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Effectronica posted:Okay, yes, let's play this out. From the first episode, the bears infiltrated past the "Wall of Extinction" because... they're horny? They need to rape to live? It's something that's obviously sexualized, but when you look at it from that perspective, it suddenly becomes incoherent as anything other than some truly disturbing fetish pornography with a bunch of nonsense attached. They don't need to get through the wall, they just want to. Ginko says it herself - 'gently caress da police, we're bears.' And if you take them as the stand-ins for evil hedonistic psycho lesbians, who exist to defile pure Japanese maidens in ways deemed acceptable by the dudes arbitrating the Court of Yuri, it does indeed fit.
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Jan 10, 2015 21:43
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Effectronica posted:Okay, yes, let's play this out. From the first episode, the bears infiltrated past the "Wall of Extinction" because... they're horny? They need to rape to live? It's something that's obviously sexualized, but when you look at it from that perspective, it suddenly becomes incoherent as anything other than some truly disturbing fetish pornography with a bunch of nonsense attached. Or, they need to express their true selves in order to live, but they don't have a model for how to behave except embracing madness and eating delicious girls whole.
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Jan 10, 2015 21:52
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Put simply, the rape imagery is itself symbolic of some point. However, I just wish it wasn't rape imagery that was used to make the point. Just show us the bears eating a girl, that makes the point well enough without rape imagery.
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Jan 10, 2015 22:00
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I watched the first episode of this and I think it was pretty gay. Also the bears are literal rapists who are after some pure lily-romance-girls. The show is actually really deep and insightful analysis of the yuri genre, and totally not about exploiting teenage lesbians for erotic imagery. I don't watch a lot of anime and this was my take on the show. Maybe I'll watch more because I really liked Penguindrum. hth
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Jan 10, 2015 22:10
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ViggyNash posted:Put simply, the rape imagery is itself symbolic of some point. Less eroticised rape imagery, maybe? Because I totally get why you might want to make it less fanservicey, but with the themes being addressed here, rape imagery is pretty much inevitable.
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Jan 10, 2015 22:14
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Yikes. :kumashock:
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Jan 10, 2015 22:31
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Darth Walrus posted:but with the themes being addressed here, rape imagery is pretty much inevitable. That was less imagery of rape than it was almost actual rape. I understand having imagery subtly implying rape, or maybe contextualizing attempted rape, but that was toeing the like of being actual rape. ViggyNash fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jan 10, 2015 |
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Jan 10, 2015 22:43
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ViggyNash posted:That was less imagery of rape than it was almost actual rape. I understand having imagery subtly implying rape, or maybe contextualizing attempted rape, but that was toeing the like of being actual rape. I think it's okay to say "high-artsy, high-fartsy psychedelic psychosexual metaphor-heavy animation about lesbians is not for me." It probably was not intended to be for everyone.
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Jan 10, 2015 22:52
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Well the rape imagery apparently went right over my head. 
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Jan 10, 2015 22:59
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Rand Brittain posted:I think it's okay to say "high-artsy, high-fartsy psychedelic psychosexual metaphor-heavy animation about lesbians is not for me." It probably was not intended to be for everyone. My problem with it is that it seems intended as fanservice, which is really hosed up since it's rape and sets a bad precedent for the show. I'll stop discussing it if it's annoying you, but I feel it's a point that needs to be made.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:03
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Look if you aren't taking the figurative imagery literally and very seriously at this early stage you're not taking anime seriously and that is provably the wrong way to do things
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Jan 10, 2015 23:04
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ViggyNash posted:I think this thread is going to more entertainment than the show. It sure will be. ViggyNash posted:Also the young virgin girl mcguffin seems to have died by bear already, and I am confused. ViggyNash posted:But it is obvious from this episode that they are hunting down unaccompanied people which you could translate to the predatory nature of bullies. ViggyNash posted:You have to be pretty drat dense or actively trying not to see that scene as overt, in-your-face, "DO YOU GET WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY HERE?" sexual imagery about rape. ViggyNash posted:rape ViggyNash posted:rape ViggyNash posted:rape Go on...
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Jan 10, 2015 23:15
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YbMGW6xSzw
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Jan 10, 2015 23:17
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The first episode of Penguindrum had a acid trip scene involving the 2 brother protagonists being dominated by their little sister as she walked down a flight of stairs slowly undressing culminating in her fully nude in front of one of them telling him that she was about to initiate the survival strategy, finally ripping the guys heart. Immediately after that the brother that got his heart ripped off goes on a monologue in the real world about how simple and elegant animals are because they act on their pre-programmed instincts. Then he asks god " if a man were to ignore his fate, his instincts, the commands of his DNA to love someone else, would he still be considered human?". All of this while he watches his little sister sleep, then he moves in to kiss her before the episode ends. No matter what you think these scenes meant by just reading this or watching it for the first time, I can guarantee you that its not what it really meant.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:31
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My biggest issue with this show so far and penguindrum to a large extent are just the fact that it requires so much extra-textual knowledge to grok that it doesn't really construct anything on its own. It might have a narrative intent but all it comes off as is Ikuhara screaming at the audience "LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF THAT ISN'T IN MY SHOW!!!" which is like the definition of tell, not show. Something that I think Utena did well that sets it apart from other Ikuhara stuff is that even if you don't know it's all about takarazuka or stage plays it still constructs its motifs, symbols, and themes without the necessity of outside knowledge. Penguindrum and this don't. In order to understand them, you need to understand that Ikuhara is writing it to ~revitalize the yuri genre~ through a reimagining of a horrible series of bear attacks in Tokyo. In order to understand Penguindrum fully you need to know that its culturally referencing Night on the Galactic Railroad through a weird story about the aum shinrikyo's sarin gas attacks during a very specific period during the 90s. Without that knowledge, huge parts of the show and its functional elements sort of fall apart. Essentially what I'm saying is that analysis is pretty good but it doesn't solve the narrative problem that about 90% of the reading is outside what the text is presenting.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:35
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laplace posted:Penguindrum and this don't. In order to understand them, you need to understand that Ikuhara is writing it to ~revitalize the yuri genre~ through a reimagining of a horrible series of bear attacks in Tokyo. In order to understand Penguindrum fully you need to know that its culturally referencing Night on the Galactic Railroad through a weird story about the aum shinrikyo's sarin gas attacks during a very specific period during the 90s. Without that knowledge, huge parts of the show and its functional elements sort of fall apart. Ikuhara is writing for a Japanese audience that pretty much knows this stuff by default though, Galactic Railroad and other Kenji Miyazawa stories are studied in school like we study Shakespeare and there's unlikely to be a person who doesn't know about the gas attacks in Japan. It's not really his fault that we're coming from it from a different cultural understanding. That applies to Penguindrum anyway, I'm not willing to seriouspost about this show until a few more episodes have passed, and possibly not ever.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:49
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I know these things, I've gone to school in Japan and read the stories and learned about the gas attacks. It's still an issue though, because it makes the show itself not a complete product on its own. I don't think this show is really worth analyzing at all and it is early, but my point was more "This show might not stand the test of time like his other work" because of how much specific information it requires and honestly how even its target audience is slowly being distanced from it.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:57
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This show is so hosed up:
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Jan 11, 2015 00:02
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OK honestly, as a person thats never watched or read Galactic Railroad and has cursory knowledge on the subway sarin gas attacks, what did I miss from penguindrum? How would I be incapable of understanding the work in itself? I'm genuinely curious if its just passing allusions or fundamental parts of the story that I would just be incapable of understanding because I'm a filthy gaijin from the Caribbean. e-Most of what I knew about the sarin gas attacks was "A looney cult did it" before watching penguindrum and when I did start reading it all I saw was the number 23 everywhere and started freaking out. Cao Ni Ma fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 11, 2015 00:03
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I think there's a pretty big difference between knowledge that enhances your understanding of a work and needing to know something in order to make any sense of it. I didn't know anything about Galactic Railroad when I watched Penguindrum (and my knowledge of the sarin gas attacks was limited to "a cult did it and it was a big deal") and I didn't feel like not having that knowledge was a burden that affected my enjoyment of the show.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:04
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To actually follow the story of Penguindrum? Absolutely nothing. Everyone should watch Night on the Galactic Railroad though, it's really good film.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:07
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Here's an anime blog explaining the origin of most of the story and its references/metaphors in a much more in-depth way than I have effort to do. The big thing is just that the characterization and a lot of the reasons why characters do things or why things are represented with certain symbols are direct callbacks to Galactic Railroad, and it takes a lot of themes and loaded symbols wholesale from the story. It's not that you can't understand the story or appreciate it to some extent, its just that a lot of the stuff in the show relies on its really overt narrative mirroring in order to function on a deeper level. Stuff like the importance of Scorpions and fire, and the "meaning" of Shoma's disappearence at the end of the show. While it isn't necessarily 100% required for grasping what the show is doing, the show doesn't exist in a vacuum and it doesn't really do much to construct its own symbols. My point is mostly that Ikuhara has fallen into a habit of voluntarily sacrificing the ~narrative integrity~ of his shows for the sake of making sort of overt, unnecessary references to other things when he could just... construct poo poo on his own perfectly fine, as evidenced by Utena. Edit: There's other things that make Penguindrum sort of a love letter to Japanese literature, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing -- some of the literary references don't really get in the way of its narrative in the same way that NOTGR's do, but a lot of them do create issues where there is a huge amount of narrative strain on making highbrow references rather than actually assembling a story. laplace fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 11, 2015 00:09
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everythingWasBees posted:Well the rape imagery apparently went right over my head. Or this could entire thing could spiral into the worst possible places and this thread gets gassed. Either way, I'm excited to find out.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:26
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AnacondaHL posted:It sure will be. lol
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Jan 11, 2015 02:25
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ViggyNash posted:My problem with it is that it seems intended as fanservice, which is really hosed up since it's rape and sets a bad precedent for the show. I'll stop discussing it if it's annoying you, but I feel it's a point that needs to be made. It's not that it's annoying so much as that it could go on forever and we only have one thread for this show. "When is it artistically appropriate to portray bad things in art in ways that make them seem good or erotic" is an interesting question and I would like to see it discussed but in this thread it's mostly just going to end up drowning out everything else.
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Jan 11, 2015 02:30
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I'm just pretty sure that people who don't know that Ikuhara is trying to "Revitalize the yuri genre" will just read this show as weird lesbian furry rape. Which to be fair, isn't incorrect.
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Jan 11, 2015 02:32
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laplace posted:"LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF THAT ISN'T IN MY SHOW!!!" It's been awhile since I gave up on being an English Lit major but isn't this like the definition of "the discourse" or "intertextuality" or something that all my professors said was A Good Thing?
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Jan 11, 2015 02:39
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Ikuhara is a weird fucker, and I don't like him.
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Jan 11, 2015 02:39
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Ikuhara is a weird fucker, and I like him. 
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Jan 11, 2015 02:40
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That's not what I said at all. Jesus Christ.
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Jan 11, 2015 02:41
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Anyways, that sailor mars cosplay pic of him makes him look like a grown up version of this kid I went to highschool with who ended up shooting someone, just sayin'
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Jan 11, 2015 02:42
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Paper Triangle posted:It's been awhile since I gave up on being an English Lit major but isn't this like the definition of "the discourse" or "intertextuality" or something that all my professors said was A Good Thing? From an academic perspective intertextuality is only good if something actively engages in a discourse or the things its referencing help strengthen the structure that is already there. When things reference other narratives (especially for very specific cultural references) in a way that doesn't necessarily strengthen what is already there or only function in arbitrary ways its still seen as unnecessary and essentially only weakens the greater work. In Penguindrum's case, the references really only serve to justify some plot elements rather than to say anything, so it's a little weak. The classic example of a text that is intertextual and works is James Joyce's Ulysses, in that it functions as a novel on its own and constructs its own symbols, but still is related to The Odyssey -- The thing that makes this good is that it makes a point of acknowledging this and making this reference important. Intertextuality is great when it's saying something, essentially, but when things are intertextual either just for the sake of being seen as high-brow or just to borrow symbols and themes without having to construct them on their own, it's considered poor writing. Essentially, it's just bad to use Intertextuality and discourse as a means of shorthand to get out of actually writing a narrative. I'm not really saying this show is that far down the rabbit hole yet, but I think that Ikuhara has veered dangerously close to that in the past. I like him when he's being creative on his own and that's where his strengths are. Edit: To get even worse academia, in pomo writing (which Ikuhara tends to ascribe to/fall under) outside texts technically don't exist and things are referenced in their own contexts because their author is "dead". I don't necessarily ascribe to this but take that how you will. This was way too much of an effortpost for what essentially was just me explaining that I don't want Ikuhara to be lazy. laplace fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 11, 2015 02:54
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Anyways, that sailor mars cosplay pic of him makes him look like a grown up version of this kid I went to highschool with who ended up shooting someone, just sayin' what about the doujin tribute book Hideaki Anno published in 1994 where Ikuhara's BFF from the Sailor Moon animation team (the dude who he would later go on to make Utena with, Shinya Hasegawa) drew Ikuhara and Sailor Mars naked in a sauna together 
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Jan 11, 2015 08:58
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I just realized the plot is alot like that one episode of Cowboy Bebop where the moon exploded
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Jan 11, 2015 09:02
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Ikuhara is a weird fucker, and I don't like him. quote:This is just between you and me, but when I was fourteen, I saw a UFO.
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Jan 11, 2015 11:49
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This show is just about the anime titties and fanservice, guys. Huh, lesbian empowerment? Revolutionizing the yuri genre? Don't give me that, the women in the show are just objects for creepy men. No one but them could possibly enjoy this show. Furthermore, I can't imagine why Morishima Akiko, a lesbian who has made yuri manga her life, would ever sign up for this project except to sell her soul to pedophiles in Akiba. But seriously, can you guys stop projecting your insecurities?
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Jan 11, 2015 13:38
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Morishima loves drawing titties and fan service and sex, that's why I like her stuff way more than the usual 'friends but with kissing' that yuri often falls in to.
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Jan 11, 2015 13:48
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Sakurazuka posted:Morishima loves drawing titties and fan service and sex, that's why I like her stuff way more than the usual 'friends but with kissing' that yuri often falls in to. I just have an issue with egregious use of words like 'fanservice' and 'pandering' in stigmatizing connotations as if there's some objectively right or wrong way to write sexuality. Funny enough, it's possible that this very topic is a theme of the show. We'll see. (Well, I mean, there are of course ways to go about sexuality that are considered wrong by hopefully every member of this board, but, you know. Within reason and all that.) Space Flower fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 11, 2015 14:05
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aers posted:what about the doujin tribute book Hideaki Anno published in 1994 where Ikuhara's BFF from the Sailor Moon animation team (the dude who he would later go on to make Utena with, Shinya Hasegawa) drew Ikuhara and Sailor Mars naked in a sauna together It's uncanny, tbh.
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Jan 11, 2015 14:57
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAfS-qoivKY
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Jan 11, 2015 17:35
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