Anime Thoughts: Genshiken
Feb. 12th, 2008 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerI have the impression that you don't have to be a fan of anime or manga for very long before you start hearing the Japanese word "otaku." (For that case, some who aren't fans may have heard the word already.) In my case, though, it didn't seem that much longer after that before I started hearing people insisting that those North American fans using "otaku" as a mere synonym for "fan" were in fact labelling themselves with a term meaning more "grotesque fanboy who uses fictional characters as a substitute for an inability to form connections with actual people..."
However, there have been pushbacks to that grim definition at different times and in different places. One of them is with a manga series that had an anime adaptation made of it, "Genshiken." After finishing the ninth and final volume of the manga with a sense of satisfaction, I was nevertheless left with a sort of annoyed "So now what feeling?", aware of my uneasier and more tentative connection to manga than to anime. (I managed to put this feeling into words well enough for it to be selected for an anime question-and-answer column's recent "I ask the question, you give your answer" section.) Nevertheless, I wasn't done with Genshiken quite yet: I had also picked up the anime version on sale a while before, and had it sitting around since. I suppose I did start tearing the shrinkwrap off with a sort of uncertain "But what if I don't like this version?" thought, and yet I did start watching.
The title "Genshiken" comes from an abbreviation of the Japanese for "The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture," which is basically a third-wheel club, much less organised than the actual "manga" and "anime" clubs, at a sort of hypothetical Japanese university. It's quite far from veering off into overblown wish-fulfilment or "laughing at the wacky incompetents," though, for all that it does deal with deft humour with "using fictional characters as a substitute for actual connection"... instead, a collection of small encounters build up until the characters move beyond their particular area of interest and begin to feel like friends, from the "average new guy" Kanji Sasahara who sort of falls by the wayside as other characters are developed (not to worry, his moments return later on), such as the gaunt, bespectacled, and somewhat tactless Harunobu Madarame and Saki Kasukabe, who in fact is not an otaku but a fashion plate who dates the one good-looking guy in the club. Saki's coming to more or less accept and help the people she can't help but associate with forms a good part of the anime's storyline. (I've noticed one interesting point about her that comments on "fandom," though: early on, when she overhears a fictional character being described as an "elf," she immediately brings up "The Lord of the Rings" in an excited way.)
By and large, each episode of anime adapts two chapters of manga, although a few episodes expand on just one chapter. I was intrigued every so often by the emphasis given to particular points I had only noticed passing by in the manga. As the art in the manga visibly evolved over the first few volumes, it was interesting enough to see it adapted to designs that had to be drawn many times over, and colour on screen helps capture things like the dinginess of the hallway leading up to the Genshiken's at least brighter office. I did notice the soundtrack wasn't a constant presence, but the opening and closing themes were both entertaining.
One particular bonus to the anime version for me was its presentation of Genshiken's very own "show within a show." At times, works of entertainment that have their own characters interested in a fictional property leave me a little frustrated with the brevity of the glimpses that I get. That didn't seem the case with the fictional manga/anime franchise everyone in the Genshiken was interested in, "Kujibuki Unbalance." In the manga, I got only glimpses of its at once bizarre and conventional characters, but never quite seemed to understand to understand what was going on with its fictional story. The anime DVDs, though, include a full three episodes of Kujibuki Unbalance animation, admittedly still a sampling, but enough to give me a better sense of its characters... although I'm still not entirely sure I understood its story.
I suppose that, in the end, the Genshiken anime may not have displaced the manga for me, but it makes a nice complement to it. There also happens to have been some more of the manga adapted into a new anime series, which I'm quite hopeful I'll get a chance to see.
However, there have been pushbacks to that grim definition at different times and in different places. One of them is with a manga series that had an anime adaptation made of it, "Genshiken." After finishing the ninth and final volume of the manga with a sense of satisfaction, I was nevertheless left with a sort of annoyed "So now what feeling?", aware of my uneasier and more tentative connection to manga than to anime. (I managed to put this feeling into words well enough for it to be selected for an anime question-and-answer column's recent "I ask the question, you give your answer" section.) Nevertheless, I wasn't done with Genshiken quite yet: I had also picked up the anime version on sale a while before, and had it sitting around since. I suppose I did start tearing the shrinkwrap off with a sort of uncertain "But what if I don't like this version?" thought, and yet I did start watching.
The title "Genshiken" comes from an abbreviation of the Japanese for "The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture," which is basically a third-wheel club, much less organised than the actual "manga" and "anime" clubs, at a sort of hypothetical Japanese university. It's quite far from veering off into overblown wish-fulfilment or "laughing at the wacky incompetents," though, for all that it does deal with deft humour with "using fictional characters as a substitute for actual connection"... instead, a collection of small encounters build up until the characters move beyond their particular area of interest and begin to feel like friends, from the "average new guy" Kanji Sasahara who sort of falls by the wayside as other characters are developed (not to worry, his moments return later on), such as the gaunt, bespectacled, and somewhat tactless Harunobu Madarame and Saki Kasukabe, who in fact is not an otaku but a fashion plate who dates the one good-looking guy in the club. Saki's coming to more or less accept and help the people she can't help but associate with forms a good part of the anime's storyline. (I've noticed one interesting point about her that comments on "fandom," though: early on, when she overhears a fictional character being described as an "elf," she immediately brings up "The Lord of the Rings" in an excited way.)
By and large, each episode of anime adapts two chapters of manga, although a few episodes expand on just one chapter. I was intrigued every so often by the emphasis given to particular points I had only noticed passing by in the manga. As the art in the manga visibly evolved over the first few volumes, it was interesting enough to see it adapted to designs that had to be drawn many times over, and colour on screen helps capture things like the dinginess of the hallway leading up to the Genshiken's at least brighter office. I did notice the soundtrack wasn't a constant presence, but the opening and closing themes were both entertaining.
One particular bonus to the anime version for me was its presentation of Genshiken's very own "show within a show." At times, works of entertainment that have their own characters interested in a fictional property leave me a little frustrated with the brevity of the glimpses that I get. That didn't seem the case with the fictional manga/anime franchise everyone in the Genshiken was interested in, "Kujibuki Unbalance." In the manga, I got only glimpses of its at once bizarre and conventional characters, but never quite seemed to understand to understand what was going on with its fictional story. The anime DVDs, though, include a full three episodes of Kujibuki Unbalance animation, admittedly still a sampling, but enough to give me a better sense of its characters... although I'm still not entirely sure I understood its story.
I suppose that, in the end, the Genshiken anime may not have displaced the manga for me, but it makes a nice complement to it. There also happens to have been some more of the manga adapted into a new anime series, which I'm quite hopeful I'll get a chance to see.