Comedy in Anime

Having talked about One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100, my stance on the importance of comedy in anime is that it is important to the medium and, luckily, has been constantly evolving to become more universal and has been able to reach a broader audience within the last decade or so. One Punch Man happens to be especially funny because if their use of slapstick and shock humor. Another anime that I've become keen of is Nichijou, or My Ordinary Life.

Nichijou is another comedy anime, from around 2011, that is about several different groups of girls who go through their everyday lives. The twist is that mundane things are blown out of proportion in a very ridiculous yet humorous way. Tayler had a scene from the show on their presentation - the girl with the blue pig tails slams a goat against the floor.

From the 9 or so episodes I've watched so far, each episode has made me laugh because although I expect the character reactions to be ridiculous, I can never expect what the reactions will be. One instance that sets the tone for the show happens to be the first thing that happens at the beginning of episode one - two people collide into one another. At first, you'd anticipate that they trip over each other in a slow-motion type style, but instead they collide and a large city wiping explosion occurs instead. Nothing is actually physically destroyed but some props and characters do go flying from this small interaction and it sets up some of the jokes that follow afterwards.

Not to mention, the voice acting helps sell each scene ten times more. The actors of the sub are able to control their voice very well and you can hear the fear, excitement, sadness or anger in their voice very easily. That on top of the great animation and art style of the show means that, similar to One Punch Man, the show is nice to look at and contains some very funny jokes. I've already recommended the show to a few people, and I definitely recommend it to you

Pandora Hearts

Ah, a story about a curse/grudge that carries on throughout the family bloodline - or so it seems! Upon the first chapter, a lot seems to happen - the combination of Oz and his ceremony at the royal house as he turns fifteen and also his discovery of what I assume to be a link to his family's secrets/past.

The first chapter had some horror themes that I really like - with the girl and her dolls in particular. Personally, dolls, especially of the nature that were illustrated in the manga, have generally creeped me out quite a bit and seeing them drawn to actually see and think sends chills down my spine. It's something that creeped me out since I was a child and it all becomes a reality in this story, at least in the first chapter. I imagine these doll characters will be brought back sometime in the future of the story, which is cool because it sort of allows me to observe a fear that I have come to life but from a distance. 

I predict the story will evolve with Oz as he matures into the crown and becomes a bit more badass - he's illustrated to be kinda acrobatic and a bit of a trickster which, I assume, is similar to what his ancestors did, but to the wrong people, and now Oz has to suffer because of it. As of this blog, I'm unsure if the manga has an anime adaptation, but it seems like it would be great in the animated medium simply because of the horror elements alone. 

Rise of the Shield Hero

With the first episode, I wasn't expecting to like this show so much - especially since it was 47 minutes but I am very interested in the story. I'm sure anyone would relate this show to Sword Art Online, given that the theme is similar - people brought from one life to another that have to fight and get stronger until they can defeat the overarching threat and return home. The biggest difference that I've seen so far is that this deals with a lot more adult themes - allusions to rape, slave trades and I'm sure there will be more.

Going into the first half of the episode, I definitely thought Naofumi would be liked a lot more even if he wasn't as knowledgable about the world as the other heroes. The people who wrote the story, though, definitely made it clear that Myne would be trouble given that she made Naofumi buy her some pretty expensive gear and then tried to seduce him into drinking. Sadly, even though he didn't drink and decided to turn in early, she still manage to frame him for sexual assault and all of his gear and money were taken and given to the other heroes. I don't think I would come to have disdain for characters so quickly, but the combination of both false accusations as well as the reluctance in giving Naofumi any benefit of the doubt was very anger-inducing. Naofumi was put into a corner where anything he would do would be used against him - "Oh, you wanna go home after what you've done? You owe it to these people to fight." They forced him to become the person that they set his name out to be - someone who'll do whatever they need to get what they want.

My hope is that he'll be able to rebuilt his reputation among the country before the wave of monsters that he's training to combat rampages through it. I would hate to see his reputation stay at the bottom for the whole series - but I don't think it will. The shop owner seemed to believe that Naofumi was truly innocent, so that was already a step up. He's also the best person for Naofumi to have as an ally as well since he can make gear and what not.

I'm pretty excited to see how the story unfolds. It definitely wasn't anything that I thought it would be, but that's good because now I'm invested into what will happen in the story that has yet to be told.

Banana Fish

Initial impressions of simply looking at the term Banana Fish, I thought the term would have much more of an innocent or optimistic meaning - as neither 'banana' nor 'fish' are inherently harmful sounding terms. Going into the anime, I was expecting a much more lax, maybe slice of life anime but got a show about gangs and rivalries. I am very much into this kind type of anime and the production value of the show seems pretty good, relatively speaking. The poses of animation are nice and it feels like things are always moving, even if they really aren't.

Overall first impressions were pretty good, I might give the series a full watch. The plot seems promising and I was left wondering what would happen next. Ash, as a character, being edgy and ominous, is a person I want to learn more about as well as Eiji, another young yet promising character. The dynamic between the two, as of now, seems like it will lead to either some form of friendly competition or people who will eventually come to work together. The contrast in the way they handle things - with Ash being calm and collected while Eiji is a bit more temperamental and prideful - they will definitely have a large impact on one another's life.

The only question I was left wondering was the significance of the term Banana fish. In the anime, it is said that anyone who sees a banana fish will want to die but why is that the case? Is it gang related? Or some kind of magic or unknown power that is unknown to the characters yet? Some kind of cultural significance? It's interesting because why a Banana Fish? They seem so harmless yet, in this world, they are paired with bring death.

The Silver Spoon

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

The Silver Spoon felt like a very easy story to get into. I've personally always had the preconception that going into something like agriculture would mean that you grew up in a family that did it and you found your connections through your parents - not that there's a high school that you could go to that trains you. Because of this, Hachiken's high school experience is going to be quite different from my own but I think I'll still be able to relate at least a little bit to how he reacts to the people around him. It's his first time dealing with agriculture and I get to learn about it with him.  Overall, the reading seems like it would be pretty enjoyable.

2. What connections did you make with the story? 

Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

The biggest connection to the story I was able to make was Hachiken's first time being at high school. From his perspective, everyone seems to have their stuff figured out one way or another and the fact that he doesn't have a concrete 'dream' yet already stresses him out and starts to alienate him from the other students, which, I think, is something that a lot of kids go through around that time. At first he feels like he knows exactly how he'll conquer the school and become number one, but he quickly learns that agriculture is going to be a lot harder than he initially thought. 

Hachiken is also a little overreactive, but is still learning how to react and think about certain things, such as the fact that the egg of a chicken comes from the same orifice as the 'shit.' A lot of kids around his age, me included, tend to overthink or over analyze these kinds of truths and what their 'deeper meaning'  could be although they are relatively simple and easy to understand. 

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? 

What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

If I could, I think turning this story into some kind of audio book would be interesting. Since the story seems like it will mostly deal with the 'high school experience,' except at a farm, the setting would be pretty easy to intuit. The story would focus a lot more on being from Hachiken's point of view and accompanied by various relevant sounds i.e. while he's in the chicken coup, there could be sounds of chickens and exaggerated sounds, like a 'pop', when they lay their eggs. The benefit of this being an audio book would be allowing the consumer to imagine each scene the way they want to which would leave a much different impact as opposed to this story just being an anime.

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness + My Brother's Husband

The amount of real (ˈrē(ə)l n. : A measure of a work's relationship to the reality that we live in) that was in My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness felt almost staggering. Nowadays, especially on social media, there's a lot of confusion among the young adult generation (20s-30s) about what finding happiness and a place in this world could be and this story captured a lot of that essence pretty well on top of offering a way for the audience to see that it is a problem with a solution - and that it just takes time.

One theme that was brought up very often throughout the entirety of the story is the binding that someone has to their parents. Not all people feel so dependent on their moms and dads, but a lot of people do and that inhibits their power to create a life they enjoy living. This story quickly illustrates trying to please the idea of what it is that would please your parents is something that will only drag you, yourself, down. The rise of independence and therefore self-care is important to everyone's development if they want to become the person they truly are. Not unlike the main character's experience in hiring a prostitute to discover her true wants and wishes, finding independence is often a lot easier to do through the relationships of other people (as ironic as that sounds). She learns a lot about what won't fill the void in her heart through the first woman prostitute that she meets and, from there, is able to adjust her life perspective into something that helps her mentally. When she gets another woman prostitute, although she doesn't do everything she says she wants to do within that interactions, she's able to do a bit more than the first time she was with the first woman.


My Brother's Husband (the first 5 chapters), was also pretty interesting because it also dealt with learning acceptance of different people. Kana's father (who's name is skipping me right now) has a tough time finding his viewpoint on how to feel about Mike, his passed-brother's husband. Amidst his confusion, his initial instincts tell him that Mike will try to come onto him or that Mike is weird because he is gay or that Mike is someone to be wary of due to his sexual preference. But, through Kana, he learns that Mike's way of living is not as alien as he originally thought that it was. By allowing Mike into his life, he grows to accept that people are different in their interests and that's okay - there shouldn't be a norm for things that are not harmful, like love. Everyone should react to someone else's relationship that an innocent kid would.

Voices of a Distant Star - A Relationship Across Time and Space

     Considering the very limited production team, The Voices of a Distant Star was able to effectively portray the struggles of a long distance relationship in a way that made me actually care about what the characters were going through within only half an hour. The paradigm of Mikako and Noboru sending emails between one another, with the sending time increasing drastically is a great way to illustrate what it's like to have to simply wait for something. Without creating a plot driving element that is too complex, the send-time going from 6 months to 1 year to 8 years is something that I think a lot of people can relate to - although those numbers are quite large to have to wait for someone to respond. Whether it's friends, a boyfriend or girlfriend, or even your parents - we've all been in a situation where we would try to send them a message and they would not be able to respond immediately for whatever reason. 

Do they not like me anymore? Do they think I'm annoying? Did they DIE? 

 

Whatever it is, simply waiting for a response without knowing what's happening on the other end allows for intrusive thoughts to pervade our minds before we eventually run out of the energy to care. This exact thing happened in the film, when the email send-time went from 6 months to 1 year - Noboru thought Mikako had decided to stop responding because he hadn't gotten anything from her in a year. He ran out of the energy to care simply because he didn't know that she had jumped even further in space.

Ultimately, what I really like about the message of the film is that, the act of simply waiting - being forced to wait - is something that can test the emotional strength of an individual. Waiting can be very taxing, especially if what you were waiting for leaves just as quickly as it arrived. Is the time spent we spend on some things worth it? In many cases, I'd argue that it is - especially in the realm of maintaining relationships. Waiting is something that we all have to do, right - we have to be patient. But I think patience is finite - although some people have much larger reserves of it - and it can only be a matter of time before the voices of that distant star become too far to hear.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

 

      The first volume of this story was a pretty nice journey into what Nausicaa, as a character, is going to be for the rest of the series. There was a decent amount of development that Nausicaa, and even her mentor (?) Yupa went through as they were discovering the influence that Nausicaa can have on the world. Her fearlessness and drive to lead her people, from warding off the soldiers sent by the emperor to dealing with the Ohmu's, felt like a great highlight in that Nausicaa is a force to be reckoned with, although Yupa states that she has a power that is meant to heal. I personally have a little bit of a soft spot for stories that deal with coming to peaceful resolution - but violent resolution is a good way to go too, narratively - so it was easy to take a liking to Nausicaa and the people that she stood for. 

     I also found myself wondering what the hell is going on with the forest - I know that the Yupa mentions that, after seeing Nausicaa's secret spore lair, the forest is meant to cleanse the planet. From what I was able to gather, the insects of the forest are to help speed along that process - there's quote that says something along the lines of, humans are the reason for the heavy pollution. The dynamic established between the forest and the insects that reside within it made wish that there was more Ohmu speak going on. The fact that their thoughts go beyond space and time and allow them to communicate their thoughts/feelings to people is a really fun trait for creatures to have - the first thing I thought of when it was revealed that the Ohmu can speak, more or less, were Jabun and  Valoo from the Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker. They are a giant fish and dragon, respectively, that speak an old language that manifest as low-pitched resonating hums. They feel powerful - they feel like characters that have knowledge that we don't know and may never be told (up front) - and the Ohmu elicited similar feelings especially near the end when one of them says that "They are needed elsewhere." 

     The setting that Nausicaa was able to establish in the first volume alone was one that is much larger than man itself - a world who's traits are almost too large to imagine in its entirety. We get to just see pieces of it and I think that left a lasting impression on me. 10/10 will continue reading.

I SAW IT by Keiji Nakazawa + DISASTER DRAWN by Hillary Schrute - It's a Bad Time in War Time

 

 Hillary Schrute's analysis of Keiji Nakazawa's I saw it in her paper Disaster Drawn describes Nakazawa's experience with the atomic bomb of Hiroshima during World War II and explains what emotions he was attempting to evoke through his work. Before having read the story myself, the intended emotion of the story being told felt to still seep through Schrute's paper. I remember reading the portion of her story where she explains that Nakazawa was at school when the bomb dropped - and that he survived only because a wall he was standing by outside had collapsed upon him. After regaining consciousness, the city he once knew had transformed. Akin to waking up in a nightmare, Nakazawa having been greeted by what was left of the people of Hiroshima become monstrous. It's difficult to imagine what living a reality like that would be, but even then simply reading just Schrute's account of the manga was still effective. 

Many people would be afraid or disgusted of this work, if explained in concept and even moreso while reading it but that is what makes Nakazawa's piece powerful - because despite the horror, it is real. Schrute managed to stage the story and capture the main beats of the narrative, but reading the manga itself delivered a much more raw impact that I could not have gotten from Schrute's analysis alone. With its graphic depictions and even just seeing what it was that Nakazawa thought, it's easy to understand how this comic gained such merit and success. 

In the manga itself, Nakazawa explains that when he went to retrieve the bones of his parents that the bomb had even taken those away from him. It wasn't until then that the effects of him having lost his mother and father really begin to settle in - they were taken and they are gone forever. In a lot of popular media, a character can witness an event and will often react with great emotion immediately, yet Nakazawa's delayed understanding of the situation felt much more powerful than many other death scenes what I've seen in many of the movies I've watched and I think that's because we live as well. We suffer shock in greatly traumatizing events and the pain doesn't settle in until later.

Cigarette Girl by Masahiko Matsumoto - The Stresses of Marriage

To start, I thought the artistic style of Cigarette girl was weird - weird, yet it felt perfect for the type of characters that are seen in the story. The way every character's lips are sticking out of their silhouette reminds me of the dreaded 'duck face' trend that graced the internet for some period of time a while ago. It was a selfie-phenomenon where people would, for some reason, poke their lips out (I assume to look like they are blowing a kiss of some kind to look attractive). These people were flamed on the internet for looking so silly and I myself also thought it was a weird wave of how people took pictures of themselves - annoying almost - but these 'duck faces' placed in the context of just the art style of Cigarette Girl placed a lot more innocence and character on the story's universe. Even if the people weren't doing anything, it always looked like they were reacting to the world around them in some way (o3o).

With that said, following Hidari-san's story of trying to approach relationships was funny yet made me feel almost sympathetic for the character. Being that bum that he is while also not having being the smoothest of men meant he suffered a lot of awkward moments while trying to approach various women. One part that stuck out to me as especially funny was when he was told to squeeze the hand of his cigarette girl. He heeded this advice and squeezed her hand, after falling down the stairs and having her come to his aid. A frame of milk spilling followed a couple panels later by the greasy man who gave him the advice saying, "Didn't ya say you blew your load without actually doing anything?" was hysterical.

I know that marriage is, not unlike a lot of what seems to happen here, constantly pushed upon the upcoming generation once they become of age. A few of my friends have told me their parents are constantly bombarding them with "WHEN ARE YA GONNA COME HOME MARRIED? WHERE ARE MY GRANDCHILDREN?" This story was a more, I guess, realistic picture of what it's like to be in that situation - where the pressures of your parents nearly force you to find a significant other.

The Gekiga Expert: A few questions

     Gekiga's influence is seen through a lot of manga and anime - both past and present. What manga(s) do you think set the groundwork for gekiga as we know it today?

     Are there any examples of manga that have become controversial - socially, politically, or whichever - and changed the medium altogether?

     Are there even more recent developments in Manga that have changed the way we experience manga (such as the art styles, panel layouts, story etc.)?

AYAKO | Reading Response

     

     Osamu Tezuka's AYAKO was a story of pure tragedy. I'd sit there thinking one person was at least decent and find out that they were quite the opposite. Following Tenge Jirou, I went into the story assuming that he was going to be the hero for his family after returning to them for so long. With a terrible father, who turned out to be a somehow more terrible human, the contrast in energy I felt from both of these people was strong enough that they seemed to fit into the niches of being the good and bad guy. But everyone is a bad guy in this film - with the most innocent being Ayako.

     Even from Jirou accepting his first task (first one revealed in the story) to discard a dead body on train tracks, I figured, 'Hey. Whoever he's dealing with must have done something bad, right? This can't be too common an occurrence." But ALAS, Jirou is FAMILIAR WITH MURDERING PEOPLE. Whoa. The bubbly man getting off of the ship has some secrets. And man, were those secrets DARK. On top of this all, his whole family is pretty much falling entirely apart - a group of incestuous, spiteful, and manipulative people. The only hope being Ayako, someone who is forced to be kept underneath the house as to not be revealed to all of these terrible truths. 

    AYAKO seems to be a story that details that no one can be innocent - no one can be entirely good. Every character had a terrible secret exposed at some point in the story, or were exposed to facts that shatter any hopeful glimmer of what life could be. Poor Ayako was left wandering the world looking for love, but still afraid of encountering what her family had put her through. I think it speaks to the fact that we are all human, but this story takes our emotions - love, lust, jealousy, anger - and turns the dial from 10 up to 100 and exposes what I think people are all to capable of in this real world that we live in. All of the issues in the story are extreme, so much so that a majority of it's readers will not have to experience these problems - but they hit close enough to him that they could be real. And considering much of human history, I'm certain that everything in this book was inspired by some real life events.

Project Proposal: COMEDY in ANIME

Mob and Saitama | Mob Psycho 100, One Punch Man respectively

      For my presentation, I'm think about approaching the topic of comedy in much more contemporary Shounen Anime. In particular, I will talk about Studio ONE's hits One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100. Both of these Anime show their inspiration from the classic Shounen Anime formula, with battle hungry fighters and intense action sequences. With the skill cap in art constantly growing, One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100 deliver very dynamic fights to their audiences. However, both of these shows also place great emphasis on comedy as well as action.

     Take the quirky moments in Dragon Ball Z where the Z Fighters get to catch a break and enjoy food or some other activity in between battles in a filler episode, and place those in One Punch Man / Mob Psycho 100 that give much more meaning and context to the characters. Comedy has been a relief from tension in entertainment for a while now and One Punch Man / Mob Psycho 100 give us this relief in ways that we can appreciate.

     This project would fit best in Week 11: Shounen and Seinen

4 Panel Comic - That's not how legs work

That's not how legs work...

    
     My idea behind this comic was inspired by a fight that took place in the UFC some time ago where fighter Anderson Silva broke his own leg after attempting kicking his opponent's leg. In my short comic, I wanted the fight to look one-sided but the sudden break in the attacking fighter's leg changes the outcome of the match immediately.