I watched the first three episodes of Lamune more than a year ago and was bored to tears. This year, my older brother asked me if I’d seen it, he thought it would be my thing. I told him it had bored me, and he asked me “what about Aria?” I stood there dumbfounded for a bit, and then I marathoned Lamune.

The series benefited from the nostalgia of having seen the first three episodes previously. Oh, and it was just good.

I loved close to every moment of the show. The summer imagery resonated strongly with me (being a lover of AIR for purely atmospheric reasons), and the relationship between Ken and Nanami was extremely sweet. I’ve ranted about Lamune twice (once here, and once in CCY-senpai’s comments), so I won’t go too into it now, but yeah. Love that show to pieces.

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!”

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.

Baka-Raptor, I’ve filled out my application:

P.S. Still don’t have reliable (private) internet access. I’ve got fairly reliable internet access at work, but that’s on a government computer on a government network and I’ll be damned if I so much as load this site there. Also, no anime for a while. I can still write posts in Google Docs there and then post them on various acquaintances’ comps, so I might try to do some of that in the not-so-distant future. Some posts to look forward to:

1. how ARIA ruined subtext for me
2. how ARIA ruined yuri for me
3. how Japan ruined Hatsune Miku for me
4. how good Lamune is
5. how good To Heart (the first series) is
6. why is Code Geass so gay? Nobody knows. /A/ll /a/nyone knows is that it just is.
7. why I hate my parents and why I still haven’t bought a computer
8. why I’m so filthy rich (I still haven’t bought a computer!)
9. ten people whom I’d love to spend the rest of my life with
10. ten blog posts I’d die to write