@descent on K-On and Mayoi Neko
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My response to descent seemed relevant and long enough with useful information on these two series for everyone. So much so that I felt it justified a post. I don’t often do this, but I think all of you might appreciate at least the dialog on the K-On OVA.
descent said this (dissentingly)
I’ll have to disagree with you a bit on the K-On ova. Maybe I read to much into things but being such a slice-of-life show if felt that in some ways it perfectly captured a certain aspect of life I experienced plenty in my high school years: a subtle sense of loneliness and despondency that often sets in those Winter months when it gets dark everyday at five, its hard to see friends as much (holidays, the weather, finals), and the drag of school and the cold are at their greatest. Yeah it had some manufactured moe-crises (hairball lol) but in some ways I was more impressed with that episode than most of the actual show cause I felt they were doing something stylistic with it.
As for this season well it felt like more of the same to me but in a good way since I like the show alot. Loved the ED, and the OP animation (but not the song). Should be fun.
Your in-depth analysis of Neko Overrun has me thinking a bit I guess. It probably won’t stop me from bashing it on my impressions post later today but perhaps its worth more of a shot that I’ve given it. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed most aspects of it but it really felt all over the place and left me rather confused with regards to what I should care about. There is the loli who I currently find annoying (but love her maids, love it!), the rather forgettable friends of the two main characters (I know you feel differently), and while all this random cat craziness with the WTF baby chick thrown in as well. The deep dark backstory, wanting to see Onee-chan in action, and tsundere-ness will have me giving this more of a chance though. But its not like I really want to watch it cheap zithromax or anything, baka.
Great reviews though good addition to my lunch break haha.
Ahh, darn you descent; disagreeing with me while defending your position and bringing interesting conversation. It’s so annoying that you’re giving me exactly what I want :P. I probably wouldn’t even have to go through all of this work if I had made more explicit my positions in the first place, but then again you are bringing up some good points that I would want to address anyways: Prepare for a tl;dr!
On the Loli (Chise) you currently find annoying:
Admittedly if I had watched that episode with no prior knowledge I could have been easily annoyed by Chise Umenomori(voiced by Yuka Iguchi who also voiced Index). I’m sorry to say that I intensely dislike Yuka’s form of voice acting. She’s just kind of annoying and I don’t know exactly what it is (Maybe the wineiness). Needless to say I was extremely displeased by the choice of her voice actress. However, I do have prior knowledge of Chise’s character and it did color my view. Though I still found her stereotypical hand to the face overstated laughing and her projected arrogance annoying there’s something in her backdrop that cancels that out (it even evokes my endearment). In the third (of three) chapter of Mayoi Neko we get an image of Chise that is sad. They show how rich she is, but for most of the morning she just looks sad and dejected that is until:
Chise: “Oh that’s right! My parents are coming back in time for supper tomorrow” says Chise excitedly immediately forgetting her breakfast sandwich.
Chise: “It’s been a year now hasn’t it? I’m so happy! There’s so much I want to talk about”
Butler: “Lady Chise…” he begins with a sad and heartbroken look on his face. “I am so very sorry, but the master is…”
Chise: With the look of someone who bears the world on her small shoulders “I see…” She repicks up her sandwich. “There’s no helping it… both father and mother are busy, after all.”
Dustin’s falls on the ground and proceeds to flail about in a puddle of unrealized paternity.
As stereotypical as this might be the set up speaks bounds to Chise’s character. I’ll remind you though she is the typical Ojou-san she is never cruel to her servants and if you read the attitudes of the characters who work for her she’s generally liked and even playfully addressed (especially by the maids). I really admire her steadfastness in pursuing the protagonists group of friends (because though I haven’t mentioned it explicitly they represent a family). She’s Haruhi Suzumiya only her ability to force a group together ends in failure. How could you not feel sorry for a Haruhi who isn’t supported by Kyon? Chise needs that group like Haruhi needs the SOS Brigade so every time they do let her in and she’s able to be part of the group the part of my body that wants those incredibly sweet understated moments goes absolutely wild shooting tears through my eyes and empathy into my brain.
As for Mayoi Neko Overrun in general I really do like that construction of a family element. In some ways Takumi (the protagonist) is the father and Fumino order discount tabs is the mother. I’m so sick of “The Chosen One”, “The Damsel in Distress”, and “The Mentor” as character stock types with horrible relationship dynamics. The family foundation of character relationships presents something endearing and things we can all relate too.
Like I said before, I also really appreciate that all of the characters (except the protagonist) are getting involved in the action in their own unique ways. They set up different sides of a conflict (kind of like Angel Beats) while still tying them all together around Takumi. I can probably justify you some right to bash it in your first impression, but if it goes in the direction I hope it will I think you’ll be a convert (atching it desperately every week) in no time.
On the K-On OVA:
Argh, I’ve talked about this with Jason and Keiri along similar lines. You’re in good company with your perspective and I wish I could agree. I actually do appreciate some of the stuff you pointed out with the “sense of loneliness” and “despondency that often sets in those Winter months”. I suffer buy ampicilin from similar feelings most Winters. However, if I wanted to suffer from Winter depression I wouldn’t be watching anime. My other reproof of using that feeling in this setting is “What’s the point?”. Maybe you’d say that this is the slice of life element, portraying things as they actually are, but that’s where my big disconnect comes. The K-On! girls are anything but a slice of life. Some part of me refuses to believe that girls that air-headed exist in real life. If you seriously stop for a moment and think unbiasedly about the characters you would probably agree that they have no depth. The theme of the show “Ignorance is bliss, just enjoy life stupidly” would be great if the characters had come to that conclusions themselves (like Kona-chan), but they didn’t (because they don’t think about anything like that).
Conversely “the ignorant life, is the better life” is exactly what I think Kyoto Animations is trying to shove down my throat all the time. They end episodes by stating some obvious simplicity like “I think it would be really nice if it was just the 5 of us” as some universal incredibly deep thought (Yep, that’s definitely their delivery style). They’re trying to make these girls models of the ideal way we should live our life and I hate that. If everyone went around acting as irresponsibly as Yui we would live in a terrible, terrible world. The familial love of Ui is great, but the fact that she never makes her sister do anything will probably hurt Yui more in the long run and though I appreciate they try to show Yui with redeemable qualities, most of the time I feel like the moral is we should all be more like Yui.
I actually think that’s why I’m the divergent person on this series and why me and other members of the blogging community disagree so widely in this one respect: I simply cannot get behind that theme. Though I can appreciate Yui’s ignorance is bliss like principal I’m still behind Socrates when he said “The unexamined life is not worth living”. I want non-manufactured depth in my characters and I really don’t think that’s too much to ask. The manga certainly doesn’t give us any, but I hope the anime can give us a little more. This show (notice I’m not saying the manga) is not comedical in nature (it has little to no plot) it is philosophical and thus it requires them to be more than one dimensional. The guitar playing at the intro of season 2 almost developed that and if they can somehow give it more this could be a great series; but they haven’t buy acomplia and it’s not.
Sorry if that sounded harsh, this is a problem I’ve been having with the series for a long time and the words are by no means meant to be an attack on you or on your position, but on the serie’s shortcomings themselves. I just want people to give K-On a fair assessment instead of praising it as the be all and end all of slice of life anime. If you enjoy it that’s fine: If you believe we all should be carbon copies of Yui that’s not.
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3 Comments
Dang I am crushed!! Jk, jk, I absolutely loved this post, though my own thread?!?! Dangerous levels of flattery Dustin, I tell ya.
Lets me just get to some bullet point feedback.
@Mayoi Neko:
-Man I am glad you mentioned Chise’s Satoko-style laugh, hated it then, hate it now. The voice acting might have had something to do with it as well I suppose.
-I am not a manga or anime purist and I usually consume both for a series with equal voracity regardless of which side I start with. That said when it comes to first impressions and the like you have to admit that given you had to use the manga to defend Chise and the show(very well I might add, loved your paternity comment, well put lol)probably helps to demonstrate that the studio somewhat failed to really sell this first episode.
-The family aspect while I can somewhat see it better now was not completely apparent yet, but then again it doesn’t have to be, that aspect will be further developed throughout the series and will make it endearing, I’m sure, but if viewers can’t make it past this episode and the next it will be hard to do.
-Here is another personal peeve I have with a show like this, I understand there is a whole lot more going on than fan-service here (and I am not immune to it either way), but my problem with shows that rely on it is too often they will start off a show throwing so much of it at you that you feel like they are saying “hey please ignore the crappy content, pantsu!”. This is not fair in all cases (probably not in this one of course) but the skeptic in me gets quickly awakened when the first few minutes involve panties-to-the-face, a naked loli, and and several more underwear jokes. It does a disservice to this show cause its like they are telling the otaku to look at all the pretty things and ignore the plot. I feel being taken advantage of and thus might be a tad upset the rest of the way.
-So I’m still gonna sorta trash this first ep, but your manga defense did preserve one follower of the show for a few more weeks and maybe the whole season, I’ll grant you that. (What I am going to do first is work through some of the manga though)
@K-ON Stuff:
-Me and you are a lot closer on this than you might realize in some respects. I love the K-ON manga and I love the anime mostly for its depiction of many cute and enjoyable scenes, I do not love it as much for the plot or the message, that is why I even said in my post that I liked the OVA more than the show itself being a fan of both. I find myself rewatching alot of things K-ON for fun but its never a whole episode to see the story develop its only a brief scene to put a smile on my face (the lead up to Yui’s Harmonica bluff being called and the Azusa cat-ears are some of my guilty pleasures)
-It felt like KyoAni was like lets try to make K-ON serious for a second and see how it feels. It worked and while yes its not all happy it is still well done because you can relate emotionally on some level and thus I still feel it is worthwhile. This OVA was a hook that kept me interested in K-ON because it allowed me to feel something for these hopeless moeblobs besides marveling at the gags and the cuteness, shows that have a better plot do not need this kind of OVA but at least KyoAni can say that they put depth in there somewhere.
-Yeah the fact that Yui is so indefensible in her useless lifestyle is a big negative for me. I love her singing voice cause its unique and cute (Oyasumi *shiver*) and she makes so much of the comedy go round but I would be lying if I did not crave every single self-aware crying moment she had just so I could say for a few seconds “omg she is a real person” and not a puffball made of clumsy cuteness. She is stretched so thin sometimes you just wish someone would given the girl a wakeup call.
-Ui is indeed the show’s most vile character (hehe), it is a terribly selfish and inhumane thing she does keeping her sister so helpless. The studio adaptation department is the second biggest culprit, they take the manga Yui and make her even less respectable before she gets on screen. I was most peeved when they manga and anime diverged on the second volume, Yui actually puts her concentration abilities to use and nearly aces her finals reminiscent of her first success early on, showing some depth and development, but on screen all we she is her failing hard and barely passing all her classes as if we are supposed to see that as a charm point.
Thanks for taking to time to have this great discussion (and I’ll keep going if you want). I live for stuff like this and its a great way for both of us to sharpen our own positions as well. Hopefully some other readers will jump into tell me how misguided I am as well haha.
I must also compliment your chosen image, the crosshairs are very fitting and boy are you sly, baiting me in like that with my newfound weakness. I was clicking on this post before I even realized it was about me :razz:
I’ll let you have the last words on this one ;)!
(and I thought it was a pretty funny lead in picture too considering your gravatar)