Autumn 2021 First Impressions – Rumble Garanndoll

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: The military government rules over Japan with an iron fist. The one place allowed a bit of freedom is Kabukicho, which remains a hotbed of adult entertainment. Hosomichi is a host at a host bar, banking on his own inability to be insincere to the customers, though in reality he’s barely eking out a living. When the authorities discover hidden messages from the underground rebellion buried within the code of a bootleg eroge, the trail leads back to Kabukicho. This, of course, means that the hammer of authority must come down hard.

Hosomichi finds himself in a pretty tight spot until he’s approached by an apparently pilotless mecha. When he takes refuge inside and dons VR goggles, he finds himself face-to-face with an odd little super-deformed character whose moods seem intimately tied to the way in which the mech is powered. Hosomichi is dead-set against indulging this strange creature’s whims, but when push comes to shove he allows some of his latent otaku past to show itself and is able to successfully fight back. It’s only after the encounter that he learns his cartoonish companion actually represents a real-life battery girl who’s none-too-pleased with his behavior.

Impressions: If there’s one thing that I’ve noticed over the years, it’s that anime fans (and geeks in general) seem convinced of the fantasy of their own oppression. While I don’t doubt that there were some of us who were picked on due to our interests in we’re sci-fi stuff, for the most part I think that public perception has passed. The MCU is one of our most popular and universal cultural products, and anime has become mainstream to the point that I’m no longer forced to explain to people that it’s not comprised solely of animated schoolgirl porn. And yet, there’s an “us against the world” mentality that still maintains a sort of attraction for folks with a latent victimhood complex and a need to gatekeep entertainment, and so we continue to see stories of this nature.

In the world of Rumble Garanndoll, otaku interests seem to have been deemed deviant at some point, and our protagonist has all but given up on his love of anime and manga in order to survive in the authoritarian hellscape that Japan has become. In the climax of the episode, it’s ultimately otaku culture and the passion and nostalgia it engenders in the characters that helps win the day.

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I think it’s really fun to celebrate the passion of fandom and the ways in which it allows us to maintain a youthful mindset. I also think that geek culture is culture, something important to our identities as human beings. On the other hand, there are times when fandom perverts itself into tribalism with its own in-groups and out-groups, fighting, and gatekeeping. When new fans try to join, there are always those who, resistant to change, try to set higher and higher bars of entry. It’s just another form of bullying, when you think about it.

In this series, outsiders have come to impose their own limits and sense of propriety on the Japanese public in a way that reeks of extremely cartoonish fascism. I sort of wonder if this is, perhaps subconsciously, the response of the laughable idea that so-called “outside” influences, including cultural waves of feminism and an eye toward diversity, are somehow ruining otaku culture. As anime continues to grow and change, becoming fuller in the type of stories it tells, I have to kind of roll my eyes at that. No one is “coming for your guns” in America, and no one is coming for our anime, even if American companies are continuing to insinuate themselves into it more and more.

But maybe, this is just a fun robot show with a silly, self-indulgent premise – one that banks on its ability to allow otaku around the world to take strength in their own sense of specialness and passion. However, it does make one think, and it gave me the opportunity to self-examine some of my own thoughts on the matter, so in that sense it’s perhaps one of the more successful premieres this season.

Pros: This is a really colorful, well-designed premiere. It evokes some of the same cyberpunk stylings as Akudama Drive (though without as many flourishes) and portrays the bizarre, almost comical state of fascist rule under which we first meet our hero. I’m amused that Kabukicho, sort of a red-light district or center of adult entertainment in Tokyo, is somehow made the center of the rebellion here. It does definitely reinforce the idea that the real evil being perpetuated are the limitations on the public’s ability to indulge in culture that’s considered “inappropriate” or perverse in some way.

Cons: I… have questions about the final scene of the episode, where Rin is revealed to be not just a little blob of a virtual battery girl, but an actual real-life character with normal proportions and an attitude. There’s a degree of separation that comes along with chibi virtual characters that’s diminished once they actually exist within the show’s real-world space. What’s her actual role? Who is she beholden to? What are the actual elements of her personality? I’m all for dumb fun in my anime and a self-avowed lover of kawaii culture and mascot characters, but I’m also a person who’s constantly aware of my own representation as a woman in the media I consume, and I think the weird twist of Rin’s reality complicates things in that regard.

Content Warnings: Violence. Depictions of fascism/police state.

Would I Watch More? – I’m curious enough to watch some more of this, but I think I might actually have to go seek out some spoilers ahead of time to help confirm whether some of my misgivings actually come into play. I would like Rin (and the other characters that show up in the key art) to be more than just otaku fantasy fodder.