I… I liked the first episode. It was a light and breezy, sort-of-fun retread of nerddom. Hey, look how wacky it is when a bunch of nerds spend a lot of time together!
Now, I’ve heard Genshiken tossed around in relation to Kuragehime. As a quick point of comparison, sure–they’ve both got a bunch of otakus doing a bunch of otaku things. A good majority of both shows also concentrates on the distinction between “nerdness” versus the “other.” Still, there’s a substantive difference so far in how the nerds vs. everyone else dynamic plays out in both anime and I’m not sure Kuragehime is headed in the right direction.
Genshiken begins with the characters on common ground. We first greet the characters as college students and we don’t know yet that they’re different (i.e. Saki is quite different from the rest of the gang). The anime then ever so slowly introduces the audience to the myriad idiosyncrasies of otaku culture. Genshiken gradually delineates “the normal” from otaku culture, but it never loses sight of the commoness between everyone. We appreciate the differences between the characters because we’ve approached otaku culture from the point of view that it’s just one of many variations of the same blueprint. There is still the sense that the otaku has goals and worries just like the rest of us. “Oh, I’m graduating soon so I have to worry about getting a job but let me tell you why this episode of Kujibiki Unbalance is brilliant.”
On the other hand, Kuragehime takes this nerds vs. everyone else conflict and cross-dresses it. Now, I mean that in the metaphorical sense. Of course, a character in Kuragehime literally cross-dresses, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Take the stereotypical (stereotypical being the operative word here) image of a man in drag. The drag queen doesn’t become a woman; the drag queen takes every feature that differentiates a woman from a man, then cranks it up tenfold. What you then get is not quite a woman, not quite a man, but a Frankenstein of gender perceptions.
Kuragehime does this with its subject matter. It’s like a teen comedy where the new kid walks into the cafeteria and sees the jocks, the preppies, the nerds, the punks, etc. In this anime, we’ve got the nerds and the hipster. And for the otakus of Kuragehime, it’s really in-your-face nerds. Like “I love kung fu and I really LOVE kung fu I dress it I live it I fucking spaz out and do kung fu hand motions for no reason because fuck I’m such a kung fu nerd!”
Like “Let me just tell you real quick why THIS jellyfish totally can’t coexist with THIS jellyfish for THIS reason.”
Like… oh, I dunno, this guy:
So what I’m getting at is how fundamentally different the otakus in Kuragehime are in relation to everyone else. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this. This would be perfectly fine if Kuragehime was going for some kind of unreal, hyperbolic Revenge of the Nerds type of comedy. But instead of just reveling in its stereotypes and cranking out non-stop jokes and laughs, Kuragehime tries, by the end of episode two anyway, to make some kind of serious point and that’s where it completely falters. All the goofy otaku nonsense, exaggerated obsessions and the “HIPSTERS AND OTAKUS ARE LIKE SHIRATAKI AND BEEF!”–they could be funny by themselves. But when Kuragehime takes the serious route, they become character flaws. When the anime tries to hamfist a moral into the story, it picked the wrong damn morals. Somehow, it’s really Kuranosuke’s fault for wrecking the dinner! It’s his fault the Nunz acted like anti-social, judgmental assholes. I guess he better bring Matsusaka beef to the Nunz if he wants to repent or something. It’s, as Tsukino wonders to herself, kinda shameless. Why go through the motions of “gosh we have morals” if the message’s going to be “hey look we’re like beef and noodles man try to understand.”
Some quick asides:
– Can’t escape the tropes: Kuranosuke takes an interest in our main girl for no explicable reason. Like every boy in every shojo/josei, he just randomly shows up and butts into her life whenever he feels like it and she likes it! Sort of. She’s a nerd so lots of blushing.
– Speaking of tropes, gosh, they were quick to reveal how riiiiiiich he is.
*****
Iron Man‘s first episode… what can I say? It was unbelievably terrible. I don’t get it. The trailer looked so exciting:
But y’know, I guess I can’t blame them. It’s not like Iron Man just recently had two blockbuster movies that laid out the blueprints of who and what is Tony Stark. It’s not like the appeal of the character was a cynicism to match the jaded 21st century. Plus, it’s not the anime’s fault it can’t translate Robert Downey Jr. to anime. So…… I guess we’ll just make him an unabashed manwhore who’s into Japanese women with the worst nose jobs ever.
All that money for the action scenes and they just took a ruler to the nose. What are you doing, Madhouse?
Mmm. Sexy noses.
It’s not like we don’t already have an existing character grappling with an addiction to machines that keep losing control, which forces him to build more machines, on and on in a perpetual arms race against himself. It’s like the guy who’s depressed because he’s an alcoholic so he drinks more to feel better. Somehow, the anime can’t even sniff the mediocre characterization of Hollywood tripe, but fine, as long as the anime has some well-choreographed action, it’s all cool. I guess. Maybe.
But before we get to that, let’s dryly discuss boring shit in a helicopter,
in a laboratory,
over the computer,
in the hanger,
…wait, what’s that? Is that the new Iron Man model?!
TIME FOR SOME ACT- no wait, let’s talk some more.
And more.
Action…?
NO.
NO ACTION. MORE TALK.
Okay, okay, there’s just two minutes left in the episode now. You can have a fucking xenomorph out of nowhere.
Iron Man‘s first episode really fucking sucked.
I agree with you to an extent on Kuragehime. I do think that their respective qualities were blown out of proportion. However I don’t think they were necessarily portrayed as being the reasonable ones in that situation. Conversely I think they were portrayed in a bad light during the hotpot encounter. They can’t completely disparage them though as they are the main characters. It’s really easy to make people who shun others based on principle to look bad and I think the writers did a good job of showing that the ladies are quick to judge as much as they think others are quick to judge them; while not completely making them look like horrible people.
I think the building is currently in stasis at the moment. The ladies have their own private circle and they don’t want anyone or anything to interrupt that. I think Kuranosuke is being used to inject life into their bubble, not just with his own presence but also to attract other people as his brother appears to be heading their next week.
And yes, Iron Man sucks.
If the Nunz were really portrayed in a poor light, there was no catharsis — they were rewarded for their shitty behavior in the end. In that sense, the episode failed; it was neither funny nor enlightening — just really awkward.
Instead of seeing it as a reward for the shitty behaviour it can be viewed as the ingenuity and resilience of Kuranosuke to break through their stone barriers. I don’t think Kuranosuke is the type to outright call out the girls hypocrisy. Not to mention it wouldn’t be a wise choice if he wants to integrate smoothly into the group.
Well, I’m afraid I don’t see much of a difference. But for the sake of the argument, let’s say you’re right. Putting it your way begs the question of why he should even bother to put in the effort. He wasn’t in the wrong. To make friends? Surely, Japan is a big enough country that he doesn’t have to waste time with rude, dismissive people. Now, it might be argued, “But if he didn’t make it up to the Nunz, we wouldn’t have a show.” Well, it’s the anime’s job to establish credible character motivations.
Like I said in the post, I could ignore a lack of believable morals, motives, characterization, etc. if the anime was just going for pure comedy. But since we’re supposed to care that he becomes their friends, I found the resolution kinda lame.
I was just trying to put a more positive spin on his reasonings. Not to mention it’s the second episode and we don’t know his motivations yet. Maybe he just wants to get with Tsukimi or maybe he doesn’t fit in that well either and thought similar outcasts would treat him reasonably. Maybe he understands their guarded nature more than we assume. We don’t have much background on him so it’s premature to say whether his motivations made sense or not because we don’t know them.
Anyway, a prime example of how the anime portrays the ladies in if not a bad light but at least an absurd light: they literally turn to stone; also when the train girl storms out she catches her afro in the door. I personally think those aren’t just for cheap laughs but are meant to demonstrate the absurdity of the Nunz attitudes.
Kuragehime isn’t a mystery; it doesn’t need to guard its characters’ motivations like a Hitchcock. All this mental exercise to spin “Nunz act like jerks; get rewarded” in a positive light — if that suits you, fine, but I’m just going to agree to disagree.
No offense, but this is silly.
I did think to myself at the time, “Wow. Just eat your freakin’ hotpot and get over it. He has a penis.” I kinda forgot that they didn’t know that.
…
Oh yeah, that would’ve made it much worse. That’s going to be quite a problem, later on. Anyway, I think I’m going to watch Genshiken since I’ve never gotten around to it, even after having heard so many good things about it.
I think the first season of Genshiken’s pretty good. Second season was eh.
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