What I watched in MAY: Digest Version, part 2 of 2

b Seikai Ichi Hatsukoi (World's Greatest First Love):  The main character disengaged from the world back in high school when the boy he loved laughed at him after they slept together.  I don't think I've ever seen an anime where this disengagement was quite so clearly and realistically shown.  He uses super-ultra polite language all the time to push people away.  No one is allowed to get close to him.  It's intriguing. 

Anyway, he's been like that for years.  Recently, he left his job at his father's publishing company where he was an editor with a string of hit books.  He wanted to work at a company where he would get some respect for his hard work instead of having to deal with all the snide comments about nepotism getting him the good authors.  He's surprised when instead of getting hired in the literary department, he ends up in the shojo manga division.  And his boss is . . . that guy who broke his heart a decade ago.  The thing is, his memory of the event and the actual event might not be very similar. 

I like the idea explored here of the way our emotional baggage can really cause us problems.  Each of the two boys saw the situation and its aftermath completely differently.  At its heart, it was a communication problem, and since it was never resolved, it left them both wounded.  Anyway, there was less creepiness in this series than in the author's other series I've read part of (Junjo Romantica), although the anime was a very cleaned up version of the manga there.  The consistent device of having a couple of minor stories running at the same time drives me somewhat crazy in this author's work because when the main story is moving, I don't want a stupid side episode about people I don't care about.   

Watching the two main characters try to cope with and define their relationship in the present as they try to figure out what happened in the past is an awkward good time.  Watching one character learn the ins and outs of editing shojo manga is kind of a hoot, too.

What I watched in JANUARY 2013: Digest Version

b The Betrayal Knows My Name:  Well, that was depressing.  The sticky-sweet, tacked-on ending was a bit unsatisfactory, as well.  I guess it got the mood right, but I feel it could have been a lot better if it had done some slicing and dicing to rearrange things logically and pick up the pace, a bit.  Of course, then it might have caught up to the manga and surpassed it after the 6th episode, and that would have been problematic.  Not that I hated it.  I mean, it wallowed in the angst and sadness and depressing nature of the whole set-up, and that wasn't terrible.  Sometimes it was a bit harder to swallow than the manga because no matter how good your voice actors are, there are some lines they just can't deliver in a way that appeals to anyone outside the rabid fanbase.

b La Corda d'Oro: Well, that was . . . nice.  Kind of pleasant.  Definitely not the worst reverse-harem series I've seen.  And it had WAAAAAY better music than most because they play real classical pieces and have some fun trivia about the pieces and composers.  And, honestly, there is more realism in this series than in most of its kind.  The main character has a real, believable crisis.  Kind of.  Not the crisis I would have had, but still, you know, a crisis.  And though most of the boys are pretty cardboard, some of them had more depth and backstory than your average cardboard cutout. 

b Lunar Legend Tsukihime: I love you for your music.  Your music is worth the price of admission.  Your story is sad and tragic (and sometimes well-nigh incomprehensible, to be honest, but tragically so).  Your music is so sad, too.  It captures that feeling of sadness and longing and sort of half-hopeless attempts at atonement that characterize the show and all its sad and broken, dysfunctional relationships.  And, you know, horror and suspense.  Good stuff.

b Zatch Bell 6: I love Zatch Bell.  It's totally ridiculous and unrepentantly goofy and full of dramatic shonen goodness.  Also, I adore Ponygon (particularly his total hatred of Kiyo and his horsey inability to speak). 

Too Japanese for Me: when the truth doesn't matter because no one tells it

So I'm watching shojo anime La Cordo de Oro when it happens again. I find myself saying, "Not again!  Are you kidding me?!" as the heroine, betrayed by a jealous and shrewish lying liar of a comrade, refuses to tell the truth to those in authority, preferring to take the unfair reputation hit herself for some (probably obvious to Japanese) reason.

My next thought is something along the lines of "This is why I am not a shojo heroine because if I was, I would tell the truth and let justice be done, and then later on when I needed to be helped/saved, there would be no people I had graciously helped to assist me."  (That sort of thing where justice is served and the villain is redeemed to come back and save the hero seems to happen in shonen manga and usually involves fists as a definition for justice.  [Dengeki Daisy is an exception in this case, but DD is, well, an exception-al shojo manga in so many ways.])

It happens again a little later.  [SPOILER] One of the reverse harem members misses a performance because a jealous enemy locks him in a closet.[/SPOILER]  At first, when it could have made a difference, the kids don't explain, but later it sounds like they tell the authorities, not that it makes any difference for some (most likely obvious to Japanese) reason.

I just don't get this.  Is it simply a shojo manga trope, or is it really a reflection of some inherently Japanese cultural mindset/characteristic?  If so, which one?  I find myself very curious.