Twelve Days of Anime Part 6: The Great Rewatch

OK fandom.  You win.  I get it now.  I have come around.

As you can probably surmise, I re-watched Neon Genesis Evangelion this year.   What you don’t know is that this was my first time watching it in ten years.  A whole decade has passed during which time I graduated college, got married, had kids, finished grad school (twice) and completed five major moves.  These are just the “resume line item” parts of my life.  I mostly made these things happen, but many times what can alter your life’s trajectory are things that happen to you, things you can’t control.  I buried my first child, had a relationship-ending schism with my mother,  endured my mentor/priest/friend committing suicide and was diagnosed with anxiety disorder.  The last of these items shouldn’t be too surprising, given what comes before :).

I am a different person now than when I saw Eva the first time.  Not only does the Shinji Ikari character ring much truer now, given my life experience, but I also find myself drawn to Misato way more than before.  I suppose that being closer to her age as well as being responsible for a couple of the brightest of the next generation creates new common ground there.  The story as a whole speaks to the current me in a very deep way.

And then there’s the ending.  When I was a nineteen-year-old college freshman, I was looking for something more…straightforward?  Whatever it was I wanted, the ending of the Eva TV series did not satisfy me at all.  I proceeded to get on board the anti-Eva bandwagon, dismissing claims of its being thoughtful or philosophically important.  Well, I’m here to tell you that I was an idiot.  An idiot that only watched the English dub, no less.  Upon revisiting the series, the ending proves itself to be beautiful and inspiring.  Not to mention: utterly comprehensible!  I genuinely found the conclusion quite hopeful and uplifting.  There’s something present in that final scene that allows me to come away from Eva with a sense of peace.

So, yeah.  Evangelion fans: count me in.

Twelve Days of Anime Part 4: Big Mecha Franchises – COMPLETE

This year I finished up two big, fan-favorite\mecha franchises: Mobile Police Patlabor and Armored Trooper Votoms.  Otaku bucket list item checked.  Feel the power of my nerd aura, etc.  Though the two are both real robot series originating in the 80s with multiple installments spanning three decades, there isn’t actually much commonality between them beyond that.  In terms of their production and their content, Patlabor and Votoms are quite different, and, because of this, I find it interesting that I like both of them as much as I do.

Votoms is Ryosuke Takahashi’s baby.  He is the original creator of the concept, directs all of the installments of the main story, as well as a particularly good side story, and is responsible for much of the series composition.  It would be hard to argue that the show is anything but his vision.  The story is about one character (though other interesting side characters orbit around him).  Chirico Cuvie is the center of gravity of the Votoms universe.  His tale is ultimately a tragedy and is largely a bleak and gritty affair.

In contrast, we have Patlabor.  Patlabor is a collaborative effort, in terms of the creative side of things, with the likes of Naoyuki Yoshinaga, Masami Yuki and, of course, Mamoru Oshii steering the story.  The series features an ensemble cast and adopts several different tones throughout.  Its feature films are quite dense and serious; its OAVs and TV are at times sweet, at times silly, but always entertaining.  Patlabor‘s diverse cast allows for a flexibility in the kinds of stories it can tell and, thus, in the kinds of tones it can maintain.  I have been left musing on political philosophy, genuinely moved emotionally and also laughing at the dumbest shit all while watching some iteration of Patlabor.

I suppose the two series do have one additional trait in common:  their strength is in their writing and characterization rather than in their robots.

Fuel of the Gods: Thoughts on What Powers Super Robots

WARNING:  A FEW SPOILERS FOR GURREN LAGANN, DANCOUGAR AND EVANGELION WITHIN

I watch a fair few super robot shows.   As sub-subgenres go, it’s probably my favorite.  This being the case, I probably should have thought about it sooner:  Man there are a lot of different kinds of things that fuel these robots.  I’m not talking about bullshit pseudo-scientific elements that power the engines, like Getter Rays or Minovsky Particles.  No, I’m talking about what really runs these things, what elevates their performance to unheard of levels, what pushes them to evolve.  I’m talking about the psychological states of their pilots.

In this post, I examine the psychological states that power the mecha of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Super Beast Machine God Dancougar and Neon Genesis Evangelion.  I then illustrate how the choice of mecha fuel contributes to the advancement of the themes of each show.  Each of these series is a prime representative of a distinct species of power-to-theme relationship, though the list of such relationship types is by no means exhausted at three.

“But,” you might say, “these are just super robot shows.  They’re just a big pile of crazy shit that isn’t meant to be taken all that seriously.”  While I grant the genre’s tendency toward the absurd(ly entertaining), I nevertheless believe that analysis of super robot shows is a worthwhile venture.  The power fantasy that the robots themselves represent as well as the metaphysical explanations often invoked by the series’ writing invite, I feel, this kind of analysis of the genre.

Suggested Soundtrack for Reading – Dirty Elegance “Dark Psychology”

Two and a Half Mecha

The Spring 2013 anime season was a rare one.  Not necessarily because it gave us more quality titles than usual, but because it offered audiences three brand new, non-franchise mecha series…well two and a half mecha series.  I’ll explain below.

Sincet two of the three shows have ended, it seems like a good time to take stock of Robot Spring ™.  This post contains my somewhat scattered thoughts on Gargantia, Valvrave and Majestic Prince.  It’s a little more freewheeling and tangent-heavy than usual, bear in mind.

Suggested Soundtrack for Reading – Edan ” Funky Voltron”

Senses of Knowledge in Green Legend Ran and Gundam 0080

I recently caught up with an early 90s OAV that I had been meaning to watch for some time, Green Legend Ran.  Director Satoshi Saga (of Armitage III “fame”) would likely not enjoy hearing that I had seen GLR in a bargain bin three or four months ago and passed on it for Garzey’s Wing.  Ah, the lure of the terribad.  Though I think GLR suffers from problems that plague many 90s OAVs, I also think that it is a worthwhile watch for most anyone, which is not something I can say for Garzey’s.

GLR is especially interesting when it serves as a companion piece to Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, an OAV three years its senior.  Both shows delve into the nature of violence for the ordinary person and also the effects on such persons of the knowledge of violence, though GLR shifts its thematic focus from these ideas a bit after its first episode.  The messages of the two are just different enough in their scope of application (not to mention GLR‘s thematic shift) to make them complimentary of one another rather than retreads.

In this post, I examine the character arcs of Alfred Izuruha and Ran to illustrate that there is more than one mode of knowledge.

Suggested Soundtrack for Reading – The Clash “Spanish Bombs”

Has Armored Trooper Votoms Been Misclassified?

Did you ever have that feeling that, despite the fact that you had watched the same show as other people, you had somehow seen a different show than other people?  This has been my experience with Sunrise’s “other” big, enduring mecha franchise, Armored Trooper Votoms.   My disagreement with the discussion (that I’ve been privy to) of the show is not about the esteem in which it is held.  The show is one of my absolute favorites.  I think it’s really well done, and nearly every iteration of Votoms offers something worthwhile…even the most recent stuff.  Not even LOGH can say that.

To be clear:  this post does not really concern the Votoms franchise as a whole but mainly the original 1983-4 television show, though my comments do apply to most of the series.  The reason for disparity between my own view and those of others has to do with what I think the show fundamentally is.  Most people describe the show using terms like mecha, sci-fi, and action (see my own metadata) or talk about the realistic nature of the robots or grittiness of the combat.  Such talk is not wrong;  all of these elements are certainly present in Votoms.  However, I maintain that, at its core, the show is a tragedy.

Suggested Soundtrack for Reading – Oneohtrix Point Never “Replica”

WARNING:  MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE VOTOMS FRANCHISE BEYOND THIS POINT.