Mono no aware

I love Bakemonogatari. From the Heavy Crab, through the clever twist to the Lost Snail, the truth behind the Monkey’s Paw and the tension of the Snake Constrictor, it’s a visual treat and provides a metric fucktonne of characterisation and cinematography that I could wax lyrical on for ages. Except I won’t. First, it’s spoilerific. Second, I think I need an entire post just to explain why I find Hitagi Senjougahara to be awesome before even outlining what makes everything else about these episodes so great.

I would hardly dare to argue

Granted, she doesn’t appear much in the middle portion of the series, but trying to make sense of the Senjougahara Fascination phenomenon became a bit more important when I found myself a part of it. What the hell is this? Am I developing a 2D complex? Well, yes. And no. Idle thoughts coming up.

My first thought on the notorious Endless Eight portion of the new series of Haruhi Suzumiya was “thank God I’m not watching this too!” and proceeded to skim-read the blog posts, which is probably more fun than actually watching the episodes themselves. It reminded me how something that’s popular can divide the fans so strongly and produce the old shitstorm of hype, bitching and RAEG that springs up every time. In some ways it’s as predictable as the “The new season sucks!” posts that ironically crop up every season but the observations are interesting.

What do you mean “the first season was better…”?!

Haruhi Suzumiya is a texbook example of how these things happen although I’m a bit spoilt for choice of other examples. Naruto is an obvious one although it’s the stereotypical Narutard that upsets most people, probably even more so than the filler episodes. To a lesser degree you get a mirror image of this carry-on with notoriously bad shows but the general pattern is the same: a wave of opinion for A New Thing creates a reflex reaction in the opposite direction, forming another retort of the initial enthusiasm and so on. Like the old fave “Toilet Tennis: look left” and “Toilet Tennis: look right” scrawled on the opposite walls of a toilet cubicle, this is Backlash Tennis.

First: my expansion of the point I raised with Gaguri, initially touched on during my second Kara no Kyoukai post. It stems from the time when I became an anime fan proper which, to get what follows after the jump into perspective, happened at a relatively late age when I was already a general film/TV nerd. Second: to clarify on my stance on this issue I dropped English language and literature in favour of a more science-orientated timetable post-GCSE, in the hope that it would improve my employment prospects. Long story short, it didn’t, which meant I abandoned my favourite subject to make a gamble that I regret to this day. Just so you know I’m not trying to be clever here, because I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

Just for the record I stole this pic from a blog called, appropriately enough, Serious Fucking Business, which is well worth a visit

So then, I’m an academic without being an intellectual, watching anime as a layman but one who likes a decent movie in addition to the typical box office blockbuster. I hope I’m not insulting your intelligence here in pointing out that the term ‘anime’ is merely an umbrella term for a set of artistic techniques (animation) and the geography (Japanese in origin); except my own set of standards and definitions need something a bit more specific than this to differentiate a certain type of anime from the rest. No, I don’t have higher education qualifications in this area, but I still want to talk taxonomy. Please hear me out, ‘kay?

I made it. The final route of Fate/Stay Night in its brutal, beautiful, painful, compelling entirety. The whole run of Heaven’s Feel after the divergence point is an experience similar to the time I watched the Nausicaä movie then read the manga through to the end, which is really saying something coming from me. The quality and sheer scope of the storytelling meant that I felt an even greater attachment to the characters; if ‘equivalent exchange’ is a recurring theme in the F/S N franchise the same idea applies to the emotional (not to mention time) investment you put into it, which in my case turned out to be one hell of a lot.

She’ll make a man of him yet

Heaven’s Feel was immensely rewarding for me but was the darkest instalment of the visual novel as a whole. That said, even the most disconcerting moments were relevant to the plot and were important in drawing attention to the plight of the central character. Sakura always stayed in the background in the earlier routes, serving little purpose other than to cook meals and blush a lot but this route is the point where she has chance to shine; it really shook up everything I thought I knew up to that point about some of the supporting cast too.

The first route of F/S N was the main inspiration for the TV series but what’s unlocked at its completion, Unlimited Blade Works, isn’t represented much there so came as a pleasant surprise to me. It goes off in a different direction that’s just as interesting in its own way and expands on themes that were merely touched on before, making some clever parallels between characters and bringing in a startling variant on the underlying fate vs free will theme. Additionally, rather than making Ilya and Berserker the main antagonists it’s Caster and her master who drive the events along this time around.

Epic foreshadowing? You betcha

Shirou’s relationship with Saber is played down to give his screentime with Rin room to breathe but at the same time there’s the all-important explanation of Archer’s origins that gave this route its true impact and makes the story focus on Shirou’s fight more than Saber’s. It goes without saying that what’s coming up is as spoilerific as hell so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My blogging kohai has a lot to answer for. With one full story thread of the Fate/Stay Night visual novel under my belt I can see where he’s coming from in terms of the connections that hold everything together, although it’s taken a fair while in getting there. Since I’m not a gamer the idea of spending hours and hours on something like this is pretty alien to me but as I said in my warm-up post the interactive nature of the VN works wonders in bringing the story to life in a way that the TV version couldn’t (although my not being sloshed this time around must have helped). It’s only part of the full picture of course: there are two other routes to follow afterwards but this one concentrates on the Shirou/Saber relationship in particular.

“..into the uncertain divine/we scream into the last divide…”

I wasn’t as fascinated by Saber in the TV show but when the events are geared towards portraying events from her and Shirou’s point of view I had a much clearer picture of her circumstances and personality so felt for her predicament much more keenly. While Rin is the tsundere character (not a bad thing I might add!), Saber is I think someone even more interesting, with a imaginatively-realised backstory that I can’t help but admire on so many levels.

The visual novel is strange creature. It’s a quintessentially Japanese medium so that alone makes it worth mentioning on this blog but this peculiar mix of ideas and storytelling is something that I’ve heard a lot about but only recently experienced for myself. Are these things video games in the style of books, or books in the style of video games? Both? Neither? It poses interesting questions in terms of semantics too…

“Don’t mind me. I’m just playing…I mean reading…that is I’m, um, oh sod it.”

Like the duck-billed platypus, which looks like less of a supporting argument for the theory of evolution and more a product of a supreme being with a wicked sense of humour, the visual novel is an unlikely mixture of varied components. It has the text and semi-static images you’d expect from a light or graphic novel, but has an interactive element that’s akin to a simplified version of a computer game. This blend of disparate media types in turn has some interesting effects on the way you experience its style of storytelling; the logic behind it is certainly easier to explain than that of a little furry bugger that still goes to the trouble of laying eggs.