editorial note: since I hit kind of a glancing blow knocking anime in the last entry, I thought I'd go fetch something out of the old buffer file that was more or less to the point. Actually, it's not on point at all, except for the fact that it's also about anime. But this seems like as good a time as any to post it. One of these days I'll write an essay on the standard plot forms that get continuously recycled by our Japanese animatin' friends, and how that is both a good and a bad thing... but not today. Today, we cut and paste:


Shocked. Amazed. Appalled. But not surprised, not really.

Among the many other things one can learn from watching anime...

extended aside: in this case, a ‘normal’ piece of anime, not what has been termed ‘Japornomation’—a term which may actually have originated among my friends, since we tend to throw it around occasionally but I don’t recall seeing or hearing it used elsewhere. 'Hentai' seems to have filled that word-slot nicely, though a fan's knowledge of Japanese is necessary to know what folks are talking about (which may be one reason otaku are using it.) Japornomation is of course a corruption of Japanimation, which is an outdated American slang term for anime dating back to the old Robotech days (and I won’t define it, since I think the meaning should be obvious)

This particular series, well, I don’t know that they show it in the afternoon after school, but it was produced for regular broadcast TV. It does seem to be overburdened with a double dose of innuendo and a healthy amount of cheesecake... but [cough] you know, I watch it for the [cough] character development. Yeah, that’s it. Anyway...

...among the many other things one can learn from watching anime is that apparently, much like the French term (and for some it is the only French they know) menage a trois, there is a Japanese slang term for a fourway, which of course us lazy Americans would just call (with a touch of longing and envy) a “fourway”. I have learned through animation subtitles that this particular configuration is nicknamed “the Grand Cross” (no, I don’t really know if, um, the equipment or polarity of the various personnel makes a difference. In this case it referred to one dumb lucky bastard and three chicks.) And to be fair, in context, the Grand Cross was mentioned (with more than a touch of longing and envy) by the guy’s friends who had no idea of the real situation going on, which in keeping with an undercurrent I’ve noticed in quite a few of these of shows, consists of (note the change of adjectives here) one poor, hopeless bastard who couldn’t score with a woman, let alone multiple women, let alone simultaneously, even if they were throwing themselves at him. Which they do. (playfully, maliciously, continuously.)

I would say it reveals something deep about the Japanese male psyche. Except, you know
(“Mr. Kettle, there is a long-distance collect call from Japan from a Mr. Pot, will you accept the charges?”)
I’m sitting here watching it too.

While I will defend anime-as-art in a few select circumstances, I have to admit that like anything else, of course anime follows Sturgeon’s Law and 90% of this stuff is crap. Sexist, possibly misogynistic crap—occasionally, sexist-but-entertaining crap, but even when I’m laughing my ass off I can’t quite bring myself to defend it.

So, except for this one bit of trivia, I can't say there is a whole lot to redeem this show, except for the fact that it will kill a lot of time. It ran for 26 episodes (which will take 11 1/2 hours or so to watch) (Most of these anime titles have just 13 or 26 half hour episodes. I guess that's so they can run it for three or six months, and then plug something else into that time slot for the remainder of the year. Most anime shows also have discrete story arcs and come to a conclusion, like a novel. --if it's popular, they make a second season, or do a spin off, but with the noteable exception of Dragonball and a few others, they aren't really set up to just run forever like an american cartoon or sitcom. which is a good thing, in my opinion)

one final aside: the Grand Cross only showed up in the English subtitles to the original Japanese dialog; the dubbed version makes some similar-if-not-quite-so-graphic (or funny) sexual references, which leads me to believe there was a meeting at some point, “OK, folks, we’ve pulled in both the translators and our scriptwriters for our staff meeting today. Now. What kind of spin are we going to put on the fourway? Comments?”