Untitled

[derekpenasbl0g]

Perfect Blue

This movie was really intense and I had to take a break halfway through due to how uncomfortable it made me feel. In the second half, the movie becomes really confusing as, much like Mima, we can’t distinguish illusion from reality. I believe this movie achieves its goal of confusing and terrifying its viewers very well and does a good job of clearing up some of the mystery at the end. Had we not learned that Rumi was the one tampering with Mima’s image the whole time due to a personality disorder, I don’t think I would have enjoyed the movie as much as too many things would need to be explained. In fact, I believe some of the dream sequences that we see play out take place in Rumi’s perspective, although this is all up to interpretation.

The main theme of this film deals with how toxic fan culture can become, particularly to mentally unstable individuals. In the first half of the film, we see the people Mima works with get attacked one by one when she leaves music to pursue acting. From bombs being planted in letters to vicious stabbings, all of these attacks are meant to send a message to Mima and force her back into music. When she continues to pursue acting despite these messages, things become more intense. We see her being stalked by a man that is being manipulated by Rumi, which contrasts the ideas on otakus discussed earlier in the course. We came to the conclusion that otakus have the ability to distinguish their fictional desires from reality, creating a distance between the two while still enjoying both. Here, we see the result of the line between reality and fiction becoming blurred as Rumi begins to picture herself as the real Mima and Mima’s stalker believing that he is Mima’s protector. As such, these two seek to kill Mima in order to preserve the new reality they have fabricated in their minds.

Something else I noticed about this film concerned Mima’s acting and how she was constantly pushed to expose more and more of herself, from acting out a **** scene to having nude pictures of herself being taken for the consumption of others. I understand that people have the right to do what they wish with their bodies, but the whole situation seems very exploitative. They take an idol who is known for being very innocent and expose her to the public just to make a quick buck. Many of the people she works with, such as her photographer and her agent, seem to encourage her down this path while it is Rumi who is the only one that gets concerned for Mima being placed in these positions. I think I remember seeing her agent flinch during the scene, showing how even he may think it is too much. Yet, she is still pushed to continue down this path by those around her.

I think while this movie may be very uncomfortable to watch, it is an important film that highlights the toxic side of fan culture as well as the exploitation of women in the media. And if you’re in the mood for a psychological thriller, I believe this film captures that essence spectacularly well.

[elliekimono]

I was also very uncomfortable watching it since the events in the movie happen in real life. I didn’t think about the side of exploitation of women in media in this movie but I definitely see it especially with them making her take nude photos of herself. It’s terrible that she’s pushed to go further than she wants to with showing her body because of expectations. The idol culture seems to not allow a balance, either having to have an innocent image or a sexual one.

[elliekimono]

Perfect Blue

This anime was difficult to watch as it explored some uncomfortable themes. One of the major themes though was fan and idol culture. Or also just extreme excessive, maniac, obsession for things. In one of the articles, it talked about how most otakus could distinguish between fantasy and reality and that’s what prevented them from being manias. That whatever preferences they preferred in their manga didn’t carry over to their preferences in real life with real people. However, this anime shows the people that can’t distinguish between their fantasies and real life. Idols are idolized too much most of the times, and are believed to be without flaws and of only the characteristics the show on camera. However, the way people act on camera and their personality is very different. To gain fans that support their career, they must have a likable public personality and a clean record. When news gets out about celebrities that aren’t in line with their image, there’s fans that leave them for it, and there’s fans that believe the news to be false since it doesn’t match their image. The issue is also the fans that make up fantasies of the idol with no basis in reality. When they forget which ones are true, we get people like the dangerous stalker in Perfect Blue or the delusional manager. These people are willing to go as far as they need to in order to make their fantasies reality, because they believe it is reality. The part that makes Perfect Blue so uncomfortable to watch is the fact that there is people that do such things. There’s many known issues of fans stalking celebrities or not recognizing that celebrities are humans too. The failure to treat them as humans is made worse through the internet since the internet gives a cover of being anonymous and not speaking directly to anyone’s face, allowing for people to say mean things without seeing the hurt they cause to other people. Being able to distinguish between fiction and reality is crucial for functioning normally.

[outofphase-owl]

Sign Me Up For The Death Parade Please

Wow, Death Parade was really a unique anime. The story was framed around these moral dilemnas, in which we, as the viewers, must judge whether characters presented to us are “good” or “bad,” at their essence. (It reminds me of those trolley problems.) Of course, the conclusion that the show arrives at is the fact that nothing is that black and white, and that every person’s life decisions are morally ambiguous. 

Speaking of black and white, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Decim is visually black and white (in terms of his hair and his clothing). His appearance certainly reflects his views: that every person is either good or bad, and that this moral quality can be exposed given enough prodding. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it kind of reminds me of the ideology of essentialism. But in this case, it would be essentialism of the individual, the idea that each individual, at their essence, is good or evil, and that all of their life choices can be rationalized by this essence. 

This seems like a silly ideology, but it certainly pervades through everyone’s thought processes. People are guilty or not guilty, going to the afterlife or going to purgatory, etc. And much like how, in this anime, games are used to decide the fates of the dead, the judicial system kind of seems like a game too; one side wins and one side loses, and both are trying to do everything they can to eke out an advantage over the other while following the rules. And this “game” ultimately decides how society will then judge this person. 

I’ll be honest; the little interpersonal dramas between members of the Quindecim bar were kind of boring to me. But I thought that the overall premise of this anime was pretty interesting. And that metal music during the end credits went super hard! :D

[elliekimono]

I didn’t think of this before, but I agree with the idea that Decim is mostly black and white because of his views. It’s never as simple as black and white, but sometimes it’s necessary to force things to be black and white since there’s no in between punishment like the people either were reincarnated or disappeared into the void. 

[elliekimono]

Death Parade

And hereee's the anime of all the messed up things people do that I was expecting with Violet Evergarden. I was extremely confused with the ending of episode 1 since I suspected the women did it to rid her husband of his guilt and I thought the arbiters was all knowing/seeing. However, this is once again like the Sibyl system in psycho-pass passing judgement on people. Decim is like the emotionless judgement system in Sibyl system that allows no slack for reason or emotions. However, as seen this doesn't work all the time because humans are complicated. The woman and viewers all are humans that have emotions and can understand what the wife was trying to achieve. However, Decim made a mistake in his judgement because he didn't understand why she would lie to lessen her husband's guilt. It's once again a question of what is necessary to pass judgement on people when judgement is supposed to be completely objective. Clearly some emotions are necessary to see clearly through people's actions but then that allows judgement to be fooled by acts. We see that Decim isn’t a flawless emotionless system as he feels bad for the mistakes he makes. The women also argues that it’s not fair to judge people at their worst as all humans have flaws. But at the same time, we see that at their darkest, people don’t change with the brother deciding to inflict pain even though the woman tries to talk him out of it. We see the dangers of not following a Sibyl system that stops crime before it happens with the detective needing the assault to happen first before he would pass judgement. It brings up the question of how much evidence is enough to convict someone and what is the proper balance between emotions and objective judgement to decide the fate of someone.

[tuzzler]

violet evergarden.

Considering a narrative that we haven’t directly discussed being that of reintegrating into postwar society, Violet Evergarden is a personal story that shows how difficult this process can be. War and the problems that come from it for all the people involved cause lasting scars that may never heal regardless of how much time has passed and this other idea that there are many different ways to begin the healing process comes up. I would like to remind us of how the creator of Grave of the Fireflies found release in acknowledging his regrets and creating a narrative that ends in a sort of suicide that could give him release from his darker past. With this mentioned, Violet has to deal with the thoughts and feelings that are keeping her from moving on but once she finds those letters from the war that express grief and pain she finds motivation to continue because it feels she can finally properly acknowledge her feelings that may be repressed or that she cannot express. Just to reiterate, this idea of revisiting past trauma and writing on it as if it were something to be changed in order to understand can be surprisingly effective for some people and reading these narratives may be just as helpful for others. Emotional rehabilitation and the process that society goes through to start back up after war needs to be acknowledged I think through a collection of these personal experiences and narratives in order to properly understand how difficult postwar situations are. People will start to discuss issues such as postwar economics and more but lets bring this conversation to the people, families, and individuals. I’ll use veterans in western society as an example because my knowledge is limited but I don’t think it would be too unreasonable to assume that in other societies veterans are overlooked by people regularly. Veterans can come back from war and due to trauma and difficulty reintegrating into society they cannot find jobs, feel comfortable around their own family, and go down a spiral that can lead to suicide. Let’s bring this back to the show now, Violet is nothing less of a veteran and allows this conversation to come up since she has to come to terms with the things that war shows about humanity, morality, and people’s own mortality and we see her experience this downward spiral. Violet Evergarden does a great job in conveying many of these ideas which allows this piece to shine today.

[elliekimono]

Violet is indeed a veteran that has difficulties adjusting back to normal society after the war. It's more exaggerated in her case that she grew up in the military and doesn't know many emotions in the first place, but it's a struggle that many people have postwar. There's not much that escapes unscathed from war if anything

[elliekimono]

Violet Evergarden

Well, I cried the entire time I watched the episodes. I really was confused for a decent amount about whether Violet was actually human or not because I thought it was a futuristic world about a robot discovering human emotions since they were called Dolls. And I’m also really glad is more about discovering the lingering emotions people want to convey instead of the disgusting and messed up things that humans can do sometimes.

At first, I didn’t understand what the boss meant by burning. However, this cleared up when I understood he meant the taking of lives in wars and ruining of relationships as a result of taking lives. War once again brings no benefits to anyone. We see people suffering from the loss of war in being the only one back in Violet’s case or being the one left behind. However, Violet’s role in the post office brings people together which is the complete opposite of war. At first, I wondered what in the anime could to apply to everyone in the whole world. But then, I realized that the anime conveys exactly that. That there is something everyone in the world can connect through which is emotions. These are emotions are conveyed through the letters that Violet writes and delivers. Through this, she learns the love that she can’t learn through the battlefield and killing. Because nearly everyone also has emotions, we can understand the sadness and needs that others feel in the anime even if we don't have the experience. This is something that unites the entire world and is universal for keeping peace or avoiding wars.

[maxs-animoo]

Sensoron

This manga sure knows how to be quite controversial. From the second the whole pooping fiasco finished it was clear the direction this manga was going to take. And that direction would be the radical nationalistic one.

For a manga published in 1998 it portrays an extremely dated viewpoint on wartime Japan and on the events that occured during WWII. Kobayashi rants about how Japan has been brainwashed by America and this brainwashing is still instilled in them to this day. He claims that America and other nations unrightfully took Japanese generals and such to court after the war and they framed all of the bad actions on Japan. I think that this topic in and of itself is very debatable and even though I have learned about all of the history before I don’t really know what conclusion I should come to. On one hand it is true that Japanese generals took a big hit from the war, however, on the other hand these generals had done horrible things regardless of whether or not Kobayashi wants to admit it. Both Korea and China were abused by Japan whether it be comfort women or the rape of Nanking there is clear history to tell us this. Kobayashi attempts to deny the severity of Nanking as well as put down the victims of Japanese occupation with his trivial evidence. I think that Kobayashi is trying to stir even more hate for China and Korea within Japanese society by putting these ideas out there. 

Also back to the brainwashing thing. I think that regardless of whether or not America impacted Japan with their politics and occupation following WWII, America did good for Japan. The Japanese Government were the ones perpetuating the war longer than it needed to be. The likelihood of success continually diminished yet they dragged on the war and inflicted suffering upon the average citizen. They literally brought their country down just an attempt to keep their pride. Obviously America utilized a very severe end game in order to put an end to the war. I don’t know if I can say that this was justified simply because we don’t know how many more lives would’ve been lost if the war continued.

 I don’t want to say that America is directly responsible for how Japan has become today. Our occupation (in my humble opinion) benefited Japanese society because we changed their governmental structure. If Japan had kept its previous militarinistic(idk how to spell that) structure I think that their society may have progressed to become something similar to North Korea today. Which is why I think it was positive, however, this topic is too hard to debate without introducing opinion into the mix honestly. I just think that if everyone owned up for what was done and stopped pointing fingers it would be better for everyone in the end.

[elliekimono]

I was also very confused on what conclusion I could come too. There’s too much possible bias on both sides, and his statement makes it confusing to know what is true and what isn’t. His view point is very clearly a more radical one though with how passionate he is in the manga. It would be better for everyone to leave the past and blame behind, however, sadly it’s easier said than done.

[elliekimono]

Sensoron

Usually when I think of manga, I think of the more entertainment-based ones I read. So when I began reading Sensoron, I initally thought this to be the same. However, it was much more like an academic paper presented through manga as a medium rather than something you would read for recreation. It was also very enlightening. When the author first began relating his bathroom issues to the post WWII state of Japan, I thought it was just a side note or analysis of a situation. I even scorned the words the author said at first with thoughts of “how could an entire well-known event be fabrication” and dismissed it as the rambling of an extreme Japanese nationalist that had read too many conspiracy theories. I thought that their patriotism had blinded them to Japan’s faults. However, now I feel that I’ve been blinded by photos and captions. I’m now very confused on what events are true and what events are false. Many photos and accounts of claimed massacres has been thoroughly debased by the author. I was also confused at first at why Japanese newspapers would be publishing anti-Japanese news however, it seems that there was much more influence from other nations on the actual citizens of Japan. This manga also throughly proved that things we consider “concrete” evidence, impossible to manipulate aren’t actually as factual as we think. Based on the context and captions, the meaning of a photo can take a whole new meaning, and in one of them, simply excluding small parts like the happy people or the guardians of the paper makes the photos a lot more terrible. It also shows that things that are supposed to be “factual” like museums and textbooks can hold a lot more false information than we think, making it so we can’t trust everything in our educations. All in all, it left me questioning a lot of things about our knowledge of history and basically everything, and I’m not sure how much I’ll trust things, especially when I remember 20% of our memory is made up.

[shinyintheeast]

Your Name - Apr. 10th

Your Name is a beautiful movie that I did not expect to hit me as hard as it did. I have heard before that it is a tearjerker but it did not prepare me for what I experienced. The time-traveling aspect in the movie confused me though. It took a couple of explanations to get it down. It is a fantastic movie that I was glad I finally watched after it being hyped for over three years.

In the movie, Mitsuha and Taki switch bodies every other day. Living in each other’s bodies, they make an impact on each other’s personal relationships. Mitsuha is seen as more likable due to Taki making her stand up for herself, as seen when she kicked the desk over, and more out-going when he is in her body. When Mitsuha returns to her body, she attracts love interests and more people are aware of her. On the other hand, Mitsuha in Taki’s body brings out his feminine side. He attracts his senpai at work, Okudera, by being gentler and bringing out his feminine side. Okudera said she liked that Taki had a feminine side to him. The movie does a great job of conveying that showing a more feminine or masculine side to yourself is not shameful or should be looked down upon in society. It has always been an issue when a girl acts more masculine and a boy acts more feminine. Some people view it as wrong and disgraceful. Your name does not convey the two main characters acting differently as unacceptable. Mitsuha and Taki’s friends were concerned because they acted weird such as forgetting basic information about the body they were inhabiting. Other than that, they were accepting of their new behavior. Taki’s friend, Tsukara thought Taki acted cute when Mitsuha was in Taki’s body. 

[elliekimono]

The time travelling also really confused me too. I like your thoughts on how masculinity and femininity is seen in the other gender and how it’s acceptable in Your Name. I didn’t take the lack of concern as acceptance of acting more masculine/feminine, but now I see your ideas and I can see why the characters around them accepted the change in attitude. 

[elliekimono]

Your Name

This was my first time watching Your Name and I really liked it. It had some really beautiful scenes and animation, and I definitely cried. Many times, I wondered why no one really noticed the changes between the two, but analyzing plot holes isn’t quite productive. However, I’m still going to question it anyways. First, there’s a interesting fact that it seems both Mitsuha and Taki has nontraditional family structures. We never see Taki’s other parent so we can assume that Taki only has a single father. And as a single father in the city, he’s clearly busy working as he only shortly appears when Mitsuha is in Taki’s body, therefore it makes sense he doesn’t notice the change in Taki. However, its strange that his friends don’t question the change in behavior beyond the shallow questioning. Mitsuha’s family is also much more involved in her life aside from her father. It can easily be disregarded though considering the setting of the world and the ability of time to twist and change memories even on technical devices. However, like in Wolf Children, we see the difference between urban and rural settings. Although the people in the rural setting complain about the lack of entertainment, there is a distinct lack of family in the urban setting. Even with the bad relationship between Mitsuha and her father, he realizes that Mitsuha isn’t Mitsuha. Along with her grandmother, those are the only people that realize that Mitsuha is someone else. Everyone also seems to know everyone in her town. However, in the city, many people seem pretty distant to Taki aside from his few friends and his coworkers. 

[emilyanimeted]

Hetalia

This was the first time i watched this show. I definitely remember seeing stuff from this show back in the day when i was on tumblr and I actually found it interesting even though i didn’t watch anime. It was surprising that the episodes are only five minutes long, including the end credits and also the extra separate thing that they have at the end. I think the show might benefit from a longer format because it makes the storytelling a little choppy.

I thought it would be interesting to see how Japan viewed different countries, and I was not let down. Within the first two minutes of the first episode, many countries were introduced and their ‘personalities’ were displayed. It was a cute idea to make each person represent their own country, but this makes story-telling a little confusing as you’re generally supposed to remember which country is which or you end up lost. When I looked up the show before watching it, I saw it was based on  a manga from the late 2000s. I wonder how different it would be if they made this today.  

When watching the sub vs the dub, there were more differences than i have seen before when watching sub vs dub anime. Usually, there are only slight differences in sentence structure and the uses of different synonyms, but the dub version had some translations that were not the same.

It seemed a little odd that the characters were literally countries boiled down to one person. It felt like the show perpetuated the idea that every person from the one country was the same, and seemed to lean on stereotypes. This also makes it seem that every person in the country agreed with their decisions, and there was no dissent, even though the decisions were likely made by whoever the ruler was at the time. 

[elliekimono]

Yeah, thankfully I knew the countries beforehand or I would have been very lost, When I heard the dub after watching the sub, I was immediately confused by the completely different script and they barely had the same meanings at all. Also I’m not sure how anyone watched the first episode in dub considering I couldn’t understand them at all with them all talking at once. I remember always being confused about the structure between the advisors and the countries themselves and their relationship. I was also confused on the choppy storyline but according to the article, this is definitely on purpose in order to keep viewers.

[elliekimono]

Hetalia

I couldn't take the anime very seriously considering I remembered part of it from when I was younger and also it's just not a very serious anime. At first glance, it seems like a light-hearted way of depicting countries and world history. However after reading it article, it seems like this is just to capitalize on fujoshi's consumption of text. Although the anime isn't explicitly tailored towards fujoshi,  it definitely has a mostly female audience and underlying fujoshi moe elements. Even the jumping between narratives that confused me when I was younger, and still confuses me now along with slightly irritating me,  is extremely deliberate according to the anime. Not only is it a way to capture the 4-koma style of the manga, but it's also a tactic to keep the audience. By separating one narrative over several episodes, invested fans must watch every episode to see the ending. Not only this, but it also allows more variety of characters to appear which wouldn't be so much the case if the anime worked more in arcs. It's not really unexpected though that the anime has a lot of controversy about it internationally. After all, the depiction of certain ethnicities or countries is always a risky topic, and Hetalia capitalizes on stereotypes of each country from Japan. It is difficult to remove bias from any media about nations, especially something unacademic like Hetalia.

[derekpenasbl0g]

Xenoblade Chronicles

I had only heard of Xenoblade through it’s inclusion in Super Smash Bros. along with the occasional social media posts by its fan base. I’m not a big fan of JRPGs and most RPGs (I don’t even like Pokemon that much) so I never gave the series a try. But I knew the fan base for this lesser known Nintendo title is extremely passionate about their series, something that I can relate to as a Metroid fan. So I gave the cutscenes we watched an honest shot and wow, was I shocked at how much I fell in love with this story.

Although we were only able to watch a small fraction of the game’s 100+ cutscenes, I still feel like I was able to resonate with a lot of the characters and the commentary on environmentalism this story was trying to tell. From my understanding, Klaus tried to play god and restart the Universe to undo the damage humans had done. He then crafted this story’s world in an effort to avoid the selfishness of humans, creating the Titans and the Blades. However, he came to realize that these new humans were just like the ones in his previous world and gave up on trying to fix the world. Playing god and fixing the world’s problems to one’s liking is ultimately pointless so long as humans have freewill. There will always be those that seek to exploit nature for its resources, damaging the world they live in. Yet, the opposite is also true.

Throughout the story, we see countless examples of humans controlling Blades and using their power to achieve their goals. Due to the connection Blades have to Klaus and the Titans, I believe this story is trying to depict the Blades as a being of the environment. While this could symbolism could easily be used to further show how humans exploit their environment, the story centers around Rex’s connection to Pyra/Mythra and their opposition against those that seek to destroy humanity for the destruction it causes to the environment. I think this is meant to show how the solution to our environmental destruction must come from working with and using the tools provided to us by the environment.

Lastly, I want to touch on the ending of this story. Mythra lies to Rex and gives her life to save the world from total destruction. Yet, Rex is not willing to let her go at first. He goes into a panic and doesn’t realize he is hurting Poppi when he begs for her assistance. Gramps then tells him to know when to let things go, which causes him to snap out of his fit and accept Mythra’s decision. While being a great moment of growth for Rex in his transition into adulthood, I believe this ending also tells us what should be done when our work to restore the environment is complete. We must understand how we came to damage the place that gives us life and return the tools it has lent us, returning to a quiet life of harmony with nature. Nature will find a way to correct itself, but it offers us the opportunity to right our wrongs if we chose to take it. If so, we must not exploit her tools for more than their intended purpose.

[elliekimono]

I also briefly noticed the idea of working with the environment with the blades as elements of nature. I like your analysis of the ending and it’s meaning of returning parts of nature and not exploiting these tools. I was a little confused on Klaus’ desires but your post cleared it up for me a bit. The element of the desire to play god was seen a few times in the game.

[elliekimono]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Wow, I didn't expect to watch a whole anime through cutscenes. While I don't mind, I wonder how the actual gameplay is like with so many cutscenes. I know some people disliked Pokemon shield for the amount of cutscenes it had. But also Xenoblade Chronicles relies a lot more on plot and the story. I also questioned a bit on why I didn't mind the 3D aspect when its a game, but I do when it's an actual anime. Anyways, that was just some extra thoughts. It was a great story and I was left in tears... again.

In the scenes, we see the theme of fighting wars over land and resources happening again. Like in Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, in the Xenoblade world, habitable land is disappearing. For the Xenoblade word, it is because the Titans are dying. Unlike in Nausicaa though, the land dying is slightly less a fault of the humans, but more just a part of the cycle of life. The cycle of life and climates is part of our world too, except the issue is that global warming speeds up this climate change cycle faster than organisms can adapt. However, there's still themes of humans being at the fault of the ruined earth. Because of the Praetor's greed, he released essentially weapons of mass destruction and also killed many people resulting in the end of peace and thus more conflict that ruined the world further. His greed is the result of wanting to become god, which isn't as unreasonable as it seems since the Architect, the creator of their world, also used to be human. His greed also caused problems in both worlds he lived in, and we see the result of this as him being split in half. His actions ended up with his world ending up as the ruins beneath the sea and the people of his time becoming monsters. From the Architect's actions, we also see the result of wanting to escape to a different world to run away from environmental problems. Rex also embodies this desire as he searches for Elysium instead of working to fix problems on the ground.  In the end, the Elysium he found at the tree is barren, not the perfect world he wanted everyone to be able to live in and it's revealed that Elysium was the union of all the current land all along.

[outofphase-owl]

I’m The One True Otaku

I think that the otaku subculture in the U.S. is awesome. Despite this, I wasn’t a huge fan of the True Otaku film. This documentary prided itself on the fact that it was made “by otaku, for otaku,” but I think that this fact was the documentary’s greatest weakness. It’s great that the filmmakers were excited about their subject, but their seeming disjointedness and lack of both informational and analytical depth was comparable to a superfan rambling on and on about how great their favorite anime is. The film provided surface-level information about the otaku subculture (explaining common terminology and such), but didn’t go much deeper into really uncovering why this subculture exists and what really makes its members tick. Instead, it felt more like an advertisement for anime conventions. My suspicion is that True Otaku would have been better had it been made by filmmakers totally outside of the otaku subculture, kind of like the documentary Trekkies (about Star Trek fans).

Nevertheless, we can still glean a lot from what True Otaku gives us. To me, the most interesting part of the documentary is when it follows Dust Bunny in her creative process of designing a costume for an upcoming cosplay competition. Maybe it’s because I love the creative process so much, no matter what is actually being created. To be honest, before this documentary, I kind of disregarded cosplay as something stupid. But I really respected Dust Bunny’s craftmanship and artistry in designing her costume. I can almost see her as an “economic unit” in the otaku subculture, but instead of being payed in economic capital, she’s being paid in shadow cultural capital. In addition to being an “economic unit” of sorts, she’s one of many conduits for idea exchange within the otaku subculture (i.e. she’s influenced by other cosplayers, thus creating her own cosplay and contributing specifically to fans’ idea of Kirin while also inspiring other cosplayers in general).

Speaking of economics, one thing that became very clear as I was watching the documentary (that surprised me) was that a lot of people spend a lot of money at anime conventions. When we talked about economic capital and cultural capital in class, we talked about them as if they were two independent axes. However, at anime conventions, it seems like they are somewhat related to each other; if you spend more economic capital on merchandise, you can acquire more shadow cultural capital (”anime clout”). From many of the interviews, I got the impression that people buy a ton of merchandise to kind of prove how much of an anime fan they are. To extend this idea, one might say that Dust Bunny is investing a large amount of her economic capital into acquiring shadow cultural capital when she is designing her cosplay. (However, the creative side of me says that she spends all of this economic capital just because she enjoys her creative process so much.)

Despite all of this, I think that it’s wrong to compare the capital exchange within an anime convention to the capital exchange in the outside world. After all, both consumers of merchandise and cosplayers have to bring economic capital from the outside world inside (in boomer speak, make money in the real world) in order to engage in their activities. Anime conventions aren’t self-sufficient; they rely on economic stimulus from the outside world in order to operate. I guess it’s for these reasons that the otaku subculture is called a subculture, and isn’t a culture unto itself. It’s a dependent fragment of society that has internal capital exchange, but isn’t separated from everything else.

Anyways, this just makes me want to watch Trekkies again.

[elliekimono]

I also agree that in the fact that the film felt a little shallow. There wasn’t much shown about the conventions aside from the cosplayers and talking to them. I’ve also noticed the economy side of the conventions, especially since I’m now not allowing my sister to go to conventions anymore because of how much she spent the first time. I like how you pointed out it’s different from capital exchange from the outside though because I was really questioning the capital exchange at conventions for a moment.

[elliekimono]

Otakumentary

I’ve been to MegaCon before in Orlando so my post is also drawing from my experiences there. One of the first things I noticed is the type of merchandise sold at the conventions. In the readings and Genshiken, doujinshi is obviously a huge part of otaku culture in Japan. The convention in Genshiken focused on the large amount of doujinshi groups and the selling of them to other otakus. However, in my experience and what I saw in the documentary, there isn’t a large focus on doujinshi’s in the American conventions. Instead, there’s a lot more of what may be considered more mainstream, not fanmade merchandise. This includes posters, small trinkets, plushies, swords, and figurines. This may be attributed to the fact that there are stores that normally sell these in Japan, but in America, anime is much more of a fan-based focus so it’s largely unavailable aside from these conventions. We also see items being sold in American conventions that are less anime-based but more just Japanese like the snacks, fans, and stuffed animals. I’m not sure if they’re also sold at Japanese conventions, but I doubt it as these items don’t have much relation to anime and are probably easily available outside of the convention. In my experience, I don’t see many doujinshi at MegaCon unless I just missed it, but I have seen the official mangas being sold.

At all conventions, a main point is the feeling of community. Since otakus are usually looked upon as a bit strange whether in Japan or America, conventions are a place to meet others of similar interest, and show off your abilities. It’s a place to exercise shadow capital and increase your social standing in the fandom since you’re surrounded by people that understand it. Cosplay is one of the ways of increasing the social standing at conventions. Going to conventions and seeing the cosplayers, I always saw them as people that held more passion and were more... elite otakus. They were, atleast seemingly, unashamed of their fandom and looks. Another thing that links in with the sense of community is the size of the convention. The documentary talked about how smaller conventions were more loved, and I understand that feeling. Being in the large convention hall gave a feeling of being more anonymous and also lostness. It was difficult to distinguish booths from each other sometimes. Although the anonymous helped the Genshiken protagonist to be less ashamed of the things he bought, it made me feel more lonely in the crowd of strangers.

One thing that really builds a sense of community is seeing a cosplayer from an anime you watch. Not only are they fellow otaku, but they know and clearly love the same anime that you do. It’s different since if the anime is less known, sometimes it can feel like you’re still isolated from the rest of the community at the convention. After all, at the convention there’s clearly more merchandise for popular animes and sometimes it can be extremely difficult to find your own personal favorites. So seeing merchandise or cosplayers for a small anime can be interesting. Cosplayers also run the risk of not having anyone recognize their outfits and therefore their hard work, which can be disappointing.

Personally, I don’t really like conventions that much, atleast not the one’s I’ve been to. There’s still concern of running into people I know despite how large the center is, and I just generally don’t like crowded places. While it’s exciting to see merchandise for an anime I like, the large concrete indoor convention centers that they’re usually in makes it a little impersonal for me, and I also get tired out easily trying to walk around everywhere.

[dixiesbizarreadventure]

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

“You may live to see man made horrors beyond your comprehension.”

-Nikola Tesla

I have a high regard and respect for movies from Studio Ghibli, and I hope to watch them all eventually. This is the first time I’ve viewed Studio Ghibli, and they lived up to their reputation with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, an inventive and piece that any viewer can tell is created for the love of the art and not for the money. 

The main protagonist is Nausicaä, the princess of the Valley of the Wind. Her happy homecoming with Lord Yupa illustrates how in the thousand year aftermath of the seven days of fire, humanity has lost its industrial and aggressively capitalistic foundation system, and The Valley of the Wind is very much a gemeinschaft, with the people respecting and cooperating with each other. A hierarchy exists, since Nausicaä and her father are monarchs, but this monarchy is idealistic, her father being a gentle king, our heroine being a calm and loving princess. This image rejects the industrial society we have built, giving an example of a true community in which people flourish. 

The true message of the film, however, comes through with the fact that the beautiful Valley of the Wind is under constant threat by the toxic jungle. The world-building here is particularly excellent, as insects are its main inhabitants. Insects are the most diverse and abundant group of animals on earth, and it would make sense that they would become dominant animals after the seven days of fire, since many species can even survive nuclear explosions. There is a testament to the intricacy and unknowable contents of nature, as Nausicaä discovers that these insects are not aggressive animals, but protecting the forest that needs ample time to renew itself. Another contribution to this theme is the mysterious Ohm. With their feelers, they revealed to Nausicaä that the Pejite pilot was still alive. They do the same thing to resuscitate Nausicaä. It is never explained how they are able to do this, and that is why it is humbling to the human species. Although we are able to make such bounds and learn so much, there are some mysteries of this planet that we cannot solve, and questions that don’t need to be answered. 

Humanity’s hubris rears its ugly head through the Tolmekians (less so, but still, through the Pejites). The Tolmekians masked their ambitions of conquest under those of unification, as many powers have in our own time. Furthermore, they ignore the patterns that humanity has seen. They are aware that the giant warrior was something wrong in the cosmic sense, they were a result of human arrogance and had scorched the earth as a consequence, and yet the Tolmekians believed that they were somehow better, that they could do what ancient humans could not. It is interesting that while the Valley of the Wind uses futuristic gliders, the Pejites their unique flying craft, the Tolmekian aircraft all looks very antique. They even look a little antique to us, more like World War II aircraft than the sleek fighter jets we have now. They are also notoriously flimsy, foreshadowing that Tolmekian brute strength is a delicate facade, as when things turn, their soldiers do as well, deserting. 

Thus, the overarching message of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is environmentalism, but not in the “paper-straw sense”. It reminds us of the consequences of our actions not in the way seeing a dead seabird does, but in the way that seeing an entire city ravaged by a storm does. It doesn’t make us think of the dodo bird, but of the passenger pigeon. This makes the message far more chilling, that although we may seem the dominant species, we are bound to nature’s whims. Thus, we must not concern ourselves with petty, artificial arguments such as the control of kingdoms. A respectful understanding of nature and its laws is the only way we can ensure the survival of our species far into the future. 

[elliekimono]

I like the comparison you drew with the flimsiness of the Tolmekian being linked with their strength being actually weak. It shows really well with how easily those planes went down. I didn’t think of the reasoning for the main inhabitants being insects because of the large amount and strengths of the insects here, but it makes a lot more sense then whatever symbolic meaning I was trying to think of. The Ohms are truly mysterious and uncontrollable similar to nature itself.