That core, that shit-of-the-shit: Ano Natsu de Matteru.

Some people go through life noting what gives them hope. Some people commemorate what restores their faith in humanity. Or in institutions, countries, television. In anime. Others do the opposite. We call them pessimists, or in layman’s terms, “the worst.” Before I’m accused of being a pessimist for saying that Ano Natsu refreshes all the loathing I carry for anime en general, I should note that I’m not usually bent on digging up the horrible things in life.

This is just that bad.

Mainly I just like to hate on the things idiots like. If it helps you to think of me as a troll, feel free. I’m mainly penning this in order to have an “eligible post in March” for the stupid Aniblog Tourney. It seems they learned their lesson last time and invited me this year. Popularity contests are the most important thing in the world, so I care a lot about winning.

So I’m here to plant my flag in the 2012 ABT, and I’m doing it with everyone’s favorite little poopwreck Ano Natsu. Don’t know what a poopwreck is? If you’re as mindless as Ano Natsu’s Onegai-Sensei-ripping-off “creative” staff, you’ll need an explanation…

poopwreck, n.: Like a trainwreck, but instead of a train (which goes fast and looks cool) going off a set of tracks, it entails a shit (which doesn’t move and smells like rotten ass) going off target. Whenever you witness it, you know you should commit suicide, because either it’s yours (in which case your ass is probably ineligible for LK cock) or it’s someone else’s (and you’re the creepiest fuck in the world).

So where does Ano Natsu go wrong, you might ask.

What is its crime?

I could say the obvious thing—that it’s downhill from the start, and that it’s unwatchable 2.5 minutes in—but I’m going to go farther. I’ve been largely silent lately (earning myself the title “lapsed”), and I feel I owe my readers, fans, and forlorn lovers a little something special. A real post. With real thoughts. Written in real words. As a bonus, I’ll leave sarcasm behind for the rest of this post. I think I overdid it last post. I got to the point where even I didn’t know whether I liked Thermae Romae or not. So just this once, as a reward both to you and to myself, I’m going to be straight with you.

Majime na Lolikit
• The moment I knew Ano Natsu was shit came in its second episode.
(For the record, I’ve watched eight of them, so none of this “judging a book by its cover” bullshit.)

Allow me to describe the scene: Kanna (the bitch), Kaitou (the pussy), Ichika (the slut), and Kaitou’s older sister are sitting around a table. The older sister is leaving for a while, and this means that Kaitou and Ichika are going to be living alone for a while. Kanna interrogates Kaitou, largely because she’s the bitch, inquiring into his plans with regard to participating in nightly Ichika buffets.

A master of motherly rhetoric, Kanna says something like this of Kaitou:

“Just because he’s living with a pretty senpai, it’s not like he’ll get up to any funny business or funny business, or funny business, right?” (sic. some fansubbers or something)

She and the older sister glare at Kaitou, repeat that “right” a few times. Ichika is grinning awkwardly, and Kaitou’s spinning into a defensive flurry befitting the pussy. He denies all implied accusations and promises not to violate his foxy guest. Kanna and his older sister say they’re relieved, but are clearly still suspicious.

Let’s examine this moment.

Where is Ichika’s agency?

No, let me know when you find it, I’m interested.

… what was that?

You don’t know where Ichika’s agency went?

Well holy fucking shit you’re right! It’s gone! And who took it away from her? Was it a bad rapist? Was it an evil misogynist? No: it was her “supporters,” the other two women at the table. Along with Ichika’s agency, they’re also robbing Kaitou of his individuality (prejudicially assuming that he’s a violator) and me of my will to watch the show. By putting the abstinence onus on the guy, and not saying a word to the girl, they are totally disempowering her and validating any idea the guy might have that the girl is just sex object—one not to touch, yes, but one nonetheless. One that couldn’t, you know, say “no.”

And one that couldn’t say “yes.”

Listen, I’m all for telling guys that it’s not good to rape people. And maybe Kaitou needs to hear this, though he really doesn’t seem like a rapist to me. But the moment the dialogue around sex excludes either interested party, it becomes a reactionary bullshit fest. The choice is put in Kaitou’s hands. He can choose to have sex with Ichika, though Kanna is counting on him not doing that. He can choose to not have sex with Ichika, and that will make him a good person. She has no choice in the matter. It’s being made for her by Kanna and Kaitou’s sister, and that’s not how sexual choices should be made. It’s her body. It’s her life.

Ano Natsu is by no means original, and that applies in this department as well. We see this kind of conservative crap in tons of anime. There are countless cultural norms and mores that entail guys being warned not to force themselves on girls. These norms turn the girl into a listless slab of meat. “Good luck, Ichika. I really hope Kaitou won’t rape you, ’cause we all know you’ve got no say in the matter.”

But Dr. lolikit, you might object, it’s just anime.

Anime is culture. Culture is education. We learn lessons from every thought we consume. I hope you learn the lesson I did from Ano Natsu (that it’s shit), but there are other lessons one could learn from it. I have friends who like this show, friends who have fallen victim to it. It’s not just that moron Hanners. And even Hanners could do to understand the piss he’s drinking. I’m a benevolent guy.

Is it too much to ask for a show to signal some forward thinking, some progressive attitudes toward sexuality? Is it too much to ask for a show to not rob its female characters of agency over their own bodies?

If your answer is yes, you’re a failed human being.

And to all failed human beings, I say this: anime will always be an abhorrently flawed genre so long as Ano Natsu-level bullshit runs rampant within its boundaries.

If Thermae Romae were a manga—and I’m not a manga-reader, but if it was cool to read comics—and I saw it on a table at Comiket, I’d have to compliment its author. “This is pretty good paper. It feels good to the touch and the finish is flawless.”

Like one of Najimi’s many shitty forays into the world of Doujin Work, Thermae Romae displays its meat very conservatively.

Najimi’s Doujin

(Screenshot screenshotted from Josh’s Anime Blog)

For the ignorant masses, Najimi is a shitty artist. She gets better at drawing by focusing entirely on faces at a single angle. It makes for exciting porn.

Thermae Romae

The Bottom Line

Najimi was a shitty manga artist because she didn’t draw genitals. Doujin Work was about how terrible she was and how amateurs can’t just make easy money by entering a pervy industry unless they’re prepared to bare it all. Lucius should watch Doujin Work on one of his excursions to Japan and learn this lesson. He’s clearly not cut out to work in the bath industry.

And if he intends to continue in his fruitless pursuit of the titular ‘thermae,’ I can only say to him what Jon Lajoie has said far too many times: show me your genitals.

Merry Lolikitean Christmas. For my final day of “12 Days,” I present unto you the most epic moment in anime this year:

100 points to the first person who identifies this animated masterwork.

Lolikitean Christmas continues with yet more lag and yet more Madoka (click for last time’s). I warned you guys: I like revisiting things multiple times!

Episode 10 of Madoka may be one of the best episodes of anime of All Time™. Not only did it come at the perfect time in the show’s arc, but standalone it was superb. Execution both visual and audio was top-notch. Homura’s emotions and goals are solidified, believable (within Manga Logic at least). Madoka’s weakness is explained (more explicitly in the following episode, but still). Homura’s issues with Sayaka are also addressed. Overall, this episode binds the rest of the show together, the keystone of the series, while also being a fantastic piece of animation in its own right.

I’ve seen it maybe seven, eight times now. It never grows old.

And my maybe favorite part: the resemblance I see between Madoka, as magical girl, and Chise, as ultimate weapon. Both are well-meaning young girls roped into destructive conflicts far larger than they. The end result is that the world suffers tremendously, and the girl is obliterated, replaced by an ominous black spire. It casts an imposing shadow across the ruined Earth.

I could talk phallic, I could talk 2001, or I could just shut up.

C) Put It In

Lolikitean Christmas continues with yet more Madoka (click for yesterday’s). I warned you guys: I like revisiting things multiple times!

So in the end, Kaname Madoka writes herself out of history, out of memory, and out of time itself. Seems an awful lot like the martyrdom of a particular shoujo hologram. Homura plays the role of Alice. She retains the strongest imprint of the now-absent God. Of course, Alice has the pleasure of meeting a second IP 7 bug (tiny Lain on the bridge), though she doesn’t recognize Lain beyond the impression of familiarity. Then again: who’s to say what Homura will or won’t encounter in the Final Fantasy 9esque monster-spawning mist?

Hope springs eternal.

“I have decided on my wish, Eiri. I want to erase every IP 7 bug before it’s born! Every bug from every network, from the past and the future. With my own hands.”

“That wish… if your wish is fulfilled, it’ll surpass even Wired-Meatspace interference! It’s a treason against the internet itself! Do you really want to become a god?”

In case you’ve yet to guess the gimmick, it’s called Spot the Quotation.

Madoka, necessarily in being a deconstruction of magical girl anime, is of course the least original thing ever.

Lolikitean Christmas continues with more Madoka (click for yesterday’s).

I never “shipped” Kyoko and Sayaka the way some have. As some of you may remember, yuri goggles lost their usefulness for me thanks to Erica Friedman treating Aria the way yuri fangirls will. I shouldn’t blame her. In fact, I retract all my previous poison. But she was still wrong, still a bullheaded dipshit, and her obstinate insistence upon reading her fandom and tendencies into everything from Noir to AIR ruined yurispec for me forever.

All this said: the friendship between the two weakest characters in the cast impressed me, and when Kyoko’s scorpion and Sayaka’s mermaid clash in their final fight, I was shaken.

Never forget.

Love & mutual destruction are not infrequently linked.

(ShizNat, anyone?)

Lolikitean Christmas had a hick-up, but I’m going to catch up, like no one ever has. The anime of the 17th is Magical Girl Madoka Magica.

Madoka (2011-01-06)

Description

After experiencing a bizarre dream, Madoka Kaname, a kind 14-year-old girl, encounters a magical creature named Kyube. Madoka and her friend Sayaka Miki are offered the opportunity of gaining magical powers if they agree to make a contract with the strange little being. He will also grant them one wish, but in exchange they shall risk their lives by accepting the responsibility of fighting witches. Invisible to human eyes, witches are catalysts of despair in the areas they inhabit. An ally of Kyube, a magical girl named Mami Tomoe, befriends and encourages the two girls to accept the contract. For an unknown reason, another magical girl named Homura Akemi is determined to prevent Madoka from accepting the deal.

Genre: adventure, horror, psychological, science fiction
Theme: evil being, magic, magical girl, mind break, tragedy, wishes, witches
Length: 12

Links: Official Official Official ANN

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Anyway, there’s been time traveling, sliding, and general alien bullshit in a good deal of 2011′s haul. Madoka in particular had an impact on me, however.

Homu Homu done fucked up

This image just resonates somewhere in my fantasy fanboy database for some reason. Gears are kinda like wheels, and, well… Brian Saunderson’s got you covered.

Lolikitean Christmas continues. The anime of the day is Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai, AKA The Mouthful.

Ano Hana (2011-04-14)

Description

Six childhood friends grew apart in high school. One of them is Jintan, now a shut-in. He gets a request to fulfill a wish for Menma, the only one of their friends to have stayed the same over the years. In order to grant her wish, he will have to find and reunite their old friends.

Links: Official ANN

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Can’t blame Jinta for remembering love.

…

…

Even if I mostly remember wanting to punch Menma in the face.