Posts tagged macross frontier

I want to repeat/document/archive/share what I said to this fan here:

Listen, I’m no authority (as in certifications and what not) on being a fan, but I believe that being a fan ISN’T about believing your idol is infallible. I love Ranka despite all the shit she’s given as a character, and all the hate she’s given by the fans. This is what I believe is a great manifestation of being a fan. Denying faults, interesting [ones] or just plain fail [kinds of faults], only makes everyone dumber.

I’ve been waving the banner for Macross since I started blogging, but I’ve never pretended it’s perfect. It’s not. It requires so much sacrifice of [the] intellect to enjoy. It is my favorite anime not because it’s better than Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but because I love it so damn much. It’s the same with Minmay. Sheryl’s more awesome, hands down. I have no problem with acknowledging Minmay as an inferior singer, idol, and character to Sheryl, but it doesn’t change the fact that Minmay is my most favorite anime character of all, and for all time.

So with finality, do not confuse me at least, as a person determined to hate on your pet character and give the benefit of trust that my criticism isn’t born out of malice nor irresponsible dismissiveness towards Ranka. I do not claim to be the best advocate, or writer doing criticism on Macross, but I’m fair and considerate. And I damn think about Macross just as much as the most retarded fanboy you can imagine.

Cuchlann serves us with a meaty reading of Azuma’s Otaku yet again. Some highlights:

Anime is a genre, of course.

Yes yes, don’t boo me just yet. Let me drop the tiniest amount of Derrida on you. He pointed out that the term “genre” had been stretched too far from its original base. Now, in light of that, I’m not trying to reclaim the term. We use it the way we use it. However, the original meaning of the word was a particular kind of media. For instance, in the original sense one couldn’t read more than one genre of novel – novel was the genre. The distinctions of what happens inside them are actually, in the traditional sense, “modes.” So in the classical sense anime is a genre, and there are many modes within it.

So what? There are a lot of arguments about what makes up certain genres. That’s genre in its modern sense; mode, in the traditional vernacular. The distinction allows us to see that there are database markers that have to do with the way something’s made – animation styles, designs, etc., as well as database markers that have to do with content – character behavior (GAR is one example), plot points, so on. […]

[…]I do think Azuma goes a little too far in some of his claims. His historical account of the shift from grand narrative to database doesn’t take into account the different reading habits of different sorts of fans over time. That is, no postmodernist would deny that the grand narrative was strong in Regency-era England, yet Catherine Moreland and her friend, in Austen’s Northanger Abbey, read Gothic novels more like database animals than any fusty “grand narrative seeking” reader. I suspect what’s really going on is that fan behavior adheres to the database, no matter when it’s happening. If one is a fan of something, one follows it through all its permutations, even when it looks different or does something out of the ordinary. Scholars trying to define SF in traditional terms have flailed around for years because there’s no single shared element. But there is a database pool of things that are associated with SF, including certain plots. That’s how Peake’s Gormenghast novels can be fantasy even when nothing unrealistic happens (at least, not in the first novel). Because the characters and setting are drawn from the sub-database of fantasy as much as from anything else, and the plot is, well, odd.

I have thought of anime as a medium and not genre, and forgot about how media is/are actually means of delivery and/or production e.g. Print, Radio, Television, Film, and perhaps Web Hosting. Within such there are modes of how content is presented (not delivered): the novel, short story, poetry, illustrations, sequential illustrations, motion pictures, animated motion pictures, and the like.

I also like how Cuchlann identified database animalism in modernist media consumption — as it’s easily imagined how readers of Shelley and Stoker or perhaps Conan Doyle didn’t necessary read them for the grand narratives, but more for the tropes and elements fans of such have come to love.

I want to look more into potential mashups of intention (arrgh intention). Macross Frontier is very database in that it wants to get along and survive amidst the animals, deliver the old fan favorite feelings, as well as offer elements newer to the franchise that appeal to those who are not interested in its grand themes and narratives.

Nonetheless, Macross and its current incarnation DOES have a grand narrative, reinforced over and over: Songs are Culture, Culture is Love, and Love is what triumphs in the Galaxy. The expansion of the human race throughout the galaxy may be escorted by advanced combat potential, but ultimately cultural exchange (or Terran cultural hegemony) is what makes the important things happen.

No I haven’t said enough about Macross Frontier.