Shoujoucon Report
Posted by erin at August 26, 2003 01:57 PMLast Saturday I attended Shoujoucon, the northeast convention of girls' themed anime and manga. My friend Lauren went with me, but not N., as he figured he wouldn't enjoy it. He was probably correct.
Lauren is a casual anime fan and had never been to a con before. She had a good time. I also had a pretty good time, although I've been to better cons before.
Mostly the video programming was crap, although it was not scraping the bottom of the bucket completely, they were showing titles like "Trouble Chocolate" and "Fancy La La" - easily two of the worst anime series I've ever seen. In fact, they cancelled something I wanted to watch and replaced it with Fancy La La.
So we ended up watching an hour of AMV's, a handful of which I'd seen at Otakon and Yuricon already. Much like Yuricon, there were an unhealthy number of AMV's cut from Utena The Movie.
Next we watched two episodes of The Twelve Kingdoms, which seemed pretty good. It was about a schoolgirl transported to a fantasy realm in order to solve their problems (others in that genre include Inu-Yasha, Magic Night Rayearth, and Escaflowne). There were a lot of magical animals, like in Inu-Yasha, but everything was much darker and scarier. It seemed like a decent show, something I'd like to see more of.
Then Lauren and I watched about 5 hours of "Gravitation," which is a Yaoi (gay) series centering on the life of a struggling J-pop band called "Bad Luck" (which lent itself to some killer puns, such as "Bad Luck is on the rise!") and their favorite band "Nittle Grasper," and some rival band at the same record company. The protagonist falls in love with an award winning novelist who is possibly the coolest guy ever, and also the world's biggest jerk. The series is by CLAMP, so there's plenty of bishonen with hair falling into their eyes.
Somehow, the show was not crap. It was not the best series ever, but it was never boring. Despite being somewhat like a soap opera, it managed to be compelling to watch. The flamingly gay protagonist who ought to be annoying is somehow sweet and a sypathetic character. I don't know how they managed that.
The really odd thing about the show, and watching it in a room full of girls who oohed and aaahed and sighed at everything cute, was that it kind of exploded the myth that guys want to see lesbians making out but that girls don't want to see hot guys making out. All the sex in the series was handeled tastefully, with kissing and falling off screen, and at each of these scenes, the audience squealed with delight.
I had no idea...
Comments Individual Archive Index
August 31, 2003 12:23 PM, thecomicman said:
"It was about a schoolgirl transported to a fantasy realm in order to solve their problems (others in that genre include Inu-Yasha, Magic Night Rayearth, and Escaflowne)."
why is it in that in anime, this is considered a genre, but everywhere else, it is considered an unoriginal, repetitive plot?
genre is fantasy, noir, horror, adventure, etc. a genre is a collection of works that shares certain themes and elements, not plot points (in a perfect world, anyway; i understand that Hollywood borrows plots from itself constantly). there is no 'Robot from the future tries to kill the past' genre. this is not a genre. it is a plot (an apparently high-concept one, at that). this is why most anime bores me. it's the same stuff, over and over again. is there a 'Cowboy Bebop' clone out there? possibly, but i haven't seen or heard of it, so 'Bebop' remains an original and fresh plot in my mind. it's also possible that when these clones do pop up in my frame of reference, i'll call them copies and still retain my love of 'Bebop,' or i'll start hating 'Bebop' for the repetitive bastard that it is (which will be unfortunate, since i own so much 'Bebop' related material).
what was my point again? oh yeah, plots are not genres; they are plots (this should be self-evident to all).
Post a comment