I found myself compelled to see it through to the notorious end, but I can think of so many reasons why I perhaps shouldn’t have bothered. My lasting impression is that it really wasn’t bad; ignoring the waste of time that is the Summer Special (a course of action I thoroughly recommend, by the way) it still had its fair share of problems.

Firstly, there’s the fanservice. I know that’s such a common thing that I don’t normally bother to pass comment on it, but this series has so many boob gags and scenes in which the female members of the cast are shown topless it’s as though their nipples were pairs of accusing eyes watching me watching them, and making me feel guilty about it (I think I became desensitised to it, but I’m not sure if that’s a healthy thing).

Hand-in hand with this is the issue of the kids’ teacher. By her second appearance on-screen I’d already stopped finding her antics funny and started to wish she could be written out of the story altogether, especially since she served no useful purpose plot-wise. The irritating bint’s lustful advances towards the adolescent male protagonist actually creeped me out far more than the camera’s fascination with Mahoro’s tits did which implies that, in my eyes, a shotacon teacher is worse than straightforward gratuitous nudity. An interesting train of thought, that.

Seeing Mahoro and the other girls naked made me feel a little uncomfortable, but the housemaid theme goes against the grain for me too. There’s a market for that sort of thing of course (maid cafés, for instance), but the apparent portrayal of outdated gender roles left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess fans could argue about its subversive-ness (because, y’know, it’s what Gainax specialise in) and the fact that it’s not really about sexual politics, but the sense of exploitation/otaku maid fetishism still refused to go away.

The irony that Mahoro was capable of killing aliens but decided to make Suguru’s breakfast and clean his house for him after she retired from active duty isn’t lost on me, and of course it’s often part of the comedy and absurdity of the show. A more positive way of looking at her decision to become a housemaid after a life of a battle android is assuming the story is taking a pacifist/personal atonement stance…or so I’d like to think.

Mahoromatic‘s mood-orientated gear changes were a little jarring too. Since it dealt with both ecchi slapstick and tragedy, the production trod on thin ice and because the ending is in stark contrast to everything that preceded it I was caught off-balance (the comedy had outstayed its welcome by that stage so maybe that change in atmosphere was for the best).

This serious undercurrent that runs continually from the first episode to the last is however the very thing that lifts Mahoromatic up and away from the rest of the ‘forgettable fanservice comedy’ titles. No matter what the subject matter of the episode happens to be – whether it’s vacuum cleaner-powered breast enlargers, hidden porn stashes, a brassiere missile launcher or a festive christmas special – each episode ended with a title card indicating Mahoro’s remaining life expectancy…which is measured in days.

When the viewer is reminded every time the end credits roll of how fragile the fluffiness of the show is, it gives a powerful sense of inevitability and finality and ensures that you never forget the story’s bittersweet roots. On one hand I wasn’t comfortable with Mahoro being Suguru’s obsequious personal servant but on the other I really appreciated the other main theme of the series: a warrior who chooses to spend her final days making a lonely young human’s life more pleasant and discovering her own humanity. On paper, it sounds trite and dumb but seeing it happen on screen is really quite moving.

With the exception of the homeroom teacher the characters are quite likeable, even Minawa, the insipid clumsy moe maid, who miraculously failed to initiate my gag reflex. Suguru is far from the worst example of the Anime Male Lead – I’d put him in the top 50% somewhere, anyhow – and Mahoro is also one of the more memorable anime characters I’ve seen over the years. Quite a bit of effort was poured into the backstories of the two of them, and refreshingly this isn’t thrown out of the window towards the end either.

Perhaps I also unknowingly recognised Ayako Kawasumi’s voice behind Mahoro’s character, and saw her as another cute-yet-badass female with a more interesting bond with the male protagonist, and a more interesting balance between toughness and femininity too (I’m thinking of her roles as Lafiel in Crest of the Stars and Saber in the Fate franchise here).

The lifespan counter at the end of each episode is decidedly unsubtle but I still had a lump in my throat by the end in spite of myself so while I did feel it was enotionally manipulative, I was manipulated very effectively. We often walk away with more positive lasting impressions of a story if it has a memorable, powerful or satisfying ending, even when the bits that precede it are patchy; filler is by its nature forgettable, so I remember the parts that worked well and in that sense Mahoromatic did itself a favour by cleverly timing its big twists and shifts in atmosphere.

Is the comedy forced, formulaic and reliant on fanservice? Yes. Is it lightweight fluff? Until the latter episodes of the second season, yes. Does it play into the hands of the otaku and their romantic fantasies? Yes. Is it borderline sexist? Possibly. For all that though, I still can’t bring myself to hate it. I think it’s one of those guilty pleasure shows: deficient or simply crap in some aspects, but with a few redeeming features that are just enough to save it. I often wonder if Gainax deliberately choose risky projects and thrive on trying to make these unlikely propositions work. Grudgingly, I have to admit they just about managed it here.

It goes without saying that Godzilla is a cultural icon; the image of a giant lizard owning the streets of Tokyo is one of cinema’s most enduring images but out of the people who recognise the popular silhouette of this radioactive dinosaur, how many have seen its first silver screen outing? With the aid of my Lovefilm subscription I decided to conduct a little experiment in experiencing a piece of filmmaking that’s around the same age as my parents…and the results were surprising.

I was expecting a black-and-white movie whose storytelling and technical approach are clumsy and dated, but I didn’t expect its intended power and entertainment value to reach as far as a twenty-something UK viewer who’s been brought up on full-colour contemporary cinema. The common assumption that it looks like what it is – a stuntman in a rubber suit trampling on studio models – is impossible to refute but there’s one hell of a lot more to Godzilla than that.

It’s an historical curio in some ways, but it’s still surprisingly watchable and affecting. Even though the script is bogged down in its 1950s sensibilities and the acting is similarly a product of what I’m guessing was a relatively young and inexperienced industry there are still elements of tension and meaning. I was prepared for laughter at the primitive special effects and expected to feel bored for the rest of the time, but Godzilla is still fundamentally a gripping story.

Of course there are over five decades of cinematography evolution working against Godzilla: not only that, it was made with the A-bombs of WWII fresh in the memory and the opening scene of a Japanese fishing boat caught in the fallout of the atomic bomb test was inspired by a real-life event that had occurred shortly before filming began. These are all history to us now so the background to the movie is unlikely to resonate with audiences now as much as it did on its release. Nevertheless, atomic bomb tests (and the controversy that results) are still newsworthy and the general Dangers Of Science concept is still a movie script staple in some form or another.

Despite the fact that it’s a product of a bygone era, there’s still a definite sense of unease and foreboding as the main characters are introduced and the existence of the monster begins to be felt. In short, as a disaster movie it still works. I noticed little details such as a ‘wipe’ scene cut, which was a personal favourite editing technique of the aforementioned Kurosawa, which work to give a plot progression that’s actually quite natural and sophisticated.

The slow build-up is an example of the screenplay’s deliberate pacing in that the screen time of the monster itself is held until as late on in the story as possible; ample opportunity is devoted to constructing a mythos before it appears with villagers recounting local legends of a ‘Gojira’ out at sea and the scientists finding the first signs of radiation and *something* having found its way ashore.

Although the film was inspired by a combination of Japan’s then-recent wartime trauma and early ‘monster movies’ such as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, it has all the ingredients of the disaster films we know and love today. Now some aspects are tired tropes and clichés but none of this is Godzilla’s fault: for its time I can only imagine how groundbreaking it was (the countless sequels and remakes back this up, surely?). It’s important to remember that we only think of them that way because Godzilla did them first. Any eye-rolling at, say, character archetypes or a misanthropic scientist’s breakthrough saving the day is due to the fact that they were over-used by films made after this one. They, not this film, are the reason why they’re clichés in the first place.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I was glued to the screen when the camera peeks over the hill to see the huge scaly head of the monster for the first time and that its roar still sounds alien and unsettling. What I want to say is, Godzilla should be enjoyed as a film and not watched purely for scholastic purposes; its messages are still relevant even though its technical execution detracts from them at points. When we film fans get all nostalgic, there has to be something noteworthy to get nostalgic about, and Godzilla has that in spades.

For instance: the monster is not painted as evil in itself; in some ways you feel a bit sorry for it by the end. The common preconception of a monster film is that the creature is an evil force that must be stopped at all costs, but I didn’t get that impression here. Some of the characters, such as the superstitious villagers, revere it as a god or force of nature; one of the scientists wants to capture it alive to study it. Even the other scientist, who ultimately provides the final plan, is reluctant to use such a desperate measure to destroy something that most experts agree was brought about by human intervention.

Perhaps that’s why Godzilla is so enduring as a character; it’s a subject of fear and awe but the true evil of the film is the ignorance and rashness of humanity and the monster is a victim, and manifestation, of those human failings. The destruction and loss of life is meant to be terrifying and jaw-dropping but in a way the people of this world brought this monster on themselves.

Unfortunately it’s impossible to ignore the fact that yes, it’s not in colour and the monster is just a bloke in a rubber monster suit but there are enough moments of real cinematic genius that still pack a punch. To put it into perspective: I’m now willing to buy my own copy of this on DVD, but all I can remember of my viewing of the 1998 remake is that it was made in 1998 and that Jamiroquai wrote a song for the soundtrack. I think I’ll stick with the rubber monster suit and cardboard Tokyo, thanks.

“I am the bone of my sword…” and so on. Make of that parallel what you will

I have it on good authority that the magical girl genre isn’t always aimed solely at a young female audience and, if you look at how long ago the Cutie Honey franchise ran before Hideaki Anno did his live-action remake, it never was. In terms of premise and outward appearances Madoka is the sort of thing you’d expect to see kids tuning into on Saturday mornings but what makes it one of the first big pleasant surprises of 2011 is how much else is hidden up its frilly sleeve.

My mention of Hideaki Anno is quite deliberate in that he and Akiyuki Shinbo strike me as being remarkably similar…spiritual brothers almost. If Anno is the antisocial old-school otaku with a room full of mecha figures and 80s VHS tapes Shinbo is the tech-savvy kid brother with an extensive geometry set on his desk and a shelf full of textbooks that teach you how to use the colour filters in Photoshop.

To really put it into perspective, the magical girl genre is one aspect of the anime fandom I purposefully avoided completely from day one as a fan. There are certain things I have virtually no interest in: primetime soaps, most sports, owning a video games console, nightclubs…and magical girl anime is on that list.

Then there are the character designs: they have the innocent, harmless appearance of those in Hidamari Sketch, a show I enjoyed but for wildly different reasons, so I had no reason to believe it was going to ‘do’ serious at all. Simply put, I’ve never got any impression that the genre held any entertainment value for me; if Madoka Magica is just a magical girl anime with Hidasketch character designs, how then did it draw in a curmudgeonly snob like me?

Using the premise of great responsibility resting on characters who are really too young to fully grasp the ramifications of their actions is hardly new; because it retains so many of the tropes and clichés of the genre I’ve read claims that Madoka Magica is being cleverly subversive. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. For sure, the issue of granting wishes is taken very seriously indeed, and it’s weird that the title character hasn’t become a mahou shoujo when we’re at the halfway mark of the episode run.

The fights against witches, the Grief Seeds, all the weird and ‘magical’ bits strike me as a whole family of MacGuffins because the meat of the story – the stuff that keeps the attention of this cynical twenty-something male who usually couldn’t care less about kids with magical powers – lies outside of that. It’s a familiar type of entertainment (magical girl anime) that’s presented in a refreshing way (with Shinbo-isms and Kajiura’s music) and that is I think partly what makes it stand out.

I was intrigued by the idea that Kalafina were selected for the performance of the end theme and the BGM is quite simply superb. I wasn’t drawn to the show on that alone, but I was certainly tempted by the prospect of one of my favourite directors and one of my favourite OST writers collaborating again. The last time I experienced the combination of Shinbo’s direction and Kajiura’s music was the very experimental and decidedly un-commercial Petite Cossette, so what common ground could Hidasketch and Cossette, two such different productions, have?

I’m personally getting a real kick out of the sweet-and-sour blend of sprightly cuteness in the character designs and Kajiura’s haunting score combined with Shinbo’s nightmarish imagery. Some unlikely pairings pull a production in two directions at once with the end result of a directionless mess that doesn’t know what it wants to be; in Madoka’s case it’s a storytelling wolf in sheep’s clothing that turns around and gives you a vicious bite to the rear when you least expect it.

I believe it was the third episode when most of us following the show gave a simultaneous exclamation of “wow…shit just got real.” The dark undercurrents such as the so-happy-it-can’t-last setup of Madoka’s family, the quality writing in her mother’s sage advice and the fact that everyone finds Kyubey creepy aren’t what I expected at all. The whole idea of the magical girl genre – kids barely in their teens making Faustian pacts and fighting to the death – sounds hackneyed on paper but in this case it works. Not only that, it pulls it off with dramatic weight and palpable tension.

Shinbo has somehow made a magical girl cartoon that’s dark, gritty and unpredictable; I won’t go as far as a hyperbolic claim that Shinbo is doing for magical girl anime what Christopher Nolan has done for Batman, but I will admit that Madoka feels solid and its moments of emotion give it a degree of credibility I never expected it to have.

After a couple of big anime disappointments lately it was great to have my scepticism cast rudely aside and stop worrying over what I’m supposed to make of a show. It’s too early to say whether I’ll cite Madoka as a real favourite in the long run but right now I’m thinking of it as one of those titles that reminds me why I’m a fan and why I write for this blog to convey my enthusiasm: it’s inventive, deceptively meaningful and, well, just plain good at what it sets out to do.

I really liked these two in the end

I suspect the novel is even better (aren’t they all?) because the artwork and screenplay were a bit clumsy yet the characters were fascinating and, personal reservations about King-esque horror aside, it’s a good story. These were the series’ saving graces, in addition to a wonderfully fascinating moral ambivalence that just managed to make it memorable.

I agree with Omo in his own assessment of the show – the character designs and the way that certain plot points were conveyed robbed them of the gravity they deserved. Ozaki’s reaction to seeing Kyouko turn – namely, using her as a human guinea pig for his battle against the Risen – was painful to watch and spoke volumes about how he was at the end of his tether…but it was one of the many occasions when I was distracted by “dat hair!”

On paper (quite literally, I expect) Shiki works well on a number of levels so the ludicrous hairstyles don’t do it any favours. The small town surrounded by the trees used to make grave markers, the gothic-lolita vamps, the creepy background art…effective aspects often lessened by trivial stylistic quirks.

Whether you loved them, hated them or loved to hate them the characters were remarkably well-written. This is far from the first time I’ve seen vampires carry the emotions and motivations they had in life, but it was still very well done. Nao wanted to be reunited with her family; Tohru still wanted to protect his best friend; Ritsuko refused to cast aside her humanity. They stay with you, lame character designs notwithstanding.

I can’t not put in a few words in defence of Megumi though. She was, quite rightly really, portrayed as bratty and self-centred but I think she was a typical adolescent trapped in a place where she didn’t belong (in that sense she and Natsuno shared some common ground). It’s this point where you have to ask yourself how deserving of sympathy the vampires are, being as they are people who strictly speaking ought to be dead already.

As irritating and thoughtless as she was on occasion, I can sympathise with Megumi’s situation more than I’d like to admit: I know full well how isolated and stifled you can feel in a rural town apparently populated by dull, ignorant people who refuse to accept anyone who falls outside their blinkered definition of the norm, be it something as trivial as someone’s accent or the way they dress.

The final insult was her eventual demise: being violently erased from existence by the very things she’d grown to despise. Many of the vampires were simply restrained and given the stake, but Megumi was made to suffer in excuciating agony and eventually dispatched by people who didn’t seem to care who or what she was. It was physically unsettling of course, but I found it particularly upsetting to know that her final thoughts were very human and understandable: a classmate she had a crush on, a sense of being an outcast, and an overwhelming desire to seek a better life and escape that miserable little shithole of a town once and for all.

The scene that depicted Megumi’s death was so gruesome and sadistic I felt it had to be saying more than just showing what happens to a vampire that gets its just desserts. As I watched her suffer I found myself agreeing with Ozaki in declaring Sotoba to be a town whose collective attitude and behaviour may make it deserving to be wiped off the map.

The townspeople had stopped merely fighting to dispose of the threat; they were losing the moral high ground. If the vampires are monsters for killing to survive, does that make the humans monsters too for doing the same?

The epidemic in my view doesn’t infect just the people who are turned into vampires – in order to protect their families and homes, the people take to doing pretty deplorable things unsettlingly quickly. As a group of women disposes of the vampires’ corpses they stop for a break, one of them reaching out for an onigiri; she notices she literally has blood on her hands, but barely flinches.

The portrayal of the town as a whole, identified by 2DT quite early on, sums up a lot of the good and bad things about a secluded, traditional community. On the plus side it’s small and friendly enough for everyone to know everyone else and look out for each other in tough times, but the events involving the Risen highlight how that can quickly dissolve and reveal the more primitive desire for survival of one’s own.

I don’t want to do anything as simplistic as claim the vampires are bad and the villagers are good, or paint the inhabitants of Sotoba as bigoted rural fools while the vampires are an endangered species that should be left to do their thing with impunity. The truth I think contains bits of both; it’s also a little difficult for me to discern whether the writing is depicting the human condition at its lowest ebb in a general sense, or whether it’s being deliberately critical of that small town mentality.

I must admit I have some negative opinions on the small town archetype thanks to my current situation so I’m perhaps more sympathetic towards Megumi and Natsuno than I perhaps ought to have been. Although it looked too camp to be a completely serious gothic chiller, I still admire what Shiki did in bringing the characters to life: it gives humanity to the monsters and shows the monster in humanity. The impression you get is more mixed than you’d expect from a straightforward horror story about a vampire invasion of an unsuspecting town.

I was also strangely forgiving of Sunako: behind the facade of puppet master her intentions were understandable, if not good for the rest of the town. Had she perished in the flames I’d have felt enormously sorry for her but was her survival a good thing, for her or for anyone else? The question of whether the survivors even ‘won’ can I think only be answered with an affirmative if merely ‘surviving’ constitutes winning. It’s a pyrrhic victory really.

Incidentally, A Day Without Me did a really good two-part restrospective…and the final thoughts from Caraniel, a new blogger I stumbled on in the process of reading it, is worth a read too.

Satisfied that I’d at least discovered something about the lives of characters who were out of high school I then learned that it was directed by Ryutaro Nakamura, which was another happy coincidence. As a matter of fact the storyline of REC is itself founded on happy coincidences and how things sometimes just…happen. Nakamura’s involvement may also be the crucial factor that tips this from being a likeable yet ordinary story into something a bit more special.

The opening scenes are predictable enough: Fumihiko’s date stands him up but at the last minute the quirky and vivacious Aka appears and, with nothing to lose from spending an evening out with a pretty girl, he ends up going to the cinema with her instead. One thing leads to another (thanks in part to the aforementioned house fire) and the two of them end up living together…yet neither is entirely sure what sort of relationship they have.

REC takes a different path to the usual slice-of-life romantic drama however. For one thing, they spend the night together after their first date and then afterwards revert to the original set-up of being two young adults getting to know each other through exchanging movie quotes over teriyaki and beer. Instead of the relationship developing with dates followed by co-habitation, theirs seems to happen in a refreshingly back-to-front fashion but it’s woven skilfully enough into the story to prevent it being a gimmick.

Fumihiko is a junior member of an advertising firm who’s just had his big break – an ad campaign which, again by happy coincidence, soon brings in an up-and-coming voice actress: the girl he recently met and who now lives in his flat. Believe it or not, these ARE all genuine coincidences but this is the only aspect that demands a suspension of disbelief from the viewer: it’s everyday realism from here on in.

The portrayal of their careers offers insight into the Japanese advertising and seiyuu industries but the important matter is how the work-life balance affects a couple’s relationship…specifically the unusual state of affairs concerning Fumihiko and Aka. He’s frustrated that they are living together yet their relationship doesn’t seem to be progressing; she’s concerned that her career will be harmed if her personal life were to encroach on her professional one.

The most important thing here is, as you’d expect, the characters. Aka comes across as a little eccentric: she wanted to become an actress because she idolises Audrey Hepburn (a fact reflected in the episode titles) but she never goes far enough down the naïve ‘cute’ route to come across as a moe airhead. In fact, given her determination coupled with genuine kind-heartedness she’s one of the most endearing anime heroines I’ve ever encountered. Similarly Fumihiko initially seems to be after a repeat of their initial one-night stand but he gradually learns where his priorities really are.

The two leads visibly grow as people personality-wise and their mistakes are of the easily-understood variety. You find yourself hoping they stick together and overcome their problems; there are none of those facepalm-inducing moments where you ask yourself “how can they be so stupid?” I’ve read one or two reviews of the original manga of this, and it appears that whole chapters involve repeated incidents of Aka and Fumihiko making baffling and impulsive decisions, which smacks of filler and patchy writing to me. Surprisingly there are no such things here; I reckon this could be a rare example of the adaptation being more focused and satisfying than the story that inspired it.

I certainly can’t fault the direction. I’ve been an admirer of Nakamura’s work ever since Lain, and both Kino’s Journey and Ghost Hound were a break from the norm too; a straightforward romantic drama seems like a bit of a departure given the weirdness he’s dealt with in the past (stranger things have happened I suppose…such as Osamu Dezaki directing Clannad) but every now and then his distinctive style is apparent.

Take his masterful use of light in scene composition for instance: the colour palette rarely deviates from the usual pastel shades of the genre but when it does, it’s all the more effective. In one particular scene Aka and Fumihiko are in his flat having an argument; there’s a very stark and Nakamura-esque contrast of light and shadow in the room that heightens the feelings of discord and tension.

In another, Aka temporarily moves out and Fumihiko begins to realise how much he misses her being around. The two of them are shown in their separate environments in monochrome, but little details like bottles of Aka’s hair shampoo and her toothbrush on Fumihiko’s bathroom shelf are rendered in full colour. It’s similar to the graduated colour saturation trick employed in the 1983 Tokikake film, and I recall back then how subtle yet eye-catching it was.

The cinematography overcomes the constraints of made-for-TV animation in a way that SHAFT would become so well-known for in their recent Shinbo-helmed productions but it’s merely the icing on the cake for me. Reiko Yoshida’s script and series composition seem to provide the clout in the implementation of Nakamura’s vision – perhaps the same Yoshida magic is what made Aria and K-On! work on the ‘everyday scene’ level in which nothing important happens but it’s fun to watch anyway. There’s certainly a natural, lifelike flow to the proceedings in that the characters have genuine chemistry and come to life on-screen.

The balance struck between making Aka and Fumihiko flawed yet fundamentally decent people is right on the money and it avoids the usual pitfalls of the genre such as gratuitous nudity, abrupt plot developments or whining melodrama. It also has an ending that felt so in-keeping and right…the last thing I want to do is spoil it for you so I’ll leave it there. It’s the perfect heart-warming entertainment to give you a fuzzy glow on cold winter’s evenings – a delightful little series that’s been left out in the cold for too long.

So I thought I might as well write about Perfume. Music dominates a lot of my spare time: I immerse myself in as much as possible, ignoring the usual boundaries of time, trends and genre in favour of my own so sometimes my tastes are a bit unpredictable. My fascination with Perfume is a guilty-pleasure kind of thing, but not completely so.

As in, I’m again asking myself “why am I enjoying this when it’s such a departure from everything else in my collection?” They are after all commercialised and have this aura of image, of marketing, of popular shallowness, for want of a better phrase. And no, I’m not going into that K-on business again after what happened last time. I’m merely saying it’s a departure from most music I listen to.

Bands that sound like this don’t usually appeal to me but I really enjoy Perfume…and not just because it consists of three attractive ladies in cool outfits (although I’m not denying that helps). I have a feeling that they aren’t a typical manufactured electro-pop girl-group (I’m using the distinction between ‘group’ and ‘band’ very deliberately here), and my acceptance of them can largely be attributed to that.

I’ll admit that on the surface they sound and look manufactured. I’d even go as far as to say they represent everything about commercialised pop: they’re marketed as a sound and image rather than self-made songwriters, they sell zillions of records and the lyrics are generic to the point of being nonsensical at times. I even find the voices peculiar.

The vocals are put through so much digital studio trickery that their own mothers wouldn’t recognise them; I’d put money on them being indistinguishable from a skillfully-used piece of Vocaloid software in the next five years (and I don’t think that has to be a bad thing). Hell, the visuals at their gigs look like something from Sharon Apple in Macross Plus (again, not a bad thing?).

Perfume are therefore a textbook example of a commercially successful, chart-friendly electropop group that projects a futuristic, popular image. I also admit that my own personal methods of appreciating and classifying music are weird enough anyway…

Let’s start on ‘genre’: the concept that music fans hate because it unfairly pigeonholes things, but we grudgingly accept because it’s useful on occasion. I like alt-rock, post-rock, classic rock, shoegaze, nu-gaze, blues, classical, electronica…but where does Perfume fit into this nebulous world of mine? It’s too poppy to be alternative, to electronic to be rock…and clumsy self-conscious people like me are generally averse to dance music (I’m working on it. Not the dancing…just the appreciation of dance music).

I found this pic at The Bonkurasu Brigade ages ago and found the manga-style artwork cool…I finally have an excuse to post it

How would I classify Perfume? Here’s where it starts to get interesting. A while ago I jokingly referred to My Bloody Valentine as ‘post-pop’ in the sense that, despite it being a form of sonic experimentation that sounds like nothing before it, chief songwriter/guitarist Kevin Shields insists that he sets out to write straightforward guitar songs. Nobody who listens to Isn’t Anything or Loveless can call it *just* guitar pop – nevertheless it is, beneath the pitch bends and liquid reverb atmospherics, five-or-less minute songs made up of ordinary guitar chords. Perfume are *just* electro-pop…only not.

Before going any further I have to link to the official promo video for the Triangle version of Edge, which is possibly my favourite tune of theirs so far (the album overall isn’t their best though). The video itself is really fun – it has images from End of Evangelion mixed up with concert footage, wild computer text strings blinking across projector screens, and is a neat test for whether you have photo-sensitive epilepsy or not if you hit fullscreen in a darkened room.

It shows Perfume as an energetic live experience, which makes them more than some sterile studio-only act. Making records is one thing, but putting on a live show that draws people in is a different matter; some artists are more comfortable in the studio while some attain fame/notoriety through live gigs. Jumping around like mad AND singing is damned hard (are their vocals dubbed for gigs? Feel free to clarify this for me)!

The title track to the GAME album is another example of the quirky Perfume sound: there’s this tooth-rattling fuzzy bassline that cuts through the pretty-shiny girly shimmer and feels so unexpected and incongruous…to the point where I felt the need to invent a new genre definition for it and the caffeine rush of Edge: ‘bubblegum industrial’.

Listening carefully to the arrangements, this robotic and meticulously-produced electro isn’t quite in the same league as the usual chart music to me. I don’t follow the UK or Japanese charts but what I’m used to hearing is more formulaic than this – it has to be in order to be ‘safe’ from putting mainstream fans off and losing sales (not that it stops Lady Gaga…). As significant as they are in terms of financial revenue, Perfume’s cybernetic heart may well be an indie one.

Towards the end of the Edge promo the screens display the line “what is DISCO?”, along with some eccentric stage work that’s different from ordinary choreography. What I’ve heard of Yasutaka Nakata’s work on Capsule covers similar ground to Perfume’s current sound but he strikes me as being more eclectic and experimental; my assumption is that Perfume’s songwriting duties can largely be attributed to him, and as such they’re an experiment on his part to dabble in the mainstream and challenge its conventions.

Does Nakata dislike formulaic, commercialised chart music and wants to subvert from within? Or are Perfume a demonstration of his closet love for it? Or, more interestingly still, are they an attempt to marry popular marketability with indie cred and imagination to push the electro-pop envelope? I haven’t had chance to listen to their early Shibuya-kei-inspired material for comparison but I view Perfume in their current incarnation partly as a vehicle for Nakata’s songwriting.

The end result shouldn’t matter when the songs are as fun as they are, but part of the appeal that Perfume holds for me is that they come across as band who have gained the acclaim of a headlining pop act – even playing the Budoukan – but underneath they’re an experimental outfit that innovates as well as entertains. Because they placate the Industry – playing the GAME[sic] – with the choreographed dance moves and catchy hooks, they can get away with the commercially riskier innovative moments.

The legal alcohol drinking age in Japan is 20, so yeah. No thought-crimes committed on my part

There is indeed a lot of sauce in this, to the point at which the opening chapters give a false impression of where the story eventually chooses to go. The infamous ‘deceptive-ness of the first impression’ isn’t on the scale of Onani Master Kurosawa, but the effect it had on me was similar. It even manages to go some way towards justifying the sexual content, which is an achievement in itself; the clincher is that it pays attention to the characterisation and even makes a worthwhile attempt at a storyline. Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised.

The opening chapters don’t really do the story as a whole justice because at times they feel like an excuse to show as much nudity and bedroom antics as possible, with the spiritual form of the female lead being a gimmick to set it apart from the competition. One of Kana’s tricks for instance is her ability to chill a can of beer by tucking it into her cleavage…a handy tip worth remembering if you’re with a ghost at a house party where there’s no working refrigerator. (¬_¬)

You wouldn’t want a warm one now, would you?

Little moments like this are in fact quite important additions because its premise could be quite downbeat and almost macabre. Kana can’t remember anything about her life with the exception of her final moments: a view of a sunset from her bedroom window during her act of suicide. Rather than wallowing in the tragedy, My Lovely Ghost Kana draws some positives from the situation, showing the heroine finding meaning in life after death through her (living) boyfriend, which in turn helps him overcome the hardships he had faced prior to their meeting.

Daikichi was left jobless and homeless (we don’t learn the details, sadly) so he’s understandably feeling like it’s the end of the road for him…at which point the resident ghost of the building he’s squatting in materialises and talks him round, what with her having first-hand experience of how meaningless The End Of The Road can be. Glad to be in the company of a cute girl (even if she’s no longer of this world) who understands him and likes having him around, they hang out and find mutual solace in each other. And have sex a lot.

Whether you have a problem with the amount of pages dedicated to showing what Daikichi and Kana get up to in bed depends a lot on where you draw the line on the label ‘gratuitous sex’ (a definition that begs to be discussed on its own now I’ve read this and the Type Moon VNs). The reality of Ghost Sex fortunately isn’t as weird or creepy as it sounds, and the portrayal of it doesn’t feel as needless as it could’ve been either because of the life-affirming nature of their relationship.

What I mean by this is that there’s a *point* to showing (in excessive detail perhaps, I admit) how much they value each other. Including even the most private moments of their time together actually gives a really balanced and frank overview of their relationship so, for a change, the ecchi doesn’t seem too out of place. It also gives some bits of comedy which, again unusually, had me genuinely laughing out loud.

One of my favourite comedy scenes is one in which Daikichi and Kana are at the local convenience store run by Goro Inagawa, a guy who has a fascination for the occult. As usual Kana is floating around and playing pranks on him but as Goro is gushing about how he wishes he could have contact with the spirit realm, Kana inadvertantly materialises just as he holds his hands out so he ends up accidentally groping her. It’s not often a boob-grab gag, or any ecchi slapstick for that matter, gets a LOL out of me but in this case it works.

The story is long enough to get a sentimental attachment to the two leads and introduce some interesting and likable supporting characters, but it wouldn’t be any worse from being a bit longer. Goro the shopkeeper, the old man tending to the grave of the local unidentified dead and especially Monou Utako, the girl who ends up moving into the same building as Daikichi and Kana, would benefit a lot from more background. The artwork is nothing extraordinary but character designs are great – they’re expressive and Tanaka’s knack of drawing attractive girls is almost up there with the likes of Ken Akamatsu to me.

What really sticks in my mind about this little-known serial is how Kana’s after-life touches those around her. The obvious one is Daikichi, but Goro realises his lifelong dream of communicating with a being of the supernatural realm, a complete stranger finds a bit of happiness through a case of mistaken identity and Monou begins to overcome her own problems (I just wish they’d been set out in more detail because she’s such a cool character) thanks to being around Kana.

The biggest of the gaps in the story’s background is Kana’s own past life, but I didn’t mind too much by the end. There’s a keen sense of trauma and loss from her gruesome and tragic end but the writing goes out of its way to show that Kana compensates for this by the way she brightens up the lives of those around her. With a potentially depressing premise and a storyline as flimsy as Kana’s own negligée, genuinely funny comedy and a feelgood iyashikei vibe were as unexpected as they were welcome.

Yes, it’s shallow, commercialised and derivative but truthfully as long as it makes you smile, who the heck cares? I’ve done at least three drafts of this post before wiping the whole lot off the screen and starting over; this is by its very nature a show that’s difficult to write about because there’s not much to it beyond the obvious observation that it’s cute, undemanding fun. That was before my word count began to mushroom…

2DT beat me to the punch in highlighting its celebration of transience, which really hightlights how it’s a production that’s wildly popular now but years down the line won’t be as well remembered as the more, how should I say, sophisticated examples of animated TV. I actually think the fact that it’s so disposable is very much in keeping with what it’s portraying (a short phase in the characters’ lives), but also what it’s paying tribute to.

Seeing a commercially-governed animation studio using contemporary music – a hobby that I’ve invested a significant amount of my spare time, money and enthusiasm in over the past decade or so – and sending it up with moe could I suppose have me feeling annoyed. “Why are these moe girls skipping gleefully over the graves of Hendrix, Moon and Bolan?!” Maybe I’m too old to really understand K-On, in the same way that I look ruefully at what’s on MTV and the radio these days and start to sound like my dad.

As a tale of how a bunch of kids form a not-at-all serious rock band it’s a cute pastiche of what rock and roll is all about – for sure, my own tastes lean towards music that’s more, well, serious but at the end of the day rock music is, and always was, for the kids. It’s music by and for young people, marketed to make money and is concerned with short-term popularity; Light Fluffy Time is no My Generation but it’s very much in this rock and roll tradition!

I got the reference immediately…then felt really old all of a sudden

I’ll leave the arguments about how shows of its ilk are having a negative effect on the quality of the anime industry’s output as a whole for those who know more about it – there’s still enough stuff made that appeals to me and I don’t know enough about the Industry and its issues to speculate on that. But I am a music fan so I can’t help but (over-)think about how it fares as a show about music.

An anime about a rock band is doubly Relevant To My Interests really. Beck is a more realistic potrayal of this theme but K-On is after all a comedy rather than a drama. Being able to play well without much practice or haggling with a shopkeeper so you walk away with a Les Paul Standard for the same price as a Yamaha Pacifica are comedic but highly improbable, whether you’re familiar with musical instruments or not. It certainly doesn’t carry the dramatic weight of, say, Koyuki and co getting their first gig.

That’s not to say that it’s a series whose characters are completely lifeless archetypes all of the time. I’m able to accept its sillier moments because of this, which means I appreciate the character study that does happen: I recall how I intended to take up bass before deciding to learn the guitar so I can relate to how Mio made her choice of instrument through wanting to contribute without being held back by self-consciousness.

Conversely Ritsu, usually the energetic and most positively-minded member of the group, had a moment of self-doubt in the third episode of the second season after feeling left out of the spotlight. Given how negativity is never a problem to her, it’s interesting – yes, interesting! – to see a previously hidden side of her character emerge. We also hear that story about why Mio took up the bass and see Mugi inspired by Ritsu’s attempt at playing the keyboard to write a new song…a lot happens in that episode.

In the same way that Lucky Star shamelessly name-dropped and made obscure otaku-centric references, K-On makes some obvious nods of its own. More interestingly for me it goes further in a way that I’m not sure your typical member of Kyo-Ani’s audience cross-section would notice; unless they were a musician themselves…surely a minority group in the viewing figures. Given how notoriously calculating the writers of this show are in aiming their products at the consumers I can only assume it’s deliberate but still…although employees at Fender commented on the show quite honestly, would the fandumb notice?

A bit more recent, to cater to you youngsters

The more serious moments are true-to-life for anyone who’s tried to get together with friends and perform music live but excempting that swiftly-rectified guitar headstock gaffe early on, the little things are spot-on too. Now every anime fan knows what a left-handed Fender Jazz Bass in sunburst looks like, although I daresay most people would already be familiar with the iconic image of a Les Paul Standard and know full well how those beauties cost more than the equivalent to $500US from new.

I’d say K-On is around 90% mindless moe froth but maybe it’s that other 10% that makes the difference; namely the little details that needn’t have crossed the writers’ minds, but did. Who wondered whether Azusa plays a Mustang because it’s a suitably affordable, short-scale model that has a cult following in Japan, or whether it’s a reference to something else (Solanin perhaps)? ‘Guitaku’ is a niche kind of fanservice in itself when you think about it.

The unbelievably moe nature of K-On has a side-effect of making it completely inoffensive to serious music fans and it’s still more Perfume than Pink Floyd, but in some ways it’s as rock-and-roll as any other.

The prose reads smoothly and I’m pretty impressed with the presentation too (my only regret is not getting the hardback version. I’m anal about such things). What makes an even bigger difference than its adherence to the timeline, or the fact that it retains Noizi Ito’s original illustrations, is the first-person narrative approach that the novel takes. Unlike the TV broadcast order, which came across as little more than a cool gimmick, this detail makes the world of difference.

This device is traditionally associated with detective fiction but I guess the same applies to many stories that revolve around a sense of mystery. In this case Kyon’s narration means the reader has no idea of what’s going on, and you learn about the situations as they arise; interestingly the answer to the biggest question is as elusive and tantalising as ever. The appearance of Nagato, Asahina and Koizumi is fair enough, but what does Kyon have to do with any of this?

I really can’t over-emphasise the importance of the novel being told from his point of view. For starters his laconic and sarcastic turns of phrase are genuinely funny – there’s even a point in a later chapter where he jokes, “Yeah, I don’t understand my metaphors anymore either.” Time will tell if these one-liners wear on me but for now Kyon is even more entertaining than I remember him being in the TV show.

It works on a more far-reaching level too. I recall things like Asahina’s cosplay torture being more tiresome in animated format but perhaps because it’s verbal rather than visual this aspect of the plot is not as in-your-face. Speaking of being in-your-face, Haruhi is still every bit as infuriating as she was in the anime. the bottom line is, actually spending time with someone like her is a pain. Seriously. Being in the company of people who are thoughtless, shameless, moody and self-absorbed is NOT cool and it’s NOT fun. Whether it’s more fun to observe from a more detached perspective is a different matter.

The beef I had with the anime in that regard is the fact that the medium of TV is more…impartial? Asahina’s suffering felt slightly voyeuristic, and the “She’s a pain in the arse, you know…” portrayal of Haruhi didn’t come across very clearly. Thanks to events being coloured by Kyon’s viewpoint and wisecracks, her behaviour in the novel is not excused and he is able to make it clear how he is in two minds about witnessing what Haruhi does to Asahina, for instance.

I’ve heard time and time again that the Haruhi Suzumiya TV show is groundbreaking and different but for me it’s one of many high school comedies with supernatural underpinnings so this aspect held satirical value but little else. Telling it from Kyon’s perspective works much better, however: it instead offers a premise of “My life was normal, then this crazy girl showed up and weird shit started happening.” Rather than being yet another KyoAni high school show to add to a lengthy list, the unique-ness of encountering the character of Haruhi Suzumiya is much more obvious in novel format.

Perhaps because of KyoAni’s polished finish I was surprised at the pencil-sketchiness of the novel’s artwork but to be honest I think this is preferable because it’s less distracting; the text tells the story while the occasional illustration adds a dash of visual reference. I’m sure the manga works differently in that sense, but I think the emphasis will be different again: from what I’ve seen in the previews it relies more on the situation-comedy.

The novel on the other hand is less about the gags and highjinks, and more concerned with the dialogue and thematic comedy. I like that a lot. I dug the irony and absurdity of the whole situation and got the impression that this may be some sort of karma coming back to the guy who has a mildly Holden Caulfield-esque outlook. As much as Kyon talks of how Haruhi has rudely interrupted his quiet routine, life is now more interesting for him. As the prologue hints,

“Deep in my heart, I wished that aliens, time-travellers, ghosts, demons, evil organisations or espers might just pop up in front of me one day.”

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Nagaru Tanigawa, © 2003, 2009

The final argument I have for the advantages of Kyon’s narration therefore is this: the idea of Haruhi taking centre stage and a story telling us about how Haruhi takes centre stage are not the same thing. Just for the record, I prefer the latter.

Don’t take just my word for it. Even Baka Raptor has read it.

Click for the full size version

Make no mistake: this is a story with strong language and shows events and behaviour that are liable to offend some. It has some wonderful bits of humour though, including neat jabs at not only Death Note but Haruhi Suzumiya and Code Geass, but what makes this something I’d recommend so strongly is the fact that the superficial lulz accompany something more memorable and moving. If you excuse the pun, I never saw it coming.

The first half introduces the typical anti-hero; in this case a guy who is in no way extraordinary but has a filthy little pastime which he uses to attain comfort from the loneliness of Real Life. I’m not condemning the practice of self-pleasure BTW: everyone does it from time to time, and it even offers health benefits. Masturbation in of itself isn’t a bad thing, although doing it in the girls’ bathroom strikes me as a bit discourteous even when Kurosawa cleans up after himself. All in all though it’s harmless enough, if a little sad.

Misanthropic Kurosawa is hopeless with girls so seeks physical release from his isolation and frustrations through masturbating while fantasising about his classmates. His fantasies are pretty sordid but as long as he’s doing these things to them solely inside his own head, it’s a victimless crime if it’s a crime at all. A chance encounter in which he’s almost caught red-handed is the point where the story kicks off proper – this is when things get really interesting.

For Kurosawa to use his little hobby to dish out his own brand of justice on the class bullies suggested to me that, as twisted as he appears to be, he has some idea of right and wrong and would rather do something, even if it’s distasteful, to punish those who prey on the weak. There are moments, such as the time when Kurosawa backs down from one particular prank while on a school trip, that shows him at his most sentimental. He can’t bring himself to do the dirty deed for fear of breaking up the happy scene: Kurosawa, who has never experienced a relationship of his own, still can’t find it in himself to ruin someone else’s happiness.

Moments like this show Onani Master Kurosawa to be the insighful character study that it is, rather than the dark schoolroom comedy it appears to be initially. The turning point for me was the moment when Kurosawa’s true feelings for Takigawa surface: alongside the heady teenage lust there’s a more mature, deeper sense of affection which is totally outside of his experience. The ‘first crush’ thing is an all-consuming and sometimes painful experience that we can all relate to; the way in which this was portrayed dragged out a whole load of personal memories of angst and awkwardness that I’d rather not have been reminded of but for that I can’t fault its effectiveness.

Similarly, the pain of seeing the one you want dating your best friend is another thing that I’m sure many of us can identify with: again, I felt his anguish. It’s not really Nagaoka’s fault at all, mind: stepping back and seeing past Kurosawa’s biased viewpoint, that guy who’s irritating at first and goes on to get between Kurosawa and Takigawa is probably the best buddy Kurosawa could wish for. Better, even.

Kitahara one the other hand is pretty screwed up and I’m still undecided about how far my sympathy for her should go. Maybe she really is rotten to the core like she claims to be; her mistrust of others is understandable considering the bullying but there isn’t enough background for me to judge her one way or the other. I thought the narrative started to show a few cracks towards the end in that regard, but after reflecting on how her and Kurosawa’s predicaments were resolved I think it held itself together just enough to offer a satisfactory ending.

Sugawa seemed a bit of of an odd choice for the female interest in the latter chapters, but the open-ended nature of the relationship that she and Kurosawa share was still relevant. Kurosawa has developed a lot by this time and has certainly managed to shake off some of that Holden Caulfield antisocial attitude. I can’t stress enough that this is a story of redemption: he hits some heartwarming highs and has cringe-inducing lows but he learns a lot about himself and those around him.

He’s an unlikely champion for justice, which is where the boundary between hero and anti-hero cleverly blur. I can hardly admire someone like Kurosawa, nor can I condone his methods, but I admit part of me approved of the school bullies getting their just desserts. It was funny at first but soon it became clear that revenge doesn’t solve everything; ultimately you have to look within yourself for answers. While Light Yagami started off virtuous and lost his way, Kurosawa conversely attained salvation.

For all those homage and parody moments, this manga shines because it has so much to offer on its own. The pacing and dialogue are excellent, and I really love the art style too: it has the sketchy home-grown doujin look but the lo-fi pencil drawings are brimming with life and expression. So simple, yet so effective. While I could lament on little details that were left hanging, what really struck me by the end was how Kurosawa found his own way out of the figurative locked cubicle. Sure, his friends helped but the bottom line is that he chose his path through his own resolve.