Month: March 2021

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

Becoming The Battle Girl: How The 2010s Transformed The Magic in Magical Girl Anime

Genre. “A kind of story.” Something that separates one group of narratives from another. Genres are tricky, malleable, slippery things. Outside the focus of this blog, there are terms like lit fic, slipstream, neo noir, dungeonpunk, and dozens and dozens of others, broader or narrower, over the entire range of fiction and analysis of that fiction. Sometimes a marketing tool, sometimes a fandom in-group identifier, sometimes an after-the-fact grouping to tie together similarities in disparate stories.

Cure Moonlight, Heartcatch Precure

When I first became interested in anime as a medium I ran into the term “sekai-kei”, or “world story”. A style of anime in which the relationships between two people are tied directly to global or even universal-scale problems, and often directly equated. Nowadays, the term is widely decried as a nonsensical westernism (if you google it, the first two results are TVTropes, not exactly a reputable source, a clone site of the same, and an article decrying it as “horseshit”, in that order.) It’s yet another example of how hard defining genre in anime can be, especially from what is fundamentally an outsider’s point of view here in the Anglosphere.

Another genre that is often mixed up in heated debate is that of the Magical Girl, specifically because it is among the hardest to define concretely. Stories commonly accepted as being part of the Magical Girl genre; say foundational text Himitsu no Akko-chan, and something like Sailor Moon, are quite distinct from each other. Thematic ties are the main binder here, as are certain aesthetic choices. The trials that young girls face as they grow up are, broadly, the key element. There is also a degree of demographic assignment here. Most Magical Girl stories have historically been for young women.

Homura and Madoka, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Pt. III: Rebellion

But defining the genre even in the very loose terms I just did is controversial. (Sometimes extremely so.) Less because of what it includes and more because of what it excludes. Puella Magi Madoka Magica hangs like a grim specter over the genre’s modern form, the oft-decried “dark Magical Girl” style is frequently accused of missing “the point” of the entire thing. (As if whole genres ever have single “points”.) But fair enough; some of Madoka‘s least imitators are widely considered to be….well, not very good. And as someone who is on record as thinking Magical Girl Spec. Ops. Asuka is the worst TV anime made in recent memory, I can at least understand the viewpoint.

Things become even more complex the farther from the latter-day “magical warrior” model we venture, as we’ll get to. The broader a view we take, the clearer it becomes that there is a space of overlap between “proper” / “pure” / whatever term you care to use Magical Girls and….something else, something slightly different. Something that has, to my knowledge, so far existed without a name. But if we gave it a name, what would be a good choice?

As it often does in life, manga has the answer.
(Yuuko and Momo, The Demon Girl Next Door)

The panel above is from a fan translation of The Demon Girl Next Door. It’s not really an example of the genre as I’ll shortly attempt to define it, but the name is catchy and it’s indicative. They’re girls, they battle. “Just Battle Girl things” indeed.

Like all art, what I’ll be terming “battle girl anime” here comes from a fairly long tradition. In this case, I would say that it unites–not necessarily intentionally–two diffuse strains of anime that were originally only loosely related. With the important caveats that I am not a historian of the medium, and that I will only attempt to comment at length on anime I’ve actually seen at least some of, I think I can draw a line from the early 2000s, where I believe this genre’s origins lie, to the present day.

Cure Black and Cure White, Futari wa Precure promotional art

One half of the Battle Girl genre’s parentage is fairly clear. 2004 saw the premiere of Futari wa Precure, a Magical Girl series that synthesized thematic elements taken from more traditional stories in the genre with visual and aesthetic choices drawn from tokusatsu, including Toei’s own Super Sentai series. Precure has had a massively successful long run in its home country. New Precure series are still produced today, even into this very anime season, where they are often held up as the only “traditional” Magical Girl anime still airing. Precure has also been quite influential in a way that is frankly self-evident, almost any Japanese Magical Girl parody of the past 15 years goes to Pretty Cure before it touches on anything else. That alone speaks volumes. Precure is not the only series on this side of the battle girl genre’s heritage, but it’s by far the most important, and the most obvious.

Masane Amaha, Witchblade

On the other side, we have a tradition that is both more obscure and in the eyes of many, less respectable, that of the Battle Vixen genre. The slightly different name gives the key distinction away; while modern Battle Girl anime are certainly capable of having leery cameras or the like, a vast majority of Battle Vixen anime were ecchi series. Fanservice–“cheesecake” as it was often called back then–was a core part of the appeal. The anime Battle Vixens (or Ikki Tousen in its home country) that gives its name to the genre, aired just a year before Pretty Cure. It too has been fairly successful domestically, for an ecchi, at least, and got a fair amount of sequels. The most recent, the Western Wolves OVA, airing just two years ago in 2019.

Although the franchise lacks Precure‘s broad appeal for fairly obvious reasons, it is certainly something that left an impression on the otaku of the aughts, whether positive or negative.

This two-prong approach is a simplification; we are neglecting the fair amount of Magical Girl anime made for adults before this, including the seminal Cutie Honey. We’re neglecting the related “mecha musume” term, which refers to something more specific and not necessarily narrative (and also refers to a kind of model kit), and several other things. Nonetheless, the close chronological proximity of the two anime I mentioned above, and the general climate that surrounds them, makes me think that these are, if not “the catalysts”, at least some of the catalysts. The New ’10s saw several events that allowed these styles to mix together; it’s here where we bring up Puella Magi Madoka Magica again. While it was hardly the first magical girl series for adults (or indeed the first one to be “dark”), what it was was massively popular, carving out a new audience for people who wanted stories that featured girls in colorful costumes kicking ass but weren’t necessarily predisposed to seek out stories with the themes most Magical Girl anime traffic in. (Or even, indeed, necessarily Madoka‘s own themes.) Combined with anime’s resurgence in the Anglosphere in the age of streaming, and you have an audience that is eager for stories “like this”. Even if what “like this” is was not quite a definite thing yet.

That brings us to the third piece of the puzzle; Symphogear.

Hibiki Tachibana, Symphogear

The timeline hyper-compresses here, and I suspect that if one were to look at the actual movement of staff and so on, one would find many people influencing each other, rather than a simple case of cause and effect. Still, I would fairly confidently point to Symphogear as the first “true and proper” modern Battle Girl anime. Its protagonists function like Precure-style Magical Girls, but its writing gestures to themes that are somewhat broader than the Magical Girl genre’s usual concerns, flattening out the more specific bent of its parent genre to examine more general oppressive systems. And in the case of Symphogear specifically; propose that only full-hearted love and honest communication can save us. Something still very much rooted in the Magical Girl style. (This is a very inconsequential sidenote, but I’d argue this puts Symphogear among the “closest” to a traditional Magical Girl series, out of those we’re discussing here.)

Black Rock Shooter TV anime promotional art.

I cannot definitively prove that Symphogear‘s success inspired imitators–and indeed, there were other shows at the time working in broadly similar territory, such as the 2012 Black Rock Shooter anime–but the genre explodes from here. Not for nothing did the aforementioned Assault Lily Bouquet pick up the pre-air hype train nickname “SHAFTogear”. Anime fans can already recognize this genre, even if they don’t quite have a name for it yet.

So we can somewhat confidently identify where Battle Girl anime come from, but what are they? What separates a Battle Girl anime from a Magical Girl anime? What separates one from a show that simply has a female lead in an action-focused role? Knowing what we do about their lineage, we can make a few specific qualifying points. Things that separate a Battle Girl anime from its closest cousins.

  1. A Battle Girl anime must have an entirely female, or at least femme-presenting, core cast, consisting of at least two, roughly equally-important, characters.¹
  2. A Battle Girl anime must be primarily an action series, whose lead characters must possess some kind of special powers, exceptional weaponry, or both.
  3. A Battle Girl series cannot be an ecchi series. It may have such elements, but they cannot be the core appeal.
  4. Finally, as a more conditional fourth point: A Battle Girl series often features a theme related to breaking out of, subverting, repairing, or escaping an oppressive system.

Caveats abound, of course, and like any genre classification, much of this will come down to personal interpretation. (There is no objectivity in the arts, after all.) But I believe these four points are what separate Battle Girls from their closest relatives.

With all this in mind, it is perhaps best to define the Battle Girl genre as more of a super-genre–a broad storytelling space that more specific genres can exist within, or overlap with. It would be hard indeed to disqualify Precure itself, for example. And while the third point disqualifies some of the genre’s own ancestors, there are at least a few borderline cases. (I am thinking here of the uniquely frustrating VividRed Operation, mostly.) There is also room for a conversation about whether vehicles count as “special powers or exceptional weaponry”. If they do, we could possibly rope in series like The Magnificent Kotobuki and Warlords of Sigrdrifa as well.

AKB0048 Promotional art.

There is also plenty of overlap with other genres; Symphogear itself has some DNA from idol anime, and fellow Satelight Inc. production AKB0048 merges the two even more closely. I would also argue that say, Kill la Kill is either just barely or just barely not a Battle Girl series. It would have to come down to how much weight one wishes to place on both the ecchi elements and the male characters.

So, if the genre is so broad, and is nebulous at the edges, why impose it at all? Well, in part, I do genuinely think that all of these anime existing within the same roughly ten year span cannot be entirely coincidental. But more importantly I think it’s genuinely really important to spotlight anime that have all- or mostly-female casts². There is still a widely-held assumption in Anglophone anime fan spaces that women only watch certain kinds of anime. Certainly they don’t care for action anime with lots of punching and shouting.

The truth of the matter is that women love fantasy and sci-fi action as much as anyone else. It is no coincidence that both Precure specifically and the Battle Girl genre in general have a sizable following among female otaku. The genre is also not a marker of quality of course; none is. I’d call myself an easy mark for it, but upon reviewing what series I considered to be or not be Battle Girl anime, I certainly came up with some that I do not like. And quite a few more that I’m more mixed on.

Hiyori and Kanami, Katana Maidens promotional art

With all of the above in mind, I came up with a list of anime from the last ten or so years I’d consider to belong to the genre. It is not exhaustive, and this is not really a “recommended viewing” list, either, but I feel that simply lining the names up in a column speaks for itself.

  • AKB0048
  • Assault Lily Bouquet
  • BLACKFOX
  • Black Rock Shooter (2012)
  • Flip Flappers
  • Granbelm
  • Katana Maidens: Toji no Miko
  • Princess Principal
  • RELEASE THE SPYCE
  • Revue Starlight
  • Symphogear
  • The Girl in Twilight
  • Wonder Egg Priority

I think this is sizable evidence that this is, indeed, “a thing” on at least some level. And this grouping leaves out some series I am personally on the fence on some of which I’ve already discussed, such as the aforementioned Kill la Kill, as well as things like Day Break Illusion and any number of other “dark Magical Girl anime” that could conceivably be counted in the genre but which, if so, form a distinct enough subgroup that they are a topic worthy of more specific discussion. I’ve also left out some anime that I’m reasonably sure likely qualify but that I have not seen myself, such as Yuuki Yuuna is A Hero and Battle Girl High School (no relation). There is also The Rolling Girls, a series that is definitely speaking some of the same language as these anime, but whose rejection of traditional heroism and odd structure prevent me from feeling comfortable listing it here.

Ai, Wonder Egg Priority

And even within this group, there’s a noticeable sub-category consisting of Flip Flappers, Wonder Egg Priority, and arguably Revue Starlight. These three have a more surreal presentation and somewhat different themes than their compatriots. I am not sure I’d be comfortable calling this its own “lineage”, exactly, due to its small size, but it may be the budding seeds of one.

All these caveats to say; I am under no illusion that I have “solved” any kind of “problem” here. Artistic frameworks–very much including genre–are imposed, they do not naturally exist. This is as true for the Battle Girl genre as anything else. What I do think I’ve done, though, is hopefully given a new lens through which we can analyze and think about these stories. I think art should be understood based on what it is trying to do. And I do think, at least to some extent, that framing shows like Symphogear, or Wonder Egg Priority, or Granbelm or any number of others as “Magical Girl Anime” harms understanding them more than it helps. Not because the Magical Girl genre is some exclusive sacred club (or indeed something to be shunned or avoided), but because the aims of the works are different. Different things exist for different people. That is not just something to tolerate; it’s worth celebrating.

I acknowledge that this framework I’ve devised is an incomplete one; my own relative neophytism is surely depriving me of at least some knowledge that would further flesh it out. (I have not even mentioned Mai-HiME, because I’ve never seen it, but I am near-positive that it factors in here somehow.) But that, in of itself, is a beautiful thing. If I have done something even akin to laying a single brick in what will one day become a building, it’s been worth the time, the words, and the thought.

As for the future of this genre-space, who can say? Wonder Egg Priority remains excellent, but time alone will tell if these anime continue to be made or if they will end up as a hallmark of the still, in the grand scheme of things, only-just-over 2010s.

Personally? I know what I’m hoping for.

1: There is some flexibility here. Male characters are still allowed in the periphery; as antagonists or as supporting characters like love interests or mentors, but they cannot be the main focus, and they should not have strong relationships with other male characters. The clause that there must be at least two characters is to distinguish these series from a not-closely-related group that star a lone, often wandering heroine.

2: It’s inarguably even more important to spotlight those that have many female staff, but that is another conversation, and is outside the scope of this article.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) To The OTHERSIDE PICNIC and Back Again

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

What to make of Otherside Picnic? Named after a famous Russian novel to which it bears little resemblance, and drawing on a twenty year tradition of Japanese “net lore” for its inspiration, one might initially peg Otherside Picnic as a fairly heady, intellectual kind of horror story. But while it’s certainly creepy enough in its most unsettling moments to earn the genre tag, it’d be a mistake to box this one in as being solely for those with an SCP Foundation addiction.

A more proper indicator of where Otherside Picnic is coming from might actually be its opening theme. A rollicking, adventurous pop-rock tune with a romantic slant from accomplished anisongsters CHiCO with Honeyworks. Otherside isn’t not a horror series, but it’s important to consider what else it is; an adventure anime, and also a show with some pretty prolific lesbian subtext. It’s not at all dour, is what I’m getting at.

Instead, Otherside is a surprisingly breezy watch. It’s the story of Sorawo, a depressed college student who, through her vast knowledge of online urban legends, wanders through a gateway to another world; the titular otherside. When we meet her, she’s lying flat on her back in a puddle, pursued by a mind-invading monster known as a kunekune¹, and about to accept her imminent death. What, or rather who, saves her is a gun-toting Canadian-Japanese woman named Toriko, who she quite quickly develops a very obvious crush on.

Like, very obvious.

Otherside Picnic follows the two, as they grow closer, make trips to and from the Otherside, and contend with the many strange creatures that live there. Sorawo often gives a brief rundown of what these things are, which is helpful if you, like me, only have a pretty limited knowledge of Japanese creepypastas. The “net legend” angle is a big part of the setting’s appeal, so if the idea of even something as out there as the bizarre and disturbingly violent “monkey train dream” getting a nod appeals to you, the series is a must-watch.

Really, I was surprised at how much I liked Otherside Picnic in general. Horror isn’t really my genre, but Sorawo is just the right kind of relatable reserved nerd. (Although I will admit, the one thing the series is missing from the light novels is her delightfully gay inner monologues about how attractive she finds Toriko.) Her character arc over the course of the series is fairly simple, as she starts out as said reserved nerd and by the final episode, having along the way developed what are essentially magic powers, and having been through so much with Toriko is, well, decidedly no longer that.

On a less literal level, the series also hums a simple theme of the importance of finding people who you just vibe with. In the finale, this is all but stated outright, as Sorawo and Toriko both recount how the other saved them. It gives Otherside Picnic a point, adding some substance to its afternoon anime binge-friendly nature.

Much of the rest of the fun of the series comes from setting details or technical aspects. The monster design is quite strong, and combined with the often surprisingly good animation², this carries the series’ weaker episodes. There’s also quite a few running sub-plots tucked in to the show’s single cour. These range from fairly serious (a lost group of US Marines who the pair eventually rescue), to clear set-up for seasons yet to come (Sorawo’s apparent and only briefly touched-on ability to not-quite mind control people, the late-game introduction of minor character Akari), to the just plain odd (there’s an episode about cats who are ninjas) or funny (the pair accidentally buy a multi-purpose miniature harvester on a drunken spending binge at one point).

It’s hard to imagine that Otherside Picnic will exactly change anyone’s life, but like last year’s Dorohedoro, it’s strong genre fare in a genre that is under-represented in mainstream TV anime. That it is perhaps only the second-best anime of the Spring 2021 season to revolve around a heterochromiac who travels to an otherworld that also has a lot of queer subtext speaks more to the strength of the competition than it does any problems with Otherside. This is a series I could see getting sequel seasons for years, frankly, as there is a lot of unadapted material and a lot of mysteries left unexplored. Perhaps if we’re lucky, that will be the anime’s eventual fate. Either way, there’s a lot to love about a brief trip to the Otherside.

1: The subtitles somewhat astoundingly refer to these things as “wiggle-waggles”, which is pretty damn funny.

2: Surprising because this is a LIDENFILMS production. I’m not an expert on the company by any means, but what I’ve seen from them has traditionally had outright bad animation. While the CGI used for some distance shots won’t impress anyone anytime soon, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it looked at other times.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) Everywhere and Nowhere in SIMOUN

This review was commissioned. That means I was paid to watch and review the series in question. You can learn about my commission policies and how to buy commissions of your own here. This review was commissioned by S.F. Sorrow. Many thanks, as always.

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

The gender binary works for almost no person on Earth. The national war machines of the world, even fewer. In the abstract sense; Simoun is about this simple pair of facts, and how they relate to the broader systems that define our lives. Moreover, it is about how those systems can be dealt with; through adaption, rejection, self-sacrifice, self-love, and self-knowledge.

It’s possible I’m betraying a small reference pool here, but I find Simoun a true original. I’m guilty of overusing terms like “unusual” and I call enough anime “a bit of a weird one” that you could conceivably make a drinking game out of it while reading my blog. But qualifiers like “a bit” are unnecessary here. I don’t think I’ve seen much else even remotely like Simoun. Frankly, I struggle for reference points. “A shoujo-inflected political war drama with gender identity issues” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. And indeed, Simoun is defined by some very unusual stylistic tentpoles.

We have here a deliberately slow and ponderous pace, sketchbook fantasy architecture, a decidedly odd setting with flying vehicles rendered in airbrushed mid-aughts CGI (the titular simouns themselves), and a surprisingly complex….well, complex of fantastic gender roles and associated dynamics. All this is soundtracked, naturally, with a combination of very of-its-time canned breaks and four-on-the-floor rhythms, and a shocking amount of violins. It’s a lot to take in.

At its heart, Simoun is both the story of its cast, all of whom are young girls in a military unit called the Chor Tempest, and how they are affected both by the social systems that they live in and each other. If that sounds a bit heady, that’s because Simoun itself often leans that way. This is a show with a lot on its mind, and it spends all twenty-six of its episodes pouring it out.

Getting into the nitty-gritty of what Simoun is about requires first explaining a facet of its worldbuilding. Though I called the show’s protagonists “young girls” in the previous paragraph, that’s not actually entirely correct. Simoun‘s cast consists mostly of young people belonging to a social caste of their country, The Theocracy of Simulacrum, called sibyllae (singular: sibylla) who are perhaps best thought of as being a kind of nonbinary, although even this is, admittedly, a simplification. Sibyllae pilot the titular simouns, both as ritual instruments in their role as priestesses and as weapons of war in an ongoing conflict with first one and then two other powers; the Archipelago of Argentum and The Plumbum Highlands. Two pilots occupy each simoun, in a bond called a “pair” that is both tactical and emotional. Sometimes merely friendly, other times romantic. On a few occasions it’s even adversarial.

Once they reach maturity, sibyllae (and indeed, all of Simulacrum’s citizens) are expected to retire from their role and visit a magic fountain, where they will choose to either become male or “remain” (the terminology is somewhat odd, but can probably be chalked up to the age of the series) female. Alternately, if they are uncommitted, they can have the fountain itself (via its representative, a priestess figure named Onashia) choose for them. Much ceremony surrounds this, and the reasons individual sibyllae give for their choice varies wildly; some want to remain with their simoun pair or some other romantic interest and thus choose to become male, others seek specific jobs more associated with one gender than another, and so on.

In the series’ second episode, a sibylla named Elly has the fountain choose her gender for her. We don’t see much, but we learn as she does that she is to become male. Almost immediately, she cries out in anguish and breaks down crying. A lack of commitment on the part of someone who is still essentially a child is punished by being forced into a role that does not fit her and that she is not happy with. To say it’s “hard to watch” is an understatement. It’s horrifying. And it’s one Simoun calls back to more than once over the course of its run. It is the first major indication that all of these invented systemics are buildup to a real core, not just aesthetics or aimless experimentation.

The sibyllae occupy a role that has no direct, obvious real-world counterpart, which has the benefit of halting any preconceived notions on the part of the viewer. Any notions that do form will be quickly picked apart by the characters themselves. Almost to a one, every character in the show has a distinct opinion of the syballae, none moreso than the pilots themselves. Some see the sibyllae primarily as priestesses and lament the combat role they’ve had to take up in wartime. For others, such as Mamina, it’s the entire point; a chance to prove oneself and rise above one’s station. Others still, such as Aeru, who is probably the closest thing Simoun has to a proper protagonist, primarily serve in order to avoid the inevitability of the fountain.

Some are just as lost as the audience; Neviril, around whom much of the series revolves, is engaged with a desperate search for purpose after the loss of her partner in the first episode. This is all without even mentioning the complex and thorny dynamic of having a bunch of children who are essentially miko pilot the simoun themselves. Given that the vehicles are, when deployed at their full strength, functionally magical nuclear bombers. These are just some of the many issues that Simoun picks at numerous times over the course of its run.

It’s unsurprising then that tonally, Simoun is iron and rain. The foggy atmosphere tints the deep regret, unrequited love, and crises of faith that permeate the series. As it progresses, conflicting ideals of religious and noble duty clash with those of militaristic nationalism, the individuals that espouse these ideas caught in between. Simoun is heavy as lead. This is not a show you watch for fun.

This means that the show does have a few, not weaknesses exactly, but quirks. The way it handles big emotional moments is almost more reminiscent of dramatic theater than anything else. But make no mistake, that stately sense of gravitas is absolutely capable of sending chills up the spines of the unprepared. It’s a trait the series shares with some other big-picture war dramas, your Gundams and such, making it the thing that most easily places Simoun within the obvious broader context of its medium.

As for actual weaknesses, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call Simoun something of a slog. It’s not pointless, which is what that term usually implies, but it is definitely not anyone’s idea of a breezy watch. There are very few moments of emotional catharsis or even many pleasant interludes during the entire run of the show, these only really coming to fruition in Simoun‘s final half dozen episodes. It works well with the series’ thematic core, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach on a moment to moment basis and I must confess my millennial ADHD brain found itself struggling to keep my attention focused on the screen at times. It’s almost impressive, given that Simoun is only a fairly short 26 episodes. Simoun also looks very much of its time. I grew to appreciate its mid-2000s charm over the course of watching it, but I would be unsurprised if others were less charitable.

So those are the ups and downs. It is fair then to ask where all of this goes, and the truth is that Simoun‘s greatest strength is that by spending all of that time on worldbuilding and similar details, it earns an incredible amount of leeway to take the entire thing wherever it pleases. Simoun‘s true core thesis then, is wonderful. The series broadly rejects all notion of heroic narrative; the ostensible main military conflict fizzles out with four episodes left to go. Its’ finale is not about any grand confrontation, but about how the sibyllae who remain deal with the end of the war, and consequently the end of their special relevance to the Theocracy.

All of this is broadly a metaphor for coming of age. A thematic line that many anime explore, but Simoun‘s closest compatriot, at least from my own pool of knowledge, is none other than Revolutionary Girl Utena. The two share something that looks like fatalism from a distance but is both more practical and more resonant up close. Unlike many other anime, Simoun offers no dramatic moment of breaking the system. The system, in a way, wins, in that it continues to exist even after the war. The sibyllae’s own choices are where the revolution lies; for many, to go to the fountain, for one, to replace Onashia as its keeper, and for two, something far stranger, and not unlike Utena and Anthy’s great escape at the end of their own series’ film. It is a revolution not of the world, but the self.

One could argue that this thesis is incomplete, maybe even irresponsible. I would counter that no single work of art is obligated to depict all aspects of the human condition on its own. We need lovers as much as fighters, and Simoun is decidedly for the former. This school of thematic material lives on in anime to this very day for that exact reason.

For the flaws it admittedly does have, Simoun‘s final catharsis is wonderfully well-earned. The hours of our lives tick on, and somewhere far beyond them spin two eternal maidens, in a land of hope and dance.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Other Posts

Where The Wicked Shadow Grows: Compassion in Online Anime Fan Spaces

How do we keep ending up here?

This past week, the mass of loosely Japanese animation-related Twitter accounts broadly known as “AniTwitter” worked itself into a tizzy over an admittedly somewhat surface-level but harmless article on gaming website Polygon. That article’s author, Kambole Campbell, came under fire from anglosphere magical girl genre fans after the column (admittedly incorrectly) implied that Wonder Egg Priority was innovating in the genre space by dealing with the traumas of growing up.

To briefly satisfy the bloodhounds, yes, this is wrong. One need only to have seen the fairly recent-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things HeartCatch Precure to know that’s not true, and beyond that specific show or even the Pretty Cure franchise in general, the genre has been tackling this subject matter basically since its inception. I would argue that if Wonder Egg Priority makes a real innovation it’s merging that thematic core with an approach centered around surrealistic psychological imagery. Even there, it has forefathers. (That article also mentions Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It’s an obvious comparison, but not an incorrect one. And Madoka too has its own stylistic ancestors, of course, but this should go without saying, nothing exists in a vacuum.) Innovation is often only truly noticeable in hindsight anyway.

But Campbell’s minor error, mostly one of tone, doesn’t really matter here. And beyond the previous paragraph I don’t intend to much discuss the article itself at all, because I don’t think its content is terribly important to this issue. What’s been laid bare by this entire incident, which culminated in Campbell locking his twitter account and thus cutting off a vital source of networking for himself, is the truly dire state of anime fandom on social media.

This isn’t really surprising, if we stop to think about it. Broadly, the more niche a geeky interest is, the more intense its fans are. To abandon anime completely for a moment, look at the MCU. The cinematic universe’s most intense fans are not casual moviegoers, they’re the diehard core of Marvel comic fans for whom the films mark a public acceptance of what was for some time a rather obscure set of narratives. You go back fifteen years and much of the public at large doesn’t know who Marvel’s Thor is, much less the Guardians of The Galaxy.

So with this principal in mind, let’s apply it here. Anime as an entire medium is already a niche interest in the anglosphere, despite a resurgence in popular awareness over the last decade. Outside of mainstream TV shonen; the likes of say, My Hero Academia and a few other such properties whose merch you can find at your local Target, it is even moreso. It is not a surprise then that one of the most intense corners of online anime fan space is what might loosely be termed “magical girl twitter”. People whose passion for the genre runs wide and deep, not just Pretty Cure mega-fans (although those certainly exist), but folks whose knowledge extends back to the birth of the genre. Farther than mine, certainly.

In of itself, passion is a wonderful thing. I started this blog in part out of a desire to share my own. The issue arises when fans who share a niche interest go from appreciative to exclusionary and, in this case, to actively antagonistic. A freelance journalist’s Twitter account being locked is not a minor inconvenience, it is an active, tangible negative impact on their life. “Magical girl twitter”, as I’m calling it here, has harmed a person’s livelihood. Here in retaliation–deliberate or not–for a perceived lack of respect toward the genre and its traditions.

We have to be careful here, because wanting a journalist to be qualified is not inherently a bad thing. In an ideal world, anyone who wanted to pen an article about some anime they liked would have infinite time and resource to do so, and would always produce the absolute best material possible. We, of course, do not live in an ideal world. The pool of writers a website can draw on is limited. The combined frames of reference of those writers is limited. The amount of money a website is willing to pay those writers is limited. And so on, and so forth.

The reality thus is this. Most likely, Campbell’s article came into being because he saw the show, thought it ruled (which it does), and wanted to use the platform that Polygon gave him to hopefully spread the word. I have seen a lot of malice ascribed to his motives, and I find the conclusions many were willing to jump to somewhere between upsetting and just plain confusing. (I cannot count how many times I’ve seen the word “clickbait” over the last two days. Sidebar here: all journalism written on the internet is clickbait. Clicks are how we pay for, y’know, groceries and such.)

In some ways though, this is the logical endpoint of the mindset that any commentator on the medium must be This Qualified to write their work. As the traditional western otaku gatekeeping structures have broken down, anime has become more accessible to anglophone audiences than ever before. Thus, pure, experiential knowledge–How Much Anime You’ve Watched–has become the last refuge of those who think that the broadening scope of who is watching and enjoying anime is a bad thing.

Part of this is just a failure to understand a basic truth of art. No two people experience the same works in the same order or in the same way. One’s “experience of art” is wholly unique. Seeing, just as a vaguely-relevant example, Madoka Magica before Sailor Moon is different from seeing them in the reverse order. Seeing any entry in the storied Cutie Honey franchise before you saw either would influence your perception of both, and the same is true in whatever order you care to put these three examples in. This is part of why people simply disagree on interpretation and even just the quality of a given work in the first place.

Artistic canons, then, eventually arise from broadly agreed-upon interpretations or at least points from which interpretations may emerge. It’s important to acknowledge that they are not objective truths, but rather groups of shared experiences. Niche knowledge becomes codified by those who have the most of it, and a consequence of this is that some opinions become an easy way to identify someone as not being “in the know”. In the case of magical girl anime, almost anything that positions Madoka Magica and its imitators as diametrical opposites to older works in the genre is one of these. Sadly, it is then all too easy to think of the “not in the know” person as an outsider here to besmirch the good name of magical girl anime. (Or whatever else you care to name.)

I don’t think those making these assumptions have bad motives, to be clear. I have been on the receiving end of enough nightmarishly dull conversations about how Madoka Magica was the first thing to “deconstruct” magical girl anime that I can absolutely understand finding such talk infuriating. I too understand the impulse to correct someone when they seem to be buying into (or worse, spreading!) a badly-informed talking point. What I do think is bad is the actions that this attitude leads to if taken to an extreme. One Twitter account being locked is one thing, but the exclusionary attitude underlying much of the discourse here is the same mentality that, combined with a noxious cocktail of reactionary politics that is also very much present in some parts of the anime fandom, fueled the GamerGate fiasco a decade ago. No one should want more of that.

The people behind this specific incident likely had only the best of intentions; defending the reputation of the magical girl genre which is often unfairly maligned. But we must be mindful of how this interacts with the internet at large. It would not be difficult at all for a reactionary group to co-opt this sort of outrage flareup for their own ends. I think I speak for every rational anime fan when I say that that is firmly not what we want the future of our medium’s fan spaces to look like.

I look again to what the likely origins of Campbell’s article were; a simple attempt to put more people on to a series he thought was worth watching. Even if we take it as a given that he made mistakes in the process, did he actually do anything wrong? I would say not. Intent matters here. It is obvious from any even remotely considerate reading of the article that there was no active attempt to deceive, discredit, or defame anyone or anything. At its absolute worst, the article is maybe slightly shallow. Certainly, it’s nothing that warrants the hugely disproportionate negative response Campbell got on social media. Which, as we’ve gone over, is both personally damaging to the journalist and just unproductive in general.

So what is the best way to counteract potential bad information in a piece like this without causing its author harm? Speaking generally, I advocate response articles (something of a lost art, honestly) for this kind of thing. They are better for the productive purpose of educating and expanding the horizons of anime neophytes. Twitter threads if carefully maintained can also be a solid tool, but especially for owners of larger accounts, this risks accidentally painting a target on the author’s back. Care must be taken in general, as the goal of artistic commentary, and indeed, commentary on that commentary, should always be to foster greater understanding between people. Social media outrage, by contrast, has the exact opposite effect. It turns both fans and the journalists themselves away from the medium and from each other, something nobody should want.

I’ve confessed before that I loathe writing articles like this. They’re not any fun, I always feel like I’m scolding people, and they’re not even remotely indicative of my broader work. Yet, I sometimes feel obligated to. If I can leave even one person just slightly more considerate and constructive at the end of this article than they were at the beginning, it’s well worth it. And to head off at the pass any accusations of self-righteousness; it’s not like I’m immune to this either. I’m definitely as guilty of occasionally jumping down folks’ throats as anyone else. I think it’s important to recognize that it’s at best a bad habit and at worst an active detriment to the medium I love.

So please, let’s all try to be just a little nicer, more charitable, more compassionate to each other? The artists, fans, and writers of generations to come will thank us for it.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

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In My View: Understanding the Polygon column

iniksbane's avatarIn Search of Number Nine — An anime blog

It’s another week, and Twitter has become atwitter with its latest controversy du jour.

This time they’re focused on a column by Kambole Campbell that is titled: Wonder Egg Priority is reimagining Magical Girl empowerment.

According to the Twitter users, the title was only the beginning of the problems with Campbell’s overly enthusiastic analysis of the show. Most people took offense to this portion in particular:

“From the beginning are intricate layers of visual language that recall the work of A Silent Voice director Naoko Yamada (particularly her use of flower language) and the subjective, magical realist portrayal of reality that made Satoshi Kon a name. There’s even some Persona 5 in the way the show’s teenagers deal with the moral failings of adults.”

Wonder Egg Priority is reimagining Magical Girl empowerment

People largely mocked this sentence largely because of its mention of Persona 5. The commenters felt it was…

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