Otaku Love Hurts: Cyborg, She Responded(2008) & Fujoshi Kanojo(2009)

Not sure how these films got lost in such a shuffle, but Sundays, when not steeped in projects of an outdoor nature, are often exercises in reaching back into old queues, only to realize why they stay buried as long as they do. And when this is regarding so-called romantic comedies tailor made to play to Japan's anime/manga loving crowd, it is also no wonder why recent fare like Pacific Rim feels like such fresh air. In lieu of the last decade's shift in production styling & attitude, it never ceases to amaze and dismay, the sheer lack of deep love and care that goes into such works. It is almost as if there is a quota to make, and appeasing certain interests are the only thing on the minds of all involved, and that a sincere love for the often wacky flights of fancy that Nihon-based scribbles can only deliver is lacking in a big way when talking the movie industry overseas. In the decades after a live action Video Girl Ai did plenty to offer just as much manga-esque silliness with a grounded charm that is endemic to a more universal language of filmic storytelling, it's kind of strange to see these contemporary tales of young love flat out miss any potentially healthy/thoughtful message that at times can happen in the funny pages. As both films feature young men in love with a mysterious, often exaggerated other, there's a troubling thread of crippling normalization that is happening, often in forced manners that not only speak to long held traditions in their native land, but of corporate message maintenance.


Starting with 2008's Cyborg, She Responded, we are in an impressively budgeted fantasy offering up the ultimate rendition of the so-called emotionless heroine (in this case, a Terminator-esque time traveling humanoid) and her relationship with a lonely otaku. (another thread that binds both films we are discussing together) Helmed by Kwak Jae-yong of My Sassy Girl fame, the story begins briskly as our lone protagonist, Jiro (Keisuke Koide) celebrates his birthday alone, purchasing his annual present to himself when he is reminded of the previous year when he encountered a most unusual, nameless girl(Haruka Ayase). Taken on a whirlwind chase around town, the seemingly free spirited girl ends the night not only blowing his mind with her antics, but just as simply vanishes from his life. Now merely a memory, things only accelerate into weird when an identical girl makes a grand entrance into the city, only to claim that she is a cyborg from the future, here to help Jiro avoid an impending disaster. Fortified with frightening reflexes, bizarre weaponry, and immense strength, Jiro's new bodyguard becomes something from dream girl to nuisance, to dream girl as the film strains to justify a man's attraction to simulacra. And while the film does want very much to be as much an action film as a love story, Jae-yong never seems capable of finding an amiable balance. Even when the script insists that the answers lie in oh-so-gimmicky time travel, there never seems to be any good reason for both characters to even like each other.


It becomes such a muddle, that one must inevitably give up and just drink in the occasionally amusing gags Jae-yong and crew must have had fun executing with our leads. Wish to see a lithe beauty trounce a couple of street punks up and down an alley? Check. Wish to see her tip over a bus full of commuters with her immensely heavy chassis? Check. Wish to see her take out desperate hostage takers and psychos, all while tending to a wet paper thin excuse for a romantic arc? Or how about an "ironic" gag involving a robot doing "The Robot" in a club scene? Check, check, check. The film is eager to please, but also seems so eager to be as much a somber tale of fated love, as well as an asian take on Reitman's My Super Ex-Girlfriend. The scripting and tone of the finished product reeks of stumbling in the development department, which only makes the emotional core all the more perplexing. In the end, it becomes pretty hard to discern just what the film wants to say. And considering the impressive production on display, it all boils down to a zero sum game with super-jokes.

So when we flash forward a year, one would think that a film centering on a lesser spotlighted faction of the anime/manga world would prove interesting in the quirky romance realm, but Fujoshi Kanojo (aka- How To Date An Otaku Girl, 2009) asserts otherwise with vigor. Adapted from the light novel by Pentabu, the on its face tale of an ordinary guy, and his two-years older co-worker's rocky relationship. The sticking point being her rampant love for male-to-male relationships in animation and comics. More a half-hearted commercial for so-called "rotten girl" proclivities, and yet another exercise in forcing a pair of people into love for the sake of the story, rather than what is actually necessary for the characters. It is simply the worst kind of sentiment disguised as love-laden fluff due largely missing out on perhaps the other big elephant sharing duplex with Cyborg; dealing with two characters that have no real reason to like each other.


As much as the film's opening "confession" scene wishes to offer up a most unusual relationship, all we get is dysfunction, and often in the name of overselling. Unwilling to make the pair into uniquely complimentary characters with some understandable gulfs in between, director, Atsushi Kaneshige seems uninterested in the material, and only offers up a shrill view of this side of the obsessive fan world. Title character, Yoriko(Wakana Matsumoto) almost off the bat comes off as controlling, avoidant, and generally hyperbolic. And this is often shared with her friends, now just getting to know her new boyfriend, the incredibly ordinary, Hinata (Shunsuke Daito). Right from the offset, and despite her warning, it is clear that he is not one hundred percent ready for the oddball life of his new partner. (much of this consists of her dubbing her new beau as "Sebastian" - a loyal servant name, and making often bizarre demands on the regular) And while that indeed could make for a mildly engaging diversion about something many fan types go through, the film seems perfectly comfortable being as a sub-par commercial for numerous anime stores, and events, while playing up the fujoshi lifestyle as a club for unreasoning harpies. One would wish for a more sensitive way to describe it, but the direction seems unwilling to sell it otherwise. Even when there is a sticking point that harms Yoriko's ability to accept that her boyfriend really does care for her despite her lifestyle, it never amounts to anything compelling, let alone substantial for the story.


There is a general feeling of apathy, and almost contempt that permeates the core conflict that it occasionally infects both the performances, and pacing. So when the second half comes, and the inevitable fissure between both leads comes to a head, matters are made worse when the film takes on a tar-like slog with its pace, as if this is all meant to mean anything. It all ends up as inert as a dud bullet, with only an implication of a debate, but one that never really sees any real exploration. In fact, when things heat up, all it takes is a character being sent overseas to fuel a finale which accelerates to becoming one of the more forced final acts of a "romantic comedy" imaginable. It's so jarring as to be borderline disturbing to be frank.


In fact, the forced nature of taking both films' leads who would normally be seen as aberrations by the mainstream at large, only bolsters a grand admission of ignorance on the part of the filmmakers. One would think that after decades of books, documentaries, and even animation observing this phenomenon, that there would at least be some semblance of understanding of the humanity behind what makes such individuals tick. (Even in Densha Otoko's eye-rolling view of the 2D enamored, there is a faint amount of sweetness to it that is lacking here.) While Cyborg's Jiro is something of a non-entity, Fujosji's Yoriko comes off as imbalanced until the film forces her into being something average Japanese society can tolerate. Latent sexism aside, there is enough happening in both films that grant us a stillborn picture of an industry still unwilling to humanize a misunderstood minority- not to mention women. It's to the point that society's narrative for quirky central characters see them without any depth of voice, and happy to keep it that way.

Behind Older Lenses: Considering Previous Norms

 Ever wonder why it is many people tend to find themselves disconnected with a creative work that features ideas that do not gel with them on a societal level? Something that often intrigues me about even cult media, is its acceptance or denial by those who claim to be that much more well-rounded in their manner of discourse. It's like this wall that they've run against that is simply too high to even be bothered with it. That's the nature of subjectivity. But this isn't a post centered on say the current state of certain mediums. In no way are we talking about some of the more skeevy pander material either. In this case, I speak largely of works of the past that are capable of carrying what were even considered social norms of another era. From gender roles, to social habits. It turns out that upon spending more time to reading the blogs of contemporaries, or even listening to podcasts, there is at times an expressed deep urge to dismiss certain works because they either engender a world purview that doesn't jibe well with them, or makes the work seem regressive in thematic nature.

Take for example, my most recent post at Anime Diet... Some new thoughts regarding Wicked City (1987). It's a film that continues to burst with 1980s Japanese thoughts on sexuality, relationships, with a little extra grafted on to its dark fantasy milieu. The lead character starts the film as something of a playboy type, making bets on who gets to bed an attractive lady. It's an opening that many seem to take for granted, or at least seem to forget about because the scene following this is infamous for presenting one of the most terrifying visions of the female gender ever captured on celluloid. Skip to later though the film, we are then offered a vision of this man, inevitably settling down with someone who could more than capably be his equal, and yet the angle hovers very closely toward making this strong-hearted, independent character into something of a domesticized creature. And while Wicked City never spells out a complete transformation, it could very easily be construed that throughout the often terrible humiliation she goes through, that the narrative is something of a molding process. Adding the fact that she is of another race from a dimension dubbed, The Black World, there are some mildly intermingled messages happening here. And while it can also be considered, she retains a good amount of her own special nature come the finale, the finale takes its last moments of focus back to the male lead, who's role has been transformed from slick, tough guy lothario, to stone-jawed breadwinner. As expressed throughout the existence of Through Older Lenses, it is in many ways less a review series concerning older titles, but rather a way of looking back at something that might have had different meaning at one point in time/outlook, and coming up with new things to consider. It would be much easier to merely dismiss a work for some of a certain work's undertones, but some might also carry some hidden heft, some tiny hint of a more contemporary world view just scratching at the surface. Even if much of said film's views on male/female relationships seems dated, and perhaps even a bit sexist, it is also important to consider the time in which a work was made, and the audience it was specifically made for, where their minds were at this specific point. A bubble era, mostly male-driven society is not going to be the best place for any full barrage of progressive ideas, regardless of the industry's often impressively left-wing nature in those days. A production would grant some here, and lose some there. One has to appease sponsors and general audiences somewhere.

So when we look at other films of the era, like even John McTiernan's Die Hard(1988), and the dynamics regarding the marriage between the estranged McClane's, one can also see such notions snapping hard back toward the status-quo. One can still enjoy that film as the influential action spectacle that it is, but the subtext regarding Holly's gift Rolex remains more than a little suspect. For those partaking in the general discourse, it is perfectly fine to dub a work as something qualitatively strong or weak, but the layers past this are equally, if not more substantial.

But does this make a work worth dismissing outright? If art is the place where certain conversations, debates, and declarations can be made manifest in ways beyond the word, then isn't it important that those who comment either do so to further the discussion, or for those who make to respond in kind? If a work is able to successfully convey a hypothesis, or a political viewpoint, or even social norms, it is our role as those who are hosts to them to either confirm or deny them. It isn't enough that it didn't lose our attention, and more that we see where the author(s) involved were attempting to go with their project. Now this doesn't mean that works cannot disconnect, or even offend on an individual level. There are some creations where the lack of insight, or education, sensitivity, or whatever simply will not work with a person's internal worldview. So this is not so much about that manner of discord, so much as about bigger thoughts that concur with the mainstream of a specific era. If it succeeds in getting its ideas across, that is success on a level, but to be able to see how it connects to the population at large might be worth considering too.

Any form of expression is borne from the moment. It's a snapshot of a given time, place, or thought. And like any form of communication, the key invitation is for us to listen and consider. We're capable of doing much more than what a history textbook has ever done. And if this is all a matter of study, perhaps true discourse is about the consideration, and questions that follow.