#an actual thematic reason for anime nudity? it's more likely than you think

[yellowocaballero]

What are your thoughts on dan da dan?

Catching up on asks in the airport after a holiday yet again. I have so many to answer but I'll get to them, promise!

I love Dandadan!!! It's so much fun. I'm not completely caught up (I spent the holiday watching the Netflix One Piece (Love it, it's so cute???) and Kolchak the Night Stalker (Chicago themed media that takes place in the already Chicago themed Chicago)). But I enjoy about two anime a year, and Dandadan was one of them! This was actually a rich year of enjoying three anime - Dungeon Meshi, Frieren, and Dandadan.

I'm just very weak for 'plucky teens form a monster of the week ghost hunting club' anime. Haruhi-induced brain damage from an early age. But what I usually end up really liking is when the spirits/ghosts/yokai are used to convey something about the characters and about being human. Teen action media is best when it's about externalizing the horrors of being a teen into a physical conflict, and ghosts can be a very pathos-filled way of showing physical danger as a result of emotional pain. I think good Ghost/Yokai/Spirit hunting media also gets creative with the resolution of the conflict - if the conflict is the result of some sort of externalized suffering, then the monster cannot be fought purely by physical means and usually requires some level of resolution of a character's personal arc. It's pretty common plot-wise for characters to need to grow in order to solve the problem (that's how stories work.), but in shonen that emotional growth is very commonly directly linked with physical strength and the resolution is purely in Winning The Fight. In good Hip Teen Ghost Hunting Media, that growth is about reaching a level of empathy and kindness required to heal others and resolve the pain of an enemy. Good Hip Teen Ghost Hunting Media is kind, and is about showing kindness.

Dandadan is good Hip Teen Ghost Hunting Media. It gets this. It's more action focused than some others, but it stays very solidly in touch with an emotional heart. Because the story is REALLY about Momo and Otakun, and making a friend when you've been very lonely, and being kind of a dick when you really don't mean to be. Intimacy as achieved through ghost hunting and losing all of your clothes all the time. The show's momentum so far is entirely on the relationship between Momo and Otakun, to the extent where it's actually remarkably focused, but that relationship is strong enough to carry the show. Just entirely on the basis that the two kids want to be together when they're apart, and they want to share themselves with each other, and they're afraid that they love the other person more than the other person loves them. Good ghost hunting shows are about empathy and learning to care about others, and Momo and Otakun pour all of that into each other. It's also a very insane mix of being very sexual without being erotic, which is a big part of its general vibes of 'the messiness and stupidity and awkwardness of teenage first love'. Overall, Dandadan comes off as a very sincere show because it is so honest in showing first love as a teenager.

Fight scenes also extremely good, partly because I love seeing Momo and Otakun (whose battle forme is so banger) be such a seamless team. And partly because fight scenes are very good. Love the music and animation. All round very good 8/10, lots of affection for it, will be reading the manga after the anime S1 wraps up.

[22drunkb]

Some thoughts about Bran Stark

Okay, so--not to butt in and trample around, as someone who never read the books and stopped watching the show sometime around season 3--but the thing is, I feel like the ending has finally allowed me to understand exactly what it was that turned me off Game of Thrones, which I never quite did put my finger on till now, and I want to at least write it out once. (Ironically, this has made me like the story better, though not its execution.) To attempt a spoiler-free summary: I’m going to be thinking about the thematic structure of the story and why that should make certain things make sense, and how they came to not make sense anyway.

The thing is, thematically and structurally, Bran ending up king makes absolute and perfect sense. It’s just that they didn’t write the story in line with the structure they were given. The problem with the show is--and always has been--that the writers don’t actually understand what “subverting fantasy tropes” means or could look like, and they don’t care about it in any meaningful way. What they care about is doing big, bloodthirsty, quasi-historical fiction with a lot of nudity. (See: the Civil War show they wanted to do.) And Bran’s whole situation only makes sense (or would have made sense, if executed properly) in the context of high fantasy.

Keeping in mind that complicating high fantasy tropes was an important part of what Martin reportedly set out to do, each of the Stark kids (the story’s backbone) had a clear thematic purpose. Each of them a) was a take on a trope, b) had a clear character trajectory that would allow that take on the trope to be developed while functioning as a working character arc, and c) through that trope-inflected arc, could allow the audience a window into specific part of the society (i.e., they supported the worldbuilding), which in turn allowed the further development of these takes on the tropes by giving them specific, appropriate settings and side characters to bounce off of. This is to say that GRRM did a good job setting himself up to do “trope subversion” in a way that would comment on the things he wanted to comment on, function as part of a larger world and story, and help support a plot that would be in harmony with all of the above. This is one very solid approach to character design. To be clear, despite this paragraph being about characters, I’m talking about themes--it has nothing to do with their personalities or whatever. This is about what ideas come together in the concept of each character and therefore how each character’s story develops the ideas.

A good reason to approach character design in this way is if you have set out to subvert, complicate, comment on, or otherwise mess with genre tropes. To do so, the characters have to themselves be tropes, or at least be designed in close relation to tropes, in order to derange them. So like, just to take the simplest two examples:

Robb: The Prince. Firstborn, shining favorite, destined to inherit. Set up (normally) to avenge his father, restore order to his kingdom, and go home. Bungles it entirely by seeking true love; meanwhile, in the course of his story we learn about the regional politics of the North, the politics of alliances by marriage and kinship, etc. Narratively, his failure allows the entire political and military situation to get infinitely more clusterfucked. All of those pieces fit together well thematically.

What is being subverted here is the prince’s marital destiny. We have loads of fairy and fantasy stories about prince and prince-types for whom pursuing true love just happens to be convenient (they can marry whoever they want), or whose pursuits of love are rescued by fate (his true love turns out to be his promised princess all along! She’s secretly a magical being of some sort, and that trumps betrothal agreements! The one he was originally supposed to marry died or decided to marry someone else! etc). This is totally kosher in traditional high fantasy (or in the folklore that the genre draws on) because it’s an expression of the harmony of the story-world; the characters go through their trials and adventures and end with a resolution in the form of marriage that announces that all is as it should be. What it looks like GRRM set out to do is ask what happens when people still follow those rules and the rules aren’t in harmony with the world they live in.

In particular, the entire thing points square at the fact that princes are political animals. It seems to me that Robb’s story was meant to say, well, actually, sometimes people with power just have to marry people they don’t love as a condition of being powerful (which comes up constantly throughout the whole show). After Ned and Catlyn, basically every “true love” couple is dysfunctional, incestuous (Cersei and Jaime, Daenerys and John), and/or gets narratively stomped on, as far as I’m aware. (Did Sam and Gilly make it? If so, I think that’s allowed because they’re commoners.) Ironically, Ned and Catlyn set Robb up to fuck up by modeling one of these convenient political-and-true-love marriages. He thought he was supposed to be allowed to have it all. He was wrong. The end. Next. But the show seemed to expect me to feel that the outcome was unjust and tragique for Their Love, when all that was unjust and tragique about it was that Robb was idiot enough to bring the consequences of his actions on his entire group of followers. That is the point. That his status has to constrain his behavior, and when it doesn’t it has consequences for others. The status itself is what’s being problematized.

Jon: The Secret Heir. Second-oldest, bastard-born, treated with contempt. In relation to the family, literally a supplementary person. Set up (normally) to be rediscovered as the true heir to the throne and end up as king (moving from the margins to the center; getting the acceptance he couldn’t have as a bastard). The twist is the “true” dynasty he represents is composed of inbred lunatics, and his potential access to the throne goes not only via that bloodline but via repeating their tradition of incest. Dovetailing nicely with that, he was set up from the start as less wanting access to the kinship system than wanting to be free of it, so instead of becoming king by virtue of being a Targaryen, he stops the reinstatement of the Targaryen line altogether. Meanwhile, for most of his story, as a “supplementary person” he gives the audience a view into a lot of corners of Westeros that are concerned with what is excluded from Westeros: the Night’s Watch, the Wildlings, and indeed the White Walkers.

Again, all of that lines up together well. It’s part of the larger derailment of the blood-as-destiny notion of a “true” king, heir, ruling dynasty, etc. (I think the main reason GRRM goes so hard on the incest, not to mention having not one but THREE bastard characters, is in service of this; it also means Jon’s character arc of wanting out of the bloodline system fits into the thematic structure. See? Everything ties together neatly.) But I mean. We all know the character was not executed well.

And so on. I could do the same for Sansa and all the rest of them. (Sansa and Arya are probably the two most successful executions of what their character designs set them up to do; it’s not a coincidence those are the characters whose stories people seem to be happiest with.) But the thing is, a lot of these tropes, while certainly common in high fantasy, are also found in lots of other genres. Chosen Ones and Unexpectedly Eligible Chosen Ones and Princesses and Warrior Maidens (whether in literal forms or not) show up all over the place. The fact that these aren’t strictly fantasy archetypes perhaps means they were less prone to being mishandled. Bran, though. Bran belongs firmly and only in high fantasy. He is, literally, supposed to be a magic priest-king. A take on the Fisher King, even (I’ll explain about that later). And his story was weighted toward the end because of what it seems like Martin was trying to do more broadly, meaning it was much more on the showrunners to do it right.

High fantasy is always trying in some way to engage with ~the numinous~, which is to say the sort of never-explainable mystery and magic of the world. Magic in high fantasy is usually closely tied to deep time, the land, nature, or the metaphysical. Ancient beings, lost secrets, nature spirits, hidden realms, that sort of thing. It’s part of the genre’s inheritance from the mythology and folklore it’s all based on, which had a much more enchanted, vitalist view of the world than we generally do now. (In a way, that’s the purpose for high fantasy’s existence as a modern genre--keeping some access to that.) What Martin set the whole story up to do was question the tropes that often go along with the genre by making the setting one in which almost everybody has forgotten about all the magic and mystical knowledge that is in their history. Westeros is an extreme, historicized take on the Shire, basically. (”English pastoralism you say? I’ll see you and raise you the English Civil War” -- George R.R. Martin, presumably.) They have no notion of what’s really out there and what’s really possible in the world, and have quite comfortably isolated themselves in a situation where they need not remember. As a result, the social institutions that were developed long ago in relation to the ancient magics and knowledges become, instead, just social norms that can be manipulated, distorted, and played out in a much more historical-fiction kind of fashion, which gives Martin lots of room to point out that, say, ironclad patriarchal bloodlines cause problems. (That is, if you take away any magical justification, by virtue of connection to the land or the spirit realm or what have you, for the right to rule, then you stop having to have your One True Kings also be good people. It allows him to pull apart the different pieces of that trope and suggest that their being connected in the first place is questionable. Which it is! He’s right and he should say it!)

But the magic has to come back at some point, or else it’s really not high fantasy. And it seems like what he wanted to do was have all these elements from outside Westeros--the White Walkers, that god whose name I’ve forgotten, and Daenerys with her dragons--converge on it such that the characters would have to go back to their deep history and call those things back up in order to deal with the real world they live in (instead of the wealthy political bubble of all the scheming) and thus get to a point where they could actually change their system for the better. You can think of it as a very elaborate deus ex machina in a way, except the deus ex machina isn’t Daenerys showing up with dragons to fight the White Walkers or Arya having trained (again, outside Westeros, for the record) just the right way for killing the Night King. It’s all of these external forces forcing the characters in Westeros to get their fucking shit together. Otherwise there’s really no resolution to the war, in a high fantasy version of the story. It’s just historical fiction with some weird bells and whistles. Without a need to go back and figure out whatever the First Men were up to, there’s no incentive to go back to the numinous. That he intended for sure that some version of a return of the numinous end up being a big part of the climax is reinforced for me by the fact that the Starks--again, the backbone of the whole story--are set up as being unusually in touch with this mystic/magical heritage (the old gods, the crypt, the godswood) and unusually faithful to the traditional ways. They were introduced that way for a reason.

So where does Bran come in. The thing is that Bran is literally named after the mythic founding king of Westeros, Bran the Builder. The other thing is that both of those Brans are clearly named after Bran the Blessed, a literal mythic god-king from Welsh mythology whose name means crow (but who for various reasons also often gets associated with ravens, which in turn are commonly associated with transcendent knowledge, magic, etc; it’s a long story). So you have a younger member of the story’s key Stark family, already closer to the sources of magic and mystery than most. You name him after the founder of Westeros who lived in a time of magic, traffic with other beings, and great building works and other inherited accomplishments for which the associated knowledge has since been lost, etc. You have him gain mystical abilities to transfer his consciousness to other bodies, or through time (absolutely typical Mystic Powers). You have him even take on a special priestly status passed down from the era of magic by leaving Westeros to hang out with other kinds of magical beings, which means he is now explicitly named both Bran and Raven.

OBVIOUSLY this kid is supposed to be king. He’s going to restore the realm to a situation in which the ruler, the realm, its various life forces and nature spirits, and the metaphysical are all connected to one another and, in a sense, present in the same body (which is the kind of genuine mythological shit high fantasy is always drawing on). But the writers then just sat around and did nothing with him for years on end until whoops hey he’s king now. Of course no one thinks it makes any sense!! It’s fucking malpractice!!!!

If you go to the GOT Wiki and just read Bran’s page, everything makes sense and lines up well in terms of a list of events. (Although it’s really notable how short the entry from s8 is, and how everything it lists is things that happen to Bran, pretty much.) There is a progression that makes sense. But from what I understand--this was certainly the situation when I stopped watching--nothing was ever done to suggest that any of this mattered. The Three-Eyed Raven, the forest spirits, the magics and so on--it was treated at most as a backstory machine. It had no connection to or effect on the rest of the story, so far as I can tell. The fact that none of this played into the battle with the White Walkers at all is flatly insane. The thing I most remember people saying about Bran after that episode wasn’t even “Why didn’t he use X or Y that he learned in the forest?” but “Why was he there?” which just goes to show how completely and utterly bungled this entire piece of the narrative was. Like, if your high fantasy story is making its audience ask “Why would the story put the one character with the greatest knowledge of ancient magics and powers at the scene of a battle against an all-but-forgotten ancient threat,” then I’m sorry, it has gone fully off the rails, and not just in its most recent season. That’s not subversion, it’s just fully dropping the ball.

You know what would make sense as a lead-in to Bran becoming king? Oh, his performing some spectacular feat of insight, magic, strategy, or all three at the battle that no one else could have pulled off because no one else had his background or powers. Even after years of screwing this part of the story over, that could at least have bothered to make a case for why any of it mattered to the rest of the story. It would not have been very subversive, but when you’ve fucked up this royally you don’t get to be precious about your radikal innovative approach, Davids. I can’t believe Peter Dinklage had to sit there and make a bullshit speech about storytelling, when a decently-handled story would have made it seem natural and self-evident by then (you can still have surprises along the way!) that Bran should be king.

Anyway, in closing: part of the reason I checked out when I did was that I felt like they weren’t doing the things I thought they should do as the story developed. Genuinely, one key part of that was that they seemed to be doing absolutely nothing with Bran, which was baffling to me because it seemed obvious to me he was set up to be an incredibly important character. At the time, I thought they were going somewhere close to this with Bran but just taking way too long at it for some reason. What’s now clear is that the showrunners didn’t understand what they should have been doing with him. (Everybody who was taken aback by this outcome is not a fool for not seeing this. They were, quite reasonably, following the narrative cues they were given along the way, all of which said “Bran doesn’t matter.” It’s maybe clearer to me because I stopped watching.) And what that now makes clear, in my opinion, is that they never really understood what Martin was trying to do by “subverting fantasy tropes”; that in fact they didn’t really understand the genre, let alone what subverting it entailed. Which is exactly what bothered me about it even years after I stopped watching, but couldn’t put my finger on--until, ironically, they proved me right about Bran.

[taurgo]

Thoughts on Love, Death and Robots

Just as a preface I’d like to say that I’m glad Netflix actually invested in this type of storytelling, and I honestly enjoy anthology series and their ability to provide a wide range of perspectives and give creators the freedom to show what they want to show, even if the result is less than full length; i mean, all of these are short and sweet and while i wish there was more content for some of them, what’s given is enough to understand the premise and the story line. The medium of animation tells so much with so little! I additionally hope they give a second season! 

 also, if you haven’t watched the show yet be aware that its reasonable to say a majority of them had, well, death and a moderate amount of nudity or difficult subjects which is understandably hard for some people (myself included in some situations- very uncomfortable-making)

That being said here’s my thoughts on the episodes in the first one (being as spoiler free as possible) keep in mind this is just my thoughts post-viewing: 

1. Sonnie’s Edge: I fuckin LOVED this, from the animation and design, to the action premise and the little details they give the characters- its understandable why they wanted this episode to go first and its a great introduction. Also I’d say the violence is super purposeful and not out of place. This could be given an entire series and I’d watch it: 10/10.

2. Three Robots: This was on the more family-friendly side of things and also has a great concept! not to mention the facial expressions of the red robot are adorable and its just all around pretty fucking funny. Works well as a short story.On one hand i’d argue THIS should be the first episode but then it may give the audience a misrepresentation of the entire thing so i get why its second. This is probably the closest thing to a pixar short on the list, if pixar short characters could use the fuck word: 10/10

3. The Witness: so concept wise I feel like it was a little lacking, like by the end of the story its obvious but it leaves the viewer wanting more explanation. Like I’m not necessarily one for a writer to hand-hold the audience through concepts, i feel like inference and observations make up a huge aspect of viewer experience but i wanted just a liiitle bit more.Also the uuh nudity was kind of uncomfortable. Regardless it just has to be said THE FUCKING ART STYLE! THE FUCKING ANIMATION! GORGEOUS! UNIQUE! the entire time I was just stunned by the background, the motion, the expressions it was a visual feast. Hands down the most vibrant animation style: 8/10 overall and 12/10 for the art.

4. Suits: This one was... interesting. Kind of hard to find the right words. Good interesting! good premise! the art style was not my favorite, like we were nearing the uncanny valley with the character designs (with the exception one (1) bad ass, mech operating, cigar wielding stone-cold bitch) but the action was very well done. You were invested in what was gonna happen. Well rounded in terms of story telling and a good length!: 8/10

5. Sucker of Souls: Compared to the previous shorts this was certainly different! The animation was simple but very well done, not super flashy but the action was fluid and fast-paced, and the ending was great! reminded me of Castlevania for a few reasons. Entertaining!: 8/10

6. When the Yogurt took over: Animation Style: Noodly. Noodles everywhere which is adorable. This one is also family-friendly, pretty damn funny and a good length. Reminds me of Douglas Adams: 9/10

7. Beyond The Aquila Rift: This one uuuh was not my favorite. Probably my least favorite if we’re being entirely honest. The animation style was kind of motion-capturey like a video game, the content itself was like 50% nudity which was awkward as fuck and the actual good part of the story was there for a brief time and when its not happening its all you can think about. 5/10

8.Good Hunting *Minor Spoilers*: alrighty this one is complicated for me. On one hand, the animation is gorgeous, very traditional 2-d and the beginning premise is quite interesting but there are some things that personally rub me the wrong way, namely the extent to which they show the traumatizing events of the main female character (first of all i dont want to see the assault of someone, let alone her being brutalized and to top it off some guys dick. ) I understand that one of the main themes is the empowerment against those who have wronged her and the very good commentary on imperialist fuckasses but its hard for me to watch this one. On the upside the 'love' part of this 'love death and robots short' is respectfully platonic and caring. Overall, I’m giving it a 6/10.

9.The Dump: Why is this here. It's entirely unspectacular, and is arguably the weakest out of all of these in that it doesn't make you love it or hate it, your just kinda indifferent: 4/10.

10.Shape Shifters: this one was also a little weird. The animation is, once again motion capturey. The premace is actually quite interesting and I think the story itself would work well for a CW show but it's a little weird here. It's less sci-fi and more realistic fantasy but I understand what they were going for. Arguably much better than the last one: 7/10

11. Helping Hand: oof this one was hard to watch in that this specific man vs. circumstance type of story is personally a sub-genre of horror for me. Like any kind of man in the Arctic, nature, ocean or space situation has always been super unsettling for me but that's personal taste. I can honestly see this story alongside very retro space short stories that would be in an anthology next to assimov. Reminds me thematically of the cold equasion, and also pretty fucking graphic. 8/10 for unsettling aspects.

12. Fish Night: first of all, art style is gorgeous, concept is unique and very fantastical. Worth watching, especially if you live in the desert like me! 8.5/10

13. Lucky 13: on one hand: Samira-mother fucken-Wiley. On the other hand, military based sci-fi stories which don't really do it for me, and again we got motion capture: 7/10

14. Zima Blue: THE 👏ART👏IS👏GORGEOUS AND SO IS THE ANIMATION! The premise is super existential and watching was a very enjoyable and kind of thought provoking experience. 9/10

15. Blind Spot: again, the art and design is really amazing and stand out! The premise very contained but well excecuted and I think I recognize the voice actors? I can see this as a series believe it or not. Did I mention the animation? Holy shit hats off to the creators! 8/10

16. Ice Age: Topher Grace is that you? Boy this is akward, seeing as how the last thing I saw you in was Blackkklansman but anyways... Unique premise, unique style of animation and live action, Kind of insightful as to the nature of life. Enjoyable! 8/10

17. Alternate Histories: Animation Style: Noodly Noodly Noodles. Seeing Adolf Hitler get the shit kicked out of him multiple times? Entertaining! 8.5/10

18. Secret War: once again we have a motion captured Military-Sci-Fi short. However out of all three that appear throughout this show, this one's probably the best. Worth Watching! 7.5/10

Overall: This series had it's ups and downs, but as a whole was definitely worth watching and was a wonderful display of the collaborative efforts and skills of animators, artists, directors, designers and so on. Bring On Season 2! Call it hate, life and nature!