#(thought about . the themes and horror present in madoka magica)

[strawberry-seal77]

EXPLODES A MILLION TIMES

[nshtn]

3, 11, 25 && 38 blz :3

3) 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life without getting bored of?

Repo! The Genetic Opera (@g-mutant showed me that one!)

This one is just... it's so multilayered when you examine various song's lyrics. I keep finding more layers. Onion of a movie that chewed on every dollar in its' budget appropriately and deserved ten times it. REvil fans are likely to enjoy it on broached themes alone and the entire style is real cybergothy... plus... Nathan. I could watch Repo! for more Nathan... I have a crush on the Night Surgeon.

Black Mirror: Hated in the Nation

This 'movie' is one of my favorites to show to people I don't know to gauge their opinions on a lot of vaguely political things; the second is how people respond to the movie Fight Club. It's a movie that unsubtly reminds you about the horrors that are encountered when the government has janitorial keys to every software stack and library you use - and what happens when those keys are discovered, a la Eternal Blue.

Madoka Magica: Rebellion

It requires a full watch of the original anime to understand what's going on, and intentionally deceives the viewer with very subtle hints that something is wrong and it's not just an alternate timeline; the visuals are grungy and psychotic and speak of a deep psychology, every hallucinatory element a carefully presented memory made tangible in a hellscape (a nightmarescape?). This is to the point of it having its' own written conlang.

11) What do you consider to be romance?

I have to preface this with the fact that I'm leaving out what is so clearly obviously romantic to me because it's unhealthy. It comes from things I've experienced in my life that my brain is romanticizing to deal with the magnitude of. Beneath this crust, though...

...there's a lot of romance in subtle touches, quietly existing with another person, late nights spent basking in eachother's interests and absorbing eachother's knowledge like a sponge.

I think sharing things you enjoyed reading or documentaries is really romantic. Like sitting and watching a documentary and commenting on it together, picking it apart. Or sending eachother Arxiv/Researchgate/Scihub stuff. I have done both with people and it always felt like they were making a Maximum Friendship Boost move.

There's nothing I love more than to make an unsubtle callback to something someone's told me a long time ago to show them I'm listening to what they tell me and retaining that info. It's love when this is not something you do manually; it's love when you absorb someone's interests and adopt them yourself with the most potent plucked string being the fact that they enjoyed it first.

Sidenote: there is a certain implicit trust in sharing exploits with someone if those exploits are undeclared or rarely spoken of; there is also an implicit trust in sharing source code to things you've programmed with your comments slathered over them like footnotes in a novel. The deeply personal, unfiltered thoughts are always a treat to dissect.

25) Favorite season and why?

Fall. Halloween. I LOVE TO DRESS UP AS MY GUYS FOR WHOM I AM DEEPLY UNWELL. Next year is gonna be Karl Heisenberg or Edward Nashton, I feel it.

...or maybe Birkin. He is the only one whose bodytype I actually fit like a glove; he's got the same attack chihuahua vibes.

...your old Wesker fit is still one of the highlights of what I saw that Halloween on my dash!!!

28) Do you collect anything?^2

A secondary answer: I love to host things. I have hosted Minecraft servers, SillyTavern web servers, a smattering of many web UIs, entire MMO landwalker asset servers...

I also love to collect different crash dumps from computers I've successfully diagnosed - the second I open a .dmp file, all of what I know about that computer and where in that .dmp I solidified my knowledge of its' issue springs back to me and makes me feel proud.

Thanks for asking! :D

[perenlop]

Top five anime

oh god forgetting every anime ive ever watched

5. fullmetal alchemist brotherhood/2003 (very different shows ik but i can never decide which i like more). i really love the world presented in these shows, i love the themes of how human we all are at the end of the day. i love all the ways they play with science and real life alchemy, and all the interesting things that come from it... like how do you even come up with alphonse's entire ordeal? it's so unconventional and yet it's handled near perfectly and we get all the drama and situations that come from a boy being tied to a suit of armor.

4. death note. tbh i mostly agree with what everyone else says about the show, it's super engaging and it's fun to see the game of cat and mouse that L and Light play. both of them are super interesting characters and its fun trying to figure out their plans only to be thwarted. again, it's a non conventional idea, but death note embraces the fantasy aspects really well while being more focused on the corruption of light and him trying to keep himself from getting caught. sadly tho i do have to agree with a lot of people that the latter half of the show with nate isn't nearly as good. i like the stuff that happens like light's dad dying but i just kinda missed L the entire time

3. cowboy bebop. this is a show i might have to digest some more bc it does require more thinking, and i may have to rewatch it to fully appreciate it, but i really enjoyed it! space western is a genre i've never thought about, but it's a very natural combination and I think this show really captured that. I love it's main theme of living in the present, it's kind of unlike most shows i've seen. at first i didn't appreciate not having the backstory of most of the characters since they seemed so important to the episodes, but that's kind of the point. we don't NEED to know every little detail about their pasts. because the show is about the present and how they're coping in spite of their pasts. and it works because it's unfair how these people are still suffering for what happening in their past, even despite everything they've accomplished in the show. it's a very bittersweet show and i enjoyed it. also i love edward. baby

2. trigun (i havent finished it yet though). i can't say much abt the entire thing but i LOVE all of the characters a ton. i love vash himself the most, i love silly characters that are actually extremely genuine and tragic at their core. he's got one of the most compelling backstories i've seen so far and i'm excited to see how his arc concludes in the show. the other characters are also extremely good! i love meryl and milly a lot and how they're actually kind of more of a threat than vash, and how they have a vitriolic relationship with him but grow to genuinely care about him. wolfwood is also a good character to pair up with vash in a lot of episodes because he's got different ideals, and also the gun cross makes me laugh. idk i love the world and these characters and im excited to finish the show.

puella magi madoka magica. im aware that on its own, its probably not nearly as good as these other shows, but at this point the show means a lot to me. I've got a lot of good memories associated with it and its kinda helped me at a time i needed it. i love all five of the main characters a lot and each of the struggles they go through. it's another show where it's world is fully utilized in every way it needs to be for the story to work. i love all the psychological horror elements and how they're presented in an almost uncanny way. the art is beautiful and the witch labrynths are fully realized. this show is so good i can't emphasize enough how dear to me it is as this point

[piejumper]

Finished rewatching Maoka Magica, thoughts below

Having finished a rewatch of madoka magica I think the reason it holds up so well as a "dark subversion" of the magical girl genre is because it doesn't actually stop being whimsical and genuine ironically enough. It never shows gore or excessive horror and even in its most dark moments it doesn't dwell on it and its only about 3 to 4 moments in the whole show that it goes that far, and gives it an appropriate amount of respect to the emotional impact it has on its characters without turing the whole show into a downer. Beyond that it's remarkably simple in its execution all in all. (It got kinda tiring how often madoka cried for me personally, but it was refreshing seeing how like, a normal teenager would react to the situations compared to other shows that have protags go through 1 million traumatizing events and act unaffected afterwards)

Other than that it's almost entirely committed to telling a tragedy about love and hope in the face of a grim and jaded world and how innocence is bashed against it without sympathy to those it hurts. It's pretty simple and overt with how it presents those themes but it never feels out of place I feel partly because of the extreme lengths the show goes to present itself with a overtly whimsical play aesthetic with its incorporation of collage based visuals and real world materials inside an almost MC Escher like city with a lot of focus on depicting it's scenes and characters with as much visual metaphor and beauty as possible rather than choosing to depict a purely real or grounded setting to go with its themes of losing innocence and despair.

And it fits perfectly because its a story that whole the ending is still bitter sweet, is still about hope and love conquering all, even a cold and unfeeling universe. And I think that's why I can't stop thinking about it's visuals so many years later.

Although my favorite part of the series is the sequel movie Rebellion and that has a story that recontextualizes the whole series as it plays out and while it's more tragic than hopeful it's manages to stay totally in line with the original series and it's one of the rare cases where I've seen a sequel to a beloved franchise stick the landing because it chooses to take what was there in the first installment and expand and evolve on it with its decision to focus on the themes of doing something selfish to do something good that was there in the anime and following them to their natural conclusions, like "is madoka happy now that she's an abstract concept who isn't remembered by anyone?" And "what did going through all those time loops do to homura when she wasn't able to protect the person she loved?" And tackling them in the same surreal and magical setting while cranking it up to 11.

I'm hoping the next movie can wrap this up in a way that's satisfactory because it's very hard to follow up something that shaked up the status quo so severely and successfully pay off all the character arcs they set up. It makes me hesitant to really want a sequel because while the ending to Rebellion wasn't "happy" it still felt really satisfying to me. Oh well, that's enough talk about magical girl shows out of me. Gonna go and listen to some kalifina now, kyubey can get bent

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Dear 'Anime Bad' Anon: I Want To Help I pity your situation, so please have a list of weebshit that isn't moeified, or wherein the cutesy art-style serves a greater purpose. (Note: though they won't be soft marshmallow uguuuu, they may still have issues in other ways. Some may have aged badly with regards to how society views or portrays groups or beliefs, some may have upsetting content and dark themes, and some may simply not be to your taste. Note: Anime is a genre, not a monolith, and the disparaging stereotype that it's all cute girls uwuing over their brother s-s-senpai!!! is as much of a disservice as saying all western movies are just vapid cash grab superhero movie sequels with no inegrity or thought put into them. There are indeed a lot of superhero movies, but they're not all identical schlock (megamind vs venom vs kick-ass),  but even more than that, there is a wealth of creative endeavor just beyond the veil of Marvel's cape: just as there are plenty of good anime if you dig past the isekai high school harem wish fulfillment genre that no one wants to keep making but people keep making because it prints money to a very small demographic of the animation equivalent of a mobile game whale thereby allowing this frankly quite-small industry to work on engaging and worthwhile series where the budget permits, Regardless,)

Mushi-shi: -Pros: gorgeous animation, tranquil vibes, episodic stories so you can cram in an episode between classes or on your lunch break. highly recommended by the literal-who typing this out. -Cons: some themes or stories may cause emotional distress, learning to tell apart Urushibara Yuki's characters is a learning curve.

Baccano-Pros: meticulously-researched 20s-and-30s-era mafia violence with a hint of the supernatural, as a treat, told anachronistically with flair and jazz music. practically made to be binge-watched. the novels are finally getting translated into english as well. -Cons: lots of characters to keep track of, fair bit of blood and violence, some scenes or themes may be upsetting, lots of jumping around between different time periods. See Also: Durarara, another series by Ryōgo Narita with a ton of characters and a plot with more threads an overpriced sheet.

Cowboy Bebop-Pros: incredibly well-regarded, space bounty hunters are cool, episodic series that slowly takes on a plot towards the end, fantastic animation, scoring, and even dub work.  -Cons: some scenes or themes may be uncomfortable, some parts have not aged quite so well, the smart doll version of the main character is ugly, you're gonna carry that weight.

Trigun-Pros: starts lighthearted, develops an increasingly investing plot as the series goes along. fictional westerns are cool. this world is made of love and peace -Cons: some scenes or themes may be upsetting, and probably will be. gun violence is naturally present, but that ain't all of it.

Hellsing (standard or Ultimate. or Abridged)Pros: vampires killing nazis. the original adaptation isn't bad, the second adaptation (ultimate) is generally viewed as an improvement. abridged is a youtube parody version that was so popular the voice actors reference it in convention interviews.Cons: a Lot of violence, even trending to the gorey side of things. Uncomfortable Themes Everywhere, but it's a horror-tinged action series about killing nazis, so that's to be expected. 

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood-Pros: while the original anime was quite good, the second iteration is a large improvement. does to alchemy what naruto does to ninjas: It's Basically Battle Magic. the plot starts on a strong note and doesn't let up from there. -Cons: there are distressing scenes and themes that may or may not be tolerable to the viewer. there are moments of cheesecake and even an occasional joke or a moeblob here and there, and it's not all doom and all gloom all the time, but this doesn't detract from the abject horror-despair that comes to permeate this series as it progresses. finally understand why people on the internet respond so negatively to the name 'nina'! 

[Mod: many more recs/reviews under the break, worth reading for those who like more obscure anime and animation]

Grave of the Fireflies-Pros: you will remember how to cry. it's a good reminder that one country's 'triumphs' often come at the expense of another country's people.  -Cons: this movie is incredibly dark, do not watch if you are in a bad headspace. see also: Barefoot Gen, a similar tale but this time from the perspective of an actual survivor from Hiroshima.

Michiko to Hatchin-Pros: an actually diverse cast of characters tangled up in a messy and very humanizing story, interspersed with Shinichiro Watanabe's particular flare for adventure. -Cons: some scenes or themes are very likely to be distressing. can be tricky to find, too.

Mo no no Ke (not the ghibli movie, though it is also quite good.) -Pros: incredibly unique art style and pacing that draws heavily from japanese theatre traditions, every screenshot is wallpaper-worthy. -Cons: may cause motion sickness. it is a psychological horror series, and one that does not need blood, nor gore, to cause visceral emotional response in the viewer. scenes and themes will be distressing- as really, that's the point.

Tokyo Godfathers-Pros: a transwoman, a (self-identified) homeless bum, and a runaway teen girl find a newborn in the baby on christmas. incredibly wholesome, somehow, and grounded in reality, with wonderful animation from the tragically late satoshi kon. -Cons: it is grounded in realism, and sometimes, people are dicks. mild transphobia warning, too, but in-universe- the transwoman herself is portrayed with kindness and allowed to be her own (wonderful!!!) person. still, viewer be mindful.

Kino no Tabi (the first series is my preferred, the second is shinier but lacks emotional impact- in my onion.) -Pros: mostly episodic, very unique series that can be gritty where it counts and kind where it matters. -Cons: some scenes or themes might be disturbing. finding it's not easy, either, and unfortunately, i don't think the novels are being translated right now, either.

Spice and Wolf-Pros: it's mostly about economics. there are shenanigans, a harvest god, and a slowly burgeoning romance, sure, but it's still mostly about economics. -Cons: there are moments of cheesecake and comedy, and moments that may cause distress to the viewer. it may or may not be to your taste.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica-Cons: yeah i know, it's moeblobs.  -Pros: you're gonna watch 'em die, though, in case that may interest you. it's quite a good subversion of the magical girl genre overall. somehow volks hasn't made an MDD of anyone from the series and i will never understand how that didn't happen.

Wolf Children: Ame to Yuki-Pros: watch a family grow together as a newly-single mother does her best to raise her twin children after the tragic loss of their father.  -Cons: keep tissues handy. certain scenes or themes may be uncomfortable.

Lupin III (Red Jacket, Ghibli, and the new 3D animation are all A+) pros: heist comedy elevated to an art form before half (or more!) of the people reading this were born. the english dubbed series that used to air on adult swim is a treat. cons: this franchise started in THE SIXTIES, so naturally, some shit has not aged well. certain series (fujiko mine) are darker than others in themes and material. the 3d movie that released recently is an excellent starting point.

Samurai Champloo-Pros: breakdancing samurai, a fascinating roster of characters, and a superb soundtrack by the tragically passed Nujabes. -Cons: it was made in the weird era of the transition from analog to digital animation and so the /series master/ was animated at a painfully low resolution, so even if there's a bluray out there (I haven't looked,) it will be an upscale, which doesn't always look the best. as well, there are scenes and themes that may make the viewer uncomfortable here and there.

The Works of Studio Ghibli Oh, I'm sorry, Ponyo too suffused with childhood wonder for you? My Neighbor Totoro not depressing enough?  In addition to the infamous Grave of the Fireflies, Studio Ghibli has made a wealth of movies that aren't aimed squarely at the kodomo (children's) sector. -Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: climate change existential dread, the movie -Castle in the Sky: government obsession with obtaining weapons of mass destruction destroys everything beautiful, the movie -Pom Poko: human-caused deforestation and urbanization is destroying the natural world and all that live in it, the movie -Princess Mononoke: industrialization will be the death of everything beautiful in the world, the movie, with a side of sometimes everyone (and no one) is the villain when everyone is simply trying to survive -Howl's Moving Castle: The Physical Manifestation of Depression is a Liquid Ooze, the Movie, also War Is Bad It's not all depressing, but let it never be said that Hayao Miyazaki was subtle. Whisper of the Heart is a good coming-of-age story, Kiki's Delivery Service is a classic, Tales from Earthsea is divisive among fans of Ursula K. Le Guin but I personally liked it. From one studio alone there is a wealth of opportunities.

And that's really the point. These are just some from the top of my head. There are so very many options outside of the cute-girls-doing-cute-things genre that I couldn't list them all if I was here for a week. Or as Madoka Magica so ruthlessly showcases, even series that appear a certain way on the surface might not be what you bargained for once you look into them! These are all (I think) mostly older, mainstream-appeal series that should be easy to track down, too -- there are all kinds of singular animations like The Diary of Tortov Roddle, crowdfunded experiments like KICK-HEART, Masterpiece World Theatre renditions of classic (western) novels that never get talked about, films like A Silent Voice that confront social issues- and of course, series like Rozen Maiden that helped popularize this very hobby!

There is literally an ocean of content to explore from Japanese creators alone, and it opens up even more if you look into works from other parts of Asia- just look at how popular manwha have become, or Chinese animations like Leafie, a Hen Into the Wild! It's a genre unto itself, with all the breadth of content and inter-industry problems that come with it, and without any of the respect that similar art forms have been granted over the years. The way an entire culture's art form is often disparaged, disregarded, and belittled- and by extension, the way most of Asia's animated endeavors are often rolled up into that reductive dismissal along with anime and manga- is honestly Not Great, and there is absolutely a thread of xenophobia that runs through it. The industry has so very many problems (low wages, poor training, overwork of everyone ever, archaic financial modules, the exclusivity and breadth of merchandising necessary to turn a profit and how it leads to consumer burnout and disconnection over time, and yes, the way minors are portrayed not just in anime, but in Japanese media in general- and how much of that is actually bad (some of it is indeed,) and how much if it is cultural difference (I've heard people call the scene where the family in Totoro bathe together problematic because of the nudity, but I've also only heard people say that from the West)

-- none of the actual problems affecting the people who produce this medium are gonna improve when the general response to "animators frequently have to live at home to survive" is "that's what happens when you're a weeb."  It's 5am and I'm gonna point out the problems in the narrative around how we discuss this genre of entertainment because it's important, damn you! Regardless, thank you for coming to my unasked for and overlong TED talk about animation on a doll collecting drama blog, feel free to call me a pathetic weeb etcetera on your way out- but while you do so, might I suggest you also go watch a choice animated series! My current go-to is Bofuri, which is a cute-girls-doing-cute-things moefied isekai series that I refuse to apologize for watching. Be free. (The battle scenes are great and it captures the feeling of learning to play a new MMO with your friends better than most video-game-based anime I've seen in a long, long time. does anyone even still remember .hack? how about serial experiments lain...?)

~Anonymous

[undeadimpulsereviews]

The Problem with the Horror Genre (Editorial)

Warning: There will be spoilers for many different things throughout this. I will be supplying as much as I can find to get my point across so if you don’t want to be spoiled then I’d steer clear.

Before we jump into things I want to state something about this and the future stuff to come regarding these pieces. Everything I’m writing, especially with this piece, is pretty much all opinion based. I’ll try to pull as much facts as I can to back up anything I feel needs clarification. Though, ultimately, this is just something I wish to talk about. My views may be extreme to some but, they are just that, they are my views. Agree or disagree, I just want to get the ideas out there.With that said let us begin.

When I look at genres and sub-genres there is always at least one that sticks out like a sore thumb. Thanks to studios like Disney and Marvel, Superheroes have risen in popularity. For video games, the platformer and first person shooter still holds a place in peoples hearts; and both anime and manga have the Shounen style story down to a fine line. Though for each of these mediums and more there is one genre that struggles year after year.

Horror is the elephant in the room; if each genre of visual and written media was a type of music genre, then Horror is coming close to being the Disco among them all. When I look at horror, all I see is an entity that is slowly dying; yet, it tries to stay relevant for as long as it possibly can. Though over the years, horror just doesn’t hit home. Now I’ve said before that I am not a fan of the horror genre, and there are many reasons for this. These reasons are why I think the genre ultimately fails in the end. Though I can’t clump together every piece of horror media. For every five failures, the genre does manage to provide some spine chilling content. However, the spread is too great. 

Lets look back to Marvel for a moment. Not everyone is going to like every hero film they provide, but even if you don’t care for the Marvel film there is a level of praise those movies deserve. They have the formula down and it shows. This is not the same for Horror; after years of making films or games under this genre, the formula just becomes more psychotic. It’s harder to follow and ultimately ends in something boring. However, this is different for each type of medium. In my opinion I think that Movies have the best chance of providing a horrifying experience. Past this though, it starts to get difficult. Video Games used to be one of the best mediums for conveying horror, but now it’s fallen far. Sitting at the bottom of the spectrum is Anime and Manga. Anime does horror a little better than manga, but each have their short comings. So why is it that Horror is such a hard concept to grasp? Lets start from the basics.

Horror: An intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. Something that inspires feelings of dread or dismay.

This is one definition I pulled on what horror is. Though everyone has their own special interpretation. For me the best definition is something or someone that brings about a feeling of fear. When I go to the movies to see the newest Halloween, or re-play a game like Until Dawn; One of the main things I’m looking for is a series of good well placed and thought out scares. However, this is one definition among a society of many. Each person has their own take on horror, but should we really call it horror? Take anime and manga for example; a good amount of stuff, that falls within the realm of horror, latches on to two key words in the basic definition. Shock and disgust.

Take, for instance, Ajin. For those who don’t know, briefly speaking, Ajin is a horror manga series that was adapted into an anime a little later in it’s life. It’s about an entity of demi-humans, or Ajin, that have special abilities from normal human beings. Thes beings live among normal humans and believe they themselves are in fact normal humans.

There are many moments in the manga where the Ajin are experimented on by the Japanese government. While not showing everything, they show and elude to enough in an attempt to produce shock value. Yet, the rest of the manga just feels average. The monsters aren’t frightening and the events that take place feel out of place in terms of it’s genre. This is one of the biggest problems when it comes to horror for both Anime and Manga. While video games and movies have a level of disgusting or shocking scenes; there is still an attempt made to frighten the viewer.

One of the biggest growing contenders of this is any series involving Magical Girls. Japan has been fascinated with making more mature stories involving magical girls. One of the best example of this comes from the series Madoka Magica.

This series is one where you would never want to judge the book by it’s cover. It may seem like the cutesy little girls tale, but there is a lot the show is hiding. I myself have never watch Madoka, but I know it’s grown into quite the craze over the years. So much so that many mangaka and studio would want to try their hands at this. However, each one of these starts to lose the flair that Madoka presented. One of the things that made Madoka work was it’s art. The mature themes are never shown to the audience unless they watch the show or read the story. It works, much like how Gakkou Gurashi could make a Zombie story interesting with it’s first chapter.

The idea can work, but it should be done sparingly. Though Japan doesn’t follow that logic. There are more manga under this sub-genre than ever before, and each one goes to far in what it’s trying to do. They throw the horror in the viewers face from the beginning; as if they’re screaming “Hey, this is a horror story involving schoolgirls/magical girls! It’s a dark story that you don’t see every day!” Though at this point it’s become old news.

What happened? What did magical girls do to come to this? The cover alone already doesn’t make me want to read this and it’s among a massive amount of manga that follow this trend. Though if I said this I’d be judging this solely on one image. So I looked into things regarding some of these series and just like Ajin it’s filled with disgusting scenes. Though I wouldn’t call it disgusting to the point that it’s horrifying. Instead, for me, I was so disgusted at what was present that I lost all interest to ever read anything that involves horror and magical girls. The girl is bullied by pretty much everybody at school and then goes home to an abusive family member. There is needless rape, and violence that goes beyond the definition of bullying. Then the main character gets magic powers out of pity from a character that looks like it belongs in Mob Psycho (nothing against Mob Psycho).

What is that? It’s looks so disconnected from everything else I’ve seen in the series. I haven’t even seen the first episode and yet there is nothing that makes me want to start. Long story short, this “girl” gives the main character a magic gun that she can use to make people disappear; or actually teleport to a place where they will die outright. That was so much to take in and now I wish I never did. What is appealing about this? Why do series like this go silently, but then you have an anime about a man who kills goblins as one of the biggest controversies currently for anime.

Ranting aside, The point I’m trying to get across is that I don’t see how anime can show shocking or disgusting scenes and have it considered as horror. I look at these like I look at videos of surgical procedures. It’s not frightening or horrifying; it’s just gross. So why consider it horror, and this is a serious question for people who genuinely enjoy these stories. What makes Ajin, Magical Girl Site or Franken Fran horror?  At their core most of the attempts of horror comes from the disgusting and I just can’t understand what makes them fall under the genre. Enough about that however, there is still a lot to cover.

The Bleeding Line Between Horror and Thriller

Keeping in the trend of anime and manga, another big problem stems off of understanding just what is horror. When I see horror or thriller with anime I tend to see that there isn’t a clear divide among them. Take for instance the Hellsing series.

For me I’d say that Hellsing is a Thriller; it has dark themes, but that doesn’t make it an instant horror. Though, for those who don’t know what Hellsing is, the story is all about the Vampire Alucard and the Hellsing organization. They must take down monsters, and ultimately fight a a Nazi regime. There is a level of outlandish and over the top content that I wonder, how could anyone consider this Horror? The only truly dark scene is later in the series when it’s implied that Alucard was raped in his childhood; maybe even countless times. Past this it’s just a lot of over the top violence that would prove to much for a shounen series. Another series that falls victim to this is the Parasyte series.

You could probably make a better argument as to why Parasyte is horror, but from what I’ve seen of the series I would at the least also put this as a thriller. This view goes both ways and it sometimes effects anime more than manga. The manga for Parasyte and Tokyo Ghoul look like horror manga at face value, but the anime, to me, don’t share that feeling. There are moments in many anime that can truly be horrifying, but the big picture doesn’t convey this. Movies struggle from this sometimes but, again, I mainly see it in anime. Though, this isn’t a dig at the anime or manga industry. What does the other side have to answer for?

How much is too much? 

Video games and movies aren’t safe yet. One of the biggest problems with modern horror is how much and how varied it all is. What do I mean by this? Well the easiest examples I can use are the Saw movie series, and the Five Nights at Freddies game series.

Saw is one of the most well known horror movies among films like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. When the first film came out it was pretty different from other horror films. Instead of an ax murderer chasing someone through the woods, or a masked man hunting down people in a little town on Halloween night; Saw is a movie about a man who killed people he saw as “evil.” People who he believed deserved to be punished, no matter how psychotic that may have sounded. The first movie released back in 2004; since then there have been a total of seven more films. The catch being that each film is pretty much the same thing with a different cast. A man kidnaps people, he talks to them through a puppet and puts them through traps and trials as a sort of test.  Even horror films that are regarded as classics have way to many movies in their franchise. Hollywood is running out of ideas and instead they decide to use any semblance of life in the current existing ideas rather than look for new life. Friday the 13th went to Space, but ultimately it’s still a slasher film about Jason Voorhees 

Both movies and video games take the skeleton of what was previously established and just slightly alter it’s shape and design. Movies do it a lot more than video games; however, games have started this trend recently not just for horror, but for all genres. Though, that’s another story for another time. The biggest offender of this with Video games, in the horror genre, is the Five Nights at Freddy’s Series.

When the first Five Nights came out I wasn’t interested in playing the game myself, but I could sit here and say that the game has potential as a horror title. It had a nice atmosphere and ideas that aren’t normally explored. Out of all the things that can produce fear, animatronics at a knock off Chuckie Cheese was not something that really came to mind but that was an interesting aspect. After the first game however, the rest of the series started to take a terrible downward spiral. Each game is pretty much the exact same as the last, save for a few that tried to take a slightly different spin on things. Sit in a chair and watch cameras to make sure the animatronics don’t come to kill you. Your capabilities are limited and you need to survive for a certain amount of time. Second game is the same but there are new machines with new tricks, the third game is the same but only one machine really matters, the fourth game is the same ideas but instead you’re a child who needs to peek out doors and in the closet. This cycle goes on for a total of six games in the main line. The only game that changed the formula was a spin-off, turn based RPG. Though that game doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The gameplay has minor alterations, the characters change appearance and new animatronics are introduced over the course of the games, and the story just starts to feel like background material. It’s all just jump scares that try to scare through appearance instead of gameplay and atmosphere.

Nothing about Five Nights is scary anymore. We’ve been through it six times and it’s common knowledge that these machines will jump at us when we fail. Not to mention that, when the player fails, in some cases there is a long pause between the failure and the jump scare. Don’t make me wait, I lost. Making the player wait destroys the atmosphere. Gameplay aside, it’s the visuals that really start to destroy this game. How do you top unsettling machines with a mind of their own? Add more teeth, add more heads randomly placed around the body, make them look broken and demonic. That will put the fear in the player; except it won’t, I don’t look at the picture of Freddy above and think this is the thing of nightmares. I see someones head canon fan art that I could find on Deviantart or Pixiv. It’s like the people who make gross creepy fan art for Sonic the Hedgehog found new anthropomorphic animals to do whatever they want with. The whole thing that made the idea of animatronics frightening was the movements and the lifelessness. Plus, the skin of the characters makes for a scarier experience. I don’t want to see the frame of the machine. Seeing this...

Isn’t frightening, it’s the equivalent of Freddie Kruger chasing you through the dreamscape if Freddie was an average man in a mo-cap suit. The reason Five Nights is the worst offender of the recycling idea is because the creator said countless times that “this one will be the last game,” “After this no more Five Nights at Freddy’s.” Each time a big fat lie. There’s a movie in the making for crying out loud. The Slender movie was a flop so how will this fair?

I get it; Hollywood and game designers alike are running out of ideas. Disney is remaking all their films and Capcom can’t seem to find a way to stop porting Resident Evil 4 on every platform. However, the saying is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; these things have been in pieces for years now. The warranty may be up, it’s time to “FIX THIS!” Now, I’ve said a lot on the subject and there is still a ton of things I could talk about on the horror genre, but not enough to dedicate a segment on them. So I have one more reason I believe horror has fallen over the years and it all stems from the atmosphere.

There’s a build up, but no pay off.

So for some mediums, getting a certain level of atmosphere is hard. Manga I believe has the hardest time. It’s always been simpler to build tension in the visual format than the written. Though even anime, movies, and video games have struggled to reach an understanding of the levels of atmosphere. How much is to much and when should the build up reach the cap. If I had to rank them, omitting manga, I’d say that video games are still at the top barely, while anime struggles with this idea the most. Now this is all opinion of course; fear effects everyone differently but, in my experience, not many anime can reach a good level of tension. There was one that managed to produce a very horrifying atmosphere for me, but we’ll get to that a little later. First, why is it that anime can’t grasp the aspect of tension building and atmosphere. I believe it’s because the horror genre, especially for anime, is too predictable. A long while back, when I was experimenting with what to watch when it came to anime; I tried my hand at the show Another.

I didn’t get far into Another; the build up wasn’t that great out the gate, but I wanted to give it a chance. My viewing of the show ended at the episode with the first death. Throughout the anime every person is telling the main character to steer clear of the girl with the eye-patch. She’s bad news and only misfortune will follow. However, the boy didn’t listen of course. Scene after scene past with nothing happening, until a girl from the boys school is leaving and her attitude changes after she catches a glimpse of the other girl. At this point I knew, I sat there tired and done. I watched as this girl ran down the hall and all I had to say was one sentence. “She’s gonna die,” I sat there repeating these words over and over; until she fell down the stair and was impaled on an umbrella.

I couldn’t continue the show after this; when nothing happens the camera tries to focus on things that seem unsettling, like dolls in a dark antique store. Then when things “pick up” the scene takes to long to get to the payoff. You’ve tried to build up the tension; don’t hold the final product in front of my face. Teasing the audience with the end product only proves to destroy all progress made to get to this point. It’s not that hard of a concept in my opinion; it should be just like building to the climax. Though, instead of reaching one huge climax, it’s more like carefully structured peaks that don’t keep the viewer waiting to long.

For me, the best example of this doesn’t even stem from a horror series. Around the same time as mentioned before I also tried to watch an anime named Kino’s Journey, or Kino no Tabi. In one episode the main character finds there self in a town with a few mysteries surrounding it. At the center of the town there is a huge tower that is being built by the civilians that live there. This tower has been worked on for over two hundred years. When the main character asks them why they build the tower they don’t know themselves. 

As the episode goes on, and more interactions are had between the cast, tension begins to grow and it feels like the people of the town aren’t as hospitable as they once seemed. There is so much unknown about the situation that is presented that the viewer feels that something could happen at any moment. Though, the episode reaches it’s end with the tower cracking and falling to the ground. The people of the town resolve to build the tower again and the journey continues. While the tension never truly reaches a huge climax, it still manages to feel unsettling. Kino’s Journey is not a horror series, but I’ve felt more tension in it’s atmosphere then I’ve every felt in a horror series I’ve watched or read.

Though, anime has always had a tricky experience with Horror, and I know that anime and manga isn’t always made with everyone in mind. It’s Japanese in origin and I can understand that something scary to me may not be scary to a Japanese viewer, or vice versa. However, games and movies don’t always have that cultural luxury. Movies also can be extremely predictable, especially the classics. Yet, movies don’t just suffer from being predictable; movies, surprisingly, struggle with realism.

Now I know that realism shouldn’t be a factor is horror movies, but that all depends on the movie. If we’re talking about a movie like the exorcist, then realism needs the be there to a point. It can be loose because we’re dealing with the supernatural, but facts still need to be present to some degree. Movies that don’t have anything supernatural to them, however, need a lot more if they want to succeed. The best example of this is the Purge series.

When this movie first came out I would have said that the idea of a president creating a day for everyone to do as they please without laws was overly far-fetched. Now I can’t really say much with the current society we live in; however, I will say that the idea that people would just go out and murder their neighbors for no good reason is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why do all these people have the weapons to go around killing? How did this seem like a good idea? What are everyone’s motives in all of this? The story of this series is so shaky and full of holes that it's popularity baffles me. 

As far as predictable goes; there are many horror movies, from terrible to the classics, that have their predictable moments. There was one, and I’m sorry the name escapes me, where a girl is being haunted by someone in her family that died by unknown means at the moment in the film. Most of the movie is filled with terribly place jump scares, but the worst of them all was one where it was a bright day and the main female character was walking along until she comes to an opening in the woods. Instead of walking on, she is pulled into the woods for whatever reason. There is nothing really calling to her and she sees nothing from what I remember, but she’s drawn to one spot in the opening where she finds and unborn fetus in the ground. The fetus is perfectly in tact and the scene just kind of hangs in this back and forth until the fetus opens it’s still developing eye and a huge piano note rings in the background. I sat there knowing the jump scare was coming. I still jumped, because of the loud startling sound, but it was clear as day something was coming.

Where is the tension? I can’t feel frightened when the atmosphere either makes no sense, even in the context provided, or when the movie paints out every scare on a giant canvas for all to see. Horror is meant to make me scream, jump and even, for the most extreme, cry in fear. It’s no longer like that, horror has become one of the most sad and boring genres alive. When you find the one game, movie, etc, that breaks the mold and truly embodies what we know as horror; it deserves to be placed on a pedestal. I believe that video games has the best chance of doing this but even good horror games are scarce.

Predictability  and realism aren’t the big issue when it comes to games. Instead, it all bubbles down to the payoff. Games have an easier time of building tension and atmosphere than most mediums in my opinion. It’s the payoff that it fails to grasp. This has become more of an issue in recent years with indie horror games. Games like Agony, We Happy Few, Call of Cthulhu. Do they hit the mark? What is the payoff and how long did it take to reach that goal. Was the build up paced in such a fashion that the game didn’t drag on? This is what games struggle with the most in the horror genre and the best example of this is Layers of Fear.

The game has it’s moment where tension can build, but there is never any pay off. The game focuses to much on trying to build a compelling story about an artist who slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, spirals into a state where he pushes his loved ones away and hurts his family in an attempt to reach his goals. Most of the game is the player walking around the characters estate while they interact with the things around them. Every so often the player will find something that progresses the story and gives some insight into what exactly has happened or what is currently unfolding. That’s all this game is, it doesn’t even attempt to jump scare the player. It attempts to horrify the player through the atmosphere alone. The only problem being that it never delivers. This style of game has become a frequent trend, known as the walking simulator. The whole game is walking from point a, to point b, to point c, and so on. Never reaching any payoff that feels satisfying. The most tense scenes, if you can call them that, are scenes that play on where you are facing. Say for instance you look at a painting; the next moment you look away to an empty wall. Look back and the painting is now disgusting and decaying. So frightening, I need a moment to collect myself. This is boring, I didn’t buy a game to literally watch paint dry; but, with Layers of Fear, I can do just that. Plus, can someone tell me why every indie horror game feels the need to take assets from the public access art gallery?

Scooby-Doo had more realistic art pieces in their haunted houses. Why does every indie horror game need to have some form of “horrific” art hanging in every room five inches from the other. These are humans we’re talking about, not Hannibal Lecter. Sure maybe the main character in Layers of Fear painted the pictures but no one in their right mind would ever say “yea lets hang these demonic painting in our living room; that sounds very welcoming. Nothing says family like a father eating his child”.

If I wanted to experience a poorly delivered and paced story about a painter who is currently undergoing his mid-life crisis. To the point that he possibly abused and neglected his family and may or may not have killed the family dog in a drunken rage. Then sure I might play Layers of Fear, or I might just go on Garry’s Mod and download some hastily made horror map that does the same exact thing for free. I don’t want my horror games to be some attempt at an artistic and complex story on human flaws. I want to be scared. 

This shouldn’t be difficult and in fact, many games still can manage to bring fear into their games. Take for instance Friday the 13th and Dead by Daylight.

Now I’ve said my piece on both of these games a while back, but if there is one thing I need to give both of these games credit for is the ability to scare. In both games it’s one versus the group. One killer is controlled by a player and this adds a level of unknown danger. They are powerful and can appear when you least expect it. Over time when you’ve play the games enough the fear factor will probably die down, but the initial tension hits hard because it’s instant. Both games waste no time putting the player in a terrible situation. You’re placed in a random location and it’s as if the game is telling the player, “Alright, someone is hunting you; good luck, and try not to die.” Sure both games have their problems through bugs or other factors but, when you look at the games from a design stand point, they work really well.

Another two games that really know how to build tension and produce payoffs are Until Dawn and Dead Space 2.

One of the most memorable moments for me with Dead Space 2 was near the beginning of the game. You’re going down a dark corridor and you’ve already been presented with the enemies that are hunting you down. You may be armed, but there is no guarantee that you can survive even with your weapons. You keep moving and yet nothing jumps at you. At any moment a necromorph could come and try to kill you. You enter a room with the only light source being a flickering T.V. The music starts to ramp up and as it reaches the it’s height... a balloon pops. While the payoff may not seem amazing, the timing and pacing was done really well in my opinion that, even with your guard up, there is a level of unexpectedness that hangs in the air. You know there are enemies out there, but the space station is their oyster. You are almost always at a disadvantage, even with some of the more advanced weaponry. It’s a jump scare, sure, but even jump scares can pay off to provide breaks in tension without them being terrible immersion breaking game overs.

Until Dawn was a more recent example of how to build tension and deliver upon the atmosphere. The game was a play on the old classic horror films we all know. Though the player is the camper, or the unsuspecting victim. Though instead of presenting the player with a villain from the start, the game never truly reveals what the greater evil is. Also, the game plays heavily on player choice and the idea that each thing you do may end up being the death of a character really hits hard. You’re not just afraid of what may attack you, but also afraid of how your choices may spiral into terrible outcome after terrible outcome. Plus, even when the player succeeds or fails the payoff is still rewarding. The tension isn’t just tossed to the side if the problem was avoided. It’s used and then we start again. Tension rises and a new dilemma is presented. If you want a horror game that can truly capture the genre then Until Dawn is definitely one of the best contenders.