Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Long Post
It's a strange thing, but I haven't been thinking about anime much lately. Not that I haven't been watching it, but that I haven't really been considering any of the new stuff as anything but a fun diversion. Death Note, for all its occasional gestures towards big important ethical considerations, really only has them as ruffles and frills for its ridiculous spectacles (compare to Jigoku Shoujo a few seasons ago). Code Geass doesn't even manage to gesture, at best it imitates such gestures - and in any case, that series is trying to court so many audiences at this point that I doubt it even remembers what it was originally aiming for. Hataraki Man, of all the shows in the past season, has probably given me the most to seriously dwell on, but even there it's mainly been a peripheral thing. A few months ago pretty much all of the questions that were consistently hovering above my desk were in some way anime-related, and that's no longer the case. I have to think that this isn't entirely my own fault.

I like to enjoy what I watch, and a lot of what I've watched recently has been great in an empty calories kind of way. But a few seasons ago I remember just being constantly caught up in the images of the shows (that Kasimasi article, if you're paying attention, is really only about one scene and one image) in a way that simply hasn't happened in recent months. I probably wouldn't have noticed this had I not started up watching Rose of Versailles a few days ago, which does succeed in putting me into this kind of thinking (Oscar is the kind of character you could write volumes on). So what exactly is going on?

Now, don't mistake what I'm trying to say. I'm not a fan of self-consciously "intellectual" shows - you know the ones, the series that feel the need to invoke some 19th century German or a fringe psychological theory in an offhand remark or side scene. This is showmanship at best, and doesn't itself indicate anything worth paying attention to (on the other hand, having the showmanship around in no way means that your show DOESN'T have any real depth; citing Anno's "the Christian and psychoanalytical stuff was just for show" comment doesn't impact on the value of Evangelion any more than the worth of Next Generation [granted, not the best comparison] is diminished by there not being any such things as Heisenberg compensators or duranium). What hooks me about these shows is not a "theory" or a "philosophy," and as such, I hope most of the folks on this site have now reached the point where they don't watch FMA or something and immediately go and theorize the world in terms of equivalent exchange. What I am basically looking for is a kind of clarity of insight, or better, a willingness to pay attention to and point out something fundamentally very simple. This isn't a question of "themes," but of revealing - that is, a show's ability to let what it concerns itself with appear in its own light. Friendship and eccentricity in Azumanga, childhood in Eva, the past in Tekkaman Blade, love and war in Saikano, rivalry in Black Lagoon: the wonder of these shows and others is their ability to take something already known in an unreflective way and bring it to light. This can be compared to the most basic task of philosophy: not to be so ambitious as to claim to be right, but to simply be as clear as possible in what is said and thought. Clarification, not explanation; to let the thing appear in its own essence, not to display it in a pre-built theoretical cage.

So yeah, the shows of the past season or so haven't really let me to dwell on this kind of thing. This can either be the shows' doing or my own weakness, and while both seem plausible (I have, after all, been VERY busy since September) I tend to believe the former. I really want to be able to THINK about anime again. That's what I came to the site for, after all, even if the articles section has been deep-sixed and nothing much fun seems to be showing up on the message boards (I've thought of starting some posts just for the hell of it, i.e. for them to get a trio of one-sentence replies, a brief flame war between me and someone who thinks I'm pretentious, and nothing of any substance whatsoever. However, I'm actually pretty lazy and school stuff overrides this kind of thing, so I'll probably just stick to my usual inactivity and only snipe off a quick reply in the Anime forum every now and then). I have high hopes for the new season, but of course that's a wait and see sort of thing I guess.

P.S. Rose of Versailles is absolutely wonderful.
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