Entry 099: "K-On!"

I hope you like your characters like you like your cake.

Dear Internet,

                I do not get it, Internet.  I do not get the hype over the anime "K-On!"  If you had monitored any sort of anime forum or message board, or even a few print formats if you can find one, that monitors the anime circuit, you would have noticed the explosion that came from this show.  People clamored for "K-On!"  They claimed it was the best thing since slice bread.  The sheer number of fan works that stem from this show is proof enough of this show's popularity.  This further confounds me considering that the show is based on a four panel comic strip manga.  One would think that the manga would receive more attention, but from what I gather, this outpouring of admiration is directed towards the anime mostly.  The characters have been plastered on everything from high level calculators to being used as marketing spokeswomen.  They are even plastered on trains and cars by some people.  But then again, considering that Pokemon got on a plane, I should not be surprised at how Japan knows how to sell a product, and sell it repeatedly.  The multitude of music albums and side items besides home videos of the show prove this.  A quick count shows 15 music albums, and I do not want to try and count all the models and statures that were made.  But I am getting ahead of myself again.

                "K-On!" follows the everyday lives of some half dozen high school girls.  There are the four, and then five, members of the light music club who form a band.  There is the guitarist, the drummer, the bassist, a keyboard player, and then another guitarist that comes later.  Then there is a childhood friend, a teacher advisor for the club, and one or two other nameless characters here and there.  But then again, I have not named any of the characters to begin with.  That is because there is not really much of a reason to remember their names.  The characters are pretty bland and forgettable with only one or two traits that are exclusive to each one.  The main guitarist is a ditz, the bassist is the mature one that is easily scared, the keyboardist is rich and somewhat quiet, the drummer is energetic and somewhat an airhead, the second guitarist is serious and the youngest, and the teacher is a fanatic for cosplay with a punk rocker past.  After that, nearly every other facet of their personalities becomes almost indistinguishable from one another.

                Take for example sweets, teas and candies.  After a long day in school, the group retires to their clubroom.  What do they do once they have reached their room of solace?  Do they begin to shred those electric guitars?  Do they beat out a rhythm to drive away their fears on the drums?  Do they play that keyboard a melody that gets them feeling alright?  No, they eat cake, drink tea, and play around.  And they do this for the entirety of some episodes.  In the thirteen episodes that the first season makes use of, the group only makes three live performances with a few jam sessions scattered here and there.  When these jam sessions take place, they are short and sometimes painfully to the point.  What I mean by this is that when they practice, sometimes the show will completely skip over the practice and only show the result of the session.  If someone plays poorly, the show does not display their inability by actually showing them playing badly so that we can hear them play off beat or miss a note.  The show will cut straight to when they are no longer playing and instead shows the reactions of the other characters.  This format repeats in a number of different varieties, but it points out a big problem with the show.

Practice, who needs to practice?  They got the power of friendship to make them play better.

                The show is not much about music despite depicting itself as such, especially considering it is following a music club.  The show even recognizes this when the second guitarist calls out the group for not practicing much.  Consider that in the span of the thirteen episodes, there are two major references to musical techniques concerning the guitar.  Not counting the chords since that would be like mentioning the term "beat" regarding the drums, the show mentions vibrato and mutes.  Beyond that, the show never delves deeper into the intricacies of music or music theory.  It is all somewhat whitewashed over by pure ignorance and willful ignoring.  The ignorance is on the behalf of the main guitarist who does not know much about the instrument she plays.  The ignoring aspect comes from the fact that the show makes her play nearly perfectly to the point that it needs to be called out.  She does not know what a tuner is until her second year of playing the guitar and has been tuning her instrument solely by ear.  On top of that, she picks up her skill so quickly that it is laughable, even though this is what the show is aiming for, but I will get to the comedy aspect in a bit.  The fact that she gets so good at playing the guitar while at the same time has massive holes in her knowledge of the item is more unbelievable rather that humorous.  The amount of practice that she would have to do to get that good would require much more blistering and bloody fingers than the show displays or hints to.  In the thirteen episodes, she gets one finger injury that requires a Band-Aid.  Otherwise, her talent is supernatural.

                While the whole time I watched this show today, I was constantly thinking of "Eyeshield 21."  This is perhaps a silly little notion, but, please, humor me for a while, at least longer than "K-On!" humored me.  "Eyeshield 21" and "K-On" both follow the high school club formula.  That is to say they both consist of high school students gathering together in an extracurricular activity while setting on their sights on some goal.  "Eyeshield 21" had the Christmas Bowl, and the show centered on the various dreams of those that aimed for it as well as the lengths they were willing to go to try and reach that goal.  "K-On!" has got Budokan, a major venue that can be thought of as a Japanese Madison Square Garden.  "K-On! treats the goal as more of a joke rather than a respectable dream considering how Budokan is featured as a punch line often and how the show does not really showcase the girls earnestly aiming for that goal.  Both shows feature some sort of end point, but they do it in different ways.  In "Eyeshield 21" it is a dream, but in "K-On!" it is a daydream made of fluff and marshmallows.  It is not a serious thing in "K-On!" despite the characters claiming it is, especially with the lack of hard work that the group puts into their practice.

I could add an "or bust" joke here, but the show makes enough boob jokes.

                Another comparison between the two shows can be made concerning how the shows handle interpersonal relationships.  Both shows have a group dynamic that requires the individuals to forego themselves for the betterment of the others.  One is an American football team, and the other is a musical band.  Both need cooperation for the group to reach the short term goals and the long term ones.  But I want to mention the intricacies that exist outside the game and the performances.  Each handles the relationships between characters similar.  They focus on the bonds of friendship that ensure that strengthen the resolve and ability of the group as a whole.  In "K-On!", the bassist and drummer are old friends, so that dynamic is already there.  Early on, the group comes together to help the guitarist make enough money to buy her dream guitar.  Even though their work is for naught in the end, it still shows their willingness to come to the aid of each other, even if at the same time it displays the stupidity of the guitarist to aim for a guitar that costs $2500 rather than a starting instrument.

                I want to touch upon the show's humor briefly before I end this rant.  The jokes are poorly timed.  There is no doubt about this, especially considering how the show is overall not very funny.  If one compares it to another 4 panel comedy manga adaptation like "Azumanga Daioh" or even "Cromatie high School," one will find what the show is instead placing emphasis on.  It is not on the comedy, otherwise the amount of jokes could double or triple in their amount, considering how infrequent they occur.  Instead, the show wants to put emphasis on the growing phenomena of "cute girls doing cute things."  It is exactly what it sounds like with all the lack of a definitive plot line or even a central theme beyond that.  I do not necessarily mind this rather shallow theme.  Sometimes you got to watch a bunch of kittens on Youtube, but that does not mean that it is an excuse for anything more than a mild amusement at best.  "Azumanga Daioh" might fall under this category accidently, but that would require one to completely ignore the comical aspect of the show which is much more important to the show's dynamics.  One would do a better job of being a matador and ignoring the bull's horns.  "K-On! spends an extensive amount of time trying to show the characters either being cute through their ditzy behavior or absentmindedness.   Almost all of the jokes stem from this to the point that if you do not find them cute, or even irritating and unlikable, the show then has no merit.  Perhaps if the show were to make the characters more fleshed out and actually individuals with all that entail, one might become emotionally empathetic to them.  However, the show never goes that far since the girls are made as shallow cardboard cut outs with the only difference being how much each contains post-consumer waste.

                "K-On!" is a bland, average show.  It does nothing unique or very enjoyable.  The only single thing it does right is the musical performances, which include the opening/closing credits.  The songs are somewhat fun, if not a bit lacking on the lyrical department.  Then again, that might be due to a cross language barrier, so I will not strike against the show.  The characters are forgettable.  The plot is nonexistent.  The jokes rely too much on shallow emotional tricks rather than tangible comedy.  Slapstick is better than the watching the same joke for the tenth time that relies on them eating cake.  All I can think about right now is that I have to watch the second season, which has twice the amount of episodes as the first.  The only reason I can think of as why this show got a second season was that it was highly marketable beyond sales of home media.  Either that or the Japanese are suckers for cute girls doing nothing, which includes being entertaining.

Merchandising! Merchandising!

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

Entry 098: "A Connecticul Yankee in King Arthur's Court" Pt. 2 End

Dear Internet,

                "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is a wonderfully whimsical book that rarely takes itself seriously.  It does on occasion do so but let me hold off on that for a second.  The novel is one of wit and humor, which should be expected from Mark Twain.  The humor comes from a number of different sources, but the bulk comes from the narrator himself, the Boss.  The Boss is a collection of silly mannerisms and thought processes that rival the simplicity that he sees in the English peasants.  For example, the very first thing that Boss does when he is given power is to make a Patent office.  Making schools and telegraph lines comes afterwards, but he wants to make sure that there is an office that can prove that he thought up the various inventions he makes.

                The Boss is a constant source of humor, usually when he himself does not realize it, which is more a showcase of Twain's ability to make a comical protagonist.  Near the end of the book, Boss must face up against a number of knights in armor riding horses.  He disposes of them one by one using nothing more than a lasso.  The image of a cowboy facing off against men in plate armor wielding lances and swords is enough to cause the work to have a surreal set up.  Just moments later, Boss is popping one left and right using side arms while the populace claim witchcraft.  Later on, the book details the final hurrah that the Boss creates when his technological empire begins to crumble beneath his feet.  We all knew it could not last considering that there are no traces of such an outlandish story being true, even within the confines of the book.  This last stand is one that would otherwise be morbid if it were not for the fact that the narrator is doing most of his plotting off the duff and nonchalantly.  His ego is what makes it so comical.

                However, the book is not entirely a barrel full of monkeys.  There are times that the book knows to pull at the reader's heartstrings.  The most notable one in my mind is one that occurs when King Arthur travels the countryside alongside Boss while in the disguise of a peasant farmer.  In their travels, Arthur sees many things that he would otherwise not.  From slavery that is an indignity against humanity to the actions of lords who act against a human, Arthur sees firsthand the kingdom that he rules.  The amount that he absorbs into his mind is questionable and can be argued to not have made much of an effect on him.  I digress, for the segment that I want to mention is the one that lies in the chapter called "The Smallpox Hut."  Within this chapter, a woman is found to be diseased by smallpox, and her family is touched by the malice as well.  She recounts her situation which has led to her abandonment by the other villagers and the clergy.  It is filled with hardship and misfortune.  The single chapter can stand on its own ability, and I recommend it to you to read it.

                Even the book's final ending of the Boss knows how to make a tragedy out of a comedy.  I have said that the narrator is a fool and is made fun of by his actions.  The book does not take him seriously nor should we.  He is a smart dumb man, if that is possible.  The fact that his downfall stems from the superstitious tendencies of the populace or at least the unwilling nature to learn the truth of science highlights the fact that he himself is unwilling to learn and remember the nature of those people.  If he was as willing to learn about the people around his as he wished for them to learn, he probably would have foreseen and prevented the eventual downfall.  But the end of the book remembers to not paint him as a one sided coin.  Even in his last moments upon his deathbed, the Boss's positive qualities are highlighted just enough to make the reader remember that even he had some good qualities about him.  In fact, nearly every character is given this treatment of well-roundedness.  King Arthur is a simpleton that does not know where vegetables come from, but he knows warfare and how to rule.  Morgan le Fey is a tyrant that knows no mercy, but she keeps a clean house.  Sandy has a way with words that never seems to end, but she has some qualities that even the narrator found admirable.  "Yankee" does not paint a picture with flat colors.  Instead it uses shades to remind the reader of the many facets of people.

                "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is an enjoyable book to say the least.  It made me laugh and cry, albeit quietly lest I come across as being weirder than I already am.  It is a book that remembers to not take itself too seriously while at the same time takes its topic as serious.  It is a rightful paradox through and through.  It entertains and provokes thought, which is essential to a book.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S Next is "K-On!" and "K-On!!"  Why in the world is this in my Backlog?

Entry 097: "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" Pt. 1

Dear Internet,

                It is somewhat comical about the juxtaposition of the random cards I pick.  Ignoring the middle man of "Genocyber," which is rather recommendable even outside the context of this entry, I pulled "Stranger in a Strange Land" and then "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain.  The two books do very similar things but take two completely different roads about it and end in completely different paths, or at least I think they will since I only got half way through "Yankee" today.  But I am getting ahead of myself again.

                "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" follows the self narrative tale of a man that claims to have traveled to the days of knights and tables round.  Twain starts off with the story being not from his own hand but a manuscript from another person.  The man who narrates the tale is a factory engineer and foreman who, after receiving a blow to the head from one of his workers, was thrown back some 1300 years into the past.  There, he is captured rather passively by Sir Kay and is brought to the court of Camelot.  Sir Kay tells an elaborate story of how he had to fight off numerous wizards for hours on end and that the narrator was the last one whom Sir Kay decided to spare.  That is to say he lies.  The narrator is marked as a spell weaver and thrown into the dungeon to be burned at the stake.  He thankfully remembers one tiny bit of information concerning a total eclipse that just so happens right when he is going to be burned.  He uses this information to make the populace fear him as a powerful wizard just when the sun becomes obstructed by the moon the next day.  Afterwards, he receives a place of power next to King Arthur and is thence referred to by the title "The Boss."

                The novel is filled with satire and humor, which is expected of Mark Twain.  The characters that populate the story are some of the simplest minded individuals that you will meet.  They are like children with their level of reasoning.  They lie to one another with reckless abandon and believe another's lie just as quickly.  The tall tales that the knights brag to one another make the knights boarder somewhere between habitual liars and pathological liars.  The fact that the narrator almost was burned at the stake for one of these bragging lies shows how dangerous these lies can be.  However, the narrator comes to sympathize with them for having being ignorant rather than being stupid.  He thinks that with a little education, the lot could be made civilized to the point of the then modern America.  The joke here is that The Boss is neither more civilized than those that are around him, only more knowledgeable in the field of science.  It is even more comical when The Boss sympathizes with Morgan le Fay's choice to hang a group of poorly playing musicians.

                The book, and by proxy the narrator, knows how to make a theatrical scene.  Numerous times already, The Boss has had to go toe to toe against the book's Merlin.  The Merlin in "Yankee" is one far removed from the traditional one that we hear in our bedtime stories.  He is simply made as a charlatan witch doctor with all the trappings of a superstitious old coot.  His magic can do nothing other than make a few puff of smoke and chant some nonsense words that he believes will fix the world's problems.  The narrator is pretty much the same with the exception that what he does for the audience that views his works he does not believe to be magic because he knows it is not.  The narrator will create billowing plumes of smoke of various colors that are followed by rockets and water pumps made to illicit the fears and imaginations of the populace.  His first display of "magic" was a solar eclipse, so it is easy to see why the people are ready to believe him.  Whether or not this stems from their ignorance or because of their gullibility does not change the fact that The Boss is constantly pulling the wool over people's eyes.

                But what does all this have to do with "Stranger in a Strange Land" you ask?  It boils down to the fact that they both are a story with some outsider entering into a society with the intent of improving the society the meet.  "Stranger" had Smith, the superman with psychic powers and a penchant for half bakes philosophies that require a new breed of man to partially work.  "Yankee" has The Boss, a scientific conman that has yet to fall for his own con.  The second half of the book might prove me wrong, but the natures of the books could not be father apart.  "Stranger" plays the story straight with all seriousness under the mask of being lighthearted so that it can capture the reader unprepared.  "Yankee" is a silly science fiction tale (remember that it is a time travel story so far) that does everything tongue in cheek with a serious narrator who thinks of himself as important.  Both books want to poke holes in society through the use of a proxy society, by really talking about the society that the author is coming from.  Both books even try to tackle the topic of religion.  "Yankee" does a far better job than "Stranger" in this aspect for the standalone fact that is actually marks the Catholic Church as its target.  "Stranger" does things half heartedly with its fingers crossed behind its back when it says it is not attacking any one religion in particular when it clearly does so if one reads between the lines.  Both works have a main character that believes he is going to improve the people of those around him through the use of science.  "Yankee" admits to the futility of such an endeavor.  "Stranger" actually thinks this is possible.  This is the difference between satire and serious intent that I mentioned in my first post of "Stranger."  The difference is laughter, a laughter that "Stranger" wants to make the reader feel guilty to laugh with.  "Yankee knows that it is not only healthy to laugh but that it is right to laugh.

                And I suspect that I will laugh for some time tomorrow.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

Entry 096: "Genocyber"

 Dear Internet,

                "Genocyber" is the story of a biomechanical living weapon a dystopian future which requires a human host to function.  In the story, there are numerous major countries that all strive to gain its power and use it for their own reasons.  However, the weapon is in the hands of a mentally unstable girl who has got more psychological problems than a nuthouse.  It would be more accurate to say that the manic girl is the weapon and she is far from stable enough for someone to control her.  On top of that, "Genocyber" throws in a mildly fervent religious group, cyborg assassins, mad scientists, psychic abilities, and a few other futuristic elements to try and make it entertaining.

Would you believe me if I said this was a little girl?

                What is the total effect of the five part OVA?  It comes across as a shock value gore fest that can barely keep together a plot or even my attention.  It is even sadder considering that even if you throw all your attention at the show so that you can understand what is going on, you will find a lackluster plot.  The story jumps around a lot.  Sometimes it throws its exposition right at the viewer so fast that it forgets to make it digestible.  Other times the exposition is threadbare and thinly spread in a strange order which adds confusion to the show rather than making a suspense filled mood.  It gets worse when the show goes from one episode to the next.  There are three stories that take place.  The first episode contains a complete story, and the remaining four can be split down the middle into another two stories.  Each story arc seems disjointed at first and remains such for most of the length of each arc.  They do indeed take place after another, but they all feel like they were disjointed rather than being parts of one whole story.  Maybe this is due to the way that the show speeds things along very quickly instead of crafting an understandable plot.

                I had to listen to the English dub since I could not get the subtitle track to work properly.  I would not recommend that course of action for anyone else.  It is one of the worse dubs I have ever heard.  Poorly synced and non-lip matching dubs of Hong Kong Kung-Fu flicks are dome much better than "Genocyber" handles the English language.  People talk too quickly if they are not speaking so slow that it makes them sound like they were just given a mild concussion.  I think the dialogue got even slower as the show continued.  In the beginning, the henchmen are given loads of profane dialogue that is supposed to make them seem tough and intimidating, but it has the complete opposite effect.  What happens is that with every guttural interjection of the hired goons, they become less like agents of death and more like everyday hoodlums that had been given a cybernetic transplant.  It is almost comical after the first five minutes because nothing they say has any sort of impact once they relinquish a personality for the sake of being thought of as tough guys.  

                On that note, I should talk about the show's gratuitous level of violence.  The show does not want to pull any punches.  People die in this show.  They die a lot.  Entire cities are destroyed in the time frame of minutes or even seconds.  People on the subway are split in two by chainsaws.  Children are shot at from a helicopter with a mounted Gatling gun.  People are merged together as some sort of biomechanical ship where they remain alive, fused and forced to live as an abomination against humanity.  Blood flows like water from a fire hydrant.  Brain particles splat out of the skull, and organs are bounced around like tennis balls.  The show makes sure to go as far outside its way to crank up the visual gruesomeness as much as it can.  In the end, it makes a good shock effect but only after the first dozen or so times it does this.  Afterwards, the effect loses any emphasis behind itself.  Even when the children are killed on screen in the second episode I found myself not even caring.  This had more to do with the fact that the show kills them off before making the audience sympathetic towards then and relying on the fact that they were children to make the sympathy stem from this fact alone.  The fact that death and destruction go hand in hand with the story to the point that nearly everyone dies makes the viewer to never place any sort of emotional bond with any of the characters because the characters are most likely going to die.  Not that it matters much since the majority of the characters are unlikable and rather forgettable.

This is the the most graphic thing I feel comfortable posting.

                 I will say one thing in the favor of "Genocyber."  It has great imagery.  I do not mean the disgusting bits where organs hit the floor like ravers on a dance floor.  No, I mean the monsters it creates and cybernetic creations are well made to the point of being able to capture the imagination.  The Genocyber is a monstrosity, yes, but there is something about it that makes it seem more like a well crafted sculpture than a destroyer of mankind.  Even the characters in the story feel this way, considering that it becomes misidentified as an agent of God.  When someone is shown with their chest/chassis exposed with wires, circuits, and chips to the world, there is a real sense of art direction.  This is more likely due to the fact that the show is based on an uncompleted manga.  I suspect the earlier episodes are direct rips from the source material, with the still designs being mirror copies.  

The bio-beast in its most terrible form.

                "Genocyber" is average at best.  The shock value it puts so much emphasis on wears itself away by its own hands.  The story is confusing unintentionally and is perfectly enough as a single episode.  In fact, the first episode is the only episode worth watching before it completely tumbles down.  The show presents a cast of individuals that are all messed in the head to the point that it is a wonder that they were able to gain the positions that they hold before being marked as liabilities.  The setting is made to display a world filled with shades of grey and black with no hope in sight.  It becomes depressing garbage rather quickly without at least being entertaining.  Stuff like this is the reason that cyberpunk never gets off the ground floor, one filled with dismembered limbs and entrails.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."