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Postby Noriko is my wife » Sat Nov 26, 2011 7:03 pm

View Original PostXard wrote:More pointedly and alarmingly there's Angel Cop OVA from early 90s by Ichiro Itano, Anno's friend and mentor, which has at the heart of the conspiracies and plottings a worldview where USA is afraid of rising Japan and now the meek Japanese politicians have "sold out" Japan to JEWS controlling America (and now JEWS are controlling Japan too) who plan on turning Japan into a nuclear waste dumb of the world. LOL

You really didn't think that Eva was about a group of monsters with Hebrew names attacking Japan was some kind of coincidence did you?

Maybe a more recent example of otaku nationalism is Summer Wars where the traditional values of the Japanese family together with the ingenuity of Japanese technology (never underestimate it - there's Angel Cop again) can overcome the hurdle of their treacherous son selling them out to the US, almost killing them in the process. And to come back to Murakami, the net itself in Summer Wars has become one large superflat exhibition celebrating a now universal Japanese aesthetic. It's all so very soft and cozy compared to the 80s stuff though. I know someone wrote a blog post about this but I forgot where.

In great synchronicity with this thread getting bumped some guy has started to write an analysis Gunbuster's imperialist back-story.
http://animekritik.wordpress.com/2011/1 ... roduction/
http://animekritik.wordpress.com/2011/1 ... isode-one/

I think this type of biographical/authorship approach is problematic, especially since things like the role of Okinawa etc where likely developed long before Anno was on board the project but it's well worth reading. I left a comment for the second one under the more socially respectable name "km".

edit:
View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:Even after Hosoda specifically disagreed with this interpretation people still do it because it's a cool "arty" word to use

I think I just did this?

And Anno might have shown some self doubt when talking to a foreign journalist but he was probably a bit more honest when he put that Strike Witches DVD box on his work desk haha (as reported on Kazuhiro Takamura's blog)

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Postby busterbeam » Sat Nov 26, 2011 7:47 pm

And to come back to Murakami, the net itself in Summer Wars has become one large superflat exhibition celebrating a now universal Japanese aesthetic. It's all so very soft and cozy compared to the 80s stuff though. I know someone wrote a blog post about this but I forgot where.

I think I just did this?

Yeah, you did lol, the look of Oz (and the trippy scenes in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) is PRECISELY what Hosoda was talking about when he denied the "superflat" thing. He appreciates Murakami's work and there's blatantly an influence there but the intention of Oz overall wasn't really to create a "superflat look"; Our War Game came before that and the "internet world" had a very similar aesthetic.

And Anno might have shown some self doubt when talking to a foreign journalist but he was probably a bit more honest when he put that Strike Witches DVD box on his work desk haha (as reported on Kazuhiro Takamura's blog)

Haha wait, holy shit is this true?

Link the blog so I can rub it in elitist fans' faces (just like I intend to do with Murakami's moe as hell Pixiv bookmarks).
aaaaaa

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Postby Noriko is my wife » Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:13 pm

I knew Murakami's influence/relationship with Hosoda went back earlier but Our War Game I watched in some ancient subyoutube-quality encode so I can't recall the look of the internet world.

As everyone might remember Strike Witches director is a Gainax guy and the character designer on Mahoromatic and He is my Master. Here he is very happy because Anno has praised the show and asked for the DVDs
http://vanishingpoint.air-nifty.com/blo ... _7c10.html
Later after going to Khara for a meeting with Anno and Tsurumaki he sees the DVDs buried under stuff on Anno's desk and writes that he's thankful.
http://vanishingpoint.air-nifty.com/blo ... -359f.html
Takamura seems quite fond of Anno. SW's second season's first episode was also likely based on Gunbuster episode 5.

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Postby busterbeam » Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:22 pm

View Original PostNoriko is my wife wrote:I knew Murakami's influence/relationship with Hosoda went back earlier

Do you mean it came up before Our War Game? I really don't think it did, OWG came out before Superflat Monogram and I don't think they've collaborated before that. Which is why I owe the "internet world" look to Hosoda himself more than I do to Murakami.

There was this 'building' in Oz that definitely had that "Murakami animal" look to it but generally it was meant to be more Our War Game + other influences than Murakami and Hosoda's statements support this. He outright denied the "superflat" label.

Also, thanks for the links. Man, this is like the ultimate argument against pretentious Anno fans.
aaaaaa

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Postby Noriko is my wife » Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:38 pm

View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:Do you mean it came up before Our War Game.

No I just meant before Summer Wars.

Also I think Anno along Tsurumaki+Imaishi+Sadamoto has commented on Strike Witches in public (I could be getting this wrong) before but that it was more humorous and to support a friend. The blog posts are about something happening in private.

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Postby busterbeam » Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:48 pm

View Original PostNoriko is my wife wrote:No I just meant before Summer Wars.

Also I think Anno along Tsurumaki+Imaishi+Sadamoto has commented on Strike Witches in public (I could be getting this wrong) before but that it was more humorous and to support a friend. The blog posts are about something happening in private.

I'm actually a bit curious what that comment was. But yeah I could see them supporting the show in a self-aware yet not mocking way considering the director is a friend of theirs.

But then, didn't a bunch of Gainax employees contribute to a genderbent Strike Witches doujin/art book?
aaaaaa

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Postby Noriko is my wife » Sat Nov 26, 2011 9:19 pm

Tsurumaki said something along the lines of "They say it isn't panties so it's not embarrassing* but as I thought - these are definitely panties!" but it's only one I recall.

*catchphrase for the show

I don't know about any book in particular but it's not surprising since more Gainax people likely worked on the show.

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Postby busterbeam » Sun Jan 15, 2012 9:48 am

I'm still kind of curious where the Tsurumaki+Imaishi+Sadamoto thing came from, since I'd like to read up on it (or at least bother a friend to translate it and THEN read it)
aaaaaa

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Postby Noriko is my wife » Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:33 am

View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:I'm still kind of curious where the Tsurumaki+Imaishi+Sadamoto thing came from, since I'd like to read up on it (or at least bother a friend to translate it and THEN read it)

Sorry I have no idea so don't trust it too much. I'll post a link if I find it again someday.

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Postby Xard » Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:31 am

View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:Do you recall what he said in those?


Unfortunately I don't. I might've at the time this discussion unfolded but now, no. Too bad I forgot to reply here at the time.

View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:I wasn't talking about whitewashing American influence, just the "America ruined Japan and made us all into babies" thing. Murakami doesn't seem that bitter about these things and appreciates to a big extent many things that came out of childish post-war anime culture, and has even spoken out against the censorship of the less refined aspects (like the Seiji Matsuyama incident last year). He just understands it's not all sunshine and rainbows and a lot of the common themes of anime came as a result of a pretty dark background. I don't agree with everything he says and yes there is some blatant nationalism in there, but I don't sense a level of bitter self-hatred either for liking the things he does.


Ahh, okay then. I have no big disagreement here then.

View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:Also when Azuma said "Anno's films", what was he referring to? What Anno stuff did they show off during that 2001 exhibition, just Eva? I know for a fact that Murakami mentioned Love & Pop in his original 2000 Super Flat book (back when he started using the term and it was written as two different words) but I dunno if that was present.


Eva and Love & Pop at the very least most likely. Not sure about Shiki Jitsu, that came out in 2000 and thus it's possible it too was shown.

View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:I think Xard is bothered by Murakami linking modern anime aesthetics to the stylized old paintings of Hokusai. I don't know, maybe he's right in disagreeing (or thinking Murakami is delusional) and knows more than I do, but as far as I know it seems like a perfectly valid theory. As far as I know he's right about old Japanese paintings having this flat, stylized look to them and anime seems to continue the tradition of doing more with less, with Kanada's frame-skipping style being the best possible example of that.


I'm not denying there are aesthetic links and similarities between things like ukiyo-e and anime: this influence however has not been the determinative, dominating one in shaping the nature of anime and its production. All truly essential for animation is off western heritage naturally enough. Anime is just as much of western origin as baseball and wouldn't exist in the form it does without post-war american occupation.


Of course there's influence as ukiyo-e and art of the era is part of Japan's cultural heritage (and as such has exerted direct and indirect influence on expressions common in anime) but main roots of animation industry in Japan never came from the solipstic bubble of the floating cities culture (as more nationalistically minded otaku scholars like Okada would like to think).

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Postby busterbeam » Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:10 am

I'm not sure if they're really saying those things though, but defining certain anime aesthetics as inherently Japanese. After all. Tezuka started a lot of what we now consider common anime aesthetics and there's no way Murakami & everyone else don't know that the guy was hugely influenced by Disney and American comics and whatnot.

Of course there was a huge American influence there but I think Murakami is just saying that people like Kanada brought a unique, classic "Japanese-ness" into it. Which I'm totally willing to believe because I wouldn't imagine something like Kanada's style coming out of the West. Maybe he's the kind of person who would bring blood and genes into it and, well, in that case I wouldn't agree, but clearly Japan was the perfect environment for such material to flourish.

I have other issues with people like Okada and Hiroki Azuma, really. A lot of what they say is purely the kind of cliche elitist old anime fan stuff I read all the time on 4chan, stuff written by people who are instantly dismissed by everyone else; statements like "old anime was about story, new anime is just about mixing moe cliches together". This is absolutely silly considering the 80s had tons of OVAs that were just that, mixing popular cliches that the older generation of sci-fi otaku liked without any overarching purpose or theme (MD Geist SUPPOSEDLY has a message but in reality it's just a bunch of soulless XXXTREME ACTION 80s cliches; Saki is SUPPOSED to be about mahjong but everyone knows what it's really about). And both back then and now the shows that become super-popular ARE most of the time a result of someone wanting to tell a story or at least appeal to people beyond super-obsessive otaku. The only change is in subject matter, and some people can't just live with the fact that sci-fi isn't big anymore so they also try to pretend that there's been some significant decrease in story quality.

If anything I'm happy that anime isn't so sci-fi-centric anymore. Recent good shows like Tatami Galaxy have no 'sci-fi' content and don't aim towards any super-specific demographic of nerds (whether sci-fi neckbeards or moe neckbeards or fujoshi or whatever) and just focus on being relatable, human stories for everyone and they're better off for it. Sci-fi fixation was just as harmful to true progress as the moe fixation is these days, and in the end both are just people who demand a specific type of content from shows instead of just loving the medium and wanting to see varied, good things made with it.
aaaaaa

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Postby symbv » Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:25 am

View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:I have other issues with people like Okada and Hiroki Azuma, really. A lot of what they say is purely the kind of cliche elitist old anime fan stuff I read all the time on 4chan, stuff written by people who are instantly dismissed by everyone else; statements like "old anime was about story, new anime is just about mixing moe cliches together". This is absolutely silly considering the 80s had tons of OVAs that were just that, mixing popular cliches that the older generation of sci-fi otaku liked without any overarching purpose or theme (MD Geist SUPPOSEDLY has a message but in reality it's just a bunch of soulless XXXTREME ACTION 80s cliches; Saki is SUPPOSED to be about mahjong but everyone knows what it's really about). And both back then and now the shows that become super-popular ARE most of the time a result of someone wanting to tell a story or at least appeal to people beyond super-obsessive otaku. The only change is in subject matter, and some people can't just live with the fact that sci-fi isn't big anymore so they also try to pretend that there's been some significant decrease in story quality.

Just want to say +1 here. Basically there was no golden age back then for anime and past as now we have popular cliches used in anime. it is just that the cliches and the popular genre have changed now, as with the way characters are drawn and animated.
View Original Postbusterbeam wrote:If anything I'm happy that anime isn't so sci-fi-centric anymore. Recent good shows like Tatami Galaxy have no 'sci-fi' content and don't aim towards any super-specific demographic of nerds (whether sci-fi neckbeards or moe neckbeards or fujoshi or whatever) and just focus on being relatable, human stories for everyone and they're better off for it. Sci-fi fixation was just as harmful to true progress as the moe fixation is these days, and in the end both are just people who demand a specific type of content from shows instead of just loving the medium and wanting to see varied, good things made with it.

Beware though - some (not me though) may want to argue Tatami Galaxy is somehow sci-fi themed. In general I am generally happy with the current anime which I think show a bit more relateable and human sides of people. I guess the best way to approach anime is to have an open mind and enjoy it from different angles. In other words, "just love the medium", as you said.
I never thought I would come back to Evangelion after EoE,
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Postby busterbeam » Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:56 am

Tatami is hardly sci-fi because they never, at any point, imply that the time travel stuff is scientific - at the end they
SPOILER: Show
reveal that the old fortune-teller was behind it all so it seems more magical than anything else.
aaaaaa

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Postby symbv » Tue Feb 07, 2012 1:31 pm

^ True. I just wanted to say that for some people they can easily perceive elements like time-travel as sci-fi and thus call the work as sci-fi, broadly defined. Anyway, it is true that nowadays anime has substantially fewer titles that are explicitly sci-fi, particularly deep space or space opera kind. These days sci-fi are often just there for entertaining fun (like in Nichijou) or a premise/platform for character development and interaction (like in Haruhi).
I never thought I would come back to Evangelion after EoE,
But I discovered Re-Take (or it found me?) and
now here I am.
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Postby Noriko is my wife » Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:46 pm

View Original PostNoriko is my wife wrote:Sorry I have no idea so don't trust it too much. I'll post a link if I find it again someday.

Look what I stumbled upon today. Turns out the source was "Strike Witches Official Fanbook" and someone took a photo of Tsurumaki's quote. http://imgur.com/CQwmq
Here's the rest of them
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/karenbach/20101011/1286814712


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