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Kransom recently showed me this image from a 1982 issue of Animage Magazine. The image is a chart which is designed for you the reader to figure out your lolicon level. The further down the list your preferences go, the more of a lolicon you are.
I don’t expect people to recognize every character. I certainly didn’t, which is why I’m including this handy guide. From left to right:
Top Row (You’re Normal): Fiolina (Dagli Appennini alle Ande), Clara (Heidi), Monsley (Future Boy Conan), Hilda (Hols: Prince of the Sun), Lana (Future Boy Conan), Clarisse (Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro)
Middle Row (Serious Symptoms): Aloise (A Dog of Flanders), Diana (Anne of Green Gables), Megu (Majokko Megu-chan), Becky (Tom Sawyer), Angie (Her Majesty Petit Angie)
Bottom Row (Already Sick): Lighthouse Keeper Girl (Wanwan Chuushingura), Princess of the Purple Star (Gulliver’s Space Travels), Shizuka (Doraemon), Makiko (Tetsujin 28 (1980)), Ulala (Robokko Beaton), Mayu (Space Pirate Captain Harlock)
Though it might seem unnecessary for me to repeat it, I have to restate that this comes from 1982 and a very different era of anime. This is not the modern-age pandering lolicon of Kodomo no Jikan and other similar shows. Looking at this list, the majority includes characters from shows that were produced by future Studio Ghibli staff such as Miyazaki and Takahata, as well as characters from famous children’s literature around the world such as Tom Sawyer and Anne of Green Gables, and I don’t think anyone would accuse Diana Barry of being a one-dimensional character.
Though moe is not lolicon, the generally youthful look of moe characters means that the two ideas are often associated with each other. And aside from the idea that Miyazaki and children’s literature created the lolita complex in anime fans, accusations which are not new, I think the real implication is that as much as we decry lolicon and the like for being shallow, vapid, and creepy, this shows that it came from a real source consisting of strong storytelling and visual quality. Though I might be reaching a little, I really think that the people who realized their own lolicon-ness as the result of these shows were taken in by the excellent characterization of the young girl characters present in these anime, and not because these characters hit any specific buttons. This sentiment was then carried over, becoming reduced and simplified in the same manner that resulted in the current understanding of moe, and also in a fashion to how the people who fell in love with Gundam would go on to work on their own giant robot anime years later.
It’s not my goal to defend or condemn lolicon, but rather to say that this aspect of anime fandom, like it or not, appears to be born from high-quality Japanese Animation from some of the greatest masters in the industry. In other words, even though there are shows that pander to lolicon, it was not lolicon-pandering shows which created the market in the first place.
フィオリーナ・ペッピーノ
In my previous two entries in the Another Moe Discussion series, I may have generated some confusion on the topic, particularly because my own choices for characters I find to be particularly moe may seem somewhat unusual. In addition, reading the comments I received, a question popped up in my head: does the “moe” label imply a certain character depth or a lack thereof? The answer I’ve come up with is that it is both and neither. A seeming cop-out response, but allow me to explain.
Let’s say there’s an anime series you absolutely love, and in it is a character with strong characterization who goes through some trauma, and in the process resonates with you emotionally, possibly sexually, and you want to tell other people how great the character is and how powerfully attractive they are. The best way to try and make them understand would be to get them to watch the series, but if that is an impossibility, the best you can do is summarize the character and try to describe in fewer words just what made the character move you so. If you have to summarize your complex feelings towards the character in a few sentences, you’re going to have to either pick very specific moments or generalize greatly to give a broader view.
Now then, what happens if all copies of the original work fell into the ocean without any chance of salvaging them, and all the world had left was that summary you wrote? To be sure, your summation has its own merits, as does your intent to really get to the core of what makes you love that character so dearly, but what you’re left with now is a record of that depth. It would be like if nearly every book in the world on a subject was destroyed and the only ones left unharmed were Cliff Notes, and then everyone assumed that this is the way things are and also begin to write their own original stories in the Cliff Notes format. The summary becomes the entirety of the work.
Let’s use a famous character who is often argued as both moe and not-moe: Evangelion’s Ayanami Rei. Having watched the entirety of the original Evangelion series, I can say that there is a lot to Rei’s character to the extent that it’s somewhat difficult to summarize her character and do her justice, but if I had to, I would describe her as an expressionless girl who is fully aware of the fact that she is not unlike a human doll, and has to live while being unsure as to whether or not her emotions are real or just facsimiles. Rei often puts herself into danger as she does not regard her own life as more special or important than the task at hand. To abridge that once more, “Rei is a seemingly emotionless human doll who has little regard for her own well-being.”
But what happens if you take that Cliff Notes version and were to simplify it even further? A Spark Notes of the Cliff Notes one might say. What if you were to reduce the element of time down to zero, and attempt to express those aspects of Rei purely in her visual design? Blue hair and pale skin make her appear more doll-like. An expressionless face implies a seeming lack of emotion. The frequent appearance of bandages on her body implies that she often gets injured. These visual elements become symbols with their own power, which then can be isolated, codified, and even fetishized. Rather than looking for a character by their description as a conflicted human doll who struggles with understanding emotion, you can instead look for a character with pale features. And then you can play off of that trope by making a pale character who acts unlike the stereotype. That leads us to where we are now.
Depending on the extent to which you simplify and distill the attributes of a character, moe can be something with plenty of depth or very little, be it an emotional depth, a storytelling depth, or some other kind. I think this also explains why some people can have such a bad reaction towards moe, because it can be seen as a reduction of what should be there, a quick-and-dirty facsimile of storytelling and characterization. However we must also keep in mind that art and fiction itself is often an exercise in summarizing and simplifying ideas and emotions to transmit them more easily.
Yesterday, I made a post about how the “issue” of moe basically came down to whether or not it was personally offensive to someone. I didn’t go into what “is” or “is not” moe, as what was important there was not to get people to agree to any one definition but to point out the fundamentals of why moe can make for such heated debates and arguments. Today though, I want to talk about one of the possible reasons why discussions regarding moe can often seem like the two sides are arguing two entirely different topics. Keep in mind that my goal is not to show one side being right and another wrong, but to help you better understand why it is you, I, or anyone have developed our respective opinions on the topic of moe.
In the past, I’ve defined moe as a strong empathy for a character’s weaknesses, but knew that not everyone would necessarily agree with my interpretation. The more I studied my own definition and others’ however, the more I realized that there was some mix-up as to what different people considered the most important element in defining moe. From there, I thought up two general categories: static moe and active moe.
Static moe is where a character’s design and basic attributes are moe. The character’s voice, personality, unique physical traits, etc. all contribute to static moe. The idea is not to pull a character completely out of their context, but to see them in a stilled moment and gain moe from that.
Active moe is achieved through a character’s actions or what happens to them in the context of an animation. It is in the way they change or interact with their world that creates moe. In a way, this moe lacks concrete evidence, and is built into how the character grows on the viewer.
If we look at Tsukimiya Ayu from Kanon, her love of Taiyaki, tomboyish personality, lack of cooking skills, and penchant for saying “Uguu~” are all elements of static moe. Ayu’s interactions with Yuuichi, the way the two characters grow closer as friends, and the manner in which we learn about her true identity are what comprise Ayu’s active moe. To generalize, static moe is the stationary character, while active moe is the character in motion.
Now, what contributes most to your perception of moe? Whether you like moe or not, do you view moe as primarily static, where the most vital aspect of it is the design of the character, or do you view it as primarily active, with the greatest emphasis on the path the character takes?
Using myself as an example, when I examined the characters I found to be the most moe (Ogiue, Eureka, Hinata, etc.), I realized that my views on moe were shaped mostly by my own emphasis on what they had done as characters. In other words, I was moved strongly by their active moe. Again though, it’s not as if moe as active will make you like it, or thinking of moe as static will make you dislike it, but I think that the view of moe people have shaped in their mind relative to this dichotomy strongly influences their opinion as a whole, whether they realize it or not.
That’s Part 2 of Another Moe Discussion. Is there going to be a Part 3? A likely possibility, as I do have something in mind.
Hi kids, it’s time to talk about moe again.
There’s two things I want to address here, the first is what is up with the strong feelings towards/against moe. The second topic I’m going to address tomorrow, so hold onto your hats!
We as anime fans on the internet can argue about moe all we want, whether it’s hurting or helping the industry or anime as an art form, whether it’s a boon or a detriment to storytelling, but when you strip away all of the noble back-and-forth posturing and gesturing, it basically comes down to two “yes” or “no” questions.
Does moe creep you out?
If so, are you okay with that?
And this is based on however you yourself interpret moe to be. Of course I’m generalizing, and there can be other reasons to dislike it, but from what I’ve seen this is the origin of the most vehement opposition to it is from the people who just cannot handle the idea that anyone proper of mind would like moe of all things, and its most ardent supporters are the ones who take offense to the idea that they are somehow developmentally insufficient.
Now it’s okay to be creeped out by moe, as that’s totally your prerogative. I may like moe myself, but it’s not like there hasn’t ever been an instance where I was creeped out by a piece of fiction and I was not okay with that. Specifically, I’m talking about that awful Thundercats comic from a few years back where they had Wily Kit and Wily Kat as bondage slaves to Mumm-Ra. Sure, they were adults in the comic but what the hell. That really weird sexualization of two comic side characters from a children’s cartoon bothered the hell out of me, especially because this was not some guy’s fanart but an actual official comic that was supposed to be like canon to the Thundercats story. In many ways I think it’s similar to the reaction that a lot of its opponents have against moe, replacing Thundercats with anime as a whole.
As to what influences perception of moe, that’s for the next post.
Every week or so I find myself reading the latest chapter of Medaka Box. The thing is, I don’t like it all that much. It has a number of fine qualities and moments, like when Medaka pulls a Joseph Joestar and imitates someone to a tee, but something about it just doesn’t jive with me. It just doesn’t have that oomph, aside from that one girl on the track team whose design I like.
Whoo, she’s nice.
The problem isn’t that I’m not fond of it, but rather that I’m not sure why don’t like it that much, and it’s been bothering me since Chapter 0. It’s not the Nisio Isin-ness of it; I like Bakemonogatari just fine. Is it the visuals with the dialogue? This is further complicated by the fact that there’s plenty of mediocre to bad anime and manga that I do like, and none of them seem to have the unique problem I perceive Medaka Box as having.
I feel like I’m continuing to read it either in the vague hope that it’ll get better and all the pieces will start to come together, or that if I continue with it I’ll be able to better figure out just what my problem with Medaka Box might be.
Wildarmsheero recently linked me to an old interview with Sadamoto Yoshiyuki, character designer of Evangelion, where he describes Eva as being what would happen “if you add “Ideon” and “Devilman” together and divide by two.” A surprisingly accurate description when I actually think about that.
That brought my attention to a Post-Eva mecha show, RahXephon, which can in a similar fashion be described as the average of Evangelion and the old 70s Sunrise anime Reideen (not to be confused with the 2007 version or Chouja Reideen from the 90s).
Going by those statements, we come to the following conclusion:
RahXephon = (Ideon + Devilman + 2Reideen)/4
Anime, ladies and gentlemen.
I’ve never been able to pinpoint the exact causes for why drawing “manga” style typically doesn’t look quite right, but there’s some things I’ve noticed that I think point towards why this tends to be the case.
The artists did not grow up in the culture. I had a Japanese teacher who one day as part of a vocabulary exercise brought into class a drawing she made of a “handsome guy.” Now, my teacher was not an artist, but the picture she drew was clearly that of a manga-style character and nothing seemed out of place. It was just, when drawing a cartoon character who’s supposed to look stereotypically handsome, this is how it turns out. While I don’t think not growing up in Japan or Japanese precludes an artist from developing that style, I think you can see how growing up in different environments with different artistic influences can change how even a normal person draws or sees drawings, let alone a professional.
But what then are those stylistic differences? Why is it that a manga artist who draws super realistically can still feel naturally like manga? Why is it that even a lot of the non-Japanese artists who get the basic visuals right (i.e. understanding that it’s not just big eyes and small mouths) still tend to produce works that jar you out of the illusion?
The first big one is the different philosophies in paneling. Traditionally in manga, the flow of panels is very important to the story, with emphasis on the concept of “flow.” That’s not really an official term or anything, but it’s one I like to use. Manga are typically designed to have the readers’ eyes be guided smoothly through the page, from one panel to the next, with everything in the panel, art and word bubbles and all, facilitating this flow. While American comics for example also take care to utilize word bubbles in strategic areas to help move the reader along, traditionally the American comic has been about having self-contained panels, each of which encapsulates everything going on at the time, a perfectly stilled moment. I’m reminded of when Grant Morrison in an interview after Final Crisis said, “We talk about events all the time. Well, why can’t every panel be an event?” In a way, he’s not far off from the tradition of Western-style comics, whether it’s indie, superheroes, or newspaper gag strips. It’s also what I think is the real difference between “compressed” and “decompressed” storytelling.
Basically, think of manga as a river, and American comics as a series of ponds. While of course there’s more to comics than just America and Japan, I’m simplifying for the sake of what little claims to brevity I have left. And while there are exceptions on both sides, take note how a manga with not as much “flow” such as Space Adventure Cobra or Nausicaa do well in the west, particularly Europe where highly illustrative backgrounds tend to be emphasized, or how an American comic with a strong sense of visual “flow” in Little Nemo could be seen fondly in Japan (at least I believe it is, if someone can correct me, please do so).
And then there’s other smaller things. Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics for example talks about how back when romance stories in American comics were more common, they still tended to compose scenes as if all of the characters were figures placed in a room. Contrast this with shoujo manga, which tends to emphasize the emotional over the physical; it’s not as important that you know where characters are standing.
But that only applies to manga, right? What about all those cartoons that try, but don’t quite get it. Your Teen Titans and Totally Spies and what-not. There, I’m not as certain about it, but I think it just has to do with what’s considered common in Japanese Animation to the point of it being ingrained into the system. I think the most prominent example of this might be animating on the 3’s, which means changing the image on every third frame instead of every second one as is common with American cartoons. This was originally one of many necessary money-saving techniques for anime on limited budgets as far back as Astro Boy, and what ended up happening was that stuff like animating on 3’s and using lots of stills and closeups, stuff which had its origins in having scarily low budgets, began to be embraced and improved upon and mastered until it in essence became the style anime is known for. What’s important here is the way in which factors such as these influenced the sense of timing that anime tends to have, and if you don’t understand that sense of timing then it becomes difficult to replicate it. Anime has a unique sense of timing.
To summarize, what makes manga seem like manga and what makes anime seem like anime goes deeper than how the characters or backgrounds look, all the way to how the story is told through the visuals. Another important thing to remember is that this is less about quality, or why one is “better” or “worse” than the other, and more about why things are the way they are from the worst comics to the best ones. If you were to compare X-Men: Misfits, an American comic trying to be manga, and that Japanese X-Men manga I posted about a while back, a Japanese comic trying to be American, you’d see that neither one is able to fully escape their origins. Whether these are the most significant factors, I don’t know, but that’s what I’ve seen.
I’ve never been able to pinpoint the exact causes for why drawing “manga” style typically doesn’t look quite right, but there’s some things I’ve noticed that I think point towards why this tends to be the case.
The artists did not grow up in the culture. I had a Japanese teacher who one day as part of a vocabulary exercise brought into class a drawing she made of a “handsome guy.” Now, my teacher was not an artist, but the picture she drew was clearly that of a manga-style character and nothing seemed out of place. It was just, when drawing a cartoon character who’s supposed to look stereotypically handsome, this is how it turns out. While I don’t think not growing up in Japan or Japanese precludes an artist from developing that style, I think you can see how growing up in different environments with different artistic influences can change how even a normal person draws or sees drawings, let alone a professional.
But what then are those stylistic differences? Why is it that a manga artist who draws super realistically can still feel naturally like manga? Why is it that even a lot of the non-Japanese artists who get the basic visuals right (i.e. understanding that it’s not just big eyes and small mouths) still tend to produce works that jar you out of the illusion?
The first big one is the different philosophies in paneling. Traditionally in manga, the flow of panels is very important to the story, with emphasis on the concept of “flow.” That’s not really an official term or anything, but it’s one I like to use. Manga are typically designed to have the readers’ eyes be guided smoothly through the page, from one panel to the next, with everything in the panel, art and word bubbles and all, facilitating this flow. While American comics for example also take care to utilize word bubbles in strategic areas to help move the reader along, traditionally the American comic has been about having self-contained panels, each of which encapsulates everything going on at the time, a perfectly stilled moment. I’m reminded of when Grant Morrison in an interview after Final Crisis said, “We talk about events all the time. Well, why can’t every panel be an event?” In a way, he’s not far off from the tradition of Western-style comics, whether it’s indie, superheroes, or newspaper gag strips. It’s also what I think is the real difference between “compressed” and “decompressed” storytelling.
Basically, think of manga as a river, and American comics as a series of ponds. While of course there’s more to comics than just America and Japan, I’m simplifying for the sake of what little claims to brevity I have left. And while there are exceptions on both sides, take note how a manga with not as much “flow” such as Space Adventure Cobra or Nausicaa do well in the west, particularly Europe where highly illustrative backgrounds tend to be emphasized, or how an American comic with a strong sense of visual “flow” in Little Nemo could be seen fondly in Japan (at least I believe it is, if someone can correct me, please do so).
And then there’s other smaller things. Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics for example talks about how back when romance stories in American comics were more common, they still tended to compose scenes as if all of the characters were figures placed in a room. Contrast this with shoujo manga, which tends to emphasize the emotional over the physical; it’s not as important that you know where characters are standing.
But that only applies to manga, right? What about all those cartoons that try, but don’t quite get it. Your Teen Titans and Totally Spies and what-not. There, I’m not as certain about it, but I think it just has to do with what’s considered common in Japanese Animation to the point of it being ingrained into the system. I think the most prominent example of this might be animating on the 3’s, which means changing the image on every third frame instead of every second one as is common with American cartoons. This was originally one of many necessary money-saving techniques for anime on limited budgets as far back as Astro Boy, and what ended up happening was that stuff like animating on 3’s and using lots of stills and closeups, stuff which had its origins in having scarily low budgets, began to be embraced and improved upon and mastered until it in essence became the style anime is known for. What’s important here is the way in which factors such as these influenced the sense of timing that anime tends to have, and if you don’t understand that sense of timing then it becomes difficult to replicate it. Anime has a unique sense of timing.
To summarize, what makes manga seem like manga and what makes anime seem like anime goes deeper than how the characters or backgrounds look, all the way to how the story is told through the visuals. Another important thing to remember is that this is less about quality, or why one is “better” or “worse” than the other, and more about why things are the way they are from the worst comics to the best ones. If you were to compare X-Men: Misfits, an American comic trying to be manga, and that Japanese X-Men manga I posted, a Japanese comic trying to be American, you’d see that neither one is able to fully escape their origins. Whether these are the most significant factors, I don’t know, but that’s what I’ve seen.
I made a post about some of my views regarding interacting with others online, and I’ve posted it at Otaku Crush. Being an Otaku Dating and Social Networking Site and all, I think it’s the ideal venue for this sort of thing.
Feel free to comment to this post or the one at Otaku Crush, and tell me what you think.
The Pokemon Who is Also God is available at Toys “R” Us until November 15 this week, and I don’t know about you guys but I am totally gonna get me some divine Pockets Monster and then not use it at all because I haven’t actually played the game in forever. Nobie’s been out of the Pokemon gig for a while now.
As a result of the Arceus giveaway I’ve been thinking a lot about Pokemon as of late, and so if you’ll forgive me I’m going to ramble on while trying to touch on a number of points that I want to discuss.
Arceus is not the first rare pokemon I’ve obtained. I’ve gotten Darkrai and Deoxys through Toys “R” Us and Game Stop by bringing in my DS with my Pokemon Diamond and using Mystery Gift to get eggs from that one shop. However, I also went to the Pokemon Center back when it wasn’t called Nintendo World, and I was even there to get my official Mew for my Generation-1 Pokemon games, as well as at Six Flags to get my Celebi years later. I’ve been at this for a while.
The biggest difference between then and now, is that with the way event Pokemon get sent to you through the Mystery Gift function, you can totally get your Arceus without anyone noticing or wondering why you’re even there. This was not the case with getting that original Mew. You had to stand in a line with your game cartridge in hand while next to people of all ages (mostly kids, obviously) talking about Pokemon, and then you had give it to the Nintendo official who was wearing a bright Pokemon shirt so that they could use a machine to give you your Mew. In other words, there was no way to disguise the fact that you were a Pokemon fan. You had to accept it in order to get your Mew, or you were out of luck. Or you could just Gameshark it, but that’s another issue entirely.
I’m the kind of person who was never afraid to tell people I was into Pokemon, and keep in mind that I was into Pokemon starting in high school, so I was well beyond the target age. So what I liked about the Mew event was that you had to proudly show that you were a Pokemon fan, and while I can definitely say that the current way of obtaining event Pokemon is a lot more convenient for everyone, I do end up missing that aspect of camaraderie where you couldn’t hide in shame. And I’ve known people like that online and off, who were afraid to tell other people they were fans of Pokemon. They in many ways helped to inform my posts about having confidence in yourself as a fan of anime and such. It’s something I want people to come to terms with, no matter who they are.
Going back to the whole “people of all ages” thing, it’s really amazing how Pokemon is able to attract such a wide age group, and it’s a testament to the effectiveness of the game design and the supporting material. The game is easily playable by children 4 and under, and yet the battle system is one of the most robust and entertaining vs modes you will ever find in a video game. With currently almost 500 Pokemon available, 17 types, tons of attacks and items and more, it creates this intricate web of decisions and actions that you have to consider in order to make an effective Pokemon team. If it wasn’t obvious before, I’ll say it now: I love the strategy in Pokemon. Love, love, love it. It’s one of my favorite games of all time as a result, where I focus my efforts on trying to make Pokemon with lesser stats and abilities viable in competitive play while still maintaining what makes them unique. I’ve been a part of Azure Heights, Pokemon Daily, I used the Pokemon Battle Simulator, GSBots, Netbattle, Shoddy, and I even wrote some of the strategy sections on Smogon for some of the lesser-used Pokemon such as Noctowl and Sableye (though they are out of date), and was one of the first to suggest Yawn + U-Turn on Uxie. The only reason I don’t play it more now is that I know how easily it can draw me in.
And the best part is, if you don’t want to be a part of this insane world, you can ride on back to Pokemon just being about going out on adventures with your Pokemon friends and trading and having fun and ignoring all the number crunching that goes on. But if you do choose to stay? Why, there’s a whole plethora of options available to you. You can make a team according to your personality and what you think is important in a game, and you can still be competitive.
I know it can be a very daunting task to try to get into Pokemon multiplayer seeing as how there’s so much information. You’re supposed to memorize the fact that Steel is only weak to Ground, Fire, and Fighting, while also knowing that Ursaring has a very high attack stat. You’re supposed to at the very least know all 17 Pokemon types and most of the Pokemon out there. It’s a lot to commit to memory. But do you know who does commit it to memory? Kids. And they don’t do it by first going, “OKAY, I, GEORGE PEEPANTS, AM GOING TO BE A COMPETITIVE PLAYER.” No, they just absorb all of the media naturally. They learn everything about Pokemon because they love Pokemon, and that’s the true beauty of the Pokemon concept.
I know some people are of the belief that games shouldn’t require you to learn so much before you get to play. To that I say, first off you don’t actually need to know all this stuff to start playing against other people, it just increases your chances of winning. Secondly, I think you are rewarded much more richly for understanding the Pokemon system first. Sure, Pokemon is glorified Rock-Paper-Scissors (and Yu-Gi-Oh is glorified War, but that’s another topic for another day), but it’s that glorification that makes it the solid game that it is, and the complexity of the type chart is not something which people “just know.” And if you want to learn, just do what the kids do, and play.
Wow, are you still with me? In that case, let me share one of my favorite Pokemon to use with you. It’s designed primarily to annoy people who hate it when luck influences a match. I won’t go into stat distributions and what-not, so you can have the opportunity to see what works for you.
Registeel @Leftovers
Substitute
Dynamicpunch
Zap Cannon
Explosion
Both Dynamicpunch and Zap Cannon have 50% accuracy, so you’re essentially fighting with coin flips, until you’ve had enough and you explode on somebody. Have fun with it, and watch as your opponents grow to hate you. You can use it in both the current generation and in the Advance line of games. If you want to apply it to Gold/Silver/Crystal, note that Ampharos can learn both Dynamicpunch and Zap Cannon.
So yeah, Pokemon.
Though this post is being made one week after the event, it’s better late than never as they say, and I’d like to commemorate the life and times of the New York City branch of Asahiya Bookstores, which saw its last day on October 31st, 2009.
I did not become aware of Asahiya until many years after it opened, and even then I didn’t visit it very often, but for me it was a very special store. After I came back from Japan, the story in Genshiken was at its absolute climax with Ogiue at the forefront, and it was through Asahiya that I would buy issues of Monthly Afternoon so I could continue to keep up with the story, and it was also through them that I bought the remaining collected volumes that were not out when I was in Japan, namely volumes 7, 8, and 9. Since then, while I would also buy from Kinokuniya occasionally and Book Off especially, Asahiya was my go-to place for Genshiken-related goods, which included the first volume of Jigopuri that I reviewed. From a rational point of view, I know that Kinokuniya would have served the same function had I ordered from them, but that was not the choice I made, and call me silly or sentimental, but I had grown attached to Asahiya for that reason. It also didn’t hurt that they tended to have better prices on items compared to Kinokuniya.
So despite the paucity of hamburger and hamburger-related materials on Halloween, I made one last stop at Asahiya, where most of the manga had already been bought out, and everything remaining was either $1 or $2. I picked up a ton of manga, including another title about fujoshi.
It’s always a funny feeling when you’re at a Going Out of Business sale at a store you frequented (earlier in the year geeks in NYC saw the demise of gaming store Neutral Ground). You’re enjoying the really good deals you’re getting, but you’re doing so at the cost of having the store fold in the first place. I got a similar feeling from scooping up sweet DVD deals from the ashes of Geneon USA, and while the savings are nice I can’t help but feel we lose much more as a result.
The end of Asahiya NYC. The end of Geocities. It really does feel like the end of an era.
