So, there’s recently been a few posts popping up. They are disconnected, created spontaneously, but all link together.

1. Choux talks about Aoi Nishimata’s deplorable art techniques. Subsequently, John I calls Choux “jealous”: “Since Choux is an artist herself, I see this post as little more than a statement of jealousy.”

2. Sdshamshel talks about knee-jerk arguments and reducing opposing arguers to rigid stereotypes. Later on the discussion shifts to identity: “I think the fundamental purpose behind discourse on the internet (or at least the majority of it) is that its intrinsically tied to identity. When we write about anime, anime as a subject is merely a way for us to practice identity. Yet if we step away from anime as the vehicle for identity, discourse itself as a meta level becomes the conduit for identity. Then meta-trolling becomes more effective; i.e. “well, the fact that anime-X is crap is irrelevant is because, now, your blogging style sucks!” This is theory is supported through various anitations/ani-nouto related drama.” [and that whole otaku elimination thing]

3. Eternal ponders the eternal question of whether or not internet debate is at all meaningful.

I think we have discussed this in detail some time ago. I’m too lazy to dig up the old posts, but it goes something like this: people need identity. Due to the GIFT (greater internet fuckwad theory, excellent acronym btw!), identity on the internet is practiced and realized through content, that is, what you talk about and what you orient yourself around constitutes your identity. Thus when someone insults your favorite anime, by extension, they are insulting your identity. It’s essentially the “my favorite anime is better than your favorite anime” thing. So you can probably see the implicit logic behind John’s thinking.

But that’s only one way to theorize the argument. The other is related to the whole MOE IS CANCER meme…which is kind of sad because I think it’s the more important of the two. The way I see things, there is one side of the debate which takes it upon themselves to chastize the other because the artforms this chastized group supports are ultimately “harmful” to the overall medium. It’s like (well, it is, really) colony drop flaming people because we enjoy moe, and if moe is harmful to anime as a whole, we are partly to blame for the degeneration of anime. But what does “harmful” mean? That’s the important part. Moe is harmful because it saturates the market, eliminating room for competition. This competition is essentially different anime, difference, variety. When the anime industry floods the airwaves and market with moe, a cultural monopoly is established such that a show with a modicum of intelligence is seen as a bad investment, obviously because it won’t make any good returns in this particular culture of consumption. The value in the moe is cancer argument is that such vitriolic attacks could potentially change the market base and open up room for more creative (ie risky) investment in different anime, giving us new articulations of shows like Legend of the Galactic Heroes or…something. The disillusionment in this argument derives from the thought that flaming random internet people is enough to actually change market practices. [The sad part about my own thesis here is that I have no empirical data to back any of this up, which I add would be next to impossible to collect.]

The similarities between Choux bashing Nishimata and CD bashing weeaboos is that they both have a sense of what a medium should be and, importantly, how to tell if a medium is “healthy” or not. Choux attacks the propagator of the medium, the artist, while CD attacks the indirect propagator’s of the medium, the discourse which merely represents the medium (because there’s no explicit, causal link between saying “ZOMG I LOVE K-ON” and then actually buying a lefty Mio bass). Obviously, Choux’s “critique” of Nishimata is more well-received because no random internet citizen is flamed (I doubt you’d find anyone calling a CD flame a “critique”). So, srs bsns internet is useful insofar as it can change something real? Perhaps.

The flipside to the moe is cancer argument is that anti-moe is just elitism and that there’s nothing wrong with moe.

Correct me if I’m wrong. I’m not trying to preach expertise.

A few times in the past I complained that FMA promulgates itself as science when it’s nothing but irrational magic. Subsequently, Ghost asks an good question:

Haven’t seen FMA, but isn’t Alchemy a pseudoscience to begin with? And if so, the premise isn’t an aspiration to science any more than alchemy itself is. So a grounded portrayal of alchemy should look like an aspirations to science.

In response…

This would be true if FMA stayed true to the historical meaning of alchemy and didn’t merely flaunt the connotation of the word. There’s a kind of an anachronistic cognitive dissonance at play here: in the FMA universe, “alchemy” constitutes science. In effect, there is no “alchemy.” In semiotic terms, alchemy becomes a floating signifier, that is, it is an empty word that can absorb the meaning of another. Science is that other word. There are probably a lot of shows out there which require the viewer to subconsciously [or not] play this semiotic game, especially when there’s a lot of anachronisms in play.

Take, for instance Naruto, or for that matter, any martial arts show. Martial arts symbolizes a split from gun and steel technological warfare for fighting based on one’s own willpower and inner strength…perfect symbols for shows like Naruto and Bleach (never give up, dattebayo!). Of course, these themes can be blended to an extent, Nanoha is a perfect example – they even explicitly go over why magic power (which is just another way of portraying chakra, reiatsu, super saiyan POWAHH, or spiral energy) was favored over conventional weaponry in one episode. The problem with a show like Naruto is what happens when the symbolism of the main themes (fighting) subsume the entire setting of the show. Invariably, Naruto seems to take place in an ancient setting, with no modern technology, no sky scrapers, it’s a kind of fantastic kingdom relegated to our imagination about the past. So when they go about showing computers, you kind of think “…that seems awkwardly placed.” Inserting symbols from one era into another creates dissonance since Naruto’s setting is symbolically defined and limited by time (computer age carrier pigeons don’t blend well either).

This same concept applies for FMA, albeit in a more abstract sense. If it were to be called “Full Metal Quantum Physicist,” they could go crazy with forward-looking sci-fi themes. But instead, we have another backward-looking setting defined by alchemy that is visually manifested by the setting, i.e. not a 2002 setting but replete with little villages, huge churches and cult leaders, a veritable lack of information technology, etc. When Ed traveled to “our” world, he didn’t travel to the viewer’s information-age world, but, again, to an imaginative, late-industrial-era past. IIRC, it was very grey, with steam locomotives, the beginning of rocketry, and big ass trench coats. The fact that Ed has prosthetics which perfectly integrate with his nervous system seems like technology we won’t see for many years, but we’re supposed to “forget” about the present and subsume ourselves in a constructed, imaginary past. It’s like what Marx talks about with the commodity fetish, the commodity is a product transformed through many processes, yet the consumer never realizes this and never really thinks about it. For symbolic elements, we’re not supposed to question the accuracy of the placement of such symbols, yet regardless, futuristic prosthetics do seem to work quite well in the past…

So, no; alchemy in FMA is merely an imposter or doppelganger of science. The entire story is centered around what is and what is not “physically possible.” The show uses the term “equivalent exchange” which is really just a fantastic version of conservation of mass/energy. These explicit physical rules are implicitly bent due to power inflation (i.e. absolute power levels are continuously increased in order to keep the narrative going, and consequently the resulting image keeps getting stupider and stupider – SS3, for instance). Yet the constant bending of these absolute rules (they can never find out how the gate works) is precisely what makes the narrative interesting. In the context of science, the things which appear to be most unscientific will be the most interesting (‘cmon, I know you’ve read about the alcubierre drive on wikipedia due to sheer fascination). Rules are set up to be silently “broken,” yet the viewer isn’t supposed to realize that the show’s internal rules are meant to be broken. This brokenness is what I really didn’t like about the show, since IMO it treats the viewer like an idiot.

They could have done away with the whole science thing and I would have liked it more. The whole gate thing was pretty cool from what I remember.

Should’ve taken advice from the implicit target audience. Kinda like Onani Master Lite, but for girls? I started this for obviously superficial reasons, it was dropped for some too:

-Kazehaya is barfastic; as its general practice these days to self-insert yourself into every male lead character (there’s a general aniculture psyche of self-insertion probably), when the blank insert character doesn’t play the role he’s supposed – since it’s a shoujou – to things get confusing. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed the interaction between Sawako and the two tea-hairs more than that of Sawako and Kazehaya. That way, as a male viewer, there was no self-insert present and I could look from a far-off 3rd party observer.

-Hirano is barftastic; yeah, I just can’t stand that voice.

-Ryuu is, again, not a self-insert. Maybe you could smell the Kazehaya/Sawako/Ryuu love triangle a mile away (I dunno, will there be one?) but that’s all he’s there for, he’s a minor plot device. Seriously, who acts like that in real life?

-Yeah, the most realistic characters where Chizu and her friend. I guess.

Nothing special here…moving alone.

I had heard good things about this show, considering that IKnight had it in his top 5 at one point – that was a selling point for me. However, I couldn’t get into the show, even 16 or so episodes in I was sorta struggling to finish each episode. I wasn’t considering dropping it, I had hope it would get better.

This calls for a new Mizuki-Nana-adopted-child-Freudian-mess-syndrome-meme (cough*Fate*cough).

One thing that I really didn’t like about this show was its pace. It was wayyyyyy to slow for me. The entire show consisted of the search-for-missing-treasure plot archetype. Mytho’s heart shards were missing until the very last episode (although I did enjoy the catch 22 of Ahiru’s pendant being the last piece). Usually the search-for-treasure plot archetype will only take up a certain amount of space and focus in the show. Fushigi Yuugi’s 1st season was very similar in that the Search portion was very episodic in content but consistently developed characters throughout the episodic segment; Tutu was similar in that each search for a heart shard had its own one-time characters involved. I’m generally not a fan of this flavor.

Nanoha 1st season takes the plot archetype a different route. While the search for jewel seeds takes up nearly the whole season, it’s not episodic, as the Search part is merely a vehicle for relationship and character development for Nanoha and Fate. Tutu differs in that the Search seems like the primary focus of the show and the character development is only secondary. Given, however, that ‘development’ for Mytho is part and parcel with searching for heart shards, it still feels seconary (I never liked Mytho anyway, except at the very end “in the name of prince Siegfried….RUEEEEEEEEEEE! [gar]).

I had issues with the music. At some points the sound direction is done wonderfully, like in the last episode, where the most gar parts come in during the cathartic sections of Waltz of the Flowers. Yet at other times, one well-known piece will come in right after another and it’s awfully awkward. At one point Chopin’s Nocturne no.9 op.2 comes in right after Wagner’s Siegfried Funeral March.

Yeah, Ahiru was cute as hell. Neko-sensei was funny too.

The whole story in a story thing originated from (IIRC) Fushigi Yuugi. I think omo said that this was the first meta-story anime, or maybe it was jp? I think reviewers on this site have overstated the awesomeness of the metaness. A story within a story is cool, but I didn’t feel that the integration between the search for Mytho’s heart shards aspect was so smooth into the whole Fakir write a story part. Probably ’cause I was skimming through episodes 18-23 or so.

I would have originally given the show a 6/10, but then it got better and I really liked the ending. So 7/10.

gonna try this again.