Now that I’ve laid the Anime Blog to rest, I have nowhere to geek out. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to do it here.
I didn’t have much luck keeping up with this year’s Summer shows while in Japan. I found time to catch Honey & Clover every Thursday night, but that’s about it. Since returning home, I’ve had the opportunity to catch up with some of the shows I missed, but now that the Autumn season is upon us, it’s time to dive into the newer offerings.
Unfortunately, said newer offerings leave much to be desired, with only a few shows having caught my attention thus far. Of those, only one stands out: Paradise Kiss. Conveniently enough, Paradise Kiss replaced Honey & Clover in Fuji TV’s late night “NOITAMINA” time slot. So, if I were still in Japan, I wouldn’t even have had to adjust my schedule in order to catch the show every week.
Paradise Kiss eagerly embraces the culture of Harajuku, a Tokyo neighborhood popular among brand and fashioned-obsessed teenagers and young adults. While I didn’t spend much time exploring Harajuku, the neighborhood left a lasting impression on me nonetheless. It’s crowded, noisy, lively, and inexplicably weird - yet, strangely authentic. Shibuya was suffocating. Harajuku was… absorbing.
Alas, it’s not my scene personally, but it’s fun to observe from the sidelines - which is probably why I dig Paradise Kiss as much as I do. The show’s opening animation is Harajukufied from start to finish, and not only because the street scenes correspond to real life locations. Rather, it just feels like Harajuku. Glamour without pretension. Electric. Youthful.
Of course, it helps that the opening theme is a killer track. A friend describes it as “Shibuya shopping march music” - an absolutely brilliant description, really. They should pump it out the crosswalk loudspeakers at the intersection of Meiji-dori and Dogen-zaka. Gotta get those yankees moving.
I arrived at Tokyo Big Sight around noon - a bit earlier than planned. There was a crowd, of course, but I was relieved to find no line to enter the convention space. Unfortunately, the lack of a line outside meant one thing and one thing only: those who had lined up previously were already inside. Passing through the entrance, I found myself in the midst of an otaku mosh pit.
Initially, I just moved forward with the crowd, eventually finding myself in the East Hall. Conveniently, this is where most of the tables selling print doujinshi were located. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, so I merely perused the aisles, occasionally stopping to thumb through a book here and there if the crowd allowed. After 15 minutes of being lost amongst the most pornographic of doujinshi (and, thus, being pushed and shoved by the most perverted of otaku), I fought my way back out to the concourse and joined the throngs headed for the West Hall.
There, I found mostly doujin games and music. While crowded, the West Hall offered more room to breathe compared to the East Hall, so I spent a bit more time exploring and soaking up the experience. Still, nothing caught me eye, so I continued upstairs to the industry booths. The atmosphere was much more lively there, with professionals hawking their wares. Of course, free swag was easy to come by - before long, I had a bag in each hand and enough tissue packs to soak up Tokyo Bay. I swung by the Aquaplus booth and made my first purchase of the day: a bag of mystery goodies. Clearly, there was much worth buying from the industry booths, but I was looking to conserve money, so I made my exit to the rooftop cosplay exhibition area for some photo taking.
It was hot. It was packed. Still, I wasn’t in costume, so I figured I had no room to complain. I worked my way through the crowd, occasionally pausing to snap photos of interesting cosplayers. Photographers outnumbered cosplayers by a significant margin, and with the hot sun beating down on me, I didn’t stick around for more than a half hour or so. As I returned to the air conditioned confines of the Big Sight, I received a text message from Yagami, a friend from the Megatokyo discussion forums, informing me he was due shortly at the convention site. I fought my way back to the main entrance and patiently waited for his arrival.
After a bit of phone tag, we managed to find each other. With the end of the convention a couple hours away at that point, we decided to make a quick attack to meet some people and make our desired purchases. Yagami has industry connections, so when I say “meet people,” I mean meet people. Our first stop was the booth belonging to Yoshitoshi ABe, creator of Haibane Renmei and character designer for Serial Experiments Lain. ABe-san was quiet, but friendly, and was kind enough to give us free copies of his newest book. He also entrusted Yagami with a copy to deliver to the booth of a friend - that friend being Range Murata, character designer for Last Exile and Blue Submarine No. 6.
After meeting with Murata-san, we split up to make our purchases, agreeing to meet once again in an hour and head to Shinjuku for dinner. I returned to the East Hall and bought a few books, and before long, it was time to depart.
Of course, with the end of the event approaching, there was a mass exodus to the single train station serving Tokyo Big Sight. Thus, I finally got to spend some time standing in line. Everything moved along efficiently, however, and after a short time, we boarded a packed train and set off for Shinjuku. There, we chatted between slurps of ramen, and called it a day.
I’ve always wanted to experience Comic Market at least once, and I can’t say I’m disappointed. Oddly enough, having seen the event played out numerous times in anime and manga series devoted to otaku life (such as Comic Party or Genshiken), everything had an uncanny familiarity. My expectations were fulfilled in every way.
After what seemed like an endless string of hot and sunny days, unsettled weather has returned to the Kanto Plain. The clouds do a lot to keep the temperature down during the day, although the associated increase in humidity is a bit of a drag. This morning, I woke up to the sound of light rain tapping on my window. I always enjoy rain, but I pray it clears out this evening. I need to hang my laundry out to dry.
I have a busy weekend ahead of me - well, a busy Sunday, at least. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing Saturday, but come Sunday, I’ll be paying a visit to Comic Market 68. Unlike anime and manga fan conventions in the United States, Comic Market (or Comiket, for short) is little more than a giant flea market where doujinshi artists gather to share and sell their work. Even though I don’t intend to buy much (if anything at all), I’ve always wanted to attend. You can learn more about Comiket here.
Saturday was a very productive photography day in Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, and Odaiba. I’ll have plenty to share over the next week.
Today, however, I left the camera at home and went shopping. Akihabara is dangerous, I tell you.
As I sat down to lunch today, Yuki’s “Dramatic” popped up on the radio. Thankfully, my food didn’t assemble into the shape of a man and dance off the plate.
I recently finished Peter Carey’s Wrong About Japan: A Father’s Journey With His Son. It’s a remarkably short book, demanding only a day or two of casual reading. It’s also a frustrating book, at least from the viewpoint of an anime fan.
Admittedly, I’m not terribly familiar with Carey’s work. I understand he’s a novelist by trade, and it’s perhaps for this reason Wrong About Japan reads more as an aimless travelogue than a serious piece of reporting (the New York Times review makes a similar point). Often, Carey betrays his own premise, indulging himself with entire chapters on swordmaking and the legacy of World War II. Even in interviews with an assortment of celebrated anime directors and manga artists, Carey himself hogs the spotlight. His Japanese hosts are kind enough to chuckle at his ignorance of their craft and culture, and his son bright enough to give him a jab in the side when appropriate, but as a reader, it took effort to resist muttering “jackass” under my breath with each page.
Thankfully, Carey at least comes to admit his being in over his head, although whether he does so out of acceptance or exasperation, I can’t say. But, I couldn’t help but feel like poor Takashi, our hapless otaku specimen (and local color), annoyed with Carey’s reluctance to see the “Real Japan” right before his eyes. If the author had practiced a bit more humility, he perhaps would have recognized Takashi as a walking encyclopedia of anime and manga culture. I suspect he would have gained more insight from an afternoon in Akihabara with Takashi than in countless interviews with industry stars such as Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino.
The book’s heavy focus on Gundam is an indicator of how Carey only skips across the surface of his subject matter. Granted, Gundam is big, but trying to explain anime and manga culture through the lens of Gundam alone is akin to writing the history of rock ‘n roll using nothing but references to Elvis. And, as Mr. Tomino himself openly admits, Gundam was created in order to sell toy robots and little more (you don’t build a $100 billion industry on social commentary alone). In some ways, Carey and son, being non-Japanese Gundam fans, are a bit of an oddity, for the franchise never saw the sort of popularity in North America that it saw in Japan. American fans cut their teeth on another giant robot franchise: Macross.
Wrong About Japan is not without value, however. The interplay between Carey and son is entertaining, and one particular interview explains the concept of otaku more convincingly than most books on the subject. And, of course, I’d be lying if I said Carey’s lack of familiarity with his subject wasn’t as amusing as it was vexing at times.
Finally, I was surprised by the mention of Jeremy Hedley in the book’s acknowledgments. Apparently, he accompanied Carey and his son on their visit to Studio Ghibli as chronicled in the book’s penultimate chapter. Coincidentally, I believe I first discovered Hedley’s blog via that particular post. It’s a strange, small world.
Despite being a regular anime fansub watcher, I’ve been remiss to comment on this CNET article - partially because it’s old news, but more so because discussion of fansub politics and ethics doesn’t particularly interest me.
Still, I’d like to share a few observations…
In many ways, referring to the fansub community as anime’s “underground” is a bit of a misnomer. Most serious fans are at least aware of the existence of fansubs, and the domestic anime industry clearly knows what’s going on underneath its very nose. While the community may be “underground” in the sense that it operates in a region of questionable legality, access to and knowledge of fansubs is not the sort of thing that requires a blood oath or secret handshake. In fact, a large part of the modern domestic anime industry is the product of old-school fansubbing operations gone professional. Many of the Presidents and CEOs of today’s largest domestic distributors were once among those “meet[ing] in college dormitories to watch much-copied videotapes of shows impossible to see any other way.”
Unfortunately, today’s fansub community isn’t exactly a refuge for reasonable people. There’s no shortage of fans who treat fansubs as little more than a free lunch. Appreciation for the domestic industry is difficult to come by; licensing announcements are often met with kvetching and grumbling. Furthermore, while many fansubbing groups operate within certain common ethical guidelines (i.e., “don’t distribute once licensed for domestic release”), there are just as many groups that don’t. And, of course, even if a group ceases distribution of a specific title, many viewers continue to distribute their own copies through various backchannels, long after an official DVD release becomes available.
Arguments in support of fansubs are as varied as the fans who make them. Ultimately, I’m of the “It’s perfectly illegal, but I do it anyway,” crowd. For the time being, fansubs (or raw video files downloaded via the internet) remain the only way a fan outside Japan can keep up with new anime as it airs on television. In other words, it’s about accessibility and convenience. It’s not, however, about getting something for nothing. I still buy many of my favorite shows on DVD once available.
For all the talk regarding the “death of fansubbing” that inevitably followed the Media Factory incident outlined in the article, the fansub community if still going strong as ever. DVD sales are still going strong as well. Even though one unnamed executive’s claim that “top titles still sell well, but the middle categories that used to sell respectable numbers of copies are being forgotten…” implies fansub involvement, an increasingly saturated DVD market is likely the better explanation. It’s a good time to be an anime fan, at least from an availability standpoint.
Oh, and one last piece of trivia: some might recognize Nikolai Nolan (as interviewed for the article) as the man behind the Bloggies. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Nikolai over the past couple of years, and have to say that, if the fansub community needs a goodwill ambassador, he’s an excellent choice.
