Otaku, No Video

© Bandai Entertainment, Bee Train

[Note: This is the first in a series I'm planning about anime that contains themes and concepts a little deeper than average. Shows that make you think, at least a little.]

Year: 2002
Director: Koichi Mashimo
Scenario Writer: Kazunori Ito
Studio: Bee Train

What’s it about?

.hack//SIGN’s lineage is part of its appeal, and part of its downfall.  .hack itself is a sprawling story told across multiple media: video games, anime, manga, light novels, etc., all of them dealing with an online fantasy game called The World.  Every work in .hack tells its own story, and the stories provide context for each other; a character who appears briefly in a later work may be the hero of a previous one.   The game itself is basically World of Warcraft, set in a near future of functional virtual reality helmets, so the experience is very direct.

What makes .hack//SIGN Attentive Anime?

And that’s what sets .hack//SIGN apart from other game-based works.  It focuses on half a dozen players of The World who get caught up in a mystery, and deals with the human reaction to living a few hours a day in an immersive alternate reality.  They all know this place isn’t real in the same way that the physical world is real, but the World also generates  real experiences and friendships; their conversations in the World are no different than their conversations at coffee shops or school.

The central mystery is this: a shy teen character, Tsukasa, can’t log out of the game. It’s like he’s been downloaded into the game itself, which is of course theoretically impossible.

Tsukasa © Bandai Entertainment, Bee Train

That in itself is one of the nice bits in the show: the creators clearly understand the technical limitations of massively multi-player online gaming.  This is Norrath, not the Matrix.  Barbarians stop moving and stare sightlessly into space as their players check email or answer the phone.

Tsukasa himself is a piece of work.  He’s a stereotypical teen; sullen, frustrated, and withdrawn.  As the other characters make clear, he can’t make progress until he decides to open up to the other characters.  He’s fundamentally disconnected, and this is a show about the need for connection.

Note:  I use the word “he” even though Tsukasa’s real gender is an ongoing point of debate among the characters.  And, really, in an online world, you can’t know.  (A fact underlined in a later .hack series, when a character is lured into a trap by two cute girls who are actually played by boys.)

Mimiru © Bandai Entertainment, Bee Train

Two players in particular are trying to help him: Mimiru, a teen girl with a quick temper but a soft spot for Tsukasa, and Bear, a long-time RPG player (in one conversation, he describes an experience he had playing a tabletop RPG in college) with a father’s concern for this withdrawn teenager.  Others are brought in for advice and help, particularly when Tsukasa runs afoul of the Crimson Knights, a player-organized quasi-police force who keep other players from abusing the game.

Implications/Thoughts about the depth of its premise

If .hack//SIGN has a main theme, it is identity.

• Tsukasa has spent so much time in the game that he doesn’t know who he is anymore.
• Mimiru doesn’t know why she should care about Tsukasa, but does nevertheless.  She’s experiencing the maternal instinct for the first time, and it surprises her.
• B.T. doesn’t care about much of anything, and has to confront this when surrounded by people who do.
• Subaru, the head of the Crimson Knights, is paraplegic–but can walk and swing an axe in the World.  The game gives her new freedoms.
• Crim, a long-time player of the World who often advises the other characters, is a corporate warrior who uses the game to relax during business trips.  In the physical world, he’s a responsible businessman; in the World, he’s a distant, disconnected wanderer of the empty areas in the game.

Provocative moments

Subaru © Bandai Entertainment, Bee Train

About halfway into the show, Mimiru decides to meet with Tsukasa just to talk.  Tsukasa’s been notoriously flaky, but she’s determined to do it anyway (again, her maternal instinct flaring).  We spend most of an episode watching her, as she waits patiently by a small stone outcropping.  Tsukasa eventually shows up–hours late–and is shocked to find her there.  She half-forces a smile and just talks with him for a while.

The resulting conversation is awkward and ultimately goes nowhere.  Tsukasa eventually leaves.  But it’s his first realization that someone cares, and will go out of their way to be with him.  It’s his first turning point on the road to connection.

However, the moment that stands out most to me occurs when Tsukasa is “rebooted,” an agonizing experience that causes his identity to disperse and knit itself back together.  This occurs inside a disconnected pocket of the World, where he is completely alone.  He crawls over to a stuffed bear nearby, and absently picks at the eye of the bear.  We cut away, and later return to find that the eye is gone but Tsukasa’s still picking.  We cut away again, and when we return much of the bear’s face is gone.

He’s still picking.

The series excels at these little moments, telling us through expression and action a character’s inner thoughts.

Loose Ends

I also remember the ending, because it comes as a shock — the plot isn’t resolved.  In fact, the last shot shows the characters launching themselves at a new enemy.

This is the downfall of .hack//SIGN — it’s meant to set up the plot of the console games. Indeed, the final shot of the anime shows the characters launching themselves at a new enemy.

But the real story of .hack//SIGN lies in the characters.  They all go through their pain and growth over the 26 episodes of the series, and by that final shot, they are where they need to be. As frustrated as I am by the ending from a story perspective, I’m completely content from a character perspective.

I mentioned in my videos about Hanamaru Kindergarten and Chu-Bra!! that I felt uneasy about those shows; that they’d “crossed a line.” What does that mean?

Chu-Bra!! © Yumi Nakata, Studio Zexcs

In this case, both examples relate to the sexualization of children and adolescents.

In Hanamaru Kindergarten’s case, Anzu (the child) is indirectly sexualized. She is completely asexual. However, the first episode sets up a pattern of behavior in the child’s mother (falling in love with and having sex with her teacher while still in school), then a direct comparison between the mother and her daughter (the daughter is repeatedly described as just like her mother), then the beginning of the same pattern of behavior in the daughter (she professes her love for her teacher and says she wants to be “his bride”).

Anzu is completely innocent in this; I doubt that she has the remotest idea of what she’s implying. But the series implies that she’s heading down a road that will end in sex with her teacher.

That crosses the line.

What is the line?  Well, now we’re getting into terminology and definitions for a folk saying, so we’re on soft ground.  But I say a series crosses the line when it presents a generally accepted perversion as okay.

By ”perversion” I mean something that’s well-established as seriously twisted:  immediate-family incest, sex with children, eating the dead.  Humans across many diverse cultures recognize these as Bad Things.  And there’s nothing wrong with discussing them; what’s wrong is in presenting them as okay or normal.

(Yes, there are isolated cultures which are okay with incest and eating the dead; those are exceptions.)

Which gets to my problem with shows like Hanamaru Kindergarten and Chu-Bra!!. As presented–at least as of episode 1–they present teens having sex with their teachers and fetishization of half-naked middle school girls as okay.

I can see the comments now: “Dude, chill out; it’s just anime.” Sorry, not a defense. It’s “just video games” or ”just food” or ”just life.” I care about this industry, because it’s taught me things and entertained me, and I don’t want it to die.  Perversions like these, left unchallenged, build up a set of ugly content that can bring about protests, governmental crackdowns, and the banality of the industry.  Standing by without protest is giving anti-anime groups ammunition.

And no, this is not censorship, either.  I’m not calling on Gainax to cease production of Hanamaru Kindergarten. I’m saying that what they’ve done is not okay.

It is possible to cross the line, and it’s important to point out shows that do, so that the rest of the world doesn’t believe that we’re all okay with it.

By nekozumi. Used by permission.

Let’s get one thing straight: I think Naruto and Bleach are fine anime series in their own ways.

I’ve read fair chunks of the manga for both Naruto and Bleach. Enjoyed them; there was some interesting depth in both.

But they didn’t fully grab me.   And here’s the problem:  each has hundreds of episodes.  That’s time I could spend watching dozens of other anime series.  It’s not that I’d hate to watch Naruto; it’s that there are so many other anime to watch. Practically speaking, I have to choose.

I also have the problem of being an anime reviewer who’s posting two reviews a week. I simply don’t have the time to watch Bleach and other anime.

So, to all you Naruto and Bleach fans, have fun! All the best. Unfortunately, I won’t be joining you.

So, to summarize: post a comment here or on YouTube by 11:59:59pm GMT on Monday, 15 February 2010, and you’ll be entered to win one of the three posters shown. I’ll choose one commenter randomly, and offer a choice of one of the three posters.  I’ll then pick another commenter, who will choose from the two remaining; a third random commenter will get the final one. Make sure to leave some way for me to contact you; if you win, I’ll get your mailing address and send it out to you, wherever you live.

Consider this my own little Valentine to you.

As usual, chartfag’s pulled through with an impressive summary of the spring 2010 anime line-up, as we know it so far:

Spring 2010 Anime Line-up, version 1

Click for a big version. Via chartfag.

Several big license announcements this week.

ANN: Funimation has licensed Dragon Ball Kai, the recent edit of the original DBZ to follow Akira Toriyama’s manga more closely, and to enhance some of the long-in-the-tooth special effects.

ANN: More big news: Adult Swim still shows anime, apparently. They’ve now picked up Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which will start airing about a week from now, on Sunday, February 14th at midnight.

ANN: Meanwhile, Yen Press continues to license awesome stuff: the gag manga The Melancholy of Suzumiya-Haruhi-chan, kakifly’s K-ON! manga, and the first light novel in Mizuki Nomura’s series Bungaku Shoujo (the story of the weird members of a high school literary club).

ANN: I reported several months ago that Stan Lee was working with Studio BONES on an anime called Heroman. Well, we now have confirmation that it’ll air in Japan on TV Tokyo starting in April. Yay! Interestingly, it’s the story of a young boy living in America who stumbles upon a toy robot. The toy apparently then transforms into a giant pilotable robot, with the kid inside. So, Stan Lee is officially writing mecha. Woohoo!  (This also means at least one mecha show next season.)

AnimeNation.net:  Another new anime was announced: an adaptation of Daisuke Sato and Shoji Sato’s Highschool of the Dead, a horror action story about a group of high schoolers trying to survive a zombie apocalypse in their school. I keep hearing about this manga; apparently a lot of people like it.

ANN: Mamoru Nagano, creator of legendary shoujo mecha series The Five Star Stories, will be directing an anime film. It’ll be called Hana no Utame Gothicmade, and it’ll be mecha. So, cool! No word on when it’ll be released.

AnimeNation.net: Joseph Chou, producer on Appleseed: Ex Machina, has revealed that there will be more Appleseed movies.  This comes after plans for an Appleseed TV series were cancelled.

ANN: Chou also revealed that pre-production discussion on the live-action Evangelion movies continues, as they discuss the project with mysteriously unnamed producers and studios. Apparently, the project stalled mainly because of the recent downturn in the anime market.

ANN: Speaking of Eva, Japanese retailer “Geo on the Rakuten” now lists Neon Genesis Evangelion 2.22, which is the first we’ve heard of anything beyond Evangelion 2.0. According to the site, 2.22 has “enhancements” over 2.0. That’s all we know.

ANN: Namco Bandai’s in a spot of trouble. They released their 2009 earnings numbers this week. They had anticipated a profit of US $94 million for 2009, they instead had a loss.  Of US $340 million. So, they’re re-organizing! And in typical Japanese fashion, they’ve titled the re-org “Namco Bandai Group Restart Plan.” They’ll cut 10% of their workforce and re-structure their operations. Here’s hoping it’ll help.

One particularly interesting detail: one part of this production streamlining involves simultaneous release of anime on disc and online streaming. Good!

ANN: They’re not the only ones: Navarre, parent company of Funimation, saw a sales drop for the fourth quarter of 2009. They basically blamed the market, and said that fortunately they’re in a good position to grow as the economy picks back up.

ANN: A followup: Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo, which was on the ”long list” of animated films in consideration for the Best Animated Film Oscar, has been dropped from the final nomination list. No anime will be on the roster this year; instead we’ll see Coraline, The Princess and the Frog, Up, The Secret of Kells, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

ANN: But J-Rock fans have something to celebrate. Major Japanese band X Japan has been invited to the main stage on Lollapalooza, the first time a Japanese band has ever received that honor. And yes, they’ve agreed to perform, in Chicago on August 6 to 8.

One of my favorite elements of moe show K-ON! was the high school they went to.  There were all sorts of whimsical details, like the little tortoise statues decorating the staircase handrails.  I thought such a high school must have been a product of kakifly’s imagination.

It’s real. Judging from the video below, the school fell into very bad disrepair recently, but thanks to a sit-in protest by locals, it was repaired and re-opened.  Now that its inspiration for K-ON! has been revealed, it’s being visited by otaku; you’ll get to see a lot of itasha (anime-painted cars) in the video.

This follows the great interest otaku showed in the shrine Lucky Star was based on. If nothing else, I think this underscores the importance of using real life as a basis for anime.  The verisimilitude of the anime built the fanbase, which in turn attracted them back to the real location.

A recent post on Cutfilm Tovent has me thinking about the anime industry’s reaction time.

The anime industry is incredibly quick to capitalize on trends. Moe became popular, and in less than a year the new anime season was chock full of moe shows.

Isn’t this a good thing for the industry? Isn’t it healthy for an industry to react rapidly to user wants and needs?

It becomes a problem when you’re a fan of the last trend. And I think this might explain the lack of ”seasoned anime fans” (those who’ve been watching anime for more than, say, 10 years).  Whatever trend gets you into anime will have largely disappeared from the airwaves 5 years later.  So, many of the otaku fade away, as they can’t find any more anime that fits their interests.