boy, the way glenn miller played

[langwidere]

So, as we all know, I can complain about anything — and that, in fact, I prefer whining to commonplace gratitude. It makes me feel safe and happy. I could walk outside tomorrow and see the fragile dome of the daylight sky stretched above me, slack and content as a satisfied cat, and my reaction would be: Ugh, this fucking sky is so blue! Why is it so blue? Is this like some kind of an insulting paean to the marketing campaigns of the 1950s or something? I am not impressed with your homage to Americana, God. It hurts my delicate eyes!

So, of course, it will surprise no one that I am kind of down on the fall 2010 teevee season:

My overwhelming feeling about television programming this year is that everything is really, really, really old-fashioned. Not "retro," you know, or "endearingly kitsch." More like "everybody ran out of ideas in 2002." When I sit down to watch a show, I have to physically examine myself to be sure I’m not somehow 25 again (which would be great and all, except for the fact that back then I was still battling persistent acne). This is an elaborate and difficult process, and sometimes I forget what I’m watching while I’m counting my age on my fingers — but I’ve done my best not only to complain extensively about the actual programs themselves, but also to compare them to their analogues from days gone by. To wit:

Glee
I am not in love with Glee this season. In fact, I usually want to punch it in the face anytime the screen is occupied by anyone other than Kurt, who remains adorable, talented, and awesome (and to whom I would have dedicated a painstaking and worshipful website, had the teevee time-machine managed to launch me all the way back to adolescence). Rachel and Finn have somehow managed to render one another fictionally inert, I miss Quinn being mean/sweet as opposed to "strong," I was enraged that the show made Kurt kiss a girl before letting him move on to dudes even though he already knows he’s gay, and the Britney episode? Terrible! 'Me Against the Music,' but no 'Lucky'? No 'Womanizer'? No 'I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman'? No danceoff? Glee, I suspect that you may not have the feelings for the Britney canon that you think you have. If you don’t love it, let it be. Also, a Rocky Horror salute? Really? What’s next? A quasi-ironical Bye Bye Birdie episode? (I have tried to watch Rocky Horror repeatedly, but I always fall asleep. It is rather boring. And then they started those wacky sub-sub-cult midnight shows, which are now some kind of suburban rite of passage or something, and eh. Eh.)
THIS SHOW REMINDS ME OF: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the crap years)

Hakuouki: Hekketsuroku
Let us take a moment remember that this show is not very good in the first place. It was old-fashioned to begin with — all harem shows are old-fashioned. They were tailor-made for unsophisticated geeks who had not yet been extensively catered to by an industry designed to milk them of semen dollars in the form of branded Hello Kitty dildos and talking Domo-kun dicksleeves. But, because all geeks have Asperger’s and cannot tolerate change, we will be suffering through anime harem shows forever. I’m looking forward to it! One of these days, someone will make a mainstream gay harem show with a plot that will be just as awful as all the other harem shows with plots, only gay, and represent! Represent! Anyway, Hakuouki is like Fushigi Yuugi starring Aoshi Shinomori, who is the only man I will ever really love, only worse. The new season features many exciting costume changes, and plot! twists! that a toddler would find obvious. I love it. (I am two episodes behind, though.)
THIS SHOW REMINDS ME OF: Fushigi Yuugi, Rurouni Kenshin, Blood+

Togainu no Chi
This show is based on a BL game that I am too stupid to play (and also my Windows partition somehow appeared to contract a virus, so I erased it). It is kind of dull. There are tragic drug addicts and 小父 who are probably 24 and some kind of disbelief suspension-challenging, elaborate organized crime/street-fighting subplot which will allegedly motivate the story in future episodes. All of the characters have codenames. I think? One of the characters is an openly-gay Squall Leonhart. Another is a gay disabled Japanese John Uskglass. His name is "Il Re." Heehee. Hee! Anyway, the production values are stellar; I imagine threes of dollars were lavished upon the series’ opening and ending sequences, which seem to be scored by different horrendous J-rock "songs" every time I fail to fast-forward through them quickly enough. Also, Toga sometimes affects that most venerated of crap-anime tropes: characters "walk" by moving their legs up and down while the scenery changes. Awesome! (One episode behind.) (If you are so inclined, you can download many enthralling Togainu no Chi doujinshi here.) (No, I have no idea why they did the wordbreaks like that; evidently there is no standard method for breaking Japanese words and everybody does it differently, so I usually go by whatever looks "official.")
THIS SHOW REMINDS ME OF: Weiß Kreuz

Otome Youkai Zakuro
This show is based on a Lily Hoshino manga which I once translated really, really badly. I would have had to apologize for it, had I been dumb enough to post it. I’ve only read the first volume of the series, but it is, I would say, "cute." I know. I’m sorry. The characters fulfill their appointed stereotypes without being entirely consumed by them, and I am so glad that everybody is pretty! I am a little tired of the "plain but honest" shoujo trope. Let’s have some crazy, hot characters! Um. This show is a standard monster-of-the-week concoction with a "subtle" anti-prejudice subtext, and the production values are only middle-of-the-road, but I still like it. (Two episodes behind.)
THIS SHOW REMINDS ME OF: Tactics (not gay)

I started watching Star Driver, because the Colony Drop guy said it reminded him of Utena, but it was boring and I dropped it. If I get desperate after Christmas, I’ll download the batch and watch it three episodes at a time while I’m praying for everyone in my family to be suddenly struck mute and then to develop a great yen to spend the holidays hanging off a precipice on a mountain in Tibet.

NOTE: Possibly the most persuasive evidence that Japan has officially run out of sauce? The fact that the big event show of the season parodied The Powerpuff Girls :[


Lastly, I am still struggling, lady Hercules-like, with my awesome translatory surprise. So keep your calendars open (MOM).

Comments

[starburns]

A quasi-ironical Bye Bye Birdie episode?
This is probably the only way I could manage to watch another episode of Glee. I love Bye Bye Birdie. I tried out for my middle school's production of it in 7th grade, but wasn't cute enough to get a part.

One of these days, someone will make a mainstream gay harem show with a plot that will be just as awful as all the other harem shows with plots, only gay, and represent! Represent!
If I did the comic, do you think I could make a million dollars? I would really like a million dollars. From what I remember of '90s harem manga (Love Hina flashbacks, accompanied by a soundtrack of shrieky violin notes), my art doesn't even have to be good or anything.

I am still watching Otome Youkai Zakuro, though. I'm glad it's teaching me that prejudice is bad, because, as you know, I'm an extremely violent bigot. Last week, they went to a ball and had to wear western-style dresses. Bet you didn't see that one coming!

[langwidere]

manage to watch another episode of Glee
Ugh. I know, right? I’m only hanging on because Kurt is supposed to get a boyfriend this season, and they’re allegedly going to be prom kings. Which will light a fire in my heart like a million sparkly birthday candles. For the gay, I will sit through a bunch of 30-year-old teenagers melismatically overselling the outdated pop hits of days gone by at 130 decibels. Because I love the gay. Yes. I do.

Um, not much of a Bye Bye Birdie fan, sorry! But it was the last musical-theater cliche I could think of that Glee has failed to make use of. Also, wtf: You were too cute for them. They were jealous. Haters!

my art doesn't even have to be good or anything
It could be stick people, and as long as one of them is a tsundere stick girl with giant, glistening, empty eyes who is also wearing a schoolgirl costume, your million dollars is already in the bank.

as you know, I'm an extremely violent bigot
Well, the thing I like about this kind of anti-prejudice show is that they never pin themselves down to any actual minority (presumably in order to avoid alienating potential stupid viewers). The youkai could stand for nerds! Or women! Or burakumin! Or old people! Or poor people! Or anything! Prejudice is wrong, children! Buy our gachaga!

Bet you didn't see that one coming!
WHAT NO I AM SHOCKED NEXT YOU’LL BE TELLING ME THE PROTAGONISTS ARE FALLING IN LOVE O_o

[starburns]

I hung on with Glee for awhile because I really love Jane Lynch, but even Sue Sylvester's character started becoming oppressive, and had the same frustratingly inconsistent characterization as everyone else on the show. Also, I found the episode where Quinn cured Mercedes' week-long "eating disorder" by talking to her for all of three minutes pretty offensive.

I like Bye Bye Birdie in the same way I like Moulin Rouge!, if that makes sense. I just... I like musicals. (Never been a fan of Rocky Horror, though.)

If we're being honest, I was a deeply unfortunate-looking middle schooler. It really would have been a distraction for the audience.

I had to Google "burakumin", because I had no idea who they were or that they existed at all. Interesting stuff!

[langwidere]

the same frustratingly inconsistent characterization as everyone else on the show
Yeah! Awful. When Whedon left to do his "I Watched Cowboy Bebop 39 Times!" show, he handed Buffy and Angel over to, like, the people who maintained the unofficial fanfic archives. Sadness and weirdness ensued. The characters cannoned around into parodies of themselves and then into ooc hysteria and then back, when he would drop by to write a stray episode here and there. Eeesh!

I found the episode where Quinn cured Mercedes' week-long "eating disorder" by talking to her for all of three minutes pretty offensive
When Glee first started out, I was willing to cut it a million breaks over stuff like this; I accepted that it was a glucose-overload farce, and that it intended to mock all the Very Special Episodes from all the dopey old sitcoms that had ever been aired. I considered that it did stuff like this as an homage to the American need to compartmentalize, overexpose, and ignore. Now I’m thinking it probably does stuff like this as an homage to the Lazy Writers’ Association.

I like musicals, too! Usually! I get hypnotized by Dreamgirls, for example. I haven’t watched Bye Bye Birdie in forever, anyway — who knows, I may love it now! (I really like Moulin Rouge, too.)

I was a deeply unfortunate-looking middle schooler
When I was in middle school, I looked like Ugly Betty, only actually ugly. I even had giant red glasses :[

I had to Google "burakumin"
I am so sorry! I do not wish to be One of Those Japanty-Sniffing Internet Losers who brings up random cultural minutiae in order to look smart in public. Next I will be claiming I cannot live without Japanese rice porridge, or okinomiyaki or something. Ugh. I took all my college’s classes that covered Japanese culture when I was an undergrad, which is where I learned about burakumin. The whole concept is horrifying to me; the atomic bomb parts broke my heart. Sometimes, drowning in a sea of flashy, "foreign," distracting pop culture, it can be easy to forget that the Japanese are just only people, too. (Sorry, sorry, sorry.)

[starburns]

When Whedon left to do his "I Watched Cowboy Bebop 39 Times!" show
Aaaaaaahahahaha! This is a perfectly descriptive name. (I love that show.)

I even had giant red glasses :[
OMG NO THAT SOUNDS ADORABLE. ADORABLE!

When I was in middle school, I had braces, blackheads, untreated anxiety, and even worse hair than I do now.

No no no, the burakumin thing is really interesting, I'm glad you mentioned it! What I find most intriguing is that, although I have been reading and watching (translated) Japanese media for like, 10 years, this is the first I have heard about it. I think there's a vague reference to it in that Miyazaki comic I like so much, but I didn't catch it until now. I feel like, if this were an issue in America, we would be exploiting it in our fiction constantly. If you were from a different county but had seen a minimum of, say, 15 American films and TV show ever, you'd have had a vague introduction to the topic. It's like a comparative example of how each culture deals with "uncomfortable" issues.

[langwidere]

I will find a photo! I will show you. It was not adorable. Also, I was not, like, cute and over-earnest, either. I was a major snobby bitch who thought she was smarter than everybody else in the whole world, including Einstein and Stephen Hawking. I would’ve made Betty cry, if I had known her when I was 12. I was horrible!

I also watched Cowboy Bebop 39 times, so I suppose I can’t be too critical.

It's like a comparative example of how each culture deals with "uncomfortable" issues.
Americans = talk about it loudly while doing nothing whatsoever to ameliorate it
Japanese = don’t talk about it at all while doing nothing whatsoever to ameliorate it

Also, Americans would pimp out our own grandmothers for an Oscar, in the name of education and exposure. Did you see that Catfish movie? It made me gag. Next, someone will be selling hidden-camera footage of people finding out they have terminal diseases as a reality show. (Not even kidding.)

[starburns]

I was a major snobby bitch who thought she was smarter than everybody else in the whole world
I could probably find you a few people who would say that exact thing about me. Present-day.

Did you see that Catfish movie?
I did not, so I looked up a synopsis. And... ew. Secondhand embarrassment.

♥♥♥♥ CAPITALISM! ♥♥♥♥