Tag: mature themes

F[slash]k you, *un-Kagura’s Your Bachi*

TiberiusLeave a comment

Memes prove that the joke wrote itself

We return once again to a currently serializing manga slated for an anime adaptation in the near future. The manga in question debuted in September 2023 and was licensed for western serialization by the likes of Viz Media: Kagurabachi.

Created by up-and-coming mangaka Takeru Hokazono, it follows the story of a young man on quest for vengeance after his swordsmith father is murdered by evil sorcerers and his seven Enchanted Blades are stolen from their home in the mountains. Not exactly the most unique story, all things considered, but I’d be the last to say it’s aping something along the lines of Demon Slayer as far as inspiration goes. Young boy lives with family in the woods has life flipped-turned upside down when screeching plot device orphans him. Though, that’s the point of divergence for Magical Sword Journey as Kagurabachi merely gifts the protagonist with dead parent instead of demon imouto. Also, the protagonist is older than Gonpachiro Kamaboko being 18 instead of 14, so Hokazono can put more wild s[tenchu!]t in the plot, and boy does he.

The protagonist of Let’s Go Get My Dad’s Enchanted Swords is Chihiro Rokuhira, made noticeable by an all-black outfit consisting of a blazer under an overcoat, one of the few remaining katanas at the hip that wasn’t stolen by the antagonists, and a giant scar on the left side of his face.

The manga alone gives me the impression that the goal wasn’t about originality but instead just writing an epic action tale of vengeance because Hokazono’s a grown man and no one besides the legal system can tell him what to do. The antagonist faction is a group of sorcerers known as the Hishaku, a small but formidable force in bed with other factions like the Sazanami Clan of sorcerers and the Korogumi Yakuza group, the latter of these felt typical with the Yakuza becoming more involved in supernatural phenomena in Japanese media as of late. Pick your favorite example, mine has to be MHA’s Shie Hassaikai.

Like many villain groups, the combined might of the Hishaku, Korogumi, and Sazanami is primarily based on ignorance, but the main connecting element extends beyond the magical blades of Chihiro’s father, Kunishige. The main plot device is a little girl named Char Kyonagi, the last in a line of regenerators. No matter who nabs her, they have the key to immortality in their hands, and the traditional Shonen trope is to protect her whilst searching for the swords and making sashimi out of Kunishige’s killers, which does happen, though Chihiro’s general attitude in the manga is so cavalier that I can’t help but imagine most anti-heroes from the late 1990s and early 2000s. The unsmiling, scarred visage of this edgy 18-year-old is a contrast to the similarly themed BLACK TORCH and its cocky, but confident 17-year-old animal lover and learning that Hokazono took inspiration from the likes of John Wick and Quentin Tarantino films shows that this was a deliberate choice.

Cross cultural pollination strikes once again, first through Disney Company’s namesake meeting with Astro Boy’s creator, then through Hirohiko Araki’s manliest 1980s playlist and now with this green mangaka enjoying western cinema. Part of a cycle that is guaranteed to keep on turning like a dharma wheel. All of what I’ve been writing so may make it sound like I’m taking the piss out of the manga and thanks to memes like the one below, you could get the wrong impression that the manga is far from good.

However, the meme tourism has done a bang up job boosting its numbers globally. Sitting at a sexy 2.2 million copies in circulation and growing, it isn’t every day that memes bring something to popularity. The “ah… eto, bleh!” meme from 1995’s You’re Under Arrest has found a new life online, and 2019’s Joker made even more famous the set of stairs in the Bronx, to the chagrin of many natives, myself included at the time. With the internet and animanga going hand in hand over 30 years strong, something like this is almost guaranteed to happen again in the future.

The manga is currently at over 80 chapters and I’ve only read six so far. For my assessment, although there’s nothing concrete about an anime adaptation, it’s put together like it needs one. The manga panels of Demon Slayer only go so far but with Ufotable flexing their tax evasion with artful animation, and CloverWorks doing the impossible by overloading the color palettes on The Elusive Samurai in nearly every scene, the animators’ fingers will look like nubs with dried blood as they bring this dark fantasy manga to life. As it stands, the studio tasked with conducting the anime will be CyGamesPictures, responsible for bringing us Umamusume, Princess Connect! Re:Dive, and Zombieland Saga. With how dark and broody the manga comes off as, it makes me think of all the graphic novel panels from Max Payne and the overall vibes I’ve gotten from Silent Hill 2 clips.

At least the themes match. Max was able to lie to himself for two-and-a-half games before it came crashing down like an absinthe hangover in the final installment where he found himself pulling a look that would’ve gotten him mistaken for a South Florida kingpin in 1986. Looking it over now, we haven’t really had a lot of dark animanga that’s been able to stand the test of time. The closest examples that come to mind for me are Berserk 1997, Elfen Lied, and Akame ga Kill, three critical series where only a chosen few have plot armor, but it’s treated less like a luck stat and more like a discipline that slips away as easily as muscle memory.

As much as I love the influx of Kawaii Sugoi characters being as dangerous as cotton balls, I’ve gone on record saying that variety is the slice of life and I’d like to see more dark series get their own. I’m fully aware they exist, but with so much animanga defaulting to lightheartedness as of late, few other series get the attention they need. It also doesn’t help that Seinen is overlooked in favor of Shonen usually for not having heart-pumping, corpse-reviving, zombie-apocalypse-beginning action scenes, and Seinen and Josei are where more of the mature storylines exist.

I know better than to say darker series are few in number, and while I’d rather the tourists not barge in and ruin it with their holier-than-thou moralitybabble, it would help some if there was a bit more marketing. It helped yonks ago on Crunchyroll/VRV when they were advertising Golden Kamuy and I think it can help here. Thankfully, the memes have helped propel both it and its mangaka to fame, so perhaps in the future we’ll get even more dark manga to join the rest of the lineup getting anime adaptations these days. I don’t even care if the endings are happy or not so long as they’re fulfilling reads. The expectation for Kagurabachi to reach new heights and have a lasting legacy is clearly there, and I wanna see where it goes in the next five years or so.

When Psychotic Siblings Follow Their Most Intrusive Thoughts

Tiberius1 Comment

“Dysfunctional” implies that there was a solid function to begin with.

Before we start, I wanna say that I had planned originally on comparing and contrasting the Black Mass novel with its movie adaptation, but I couldn’t. Too much time had passed since I read the book or watched the movie, and assuming my memories aren’t that crooked and misshapen, there weren’t many comparisons to make between them. The book mentioned horseracing and bookmaking, but not Whitey Bulger’s son, Douglas while the movie did mention his son whilst omitting the horseracing aspect, though both did mention the Winter Hill Gang’s involvement in the assassination of World Jai Alai owner Roger Wheeler in 1981. Maybe I do have a comparison to make, but then again, I’d have to reread the book (or go over the footnotes) or watch the movie again.

So instead, I’m going to write about a point-and-click mental horror game about a pair of siblings and the dark world they call home.

Brought to us by the minds at Nemlei and Kit9 Studio, it’s an episodic psychological horror game that takes us into the minds and lives of the Graves siblings, Andrew and Ashley. They’re essentially trapped in a condemned building with a few other people who are all monitored by very uncharitable wardens who feign kindness for the cameras, but are content letting them starve for months on end. As of writing, there’s only two episodes with a third and fourth one coming out later this year and sometime in 2025 respectively.

I’m halfway done with the second episode, but I’ve seen enough Coffin of Andy and Leyley memes online to see where the story ends up.

It’s probably been spoiled to death since release, but I’ll be light on the details about the two episodes. The first one has the two going to drastic measures first to feed themselves (understandable, all things considered; months without food is hell), and then to get out alive. The second one involves them going on the run and taking their revenge against their parents for what they did to them. It’s an interesting carnival of horrors that feels like it’d fit with any given horror film franchise. You can pick your favorites, I’m going with Halloween… coupled the original The Hills Have Eyes.

As far as characters go, the attractive quality of the game’s writing leads me to believe that some of the characters are loosely based on real people. Focusing only on the titular characters this time (because I don’t want online discourse regarding their parents to color my own observations), Andrew and Ashley Graves are an interesting pair.

Yeah, let’s take the kid gloves off for this one. They’re a very disturbed pair of individuals in a world so black, Deimos retired and gave the position of God of Terror to someone else. As noted by the screenshot above, Ashley is marketed as the more disturbed of the two with her wicked and unorthodox ideas. Based on my observations, this is definitely in line and an accurate description of her character.

Most of her ideas she writes off as mischief and childish whimsy, but her callousness is reflected in her devil-may-care attitude and her lack of concern for the consequences of her actions. She knows she’s doing wrong, but she does it anyway, and the flashback scenes show that she hasn’t changed at all. As a matter of fact, her manipulative personality is why her brother is hopelessly attached to her, yet she doesn’t have absolute control over the guy. To pull from a box of nerdy, lines on maps enjoyer things to say, the power dynamic they share makes me think of the Investiture Controversy, where medieval German nobility kept attempting to buy favors for themselves in the Catholic Church, the papacy included. If that interests you, look to this video for a few more (oversimplified) details:

Channel: Oversimplified

Basically, what I’m saying is that there’s an illusion of power between them. Both of them think they’re stuck with each other, but honestly, they don’t have to be with each other… or rather, they wouldn’t have to be if Ashley wasn’t so clingy. Does that mean Andrew is a better person? Nope.

Also in reference to the screenshot from above, he’s subject to his sister throwing her weight around. Canonically, he has no problem talking to girls, having had romantic interests in other women and even an ex-girlfriends in both high school and college, but the more I think about his past relationships the more evident it becomes that he’s using them to hide from his sister. Not that there’s no genuine romance between Andrew and his lovers, and while not saying it’s not normal to cycle through dates in your lifetime, but the armchair therapist in me sees a MIGHTY NEED to be away from Ashley, even slightly.

Thinking about it even more, the two may share the same problem Zuko and Azula from Avatar have. Andrew doesn’t want to cause anyone any trouble, but Ashley couldn’t care less. Observe this meme from r/TheLastAirbender

It may be a joke, but look at all the scenes in the show that display or mention them and this becomes disturbingly closer to the truth than you’d like to admit, though in regards to the game, it’s worse since everyone has issues.

Having said all that, it’s not all doom, gloom and things go boom. One of the tags listed on Steam for the game is dark comedy. This part also shines in the game as the dark elements are campy. Dark and probable as it may be, it doesn’t really stop the game from being ridiculous at times. When I say you can compare it to some aspect of an old horror movie, I was not exaggerating. Michael Myers shrugging off six bullets is ridiculous; Jason Voorhees bouncing back up from life-threatening injury is very ridiculous; and the antics the siblings find themselves in is absurdly comical at times, you can’t help but wonder sometimes. The writers put a lot of care into making the game what it is and seem to be hard at work still drafting up the script of the final two episodes.

Obviously, a property this popular has its naysayers and harassers, neither of which deserve even a sliver of my attention, but on the “positive” attention the game has received, online forums, especially the game’s associated subreddit. Due to a scene in the second episode, the fanbase has run wild with fanart of the siblings in action. Again, being light on the details because I recommend this game and think going in blind is a sound approach, but IYKYK.

If in fact, you do know, then you also already know about the millions of other copy-pasted fan art of different sibling characters in the art style. This kinda leaves me divided, on the one hand, I commend the talent; but on the other hand,

And this is coming from a guy who has seen both Shimoneta and Highschool DxD yonks ago, both of which I plan on writing about in a future double bill. It was a certain aspect that kept me from playing it for the longest, but for curiosity’s sake (and to snub the naysayers and doombringers) I bit the bullet and I recommend a play through of your own.

For this YouTube recommendation, I present an up and coming Canadian YouTuber known as Art Chad.

https://www.youtube.com/@artchad/videos

At over 82,000 subscribers and counting, Art Chad is a channel run by a young man who asks a lot of important questions about modern topics and issues in our society and attempts to answer them from as broad and unbiased a viewpoint as he can. Often with the tone of one who wishes to make a better world for this generation and its succeeding ones a la Superman, or in a gradual yet noticeable approach instead of the ad hoc, hasty changes we’ve grown accustomed to. The link to his channel is up above.

Animation Deserves more Respect

TiberiusLeave a comment

It hurts to see it.

Normally, I have one topic ready to go every Friday and planned on several weeks in advance. This week and into the weekend, I want to try something different, something special. A lot has occurred both in real life and the entertainment sector that may become old and stale if I add them to the empty spaces on my planner document (which goes into March 2024 as of writing this), so for today, I’ll cover my thoughts on animation today, tomorrow October 14, I will cover an anime adaptation that I’d been looking forward to personally, and on Sunday, October 15, I’ll cover the misfortunes of a company that, honestly, feels like it’s been on life support for a while now, each with sneak peeks at the end. Unlike this one, no YouTube recommended channels will be featured for those posts–just this one. Now to begin proper.

Since I was a kid, I remember part of my day was complete or going expressly well when I could turn on the TV after speeding through my homework and catching up on my favorite cartoons. Funny enough, a lot of what I liked at the time is now remembered as genuinely creepy and weird. Observe:

And it wasn’t just this one. Courage the Cowardly Dog, Invader Zim, The Secret Show, Kappa Mikey, Martin Mystery, and several other shows that I was always convinced I was the only one watching. The draw for me, aside from a series of moving drawings, was that a lot of them were so unique. They had their own art styles, plots, some of them were spearheaded by comic book artists, such as in the case of Invader Zim’s creator Jhonen Vasquez and Kaput and Zosky creator Lewis Trondheim.

They also had an air of black comedy embedded in the structure of the series, often based on works published prior. When these shows were picked up by Nickelodeon or its sister network Nicktoons, they were often marketed towards children, though often needed to keep the darker elements under wraps to avoid censorship. Still, a lot of stuff got through the cracks. Like this scene: [content warning].

And this wouldn’t be the only time, shockingly, that someone’s organs were outside them.

For all the flack cartoons have gotten for being “childish” and “immature,” it’s easy to forget that the pioneers of old like Disney, Warner Bros. and MGM had darker themes in a lot of their old cartoons. Never mind the modern day creepypastas featuring Mickey Mouse and co.; think about how many old cartoons had gun violence in them. Where else do you think we get this meme template?

I bring this all up, not so much to rant about cartoons getting soft, but more so to contextualize why I think animation and cartoons have become something of a laughingstock in the West. Ridiculous violence and anthropomorphic animals aside, it’s not like this was all western animation studios were throwing out since the 1960s onwards.

Think about comic book adaptations, like all those of Batman or Spider-Man or the X-Men. All of those comics and many successors trusted their audience, no matter how young they could’ve been, to understand the complicated themes and plot points within. For one such example, the YouTube channel, Shady Doorags, frequently covers animation and animated shows and their many mature themes. Even shows that had a high child and preteen audience like Teen Titans was covered several times, and this episode he covered earlier this year seems to have been one of the more mature ones in the series.

Credit: Warner Bros., Cartoon Network. Channel: Shady Doorags (March 26, 2023)

When referring to mature animated shows retroactively, there’s now a distinction between a show that’s mature and a show that’s adult. King of the Hill, The Boondocks, Black Dynamite, and Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy and American Dad are all mature and handle maturity in different ways, through satire, social commentary, the politics within certain hot-button issues (especially if those issues are still front and center today), or some combination of all these.

By stark contrast, some recent animated shows go straight for the fences without the maturity or class of some of the older shows. I need more fingers to count the themes in a South Park or King of the Hill episode, but I’d struggle for something like that show Fairview or Legends of Chamberlain Heights among others. The same goes for maligned reboots of well-beloved properties. You probably know about the 2016 reboot of Powerpuff Girls or Teen Titans Go! or worse Velma, or if not, you know them all by their sour reputations among fans of the original properties.

Whenever I look into the main sources of criticism, similar talking points come about. Lazy art-styles, crude and purposeless humor, mean-spirited humor, a grave misunderstanding of the subject matter, and often the worst of the criticism relates to pandering. Pandering to a demographic that had a hissy fit on social media; pandering to an underrepresented demographic, likely because that specific demographic is literally extremely few in number; pandering to demographics that suffer from an advanced case of white savior complex. The types that won’t really watch the property, but will lie on the internet to look more virtuous than the person they’re arguing with over the keyboard, even if they’re talking to someone who has volunteered before in the past.

Altogether, it brings back problems animation and fans of animation were certain they’d dealt with years prior and this new generation of animators seem to be fighting an old battle. I’m looking in from the outside, but some of the recent shows coming out don’t do burgeoning animators any favors, especially if you’re familiar with what Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are responsible for. Sometimes I only know about it because channels like Clownfish TV have experience and expertise on their design philosophy.

When I started conceptualizing this topic, at first I was going to write from the standpoint of award shows, but then I remembered some of the shows I mentioned in this post in passing have gotten recognition from awards boards in the past and even now so if there’s a group of people I’m asking or nearly begging to respect animation, it may be the studios that greenlight them and some of the animators that work on them. From my old high school art class, I remember learning of the philosophy of knowing the rules before breaking them, as in, learn how to draw before you put your own spin on things, and this rings true for all of animation. There’s a stark difference between Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry and the Pink Panther/The Inspector art-wise, and even animator-wise. Walt Disney and Friz Freleng were not the same people, but they both learned to draw somehow.

And this is true of today’s animators. You know the old saying: Rome wasn’t built in a day. It takes a lot of skill, craft, and imagination to make a disciplined practice look so undisciplined. Think about how radically different medieval music is compared to Black Sabbath. And for animation, there was a lot of respect for the creators of this:

And the studios that brought us animations like this:

The simple and obvious solution for modern day animators is multifaceted, though to take an example from the military would be to look at who’s at the top of the chain of command. I would never doubt the capabilities of a studio today since most of the time they’re only doing what they’re told; rather my efforts would be better focused on the people they answer to. Clownfish TV mentions names like Disney’s pair of Bobs, Chapek and Iger, as well as investors ignorantly chasing lightning bolts with an open mason jar, confident that it’ll hit the bottle and not them.

Then again, if we’re looking at the investor angle, as risky as it is to put your eggs on an untapped market, it’s equally risky to go for the diminished returns for obvious reasons. Call it the centrist approach, but why not blend the two together? Put a few eggs in the new and unforeseen while keeping the rest in safety boxes, only moving when things go consistently south. If the new thing fails, you still have some pennies, and when the old things lose favor, you can pull out before you lose everything. Oversimplified solution? Well, again I’m no expert. It’s just something I could see myself doing if given the resources to do so.

For this week’s recommendation, I bring you to the channel sydsnap.

https://www.youtube.com/@sydsnap/about

The channel, run by Sydney Maneetapho (née Poniewaz), covers anime and manga, but a more adult-oriented type variety of each, namely hentai. Sydney often recommends some of her own favorite series often for the sake of some guilty pleasure, but also because between all the exposure and nudity, some of the authors and artists behind these hentai have credits writing manga for general audiences, such as in the case with the author of Don’t Toy with Me, Nagatoro-san. She’s even interviewed several names in the adult entertainment industry, like retired porn actress, Kaho Shibuya, or active porn actress, June Lovejoy. If you’re looking for some recommendations or would like to learn more about topics of this nature, most of sydsnap’s videos cover this in detail or alternatively, a donation can be made to her associated Patreon page to get past the censors.

I will return tomorrow with an impression of a long-awaited adaptation.