Taking a break from homework and lesson planning for fannish squee.

[nenena]

poilass liked my help_japan fic!! (*happy dances forever*)

I'm too busy with homework, work-work, and other RL stuff to finish recapping Soul Eater Not! chapter 6 this month, so I'll probably just post chapters 6 and 7 together next month.

And speaking of summer fandom projects.... (*looks at doujinshi scanning queue*) Siiiiigh. I'll get back on the scanning horse next week, after I finish my last week of classes and visiting relatives and stuff.

And sorry, Spike Pilgrim, but this is my new all-time favorite My Little Pony trailer mashup:

ETA: Also, this excellent rant about "womens' comics" by Melinda Beasi is worth a signal-boost. Pretty much the entire thing is highly quotable, but here's a quick sample:

Who hasn’t been put in the position of having to over-explain to a skeptical friend, “I know the cover is pink, but it’s really good, I swear!” We explain because we think we have to, and we think we have to because we’ve been conditioned to believe that something specifically created with girls or women in mind is less well-crafted, less intelligent, and less universally relevant than something that’s not.

Yep, pretty much this. Also highly relevant re: anybody freaking out over the popularity of My Little Pony. Super-duper highly relevant re: the mouthbreathing male otaku contingent's continual insistence that Madoka Magica is groundbreaking/original/revolutionary for doing the exact same things that magical girl shows for girls have been doing for the past twenty years, but not that they would know that because heaven forbid any of them ever actually watch that sparkly pink girly stuff.

Comments

[the-sun-is-up.livejournal.com]

the exact same things that magical girl shows for girls have been doing for the past twenty years, but not that they would know that because heaven forbid any of them ever actually watch that sparkly pink girly stuff.

I'm curious: which shows are you referring to? Because my impression was that a lot of male otaku do watch the girly Magical Girl shows (like Sailor Moon and CCS), hence why producers eventually started making MG shows that actively cater to the male otaku audience (like Nanoha, Precure, Moetan, Uta Kata, Puni Puni Poemi, plus all those Magical Harem shows).

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I'm curious: which shows are you referring to?

Off the top of my head? Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure, CCS, Mermaid Melody - to name some of the obvious picks (that have all at some point done the same plots that Madoka regurgitated - magical girls are conflicted and being a magical girl can suck, magic corrupts and magical girls go insane, magical girls have to fight/kill members of their own team, time travel to prevent grimdark future, untrustworthy mascot character, etc.).

Because my impression was that a lot of male otaku do watch the girly Magical Girl shows (like Sailor Moon and CCS),

They do.

hence why producers eventually started making MG shows that actively cater to the male otaku audience (like Nanoha, Precure, Moetan, Uta Kata, Puni Puni Poemi, plus all those Magical Harem shows).

Exactly.

Which is why we now have a generation of male otaku who teethed on the magical-girls-for-guys shows, which coincidentally tends to be the same group of male otaku for whom Madoka Magica is suddenly the most revolutionary thing ever.

I've found in general that the male fans who are the most vocal about Madoka being "revolutionary" will often admit to having never seen an episode of Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure before. Remember that the former is old-school and the latter of for girls, hence why a lot of the annoying Madoka fans - who coincidentally tend to be younger and a bit newer to anime, the same as the "annoying" fan contingent in any fandom - haven't seen them.

I'm not talking about the fandom as a whole here, just the small but vocal contingent who are incredibly persistent in bleating the idea that Madoka is actually doing stuff that has totally never been done before.

[the-sun-is-up.livejournal.com]

Okay, it makes sense that it's the newbie fans who are going "omg this is completely new and revolutionary!" (Although pretty much any time a fan says that about anything, they're usually wrong. Ain't no new ideas left in the world, kids.) Though even the allergic-to-girly-things otaku don't really have an excuse: the last MG show I can recall that did the whole grim-deconstructy thing was Uta Kata in 2004, and it was aimed at the male demographic like it wanted to have their babies or something.

I'm again curious, since I haven't watched CCS or Mermaid Melody: Which is the one that had magical girls killing each other and/or an untrustworthy mascot character? I do remember some magical girls killing each other in Sailor Moon, but I don't think that counts because they perpetually resurrect, which makes the deaths feel pretty cheap.

And does Pretty Cure really count as a "for girls" show? I mean what with the hand-to-hand combat style, the relative lack of het romance, and the relatively large amount of lesbian subtext, I figured it was trying to pitch itself at both male and female demographics.

[baines.livejournal.com]

Death with a following resurrection is probably a standard feature of magical girl shows. At least it used to be.

To be fair to Sailor Moon, before the whole resurrection aspect ever kicked in, it aired episode 45. That was an episode that consisted entirely of four characters being killed off one-by-one while protecting Usagi, and ended with them still dead. I'd heard stories, though I don't know that it is true, that after it aired, some parents were calling the station because their children were crying.

When the series aired in the US, episodes 45 and 46 were edited into a single episode. In addition to editing the deaths, this meant that the big resurrection happened in the same episode as the deaths.


Alien 9 isn't actually magic, and may be considered a more modern and possibly magical girls for guys, but it is pretty grimdark itself. At least the half of the story that actually got animated gets dark...

[chiikaboom.livejournal.com]

I do remember some magical girls killing each other in Sailor Moon, but I don't think that counts because they perpetually resurrect, which makes the deaths feel pretty cheap.

But didnt Madoka Magica do the same thing?

Mami had her grimdark death in episode 3 and we watched her die multiple times in episode 10 through different timelines, and in the last episode shes brought back to life again. I personally felt kind of cheated with her character in the sense that none of her deaths apparently mattered, and since Madoka started everything over, me no longer know her character at all since her past is essentially re-written. Same with Kyoko, since her death was supposed to be significant in one episode and shes back in the final.

I personally felt the deaths in madoka felt a lot more cheap in comparison to the deaths of characters like Nephrite or Princess Kakyuu in Sailor Moon (and neither of those characters come back)

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Mermaid Melody had magical girls fighting each other, but not killing (although the bad magical girl who was about to be redeemed ended up killing herself at the last minute anyway) and one helluva untrustworthy mascot character in Fuku-chan.

Oh hell fuck yes PC is a girl show. It's not advertised in ANY male-oriented media in Japan. Trust me,I actually went *looking* for that at one point, but no. It's considered so girly in Japan that it might as well have cooties.

ETA: Also yeah WTF the big deaths in Madoka were undone, too. Mami's death was supposed to be the big shocker but she was back by the end. Meanwhile, dead magical girls and princesses in Rayearth and MM stayed dead. Some characters in the SM manga, too.

[the-sun-is-up.livejournal.com]

Is that the anime or the manga of Mermaid Melody? Because I've heard they're rather different and I'd like to check out whichever one has the darker elements.

Well now I'm even more confused about Precure, because I was looking at Youtube stats on Cure-related vids, and the top two demographics that liked those vids were invariably Female 13-17 and Male 30s-40s. So even if it's being marketed at girls, there are still lots of adult guys watching it. idk.

Regarding the deaths in PMMM, personally I draw a distinction between a character dying and then getting un-dead-ed, versus a character dying permanently in one timeline but surviving in another timeline. It's like what Umineko or Higurashi does — one of the Mamis may have survived and gotten a happy ending, but that doesn't help the other five or so Mamis who still got crappy endings. And then those five unhappy Mamis will fuse together into one nihlistic super-villain who will go hijack another canon and insert her own Mary-Sue character into it and then she'll end up dating the evil conglomeration of all the unhappy Sayakas and /end Umineko joke

[(Anonymous)]

So even if it's being marketed at girls, there are still lots of adult guys watching it. idk.

That wouldn't surprise me, but it's the same phenomenon as MLP - the primary audience is little girls, even though it's popular with other demographics despite the lack of targeted advertising toward older dudes.

Also, I assume that you're viewing Pretty Cure videos on le English youtube? The viewer demographics are somewhat different for Pretty Cure videos uploaded by Japanese users. The demographic that really counts, however, is who's watching the cartoons when they air on Japanese TV on Saturday mornings. Which just happens to be the demographic least likely to be watching the same episodes on Youtube. Which is why you need to be careful about making arguments based on Youtube viewership! ;)

Regarding the deaths in PMMM, personally I draw a distinction between a character dying and then getting un-dead-ed, versus a character dying permanently in one timeline but surviving in another timeline.

But Homura wasn't "splitting" timelines in PMMM. She was actually rewinding time. So Mami very much did get un-deaded. That's the same way that Sailor Moon saved all of the Sailor Senshi at the end of the first season.

Or, if you don't buy the rewinding argument, then all of the Sailor Senshi at the end of the first season of Sailor Moon died and stayed dead in their own timeline, too.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

WTF, livejournal. That was me who left the previous comment. I could've sworn I was logged in.

Also, re: Mermaid Melody... I dunno what you've heard, but, uh, Sara's death is the same in both the anime and the manga. So the answer to your question is... both?