The Frontline Report is a weekly column where I summarize my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material.
We’ve got quite a trio of writeups here. In this week’s FLR we’ve got me thinking myself into a tizzy about one anime, being arguably too harsh with another, and then there’s Heike Monogatari, which remains basically unimpeachable.
I have to admit that any time I pen something like the latter two writeups here I worry I’ll acquire a reputation as an “issue critic”, or worse, a simple whiner. Hopefully, you’ll all take me on my word that I write what I write because to me, it is the truth, even if sometimes I can only arrive at it through a minor crucible of self-doubt. Honesty is the profession’s one requirement, and there’s nothing more honest than that.
Seasonals
The Heike Story
Of every anime I have ever covered on this blog, The Heike Story is, if not the most difficult to write about, certainly at least up there. On some level, what is there to say? Each and every episode advances the slow tragedy of the Heike Clan’s downfall. Their legacy melts away in real-time like snow in Spring. You can’t capture this kind of poeticism in plain language, not really.
Nonetheless, this episode stands out. One of Kiyomori’s plans to strike at the Clan’s enemies again goes awry; literally up in smoke, as one of Shigemori’s sons accidentally sets a whole temple complex alight. For his sins, his wife dreams of Gozu and Mezu foretelling his impending doom, threatening to drag him to Hell.
In the real world he burns alive as he’s set by a fever so intense that water literally evaporates upon contact with his skin. It kills him, eventually, his only regret being unvisited vengeance upon his enemies.
This pushes the household to a breaking point, and Biwa is kicked out by Sukemori as winter sets in. Where will she go? It’s impossible to say.
I have wondered more than once while watching Heike Monogatari if some of its characters, in their bottomless arrogance and self-assured righteousness, might resonate in a truly dark way with the current leaders of our world. Just something to chew on.
Komi Can’t Communicate
Administrative note: I am following NovaWorks’ absolutely gorgeous fansub for this series rather than the official subtitles. If you’re wondering why I seem to be several episodes behind, that is why.
The issue I always had with Komi‘s source material is that I could never quite understand what tone it was going for. On the one hand, Komi is something of a cringe comedy. A decent amount of the humor comes from Komi’s own ability to fail to perform basic human interactions, and most characters other than Komi herself (and Tadano) are, well, often pretty rude, even when accounting for their generally wacky, cartoonish personalities. On the other, the series projects an obvious, deep empathy for its title character, and is clearly sympathetic to her struggles even as it pokes fun at the mundanity of them. The long and short of all this is that the series has a pretty weird sense of humor, and it’s sometimes hard to tell if a given joke is being made at a character’s expense (and thus, intentionally or not, the expense of the sort of person they represent) or is being made with the idea that both the character themselves and any similar persons in the audience are “in on it.” And like it or not, that does matter. It’s the difference between gentle ribbing and punching down, and it’s what separates the good examples of this sort of comedy from the bad. All this is difficult enough to square with Komi herself, but it becomes even moreso with some of the other characters, one of whom we meet in episode 2.
This is Najimi Osana. They are a gender bean.
I don’t know what line was translated this way, but to whoever chose this phrasing: bless you.
Before I say anything else; I actually like Najimi. They’re great. I just don’t really know how to feel about the fact that I like them.
Najimi is, well, some sort of gender-nonconforming. I don’t recall the source material ever getting particularly specific and this episode follows that lead. But whether they are genderfluid, nonbinary, MTF, simply a crossdresser, or some combination of the above, they are, for better or worse, the representative for how Komi Can’t Communicate “feels about” genderqueer people. In personality, they are hypersocial, flirty, a bit manipulative, and we’re told, a chronic liar. They’re very entertaining, but this depiction forces us to wade into thorny questions of representation.
I really hate having to ever address the question of whether a character is “good rep” or not. It makes me feel, frankly, like a cranky and vaguely pathetic stereotype of a critic. Look at me, being the big bad feminist werewolf ruining everyone’s fun little romcom by interrogating its assumptions about gender. It’s a genuinely sucky feeling, because every word I write in criticism of the series I feel like I must couch with repeated assurances that no, I do like it, I just don’t know about how it handles this. And on the other hand, no one’s art exists in a vacuum, so I feel like I am to some extent obligated to at least ask the question. Is Najimi’s central “joke” that they’re all of those things I listed, and happen to be, separately from that, genderqueer, or is it that they are those things because they’re genderqueer? That’s a huge distinction. The former is a personality, the latter is a stereotype. And the sexualized otokonoko is, certainly, a trope that exists in Japanese pop media, so my gut reaction drags me toward the latter interpretation, not helped by a pretty unpleasant sequence here where Najimi is nearly assaulted by a delinquent they used to know. (Thankfully, he’s scared off before anything can happen. This isn’t really that kind of show. Still, it’s the idea.)
But of course, as a critic (and really just as a literate viewer) you should never let your first reaction be the whole of your thoughts. The other side of this is that I want to absolve Komi Can’t Communicate of responsibility here, because as I said, I like Najimi. They’re a weird little gremlin who manages to be immensely popular anyway, we’re given the comical figure that they have five million friends, and honestly I do get it. I even think the scene where they casually insist that they’re “actually” a guy to turn someone down is kinda funny, because using your gender as a weapon to duck out of awkward social situations genuinely is amusing, it’s the sort of thing that certain genderqueer people (and I’m including myself here) absolutely would pull if they could. It’s almost Bugs Bunny-ish.
So I don’t want them to be bad. I want to live in a world where original mangaka Tomohito Oda came up with this character because he thought they’d be funny on their own merits. I want a genderqueer character to just be able to exist in an anime and be a funny little Starbucks goblin and have it not be a big deal. Maybe that’s why I am willing to take Najimi’s presence in the series (and their general characterization) on good faith. For me at least, and for now, it’s enough that they’re entertaining and funny and endearing. But it may not be for everybody, and I think both stances are okay as long as they’re arrived at properly. Such things are rarely cut and dry, and if you take away nothing else from all this rambling, let it be that. I have said all I said (and worried greatly about coming across as though I’m trying to shame people, which I’m absolutely not), but I must again reiterate that I genuinely really like the character.
And gosh, look at all this. I’ve written all I’ve written and barely touched on the actual plot of the episode itself. It’s a good one, despite any impression to the contrary I may have made here. Komi Can’t Communicate continues its impressive visual run here, and there’s a really fun bit where we see the same scene twice from two different perspectives back to back. The extended riff on Starbucks near the end of the episode where Komi is tasked with memorizing a monstrously long order (Najimi’s naturally. Yes, the “Starbucks goblin” descriptor was relevant. I’m such a good writer) is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in an anime this year. Shout out to this guy; “wearer of the black apron” indeed.
So yes, all my thinking in circles aside, it’s a largely good episode. Komi Can’t Communicate remains one to watch.
But now we have to get to the show that I actually am kind of disappointed with. Although here too things are….complicated.
Rumble Garanndoll
There is a thin line between being self-aware and being self-impressed. Has Rumble Garanndoll crossed it? I wouldn’t say so, but it’s getting awfully close. Followup question: do you remember Darling in the FranXX? Because somebody on Rumble Garanndoll‘s production team definitely does.
That’s probably a bad first impression to make for an episode that I did enjoy parts of, but it is very easy to see where Garanndoll might fall apart, and on several occasions over the course of its third episode I felt like I was watching Garanndoll get dangerously close to shattering in real time. As such, this writeup is going to mostly be about what I did not like about the episode, with apologies to the animators who continue to make Garanndoll a visual treat.
Let’s go over what Garanndoll has gotten right so far, first. Fair is fair, after all. It does correctly identify that otakudom–like any counterculture–is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarian ideologies. As close as the two can get to being bedfellows is proponents of the latter treating members of the former like useful idiots (that’s more or less what by-now recurring antagonist Hayate’s role is, and it’s something that happens in the contemporary cultural landscape all the time). Inevitably, the fascistic drive to purge “degeneracy” will take hold, and all art and culture will be subsumed beneath a nationalistic monolith. Garanndoll knows that, as demonstrated here where it contrasts how the Shark One works with how the villains’ mecha work. (The Shark is powered by passion and strength of feeling. The various mecha that the bad guys are playing with? “Patriotism.” That’s not terribly subtle commentary.) Inside Rin’s own mind, the only thing that’s able to defeat her fantasy flights of transforming heroes and giant robots are the memories of the villains themselves.
Again, not subtle. (And fittingly; one of the best parts of the episode.) Countercultures and authoritarianism are natural enemies; that’s a good and true thing for the show to grok. It resonates, even if it’s not exactly a novel observation.
What I worry Garanndoll may not understand is that passion for art–or more specifically what I will generally term “geek shit” here–cannot actually defeat authoritarianism by itself. I mentioned DarliFra in the opening paragraph, and while that show had numerous issues, it did also understand that you couldn’t kill the monster of fascism with hot blood alone. You need empathy, you need love, and you need thoughtfulness and planning. It was very bad at actually implementing those ideas but it at least knew that it had to try. I’m not sure Garanndoll does, which is a pretty serious problem for a show whose whole core idea pits a group of nerds-turned-rebel-alliance against the marching army of a culture-hostile dictatorship.
And there is another comparison to be made to DarliFra, and it’s the one you were probably expecting. I’ll level with you folks; I am far less anti-Guys In My Anime than many other lesbians I know who watch the stuff. I am not opposed to dudes. I’m not opposed to dudes in the lead role, even. But they have to be at least a bit interesting, and–here is another place where Rumble is starting to stumble–it cannot push heteronormative nonsense. Initially I thought male lead Hosomichi’s career as a host would be a vehicle for, something interesting. Perhaps a gentle once-over about how nerdy men tend to look at women. So far it’s mostly been a plot device, and here he gets roped into eyeroll-inducing platitudes about “a man and a woman” and about every time one was on screen I glared at my monitor so hard I thought I might melt it. To me, that is far more obnoxious than someone’s cheeky cut-swipe of a bad mecha anime from a few years ago.
Directors, writers, you must be aware that there are plenty of women who watch your work, or else you would not have written the female lead as an otaku girl. Honestly this kills me; Rin is not some two-bit wish fulfillment fantasy, I have known plenty of people who would wear a Mega Man outfit to their job if they thought they could get away with it, and I have known women–and am a woman–who love their giant robots. No one in 2021 wants this “and he gets the girl” shit. It has to be more earned than this. And to Garanndoll‘s credit maybe it will eventually earn it, maybe even in the episode airing tomorrow. It just really has not done so yet. But I’m skeptical now–more than I want to be–especially because the teased introduction of another girl at the end of this episode has all the hallmarks of a lazy harem setup. You can do better than this, can’t you? To use the show’s own symbolic language; watching Garanndoll should make me feel like my passion battery is charged up, not like it’s running on empty. I know this may seem hard to believe given all I’ve said, but I like this show, and the last thing I want to see it do is trip over the Sexism Bar and fall flat on its own face. It deserves better than that.
Elsewhere on MPA
First Impressions: High Guardian Spice – This show seems like decent fun. I haven’t watched more of it since I wrote this and I don’t really intend to. So if you’re looking for an “authoritative” opinion on it I’d suggest turning to other critics–probably those with more experience and more interest in writing about contemporary American cartoons–but if you just want my two cents, here it is.
Let’s Watch takt op.Destiny: Episode 4 – This is my favorite episode of takt op since its premiere. I think that really says all you need to know, doesn’t it?
And with ALL OF THAT said, I hope you all have a Happy Halloween and a good rest of your week.
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