As Otou-san succinctly points out, there are two types of people: those who will watch AKB0048 and those who won’t. I must confess I was in the latter camp because J-Pop idols are beyond banal, but ultimately my weakness for music, all music, gave in. Four episodes in and two blog posts read, I am somewhat surprised at the reactions thus far.

AKB0048 is the next season of K-ON! that we never got. Sure, the instruments changed, the setting, the genre, etc., but the melody remains unchanged. It’s a story about girls aspiring to be musicians. It’s an important story that cannot be overdone. The music industry continues to be dominated by one gender whether it’s the representation in press or band members themselves. If a female songwriter and guitarist wrote that “the doorman at my show thinks that I’m someone’s girlfriend and won’t believe that I’m playing in a band” would anyone think this is something that happens in the twenty-first century?

Of course, aspiring to be J-Pop idols is still…banal, but one has to start somewhere. The future is built one brick at a time. Furthermore, Idols, as 5camp accurately characterized, are sexualized and it certainly questions the value for girls to aspire to be mere sex objects. That said, who is doing the sexualization? The girls or the audience?

I realize I will get laughed off the stage given that (heteronormatively speaking) it’s practically impossible for any male not to welcome a note of sexual energy from AKB0048. However, sexualized objects don’t usually bring the act upon themselves. How many people will actually consider getting busy with one of the most sexualized object in industrial society – the car?

So I concede this may be an oversimplification. Nevertheless, my point stands. Girls, or anyone for that matter, should be encouraged to aspire to become musicians. We can make money, we can make love, let’s make music!

Continuing ElectricV01 & Wintermuted’s discussions regarding the new Lupin III television series event (Lupin III: Fujiko Mine), The Fujiko Telegrams is an in-the-moment blog/chatfest that’ll hopefully grant new and fun perspectives on the splashy return of one of anime/manga’s most enduring creations.

Wintermuted: After a relatively bumpy first half, the series up and pulls what seems to be the show’s true manifesto in this, unexpected and ultimately fascinating midpoint. Fujiko is suddenly a teacher at an idyllic all-girls private school which serves up a series of payoffs that may just make a few die hard fans either swoon, scream, or at the very least, raise some eyebrows. Practically taking charge and twisting up a “yuri” ideal ala Maria-sama Ga Miteru, and then doing a number on the male cast, this is modestly ballsy stuff. Thoughts, Dan?

ElectricV01: I’m surprised you felt that way, because honestly to me the first half of the episode felt like pandering.  By George, we must include some YURI in the show!  Having Fujiko make out with herself in the opening credits is not enough!  True, it turns out some of the yuri wasn’t yuri, and I liked how Lupin and Fujiko team up to outsmart (spoilers) Oscar, but overall this episode did not impress me at all.  It seemed very middle of the road.  Average.

Wintermuted: I had to watch it more than once to come to terms with what had transpired, and can humbly say that what’s going on here is pretty far from average when one considers everything that has come before. At least for me, the backdrop choice, the imagery of the school, and all the cliches that are borne from it (e.g., Fujiko working at the school under her well-worn name, and all the broken hearts in her wake) inevitably carry a unique purpose. To be fair, one could see eyes rolling to the back of my head come the first five minutes. But soon after, and once Zenigata’s bizarrely proficient and potentially imbalanced right hand-dude Oscar comes into the picture, we are suddenly in another thematic universe. In many ways, this is what I was hoping would happen sooner. A full blown solo caper that exists solely to offer counterbalance.

But considering the finale here, as well as some unique use of symbology, this is one ballsy episode that required a certain amount of setup—especially to those familiar with the Lupin world. And lastly, one cannot see the instantly uncharacteristic “yuri” elements to be pandering to any specific niche audience, when such a fandom could not be further from the often too grizzled and manly dimension of Lupin. It’s far too hard left to make work, unless it is meant to make a point—which I opine that it does, perhaps a little too finely though (talk about a flaming pen!).

ElectricV01: Meh. I just don’t see it. As soon as Fujiko was making out with students, it lost me. Maybe like you said there are hidden meanings about all the symbolism, and maybe it was poking fun at all the yuri type shows that the anime factories are pumping out, but if so it didn’t register with me. You and I are coming at this from completely different directions. You know a lot about these creators, their methods, what they have done before, and why they make certain choices. I am just looking at how the overall storytelling and characters are registering with me as a fan of everything Lupin.

And that said, I’m really, really sad how hit or miss this show has been for me. I love Lupin more than any other anime and I really want to love this show, but for me there are parts of it that just aren’t working. For example, last episode Lupin nearly had a conniption fit when it was insinuated (falsely) that Fujiko slept with Jigen, while in this episode he finds out she in fact slept with Zenigata and barely bats an eye at it. What the hell is that? It’s inconsistent.

Wintermuted: It’s possible that the series has in fact been toying with all of us from the getgo. There seems to be little consistency in regards to time with this series in general. There has been enough going on to suggest that none of this is happening in any linear fashion. And the one consistent theme has been of desire, and what many are willing to do for it. As the opening credits continuously suggests, it is asking itself, and its title character about her wishes, compulsions, and demons. And in choosing to use the world of feminine love as an opposing backdrop, the rest of the episode functions to isolate Fujiko as a being that cannot be satiated by mere notions of love and even material.

In this episode, the most popular student harbors a hopeless crush on Mine-sensei, which of course becomes the center of a caper involving the girl’s famous brother and a valuable thesis he has written. All the while Fujiko quotes Goethe regarding male vanity, and the depths of desire women covet. So when the tables are turned, and Oscar comes into the picture, the potential sexism of the whole series is turned upon its head. This is Fujiko’s world. And it’s one where the men are merely pawns to be played at will. It even goes so far as to boldly turn Lupin into a fallen example of a previously male-dominant world.

It’s so much less about story, and more about visualized nuance, which is extremely non-commercial. So yeah, new fans? Not likely to happen.

ElectricV01: I want story though DAMMIT! Story is important. Give me good story, or give me death! And, unfortunately, new fans is something a franchise like Lupin desperately needs. He is one of the most recognizable characters in Japan, yet I think the median age of his fans are like 40 to 50. I remember when I watched the first episode of this new series I thought this show was exactly what Lupin needed to bring new fans to the series. Give the visual style a much needed shot in the arm, while keeping the fun stories, and throw in a little bit more sexy time. You keep the old fans happy and bring in the new fans with the stunning visuals and fun adventure. Episode 1 is a perfect example of this.

Wintermuted: I can see that for sure. But in retrospect, that was mere prelude to what the show is actually interested in doing. And while the first episode featuring Jigen made me ready for a more visually unique spin on matters, a lot of repeat uses of motifs, lines, and images began to suggest something else in the cards. And even as I cringed at the jarring fourth episode, the suggestion there was enough to make me wonder what Yamamoto and crew were really looking to do. And this episode pretty much confirms my suspicions. The yuri elements are a forced means of conveying that this is not so much about Fujiko’s need to use men, or even be evil, but rather that she has no compunctions about doing this to ANYONE.

And what transpires from this revelation on, is consistent with the way the opening credits work, which is more akin to the characters of Lupin trapped in this dreamspace that questions their motivations. Motivations that lead to one simple conclusion—their reasoning pales to that of the desires of Fujiko. Why? Because Fujiko IS desire. And it’s something that knows no foreseen limits. The rest of the series is likely to continue working at this thesis not unlike an essay. The story work here is wonky, that’s for sure, but it’s very much an impressionistic take on character psychology that isn’t afraid to take chances.

Catch the Cagliostro take-down near the finale? If that isn’t manifesto, I don’t know what is!

ElectricV01: I’m not sure what you mean, I didn’t catch any obvious references to Cagliostro.  I’ll tell you one thing I did like about the episode was the scene where Lupin was running from the machine gun totting school girls while carrying “Isolde”. It pushed all the right nostalgic buttons. Also I still love the musical choices in this show. But yeah… other than that, this episode gets a distinct “meh” from me.

Wintermuted: On a story level, I guess I can see where you’re coming from. But once I caught myself saying “Is Fujiko pulling off what I think she is?” during the radio call, it hit me that I was on track with what is being done here. It’s a funny payoff to what I initially cringed at. Again, a long way to go for a punch to the ribs like that.The Cagliostro gag comes upon his rescue of “Isolde”, and his quiet moment with “her”. He begins his “I want no rewards” spiel, which eventually ends with a chase leading to him being gassed unconscious.(in a silhouette image that is very bold, not to mention distressing) Now a part of me feels like this audacious moment has two distinct reasons for being here:

a) To praise Monkey Punch, and give a kick to the pants of a certain Ghibli icon..

or

b) To render the general idea of the unstoppable male ideal of Lupin, impotent.

That’s right. If this entire series is happening within Fujiko’s mind, this imagery makes some truly confrontational sense. Yamamoto and company seem ready to turn the whole world of Lupin upside down in the name of both paying tribute to cinema, and even criticizing mores & gender notions of the past. While it may not be weaving a tight narrative, I do have to comment that this is something of a rarity to anime. (with possibly Casshern Sins as a unique exception)

ElectricV01: Umm… ok. I’m sorry man, I just don’t see it. That scene reminded me nothing of Cagliostro.  And I really don’t see anything different here in this series than in any previous ones where Fujiko or some other femme would outsmart Lupin from time to time. Lupin doesn’t always win. In fact in his old series, he barely ever escaped with the treasure and women always seemed to get the better of him.Because of this, I’ve never seen him as an unstoppable male ideal.

Doesn’t mean it’s not there, I just don’t see it.  Maybe the next episode will be different.

On a whim, Linda and gendomike decided to review one of the Winter 2012′s best anime, Ano Natsu de Matteru (Waiting in the Summer) together. Here’s the result.

Please note that this review contains major spoilers for Ano Natsu and some for Onegai Teacher. You have been warned.

On Relationships, Idealized and Unfulfilled

Linda: Ano Natsu de Matteru didn’t end the way Onegai Teacher did, and Onegai Teacher had been one of my top titles when I was in college a couple of years ago. But Ano Natsu had a bittersweet ending that made me rethink the romance novels I read with their happy endings. Finding an ideal companion is not easy, but I mentally saluted Kaitou-kun’s bravery for facing up with his feelings. Carpe Diem or Seize the Day!

Shouldn’t it be as easy and straightforward to find an ideal companion as Kaitou did with Ichika? But that is a dream for many seems impossible. Kanna, as much as I try to ignore her character, did fill a role that many people might feel. In trying to find the ideal companion, she found it in Kaitou, but since Kaitou was in love with Ichika, she had to back away. Then the situation with Tetsuro came out very unexpectedly with Mio also liking him. So in the end, Kanna was left alone and how she accepted it, is quite realistic and mature. It is sad for those “happily ever after” fans, but realistically speaking this seems to be a role that I noticed a lot in my own life and of others I observed.

gendomike: While the relationship between Kai and Ichika really is idealized, I think what moved me more was what happened to everyone else. A lot of the emotional heft was really carried by their friends who are left out by the main couple—Kanna especially, to whom I dedicated my Valentine’s Day article. This show does the angst and confusion of first love really well on the whole.

Still, real relationships are definitely more complicated than this show makes it out to be! There’s just enough realism, though, to make the show just a little more bitter as well, as sweet. The pain on their faces and in their suppressed emotions—which eventually do come out—is real. The show respects those feelings as much as it brings the destined pair together in a well-directed way. In that it is following in the footsteps of its great predecessors, Honey and Clover and Toradora! The jilted get their say too.

Finding that ideal companion is not going to be easy, when the world is filled with superficial events. But as for scenes of love fulfilled I feel that this scene on the train is a great one. Trains fill my everyday living, since I live in New York City. When two people sit side by side and you know them, it makes for a good conversation, or just a trip waiting for the final destination. Being stuck in an iron car is just that. The final destination that Kai and Ichika made was to the place in Ichika’s memory of earth. I kept on thinking about was Lake Kizaki in Nagano Prefecture, the place that was the inspiration for Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins. The part where the tree disintegrated made me think “Oh no!” But still the part also makes me wonder is the animators trying to connect and finally conclude the ending of Onegai Teacher? I think I teared up at that part.

It is Lake Kizaki! That was on purpose, to connect it directly with the earlier series. This is Yousuke Kuroda writing it, after all.

This train scene was the best part of the final episode, which I otherwise found rather odd and somewhat unsatisfying. The sharp genre shift of the last two episodes was, admittedly, not entirely unhinted at, but the show was at its best as an emotionally nuanced teenage love drama, not a sci-fi chase series complete with actual Men In Black. Of course, Ichika’s alien-ness was going to have to come back at some point, given the show’s premise and its connection to the original Onegai Teacher series. I’m not sure they could have done any better in fact without cutting ties to that completely.

But it was nice to see two people who actually love each other and can say so out loud in anime. That happens far too rarely.

On Remon

The character of Remon stood out for me. I think lots of other people like her. The truth of her being MiB seemed kinda fishy for me, but the shot of her in this last episode scene I really liked. She is what I believe to be the conscious adult in a group of teenagers. In spite of her pretending to be the same age as Ichika, I imagine she is the adult that adults aspire to be in real life. Someone of use and has life experiences that can be a role model to others.

Remon was both a very amusing presence and also a problem for the story. She had some of the sharpest one-liners, but she wasn’t really that much of a character than a plot device to help the other characters along. By the end it’s clear she is meant to be the same person as Ichigo from the previous Onegai series: a loli who is much older than she looks, who is sarcastic and clever, and likes to mastermind events behind the scenes. She’s even played by the same voice actress as Ichigo, Yukari Tamura, and does the otaku in-joke of being “forever 17.” (She and Kikuko Inoue—who played the Teacher in Onegai Teacher—have been saying that line for years.) In other words, Remon is basically a gimmick—albeit a very entertaining one. Getting everyone drunk and giving Kai and Ichika a condom were some of the show’s highlights!

On the Ending and the ED

I wasn’t sure when I was watching the ending: did Ichika come back, or did they photoshop her wearing the outfit that Kai’s sister got for her? (Ano Natsu showed off a lot of the older sister characters, for both Kai and Tetsuro, and Mike and I talked in chat about how the older sister is used as a parental substitute in anime a lot lately.) So Ano Natsu might appeal to young adults watching this series the same way that I thought with Onegai Teacher. Certainly in young adult literature, the parent figure is always absent. In real life that is not the case, so one aspect that stood for me in this series as with other anime series is how much friends can be acquired like family members. I see that in real life with my younger friends. I find that as I grow older with personal friends moving into new relationships that it changes dynamics, but Ano Natsu shows a possibility of one summer.

Ichika definitely came back. When Remon is back at MIB HQ, you see her pull up a diagram of Ichika’s ship and start playing with it. She basically hacks the spaceship so it would crash land and come back for Kai—and we know the film shot was after all that happened, because she’s wearing the poncho.

Personally, I felt Ichika’s return was a cop-out. The series had built up a lot of emotional capital by playing upon the idea that this teenage summer romance was a fleeting, though beautiful, experience, filled with bittersweet memories and realizations. The monologues really traded on it. It did a really good job in evoking what the memory of summer flings of that sort are like. I had similar experiences at that age, and I wrote about them earlier. Even the final episode kept you hanging on the idea that it was over. It would have been braver had they left it at that rather than bring her back like that at the very last second.

I really like that insight there—that friends can become like family, especially in their absence. The way the main friends interacted was very family-like, and there were all kinds of allusions to that. Kanna sees Tetsuro as a little brother; Kai calls himself a little brother in relation to his sempai, Ichika, and seems to see Kanna as a sister too. (Unfortunately for her.) But more importantly the show really captured just how the way a group of teenage friends interact will start to change once romance starts getting into the picture—and it can be a wrenching change. All of the main leads have to come to painful emotional resolutions and be honest with themselves and others to move on. That was the most powerful part of the show and the thing I will remember most.

That, and the ED, “Vidro Moyou.” The ED and the leadups to it were a big highlight of the show. Tatsuyuki Nagai, the director, has always had a knack for picking songs that fit the shows he works on thematically, from Honey and Clover II, Toradora! and Ano Hana. And he always chose the right moment to end each episode, so that watching it every week was always an emotionally satisfying experience. At least until the end.

What I liked about the ending was how well the images fit with the song, with Kai and his friends in a circle always seeking together, and with Ichika holding her spaceship out like a toy. With the color outlines, it makes for an interesting visual experience.

Concluding Thoughts

Seeing Mike and MLM enjoy this series as much as they blogged about it on AD encouraged me to watch it, even though I was afraid it was going to fail or not live up to its legacy as an Onegai Teacher follow up. For the most part, I was entertained by this anime series, and definitely liked the ED well enough to put it on repeat at moments. But in comparison to Onegai Teacher, I still feel the earlier title is much more emotionally meaningful to me. Probably in some ways I aspire to have a relationship like Kei and Mizuho or Kai and Ichika. Hence this companionship seeking is something I am realizing I need as I grow older.

The tie-in to Men in Black, with the Men in Black 3 movie coming out soon, makes me wonder just how much of a paradox or cross-industry relevance is there. Cheesy as it might sound, when I hear of “No Borders” by Japanese musicians, perhaps this is a sign for me to watch MiB 3. As of now, I am personally unsure of what anime series to try and watch, but I am seeing the excitement of Mike for Kids on the Slope. Perhaps that is the next series for me to watch.

Onegai Teacher was one of my favorite romance series from the beginning of my fandom. It had an emotional honesty to it that was rare in most anime romance at that time, and I remember saying hyperbolically that “this is the reason I watch anime” when I finished it…so when I heard that Ano Natsu was going to feature the same screenwriter, but with the team of Honey and Clover and Toradora! behind it, I was excited.

And for the most part, I was not disappointed. 80% of this show is very good to excellent, from the smooth directing, the emotionally resonant writing, and what I would say is actually improved character dynamics compared to the old series. The ending was a bit of a letdown and a departure, I felt, from the show’s strengths, but it was hardly enough to ruin everything. From the transition of the last scene to the credits, to the excellent voice acting (especially for newcomer seiyuu Kaori Ishihara as Kanna), to the sense of genuine youth experience animating the story, this was one of the winners of the winter 2012 season.

(BTW: yes, Kids on the Slope is excellent. Give a shot if you like good music and interesting romance. It’s almost effortlessly good.)

Continuing ElectricV01 & Wintermuted’s discussions regarding the new Lupin III television series event (Lupin III: Fujiko Mine), The Fujiko Telegrams is an in-the-moment blog/chatfest that’ll hopefully grant new and fun perspectives on the splashy return of one of anime/manga’s most enduring creations.

Now this is a little more like it. After what was almost a reason for me to consider dropping the series, up comes this nifty little story which at last pitts Magnum versus Walther while in search of a treasure within a newly found Egyptian pyramid. We also get a little more insight into Lupin’s personality regarding Fujiko, and to what absurd heights he will go for his “quarry”. More in tune with classic adventure/cliffhanger tales, this one’s light on story, but is at least told well enough to not be terribly offensive.

Agreed. Truth be told after last weeks… affair, it took me a while to want to jump back into the show. (My apologies to our readers for the late update on this. Completely my fault). While this episode was much better, having much more Lupin than any previous episode plus the return of Jigen, I still felt the taint of episode 4 and I had a hard time enjoying this adventure. For a first meeting between cast members, it does a decent job, but really not anything we haven’t seen before in previous stories. Of course Lupin and Jigen are gonna fight the first time they meet, and of course Fujiko is pulling the strings.

So one of the initial things I heard regarding the episode prior to my watching it was the absurd amount of frontal nudity. Twitter was flickering like a suburb during the Christmas season about this, which admittedly caused some concern on my part. If viewers had been paying attention to the series prior, this is not necessarily something to be surprised about. Was this to be more contemporary levels of service than has ever been for this franchise? So I jumped into matters with no shortage of trepidation.

Thankfully, my concerns were dashed after the initial scene, because for all the noise, it really all just takes place during one scene, but it is in “service” of the overall tone of the discussion between Lupin & Fujiko. It essentially emphasizes the master thief’s desire (ahem—commitment) toward attaining his objective, and it renders him something of an antiquated little pervert of a guy. Long & short, no matter the stakes, he will capture her. It’s a hopelessly retro moment, and she plays along knowingly, as if making sure he remains involved. Is it gratuitous & sexist? Yes. Is it cause for concern in regards to the Lupin franchise? Not at all.

This episode in particular? Have they not been watching this show? I didn’t feel this episode had any more or less nudity than any other so far in the series, with the possible exception of episode 3, which had next to none. And it did set the tone for the intro of a very typical/traditional Lupin story. Lupin steals something to try and get Fujiko’s affections, but she wants something bigger and steers him toward a mythical lost treasure—which, through odd circumstances and coincidences, Jigen is also after. I thought for sure Fujiko was going to be the one who hired Jigen to find the treasure as well, just so she could play the master thief against the master gunman and make off with the goods herself. But if that was the case it was never flat out said.

Overall, this was something of a standard episode punctuated by some very cool visuals. Leading on both men, Fujiko seems to have taken in what she has learned about both Lupin & Jigen, and woven an at-times silly scheme involving their best internal strategies. Lupin is good at getting in, while Jigen counterbalances to help them all escape. It’s amusing to see Jigen attempt to merely live the rest of his life far away from his past, only to get sucked back in and shacked up with a guy he could only imagine disliking. I did enjoy their interplay, and how Fujiko eventually plays them directly against one another just enough to help her attain a jewel peacock. And yet, they can’t keep themselves from drawing guns on each other!

This is also the first episode we see Fujiko fall into one of her more traditional roles from the old anime series: namely, the antagonist. She is the villain of this story. Part of her plot to get the peacock is supposed to involve the death of either Lupin or Jigen, as blood is needed to open the seal to the treasure. This is also probably the first episode where Fujiko’s greed makes her thoroughly unlikable, which again, is typical in any episode/story where she is cast as the bad guy…er girl. In episodes where she is bad, they don’t ever show her softer side unless it is her putting up a facade. So again, this is the creators playing with traditional Lupin tropes.

Yeah, there was a clear aim being taken with Fujiko’s role as manipulator and outright villain. It’s actually pretty amusing to see the boys essentially react to her greedy actions. One wonders if their enmity towards each other is really just leftover resentment toward her. In some respects, it explains quite a bit about what eventually happens with these guys.

Visually, it’s fascinating to see play out here as the crew is having to deal with a desert environment. And seeing this done as a hybrid old school work, we get some fascinating fire and sand work. It’s a wild jumble between eras that made me long for some old episodes again. Had a hard time deciding on screenshots this time.

And again, Egypt is another traditional Lupin locale. Also it was interesting to see Lupin get jealous at the thought of Fujiko possibly sleeping with Jigen. Which never happened, so I’m not sure where the whole “itsy bitsy” thing came from. I don’t remember her calling him that from episode 2. Still, if Lupin was that jealous of Jigen, he will probably flip out if he learns she “boinked” Zenigata…I think that is a discussion maybe for episode 6 though.

::laughs:: Oh man, IF ONLY. But yeah, that “itsy bitsy” thing came out of the blue. It felt not unlike calling Marty McFly “yellow”. When it comes down to it, it seems to have had a desired effect on both “professionals”.

Overall, this was a fun return to form, albeit still pretty lightweight as the series seems to be playing more on the many faces of Fujiko. While I wish the show offered more complexity, and less old-school gender politics, there was much to be enjoyed, scales and all. Now if only the sins of this show can help open up some truly unexpected treasure down the line.

My dearest Ri-chan,

Screaming in the dark
I howl when we’re apart
Drag my teeth across your chest
to taste your beating heart

Park that car
Drop that phone
Sleep on the floor
Dream about me

Je jure de n’être plus sage
Je promets d’être sot
Tout mais pas l’indifférence

Yours Forever,

The Paper

The Magic Numbers – This Is A Song

The Submarines – Tigers

Snow Patrol – Set the Fire To the Third Bar

Barcelona – It’s About Time

Athlete – Half Light

Young Heretics – The Lost Loves

Agnes Kain – Keep Walking Or I’ll Kill You

The Do – On My Shoulders

Polly Scattergood – Please Don’t Touch

CALLmeKAT – My Sea

Macdonald Duck Eclair – Tip Tap Mac

Shrag – Rabbit Kids

Taken By Cars – Unidentified

Thrushes – Used To You

EMA – Marked

Avenue D – My Dirty South

Hello Saferide – 25 Days

Lucrecia – Counting Backwards

いのち短し　恋せよ少女　Virgins, go enjoy romance, life is short. – The Gondola Song

Shojochuu (処女廚 “virgin mania” or “virgin mental disease”). This kanji “処女 (shojo)” is also read otome (maiden). And otome has three kanjis, 乙女, 処女, 少女.

In Steins;Gate, when Christina accidentally confesses that she is a virgin, Daru-kun overreacts as a moe pig otaku. And in Sankarea, to the scene that Rea accidentally admits that she’s a virgin, it caused a commotion among otakus. And during Loli Fujiko ED in A Woman named Mine Fujiko, some otaku commented, “Fujiko was once a virgin, wasn’t she?” Yes, Virgin Fujiko, that would be an oxymoron, but if Fujiko is a loli…

We worship virgins. We yearn for virgins, and want to do peropero on them. So yes, why are otakus so into virgins? Yes, virgin craze. Virginmania. Virginphilia. Parthenophilia. Why does a virgin have so much appeal to otakus in general? Well, “otaku in general” sounds pretty much not general (ippanteki) but already non-general, I mean, not people of ordinary (ippanjin), but “extraordinary”! Yes, we’re extraordinary.

But just to be clear, I’m not an extremist. Shojochuu fundamentalists even demand 3D girls to be virgins, especially idol singers. Once tabloids make a scoop that an idol singer is actually dating some dude while claiming single status officially, the fundamentalists go mad and quit being a fan, and instead start a trash talk about them on the Internet. Yes, they are like a unicorn, probably a caricature of purists like Puritans or Islam fundamentalists. But I’m not a purist. Well, I don’t care about virginity actually. I don’t care whether girls actually had sexual experience or not. As long as they pretend to be a virgin, it’s all good.

So, why virgin? I can’t speak for them but at least I can speak for myself.

Virgin is otome, oh yes, maiden, shōjo (少女)! Shōjo/otome best suits an eternal 17 years old shōnen like me. Shōjo is the life stage of pre-capitalist defilement. Yes, before going fully into 3D (reality), and capitalism is the reality. Yes, “real” world.

And the greatest virgin in the human history is Virgin Mary, the protector of yuri. And the Garden of virgins, that is the Lillian All Girls Academy. Oh, yes, otome no sono (乙女の園) is the Garden of Eden! Otomeness is virginness. Virgin Mary is the eternal virgin. That’s why I worship the Virgin, so my kind of shojochuu is “the Virgin worship” rather than “virgin-mania.” So, when Misaki from Welcome To NHK was self-consoling, she moaned, “The Lord is watching.” But mine would be, “Maria-sama ga miteru (The Lady is watching)!”

I don’t care whether the Virgin was a real virgin, since a virgin can’t beget children. Yes, we have artificial insemination now, so virgin birth is possible today, but in the era Christ lived it was impossible. So, our Lady wasn’t a virgin actually when she gave birth to Jesus. But that doesn’t matter at all to me. Same goes for girls, I don’t care if girls are really virgins, but as long as they act like a virgin, my moetical desire will be fulfilled. Yes. Like a virgin~♪ Yes, what I seek is a spiritual virgin rather than a biological virgin. All I care is virginness, not virginity. So I don’t care if a Samaritan woman had five husbands and was even having an extra-marital relationship at the same time. I don’t care Sonya Marmeladova was a prostitute. As long as she acts like otome, then she is an otome! Yes, eternal otome, in Goethe’s words, “eternal feminine.” Yes, 永貞童女 (eitei-dōjo “eternal virgin”), thus, just like 17 forever, OTOME FOREVER!

Otome forever...

And undoubtedly, the ultimate otomeness is yuri! Because there’s no filthy dude involved. So, they’ve never been deflowered. Otherwise, for a misandrist like me, that would be a nightmare. Girl’s sexual experience is equivalent to ryōjoku (陵辱 “rape”). I know this sounds crazy, I mean for girls, sex must be a great experience, but for me, I can’t help but take it as a rape. Any sex with a dude is like a rape to me. So, “when was her first time?” sounds “when did she get raped?” in my ears. I know it’s totally illogical, but my brain automatically interprets like that as a shojochuu otaku.

It’s similar to a psychological state of that soshokukei protagonist from Dazai Osamu’s novel Ningen-Shikkaku (人間失格 “failed as human”), where his eternal virgin was raped. She wasn’t a virgin actually, but to him, she was an eternal virgin. So, that was a traumatic event and also the climax of the novel.

Oscar Wilde famously said, “Men want to be a woman’s first love, while women want to be a man’s last romance.” But I don’t care if I’m the first or last of a girl’s sexual partner. Even Samantha Jones is fine.

And it’s different from NTR (netorare “taken away by sleeping with”) since I don’t possess any girls at all. Who am I to own them? Droit du seigneur? Patriarchism is already dead. And sex is okay as long as it’s not a dude. In other words, if a girl’s first time was with a girl, everything is exempt. Nobody is deflowered. Nothing is defiled. Purity is still intact. How do girls get defiled from sex? Because the defiler is the defiled gender! Dudes are so defiled. So, in my head, the word “deflowerment” translates into “defilement.” Since the dude’s filthiest part is the one to deflower.

That’s why I’m autophobic or self-loathing since I’m a defiled being. Yes, I loathe dudes and myself as a dude at the same time, that’s the fate of being the defiled and defiling gender. So, phallophobia, autophobia, and misandry go together. That’s why I wanted to purify myself by enrolling in all girls schools, especially a mission-kei school! That would’ve been my river of Jordan! That was the only way I could cleanse my filth called “sin,” or klesa in Sanskrit. Yes, sin = filth, sinner = defiler. But I’m not a high school boy anymore. The opportunity has simply passed. Baptism wouldn’t work as long as I’m a dude. So, the ultimate atonement would be gender-bending in 2D like Kashimashi~Girl Meets Girl. How I wish I was an otome…

That’s why otome is so appealing. Otome is the only one who can purify me. Yes, why are lolis so appealing? Same reason. A loli is totally defilement free. 純粋無垢 (junsui-muku “pure-undefiled”).

Ahh, Nakata Sae from Amagami, she was indeed very junsui-muku otome. When I was watching her arc, many otakus started apologizing to her, “I’m sorry that I’m this defiled. I don’t deserve to go out with you.” See, this is the evidence that dudes are so defiled! They’re aware of it. So, the last resort is to be an unrepentant perorist. Yes, on 2D otomes in LCD, we go “peropero!” Yes, quiet desperation is the English way, but nymphet desperation is the Otaku way!

Everything seems fetishized in anime these days. We are living in a season where even guns are turned into moe loli girls. So why does Nazo no Kanojo (Mysterious Girlfriend) X stand out from the pack?

Let’s be honest: Urabe’s drool is fetishized in the anime, and more than in the manga. It pools, glistens, and drips. The camera lingers on it with close ups. As the series’ most obviously original conceit, the audience is shown the spit again and again as if the director—a veteran of Doraemon, for crying out loud—wanted to rub every otaku’s face in it: “see boys? How’s this different from your shimapan/zettai ryoukai/DFC/siscon? Huh? HUH?”

It reminds me of the story about a medieval saint where, being convicted of having lust in his heart for a woman, decided to take a piece of cloth that reminded him of her and take it with him everywhere until it became soiled and filthy. Rub your face in anything for too long and it becomes gross.

And let’s just say it: the drool is nasty. Purposely so, but still gross. Now from the perspective of a “normal,” a lot of the other otaku fetishes are gross too. But for people immersed in this subculture, where all the above listed database items are so commonplace that even I hardly bat an eye at their presence, it takes something a bit more outlandish to awaken the emotional reaction the creators intended. It has to jolt even otaku. What Flannery O’Connor once said when asked why her stories were so “grotesque” might be what this outsider director, and perhaps the mangaka, were thinking:

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.

It was hard to get through the first episode. Especially when Urabe let an entire vomit tank full of spit. But along the way, and into the next few episodes, we are treated to something relatively rare in anime: teens figuring out how a relationship works beyond the stereotypical (hug, kiss, going to a movie…). How to appreciate the genuinely odd, beyond the standard list of moe “quirks”—magical, empathetic spit is definitely not moe and takes the story past the Manic Pixie Dream Girl cliche. It acknowledges that at least at this early stage, he doesn’t really know Urabe that well. No childhood friends here, or stalkers: she is, as the title says, still a mystery, as every human being is in both the unfamiliar and the mystical sense of souls having more depths than anyone but God can fathom.

What’s really interesting is that the mangaka, Riichi Ueshiba, actually made his intentions fairly clear about all this. He writes in an author’s note at the end of volume 2 about how decided to make his characters 16 because they are less likely to automatically have sex (as he imagines college-aged protagonists would) or simply be speechless around each other (as he suspects 13 year olds might be). He felt that 16 was just the right age to portray kids on the cusp of, but not quite into, full sexuality, and wanted to portray that delicious, dramatically pregnant tension:

If, by chance, this kind of delicate relationship was to emerge in our present day society, wouldn’t it most likely occur with 16 year old young adults?….This is because it’s around 16 when children are the most fragile, and tend to be uncertain about their life; and thus, I start all my stories at this time period, where the characters seem to start as children and make their way into adulthood. (Source)

His ideas of what ages kids start having sex aside, it’s clear that he desires to portray a certain time of life with a sense of emotional truth, and that comes through in the anime very well. Rather than pander to the cookie-cutter cliches of so much romance and harem anime, he wants to recover the genuine sense of strangeness that teenage boys feel around girls. In order to do that it had to look very different from most manga and anime: the 1990s styling. The not quite but yet sort of panty shot plus scissors—which thus gives the fan service a hint of menace each time. The very non-moe seiyuu playing Urabe, Ayako Yoshitani, for whom this is her first anime role.

Urabe herself is in control of her sexuality in ways that few anime/manga females are, too: eschewing the preset ways of being a couple, she has her own, um, unique ways of showing intimacy, often involving spit. Which makes Akira’s affection for her all the more engaging: while there’s something still forbidding about her he also appreciates and is learning to love her for who she is. This is much closer to the sort of love that lasting relationships are built on than what usually shows up in anime.

Mysterious Girlfriend X is a work conceived and executed by outsiders to the current anime scene, and it shows. And works. This is the biggest surprise of Spring 2012 for me, a season full of excellent shows already, and is hopefully a sign of more innovation to come. Here’s to hoping for another 2006.

Continuing ElectricV01 & Wintermuted’s discussions regarding the new Lupin III television series event (Lupin III: Fujiko Mine), The Fujiko Telegrams is an in-the-moment blog/chatfest that’ll hopefully grant new and fun perspectives on the splashy return of one of anime/manga’s most enduring creations.

Wintermuted: Now before we get into this, it might be good for me to make clear that I often encourage, and enjoy reinterpreting popular characters for future generations. One era’s character traits speak for their time, while others are more than ripe for reinvention.

So when we jump in here and share thoughts on an episode featuring the dogged Inspector Zenigata, as he plots to manipulate Fujiko, capture Lupin, all while attempting to snatch a priceless mask from the face of a famously scarred opera singer, what passes for a bold character alteration is perhaps the least of our worries.

So…you saw this first. Thoughts?

DCBebop: Hmmmmmmmm…

Well…

I didn’t completely hate the episode, but I really disliked it. So far we have had faithful yet modern reinterpretations of the main cast, but this was such a drastic change for Inspector Zenigata. He was misogynistic, crass, ruthless, and thoroughly unlikeable. It seemed his intent is killing Lupin, not capturing him. And the opening scene with him and Fujiko in this episode is something I never ever thought I would ever see, nor did I want too.

In one of our previous articles I mentioned that I was hoping the creators would make ole Pops more of a threat to Lupin and his gang, and to be fair he was a bit more ruthless in the original manga, but I really think they went too far.  They might as well have created a brand new detective character to chase Lupin, because this is not Zenigata…at all.

Yes. Seriously, this is a classic case of overzealous role reversal. It feels as if the writers were looking for a way to make Zenigata into something less boy scout-like, and much more like a man with a grudge. The problem here for me, is that it’s as if they underestimated another character’s potential in the process. While we have what is looking to be something of a more convoluted plot regarding Zenigata’s plan set amidst this opera drama. But the issue out of the gate is that the writers couldn’t decide what made for a compelling change. And considering his young charge, Oscar, this seems like a crucial creative mistake. Especially since it affects virtually everything else that’s to come in the show. It’s a bit of a hard left to deliver here when the show up to this point, has been vacillating between reinterpretation, and loving tribute. What this does feel like, is something of a troll to old fans—or perhaps even a dare..

Possibly. But you are right that this affects everything from here on out.  Part of the dynamic of the cast, particularly between the gang and Zenigata, has always been a game of “gotcha” without malicious intent.  Zenigata wants to capture Lupin because it’s his sworn duty and the honor of his family name is on the line, plus there is the fun of the chase, but he doesn’t want to kill him. This is always something the gang recognizes.  Now the gloves are off, and what would prevent Jigen or Goemon from killing Zenigata now that the detective is not bound by his duty and honor, but more seemingly some form of revenge?  It just doesn’t work for me at all.  Zenigata here is not honorable, he is the kind of man who tries to burn women with cigarettes.

And you mention Oscar, who is obviously in love with Zenigata in some form… which seems unnecessary… at least at this point.

Calling it: Oscar is the “worse” element that renders Zenigata into a less aggressive role. But the problem here, is that everything that happens in this episode seems forced, and unclear- which does nothing for the police end of the game that’s being set up. I guess where I’m coming from, is that without some manner of counterbalance, all we’re left with are the criminals. And while that’s fine and good, what made classic Lupin so much fun was the interplay between character morality, and the often gray humor to come from it. It also didn’t help that so many elements of the caper were laid out before the heist in a very haphazard fashion. It’s the kind of plot that required a bit more finesse in the setup and execution, and neither seem well thought out. Beginning to wonder if what I noticed last time has impacted the rest of the show.  I have another beef, which I’ll get into in a few.

Is it that this felt like an unfinished plot or story? Because that was my biggest beef with this episode other than the butchering of Zenigata’s character.  The episode just sort of ended abruptly.  There was no closure, no character wrap up, nothing.  I was like “That’s it?  What the hell?” Didn’t help I was already grumpy seeing Pops not be Pops. Also Lupin in this episode felt like a plot device and not a character. That bugged me. And I also can’t remember anything significant Fujiko did in the episode aside from “boinking” faux-Zenigata.  *shudders*

::laughs:: Exactly. It was as if the planning had fallen behind, that they hoped that it would get by on the “shock”, and the means by which the truth behind the mask would be revealed. And every other resolution to the episode relied so heavily on serendipity that it felt wasteful to even show us the varied wings of the opera house. The callback to the bees was also very clumsy. And all of this, as you say, more or less trivializes Lupin’s role in the episode.

But as I mentioned before, I can see Oscar becoming a betrayer-type as the series goes on. But it hardly matters as the balance has been shifted so dramatically in the name of mere shock. There needs to be a clearly thought-out reason this has happened, and as of now I can’t fathom why aside from two reasons: a) to “surprise” the viewers, and the big one in b) to link all of our characters by way of Fujiko as a crack in the moral armor of men in general. It also implies a “destiny” angle, which is questionable at best.

I hate “shock-value” plotting.  Comics do that too.  Bugs the hell out of me.  Boring, boring, boring, BIG SHOCKING THING YOU WEREN’T EXPECTING, boring, boring boring. It’s not good storytelling.  The only thing I can hope comes of this is Zenigata grows and learns to become the more honorable detective we have come to know.  Which I suppose is possible since this is a prequel, reimagining whatever you want to call it.

But yeah, overall, huge disappointment.  But I suppose every series has at least one stinker episode…right?

Yeah. At this point, I’m beginning to wonder just how much input Yamamoto has in this series, as I’m really worried that it’s almost completely mercenary. Granted the series is decidedly retro, even in its sexual politics, but by taking this option, the series has continued to view Fujiko as less a real character, and more a vessel for the weaker elements of men. While we get some amazing visuals from time to time, it’s hard to even say what audience this is being geared toward. This episode felt rushed and possibly even angrily put together, and that’s a spirit that really has little place being “jokey.” Tone is important, and the plot mechanics don’t seem there enough to warrant a functional episode. I really wanted to like Zenigata here, but this seems to be the last thing on anyone’s mind. Again, I don’t mind being shocking, but thematic reasoning needs to be put in place, and it needs to be told with enough efficiency. We don’t get much of that here. And that’s a damn shame as the setting seemed rife with possibility. (Oh, and it didn’t help that the denouement was essentially a “women are only happy when shacking up” screed.) Argh. What happened?

I don’t know but it’s irritating me just to think about it, so that is my cue to not think about it anymore.  Let’s just hope the next episode is better.

Kinda sad I went from being “I can’t wait for the next episode!” last time too “let’s hope the next one is better…” What a difference one lousy episode (and character interpretation) can make.

It is a hard thing to take back, too.  As a departure, it throws fans into some seriously strange territory. And as a character interpretation, it just seems lazily considered. But I was still able to attempt to parse out the issues that continued to dog it all. Change can be good, and heck, in more careful hands, this could have flirted with a darker rendition of the unflappable cop. But as it stands, it feels cheap—something the world of Lupin has no real room for. Let’s continue on, and just hope for the best. And at the very least, I’ll stick around for the package.

Who does not love “Wine Woman & Song” will be a fool for his lifelong! – Martin Luther

Overall, the episode was very good. Sentarou’s back story was moving. And that rosario exchange was so powerful. In Marimite, rosario is also a powerful symbol! I want to receive a rosario from Ogasarawa Sachiko-sama!

And a KKK guy throwing a racist ruckus at a bar. Yeah, that was even before Loving v. Virginia. What would he be thinking today witnessing the first black President of the United States? Clearly, that election was a victory over racism. But what made this episode superb was of course Jun‘s smooth vocal!

Fall in love.

Oh yeah, gendomike and I talked about whether piano or guitar would get a girl. But we confirmed that none of them worked. But trumpet does! And vocal does! Yes, like Satchmo, Jun plays trumpet and sings! And Yurika, ahh, Sentarou’s crush, she falls in love with Jun! Hitomebore (Love at first sight)! OMG, to Sentarou, this is totally a NTR moment. Things got really complicated. Now, the chart of unrequited love looks like this!

Sakamichi No Apollon: Kaoru (nerd megane) → Ricchan (down to earth Christian [of course Catholic!] girl) → Sentarou (DQN) → Yurika (beautiful senpai/ojosama) → Jun (cool ikemen trumpet player/singer).

Ahh, making a girl fall in love by my music. That’s what I’ve been yearning for. In fact, my whole life was summarized into pursuit of that!

Girls are notorious for not falling in love so easily by default. How come they have evolved like that! How come God created women like that… That is so not right. If women fall in love as easy as I do, I wouldn’t have suffered this much, and I would never have become an otaku! And an ojo-type like Yurika is the hardest one to sweep off her feet. Yeah, she’s indeed a naginata girl. Very ojo-type. Ah, her hakama is so cool…, fu, fumaretai…

That’s why I’ve been learning the art of guitar, especially bossa nova, to make them fall in love with me instantly. Yes, to me, bossa nova is a magic. But, I’m not a magician, since I’ve failed to impress any girls like Derren Brown. More saudade, so ironically more qualified to be a bossanovista!

Yes, I remember I used to go to open mics, where they held poetry reading and music performance. A lot of self-claimed long-haired singer-songwriters were there, and I was one of them. And there were always pretty girls among the audience, drinking coffee or tea, biting donuts. At a bar, drinking champagne and wine. And that was the main reason I was at open mics. And of course cute baristas and bartenders too, and my favorite one was a Latina. Whenever I played guitar and sang bossa, I always had her in my mind, occasionally glancing at her, just to check if she was impressed by my performance.

Failed to impress these ladies. But at least I tried.

Yes, just like in Dostoyevsky’s Demons, Captain Lebyadkin is always looking for an opportunity to show off his poems to a girl he’s crazy about. But when a girl is dismissive, he laments, “I’m supposed to be the greatest poet ever since Ivan Krylov, but how come I’m still living in a hut? Russia’s fate is cursed, because Russia doesn’t recognize my masterpiece!” Yes, just like the Captain, I failed to impress any of them. I tried to have conversation afterwards, but none of them seemed interested. And that barista girl…, she merely treated me like just one of the customers instead of a new-born superstar. And some of them even went home before I started playing. It was so shocking. Then, I got bitter like, “I’m supposed to be the greatest singer-songwriter ever since John Lennon. But how come I’m still collecting welfare checks? America is cursed, because America doesn’t give a damn about my talent!” Then, I eventually stopped going to open mics. Open mics were not for me. When I was in Japan, I screamed, “Japan is cursed because Japan doesn’t give a damn about my talent.” Then, I eventually moved to the states. Japan was not for me.

Oh, yes, this world is so desafinado (out of tune). I want to change the world that is so cruel to me. I want to change America that’s so mean to me. Because the current America is not for me. Yes, change 3D. 3D = reality = global capitalism. That’s why I’ve been to numerous demonstrations. The most recent one is the May Day march. And Totoro was recruited for the march. Yes, to protest capitalism since America is a capitalist nation. To protest against the Capitalist Dog, Shiba Inuko-san! Oh, yes, a protest is another kind of self-expression. As an artist and musician, I express, thus practice the First Amendment, yay!

Ahhh, but Jun… How envious… He did what I failed to do! It’s like my dream came true! All I wanted was Susan Boyle moment! All these years of my whole life have been wrong. Why didn’t I learn trumpet, or a jazz vocal? Well, I wasn’t sophisticated or intelligent enough to learn jazz. But at least I should learn some jazz standards. And I need to learn Chet Baker’s But Not For Me. I thought guitar or piano would impress girls. I even learned the most romantic music, bossa nova. But so far, the Goddess of libertine hasn’t smiled at me, so I’ve been clinging to anime. Yes, I couldn’t get any girl’s approval, which was a smile. Like the Stones sing, “Smiling faces I can see, but not for me.” I don’t need to be a jazz musician but at least be able to sing standards like Jun did.

If that doesn’t work out, then 3D girl’s hitomebore, but not for me. But 2D girl moe, yes, that is for me.

Continuing DCBebop & Wintermuted’s discussions regarding the new Lupin III television series event (Lupin III: Fujiko Mine), The Fujiko Telegrams is an in-the-moment blog/chatfest that’ll hopefully grant new and fun perspectives on the splashy return of one of anime/manga’s most enduring creations.

Wintermuted: So with the third episode, we are now transported to a more open European setting, as we are introduced to stoic but secretly soft-hearted samurai Goemon Ishikawaa. He stands between an assassination plot on Georg Trunk, an elderly king with a fight for an heir beginning to heat up, and some seriously valuable train cargo. Goemon, seemingly originally sent to pull off this assassination himself, eventually catches wind of a deeper plot, and unknowingly rubs elbows with Trunk’s grandchildren’s governess, Maria—who only just happens to be another false identity for you-know-who.

Something of an expansion and change of pace for the show, this episode attempts to do quite a bit for the atypical 22-minute running time. This Goemon episode was a bit sudden, and yet, as visually rich as expected for a fan tribute. Was wondering where you landed on it.

DCBebop: Personally I liked this episode quite a bit, and I really think that it felt like a complete throwback/homage to one of the earlier series. The plot in this episode is one I would have expected to see in the original green jacket or late in the red jacket series. That’s not a bad thing, but I agree it was a change of pace from what we had been seeing from this new series. Not as dark, and much more playful than the first two episodes.

What this does, actually, is it just makes me eager to see what the tone of the next episode will be like. I am still loving the animation of this series too, as it plays well in both the more dark gritty episodes like the Jigen one, and the opposite end of the spectrum like this most recent affair.

Wholly agreed on the visual palette on display here. There is so much experimentation and nuance in action, even in what is ostensibly a one-shot caper episode. The animation is in many ways more evocative of Russian techniques of the past, intermingled with anime techniques of the 1970s. And in that sense, this is a bit of a triumph. Being that the majority of this one is in daylight, or within the confines of a moving train, the lighting and speedline work is simply thrilling in places.

I suppose my main issues with this one is one of economy of storytelling. There were a number of nagging problems stemming likely from a need to maintain length. And even if I could just enjoy the general presentation, these issues nagged at me a great deal, particularly toward the end.

But yes, Goemon frightening children is something I had long been hoping to see..

And again, like the rest of the series, we get a perfect characterization for Goemon. Honorable, quickly frustrated, slightly confused and awkward around women, and a badass sword that can cut through anything. I also liked that we got to see another softer side of Fujiko in this episode that is usually reserved for only the more… Cagliostro-ish Lupin stories. It’s rare when this alternate aspect of her character surfaces. True, she always has an ulterior motive and something she wants to steal or take use to her advantage, but still you can’t help but wonder how much is an act and how much isn’t.

Another thing about these episodes so far is that they are actively reintroducing us to these characters one by one. We had one focused on Lupin, one on Jigen and this most recent one on Goemon. Will the next be about Zenigata? He had a brief appearance in episode one, and to me it looks like the bumbling incompetent cop he turned into over the years is gone and the character is back to to being the hard nosed badass detective he was originally.

I guess my biggest concern over this episode is that motivations are often glossed over in favor of just getting the episode in the can. Especially with Goemon’s confession of his presence to the targets: I can’t imagine anyone being so relaxed about it. And to make matters worse, Goemon’s first act as a hitman is such a doomed affair from the outset, one cannot help but wonder if there is any real reason as to why he even took up the option. For a series supposedly interested in something a little more character-driven, there is almost too much story here for one episode. One can’t help but wonder if this was initially meant to be a two-parter. This is also most evident in the episode’s final moment. It really does come out of nowhere.

I can see what you are saying, but in all honesty, while I was watching the episode none of those thoughts occurred to me. For example, when Goemon’s confessing “I’m the assassin hired to kill you,” there also happens to be a runaway train that seems to be a bit more of a pressing concern. Plus, even then it’s not like the guards were automatically trusting of the samurai…it’s just their guns happened to get cut in half so they couldn’t really do anything anyway. Like I said, I can see where you are coming from on that, but I kinda let it go as it was more or less the formula of a classic Lupin episode.

Something tells me that this was not a simple matter of budgetary or era-based limitations though. We do have two previous episodes that are pretty lean in story that they do not allow for such gaps to happen. But as I’ve previously said, it’s very possible that more was on the planning table before the episode went to production. While I had fun with it in places, I seemed much more in tune with the package than I was with the character work. Perhaps I was hoping that Goemon would have had a much more well-established start into the show, as opposed to a light romp.

That said, I love several moments of his here. (He and Duke Togo still compete for Spock status in my warped mind.) And I still feel like that need to make sure (true to old traditions of course) that Fujiko winding up naked somewhere didn’t come off as forced this time.

But as you said, they are lining up all the Lupin regulars. I guess another wish of mine would have been to see a solo Fujiko mission this early in the game as opposed to merely tagging us along for a nostalgia-fest. Though I am very excited about how Zenigata will make his impression with all soon.

It is worth noting that the nudity content was very toned down this episode. And I don’t think this episode is perfect either, but it was fun. As an introduction to Goemon, it does its job with an enjoyable and interesting story, though part of me kind of wishes we would have gotten a new adaptation on his first story in the manga. Though I shouldn’t be surprised, as this series is more or less starting a new history for these characters, and that’s fine too.

And you never know, maybe episode four will be all Fujiko, all the time. Or maybe reintroduce a classic Lupin villain like Pycal or, if we want Fujiko-centric, her old partner Pun.

This is very true. Should they opt for what I hope comes to pass—a Fujiko-centric episode that perhaps shows us new dimensions to her character, and in turn displays her abilities without any interference from the guys—I’ll definitely be engaged. From where I’m watching this, a show of this type is a golden opportunity to take what has worked in the past, and accent it with the storytelling techniques of now. And seeing as how I find Miss Mine to be one of the more intriguing turning points for women in manga, I guess one can only hope that the “retro-manly” world that is being built here gets thrown for a few unexpected loops..

Well, I think we will find out in the coming weeks if that is the case or not.  So far, I think this has been a real stand out series. I can’t wait for the next episode.

I am still kicking myself at failing to attend AKB48′s debut concert stateside during the National Cherry Blossom Festival. It’s not the same but I attended the last concert of the festival last evening after visiting the Video Game exhibit at the American Art Museum with ExecutiveOtaku earlier in the day.

It’s been years since I last attended a symphony so I was extra excited. The Kioi Sinfonietta Tokyo was to play Mozart and Beethoven with Yu Kosuge as pianist and with Thierry Fischer conducting. I arrived roughly an hour early before doors to find a long line waiting for me. A lady near the front kindly informed me that she had been there an hour prior. I felt lucky because within ten minutes of my arrival, the line more than doubled as it snaked down the hall into the rotunda of the National Gallery of Art.

I did find it amusing that the average age of those in attendance easily hovered a decade over me. The tortured kids before me were only there thanks to their father. It was delightful to see many dressed up which certainly reminded me that this is not like the concerts I have been perusing lately which fueled my excitement more.

The chosen setting remains a point of contention. Held in the West Garden Court, the surrounding plants and the sunlit dome established a welcoming and magnificent presence. However, it also provided rather limited sight lines and seating. I am sure some people were turned away. Fortunately, acoustics did not disappoint.

I have never been a fan of Mozart but it’s impossible not to feel Kosuge’s magic. I could feel the blood rush towards my cheeks as her fingers brought the piano to life during crescendos and find myself leaning forward and perhaps even holding my breath when she caressed it into slumber.

The intermission felt long but I was eager for Beethoven. It did allow me time to ponder which I spent toying around with the social contexts around classical music and those otherwise which Mike alluded to here. But why? How is the piano inherently classier than a guitar? If it’s merely a byproduct of history, then I find it rather arbitrary. The orchestra had a reply much to my surprise.

The beauty of Beethoven sang with poignant clarity. Classical music endured because it commands attention. It retains class by earning said attention. Against the background of stoic marble and black bespoke tailoring, the image presented by the slashing bows and the deliberate chaos of the waving baton seemed out of place at first but then I began to notice the music, to hear it and hear nothing else. I am not poetic enough to do justice to Beethoven. I will attempt that the unity of the various instruments produces an energy that can only be expressed in emotion.

Program:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
Piano Concerto no. 22 in E-flat Major,
Allegro
Andante
Allegro

Intermission

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony no. 3 in E-flat Major, op. 55 (“Eroica”)
Allegro con brio
Marcia funebre: Adagio assai
Scherzo: Allegro vivace
Finale: Allegro molto

Uh-oh..

Looking back at all the writeups I’ve shared with Anime Diet readers, it’s come to my attention that a large portion of what I tend to talk about are the stark contrasts that exist between eras, and how much has changed in the general cultural landscape. Even the very idea that any changes—be they culture shaping or merely timely and curious—it is amazing that these thoughts can come to you via the mere act of taking the time to collate and share them through my fingers. Which can only be more exciting when we consider the world we have begun to leave behind, and possibly for the better. The waves of grand change have been harsh, and equalizing. And despite what many may think of as being something to lament over, one can’t help but also consider how much evolution has led us into a positive, potential-filled realm.

So when we talk a little more about the era that was the 1980s, one has consider the good hanging chummy-like with the bad. And when I mean bad, I mean…potentially psychotic.

So when I come to you with another look back at an anime that never received a general US license, let me accentuate that the very reason I selected this as my latest Lenses is that it embodies quite a bit about what I hope we are slowly beginning to abandon. Because this is not the kind of psychosis that sprouts randomly, or is some manner of simple illness, but of one possibly societal in nature. So what exactly is this man-made Frankenstein?

Our hero's intimidated face.

Enter Ryuichi Kaizu, the central character in the little-seen one-shot, Blue Flames (1989). He may not be the most popular high school student, despite his obviously athletic form and diligent running habits. Many students even consider him a little strange for doing this, as he has no affiliation with any sports clubs on campus. He’s clearly a bit of a loner, and often considered a little weird by classmates who watch him at a distance. However, he is also in many ways one with a magnetism that some of the school’s female contingent can’t seem to resist. And this hardly matters, as we soon discover that Kaizu is completely incapable of any true sense of emotion, empathy, or shame, as he spends the majority of the show’s running time creating a swath of quiet destruction the likes few anime have ever displayed. That’s right. Blue Flames is the story of an athletic sociopath who will coldly stoop to incredible lows in the name of fortune.

His busy face.

At the offset, Kaizu is both offered a gift by a pretty classmate and then intimidated by a pair of thuggish martial arts students, which reveals quite a bit. On one end, it establishes that regardless of how little his classmates know of him, his looks are the draw, and his reaction to the thugs is something to consider. Instead of doing the typical anime thing by way of showing up the two toughs in a fight, he steps back and inquires if the two would rather receive payment in lieu of a beatdown. Obliging him, they let him go, which leads us to what Kaizu tends to do best, it seems—having sex with beautiful girls, then casually working them for money. (In this case, it’s his older hostess bar girlfriend who shells out the yen to keep his face-beaters at bay.).

That’s right. And it is within these first few minutes of the show that we are privy to Kaizu’s methodology at work, which escalates throughout the entire 45-minute running time.

Much of Blue Flames‘s events seem strung together from vignettes of this guy essentially seducing (???) and eventually working to destroy the lives of those he comes in contact with in the name of financial gain and power, and never getting any comeuppance for it. Moments after the payoff occurs, he discovers the name and reputation of the pretty girl from earlier. When it is made evident that the girl is a popular junior, and daughter of a wealthy hospital owner, his sights are set on target in the only manner he understands: date her, offer her sweet, manufactured words, and eventually date rape her in his house upon her initial visit, only to extort the already disapproving father into paying him to break up with the hapless young lady. And with the money he succeeds(!!!) in taking to dump her, he moves from the small town life, and into Tokyo to go to University with his “dead weight” elder ladyfriend in tow. (Meanwhile, the background of the story has been informing us that the high school’s captain of the rugby team had long been infatuated with the dumpee—leaving him fuming at our main character’s dating interception/aforementioned dumping.)

His "You've Just Been Dumped" face..

Thankfully, the creators of this charming tale take the time to share the fact that Kaizu’s family are reacting interestingly to all this. During the school plot, his younger sister muses happily that her older brother seems to have a girlfriend, while his mom and dad seem at odds with what is to be done with his future. Initially concerned with his college education, his father’s sense of paternal duty turns on a dime, granting us a clearer idea of how he sees his obviously disconnected son. His mother looks on helplessly as Kaizu takes his now acquired extortion money to the city, disowning his family in the process—out in the street. His dad, unfazed, and possibly the show’s sole voice of reason, would rather have little to nothing to do with this young man after such a careless maneuver. He is fully aware of the cold-blooded beast he has unleashed unto the unsuspecting world.

Upon arriving at Tokyo University, our hero attempts to join the college’s tennis team, where he not only encounters the established pecking order, but also the fresh faced daughter of a powerful bank owner. Never one to waste time, Kaizu goes into hunter mode again, utilizing the only tools he seems to understand, sleeping with the club’s “queen”, ascending the ranks, and belittling others. And seeing as how this is college, it might seem strange that no one at this point has considered running him over with a truck. In fact, that’s one of the show’s most frustrating elements. So in line with the indirect, anti-confrontational nature of some folk, not to mention the terrible timing of certain unlucky truth-bearing souls, Kaizu has frighteningly uncanny luck that allows him to continue his rampage unabated. Whether he’s making the moves on a number of universally empty-headed female characters, or getting otherwise earnest students in deep trouble with those in authority, this guy is something of a societal equivalent to something like The Terminator, or even the shark in Jaws. (Sex-Money-Sex-Money-Sex-Money-Sex-Money,etc.) There is even a hilariously awkward pre-sex scene in which our character is capable of making a potential lover change her mind from leaving by merely exposing himself. And to make matters even more distasteful, upon returning to his now dejected hostess girlfriend who seems primed to either leave, or kill him and herself, is pacified by him resorting to his “cure-all” tactics, and getting his rape on. I wish I were making this up.

Noone asked, but enjoy his sex face..

A large part of what makes Blue Flames such a fascinating three-engine train wreck, is in not only a clearly detestable character more of us would be happier seeing chewed out of a flaming jet engine, but in the often contemptuous viewpoint it takes toward virtually all who encounter him. While one may opine that often the most terrifying villain is one with no clear backstory, or reason for their monstrous acts, we never even witness a character smart enough to avoid Kaizu’s game playing. So much of what the show seems concerned with, is Japanese society of the 1980s, and perhaps the manner of youth that was possibly being reared during such a competitive, all-or-nothing period in time. We could even equate Kaizu with a certain Patrick Bateman in many respects, but even American Psycho allowed us to view the world with enough shades of levity and humor to allow us to believe that such a creature could in fact wander the world with few to zero consequences. In the case of this young man, everyone else is either oblivious to his petty thinking, or absorbed by, and willing to buy into it, to often disastrous results. And this possibly even paints him as a hero by the show’s standards—which only makes the show worse in retrospect. While this may not have been the intent, the end result is pretty cut & dry. In Kaizu’s wild, it’s either be the hunter or the hunted. The funny comes when the prey are often so inept, that his actions seem far more calculated than they actually are.

His "where's my money?" face..

Now one would assume that a review of something like this would require me to elaborate on how it all ends, but one can get the idea by the previous paragraphs, and make their own judgment as to whether or not to ever see it. It’s a bizarre curiosity that continues to baffle me (someone actually bankrolled this?). For a non-hentai release riddled with sex and rabid misogyny, this show stops at nothing to drag us through some of the absolute worst of human behavior with rarely to no moral compass to counterpoint it. But there is also an element of zeitgeist that may remind one of changes in the world around us now, where such mindsets are reaching their ultimate nadir. And in that sense, the show is a failed look at what some in Japan were either in fear, or awe of when thinking about the youth of the era. If anything, I’d love to dig up the manga, if only for the pure reason of seeing whether Kaizu ever crosses the wrong person, or goodness forbid is stopped by a faceful of STD. It’s an anime so incrementally horrifying, one may either run in fear, or stick around out of pure morbid masochism—perhaps painting viewers like myself in a none-too-flattering light.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bathtub full of battery acid to tend to…

"Let's Disco!"