Jlawrence’s Comments (group member since Mar 08, 2010)

Jlawrence’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

Ala, start looting!

Sean wrote: "Have you tried Madoka Magica? It's a show that does to the magical girl genre what Evangelion did to mecha. The writer, Gen Urobuchi, is also responsible for Psycho Pass which I recommended at the start of the thread and is very much the intellectual successor to Ghost in the Shell.

Of the other shows I mentioned, Chihayafuru and Tari Tari are inspirational, but in a much more subdued way. Chihayafuru is a sports story, except the sport in question is a traditional Japanese card game involving poetry, while Tari Tari is a straight drama about a high school choral society.

For FLCL type shows, I'd point to Humanity Has Declined and Tsuritama as evidence that Japan can still produce series that are batshit insane and free of fanservice and moe. "

OK, thanks, I'll check those out. :)

And on topic to the original poster's question, I remembered another sci-fi anime recommendation: Voices of a Distant Star - beautiful short-story-like tale of the effects of relativistic time dilation on a young female mecha pilot's relationship with an Earth-bound boy.

Mezzo wrote: "Gainax is one of those companies that always struck me as inherently self-destructive, which is possibly why it is able to generate moments of brilliance and of rampant infantile zeal. Hideaki Anno, for example, has this habit of projecting every psychological crisis he's experienced personally into his work, not to mention his bizarre fixation on electric poles.

The company's distinctive quality comes from its willingness to pander - not to fans or perverts, but to the whims of its creators. These creators, sadly, oftentimes come off as mildly unstable. So when people mention Gainax's collapse, it doesn't so much surprise or depress me - it just feels inevitable. "

Well, I think there's a lot of truth to that. And I know it's totally unrealistic to lionize a commercial entity that, at the end of the day, must move product, and I probably should just be thankful they were able to be as successfully creative for as long as they were.

I saw Hiroyuki Yamaga, Gainax co-founder, current president, and director of Wings of Honneaimse and Mahoromatic, speak at an anime con in the early 2000s, about the very specific way Mahoromatic's female robot-maid lead was carefully designed to appeal to very specific urban otaku demographic -- I think that show really was the start of Yamaga trying to reign in the craziness of Gainax productions, to make something that would require much less creative stretching and be a reasonable "product". Probably if we saw the finances (I think FLCL cost quite a bit to look as nice as it did, and was not a big financial success), it could be argued it was entirely reasonable that he gutted the imaginative spark of Gainax in order to make a profitable product.

And yet...Evangelion showed how Gainax could do something that was wildly innovative and bizarre on one hand but also struck a deep chord in the traditional otaku fanbase on the other (I mean, hey, giant robots) - it was a HUGE hit. I don't begrudge Yamaga trying to get Gainax under control and profitable, but, with the talent on hand, surely something could have been made that was small scale and profitable but not so desperately infantile and otaku-pandering in all the ways their best previous works had resisted.

Sean wrote: "Or like you're watching Chuck and suddenly Yvonne Strahovski comes on screen in a sexy outfit and the camera pans over her body in slo-mo? Or you're watching Star Trek and for some reason one of the female crew members is wearing a non-regulation, skin-tight body suit? Or you're watching Farscape and ... Fanservice is nothing alien to American TV shows, especially SF."

I haven't watched Chuck, but I think that Stand Alone Complex is, in general, *smarter* science fiction than Star Trek or Farscape - not that those shows are dumb, but GitS:SAC grapples with more complex ideas and social situations on a more consistent basis. That's why it's disappointing when it gets lazy with some slack fanservice. But in GitS:SAC's case that doesn't happen that often nor is it that disruptive.

In those other examples I gave, however, they are things that literally ruined my ability to enjoy the show/movie fully, the same way that if Star Trek: TNG featured 3 upskirt panty shots per episode, it'd be hard to take seriously as thoughtful sci-fi.

Again, my main bitterness comes from watching my once favorite Gainax achieve its heights - Evangelion (yes, it always promised fanservice, but its fanservice elements were overwhelmed by its otaku-challenging elements, especially by the time of avante-garde explosion of End of Evangelion), Kare Kano (teen romance told hilariously and touchingly, with wildly imaginative visuals, and with three-dimensional male and female characters), and FLCL (the personal explorations of Kare Kano combined with gonzo sci-fi/mecha elements, also a great example of how a show can be drenched in non-gratuitious sexual innuendo) -- and then fall to the nadir of the the let-every-tired-cliche in, maid-fantasy adolescent-otaku-wish-fulfillment of Mahoromatic (by the same director as Wings of Honneaimse!) and the ecchi maid-harem crap of He is My Master.

The problem is, since 2001's FLCL, I havent found anything in anime, outside of the brilliant Millenium Actress, as inspiring as Gainax at its best. Maybe one of those you listed is that missing, inspiring thing?

Whereas Oshii and Miyazaki moved anime forwards by actually moving away from standard anime tropes, Gainax showed how great anime could be made by pushing traditional anime elements into lightspeed. As much as I love Oshii and Miyazaki, I actually loved Gainax's trailblazing path best. So then to watch the pot-bellied Oni of Fanservice suck out Gainax's soul...well, it makes me a bit resentful whenever I see that Oni's handiwork now, even in small flashes in other shows.

Why must this Oni's dumb-ass rule be respected? Is it really OK just because there's equal percentage of crappy American TV? Say no to this stupid Oni and his innovation-curdling bad breath!

See, now you made me go on part of my long rant. ;)

Tamahome: "Miyazaki is the answer to all your problems."

For now, yes.

Sean wrote: "My point is that anime is crap in about the same proportions as American TV -- a different kind of crap, certainly, but crap nonetheless. But with the number of shows produced each year, that still means there are plenty of shows that aren't full of harem antics, trip-fall-grope jokes or cute-girls-doing-cute-things, just as there are plenty of shows on American television that aren't Celebrity Apprentice and Dancing with the Stars."

True, but if it was just a case of pure-crap shows, I could shrug it off. But I found that anime seems to hold a disproportionate number of otherwise excellent works containing crap elements that are clearly inserted just to provide fanservice to the otaku. It'd be like if you watching The Wire and characters were regularly transported into scenes from Jersey Shore, or Girls Gone Wild for a spell. Or having an episode of Firefly suddenly include a scene from Porky's.

Diebuster had gorgeous animation and some interesting ideas...oh wait, it's got to have X number of up-skirt angles of the ditzy protaganist per episodes. Wings of Honneaime has some of the most brilliant world-building I've seen in any film ever....oh wait, it's (view spoiler)[got to have an attempted rape performed by the protaganist, the aftermath of which is never dealt with in any reasonable way, yet we are still supposed to be in sympathy with him (hide spoiler)]. Even Ghost in the Shell:SAC sometimes falls into featuring butt shots of the Major, or camera angles where the Major's head is cut off but we have a nice angle on her boobs. Oi, isn't the Major sexy enough without dumb fanservice? Maybe those shots are Shirow-mandated, given his recent downward drift (TOTALLY NSFW at the end). A manga parallel is Shirow's "Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface", where the complex cyberspace/political ideas are completely undermined by Shirow's obssessive quest to have as many panels as possible feature a view of the heroine's crotch.

That kind of thing.

Sean wrote: "Keep in mind, Japan produces a couple hundred anime series each year, or roughly equivalent to the primetime lineups up the four major American networks combined. Can you imagine someone judging the quality of American TV by watching a couple random shows on Fox?"

Yeah, but I'm not talking about a random assortment of shows from one channel, I'm talking about productions from various major studios, with completley different creative staffs, and not just TV series, but high-production-value OVAs and movies, as well.

It basically is the curse (but creatively easy and likely lucrative path) of providing easy wish-fulfillment for the stereoptypically immature otaku personality: tropes of a) young females who are presented as charming for being stupid (the curse of the genki girl) b) young females idealized for being helpless/harmless and sexually innocent, but at the same time fetishized (the curse of moe) c) many variations of the otaku-wish-fulfillment "harem situation" where multiple attractive females all moon and obsess over, and often live with, one unremarkanle male.

Like I said, I could do a systematic list, but the thread was supposed to be about *positive* suggestions. The best stuff does rise above those lazy and reactionary tropes. Maybe I will make a separate 'Issues with Anime' thread, though, to air my rant. ;)

I will admit a large part of my disullisionment comes from watching the studio Gainax, which I once held as the great hope for combining the traditional anime awesomeness with progressive/otaku-challenging elements, implode into lowest-common-denominator reactionary otaku-wish-fulfillment and bad-trope-wallowing in a lot of their post-FLCL work (though, as the article I linked to above shows, the seeds for their acheiving both the best and worst of anime were sown right from their first film, the lionized Wings of Honneaimese.)

Macross Plus is a favorite sci-fi 4-part OVA, kind of a bridge between its old school roots and more modern anime.

I'll echo the suggestions for Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

For modern day setting shot through with insane sci-fi: FLCL

For a very different take on infiltrating people's dreams than Inception, try the surreal sci-fi of Paprika.

For an atompspheric, puzzle-like, unique take on cyberpunk themes: Serial Experiments Lain

For intensity, incredible atmosphere, psychopathic angst, and huge mecha battling monstrous "Angels": Evangelion original series + End of Evangelion movie (the recent Rebuild of Evangleion movies, which condense the entire storyline, look *beautiful*, but so far the storytelling is not working out as well for me in that format).

Trike wrote: "Some of the creepy stuff in anime really grates on my sensibilities. The borderline child pornography, for instance, in the otherwise goofy Riding Bean. Trailer: http://youtu.be/P9cDV7ZM-Cc"

Yeah, that is the unfortunate thing. I have gone through two big anime phases, and there's some series and movies I still deeply love, but there's some also some insipidly immature and corrosive sexist tropes that pop-up too often to ruin otherwise good stuff; see for instance -- MAJOR SPOILERS -- this article which expresses my major problem with the otherwise excellent Wings of Honneaimese very well. I could go on with a large list/rant, but I don't want to de-rail the thread. ;)

That kind of stuff has killed a lot of my general enthusiam for anime, although I still have beloved favorites (inclduing the ones above), and contine to look out of new, exceptional series. You can still get a lot of mileage from the works that rise above that.

Hmm, I need to do that with Infinite Jest - maybe ebook format would help, since it's so mammoth.

Should I use magikal mod powers and close comments on this thread, or leave it open, as a shiny trap?

I have to admit, I felt a bit embarrassed by Kushiel's Dart's romance-novel-ish cover when I first started reading the paperback during my daily train commute. But as I read on, I realized my embarrassment was unfounded, and became proud to be reading a book with Phèdre on the cover.

Like Tim, I found myself engrossed by the richly-drawn, complex characters, the detailed mythology and cultures of this alternate medieval Earth, and the wide scope of the plot. The S&M element, which could have easily derailed the book, was handled directly but non-gratuitously.

When you wrote Kushiel's Dart, did the world or the characters come first? Did you have everything plotted out and the world-building done before you started on the novel itself, or did the world evolve during the process of writing the story?

Likewise, Phèdre has such a strong, assured voice as narrator - did that evolve in re-writes, or did it flow naturally from your initial conception of her?

The mix of Christian and pagan elements in the religion of Terre D'Ange - were these things you had an interest in before writing Kushiel's Dart?

Were you ever nervous about how the sexual content would be received?

Ala wrote: "Make him the title fairy and have him do the rest. :P"

I have given Tom, Veronica and Becca titles now, that they can then change to their liking. ;)

Sean wrote: "Imagine, if Tom had just chosen the The Cyberiad instead, we'd be talking about how awesome Lem is."

Yeah, The Cyberiad is probably the best starting-point for Lem - very fun, playful and straight-forward storytelling-wise.

I like these illustrations Google featured of a few of the bizarre machines built by the Cyberiad's competing robot protaganists.

And I agree the Ijon Tuchy stories also show is humorous side of Lem. Solaris is a must-read fascinating classic, too, but my favorites are Lem's humorous stuff.

Noah wrote: "The actual book was...different. I can honestly say I have never been so well informed while not having a clue about what is going on.

As a thought experiment it was interesting, but I think I would need to be either insane or drunk to be on the same wavelength as the author. Worth a read, but now my head hurts."

Yeah, Memoirs is Lem at his most abstract (of what I've read of his), a twisty mobius loop of meta-commentary on storytelling. Interesting stuff, glad I read it, but not my favorite of his, and not the easiest introduction.

O what would the dragon be named if we hadn't read Memoirs first??

Rob wrote, "I noticed the new mod today and was wondering! Thanks for the shout out for my suggestion. More importantly, thanks for following through with my suggestion!"

I promise to use my newfound mod powers for good.



Jim said, "...just got to the part in which Tom says he'd rather pick good books than worry about the format availability and I just want to give him a "I heartily agree!", we should make sure it's actually in print or whatever and I would personally prefer that it's at least in paperback, not just hardcover, but as for e-book and audio and such I think everyone here has been great at helping others find books in different formats when they're not immediately obvious, but I agree that it would be a shame to limit book picks by format."

I agree with this, too. I'm reading many more e-books these days, so I'm very happy when a S&L pick is easily available in multiple formats, but I think it'd be too restricting to require all picks to always be audio- and e-book available.

Very intrigued by Bridge of Birds, starting it this weekend...

Woot! This has been on my to-read list forever - my Half-Price Books-bought used paperback will finally get read!

An excellent idea!

terpkristin wrote: "I think it'd be even more fun to get a group of people who'd want to do it, then do a secret-santa type thing where everybody gets assigned someone at random to send a book to. But, in the spirit of true blind dates, the idea would be that each sender would look at the books that the reader has liked, and pulls one off their shelf that they think the reader would enjoy. You know, like setting someone up with a friend. :D "

Maybe you could do it through a Goodreads group? The group moderator (I nominate you, terpkristin ;) ) assings the members to each other, members check out each other's reviewed book lists to get an idea of what book to send. Although, *completely* random could be fun, too (with books if not with actual dates ;) ).

Flame war tease!

Survey taken.

Yeah, supposedly The Verge is generally trusted for not posting link-bait bullshit, BUT I wouldn't be too upset if they (and me for repeating them) end up with Jar-Jar on their face if it turns out untrue -- because that would mean that my first choices for director would be back in the running. :)

Edit addtion: Variety is reporting that insiders of Bad Robot (Abrams' production company) have confirmed it as a "done deal", even though there's still no official annoucement.

Paul wrote: "I also heard that Abrams once said something about him not wanting to play in the star wars universe because he liked Star trek...his one flaw in my eyes :) "

Oh, I think the deal is Abrams had earlier said he wanted to *watch* Star Wars movies as a fan instead of being involved in *making them*, whereas it's Star Trek that he definitely was not a big fan of as a kid and that's why he pulled a couple of big Trek fans into the writing team for the Trek reboot (not that that assuaged the ire of some TOS-purists.)

From the Variety article:

"Abrams told Hollywood Life earlier in November that the "Star Wars" directing job 'comes with the burden of being that kind of iconic movie and series. I was never a big 'Star Trek' fan growing up, so for me, working on 'Star Trek' didn't have any of that, you know, almost fatal sacrilege, and so I am looking forward more than anyone to the next iterations of 'Star Wars,' but I believe I will be going as a paying moviegoer!'

Not anymore."

At least that means he will feel pressure to not commit 'sacrilege' if it is indeed him directing the Force.

According to The Verge (and now widely repeated everywhere), Mr. LOST/Star Trek-reboot/Super 8 Abrams will helm Star Wars Episode VII.

As someone said in the Verge article comments, isn't it a nerd party foul to be helming both the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises?

In my optimum universe I was hoping it could fall to Whedon (unlikely because of The Avengers commitments), Peter Jackson (is he finished with post-production on the Hobbit yet?) or del Toro (hey, what's stopping him?), or even Cameron, but I'm curious to see what Abrams would do with the franchise (and as I've said elsewhere on this forum, the prequels set an amazingly low bar for improvement....on the other hand there were some Star Trek Original Series fans who were offended by Abram's take there...)

*Start lens flare jokes now*

Also, The Verge says Michael Arndt, who wrote Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine, will write the screenplay.

Zachary wrote: "Is it me or does the movie seem to be an american adaptation of Neon Genesis Evangelion? Instead of the creatures being angels they are monsters comign through a rift in the pacific? Even the mech models look close to the same."

I had the exact reaction upon seeing the trailer. It made me wonder if del Toro was one of the directors interested in the ever-stalled live-action Evangelion adaptation, and that he decided to do his own sort-of "inspired by" instead since the official adaptation remains in limbo. There's at very at least some kind of influence going on! I love some of del Toro's stuff, and I am excited about this movie, but this trailer at least made me think "American Eva".

Hurrah! Congrats to Gene Wolf, may his Books of Gold find their way to Ultan's Library by the grace of the Autarch, whose pores outshine the sun.

And good on John Scalzi (as SFWA president) for choosing Wolfe!