The Moe/Star Trek Connection AKA Defending Moe Part Two

 

To boldly go where no otaku has gone before...

  

As many of my readers know, I've been a part of multiple fandom communities over my life. Currently, my main entertainment passion is anime, which is why this blog exists. There was a time, however, when Star Trek was not only my main entertainment passion, but was also what captivated the imagination of a young Grade 6 student, who would make a point to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation each and every weekday evening at 8:30 PM just before heading to bed to prepare for school the next day.

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard was a noble hero to me, and a fictional character that I looked up to, and enjoyed cheering on in episode after episode of TNG. In fact, I had an Elementary Teacher that even looked and acted a bit like Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, and he tended to treat me as a student wunderkind, not unlike one Wesley Crusher, I must admit. ^_^;; 

Number 1: Nanoha Takamachi!

A long time ago, I was in the process of doing write-ups for each character on my Top 10 Anime Characters of All-Time list. I had only one left to do, but sadly, I did not feel up to finishing off my Top 10 list.

Until now.

My last two entries in that list spoke a bit on fiction in general, and also on the role that conflict plays in fiction.

It spoke of the three types of conflict:

Man vs. Nature

Man vs. Himself

Man vs. Man


In a Man vs. Man conflict, we see two personable forces locked in a struggle, be it a purely physical confrontation or a battle of wits or a challenge of ideas or some combination thereof. This can truly draw in the viewer, and force him or her to view the conflict from multiple perspectives.

One such perspective is the perspective of the villain, and my most recent entry in my Top 10 list was an intelligent intensely ideal example of such a villain.

While the perspective of the villain is often important, it is usually not quite as important as the perspective of...

Anime Should Chart Its Own Course

Follow the example of Lelouch!
Chart your own course, anime!!

In recent years, the movie industry has primarily been an adaptation industry. It takes the most popular book, cartoon, comic book, and video game properties that are out there, and adapts them into live-action (and/or CGI animation) movies for the big screen. I don't have solid numbers for this, but I at least get the impression that a very solid majority of modern live-action feature-length movies are adaptations rather than "Hollywood originals" or "film originals".

In other words, Hollywood scriptwriters tend to now spend much more time adapting the most popular works of other entertainment or narrative forms than they do creating their own original works. Lately, we've seen them race through virtually every prominent Marvel comics property there is, even with such niche titles as Ghost Rider and Blade achieving star-studded splendor as Hollywood blockbusters. The days of Star Wars, Aliens, Rambo, Rocky, Robocop, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, the Matrix, and the Terminator appears to be fading into the background.

... Remind you of anything, anime fans? ;)

Anime in Japan is very much analogous to Hollywood movies in America, only with two big exceptions.

1) When a popular franchise makes it to the big screen, that in and of itself is considered a huge deal for the popular franchise. The movie itself is everything; it doesn't exist purely to increase the success of the popular franchise, but rather it is considered the pinnacle of success in and of itself. With anime, the animes that are adaptations of other works are generally considered the lesser cousin in its relation to that non-anime source material.

2) The ratio of adaptations to original works is probably even higher for anime than it is for movies.


This is, in some ways, a cause for concern, I think. Especially when you consider that anime is coming close to exhausting the full store of good Japanese light novels, visual novels, and mangas that are or were available for adaptations. Anime truly is running through light novels like Hollywood is running through Marvel comics titles. Eventually, you start to scrape the bottom of the barrell, at least as far as sheer popularity of the original work itself is concerned.

This, of course, leaves anime in a position of dependence. It makes it impossible for anime to fully chart its own course, as it must await the creations of artists and writers in other fields before it can bring much new material to the fore. In some cases, this means mind-numbing filler material, which is often little more than extremely limited and restricted fanfics.

Another negative of this dependence is one that frequent blog commenter tigermoon brought to my attention in his response to my "The Evolution of Anime" blog entry. And that negative is that it means that anime is left working with whatever narrative genres and settings and character types that happen to be popular at the moment (or a year or two ago) in other entertainment and narrative mediums. In recent years, that has meant a disproportionately high number of school-based anime, and a disproportionately low number of animes with epic stories.

Don't believe me?

Well, then lets consider five of the most prominent anime original animes of all time...


These are five of the most beloved and popular anime original animes of all time... and they all had epic stories...

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Story Premise: To try to save the world from "angels" that threaten the entire human race! Later on, a devious plot that would forever change almost every person on the planet is set into motion.

El Hazard: The Magnificent World - Story Premise: An alien world is at war! A battle of wits between two Japanese teenagers explodes into a conflict that will determine the fate of an entire alien planet.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha - Story Premise: Capture the Jewel Seeds to prevent a potentially cosmic disaster! Later on, deal with threats of similar magnitudes.

Gurren Lagann - Story Premise: In a dystopian future, humanity fights back against Beastmen oppressors! Later on, the Earth itself is threatened by beings of great cosmic power.

Code Geass - Story Premise: The world is at war! Japan seeks to rise out from under the bloodthirsty thumb of Britannia, and like El Hazard, two former friends chart the course of the conflict.


Considering that there's not all that many anime original animes to begin with, the fact that five of the most prominent all contain very epic stories, speaks to how the minds behind anime original works may tend to favor such stories.

I would say that a reason for this is that anime naturally lends itself to such stories.

One of the strengths of the animation medium is that it can portray certain scenes that would require very lengthy descriptions in a purely textual format (as the old saying goes: a picture says a thousand words), and that it can portray magnificently imaginative conflicts of a grand scale that would cost countless millions in special effects budgeting to do in a live-action format.

This is, in fact, a big part of the reason why I'm a huge fan of animation in general... both of the anime variety, and of the western cartoon variety. This particular entertainment medium simply lends itself to certain types of stories much moreso than any other entertainment medium (except, perhaps, video games) does.


Effectively conveying action scenes that are on an epic scale, and purely in words, is generally not easy. It is thus quite understandable why most light novel and novel writers tend to stay away from such scenes. Furthermore, visual novels and games involving romantic routes, tend to be very dialogue-based by nature. They certainly can have epic moments, but generally not an epic narrative or story.


There is another key factor here that I think bears looking at.

A common complaint that I've heard of many of the more popular anime that have come out since the start of 2009 is that the pacing of these animes is off. I've very recently heard this complaint applied to otherwise very well-recieved titles like Okakami Kakushi and Durarara!!

There' s a very important reason for why such animes may lack desirable degrees of pacing.

And that reason is this:

The sort of slow and methodical plot pacing that can work splendidly in a light novel, a novel, or a visual novel can seem extremely slow and tedious when cut up into 24 minute anime adaptated chunks. Because there's only so much written material that can fit comfortably within such 24 minute animated chunks.

Now, the anime can, of course, slash and burn vast quantities of source material in order to attempt to trim the story down to where it has good (or at least palatable) pacing for these 24 minute animated chunks. But that tends to result in this...

Beatrice is the Umineko Anime in this pic
Battler is the typical fan of the Umineko source material. ;)

The Umineko anime has been absolutely ravaged with harsh criticism for cutting out so much of the visual novel source material. And, having recently read though most of the first Umineko visual novel, I can certainly see why! I'd estimate that at least two thirds of all of the material within the first visual novel was murdered as though coming in contact with the Stakes of Purgatory... ;)

This is quite possibly the main reason why the first volume Umineko DVD bombed in sales. There are other possible reasons for such an incredible sales failure that I may bring up in a future blog entry, but for now, I'm focusing on the impact of enormous content chops made when adapting Umineko from visual novel to anime.

However... I also know why the producers of the Umineko anime sliced off so much of the source material content. The reason why is because there would be no other way for the Umineko anime to have an even sane level of pacing for an anime.

I think that most anime fans want to see something of plot importance happen each and every episode. This is a big part of the reason for why Endless Eight was not more well-recieved. For Umineko to keep even three quarters of its original source material would have resulted in an anime so plodding, and so uneventful in the first few episodes, that virtually every anime only watcher of Umineko would have dropped it like a rock.

Again... what feels like good pacing in a novel isn't necessarily good pacing in weekly 24 minute animated chunks.

Sadly, Umineko was caught between a Beatrice and a Virgilia, when it came to how much of the source material content should be carried over to the anime adaptation. ;)

To paraphrase Giovanni from the Pokemon musical... "It just can't win!"


Now, all of this being said, I largely liked the Umineko anime, and so I'm glad that it was adapted into anime form.

Still, just imagine how good an Umineko-like story could be if it was an anime original anime! Such a story would be made, in advance, to fit with the ideal pacing of an anime. The plot would be quicker and faster, but character development could still be maintained.

So... what does this all mean?

Well, what it means is that I hope that we see more anime original animes in the future. For that will lead to more animes like the five anime original animes featured in pictures in this post. It will also allow the animation medium to more readily control its own destiny; to shape its own future. And the animes themselves will have better pacing becaue of it.

Just as I hope to see Hollywood one day try to make another Star Wars , I hope to see anime one day try to make another Evangelion. :)

This blog entry and the previous one has been largely critical of the modern anime world, I will admit.

So, in my next blog entry, I will speak on what I think anime has done right, and continues to do right. My next blog entry will be a tribute to anime to balance out with these more critical blog entires.

And after that blog entry... I will finally get back to my Top 10 Countdown list, lol. ^_^;;

In the interim, though, any and all feedback is welcome. I eagerly look forward to your comments. :)

Top Ten Countdown - Numbers 6 Through 4

I've been terribly negligent on the Top 10 Countdown of my Favorite Anime Characters of All-Time.

This is in part because, after my Yuki Nagato write up in the Number 7 spot I didn't feel like I could match or top that write-up for my Number 6 selection. And, as such, I kept putting it off... and putting it off... and putting it off. ^_^;

However, I think that those who had been following my Top 10 countdown list, and particularly those who actually voted for me to do it, deserve to see that list brought to its conclussion.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to speed through Numbers 6 through 4 on that Top 10 countdown list in this blog entry, and then get back to lengthier write-ups after it.

So, with out further adieu, here are Numbers 6 through 4 for my Ten Favorite Anime Characters of All-Time! :)



Top Ten Countdown - Number 6: Simon

Moral Alignment: Chaotic Good


Simon was a very cool and good-natured guy, but also ambitious. The young digger that had to drill through difficult mountains of angsting dirt in his young adolescence, eventually grew into a man that would carry on the dreams of his beloved bro Kamina, only with those dreams refined into something more practical and reasonable. Simon was like the polished and more complete package of the immeasurable raw energy and force of will represented by the wondrous personified symbol of Kamina.

In the end, Simon made a choice that I'm not entirely comfortable with, and that I feel undermines the overall thematic thrust and passion of the GL/TTGL anime. That's the main reason why he's not even higher on this list.

However, his titantic tumultuous triumphs over first Lord Genome, and then over the cosmic Anti-Spirals, speaks very well of Simon and the relentless but thoughtful force of will; refined by his moral core and his faithfulness to his friends and comrades.

Simon's inherent goodness is beyond question, and while he's not as chaotic in his means as his bro, there's no doubt that he is known best for fighting against oppressive universal orders, in sharp contrast to Rossiu...




Top Ten Countdown - Number 5: Fate T. Harlaown

Moral Alignment: Lawful Good


Fate Testarossa simply has one of the colossally coolest character designs of all time. Her personal style and panache is beyond reproach. However, there is substance as sharp as Bardiche that accompanies this supremely sumptuous sizzle.

While there is a certain simplicity of heart and purpose that drives Fate on, that is complimented by a profound depth of character that this simplicity rests upon as though it were a firm foundation of rock. In the original Nanoha anime, this comes through the "sad beautiful eyes" that Nanoha Takamachi peers through to make a full assessment of Fate's very soul.

From that point on, the two magicl girls were fated (no pun intended ;) ) to be the closest of friends... if not more. ;)

I've heard Fate compared to Batman, and while she may lack the Dark Knight's breadth of intelligence and skill, I think that she shares a similar drive and determination with him, as well as a heroic honorably heart.

In many ways, Fate and Nanoha are to their universe what the World's Finest are to the DC comics universe...




Top Ten Countdown - Number 4: Shana

Moral Alignment: Lawful Neutral


As many of my readers know, in particular fellow Anime Suki posters, I've long been a critic of how the term "tsundere" is used today. However, Shana is the ultimate exception to that.

Shana is THE tsundere. She defines the term like no other anime character, imo. She is the idealization of this anime archetype; the character that fits it like a glove and shows the considerable comedic charm, and solid characterization, that can come from the true tsundere.

Shana's fiery attacks are emblematic of her fiery persona. And yet, that fiery persona is grounded in a role and mission that Shana takes very seriously... that role and mission being the one of the Flame Haze.

This is what makes Shana a lawful netural character, at least until Yuji begins to alter her thinking slightly, and impact her heart substantially. At the start of her anime, Shana is entirely cought up in her role, and does not question it or even feel much pity for the victims of the world order that she seeks to work within. As explosive as Shana's methods are, she is a character that seeks to maintain order and stability in a world cursed by tomogaras that can consume the very life essences of human beings.

What I admire in Shana is her firm resolutness, her competency, and her uncompromising stage presence. Her battles with tomogaras are always a treat for the eyes... especially her fights with Hecate, in my view.

I also love Shana's romance with Yuji, and how it brings out the softer and more human side in Shana.



There is much more that I could write about each of these three, but for the goal of speeding up the completion of this Top 10 countdown, and with the hope of soon bringing it to a close, I have decided to be relatively short and sweet on numbers 6 through 4. Nonetheless, I welcome any feedback to the brief blurbs that I wrote for each. :)


My next blog will delve down into two of the final three... and that's when, hopefully, you'll get to see me recapture greater exuberance and thoroughness in my writing. ;)


For now, though, I close out with a wonderful picture of two of my all-time favorite anime characters for you to feast your eyes upon...

Top 10 Countdown!: Honorable Mentions

It's the Final Countdown! ;)

Well, not really, but I felt that this awesome AMV above could serve to get my readers pumped and primed for my Top 10 Favorite Anime Characters of All-Time Countdown!

A few ground rules before I begin...

This is, of course, just my own list of favorite anime characters. It primarily reflects my own taste in fictional characters, particularly those presented in an animated medium. This list is not designed to convey which ten anime characters are the most influential of all time... although a case can be made that at least two or three characters on my list are influential. This list is also not meant to determine which ten anime characters are the most complex, multifaceted, and unique of all time... although, again, a case can be made that many of these characters are complex, multifacated, and unique. Certainly, I tend to very much like prominent, unique characters that stand out for me in a good way... but, at the same time, characters that do a truly outstanding job of representing a particular archetype appeal to me as well. For example, my conception of the perfect tsundere is in this Top 10 list.

So, in a neat and tidy nutshell, this list is only to display to you, gentle reader, the ten anime characters that have most left an indelible impression on me through out the dozens upon dozens upon dozens of animes that I've watched. Needless to say, many excellent anime characters never made the cut. To help explain why one or more of your favorites may not be on the list, let me introduce you to a few criteria that I used in rounding down the vast array of anime characters that I have to choose from...


1) The character has to stand out for me, over and above the broader cast that he or she or it is a part of. While it's true that I loved the Sailor Moon anime and its cast, neither one or two of the Sailor Scouts fully stood out to me as being particularly more notable or enjoyable to watch than any of the others. It is a strong and stupendous cast, and I like them all, but I just don't like them enough to put them all in my Top 10 list, and at the same time neither one of them (including Sailor Moon herself) strikes me as more deserving of the honor than either of the others. At some level, I'm inclined to think that truly great characters will shine a bit more brilliantly than their fellow cast members.


2) The character needs to have significant screen-time. I like Akasaka (Higurashi) and Gihren Zabi (Mobile Suit Gundam) a lot, but neither received much screen-time. Each was displayed prominently in one of my favorite anime scenes of all-time. However... I can't really justify putting into my Top 10, characters that may be completely conspicuously cool for a short stretch of time in one episode, but aren't fleshed out a great deal beyond that. By extension, this also means that characters in brand new, yet unfinished, animes (such as Bakemonogatari) aren't on the list. I will say, though, that there's at least a couple of Bakemonogatari characters that may very well challenge for Top 10 spots in the future.


3) How much I like the anime that the character is from is important. Dragon Ball Z was one of the first animes that I ever watched, and I liked it a lot at the time... but looking back on it now after watching much more fast-paced shonen fare, I can see where it has considerable weaknesses, primarily in the pacing department. Due to how DBZ doesn't appeal to me like it once did (the linked AMV above notwithstanding), its characters probably suffer from that. On the flip-side, one of my favorite animes is the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and that helped to lift one particular character into my Top 10 list. You'll have to wait to find out who that character is. ;)


4) The character has to be known primarily as an anime character (at least for me). Captain Falcon is astonishingly incredible, and M. Bison can make you gleefully shout "Yes! Yes!" while watching him fight, but both are known better for their video game roles than their anime roles.


So, all-told, those are my Fantastic Four Filters (provided by the always malleable Reed Richards; him being such a great guy who'll stretch to great lengths for just about anyone's sake ;) ). There are other factors playing into the precise ordering of the characters in my Top 10 list, but you can be assured that each and every one of them survived (or mostly survived, anyway) this screening process.

However, in piecing together my Top 10 list, I found that there were actually close to twenty characters that I had to make some tough choices amongst. Even the Fantastic Four Filters weren't able to totally make this an easy selection for me. As such, I feel compelled to honor five particular characters that just missed the cut, but nonetheless deserve some special spotlight moments, in my opinion.

So... here are five honorable mentions, in alphabetical order, with a brief blurb on each, explaining why I like him or her or it...

Éclair (Kiddy Grade)

Tall and voluptuous is my favorite female form, red's my favorite color, and I love wavy brunette hair. So, on sheer character design alone, Eclair appeals to me quite deliciously. ;) She also has perfectly sized breasts, in my estimation. Eclair was also one of the first leading ladies of anime that I came into contact with after I started watching anime heavily a few years back. Up to then, my exposure to anime was unwitting (i.e. I couldn't distinguish anime from other cartoons), and limited to DBZ, Pokemon, and Sailor Moon. Eclair was the first buxom bodacious broad, of a non-magical girl type, to be a female main protagonist, that I came across.

And she was as luscious in that role as her trademark lipstick whip was... and really, what a cooler weapon for a female than a lipstick whip can you get?! She also had a personality that I found alluring for the most part, and her backstory frequently intrigued me. In the anime, she ends up being a supremely stylish heroine that consistently fights for what is right, even if it forces her to go against her superiors and to take a stand that throws her life into quite dire jeopardy.

Why didn't she make the Top 10 cut then? Her character, for me, was undermined somewhat by gratuitous fanservice; for example, you wouldn't believe just how long it took me to find a non-fanservicey pic of her like this one above. I don't mind some fanservice, especially for a fine feminine fighter like Eclair, but Kiddy Grade (the anime with Eclair in it) sometimes took it a bit too far. Another knock against her is how vaguely defined her marvelous metahuman abilities are. This is a problem that plagues the entire Kiddy Grade cast, in fairness. That, combined with Eclair being virtually immortal, made her somewhat difficult for me to relate to. Finally, there's also the fact that Eclair simply has fewer fascinating character relationship dynamics surrounding her, in my opinion, than some of the similar leading ladies that did make my Top 10 cut.

Still, Eclair is an early favorite of mine, and she definitely deserves a honorable mention at least.

Ifurita (El Hazard: The Magnificent World)

Ifurita, much like Eclair, is here in part due to character design reasons. I simply adore Ifurita's character design, which is one that helped me make the transition from western comic book fan to anime fan. El Hazard: The Magnificent World OAV, as a whole, served as the ideal gateway anime for this Batman, Superman, and Marvel Comics fan. It had several prominent characters with personalities and/or outfits that reminded me a great deal of the costumed heroes and villains of western comics. This is particularly true of Ifurita and one other El Hazard: The Magnificent World OAV character that is in my Top 10.

Perhaps no anime character personifies "mysterious" to me as much as Ifurita does. Even the most diehard of El Hazard fans do not know for certain how organic, or how artificial, she is. She is, in fact, a living weapon of mass destruction, designed precisely for that purpose. And yet, her soft subtle beauty, and magnificent melodic melancholy and style contrast so impeccably with that status. Then there are her epic powers that include creating huge blast radius' that can consume large towns, the ability to copy the abilities and powers of others, dimension dumping, and time travel. Taken altogether, this serves to make Ifurita one of the most intriguing characters in all of anime. As I said, she is mysteriousness personified. :)

So why, then, didn't she crack the Top 10? Because this strength is also a weakness. Like Eclair, she is a bit hard to relate to; perhaps even moreso than Eclair is since Ifurita's personality is more esoteric than Eclair's. There is also the fact that this version of Ifurita simply doesn't get that much screen-time; five episodes in total (eight if you

count her duplicate in the second El Hazard OAV). She simply isn't as fleshed out as much as I'd like.

Still, as Katsuhiko Jinnai says, she is an ultimate weapon that is excellent! ;) And her unusual romance with Makoto Mizuhara is one of my favorites in all of anime.

Jail Scaglietti (Nanoha Striker S)




One area where I would give western comic books and fiction a bit of an edge over anime is in the prominence and quality of antagonists and villains. I know that many will probably disagree with me here, as they may prefer the more understated 'shades of gray' sympathetic antagonist or villain. That's all fine and good, but every now and then I find it very exciting and fun to see the protagonists go up against a cackling, colorful, dynamic, scenery chewing, and theatrical villain. And there's very few in anime that actually surpass the good Dr. Scaglietti in fulfilling such a role.

Of the 'mad scientist' villain type within anime, Scaglietti just edges out Professor Tomoe (Sailor Moon), and Dantalion (Shakugan no Shana) for me. Perhaps the main reason being that, as it pertains to the anime versions of each of those three anyway, Scaglietti gets directly involved the most. He actually shoots blasts and hacks into TVs to make big announcements. Now that's my kind of impacting intense intelligent villain! And then there's the fact that perhaps no villain in all of anime has a larger harem of almost entirely loyal subordinates. I doubt that even Professor Tomoe had the numbers that Jail had. ;)

But even bad puns aside, Scaglietti stands out to me for his funny facial distortions, his reverberating laughter, his wearing of a lab coat over a business suit, and his purple bishi hair. His look is distinctive, but streamlined.

So, why doesn't he make the cut? Largely due to how the anime handled him. He ultimately goes down more with a whimper than with a bang, and he was so hopelessly outmatched that I actually pitied him frequently... and it's probably not a good sign when you pity a shamelessly diabolical villain before he even goes down to defeat. If Scaglietti had just had more punch behind his attacks, or had a subordinate like, say, Ifurita, maybe he would have cracked my Top 10. As is, though, he's still very deserving of this honorable mention.

Sakai Yuji (Shakugan no Shana)

Sakai Yuji is my favorite character of his anime character type. That character type being what I would call "The fairly straight-laced Japanese teenager everyman central protagonist". This character type is always at least a bit meek and mild, typically with a solemn stoic side, frequently moved around by the plot rather than driving it himself, usually has dark hair, and almost always wears a student uniform. He's a very common anime character type; all-female casts aside, it's a rare anime that doesn't have a character like this.

And for me, Sakai Yuji is the best representation of this character type, just edging out Makoto Mizuhara (El Hazard), and Kyon (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). He is also, of course, leaps and bounds ahead of the typical harem anime lead. What makes Sakai Yuji stand out for me in this fashion?

The main reasons are that he's not downright whiny (a frequent annoying aspect to characters of his character type), his actions and decisions typically make good sense to me, his powers are actually rather neat, and most importantly he really undergoes an impressive character evolution during the second half of Shakugan no Shana II. Simply put, Yuji becomes a man; moreso than any other character that he shares his character type with, imo. After a lengthy period of being a push-over and riding on Shana's coattails, Yuji eventually takes control of his life, and much like Prince Adam of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe fame, holding aloft and wielding a magical sword makes all the difference for him. ;) :D

Yuji is also a deeply reflective character, and, I believe, a much more reliable narrator than Kyon is; this being my main reason for putting Yuji ahead of Kyon here. Yuji seems to truly care about others, and that isn't drowned out in either whiny words or snarky sneering. He is an eminently likeable and relatable character. So why didn't he make the cut?

While he's great in the 2nd half of Shakugan no Shana II, his breathtakingly blind and oblivious behavior in the 1st half of Shakugan no Shana II hurts his character a bit for me. He's probably not as indecisive about romances as many of his character type are, but he nonetheless could be better here.

Still, his romance with Shana is my favorite in all of anime, and thus he deserves a honorable mention at the very least.

Sango (InuYasha)

The four main protagonists of InuYasha (Kagome, Miroku, Sango, and InuYasha himself) are all great characters, imo. I like all of them a lot. So what lifts Sango just a slight touch above the rest of them for me?

Mainly the fact that she's such a sweet and perpetually pure in heart protagonist. She doesn't have InuYasha's boastful abrasive ego, or Miroku's lecherousness. And her fits of tsuntsun strike me as slightly less frequent than Kagome's, as Kagome can strike me as being a bit too quick to anger at times.

Sango strikes me as one of those characters that you'd love to have as either a friend, or as a girlfriend. She is so dependable, firm, and resolute. She has real class and a sense of personal pride. She also brings out the very gallant best in Miroku on a few occasions. When Sango manages to make this happen, it serves to have Miroku become one of my favorite anime characters as well. And when Miroku is at his best, the Miroku/Sango romance is one of my favorites in all of anime. It really resonates with me during those moments when Miroku is at his best.

For whatever reason, Sango is also one of those anime characters that simply exudes Japanese culture for me. And in doing so, she helps me to greater appreciate the cultural heritage of that lovely oriental land, as well as to help me realize why I became an anime fan to begin with. Her fighting style, her choice of weapons, her flying pet cat that can change size and shape... there's a lot surrounding her that's quite nice.

Her outfit is cool and stylish, but while being modest and utilitarian. Sexy with out needing fanservice to accomplish it; now that's a woman who knows how to carry herself.

So why doesn't she make the cut? Sango is a bit understated. I don't mind that in some anime characters, but in Sango's case, I wish she'd get involved in the action and dialogue just a bit more than what she does. Still, she is a character that has earned her place in this "Honorable Mentions" list.


Well, that's all for the Honorable Mentions list.

I hope all of my readers enjoyed this Blog entry, and that people gained a bit of a better understanding in my taste in anime, my taste in anime charcters, my taste in villains, and my taste in romance especially, because of it. As always, any and all comments are appreciated.

Soon... the Top 10 part of the Final Countdown begins! >:)

Nanoha's Greatest Enemy : Numbers

And by "Numbers", I don't mean Jail Scaglietti's illustrious harem of artificially engineered girls, as much as I respect the good Doctor's inordinate skill at making attractive females by the dozen. ;)

No, I'm instead referring to something a bit more fundamental than that.

It is not an enemy that Nanoha can bust and break with divinely inspired starlite blasts, and nor is it an enemy that Fate can cut with a sword so massive that it leaves Cloud of Final Fantasy fame in blushing jealousy.

This enemy is, frankly, simple math. It's numbers, in the most basic sense of the term. Specifically, its numbers arising from an exponential growth curve that made Striker S hard to follow at times, and which is definitely the biggest (and in fairness, perhaps only) weakness of the manga Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid (which I've read the first three 20-something page chapters of).

Let me try to explain to my faithful readers what I mean by this, by looking briefly at the three Nanoha animes (all currently in my top 10 anime list of all-time, though Bakemonogatari may eventually knock one of them out).

The original Nanoha anime was charming in its sweet simplicity. I first heard it described as "a magical girl show for guys", and sexist though that way of putting it may seem, I have to admit that the description works. The original Nanoha anime had each and every one of the typical Magical Girl anime elements - the cute side-kick mascot (Yuuno), the close female friends at school (Arisa and Suzuka), the "dark magical girl" enemy (Fate), largely impersonal monsters of the week, sweet girlish voices, an enemy familiar (Arf), ambiguous yuri overtones, an admirably saccharine family, and a (albeit quick) maturation story for our leading Mahou Shoujo heroine.

Oh, and there was also a slight twist on the age old magical girl theme of "Love Conquers All!".

So you took all the prototype goodness of magical girl anime, and made it "for guys" by making the fighting girls' outfits sleeker and more stylish, by scripting for their combat to be more close quarters and breathtakingly explosive and stunning, and by tweaking the old theme of "Love Conquers All!" to "Friendship Through Superior Firepower!". Nanoha is, basically, the bad ass of the magical girls... though still with a heart of gold to compete with the Man of Steel himself, as I argued a couple blog entries ago.

However, when you combine a heart of gold with "Friendship Through Superior Firepower!" with an extremely well-fleshed-out in-canon universe that shows a story unfolding over several years... you may very well reach an arguably inevitable problem. Let me put this chronologically, and numerically, for you.


Original Anime:

1 Main protagonist (with 1 supporter) vs. 1 Main antagonist (with 1 supporter)

This is, of course, Nanoha (Yuuno) vs. Fate (Arf)


2 vs. 2 - both main antagonist and her supporter switch sides near the end, leading to a...

4 vs. 1 situation against the real big bad (Precia Testarossa) and her villainous well guarded fortress.

So, you start off with 1 major hero (1 supporter), and you end off with 2 major heroes (2 supporters). On top of that, you have Chrono in "emergency call in" mode. So, your protagonist count doubles. Still, 4 (or 5 if you count Chrono) isn't that big of a deal. It's manageable at least.


Than we come to Nanoha As... :

2 Main protagonist (with 3 supporters) vs. 2 Main antagonists (with 3 supporters)

Nanoha & Fate (Arf, Chrono, and Yuuno) vs. Vita & Signum (with rest of the Wolkenritter)

Really nice evenly matched groups here, and it plays out beautifully through out the anime.

Eventually, though, the entire antagonist team ends up reformed by "The Power of Love! tm", which means that at the end of Nanoha A's, we now have a total of 10 protagonists.

Ten protagonists... whew, that's a lot to balance. Thankfully, though, only four (Nanoha, Fate, Vita, and Signum) are pure fighters, with the rest being mostly support mages (by choice in Chrono's case).

So, with ten protagonists we then come to...


Nanoha Striker S:

In addition to the 10 carry-overs, we add 4 brand new fighting protagonists - Subaru, Teana, Caro and Erio. So we're up to 8 fighting protagonists, 6 supporting protagonists, and... various TSAB staff, assorted Arc-en-ciel officers, and more secondary characters from the Saint Church than you could shake a Nicean Council at (he he! ;) ).

It's rather ironic, yet fitting, that the enemies for this protagonist group that you'd have a hard time finding a bus that could hold all of, are collectively called... Numbers. :D

Oh, Jail, you comedian you! Ha ha!

Now, in fairness, some characters pretty much just suffer Takahashi Death - a term referring to characters that don't actually die, but might as well have, given how often you actually see them or hear them referenced. In the case of Striker S, Arf and Yuuno have become cameo appearance characters that, if you blink, you will miss them! The less offensively powerful Wolkenritter are nigh invisible as well.

Still, the fact remains, the protagonist cast has bulged to sizes that aphrodisiac makers can only dream of! 12 inches, you say? No, more like 12 active protagonists! That's what Enanoha, the natural cast enhancement tablet, can do for you! ;D

Not surprisingly, Jail was not able to withstand such enhancement coming full throttle at him, and was defeated a bit overly easily for my liking.

Oh, don't get me wrong, Nanoha Striker S was a blast in most respects... just not in the life-and-death drama department. At no point did I feel like Nanoha and/or Fate were truly in danger, or even very much on the ropes, so to speak. Only Teana and Vita struck me as being in truly tight squeezes and/or in death-defying situations. If not for them, suspense would have been almost completely lacking for Striker S.

So, anyway, Striker S ends, and the Numbers are captured, adding yet more numbers to the protagonist ranks, which leads us to...

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid!














So... what do I make of ViVid? Well, it has gorgeous artwork (particularly the colored sections), it has an immensely likable cast (though if Vivio gets any more spunky and self-confident she risks becoming another Wesley Crusher... *shudder*), the dialogue is smooth and easy to follow, and the plot makes sense with important background information released at well-timed points.

ViVid certainly does a great job of capturing the lovable mood and themes of the original Nanoha.

I also adore the look of the new main antagonist, especially in her "Chapter 3 (?)" cliff-hanger scene. She makes me think a little bit of Rider (featured below) from Fate/Stay Night, only bulkier and more powerful looking...

























Overall, this manga is excellent... with only two flaws. One flaw is fairly minor, and I'll address that in a swift fashion in order to honor Rider here. ;) That flaw is that one scene in the manga involves Vivio leading a naked Nanoha into the shower along with herself (naked) to wash (I hope ;) ) alongside a naked Fate. Now, I like Nanoha/Fate; it's one of the better yuri pairings in all of anime, I think; but involving Vivio like this... I have to admit that it seemed more than a bit sketchy to me. It didn't help that Vivio's words and facial expressions during the scene walked the fine line between innocent playfulness and sexual playfulness. For any young kid to try to get his or her parents to have sex with each other in the shower, and to then also actually join them in the shower... feels a bit wrong to me. ^_^;

But... perhaps Vivio's thinking was cleaner than that. One can hope, anyway.

But now the major flaw...


NUMBERS!


There's just so many protagonists here, and I find it impossible to keep track of them all; especially in a visually black and white medium where many distinguishing features (like hair color, eye color, typical color of attire, etc...) are of no help.

I admire Nanoha.

Reforming is better than capturing for the cops is better than killing, in my opinion... and Nanoha, first and foremost, reforms. On the other hand, after you've been reforming for so long, you get a protagonist cast that you'd need a cosmic-level villain in order to create a suspenseful and truly threatening enemy for. And Heaven help us if Nanoha reforms the cosmic-level villain as well. ^_^;;

Basically, I give ViVid a 8.5/10 - rounding up to a 9 when I give Vivio the benefit of the doubt, and rounding down to a 8 when I think that occasionally turning into a buxom butt-busting babe has made her perverted before her time, lol.

But what definitely hurts the manga a bit is the sheer size of the protagonist cast. So... here's what I think the people behind Nanoha should do (beyond making the Nanoha the 1st movie - a smart move in that it gets around the numbers problem):

Break up the protagonist cast into three parts - a part lead by Nanoha, a part lead by Fate, and a part focusing on Vivio being groomed and raised by the Saint Church (while her parents are away on missions).

Put Nanoha's five or six-man team up against new, unique enemies; and maybe make them crazy Joker-esque villains to really put an ideological challenge to Nanoha's idealism.

Pur Fate's five or six-man team up against new, unique enemies; and have those enemies lead by a Lex Luthor-esque guy who Fate has to discover a way to legally bring down, but finds that hard to do due to his mastery of legal loopholes. So, like Nanoha, now Fate's idealism is also brought to the test; in this case, Fate's idealistic "lawful good" beliefs.

And led Vivio have her own unique adventures, largely cut off from the established fighting protagonist cast. If Nanoha-mama, and Fate-mama, are around, then...

Where's the danger?

The suspense?!

The thrills?!!

No, for Vivio to truly grow, she needs to go through what Nanoha did, imo, and that means strictly limited outside help, and standing on her own two feet... just like Nanoha-mama always encourages her to do.


Don't get me wrong; I like the ViVid manga a fair bit; but going forward, the people behind the wonderful Nanoha franchise are going to need to start breaking down the protagonist cast into totally separate parties; probably separate inter-linking animes/mangas; in order to keep any sort of serious drama and intrigue and even cast follow-ability here. The only other effective alternative that I can see to this, is to throw out a villain like this for every signal future Nanoha sequel or spin-off...


































































And while I get a laugh over how this guy is Haruhi Suzumiya's ultimate wet dream - a timeless alien god that devours "ordinary" worlds for sustenance and who has cosmic senses beyond what Haruhi could currently perceive - I'd rather not see anime have to resort to pulling a Galactus every time a new Nanoha anime/manga comes out.

So, let me finish, by saying... "I HUNGER... for a smaller cast!" ;)

As always, all comments and feedback is welcomed.