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Books/Anime Recs, 1/25/08
Friday, January 25th, 2008 11:35 amBook-wise, I've been meaning to blog about this one for quite a while:
( Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsey )
And on the other hand of the spectrum, we have the anime Lucky Star. Lucky Star's premise is that an ordinary high school girl becomes friends with an otaku girl, and comedy ensues. And some comedy does ensue, although a lot of it is on an almost DaDa level: the girls spend the entire first episode discussing methods of eating various food items (chocolate-filled coronets, for example, should be eaten so that chocolate cream filling doesn't fall out from the end that's not being eaten; it really sucks when you want to buy a certain kind of ramen, but someone else before ordered extra noodles, and now there's none for you, so you're forced to eat curry, which you don't like because it stains your school uniform, etc. etc.). In fact, when describing the series to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aratana_miyuki, I said that it was like Seinfeld, in that it was a show about nothing, except that instead of the characters being neurotic New Yorkers, the characters are adorable Japanese high school girls who look completely unlike their respective ages and talk about manga, video games, and cell phones, instead of puffy shirts, really big salads, and the Soup Nazi.
However, I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I felt like I missed half of the jokes because I'm not enough of an otaku. And, thinking of the paragraph I am about to write about below this one, I am somewhat proud of not being one. Lucky Star is chockablock with references to previous animes, whether it's outright names (bleeped for copyright?!), poses, or animation conventions. (One of the best running gags is that Izumi Konata, the main character, shops at Animate (the largest chain of manga/anime and related goods), which is staffed by the commercial characters who advertise the store. Whenever she shops there, the animation quality switches to "Gundam"--very shounen and dramatic--style as the manager and shop keepers try to place goods where she will buy them and fail every time.) But a lot of the other jokes, about older animes and Gundam, in its infinite variations, completely escaped me. I did pick up on all the jokes about Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. The same group of people did LS, and the references and jokes pitch back and forth between the two series like two pubs right next door to each other with the same customer base. Konata works at a "Haruhi cafe", where she dresses up as Haruhi, bullies customers, and does the Hare Hare Yukai dance for their entertainment; Haruhi and Kyon's voice actors are characters on the show, in a segment called "Lucky Channel" (where they do nothing but bicker with one another.) One of the best jokes was Konata buying a dancho armband for Kagami (her friend), who has no idea what the joke is, but is bossy like Haruhi, and doesn't get the joke.
The characters themselves were pretty stereotypical, and as usual, I found the side characters more interesting than the main ones. I do want to give kudos to the voice actress who voiced the American exchange student, Patty, for performing her as fluent in Japanese, instead of the exaggerated fake "half fluent" that many voice actors employ for foreign characters.
( But there was some recurring creepiness that I couldn't dismiss. )
I also couldn't help mentally comparing this series, which celebrated otaku culture, to the American series and/or movies which have attempted to do the same thing with fan culture here, and the major difference seems to be that whenever Western fandom looks inward, an element of self-loathing surfaces. (The highly reviled "Trekkies" comes to mind.) Nerds are nerds, and they're outcasts because they're weird and NOT LIKE OTHER PEOPLE. (Although "Chuck" and movies like "Knocked Up" seem to be on the verge of "cooling up" the male nerd; the female nerd remains largely stereotypically ugly and uncool.) Japanese series, OTOH, either ignore the otaku culture altogether or celebrate it, unabashedly (Genshiken, although it has its critical moments, is fairly positive about otakus being just another group of people who want to fit in with each other.) It's a weird trend, to watch two groups turn inward on themselves and come up with wildly differing results.
( Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsey )
And on the other hand of the spectrum, we have the anime Lucky Star. Lucky Star's premise is that an ordinary high school girl becomes friends with an otaku girl, and comedy ensues. And some comedy does ensue, although a lot of it is on an almost DaDa level: the girls spend the entire first episode discussing methods of eating various food items (chocolate-filled coronets, for example, should be eaten so that chocolate cream filling doesn't fall out from the end that's not being eaten; it really sucks when you want to buy a certain kind of ramen, but someone else before ordered extra noodles, and now there's none for you, so you're forced to eat curry, which you don't like because it stains your school uniform, etc. etc.). In fact, when describing the series to
aratana_miyuki, I said that it was like Seinfeld, in that it was a show about nothing, except that instead of the characters being neurotic New Yorkers, the characters are adorable Japanese high school girls who look completely unlike their respective ages and talk about manga, video games, and cell phones, instead of puffy shirts, really big salads, and the Soup Nazi.However, I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I felt like I missed half of the jokes because I'm not enough of an otaku. And, thinking of the paragraph I am about to write about below this one, I am somewhat proud of not being one. Lucky Star is chockablock with references to previous animes, whether it's outright names (bleeped for copyright?!), poses, or animation conventions. (One of the best running gags is that Izumi Konata, the main character, shops at Animate (the largest chain of manga/anime and related goods), which is staffed by the commercial characters who advertise the store. Whenever she shops there, the animation quality switches to "Gundam"--very shounen and dramatic--style as the manager and shop keepers try to place goods where she will buy them and fail every time.) But a lot of the other jokes, about older animes and Gundam, in its infinite variations, completely escaped me. I did pick up on all the jokes about Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. The same group of people did LS, and the references and jokes pitch back and forth between the two series like two pubs right next door to each other with the same customer base. Konata works at a "Haruhi cafe", where she dresses up as Haruhi, bullies customers, and does the Hare Hare Yukai dance for their entertainment; Haruhi and Kyon's voice actors are characters on the show, in a segment called "Lucky Channel" (where they do nothing but bicker with one another.) One of the best jokes was Konata buying a dancho armband for Kagami (her friend), who has no idea what the joke is, but is bossy like Haruhi, and doesn't get the joke.
The characters themselves were pretty stereotypical, and as usual, I found the side characters more interesting than the main ones. I do want to give kudos to the voice actress who voiced the American exchange student, Patty, for performing her as fluent in Japanese, instead of the exaggerated fake "half fluent" that many voice actors employ for foreign characters.
( But there was some recurring creepiness that I couldn't dismiss. )
I also couldn't help mentally comparing this series, which celebrated otaku culture, to the American series and/or movies which have attempted to do the same thing with fan culture here, and the major difference seems to be that whenever Western fandom looks inward, an element of self-loathing surfaces. (The highly reviled "Trekkies" comes to mind.) Nerds are nerds, and they're outcasts because they're weird and NOT LIKE OTHER PEOPLE. (Although "Chuck" and movies like "Knocked Up" seem to be on the verge of "cooling up" the male nerd; the female nerd remains largely stereotypically ugly and uncool.) Japanese series, OTOH, either ignore the otaku culture altogether or celebrate it, unabashedly (Genshiken, although it has its critical moments, is fairly positive about otakus being just another group of people who want to fit in with each other.) It's a weird trend, to watch two groups turn inward on themselves and come up with wildly differing results.
