Happy New Year!

Rikiya-san asking whether the radio show was still going on was an awesome/awkward moment

Well, the Yotsuba&! manga has been out in English for a little while now (I think volume 7 just came out?), but I picked up one through six for Christmas, and I’ve been marathon reading them.  I finished just now, and I thought I’d share a few thoughts, even though probably everyone has read this already.

First of all, Kiyohiko Azuma is an awesome man.  I loved Azumanga Daioh, and I love Yotsuba&!.  It just shows that there is a reason the well-known things are well-known.  Generally, they do kind of deserve it.  His humor is perfect because what he talks about can and does happen in real life, and he highlights the hilarious parts for the reader.

Of course, there are some things in his stories that would not generally happen in reality.  For instance, I don’t think it’s possible to get someone quite like Yotsuba.  Heh, she’s the most insane and energetic little kid I have ever seen/read about/imagined.

She’s the type of character I didn’t expect to like very much, but I really do like her.  Energetic, stupid characters annoy me, but Yotsuba is a little kid, which helps, and she’s also cute, which is also a plus.  I can’t explain it…but I guess I feel bad for her when she cries?  Maybe that’s it.

Anyway, the series is fun.  Basically, Yotsuba gets into trouble, her Daddy is silly, her neighbors are patient, and every chapter has some fun contained somewhere.  I’ve actually laughed out loud while reading this, which is relatively unusual, and I’ve basically had a good time.  There is no doubt I will be buying more of this series as it comes out, and I will love every penny I spend.

I don’t want to write anything long about it, but it’s a good series.

But I do want to say, I was thoroughly displeased with the end to volume six.  It was cut off in the middle of the action, which I did not expect and do not appreciate.  In a series like this, you just can’t do that.  Each chapter is supposed to be something you can read by yourself, and in this case, it is not.

Note, this is not a Favorites post, though I do like the series.  ;P

Ayo Semangaaatttt ……!!!!

( … begitu kata Yotsuba….. ;] …..)

Photographed by GogDog

**Revoltech Showcase**

– License

The first thought that popped into my head when I started writing this post was “am I a cynic or a positive person?”, and to be honest Im not really sure. In regards to myself and the people aroud me, I’m more inclined to look for the good rather than the bad and focus on that, but in regards to the world at large, I’m almost completely apathetic. I see no reason to look for anything good because there’s so much crap in the world that it seems pointless. Even those occasional moments of heroism or miracles just end up getting drowned beneath the constant stream of death, scandal and destruction. On second thought, I’m definitely a cynic.

I think it’s ineivitable that you’ll become somewhat more cynical the older you get, especially in your teen years. Just how much depends on your surroundings and experiences, but (from a cynic’s point of view) being critical of things is essential so that you can live your life without being taken advantage of by others. The key idea here is that this is only necessary as you get older and need to learn independence. When you’re young and (presumably) safe and in the company of loved ones, this type of thought process isn’t necessary. You really can enjoy life to the fullest.

And that’s where Yotsuba comes in. TheBigN wondered why people can’t take her philosophy to heart, and though I was exaggerating, I really think this is the case. You can levy all sorts of arguments agains the manga and how it’s unrealistic or how Yotsuba’s childhood is idealised, but there are a couple of things wrong with that. First, saying in itself coming from a cynical point of view, believing in the worse aspects of childhood, and second, realism isn’t the point of the manga. As an outsider looking in, we may be able to see what’s strange about Yotsuba’s point of view and recognise things that she can’t, but regardless we’re meant to empathise with her and experience the world though her eyes. It’s strange, really – my mindset always changes drastically whenever I’m reading  a chapter of Yotsubato. It’s impossible for me not to feel good while reading it.  I think Azuma’s got something special in how he’s able to create this feeling of wonderment and joy in the most mundane of daily events and have it felt so strongly by anyone who reads the manga. Yotsuba’s positive and energy is just so infectious, not just to us as readers, but to the people she interacts with. Everyone’s able to act as childish as they please and experience those moments and feelings they once had themselves.

But nevertheless,  I don’t think I’ll be able to take on the philosophy of “ENJOY EVERYTHING”. It would be more foolish and ignorant than anything, because as much as I’d like to think otherwise, everything isn’t always enjoyable. “Enjoy what you can” would work better, or “treasure the good times”. Thinking this way is better (and probabaly healthier mentally and physically) without delving to far into naivete.

Let’s make things more confusing: I want to “ENJOY EVERYTHING”, but I can’t, but I could but I won’t. Label it as being self-conscious or insecure if you will, but that’s how I feel.

Despite this, I’ll still love reading Yotsubato for what it represents. Even at 18 with the world as my oyster, I’ve lived long enough to miss the world through a child’s eyes. The nostalgia, the innocence of youth, a time you’d like to return to and the ability to look for the best in the world all around. It’s the manga which encapsulates remembering love, and I’ll only be able to appreciate more as I grow older.

Yotsuba&! is a manga about the adventures of a 5 year old girl. It is also one of the cutest and funniest things you can ever read.

Yotsuba means “four leaves” and usually refers to four leaf clover. Fitting her name, the titular Yotsuba has green hair always tied in four pigtails. The & in the title refers to the individual chapters, which are almost always titled “Yotsuba &  _____“.

The series has no overarching plot but instead focuses on Yotsuba’s daily escapades around the neighborhood. While she shares a normal five year old’s energy and imagination, Yotsuba is strange in many ways, lacking any knowledge of things such as zoos, swings, or doorbells. She often drags others with her on her adventures (willingly or unwillingly), and their attempts to explain often increase her confusion, rather than diminish it. Ever determined, Yotsuba turns these misunderstandings into adventures and embodies the series’s often stated theme: Enjoy Everything.

This is where the true fun of the series comes in. Yotsuba’s indomitable enthusiasm for everything she undertakes and her unbridled joy at even the smallest victories shows the bliss of being a child, of discovering something new every day. Yotsuba&! holds the distinction of being one of the few books that can make me laugh out loud (not just a chuckle, but a real laugh). I could go on and on, but it’d only spoil the fun of reading it for yourself.

The series is still continuing in Dengeki Daioh magazine, eight volumes have been collected and release in Japan, and five of those have been translated into English. The English licence had sat idle for over a year, but a new translation company has picked it up and is planning to release Volume 6 this month.

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Toraya – Hantteke Sailor Fuku 3 (English)

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Erobato Asagi – Toraya YOTSUBA&! (English)

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Jingrock – Nonstop! Inukai-kun (English)

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Makina and Garnet (English)

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Monzetsu Operation (English)

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I feel younger every day. Seriously. I turned 32 half a year ago, but I feel like a fan a quarter my age. When I was 8 years old, the first run of SDF-Macross was still showing on local TV, and was totally in love with it. As I write this, I feel like that same kid like I’ve never felt in a long time. I mean, I’m writing about anime and manga as an adult, a husband and soon-to-be-father. How wonderful is that? Sure, my writing has a tremendous amount of sophistry (read: indulgent reasoning) but I promise you that a lot of the time, the spirit behind the work is burning youth.

I know a good number of mature (as they see themselves) anime and manga fans bristle at the pervasive notion that cartoons and comics are for kids. I sympathize with their discomfort, truly. I posit that it is the nature of adolescence to wish itself to be taken seriously, and with that, their own pervasive notion that kids aren’t or shouldn’t be taken seriously. I was there too, and have held that attitude well into my 20s. Well, try to think of it this way: many of the creators of our favorite manga and anime, write from their childhood — the experience of their childhood. It’s as if they’re writing a love letter to their younger selves. Yes, I shall indulge myself, they’re remembering love.

One does not care to acknowledge the mistakes of one’s youth.

–Char Aznable

There’s this point in Bakuman when Mashiro, the struggling would-be mangaka was troubled at not being able to create a manga character that readers of Shounen Jump would love. He thought about it and realized that many of his rivals were very good at drawing at an early age, just like he was; and that what all of them made up at the time were lots and lots of characters. He was sure that at least one of those characters was someone he truly loved, and got really pumped about when he was a kid. Wisely, he dug up his old sketchbooks and thought of a manga based on that character.

I thought about this real hard. I thought about shows like Space Runaway Ideon, and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, as well as End of Evangelion, and The Sky Crawlers. I thought about Grave of the Fireflies and Millenium Actress. I thought about Shigurui and I thought about Macross Plus. These shows not only have very mature themes, but also the storytelling and execution is very sophisticated. How can these shows be for kids? They aren’t, in terms of marketing and demographics I suppose. However, I couldn’t deny how they made me felt.

When watching something thought-provoking and mature, especially when it seems so brilliant, the very moment of discovery… when I ‘get it,’ I’m a kid all over again. It’s like being able to lace my shoes for the first time. It’s like discovering balance on a bicycle. It’s like building a robot out of Lego™ bricks. WOW! The A/T Field is also our EGO, the psychological barrier to true or perfect empathy with others? Holy smokes! Evangelion is sooo awesome! (I was 26 when I saw Evangelion in full LOL)

Then I thought about other shows… shows like Kamen no Maid Guy and Oruchuban Ebichu. I thought about shows like Golden Boy and Hatsukoi Limited. I think had I seen these shows at an 8 year old, it’d have been hit-or-miss. Ebichu and Hatsukoi Limited would’ve bored me due to the fanservice often going over my head and how a lot of the comedy and drama would not have been relevant. But for the others, I would’ve laughed my ass off. Kids have crude ideas about sex and I was no different. It would’ve been funny, though not as funny as an awesome guy in a maid’s uniform, and a hotblooded bicycle rider making the world a better place one hot girl at a time. Nonetheless, I probably would’ve tried my damned best to enjoy myself watching them.

I know that manga and anime aren’t just for kids. But is it so bad for them to be perceived as for children’s consumption given how these creators are probably at times (perhaps not often) like kids in a sandbox creating universes with rocks and dirt? Al Izuruha in Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket had to give up something beautiful. The thing is, it was wrenched from him! We, however are acting like we want to throw it away.

I think civilizations, even the great ones were built by telling stories — tall tales and epics, transmitted orally from generation to generation. Stories are great for this, precisely because kids can flat out enjoy them at a very young age. Stories have become primary methodology of education. It’s not that really different now. We have enormous variation in terms of media, but stories perform many of the same purposes: to educate the listener/reader/viewer in language and culture, and to be entertaining while doing so. It’s all fine and dandy to wish for anime and manga to be given the kind of respect given to ‘art,’ to film and sometimes television. I just don’t think that the notion that anime and manga are for kids is necessarily bad, or wrong.

So how does this work in my practice of media appreciation? Well, the WRL blog is my primary example. All the stuff here, from the images, the slideshows, the theoretical and philosophical references, my friends and family… they’re the stuff in my sandbox. I’ve written 3,000 word posts on the phenomenology of language in Eureka SeveN, and 4,000 word posts on sheer mecha faggotry. It’s all play. It’s all games. And I’ve learned that the best way to have fun in games is to play full out and uninhibited.

This perhaps explains the rarity of reviews in the site. I may talk about a show or manga without spoilers, but the purpose is to recommend or endorse the work, not to point out its merits and flaws to be of service of would-be consumers on the fence about it. The game is not to be right about something, but rather to solicit discussion among playmates. Hence, the rarity of coclusions. It’s not as fun for me to show people how right I am, and how wrong others are. Is K-ON! good? Bad? I care less about the consensus, only that I enjoyed it (I must have cancer), and I don’t mind talking about Yui’s retard moe as possibly (gasp) inspiring! You see, THIS BLOG IS MY BUDOKAN!

Omake:Who are my heroes?

Nekki Basara, Macross 7: He’s been my avatar ever since I started blogging. He’s someone who just gets so much out of life. He’s not someone who asks for little and is happy with whatever he has. No, I’m not into asceticsm. I’m more for indulgence and excess. It’s just that Basara demands something very specific, stated plainly in his battle-cry:

LISTEN TO MY SONG!

Athena Glory, Aria: At first I thought I’d put Mizunashi Akari here, but I realize that Athena shares some of Akari’s qualities (not just the ditziness), though perhaps not quite as attuned to wonder — but then again, who is?! But yes, a predisposition to enjoy wonder, to expect to find it and yet remain surprised when it shows, and a trollish spirit Akari could never  have, yes Athena is glorious.

Koiwai Yotsuba, Yotsubato!: Out of control and delightfully charming. She is a child’s child, free and fully self-expressed — an idealization of how I want to be. Her imperative: Enjoy everything! Soooo compelling for me!

Further Reading

Technical concept of ‘remembering love’ [->]

The image of anime is for kids [->]

Blogging anime is FUN [->]

…especially if you play with someone you love [->]

Stupendously long post on philosophy of language in Eureka SeveN [->]

Even longer piece of fiery mecha faggotry (Gundam x Macross) [->]

I had plans tonight to come home and have a crack at my graded readers, which have sat gathering dust on my bookshelves since sometime around Christmas, but lo and behold, what was waiting on the doorstep when I got home? よつばと！(Pretty fast delivery, too – thanks JList!). So it seems that dust will accumulate a little more. I’ve been itching to try よつば for a while now, as the general consensus among j-learners is that it’s a good ’starter’ manga – the language is pretty simple, the storylines are fairly basic, and it’ll reinforce a lot of basic grammar. After struggling through the first volume of 花ざかりの君たちへ (which I love, but don’t have the ability – yet – to comprehend more than 10% of), something a bit closer to the Krashen-esque i+1 sounded brilliant.

And it is. Where the first frame of 花君 stopped me in my tracks, I got through the first two pages of よつば before encountering something I didn’t explicitly know. Even with that, because the story was easy to follow, I could correctly infer the meaning of the words I didn’t understand. For the record, these were のり出す, as in 「あんまりのり出すと危ないぞ」and 振る, as in 「おねーちゃんが手ぇふった！とーちゃんもふれ！」.

Useful Phrases

因みに（ちなみに）is like ところで – “by the way”, “bye the bye”, “incidentally”. Useful, that. Totally something I use in English, too.

Things I Haven’t Quite Figured Out Yet, But Have A Hunch

ぞ – seems to work like よ as a gobi, but really casual. [A Google search after the fact turned up the assertion that ぞ is the ultra-casual equivalent of よ, and ぜ/ゼ is the ね equivalent. Accuracy?]

ダンボール as in 「このダンボールゴミに出す分ですか？」seems to refer to cardboard boxes…? I did a Google image search on this hunch and turned up heaps of cardboard boxes, but also a cardboard (?) robot and a cardboard car, the latter of which was titled 「「ダンボールアート作品集 」. So maybe it just means cardboard. Hmmm.

電柱「でんちゅう」is a telegraph pole, though I’m probably missing a nuance or something.

資源ゴミ is suggested by my Google image search to be a council tip or recylcling centre. More like the latter, I think. There were a few pictures of the recycling triangle.

燃えるゴミ is flammable rubbish? I know that in Japan they separate rubbish into flammable and inflammable. And hence, 燃えないゴミ is the inflammable stuff…?

月木 as in 「燃えるゴミは月木」is either 月曜日 and 木曜日 or 月曜日 to 木曜日. Not living in Japan (yet), I don’t know the frequency of rubbish collections, so I can’t figure the nuance out.

ブランコ is a swing…? Google image search threw up a lot of swing sets, but also some pictures of people with baseball bats (soooo… the noun/verb couple translate directly?).

長女 is the eldest daughter. Can I use this to describe myself?

お隣さん is your (next door?) neighbour. Seems to be used to introduce them to someone else, like “[name] is my neighbour”.

Chapter One finished! よし！

Right, well, this is going to be a crappy little moshed sort of post because I don’t have enough to say on each topic to make individual posts for all of them.

Higashi no Eden

We’re up to episode 9 (out of 11) now in this show which started out completely fabby and ultimately amazing but then failed to continue to be so. I really do like this. I love the characters for the most part; and I love the plot. But it’s just… NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Character development? NEIN. Plot development? A tiny dissapointingness little piece of it. It seems like they’re planning on just making this series a very, very long, time consuming commercial and teaser for the upcoming movie. What, I ask you, is the point?It’s sad, but I can’t give it a 10/10 anymore.

But secretly I do love it.

Natsu no Arashi

Mon dieu. Why is this anime so underrated? I truly want to know, and I don’t mean I want someone to write me an idiot comment bashing it; I mean I want a reasonable reason written by a reasonbale person of reason. I was bored one Sunday, so I watched the first 2 episodes online. I was intrigued. I think it’s really quite well done. The animation is good; in fact it’s just as consistent if not more so than the animation in Nodame Cantabile (which I’m also watching and which coincidentally got wayyyy more positive reviews). I am pleasantly pleased by all the little parody jokes; and even more so when I actually get them. For instance; one of the little scenes with Yayoi and Kanako, where it always goes something like (quoting from memory here):

“How are you this evening?”

“I am well, thank you”

“What have you been doing lately”

“I read a very interesting book”

“Well, what was the name of that book?”

“Ah, I seem to have forgotten the title”

“Will you tell me what it was about?”

“I’d be happy to. It was about one courageous swordsman who fights surrouded by faithful companions; together they battle for justic and love and through their faith they become victorious and win the companionship of others around them”

“My, what a wonderful and dazzling story”

“That courageous swordsman had something he would always say”

“What could it have been?”

“Hiten mitsurugi r-”

I was tres, tres pleased. Indeed, I find Natsu no Arashi generally pleasing and I sincerely wish to know why anyone would not.

Yotsubato!

Ah, Kiyohiko Azuma, creator of my beloved Azumanga Daioh. I think you are either an Azuma-type person or you are not. Some people just are not entertained by his humor and casual slice-of-life creations; while others can’t imagine not being entertained by them. There is no middle ground. At least there shouldn’t be. Anyway, this is comforting and lovely and perfect for summer.

You know, I’m going to have to take myself off blogging for a while, as I obviously can’t think of anything even slightly useful to say. Might possibly write that Twelve Kingdoms post soon if I ever feel like it, and one for Nodame Cantabile when I finish. Go enjoy summer, fools.

PS I suck and have gone back to stealing pictures.

Yotsubato! manga with Fuuka and some random (and awesome) guy. The art is neat but the story doesn’t make much sense, I don’t know if she’s hypnotized by him or just mesmerized by his awesome beard and fancy glasses.

Also contains said guy YELLING IN ALL CAPS most of the time and holding up a spork, no seriously it’s pretty random.

RS | MF

Click for pretty cover

Yotsuba!

IT’S TOO CUTE!!!

If you forget this is an anime blog for the next 24 hours, you get a 2D Four Leaf Clover!

That you can never touch.

Here’s Danbo!

Danbo is a character from the manga Yotsubato!(Yotsuba&! in America). He was a school holiday project by Ena and Miura. His name comes from the Japanese word for cardboard “Danboru”

He runs on money. Take that Communists! Take that Stalin!

Laser Beam Eyes!!1one1 (In the manga, they are just torchlights)

And here’s Miura.

Danboard is quite detailed, even coming with the box company’s logo. However, being a cardboard box severely limits it’s pose-ability. With only 7 points of articulation, you can only display it in a certain number of ways. However it is still a good product for all fans of the manga.(Which I recommend to everybody. It’s funny and heartwarming. I love kids…wonder when I will have my own? ^^; )