The Otakusphere | A Blog for Anime (and Other Stuff)
Time 2021-11-06 09:06:20Web Name: The Otakusphere | A Blog for Anime (and Other Stuff)
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keywords: description:In the latest episode of HBOs popular medieval fantasy series Game of Thrones, a disposable coffee cup was visible on screen during a feast at Winterfell. Most viewers thought this was simply a production goof, however, those of us who have read the books and all of the other relevant literature and apocrypha know better. Fans have theorized for decades that Starbucks locations exist within Westeros, and with Season 8, Episode 4, The Last of the Starks, its safe to say that these rumors have been proven true.
Of course, a Starbucks in Westeros would not be the same as a Starbucks in say, Albany; theres the local culture to consider. For that reason, as an enlightened scholar who has read all the books and other materials, including a discarded notebook that George R. R. Martin left on a bus one time, Im going to share with you what Starbucks is like within A World of Ice and Fire. Before you leave a comment in disagreement, please keep in mind that this is now strictly canonical and theres nothing you can do about it.
Beverage Rules:
You must give your full name, including the name of your House, to the barista when you order. This is a nuisance, but on the plus side, if anyone misspells your name, you can have them drawn and quartered before dawn.
If you give a Bastard surname like Sand, Snow, or Waters, in theory the whole menu is available, but you can only order decaf. Regular is not for the likes of you.
The lowborn can only order plain drip coffee, no lattes or other specialty drinks; plus, the coffee tastes about 5x as burnt as Starbucks coffee normally does. Not recommended.
If you answer the request for your name with A man has no name, your latte will be at least 90% cyanide.
If you claim ancestry from the First Men, you may have dairy milk. If you claim ancestry from the Andals or the Rhoynar, you may have soy milk. Those who ask for almond milk are weak and will not survive the winter.
If your noble birth qualifies you for milk in your coffee, but you dont want it, you have several options: you can order your coffee black as a Trueborn Baratheons locks, black as a Dragonglass Dagger, or black as The Dread. You can also request coffee that is dark and full of terrors, but theres an excellent chance that you will end up with a cup full of scorpions.
Giants Milk Frappucinos only available at locations North of the Wall.
Anyone who demands that their espresso shots be poured over the foam in their drink, specifically, will be ritually burnt at the stake. Not as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light, but just because they obviously deserve it.
If you say Dracarys! while your drink is being prepared, thats a cue to the barista that you want it Extra Hot. They wont actually make it Extra Hot, because scorched dairy is gross and everyone should know that by now, but theyll imitate dragon screeches out off the side of their mouth and pretend theyre doing it.
You can try asking for your drink Kissed by Fire if you want it with cinnamon. However, thats a stupid idea since this is a Starbucks, and everyone knows that the cinnamon is located at the Condiment Bar: put it in yourself.
Food Rules:
All pastries and breakfast sandwiches are made with 100% Free-Range dragon eggs.
Bagels are only served with cream cheese, not with butter. In addition, anyone who asks for jelly on a bagel will be flayed alive until they are the color of said jelly.
If you order anything gluten-free, you must swear on the Light of the Seven that you actually have Celiac Disease and arent just a trendy-ass motherfucker.
Anyone who orders quiche will be disembowled out back. No one knows why, this is simply how its always been done, and whats good enough for our ancestors is good enough for us.
Lemon cakes are available, but only for young girls who have been forced into political marriages with dwarves or sociopaths.
General-Purpose Rules:
Eunuchs receive a 50% discount because really, they deserve something.
Anyone who leaves garbage or crumbs at their table, regardless of birthright, will be castrated. On the plus side, see above.
Once you claim a table in the cafe area, only you and your trueborn offspring may use that table. Illegitimate children can sit at your table, but they have to sit in that awkward, half-the-butt-hanging-off-the-chair position.
Lighting other tables on fire to increase legroom is not just allowed, but encouraged.
Starbucks Westoros is not legally responsible for what will happen if you attempt to ally with guests from other tables for any reason.
You may get up and go to the bathroom at any time, however, once you return, the political situation will have changed so much that you wont know where youre sitting.
If you sit down at your table with a laptop and begin working on a novel, you must finish the goddamned novel. If you open a browser or a video game instead, you will be forced to run naked behind a stallion until you die.
Sex in the cafe area is allowed, but only as long as you narrate your entire life story during the act. Anyone making love silently will be asked to offer the appropriate amount of exposition or leave immediately.
Gender-neutral bathrooms are available, but only in Dornish locations. On that note, popular Orgy Thursdays are only available in Dorne (and occasionally Highgarden, but only if you know who to ask.)
Fire exits are only guaranteed to work for regular fire, not Dragon fire. Once the dragon shows up, its safe to say that no ones getting out.
Other than the aforementioned penalties and legalized executions, violence, war and genocide are not permitted at Starbucks Westoros locations. Starbucks Essos, on the other hand.
Share this:TweetLike this: Loading...Run With The Wind was a great show, one that goes to show just how broad a category like sports anime can be. Among the other things it did well, it tackled the subject of racism, and did so in a kind of understated, nuanced way. I rarely see this kind of thing done so well, and especially not in anime, so I thought it was worth taking a moment to call attention to it.
Just about all of the racism depicted in the show is directed at the character Musa, a black student originally from Tanzania whos studying abroad in Japan. I was skeptical when they first introduced the character; the choice to introduce him completely naked reminded me a bit of the Kenzaburo Oe story Prize Stock, and you never want to associate Oe with anything. (Yeah, I went there. Suck it, Nobel Committee!) Having Musas first impression on the audience being his lack of shame at his nudity seemed to be walking a fine line between casting the character as goofy foreigner with different ideas about modesty and dated idea of the noble savage, used historically to diminish darker-skinned people. It wasnt the most auspicious beginning, especially when black people have so few roles in anime to begin with.*
Turns out I had nothing to be concerned about, because Musa was a fully-fleshed out character for whom race was only one aspect of the whole. Yes, his race was relevant to the story and did come up at times, but he was never presented as a racial stereotype, and he was never portrayed as being different from the other characters. The characters were all different in the sense that they were supposed to be a ragtag group of misfits that somehow coheres into a team, but Musa was never portrayed as more eccentric than the other eccentrics, if that makes any sense.
The show was smart enough to address the elephant in the room right away, too. Early on, when the dorm mates find out theyve basically been tricked by Haiji into becoming a track team, the twins comment that running will come easier to Musa, because hes African. Musa acknowledges that assuming hes automatically a better runner just because hes African is prejudiced, but he doesnt blow a fuse over it; he simply acknowledges the ignorance of the statement and moves on. Musa is presented as someone who doesnt tolerate casual racism, but he also doesnt hit back like a ton of bricks when he sees someone engaging in it, either. Its clear he thinks the problem is ignorance, not malice, since his reaction seems more disappointed than upset or angry.
Things get uglier later on when Musa has to deal with racism from within his own race. The other African characters on the show are all student-athletes who are attending Japanese universities on running scholarships, and Musa is afraid they wont accept him. His fears are valid; the other Africans blow off his attempts to be friends with them, and generally just treat him like he doesnt exist. (I generally dislike the word microaggression, but I think it fits here; none of the other black athletes do anything outright horrible to Musa, they just consistently look at him with barely-concealed disdain and dont respond to his friendly overtures.)
Why do they treat him so poorly? Is it because theyre meant to be evil, and the show is actually being racist by portraying the African students as being so unsympathetic? I dont think so; try looking at it from their perspective. In their lives, they are utterly surrounded by Japanese people; the only people they know who look like them are serious track runners. We dont learn a lot about them, but it seems likely they keep to themselves. And here comes Musa, who just started running like ten minutes ago, and is a sensitive academic, not a career athlete. He has far more in common with the Japanese students who share his interests than he does with the other African students, and everyone knows it. From their perspective, what is he doing there? Why is this guy who doesnt even take running that seriously showing up at meets, possibly making them look less serious about running by association? Who needs that?
And yes, it is racist of them to assume that Musa should be in Japan on a running scholarship just because hes African; that assumption, and their behavior toward him, is clearly depicted as a bad thing on the show. However, while they are being racist towards Musa, their behavior is understandable, because we can understand their insecurities. They arent succumbing to racism because theyre terrible people, they are making a mistake because theyre human.
This is where I think Run With The Wind is really brave in its portrayal of racism. Its one thing to have an over-the-top evil Simon Legree character whom we can all denounce as racist and feel good about ourselves, quite another to show how otherwise good people can end up going along with racist attitudes. Portraying the skewed expectations that people sometimes have for other members of their own race is especially difficult to do; if done wrong, it can make it seem like youre attempting to blame all racism on the people who suffer the most disproportionately from it. However, you cant address racism responsibly if you only portray it as an inter-group problem; its an intra-group problem, too.
One more scene thats relevant takes place later on, when the Kansei University Track Team starts to build some momentum. Kakeru and Musa overhear some guys complaining that the Kansei team has an African student on it, preferring them to field an All-Japanese team. The implication is that, since Musa is African, hes not a real Kansei University student and doesnt count. Kakeru, hothead that he is and offended on Musas behalf, wants to go give these people a piece of his mind, but Musa stops him. Its not that Musa isnt bothered by these comments, but as he explains to Kakeru, what would be the point?
You dont win out over racists by getting into arguments with people on the street. You dont drown out prejudice by yelling at people who are being ignorant, because if they could understand you, they wouldnt be ignorant. The real work to chip away at racism, as Musa well knows, is the stuff thats going on at the old dormitory, where the other students from all different walks of life have learned to see Musa as one of their own. It also chips away at racism when Musa participates in Track and Field as a hobby, while his main focus is his academics; hes a talented runner, but hes not the best runner on his team, and thats okay, because that doesnt have to be. Appropriate for a long-distance runner, Musa is seeing the big picture. He can engage with running at whatever level he wants, and he doesnt need to care how other people perceive that. And by living that way, he may convince a few other people that they dont need to care either.
Theres some other interesting stuff going on in RWTW. For one thing, the fact that Haiji forces the entire dorm to start running raises some interesting questions; people are very big on questioning consent in fiction these days, but apparently only when the topic is sexual in nature. On this show, one of the main characters tramples all over his teammates consent, and I havent heard a peep from the usual suspects about it. In any case, whatever I was expecting from this show, it wasnt such a sensitive portrayal of racism, or such a mature, likable character in Musa. High marks, all around.
*Im not suggesting by the way that Japan is being negligent by not including more black characters in anime; the only ethnicity regularly represented in anime is Japanese, and its Anime-Japanese, meaning the characters usually dont even look Japanese. The question of what greater representation for non-Japanese races should or could look like in a medium where even the majority population doesnt look like themselves is a really complicated topic that goes beyond the scope of this article.
Share this:TweetLike this: Loading...(This review was originally posted to The Fandom Post.)
I spent 100 hours leveling up to beat Sephiroth for this?
Creative Staff:
Story: Kazushige Nojima
Final Fantasy VII was the first JRPG I ever played, and only the second game I ever completed; to say that it holds a special place in my heart would be an understatement. I think there is actually entire chamber of my heart that is roped off and says “Reserved for Final Fantasy VII (and also VIII, sometimes).”
Sadly, I haven’t enjoyed any of the attempts that developer Square Enix has made to revisit that universe. I found Advent Children, the movie sequel, more irritating than anything else, and none of the prequel games that SE released seemed appealing. Maybe I just hold FFVII to too high a standard, but to me, the original game was like lightning in a bottle; a rare artistic achievement where the entire production came together to be more than the sum of its parts both as a video game and as a larger fantasy narrative.
So that leaves me in a weird place with On the Way to A Smile, basically a prequel to a movie that I didn’t like, but based in a world that I unquestionably love. This story collection bridges the gap between the end of the game and the beginning of Advent Children, a period of about four years. I tried to put aside my general dislike of all FFVII expansion material and approach this book with fresh eyes, but I’m not sure I succeeded. It seemed intent on reminding me of all the things I have never liked about attempts to continue the FFVII story beyond the final boss fight.
For one thing, this book is pretty dark; everyone is so despondent that you almost wonder if it wouldn’t have been kinder to let Sephiroth destroy the world and put everyone out of their misery. Now, it was always a dark world, and it’s not like I expected things to suddenly become happy and light-hearted after Sephiroth was defeated. I mean, it’s nice to think about Cloud and Tifa being married with 2.3 kids and a dog, Red XIII finding a girlfriend and having the best animal romance since The Lion King, or Cid starting the Gaia version of NASA, but I knew it would never be that easy for these characters. Still, this book goes too far in the other direction by making everybody utterly miserable. What makes it unforgivable to me is that this book requires the characters to forget the things they learned in the original game in order to be unhappy.
Remember how Barret’s character arc in the game had him realizing that while he’ll never be the father he thinks Marlene deserves because of his past, he’s nevertheless the father she has, and he needs to be there for her? Well, this book has him dump Marlene on Tifa early on so he can “settle his past,” which he should already know is a fool’s errand. When he ends up doing something useful, it’s more because he stumbles into it than anything else. Cloud and Tifa, who achieved a state of great intimacy by the end of the game- to the point where they even shared a consciousness at one point- treat each other like awkward strangers, and struggle to communicate. Yuffie goes on a useless quest that she knows has no chance of success, but does it anyway because she thinks her pluck will give people hope, or something. Wasn’t Yuffie the one who wanted results, not just idle talk? Cid is doing fine, so naturally, Cid isn’t in the book that much.
It’s certainly not all bad. It clarifies a lot of things about Advent Children that were always a bit hazy, and some of the individual stories are interesting. I particularly liked Red XIII’s story, because even though it was depressing as all hell, at least he seemed properly in character. But man, talk about going out of your way to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Most of the characters don’t even seem conscious of the fact that they saved the entire planet, because that might give them something to feel good about. Yuffie at least acknowledges it, then is promptly told that no one wants to hear about it and she should shut up.
And yet, for all my complaints, there’s something here. We’re dealing with a society that both regrets nearly destroying nature, yet fears the raw destructive power of nature; a worldwide slump brought about by extreme corporate mismanagement; an epidemic with no cure, without enough medicine or health providers to go around; A rapid increase in technology, while at the same time, a desperate need for a new energy source that doesn’t seem forthcoming. Even though this book doesn’t do right by the cast of the game, I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel relevant. It’s almost too relevant, if such a thing is even possible; I mean, I just ostensibly read a Final Fantasy book, and here I am thinking about health care and diminishing fossil fuel supplies instead of Chocobo Racing. Is that okay?
In fairness, most fans of FFVII are probably less picky and will find more to like here. If you liked Advent Children (and a lot of fans did), you’ll probably like this. And it’s always nice to see interaction between beloved characters that didn’t get much one-on-one time in the original game, like Yuffie and Red XIII. With all this sequel material though, I’m always left wondering if SE perhaps doesn’t understand the story of the original game they made, or if maybe I’m the one who doesn’t understand. It’s not a good feeling, either way.
In Summary:
A short story collection that succeeds as a supplement to the Advent Children film, but may leave series fans wondering if Final Fantasy VII was always this macabre and joyless.
(This review was originally posted on The Fandom Post.)
Never turn down an invitation from a sassy crustacean, especially if you haven’t decided what’s for dinner yet.
Creative Staff:
Story and art: panpanya
Translator: Ko Ransom
Production: Nicole Dochych
Denpa, the new publisher on the block, specializes in publishing manga that are a little off the beaten path; either hard to categorize, or simply overlooked. This is a good thing, but I think we need to be careful not to let the company’s niche color our perception of their books too heavily. After all, if we assume that every book that comes out of Denpa is going to be some strange, art-house affair, we’re probably doing a disservice to much of what they publish; just because a book has been overlooked for English-language publication thus far doesn’t mean it’s necessarily strange.
All that said, make no mistake: An Invitation from a Crab is strange. A series of vignettes featuring the barest suggestion of a manga-style school girl traversing warped, sometimes muddy backgrounds, all the while experiencing bizarre encounters with fish and crustaceans, interspersed with essays from the author on topics like “what is that light produced by the inside of your eyeballs?” Yeah, that’s unusual, to say the least.
What’s compelling about Crab is the way it presents its own brand of surrealism. Concepts like a dolphin-powered calculator seem like they would be right at home in The Hitchhikers’ Guide to The Galaxy, but the mood is much more Günter Grass than Douglas Adams. Even the stories that deal with more mundane subject matter always give the sense that something sinister is afoot. Our sketchily rendered protagonist may be able to eat a crab hotpot for dinner, but she may not really be at the top of the food chain. The world here is one of endless consumption, where humans and animals alike are put through a symbolic meat grinder, and any attempt to reconnect with the natural world is doomed to end in failure. It sounds like I’m saying this manga is anti-capitalist, and that may very well be true, but I think that may be an oversimplification. Something else is going on here; I’m not exactly sure what, but I’m going to keep thinking about it until I figure it out. Hopefully.
Something else I need to figure out is how I feel about this book’s art. Some of the backgrounds are great, with an almost sculptural quality, like the environments have been chiseled out of the paper somehow. Other times, the art becomes more minimalist and blurry, and I’m not sure it works. Ironically, the detailed, clear backgrounds do a better job of communicating the surreal mood of the story than the more smudgy, suggestive panels. The art is always at least adequate to tell the story, but if were always as good as panpanya is clearly capable of, I think we’d have something incredible here.
Whether or not the art is up to the level of the writing (and I’m sure others would disagree with me there), this is an unusual, thought-provoking title that discerning adult readers should seek out. The book may be rated Teen, but I think it’s mature (in the best sense of the word), and likely to be of particular interest to people who have already been reading manga for many years. If any 14-year-olds want to read it, hey: knock yourself out. Don’t let me stop you! But I think part of the experience of An Invitation from a Crab is comparing it to the other manga you’ve read, and the deeper your personal catalogue is, the more you’ll get out of it.
In Summary:
A surreal collection of stories and short essays with a serious bite to them, despite the fact that they may seem nonsensical at first.
Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen (13+)
Released By: Denpa, LLC.
Release Date: December 19, 2018
MSRP: US $12.95 CAN $14.95
(This review originally posted on The Fandom Post.)
A sentient snack vending machine continues to do a better job romancing the ladies than you might think.
Creative Staff:
Story: Hirokuma
Art: Ituwa Kato
This volume focuses less on the mechanics of Boxxo’s existence as a vending machine, and more on developing the supporting cast. On the face of it, this is good; how many times do we need to find out that Boxxo added a new kind of corn soup to his products? Do we really need to know how many points Boxxo has accumulated at any given moment? Probably not.
However, I think this series is meant for a particular type of reader, and we’re the kind who enjoy this kind of minutia. I’m the kind of person who actually enjoys organizing (and re-organizing) long lists of items in RPGs, and that’s part of the reason why the extremely detail-heavy nature of the first two books appealed to me. Several times during this volume I found myself asking “How many points did Boxxo just spend to do that?”, something I’ve never had to wonder with this series before. One of the things that made the series initially compelling is the fact that Boxxo’s point total is effectively his life; if he runs out of points, he stops operating, essentially death for a vending machine. I think you need to really care about how many points Boxxo has left in order to be fully invested in the story, and that’s something that doesn’t work as well when the narrative starts glossing over the numbers.
Regardless of whether other readers get hung up on the lack of detail (maybe it’s just me being obsessive compulsive?), this volume does benefit from the greatest strength of this series: the fact that, as a vending machine, Boxxo’s solutions to problems are never what you would expect from a more typical hero. His use of different vending machine functions is a little less creative here than earlier, but it’s still interesting to see him utilize the benefits of practically every single kind of vending machine created by humanity. This time around, he even starts functioning as a jukebox, which seems like a bit of a stretch to me– that’s a different kind of machine, right?– but I’ll allow it.
This volume does continue the narrative of Boxxo’s party’s struggle against the mysterious dungeon bosses, but most of it is spent on downtime with the ladies in Boxxo’s life: particularly Lammis, the mighty but surprisingly timid adventurer who carries Boxxo on her back, and Shui, an archer with a bottomless pit for a stomach and a heart of gold. The focus on Shui was somewhat surprising (in fact, I barely remembered that she existed before this volume), but not unwelcome, and an eating contest is certainly tailored toward the strengths of this series. I’m hoping we’ll eventually get more background on Director Bear, the trustworthy public servant who happens to be a grizzly bear, but I guess I’ll have to wait for another volume for that. There are some fanservice scenes (which illustrator Ituwa Kato appears to have some fun with), but they’re pretty mild altogether.
My one big complaint about this volume (and this series in general) is the fact that the main character feels the need to remind the reader that he’s a vending machine waaaaaay too often. Dude, the premise of your series is unique, it’s not like any of us are going to forget anytime soon, you know?
In Summary:
A more character-driven installment that tones down on the “gamey-ness” of previous volumes, which can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how much you liked the focus on vending machine stats earlier on. It still reads like a breath of fresh air compared to more formulaic series. Also, don’t read this book when you’re hungry: just don’t. You’ll probably end up demolishing an all-you-can-eat buffet, but if you planned on doing that anyway? Full speed ahead.
I feel compelled to talk about whats going on with voice actor accusations in anime fandom at the moment, because at the rate were going, somebodys life is going to be ruined. Some actor will be falsely accused of sexual assault, or maybe even rape, be blacklisted from the industry, and eventually kill themselves. Then we will all look at each other, blinking, confused, and wonder how did this happen? If I have a even a chance of preventing that from happening by speaking out now, I need to take advantage of it.
Before I go on, yes sexual assault happens at cons, its a real problem, and this should have been addressed way before now; Im not disputing any of that. However, what I see happening now is that people feel guilty that they were asleep at the wheel on this issue for so long, and now theyre pouncing on any opportunity to remedy that, judgement is getting clouded, and potentially innocent people are getting caught up in it. What Im advocating for here is not to ignore evidence of sexual assault (we all did that for too long), but only to treat every case as separate, so innocent people dont get tarred with other peoples actions. This may seem like such a common sense warning that it doesnt even need to be said, but many people are already starting to make this mistake.
Please do not assume because theres a lot of evidence that Person A is guilty, that Persons B, C and D must also be guilty. Even if there are a million pieces of evidence that Person A has been harassing people at cons, all of that evidence pertains to that individual; it proves nothing about Person B. I already see another problem developing with Affirmative Consent, where people who see AC as the unquestionable standard are going to classify people as rapists, which people who do not accept AC as a concept will dispute. But then youve already started tarring someones reputation with something as monstrous as rape, where we should tread very carefully. There are a lot of dicey areas here.
I feel pretty sure this is going to fall on deaf ears ableist, I know, but I cant think of a better metaphor at the moment. (For the record, I am hearing-impaired myself, so I am part of the group one could accuse me of denigrating here.) People are wrapped up in believe the victims, believe the survivors, they want blood, and they dont particularly care if one or two innocents are hurt because of it. Please keep in mind that you can support victims in general without unquestionably believing every single thing that someone says about someone else. Please keep in mind that its not hypocritical to say There seems to be a lot of evidence that Person A is guilty of committing sexual assault, but much less evidence that Person B is. Im convinced in one case, but not the other.
Please keep in mind that while this situation mirrors whats going on in Hollywood, this is not Hollywood. If someone accuses George Clooney or Brad Pitt of sexual assault, they have millions of dollars and armies of lawyers to fight it. Some anime VAs may seem famous within our little fiefdom here, but they do not have the same resources that Hollywood actors and actresses have. I think people sometimes feel pretty free to accuse famous people of bad things on the basis that these people are very powerful and can defend themselves (or at least comfort themselves by diving in their Scrooge McDuck-esque tanks of money if nothing else), but that does not apply here. If a working VA gets blacklisted from the industry over something they didnt do, they dont get to comfort themselves in their sprawling LA mansion; they are going to have a problem making rent, buying groceries. Claims of sexual harassment and sexual assault should be taken seriously, but lets at least exercise some care before we put someone in that situation, okay?
Share this:TweetLike this: Loading...I like the Netflix She-Ra reboot. Considering that Im one of the people who grew up with the original as a kid in fact, some of my earliest memories are of watching the Filmation cartoon the fact that it won me over is somewhat impressive. After all, Ive had about 30 years to remake She-Ra in the back of my mind, thinking about what I would change, and how can someone elses vision compete with my long-simmering, highly personalized one? I tried to be neutral, but to be honest, I think I went into the show ready to hate itbut I didnt.
Its not perfect, but it picked up on the main weakness of the original show and improved upon it, and for that I have to give them a slow clap. Plus, the main things I didnt like about it are things that I never liked about the show in its original incarnation either, if Im being honest. Perhaps more importantly, this series brings up several interesting topics the pitfalls inherent in updating character designs, the arguable responsibility tied to relaunching a property that has a passionate existing fanbase, and so on, that I wanted to discuss a little bit. Its not that these topics havent been discussed, but in relation to this show, the conversations have been VERY polarized.
Id like to say that I want to bring a little more nuance to these discussions, but that sounds like an incredibly pretentious-ass thing to say. However, the way discussion of this show online has been, I could probably run around hitting people with a literal sledgehammer and still be more nuanced than the current dialogue. So Im going to go forward with my goal of trying to look at the show with a more discerning eye, my delusional sense of self-importance be damned.
First, I want to talk about the main things the show did right. Then Ill get into the character designs and the other elements that have made the show more than a little controversial.
The Good: Honing in on Adora
A few years ago, I bought the DVDs of She-Ra: Princess of Power and watched them all. What struck me as an adult viewer was how much of a missed opportunity the show had in Adoras character. Here you have this woman who was raised very nearly from birth to be a soldier for a fascist government, about two clicks away from being a Nazi SS officer. Then she realizes that everything she has ever been told or believed in her whole life is a sham, and her compliance has been at least partially caused by mind control. She leaves her family in the Horde, and starts a completely new life (in hiding) among the people who used to hate her as an oppressor. She also discovers that she has a real family, but they live on another planet and if she chooses to stay with them, shes abandoning the world she grew up in to a hellish, dystopian future. So she cant see her real family until Etheria is free, which may never happen, and she knows it. Pretty darn rough hand to draw, all told.
This, by the way, is why I always thought that She-Ra had a much more interesting premise than He-Man, who never had any such conflicts in his life. When Filmation launched She-Ra, they could have just done a simple gender-flip of the character, but they didnt; they added a whole lot of morally fraught stuff that just begged to be explored. The fact that they barely explored any of it is disappointing, but at least some of that can probably be blamed on the perceived limitations of animation at the time. Filmation may have had good ideas for Adoras character, but played it safe for fear of making the show too complicated for its intended audience of five-year-old girls.
In the original show, Adora adapts to these massive changes in her life so inhumanly well that its a non-issue. After the introductory Secret of the Sword miniseries, the only relevance Adoras background usually has is that she knows how to get around the Fright Zone; one episode deals with her meeting up with an old friend from the Horde. But for the most part, once she gains the ability to become She-Ra, she becomes just like any other cheerful, freedom-loving member of the Rebellion well, other than the turning into a magic-sword-lady part.
The Netflix reboot wisely focused on Adoras character and the kind of culture shock someone in this kind of extreme situation would go through, and how others would respond to her. They show it in broad ways (Glimmers initial distrust of Adora, to the point of outright paranoia; Adoras general lack of understanding of social norms), but they bring it home in surprisingly subtle ways as well. I especially liked the detail that Adora felt weird sleeping on a feather bed, because shes slept in the barracks for her whole life. It also followed logically that sleeping alone creeped her out, since shes always been surrounded by the sounds of the other soldier trainees at night. Cynically, putting Adora in bed with Glimmer for one night was a little nudge to the fans who want to see lesbian pairings, but on a character level, it made perfect sense.
One interesting change is that while the original Adora was magically mind-controlled by Shadow Weaver to obey the Horde, this new Adora was only controlled by Weaver through mundane emotional manipulation. I think that reflects a difference in attitudes about free will and compliance over the last 30 year or so. For the original creators, a non-mind controlled Adora might have seemed potentially responsible for what she did as a member of the Horde, and thus inherently unheroic. From a more modern perspective, we know that being controlled by a nefarious authority figure can be pretty darn powerful, so the new Adora didnt need to be outright mind-controlled to qualify as a victim of Shadow Weavers manipulation. Thats neither here nor there I guess, but noteworthy.
So to boil it down to a simple bullet point, the new shows decision to make Adora a more psychologically realistic, and hence sympathetic, character, was a great decision, and one that the writers deserve a lot of credit for. There were attempts to add depth to other characters, with varying degrees of success, but the new Adora absolutely delivers where original-recipe Adora lacked. Thats why I ultimately have to put this show in the win column, despite all the other criticisms Im about to go into.
What Im more ambivalent about is the way the show seems to be focusing on the relationships between the female characters to the exclusion of the few male characters who were actually important in the original show. In SheRa:POP, it was Hordak who stole Adora as a baby; in the reboot, its Shadow Weaver. Personally, I always found the twisted father/daughter relationship between Hordak and Adora/She-Ra to be potentially very interesting, but that dynamic is effectively non-existent in the new show, with Shadow Weaver having completely taken over the surrogate parent role. Im afraid that the show is going to continue to ignore Hordak for having the audacity of being a male villain in a female-focused show, but honestly, it looks like they may just be saving his role for later seasons, so Im withholding judgement on that until I see more.
I do like the fact that this version of Hordak appears to be chillingly competent. The buffoonish nature of Hordak in the original series seemed like it was due to Filmation trying copy their success with Skeletor, but Hordak was just never likable the way Skeletor was; he works better as a flat-out villain than comic relief, and Im glad hes being used that way.
Another change that Im still left scratching my head about is the new Catra. Original Catra was a pretty simplistic, at times outright stupid character. She was jealous of Adora because of the time when Adora was Hordaks favorite, but that seemed to be less due to any deep feelings concerning Adora, and more because she wanted everything to be about her. She was just vain and dumb, and I see why they needed to change her to make her anything more than a one-dimensional villain.
The new Catra is much more interesting and sympathetic than the original (which, to be fair, wasnt that hard to accomplish), but I find it odd that Adoras most important relationship in the show is now with her, when that relationship previously didnt really exist. I do think they needed to expand on Adoras family within the Horde, but Im not sure if I really wanted the primary character in that family to be Catra. Oh well.
The Questionable: The Character Designs (AKA Who Are These People?)
There are a lot of things to talk about regarding character designs, but for the sake of having a clear place to start, Im going to focus on one just one character: Frosta. In SheRa: POP, Frosta was something of a femme fatale who famously flirted with He-Man. If you want to see a real classic of the How did they EVER get away with this on childrens television? sub-genre, check out the episode Sweet Bees Home from the original series.
This lady is on the prowl! Lock up all your young menperhaps your old men too, shes not that selective!
In the new series, Frosta is12. Technically 11-and-three-quarters. Barring the fact that she too has power over ice and snow, she has so little in common with the original Frosta that she may as well be a completely different character.
Heres the new Frosta: lock up your candy and uh, fidget spinners? What are kids even into these days?
Im not the kind of die-hard fan whos going to be kept up at night by this, but still, I find it a little worrisome. Whats the point of rebooting an existing franchise, if youre going to redesign the characters to the point that they arent the same character anymore and the names are just artifacts? Like most of the characters in the original series, Frosta didnt have a ton of personality, but the personality she did have was all about being a pretty shameless flirt. By making the new Frosta not only completely different looks and personality-wise, but also prepubescent, they took away perhaps the one thing she had going for her as a character, which was her flirty nature.
The thing is, its not even like I dislike the new Frosta. The fact that she has some of the most powerful magic in Etheria, but she has to fight for respect due to her young age, is pretty interesting. Shes a good character; she just couldnt possibly have less to do with the original Frosta if theyd tried. And that can come off as more of a rejection of the original show than a reinterpretation of it.
Why does it matter? Well, when I said that some of my earliest memories were of She-Ra, I didnt mean just my earliest memories of television, or my earliest memories of cartoons; I meant my earliest memories period. I think thats true for a lot of people my age. When something has that kind of formative status in your life, you want to see it treated with respect, even if it was silly in many ways. The people who complain This new cartoon is RUINING MY CHILDHOOD! are obviously exaggerating (and not helping their cause in the slightest), but hey, childhood memories are precious to us. If you want to ignore the source material and create your own characters, by all means, create a new show; dont take something that has a special place in many peoples hearts, then make arbitrary changes that go beyond modernization to the point of ignoring the original story and characters.
No, Netflixs She-Ra is not ruining my childhood; its not ruining anyones childhood. And the changes to Frosta, or Glimmer, or Bow, dont make it a bad show. But I think there is a certain amount of responsibility inherent in relaunching something that people associate with their childhoods, and Im not sure that the creative team behind this reboot was fully cognizant of that. Im all for inclusion, but if you want to include everyone, people who loved the original show are part of everyone; if you ignore that, you arent being very inclusive, are you?
On another topic, the attempt to give the characters different body types may have had some results that the creators didnt necessarily intend. Its not that theres anything wrong with varying the body types; after all, the only reason why all the characters on the show had the same bodies originally was because it was cheaper to animate that way. But considering the fact that She Ra herself is still a tall, slender white woman with flowing blond hair, it kind of comes off as a half-hearted gesture. Like yes, its okay for all the less important, darker-skinned women to have more realistic bodies, as long as the main character is still a blond supermodel. She-Ras apparent lack of breasts has sparked some debate, but to my mind, that just makes the supermodel comparison more apt.
In the 80s, She-Ra and her friends fit the 80s ideal of a supermodel: feminine face with obvious makeup, hourglass figure. Now She-Ra fits the more modern ideal of a supermodel: androgynous, flat chested, but still long-limbed and blond. And there wouldnt be anything wrong with that, if I didnt get the impression that one of the main goals of this show was that they wanted to move beyond the whole supermodel ideal. Whats more hurtful: a world depicted with minimal diversity, where everyone has identical bodies? Or a world where people can have different bodies, as long as the one really important person is still a tall blond? This could just be me, but I find the second paradigm more worrisome. At least in the first case, it was clear they werent trying to portray reality at all; in the second, they go halfway there, but stop in a really uncomfortable place.
For the record, IDWs Jem and the Holograms comic books went a similar route: diverse body types everywhere, except for Jem, who looked like a supermodel. The comic was self-aware about this though, and did some interesting things with it, but thats another post.
The Disappointing: The Animation
She-Ra: POP was made in the 80s on a shoe-string budget. The series was notorious for reusing stock animation, and generally being as cheap as humanly possible. What made it even more limited was the fact that Filmation was clearly reusing animation theyd already developed for He-Man, with only minor changes, so the animation was tired before She-Ra even started.
Compared to that, the Netflix/Dreamworks series is better, certainly. The animation is much more fluid, and theres a lot more variation in camera angles, all that good stuff. So its an improvement, but I wonder: is it enough of an improvement for a show thats been dormant for this long?
Really, its 30-plus years later. The Animation Renaissance happened in the years She-Ra was off the air. The technology has improved by leaps and bounds; there are tools available today that the artists at Filmation couldnt even have imagined. The animation in the new She-Ra shouldnt just be better than the original show, it should be leaps and bounds better; night-and-day better. The fact that its only middling better is just sad.
Yes, the animation succeeds in the sense that its adequate to tell the story, but many designs lack detail; characters heights are inconsistent (especially She-Ra herself), and the whole thing just lacks any sort of wow factor. The sequence where Adora transforms into She-Ra in the original show may have been reused 50 million times, but it was still pretty stunning when you first saw it. By now, transformation sequences are a dime a dozen, and She-Ras is nothing special.
One of the reasons people loved the original was because it was so beautiful. It was beautiful in a very 80s, prefab way, but beautiful nonetheless. Im pretty sure thats why I latched onto it as a child, instead of a dozen other cartoons I could have become obsessed with. The new show isnt beautiful, and the lack of beauty isnt because they dared to give the characters more diverse body types; its not beautiful because beauty doesnt appear to have ever been an important goal for the project. I dont understand why you would want to reboot She-Ra without trying to make it beautiful, but it feels like thats what happened.
Theres probably some larger point here about how, since ideas of beauty were once more limited, instead of acknowledging those limitations, people are now pointing the finger at beauty ITSELF as the problem but to be honest, I dont know if thats really fair. I dont know if whats going on is really that insidious, or if Im just really unimpressed with the animation, and Im making too big a deal out of it. Putting huge, psychological critiques aside, lets just agree that the animation could be a lot better looking than it is, okay?
Before I let go of this gargantuan post, here are a few more observations about the show that didnt really fit anywhere else:
Bow is another character who has very little to do with his original incarnation, but New Bow is so likable that its tempting to forgive it. Even so, if the writers thought a major character like Bow was so boring that he should be scrapped, how much did they like the original show in the first place?
The dialogue is cringe-worthy at times, which was true of the original; now its cringe-worthy in a different way. It used to sound stilted and unnatural, now they were obviously trying so hard to sound natural with the banter that it sometimes backfires and sounds really fake. Sometimes the dialogue is great though; it really comes down to which particular episode you happen to be watching. Every mention of the Best Friends Squad should have been stricken from the script though.
The lack of Kowl bugs me. I know they had about a zillion characters to introduce, and maybe Kowl was one too many, but his sarcastic comments are missed; its not the same coming from Glimmer.
Speaking of Glimmer, I couldnt decide if Karen Fukuhara was overacting, or if New Glimmer is just the kind of annoying person who would over-emphasize certain words all the time just to make a point; its probably the latter. The original Glimmer was pretty much an airhead, so I wish they would have done with her something more like what they did with Perfuma; made her a bit goofy, but with a will of steel. New Glimmer is probably the least likable character in the new show (and Im including Shadow Weaver here).
I do not care for this incarnation of Swift Wind, but I admit its for pretty silly reasons. I expect my winged unicorns to sound like old Jewish Grandpas, thank you very much: RIP Lou Scheimer. More seriously, the fact that Swift Wind sounded so much more mature than everyone else was what helped him stand out; now hes like everybody else, except a horse.
Lauren Ash of Superstore fame plays basically the She-Ra version of her Superstore character with Scorpia, and its pretty great. This show needs about 150% more Scorpia. Maybe Im being hypocritical here, since New Scorpia is nothing like her original incarnation, but its different when you reinvent characters who were barely even in it in the first place to make them something special, as opposed to a main character.
The writers had to walk a pretty difficult tightrope in regards to He-Man lore; they had to put enough references to He-Man in there that it will feel natural for He-Man to show up at some point (assuming the rights for MOTU ever emerge from legal hell and Netflix gets to make the He-Man reboot they surely want to make), but not SO many that the lore is dependent on him, because he may never be available. I think they did a good job of creating something that can stand as its own mythology, but could be expanded if necessary.
The show is doing something interesting with princesses. When Adora becomes She-Ra, everyone (including her) thinks that she has now become a princess, because apparently being a princess in this world means girl with powers and has nothing to do with lineage; at no point does anyone speculate that Adoras parents must have been royalty for her to be a princess. Its kind of like theyre setting aside the actual definition of princess in favor of the fantasy connotations the word has. Im interested to see where they go with this.
okay, thats it, Ive written enough about She-Ra. Probably. For now. I think.
Share this:TweetLike this: Loading...Ive been doing some thinking over the past few weeks. I havent been in the mood to blog anime; in fact, I have even been watching any, even the shows I really like, because the idea just doesnt seem appealing. This will passit always does, eventually. But in all this time spent not watching anime, Ive been trying to sort out how I want to spend my free time going forward.
I dont think Ill ever give up blogging entirely. Sometimes, I just get the urge to rant about a show or a game or whatever, and I need a place to do that. But I think Im done trying to turn Otakusphere into any sort of larger anime site. As much as I enjoy episodic blogging, I dont enjoy doing it all the time, and I have a lot of other interests that Ive been neglecting. I think it would be better if I just went back to blogging when I felt like it, and leave things like seasonal coverage to the other sites.
So episodic blogging on SAO, That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime and any other shows is done for the season. Maybe Ill do episodic blogging again at some point, if something really special comes along or if Food Wars! comes back, but I just cant devote the time to it right now. Thanks go out to all of you who read my episode posts (and commented!), it was great to be able to make watching anime a kind of communal experience with you guys. But Ive got to take care of myself, and my lifes ambition isnt to be an aniblogger; its just something I kind of stumbled into. I have no plans of stumbling back out, but Ive discovered that its probably not what I want to devote my entire life to either.
Thanks again, and I hope youll stick around for some sporadic (but maybe good?) otaku-centric posts.
Share this:TweetLike this: Loading...As you already know if you saw my status update, trying to attend a huge, huge convention didnt work out so hot for me. That said, theres still some stuff I did at the con that I wanted to write a little about before we get too far past it. Besides, whatever problems I was having, at least I had tons of cool cosplayers like the above gender-flipped Sailor Moon Boy Band to cheer me up.
Saturday, Nov. 17 was unofficial Manga and Light Novel Day at the con, since most print publishers had their panels that day. I was able to attend panels for Kodansha, Denpa Books and Vertical, Inc.; I wanted to attend the Viz Media panel, but that was full to capacity before I even got there. Curses! Its like Viz has mega-popular franchises in their catalogue or something. Yen Press also had their panel that day, but unfortunately, I was getting sleepy and dragged my sick ass back to the hotel instead of staying for it. Unfortunately, I couldnt attend nearly as much as I wanted, but on the plus side, I found the panels I did attend to be quite interesting.
Manga Library
They had twice as much manga as this, but I didnt take a pic of the whole room because I didnt want to get photos of people reading their manga. Privacy, yo.
Not a panel, but I wanted to at least duck my head into the Manga Library while I was there. For a while, I didnt really get the point of manga libraries at conventions, to be honest. Its like, I just moved heaven and Earth to get to this convention, at great expense; why dont I just squander this opportunity by ignoring all the con programming and reading Fruits Basket in a corner for four hours?
What I didnt realize then, but has become increasingly obvious to me now, is that its really nice to have a quiet place at a major con where you can just relax, without being surrounded by thousands of other people. I dont think the main purpose of manga libraries is to cater to people with anxiety, but if you do happen to have anxiety, being able to tuck yourself away somewhere nice and quiet with a favorite manga for distraction can be extraordinarily helpful. I know some cons have instituted quiet rooms or what have you for this reason, but I like the manga library better specifically because it serves multiple purposes. Even people who really like the hustle and bustle of a big con can benefit from spending a quiet hour or two in the manga library, and then people with anxiety arent effectively segregated from everyone else.
The manga library at Anime NYC was provided by the Carolina Manga Library. Carolina doesnt just do conventions, but also schools and libraries, so check them out if you want to set up a manga book fair in your neighborhood because why wouldnt you?
Kodansha
The Kodansha/Vertical, Inc. panel was a long list of manga and light novel announcements, which are by now old news, so I wont detail all of them here. They did spend some time talking about the new Sailor Moon Eternal Edition, which kind of annoys me; I just bought the complete English-language Sailor Moon manga that Kodansha put out a couple of years ago, and now theyve got this whole new version with interior color pages and all that great stuff. Similarly, theyre releasing a hardcover Collectors Edition of Card Captor Sakura in spring 2019, right after I just bought the omnibus editions of that series not long ago.
This is like when you rush out to buy a great JPRG, only to have it come out later for PSP or Vita with better graphics and added dungeons and all kinds of new stuff, and Im getting tired of it. I guess I am happy for fans who get to buy these better-than-ever editions, but Im not buying either magical girl series again; do I look made of money to you? Anyway, my personal regrets and bitterness aside, its a good time to be a magical girl manga fan (who isnt me).
They also talked about a title called Gleipnir, which is supposedly like Pokemon meets Prison School,; Kodansha editor Ben Applegate confessed to being deeply ashamed of how much he enjoys this manga, so if nothing else Ive got to find out whats going on there. Gleipnir comes out March 5, 2019.
Denpa Books
I didnt even know Denpa Books existed until Anime NYC. They just started up this year, and considering that I havent exactly been watching the manga industry like a hawk, its not surprising that theyve been kind of under my radar. But I was really impressed by what they had to show at the convention. Their publishing schedule for the next six months or so is full of unusual, quirky manga that you might not expect to see published statesideand the manga version of the especially fluffy Fate/Stay Night spinoff, Todays Menu For The Emiya Family.
Huh. I guess even artistic, boutique publishers need to milk the Fate cash cow every now and then to keep the money flowing (and who am I to judge?) To be fair, Denpa Founder Ed Chavez straight-up admitted at the panel that some of the titles that his company would be licensing would be done for financial reasons, despite the companys general preference for more obscure titles with high artistic merit, so theres no obfuscation about this.
Anyway, whats particularly impressive about Denpa is that theyre a standalone company; they arent a subsidiary of Hachette, or Penguin, or any other large publisher, which is what you would usually expect. Out of their upcoming releases, personally Im most interested in Maiden Railways. The fact that someone made a josei manga, focused on love stories, but said manga is also all about trains, sounds like something I would make up as a joke for the podcast, but no, apparently it really exists. Im fascinated by the prospect of examining fanatical railroad obsession through a uniquely feminine lens, and if youre notwell, lets just say I question whether or not you know how to party.
In any case, I want to read pretty much everything Denpa has in the pipeline, so dont be surprised if you see reviews of some of their manga pop up here in the future.
Vertical, Inc
Most of Verticals panel was dedicated to the forthcoming release of the Katanagatari light novels and uhIm not a fan of that series. I watched the first episode of the anime when it came out years ago and was hella bored, so Im not that interested in going back to read the source material. Translator Sam Bett of BestBettJapanese had a lot of interesting things to say about the translation process though, so it was still interesting on that level.
Just to give you an example, Bett replaced the term deviant blades in Katanagatari with mutant blades, because in his opinion, the term deviant brought up moral, Christian associations that werent appropriate to the setting. I liked this anecdote because it goes to show just how complex the process of translation really is; youre not only dealing with the literal meanings of words, but also their connotations, and where those connotations came from.
He also noted that he decided to use a lot of footnotes in a Jokey, kind of postmodern way, which almost makes me want to buy Katanagatari despite my general lack of interest in the series; Im a sucker for footnotes. Perhaps I will review it just so I can talk about the footnotesstranger things have happened.
Thats all for my Anime NYC experience; it may not have been a good time for me, but I still feel comfortable saying it was a good convention in general. It has pretty much everything you could want at an anime con, and then some.
Share this:TweetLike this: Loading...Hey guys. I know I kind of disappeared during Anime NYC, so I thought Id take a few minutes just to let you know whats up.
I knew the con was going to be difficult for me, since I havent been to such a big convention in quite a few years, and I struggle with crowds (among other things). Not only did I underestimate just how difficult it was going to be, but I also caught a cold, which made everything worse. I ended up leaving early, and havent really felt up to posting since then.
Im disappointed I couldnt do more at the con, but in some respects this isnt such a terrible thing. Ive always been torn in several directions terms of what I should try to cover on Otakusphere, and I think its safe to say I have now ruled out large cons as something I do. I may return to some of my smaller, comfortably-sized local cons, but in general Im going to avoid con coverage; its just not my thing anymore.
Needless to say, getting sick +other problems knocked me off schedule with episodic blogging/podcasting etc., which Id like to get back to ASAP. Id still like to post my photos from the con, but for the most part Im going to be focused on catching up on That Time I Was Reincarnated As A Slime and Sword Art Online. I will also catch up on My Sister My Writer, not because Im covering it in any capacity, but because I hate myself and I deserve to suffer.
Thanks for your patience
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