This is all just a dream. How else can I explain my talking to a bunch of 2D anime characters who barely make sense hurling forth a whole slew of things. Is it so unbecoming to talk about oneself with so much intensity and scrutiny? That’s how metacriticism rolls baby. So these anime characters are telling me all about reading anime, or watching anime, though that latter verb seems lacking in conveying the meaning I intend for most of the time: interpretation.
The anime is a whole wherein there is somewhere a message, or messages. This is an attempt of communication, wherein the purpose is for the communicated to, to find some value or utility after the experience.
Itou Kaiji says that the game has all sorts of risks, and critics and reviewers cheat all the time while playing.
But Kaiji, what’s the game for? Who wins what? Why do we care so much?
Oh yeah, what about the desire by the fans of anime for it to be legitimized as art?
Who the fuck wants to read that old shit? Make yourself clear!
He called out Azuma Hiroki as a bullshitter? What a hater. It’s not like he could collaborate with a brilliant director and produce an instant classic like Fractale!
There is no tradition of mining and delving in the Philippines so I had to borrow the word “drill.” It’s also apparent that you’re naming your drill “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann” therefore I kept the names as they were. What’s difficult in this paragraph is that nobody ‘carves’ anything on a regular basis around here, therefore the Tagalog word ‘lilok’ is incredibly rare and will sound ill-fitting in almost any conversation. But that’s the best word for it. I had to remind myself that Simon here is telling off an enemy, not reciting lines from Shakespeare.
The fuck did I do?!?
Where do we go from here?
Guys?1
1You do believe me when I say this is all a dream right? I’ve been reading the Low-on-Hitpoints essay on narrative over the course of the week and was sick and beset with many personal trials of the spirit. I think I remained pretty lucid, as I was able to watch and keep up with many anime that I follow, as well as attempt to read blog posts here and there. It becomes difficult when it comes to the trickier and/or more playful series like Mawaru Penguindrum which receives a generous share of commentary across the different blogs.
While I have a rich imaginative life, it doesn’t really actually seriously happen that Full Frontal explains metacriticism to me in person. I pretty much can handle that stuff on my own. Though I’m not sure what Kaiji is on talking about Tokidoki Balloon. It’s a weird time in my life and I think it’s a good time as I change jobs and move in a new company… unless something horribly goes wrong and I find myself unemployed. I do not have the character for gambling, and my wife being an attorney of the nationalized casino industry prevents me from gaming legally. Tiger & Bunny this week was sick, though I can’t say I really prefer Barnaby-centric storylines2.
2I have accomplished various entertaining things, a killing emotion. Now this hatred, inconsistencies, numbness, ghosts; shallow things outside of friendly, ambiguous relationships. Pray love emerges around senses, enveloping, surrounding; the outright purposes reinforced: enjoyment and distraction. I now go.
We Remember Love 
For a moment I thought I was reading Marshall McLuhan, except with the cultural detritus of Japanese animation rather than the cultural detritus of American advertising.
“therefore the Tagalog word ‘lilok’ is incredibly rare and will sound ill-fitting in almost any conversation.”
From my experience it’s arguable if there even is such a thing as “pure” Tagalog in any case, aside from nationalistic experiments in Philippino public schools by policy-makers.
Also, surprising that Kaiji’s seen Tokidoki Balloon. Guess he was scoping out the competition during his 2007 animated debut.
I believe Kaiji started in the fall, a season after Tokidoki Ba————————————————–
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————————————————————————————– and she started screaming at me, screaming, at me, even though I’m real, and she isn’t, but somehow she though it was okay for her to be doing this, stupid bitch, doesn’t even know whose———
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I suppose who I remember love for here, remembers love for McLuhan.
Nobody spells it “Philippino” …it is always “Filipino.”
Tagalog has been a “base” language for nationalistic attempts. It was Pilipino during the time of Ferdinand Marcos/Corazon Aquino. This became the more accommodating Filipino during the Fidel Ramos years.
Tagalog has several accented dialects based on the following provinces/areas:
Bulacan (North of Manila, regarded as the purest, accent-free version; most highly regarded literature in Tagalog is from here)
Rizal (Northeast of Manila, hard to describe; sounds strange to me sometimes when the weird words come out)
Manila (colloquial and slang, and of course, Taglish)
Cavite (South, harsher, different prefixes)
Laguna, Quezon (Deep South; very similar to Cavite, but the sentences almost always end on a down note, kind of opposite to how some Australians end their english sentences on an up note)
Batangas (Southwest; harshest, really really harsh country redneck version with all sorts of words not spoken anywhere else)
The ‘Filipino’ experiment is, for me, a complete bust. The spelling will forever seem unnatural for an English literate speaker, writer: Psychology = Saycoloji; Philosophy = Filosofi; Computer = Kompyuter. Thus, the educated class will not adopt, at least in my lifetime. I mean, would I have to spell it Filipeens now?
Understanding everything through fansubs as we do (as we have to– poor suffering peons of amateur translation) closes the doors of our perception. So… If we were Japanese, would it fix everything?
Instead of closing the doors of our perception, it instead forces us to create different meanings. We are after all, active meaning-makers in the face of the viewed material.
If we were Japanese, our meanings would just be a lot more similar to our fellows.
I think this plays out most often when we listen to Anisongs. Take Skill, or Gong, by Jam Project. I have no idea what the song lyrics mean in particular, but I take my metaknowledge of super robots, the band, and the music to make it mean pretty much any song like that means: together we are invincible, we will fight for righteousness, we can’t fail, we have love in our hearts, etc etc. And thus, we can sing Gong with so much feeling despite not knowing what it really means. But is it the same Gong that the native Japanese speakers and listeners experience? No.
This is so true. I sing plenty of hot-blooded anime songs with a passion that in many cases exceed the passion I can muster for songs in languages I can understand (Spanish, English, redneckese). The songs featured in “Bubblegum Crisis” are like this for me. Even though I can’t understand more than a few words or phrases here and there, the emotion they convey definitely transcends the language barrier. What’s even more of a shock, perhaps, is that, once looking up an English translation of the lyrics of many of these songs, I was almost dead-on about the meaning. It must be as you say, that non-speakers of a language can infer the meaning of music, to an extent, using “metaknowlege.” An even better example in my own experience are the songs of Anthem, one of the best Japanese heavy metal bands, if not THE best. I couldn’t tell you what the majority of the songs are about, but fortunately for me the band uses English for their songs’ titles. This combined with the smattering of Japanese I can pick out here and there and the wonderfully emotive Engrish lyrics that make up a lot of the songs plus deep-rooted sense for METAL, enables me to really get into songs that, for all intents and purposes, are largely gibberish to me. It’s amazing how our minds work.
Yeah, that’s exactly it.
So what are we doing really? Are we ‘experiencing’ the Japanese works? It’s actually more like we’re playing with the subjects and creating our own experience rather than a passive exposure to it.
So uh…is this the equivalent of the “CONGRATULATION! THANK YOU FOR PLAYING!” at the end of the game? Are you calling it quits, Mr. Lightning?
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I’m just a dumb (and very white) American man-child who was educated in the public school system, thus I don’t have a single clever bone in my body; ergo I’m stumped…All this here highfalutin flim-flam about nihilism and what-have-ya makes me want to watch more Mazinkaiser SKL…while it simultaneously makes me feel as thought I’m completely out of the loop. I haven’t felt “right” about a single post you’ve made since the Sacred Seven one, and not just because I haven’t watched Cowboy Bebop yet either. I feel like I’m outpaced by the level of the discussion taking place here and I don’t know how to “get better.” This is a harsh wake-up call for a nerdy dude who takes solace in enjoying some anime from time to time (all the time). What can I do to “get better?”
No need to apologize. I will try to explain to the best of my abilities.
I am very much inclined to philosophy and spent much of my university education pursuing it. I believe that the best way to do philosophy is to tell stories, hence my love for narratives.
The core idea in this post is that everything can be reduced to a language game. Never mind the theoretical underpinnings of that proposal. That’s what Kaiji here is yakking about. In a language game, you can make anything mean anything, which ironically, means nothing has absolute, intrinsic, or essential meaning.
It’s like how Macross uses the word “culture” as some kind of magic idea that’s supposed to be better than anything else… and this worked on the Zentraedi, who thought they had none. Of course, they’re wrong. They do have a culture, a martial one. But the Miclones made it seem that theirs is the only culture that matters (or exists), and thus many Zentraedi were converted.
But does it necessarily mean that the Miclones were right to impose their Minmay-centric culture over the Zentraedi? It was just a survival ploy on their part, and not an absolute act of sharing.
This is what I mean by the language game, meanings are arbitrary. They are not fixed. You can read things in whatever way and it will be valid — not right, but valid.
So Kaiji is saying, nothing really matters — all your concerns are meaningless, so might as well just have fun with your anime.
Awesome. Thanks so much. Sorry if I spoiled the “language game” for everyone. I think I’m up to speed now…or getting there. I’ll try not to make you give away the meaning of your posts anymore, but I was just completely lost on this one.
No spoiling! It’s actually quite awesome that you come in here asking questions rather than dismissing all this as something not for you.
So I want you to just keep asking. This allows me 2 things:
1. The opportunity to write in clearer, concise language… which frees me up to
2. Go Itano Circus on the post proper
This is priceless!
I have a fever…and the only prescription is MOAR ITANO CIRCUS!
Also, you can also ask any of the commenters to explain to you what they’re saying. I’m almost certain they’ll welcome the opportunity to have more people to talk to about things they care about.
You can’t call Azuma Hiroki a bullshitter. There’s no way.
First, his book is so harsh about himself as an otaku (and us too) he has to be right. We can only take it easy.
Next time I watch Fractale, I will analize it in the light of “database animal” theory, but I can tell you this right here, right now: Tsundere girl has twin tails hair, and that’s the way she has to be.
While I don’t subscribe to the idea that Azuma is a fraud, the thing you invoke — his harshness towards himself, is a favored trick by intellectuals to ‘purchase the right’ to be hard on others.
Intellectuals have been doing this since Rosseau, who was a sniveling master of this. Intellectuals have enjoyed incredible success and celebrity founded on this rather base inauthenticity.
Your statement re a tsundere is a definition; meaning you declare the finite nature of its meaning, and kill all other possibility. I propose the act of distinction, that is to draw forward commonalities against the background of differences to identify what is tsundere, or whatever other thing.
Sure, meanings of these terms will remain fluid and change in such ways that the original intention may become lost, but why should we become militant oldfags about this or any word anyway?
I was being playful, but it seems you don’t play.
OK, then, start all over again:
I don’t like post-modernism. The best theoretical approach I know up to date is Marxism, of course, is not perfect at all, and a dogmatic Marxist view is plain bullshit.
Post-modernism comes from the “Second Heidegger”, which is, by definition, Nazi theory. That kind of resent me, you know.
But I can allow to approach trivial things by a trivial point of view. That includes otaku theory.
Do you know what I mean when I said “being harsh”?
If I said he’s being harsh with himself and us, not only otaku – western, eastern or third world -, any kind of “mania”; is because his “database animals” hypothesis is denying humanity to himself and us.
Which kind of make sense (from my point of view): Nazi theory denied humanity to all those who don’t belong to the “Folk”. “Arbeit macht frei” and so on, I won’t tire you with the obvious conclusions.
That’s a little harsh, being treated like some kind of sub-human, ghetto material. I try to take it easy, that’s the tune we have to dance, I mean, that’s what post-modernism is.
I don’t really care what is or what isn’t tsundere (or moe, or whatever: I’m too old, too punk-rocker and too South American to really care about that), but I play along, because it’s impossible to understand manga and anime if you don’t nearly know what those words mean.
I saw “Lucky Star” And somewhere, Konata said “tsundere has to have twintail” or something like that. That makes sense to me (with exceptions, of course). But Fractale plays with the database to the detail. That’s what I was saying when I said “Tsundere girl has twin tails hair, and that’s the way she has to be.” I forgot the “LOLs” and so on.
But Taiga is also tsundere, and she hasn’t twintails, is she?
Fractale plays the “tropes game” to the book, that’s why Fractale is perfect. Just like Umberto Eco said about Casablanca, I think.
Now, in my opinion, Asuka isn’t tsundere at all. She lacks the “dere-dere” part of the equation. Rei is more like a tsundere by my book… Why? Well, she slaps Shinji some time or another, ignores him, lacks sympathy with him until… Ahhh, yes… Until he saves her from the entry-plug after they defeat the Rubik Cube. And grabs her breast. As “tsun-tsun” decreases, “dere-dere” takes a rocket to the Moon. Yes.
Asuka is a bitch. All the time. I like her like that, don’t take me wrong. But she has no fucking love in her fucking heart at all, for fucking anyone. Simply because she is a poor little orphan with a big freudian trauma (damn, I love Freud, by the way) and a bronze mask called “Eva pilot / Second Children” behind she can hide herself, and try to be someone she is not. Shinji is the same, with the little difference that he plays another game, a game Asuka despises.
Shinji is just a mirror where she can see what she is under her mask. Asuka’s mask is what Shinji has to be if Evangelion were Mazinger Z, for example.
All I mean to say, from “Now, in my opinion…” and so on is simply: I don’t recognize Asuka when you makes her say: “(…) inauthentic bullying, unacknowledged desire for Shinji (…)” I think was watching Evangelion all this time: What were you watching? That doesn’t sound like Asuka.
By the way, I love your blog, specially your Utena entries. They’re beautiful.
Oh but I am playful, this whole post is play.
That’s a valid reading of what post-modernism is, a historical contextualization that kind of gives it a “project.” I suppose I am not part of that tradition, that is to annihilate humanity as an act of dominance over another.
I relate to nihilism as a way to freedom instead. But is there only one reading — a ‘true’ version? Your historical version makes a lot of sense and clearly is very harmful. I can make a lengthy but unnecessary argument as to why the Enlightenment is another evil that post-modernism attempts to transcend, but I won’t.
Annihilation is harsh, so whether or not you can align my writing to a political leaning akin to fascism, annihilation is harsh. But! All discovery is harsh, as it inflicts a kind of violence on what is currently known and forces new things upon consciousness. Thus it is not so special a harshness. But for the record, I am no fascist or supremacist.
I’m not trying to justify a theoretical place to stand. I can only stand where I choose to, and discuss things as readers interpret the location of my stand on the basis of what they know. Which is, what everyone really does!
So at the center of things what I advocate is freedom, and what acts to do with that freedom: love.
Fractale fails to be entertaining, if only to reference my own experience (and that of others I’ve read or interacted with). It is imperfect in relation to its project to entertain perfectly. It does not generate the same results as Casablanca.
As for Asuka Langley Shikinami (not Soryuu), her deredere was when she tried to learn to cook as well (for Shinji, while Rei was learning to do so for the Ikari family dinner). This was not consumated (witnessed by Shinji), but it was there for us to look at, to marvel at, and to satisfy that “ah, dere dere” checkbox.
Lastly, it pleases me to no end that you enjoyed my Utena entries. I went all out in making those and I am very proud of that effort. Coincidentally I’ve started rewatching the show just hours ago and I made it as far as past Juri’s battle in the Student Council arc. That show is everything I thought it was.
Bad idea rewatching Utena in the middle of Penguindrum, unless you’re thinking of dropping Penguindrum 😀
As to this fascism and post-modernism issue, it seems to me that to the extent that the Nazis tried desperately to hold onto a myth of German superiority, they were the antithesis of post-modernism and superflat worldviews etc. However, yes, I think the desperation you saw in some of these Germans betrayed a creeping awareness that not even the Germans escaped from this annihilation of absolute values (especially not the Germans). So that in a twisted sense post-modernism can be said to descend from the fascist project even though it opposes it. Put another way, if a German wakes up one day in 1945 and realizes all of a sudden that his race has no absolute claim to anything, then the only thing that’s left to him/her is to accept that no other race has any absolute claim to anything. And of course, we might dislike the way this realization plays out, but that doesn’t affect in any way its truth value.
Oh I realized that immediately, but I have asked myself this question before: how many Utenas is one creator granted in his lifetime? Kawamori had SDF Macross/DYRL… his later work struggles to compare however meritorious. Tomino had Mobile Suit Gundam, and Z Gundam. His later work is a miasma of gold and shit. Anno had Evangelion, and then what?
Thus, I don’t set myself up for disappointment experiencing a brilliant creator’s works apart from the milestone opus.
As for nihilism, that’s what you get about possibility — it’s a possibility for anything. It need not be positive result.
ak is being a dumbass about penguindrum. BTW my brother is rewatching Utena with his chick friend also while watching Penguindrum. I would myself if I felt I had room for it. And it wouldn’t effect penguindrum at all because I don’t mentally compare them at all.
Wait, wait: I NEVER try to align you to fascism, I was aligning post-modernism to fascism, in an effort to demonstrate how harsh I consider Azuma’s “database animal” hypothesis.
I consider you a cool dude, I could sit with you and drink ocha any time.
I won’t try to change your mind, but nihilism can’t lead to freedom because freedom is a concept, and you need to believe in it in your effort to gain it. And by definition, a nihilist don’t believe in anything. No freedom, no love, nothing. You are something else.
As Walter Sobchak said: “Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”
I think I know what you mean by “Enlightenment is another evil that post-modernism attempts to transcend”, sounds like Adorno and Horkheimer, but I consider the remedy worst than the illness. As Nazism was too an attempt to transcend Enlightenment.
Well, I consider Fractale very entertaining, refreshing and a kind of warning of our society. And very beautiful too. It happens to me in most of noitaminA series, by the way. Fractale’s mix of “The Matrix” and “Laputa / Nadia of the Blue Water” is something I can appreciate. The epilogue is so relevant to us as they don’t destroy the Fractale system, but start to work and think by themselves.
So, I was right when I said “I don’t recognize Asuka when you makes her say…” because I don’t recognize THAT Asuka Shikinami, who isn’t even a pale shadow of Asuka Soryuu is. Neither any other character of the new movies, or the movies themselves too. I like the battles, but they lack of substance in everything else.
Oh no worries.
Freedom is a concept, and in itself doesn’t essentially mean anything. It just so happens that I arbitrarily value it over other things, and I find it that the nihilism I practice here is a great access to it. My belief/faith in things is something I know to be a self-construct. They aren’t absolute or necessary truths. The only things I have a high degree of certainty of are:
1. I exist.
2. Someday I won’t.
As for your insistence that postmodernism is defined within the context of Nazism, I find it silly. As AK mentioned, the Nazis had more faith in German superiority that they had bad faith application of nihilism to “prove” their thesis and act on their doctrine.
Fractale is terrible. It had ambition, but squandered it by the terrible ‘database’ appeals — all these lame ‘Clain is a/not really a pervert’ jokes, Nessa is a terrible moeblob, the shoehorned fanservice, etc. etc.
It’s an execution issue and not a concept issue. I’ll take one episode of Mawaru Penguindrum over 9000 Fractales.
Well, your annihilation of THAT Asuka is interesting, given:
1. Rebuild is far from over, so you’re comparing a 1 hour of screen time’s worth of Asuka vs. 10 or so hours from the TV series, and EoE.
2. Taking in Shikinami, I cannot annihilate Soryuu without great effort. As such, I am experiencing a double Asuka with all the goodies and the baggage of who I am familiar with.
I am very familiar with this experience given Kawamori’s multi-canon madness with the Macross franchise, where everything is ‘in universe media’ and nothing is history as it happens. I don’t think the Rebuild movies lack substance in everything else. At present I still think the TV series and EoE are superior (I rewatched them after Rebuild 2.0) but I’m pretty crazy about Rebuild in general. Certainly far more substantial and better executed than Fractale, LOL.
Although I don’t know that much anime, funny how the words seem resonating just by looking on the image. My favourite is the nihilism part and how you humanized it. Killing the author gives birth to new ideology, not necessarily bad or good, but at least there’s creation in destruction.~
This nihilism bit is the most ‘mine’ in all the language games I’m playing in this post.
Zero, for me is a blank canvas. I am not painting over the work of an author, a critic, the zeitgeist of the fandom. These things are important to consider, but I can let them remain just that — a set of considerations. The actual creative act is to ‘give up’ the meanings those considerations bring to bear on the work I’m doing.
The work could just mean ‘formulating an opinion on a show,’ and not necessarily a blog post or writing a story or what not.
And yes, it is an optimistic view, having romanticized humans and their agency. AK below will be the first to disavow this, and call attention on the ultimate human pretense that we are actually free to make choices about anything.
Indeed.
“Least subjective statement” sounds to me like it still presupposes a subjective objective binary.
I smell nihilism too!
What are all the name lists about? I haven’t seen enough of the shows to figure out the principle(s) behind them…
Yes. Since you are unfamiliar with some of the characters I reference, let me break it down for you:
Kaiji is the last outpost of humanity and I have him represent the nihilism of my personal philosophy.
Full Frontal is a fake Char Aznable in the Gundam narrative. He represents inauthenticity, and many of the statements I sometimes believe, or pretend to believe.
Penguin #2 and Kaga Rin represent genre fans (both are arbitrary representations for them precisely because of the arbitrary nature of signification ultimately — see Saussure, Barthese, Derrida). The lists are a convenient form of communicating database preferences. Penguin #2 with his “real robot” stuff (Code Geass, Z Gundam, then Macross 7/Frontier), and Rin with her International Sai Moe League lists.
Asuka is the database unit come to life, the anti-doll who was killed as a doll by her mother or some such. She is the Eve from which all of us will be created anew from the Third Impact.
Lelouch is 0.
Simon lends his final speech for my exercise in fansubbing, an astute observer will note that I am not translating from the source language and yet making sensible statements anyway. Hello Baudrillard, I work with copies of copies and it’s copies all the way down.
There are other codes in this post, which represents my entire opinion on anime blogging as a whole, it can be decoded by reading the __________________________ and using the first ________________________. It’s really not that clever. If you’ve read _________________________________________ than you’d know all this, is not for you, but all of this is just remembering love.
Ahh….
“Art is shit”, ultimately reducible to will to power and survival strategy. But since everything is will to power and survival strategies, then one can call everything shit.
The will to legitimize (in essence: poring over the shit and picking bits and pieces and putting them in separate bags) must be the dirtiest activity of them all.
Otaku might watch Asuka for elements other than plot, but in a weird creepy way it is the plot that molds Asuka into an object of our desire. Thus: 1) her age – due to the nature of the Eva project; 2) her ass – due to her physical training for the Eva and the standard-issue plugsuit she must wear; 3) bullying – due to the narcissism born of insecurities relating to her upbringing; 4) eyepatch – due to impetuous actions on the field of battle relating directly to the circumstances stated in (3). What does this prove? Nothing.
The only way one can defeat something like capitalism is to misunderstand it. If one has truly seen into the capitalist abyss (head on, full frontal) then one has already lost…and the machine, the naked truth, triumphs.
And I say, let it.
LOLOLOL
As it is, capitalism is beating itself. We are witnessing the end of history — the kind that Francis Fukuyama was ranting about. He wrote that book IIRC to comment on the fail of Communism and the supremacy of Capitalism near the end of the 20th Century. I think he didn’t count on the kind of entropy that we see engulfing everything: how Capitalism in the US, under the veneer of equal opportunity: the ultra-rich did not inherit their wealth, has actually resulted in one of the largest economic inequities in history. And now the wealthy has so much power and influence towards policy so as to perpetuate their own wealth and protect it.
But with the demise of the manufacturing class (capitalists and laborers alike), the wealthy will be left to just keep making bets on the financial markets generating “income” while producing no product of physical or social value.
Pardon me for going on a wild tangent, but yeah. Both Marxism and Capitalism have failed. Is it the end of history already Fukuyama?
First of all: love the style. (what me? love style? no way!)
I do actually plan on writing a post on the ‘database animal’ theory in the near-future, so I’ll withhold any further commentary on that angle for now. (what a tease.)
*ahem*
From the nothing of nihilism, you will create something. The ‘will’ back there is definitive; you cannot avoid creation; even in negation, you will create a philosophy. From zero, you have full control, but you have zero communication. To communicate, you must acknowledge history, annoying as that may be, even if it is only a platform to then proceed to reorder order as it exists currently (as history). Now, consider when history is wrong, such as with plot (grind your teeth for now at this sentence; I will return to it). To reduce plot to zero, or to be more accurate, to reduce plot to an infinity of 1, each his own definition, certainly better reflects the true nature of the world, each of us with our own subjective view of anything and everything (here it is plot). But when we go on to communicate our feelings on an anime, using our definition of plot, never defining it against the common usage (is there even a common usage?), miscommunication is bound to occur (well, miscommunication will always occur, but here it will occur more often). When pressed, if a critic then reveals his definition of plot, we may see how the most common definitions are hopelessly flawed, and by that I mean strict. If art is creation (that’s the full definition, really), then restricting creation is inartistic, and if the reviewer reviews praising this inartisticness… well, at the very least I can claim that is not what I want to read. So, the definition of plot best suited to communicate art and its’ freedom is the one I call the correct definition, which I have begun to reiterate, with the definition in a form better stated postponed to my addendum post on narrative (coming soon! like, in a week or so, hopefully; includes even more style(s)). Thus, my concept of Reorder, opposed to (false) Order and (false) Disorder, changing 1 to 1, because there really is no zero point of view, only a 1 with pretensions of being=finding 0.
Inasmuch as language is historical, yes. There is something. But the zero I’m talking about here means a metaphorical space to come from where I as the human agent sets the course of what I’m communicating and not the material I am working with.
This really makes more of a difference for the creator, in taking pleasure from the act. It will not be distinguishable by the reader. Think of it this way:
I am not beholden to your post (which I like very much). I did what I did here as my most creative approach to some shared ideas that your post covered. I am not as intent to prescribe a method, than I am inclined to make a game of things and all in the spirit of (very nerdy) fun. But definitely there is a linear relationship! The zero existed at some point after I ran out of things to try, to share (i.e Google+) and respond to your post.
I also didn’t want to fall into the trap of validation vs. invalidation of the ideas therein. I’m more into celebrating that a post such as yours exists! I’d rather other people debate your points, I want to participate too, but not as a direct sponsor of ideas and/or antagonist of others. Hence, this post LOL.
So zero isn’t exactly “a true neutral, zen kind of zone” though it can be similar, if fleeting. I only credit it for how I was able to come up with this exercise, also in consideration of the whole shitload (believe me, there are so many) of things I remember love for here.
From ‘Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences’ (which can be read in full here: http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/sign-play.html):
“If one calls bricolage the necessity of borrowing one’s concept from the text of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined, it must be said that every discourse is bricoleur. The engi~eer, whom Levi-Strauss opposes to the bricoleur, should be one to construct the totality of his language, syntax, and lexicon. In this sense the engineer is a myth. A subject who would supposedly be the absolute origin of his own discourse and would supposedly construct it “out of nothing,” “out of whole cloth,” would be the creator of the verbe, the verbe itself. The notion of the engineer who had supposedly broken with all forms of bricolage is therefore a theological idea; and since Levi-Strauss tells us elsewhere that bricolage is mythopoetic, the odds are that thee engineer is a myth produced by the bricoleur. From the moment that we cease to believe in such an engineer and in a discourse breaking with the received historical discourse, as soon as it is admitted that every finite discourse is bound by a certain bricolage, and that the engineer and the scientist are also species of bricoleurs then the very idea of bricolage is menaced and the difference in which it took on its meaning decomposes.”
But this is a false opposition:
bricoleur who creates meaning from something
engineer who creates meaning from nothing
when the true opposition is:
bricoleur who creates meaning
engineer who creates non-meaning, babble
thus the definition (by difference) of bricoleur is intact. 1 from 1, never 1 from 0, the engineer-creating-meaning still residing within myth alone, meaning still residing in history, communication still being historical. I wish to make new history, for I see no end to history, only the dreamscape of such, which is itself based on history.
Yes, all that.
In absolute terms you cannot create from absolute nothing.
But as I said, 0 represents an idea of nothing — that is useful. The very idea is that “there is no something” the difference being “thing” modified by “no.” The human must have concept of something first, then removes that something and stretches the imagination so that absolutely no things remain (which in physics, not very easy), so yes — nothing is a high concept that is used often but loses some or all of its conceptual ‘depth’ and/or precision.
We are born into a world where there are things. To arrive at 0, at nothing, we must annihilate. I do not know, or cannot prove, that this is a ‘natural’ act, nor do I know or can prove that creation is a ‘natural’ act. I think modification is a natural act, insofar as things always change upon contact with other things, with or without will or motivation.
So my proposal is actually a ‘romantic’ one that appeals to the ‘mythical’ powers of human agency, and creativity. Whether this is actually true in they (meta)physical sense, I do not know, only that it is a powerful ‘way of being’ — that is to relate to zero as possibility and not an end to things.
Disorder vs disordering:
– A state of disorder is no order, literally non-sense.
– The *process of disordering*, which may be viewed as deconstruction, poststructuralism, nihilistic thinking, appealing to zero, etc. is the process of revealing order’s falsity, that falsity of all order, as we have yet to find universal truth, thus our order is unreal.
It is impossible to disorder order and not create meaning from that exchange, thus initiating reorder, and never truly reaching an absolute disorder. Is it then that your ideal is disorder/zero, or reorder via disordering/zeroing? I believe there to be a difference between the two, I believe the latter is poststructuralisms boon, and therefor I believe our approaches differ by less than it appears (reconstruction through deconstruction?); of course I believe that, in that I believe reorder is a universal method, either true absolutism or my hubris taken to it’s obvious pathetic conclusion.
Yes, we are compelled to make meaning from the disorder… but we aren’t forced into one meaning over another.
Thus, the entreaty here is 0 = possibility, a meaning, a positive meaning.
One could look at 0, nihilism, etc. very negatively — destruction, annihilation, etc etc. The fun part is discovering that there is a choice between, as illusory it may eventually be.
Of course, possibility isn’t necessarily positive — it also could mean the possibility of the holocaust (to take the extreme example referenced in part of the conversations above). This again highlights the arbitrary freedom of things, which I take in as a positive light, even if it isn’t necessarily so.
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Can I just add two things:
1) The issues in this post and comments I’m constantly dealing with so it’s great to hear others generate so much discussion on them.
2) Digiboy, I want to know where are you getting your Penguin Kool-Aid from. I went by Stop & Shop and couldn’t find it.
This post is about anime blogging. I submit this as an appeal to possibility.
What can’t we do as part of this hobby? Are the limits so clearly defined and truly limiting? Who put them there?
For the record, I like Mawaru Penguindrum. I do think that the last four episodes do not meet the elevated expectations I’ve had thanks to the pilot, but what I get is something I find very interesting, and the fact that I fail to predict what happens next is a source of entertainment for me. The production and execution is not bad, so this is also part of its appeal.
Where I get my Penguindrum Kool-aid is from I actually like a lot of anime. That is to say, I love plenty of things that aren’t even on the level of Penguindrum. I don’t demand these strange things from anime that you seem to. Or maybe you’re demanding them from Ikuhara. I also don’t set myself up with expectations for a show that it can’t fulfill unless it happens to fall totally into the abyss (No. 6 for instance, I expected to be good, and it was terrible enough to be a disappointment).
“As for your insistence that postmodernism is defined within the context of Nazism, I find it silly. As AK mentioned, the Nazis had more faith in German superiority that they had bad faith application of nihilism to “prove” their thesis and act on their doctrine.”
Who the Hell is AK?
But anyway, you find it silly because you are twisting my words, making it look simplier, ignoring I was referring to Heidegger, not Goebbels.
I was talking where post-modernism comes from, and that is Heidegger, not the “German superiority” concept. Heidegger is more complex than that, a lot. And he didn’t need to go there, use those barbaric concepts.
“Fractale is terrible. It had ambition, but squandered it by the terrible ‘database’ appeals — all these lame ‘Clain is a/not really a pervert’ jokes, Nessa is a terrible moeblob, the shoehorned fanservice, etc. etc.”
It’s my turn to found silly something, it seems to be.
So, your criticism about Fractale comes from nothing but the cosmetic elements, as moe, “pervert jokes”, fanservice, etc. I found those elements no more annoying than any highschool-ecchi-romantic-comedy (which I enjoy too, by the way). Those elements are invisible to me, like air: they’re here, but I don’t stop very much to think of them.
More important to me is that Fractale is dealing with very important issues to all of us. As an start, the world from Fractale is an augmented reality, virtual, state surveillance society with lax family and friendship ties. But again and over all: virtual.
The concept that the protagonist look at the “terrorist” as human beings, not as monsters. He didn’t change sides, he’s doing what he consider is the right thing to do, making his friends mad at times, who are more dogmatic. And the social change he help to create is not revolutionary, but more gradual.
Long story short, Fractale is very relevant to us because it deals with the way our societies are going to. I can tell the creators’ great ambitions by the final product, their achievement. Moe aside.
“It’s an execution issue and not a concept issue. I’ll take one episode of Mawaru Penguindrum over 9000 Fractales.”
I prefer not to confront two (or more) works because I can enjoy both. An example: Do you like The Beatles or Rolling Stones? I like The Beatles, but I don’t like Rolling Stones for THEMSELVES, not because someone think you have to like one or another, but never both.
“Well, your annihilation of THAT Asuka is interesting, given: 1. Rebuild is far from over, so you’re comparing a 1 hour of screen time’s worth of Asuka vs. 10 or so hours from the TV series, and EoE.”
Do you think so? By my numbers 26 episodes x 22 minutes (roughly, taking ops and ends) + 87 min. (EoE) = 659 min. (or 10.9 hours); against 98 min. + 108 min. = 206 min. (or 3.4 hours). So, is not that 1/10 proportion but more like 1/3 in running time.
In Shinseiki Evangelion we saw how the characters were build with care, transcending their cliché (or database) elements. Genki girl Misato is more like a vengeful, father-complex, manipulative, authority-challenging crusader. Shinji comes and return to a void of self-pity and nihilism (not yours, but real, hard-core nihilism). Rei becomes a human being from a robot as Asuka do the down way to her own private Hell of self-hate and hate to the world.
But anyway, I need 1 (one) episode of Evangelion to know that it worth a lot to me. Just one, because it showed me to expect anything from the series.
This tetralogy, from which we know the half is a good robot show, great action. But I don’t give a crap about Gundam, Macross, Mazinger or fuckever. I don’t care shit about robot anime in general terms. I want character development. Do you remember chapters 1 to 13 of Evangelion? Do you knew what’s going on? I do, and it was awesome. Do you knew where they’re going? Fuck no, but I knew it would (and was) awesome too.
Now, already watched RoE 1 and 2: Do you know what’s going on? Yes, it’s a washed-out, moe, compressed version of SE. Now, Shinji is… what is he now? a male hero from your random high school harem comedy, unconsciously seducing everyone including Kaji (fujoshi fans, look here!) but that’s not what Evangelion is about. Asuka, Rei and Misato are fucking one-dimesional characters. And now we have Mari, who is also a nothing with tits.
Do you know where they’re going? No, but I’m trembling in fear.
“2. Taking in Shikinami, I cannot annihilate Soryuu without great effort. As such, I am experiencing a double Asuka with all the goodies and the baggage of who I am familiar with.”
IMO, you are experiencing Asuka and 1/8, being very generous.
“I am very familiar with this experience given Kawamori’s multi-canon madness with the Macross franchise, where everything is ‘in universe media’ and nothing is history as it happens. I don’t think the Rebuild movies lack substance in everything else. At present I still think the TV series and EoE are superior (I rewatched them after Rebuild 2.0) but I’m pretty crazy about Rebuild in general. Certainly far more substantial and better executed than Fractale, LOL.”
Well, if you think so, it’s up to you, but I think you’re totally wrong about Fractale.
But now I must ask you: anyone can see if something is more or less substancial (and I think you are blind about Fractale, lost in the moe mist), but what about execution? How do you know something is better executed than its substance, if you only can know the substance by the showed product?
But I must tell you, right here, right now, I’m a little disappointed: from your reviews, I expected you would see through the moe elements in Fractale and watch more of what it is really about.
And I decided not to expect nothing but disappointment about RoE. I hope Anno stop bitching around with action CGI and moe scenes and give us something with substance about human nature, as he did with the series.
But until now, it’s an entertaining emptiness, a robot/moe fuck from Hell. Do you like it? I’m happy for you, but Evangelion is more dramatic, pessimist and twisted than that.
We are on opposite sides on 2 shows:
Fractale
Rebuild of Evangelion
With all of my heart I believe you are wrong, but I am not so interested in ‘prevailing’ over you. I also am not interested in annihilating your enjoyment of Fractale.
Thus, I am not going to counter your arguments.
1. You appreciate the conceptual content of Fractale and look past the things that I find significant content and deem it ‘shallow’ despite the adherence of the work to the concept of superflat where all elements are database points that have no intrinsic value over other elements.
This is your prerogative and I see no wrong in your choosing to be this way.
2. You see the Rebuild movies as poor copies of the TV series and these hold no possibility for you. I see it otherwise full of possibility and look past the idea that it is a copy of the series. You can find articles on both these works in WRLs archives. Again, this view is valid.
So where does this leave us? Back to postmodernism — I realize now, that you aren’t talking about postmodernism but Heidegger. He isn’t, or at least cannot be reduced to postmodernism. But as you said, his works are part of, or are the foundations of this thinking. I don’t disagree.
But your issue is with him, and with how the Nazi project used his work to make themselves feel good.
I am not so interested in bringing morality into the discussion because it can get very uncomfortable — as with culture and ideas, morality is flat or superflat as well. There are no values that are essentially superior and right. Any reader can come in and use these against me. I am not so interested in that. But this too, comes with the zero, the condition that allows us to think of language and therefore all knowable and commnicable human experience in terms of ‘free play.’
I only want to focus on the aspect of possibility relative to creativity in this post.
I felt bad by responding, because my natural response is to troll, and I always need to take it easy and not try to hurt people’s feelings. But I also felt that I must be clear at some points of our discussion.
Re-reading my last post, I think I fell into contradiction: I don’t mind about moe elements in Fractale, but I despise them in RoE. I will re-watch the movies and read your opinions about them, I can’t guarantee I will feel different from my current opinion about RoE.
I beg you excuse my tendency to bring ethics to the discussion, but as a Latin American, I can’t -and won’t- ignore it, because to our experience, and our history, is a very important matter.
Thanks for being more chivalrous than I deserve.
I take my hat off to you.
No worries.
I wouldn’t even attempt to ‘convert’ a hater of even my most beloved Macross show (you know it’s going to be a rough ride if your favorite sequel is Macross 7). So I don’t count on your ‘turning around’ as an important outcome when it comes to Rebuild (not that I’m implying you’re a hater).
As for morals, I’m very much into it, ethics and the like. I am born, raised, and indoctrinated Catholic. I am an atheist now, but I will never, ever, ever stop being a Roman Catholifag. I have an indestructible love for that crazy-ass religion. Thus you’ll see some of the core themes I explore in my blogging anime involves guilt (see the guilty pleasures category in the archives… and I began with this by doing a study on Ikari Gendo). But yeah, it’s a secular love for a stupendous, glorious, contradictory, fabulous religion.
Being from South America, I’m betting that you are quite familiar with this, no?
But as I said, a discussion of extreme ethics relative to postmodernism quite derails the discussion I set out to have with this post, so I don’t particularly indulge it.
As a Latin American and a baptized Catholic, I appreciate both of your (ghost’s, carrot’s) situations but let’s be clear: they are not inevitable. One isn’t compelled to pursue ethics as a Latino, one isn’t bound to love Catholicism as a baptized Catholic. Those are all choices of yours.
I appreciate it, and wholly without irony despite coming from you who categorically rejects choice and human agency!
The things you mention assault me quite forcefully as I had my daughter baptized, and am myself a godfather to another child’s baptism.
Since you like fantasy, philosophy, and literature so much, check out the Second Apocalypse series. (Search on TV Tropes: Second Apocalypse).
I’ve watched two or three episodes of Rebuild, and found them boring. Not enough misery.
Interesting. It’d even be more interesting if it were anime. The first half of the TV series wasn’t that miserable, so I don’t think the movies should necessarily be so. But whatever.
Well, Mr. Ghostlightning, may I say thank you, and that this charming little site is probably the most intense and mysterious robot cartoon site I’ve seen yet. I’m a first-year classics student with a love of Macross, an ignorance of philosophy, and suspicion bordering on contempt for most metaphysics. I may chirp up from time to time if you don’t mind, especially if you like occasionally explaining or refining things to improve your didactic skills, or if you just delight in sharing the richnes of being.
Hehe thank you. Do make yourself at home. The archives are all discussions for you to open. The thing about running small blogs like this one is that posts about older shows are really shots in the dark/preaching in the desert. We cannot count on the contemporary anime viewer watching currently airing material for readership. Thus we must rely on serendipity (otherwise known as Google) to match the posts with those with the interest for their subjects. Thus, in almost all cases you can re-open a discussion and I will respond.
I am more than enthusiastic to explain things, refine my didactic skills, and share the richness of being!
LoL. Anime is boring. They haven’t made a good one in years. Some average ones, but no particularly good ones.
2-d teledeiscope spends much of his blog space making up his own shows, or discussing manga-porn. You’re spending most of your blog space on recaps, as is, by all appearances, 21st century digital boy. Crusader and his Co. are gone, Dark Mirage has given up on discussing recent anime shows, Hinano talks more about Naruto manga and J-dramas than recent anime, and Baka-Raptor is blind. Oguie Manix writes more about Genshiken and Mah-Jong than anime. Random Curiosity continues plugging away, day after day, but that’s more of a testament to his stubbornness than anything else.
I mean, after a while, we start to catch a pattern here. The quality of recent anime has gotten so… rehearsed, that at the least this neighborhood of the Internet is reduced to navel-gazing, philosophical ramblings, and extracurricular activities.
No.
I run a blog called “We Remember Love” that has a prime directive of celebrating Macross, which is a show in the past.
That said, I am currently watching 08 ongoing anime with various degrees of enjoyment. What I didn’t enjoy, I’ve already dropped. For the record I’m very excited about Tiger & Bunny, Hanasaku Iroha, and Kaiji; from this season I’m enjoying Sacred SeveN, Mawaru Penguindrum, and Usagi Drop (a lot).
What I do not have is the energy to make weekly episodic posts. I’ve only done so once for two shows to completion, and was never successful again. Thus, you will not find a vibrant celebration of currently airing anime here.
I have however, blogged Broken Blade to completion, aided by the fact that the films release themselves once a month (this also applied to Katanagatari). I have also written 7 posts for three episodes of Gundam Unicorn.
So the output you’re seeing is influenced by several things unrelated to anime sucking: pet projects, bucket list projects, lack of skill or interest or in doing weekly episodic posts, etc.
But if you’re going to compare the currently running shows to a fixed canon of favorites, they will seldom prevail. But to conclude that anime today, next season, etc. is definitively lacking because of their failure to compare with my favorites (Utena, TTGL, E7, Macross, Z Gundam, Cowboy Bebop etc.) is not very useful.
P.S. Crusader and Executive Otaku are dealing with new employment transition issues; as will I soon enough.
New blogs pop up all the time, including mine. Scamp at The Cart Driver spent a post highlighting several of these new blogs. Just because the blogs that you originally followed are either on hiatus or falling to the wayside doesn’t mean that there aren’t other worthy new voices to take up their stead.
The status of these blogs and bloggers shouldn’t be taken as a reflection of the state of the anime industry, but rather of the bloggers themselves. As Ghost mentioned, some of them are in the midst of job transitions, while others have simply moved on.
It’s a shame that you find anime as a medium boring, since my partner and I are able to derive so much enjoyment from currently airing shows- so much so that we could no longer contain ourselves and we had to start a blog about it.
So it appears that most everyone in this neighborhood has decided to do “pet projects, bucket list projects, lack of skill/interest to do weekly episodic blogging,” etc. at the same time.
To be fair, there was only ever one good anime blog — Ecchi Attack — and it more or less died in 2007.
Wrong, they had a post three years after death, but their undead state is deader than yours!
http://www.ecchiattack.com/articles/miss_totipotentiality.shtml
2DT never had an inclination for blogging anime episodes past or present. Digiboy once had an aversion to this, then had a change of heart, then failed at it, then doing it now for shows he hates. He’s nuts.
You’ll find that animekritik blogs anime episodes quite interestingly even though he isn’t thought of as an ‘episodic blogger.’ He covers Penguindrum, No. 6 (if he hasn’t dropped it yet due to suckage, I know I did), and Dantalian.
It’s Crusader and EO who are naturally inclined for episodic posting.
That’s kind of what makes this a “neighborhood” to begin with, right? I mean I read GL and 2DT so much precisely because I hate reading episodic blogs…
How about this:
Make a list of the shows that were made in the last two years that you believe will be remembered several years from now. Then make a list of the shows that were made 2-4 years ago that is remembered now. Then make a list of the shows that were made 4-6 years ago that is remembered now.
Then compare.
Too busy enjoying anime to do your scientific exercise with a lot of precision. I can’t speak for the masses, the elitists, nor you. I can speak for myself though.
2007-present:
TTGL
Macross Frontier
Code Geass
Gundam 00
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
Summer Wars
Bakemonogatari
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Kaiji
Magical Girl Madoka Magica (I’ll end here, though there’s more)
2004-2006
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu
Lucky Star
Eureka SeveN
Diebuster
Aria
Banner of the Stars
Honey & Clover
Hataraki Man
Death Note
Comparing the two sets… I prefer the later shows.
Erm, it has to be “remembered fondly.” If you’re like: “I remember it because it sucked so much,” it doesn’t count.
My list:
Kaiba (2008)
Guardian of the Sacred Spirit (2007)
Macross Frontier (2008)
The Twelve Kingdoms (2003)
Shiki (2010)
Haruhi (2006)
Madoka (2011)
Welcome to the NHK (2006)
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (2007)
Shigurui (2007)
Death Note (2007)
School Days (2007)
Evangelion Rebuild (2007, 2009)
Apparently the golden age is from 2006-2008. Every season, people were talking about some show like Haruhi, or Macross Frontier, Kaiba, or Death Note, or Gurren Lagann. From 2009-onwards, the most consistently discussed shows were Shiki and Madoka (barring Evangelion). Did I miss a couple of good shows in that period, or have I made that case that from 2009-onwards, anime has kind of sucked?
From 2009 onwards, I can say I really liked:
2009:
Bakemonogatari
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
Summer Wars
K-On!! (Oh my god how could I forget!)
Shin Mazinger Z-hen
2010:
FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Incredible)
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (my favorite of the year)
Katanagatari
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn
2011:
Wandering Son
… the others are still ongoing, and I can’t be as certain about them as I am with Unicorn.
K-On!! was 2010 you jackass.
Oh, right, it was the less impressive first season.
Eureka 7 and Darker than Black came out in 2006, 2007. I didn’t watch them, but I heard that others did, and liked them too.
I’m using the wikipedia articles for the dates:
On your list (2006-2008):
TTGL
Macross Frontier
Code Geass
Haruhi
Kaiji
Death Note
H&C
Lucky Star
Aria
Diebuster
For a total of 10.
On your list (2009-Present)
A total of ten.
Gundam 00 would be included under both lists, so it doesn’t change it.
In other words, based on what you’ve wrote, off the top of your head, you’re just as likely to remember shows 3-5 years ago as to remember more recent shows. I think you should also add Eureka 7 to the list, though that started in 2005.
What’s your email address or somewhere private I can write a private paragraph? I don’t have twitter or anything else. It should be worth five minutes of your time.
ghostlightnin[at]gmail[dot]com
Which, now that I think about it, is kind of amusing. There ISN’T a way to switch to private conversations using wordpress. I could, for example, give you my email or vice versa, but then everyone would see it. Similarly, we could talk over Facebook, but then I need your Facebook name or vice versa, and so everyone could still see it. Furthermore, it posits the hypothesis that both of us have Facebook accounts, and that we check it regularly.
Nor can we do it over AIM because once again we need each others’ AIM accounts, and how would we share that? Furthermore, that would require both of us to have AIM accounts.
For example, this entire monologue would be better off on private channels. But SINCE THERE ARE NO PRIVATE CHANNELS, it’s put on the public comments section.
And no, this wasn’t the original idea. But another one.
I guess I just have to cross my fingers and PRAY THAT NO ONE ELSE READS IT. Annoying, isn’t it?
It’s not working. Email me at Marigoldran@gmail.com
Is it ghostlightnin or ghostlightning?
FIRST 2DT, NOW THIS. WHEN DID ANIME BLOGS STOP BEING ANIME BLOGS AND BECOME CREATIVE WRITING CLASSES INSTEAD?
Creative writing? No way. Why should anyone learn about creative writing on WRL? Creative READING maybe. You need to go DEEPER.
Oh yes, but I’m no Mikage. I’m as much the butterfly on the wall than anything else.
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