I also started following the graphic novel after learning that it’s currently ongoing, and it’s a fascinating piece of work. Thematically it reminds me a little of, as some other viewers have pointed out, Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou-chou, plus Tetsuya Nakeshima’s Confessions but also a bit of Onani Master Kurosawa I think (only without the fapping). It’s a top-tier piece of suspenseful psychological character study that plunges a literary probe into the deepest recesses of its protagonists’ minds, and for this reason alone I’d recommend it.

The (anti-)hero at first comes across as harmlessly likeable if a little quiet; his foil clearly has some serious issues though, and I can’t wait to learn of her background. The heroine, on the other hand, is a strange one. Mainly because on the surface she’s anything but strange: she’s the stereotypical Prettiest And Nicest Girl In Class, and it’s only later that cracks start to show.

The characters of the Aku no Hana graphic novel look to me like they’re around fourteen or so due to the way that Oshimi draws them; in the anime, even behind the mask of rotoscoped ink, the actors look a couple of years older than this. Whether it’s my inability to judge the characters’ ages or an intentional choice of casting on the part of the TV production crew I don’t know, but the anime feels more mature, more serious and more edgy.

This is what Saeki looks like in the manga…

…and how she’s portrayed in the TV adaptation

As minor as this distinction might sound, think about how quickly we change during adolescence: in the space of two years your feelings, attitudes, sexuality and morality could make you feel and act like a slightly different person. Because the characters in the anime look more mature than their in-print counterparts, this impression colours how I view the production as a whole.

I like to see different versions of a story play to the differing strengths of their respective media: the first five episodes of the anime follow the manga pretty much scene for scene, but for all the fidelity to Oshimi’s storytelling it’s different in the presentation.The gritty realism means that it’s perfect for the transfer to TV, as Hiroshi Nagahama has proved…and if you doubt those credentials, remember how Detroit Metal City had a lot of character interaction involving toe-curling cringeworthy moments, and Mushishi succeeded in being both subtle and powerful without a single misstep.

The anime’s own effectiveness, above and beyond the manga’s own considerable emotional clout, comes from its unique atmosphere. The setting is in a run-down, boring small town that bears little resemblance to Tokyo’s futuristic cosmopolitan sheen, and this is depicted very well. The soundtrack is minimalist, going for a less-is-more approach kicking off with a batshit insane blackly comedic opening theme…which would I think make a fantastic choice in a drunken karaoke bar.

The background art really is something

Then there’s that weird ambient, experimental end tune that sounds like a World’s End Girlfriend song being played on a scratched CD that keeps skipping. Again, it’s a very good choice lyrically, but the slow-fast-slow vocal is very strange indeed and constantly tugs at you, preventing your brain reconciling the weirdness.

While I’m on the subject of weirdness: my own experience of the rotoscoping technique before this show was limited to the Richard Linklater movies Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. In both cases it’s used to shift the production away from the reality of live-action film: Waking Life deals with the surreal world of dreams while A Scanner Darkly tells a semi-autobiographical P K Dick story from the point of view of a protagonist who is under the influence of drugs.

Aku no Hana is taking a tale out of the world of the graphic novel and into a more ‘real’ one, so to me it’s trying to do the opposite of what Linklater intended to do. The end result when it hits out screens is still very similar though: the off-kilter effect is both real and surreal at the same time so our brains – which aren’t used to processing both live action and animation simultaneously – have a hard time pigeonholing it. The TV budget means the framerate isn’t as high as it perhaps ought to be, but I was susprised at how quickly I grew used to it.

If you think this is weird when taken out of context, it is even creepier in context

Adolescence is rough. Although I admit to having had a teenage crush on The Prettiest Girl In Class back in my days at school, nothing as mortifying as what happens to Takao, Nanako and Sawa ever happened to me (or any of my other classmates as far as I know). Even so, part of me finds the whole experience of Aku no Hana uncomfortable due to the second-hand embarrassment. My mid teens are half a lifetime ago but it’s painful to see them making fools of themselves because although the specifics are far stranger, the general setting and situation is universal to many of us.

Crucially though, this sort of tale is utterly, overwhelmingly gripping. The plot is like a car crash in slow motion, keenly observant and wonderfully executed. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that Breaking Bad won’t end well either when it reaches its conclusion later this year, but that’s still cited as one of the best pieces of character-driven TV drama in years. I don’t know how far Aku no Hana will follow its broken people but as descents into the abyss go, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it done as well as this.

Quite honestly they’re such a prolific band, who tour so extensively and collaborate with so many artists internationally, I would have stumbled on them eventually. It’s only a shame this didn’t happen to me sooner, so I hope this article will help you avoid that “where has this band been all my life?!” feeling that I experienced.

Boris are a difficult band to categorise. Their early LPs, Absolutego and Amplifier Worship, might indicate that they’re a sludge/doom metal band while the likes of Akuma no Uta and Pink are closer to 70s-style psychedelic or garage rock. Then there are albums like Flood, Feedbacker and Attention Please, which cover the gamut from 90s style shoegaze, post rock and ambient. To make matters more complicated, they often release multiple editions of the same album, resulting in listeners in one country owning a record that sounds very different from fellow fans’ in others. Or, in the case of Heavy Rocks, they give a later album that has nothing in common with the earlier one the same title and similar sleeve artwork.

Some are comprised of one long track that fills the entire album: imagine the old days of Pink Floyd when one song sprawled across an entire side of vinyl, or was subdivided into different parts. They may or may not have names for them, either. The band members are genial and polite yet are often vague or reluctant to answer certain questions in interviews; the message I take from this is that their music is supposed to speak for itself.

This is Atsuo. He’s a cool guy. Due to a line-up change early on in their career, he plays drums but sometimes sings. He’s a bit like a J-rock Keith Moon, or Animal from the Muppets if drawn in the bishounen style of CLAMP. Many of the band’s Twitter messages, and associated photos (usually of soundchecks, food and beer), can be attributed to him.

This is Takeshi. He’s a cool guy. The aforementioned line-up change meant that he plays bass and rhythm guitar as well as doing some of the vocals. At the same time. For this reason he plays double-neck guitar/basses that are connected to two separate amplifier rigs on stage, and sometimes swaps between the two even during the same song while singing. He is also responsible for the Twitter updates and interviews.

This is Wata. She’s cool too. She doesn’t talk very much, but plays lead guitar and occasionally sings. For reasons I’ve never fully understood, there are sadly relatively few female rock musicians who are recognised for their musical proficiency rather than being eye candy for the fans, but it’s fair to say that she’s one of them. Not that it’s easy to ignore the fact that she’s an attractive female standing in front of a bright orange amp stack that’s taller than she is.

Although Boris are officially a trio, guitarist Michio Kurihara has contributed on several of their most recent records and accompanies them on tour, so he is for all intents and purposes a part-time member of the band. He doesn’t sing, but lends a less heavy and more psychedelic slant to the band’s sound. Other collaborators include the US doom/drone band Sunn o))), Japanese electronic noise artist Merzbow and the America/Japanese band Asobi Seksu.

Finding a ‘gateway’ Boris album is a daunting task. They are in my opinion equally proficient in a number of styles and genres, with the only common denominator being the combination of guitar, bass and drums. Their back catalogue is quite diverse, so if you don’t like one of their albums it doesn’t mean you won’t appreciate the others. The Variations compilation might be a good place to start because it covers several albums’ songs and also gives a glimpse into the energetic nature of their live shows. This is by no means an exhaustive list (which is my way of apologising in advance for any factual inaccuracies), and even at the time of writing they’re working on new material.

I see what you did there

Amplifier Worship is an early classic, and falls into the heavy sludge metal category with the likes of Huge and Ganbou-ki. Akuma no Uta is a noise rock album, instantly recognisable from the cover artwork that references Nick Drake and features the delightful tune Naki Kyoku. Pink is as close as they got to an international breakthrough, being as it is relatively accessible with tunes like the title track and the opener Farewell.

Currently widely available are their three most recent: Heavy Rocks (with a purple cover, not to be confused with that totally unrelated one with the orange sleeve), which is in their experimental heavy rock/metal vein; Attention Please, a quirky shoegaze/noisepop offering in which Wata does all the vocals; and the curiously-titled New Album, which features tracks from the other two in altered form. Like their 2008 release Smile, the tracks are remixed or rerecorded; some sound similar to their alternate versions while others are virtually unrecognisable.

Then there are the ‘long song’ albums. Their debut Absolutego is close to their Melvins-inspired roots. Flood was an early departure into a lighter, more atmospheric direction and Feedbacker is a forty-three minute jam that uses fuzz guitar, feedback and self-oscillating analogue tape delays. It sounds like everything I love about noisy guitar music rolled into one.

So then, what’s not to like? Partly because they’re not tied to a major international music label and also because the collaboration projects are with so many people, their back catalogue is scattered across different companies, depending on where the album in question is on sale. This becomes a problem when you’re trying to pick up copies of them all by legal means, as I’m starting to find out.

Hypnotoad says: BUY THIS ALBUM

Getting hold of the ‘purple’ Heavy Rocks, Attention Please and New Album is easy: they’re out on CD and can be purchased in digital form from their bandcamp page. Similarly, the Asobi Seksu and Joe Volk split EPs can be bought and downloaded if you don’t own a vinyl record player. Beyond that, it gets tricky.

Inevitably, the early albums are either out of print or have been reissued with different artwork, mixes and track listings. Some were produced in limited quantities, or only available through certain channels, such as at concerts. It makes the discovery of songs of theirs that you’ve not heard before to be a fun adventure, but it can also be a frustrating experience.

You know that really cool video of them you saw on Youtube? That track may be off a vinyl-only pressing or special edition CD of a just few thousand, available on an overseas tour from several years back, and it’s no longer available from the record company or the band themselves…although there’s another mix of the same song on another album that sounds completely different. Alternatively, you could pay several times the retail price on Ebay or something. You get the idea.

Overall Boris are one of the most talented, fascinating and under-appreciated guitar bands of recent years. In my limited face-to-face contact with them they’re a tremendous (and LOUD) live act, as well as being very pleasant and respectful to their fans. You really do need to give them a listen. And, if you really want a challenge, try to find all their albums and let me know what you make of them. It’s worth it in the end.

Part 3 of the original novel begins with a different scene from the film adaptation, although I can understand why Ufotable took the route they did because it has more dramatic impact. The Gate of Seventh Heaven remix movie includes the deleted scene though, and I sort-of wish that it had found its way into the theatrical version somewhere; it dramatises the conversation between Mikiya and the university professor when they’re discussing parapsychology related to the Fujino Asagami case, and adds some useful background details in the process.

Before I go any further: I hope the fan-translator forgives me for reproducing these here, but there were several technicalities in his manuscript that he explained to me, and they’re interesting enough to be worth discussing.

When describing the nature of the occult and magical in the Nasuverse, the novel uses a certain analogy to highlight the unique nature of people with paranormal abilities. It goes something like this: human brains are able to perceive the world in many ways, like a TV that’s able to receive many different channels. Most people experience the world through the ‘consensus’ of common sense: in that example, they are tuned into the one most popular TV station. Someone who is a psychic, on the other hand, may be tuned into some other channel, but that person wouldn’t be able to interact with the ‘normal’ world like the rest of us can.

Nasu’s original Japanese text, and its literal translation, also states:

他のチャンネルにはそのチャンネル独自の“番組《ルール》”が流れているんだから。

“Other channels have different TV shows of their own.”

This is an example of Nasu’s penchant for wordplay, which crops up a lot in his writing. The kanji for ‘TV show’, highlighted in bold above, is in this case supposed to be pronounced as the Japanese word for ‘rule’, which is quite significant.

In the newest fan translation, the analogy of card games is used instead. While most of us play the most popular card game, a minority play other games that have different sets of rules. The reason for this editorial decision was that card games are universal among most English-speaking readers, unlike popular TV channels, which differ from country to country. The ‘card game’ analogy also includes the allusion to that ‘rule’-related wordplay.

The outcome of this lengthy and complex digression is this: abnormal individuals, who are seen as mentally damaged or insane, are playing a different game, or tuned into the world on a different channel. The likes of Fujino Asagami and Shiki Ryougi on the other hand can access more than one channel, switching between them at will. In Shiki’s case, it’s even more literal since she’s uniquely able to see the fundamental flaws and seams that hold everything together by using her Eyes as well as being able to interact with the normal world the rest of us see.

There are other turns of phrase hidden away in the prose of KnK that, more often than not, went over my English-speaking head. Fujino’s ability to bend physical objects, for example, is accompanied by a spoken invocation that we hear in the film as “magare!” The written text can be read in Japanese as ‘curse’ but also as ‘bend’. When she refers to her troubled home life she declares, “Home, each and every part of it, is a lie,” and that “the lie is over now.” This is a topic that I am utterly ignorant of due to my background being scientific rather than literary or religious, but it’s a reference to Gnosticism, which is another subject that Nasu likes to toss into his writing on occasion.

Gnosticism states that the world we live in is flawed, and that enlightenment/supreme knowledge is perfection. For Fujino, the awakening of her supernatural power feels to her like true knowledge and experience; she has left this flawed normal reality behind for a higher state of awareness. In being able to once again feel physical pain, the lie of her insensitivity, brought about by her family’s sealing of her ability through drug administration, has been replaced by the truth of real feeling.

If this subtext isn’t enough, Part 3 contains what I view as particularly obvious nods to the work of Natsuhiko Kyougoku, who as I mentioned in earlier articles was cited by Nasu to be a major influence; he’s a great writer in his own right so if you dig Nasu’s idiosyncratic style, check him out. Kyougoku’s novel The Summer of the Ubume, which was published just four or five years before KnK was serialised, features a character whose family name is, funnily enough, Fujino. Hmm.

Nasu also shares Kyougoku’s habit of writing long-winded, self-indulgent digressions into obscure territory: The Summer of the Ubume and Mouryou no Hako go off on youkai-related tangents, and require the same sort of patience from the reader that KnK and Fate sometimes do.

Playing with the reader’s/viewer’s expectations by being deliberately vague occurs once again when the real setup of Fujino’s predicament turns out to be totally different from how it appears. Nasu employs this sleight of hand/misdirection device when he conceals the identity of the serial killer in part 2 and the underlying cause of Fujino’s insensitivity to pain in this part, just as Kyougoku constructs convoluted murder-mysteries with locked room murders and disappearing corpses in a more traditional context (i.e. that of the murder-mystery novel).

The shape of the red-and-green spell might be significant too; I’m not sure. It reminds me a bit of the double-helical shape of DNA, and I’ve always had a fascination with that

Now I’ve bored you to death with puns and other trivia, I ought to point out that The Remaining Sense of Pain is also very significant from the characterisation and thematic standpoints. Not only are the underlying mechanics of magic in the Nasuverse set out for the first time, but we also get to see a particularly interesting antagonist who forms a more telling contrast with the heroine than Kirie did earlier in the story.

Pitting Shiki against someone who behaves so differently yet is in other ways so similar makes for a conflict that’s fun to see play out, but that set of similarities and differences also tells us a more about the two of them. In fact, the point where the similarities end and the differences begin forms the crux of the whole thing because, for the first time, our girl has met her match.

Much to the surprise of Touko, Shiki cannot however sympathise with Fujino; in fact, she despises the other girl’s lack of self-restraint and declares the intial on-and-off progression of Fujino’s descent into violence to be a nuisance because, during Fujino’s moments of calm lucidity, the thrill of the chase momentarily disappears. Above all, the fact that Fujino lies to herself about her own motives is what I think annoys Shiki most. Dishing out your own brand of justice with violence? Fair enough. Scrunching people up like twigs just for fun? Not cool.

What’s also telling at this point of the story are Mikiya’s personal views. He is important in the sense that he’s the romantic interest, but his take on the events that unfold in this part of the story provides a moral ‘anchor’ and a sense of normality…which is pretty important when the other protagonist’s morals are those of a killer, and when Touko views it all with the mage’s cold, pragmatic detachment. Most impressively of all, he’s a rare specimen: an anime male lead that is likeable and deserves your respect.

In a conversation with a friend of mine a while back, we tried to make a list of Anime Male Leads who weren’t pathetic, annoying or stupid.

It was a very short list.

In KnK Part 2, we get the first hints of the extent of Mikiya’s devotion to Shiki and his faith in her better nature…sure, it flies in the face of the circumstantial evidence that’s revealed to us, but the poor guy is in love after all. What’s really refreshing though is how he stands by his convictions in general – not in a blind, stupid way, but in a resolute and convincing one. He has his principles, which are at best admirable and at least understandable.

He makes no secret of disapproving of a serial killer running loose around town, but never loses sight of why that person did those terrible things either. Similarly, he rescues Keita from becoming Fujino’s next victim because Keita is in his eyes just another human being who doesn’t deserve to die at the hands of a crazed killer…even though Keita is an accessory to the sadistic violence that pushed Fujino over the edge in the first place. The point where Mikiya impatiently tells Keita to spare him the most gruesome details of the violence the gang committed jumped out at me: here is a Nice Guy who is willing to give everyone a fair chance but still has a firm opinion of what’s right and wrong.

It makes you want to shake the guy by the hand and buy him a beer, doesn’t it?

Also: Pink Floyd. ^_^

Two years later, with their first European appearances under their belts, where do they stand with their fourth record? While AE took a few listens to get into, Consolation endeared it to me from the get-go. Quite honestly I don’t think they’ve sounded better – the songs on offer here are easily of the standard they set right back in ’09 with their debut Seventh Heaven.

The opener al fine harks back to the ‘Overture’ of that first album, fading in with the trademark textured atmospherics and reverb-drenched choral chants. The title track kicks it off proper, showcasing the three-piece vocal harmonising and the blues-rock riffing of session guitarist Koichi Korenaga. In true Kalafina style it quickly does another stylistic about-turn with the whimsical Moonfesta. This is a surprisingly folk-y acoustic effort, to me referencing an earlier track of theirs, Hikari no Senritsu. This time though it’s even sparser and brighter with a middle-eastern vibe, far removed from the rest of their back catalogue but never failing to make me smile every time I hear it.

Door is a slower piece that’s in the 90s rock ballad tradition, in a good way I might add thanks to the tinkling piano and vocal lines laid down with thoughtful precision. I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did, either. Mirai and Hanataba may also potentially suffer from ‘album track obscurity’ without anime tie-in familiarity, but it’s testament to the album’s overall quality that they hold their own so well. The former breezes along with an infectious sense of hope (perhaps as suggested in its title) and the latter features what is I think a ‘first’ for Kalafina if memory serves, in the form of an accordion part.

This is something that I feel needs reiterating when discussing Kajiura’s songwriting: she uses an eclectic choice of instrumentation for arrangements in the contemporary rock and soundtrack genres, and more often than not the experimentation yields very positive results. We’re used to hearing flutes, pianos and strings in a rock/pop context, but there are times like her work with FictionJunction YUUKA where a violin solo kicks in when you expect a guitar, or a sitar joins in like it did on one of the tracks on Red Moon to keep things interesting.

The accordion parts are indeed interesting and a refreshing change in Hanataba but in the electro-rock blinder signal, it didn’t have quite the same effect. I suspect that repeated listens to Kajiura’s music has conditioned me to expect a guitar, violin or synth line so when an accordion appears while a dance-y beat that harks back to her early work with See-Saw is powering the song at full tilt, it’s a little too unexpected. It feels to me like it’s somewhat out of place so a violin or keyboard may have worked better there.

This is a minor criticism of an otherwise outstanding track but all is forgiven in Obbligato, another rock-out moment that buoys up the record’s midsection. It takes a little while to get going, building up with echo-y noisy ambience and murmured Kajiura-go chanting for a full minute before the drums begin and the guitar-driven main theme steams ahead. The back-and-forth phrasing between the vocalists and guitar chords during the verses is superbly effective in ramping up the tension, and is I daresay an occasion when Keiko, Wakana and Hikaru are on top form. I absolutely love it, and can imagine it being a mainstay in their live repertoire.

Kichigo no Shigemi ni provides another dynamic shift – perhaps a bit of a well-worn trope in Kalafina, as well as elsewhere, but effective nonetheless. In an interview with Billy Corgan back in the 1990s when he recorded the first three Smashing Pumpkins albums, he cited this loud-quiet-loud pattern that came to prominence in mainstream rock music as a ‘reset’ being employed when a song reaches a crescendo where it can’t really go any louder or faster. Hence I suppose why this track is so brief and restrained.

Here, this alt-rock songwriting trick is for the benefit of the magnificent Manten, originally recorded as an insert song for Fate/Zero but in my opinion one that’s actually better than its higher-profile counterpart, the series’ main theme To the Beginning. Manten reminds me a bit of a darker reimagining of their older song Storia, but it’s one of those tunes that encapsulates the group’s signature sound: soaring vocals, dramatic orchestral piano and strings, with carefully-arranged rock guitar that knows when to move to the forefront of the mix and when to let the other instrumentation – usually those glorious vocals – take centre stage.

To the Beginning is a little more in the ‘TV theme tune’ vein – and I know full well that it was intended to be exactly that; it’s hardly the song’s own fault that it was played in edited form to fans every week for several months, but it’s a little more predictable and conventional. Even the best songs – often especially the best songs! – can suffer from over-exposure, and that is I think what’s happened. I’m just glad that both of the F/Z tracks are represented here.

After two such high-energy tunes it’s perhaps surprising that the final two are so gentle and restrained. Hikari Furu reminds me a bit of the title track to Seventh Heaven, without quite the heart-breaking level of emotion, and has some dramatic booming percussion accompanying the strings to give it an uplifting feel. You might expect Yume no Daichi to be the bold, climatic finale akin to, say, AE’s Symphonia, but it’s actually very warm and soothing: a lilting flute melody lightens what I feared may be over-wrought and offers instead a gentle come-down that leaves the listener with a comforting, float-y feeling rather than a sense of being overwhelmed.

This is my overall impression of the album as a whole. There are fewer of the dark, dance-y fast tracks and towering types of ballads but it still comes away feeling strong and consistent. This feels to me like a more relaxed, more confident Kalafina, with a stronger sense of identity that has fortunately not yet slipped into self-plagiarism and the formula become stale.

Perhaps after several years of Kajiura, the vocalists and supporting musicians working together, they’re collectively benefiting from this confidence. The novel instrumentation *usually* works in context but more importantly for me at least, the members of the group have never sounded more at ease than they do here. The vocals in particular are always centre stage, both in the promotion and the final mixing of the songs, but it’s a wonderful thing from a fan’s point of view to hear them injecting such heartfelt feeling and hitting the right notes in ways that we may not have expected them to do five years ago. Now that their first three albums are available in this part of the world without needing to import like I had to, I hope that the same will apply to this one before long. Time will tell if they travel to Europe and the US again, but this record does at least prove that it’s worth the extra time and expense to get hold of. A musical ‘consolation’ indeed.

Tracklisting

1. al fine
2. Consolation
3. ～ムーンフェスタ～ (Moonfesta)
4. Door
5. 未来 (Mirai)
6. 花束 (Hanataba)
7. Signal
8. Obbligato
9. 木苺の茂みに (Kichigo no Shigemi ni)
10. 満天 (Manten)
11. To the Beginning
12. ひかりふる (Hikari Furu)
13. 夢の大地 (Yume no Daichi)

By which I mean: it’s important in understanding how the two protagonists’ minds work and what drives them to make the decisions they make later on. I guess the narrative also needs time to pause and offer something character-driven before leaping headlong into the next action-orientated arc. After reading this chapter through, the first one feels like a ‘cold open’ to get the reader’s/viewer’s attention while the heart of the story lies elsewhere.

This is the ‘proper’ start to the proceedings but it’s also the one that contains that figurative heart. I referred to it as a ‘personal’ tale in my earlier article but this portion, and the second half of the ‘Murder Speculation’ arc that makes up part #7, highlights that point most clearly. The fact that everything else is concerned with violence, magic and mayhem makes this even more obvious and important to me because the contrast between these two themes is so stark.

It’s an odd take on the old star-crossed lovers idea, featuring a romance that makes the voices of conventional wisdom and common sense scream “this shouldn’t be happening!” but as they say, there’s nothing conventional about wisdom and nothing common about sense…especially where matters of the heart are concerned. I suppose the circumstances surrounding this unusual pairing make it a gothic romance but it somehow manages to take itself seriously yet avoids being overwrought or insincere.

The male lead’s ordinary-ness could be the heroine’s ruin, but at the same time I don’t think it should be hard to believe that it’s also her potential salvation. As we see in the fifth chapter, the one thing that undoes the mage’s plan is something from the mortal realm – just as magic can transcend the physical laws of normality, normality can launch an off-the-wall hit onto magic. Looking back, knowing how the full story pans out, it’s heartening to see how a meticulously-crafted supernatural plan gets trumped by the devotion and conviction of an ordinary human who has no magical powers at all.

Once you get your head around the weirdness of Shiki’s dual personalities, you get a remarkably sentimental tale that’s in sharp contrast to the side-story of a serial killer and the possibility that one of the protagonists is responsible. Nasu makes a very deliberate effort to point the reader down a certain path, stacking the evidence up and even throwing in her ‘unreliable narrator’ status to muddy the waters further.

On a rewatch I noticed that the movie drops one hint that supports Shiki’s innocence: a lone figure is seen walking away from the murder scene (the point where a passing vehicle unknowingly drives through a pool of blood, spattering a vending machine), which shows, unequivocally if not clearly, that she was not the only one at the scene. The novel describes her following a man into an alley but cleverly it’s not specified whether this man is the victim, a witness or indeed the murderer. In both versions, you can interpret what you see/read in more than one way thanks to this narrative ambiguity.

A production-related observation I made during the second movie was that the character designs of the two leads are depicted as being visibly younger than they are in the others. I know this sounds obvious but it’s not often we see differences in characters’ ages in an animated movie, especially when the difference is only that of three or four years and is past the age when they’re getting taller. The medium of cel animation, along with the simplistic rendering of facial features that often goes with the territory, makes it tricky to do successfully but the trailer for the Mirai Fukuin epilogue movie – which shows them a few years later still – also highlighted this to me and left me impressed at how the animators took on the challenge of this subtle yet noticeable change and did it so well.

As an aside, an interesting aspect to Touko’s organisation, such as it is, was hinted at right back in the previous chapter, but since I forgot it at the time and the article was long enough as it was, I might as well point it out here. Touko divides people into two types, each with two attributes: “those who craft and search, and those who use and destroy.”

It struck me as appropriate given the nature of the four people who make up her small organisation cover those respective bases: Touko crafts dolls among other things (more on that later, especially part 5); Mikiya is adept at searching and often helps out Daisuke; his sister trains as a mage to use magic; and Shiki is of course second to none in destroying things at their most fundamental level. General world-building in fiction is cool, but when a writer makes even the small details fit together and refer back to other ones, it requires even more thought and care. I suspect that in certain aspects of this story Nasu was making things up as he went along, but at times like this it’s easy to be convinced otherwise.

Something else I ought to have dropped in at the end of my previous article is the source of the extra background info relating to things like underlying themes and neat writer’s tricks connected to wordplays and unusual use of kanji. Sadly my knowledge of kana is next-to-nonexistent and kanji is completely beyond me, so I – and everyone who has read or is reading the English translation of the novel – owes thanks one certain individual, whose efforts are online for the whole internet to enjoy.

I was fortunate enough to be involved in a number of e-mail communications while the translator was going through the arduous task, which included numerous details concerned with the translation process, Nasu’s inventive use of kanji and small details that had to be lost in translation. I won’t pretend that I was able to offer much help at the time, but hopefully I’ll be able to reproduce some of the discussions we had for the benefit of the rest of you.

And finally, here’s the musical easter egg. There’s an AMV Hell waiting to happen with those lyrics. >_<

I’ve not been following much anime at all lately. I’ve watched a few films and TV shows, I’ve recorded some music and I’ve been busy with real life things. As for the last season or two of animu broadcasts, I’ve seen precious little. To break the cycle I idly turned to my backlog. First up, chosen more or less at random, was Nadia: Secret of Blue Water.

Since Wikipedia is so all-pervading, I won’t pad out a paragraph outlining the synopsis, the notorious production or any of that stuff. I don’t want this article to simply be a reaction to, or a reaction to a reaction to, preconceptions about ‘old school’ shows either. Simply put, it’s bloody brilliant television on its own merits, and dismissing it as an historical footnote is doing it, and the viewer, a disservice.

Nadia is a prime example of the genre done (mostly) right. It ticks a lot of boxes, too: steampunk is cool, but frustratingly steampunk stories don’t always live up to the expectations of their fun concepts. A capable screenplay writer/director is borrowing from classic SF literature, using an old Hayao Miyazaki premise (you have just checked the Wikipedia page and noticed that it’s Hideaki Anno reimagining Jules Verne, right? Good). It has memorable characters, cheeky nods to other fan favourites and uses its characterisation and imagination as a framework for some impressive set-pieces and cliff-hangers.

The Miyazaki connection is an important one because there are inevitably echoes of Laputa and Future Boy Conan in many of Nadia‘s themes and ideas, and when set to the template of a traditional family adventure cartoon serial you get some exotic locations and plot devices that are irresistible to youngsters — and the average grown-up viewer’s inner child. If I’d seen this when I was eight or something, as I had in the case of The Mysterious Cities of Gold, I think my head may have actually exploded.

Because of its pedigree, many of the recurring themes are in line with the Gainax manifesto but interestingly they also overlap with Miyazaki’s: e.g. a headstrong female lead, the heroic geek, and the innocence of childhood being celebrated while the adults are looked upon with sympathy for not being kids any more. A lot of Anno-isms creep in as well but the those are tempered slightly by a more conventional cartoonish atmosphere and sense of fun. Still, I’d put money on most of the production team being brought up on Macross and Space Battleship Yamato before being tasked with a series that’s set on Earth during the late Victorian period.

Also: Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. Nuff said

The great thing about the characters here is that they’re flawed enough to be believable yet those flaws don’t try your patience sufficiently to put you off altogether. When the hero Jean starts to act like a clueless nerd, the childlike naïveté turns around into that innocent, pure desire to do the right thing…which he does. Similarly, Nadia’s angst sometimes gets the better of her but her stubbornness is also her strength, and her selfishness gradually melts away in a fashion that’s really heartwarming and satisfying to witness.

There are a few pertinent questions raised, aside from the usual morality stuff that all kids’ TV is obliged to do. Although the Neo Atlanteans are inevitably cartoon villains, the historical context needs to be taken into account since the enemies of these villains are themselves far from blameless (an issue that found its way into pre-production discussions, by all accounts). This is perhaps the one area in which the show’s origins prevent it reaching its full potential, because it could have ‘gone dark’ very effectively and explored these themes more fully. But then, it would have lost its wide-eyed adventure story vibe along the way.

One of Nadia’s claims to fame, apart from being “that famous director also did this…” is that it has an atrocious filler arc. And yes, that filler arc is indeed a complete waste of the viewer’s time and almost undoes the character development and the attachment the viewer starts to have for them. When the plot labours a point, a member of the cast acts infuriatingly out-of-character to stall for time, or the animation takes a nosedive, it feels like the production is trying its damndest to deliberately sabotage itself. Then there’s a musical number episode, which is every bit as cringe-inducing as it sounds…take my word for it and just don’t go there.

It’s frustrating to see the momentum lost when the story treads water for twelve whole episodes, although #30 and #31 are justifiable in terms of storyline. By way of compensation the finale gets its shit together and is Anno firing on all cylinders; which sometimes feels like a rarer occurrence than his legendary status would have us believe. It resolves the major issues, sets the heroes and villains head to head, gives the important players their deserved moments in the spotlight…and even offers one significant individual a true Pineapple Salad exit from the story. It delivers on every level you expect it to, then pushes it a little bit further to make it extra memorable.

Every bit as epic as it looks

So you can chalk this up as a reminder of why Anno deserves our respect, how Gainax can do truly excellent endings, and when it wasn’t being excellent for the rest of the time it had good reasons, i.e. the director wanted to concentrate on planning the finale. The hero’s a decent lad who you will find yourself rooting for, the heroine justifies your patience for her less-than-admirable moments and Verne’s enigmatic submarine captain is deliberately and shamelessly dressed like a starship captain from Macross…and is voiced by the same guy who would later voice Rider in Fate/Zero.

I must admit to being one of those people who likes to sift out trivia, read around the background of a show to get context and generally geek out around it. Sometimes though you can over-think things and miss out on enjoying the title as it was meant to be enjoyed. Nadia had a troubled production and isn’t without its flaws, but getting caught up in that analysis means looking away from the screen and making unhelpful comparisons with other things. It’s genuinely *good* in the straight-up sense that I developed an emotional investment in the characters, I thought about why they made the decisions that they did and sat up late to watch “just one more episode because I want to see what happens next…” It’s imaginative, fun, addictive…it’s good TV, and that should be recommendation enough.

Could I find a pic of Kirie on her own? Could I heck. This is much better though (click to see in its fully embiggened glory)

Reading the the opening chapter of Kara no Kyoukai after watching the movie, I can’t ignore the fact that it’s a very ‘early’ attempt on Nasu’s part to focus his creative energy and bring his inspiration together into a tangible, and readable, form. It has a rough-around-the-edges, first-draft feel to it, which is bad for casual readers but interesting to fans and those of us who like to dig beneath the surface to find out what makes the story, and the mind that wrote it, tick.

For some reason, being a devoted admirer of an artist’s work makes you more comfortable with criticising them. I think it’s because you get used to a high standard, so the smallest of flaws are more glaringly apparent. The execution of Overlooking View is a bit messy and disorganised, as though Nasu was playing around with the nonlinear narrative idea and finding his voice to tell the story. I find it hard to believe that subsequent chapters weren’t outlined when this one was serialised, but the fact remains that it’s not as polished or tightly focused.

This part of the novel highlights to me that Nasu did at least have a talent for combining concepts; I’d forgive you for saying he’s not the best of writers at this point of his career, but he’s an impressive ‘ideas man’, which is more of a help for adaptations than effortlessly-flowing prose.

Overlooking View is full of disparate concepts, bits of science and philosophy, thrown together in unusual ways. As an aside, it wasn’t until later that I discovered how much of an influence Natsuhiko Kyougoku was on him during the time that KnK was written but it’s evident here…even more so in the third chapter.

In being a huge fan of Kyougoku, Nasu unfortunately inherits some of the less desirable ‘Kyougoku-isms’, such as using terminology from very obscure areas of science and religion…although it’s impressive to see a writer put them side-by-side while creating his or her own mythology. Another Kyougoku-ism is that of wordy dialogue that forms the outline of a mystery-solving process.

It takes a bit of patience and concentration to follow the conversations between Touko, Shiki and Mikiya but it’s necessary to understand the weirdness of the apparent suicides: no note means no suicide, falling to one’s death in such an obvious and public fashion makes a statement and is therefore a suicide note of sorts, the unconnected nature of the victims being at odds with the recurring pattern in the nature of their deaths, and so on.

While Kyougoku’s most well-known writing is composed of murder-mystery and SF giving the mistaken impression of a supernatural tale, Nasu goes right into writing a supernatural story, inventing the required jargon and sets of rules with gleeful abandon. After getting used to the quirky and, as much as it pains me to say this, the relatively immature, prose the overall impression is that of disorientation.

I think this disorientation is largely intentional though. It’s told in media res so it’s not until you read subsequent chapters that you’re able to discern the context or which elements are important. Which does make appraisal of each individual chapter like I’m doing here really tough and possibly pointless…but fuck it. I love this story and wanted to write about it. Anyway.

It’s appropriate somehow, given the fact that the protagonist sees the world in a highly unusual way and has an equally interesting moral compass, that understanding this novel requires the reader to see the world from unusual perspectives. You have to take sections without fully knowing where they fit into the bigger picture, keep them there in your mind then make the connections between them later. For instance, I mulled over Nasu’s metaphorical analysis of the difference between floating and flying and how the concept applied to Kirie Fujyou’s situation before moving on to the idea that the area where the mysterious deaths are taking place has its own ‘flow’ of time. That was at least how I go about processing it, at any rate.

It’s easy to get caught up in the mechanics and jargon of the story but knowing what comes later helps me remember that what’s equally – if not more – important: the character-driven element. When the dust settles we’re left with an almost sympathetic antagonist and a dynamic between two of the protagonists that’s hard to pin down but is all the more fascinating. There’s very little to go on in terms of what sort of relationship Shiki and Mikiya actually share at this point, and their back-and-forth banter doesn’t really help either.

Somewhat connected to this: a detail that’s easy to forget when you’re as familiar with the story and its characters as many of us fans are is the fact that Nasu cleverly avoids specifying Shiki’s gender until the final paragraph before the epilogue, when Mikiya casually remarks, “you’re a girl, after all.” This is pretty hard to do in a visual medium with a well-known (female) seiyuu voicing a girl in a kimono but in the Japanese written language, in which gender-specific pronouns are less commonplace, it’s much easier to keep this hidden. It’s another example of the author playing with the reader’s expectations and also foreshadows the recurring issue that Shiki’s character has with her own identity.

It also strikes me as unusual for a tale of this type that it’s not a story with far-reaching consequences. The villain of this episode, if you can call her that, is not hellbent on world domination; rather, what’s at stake here is very small-scale and localised.

What I mean by this is, this story is a very personal one. It has more in common with Tsukihime than Fate in that the characters aren’t out to change the world; they’re on personal journeys that don’t have the entire planet hanging in the balance. Even when she faces the main villain of the piece (a moment I’ll get this blog out of hiatus in order to get to) Shiki is really trying to face her inner demons and ultimately save herself. I don’t know why, but the low-key nature of that plot point struck me as being particularly significant, and endears the novel even more to me.

Post title easter egg: it references a song by Soundgarden. Check out the lyrics!

This was the fourth time I’ve seen the instrumental outfit MONO live, being as they are a band who tour extensively worldwide year after year. I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing Boris in a live setting before last weekend, although I knew them by reputation. If you don’t pay attention to anything that follows, remember this: both of these bands are a real treat. Go see ‘em if they’re playing near you.

This isn’t MONO’s first visit to Manchester’s Sound Control; the house PA is very good for the size of venue though, which lends itself well to MONO’s meticulously layered arrangements and trademark loud-quiet-loud dynamics. Their latest album is even further down the orchestral path than their previous studio efforts, which begged the question: how can they recreate that sound on the road without supporting musicians?

The answer turned out to be “very well indeed.” There seemed to be a few sampled snippets of string sections looped in, but overall the performance relied on the same instruments and equipment that they used on previous tours and recording sessions. It was surprising to hear a set comprised mostly of new songs with a few fan favourites from the previous record, but the emotional impact was no worse for that. On a couple of numbers Tamaki set her bass down to add piano lines or chimes of glockenspiel but it was a pleasant surprise to hear how their simpler setup got so close to the raw power of a full orchestra.

Interestingly, many of the other attendees I spoke to were fairly new to the band and hadn’t seen them live before. The Hymn to the Immortal Wind-era songs got a particularly enthusiastic reaction – especially from Pure As Snow (Trails of the Winter Storm), which was a real highlight – but the general reaction was overwhelmingly positive. I’ve suspected a few of the older fans are less impressed with the band’s recent evolution in sound, but even if that assumption is correct I think they’ve made some new fans as well. It’s impossible to please everyone all of the time of course, but it was great to see that their new songs contained everything of the MONO sound that we know and love.

Around the same time, Boris were on their tour of Europe and stopped by at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds…coincidentally, the same venue where I saw MONO for the first time a few years back. Again, they’re a band with a relatively small yet loyal following and also make an effort to break away from the familiar formula that usually constrains bands that rely on guitars, bass and drums.

This time I walked in without owning any of their albums and knowing only a few of their songs. With earplugs in (a measure that is pretty much essential if you want to stand anywhere near the stage without suffering hearing damage when these guys are playing) it soon became clear that they’re a very self-assured and competent group of professionals whose chaotic façade conceals admirable musicianship.

Beneath the tooth-rattling drums and sludgy walls of fuzz guitar is a band who, contrary to first impressions, have a very firm handle on what they’re doing. Despite being in the usual rock trio format plus a touring guitarist (even if the bass is a bass/guitar double-neck…) cranked up to nosebleed-inducing levels, Boris are very different stylistically from MONO’s cinematic instrumentals; they also bear little resemblance to most other bands either.

The second song of the set, a brooding number called Rainbow that I recognise from the soundtrack to Tetsuya Nakashima’s psychological thriller Confessions, was magical but the set overall challenged the crowd to keep up with a rollercoaster ride between dark stoner rock, energetic punk and experimental wails of distorted feedback…and they performed all of it with effortless aplomb.

One similarity between these two bands is that, although the melodic aspects may occasionally be hidden beneath experimental noise that plays with expectations of what guitar rock can be to our jaded ears, it’s delivered with sincerity by people who have lugged a van-load of gear halfway around the world to play songs to people who may not even speak their language. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty rock-and-roll to me.

This year marks an interesting time for both bands as far as I can see. MONO have continued their progression from experimental instrumental rock to a more unique niche lying between that and orchestral music that you’d expect to hear on a film soundtrack. Despite this, their live shows are still the loud, intense and mesmerising experience that they have always been.

Boris have, from what I’ve read, also broken out of the Japanese indie scene with an individual guitar-based sound but recently added a more shoegaze-y, pop-orientated aspect that was released at the same time as a record that sounds more like what their existing fans are familiar with. The departure in question is the album Attention Please, a copy of which I picked up after the show last weekend. As different as it is from most of what the live set I heard sounded like, I love it.

So there you have it. If I don’t post any more articles before the end of the year, best wishes to you all and if the world does end in December 2012…my ears at least seem to think the Apocalypse sounds pretty damned good.

When I was young I was, like most introverted indoors-type nerdy kids in the late 80s and early 90s, a huge fan of Lego. I asked for boxes of the stuff every birthday and Christmas, and kept hold of my childhood collection for nostalgia’s sake when I left home. Earlier in the summer though, after finishing a guitar build project, I set about building a scale model of the Yukikaze, the Super Sylph that appears in the early part of the story. Pics and in-depth Lego geek talk after the jump.

The standard Lego ‘minifigure’ size is roughly 1/40 scale, but I wanted a bit more detail and room to get the shape and proportions right. The Technic Lego scale is twice the size at 1/20, so I built the model to fit a Technic-sized figure. To makes things really hard for myself, I attempted to incorporate a retracting landing gear that ran on the Lego Technic Pneumatic compressed air cylinders and pipes.

This was my first attempt at building anything since packing my collection away during my teens, so there are a few things I don’t feel I got quite right. Although the landing gear works in the sense that it moves and retracts correctly, the weight of the model means that the wheels and support struts can’t support it. I guess I could make them strong enough, but the end results wouldn’t look right. Hence the stand.

I’m happier with the outline of the wings though. The novel describes it as a ‘clipped delta’ with a wingspan of 13.5m and an overall length of 19.8m; I’m not sure why the book goes into such detail, but I tried to get as close to that as I could. The animated series portrays the plane’s design as have two low-slung engines with two vertical stabilisers, angled wingtips and a pair of foreplanes oddly positioned high up behind the cockpits. It reminds me a lot of the Russian MiG-29 and SU-27, which always struck me as cool.

So there you go. I’m glad it’s finished, but the process of putting it together and shopping online for the various extra pieces I needed was a bit arduous. Part of me wants to take on the challenge of the Mave, but quite frankly I’m just glad this one’s done and the photos are online for everyone to enjoy. Comments/criticism welcome!

MOAR PICS

Rear view of the jet pipes and vertical stabilisers

Viewed head-on. Apparently it’s so long that it screws with the focusing of my camera. 0_o

Overhead view, showing the wing outline. The light grey box with a black peg in the middle is the air valve switch for the landing gear.

Side profile. I’m not 100% happy with the shape from this angle; the anime portrays the nose as being angled further downwards than this, but I couldn’t quite manage that with pieces that are, by their very nature, mostly straight lines and right-angles.

Underside view, showing the air intakes and landing gear retracted. The black pipe is connected to a pump cylinder, which makes the landing struts and wheels move up and down.

The landing gear when deployed.

The full-rez photos are now uploaded to my Flickr.

I wasn’t sure how to mark the anniversary, but since my previous post was looong I’ll make this a short one. Why is Macross so good, and so important? Much of the historical context is lost on me, but I’ll try anyway.

The mecha designs are badass

I’m not sure whether this was the first use of transforming mecha – I’d love to hear clarification on this from those of you who know about such things – but the idea of jet planes that turn into robots is cool.

The story is character-driven

A work of entertainment that is to stand the test of time shouldn’t just have pretty-shiny mechanical gadgets and epic battles with aliens or what have you; it needs to have an emotional focus. Most of the things I remember about this show are the sentimental, dramatic moments featuring the *people*: they do heroic, cowardly, selfless, selfish, admirable and stupid things. Interestingly, the main cast is comprised of a varied assortment of people, male and female, of various nationalities and ethnic backgrounds. It breaks from the “anime characters all look the same…” and paints a picture of a united humanity.

The music

As an aside: the fandom might not have been as kind to Mari Iijima as it should’ve been over the years, but the years certainly have been kind to her. That lady still sounds and looks great. Just sayin’.

Although the idea of transforming mecha is a clever one on several levels, who threw in the suggestion of “Let’s win an interstellar war with pop music!”? On paper, it sounds silly but in context it works…which brings me to the next peculiarity of Macross:

It’s a war story that’s about peace and harmony

Despite numerous spectacular space battles and attention to detail in terms of military hardware, there’s no denying that Macross is staunchly anti-war, which sounds self-contradictory but makes me think a bit harder about what it’s trying to say. It even used the additional broadcast slots at the end of the originally-planned episode run to depict a post-war world in which the two factions are learning to coexist peacefully; it’s a ruined world, but one that the former combatants are working together to rebuild. Numerous setbacks happen along the way, but including those hiccups makes it all the more hopeful and believable.

Interestingly, the loudest individual pacifist voice in the entire story is that of Kaifun, and that guy’s a dick. Perhaps the underlying message of this aspect of the story is, “make love, not war. And it’s possible to do that without being a self-righteous douchebag.”

It spawned awesome sequels

The Macross franchise is far from consistent in terms of quality, but I can think reasons to recommend each and every one of them (yes, even Macross Zero). If it weren’t for this series, there wouldn’t have been a Macross Plus for instance, which is one of my all-time fave anime titles ever.

I can leave my cynicism at the door

The ‘something for everyone’ approach of including character drama, military tactics, romance, politics, cool tech and all the rest was a wise move but it also means that I have to embrace both the cool things and the concepts that, to me, are, well, a bit hard to believe. Save the Earth with the power of song? Robots that actually work as jet planes?

There’s a lot of suspension of disbelief required, as is turning a blind eye to the moments that scream “SCIENCE DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!” but quite honestly, I don’t care. I love not caring about that. Every time I sit down to watch this or any of its sequels, prequels and side-stories, I revel in the feeling of not caring about how certain plot points or situations are a little bit silly. As a piece of TV or movie entertainment, it holds a special place in my geeky heart. Happy birthday Macross, and here’s to the next thirty.

The best bits

Where to begin? Max and Milia carrying out the first symbolic human/Zentradi marriage and being the most badass parents ever? Zentradi hearts melting at the sound of Lynn Minmay’s voice? Roy Foker and the Pineapple Salad (IT STILL HURTS. ;_;)? The hilarious reaction of human culture from the point of view of Zentradi spies? The bittersweet, pyrrhic victory over Boddole Zer? So many of them spring to mind. What are yours?