Ooku: One of the Best Releases of the Year

Ooku is a sort of alternate history fantasy.  I never thought it would be licensed.  I especially never thought it would be licensed by Viz.  Thank you, Viz, for making me happily wrong.

I'm a huge fan of Fumi Yoshinaga.  I admired the construction and execution of Antique Bakery and have enjoyed her other works published (Flower of Life most recently) in the US. I realized why when I visited a traveling exhibit about shojo manga a few years ago. 

Yoshinaga was one of many featured authors, and in an interview printed in the show's catalog, she talked about wanting her manga to show the people who didn't win, the people who tried hard and failed hard.  Spot on, I thought.  That is one of the things I like about her work: a sort of realistic focus on the somewhat meandering way life works, stumbling sometimes, often going unresolved, usually trashing our expectations along the way.  I think her smooth point-of-view switching is what helps accomplish this effect, showing the reader the missed connections, misunderstandings, and muddles we make of our relationships.

Anyway, Ooku!  I'm so excited.  At Anime News Network, Casey Brienza wrote up an interesting review.

"After this well-conceived prologue, the manga shifts towards the shogun's point of view and a more overt high-level politicking. As it turns out, in a mere eighty years or so, it seems that the entire country has forgotten the rationale behind its powerful women. This plot twist definitely strains believability to a near-unacceptable degree . . ."

I'm not so sure I agree with this bit. Right now, 80 years is a single lifetime, but the life expectancy in the time period represented was likely much less.

It's possible that 80 years back then represented six or more generations. How much do we know about our great-great-great-grandparents?  Their way of life?  Now imagine a mostly rural, agricultural society with no mandatory education, and you can see how easy it would be for the past to be lost to the common people, especially in isolationist island Japan (I think the isolation policy was in place; their treatment of the foreigner in this volume seemed to indicate it, but I'm not totally sure).

Add to that the even higher frequency of change of  the Shoguns and the fact that the position was violently fought for among various rival clans, and you could see how even the educated ruling class would not easily be able to keep abreast of historical events; there were more immediate concerns. Add to that the world building groundwork Yoshinaga lays, that previous Shoguns have abused their power and squandered their wealth (most likely not on keeping up to date with ancient history.)

I think altogether, such ignorance of the world and one's own history makes perfect sense in this setting.  Am I just being too forgiving because I'm a fan, or is Yoshinaga really that good?

Dreaming about Kodocha

I was excited when Kodocha was licensed, super-excited because I heard the whole thing was licensed.  I was therefore kind of devastated when that turned out not to be true.  (And I won't even get started about Galaxy Railways.)

I couldn't wait to see all the things that weren't in the amazing Kodocha manga (as well as a stellar things that were).  I loved the hyper-activity in motion.  I was stunned by the amazing performance Laura Bailey put in as Sana; I even watched the whole thing dubbed in honor of her incredible effort.  I told my friends about it; some of them bought it.  Then we all had to deal with the misery of not seeing half of the show.  If you're listening, Funimation, I would totally pay to see the rest of it, even without the dub, but I can't because I am such a law-abiding citizen.  Sometimes, I wish I weren't.

I feel like companies shouldn't be able to license things if they're not going to follow through.  When a show or manga I like gets canceled (Beck, Beyond the Beyond, Never Give Up, Dazzle, Galaxy Railways), it irritates me because I feel like the studio has broken a promise it made to me when it purchased the license and got my hopes up. 

Of course Tokyopop and Funimation made me no guarantees, but they're the big companies who do the research and licensing; they should know what they can make money on.  They should not jerk me around.  They should know they are my conduit to legal manga and anime, the only kind I have access to since I am so straight-laced as to only access legal content legally (and pay for it because I understand how much I need to support it with my consumer vote of approval--the dollar--to make sure it keeps coming).  Why do they keep hurting me by leaving me hanging? 

This economy sure isn't helping. 

Maybe I should look at this positively: every canceled bit helps my wallet, right?

What anime/manga has left you hanging?  What do you really wish we could legally access more of?  Would you be willing to buy inferior versions (streamed stuff, subbed-only, manga online/e-book format) just to get your hands on the rest?

Le Chevalier D'Eon: Knights and Samurai

One thing that surprised me about Le Chevalier D'Eon was how clear the parallels were between revolutionary France and revolutionary Japan.  Quite honestly, I'd never thought about them, but I'm hardly a scholar of either time period.

Some similarities:

• An outdated system of personal loyalty
• Countries tearing themselves apart
• Revolution overthrowing the old order

Honestly, it wasn't really until the last disc that I started seeing this.  Before then, I'd been unhappy with King Louis, wondering if he was as much of a jerk as he seemed.  I questioned D'Eon's blind loyalty to a king like him.  When he was in Russia and found someone who needed and could probably deserve his loyalty, and he sincerely refused because he already had a liege, I kind of wanted to smack him.  Instead I just sighed and looked pained and rolled my eyes and smiled crookedly like the others with D'Eon because innocents like D'Eon are transparent to the core and a bit embarrassing.  You don't argue with them because you can't win; no logic will sway them.  The way things are is ingrained in them by birth and choice. 

I can admire loyalty and commitment to a liege, but maybe I'm too highly influenced by Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga where loyalty is never completely blind and where the overall good is the goal, sometimes at (too) great cost to the heroes.  (I'm particularly thinking of Shards of Honor and Barrayar here [NOTE: In 2001, Barrayar was a Nominee for the Seiun Award--Japanese Hugo--for best translation of a foreign novel.])

I give Le Chevalier D'Eon credit for sympathetically showing other reactions to the call for blind loyalty in knights.  D'Eon was the protagonist, but that doesn't mean he's always right. 

I find myself wondering if some anime or Japanese movie has done as good a job at showing the range of options open to the samurai in their similar situation.  It was pretty peripheral in Rurouni Kenshin and the Shinsengumi anime that's made it's way over here (PeaceMaker comes to mind).

Can you think of any good examples?

Saikano (My Girlfriend, the Ultimate Weapon)

Saikano is kind of a downer.  


Reading it is not a pleasant experience, nor is watching it (even with the slightly sanitized ending), but it is an emotional experience.  You need quite a bit of willing suspense of disbelief to get past the premise: the government picks a slow, klutzy Japanese girl to turn into an experimental weapon in a global war.  Get past that, and it's a touching, gut punch of a love story/war drama about a lot of imperfect people trying to live their lives in a world being destroyed by a war. 


If you thought regular teenage relationships were awkward, what are you supposed to do when your girlfriend stands you up on a date because she was on a mission where she sort of accidentally blew up an entire city?  How do you write about that in your exchange diary?

The part about this work that hits hardest is that you can tell they're just two kids who wanted to fall in love and have a relationship.  The world of adults is too busy fighting a pointless war of annihilation to even let them graduate from high school. 


Nobody wins.  And I want to punch the guy who just keeps saying, "It couldn't be helped," because it could, sir.  It usually can.  It takes money, supplies, and a lot of organization to fight a war.  It's way easier to not fight, at least in the short run, especially when so much damage had already been done, but I digress . . .




SUB/DUB:

I advise you to watch in Japanese with English subtitles.  (Also, have some tissues handy.)  It's available in an inexpensive boxed set. 

CONTENT RATING:

This one is rated M as a manga and definitely R as an anime.  It's not one to watch with the kids, which is fine because you wouldn't want to explain why you're on that second tissue package or what exactly happened at the end, there.  You may feel like you've been pummeled when you're done, but you won't regret the fictional journey.  Probably.

OUR RATINGS:

J: -
K: b


Are there any anime you like that have ridiculous body counts?  What makes a show where almost everybody dies worth watching in your opinion?

Unexpected Anime Bumper Sticker

Simple black text on white bumper sticker seen on an otherwise undecorated black Nissan:

If only life was as simple as Evangelion.

Indeed.

Have you seen any good ones?  Do share.

What you'll find here

Not hip or hot or trendy.  Usually thoughtful.  Sometimes funny.  Maybe irritated.  Often giddy. 

We're fans, not critics.  I like to like stuff; that's part of why we're doing this.  (I also like to argue.)

It's fun to find others who like what you like, so you can geek out together about it.  It's also great to get a good laugh out of someone grumpily hating on something humorously.  We think so anyway.  We like to think (too much, we're told).

They may not be big posts, but we'll try to post something every day, and we welcome like-minded folks who want to guest post.  We value intelligent dialogue, civility, maturity, and a PG rating, for the most part, but we will make exceptions.  We write for an adult audience, and we value your feedback.

Thanks for stopping by.  See you again.

-ST/TMIA