If you’re a regular around here, and were before I “stopped being an anime blogger” (thanks, Scamp!), you’ll know I’m one of the few who talks about Aria a lot. But more likely, you’ve seen the name a few times, know the premise of the show, and little else.

I mean… in all honesty, there’s little else to Aria, save the experience of watching it. It’s slice of life at its most distilled consistency, meaning that outside the premise there’s very little to be said about its contents. They just kind of happen.

But wait—there’s probably one other thing you know about Aria. And that is that its titular character is an ugly, fat, noisy cat who does hideous semi-anthropomorphized dances and shakes his x-shaped bootyhole all over the place while shrieking noises formerly only ever heard in bad Kyoto Animation Key adaptation anime: “puinyuu,” &c..

Don’t get me wrong. I love President Aria to death.

But I didn’t use to.

And that’s actually a trend I’ve seen amongst lovers of Aria. Initially, they’ll say “it’s good, even though Aria (the cat) is horrendous.” Eventually they’ll be oohing and aahing at the sight of the lovable white blob. Did I just say blob?

Let me introduce another concept: moeblob.

You know the kind… the weaker of the two Hiiragi sisters from Lucky Star, Ayu from Kanon, Hideaki Anno, etc.

And you know them from K-on!: Yui, Mio, Azusa…

They make retarded noises, their maturity is about at the level of a sea urchin’s, they can’t perform basic problem solving, their presence alone makes you want to huggle them, and so on.

So what happened to Aria (the cat) as Aria (the show) progressed?

The blob became less of a blob and more of a, let’s say, friend. After fifty-three episodes and an OVA, he’s kinda just there, and we’re used to him, and we’re maybe even kind of interested in his struggles and tribulations. He operates much like the rest of Aria’s cast, albeit he starts out at a worse place. Would we care about the climax of the show if we hadn’t been watching Akari for fifty episodes? Would we care about Aria (the cat) if we hadn’t been watching him for fifty episodes?

There’s a saying: “I used to hate mushrooms; then they grew on me.”

Gross, but fitting.

Aria (the cat) is a mushroom.

The moeblobs of K-on! are mushrooms.

I’ll admit it was hard for me to get past the first few episodes of stupidity and retardation, but I forced myself to sit through it. Every episode it became more bearable. This isn’t just a case of the senses being dulled: I became more invested in the characters’, well, characters; in their daily lives and encounters and attempts and failures. And by the time I got to the episode in which they’re all failing at their various Sundays in “A Winter Day,” I cared.

They’d grown on me.

Is it a fault of K-on! that its cast is a bunch of foetuses with head problems?

Probably.

Is it a fault of the viewer to dismiss the show at first brush due to said fault?

I wouldn’t say so, necessarily, though a scathing commenter such as Owen might unabashedly bash on the dismissive viewer.

But I would say it’s fairly rewarding to see a slice-of-life show through and really get in bed with the characters (I mean this in a nonsexual manner). I’m a few episodes into K-on!!, and I don’t know if it’s just better than the first season or if the phenomenon I’ve outlined in this post is simply working its wonders.

I’m having fun with those kagayake-ing girls and their growth.

[[ I felt the need to write this in defense of K-on! after declaiming against it quite vehemently to my friends less than a month ago. I felt that showing a similarity with Aria—my favorite show—would show my sincerity. I hope you all understand that I am not trolling. Cheers! ]]

There’s something magical about the summer
The way the clouds look like fire,
and the sky’s so dark in comparison
The normal green of nature glows, fades to yellow
You know, that raincoat yellow you never see out there,
It’s there in the hues of summer

And a sky so wide—I don’t see it here
I’ve seen it twice, and it blew my mind both times

I wrote an essay about it, you know… about AIR, and summertime bliss
It was the first A I got in AP Language & Comp
It was the first time I put into words
Why I like AIR
The atmosphere, the sounds and the sights
It’s not about the huge gaping eyes
Or the gargantuan chins
Or the moe noises, or the rainbow hair
It’s not about the sick girls and it’s not about the words or the story

Yukito became a crow? What the fuck man, that’s shit
I couldn’t give a fuck about his scars or the past
Reminiscing, it makes me emo, why would he do it
Why would the creators do it
AIR was shit
Its plot was shit
Its characters—what characters

(I did this with Kanon and Lucky Star, Kyoto Animation you are whores)

But that’s not important because despite Owen’s hateful prodding
I know that I like AIR, and I know why, and it’s totally subjective
There’s no way for me to be wrong
Because it’s my aesthetic and I’m not forcing it on anyone

AIR glistens in my past, in Tahoe, in the summer
Every blue sky, every nostalgic moment, every bright day

I remember the beauty.

Majime na Lolikit

In July 2005, I went to Lake Tahoe. I had seen AIR earlier in the year (while it was airing), and happened to be listening to some tracks from it on my iPod as my father’s car turned the first bend that granted us a view of the lake. I think it was Aozora playing, or maybe Natsukage—I looked down at that lake, that glimmering blue body of water, and then up at the sky and saw that the clouds looked nothing like anything I’d seen in meatspace before.

I’m not a huge science person, nor am I very observant despite calling myself a writer, so I don’t know why the clouds were so different over Tahoe. I also don’t know how the brain works; how do we make connections? In what order do our experiences influence each other?

I don’t know any of that stuff, but that was the best trip of my life.

I spent hours lying on a pine beach, Natsukage in one ear through my headphones and in the other through the reality of where I was. It was summertime. It was buzzing. There were shadows everywhere, and lights everywhere, and vivid color. People were happy. I was happy. I saw some meadows around Tahoe, fields of red and yellow and purple. I was in awe.

Eventually, I stopped needing cheap thrills from my anime. In fact, twenty minutes ago I yawned my way through Mnemosyne. Maybe I’m desensitized or maybe it’s just not interesting to see all this crap thrown at me. I much prefer something more mellow, something more gentle. Aria enlightened me, in a sense. I’m not trying to sound elitist right now—I’m not going to say that Aria is the apex of anime and everyone should subscribe to it. Just, it changed my mind. About a lot of things. Opened me up to new perspectives. That’s an enlightenment.

A couple weeks ago, I blazed through Lamune. I started from the beginning. The first three episodes benefited from the feeling of nostalgia I had as I chomped through them.

All the symbols of summer were there. Watermelons, watering hoses, sunflowers, green and yellow, dazzling skies. Lamune lacked one key thing AIR had, though: the sound. If Lamune had favored me with the notes of Kawa or Enishi or Niji or Natsukage, I might have come on the spot. Instead, I was just moved.

Wait.

I just said that Lamune lacked something AIR had, yet the title of this post would indicate that Lamune was better! LOLIKIT YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE

-sorry for that, I’m kinda tired as I’m writing this

But here’s the deal: Lamune failed to deliver something AIR delivered. But you know all that shit AIR did wrong, all that dumb shit I mentioned before? The nonsense plot, the stupid twists, the retard girls? Somehow Lamune didn’t do that. Lamune didn’t fall into those pitfalls. If it had had something to rival AIR’s soundtrack, I might like it more than Aria, even.

Why did I like it so much?

The atmosphere. The summer.

Why did I like it for those reasons?

AIR.

AIR changed the way I look at the world; it changed the way I interpret visual cues (like that summer imagery shit, and colors). That’s also an enlightenment. I couldn’t be more grateful to it. But still, it’s shit in comparison to what it opened my eyes to: the real world summer. And that, combined with my new-found love for boredom (hurray Aria!), led me to love Lamune. The sweetness of the characters’ emotions and the lack of generic anime idiocy and harem ‘comedy’ in Lamune also added to my enjoyment, but really, it’s all there in the summer.

The colors.

The imagery.

The sounds and nostalgia they evoked. Woow I’m fail otaku. I’m going to shut up soon because this is about to be 1000 words written inside the WordPress posting box. No images, no jokes, no abbreviation tags, no links, minimal formatting. What the hell is this blog coming to? All I know is that I want to go back to Tahoe, where there’s a wide sky. Word.

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.

This is so bad… it’s so bad, I won’t even blog it. It’s… Haruhi-level bad.

What’s so bad about it, you ask?

And what right do I have to talk, having only seen two and half minutes of a single episode of a newly started show?

Oh, we’ve seen this show before. We’ve all seen it before. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu is. Whoredom at its finest. We’ve seen it in Naruto; the single franchise that makes the most money with the least effort. We’ve seen it in Gonzo films that make relatively little money with a lot of effort, but please a lot of fans with “zomfg suteki~” animation. Before Lucky Star, there was this dancing anime.

And now, there’s this dancing anime.

And it’s multiplying.

As you all may or may not know, I’ve long hated the concept of “moe.” It objectifies a set of qualities (given, this set includes every single quality there is, according to Dr. Japes) and turns appreciation into a pretty damn formulaic thing. Instead of enjoying a character for the character as a character, “moe” aspects, traits, behavioral patterns, etc. take the foreground and become reason for a character’s acceptance. Instead of being intrigued by Tsukimiya Ayu’s lack of background, in watching Kanon, fans trouble themselves with “she’s so cute!”

And why’s she cute? Because she says “uguu.” And because she wears that coat, and those mittens, and that backpack, and acts like the little loli bitch she is. But who is she? Does anyone think to wonder?

Don’t you want to know who this girl is? Oh, we find out, after twenty-four episodes, eighteen of which were spent on other characters. There’s no development to Ayu’s character. Yuuichi is frighteningly detached from concern regarding this little girl who claims to know him… and who doesn’t have a family? Or a home? Or a school? Or any of the things she claims she has? All of a sudden, twenty episodes in, he kisses her… but we, the viewers, what motivation do we have for wanting the protagonist to kiss Ayu? Who is Ayu?

Some girl who says “uguu.” She likes taiyaki and dislikes scary things, including the dark.

/me snaps fingers

That’s not a character, and this degeneration of character development in favor of pandering to fetishes/aesthetics is the main reason I’m opposed to the concept of “moe.” “Moe” is whoredom, plain and simple. Yuki’s silence. Haruhi’s psycho bitchiness. Mikuru’s “lolimoe” helplessness. Tsuruya’s nyoro~n. Yes, even Itsuki’s homosexuality. Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu’s saving grace has always been, in my opinion, Kyon’s narration, and that may well be because he has a solid character. Of course, it’s entirely possible that the author of the novels merely made him as bland and dry as possible in order to help readers connect to him. Maybe there isn’t anything, even to him.

So why do I rant against “moe” so vehemently?

Lucky Star is, in a word, “moe.” You only need about 4 seconds of the obnoxious OP to figure that out. Take a look at these responses to bj0rn’s post about the OP:

• Impz says: MOE ATTACK!!!!!! i am dying, i am dying and I want my lucky star now!!!! moeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~
• bakavic says: I just died. [...] The dancing is just too addictive…
• Aesir says: holy.. tat was.. just too awesome for words @@

And this explosion occurring as a result of Lucky Star’s entrance isn’t same old, same old. Look how willing these ghouls are; look how eagerly they embrace something knowing the meaning of “moe” and that they’re under some twisted genjutsu. The sos-dan.com site, formed some time last year in response to previous whore-show Haruhi, is scuttling with little bugs of people, the sad remains of people once unaffected by this “moe.” What was once a stupid book about some alien-loving girl has escalated to the level of epic reeducation.

I repeat, it’s multiplying.

I had respect for Kyoto Animation. I respected them for making AIR, the one show I’ve seen with the most compelling atmosphere. I respected them for making Fumoffu, the one show that’s made me laugh the most. I could deal with them making Haruhi; it’s business, after all. I cried more for the Haruhi fans than for myself when they made Kanon—what harm could it do to me? But this… this “Lucky Star” or what have you…

I quote Omni on the OP sequence, “It makes me think that they’re intentionally trying to create another Hare Hare Yukai style sensation.”

You think right, Omni.

They’ve descended from grace and are now fervently recycling everything of theirs that ever worked. Haruhi was passable and Kanon was a step back in the right direction. Lucky Star?

Kyoto Animation, you are whores.

You are whores and your show fucking sucks.