Proto-Romantic philosophers and so-bad-it's-a-masterpiece yuri. You cannot get any more 'Me' than this.

A scene from Philosophy Club a couple of weeks ago:

Girl (name withheld since we're not on especially good terms and I don't want to be a total jerk to her over the Internet): *says something about Kannazuki no Miko*

Me: Oh, hey, I just finished rewatching that show! It's not really very good, but I have a bit of affection for it for reasons unrelated to its objective quality.

Girl: Such as?

Me: I'm not always entirely sure why, but in some ways I like the characters a lot, even Chikane given the extreme situations in which she has to make decisions. Of course, they're not perfect by any means.

Girl: Well...I mean, what Chikane did was certainly, on some levels, wrong.

Me: Oh, definitely. That's part of why she did it.

Girl: Yeah. I mean, just think of it in Kantian terms: What if everybody raped their girlfriend in an attempt to incite her to violence so that she'd destroy and recreate the world?

Me: I...I think that the categorical imperative, here, has to be parsed to the level on which not everybody is in a position where that would have the intended effect even if it was done 'correctly'. If it's possible to commit sex crimes correctly, which it isn't, by definition.

Girl: Are you a Kantian?

Me: Kantianism plus some virtue/duty ethics, yes.

Girl: Well, okay, how about...

Me: How about if everybody was the Lunar Priestess and acted as Chikane did? I feel like that's the correct categorical imperative analysis to use here.

Girl: Then it wouldn't be Kannazuki no Miko, dipshit.

Me: It wouldn't be the categorical imperative either.

Best philosophy club or greatest philosophy club?

Dear God, I haven't posted anything to this blog in three weeks.

Oh, well. Have some SHEENmazu YoSHEENo to make up for it.

 

 

Chizu revisited

So, a few hours ago, I had a discussion with Maya about Aoi Hana. In this discussion, one interesting thing that we had decided to do was to reopen the topic of Chizu, the character who many of you will remember from my disgusted rant about her and how despicable she is a while back. In this discussion, we discounted a lot of our previous assumptions about the character in favour of a new set of theories that I now feel not only explain her better but also serve to place her as a character type in the history of both Japanese and world literature.

Our conclusion was that Chizu, when you strip her of the cultural and genre trappings, is in fact a remarkably similar character to Dom Claude Frollo, the antagonist from Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris. Discount for a second the Disney adaptation of Hugo’s story: the Frollo in the book is a less horrible but also even more absurdly pathetic figure. There are three main bases for our comparison here:

1. Lust (maybe actual love, to be fair to Frollo and Chizu, but given the circumstances this seems a little less likely, especially in Frollo’s case) for a young girl as an initial motivating factor for both characters, though la Esmeralda and Fumi, as people, have very little in common.
2. A profound lack of understanding of cause and effect, and the fact that actions tend to have specific consequences, which leads the characters to act on their rather questionable motivation in ways that have a profoundly negative impact on the stories’ protagonists. In Frollo’s case, what he fails to understand is the sheer political and spiritual inappropriateness of his attachment; in Chizu’s case, it is the legal and social inappropriateness, in addition to the effect that it is having on Fumi, who is prone to attachment and separation issues.
3. A form of cowardice that causes both characters to, when confronted with the consequences of their behaviour, spin excuses that, while not false, are presented in a context either indicating outright (in Frollo’s case) or heavily implying (in Chizu’s) that their main desire is to make the problem go away without having to actually address it.

Item 2 in this list is interesting in Chizu’s case because Aoi Hana is a Japanese text and ‘not understanding cause and effect’ is an extremely, extremely common hamartia or heroic flaw in the storytelling tradition of Japanese Buddhism. So this doesn’t really make Chizu any inherently worse than, for example, the mad abbot from Aozukin by Akinari Ueda, though, like Mitsuko from Tanizaki’s Manji, she is presented a little more negatively, since Aozukin is a Buddhist parable outright whereas Manji and Aoi Hana are not. In the context of the story it’s perfectly appropriate and correct to see that Chizu is a rather awful person who could probably benefit greatly from having her head examined. But my initial opinion about her—that she is a manipulative sociopath—gives her too little credit morally and too much credit intellectually. She’s a rather dull person in some ways, needlessly brutish in other ways, and, I now think, a far cry from the sort of wicked mastermind that I initially perceived her as.

Shimura Takako’s Aoi Hana as a Social Fairy Tale

Astute followers of my journeys through the realm of Japanese literature and art, as well as anybody who is insane enough to see me as a ‘tastemaker’, will know of my intense and abiding love for the writer and artist Shimura Takako and her series Aoi Hana (Sweet Blue Flowers). I will not here attempt to explain the series, but rather to offer a theory about it to those who are already familiar with the basics. Aoi Hana is notably a spiritual offshoot of sorts to the work of Novalis, a German writer who lived in the later part of the eighteenth century and wrote exceptionally strange stories with typically Romantic themes. As Aoi Hana has at least one root in Novalis and German Romantic literature is all fundamentally based on fairy tales (even Faust, the grand climax of all German writing, is based on shady folklore from the Renaissance), it is my theory that Aoi Hana can be—though by no means must be—interpreted through an analysis of the characters’ and events’ roles in the structure or praxis of the German fairy tale.

 

The first thing to establish is that Aoi Hana admits of being defined as a fairy tale despite its lack of any supernatural or even particularly unusual elements, due to its use of a setting (all-girls high school) and setting-specific tropes that carry defined readings, associations, and references within them, within the context of Japanese media. ‘This is set in an all-girls high school’ enacts narratological protocols in the mind of one familiar with Japanese writing much as ‘Once upon a time’ enacts them in the mind of anybody in the West who can remember their childhood, though obviously they are not the same protocols. The setting immediately establishes Aoi Hana as a ‘social fairy story’, a very slightly unreal iteration of real issues—but in this case, the fairy tale comparisons can be drawn deeper as one pays attention to the somewhat Jungian psycho-romantic nature of both Aoi Hana’s storyline and the typical fairy tale schema.

The first principal player in a fairy tale is of course the questing hero, in this case Fumi. The first thing that makes Aoi Hana unusual if looked at as a fairy tale is the fact that Fumi is also the princess archetype, whose ‘rescue’ is brought about by the actions of another questing hero, Akira. But to some extent this unusual apportionment of roles between the two leads is due more to a shift in perspective than anything else. In fairy tales we are presented with numerous examples of resourceful and industrious princesses who are portrayed as active in definite and specific ways in securing their safety until the questing hero’s arrival—think of the continued obfuscations of Cinderella and her fairy hit woman, or even the tenacity and patience of Rapunzel. So Fumi’s role in Aoi Hana is not inherently different to the role of the fairy tale princess despite the fact that she also shares double-duty as the fairy tale hero. For Fumi, the quest is simply her own growth and salvation.

The villain role in the fairy tale, as defined by Vladimir Propp, is shared in Aoi Hana between several different characters. The role of the villain as the actor in ‘a story-initiating villainy, where the villain caused harm to the hero or his family’ is fulfilled perfectly, to the letter, by Chizu, who is either malicious for no real reason or (and this is admittedly more likely) simply so impulsive and self-centred as to achieve a pretty wonderful resemblance to someone who is. The role of the villain in ‘a conflict between the hero and the villain, either a fight or other competition’ can be held to be that of Sugimoto-senpai, whose fight with Fumi is intensely psychological and based on the changing specifics of an unusual situation and whose competition with Akira, while to an extent tempered and limited by that same situation, is much simpler and more direct. Finally, the villain’s role in ‘pursuing the hero after he has succeeded in winning the fight or obtaining something from the villain’ is in Aoi Hana played by social forces rather than specific persons (although persons certainly act in accordance with these social forces), reinforcing Aoi Hana’s status as both an explicitly queer story and as a social fairy tale.

Other characters fill other roles in Propp’s morphology. Since the fairy quest is personal there is little need for a dispatcher, Propp’s ‘character who makes the problem known and sends the hero off’. The dispatchers in Aoi Hana are the heroes themselves. The magical helpers are many and to be quite frank are frequently the characters in the story who serve the least point beyond their fairy tale purpose, though many of them are charming. These are people like Pon-chan, Mogi, and Yassan; those of the Sugimoto who are not Yasuko; and some of the older lesbian couples who appear later on. The princess, in addition to being one of Fumi’s parts in this piece, is also a large portion of Kyoko’s function, though the fact that nobody is actively pursuing her except for the relatively incidental Kou (whom I believe to fill the ‘donor/benefactor’ slot along with several other family members and close friends of the main characters) means that she actually fits the fundamental kernel of this role less well than she fits its normally attendant tropes. The false hero, who takes credit for the hero’s actions and tries to marry the princess, is arguably another part played in the early part of the story by Sugimoto-senpai, and not a role that has much significance later on.

In style and tone Aoi Hana also has much in common with the fairy tale. The childhood-friends setup is pure Perrault, pure courtly fairy tale of Italy and France; Fumi’s traumas reverberate through her future actions and future actions upon her in ways very similar to the patterns of repetition in such Grimm tales as ‘The Juniper Tree’ and to an extent the original long version of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, in which the title character’s unfortunate experience in the first part of the story sets her ill-at-ease and makes it hard for her to manage the situation in the second. Verbal considerations and style, which Propp discounts but which for Grimm and people like Angela Carter and A.S. Byatt are of overwhelming significance, do not immediately correlate to the fairy tale, partially because of their provenance in another part of the world, instead serving more to tie Aoi Hana to the ideas in the Romantic stories that took fairy tales and analysed them in terms of principles and themes. The centre of Aoi Hana is yearning. The blue flower symbolizes yearning, in many cases the yearning of one lover for another or the yearning of two lovers for something sublime that will bless their love.

In Aoi Hana’s case, the yearning is both kinds, with one’s fulfilment leading to the other as the hero-princesses continue their quest together, and that is pure fairy-story.

Switching to the topic of fictional villains who are just absolutely vile and who I hate through and through...

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR AOI HANA



Hanashiro Chizu, from Aoi Hana.

Chizu first appears at the beginning of the story as the main character Fumi's older cousin. When Fumi was twelve, she went over to visit Chizu at Chizu's college dorm and Chizu coaxed her into sex (Chizu was about twenty at this point). While obviously this was rape even by bizarre Japanese laws on the subject, Fumi, being both an unbelievable shrinking violet and an emotionally confused pubescent lesbian, took it as a sign of love and entered into a several-year-long sexual relationship with Chizu.

On Fumi's first day of high school, Chizu got engaged and had a party to celebrate without telling her, then barely ever spoke to her again.

This would be bad enough--it is indirectly the source of the vast majority of the conflict in the story because it's the cause of a lot of Fumi's trust issues and questionable taste in women--but Chizu makes things even worse for poor Fumi when she shows up again later in the plot, when Fumi is trying to sort out her feelings for her best friend Ah-chan. Chizu tells Fumi that she is sorry, obviously falsely because (a) she then goes on to chide Fumi for thinking that it was going to be long-term and says that it isn't her fault that 'society broke them apart' (all of which is obvious bullshit on its face, since Chizu isn't in an arranged marriage and Fumi was twelve when Chizu started having sex with her) and (b) Chizu raped a twelve-year-old girl who loved and trusted her, then strung her along for years and dumped her.

It's unclear why exactly Chizu felt the need to come back and fuck with Fumi's sense of self-worth by telling her that it was basically her fault for allowing a much older and admired relative to rape her. She does not gain anything by doing so. The simplest explanation is that Chizu is simply a sociopath and gets her kicks from Fumi's suffering, which because Fumi runs with a mostly rather awkward and alienated crowd directly drags down several other people as well.

And the worst part is that Aoi Hana's other characters include bratty jerks, tactless morons, and callous bounders, but none of them are remotely horrible enough to even comprehend whatever the fuck goes on in Chizu's head. It's as if Livia Soprano decided that she was going to make a living by using her maniuplation tricks on the cast of Mary Poppins. Nobody in Aoi Hana is even halfway dark or cynical or evil enough to even begin to understand what Chizu is doing to them.

And...I mean, just LOOK at her.

That FUCKING SMIRK.

Semi-review: Kuragehime

So, a while back I watched Kuraghime. Kuraghime is a show about a bunch of bizarre nerdy girls who live in a house together and the cross-dressing male fashionista who upends their lives, especially that of the young and adorkable marine-invertebrate nerd (titular Princess Jellyfish) Tsukimi.

There's a lot to love about Kuragehime, mainly its honesty about who people fundamentally are. It's been said that everybody is a geek of some description, with things like sports and relationships having obsessive fanbases so huge as to dictate what 'mainstream society' is to everybody else. In view of this, Kuragehime depicts Kuranosuke (the cross-dressing guy) as a fashion geek more than anything else, which makes him really endearing. Also, in one episode where he gives everybody makeovers, he does not do so to this one overweight lady in a kimono--wonderfully not because 'OH SHE'S FAT AND YOU CAN'T FIX THAT WITH MAKEOVERS', but because her personal style is 'very traditional Japanese woman', not 'frumpy slob', and that's not really a problem for his immediate purpose of making this group look presentable in a formal setting.

Anyway, what I realised while watching this, and more fully to-day, was that I'd actually consider dating a girly enough guy as long as it was made clear that the relationship would not be sexual. And I'm...really not sure what this says about me, actually!

Review: Angel Beats

Key Visual Arts is a Japanese video game developer best known for its work in the genre known as 'visual novel' (aka The Only Type Of Video Game That Nathan Can Or Will Sit Through). Visual novels are, basically, works that are written as if they were conventional (in form, not necessarily subject matter) Japanese literature and then transferred into text files that are mixed up with pictures and music and some (typically low) degree of interactivity, essentially creating the equivalent of those Choose Your Own Adventure books that I devoured when I was a kid. [This is a little hard for me to explain so here is a random section of one of the most famous and influential visual novels, Tsukihime ('Lunar Princess'; by the author of Kara no Kyoukai, Nasu Kinoko). And here is the beginning of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni ('When the Higurashi [a type of cicada] Cry'), a more recent and extremely groundbreaking horror story by a younger writer who Nasu discovered.]

Key's visual novels are typically romantic, fluffy, yet rather sad, sort of like a cross between Latin American soap opera and Henry James. They are almost all set in very traditional, often somewhat bland (from a Japanese perspective), but oddly narratologically self-aware environments. They are known for their heartbreaking stories and subtle treatment of the odd supernatural element (as opposed to Nasu or the pseudonymous Naku Koro ni author, who are explicitly fantasy-horror writers from the get-go).

In 2009, somebody working at Key decided to start work on a non-video game project, which was to be fairly multimedia, incorporating a television anime, a manga series, and a series of actual bound text novels. This series, which started to be rolled out later that year and continued through 2010, is Angel Beats.

Angel Beats tells the story of Otonashi, a young man who has a horrible life, dies, and is reborn in an odd complex similar to a Japanese high school but larger and with enough amenities to be self-sufficient. He has spotty memories--which is apparently unusual among the denizens of this purgatorial universe--and is unhappy with the situation. Otonashi meets a girl called Yuri (that's her with the assault rifle in the picture) who press-gangs him into an outfit called SSS, a paramilitary group that commits terrorist attacks and industrial sabotage against the student council and faculty of the high school in an attempt to provoke the intervention of God.

One unfortunate part of this is that, other than the SSS, the student body president Tenshi ('Angel', the...well, the angelic girl in the picture, obviously), and a few other key players, nobody in the entire world (that they can access) seems to have free will or even be self-aware. Yuri refers to everybody else as NPCs, non-player characters, in an example of Key's aforementioned self-referential narratology. There are many, many NPCs and they can be easily mobilised from their normal 'lives' to attack people, seemingly at Tenshi's discretion. The main saving graces of this setup are that the NPCs are easily distracted and--key to the entire plot and theme of the text--Tenshi does not actually seem to be using them in a way that plays along with SSS's war games...

______

Of course, no such series involving an afterlife--the genre called 'Bangsian fantasy' in the West--can come out of Japan without bringing the masterpiece Haibane-Renmei to mind. If you haven't seen Haibane-Renmei, and have any interest in this sort of story at all, you as a matter of course eventually will. Angel Beats is no Haibane-Renmei, mainly because nobody at Key Visual Arts is ABe Yoshitoshi, but too its credit it does not try to be. The main things that Angel Beats has to recommend itself are that it is emotionally real despite the ersatz Philip José Farmer premise (Tenshi, at least in the early parts of the story, brings to mind not so much a Christian angel as an Ethical from the Riverworld series), it takes life and death seriously without making any potentially alienating grand religious proclamations (although it does not pull this off as masterfully as Haibane-Renmei, mainly because nothing perhaps ever can), it allows individual characters to have their own beliefs and agendas and values in the context of its purgatorial environment (thus eliminating part of what makes Dante's Commedia sometimes difficult to read), and the very things that sometimes make it hard for the series to hold itself together also set it apart from Key's earlier body of work as something that brings the production company outside of its comfort zone in a genuinely interesting way.

I would not recommend Angel Beats to everybody. It is, as I keep saying, not Haibane-Renmei with its timeless genius. What it is, however, is a full-throated, good-hearted, smartly-executed addition to an odd little fantasy subgenre that sometimes struggles to find its place in the world of modern fition.

First post of the new year?

So, a couple of days ago I watched the first episode (the only one out yet) of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It's a magic show with cutesy character designs that I was only watching because it's Kajiura Yuki's first full soundtrack in about two years.

Then I realised something.

This has the same director as Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. And the same writer as Saya no Uta and Fate/Zero.

And I watched the rest of the episode. And. AND.

IT IS LIKE BEING HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH A SOCK FULL OF MERVYN PEAKE'S DARKEST DAYDREAMS.

IT'S LIKE
HIDAMARI SKETCH MEETS TITUS GROAN.

It's grim and disturbing and amazing and I hope it keeps up the first episode's quality (or even improves on it, since first episodes of anime series tend to be a bit bland).

'This is where I am' into 'Que si el cangrejo se muere todo en su totalidad...'

A serious and good work of philosophy, focusing on philosophy of the values of acts (otherwise known by the somewhat more imprecise terms of normative and applied ethics) and the 'philosophy of the immortality of the crab' (i.e. the philosophy of the violent cognition that overpowers thinking in times of critical faith or desire), could be written entirely, or almost entirely, on the subject of Yun.

 

Discuss.

Facts about Revolutionary Girl Utena.

David Lynch Ikuhara Kunihiko, the anime director, was also the leader and main creator of the Utena project, which was his personal response to the lack of creative freedom he had endured while working on Sailor Moon. Utena was his brainchild and had been from the beginning.

The manga artist, Danielle Steel Saito Chiho, joined the project as one of the last members to come aboard, and she and Ikuhara clashed on a lot of the elements he had always intended to include, including the lesbian themes. Ultimately, she did what she wanted with the manga, which by her own admission sought to be a more commercially viable, mainstream work.

The manga is basically alternate universe derivative fiction of the anime, which is the original creator, Ikuhara's, vision.

So if anybody uses Saito's manga to justify theories about Ikuhara's anime, they are DOING IT WRONG.

In conclusion, I mock because I love.

Kara no Kyoukai: Satsujin Kousatsu

A potential interpretation

By Nathan Turowsky

Shiki: I represent the horror genre. While I have an incredibly fucked-up, dark, twisted, hurting heart, I make the conscious choice to contain it and seek a better life.

Mikiya: I represent fans of the horror genre. While the things that I love about Shiki are her best traits, my willingness to tolerate the darkness within her and help her bear her sins makes society regard me as an enabler or even somewhat ‘creepy’.

Touko: I represent Charles Williams, creator of the urban fantasy subgenre and author of Descent into Hell and The Place of the Lion. My interest in Shiki has somewhat ulterior motives but I genuinely do care about her, and although I jerk around with Mikiya sometimes I care about him too.

Shirazumi: I represent Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dollhouse. My goal in life is to reach Shiki’s sick, twisted, dying heart and make it conform to my own nihilistic and unpleasant ideas about what it is.

Azaka: I represent Nasu Kinoko, the author of Kara no Kyoukai. While I think that it is possible to redeem Shiki and even Shirazumi, and in fact get along reasonably well with both of them, my protective attitude towards Mikiya makes me extremely suspicious of them most of the time.

Shiki: I should also mention that I am voiced by Maaya Sakamoto. You will worship me. Build a shrine to me now, geek boy.

Mikiya: Yes, my mistress.

Also, Rage Yun.

Why yes, I AM blogging mainly for the benefit of Simoun fans these past couple of days, thank you for noticing.

Introducing COURAGE MAMIINA.

Unlike other Simoun-themed advisors such as Inner Strength Aaeru or Romance Floe, who may lead you astray, Courage Mamiina WILL show you the way to greatness.

What I Want for Christmas by Nathan Turowsky, Age 17 (BY NO MEANS FINALISED SINCE IT'S ONLY AUGUST)

In the Hands of a Happy God: The 'No-Hellers' of Central Appalachia

The minute I learned that there exists something called the 'Primitive Baptist Universalist Church', I gained a tiny bit of faith in the underdeveloped mountain South.

Maria-sama ga Miteru (at least Season 1, I'd hope Season 2)

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE EVER ASKED FOR A 'SOCIAL REALISM' ANIME, ONE THAT IS NOT SOME KIND OF SCI-FI OR FANTASY. Yes, it's set in an all-girls' Catholic high school. Yes, there is a reason for this (it's apparently to strip the setting of extraneous elements that would otherwise interfere with the character drama, since Japanese faith schools tend to discourage things like cell phones). Yes, according to everybody I know who has seen any of it including me, it has relationships and drama that rival Ibsen at his best (it helps that it's based on Actual Text Novels). Yes, part of my alleged masculinity dies every time I watch some of it or somebody brings it up to me. Yes, I am TOTALLY FINE WITH THIS.

The Little World of Don Camillo

It's about the friendship between a conservative priest and a communist mayor in postwar Italy. How could I not love this??

For God's sake, Mr Fry, no no no.

I mean it's perfectly obvious that if there were ever a God he has lost all possible taste. You've only got to look - forget the aggression and unpleasantness of the radical right or the Islamic hordes to the East - the sheer lack of intelligence and insight and ability to express themselves and to enthuse others of the priesthood and the clerisy here, in this country, and indeed in Europe, you know God once had Bach and Michelangelo on his side, he had Mozart, and now who does he have? People with ginger whiskers and tinted spectacles who reduce the glories of theology to a kind of sharing, you know? That's what religion has become, a feeble and anaemic nonsense, because we understood that the fire was within us, it was not in some idol on an altar, whether it was a gold cross or whether it was a Buddha or anything else, that we have it.

--Stephen Fry, acting like a prick.

The idea that 'religious people aren't creative any more' has absolutely no possible justification or basis in reality outside of the heads of Stephen Fry and people who already agree with him. It's deliberately small-minded ostrich-thinking. Kajiura Yuki is Shintoist and rather devout about serving the gods. Mashimo Kouichi, her frequent collaborator, is Catholic and in a position for the title of 'modern Dante' as far as I am concerned. If he wants to talk about music, and visual art? Philip Glass. Religious omnivore. Olivier Messiaen. Catholic. John Cage. MOTHERFUCKING GAY BUDDHIST ANARCHIST, HELL YEAH. And...honestly, I think most modern painting is bankrupt anyway, but I'd be pleasantly surprised if anybody can point me in the direction of some good stuff.

Let's extend this to the relatively recently deceased in the world of writing. Philip K. Dick and Marion Zimmer Bradley, perhaps a bit surprisingly, were both churchgoing Episcopalians (although both were a little crazy also). Christopher Fry, the greatest modern playwright, was a Quaker who deliberately let it influence his writing. Very surprisingly, Jorge Luis Borges was also a Quaker, at least for some of his writing period. Getting back to the living, we have Catholics Les Murray and Seamus Heaney in the world of poetry and Umberto Eco, who is lapsed but far more disdainful of people like Stephen Fry than he is of the Church, in prose.

For God's sake. I could go on and on.

It's just.

This really pisses me off.

When Mashimo Kouichi gets his hands on lesbians with guns, religion happens.

Wherein I Attempt to Justify Ill-Advised Behaiour on the Part of Fictional Characters

In Sasameki Koto, Ushio wants a girlfriend badly.

You'd expect: Ushio looks for an LGBT group nearby (nowadays you can find them in towns all over Japan) and/or uses the Internet. Since she's incredibly pretty and very friendly herself, she would probably not have much trouble finding somebody that way, even in heterosexist Japanese society.
Instead: She loudly goes after girls at her school, making them think that she's some kind of idiot.
Justification: Ushio is in fact in love with her friend Sumika (who's hiding from her in an increasingly shoddily-built closet) and uses her crushes to fuel her severe emotional problems that prevent her from acting on this out of fear. Also, she's in high school. She has plenty of time to meet girls the old-fashioned way, and since most of her peers already know that she's gay, what's the point of being shy?

In Harry Potter, Voldemort has a set of magical objects keeping him immortal.

You'd expect: Voldemort makes them impossible to discover: a pebble in the Gobi Desert, for instance, or a nondescript tree in a forest in Albania (where he's canonically spent a lot of time).
Instead: He uses symbolically important artefacts and hides them in places with personal relevance.
Justification: Voldemort is not a master planner. He is a vain, solipsistic psychopath.

In The Lord of the Rings, the characters have to undertake an arduous journey to destroy the Ring.

You'd expect: Gandalf asks the eagles from the Misty Mountains to drop them off in the Emyn Muil or somewhere.
Instead: They undertake said arduous journey on foot.
Justification: Sauron can very, very easily monitor Middle-Earth's airspace, which under normal circumstances doesn't have much flying in it other than the normal birds of the air and his own Nazgul. If the eagles left the Misty Mountains, he would know that something was very wrong.

In Kara no Kyoukai, Cornelius Alba is given Aozaki Touko's severed head and told not to destroy it because otherwise she'll be able to reincarnate into a purpose-built magical puppet, with all of her memories intact inculding those of the severed head while Alba is holding it.

You'd expect: Alba preserves the head in formaldehyde like the person who had it before him was doing.
Instead: He screams insults at the head, including the one insult that Touko has a proven track record of killing people for calling her. Then he smashes it and starts beating up one of Touko's employees, knowing full well that Touko is like a mother bear when it comes to them. Sure enough, she comes back and kills him horribly.
Justification: By this point Alba is batshit insane and also doesn't know that Touko has the ability to reincarnate. However, this only raises the further question of why he never bothered to find out, considering that by this point he and Araya have been planning to attack Touko and her group for some time.

In The Adventure of the Devil's Foot:

'Hey Watson, look, a hallucinogenic drug that drives people insane and then kills them! ...LET'S TEST IT ON OURSELVES.'
Justification? No, for some things there's just no excuse. Sorry, Holmes.

DEAR FREAKING GOD

Do I really HAVE to explain to some yutz the many, many reasons why Simoun is a better representation of queer people (even in a fantasy context) and theories and experiences of queerness than Queer as Folk is? Really? REALLY?

One is a Nishimura Junji series (some of the only serious and portentous work the man's ever done, so you know that he felt that this was a story that really had to be told) with input from Mashimo Kouichi (he of the Girls-with-Guns Trilogy) and major Japanese feminists of to-day, inspired heavily by works by Doris Lessing and Ursula K. Le Guin. It explores the nature of gender through a fantasy society and also touches on themes of transcendence, eternity, faith, class, purity, and real and fake realities.

The other is a Russell T Davies show and exhibits the general lack of interest in the ordinary as a mirror for the extraordinary that characterises the man's oeuvre. It doesn't even use the extraordinary as a tedious mirror of the ordinary as his time on Doctor Who did. It is simply (in my opinion) plodding and thinks that it is funnier and more subversive than it is. There is nothing transcendent, eternal, or pure about it.

I don't think there's a contest between these two shows, really. One of them has extremely compelling characters, nearly all of whom are SOME kind of queer, sometimes more than one kind at once, and a beautiful and evocative setting and plot, used to the service of important, resonant themes that lend real power to the idea of a universe in which strong, beautiful, queer people can 'give testament in a ruined world'. And it's not the one that the yutz I was talking to thinks it is.

EVEN MUSIC-WISE. JESUS CHRIST.

DO I REALLY HAVE TO GET INTO THIS?

Simoun drinking game

Take a shot:

• Every time specific reference to sex change is made.
• Every time you want to slap a religious official.
• Every time you want to slap a secular official (warning: in the later stages of the show, this may result in alcohol poisoning).
• Every time you find yourself getting emotionally invested in a character who hasn’t had much screen time until now.
• Every time an Argentine or Plumbish character speaks in their native language (Japanese played backwards).
• Every time a new dodgy translation of an honorific comes up.
• Every time Aaeru does something insensitive.
• Every time Simoun makes you cry or feel feelings associated with crying.
• Every time we see a Ri Maajon that hasn’t been seen before.
• Every time a straight couple appears onscreen, drink the whole bottle (don’t worry; this only happens once).

Simoun character design grades

THESE ARE NOT GRADES FOR THE CHARACTERS, JUST THEIR APPEARANCE.

Sibylla Mamiina

In A World…where braids are a plot point, Mamiina’s character design, especially her hairstyle, stands out. This character is arguably the animation director, prominent design artist Nishida Asako’s, masterpiece. As Mamiina is introduced as a needlessly belligerent and selfish character, she scowls and postures and looks like every self-absorbed bitch we ever had to deal with in high school; yet as her character develops her design softens into something truly beautiful. It’s hard to make hair look either threatening or pathos-filled, but Mamiina’s manages to be both. A+

Sibylla Yun

Yun is introduced in the same episode as Mamiina and follows a similarly tragic and sacrificial character arc. Her blonde hair is of a complementary colour to Mamiina’s dark blue and as they are first seen together this serves to underline their superficially very different personalities. Also, she’s just plain pretty. A

Sibylla Aaeru

Nishida gave Aaeru an odango, a popular hairstyle in Japan that heightens her resemblance to early Mickey Mouse in both appearance and personality. There isn’t much to say about this design, honestly, but it works. A-

Her Eminence the Cardinal Priestess and Interior Minister

As the most prominent character who is never given a name, the day-to-day director of religious life in Simulacrum was an important design to get right. Her colour scheme is very dark, deep reds and blacks, but the lines of her face and clothing are smooth and clean, a perfect design for a morally ambiguous but ultimately justified character. A-

Captain Anubituf and Dux Guragief

I’m giving these two a joint grade because they are almost never seen apart for any length of time. Anubituf and Guragief are Simoun’s most prominent male characters. It was necessary to distinguish them from the girls but at the same time make them pretty enough that, when flashbacks of them as teenagers appear late in the show, they are recognisable. Anubituf’s fondness (as a girl and as a man) for elbow-length light blue capes, and Guragief’s frankly yuppie-ish hairstyle, make the characters ‘pop’ or stand out in any scene that they are in. Between them they have made many a straight male fan question his sexuality. They look good as hoboes, too. A-

Argentine Pilot

This guy only appears in one episode and spends most of his time coughing up blood, but his ghoulish appearance is truly chilling. A-

Vice-Chairman Halconf

Halconf’s scenes tend to be very well-drawn and well-animated, and his patrician features combined with a wonky fifties/sixties DA hairstyle reinforce his ambiguity. Is this wheelchair-bound leader an FDR or a Dr Strangelove? B+

Chairman-Pope Onashia

For a character who spends all but one of her scenes wrapped head to toe in a shroud with mummy-like facial markings, Onashia somehow manages to look her part as Simulacrum’s supreme leader. She has what I would term in polite company ‘effed-up eyes’—horribly jaundiced, bloodshot slits with olive-green pupils—which enhances her statuesque appearance. B+

Sibylla Alty and Sibylla Kaimu

These two sisters are also almost never apart (which, come to think of it, Kaimu probably doesn’t really like). Their designs are forgettable but in no way bad. Kaimu is the one with glasses. B

Sibylla Vyura

Vyura is awesome and her design makes her look like something out of a forties war film. In a good way. B

Sibylla Amuria

Amuria is essentially Vyura but a bit of a jackass and with different hair. B

Captain Wauf

Wauf is a perfect example of the ‘cool grandpa/uncle’ character type, even though he’s not actually related to any other character. He looks a little like my Uncle Joe twenty or so years ago. It’s still a bit odd to hear reminiscence about ‘when I was a little girl’ from the chubby, aging Wauf, though. Oh, the trials and tribulations of transgender-themed television. B

Sibylla Dominura

Dominura looks very imposing, and while this works for a while, her character design cannot mimeograph her character development in the same way that Mamiina’s can. This means that later in the show her appearance and behaviour form something of a jarring disconnect. Then again, this was likely intentional. B-

Sibylla Rodoreamon

Rodoreamon is basically an unlucky person who fell through a wormhole from Upstairs, Downstairs into the wrong show (she’s been described as a ‘barrel-grown fish out of water’), and she looks the part. But she started the whole phenomenon of Plot-Relevant Haircuts and what she does with her hair in the last episode is a major part of Simoun’s emotional catharsis. B-

His Excellency the Defence Minister

The Defence Minister is a fat, ugly bastard and every scene with him makes me want to slap him silly. But, as he is unarguably the single most flat-out evil character in the whole show, this is as it should be. B-

Sibylla Morinas

Morinas is a bit alarming because she does not dress modestly or tastefully at all, but that’s perfectly consistent with her character and the extent to which her face conveys her personality is enough to make me give her a higher grade than I normally would. And she still looks good in the tan cloaks that the Sibyllae wear while discharging their religious duties. Also, if she had become male, what the Hell would her name have been? Morinasf? Morinaf? Bleh. B-

Sibylla Limone

Limone is a very cute girl to be sure, and as the youngest of the characters that seems right, but her design did not really move me. C+

Sibylla Paraietta

I don’t think you’re really supposed to like Paraietta, which is good, because I didn’t. Including her design. But it was technically proficient. C+

Sibylla Wapourif

Since Wapourif’s body is in the process of changing from female to male throughout the show, it seems unfair to judge his character design. I’ll give him a nondescript C

Corporal Mastif

Mastif was only in one episode and I hardly remember anything about him. C-

Sibylla Erii

Completely nondescript and served only to introduce a part of the setting. C-

Sibylla Aurea Neviril

Neviril’s character design is pretty, but it’s uninspired. I didn’t get sick of looking at her (which is good because she’s one of the main focus characters) but Nishida seems to have been phoning it in. C-

Plumbish Military Governor

You can tell that this guy is a military and political stuffed shirt with no concern for the matters at hand. And rather sadistic to boot, at least until Anubituf and Guragief do their little ‘let’s subvert the terms of the peace treaty!’ thing. D+

Sister Angulas

Angulas was probably intended to be a ‘sweet’/‘cute’ character. They went too far in that direction. That may have been the point, but it doesn’t really help. Random note: Angulas is the only foreign (non-Simulacran) character who has a name, although Aaeru’s name is supposed to be Plumbish as well. D

Sibylla Floe

Oh, God, Floe. So fucking annoying throughout. She serves a purpose and the show would be worse without her, but she still annoys the fuck out of me. And her character design is terrible; Nishida was obviously phoning it in at that point. Worst design of any named character. D-

Argentine Military Governor

Appears to have been cobbled together from bits of other anime characters and archive footage of Roald Amundsen. Truly awful. Thank Tempus Spatium he only had two scenes before getting fragged by Guragief. F

A Guide to Simoun for the Confused and Perplexed

Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβιλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: άποθανεϊν θέλω. –Trimalchio, from Petronius’ Satyricon.

Simoun can seem a world of gorgeous roses, then suddenly there is the stench of blood. –Nazuka Kaori (‘Yun’).

‘What I saw was terrible. It destroyed everything I believed in and everything I held dear to my heart. But that’s not what I’m afraid of.'
'Then what?'
'What I saw beyond the horror; that’s what I’m afraid of.’

‘What is it?’

‘Hope.’ –Dominura and Limone.

Simoun: genre: drama, planetary fantasy, romance; themes: transgender, religion, war

Welcome to 633 Squadron meets The Left Hand of Darkness.

On the advice of several people who are familiar with my tastes in media (a vague group that is responsible for a lot of the crazy things that I do), I have watched, and am going to analyse, a show called Simoun.

            Simoun first aired in Japan in 2006. It was noted very quickly in both Japan and the West for its intricate dissection of gendered society, as well as its incredibly thick plot, which grows organically from the characters and their morality, environmentalism, spirituality, religious fanaticism, personal hang-ups, political leanings, and social standings.