Lunar Templar said:
Scarim Coral said:
http://skaboyjfk.tumblr.com/post/64402552228/in-the-right-order-this-time-oops
You know, that just makes the show more awesome. I kinda figured there was more to it, good to know I was right.
Casual Shinji said:
complaining about the fanservicy bits
With all that said, curious as to your thoughts on the link Scrim provided as a possible explanation for this. I, being a fan o author's intent, find it to be a good explanation, especially with Aikuro's mini rant to Ryuko in ep three about 'not giving a fuck about what other people think.'
OT:
Love, want more of it, WHY IS IT NOT THURSDAY YET?!?!?!
While I can't speak for shinji, I'll try to answer in my own way. While author intent is always important to take into account, an author, creator, artist, or whatever, is not an infallible creator whose intent trumps all interpretation and makes anything they say suddenly free of the context of the greater society in which it exists.
To use a famous example, when Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in 1906, he intended the book to expose the treatment of American immigrants of the time, and the horrible conditions they were forced to work in, by writing the book about workers in a meat packing plant. The American public however, interpreted the book as a horrifying account of food quality and the non-existant standards of the recently industrialized farming and slaughterhouse practices, and pretty much paved the way for the Act that would become the Federal Food and Drug Administration. Sinclair himself is rather famous for saying "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit its stomach".
What does any of that have to do with an over the top anime and gratuitous fanservice? Basically, what the author intends is irrelevant if he isn't communicating his message well, and in this case I think this anime has a serious case of wanting to have its cake and eat it too. The rant by Aikuro has meaning, and I can respect that, the message is fine, but after watching the previous two episodes it rings a bit hollow at the moment. Aikuro tells Ryuko not to care what society thinks, but Ryuko pretty much shows nothing but resistance to the ridiculous armor she's forced to wear (and the kind of rapey costume scenes don't really help either). Are we supposed to believe that Ryuko's only resistance to her fighting gear is because society says nudity is bad? What if Ryuko is just generally uncomfortable with having people staring at her, why should she trade listening to the majority for submitting to the tyranny of the minority and Aikuro's opinion. Is it all supposed to be metaphor, the skimpyness is just a standin for societal expectations or something like that, or maybe its that puberty metaphor and its genuinely about people being proud of their bodies? If that's the case then Gurren Lagann did it better, and Kamina didn't have to be in a thong to do it. It comes off a little shallow in the end, but then again a lot of anime has that problem, it tries to tackle a serious issue, and yet tries to maintain the cliches surrounding that issue as well. Maybe the whole thing has some awesome payoff in the end, but considering how Gurren ended, I'm not exactly expecting mind blowing genre-altering story here, its going to end with a massive fight and Ryuko accepting public nudity or the beauty of her own body or something like that.
It's kind of telling that people say Gurren is about manliness, and this one covers female issues, yet the man one is all about giant robots while the female oriented one is about clothing, skimpy costumes, and getting ogled at. I understand that to poke fun at cliches you need to include them to an extent, but this series is based around them. It's kind of hard to take their satire at face value when the entire premise still revolves around getting progressively more nude to power up, even if its a metaphor for shedding restrictions and expectation, the studio is still pretty much just doing it with young female characters, having the teacher or another character make a sly wink and a comment on it every once in awhile isn't going to suddenly make it deep biting satire.
Then again, Gurren Lagann had the same problem, whenever it tried to get truly philosophical, it tended to come off as shallow and weak, but that's not really why everyone was watching it, they wanted to see shit get blown up and people overcoming impossible odds. It's the same thing here, you can try to dress it up in all the pretty girl empowering language you want, most people are watching it for the dumb action, that's why so many comments talk about turning your brain off to watch it, you're not getting any deep commentary on female anime cliches in this thing.
As for the rest of the anime, it's fun and has a good high energy style to it, I get where the too much fanservice comments come from, I haven't reached that threshold yet, although I'm not sure if that's due to the quality of the story and potential future plot, or just because years of anime have effected my tolerance levels for shoving breasts in my face. The story has potential and I'm willing to stick with it at this point in hopes it escalates into sheer absurdity a la Gurren Lagann. Overall, I'm enjoying it, I don't think it's going to "save anime" whatever that means, but it's one of the better series openings I've seen in the last couple years, so I'm willing to give them a chance to see where they want to take this crazy train. At times, it does come off as if it's trying too hard to be Gurren Lagann, like I imagine the series jumping up and down in a corner screaming "am I cool yet?", but those moments are also interlaced with the series own unique style.
So I guess my summation would be, "You have my attention, I just hope the payoff is worth the wait".
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