Mukokuseki and Concepts of Race and Beauty

Eleven years ago, I wrote about mukokuseki, the Japanese term for the “race-neutral” big-eyed look favored in anime and manga. As a relatively new anime fan, I was struck by how western-appearing the characters looked... or so I saw it then.

At that time, I read the TV Tropes essay on mukokuseki, which has since been updated and is even more interesting to read now than it was then. The most commonly accepted explanation for why manga and anime characters typically have big round eyes is attributed to Osamu Tezuka being influenced by Disney characters, and his great success more or less cementing a certain look for manga and anime characters ever after that.

Recently I thought about the issue again in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and civil rights protests in the U.S. I support Black Lives Matter and all civil protestors, because attitudes toward race and ethnicity have not only affected me personally and professionally as an American of Japanese ancestry, but have profoundly affected the lives of millions of Americans, including white Americans. It’s impossible to divorce oneself from these issues if you are an American, no matter what your color.

To me, the obvious, logical, and gracious solution is to acknowledge that we truly are all equal in this country and our culture; that injustices happened and mistakes were made in the past; and that moving forward into the future that the entertainment media that reflects our society has to do a much better job of representing everyone who lives here.

Anime and manga – especially anime and manga translated into English – is of course a niche medium, enjoyed here in the U.S. by people who appreciate Japanese pop culture, or who at the very least are not averse to Japanese culture and Japanese people. I recall recognizing, early on, the feeling of being comfortable when attending anime conventions. I knew I was somewhere where my Japanese face was always going to be welcome and not looked at askance.

I’ve been thinking about mukokuseki in the context of representation, because it occurred to me that manga and anime could have gone another way.

Take, for example, the real-life historical figure of Toshizo Hijikata. Hijikata was the vice-captain of the Shinsengumi, the legendary samurai force tasked with guarding the last shogun in 19th-century Japan. If you’re an anime fan, you already know that there are a lot of depictions of the Shinsengumi in anime and manga, from Kaze Hikaru to Peacemaker Kurogame to Gintama, and many other story universes.

The Shinsengumi – let’s leave aside for a moment the fact that they were an uber-reactionary law enforcement division of a rigidly hierarchical government system – are usually presented in a romanticized fashion as the last samurai of a dying era.

Hijikata in particular is a heavily romanticized figure. He was a handsome man (see his Wikipedia page for proof), and was idolized during his lifetime by many.

Here’s Hijikata as depicted in the Hakuouki anime series:

And here he is in the Gintama universe:

Notice anything? They look pretty Japanese, don’t they?

Representation has value not only for the obvious reasons of inclusivity and fairness, but for other reasons too. You can argue that the idea of what makes someone beautiful or attractive is of lesser importance, but I would say it’s part of the same thing. Do you see a certain segment of society or overlook them? And – the most difficult question of all – does that segment of society itself see and accept themselves as valued, attractive, important? Because seeing people who look like you being represented in your culture is part of it, and has more of a significant impact than you might think, especially if you are younger.

I wonder what would have been the outcome if Osamu Tezuka, instead of going with the Disney-inspired round-eyed look, had decided to create character designs that more authentically represented the way most Japanese people look.

One choice made over 70 years ago influenced the self-concept of generations that came after it. It’s something to think about.

Supporting the Industry - What I Did in April 2015

I bought something a few months ago that was pretty atypical for me.

I should explain first that I’m not a gamer – truly. The only games I was ever decent at were Galaga and Tetris. If my character has a machine gun and has to kill zombies, the zombies will eat her first. I’m not adept at action games where you have to move a character around and make her/him do things.

But I have two young friends who are gamers. One works in the game industry. We’ll call him Ryan, because that’s his name. ;-) The other is Yumeka, who writes a popular anime blog you've probably read. =D

Both Ryan and Yumeka own Nintendo 3DS XL portable game consoles. After watching them play, I decided to buy one of my own.

And here it is.

The machine is plain black, but I bought this nice golden Asian-themed metal case for it.

Even though I’d watched Yumeka and Ryan play on their 3DS XLs, I was clueless when I bought mine. Still am in many ways. More on that below. =D

So, here is the home screen:

How did I support the anime industry with this purchase? Because there are anime-themed video games available for the 3DS (actually, there are more available for the Sony Vita, but I digress). And in April, I bought one – the Hakuouki - Memories of the Shinsengumi game.

I saved money by buying the download of the game instead of the cartridge, which I found out I could do while browsing the Nintendo eShop. ;-)

Hakuouki – Memories of the Shinsengumi is a visual novel game. The game opens with a very nice song and a montage of the various characters. Here’s Saito:

Previously, my only familiarity with visual novels were the clips I’d seen on You Tube. Here’s one for the Hakuouki - Demon of the Fleeting Blossom game. It’s not too clear, but I just wanted a short clip to show the general idea of visual novels:



Basically, a visual novel is a kind of walk-through of a story utilizing pictures and captions. Visual novels are very popular in Japan, but I don’t think games like this are produced in the U.S. I could be wrong about that, though.

I’m a huge fan of Hakuouki the anime. But I need to say something about this game.

So far, I’ve only played through part of the prologue. If you’ve seen the anime, this is the first episode where Chizuru arrives in Kyoto and gets chased by vampire samurai.

She arrives, it’s nighttime, she thinks about her missing father who she came to Kyoto to find… she thinks some more about her father… why she hasn’t heard from him for a month, how worried she is about him… and then…

… A vampire samurai appears! Chizuru hides and watches while other samurai kill him!

And then she thinks about how frightening this is… and how scared she is… and how she doesn’t know what she’ll do next… and… and…

Are you getting the sense of what my experience has been so far? I honestly was excited to get this game and start playing it. I’ve played it for about 40 minutes now, and those 40 minutes turned out to cover – wait for it – the first seven minutes of episode 1 of the anime.

I'm not going to judge based on this first experience with it. I haven’t gotten to any of the “paths” yet, each path being Chizuru choosing a different Shinsengumi love interest, that is the heart of the game. Plus, the game offers other things like Media, Encyclopedia and Extras that I haven’t even looked at yet.

I had heard that each path of a visual novel takes hours, but I didn’t believe it. I believe it now - trust me. The question is: does a visual novel do what it’s supposed to do? Is it, in fact, entertaining?

Again, I’m still at the beginning of this game, so I can’t answer that yet. I can say that the story captions, while written in (thankfully) good English and easy to follow, became tedious to read after a while. The illustrations were lovely, the sound effects added realism to the story, all was as it was supposed to be. The only confused element was the player, me. Was clicking through the narrative “playing” this game? Or was I meant to do something more?

The beautiful elegiac Hakuouki anime series I love so much was based on this game. The game came first. Which is food for thought, especially since I’m a writer. It piques my curiosity. What is the appeal of this form of storytelling?

When I’ve been through all the paths in the game, I’ll write a review. It might be a few years from now though, at this rate. ;-)

I guess I’ve been on a gaming roll, because I then downloaded two games for my Amazon Fire.

Sonic Dash is my first experience with Sonic the Hedgehog. I’ve heard of Sonic for years, but never watched the anime or played the games.

(I have read a fan essay that slashed Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog together. I’m saying this just so I can mark “yaoi” as a label for this post. LOL)

As I said, I’m not good at action games. All Sonic does in this game is run madly along a road where he has to jump over obstacles. I keep sending Sonic headlong into brick walls and into bodies of water where he drowns. I’m slowly getting better, but I’m guessing that games like this were not destined to be my forte.

The second game I downloaded is the exceedingly sparkly and pretty…

Yumeka showed me Frozen Free Fall on her phone. I saw it while browsing Amazon’s app store and downloaded it. Amazingly, both it and Sonic Dash were free. I guess these free games exist to advertise the companies’ paid games.

I do okay at puzzle games, though I won’t win any competitions. And Frozen Free Fall is really beautiful to look at, which adds to the enjoyment of playing it.

I also received two free games for my 3DS, both Pokemon games - Pokemon Shuffle and Pokemon Rumble World.

Pokemon Shuffle is a simple puzzle/aim-and-capture-the-Pokemon game, but Pokemon Rumble World sends Pikachu and other Pokemon characters out to fight enemies.

I had difficulty maneuvering Pikachu in Rumble World until Ryan showed me that the round rubber button on the console’s upper left slides. I had been pressing down on it, really hard, expecting this to move Pikachu around.

Yeah. Real gamers have no reason to fear me anytime soon. =D

Hakuouki Revisited

Warning – Spoilers for both seasons of Hakuouki

January is usually a time for beginnings, but I’ve found myself rewatching a few anime series this month.

Hakuouki is based on an otome video game and is a fictionalized account of the Shinsengumi. Somewhat dismissed by many anime fans as being fujoshi bait or “just for girls,” actually, I believe the DVDs for both seasons made Japan’s top ten list when they were released. I doubt there are enough fujoshis in Japan to account for that many sales, so we can safely assume there was something more to the series than just bishonen eye candy.

And in rewatching it, I can now see that this is absolutely the case.

I don’t rewatch a lot of series. There are so many anime series that are new and come out of the pipeline so quickly, season after season, that there’s almost no time to rewatch something even if you want to. But I just had the urge to see Hakuouki again and am glad that I did.

Why was this series so popular in Japan? First, it’s about the Shinsengumi, the famous samurais who played a pivotal role in Japanese history as the Edo period came to a close. Commander Kondo, Vice-Commander Hijikata, Soji Okita, Hajime Saito, Shinpachi Nagakura and the others are legendary figures. Their motto on the banner above, Makoto, meaning “truth,” still resonates in the Japanese psyche.

Hakuouki’s protagonist is a fictional character, Chizuru Yukimura, a teenage girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to travel from Edo to Kyoto to search for her missing physician father.

It’s interesting to rewatch a series. When you already know the twists and turns of the plot and how the story ends, the tension of “what’s going to happen next?” is gone and, as I found in rewatching Hakuouki, I could sit back and appreciate the story solely for its execution.

So Chizuru, whom I found quite annoying when watching the series initially, became a bit more likable in the rewatching. Now that I know that she never develops into a warrior, I’m not frustrated when I see her acting like a stereotypical girl in waiting for all the guys to rescue her. For whatever reason, the writers wanted Chizuru to stay very traditional and maidenly in that way and for a certain kind of audience I can understand that would make sense.

Season one shows the Shinsengumi in Kyoto where they first came to prominence. When I first watched the series I thought this season moved very slowly, but in rewatching I could see how deftly the various conflicts were woven in to be more fully developed later on.

Something else I could appreciate more on my second watching was how there was only the slightest hint that Chizuru was falling for Hijikata. It was very gradually introduced and not clearly brought out until the beginning of season two.

The Shinsengumi’s involvement in historical events in Kyoto was interesting, but the true tragic nature of how they came to their end is excruciatingly detailed in season two after their move to Edo. First losing Kondo to execution and then various of their members one by one, the second season is a long drawn-out homage to courage, honor, manhood and the samurai code of bushido. And none of the characters exemplify these traits more than Hijikata.

In rewatching Hakuouki, it becomes clear that the main character is really Hijikata and not Chizuru. It’s Hijikata’s character and grit that sees the Shinsengumi through their losses, their humiliating demotions and the flight to the north to join in the doomed effort to start a new country.

Even the vampire subplot, where they drink a red potion that turns them into created oni with super strength, plays on the Shinsengumi’s real-life situation. For hundreds of years only those born into the samurai class could become samurais, but at the end of the Edo period this was opened up to other levels of society. So Kondo and Hijikata, from farming families, were able to train and become samurais. But the self-doubt never went away, the feeling that they were frauds, country boys only “playing” at being samurai.

Throughout Hakuouki, the oni prince Kazama taunts Hijikata about being a fake samurai, a pretender not strong enough to defend Chizuru. But in the final scene, Kazama grudgingly bestows a special name on Hijikata meaning “oni of the fleeting blossom.” The name he gives him is “Hakuouki.”

Hakuouki, then, is not just the story of a girl and vampire potions and bishonen guys with swords, but of the end of an era and an archetypal Japanese figure—the samurai. Like many other memorable Japanese stories, it’s a beautiful tragedy. I was impressed on rewatching it to see the layers of complexity I missed the first time around. I think it was a big hit in Japan because it’s a quintessentially Japanese story, and very well told.

Hakuouki - Licensed!

Great news - Sentai Filmworks has licensed the entire Hakuouki animeverse (first and second seasons, plus six-episode OVA series), and the word is that they will probably pick up the third season as soon as it's available.

Finally! Am I buying these DVDs? Do you even have to ask?? =D

New Hakuouki Video Game Announced

Hakuouki Bakumatsu Muso-Roku Otome Video Game Release Announcement

I may have to buy a PSP and become a gamer girl soon...

Anime Summer 2011 Watchlist

Having read the always-awesome Moetron's seasonal visual guide and anime listing for summer 2011, I've got only one new must-view series for summer: the second season of Nurarihyon no Mago.

Other series look promising: Dantalian no Shoka, Sacred Seven and No. 6. The problem (and what a great "problem" it is to have) is that my schedule is already full with continuing series from spring 2011: Blue Exorcist, Hanasaku Iroha and Steins; Gate, not to mention the usual Bleach and Naruto Shippuuden. I've got too much good stuff on my plate already.

There are also some good OVAs coming out this summer: Hakuouki has a five-episode OVA series and the long-awaited Saiyuki Gaiden OVA series will see its second and third episodes released.

There are simply not enough hours in the day for anime viewing. ;)

Hakuouki Hekketsuroku - Episode 22 and Final Thoughts on the Series

In the end... it was all about Toshizo Hijikata of the Shinsengumi.



The final episode of Hakuouki Hekketsuroku opens with the New Government Army invading Otobe, where Ootori and his troops are holding ground, as Hijikata leads another part of the army in Futamata.

It's May 1869 - close to the end for the Republic of Ezo.

Meanwhile, the oni Kazama boards a NGA ship headed for Ezo and demands passage.

At Futamata, a young lieutenant named Takigawa leads his men on an unexpected charge against the enemy, which succeeds. Hijikata backs him up, then instead of being furious with him - congratulates him afterward.

Later that night, Hijikata tells Chizuru that they're retreating: Ootori's line has been broken at Otobe and their route to Hakodate will be cut off if they don't leave now. He then suffers a rasetsu seizure, and Chizuru offers her blood again. Hijikata notes that his body is now "near the end."

In June 1869, Hijikata and Chizuru return to Hakodate and are reunited with Ootori, Shimada and the Shinsengumi. Shimada sees Hijikata relaxing with the men, and he tells Chizuru that Hijikata has changed...

The NGA's navy attacks Hakodate's harbor. The night before Hakodate itself is invaded, Hijikata asks Chizuru if she's still going to stay and she says yes. Hijikata tells her that he's "probably in love with her," embraces and then kisses her.

Hakodate is invaded during the night, and the next morning Hijikata, Chizuru and a number of soldiers set out for Benten Daiba to provide reinforcements for Ootori and Shimada who are pinned down there. Hijikata is shot and falls from his horse. While the others continue on to Benten Daiba, Chizuru helps the severely wounded Hijikata into the nearby forest where she bandages his wound.



She cuts herself and sucks up the blood, giving it to him in a kiss. Hijikata tells her that they need to keep moving.

Later, the two come upon a beautiful sakura tree. It's now evening.



Chizuru tells Hijikata that the falling blossoms remind her of the first time she saw him, that night long ago in Kyoto.

Kazama arrives on the scene. Chizuru pleads with him not to fight Hijikata in his current condition, but both Hijikata and Kazama are determined to finish what they started. Hijikata notes that Kazama has thrown his oni pride on the line for this fight, and as such there's no way Hijikata can refuse him.

Under the sakura tree, they fight.



As Hijikata's blade pierces Kazama's chest, Hijikata collapses.

Chizuru holds the dying Hijikata and recalls the men of the Shinsengumi, all gone now, and asks if Hijikata can see the "Makoto" banner that they helped him to raise.

Hakuouki Hekketsuroku - Hakuouki's second season - is the more interesting of the two seasons, but you need to watch the slow-moving first season in order to make sense of Hakuouki Hekketsuroku. The first season sets up the premise of the oni clans, the rasetsu soldiers and their use by the Shinsengumi, and introduces Chizuru and the historical characters. The old Kyoto setting is beautifully depicted and the languorous pace is actually, I think, part of the story. In a larger sense, Hakuouki as a series is about the end of one era and the beginning of another: the movement from kimonos to trousers, from swords to guns and from the Shinsengumi - the last of the samurai - to the mechanized and westernized military that came after them. The seeds of the tragedy that unfolds in season two are planted in season one, so both seasons need to be watched for the complete story.

I think ultimately that Hakuouki is one long exquisite mood piece. The beauty of Kyoto, the old guard of the samurai fading into history and the attempt to keep the Shogunate alive with the Republic of Ezo are all presented with an underlying deep melancholy. It's painful to see the Shinsengumi becoming outmoded even as they continued to live and fulfill their duty in fighting for the Shogun, but that's historical fact. It's as if all the producers could do to make it palatable was to at least make it beautiful to watch; and this they did with great care. Hakuouki is a moving panorama of beauty from start to finish: the fine character designs, the late-Edo period Kyoto cityscape, the battle camp scenes, the clipper ships on the ocean at night in the falling snow... it's all a visual feast.

The producers' choice to go with Hijikata's route from the otome video game meant that Hijikata was really the main character of the series - though we don't realize this until the second season with the Shinsengumi's move to Edo and Hijikata's greater involvement in the plot. Hijikata is certainly one of the most celebrated of the Shinsengumi, but his romance (? if one can even call it that) with Chizuru teeters on the edge of being not believable due to the age difference and overall lack of chemistry between them. Hijikata as Chizuru's love interest was perhaps an odd choice, but then he was the last to die of the Shinsengumi so in a pure story sense he may have been the only logical choice.

I could say much about Chizuru and how she remained underdeveloped throughout the series; and also about Kazama and the oni clans, about which similarly much was left unexplained. But in the end it doesn't matter. If the best anime series are those that make you feel something, Hakuouki, flawed as it is, easily makes the list. It's an anime series made for dreaming about the end of the samurai and of a long-gone era in Japan. Sit back, watch Hakuouki and let it all unfold before your eyes.

A Midsummer Night's Shonen Binge Fest

The other night, I took a look at my current watchlist for anime series. This is what I've recently finished, and what I am currently watching:

Bleach
Eureka Seven
Hakuouki
Hetalia World Series
MS Gundam Unicorn
MS Gundam Wing
Naruto Shippuuden
Nurarihyon no Mago
Uraboku

It's a little... heavy on the shonen selections, isn't it? As in... would there even be a way to shoehorn in another one?

Am I possibly... missing out on other good series due to watching only what I know I like?

Is there more to life... than mecha battles, samurai sword fights, ninja wars and bishonen angst?

I've decided to broaden my anime horizons, at least a little. And I could use your help.

If you can think of a non-shonen anime series that you think I might enjoy, leave a comment and let me know. I'll throw it open to anything: series about children, cute animals, moe, shojo, fantasy, paranormal... whatever. I will choose one from among the suggestions and watch the entire series, up to 13 episodes, and will post an entry on this blog on what I think of it when I'm finished.

The floor is open. ;)

Hakuouki: Last Thoughts - Not!

Warning: Spoilers for the plot such as it was for Hakuouki's first season.

I was all ready to write a full-on rant about how the last episode of Hakuouki left everything unresolved. Then I read the following:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-06-19/hakuoki-2nd-season-green-lit-for-fall

Well, cancel the rant. ;) But only just. Because honestly, even though there is now going to be a second season, I don't know that that's an excuse for a first season that moved... at the... speed... of... mud.

Take the Shinsengumi, add vampires, and a girl who's looking for her missing father. Introduce several oni clans, reveal a shocking fact about the heroine (she's an oni!), and... and... that was about it, actually. Has there ever been less of a story told in twelve episodes?

Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan, the anime series, was based on an otome game. I'm not a gamer, but from what I understand these games give you several different endings. In particular, otome games are romance games - you can have the heroine end up with different male characters.

In Hakuouki, Chizuru ends up with... nobody.

Not only that - she doesn't even come close to becoming involved with any of the BishengumiShinsengumi, and there are plenty of candidates: young Heisuke, who is her own age:



... the tall, gallant Harada with his wicked naginata weapon:



... the cheerful and brave Shinpachi:



... the beautiful, doomed Okita:



... and the silent, mysterious Saito.



Instead, the only character who makes her blush is Hijikata:



Hijikata, who would be around 29 years old in the timeframe of the story. Chizuru looks to be about 16. Hijikata is certainly attractive, but the attraction seems a bit unrealistic, as well as one-sided - the Shinsengumi vice-captain is as protective of her as the other men are, but he doesn't seem to view her in any special, romantic way. So, if the main point of an otome game is to have the heroine end up with the best possible match, the anime takes this in a direction that doesn't seem to make sense.

It may be difficult to adapt a video game with no set plot and make an anime series out of it - but it's not as though there wasn't enough material to build on. There's the actual history of the real-life Shinsengumi for starters, which to be fair the series has followed at least somewhat accurately. There's also the oni/rasetsu angle, with the characters drinking a mysterious red liquid medicine - called ochimizu - which turns them into rasetsu, or faux oni with superhuman powers. And then, of course, Chizuru is searching for her father, the physician who researched and created the ochimizu on the Shogun's orders and who experimented on the Shinsengumi to create "super soldiers." There was enough from the video game, in other words, to have filled these first twelve episodes with more than Chizuru getting rescued from danger umpteen times, and scenes of her sweeping the grounds of the Shinsengumi headquarters, vaguely wondering where her father could be.



Chizuru has turned out to be a disappointment as a female lead. At first she was cute in her samurai boy-drag, with her little sword, but she never developed into a heroine you could get behind. The video game apparently has her being trained to fight by commander Kondo, but you never see this in the anime. Instead, Chizuru is one of those girl leads who gets rescued time and again by the men around her. She also never develops much of a personality; she shows no particular passion or focus. There's nothing driving her - even her desire to find her father is muted, and seems almost to be forgotten as time goes by and with the dailiness of her duties with the Shinsengumi.

Hakuouki, at least in its first season, worked best on two levels. The first is simply as a feast for the eye - and I don't just mean the bishonen. The art design is truly gorgeous to look at: the late-Edo period Kyoto cityscape, the brilliant Shinsengumi uniforms and yes, the men as well.

The second is as an elegy for the Shinsengumi. Where Hakuouki has been most affecting is in its quiet moments, in its sense of the Shinsengumi being the last generation of samurai and representing the end of an era for Japan. The series may have dragged its feet on advancing the plot, and given us a semi-irritating helpless heroine - but it shines as a mood piece.

Here's a wonderful AMV - based entirely on the video game - that gives one a sense of what the first season of Hakuouki could have been like... if they'd remembered it was supposed to be a romance:





I especially love the montage from 3:20-3:44, with its sense of the men of the Shinsengumi walking into legend, into history.

So after everything I just said, yes, I'll be watching the second season come this fall. It hooked and reeled me in enough. I do hope that the producers remember that Chizuru's father is still missing, and further, that - since there's no guarantee of being renewed for a third season - more action and plot advancement in the second season would be an extremely good thing. ;)

Follow the String

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,
regardless of time, place or circumstance.
The thread may stretch or tangle,
but it will never break."
-ancient Chinese belief

In the most recent manga chapter of Naruto, a character mentioned the "red thread of fate."

I first fell in love with this concept when I read a Hikaru no Go fanfic story about Hikaru and Akira being tied together with a 'red thread of destiny.' People seem to use this metaphor exclusively for the soulmate idea, but I prefer to think of it as applying to every relationship and every connection we have in life: our friends, our interests, the events that lead us to our careers, and so forth.

Anime and manga came into my life through a red thread of fate - a thread that led from one thing to the next. I had always been a genre fan, mainly science fiction. I was also an old-time slash fan and when I saw Mirage of Blaze with its yaoi overtones, I was fascinated and started watching other anime series. I discovered there were many different types of anime stories, began browsing through the manga section at the bookstore and as a result, anime and manga have become part of my own life story since 2006.

My theory as a writer and artist has always been to "follow the energy." What I mean by this is that I have always followed my interests. When something captures my interest, I will follow where that energy seems to be leading me to. I say "follow the energy," but it's quite possible that within that energy is hidden one of those fated red strings, leading me on to new discoveries, activities and people to engage with.

Recently I've been captivated by Hakuouki, an anime series about the Shinsengumi and, well, vampires. ;) I've fallen in love with Sannan, especially with his voice, which is acted by seiyuu Nobuo Tobita.




Tobita-san has a beautiful, soft voice that I simply can't get enough of at the moment. Of course, when this happens, the next thing to do is to look at other animes he's been in, and track down some of his character songs and listen to them on You Tube.





So I've been doing this, as well as rewatching some Hakuouki episodes. In rewatching the episodes, I found myself staring at Sannan a lot. I mean, like - really staring. I finally realized that I was fascinated with his simple but attractive samurai outfit, with its deep green kimono and dark blue vest.

And, in following that string, I suddenly got that I wanted to wear that outfit myself. So for the first time in my five years of being an anime fan, I will be cosplaying this year. I am going to Anime Expo dressed as Keisuke Sannan from Hakuouki.

In the past week I found myself - a third-generation Japanese-American - trying on and buying a kimono for the first time. The white collar, fake samurai swords and tabi socks came next. I am now looking for a dark blue vest and slippers, and wondering if one of my black skirts will do, or if I should invest in a pair of hakama pants (which I would be unlikely to wear outside of cosplaying at conventions - unless I take up kyudo archery, lol). If all goes well, I will look something like this:




I have the hairstyle, glasses and ethnicity down already. ;)

So this time, the thread has led to an area of fandom that I never imagined myself participating in. We'll see what comes out of my new cosplay adventure. It's good to follow the string.

Seiyuu Chart for Hakuouki

A blogger named Hashihime has done a fantastic chart of the seiyuu for Hakuouki:

http://hashihime.atspace.com/etc/hakuouki/hakuchar.html

I love the set-up of: 1) character picture; 2) character name; 3) seiyuu name; 4) seiyuu picture, and; 5) seiyuu's other anime credits. I wish there were charts like this for every anime series!

Hakuouki Ending Theme

My new favorite anime ending theme. :)

Anime Spring Season 2010

Just a quick post about the two new series I'm watching this spring season.

Hakuouki is the one I can definitely recommend to everybody. The story is about Chizuru, a young girl in Edo, whose physician father takes a temporary position in Kyoto and then goes missing. She disguises herself as a boy and travels to Kyoto, where she witnesses some rather paranormal, vampirish-looking samurai attacking another group of rogue samurai. The Shinsengumi intervene and take Chizuru captive. They discover that the man that they are looking for also happens to be the man Chizuru is looking for: her father. The Shinsengumi then agree to allow Chizuru to stay at their headquarters, still disguised as a boy, while they all search for her father.

This is a serious presentation of the Shinsengumi. The action sequences are exciting and realistically bloody, and the tone is all drama.

Much has been written in the anime blogosphere about Hakuouki's bishonen character designs. For me, that's just an added plus here: the story and characters are what make this series. The stirring background music and beautiful art design are further quality features. In sum, even if you don't particularly care for samurai stories, you might give Hakuouki a try.

The other series, well... There are good series that happen to feature bishonen character designs, and then there are series where bishonen character designs and screaming shonen-ai subtext are the main reasons for that series to exist. So let me briefly mention Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru, or Uraboku for short.




A young man can read people's minds when he physically touches them. He's a nice guy and has no idea why he has paranormal abilities. He frequently gets rescued from danger by a dark, sexy man, and when he does, memories of being somebody else seem to surface...

If you guessed that this young man was a female in his former life, and the girlfriend of the dark and sexy man, then you are: 1) an old anime hand who has seen this plot a thousand times before, and/or; 2) a shonen-ai and yaoi fan who will watch this kind of thing regardless of lack of originality, if the character designs are attractive enough and your favorite seiyuu are in it.

I'm in the latter category. I get that this story isn't exactly stunningly original, but it's pretty to look at; and Takahiro Sakurai, Souichiro Hoshi and Akira Ishida are in it, so I'm in for the long haul. ;) I can only recommend it to other shonen-ai and yaoi fans, however, as the rest of you are likely to either fall asleep or run screaming at the sight of it.

Hope everyone is enjoying this spring season of anime!

The Romance of the Shinsengumi

I am currently finishing the writing of a novel called Kaminishi. It's a time-travel yaoi romance about a samurai warlord and a modern-day American graduate student. It's mostly set in Japan in 1851.

Now, 1851 is a tricky year to try to recreate. That was two years before Commodore Perry arrived with his black ships - so the Japanese characters, particularly the samurai, need to be described as looking authentically late-Edo period in their clothing. While doing research for this novel, however, I discovered that there are a lot of movies that are set either in the very late-Edo period - the Shinsengumi period, when the shogunate was about to lose power and bite the dust as an institution - or in the Warring States period, around 1600, with Kenshin Uesugi, Nobunaga Oda and all those guys. But there aren't a lot of movies set in-between those two times, or more specifically, in the period just before Perry landed; in other words, the period I need to recreate visually for the reader in terms of what people wore, what the cities of Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo) looked like then, what foods they ate, etc.

The Shinsengumi period (1860s) still had samurai, and it is late-Edo - the end of the Edo period, in fact - so it's been tempting for me to try to use movies and anime set in that time period for research. The problem is: not only Western ideas, but Western fashions had already begun to infiltrate Japanese society, even the samurai, by then.

Some samurai began wearing Western-style soldier dress. But thankfully - not the Shinsengumi. ;)

The Shinsengumi fascinate me and it's easy to romanticize them, as it is to romanticize the last of any breed, culture or group. They were the samurai holdouts, the representatives of a dying era and cult of ideals.

As part of my research, I recently watched Peace Maker Kurogane, a rather uneven anime series about the Shinsengumi. The protagonist is an annoying brat named Tetsunosuke Ichimura:




Tetsu joins the Shinsengumi, for whom his older brother Tatsunosuke already works as a bookkeeper:




Both Tetsu and his brother Tatsu actually existed and are documented Shinsengumi members. I kind of doubt the real-life Tetsu looked like that, however. ;)

Peace Maker Kurogane begins as a rather comical and lighthearted series, but in the last four or five episodes it turns gut-wrenchingly, hideously violent. It's as if a 24-episode TV series started off as Pokemon and then turned into Silence of the Lambs around episode 19 or 20 or so. (One could write a post just on bizarre tone shifts in anime. And Peace Maker Kurogane should top the list.)

If you watch any movies or anime about the Shinsengumi, the major players become familiar quite quickly. For us fangirls, Soji Okita is a favorite.




Historically, Soji Okita was supposed to be tall and dark. He was an excellent swordsman, and he died of tuberculosis. If you're watching a Shinsengumi story and a samurai suddenly starts coughing up blood, that's Soji.

In Peace Maker Kurogane, Soji is so beautiful that he looks female. Soji Okita, for some reason, has been personified as a bishonen in Shinsengumi recreations, including the movie Gohatto where he's played by Shinji Takeda; and the TV series Shinsengumi! where he's played by Tatsuya Fujiwara (Light Yagami in the Death Note movies).

The two leaders of the Shinsengumi were Isami Kondo and Toshizo Hijikata. Here's Kondo in Peace Maker Kurogane:



... and Hijikata:




What I'm about to show you next may shock you a little.

This is Isami Kondo.



And this is Toshizo Hijikata.




One thing about the Shinsengumi that differentiates them from other samurai is: we have photographs of some of them.

Most historical figures are a little misty around the edges. We read about their childhoods and adult lives, their exploits, triumphs, failures... and they seem more like characters in a book than people who actually lived.

But starting in the mid-19th century, even in isolated Japan, some of those figures were forever immortalized by the new technology: photography.

When I look at the photos of Kondo and Hijikata, it jolts me. Suddenly all the romantic imagery of the end of the samurai and Japan's pre-industrial era come smack up against hard reality. The Shinsengumi were samurai in an era when the samurai actually had to fight again. After hundreds of years of an indolent peace in which they largely engaged in cultural pursuits, the Shinsengumi were the last samurai to take up arms; and they went out in a fierce, bloody blaze of glory. Kondo was captured and beheaded in 1868 at the age of 33. Hijikata was killed a year later on the battlefield at Hakodate. He was 34 years old.

A new Shinsengumi anime series, Hakuouki, just started this spring. The legend of the Shinsengumi continues to evoke the dream-like beauty of that historical era in Japan and the long twilight - and violent end - of the samurai culture in our imaginations. The drawing to a close of that era is a theme in Kaminishi. When the novel comes out, in the tradition of kigo, or change-of-seasons imagery, look for a lot of falling autumn leaves. ;)