So. My first thoughts when they were showing us the “history” segment were “lolol Code Geass” because you have the same thing: some self-righteous bastards have some new technology that they’ve somehow managed to develop completely in secret, and that technology is humanoid robots on wheels, and they use this technology to take over the whole damn world.

For the record, “lolol Code Geass” is not the same as “lolol this is ripping off Code Geass”—I’m well aware of which work was first conceived in the chronology of creation. It’s more like… “lolol this turned out so well last time an anime did this.”

Psst. Sarcasm.

But I digress. The next thing I thought—still in that scene with the rideback drop pods carriers—was “… Innocent Venus.”

For those not in the know (IV is shit, so it might be obscure), Innocent Venus features a cool Yousei Teikoku OP, a cast of shitheads, and rollerblade mechs the armaments of which are too inaccurate to deal with infantry. Obvious parallels here…

… but then, in reading some post somewhere, I realized: Outlaw Star! These are grappler motorcycles. Yep. Hella original, RITE?!

Discuss.

Oh also, if I could say “typical” over nine thousand times in a row, that might almost describe this show.

“I’m bad at beating around the bush, so I’ll get straight to the point.”

This after 2.5 minutes of beating around the bush. 2.5 minutes is all it took for me to understand that Lucky Star was shit. 2.5 minutes is a lot of time. Stupid

“Make Yuu sad? Isn’t this what I wanted? Yet why… I wanted revenge… etc.”

Stupid bitch. You have no good reason to extract “revenge” when he did nothing to you. Maybe it’s the last shred of sanity in you causing you to feel rational remorse.

Yuuko’s self-mutilation

Aha! She’s been doing it herself, all along! What a manipulative piece of shit. Don’t feel bad, Yuu. Rape her.

“I didn’t want to be his little sister!”

Holy shit she only just now figured that out? See, this is why we need to understand things. Now we just need to have Amamiya-sensei realize that O NOES, he didn’t want Yuuko to replace his sister.

“It was just bad luck!”

But Yuu, this is anime, and everything is tied together with strings of fate, be they black or red. Bad luck? Come on. That’s like saying 9/11 was just bad luck.

“I can’t accept it! But I can’t do anything but accept it!”

This is called a conflicting flag trigger. The game’s gonna—oh no wait, somehow that was supposed to make sense, and singularity was avoided by the script writer having no idea what negatives are.

“You finally took that thing out, eh, Yuuko?”

She should have answered, “I learn from my dear family members, and you always whip out your dagger right away!” Unfortunately, Yuuko is nowhere close to awesome, and is thusly incapable of awesome lines.

Amamiya’s euphoria

Oh my foul, I think he creamed himself.

Nice heavy breathing there, fellow.

oil pant + cigarette = burn baby burn

I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m smoking in my mom’s studio.

“OMG Sensei you’ll get burned to death!!”

Wait, seriously? Yuu, do yuu realize what he’s done to yuu and yuu(ko)?

Wow. This is all so stupid. And that is why, in spite of having two of the best episodes of anime to air this year, the show is still shit.

No comments on Kuze half of episode because it’s less funny. I’ll just say that the twins are fucking annoying in tandem.

Yet these hands will never know KIRA~☆

Kaioshin Sama of internet infamy (mostly due to his trollish appearance, which in turn is mostly due to the fact that he has taste and a brain) has issued a challenge to me in the comments of one of RABURI RABURI ghostlightning-chan’s suteki My Hometown-style hippie anti-war pro-love posts. **I move away from the mic to breathe in** The post had been about how people shouldn’t mindlessly hate things, and I had sort of “derailed” (har har) the comments by my introducing my belief that love should be justified just as much as hatred, and that people should always be able to back up their evaluations of shows (and studios).

While we were on the topic of thinking and challenging oneself to be more critical, Kaioshin said:

And if you are looking for a challenge I have one for you. Find me something good that Jason Miao did in terms of blogging……..ever. I have a feeling that I’ve sent you on a wild goose chase, but this could prove interesting nonetheless.

I could point at the sky walls of this blog and yell “Who the hell do you think I am?!” but, as some shrewd observers might observe, the Jason Miao love evident on this site is merely high-level mendacity in its most convoluted form. I have no love for Jason Miao. I am not his biggest fanboy. I cannot point at his forced memes and say “BEHOLD!” while crushing Kaioshin’s challenge in his face.

Two drills, of hand and tail combined—the unison of Vindication, Loli-Kitsu!!

Well, I could. But shouldn’t there be some limit to how sarcastic I can be?

Having decided to take Kaioshin’s challenge seriously, I shall now present unto the aniblogosphere the two and a half good things Jason Miao has done “in terms of blogging,” which I take to mean both “behavior helpful to anibloggers” and “spectacularly legendary blog posts that stimulate the ‘sphere.”

2.5 – Jason Miao liberated Sixten

Were it not for Jason Miao, aniblogosphere illustrator-commenter extraordinaire Sixten would not be the appreciable source of lulz he currently is. Yes, in order to unleash Sixten’s Miao Diary upon the world Jason first had to indenture the poor guy and give him one hell of a complex. Check out this quote:

I am not taking commissions right now, except from family members or Jason Miao (who can always get work from me for free if they ask nicely). – Sixten, Artists are cheap

My interpretation? This guy is whipped.

In any event, it is fact that Sixten was bound to Jason and it is fact that Jason set him free. This is perhaps the best thing Jason has done character-wise; it reflects well on him. I wouldn’t say it’s the best thing he’s done in terms of blogging (hence this point only being ranked #2.5), but it’s pretty good. The Sixten we know today is breaking people everywhere while producing and sharing enjoyable artwork. He’s a positive force in the aniblogosphere, using his art to comment on developments in the community.

It’s good to have the present-day Sixten, and for that, I thank Jason Miao.

1.5 – Jason Miao ran Blogsuki horribly

Because Jason was an elitist prick and Blogsuki was nothing more than Jason Miao’s personal feed reader masquerading as a service to the aniblogocircle, there was room for Hung to come on stage, create Animeなの, and weave a basket from the lonely reeds.

Had Jason run Blogsuki well, the aniblogosphere would have evolved very differently. It’s a good thing he fucked up.

What? “How did he fuck up,” you ask?

Well, riddle me this. Can you load Blogsuki? Fuck off.

It’s good to have the present-day ‘sphere, and for that, I thank Jason Miao.

0.5 – Jason Miao is the aniblogosphere’s Virgin Mary

I always pin my genesis as an aniblogger on Fred Gallagher, because one of his Megatokyo rants got me to watch AIR, and that was around the time I was a regular poster on the AnimeSuki forums, through which I encountered Lovely Kitsune. And this is with good reason, for were it not for Lovely Kitsune I would have no idea what anime blogs are. He was also the one to introduce me to blogrolls (I remember he hated bluemist for placing him on his blogroll) and AIM blocks (I hero-worshipped him because I didn’t know better).

From my first post regarding the 2008 Anime Blog Awards:

Lovely Kitsune blogged epic on AIR, and it’s arguable that without him I would not have started anime blogging, and that without that, ANO’s IRC channel would have never been created, and that without that, the ANO community might never have come together, and well… the possibilities run wild from there. But basically, Jason Miao would still run the aniblogosphere.

But all that said, Lovely Kitsune merely gave me awareness. The one who propelled me into creating “notdotq, seriously!” and the lolikitsune persona was none other than Jason Miao. Thanks to his hard work creating this post, singularity was avoided and the present we know is the true and correct present.

I’ll have you notice a few things about this post of his: first, it’s tongue-in-cheek, second, it’s funny, and third, it’s mostly useful. Unbelievable, right? I mean, this is Jason Miao we’re talking about!

… it’s high time I check my quality rating again.

But I digress! Back on the topic of hand, that post got me to begin blogging anime. Now, I ask that you look around you. Were it not for me, would Animeなの’s community have developed as it did? Take a moment to chew on that one. Would Dr. Japes and Hinano be getting married? Would Os have cycled through four team blogs or would he have given up when his friends in KonOSono bailed on him? Would Owen have ever begun blogging? Would he have formed the ABC? Would I have met Author and Sixten? Would I be making a crappy visual novel?

THAT would not have been formed.
Riex would not have joined THAT.
Riex would not have been unhappy with THAT.
Riex would not have launched Oi, Hayaku!
ghostlightning would not have started his blog.

All these “what ifs” build on each other’s shoulders. Really, it’s a circle jerk of hypotheticals, and I could ramble in Aozora Loops about the possibilities, but I think that there are some fairly simple chains of events leading from that one post of Jason’s in early 2006 to the aniblogosphere we frolic around in daily as 2008 comes to a close.

I’m not trying to say that I’m the central pillar of the EL aniblogging community (though I might if I were being less serious). I’m just pointing at the fact that Jason Miao set great things in motion, albeit unintentionally.

So I’d like to be the Raigyo to Jason’s white-haired children, and say this:

“Look at the seed you planted in me. Look how well I took care of it.”

I like the baby monsters given birth to by AoMM’s Echidna, and for that, I thank Jason Miao. Awwww yeah, I just went Greek mythology on your asses. What? You want the good ol’ Bible Bitchslap? Fine. Fuckin’ “monotheists.” Well, buckle up and brace for impact because I’m about to e-jaculate all over your keyboards:

Jason Miao is the Virgin Mary to my Jesus Christ, and for that, I thank him.

Hopefully, the above picture and the one right before it help illustrate the differences between Christianity and Greek mythology: Christianity got rid of the furries and taught people to be ego-centric. Who the fuck needs siblings? Not Jesus Christ.

Well, I’d say I’ve thanked Jason Miao enough. *retches*

Now I’d like to thank Kaioshin Sama for giving me the opportunity to give thanks where thanks were due. I can now return to hating Jason Miao to my Heart’s Content!

P.S. YES I AM THE MOTHER-FUCKING ANIBLOG MESSIAH.

P.P.S.

Bin Laden didn’t blow up the projects
It was U Jason
Tell the TRUTH Jason
Miao knocked down the towers
Tell the TRUTH Jason
Miao knocked down the towers

P.P.P.S. IN B4 “TOO SOON”

It’s an opportunity to reinforce ignorance.

Reverse Thieves read Kodomo no Jikan and Scott reads Yaoi. If you want a lolicon manga that touches on taboos but delivers a touching and meaningful story nonetheless, KnJ is not the right way to go. Sure it’s got some DRAMA in it but it’s mostly comedy and fanservice. It’s not going to convert lolicon haters. Similarly, manga chock-full of gay rape isn’t going to sit well with someone who hates… gay rape.

I’m not saying it’s bad to challenge your dislikes. I recently managed to make myself enjoy avocados and mushrooms, and I wouldn’t have come this far if I hadn’t forced myself. But my attitude approaching mushrooms wasn’t “fuck, I hate mushrooms… I really fucking hate mushrooms… fuck, I really fucking hate mushrooms… maybe there’s some chance I’ll like this mushroom more than the last, but it’s extremely unlikely… FUCK I fucking hate mushrooms.” It was more like, “hmm, I hate mushrooms—but I want to change that. Other people like this shit. Other people enjoy this shit. Why do I hate it?”

So while eating the vile fungus I taught myself to contemplate why exactly I disliked mushrooms. Once I figured out that there was no good reason, I began liking them more. Same with avocado.

Same with anime.

I used to be horribly prejudiced against any show that featured space. So much so that I refused to watch more than five episodes of Cowboy Bebop, back a few years ago when it was within my grasp. After a while, I came to terms with the fact that my hatred was irrational, and I overcame it, and all was well with Infinte Ryvius, Starship Operators, etc., through today’s Tytania.

So I think that Scott’s challenge is flawed.

The approach is all wrong, in my most humble opinion.

But all this is backstory.

Here we get to the interesting part: Scott’s blog post is, for lack of a better word, wanting. He calls rape a horrible plot device (which I disagree with). He says that yaoi can only be a guilty pleasure no matter who’s watching (which I disagree with, as someone who enjoys (without guilt!!) just about any romance, regardless of who the participants are). He blames his prejudice on his upbringing (again, I disagree—humans are free to feel however they want about whatever they want, and one’s upbringing is merely a nest from which to soar after spreading one’s wings). These are three big errors. His biggest error? He has his comments closed.

That’s right. If you want to weigh in on the stuff he writes, you need to resort to pre-WWW technology (e-mail).

There are other people who do this, but it’s not so much a problem there because their sites are less interesting. (j/k Author, <3 u) My main issue here is that Scott says interesting things, things that beg for discussion, and he shuts that discussion down before it can even come to be. But, I’m a whore. So I let him ram his method into my ass, and I e-mailed him.

Below is my e-mail. Scott had a fairly negative reaction to it, saying that I acted like an asshole, so for the sake of clarity I have identified all the contents of my e-mail as either me being an asshole or me being something else.

Now, the only two places that can feasibly be construed as me being an asshole are circled. I sheepishly admit that I did not address my latter properly (it should have been “Dear Scott:”, and I opted for a more friendly approach). I also proudly admit that I didn’t use euphemisms to cover up my opinion of his statement regarding the viability of rape as a plot device. Both of these circled spots are marginally rude. Scott, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.

And now, apologies out of the way, I’m done with being sorry.

I’m not going to paste Scott’s e-mail here (my PR guy taught me not to do shit like that), but I will discuss its contents.

First, he says that I have a bit of an attitude problem. I’d say that that’s not news to me, but it actually is. You’re talking about the guy being inappropriately revered for laying the verbal smackdown on random e-passersby. I have a huge attitude problem (yes I am compensating for something). The other shocking thing that Scott says is that he doesn’t appreciate my attitude. The man loves Kodomo no Jikan and he doesn’t like my attitude? Shocking!

He then gives me advice: he tells me not to call people idiots (something I didn’t do in my e-mail) and he also tells me not to tell people that I find their websites boring. Well, fuck. I can’t tell him that his website is boring to me, but he can tell me that my sexuality is abhorrent to him?

He goes on to say that he disagrees with me (without any discourse) and finishes by telling me that I shouldn’t bother with that second e-mail, oh and by the way he’s blocking me on Twitter and putting my e-mail address on his blacklist. I thought that he was a pretty censor-loving guy when I discovered that his comments were closed, but this is straight-up self-delusion and isolation from reality! Refusing communication altogether, boxing oneself up…

Scott of The Anime Almanac is an adversary of freedom.

Scott of The Anime Almanac is Public Enemy #2.

P.S. his post was the best possible advertisement for Gerard & Jacques. I will make it my new goal in life to go out, purchase, and consume as many volumes of this masterpiece as I possibly can.

Fuck.

Well that’s just fabulous. So what I thought I’d do was, I’d stop my “Rage Against The Jason” long enough to pull some kind of “hahaha just kidding!!” gag. Figured it’d be funny. Figured it’d be hiiiiilarious. The plan was simple: I’d rename notdotq “Miao on My Mind,” I’d float my layout down a river of jasonisms, and then I’d ride on the wave of my readers’ cum.

The plan was, as stated, simple. And so I executed it flawlessly.

I renamed notdotq “Miao on My Mind.”

I floated my layout down a river of jasonisms.

But.

I guess that there was a hidden “???” step I missed out on, though, because my plan has gone horribly wrong. I’m not profiting. If anything, my coffers are being depleted. Rapidly. If this goes on much longer, I will lose all means of waging war against the monster. I will lose… everything.

As we speak, I’m rowing and rowing against the river of jasonisms I myself caused to spring forth from the metaphorical spring. It’s like my month’s work has become an oppressive power, and I find myself forced by my morals and learning to fight it.

Fuck.

This is my “remorse” face pose.

I know what I did wrong. It’s the inside jokes. I left them open to interpretation, to those of you who weren’t familiar with them. You might not have understood that my use of “oh geass no” in a recent post was my attempt at lampooning Jason for his idiocy. In fact, you didn’t. You thought that my alleged “love” for Jason was true, that it was real. You probably thought you could reach out and touch it, and you probably did reach out, and you probably touched something.

The truth is that I have, in my attempts at satire, in my attempts at parody, in my attempts at destruction, legitimized idol-worship of Jason Miao.

This is Jason raping me and, by extension, the entire EL aniblogosphere.

I will never forgive myself.

Look at Oi, Hayaku! It’s this shit-awful team aniblog that sprung up a little over a month ago. Its pretentious-as-all-fuck prima donna ringleader, Riex, has promised us an “aniblogging revolution.” He promised us a new era, and above that he promised us awesome. He assembled a kick-ass score of gifted writers. Unfortunately, all but one of these were aware of how much Jason Miao blows.

I can only guess that, being the enlightened individuals they are, Riex’s bitches took it upon themselves to read my blog when researching the ‘sphere. It’s a beacon of intelligence, after all, right? Fuck.

And what did they take away? They took away that Jason Miao is the end-all, be-all of anibloggerality and that his method is a method that will pierce the drivel of the modern aniblogging scene. Oh, how wrong. Oh, how misled. Jason Miao’s methods won’t call in a new era. Jason Miao’s methods won’t change anything for the better. Jason Miao is a staple of the old-age aniblogosphere, the one-time tyrant of Blogsuki, the desecrator of good shows and proponent of filth. Jason Miao is a demon, and following in his footsteps is like being the confessor to his Zange-chan. Using his forced memes is like being the art club to his Nagi-sama.

This is what’s happening, and it’s not even behind the scenes.

I’m not trying to say anything bad about Oi, Hayaku. They’re good people. I know that the harsh logorrhea is flowing, but that’s just my mood.

I’m not trying to say that Oi, Hayaku has nothing to offer to the ‘sphere. As I said, it’s more full of good writers than your mom’s vagina is of flutes.

Oi, Hayaku could indeed be great.

But not like this.

And I’m a nice guy. Like Akari, I’m wishing for your happiness. I want Oi, Hayaku to succeed. I want it to revolutionize the aniblogosphere. I want it to rock hard. So I’ll give the fellows over there a piece of advice: it’s not too late. You can still turn back.

beanbrew. Maggeh. However many others of you think that jasonisms are all the rage.

Fuck, I don’t care who you are.

Don’t feed the monster.

Others and I worked our fingers to the bone breaking his hegemony in June 2006. Hung of BasuGasuBakuhatsu and AnimeNaNo is the main star to thank, what with making Blogsuki useless. But there are dozens. Drm and tj han, who stood up to the abuse they and others received. Corydorf, who encouraged me to wage my all-out war against the then-Anime on My Mind. Everyone who made fun of Jason in IRC. Everyone. Everyone worked together, as a team, to defeat the beast.

tj han fields tripeman against jason

And we succeeded. The community thrived outside of Jason’s grasp. We made a world where new anibloggers could set up their sites without knowing about Jason.

And now, more than two years later, those new anibloggers, in their ignorance, are about to be the Hebrews to my God—they’re going to ignore my warnings, my words of wisdom, and they’re going to worship false idols. The message of this paragraph is not that anyone should worship me. It just seems like it is. Seriously. I’m almost writing stream of consciousness here. Why all the punctuation? Shit, man. I think in punctuation.

Anyway.

Don’t do this. You don’t need to. You can find your own funny, and you can use it to power a new generation in the aniblogosphere. You don’t need Jason. He’s a blighting influence. Purge him from your systems. (I’m mixing metaphors so fast you’d think this was an alchemist’s NASCAR track!)

How do trains resemble race cars? Let me count the ways…

But. I can’t talk of myself as if I were a saint, or the chemo, or what have you. Oi, Hayaku’s writers beanbrew and Maggeh drew to my attention my most grievous mistake: I took my satire too far. I obfuscated my sarcasm. People took me seriously. They thought I loved Jason. They interpreted my parroting as adulation. Have they not watched the Colbert Report? But I cant blame them for a lack of insightfulness. I can only blame myself for failing to communicate.

I can only blame myself, and ask that the ‘sphere reconsider. That Oi, Hayaku reconsider.

I repeat: it’s not too late.

You can still turn back.

Mid-post Breaking News!
This just in: Otou-san divulges the fact that Oi, Hayaku’s shittiness is all a ploy to put me out of business.

I was going to add, at the end of this post, that I was at least touched that Maggeh imitated me ( Exhibit A :: a recent graph of mine | Exhibit B :: a more recent graph of Maggeh’s ). But now I see. This whole thing was merely a plot to steal my crown? Fuck that shit. Oi, Hayaku must not receive Best Satire or Funniest at ABA 2009. I’m donning my “fuck these shits” outfit.

This is my “fuck these shits” face.

So it looks like ef ~a tale of melodies~ is going to be the first in a long awaited new series of posts here on Miao on My Mind: A Certain Whoredom Index. Basically, what this means is that ef ~a tale of melodies~ is deep. Like a whore.

Before I go on, I want to make something clear: admittance to the Index is not necessarily bad. “Whore” is usually used as a derogative, but on this site it only means “thing that has some semblance of depth.” You know. Like a standard Kyoto Animation show. Or like Author’s incisive postings. Or like CJ. I could give more examples, but I’d rather add to the Index with further posts. That said, let’s examine our current specimen!

I called it before anyone else! Eat my dust, bitches!

So I was watching episode 3 of ef ~a tale of melodies~, and the OP came up, and I was like “lol” because the OP makes me lol. But then I stopped myself—”lolikit! Get it together! This show is srs fkn bsns!!” And I forced myself to take a second look at what I was watching. One opening of VLC, a shitload of play/pause syncing, and half a minute later, I was looking at the OP sequences of episodes 2 and 3 side by side. As I’d remembered, the OP had once been far more monochrome. It’s got colors now! Lots of them! They clash and look bad!

Shinbo must be up to something!

Furthermore, the girls have faces now. I remember when, in ef ~a tale of memories~, the OP visuals were changed so that the girls were like, no longer chained, or something (I don’t recall all the details, geez). But that was for the last episode, and this is episode three. If the changes were less subtle, I’d guess that the animators finally got comfortable with their budget, but really, it’s just a matter of colorizing something.

I guess another difference is in the amount of text displayed in the background at any given point.

Speaking of text… the text in the last ef’s OP was the text of Chihiro’s novel. What could this OP’s text be? The “policies” of Himura? It’ll be interesting to see where this ef goes, since Kuze seems to be on a 24 hour clock at this point and Himura’s backstory is not cool at all. He’s much better sitting on a church altar playing Isako than he is being angsty about his dead sister. Well. He is better. I’m not sure the plot is. But it’s all questionable either way.

And we’re left wondering, did the lily exploding and fading like a firework inside the dark recesses of Kuze’s mind at 00:26 somehow symbolize his chance at raw sex with Mizuki disappearing as his death draws nearer?

Fear not, Kuze! You can make like Narcissu and disappear into the waves, and then you’ll have no regrets because you didn’t die at home or on 7F.

Lily’s less important than that, right?

Eventually, Mizuki will get over you and begin screwing her love interest’s twin sister. After a couple weeks, Renji will find out and bow out of his relationship with Chihiro like the true wimp he is. Maybe, in desperation, he’ll settle on his mother (whom, incidentally, people seem to be forgetting is just as delicious as Furukawa Sanae). But no matter what happens there, everyone’s happy—including Himura, ’cause he got to send you off with some poorly-pronounced German.

Did I do a good job of presenting an “omg stylistic thingy omg” element, pretending to begin analyzing it, and then launching into rabid fanboyism? A good impression, right? You guys are impressed, right? I could take over for Owen anytime, right?

lol lights don’t work that way and neither do shadows

I have to confess to something shameful—Shirukii’s no-nonsense straighter-than-a-Euclidian-line anime blog has, in fact, affected my sense of humor. I’ll always remember a playful response by one of his readers to a comment by “Raigomaru“—”chickens don’t work that way, and neither does death.”

Alright, that’s all from me for now.

Hopefully that’s all the ef blogging I do for the rest of this season. We really don’t need more pseudo-intellectual elitist pricks around here, right?

The first third of Iriya is far superior to the first third of Saikano

Karmaburn’s latest post deftly dodges the truth of “would you like to lick them?” in order to jump on the convenient “Saikano is emo fail” bandwagon. While Saikano is far from perfect in the eyes of those not ready to abandon themselves to its emotional Amusement Park, we must keep in mind that Iriya no Sora was dictionary-definition trash. It had two good scenes (maybe three if you still care about the show at the end). Rather, I might call it the Strawberry Panic to Saikano’s Maria-sama ga Miteru.

Well, that was maybe two months ago now. It’s about time I get that blog post out there.

Majime na Lolikit

Anime Characters Are Too Sexual In The Eyes Of Anime Characters,
or Why Unwarranted Jealousy Isn’t Cool Anymore

Aoi and Kaoru

Ai Yori Aoshi is a sweet story about two childhood friends, Kaoru and Aoi, realizing more mature emotions toward each other… for about three episodes. Then, in quick succession, the show introduces three female characters and has them all over the main character. The ground nuts on top of the whipped cream would be that our two lovers must keep their relationship secret for some unbelievably hackneyed reason, and thus any further female characters will see any kindness from Kaoru as an advance.

There’s some illogic there, and I’ll get to it in a moment, but first, let me explain the plot of Ai Yori Aoshi:

Kaoru and Aoi get together.

Let me repeat that:

Kaoru and Aoi get together.

“But lolikit, didn’t they do that in episodes one through three?” you might ask. And the answer is yes. But the world doesn’t know this and so they must spend twenty-three more episodes getting together. This means twenty-three episodes of enduring “romantic comedy” involving Kaoru and his haremettes, who aren’t really his haremettes because he’s already involved with Aoi and he’s not unfaithful (he loves her, and wants to be with her).

It raises the question: why?!

“But lolikit, a show where nothing happens can be wonderful too!” you might protest. And I’m the first one to defend a lack of plot or direction. Someone was bitching at me yesterday about how Mushishi was too repetitive, and had no overarching plot. I don’t actually know anything about Mushishi other than its alleged awesomeness, but I defended it, saying that my favorite shows have nothing happen in them, so how could a bit of repetition or lack of plot be that bad? The problem is that in Ai Yori Aoshi, there isn’t “nothing happening.” Sure, it’s slice of life and laid back, but the show is pushing harem moments into our faces one after another.

And you know what?

Both “OMG LOVE TRIANGLE OMG,” and the classic question of “who will he pick,” are both invalidated by the knowledge that he’s going to be with Aoi. This isn’t Shuffle, where Rin can unexpectedly pick Asa. This is Suzuka, and Yamato is going to pick Suzuka.

First parallel with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: we know the characters are going to be together, and we know this from the beginning.

Haruka and Yuuto are as “together” after two episodes of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu as Kenji and Nanami are at the beginning of Lamune.

Now, going back to Ai Yori Aoshi, I’d like to point out another trend. Despite having some vestige of confidence and self-esteem, our beloved female lead occasionally show signs of jealousy. Why? Does she not see that her dear Kaoru-sama is completely devoted to her? Well, she does—but her womanly intuition (you know, that thing anime characters love citing and using as an excuse for equating women to dumb animals incapable of analysis) tells her that the women surrounding her man are a threat to their relationship.

The Enemy

Q: Why are they a threat?
A: Because they’re making advances on Kaoru.

Q: Why are they making advances on Kaoru?

A: Because they think he’s totally hot for them.

Q: Why do they think he’s totally hot for them?
A: Because he’s nice to them (illogic, again, I’ll get to this later).

Second parallel with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: the female lead worries unnecessarily about her relationship with the male lead when female characters with “no chance” (because the end couple is predetermined) enter the picture.

We see this with the Shiina in the second half of the show, many times.

Now I think is a fitting time to address the “illogic” I mentioned earlier. Take a look at this stereotypical line of events, common in trashy anime:

1. boy meets girl
2. boy, being a kind person, is nice to girl
3. girl thinks boy is being especially kind to her
4. girl falls for boy
5. boy wants nothing to do with girl
6. girl’s heart is broken

Suzumiya Akane

Well, you can see this formula in lots of places, I suppose. You can see it in Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, even—Suzumiya Haruka’s little sister Akane is attracted to Takayuki because he is “too kind to her.” The formula alone doesn’t make something trashy, and I guess a lot of that is in the execution. I’d say that in the majority of cases, though, the formula is a one-way ticket to lametasticity. And we see it in Ai Yori Aoshi. And we see it in Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.

We don’t see it too often in shoujo anime (more often, the guy is a jerk and the girl falls for him—hey, sounds like real life!) and we don’t see it too often in real life (examine: the last parenthetical comment).

The main problem with the formula, as I see it, is that it doesn’t make sense. We’re not talking spending thousands of dollars and years of time for the girl—we’re talking something simple. Lending an umbrella. Working together on schoolwork. Watching out for a fellow human being. Girls: you’ve interacted with humans before, I imagine. Tell me: head over heels for everyone who’s shown you courtesy? Wet panties for the random guy who shares his textbook with you?

I must confess to the misguided sin of not being born female, but even I with my limited knowledge of the opposite sex presume to know the answer to some fundamental questions such as the two above: no.

Sexuality doesn’t work that way.

And because sexuality doesn’t work that way, I consider my intelligence insulted every time an anime insinuates that a heterosexual man cannot have a girlfriend and girl friends without eliciting jealousy from his girlfriend. We saw this in Suzuka with Yamato getting shit from his miko girlfriend (AND from Suzuka) for being nice to Suzuka. (This is an ambiguously bad example because one could dispute that the miko girlfriend was right and that he was crushing on Suzuka, but that most certainly was not his intention and he was never unfaithful.)

Let me give a couple examples of rare anime where “my boyfriend/love interest is a heterosexual male, he must be interested in cheating on me with his large collection of female friends” illogic is not present:

1. Lamune
2. To Heart

this is hilarious, in a number of ways

Both of these shows have large female casts, no more or less attractive than any other lineup of female anime characters, and a male character who is very friendly and close with many of these characters. The female leads are no more egotistical than those of Ai Yori Aoshi or Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu; they do not possess godly self-esteem. Yet they do not falter and they do not question, and that is well because their love interests, like most reasonable human beings, are not about to have relations with any girl they come across.

This characteristic holds for Kaoru and Yuuto, by the way. And yet…

Anyway, the sexuality of anime characters in the eyes of other characters is ludicrous in general. We see the attitude even in such blockbuster hits as Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu: in episode two, we are told by Kyon that Haruhi begins changing before the boys leave the room; she must view them as potatoes, and he says this with an air of distaste—this behavior is odd, unnatural, and for the sole reason that it reflects poorly on her sexuality.

Issues of hetero-/homosexuality aside, I feel like this statement in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu is particularly ill-thought out.

The first problem with it is that the only good reason for changing in privacy is embarrassment. Embarrassment over how one looks. This should be independent of the potential viewer’s sexuality. If you don’t want someone staring at you while you’re changing, you don’t want someone staring at you while you’re changing. So really it’s more like Haruhi has no sense of shame (or that she has godly self-esteem, which I find unlikely given her behavior throughout the show and most especially her reaction to being thanked in episode 12).

The Ogre in question

The second problem with it is that “seeing men as potatoes” (and women, by the way—Kyon neglects to mention this, but I’ll point it out) is more likely part of Haruhi’s general disinterest in love. “Yeah, yeah,” you might say, “lolikit’s full of it. She’s thrilled when Kyon expresses interest in her.” But this is after being changed by what she experiences. At the show’s offset, she is “interested in a relationship with a time traveler, esper, etc.” but only because she’s interested in them period. Love isn’t her thing. And why?

Because she has a self-esteem issue. After being shown how pointless the individual is (remember her recollection of the ballgame) she has all but lost self-worth. She’s not a god or a bored human, “she’s a sixteen year old girl” (couldn’t help quoting Kannazuki no Miko here—I don’t know her age and I won’t be assed to look it up). She has her own existential quandary like so many angsty joshikousei, and it’s an obstacle in the way of caring one way or another about love and relationships. It’s not a matter of sexuality.

Man, I could go on harping about this one line of Haruhi for ages. But I could just as easily harp on any other example of characters taking each other’s sexuality too seriously. I’m sure there are at least one hundred per episode of Love Hina, and that’s only the face of an entire genre that is culpable of this behavior.

The main point here is: why so serious, Aoi? Why so serious, Haruka?

Your man is with you.

He’s not interested in the sluts throwing themselves at him, and neither are we.

So I ask you: why the unwarranted jealousy?

Miyamura Miyako, batshit

Oh, oh! Another awesome example: ef ~a tale of memories~ had this guy Hiro who loved this girl Miyako, but she went batshit because Hiro had a female childhood friend to whom he was friendly and supportive. Why the bitchiness, Miyako? Why the unwarranted jealousy? Your man is with you. (Another ambiguously bad example because Kei really did want Hiro inside her, but only ambiguously bad because Hiro clearly didn’t want in.)

I could present dozens more examples, but I think my point is made. This is my problem with Ai Yori Aoshi, and this is my problem with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. This is my problem with a ton of romance shows. And that’s not to say that I have an inherent problem with romantic comedy. So long as it doesn’t make pretenses, and decides whether or not it’s harem/love polygon/etc., and sticks to that decision, I can forgive it its idiocy (for instance, I love Love Hina).

And finally, a good word in for Ai Yori Aoshi and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: awwwwwwwwww the couples are so sweeeeeeeeet. (Thanks, Bawwwka-Raptor!)

Epilogue: If you didn’t know that Haruka and Yuuto were going to end up together, you haven’t seen a whole lot of anime. And in that case, I recommend the show to you. Take it as an opportunity to learn.

“My darkest secret is that my show was trash!”

Majime na Lolikit
How Aria Ruined Subtext, or Why Yuri Isn’t Funny Anymore

In early 2005, I finished watching AIR. At the time, I was active on the AnimeSuki.com forums (handle: Broken), and was active in discussing the episodes as they were aired and fansubbed. In the AIR episode 12 thread, someone linked to lovelykitsune.com‘s special feature. LK had written Misuzu’s final diary entry for her. I laughed my ass off and proceeded to read through the rest of his archives. I gobbled up his Maria-sama ga Miteru reviews like candy. It was, as he himself put it, a writer’s gold mine.

Amazed at how humorous this Maria-sama show appeared to be, I downloaded it (along with Negima and Kanon, some of the first anime I consumed after my introduction to the medium via Naruto) and watched it.

I laughed at the subtext and the ridiculous premise (it’s a lesbian Catholic school lolol) but the show simply wasn’t as funny as Lovely Kitsune had portrayed it. Saddened, I groped for a new angle from which to enjoy it, and eventually I found it: I could amuse myself by looking too far into possible subtext and then laughing at how gay everyone was (it’s a lesbian Catholic school lolol). It wasn’t that I was homophobic (those were turbulent times, and I was seriously considering the possibility that I myself was gay—actually, I still don’t have an answer O_o), but the overabundance of this otherness was more than enough to make me chuckle.

After reading Pretty Face (“Become my onee-sama #2!”) and watching such blockbusters as Mai-HiME (ShizNat) and Kannazuki no Miko (best confession scene ever), I found that I liked this ‘shoujo ai’ business quite a bit. They were so cute, and in a lot of cases they were facing adversity in order to stay true to themselves and their hearts.

A lot of the lulz went away, but the yuri goggles remained.

(What am I talking about? The lulz was as strong as ever. I lurked the shoujoai.com forums for a while and witnessed the first ever declaration of YFR—the hilarious forum interchange that led to me creating kyousora.com and infecting the minds of several other anibloggers.)

Eventually I came upon Strawberry Panic. It made me laugh at the yuri because it was laughable. I blame this entirely upon premise and script. Oh, and the over-dramatization of everything. Around the same time, I was just a fledgling aniblogger. I discovered danbooru. I discovered various other things… like Shoujo Sect… long and short of it is that I came to this revelation: yuri is hot!!

Subtext became even more awesome as I tread into the world of AWESOME Nanoha.

Desires were fulfilled as Kyoushiro to Towa no Sora ended.

And after some time, I saw Aria.

You say good things sometimes, Alice!

Aria’s an odd cookie. Almost entirely female cast, lots of deep caring and emotion, and yet not once—not once did I find a hint of girls’ love, subtextual or otherwise. I found sisterly doting, I found friendship, I found admiration.

Please direct your attention, for a moment, toward this post of Erica Friedman’s: Yuri Anime: Aria OAV Arietta (Thanks to icystorm over at Miminum Tempo for the heads’ up.)

I’ve never been a huge fan of Friedman’s. I know she’s done some great work, etc., but one day I stumbled across some Noir review of hers and it made me cringe. Noir wasn’t yuri as far as I could tell. I recall thinking to myself—is friendship such an impossible thing?

This is, for the record, the same reaction several of my classmates had in Bible as Literature when my teacher presented unto them the theory that David and Jonathan were “romantic friends.” So maybe I just had a preconception of Noir since I’d seen it before and might find the romance between Kirika and Mireille if I were to go into the show with Friedman’s review in mind… but there’s still a distinction, I feel, even between:

- romantic friendship

and

- sexuality

I can’t really imagine David and Jonathan going for that hawt hawt butthsekcz. They definitely did seem like more than (contemporary definition of) friends to me, though. The characters in Noir share an incredibly powerful bond; does that mean that they are a yuri couple? I don’t recall any indications that the two of them felt ANY attraction toward each other, physical or mental or otherwise. I was under the impression that they were brought together by the past, or fate, or something dumb like that, and that perhaps the “odd bedfellows” saying applies.

But a yuri couple?

And I say that same thing to Aria, only a million times over.

Creating something, together—possibly the height of human existence.

When I first watched Aria episode two or whichever, the one where Akari sleeps over in Aika’s room, I probably thought something like, “oooo yuri action oh yeah.” I guarantee that by the time I finished season one, such vulgar thoughts had been completely dispelled. When I say vulgar, I am not incriminating yuri—I am incriminating subtext. Sure, it’s there, and I’m sure people can find it (after all, Erica Friedman did!), but what does it add, other than cheap giggles? If it’s not solid, if it’s not canon, it’s only speculation.

Speculation is something that you get fans to do when you try to entice them with fluff (see: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu). Did Kozue Amano want use to try to figure out which of the Aria girls were getting off on which others’ fingers? For some reason, I doubt it. Did Mag Garden? Please. It’s there, but only if you’ve trained yourself to find it anywhere can you find it in Aria. Subtext can literally be found in everything if you’re well enough trained.

It’s like over-analyzing things.

I’m not trying to be a deconstructionist, I’m just trying to rationalize—what benefit does Aria gain from lesbianism? I found it quite reassuringly non-retarded that the work just about never touched on sexuality (we know Akatsuki is crushing on Akari and that Aika and Harry Potter get together, but even that doesn’t tell us that much) because, from my point of view, sexuality is a fairly boring topic (though this does not mean that I intentionally ignore it). It’s much more interesting for me to focus on the scenery or the messages or the character drama than the possibilities of who’s attracted to whom. Yes, believe it or not, you can have character drama without romance! Alicia and Akari’s tearful hug in Origination 13 was not the culmination of their lust and sexual tension.

gomenasi, for everything gomenasai

Before you say “but it could be!” let me point you to a very similar scene, both in direction and character action: AIR episode 6; Tohno Minagi returns to her mother’s home and the two share a tearful embrace.

The writer(s) behind AIR had serious mom issues, methinks—there’s a bit of a trend here.

(I refuse to believe that Minagi was hot for her mom. If you think that this is a bad comparison becaue she was hot for her mom, please explain to me why and how she is hot for her mom.)

And because there is nothing explicitly stated in Aria, and because I see no sexuality implied in it, I don’t find any lesbians. Whether the characters ARE gay, or straight, or bi, or what have you, is a pointless question: none of the characters are in yuri relationships. You can spend a lifetime speculating about sexuality if you have no solid cues.

The idea of Aria porn makes me uneasy.

The show is too pure for that. Too innocent. Too much about living a certain way. Not at all about whom to do or why.

Similarly, the idea of pairing Aria characters and doing anything in the vein of fanporn unsettles me, be it fanfic or fanart or so much as discussing one’s support for a coupling. Much as Neo-Venezia is a world beyond disease and homicide, it is a world beyond sex. Such thoughts simply don’t exist in Aria. There was never anything about dating or societal pressures to fulfill gender roles and get into certain relationships or making babies or not making babies or defying a conservative society or taking advantage of a liberal one. None of these topics are touched upon, thus furthering the detachment from sexuality.

And with all the unbridled potential for yuri (a full cast of females at the extremes of hot or cute in terms of both appearance and personality), combined with this total absence of sexuality, I have completely lost my drive to examine subtext or find lesbians in anime.

I don’t see the point anymore.

Why seek cheap laughs or pursue fetishes when something so perfect, so pure, so devoid of questions exists? Aria is the end-all be-all of my anime experience, and it has vanquished my love for yuri. It has vanquished my love for giggling childishly at possibilities.

Aria killed subtext.

And one last note, in case any staunch Aria yuri fans are reading this:

If Akari and Alicia were in a lesbian relationship, would Alicia have left to go get married to some other person? Alicia is mature. She doesn’t need to graduate schoolgirl lesbianism.