I’m not versed in gender studies, nor, as JPmeyer noted, Adrienne Rich’s concept of the lesbian continuum (not past what that article details).

Lolikit was perhaps right to point out that Aria isn’t yuri, but the important thing to observe is the title – How Aria Ruined Subtext – which brings under the spotlight the issue of authorial intent that’s always plaguing me.

Section 1: The objectivity of subjectivity – the subjectivity of objectivity

The word “subtext” is significant because that brings to the fore the way we analyze, how we read, why we read, and, consequently, how we judge. There does seem to prevail that trend of emotion riddled into the nooks and crannies of “objective” “review”. Both words merit separate quotation marks since besides them being two separate words, the phrase (is that a noun phrase?) “objective review” doesn’t divorce the two words and their meanings, thus we are forced to comprehend the review as inherently objective – we question, due to the ambiguity of the quotation marks, only whether or not the thing in question is tainted with subjectivity.

But therein lies the problem – objectivity is subjective, the only objectivity, ever, is subjectivity. Here is also the significance of subjectivity, of emotions, of slightly unmerited thoughts, be it fanpersonism or otherwise; of righteous beliefs. Objectivity relative, thus it is subjective because everything is subject to interpretation, to coding and decoding, to variation in meaning, to the rigors of communication. I don’t think there can ever truly be a monolithic Objectivity. One interesting case is translation. The Japanese hai can be taken as the English yes, but we’re not translating the word, we’re translating the universally understood notion for affirmation. Given, affirmation in itself is an English-constructed meaning (something the Japanese can never insert into their cognitive, cultural systems), we Westerners can perhaps never understand the meaning of hai unless we go live in Japan and start speaking the language. What we do in translation is not move the word itself complete with its cultural baggage (and that is a lot), but the pragmatic usage of the word in relation to a corresponding usage in our culture that is verbalized, concretized and semiotized through a symbol – a word. Herein lies my support for “weeaboos”, but that’s a topic for another day.

Saying that subjectivity is objective may be an incorrigibly bad case of sophistry, regardless of where our arguments take us, but I think (or it’s of my opinion [irony]) that because some meaning is inherently subjective and open to interpretation, we can only think of that ambiguity as the be all end all of the decisive stamp of objectivity – of uncertainty. Being uncertain is the only definitive case of a sense of certainty we have (I’m perhaps avoiding the question “what is certainty?”). Can we be certain of our certainty? Certainty is open to interpretation, but if we say “I’m uncertain”, then, regardless of our being either certain or uncertain about this uncertainty, these two notions will always be objective: you can’t have a “second-order” uncertainty because that’s repetitive and useless. “I’m uncertain” is the same thing as saying “I’m not sure of my uncertainty” because they both imply that sense of probability – “I’m not sure” doesn’t add on at all to the argument of “my uncertainty”.

Section 2: Presentation versus investigation

When we analyze anime, what do we look for? We see what the anime presents, perhaps represents, although we also dig deeper for the subtle connotations brought up by these presentations. Two examples, if not the best ones in my book, are Kashimashi and Asatte no Houkou. I have a tendency to refer to these two anime because I was reading them, not watching them, thus the cause of my massive disappointment. Both had extremely high potential to investigate – directly, through presentation – the issues of gender and age, respectively, yet “failed” (or perhaps directed the presentation in a different, fan pandering, way) to do so and thus focused on love triangles and related issues.

When we judge, does that passing merit an item of critique as bad or good? The thing here in question is “presentation”. Kashimashi presents to the viewer issues of gender, yet does not investigate them directly – gender is not the focus of the story (love would be the primary aspect). Is gender then a subtext? The same can be said for Asatte no Houkou: age was touched upon only subtly, albeit through the entire series, but, again, love and relationships were the primary concern and driving force of the story. Presentation versus investigation would be the debate here. These two anime throw out these huge issues without investigating them, but the story isn’t contingent upon these themes as, say, Eureka 7 was contingent upon wildly presented like Evangelion-ridden Trees of Life and Limits of Life. [They were essential to its conclusion, not its style, atmosphere, feeling, "swing", etc.]

In one way, this can be boiled down to ludicrous premise versus “I just wanted to have fun!” Thus I think it was the intent of the author to use these gigantic issues of gender and age and more a basis for a generic story. They sometimes served as comic relief (which was pretty funny, I’ll admit) or fanservice, but trying to judge the author on what they intended to do versus what they wanted to avoid sounds pretty unfair, stupid even.

Section 3: “It can’t be anything else” [in argument to section 2]

Lolikit said that Aria wasn’t yuri, but then I read this article (and mentally referred back to this one) and then slightly changed my thoughts. Aria doesn’t present relationships as homosexual. Moe, cute, pandering, perhaps, but not in the vagrant vein of the lipstick lesbian or related depictions. But, in accordance with the Lesbian Continuum, Aria can’t be anything but constitutive of sexuality. This is tricky because sexuality is a culturally relative thing, it’s historical visage differs from America, from the West (although, perhaps, that’s changing and has changed). In essence, Aria is inherently sexual because depicting women – insofar as the concept of “women” has a quasi-universal (and this isn’t 100% true) status (a metonymic connotation) of being submissive, etc. – can’t be anything but the historical precedents its ancestors have established: it cannot escape its discourse, it cannot escape its parental psychology of influence.

“The concept of ‘women’”, however, is riddled with holes, as I pointed out in the first section, that concepts can be cultural, and that cultures are not universal. “Women” is a construct of the West. However the Japanese equivalent of “women” aligns itself with our familiar idiosyncrasies is what will substantiate this rambling, and that I don’t know, nor can ever know. However, simply assigning Aria a monolithic cultural value of “Japanese” does not do justice to the global influences that have shaped its being.[1]

That said, Japan is an intriguing case East/West identity crisis. We cannot by any means disregard the interconnectivity inherent within issues revolving around femininity since the colonial era. To say that Aria isn’t sexual is indicative of the focus on the presentation of the anime, not the historical framework of any cultural medium, artwork, or thought, as human productions of knowledge cannot be without a discourse, cannot be outside an ideology, cannot be without a greater meaning. That is the difference between subtext and metatext – the difference between what something has regardless of presentation or investigation and what something indirectly hints at (much to the chagrin of the analyst).

Likewise, deeming Aria as yuri does it a grave injustice because we have yet to take into consideration the transnational transformation of the cultural concept of “yuri”. Likewise, much confusion has taken place in our Western otakusphere of that very kinetic word – the otaku (this being a prime example of the problem with cultural translation of meaning). There will be, with reasonable doubt, difference in a Japanese’s understanding of yuri in contrast to a Westerner’s interpretation and understanding of the word.

These two issues, the international context on which Aria is constructed, and the reconstitution of the meaning of symbols/words via transnational mediums, must inevitably come across the question “what is it, then?” That is not something easily answered. Global cultural products are mazes and mirror houses in themselves, built upon endless “pings” and “pongs” of the influence of cultural artifacts. Japan may be Japan, but it is not without the large influence of the West – thus, how Western is Japan? Is there such a quantitative degree we can come to through historical research (not that I’d ever want to attempt such a thing)?

Section 4: The plight of the analyst, for we must analyze: take it as you may

What justice does analysis do in the first place? What justice do analytical tangents do? In trying to decipher whether or not Aria is yuri, be it overanalysis or not, are we, ethically, performing a disservice to the authors of the manga and anime? Are we supposed to be good little boys and consume our media with no complains? That may be a harsh analogy, since anyone would plead a resound “no” to hegemonic advertising: but, then, does not analyzing do an injustice to pertinent issues like sexuality and gender (pertinent for those who care)?

I come across the ethical question of dissection as a recent pinnacle in the means of analysis. If I am not to analyze anything, to abide by the wishes of the author and blindly agree with them, should I sit quietly and not say anything at all? Am I then doing a disservice to knowledge – to the human advancement of knowing things purely for fun? Does knowing things for fun even take into consideration the “pros and cons” of knowledge? Are we to be apathetic in our studies? For a bit of self-satire, are we to overthink our overthinking? Even the trump card response: “who cares if Aria is anything, what matters is how things influence us” has neglected how the content of the issue is paramount to our influencing. Missing the stake at hand is just as hegemonic as mass-consumption of propaganda.

I have come to the conclusion that I have no idea how to react these questions – and not reacting simply continues the ravaging cycle of ethical questioning, yet firm, if not blind resolution must be taken with caution. I’m at a loss.

Afterward

This was a rather discordant essay comprised of slightly unrelated thoughts (mostly the first section) divided by sections; the first section was in response to this post, while I had been drafting the second part for quite some time in response to the Lolikit on Friedman post. If you’ve read to the bottom of this wall of text, I thank you – it was fun writing it. Also, I guess I apologize for the ensuing tsunami of trackbacks.

I’m not versed in gender studies, nor, as JPmeyer noted, Adrienne Rich’s concept of the lesbian continuum (not past what that article details).

Lolikit was perhaps right to point out that Aria isn’t yuri, but the important thing to observe is the title – How Aria Ruined Subtext – which brings under the spotlight the issue of authorial intent that’s always plaguing me.

Section 1: The objectivity of subjectivity – the subjectivity of objectivity

The word “subtext” is significant because that brings to the fore the way we analyze, how we read, why we read, and, consequently, how we judge. There does seem to prevail that trend of emotion riddled into the nooks and crannies of “objective” “review”. Both words merit separate quotation marks since besides them being two separate words, the phrase (is that a noun phrase?) “objective review” doesn’t divorce the two words and their meanings, thus we are forced to comprehend the review as inherently objective – we question, due to the ambiguity of the quotation marks, only whether or not the thing in question is tainted with subjectivity.

But therein lies the problem – objectivity is subjective, the only objectivity, ever, is subjectivity. Here is also the significance of subjectivity, of emotions, of slightly unmerited thoughts, be it fanpersonism or otherwise; of righteous beliefs. Objectivity relative, thus it is subjective because everything is subject to interpretation, to coding and decoding, to variation in meaning, to the rigors of communication. I don’t think there can ever truly be a monolithic Objectivity. One interesting case is translation. The Japanese hai can be taken as the English yes, but we’re not translating the word, we’re translating the universally understood notion for affirmation. Given, affirmation in itself is an English-constructed meaning (something the Japanese can never insert into their cognitive, cultural systems), we Westerners can perhaps never understand the meaning of hai unless we go live in Japan and start speaking the language. What we do in translation is not move the word itself complete with its cultural baggage (and that is a lot), but the pragmatic usage of the word in relation to a corresponding usage in our culture that is verbalized, concretized and semiotized through a symbol – a word. Herein lies my support for “weeaboos”, but that’s a topic for another day.

Saying that subjectivity is objective may be an incorrigibly bad case of sophistry, regardless of where our arguments take us, but I think (or it’s of my opinion [irony]) that because some meaning is inherently subjective and open to interpretation, we can only think of that ambiguity as the be all end all of the decisive stamp of objectivity – of uncertainty. Being uncertain is the only definitive case of a sense of certainty we have (I’m perhaps avoiding the question “what is certainty?”). Can we be certain of our certainty? Certainty is open to interpretation, but if we say “I’m uncertain”, then, regardless of our being either certain or uncertain about this uncertainty, these two notions will always be objective: you can’t have a “second-order” uncertainty because that’s repetitive and useless. “I’m uncertain” is the same thing as saying “I’m not sure of my uncertainty” because they both imply that sense of probability – “I’m not sure” doesn’t add on at all to the argument of “my uncertainty”.

Section 2: Presentation versus investigation

When we analyze anime, what do we look for? We see what the anime presents, perhaps represents, although we also dig deeper for the subtle connotations brought up by these presentations. Two examples, if not the best ones in my book, are Kashimashi and Asatte no Houkou. I have a tendency to refer to these two anime because I was reading them, not watching them, thus the cause of my massive disappointment. Both had extremely high potential to investigate – directly, through presentation – the issues of gender and age, respectively, yet “failed” (or perhaps directed the presentation in a different, fan pandering, way) to do so and thus focused on love triangles and related issues.

When we judge, does that passing merit an item of critique as bad or good? The thing here in question is “presentation”. Kashimashi presents to the viewer issues of gender, yet does not investigate them directly – gender is not the focus of the story (love would be the primary aspect). Is gender then a subtext? The same can be said for Asatte no Houkou: age was touched upon only subtly, albeit through the entire series, but, again, love and relationships were the primary concern and driving force of the story. Presentation versus investigation would be the debate here. These two anime throw out these huge issues without investigating them, but the story isn’t contingent upon these themes as, say, Eureka 7 was contingent upon wildly presented like Evangelion-ridden Trees of Life and Limits of Life. [They were essential to its conclusion, not its style, atmosphere, feeling, "swing", etc.]

In one way, this can be boiled down to ludicrous premise versus “I just wanted to have fun!” Thus I think it was the intent of the author to use these gigantic issues of gender and age and more a basis for a generic story. They sometimes served as comic relief (which was pretty funny, I’ll admit) or fanservice, but trying to judge the author on what they intended to do versus what they wanted to avoid sounds pretty unfair, stupid even.

Section 3: “It can’t be anything else” [in argument to section 2]

Lolikit said that Aria wasn’t yuri, but then I read this article (and mentally referred back to this one) and then slightly changed my thoughts. Aria doesn’t present relationships as homosexual. Moe, cute, pandering, perhaps, but not in the vagrant vein of the lipstick lesbian or related depictions. But, in accordance with the Lesbian Continuum, Aria can’t be anything but constitutive of sexuality. This is tricky because sexuality is a culturally relative thing, it’s historical visage differs from America, from the West (although, perhaps, that’s changing and has changed). In essence, Aria is inherently sexual because depicting women – insofar as the concept of “women” has a quasi-universal (and this isn’t 100% true) status (a metonymic connotation) of being submissive, etc. – can’t be anything but the historical precedents its ancestors have established: it cannot escape its discourse, it cannot escape its parental psychology of influence.

“The concept of ‘women’”, however, is riddled with holes, as I pointed out in the first section, that concepts can be cultural, and that cultures are not universal. “Women” is a construct of the West. However the Japanese equivalent of “women” aligns itself with our familiar idiosyncrasies is what will substantiate this rambling, and that I don’t know, nor can ever know. However, simply assigning Aria a monolithic cultural value of “Japanese” does not do justice to the global influences that have shaped its being.

That said, Japan is an intriguing case East/West identity crisis. We cannot by any means disregard the interconnectivity inherent within issues revolving around femininity since the colonial era. To say that Aria isn’t sexual is indicative of the focus on the presentation of the anime, not the historical framework of any cultural medium, artwork, or thought, as human productions of knowledge cannot be without a discourse, cannot be outside an ideology, cannot be without a greater meaning. That is the difference between subtext and metatext – the difference between what something has regardless of presentation or investigation and what something indirectly hints at (much to the chagrin of the analyst).

Likewise, deeming Aria as yuri does it a grave injustice because we have yet to take into consideration the transnational transformation of the cultural concept of “yuri”. Likewise, much confusion has taken place in our Western otakusphere of that very kinetic word – the otaku (this being a prime example of the problem with cultural translation of meaning). There will be, with reasonable doubt, difference in a Japanese’s understanding of yuri in contrast to a Westerner’s interpretation and understanding of the word.

These two issues, the international context on which Aria is constructed, and the reconstitution of the meaning of symbols/words via transnational mediums, must inevitably come across the question “what is it, then?” That is not something easily answered. Global cultural products are mazes and mirror houses in themselves, built upon endless “pings” and “pongs” of the influence of cultural artifacts. Japan may be Japan, but it is not without the large influence of the West – thus, how Western is Japan? Is there such a quantitative degree we can come to through historical research (not that I’d ever want to attempt such a thing)?

Section 4: The plight of the analyst, for we must analyze: take it as you may

What justice does analysis do in the first place? What justice do analytical tangents do? In trying to decipher whether or not Aria is yuri, be it overanalysis or not, are we, ethically, performing a disservice to the authors of the manga and anime? Are we supposed to be good little boys and consume our media with no complains? That may be a harsh analogy, since anyone would plead a resound “no” to hegemonic advertising: but, then, does not analyzing do an injustice to pertinent issues like sexuality and gender (pertinent for those who care)?

I come across the ethical question of dissection as a recent pinnacle in the means of analysis. If I am not to analyze anything, to abide by the wishes of the author and blindly agree with them, should I sit quietly and not say anything at all? Am I then doing a disservice to knowledge – to the human advancement of knowing things purely for fun? Does knowing things for fun even take into consideration the “pros and cons” of knowledge? Are we to be apathetic in our studies? For a bit of self-satire, are we to overthink our overthinking? Even the trump card response: “who cares if Aria is anything, what matters is how things influence us” has neglected how the content of the issue is paramount to our influencing. Missing the stake at hand is just as hegemonic as mass-consumption of propaganda.

I have come to the conclusion that I have no idea how to react these questions – and not reacting simply continues the ravaging cycle of ethical questioning, yet firm, if not blind resolution must be taken with caution. I’m at a loss.

Afterward

This was a rather discordant essay comprised of slightly unrelated thoughts (mostly the first section) divided by sections; the first section was in response to this post, while I had been drafting the second part for quite some time in response to the Lolikit on Friedman post. If you’ve read to the bottom of this wall of text, I thank you – it was fun writing it. Also, I guess I apologize for the ensuing tsunami of trackbacks.

…with bells of holly?

At around 16:15 (episode 3 of Haibane Renmei) the background song sounds awfully familiar.

Coincidental? No – the damn jingle bells in the background give it away. Jingle bells – I don’t think the reference could be any more blatant (to this Christmas atmosphere, not the actual song). Perhaps Christmas itself isn’t what is trying to be connoted, but I suspect dearly that there is a deeper meaning behind the “subtle” quasi-insertion of this song.

This four bar phrase is also the first section of a three-part BGM track, the last part being this:

And so this bit sounds a lot like (or is probably directly based off – a variation thereof – of Ailes Grises, one of the pieces in the Haibane Renmei soundtrack. Actually, I have yet to hear the actual piece being played in an episode, so I guess it’s perhaps a certain situational theme.

The bit of sheet music starts at around 1:07.

Anyway, going back to the Christmas carol, look at the lyrics (from Wiki):

Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
‘Tis the season to be jolly,
…
Don we now our gay apparel,
…
Troll the ancient Yule tide carol,
…
See the blazing Yule before us,
..
Strike the harp and join the chorus.
…
Follow me in merry measure,
…
While I tell of Yule tide treasure,
…
Fast away the old year passes,
…

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses,
…
Sing we joyous, all together,
…
Heedless of the wind and weather,
…

While trying to stay clear of the theology inscribed in Haibane Renmei’s subtext, I’m sure these rather obscured Christmas references and metaphors can say something about underlying (or overarching?) themes like…uh, the birth of Jesu something or other.

Caitlin revved up the engine again (sorta) by protruding into the idea of team blogs and such.

The main difference between team blogs and single author blogs is, well, exactly that – the number of authors present in one blog. The keyword here is “present” or “presence”. In summation, team blogs act more as a space than an embodiment, an embodiment being an encapsulating representation of the single author blog. This isn’t to say that the multi-authorial nature of team blogs is a one-shot, no exceptions thing. There are finicky nuances, regions of plasticity where these hypotheses don’t apply; where representation is weighed down by one particular author or another, gravitated in densities by larger masses. Heterochromia is probably the best example of this, as even Randal, on the dasaku main site says that it’s “Sasa’s opus.” Does that entail it’s hers and only hers? No, as there are obviously other authors there, yet even I had some overbearing impression of her dominance there, be it biased by Randal and my own thoughts or otherwise.

Compare chrome.dasaku to Yukan. Yukan has the most authors I’ve ever seen (eleven or something) and so it’s not like there’s a single patriarch or matriarch watching guard over its beloved child (I wouldn’t exactly equate blissmo to Aunt Jemima[1]) Likewise, most, if not all Yukan authors have their own personal blogs which are referenced quite often, all contributing to the sense of Yukan as more a collective pool, the downtown carpool, if you will, as opposed to a centralized base of operations like Heterochromia seems to be (at least to me, and actually, that’s not a high percentage of Yukan authors with personal blogs…).

In my eyes Impz and Crusader seem to be THAT’s most prominent writers, either by intertextual referencing or quantity (quality, too) of updates alone. That doesn’t mean that THAT is Impz or Crusader. THAT is THAT: THAT is not subject to the gravitational representation of one or two authors. Yet that brings up how the representation of THAT may be, to an extent, constitutive of a core (to keep up with our ‘spaces’ terminology) group of authors, Impz and Crusader being part of that core, as Itsubun was at one point a writer for THAT (albeit being a “short lived” one). I think it just boils down to reputation (which is habitually furled around representation) which is a product of history.

Then what is the movement of representation like? Is THAT constitutive of Impz or Crusader, or is it the other way around? – are Impz and Crusader constitutive of the image – they represent (they are not represented) – of THAT? I don’t know, since I don’t think neither of them blog anywhere else. It’s different, however, when we claim to be “freelance” writers, or bloggers. Does the motion of freelancing (not really the politics of it) brings about the connoting powers of the author at hand? I don’t know, and I wouldn’t say so entirely. Would baka-raptor blogging on RandomC have the same representational affects as Owen blogging on anime|otaku?[2] No, since each have their own styles, digital personalities, etc.

So this brings up the naming of things and how it affects our perceptions. Is it IKnight, or is it Animanachronism? Which is the definitive name of that primary, blogging representation? One is the authorial pseudonym, the other, the title of the blog, yet both are “fictive” names that bear an iconic status amongst its readers. Likewise, people always, when rolling me, list me as “lelangiric”, yet never or rarely lelangir. Despite “lelangiric” being at the head of the blog, I never thought it to be the “title” of the blog. “”Lelangiric,” or so they say” was some elaborate, self-satiric pun of sorts, yet some blogs even used that entire phrase as their representation of my blog.[3]

Names seem to carry on, always carrying an original perception, original representative mentality, never to be dismantled. Newgeekphilosopher will always be such, likewise, itsubun will never be coffee spoons. In any case, insofar as coffee spoons is to double as both authorial pseudonym and blog title, I think the mentality of “itsubun” repositions itself wherever the authorial signified relocates. The newer coffee spoons signifier just conflicts with the ingrained mindset and thus we perceive it to be another weird blog title.

[1]

[2] That’s just asking for some trolling.
[3] Only one person had, seemingly, caught on that it was just an adjective.

Caitlin revved up the engine again (sorta) by protruding into the idea of team blogs and such.

The main difference between team blogs and single author blogs is, well, exactly that – the number of authors present in one blog. The keyword here is “present” or “presence”. In summation, team blogs act more as a space than an embodiment, an embodiment being an encapsulating representation of the single author blog. This isn’t to say that the multi-authorial nature of team blogs is a one-shot, no exceptions thing. There are finicky nuances, regions of plasticity where these hypotheses don’t apply; where representation is weighed down by one particular author or another, gravitated in densities by larger masses. Heterochromia is probably the best example of this, as even Randal, on the dasaku main site says that it’s “Sasa’s opus.” Does that entail it’s hers and only hers? No, as there are obviously other authors there, yet even I had some overbearing impression of her dominance there, be it biased by Randal and my own thoughts or otherwise.

Compare chrome.dasaku to Yukan. Yukan has the most authors I’ve ever seen (eleven or something) and so it’s not like there’s a single patriarch or matriarch watching guard over its beloved child (I wouldn’t exactly equate blissmo to Aunt Jemima[1]) Likewise, most, if not all Yukan authors have their own personal blogs which are referenced quite often, all contributing to the sense of Yukan as more a collective pool, the downtown carpool, if you will, as opposed to a centralized base of operations like Heterochromia seems to be (at least to me, and actually, that’s not a high percentage of Yukan authors with personal blogs…).

In my eyes Impz and Crusader seem to be THAT’s most prominent writers, either by intertextual referencing or quantity (quality, too) of updates alone. That doesn’t mean that THAT is Impz or Crusader. THAT is THAT: THAT is not subject to the gravitational representation of one or two authors. Yet that brings up how the representation of THAT may be, to an extent, constitutive of a core (to keep up with our ‘spaces’ terminology) group of authors, Impz and Crusader being part of that core, as Itsubun was at one point a writer for THAT (albeit being a “short lived” one). I think it just boils down to reputation (which is habitually furled around representation) which is a product of history.

Then what is the movement of representation like? Is THAT constitutive of Impz or Crusader, or is it the other way around? – are Impz and Crusader constitutive of the image – they represent (they are not represented) – of THAT? I don’t know, since I don’t think neither of them blog anywhere else. It’s different, however, when we claim to be “freelance” writers, or bloggers. Does the motion of freelancing (not really the politics of it) brings about the connoting powers of the author at hand? I don’t know, and I wouldn’t say so entirely. Would baka-raptor blogging on RandomC have the same representational affects as Owen blogging on anime|otaku?[2] No, since each have their own styles, digital personalities, etc.

So this brings up the naming of things and how it affects our perceptions. Is it IKnight, or is it Animanachronism? Which is the definitive name of that primary, blogging representation? One is the authorial pseudonym, the other, the title of the blog, yet both are “fictive” names that bear an iconic status amongst its readers. Likewise, people always, when rolling me, list me as “lelangiric”, yet never or rarely lelangir. Despite “lelangiric” being at the head of the blog, I never thought it to be the “title” of the blog. “”Lelangiric,” or so they say” was some elaborate, self-satiric pun of sorts, yet some blogs even used that entire phrase as their representation of my blog.[3]

Names seem to carry on, always carrying an original perception, original representative mentality, never to be dismantled. Newgeekphilosopher will always be such, likewise, itsubun will never be coffee spoons. In any case, insofar as coffee spoons is to double as both authorial pseudonym and blog title, I think the mentality of “itsubun” repositions itself wherever the authorial signified relocates. The newer coffee spoons signifier just conflicts with the ingrained mindset and thus we perceive it to be another weird blog title.

[2] That’s just asking for some trolling.
[3] Only one person had, seemingly, caught on that it was just an adjective.

Before, I had said that this was a pretty good song, and it was, in comparison to Fate/Stay Night’s bland OP song.

Well, it still is, but after listening to this song again I have two quips.

1 – no dynamics in the vocals, she’s always at fff and so she has nowhere to go, it’s very static and makes it that much more boring

2 – similarly, the piano starts out at full blast, whereas I’d like it if it started slow, not using the quarter notes and built up

3 – this isn’t really a bad thing, but it sounds a lot like this song.

The one reason why I haven’t bothered to sit through Cowboy Bebop yet is because of my disorientation towards the OP song by yours truly, Yoko Kanno.

Gershwin was known for pushing the form of jazz to “accepted” levels. He was too a classical player, and we’ve all heard Rhapsody in Blue et. al, since jazz was termed not as a written art form on par with classical but as, well, “jazz”, hence the derogatory originations of the term. While jazz was being written, archived, taught, proliferated, propagated, I think this has been for the better, since anyone with a certain amount of socio-economic privilege has the access to this world of music.

However, I just don’t like written jazz. Case in point, Yoko Kanno, specifically The Seatbelts, more specifically, the music in Cowboy Bebop. But in saying this we’re running into our Scene & The Sound paradox. I was checking out the OST on youtube and I noticed all the songs sounded the same. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, per se, since I had to take into consideration the fact that all these songs were probably composed for the anime, thus the similarities, or I would hope that this was originality within a prescribed perimeter of what’s allowed in a certain soundtrack. This goes without saying that in order to appreciate these songs you have to also watch their semiotic counterpart, the visual to the music, the scene to the sound.

Back to notation: so music has two forms, basically, it’s written form, and the aural component, the end result that is the purpose of the notation. Perhaps this is the same with plain old literature, yet, what with our linguistic determinism and whatnot, if not for the mentally ingrained sounds of words we wouldn’t have the concept at all. Does this make me an advocate of musical illiteracy? Only half-so: I’m perhaps supportive of big band music, but I just can’t dig the limitations of written jazz, as that consists of an oxymoron in itself. I think, first and foremost, improvisatory jazz in all its capriciousness is not something that can or should be written down. The cold shoulder one may easily hand to this opinion since I cannot so easily homogenize “jazz” as something that’s completely improvisatory, since we do have big band music that’s written – big bands do include solos, too.

Infinite Ryvius spoilers ahead, as in right now.

Despite being nine years late on this series, it warrants untamed thoughts undoubtedly still, probably. I’ll try and avoid a general Lord of the Flies style commentary to point out one element I enjoyed: The Gun.

Specifically speaking, this is The Gun that originated in the hands of the two covert sink-the-Braticus guys. And so I wanted to take note of how it’s this same gun that gets transferred between many hands. There’s probably a lot we can extract from this; what does the gun itself mean? Its transience? It’s lack of transience? The paradox of the last two are important. Amidst chaotic development elsewhere, the monolithic gun remains steadfast – it is carried through many hands, yet its unchanging demeanor (it’s a gun, anyway) carried steadily.

Airs Blue is the next guy to take ownership of the gun, yet this sense of “ownership” begs for a bit of clarification. We can obviously conclude that the gun symbolizes power, yet while picking up on the chronology of the gun as it transverses the plethora of sweaty palms, we find that our sense of “ownership” need be reversed; rather, the gun “owns” its captor – it’s a subtle, yet very hegemonic power relationship. The bearer of arms proceeds to enter the territory of power, and so he is territorialized as powerful, both physically and thus mentally in the special square within the cakewalk of ideologies.

The noticeable deviant to this is Kouji, our protagonist that for a long time we can assume has possession of The Gun but does not instantly succumb to the power of arms; it takes time for Kouji to actually display his desired authority via The Gun, time spent as Blue repeatedly asks him “I want to see what you’re going to do.” Yet Kouji inevitably resigns to The Gun, as Yuki’s provocative mamoru-ism infiltrates his soft spot for Aoi, or rather his own inherent mamoru-ism. It seems like referencing women always does the trick when it comes to insinuating unhealthy doses of RAEG.

We perhaps think that power is a kinetic thing, something that is transferable, but that isn’t necessarily so. Is there a finite amount of power to be “distributed” within the Ryvius? – yes, to an extent, since the economy of The Gun itself presents us with that very limited quantity.[1] Maybe dissent directed by steel pipes and wooden planks can constitute a creation of power, yet the single insurrection was pummeled by Airs Blue’s gun, and simply the sight of it. Still, regardless of the quantitative characteristics of power, it is in stasis, and we find that, because of the continuously transforming characters and the need for alignment between self and power (with no alignment you wouldn’t have anyone with power), the latter must be relatively motionless.

So we find that it’s the position that our contestants insert themselves into. This doesn’t disregard agency, as Kouji stands up for his beliefs (valiantly, at that) in face of demigod Ikumi’s systematic edict on “order”. Situationally, agency plays the role of channeling gravity (no pun intended), the force that directs power and structures its flow. It’s structuring the structure; architecture, if you please.

The position of power can be quite an infectious one, as Ikumi’s quickly descended into the depths of insanity, or so I’d call it. It’s important because, originally, he was the nicest guy, nicer than Kouji, the so-called Nice Guy. Protecting Under the Influence? Yes, very much so – in fact I’d say that for a lot of the crew onboard the Ryvius power couldn’t be anything but hegemonic. Airs Blue was the only level-headed guy with The Gun, and the bridge members acknowledge that fact. I think the two-fold hegemony of power works because, within the Ryvius, it isn’t organic: it doesn’t arise out of long, historical movements, but rather spontaneous events, the results of which find certain people in a whole new position that they must readily adapt to.

I don’t know what it is with Japan and rock, at least it’s safe to say that there’s an interesting relation between the two. Back to the cultural literacy, perhaps? Not so much this time, as I’ve found something more worthy of note: yes this time we’ll regress to reality in order to get a sense of the source from which anime inherits its xenophilia.

The music video here is rather interesting, as you can see – it’s Daybreak’s Bell by L’Arc-en-Ciel, Gundam 00’s OP.

If you don’t want to sit through the thing then skim until you notice the white girl, yes, the white girl.

Maybe rock, as now a global thing, has some strange affinity towards white chicks, I don’t know – or it could be me, forging these incorrect notions out of thin air [hahaha: you there, laugh]. Where am I getting with all this? Well, what I’m saying is that there is this tendency for Japan in all the awkwardness of its Eastern history to try and emulate the West in all the Orientalist discourse it produced and perhaps propagates. The East emulates the West? Perhaps, perhaps not; but that is where Japan’s awkward position comes in. From the Far East, historically, now ascended to superpowerdom it, ironically, produces the machines by which the West proper perpetuates the very notion of “Western.” Instinctly, I would not say that Japan is Western, geographically mostly, although the prime meridian is the only imaginary line that dictates the 2 dimensional maps we are so familiar with.

Well the first thing I notice is that none of them have black hair – probably the (excuse my biology) dominant allele for hair color in Asia (insofar as hair doesn’t follow the rule of polygenic inheritance [amongst other confusing things] – it probably does, hence the minority of Japanese with naturally brown hair). I googled, I kid you not, “do Japanese people have naturally brown hair?” and came up with this article, written in 1996, however, nevertheless it is a good, short read. One key quote:

“Behind the fashion, there is I think a deep-rooted inferiority complex toward Westerners, which may make people think that black hair is uncool,” a reader wrote in a letter to the editor of the Asahi Shimbun, a major national newspaper. “I hope that they value their identity as Japanese and Asians.” (Kristof, Nicholas D., 1996: The New York Times)

Ah, hit the jackpot. Inferiority complex? In a comparative sense, that rings perhaps true in the case of Beck, as our elusive, Caucasian guitarist, Eddie, was exoticized and transformed into what we may call God [of guitar] of that specific microcosm. Similarly, Harold Sakushi, the author of the manga said that, according to Wiki, Ryûsuke is based on Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, a center icon of [if not the icon] British rock.

So Japan, and anime, one of its mediums for autoethnography, has that so very alleged tendency to always try and reverse the “spectaclization” of the West: while the East is viewed as the exotic and fantastic thing, Japan assumes the position of Orientalist, thereby representing the Westerner as the Other. It’s not exactly Reverse-Orientalism, but just switching the authorial stances behind the discourse.

Going back to Daybreak’s Bell music video, this last image can pretty much confirm, metaphorically (blatantly) at that, the “utopian” position of Japan: the white girl watches the Rising Sun – the West watches the East. In any case, I suppose sunrises are a big part of Japanese culture to retain and upkeep a sense of nationalistic identity and autonomy amongst “Western” superpowers. This reminds me of the infamous, triple-crossing Kirihara Taizou: (1) employ rock to cater to the imagined West [like giving a man his favorite full-course meal], (2) deploy Japanese metaphors to declare the inherent Japaneseness of the thing with which to cater, (3) set the general, real audience to your homeland thereby distilling its culture and cultural effects, unaffected by the absence of anything American due to language barriers etc. (go fansubs), this music video can be taken as “For Us, By Us.” It’s only when a meddling foreigner happens to take an interest into something extranational that this whole thing gets messed up.

This is probably my favorite BGM track evar – yes, EVAR. The epicness of this solo piano piece rivals – or outdoes – even Uematsu’s epic FFX intro theme, “To Zanarkand.”

One of the things I like most about this BGM piece is the transition back into the theme – the recapitulation and its perhaps clever use of the oh-so-forbidden parallel fifth.

Bar 35 features a Cbmaj7(add 11) chord (root and fifth in the left hand) while the perfect interval moves up – the ostinato pattern remaining static – to implicate the Bbmin7(add 11). Thus the progression is, in Gb major, IV-vi-IV-I. Bar 37 just repeats 35, so essentially it’s ||: IV-vi :||. Anyway I just thought that was an interesting part. Here’s the rest of the sheet music.