Saturday, February 25, 2006

Hegel Ruins Everything
I'm almost done with the Saikano piece; 8000 was a vast underestimate. I'm not going to say how much it is at the moment (let's just say I left 30 pages in the dust a few hours ago), and I'm certainly not dropping any more guesses as to final length after last time.

Have been waylaid by starting to get into Hegel again. Christ, that dude sticks in your head worse than Heidegger does once you start to understand what he's doing. But I'm going to finish Saikano up before I get COMPLETELY submerged in Captain Dialectic, because as difficult as it is already I can't see it getting better with me talking about ABSOLUTE CONSCIOUSNESS all of a sudden.

FINALLY they started subbing Petopeto-san again! This is another one of my favorites from this season (well, last season really). Now if only the Eureka Seven folks would catch up.


R.I.P. Peter Strawson
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Sunday, February 19, 2006

Someone stage an intervention.
Up to 7600 words. God, NO ONE is going to be able to get through this thing. Just to give you an idea:

When we speak of "entertainment" we should try to remember the older meaning of the word entertain, a meaning which is still vaguely present when we speak of "entertaining guests." The Old French entretenir doesn't at all mean merely to amuse or distract. Entretenir means: to hold together, to maintain, to keep in shape. Genuine entertainment, as that which maintains and keeps in shape, is the very opposite of mere "diversion" (lit. "turning away"). Entertainment, far from "turning us away" from the world, secures us into it more fully by holding things together, and makes things more vibrant by way of its maintenance. It entertains us by way of its speaking.

Sigh.

In more general anime news, Kashimashi ~ Girl Meets Girl ~ (I've also seen it as Kasimasi, who knows why) is easily my favorite of the recent bunch of new shows to start hitting; in fact, it may be my favorite new series since Kamichu. It's undeniably cute, and plus a "theory" (shudder) geek like me gets all kinds of subject matter to sink my lonely multisyllabic teeth into. REC and Binchou-tan are also highly recommended, though oddly, both are apparently only 12 minutes per episode (REC also gets points for having the catchiest theme song in months). Hanbu no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora is also pretty good.

And then of course there's the Hellsing OVA, which requires no recommendation whatsoever on my part. SIR YESSIR MAI MASTAA
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Monday, February 13, 2006

Officially Way Too Long
The Saikano thing has just topped 6000 words, folks. Don't tell anyone else this, but it's not uncommon to get a second wind after you pass the first ten pages.

I think I'll be lucky if I can finish this thing in under 8000; even better, stylistically and content-wise it's going to be a nightmare to read no matter how much I clean it up (I may have to split it into sections). On the "ridiculous" scorecard so far, I've already quoted Plato in the original Greek, explored the etymology of the word "entertainment," gone off on a long tangent on the Letter to the Romans, and made extremely obvious references to Paul Ricoeur that no one is going to get. Jesus Christ, is something like this even publishable? I'm trying and failing to picture how the poor admins could possibly advertise this thing on the front page.

Well, I guess we'll all find out in a week or two.
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Saturday, February 11, 2006

First blog post!!
So: a belated thank you to the folks who happened to enjoy the Jigoku Shoujo piece. Really, that article is something very modest: it doesn't even attempt to describe how power functions in the show in a systematic way, only to note that it's there and to give voice to how it gets covered over by very different questions. This is not to say that the article isn't still far more difficult than the vast majority of writing on anime, somewhat sadly so (as that speaks to how shallow most of the talk on the subject tends to be). It's very flawed, I know, most of that stemming from my attempt to make a century and a half's worth of the (mostly academic) critique of power (something which I'm not completely familiar with myself!) easily comprehensible without becoming dishonest. "Were I a better writer..." I can always say, but I did what I could, and I'm glad it seems to have been generally enjoyed.

I really wish people wrote more deeply about this stuff. Now, I hope not to seem immodest here, even if I remain somewhat of an elitist: if the conversation on the topic is so immensely shallow that a third-rate writer like myself seems to be working at the furthest reaches of the discussion, I would hope that that would be taken as an indication that we as a whole should be considering the topic (anime) with more attention than we have been, rather than as simply a motive for ascribing to me either talent or academic obscurantism. If elitism amounts to demanding better from people who are intimately familiar with the material at hand and frequently very good with their writing, in other words demanding better from those who can do better, then I suppose the glove fits. Folks, I think it's very possible for us to start writing things that amount to more than just reviews or comparisons to other stories or essentially op/ed pieces: it's high time for us to start thinking about anime.

Anyways, the Jigoku Shoujo thing was a walk in the park: it's not that deep of a show, really, although it offers up plenty of food for thought. Right now I'm trying something that's much more difficult, both to write and (I assume) to read: I'm working on a reading of Saikano, which should hopefully be done by March at the latest. The sheer depth of the show is driving me bonkers, as it's so full of things to write about that I hardly know where to start. The article is going well, though (if slowly); I have a suspicion, though I have no way to confirm it, that when finished this is probably going to be the most pretentious thing ever written in English about anime. Maybe I can make myself a t-shirt to that effect (so if you see someone walking down the street wearing an "I wrote the most pretentious anime article of all time" shirt, you'll know who it is).
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