Casual August: Realist Hero Is Actually Good?! (Last updated: 4st Aug)
So I'm going to start a new kind of blog separate from my usual topic-based analysis. I've realized that while I am quite happy being able to craft full essays out for a wide variety of shows, I am still somewhat limited. In every show and every episode, I often have many opinions, likes and dislikes but more often than not, I don't deem it substantial enough for a full analysis. However, I think that itself has begun to limit or censor some of the opinions I have; As if saying: I can only write or express things that needs to be public-worthy.
With this mindset, this blog has already diverted from some of my original vision for it: A blog that is a comfortable place where I can jot down and gather various feelings I have. And it also runs counter to my personal philosophy: Any feelings you have of a show, no matter how basic it is, is worthy to be considered and looked at. That is, I don't want an environment where we can only talk about "deep shows" and only consider shows with symbolism "deep". Often times, even a cute-girls-doing-cute-things show can have many creative decisions for us to compare and dissect. I want to be able respect all arts of the craft, even if it is something as simple as drawing cute girls correctly. And ultimately, I want to respect these feelings I have within me; If I possess a feeling, even if it is just the comfy-ness of a SOL show, I think that feeling is as important to me than when I try to carry myself with sophistication. Some of these feelings may get a full analysis in the future, but what is most important is ensuring that those that don't, get "represented".
I will thus post a blog every month titled "Casual monthly", where I am free to write whatever I want in it; It can be some cool technical details I caught or it can just be about me gushing about best girl of the season. The useful thing about blogger is that I can update blogs that I have already posted; Meaning, I can just store all my thoughts into one blog instead of having many flooding my archives. Thus, this will be updated whenever I see fit, and though I doubt many do follow my blog regularly, I will still post a "last updated" meter in the title for tracking purposes. Well, without further ado, let's get this blog thick and chunky!
Remake Our Life & Realist Hero: The Protagonist Folly
When I was first scanning through the shows this season, 'Remake our Life' was the best pilot episode for me. And even after watching 'Sonny Boy', I still stand by the fact that 'Remake' still held its own with its solid characterization against 'Sonny Boys' sheer creativity. The 50 minutes of introduction to Kyouya, coupled with his ambition, strengths, flaws and conflicts, all made him my 'MC of the season'.
But I think the show (as of episode 5) has ran into a common problem, I coined, the 'Protagonist Folly'. Namely, where seemingly everything and every person centers around our protagonist. Conflicts are resolved solely based on the MC's inputs, characters don't form many dynamics around their own circle and side characters lack agency (A concept I discussed in Spirit Chronicles).
The glaring example with 'Remake' is with Kyouya having been portrayed for three episodes consequtively to be the savior of the damsel in distress. Both Aki and Nanako each have insecurities about their own talents, which itself isn't a problem until they needed a total of 3 different pep talks from Kyouya. This undermines both Aki and Nanako's own character agency; They needed someone else to resolve their own conflict, and has become dependent on said person. This often sets the path for the rest of the characterization as well; They fall in love with the MC, or at some similar shape or form, and will always hold the MC in their highest regard in the rest of their interactions. This is where you get the cliche scenes of 'girls still gushing about the MC even when they are alone' scenes.
'Remake' hasn't reached that irredeemable point that many harem anime has yet, but it is getting close; While Nanako still interacts with her friends, her 'high' points have thus far been chained by Kyouya. After all, she needed Kyouya to cure her insecurity twice thus far. Even the next imminent conflict of 'jealousy' is chained to Kyouya, him being her target of affection. Nanako can still interact with other characters like Tsurayuki afterwards, but the audience's perception has undoubtly been warped by this point; Nanako is -- Rather than her own character with her own agency -- Simply a member of Kyouya's love triangle.
Keep in mind that I have no qualms about 'love triangles' and the 'harem' genre; In fact, some of my favorite manga and shows have those aspects in spades and yet still managed to capture my heart. I always justified 'love triangles' like this: It only becomes a problem when the characters begin losing their agency; Namely, the girls' having all aspects of their life circle around our MC. But how do we avoid such a problem that seemed intrinsically consequential of one another? Easy -- You tweak the details.
Let us reimagine the details in episode 4: We don't need to change any big plot points about Nanako's insecurity, Kyouya's pep talk or even how he motivated her again with his music video; All we need to do is to shift the focus. Instead of spending 3/4 of our perspective with Kyouya, we simply focus on Nanako as our lead in that episode. After her fight with Eiko, focus on her instead of the MC; In fact, give her the 'Kyouya treatment'. Give her a substantial flashback, recounting all her struggles and losses; Cut out all the unnecessary scenes of Kyouya running around talking to people. Instead of just having our heroine be trapped in her room waiting for her savior, have her go outside and interact; Our MC doesn't have to be the one clearing the misunderstanding with Eiko, let she herself do it (It is her conflict). She can still be passive and depressed, but at least now we see her passivity and depression, instead of it being described. If given the chance, I can even stuff all of Kyouya's prep for the music video into a minute or so through montages; The rest of the time is dedicated to our heroine to ponder, reflect and vent.
An even more interesting decision is to not portray Kyouya's music video as the climax of the episode; Have it be a mini triumph for Nanako mid-episode, and for the rest of second-half, have her improve herself; We see in the beginning of episode 5 that she has been practicing her pitch with her peers, studying music theory and singing in a karaoke -- Why is that not the part we should be focusing on? Kyouya gets 3 minutes; Nanako gets everything else.
Just by shuffling details, giving some greater screen time while others lesser screen time, you can realise that we have essentially made Nanako someone with agency; We can see her resolving her issue with Eiko, we can learn about her flashback in greater detail, we can see her putting in the effort to improve herself. And all without removing the detail of Kyouya being her savior; Both points can coexist and yet not remove power from Nanako. Keep in mind, it is not enough for us to just 'hear' that she is practicing, we need to 'see'; It is in the greater details do we internalize and appreciate after all.
In fact, let us form some comparison with 'Realist Hero', a show in which I initially placed below 'Remake' and yet has since overtaken it. Our MC, Souma, has every makings to become the show's 'protagonist folly'. The premise itself can't escape that fact; He is a literal king and in episode 4, was given expressed permission, by the ladies and by the law, to form his own harem. However, what I want to show is that you can still have all of those 'end-game' goals and still have side characters that possess agency; Aka "having your cake and eating it too" -- Like I said, you just need to tweak the details.
In the scene where Souma and the girls were talking about his harem being legal, it is interesting to note, who has the 'focus' in the conversation; Keep in mind, the topic's end goal still ultimately leads to 'Kyouya-Harem'. We are, instead, more focused on the 'immediate conversation'.
Liscia is the first one who brings up the topic of polygamy. This led to the rest of the girls educating Souma on the laws of the country. Souma, being curious, asks Liscia why her father only had one wife then, to which Liscia explains that that is a unique case. She also reveals some of her feelings regarding the issue, which is that she was expecting herself to be married off one way or another, regardless of 'polygamy' or not.
Yes, surprisingly, the focus and the one with the initiative in that scene is Liscia; This simply goes beyond just the fact that she is doing most of the talking; It also takes into account the idea that Liscia is used to 'polygamy' as the common law. She also understands her father's case was special, and she doesn't expect her future husband to be exclusive just because of that.
This tells me two important things:
- Liscia is aware of the nature of the countries' politics and how that will affect her (Personal awareness)
- Despite that knowledge, Liscia has accepted that fact and instead priortizes the laws and in extension, the country over her needs. (Personal beliefs, compromise and ambition)
She is still associated with Kyouya, but instead of it being justified by 'harem genre', it is because she is willing. The fact that she doesn't see this as that big of deal also goes a great deal in humanizing her; We are used to other shows having their girls clawing at the MC, being Tsundere and saying 'I don't want that' blah blah blah; Liscia isn't like that, she acts mature about the issue rather than forfeit all personality for the joke. I analyzed our fellow slave character, Latifa from 'Spirit Chronicles', in this lens as well.
Latifa is and will, in the end, become the member of Rio's harem; An undeniable fact. But what is different is that in those scenes of hers, she showed the appropriate immediacy and has tweaks in characterization that makes her willing, rather than just 'My writer needs another loli in the show'.
Once again note that we don't care about the end-game here; We care about 'agency' and 'immediacy'. Afterwards, Liscia does show some small hints of jealousy, but she relents and states: "You can marry others, but I want to keep it at 8 as there are 8 days in a week and I want to at least keep you for 1 day."
What this tells me about Liscia is this: "Hey look, I don't mind you having other bitches, but let's lay down some house rules. 8 girls max, and you need to give me 1 of those days; No ifs or buts."
She, of course, wants to monopolize but she is aware that she can't stop it. So instead, she makes the best of the situation by laying down some house rules. Say, what you want about Liscia being a mere member of a harem, but she is 'making lemons into lemonade' more proactively than I have ever done so in my life; That is what I call: A-grade Character Agency.
'Realist hero' follows its cliches comfortably, but I think its subtle tweaks and characterization is pretty rad to see. Liscia's case isn't the only example as there are many more in the story though; Actually, now that I think about it, isn't there enough substance here for me to write a full essay? Hmmm, I'll think about it!
Spirit Chronicles: The curse of big numbers (4th August)
Disclaimer: Full-on rant; Avoid if you dislike emotional, incoherent views that are filled with many logical fallacies.
So I have been reading the Spirit Chronicles light novels, and oh damn does it suffer from the curse of big numbers. Too large a cast and too little time for development, and too little dynamics; This curse is quite insidious and I think it more so often boils down to a writing philosophy that Kitayama-Sensei seems to take. Basically, a philosophy where "more characters equal more variety". You go to this animal village, introduce 10 characters. You go to the next Japanese village, introduce another 10; Oh wait, the Japanese village has another sub-branch where we can afford 6 more characters. Now let us introduce other-worlders back from OG Japan too; You have our main two, the childhood love interest and the step-sister. But that's still lacking in variety right? How about you make the step-sister have a brother too and you make it so that that brother has another brother we have completely never met before. And just to make sure that we actually have VARIETY with a bold letters in between, let the childhood interest have some random female friend that somehow needed to get transported (or whatever her relationship is, kinda hard to keep track of at this point). Goddamn man, chill! Seriously why are there so many characters in this series? You want to know something that actually tilted me over the edge on this fact? In volume 5, Rio returns back to his old city and over there, he was set up to "reunite" with this random-ass young girl who runs a food store which Rio just so happened to eat from that one time 5 years ago... What? Why? What's the need for that? Is that store girl ever gonna be relevant to the story in some way? Will she come back 50 volumes from now having discovered a breadstick that would save Rio from starvation?
Another thing that baffles me is with the two communities they introduced thus far -- The Animal Village and the Japanese Village. First off, the Japanese Village was relevant for 1 volume and then it got poofed off the face of existence for the next 5 of them! I get that that it was meant for us to get some info-dump into Rio's life with his mom and set up the revenge quest. And I know that it will still be relevant in the future. But seriously... How the hell are you going to spend so many words introducing us to a whole new setting with dozen of characters, and then proceed to fuck off for the rest of the story dealing with some political marriage, another princess rescue mission and an entire book dedicated on the slice of life adventures of Haruto and his Japanese-bros...
The same shit happen with the animal village too. Every single time Rio returns back to the village, somehow or another, 3/4 of the paragraphs is just dedicated to: "Hey, I know everyone literally just read this shit a volume ago, but let me once again narrate every single story beat and worldbuilding details that just happened to this council of elders, because somehow these council of elders didn't get the memo to read Seirei Gensouki volume 609." Legit bruh, why is half of this series just characters informing other characters information we already know? Like seriously, how many fucking times do I need to know that Latifah is that girl on the goddamn bus?! How many times do I need to know that Aki hates her older brother?! It is like Kitayama-Sensei somehow thinks that it is her responsibility to make sure that every single character knows that character A has taken a poop this morning... No, we don't need to know that. Just summarized that shit like what other authors do; It literally takes three sentences: "So I told them. They nodded. We then moved on with our fucking lives."
The weirdest thing is that nothing of consequences ever came from all the info-dumps. Does it matter that the council of elders learnt four whole volumes of the misadventures of Rio? NO! It doesn't! They don't even give interesting reactions or revelations! Life for them just sorta goes on afterwards and we needed to sit through Rio narrating every single excruciating details, which could've been easily summarized, for what reason? Just so that a logical connection can be made? Just so everyone can be on the same page...? FML dude...
Haizz... Rant over. Just needed to get that off my chest. You know I am not gonna say I am a good writer in any means. I write my own fantasy story on my down-time, so you know it when I say I have written a lot of goddamn cringe. But somehow, someway, I find myself believing that even my love fanfiction had story-telling that was 10x more efficient and less convoluted than this...
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