Philosophical Differences
Some of you probably know that my husband and I have some people over on Sunday nights to hang out, have dinner, and watch some anime. Lately we've been having a dilemma over what to watch, because almost all of us attend at least one other anime viewing group. Some of us are members of the U of MN Manga Anime Society, a couple others host a separate viewing at their own home during the week. Often times things that we want to watch conflict with one or the other of these groups, other times there aren't enough good, group-friendly series currently being released. For example, I recently finished watching Aoi Hana, a series which I really enjoyed but which I don't think would interest the group very much (that, and I have the sneaking suspicion that a couple of people attending have this idea in their head that gay people are only appropriate for comedy relief, and a series that has lesbian romantic elements might break their brains).
ZOMG LESBIAN ROMANCE THAT'S NOT PLAYED FOR HUMOR!
Anyway, this has caused us to delve a bit into series which are somewhat older so that we can have something to watch that multiple people haven't seen already or aren't already watching. We're currently watching Basilisk, which my husband and I bought for cheap at the last big Rightstuf sale. It's not my favorite thing, but it's fun and entertaining in kind of a goofy, guilty-pleasure sort of way. I'm finding that I can at least enjoy it for what it is as long as I don't try to over-analyze it or act like the characters or story are so deep and intricate you don't even know. Looking through my anime files I realized that I had a show that might have the potential to tickle some peoples' fancies (actually, that sounds sort of gross...).
The series is called Gokinjo Monogatari, and it's based on a manga by Yazawa Ai, the author of Paradise Kiss and NANA. It's actually the forerunner of Parakiss, and features some of the same locales and related characters. A fairly good pedigree, especially since many of my friends have enjoyed those later works. However, I predicted that they would have a few issues with it. The first issue is that the show is from 1995, and it shows very prominently in the animation. This is not something I have an issue with because I've watched things much older and I have a soft spot for traditional cel animation anyway. The other issue is that the story is quite a bit sillier than the author's latter stuff, at least from what I've read and seen of it on my own. I tried to anticipate peoples' reactions to it so that I wouldn't be too pissed off when they reacted negatively.
A scene from Gokinjo Monogatari
My husband, appropriately, was the most straightforward. He told me that it wasn't something he would pick for himself but that he wouldn't mind seeing more. The guy who sits off to the side and mostly just plays his DS made some snarky comment that I didn't bother to make note of (if someone doesn't respect the show enough to give it an honest try, his/her opinion is nothing to me). My MAS friends were pretty much "..." which, to their credit, was probably due to my known history of getting pissy when people don't agree with me (I've tried to deal with that, though - I don't think I'm nearly as bad anymore). My other friend referred to one of my earlier posts here and said that it was a show that probably wasn't good for a group to watch. Honestly, I'm somewhat flattered that she referred to something that I had written, but I felt like a romantic comedy was probably the closest thing to "universally-enjoyable" that I could have suggested, and the comment was a more diplomatic way of saying "this is from 1995 and I think it's kind of goofy and it looks old and busted."
Aaaaaaaaaand that's about how I figured it would go down. After the initial sting in my pride I decided that it was more a problem of people not getting what I was trying to go for with the series, rather than any major issue with the series itself. To explain, I might seem like an extremely picky person, and based on my reviews one would think that I barely watch anything at all, which actually isn't true. I watch lots of stuff that I think has major flaws, because I find redeeming value in some other aspect. For example, I watched the first episode of Maria Holic and hated the two main characters. I mean really hated them. I thought that they were both really horrible people, and Mariya especially was needlessly mean and manipulative (even though he was given some reasoning later on). But despite this aspect of the series, I was wowed once again by the visual direction used by Akiyuki Shinbo and SHAFT, and there was some honestly funny humor courtesy of some of the secondary characters, and those aspects made the series worth watching for me. Ditto with stuff like Antique Bakery, which is silly but which also has great characters who I wanted to see succeed, and Bakemonogatari, which is cool-looking with interesting characters, but which is also prone to showing a lot of skin.
In Maria Holic, God pities unfortunate things like the Virtual Boy.
In the particular case of Gokinjo Monogatari, what drew me to it was its creator, Yazawa Ai, who was also responsible for the more well-known manga series Paradise Kiss and NANA. I had seen a few episodes of this series a couple of years ago when another fansub group began releasing it, and knew how it compared in quality to those later series, but to me I find a sort of, I don't know, academic interest in seeing how a favorite artist has progressed and evolved during his/her career. To me, even though the story is cheesy and the art hasn't aged well, Gokinjo Monogatari is interesting because of what it is - it's the story from which the ultra-successful Paradise Kiss was spun-off and so there are lots of really neat little connections there, and it's also the earlier creation of a very successful artist.
I think the eventual compromise that was reached after I went to bed (I had to be up at an ungodly time the next morning, so I was in bed by 9pm) was that we would watch NANA instead, which makes some sense because I know some other people I know would like to watch it and it's from the same creator, but the solution seemed like kind of a cop-out and still doesn't quite sit right with me even though I went ahead and ordered the first DVD set anyway.
I suppose I might sound like a dick for saying this, but it's probably too much to ask for everyone I know to be able to take a step back and see secondary value in something that is not immediately excellent or entertaining. Most people are not going to think about the evolution of the artist or be wowed by what they see as archaic animation, and while that's unfortunate for me it's something that I just have to live with. And so the quest for anime to watch on Sunday nights continues, though with the new Fall season coming up I'm hoping that a couple of prospects I'm eying might pan-out.
ZOMG LESBIAN ROMANCE THAT'S NOT PLAYED FOR HUMOR!
Anyway, this has caused us to delve a bit into series which are somewhat older so that we can have something to watch that multiple people haven't seen already or aren't already watching. We're currently watching Basilisk, which my husband and I bought for cheap at the last big Rightstuf sale. It's not my favorite thing, but it's fun and entertaining in kind of a goofy, guilty-pleasure sort of way. I'm finding that I can at least enjoy it for what it is as long as I don't try to over-analyze it or act like the characters or story are so deep and intricate you don't even know. Looking through my anime files I realized that I had a show that might have the potential to tickle some peoples' fancies (actually, that sounds sort of gross...).
The series is called Gokinjo Monogatari, and it's based on a manga by Yazawa Ai, the author of Paradise Kiss and NANA. It's actually the forerunner of Parakiss, and features some of the same locales and related characters. A fairly good pedigree, especially since many of my friends have enjoyed those later works. However, I predicted that they would have a few issues with it. The first issue is that the show is from 1995, and it shows very prominently in the animation. This is not something I have an issue with because I've watched things much older and I have a soft spot for traditional cel animation anyway. The other issue is that the story is quite a bit sillier than the author's latter stuff, at least from what I've read and seen of it on my own. I tried to anticipate peoples' reactions to it so that I wouldn't be too pissed off when they reacted negatively.
A scene from Gokinjo Monogatari
My husband, appropriately, was the most straightforward. He told me that it wasn't something he would pick for himself but that he wouldn't mind seeing more. The guy who sits off to the side and mostly just plays his DS made some snarky comment that I didn't bother to make note of (if someone doesn't respect the show enough to give it an honest try, his/her opinion is nothing to me). My MAS friends were pretty much "..." which, to their credit, was probably due to my known history of getting pissy when people don't agree with me (I've tried to deal with that, though - I don't think I'm nearly as bad anymore). My other friend referred to one of my earlier posts here and said that it was a show that probably wasn't good for a group to watch. Honestly, I'm somewhat flattered that she referred to something that I had written, but I felt like a romantic comedy was probably the closest thing to "universally-enjoyable" that I could have suggested, and the comment was a more diplomatic way of saying "this is from 1995 and I think it's kind of goofy and it looks old and busted."
Aaaaaaaaaand that's about how I figured it would go down. After the initial sting in my pride I decided that it was more a problem of people not getting what I was trying to go for with the series, rather than any major issue with the series itself. To explain, I might seem like an extremely picky person, and based on my reviews one would think that I barely watch anything at all, which actually isn't true. I watch lots of stuff that I think has major flaws, because I find redeeming value in some other aspect. For example, I watched the first episode of Maria Holic and hated the two main characters. I mean really hated them. I thought that they were both really horrible people, and Mariya especially was needlessly mean and manipulative (even though he was given some reasoning later on). But despite this aspect of the series, I was wowed once again by the visual direction used by Akiyuki Shinbo and SHAFT, and there was some honestly funny humor courtesy of some of the secondary characters, and those aspects made the series worth watching for me. Ditto with stuff like Antique Bakery, which is silly but which also has great characters who I wanted to see succeed, and Bakemonogatari, which is cool-looking with interesting characters, but which is also prone to showing a lot of skin.
In Maria Holic, God pities unfortunate things like the Virtual Boy.
In the particular case of Gokinjo Monogatari, what drew me to it was its creator, Yazawa Ai, who was also responsible for the more well-known manga series Paradise Kiss and NANA. I had seen a few episodes of this series a couple of years ago when another fansub group began releasing it, and knew how it compared in quality to those later series, but to me I find a sort of, I don't know, academic interest in seeing how a favorite artist has progressed and evolved during his/her career. To me, even though the story is cheesy and the art hasn't aged well, Gokinjo Monogatari is interesting because of what it is - it's the story from which the ultra-successful Paradise Kiss was spun-off and so there are lots of really neat little connections there, and it's also the earlier creation of a very successful artist.
I think the eventual compromise that was reached after I went to bed (I had to be up at an ungodly time the next morning, so I was in bed by 9pm) was that we would watch NANA instead, which makes some sense because I know some other people I know would like to watch it and it's from the same creator, but the solution seemed like kind of a cop-out and still doesn't quite sit right with me even though I went ahead and ordered the first DVD set anyway.
I suppose I might sound like a dick for saying this, but it's probably too much to ask for everyone I know to be able to take a step back and see secondary value in something that is not immediately excellent or entertaining. Most people are not going to think about the evolution of the artist or be wowed by what they see as archaic animation, and while that's unfortunate for me it's something that I just have to live with. And so the quest for anime to watch on Sunday nights continues, though with the new Fall season coming up I'm hoping that a couple of prospects I'm eying might pan-out.
posted by Jessi at
10:00 AM
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