, lightweight fluff to cheer yourself up with.

2247: Yuru Yuri: Charming, Dumb, Gay as a Window

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I finally started watching the third season of Yuru Yuri, an anime whose first two seasons I found immensely enjoyable despite it being one of those “slice of life” affairs where pretty much nothing of note happens throughout.

Yuru Yuri is packed with charm and some wonderful characters, though, and it’s through the strength of these characters that the show truly shines.

For the uninitiated, Yuru Yuri follows the total lack of adventures of a group of four schoolgirls who form a club that doesn’t really do anything except hang out and drink tea. Over the course of the first couple of series, a few other regular cast members were added, and each of these put in frequent appearances in the third season — so frequent, in fact, that, judging by the new title sequence, they’re now considered to be core members of the cast rather than regular recurring characters.

The astute and/or weebtastic among you will know that yuri is used to refer to Japanese popular media with lesbian undertones (or indeed explicit overtones) and the inclusion of this term in the show’s title is no coincidence. There are no male characters in the show whatsoever, and there are numerous members of the cast — both regular and irregular recurring — who clearly have the hots for another one of the girls.

The most obvious is first-year Chinatsu’s infatuation with her cool, calm and collected senpai Yui, but there’s also the clear attraction between the mostly sensible (but painfully tsundere) student council vice-president Ayano and the utterly chaotic, hilarious Kyouko, who is a total dick but somehow immensely likeable with it. Then there’s former series protagonist Akari’s older sister Akane, who puts up a facade of being the sensible onee-san, but is actually a complete siscon, degenerating into wildly inappropriate acts with Akari’s possessions whenever she’s by herself (or thinks she’s by herself). And Chinatsu’s sister Tomoko, who is infatuated with Akane. And… you get the idea. There’s a whole lot of lady-love going on.

This isn’t an ecchi show by any means, though; the yuri side of things isn’t fetishised at all, and we never actually see anything going on between these characters. It’s a show that, when it deals with feelings of affection, prefers the more romantic side of love in the schoolyard rather than anything overtly sexual. It’s all sidelong glances, lingering looks, wondering if that contact was intentional; of course, some characters make their feelings more obvious than others — Chinatsu and Ayano both being the most obviously gay for their respective objects of affection, albeit in different ways — but still, for the most part, the show depends on the feeling of “will they ever realise or acknowledge their feelings for one another?” and actually resolving one of these strung-out instances of romantic tension would almost certainly throw the rhythm and feel of the show off somewhat.

Mostly, though, Yuru Yuri is a show that makes me feel happy when I watch it. It’s not deep and meaningful and it doesn’t have anything especially profound to say beyond “friends are great”, but it’s always a pleasure to enjoy an episode. It’s one of those shows where you feel like you’re being included in a group of friends just hanging out and having fun; there’s no real point to it all, but it’s nice to experience nonetheless.

2191: On the Objectification of Waifus, and Why Anita Sarkeesian is Wrong (Again)

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The yawning portal of despair that is Anita Sarkeesian’s mouth once again creaked open earlier today, and as usual a stream of ill-informed rhetoric belched forth, bringing pain and misery to all within earshot. This time around she was mad about arses. She was mad that female characters had nice arses that game developers liked to show off, but she was also mad that male characters had their arses hidden by cloaks if they are Batman.

The above is, of course, a rather sweeping simplification of what she was arguing, but I don’t want to provide an in-depth critique of her latest video, largely because I can’t stomach watching her smug face whining any more. Instead, I want to refute one of the core aspects of her overall argument: the fact that women are objectified in games, and that this is bad.

Actually, no; I’m not going to refute the fact that women are objectified, because they are. And so are men, but I’m not going to focus on that aspect, either; let’s stick to the women. So to speak.

The key point that Sarkeesian perpetually misses when talking about the depiction of women in video games is that the most popular characters — male or female — are pretty much always popular for reasons other than their appearance. We’ll go into some specific examples in a moment, but it’s also important to acknowledge that appearance is important, and that objectification does occur — it’s just not the sole, driving force that Sarkeesian seems to think it is, and it’s frankly rather insulting to everyone for her to suggest that men are only interested in looking at nice arses and nothing else.

Men are, of course, interested in looking at nice arses, and here’s a key point. Objectification and judging by appearance occurs immediately the moment a player is first confronted with a new character — and particularly when the player is offered a selection of characters to choose from. At this point, the character becomes the “face” of the product that is the game, and it’s perfectly natural for someone to gravitate immediately towards someone they like the look of for whatever reason. Depending on the person, this reason may well be that they find the character physically attractive — but it can also be that they find them amusing or relatable, like the way they’re dressed, remind them of someone else, remind them of themselves or any number of reasons.

Importantly, though, whether the player is inclined to stick with that character in the long term is not determined by objectification and their appearance. It’s all to do with personality, character and capability. A character can be the most gorgeous, hottest piece of ass you’ve ever seen, but if they’re boring, they’re not going to hold a player’s interest.

Let’s consider a few examples. These are based on my personal experiences with these characters, and anecdotal evidence of what I have seen others saying about them.

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This is Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII. She’s an extremely attractive, striking character, but in an understated rather than self-consciously sexy way. She’s slim but toned, wears a short skirt, has pleasingly tousled hair, has perpetually pouted, parted and moist lips, and wears sexy boots.

She’s also one of the most widely disliked characters in the entire Final Fantasy series thanks to being seen as “boring”. This is partly due to her single-minded nature, partly due to the rather monotone delivery by voice actor Ali Hillis and partly due to the fact that, as the main player-protagonist character in the game, she was pretty obviously kept as a bit of a “blank slate” for the player to interpret and identify with as they saw fit.

I personally don’t think she’s all that bad, but there are far more interesting characters in Final Fantasy XIII. Lightning does, however, act as a suitable proxy for the player to interact with the world and its inhabitants, and in that respect she’s a successful game protagonist. I just don’t see many people declaring her as a “waifu”.

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This is Neptune and Nepgear from the Neptunia series. They are very popular “waifu” choices, but you’ll note that they both err rather on the side of “cute” rather than “sexy”, leaving aside their plugsuit-style HDD/goddess forms seen in the background of the image above. Actually, that raises an interesting point: those who proudly declare Neptune or Nepgear as a favourite character or “waifu” tend to do so with their human incarnations in mind, not the sexed-up HDD versions.

Why are Neptune and Nepgear popular then? Because they have strong personalities, and are interesting characters. Neptune is one of the most incompetent RPG protagonists the genre has ever seen, although her scatterbrained nature acts as an eminently suitable metaphor for the chaotic way most people play RPGs — putting the world on hold to go and grind out some sidequests — while Nepgear is the perfect foil to her sister, being nice, polite, quiet, intelligent and, frankly, a bit of a doormat to everyone around her.

While I won’t deny that there are people out there who want to sexualise these two (there’s plenty of Rule 34 artwork out there to confirm that) it’s also true that the vast majority of Neptunia fans who pick a favourite — whether it’s Neptune, Nepgear or any of the other main cast members — are doing so not on the basis of which one they want to fuck the most, as Sarkeesian suggests, but rather the one that they simply enjoy spending time with the most.

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Here are the various incarnations of Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series over the years. While Lara tends not to inspire the same sort of fanatical “my waifu!” declarations that female protagonists of Japanese games — and the reasons for that are a whole other matter worth discussing another time — she’s still a popular character, and not because she’s sexy.

Oh, sure, her tiny shorts and enormous rack made for some striking box art back when the original Tomb Raider came out, but if there was no substance to her, she wouldn’t have been able to hold down a series for so long. A series that has been “rebooted” twice, yes, but a series in which she has remained a fairly consistent character, all told: a strong, confident, somewhat posh British woman with a plummy accent, a penchant for gunplay and acrobatics, and a desire to constantly challenge herself.

Moreover, she manages to be a female character that doesn’t alienate anyone: she’s not “girly” in an exaggerated manner, but nor is she overly masculine or aggressive. She manages to occupy a somewhat understated middle ground similar to what Lightning’s creator Toriyama was presumably going for, only with arguably slightly better results. In other words, she has appeal elements designed for lots of different people and, despite her “sexiness quotient” being toned down a bit over the years, particularly in the most recent games, she’s still a good-looking lady. But, importantly, that’s not why people like her.

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Finally for now — I could happily go on with this all day — here is Totori, Rorona and Meruru from the Atelier Arland series. All pretty young things, I’m sure you’ll agree, and all clearly designed to initially draw the player in with their attractiveness — or, perhaps more accurately, cuteness, much like Neptune and Nepgear.

But, again, anyone who proudly declares any one of these girls as their “waifu”, or just as a favourite character, is not doing so because they want to fuck them. No; they’re doing so because they like Rorona’s optimistic but clumsy nature; Totori’s inherent sweetness; Meruru’s lively, bubbly personality. Again, it’s a case of wanting a “relationship” of sorts with these characters — of wanting to hang out with them as people, rather than objectifying them as something to jack off to.

Objectification and aesthetics play an important role in determining our initial attraction to something. But a relationship built purely on physical attraction and nothing deeper is a relationship that will not last long — and a relationship that will be forgotten shortly after it has ended. This is not what modern gamers are looking for — and it is not what the vast majority of modern games are providing.

Men are complicated creatures. No, people are complicated creatures. To boil down everyone’s thinking to “everyone judges everything by appearance” is both reductive and unhelpful. And yet this is exactly what Sarkeesian is doing — just another reason she continues to lose credibility with pretty much everything she says.

2185: #WaifuWednesday

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I don’t really have the mental capacity to write anything particularly deep or meaningful today, so here are some pictures of pretty girls.

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This is Purple Sister (left) and Purple Heart (right), the HDD/goddess forms of Nepgear and Neptune from the Hyperdimension Neptunia series respectively. This is one of my favourite pieces of official artwork for the series.

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This is Ikaruga from Senran Kagura, displaying an uncharacteristically exhibitionist side of herself. Normally very prim and proper, we can probably assume that she is in private while this is going on, but I also have little to no doubt that Katsuragi is hiding somewhere just out of shot.

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The three Deviluke sisters from the To Love-Ru series. Lala (centre) is the original and best, but she was somewhat sidelined after the first series in favour of her two sisters Nana (left) and Momo (right).

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Miia from Monster Musume, who simultaneously encapsulates the inherent sexiness and strangeness of the lamia while also fulfilling the “doting girlfriend” trope nicely. Darling!!

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A pleasantly candid shot of Asuna (canonical girl) and Lisbeth (best girl) from Sword Art Online.

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Nozomi from Love Live, who might be my favourite…

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…although it might also be Maki.

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Hanako from Katawa Shoujo definitely deserves a mention.

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And we’ll close with Amane from The Fruit of Grisaia, who adorns my actual real-life wallet, and so I guess probably tops some sort of waifu leaderboard somewhere.

That’s your lot for now. Hopefully I will be feeling better tomorrow and have something a bit more substantial to share with you all. In the meantime, enjoy the pics.

2088: μ’s, Music Start, and Never Stop

It’s been quite a while since I watched Love Live! — long enough that I’m considering watching it again, particularly as what appears to be Love Live! The Next Generation of sorts is currently brewing — but ever since I watched it, it’s been a pretty regular part of my life. Specifically, it’s pretty rare that I go a day without listening to at least a few of the songs both from the show and which were released as singles and albums as spin-off products.

One of the reasons I really enjoyed Love Live! as much as I did when I first watched it was because of the music. Sure, the story was fun and the characters were loveable and memorable, but if a show about music doesn’t have good music in it, then, well, it fails. Fortunately, Love Live! had great music that complemented the story really nicely, even if you don’t understand the Japanese lyrics.

The reason I like Love Live!’s music so much is because each and every one of them is an absolutely perfectly crafted pop song. Everything about pretty much every Love Live! song is put into place so immaculately, so beautifully, that it’s hard not to get swept up in the energy of it all. The choice of vocalists; the backing track; the melodies; the harmonies; the chord sequences — all these elements combine to make something naturally delightful and pleasing to listen to, and intoxicatingly addictive.

Here are a few favourites.

This song is only heard as an instrumental in the show itself, but I liked it as soon as I heard it with lyrics in the Love Live! mobile game. It’s a wonderfully cheerful, upbeat piece about friendship or something; it doesn’t really matter. It just sounds nice, has a catchy tune and is eminently suitable for singing along to, even if you just babble Japanese-sounding syllables to the rough melody.

Also I like the “la, laaaa, laa laa laa laaaaa” bit at the end. Andie hates it, but whatever.

I adore this song, partly because it’s the first song (aside from the OP) in the show, and it’s a beautiful moment: Honoka, Umi and Kotori all coming together to try and achieve something for the first time, even in the face of adversity. It’s also another really catchy song with some toe-tapping rhythms that fit well with the dance moves depicted in the show. And come on, listen to it. I defy you to reach the end of that without cracking a smile.

This is a gorgeous song in many ways. I particularly like it as it highlights Umi’s voice, which is one of the most understated yet pleasant to listen to voices in the cast — a fact that goes with Umi’s rather straight-laced personality. This song also reflects Umi in another way: the fact that in many ways she’s the most “Japanese” of the cast, without any particularly exaggerated physical or personality traits, and this song — particularly its calming opening — fits her perfectly.

This one… well. What more can you say about a heavy metal song about enjoying hamburgers after school? Just rock out to it.

This one took some tracking down and I wasn’t sure why… until I realised that it’s not from Love Live! itself at all, but actually from a disc of character songs for the PS3 game The Guided Fate Paradox. That said, it does feature Eli from Love Live! on vocals, and as such is worthy of inclusion. It’s also a pretty awesome song in the Castlevania mould in its own right. So there. And now I think I actually need to play The Guided Fate Paradox because I had no idea how good its music was.

2077: Narrative Media

Since I’ve become particularly interested in Japanese popular media, I’ve often found myself pondering which particular aspect is my favourite — in other words, what do I feel is the “best” means of enjoying a story that, in many cases, spreads its tendrils across a number of different forms of media with varying degrees of success?

There’s not really an easy answer to that, but I feel my own personal attitude towards it is inclined towards whatever the original version of the work was composed in, where available. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, by any means — on balance, I think I slightly prefer the anime of High School DxD to the manga, for example, and there are a number of interesting spin-off games that tell a completely different story to an anime or manga series, making them worthwhile in their own right — but I do tend to find myself preferring to experience a story as originally intended.

Part of the reason for this is enjoying a story in its original medium means that you don’t “miss out” on anything. In theory, anyway; that theory runs that a creative work is composed for a specific medium, and then adapted to other media at a later date. The adaptation process often involves editing, changing and even cutting content from the original, usually as a means of ensuring that the important beats of the story fit into what may be a more restrictive format. Consider an indefinitely running manga series that is adapted into 20-minute anime episodes, for example; you’re going to lose some detail, like it or not, unless you want the pace of the show to slow to a crawl. (Some long-running shows do indeed take this rather leisurely pace to their ongoing storyline, but for the most part, manga-to-anime adaptations tend to try and get through a significant amount of printed content over the course of 12-13 episodes.)

That said, different media are more or less appropriate for different ways of exploring material. Anime, as the most visually flexible of these media, allows you to outright depict things happening without having a narrator explain things (as in a visual novel, manga or light novel) and take a more subtle approach, implying things rather than making them explicit. At the other end of the spectrum, a novel relies almost entirely on the reader’s imagination, perhaps stimulated a little by illustrations here and there. The nature of text means that the inner thoughts and feelings of characters can be explored in much more detail than in an anime, and even from multiple perspectives.

Visual novels, meanwhile, tend to unfold from a single first-person narrative perspective. This allows for in-depth exploration of a specific character and their responses, feelings and attitudes towards various situations — as if you “were” that character. It’s not quite the same as a full-on game where you take full control of a character, mind; most visual novels give you relatively limited choices as to how they proceed, and the protagonist otherwise has a mind of their own: you’re just along for the ride. Some visual novels do experiment with multiple perspectives — The Fruit of Grisaia’s various routes each feature a sequence where the main heroine of that route narrates an important event in their lives, be it to the reader or to protagonist Yuuji; Deus Machina Demonbane, meanwhile, features a first-person protagonist narrator, but occasionally slips into third-person to depict things happening elsewhere when appropriate. For the most part, though, when you come to the end of a visual novel, the character you almost certainly understand the best is the protagonist.

Video game adaptations — i.e. those that aren’t visual novels — present their own challenges by allowing the player to control iconic characters and perhaps make them behave in ways that aren’t necessarily in keeping with their character as depicted in other media. This is partly a matter of attitude, though; someone who is already particularly engaged with a series and comes to a video game adaptation after reading the manga/visual novel/light novel or watching the anime may well find themselves “method acting” as the character they find themselves in full control of, even if the game mechanics do provide the opportunity for them to do unexpected and strange things.

In other words, I don’t really have a concrete answer for the question. At the moment, I’m particularly enjoying reading The Fruit of Grisaia’s visual novel, and after hearing how the anime adaptation packs the VN’s many hours of narrative and interesting happenings into just a single season, I feel that the VN is probably the best means of experiencing this story in full detail. At the same time, I’m enjoying the video game of Sword Art Online, the manga of Monster Musume, the anime of Himouto! Umaru-chan — there really isn’t a straightforward answer as to which one is “best”.

It sometimes pays to explore a single work in different media, though; the unwritten rules that “the book is usually better than the film” and “video game adaptations are universally terrible” don’t always apply!

2048: You’re A Monster

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times recently, I’ve been reading the Monster Musume manga as well as keeping up with the anime adaptation, and I’ve been enjoying both a great deal.

While Monster Musume is, on the surface, a somewhat pervy ecchi harem series with all the requisite sexual tension plus copious boob and panty shots (albeit attached to non-human girls with “monstrous” features), at its heart beats a heart of gold and a number of positive messages: accepting people for who they are without judgement; not relying on first impressions to figure people out; standing up for what you believe in; and forgiving people when they make a mistake, particularly if they make it while they’re trying to learn something new.

I find the monster girl angle particularly interesting. As I noted when I first started checking out the anime, I’m unfamiliar with the monster girl trope in general, so it was somewhat jarring to see these obviously non-human girls initially; they’ve clearly all been designed with traditionally attractive anime/manga character visual tropes in mind, but in most cases there’s just enough of the monstrous to make you feel a little uncomfortable if you’re not already au fait with taking a walk on the wild side.

In the case of Monster Musume, we have Miia’s extremely long snake tail, its companion clumsiness and her specifically snake-like characteristics such as her fangs and the fact she sheds her skin regularly; we have Papi’s bird legs and wings instead of arms attached to a distinctly young-looking body; we have the fact that Centorea’s arse is a horse (and her knockers are enormous); we have the fact that Suu is a slime girl who initially is completely unable to communicate through any means other than mimicking the things she has observed others doing; and, of course, we have Rachnea the spider-lady.

It’s interesting how the sequence in which these girls are introduced goes: although Miia is one of the more “monstrous” girls in a visual sense, in terms of character she’s probably the most “normal”, albeit rather more lovestruck than your average young woman. Papi is naive and innocent — considerably more stupid than her supposed actual age, with her intelligence and common sense more appropriate for her somewhat childlike appearance — and doesn’t quite fit in to “normal” society as a result, but is still reasonably recognisable as acting somewhat “human-like”. Centorea lives by some distinctly “fantasy world”-style values — all “honour” this, “my lord” that, plus her arse is a horse. Suu is in many ways the most “alien” of all the monster girls, at least in the early chapters; she has no idea that she regularly puts poor protagonist Kimihito at risk of drowning every time she embraced him a bit enthusiastically, and her initial inability to communicate puts her at a distinct disadvantage compared to the other girls (while also providing plenty of comic relief, as you might expect). Mero — who, so far, has been the least interesting, least developed character to me — presents an interesting take on attitudes to folklore by being obsessed with the tale of The Little Mermaid, but for its tragic angle rather than its romantic aspects.

In many way, though, Rachnera is one of the most interesting characters. In terms of visual design, being a spider woman, she’s the most obviously “non-human” of the lot; while Suu acts in an alien manner, she at least takes on humanoid form at the best of times. Rachnera, meanwhile, is quite literally an enormous spider with a woman’s upper half, and is consequently quite frightening to look at, particularly given how she’s introduced in some delightfully creepy scenes. Kimihito is true to his values, though, and doesn’t judge her by her appearance at all; when he first encounters her, he even appears largely dismissive of her monstrous nature and fetishises her spider legs, being a self-confessed “leg man”.

Rachnera is one of the most grounded, honest characters in Monster Musume, as it happens. She arguably acts in the most “adult” manner of the whole lot — though this can be taken in several ways, since not only is she mature in her attitudes and responses to situations, she’s also very sexually aggressive. More importantly, though, she’s completely at ease with herself, accepting both her monstrous nature (and all the difficulties that can sometimes cause) and her sexually adventurous side, particularly her predilection for bondage play, which a number of different cast members end up on the receiving end of with varying degrees of willingness.

To me, Rachnera was the most initially jarring monster girl to make an appearance — largely because I still haaaaate real spiders — but from what I’ve seen of her so far, she’s also one of the most likeable. She’s not necessarily the one I find the most attractive (I think that dubious honour goes to Miia) but, well, she does have a fine pair on her, and she’s an interesting character whom it would probably be fun — if, at times, unsettling — to hang out with.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the series and seeing how these characters develop. It’s easy to dismiss Monster Musume as cheap fanservice — as it is with many things that initially appear to be cheap fanservice — but as I’ve said, beneath the boobs and lamia panties (they’re stick-on!) and sexual assault by slime girls, it’s a delightful series with a wonderfully positive message.

I’m glad my friend Chris convinced me to check it out for myself, because without his wild enthusing about monster girls, I would have probably thought I’d be too squicked out by the girls’ more monstrous aspects to enjoy it. But, as it turns out, it’s not at all difficult to start accepting people just as people, regardless of what their extremities look like…

2046: Reading Material

Since my post a few days ago about getting into manga, I’ve been well and truly bitten by the bug, as it were, and I’m also about to branch out into my first light novels, which we’ll come onto a little later.

So far, I’ve read the first volume of Monster Musume, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (better known as DanMachi) and High School DxD, and have subsequently picked up the subsequent five volumes of Monster Musume and two more of High School DxD. (The later volumes of DanMachi have proven surprisingly difficult to track down, a fact not helped by the fact that Amazon has its listings for the light novel and manga versions all squished together into a not-particularly-clear form.)

Longtime readers or those who know me will recognise all of the above titles as series that I’ve watched the anime of, and this was a deliberate choice. I was initially hesitant to do so, but it turns out that reading the manga having seen the anime (or, I imagine, vice versa — I haven’t done this way round yet) doesn’t particularly diminish the experience any. In fact, in many cases the manga, being slightly longer in form than your typical anime’s 13 20-minute episodes, goes into more detail than its animated counterpart, often with new story threads, deeper exploration of characters and sometimes even a different overall tone.

Light novels, meanwhile, are something I haven’t explored at all, and until recently I wasn’t even particularly sure if there was a distinction between them and, you know, just a plain ol’ novel. “Light novels” are very much a Thing in Japanese popular culture, though, with many popular series starting as a light novel and subsequently being adapted into other forms of media such as manga, anime, video games and visual novels, so I was curious to investigate this particular part of culture.

I haven’t read any yet, but I have picked up two volumes of Sword Art Online: Progressive, a retelling of Sword Art Online’s original Aincrad arc, focusing on more personal stories and a single “floor” of the game at a time. It’s an ambitious project, considering the Aincrad arc supposedly unfolded over the course of several years and 75 floors — the first two volumes just cover floors 1 and 2 — but I’ll be interested to see if it comes to fruition, plus the Sword Art Online anime drew some criticism from certain quarters for rushing through the narrative of the original light novel it was based on, so I’ll be interested to see the story retold (and tweaked a bit, from what I understand) from a new perspective.

Anyway, if you were wondering, a “light novel” appears to be the Japanese equivalent of young adult fiction: relatively short works, often illustrated, but primarily text-based rather than the visual nature of manga. I’m interested to dive in; it’s actually been quite a while since I’ve read any book (i.e. one with words rather than one with pictures and speech bubbles — not that there’s anything inherently “inferior” about that format) so this will be a nice return to form if the Progressive novels prove to be a compelling read; I used to absolutely devour books, but for one reason or another, I’ve not really found a lot of time for reading in the last few years.

Ironic, really, considering the number of words I’ve typed on this here blog over the last few years — including a substantial number of fiction prose — but perhaps this will give me some ideas of my own!