Things that are great about Shirobako:

• charmingly hilarious and dysfunctional characters that are loosely based on life
• the schadenfreude of watching them go through their weekly suffering
• good character-driven and situational humor, both delivered with impeccable comic timing you don’t see much in anime
• the weekly educational experience that will (unfortunately) make us all armchair anime experts
• the way it sometimes gets really “anime” exactly when it needs to

This week’s episode, “Table Flip,” is the perfect illustration of how every one of those pieces snap together into a combiner robot creation of fighter planes, deadlines, desperation, and goth-loli baseball.

Not only is the inevitable rejection of the manga author — something we’ve been dreading since the first meeting with the editor — a perfect situation for showing the characters at their best and portraying the struggles of adaptation, the break in character animation is a perfect opportunity to get into vehicles and background art. Both of which are the protagonists.

The growth of the Director as he finally starts to pull out of his post-Jiggly funk has been great, and he had a few brief but great chances to shine. Unfortunately, though the story focused on Iguchi, we didn’t get much insight into her. But who wasn’t fine with seeing Ogasawara and her airborne submarine pitch steal the show?

It’s one of those episodes that stands out, even in such a strong series with no discernible weak ones, and makes me wish that every day was Shirobako day.

But Kanie… he’s as stuck up as most people believe his namesake to be, and he’s an abusive jerk to everyone at the park, especially Sento. What we see in the finale is a guy putting that act on again as he comes back to run the park. Everyone has seen the softer side of Kanie, the caring kid desperate to help his friends.

This is character growth 101. Nothing fancy. Kanie is more or less a one-dimensional guy who goes through a very simple arc of change. But changing just that one dimension makes for a lot more impact in the triumphant or teary moments of the climax than letting a one-dimensional guy just kind of stay that way.

It’s actually a listicle, so I trust you’ll read the whole thing and share it on the social network of your choice.

1. sawashiro

In Stop Making Sense, David Byrne says that singing is a way to get people to listen to your music longer than they normally would. That’s basically how Miyuki Sawashiro works in cartoons.

2. shorts

There’s been a downward trend in waistlines during beach episodes in the past few years, culminating gloriously in sniper Shion’s mysteriously undefended back gates.

3. backstory

Reki Kawahara is nothing if not a product of Azuma’s postmodern animal world. One of the hallmarks that Imaginary Azuma who sits on my shoulder might argue about the death of the grand narrative, as well as a typically wonderful contribution from my buddies over at Key, is the “tragic backstory” shorthand. You can justify any strange behavior with a terrible event in the past that seems tenuously related. In these cases viewers are stuck with the results of “Hey, I want a character to be like this, how might that be caused?” as opposed to the more organic “what might a certain event do to this character down the road?”

4. rivalry

Shion and Kirito have a chemistry I wouldn’t think SAO capable of if I hadn’t seen it. Kawahara does manage to convey, in his handicapped, Kirito-centric way, that Shion is about as strong as they come. Maybe she even teaches Kirito something? I don’t know, I didn’t analyze this part much which could mean I was having fun. It could also mean SAO has the depth of a puddle.

5. rapeyness

Our hero Kawahara-sama doesn’t seem to know how to create a villain whose motivation isn’t “forced sex with a female lead.” I don’t really go by death of the author theory, so guess what? This disturbs me.

6. whoops kirito saves the day again

Almost had me going there for a minute.

7. fridge

All that chemistry between Kirito and Shion is just plain wack in the context of Asuna’s status as spectator. But what could she do? A one-dimensional sword slinger like herself could never convert as successfully to a gun game as Kirito-sama.

8. excalibur

Boy, I sure do enjoy watching Kirito’s harem run around in Alfheim, blathering on about the most basic boss mechanics and occasionally participating in a competently animated battle sequence.

9. key AIDS

OK I finally figured out something worse than the vague, unnamed Key-itis that kills Maeda protagonists and anime mothers by the busload every year: The clumsy invocation of a real disease. By giving Yuuki Special AIDS instead of doing a little basic Wikipedia research on a disease we know a lot about and have largely managed, Kawahara shows his disdain for reality even as he wants us to empathize with Asuna’s relationship with that reality.

10. asuna’s mom

In a show where villains operate on flimsy, cartoonish motivations that are more annoying or cringeworthy than anything, Asuna’s mother is the antagonist that acts like a human. Sure, she’s cold and tried to marry her daughter off to a child molester, but she does think she’s doing the right thing. I’m not sure if she’s intended to be a sympathetic character, but she certainly is. She sets strict ground rules but ultimately has allowed Asuna to use the Amusphere.

11. actual struggle

One wonders how the Amusphere continues to play a part in the life of any kids after the SAO incident; with the victims it may actually be necessary therapy, but the idea of the technology sticking around at large after causing a national disaster strains credulity.

Still, I suppose that lack of total believability is a fair trade for being able to explore the real-world implications of the SAO incident. Asuna understandably wants to see her friends and her boyfriend but her desperation to dive shows signs of addiction. Meanwhile, her mother struggles with the two lost years. When you put aside the relative implausibility of the Amusphere’s continued existence, it makes sense that it’s the device — and Asuna’s mentally damaged conflation of game and reality — that brings Berzerk Healer and her mother together.

12. done

Let’s end on an insanely teary, protracted deathbed sequence that wrecks any goodwill that this half-decent SAO animation chapter had built.

Sabagebu! (さばげぶっ!?, lit. Survival Game Club!) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hidekichi Matsumoto. The series, which follows a group of high school girls and their daily lives in a survival game club, began serialization in Kodansha’s Nakayoshi magazine from December 2010.

(Wikipedia)

I see.

Don’t get used to seeing this face.

At any rate… it’s time to take comfort in the reassuring heft of your pitchforks.

I have Good Things To Say About Sword Art Online.

by Horiguchi Yukiko

A point for even bothering to try

And you think you need no one to guide you
But you’re still a long way from home.

The Kinks, “A Long Way From Home”

It’s safe to say a large number of works in the shounen demographic focus on wish fulfillment. Power fantasies, gaggles of fawning girls, and realities where your useless skills like video gaming are suddenly necessary to save the world: SAO, of course, has them all.

But for all the concessions to supposed “romance” that we get, these mostly samey stories pretty much stop once the hero “gets the girl.” I’d liken it to IKnight’s treatise on panties, this gist of which is:

The pantyshot claims to feed the 12-year-old another piece of that seemingly-eternal puzzle, ‘What are girls like?’, while actually telling him very little.

This is the same. A confession is such a far-flung feat that it’s a goal in itself, never mind the kissing-snuggling-fucking-marrying that Kirito and Asuna manage to get done in the space of one episode — with whose mechanics even SAO’s author is famously and hilariously unfamiliar.

Action anime are often structured as a hero’s journey, which is a great template. SAO opts for a different plot machine that’s well-oiled elsewhere but rarely seen in anime, what I’d like to call the “Lover’s Journey.” That is to say: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. A classic that any love-starved chuuni in SAO‘s core demographic should be able to get behind.

by 成瀬ちさと

The power of lurve

Hush little mammy don’t you cry
Gonna see what it’s like on the world outside
Gotta get out of this life some how
Got to be free, we gotta be free now

The Kinks, “The Contenders”

First, there’s the fabled meeting. They’re impressed with each others’ skills, but not much else comes of it. Gradually though, over the course of the game, they come to interact more. And for all their Mary Sue qualities, these are two characters who interact on an equal footing. That’s refreshing in itself. And when they get together, they find their strength inverted into a strange weakness. The fearlessness of clearing monsters as a loner — or even a pair of loners — is replaced by fear for the other half. Asuna admits to being scared for the first time in episode 10, and it’s not fear of her own death, but that of being stranded alone if Kirito were the one to die.

Baby, let’s play house

Till peace we find tell you what I’ll do
All the things I own I will share with you

The Kinks, “Strangers”

The marriage is an interesting thing: on the surface, it’s boring to watch two attractive people fall in love and enjoy it and never fight about anything. In fact, I expected their return to the front lines to be the result of their mutual boredom with sitting around and fishing and making sexytimes all day. But no, they never did. Of course, it was only two weeks, and it was probably the first time either had truly relaxed since the game began (two years of anxiety flowing endlessly).

But the reality is, the honeymoon was not about a young married couple beginning a future together. It was two teenagers playing house in a virtual world, not worrying about the future because they likely had none. Yes that’s heavy with pathos, but there’s a quiet and sad beauty in the image that transcends the simple wish-fulfillment of the over-arching story.

A non-reunion

You call him names and he sits and grins
’Cos everybody else is just a sucker to him.

The Kinks, “Powerman”

by 健やか牛乳

Finding that Asuna didn’t wake up may have been the most heartbreaking part of the story, and it was far less annoying than the typical “failure snatched from the jaws of victory” twist. It sets up a strong emotional foundation for the second half using plot rather than character, because Kirito isn’t compelling enough on his own to generate those emotions. You work with what you have, I guess.

Unfortunately, this is the first case of Fairy Dance’s tendency to pile on rather than leaving well enough alone. There are plenty of potential reasons to find Asuna still trapped in the game, but “rapey guy wants to marry her comatose body because post-SAO Japan apparently doesn’t have laws anymore” isn’t the first one I’d reach for.

Here, too, is where a lot of people get twitchy because of Asuna’s reduced agency and power as a character. That equal footing that defined her and Kirito’s relationship early on as fighting partners is reduced to hero and damsel at the peak of their love, with her literally locked in a gilded cage. Symbolic? I’d love to think so, but I don’t see much other evidence of that kind of meta-commentary. To her credit, Asuna never lays down and gives up or acts pathetic, and at one point she does (however unsuccessfully) take matters into her own hands. But it’s a tough sell and casts doubt on her portrayal in the first half.

Fortunately, at least until the somewhat loathsome endgame, SAO plays it less as a helpless girl’s rescue than a lovers’ reunion over great distance.

A challenger appears

Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola

The Kinks, “Lola”

The ultimate test of love is temptation during separation. It would be pretty natural to include that in the story of Asuna’s rescue. It would be further natural to have that usurper be someone Kirito knew in the real world because probability be damned, it makes a good story. SAO gets both right, but screws up twice as well: first, Kirito is just too damn pure and flawless to really be tempted, and second… Suguha. Why complicate a perfectly serviceable plot element with an incestuous and busty little sister, if not to blatantly attempt to cement yourself as a popular light novel franchise?

History could look fondly upon SAO as a well-animated fantasy with a love story that goes beyond the first hand-hold, but I’m afraid the Sugu Situation will relegate it to that brief footnote in anime history when everyone was into little sisters trying to bone their onii-chans.

While the inevitable reveal (how did you go without saying Asuna for so long??) was a tightly executed scene, the subsequent real-world monologue was childish, selfish, and despicable, even for a middle schooler. Unfortunately, though I still think the introduction of  a challenger was the right move, the opportunity for Kirito’s love to be tested was mostly a missed one.

Net(game)orare

Come and love me, be my ape man girl
And we’ll be so happy in my ape man world

The Kinks, “Apeman”

Kirito finally relying on someone else to help him was a pretty minimal concession to character development, but his triumphant climb up the world tree was a decent moment considering how many anime fail much harder at provoking a fist-pump reaction.

I can’t find much of anything to like about his in-game defeat of Sugou or the scene leading up to it. The beauty of the love story, for a large part of the 24th episode, fell away leaving only the juvenile fantasy at the core of SAO. And that fantasy revealed its most puerile side with the removal of Asuna’s clothes and more or less netorare scenario. I’m most disappointed in this scene, as it’s the final removal of a once-strong character’s agency. Did it likely do the trick for a lot of viewers? I’m sure.

Reunion

Hush little baby don’t you cry
Soon the sun is going to shine
We’re going to be free like the birds and the bees
Running wild in the big country

The Kinks, “Got To Be Free”

by 成瀬ちさと

The epilogue of SAO was too long and gobbled up more goodwill than the series had ever generated, plus the idea that the SAO alumni would voluntarily jump into the open-source Kayaba code was laughable. But the hospital-room reunion was an understated, incredibly welcome moment that came with just about the right amount of tension.

Some people take issue with the Sugou parking lot fight. My issue was that it produced yet another potential avenue of unexplored thought: what psychological effects did Kirito suffer in the game? Maybe that was too close to the “do video games cause violence?” debate that could easily be the focus of SAO if it really was the smartest anime in years (ok, covered the second necessary meme, done). Maybe it’s just not where the author wanted to go with the story, although frankly it’s where I’d want to go. [UPDATE: Tim, who wrote an interesting piece on food and enjoying life in SAO tells me that this is explored in later volumes]

For me, it was mostly a distraction from what I wanted to see: the reunion of (barring perhaps Yuuta and Rikka) the only real anime couple of the year. And even if they’re stupid enough to jump back into VR games, I was more than happy to join them on the first journey. Maybe I’m just sappy enough to see beyond the series’ laundry list of flaws, but I see beyond numerous anime’s list of flaws every season, and at least I found something to love with this one.

It’s all filtered through the lenses of our characters, with the most variety coming from Chitanda’s harrowing journey across the school that proves the ultimate test of her crippling ADD.

Part of the magic that Takemoto and KyoAni create here involves a constant Foley track of school festival atmosphere, which in my estimation is probably one of the cheaper and more effective ways to help things along as it requires no animation. In one scene, Chitanda stops briefly and listens to a song resonating through the halls. For some readers it might not be apparent, but for anyone whose parents pumped oldies at all hours (I mean the real oldies, not the 70s rock of Jojo) or for any readers over 50 (are you out there?), the melody was unmistakable.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To Japanese fans, this 1961 mega-hit of Kayoukyoku (Showa era vocal pop, basically) style by Kyu Sakamoto is known as “Ue wo Muite Arukou,” but to English-speaking audiences it’ll always be “Sukiyaki.” These days we might recognize the cultural insensitivity of renaming a sad tune roughly titled “I Look Up When I Walk” into one called “A Tasty Hot Pot” (maybe; see Bill O’Reilly’s reaction to “Gangnam Style”). But back in the day when Japan was still taking its first steps into the wider cultural world as its economy boomed, Sakamoto’s catchy, emotional ditty was an exotic novelty to ignorant westerners who’d likely still never had sushi. “Sukiyaki” is still the only Japanese song to even reach number one on the Billboard pop charts in the US, where it stayed for 3 weeks.

Sadly, Kyu Sakamoto is part of another record: he was aboard Japan Airlines Flight 123 in 1985, which was the deadliest single-aircraft plane crash in history.

All this has very little to do with Hyouka, but I find little touches like that to be interesting. I also wonder which of those little touches will kneecap the licensing of any given anime series. Either way, I enjoyed the piss out of Hyouka and maybe there’s another post in that.

The biggest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life happened this year, and so it’s been a little tough to think about anime when cataloging moments.

The birth of your first child is not so much a single moment as a huge series of them; with fear, joy, disbelief, temporary insanity, extreme fatigue, and any number of other emotions and mental states filling them up. But let’s just call it one moment for the sake of brevity, a quality of my blog upon which I pride myself. Happy holiday of your choice, everyone, and may the new year bring you much cartoon fun.

Worth noting: I’m about to enter my third year as a Sea Slug?