Desert of the Real 2

Thoughts upon anime. Also manga.

• Y' ever notice Christians in anime totally overuse "amen"? Alexander Anderson from Hellsing would be an example. Admittedly most of what's weird about him is that the jumped up pornographer—and no, I'm not exaggerating even a little—who wrote the thing was trying to pander to the "No Popery" angle, in a country whose 2% Christian minority is very largely Protestant.
  
  But it makes a lot more sense when you remember "陰陽和行急急如律令", or just "急急如律令"—Classical Chinese for "[Harmoniously with yin and yang,] quickly and lawfully"—is the conclusion of all of a certain class of spells in onmyôdô. It derives from a Han era formula used in issuing any kind of official order or request. And isn't "Quickly and lawfully" at the end of a prayer not unlike "so be it" in Hebrew, which is what "amen" is?
• It is not actually true that some languages are better than others. It is, however, the case that some languages are more efficient than others for a given purpose. Modern European languages, for instance, have a really good vocabulary for talking about law; to distinguish "murder" from "manslaughter" in Japanese requires that you have recourse to legislative definitions, because common discourse calls them both "hitogoroshi".
  
  On the other hand, Asian languages often have a very good vocabulary for discussing social relationships. For example, the translation of the Japanese word "amaeru" in English is, "to engage in rudeness or rebellion presuming upon the continued indulgence of one upon whom one is dependent".
• I was wrong when I said this winter anime season (Japan has four TV seasons, but then, of course it does) was completely useless. It has two shows, Kotoura-san and Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai Kara Kuru Sô Desu yo?, AKA "It seems problem children are coming from another world?".
  
  Kotoura-san is a show about a telepathic girl who's had a miserable life till now—all due to her not grasping the concept "you don't have to speak every thought that comes into your own, or anyone else's, mind"—meeting a couple of weirdoes and having what is known in the field as an Enjoyable High School Life. I like the guy who's the obvious love-interest/nursemaid of the gal who founded the club Kotoura's in; he's voiced by the guy who also does Akihisa in BakaTest and Keima in KamiNomi.
  
  Mondaiji-whatever is about people who get sucked into the Outer Planes from various alternate earths in order to help a nameless band of misfits compete with other bands and thus retain and regain their status. Its protagonist is a guy who basically finds normal life to be what Superman famously called "a world of cardboard".
• In "Wa!", by the dude who did Mahoraba, there's a conversation about how the bullbar on the front of a Jeep, called "roo bar" in Japan after Australian usage, is to prevent the Jeep from being damaged by collision with a kangaroo. And the two people discussing it first say, "Who cares about the kangaroo, as long as your precious car doesn't get damaged?!", and then say, "And people complain about whaling?!"
  
  Two points, though. One, I know the only large fauna in Japan are in Hokkaido, but actually, no, a bullbar is not primarily about protecting the car, but about protecting its passengers. Hit an elk (or God forbid a cow), and you actually stand a remarkably good chance of dying. Those things are the size of small horses, and hitting them kills or cripples several people a year where I live. Just because you got the word for the device from Australia doesn't mean that's where it was invented, do you also think the Portuguese invented bread?
  
  But two, seriously, what is the deal with people being all self-righteous about Japanese whaling? They've been eating the things for centuries, it's as traditional a food in parts of Japan as it is for Eskimos. And unlike the Eskimos, they only harvest very common whales. But no; I guess since Japanese people have computers that weren't donated by white people, not only do they have no right to their traditional food, they must be stopped from harvesting it by recourse to terrorism!
• Remember how I said love-triangles are Idiot Plots? One kind, possibly the worst kind (not least because it crops up way too often in anime), is the one where the person likes two people equally...but one of them is the person their friend likes too, or is a subordinate or a student or otherwise not someone they can be together with. And the other person—who again, the protagonist likes equally well—doesn't come with that kind of problem.
  
  So...what, exactly, is keeping people from realizing, "This decision has the least downside", and going with it? You can't have the friend like the same person as the protagonist if the protagonist also likes another person, unless you want to have that be what resolves the love-triangle. As with so many things, I think people are unwilling to accept that sometimes, something you might want in your story would render the rest of the story unworkable.
• The imouto had the first volume of the yonkoma gag manga, or rather nekeot gag manhwa, Aaron's Absurd Armada (I don't know why they romanize his name as "Aron", 아론 is the Korean name for Moses' brother, and everyone else has a Western name). It reinforces something I'd also noticed from "Welcome to the Convenience Store" (와라! 편의점)—good serious manhwa are hard to find, but good gag manhwa are 109 won a dozen. Possibly because a comic strip is easier to do well than a comic book. (Also, speaking of Welcome to the Convenience Store, do old people in Korea really haggle with 7-11 clerks? Weird.)
  
  Incidentally, "Chi-U Cheon-He", sold over here as "Heavenly Executioner Chiwoo", is one of the good serious ones—it's about an awesome fantasy Korea where the executioners (who in real life were usually psychotic beggars) are shamans who channel the Korean shinigami (who, by the way, is actually far older and better-attested than the Japanese one, since invoking him is a part of the shamanic funeral). The protagonist is based on a Chinese god who fought the Yellow Emperor, who is traditionally said to have been a king in what's now Korea.
  
  The little of Knight Run that I've read looks pretty good too; it's about space soldiers fighting alien monsters. You know the drill.
• I think it's funny how, on the kinds of geek websites that analyze manga and anime through a Eurocentric undergrad identity-studies lens, people frequently claim that harem anime fulfill the male fantasy of having girls love you just for being alive. Only...you could only think that if you'd never really watched one. Tenchi? Boy's a damn hero, puts his life on the line for any girl he sees in trouble, long before he finds out he's god-king of the space-elves (and thus has a magic forcefield that won't let him die). Tomoki, from SoraOto? Well, much like the DearS, Angeloids are made to be slaves—and Tomoki is the first person besides their creator who ever treats Ikaros, Nymph, and Astraea like people, gee I wonder why they like him for that.
  
  Basically, it's an unfair criticism even of Love Hina, let alone harem manga that are actually good. But you know what do actually involve the plot of the girl who falls for the guy just for being alive? Artsy hipster movies, that's what. Have you ever heard of 100 Days of Summer? It's sorta famous for it. Come now, come now, when's the last time a hipster movie protagonist ever did anything to get the girl, except act out every website, ever, about Nice Guy Syndrome?