Thorns

Inspired by a broader conversation I had yesterday with moonvoice and the blog of the original translator of Hakuoki into English who turned out to be a somewhat bro-ish straight dude who made the game "more accessible" by making the protagonist Chizuru less passive and submissive.
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The Sad Anime Wheelchair Girl (who may not actually be a girl, or in an anime, but that's where I've seen it most) is in a manual wheelchair with handlebars of the sort used in hospitals. She is either a paraplegic or just "sick". Her personality is quiet, passive, and emotionally sensitive. She is quietly melancholy about her disability but tries to keep her spirits up.

She's got complete control over her arms so definitely isn't quadraplegic etc. She has no cognitive issues. She is slow and weak and sickly even when there isn't anything wrong with her canonically asides from paraplegia. She never has a power wheelchair but uses other people to push her around long distances or even by default. Her situation is not shown as changing or improving no matter how long she is in the chair.

This is not how things work! Paraplegics are, in general, just as energetic as able bodied people. They have elegant streamlined wheelchairs that look very different to the sorts used in hospitals, and incredibly strong arms. And those wheelchair users who can't push themselves around very energetically or at all are much more likely to use a power wheelchair than get someone else to push them around. The only long term manual wheechair users I've seen rely entirely on other people were those too cognitively impaired to control a power chair. There may be other circumstances I'm not aware of but it certainly isn't the default, and I have seen manual wheelchair users complain about all of this.
( Pondering how to draw fanart of such characters )

There's been some discussion on tumblr of the culturally ignorant and thoughtless way white feminists often talk about anime/manga:
the original post, with my transcript, some following discussion.

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, I'm really uncomfortable with the combination of fetishisation/othering and erasure that's applied to Japanese culture in most anime and manga discussions I encounter, and would like to do better. So here are some thoughts on that. (Yeah, I know, ANOTHER WHITE FEMINIST POV /o\)
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This isn't a deep post. just an off topic tangent from this discussion.

So, ones I can think of off the top of my head (my brain has of course gone blank):

• Revolutionary Girl Utena
  
• Card Captor Sakura
  
• Sailor Moon? (I haven't seen it)
  
• Check the comments for many more!
  

It doesn't have to be the main characters, my point was that sometimes in anime (unlike mainstream western tv) you can think "Those two have such good chemistry, wouldn't it be great if they got together!" and they do.

EDIT: Obviously I'm not the best judge of this myself but the aim is stories one can enjoy as representations of queerness not unrealistic yaoi etc, and relatively mainstream anime that a typical sff geek might easily encounter and enjoy.

There's also lots where the subtext never quite becomes text but isn't actively contradicted either, like (as I recall) "Read or Die".

My body is reacting to the stress of the last week by shutting down and making me very sleepy, so I finally got around to watching "Vexille", an anime someone recced on my "Anime for sff nerds" discussion.

I wasn't looking forward to it, since it was cell-shaded 3D (which I find distracting) and about robots and mecha etc. Also not my thing.

But I just watched it and it's great. Not fetishing robots in a "Here's a straightforward war story but with giant robots for no logical reason" way, it's actually about robots, it's almost like a prequel to the Matrix. With a few obvious differences of course, but it feels very much like a good slightly philosophical western sf/action movie, except in japanese and more emotionally complex (I cried a little, I am not ashamed to admit) Since I had a headache I watched the first half hour or so in the english dub, and I'm glad I did, since it's set in America with american characters (the last 2/3 is in Japan with mostly japanese characters) I'm pretty sure that an american movie with an equivalent premise wouldn't flesh out the japanese characters anywhere near so well, let alone make one of the them the lead and title character! If anything it felt a little too american, certainly some plot points felt lifted from other sf movies.
( More thoughts, no spoilers )

So, penchaft lent me Revolutionary Girl Utena (The tv series).

It was way better than the movie. Which, ok, not hard, but I actually really enjoyed it. In fact I'm wishing "Fairytale about rescuing a princess where both protagonists are women and there's lots of stabbing of arrogant misogynistic men with swords" was a more popular genre. I have a better appreciation for the movie now too, and it was odd having it in the back of my head while watching the tv show since it has a lot of the same imagery but is also quite different.

Overall I'd describe it as being to magical girl schoolgirl anime what Neon Genesis Evangelion is to giant robot fighting anime: it uses the tropes, and most episodes have a superficial resemblance to the traditional structure (ie romantic tension, humour, cute animals, and a big battlescene with transformation and costume changes etc) but it's actually about the nature of human existence and the desire to create meaning and get control in an empty and unfair universe. Also it messes with your head.

It has pretty (if a little dated) visuals, angst, allegory, mythic archetypes and subversion of same, slashiness, femmeslashiness, swordfighting, duelling, bishounen taking their shirts off, fluid gender roles, and lots of layered imagery. I can see why people tell you to watch it nico_wolfwood , all it needs to be your perfect show is vampires and spaceships :D *gdr*

It's also rather repetitive, both in the sense that most episodes involve a duel which tends to be much like the ones before, and in the sense of re-using a lot of footage (the walk to the duelling area, for example, as well as a few flashback episodes) This does add a certain emphasis, I guess. Also most relationships are unhappy, unsatisfying, or downright disturbing (the whole brother/sister thing gets a bit..weird)

Still, overall, I really liked it. Even if it does give me an unfortunate desire to go searching for more yuri, which can only end badly.

A panel idea I've been batting around for next years Swancon is "Anime for people who don't like Anime" (and even if it doesn't become a panel, I think it would make for an interesting post and discussion). But in order to do it, I need to know what it is people don't like about anime, in order to find anime which avoid those things.

The first part of the poll is divided into two, one for anime fans and one for non-anime fans. If you're on the borderline, feel free to do both.
The second part is a few films I've seen suggested around the place or think people might like, but are not unqualified recommendations.

Note: disliking over the top violence etc is different to not minding it but not liking it enough for it to make up for an otherwise crappy show. Also, you can see the results of the polls you didn't take by clicking on the "Poll number blah" link.
( For non-anime Fans )( For anime fans )( For everyone )

This was very checked together: I see no point trying to craft the perfect poll without more data to get the questions right. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments.

I should mention that I'm mainly aimed at people who don't mind anime in principle but have high standards and tend to dislike a lot of the stuff they get recommended, or don't know where to start. People who hate all of it are probably better off as they are!

Also, in the poll I only mentioned a few films each from Hiyao Miyazaki and Satoishi Kon, but they're both totally awesome and worth a look. In my opinion, as an anime fan :)

So I finally finished watching the anime "R.O.D: The tv", which I borrowed off lizbyrd ages ago. When I started I was going though it quite quickly at a few episodes at a time while it was all low-key domestic silliness, but around halfway through it suddenly started having a cliffhanger at the end of every episode and I decided to wait until I had 3 or so hours free in a row to watch the rest in one go.

I have rather mixed feelings, all up. On the on hand, it's about a bunch of strong female characters saving the world with their love of books and power over paper, which, just.....awesome. The women do tend to all have the traditional revealing outfits and giant boobs (although one actually has a stocky boyish figure. I think that has to be a first) but other than that their gender has little to nothing to do with their place in the story(*). The characters are well drawn and engaging, and the plot is exciting and dramatic.

But...it is completely ridiculous. I can suspend my disbelief to telekinetic power over paper, and the world secretly being run by libraries and publishing houses who vie for power via special books. But some of the later developments in this series, and pretty much all of the OAV, stretched it to breaking point with the overwhelming silliness (played straight, with lots of Drama). The abrupt endings to both further give me the impression that the plots and worldbuilding existed mainly to create tension and cool scenes rather than being anything you were supposed to engage with or care about.

Still, the booknerd in me is happy with a story that finally gives books and booknerds their proper respect, and at least the characters weren't messed about with too much. I can see that being even more effective in the story's original form as actual books.

(*)If you can't see why this is a huge plus you haven't watched enough anime.

Several years ago I saw an episode of "Revolutionary Girl Utena" at JAFWA. It looked intriguing, but also like one of those slow symbolic animes that never quite makes sense. I heard there was a movie retelling the plot of the show, and decided to watch that instead.

Now, I must admit, I had heard it was a bit confusing if you hadn't seen the show, and the one episode I has seen helped me understand some stuff much better. Also, the dvd skipped in a couple of places. Regardless, here is my synopsis of the movie as I experienced it, sicne it was just too bizarre not to share (Also, duh, spoilers):
( Rosepetals )