‘The Last Monster’ – Onyx Equinox and the Worldviews We Never See

At the 2019 Anime Expo, I attended Netflix’s panel on the final day of the convention. They did a presentation on Seis Manos, an anime-style animated series about young men trained in martial arts who seek to avenge their fallen master. The story was set in Mexico, and it fell into that shadow zone of a dark animated series that borrowed somewhat from anime, but which ultimately was in a category of its own.

You can call that kind of story anime inspired. There’s no connection to Japan, but it has that certain feel that comes with anime storytelling.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because Onyx Equinox is in that same as yet undefined category of animation. Created by a Mexican animator - Sofia Alexander - and produced by Crunchyroll, with animation teams in Korea and elsewhere, and set in a fantasy Mesoamerica with gods and monsters, Onyx Equinox continues this carving out of new space in animation, particularly with regard to cultures not explored before in this field.

Izel, a young boy, and his older sister Nelli are enslaved persons in a household in early pre-Columbian Yucatan.

The gods are experiencing a blood drought due to fewer human sacrifices. When Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Underworld, destroys a city and steals its blood sacrifices, the gods enlist Quetzalcoatl to close the five gates to the underworld. His fellow god Tezcatlipoca wants to destroy humanity, but agrees to a bet with Quetzalcoatl: that if the “lowest of the low” of humanity can close the gates before the next equinox, humanity will be spared.

In the meantime, Izel is chosen as a sacrifice by his city to avoid the same fate as the city that Mictlantecuhtli destroyed. Nelli offers to take Izel’s place, and Izel learns of this too late, arriving in time to see Nelli’s throat cut and her body fall into the pit.

Izel, devastated, tries to kill himself later that night by throwing himself into the same pit filled with dark water. Instead, he experiences a mysterious electrification. His eyes turn teal blue, and he’s rescued by a godlike talking panther named Yaotl, having now become humanity’s champion - the “lowest of the low” referred to by the gods - and tasked with closing the five gates by the next equinox.

Izel and Yaotl travel to visit Izel’s former guardian. This guardian now has two adopted teenage twin boys, Yun and K’in. The boys are Ulama ballplayers, Ulama being a form of basketball with the hoops being affixed to walls in a horizontal instead of vertical position.

After a series of events, the twins join Izel on his mission.

Now - I need to be honest here. It’s not like I seamlessly picked up on all of the details of the above description just by watching the episodes. I had to go to Onyx Equinox’s Wikipedia page and other sites to get the details, because the exposition scenes go by so fast in the first few episodes that it’s hard to nail down everything. You get enough of it that you understand the gods have a bet going, Izel is the chosen one, that he has to close five gates to the underworld, and that the deadline is the equinox, but with everything else that’s going on visually on the screen, the rest of it sort of gets trampled underfoot.

It doesn’t help that when you first see the gods, they’re not actually in their real bodies. They inhabit recently-deceased human corpses to hold their conversations, after which the corpses dissipate - leaving you going “huh?” at first, until you catch on - which seemed like unnecessarily complicating things.

As the story proceeds, Izel’s group is joined by Zyanya and Xanastaku. Zyanya is a warrior woman and Xanastaku is a girl with paranormal powers and a mysterious and dark past.

I could go on describing the plot, but you can read the plot of the story elsewhere. Because Crunchyroll decided to upload all 12 episodes in late December, I’ve seen the entire series now. So what do I think of the series?

Onyx Equinox is a standout animated series in a number of ways. Although it follows a more or less familiar shonen storyline, the fact that it’s set in a different culture than what anime fans are used to - ancient Mesoamerica - gives it a fresh and appealing newness.

One of the things that hooked me in early and kept me hooked was the art design. The art in Onyx Equinox is absolutely amazing. The scenes are awash in beautiful teal and turquoise, deep rust hues, and orange and yellow tones. Besides the vivid colors, the architecture of the temples and cities with their distinctive Aztec, Maya and Olmec motifs captures and holds your gaze. It’s a visual feast from start to finish.

And that includes the character designs and costumes, particularly of the gods.

That’s Mictecacihuatl, the god-wife of the Lord of the Underworld, above. Although the focus at first is on the male gods and their bet, as the story develops, we find out that Mictecacihuatl is a lot more involved in what’s going on than initially appears to be the case.

The music is great, with an authentic feel of the region. I read that the opening features Mayan chants, and the ending, a lovely and soft song, is in Nahuatl.





Izel has a certain character growth arc, though he didn’t develop as much as I would’ve liked to see. But fortunately the other characters surrounding him are interesting, and they definitely change and grow through the series, making the emotional aspect of the characters work as a whole.

Because there’s scads of brutal, visceral violence - as well as sexual content and nudity, both female and male - a minimum age of 16 would be a good idea for viewing this series.

If Onyx Equinox was a Japanese shonen series, I would rate it between 7 and 8. If Izel had been better developed as a character, it would be an 8. In other words, assessing it strictly on how well it executed the basics - plot, overall story, direction, action sequences, characters, visual design and music - this would be a series worth watching, one I would recommend to others.

But really, I would give it an 8 for an additional reason.

Crunchyroll’s preview of the series got a lot of comments on You Tube. One of them stopped me in my tracks. After viewing the preview, which shows various fantastical monsters attacking humans, I read this comment:

The last monster will be a Spaniard named Cortez.
I invite you to consider the importance of any series that would provoke a comment like that one. There’s a whole worldview behind that comment, one that clearly doesn’t get to see its point of view reflected every day in animated series, TV, or movies.

Representation is about more than being seen - though it’s about that, too. It goes beyond casting a black guy along with all the white guys in a TV beer commercial. It’s about a multiplicity of viewpoints, and unrecognized truths, and basic fairness. It’s about watching a familiar story, but told with brown-skinned indigenous characters that run the gamut from noble and good to bad and villainous - just like you’d see in a story about anyone else.

Onyx Equinox, by its very existence, widens the field of what can be done in animated entertainment, as at the same time it levels that same field for the rest of us who create “non-standard” stories. That’s the meta behind my recommendation - but feel free to watch it just because it’s good. :-)

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.

Ai no Kusabi - New OVA Series

I read recently at ANN that Media Blasters will release the 2012 OVA series of Ai no Kusabi in December.

I actually hadn’t heard there was a 2012 version. I recall seeing an episode of the 1992 OVA series featuring Kaneto Shiozawa as Iason Mink and Toshihiko Seki as Riki some years ago. That series is still much loved among yaoi fans, but fans also seem to love the new 2012 series. So I’m looking forward to this release.



I’m currently editing Ai no Kusabi, vol. 8, the latest in the novel series by Rieko Yoshihara.

Ai no Kusabi is set in a futuristic universe where an elite class known as “Blondies” rules over other humans. Iason Mink, a Blondy, finds himself captivated by a dark-haired “slum mongrel” hustler named Riki. In the course of the story, Iason captures Riki twice and makes him his “pet” or sex slave.

From the illustration above, you might think that Ai no Kusabi has deviant sex dripping off of every page—but oddly enough that’s not the case. There’s sex in the story all right, but Yoshihara is more interested in examining her world of Blondies, aliens, underclass humans and other beings in terms of the power struggle between levels of society.

First published in Japan in 2001, Ai no Kusabi is emblematic of a kind of story you’d probably never see from an American writer mainly due to the racial overtones. (Iason Mink is actually more cyborg than human, but I don’t think that helps.) It’s hard to picture an American writer feeling free to write a story about a “blondy” subjugating “dark-haired” humans. Many of the “pets” are also under-18 teenagers, another reason why Ai no Kusabi is controversial.

My own view is that political correctness should never stop creators at the front end. By that I mean that writers should be able to write what they want and face whatever criticism comes after the fact, but let writers—and artists—have the run of their imagination first.

I won’t argue that Ai no Kusabi is for everyone—obviously it isn’t—but I will say that I envy the freedom that Japanese writers and artists have to write whatever they feel like writing and seemingly without some of the self-limiting “PC” constraints that give American writers pause. I don’t know whether it’s due to Japanese cultural insularity or just that anything goes in boy’s love, but even if I never wound up using it, I wish I had that freedom.

Your Big Eyes Are Scaring Me

When I first got into anime, I wondered why ostensibly Japanese characters seemed to look more Western or Caucasian than Asian. (Although a character with eyes one-third the size of their face and with green hair probably couldn't be called Western either - or even recognizably human. ;)) The explanation I was least comfortable coming up with was that the Japanese were envious of Western features. But that still wouldn't explain the extreme prevalence of characters who were drawn that way.

As defined by the terrifyingly addictive TV Tropes website, mukokuseki means the use of ambiguous racial features in anime. (The word apparently means, "stateless.") According to the article, this actually began with Osamu Tezuka's work, which in turn had been inspired by Disney (the original purveyor of big-eyed characters - whether they be Caucasian, other race, or cute animals).

Does the use of big eyes, round-looking eyes or Western-appearing features indicate a kind of racial self-aversion or self-loathing on the part of the Japanese? I think that's extremely doubtful.

The "big eye" syndrome in anime, I think, is actually meant to show the innocence or youthfulness of the character. You see big eyes most often on characters who are children or teenagers, or animal characters. "Big eye," therefore, doesn't necessarily mean "round" or Western eye. Or you will see anime in which all or nearly all of the characters have big eyes - in which case, it's simply the character design for that particular anime series.

(What I really take issue with is when the male adult character is shown with realistic-sized eyes, but the female adult character has the same big eyes as the child characters. But the implications behind that have to do with sexism - not racism.)

The wild hair colors and hairstyles often seen in anime, I would think are simply because they can. In a country where nearly everyone has similar eye and hair coloring, I think manga and anime artists are just mixing it up for the fun of it. The style in Tokyo a few years ago was neon-colored hair, so it looks like everyone over there got a little bored. ;)

Something else I've noticed is that there is often a Japanese-looking character in an anime where everyone else looks mukokuseki. It's as if the Japanese want to have at least one character who undeniably looks like them, so they'll put in at least one (and it's inevitably a character who is attractive, powerful, sexy or some other positive attribute) that looks identifiably Japanese: with slanted eyes, high cheekbones, and black or dark hair (where the surrounding characters have lighter hair). Sasuke in Naruto is one example. Others would include Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist:


There's Uryuu Ishida from Bleach:



And Kunimitsu Tezuka from The Prince of Tennis:



Sasuke is Naruto's eternal rival; Roy Mustang is Edward Elric's sometimes mentor/sometimes antagonist; Ishida is a rival (of sorts) to Bleach protagonist Ichigo; and Tezuka is the silent, macho captain of the tennis club. They're all very memorable, stand-out type characters, and they all definitely look Japanese.

There are other ways in which the mukokuseki issue arises in manga and anime, but I think the bottom line main issue is whether it is racist or not, particularly in the sense of the Japanese self-view. I don't think it is, but the point remains a debatable one.

And really, the Japanese don't need to look outside of themselves for models for human attractiveness. The homegrown variety of bishonen does just fine, thank you. Lest one think that manga and anime artists have to draw Japanese bishonen because none exist on native soil:






The three Japanese actors above are reminders that real life trumps animation anytime. Lucky for us girls!

The Last Airbender - Being Invisible

I’ve apparently been living under a rock, having not noticed until now that there’s a controversy going on involving The Last Airbender, a feature film directed by M. Night Shyamalan. (This film has just wrapped production and is due to be released in theaters next year.) It’s basically an Asian story about Asian characters. It has been cast with Caucasian actors. The following, from Derek Kirk Kim’s blog, is a great post on the topic:

http://derekkirkkim.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-day-in-politics-same-old-racist.html

I particularly love this quote:

>>I was speaking with Gene Yang (author of “American Born Chinese” and National Book Award nominee) about the casting and he said it best: “It’s like a white Asian fetishist’s wet dream. All the Asian culture they want, without any of the Asian people.”<<

Derek Kirk Kim also mentions that when he was in high school, he dreamed of becoming an actor. I am sure I am much older than Mr. Kim, but this struck a chord with me, since I had that desire when I was young as well. The thing with the casting choices made for The Last Airbender is that it’s a story which obviously could have featured Asian actors, but the choice was made to cast white actors instead. What this kind of choice, made over and over again in Hollywood, winds up doing is that it leaves Asians and other minorities invisible, and in just the properties in which their visibility would make perfect sense. (And it’s not the only recent example either – the movie 21 was based on a real-life story about an Asian-American geek student-turned-gambler. In the movie, the protagonist was played by a Caucasian actor.)

And what these casting choices lead to ultimately is people like Mr. Kim and myself, Asian-Americans of different generations, coming to the conclusion at an early age that even thinking of becoming an actor is a non-starter, having not seen anyone who looked like us in movies and TV.

There are exceptions, of course, and bless John Cho (Harold and Kumar, Star Trek), who must have noted the odds when he was young, and decided to pursue an acting career regardless. And I believe if you’re really meant to do something in life, you will end up making that choice anyway.

But this endless default casting of white actors is retro-thinking – and not the cool or good kind of retro either. In a nation that just elected a black President, this seeming fear in Hollywood that no one will come to see a movie unless the actors are white makes it apparent that it’s Hollywood that is behind in its thinking - and not the audience.

Anime Expo 2009

Anime Expo 2009 was held this past weekend at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

AX is the largest anime and manga-related convention in North America (the number of unique attendees for AX 2009 was estimated at 44,000 following the event), and the place to take the pulse of the anime and manga industry. In various keynote addresses and industry roundtables, the consensus appeared to be that the recession was definitely affecting the industry, particularly the smaller and more niche companies; and further, that digital distribution of anime was beginning to fulfill its promise as the new standard for delivery of anime at virtually the same time as it is aired in Japan.

The experience of being around 44,000 anime fans in one place is a bit overwhelming. All of that youthful energy, many of them wearing cosplay outfits (designed to make them look like their favorite anime characters) and in high spirits (read: shrieking and running down hallways), can be a bit startling.

Another startling thing may be, if you’re not already familiar with it, the demographics of the fans you’re seeing. A casual eye-estimate shows you that minorities are in the majority here: Asian-Americans, African-Americans and Latino-Americans make up perhaps 65 - 70 percent of the fan base that come to conventions.

Does this mean anything? I think it does, in the sense that mainstream American entertainment is still dominated culture-wise and image-wise by Caucasian-Americans and by what is perceived as being middle American cultural norms and values. The fans who are ethnic minorities have discovered, in anime and manga, a different view of life, made by non-whites and from a different culture with which they feel more comfortable identifying, at least some of the time.

Stories in Japanese anime and manga, while often utilizing fantastical elements, are basically like stories written in any culture: they’re about life and people, about childhood, and about making one’s way in the world. What they’re not about is sanitizing or sugarcoating the experience of being human; and particularly of being a child. Anime and manga stories often feature abusive parents or other authority figures, merciless enemies, and other obstacles that the young protagonist must face. And yet, by the end of the story, the hero often discovers his empowerment through his desire to protect others, as opposed to living only for himself; and even more amazing, the villain is usually revealed to be just as worthy of being considered fully human as the protagonist is.

This multi-layered, in-depth characterization of even the bad guy in a story is only one of the attractions of anime and manga. And I think minority fans in America, looking for entertainment that is different from a mainstream culture that largely either ignores or stereotypes them, have found a universe that speaks to them and within which they can feel included.

All 44,000 fans who showed up for Anime Expo are on to something. (And of course, they represent just the tip of the iceberg – as not every fan wants to attend or can afford to attend conventions.) They’re saying yes to a different kind of storytelling, one that allows for the full spectrum of life experience. And if Hollywood wants their dollars, it might consider paying some attention.