Shigurui has a subtitle. The subtitle is “Death Frenzy”, which sounds cheap as well as nasty. But don’t be fooled, Shigurui is just unadulterated nasty. Bearing in mind that this is a samurai show, that it has a deadly rivalry, betrayals, that it’s called “Death Frenzy”, one might expect something a bit pulpy - something fun. Instead we get a mesmerising dirge.

Yes, it’s a procession of fight scenes, a deadly rivalry, mysterious sword techniques. And yes, it’s a show which goes to considerable lengths to appal. But, to illustrate, ripping off a woman’s nipple = pretty damn violent, eating said nipple =… well fuck knows what to say about that. This is the samurai fight as nightmare - the violence isn’t exhilarating, it’s sickening. Shigurui is aggressively unpleasant, forcing the audience to come to terms with the nihilistic cruelty of a society which rewarded the homicidal. The plot, the rivalry, the revenge, is really secondary to the sheer horror of every episode.

Incidentally, this is a series I heard people badmouthing for its ending, which leaves a lot open. Yet those last episodes really might be the very best in terms of execution. Personally, I think I enjoyed the show more through knowing in advance that the ending was not going to be conclusive - because the atmosphere is what matters. Above all else, I don’t think this show needs another season. Not that it doesn’t merit one, but frankly I reckon its work is done - and what mattered was the way it painted the picture, not the outcome of yet another samurai grudge-match.

As the show got underway, my initial inclination was to favour the restrained dutiful samurai (becuase he isn’t a smirking contortionist nutjob). The introduction might suggest loyal Fujiki as a victim - only to go on to prove that relentlessly sticking by your masters in this setting means sticking by leering drooling evil. the powers that be are deranged, yet the only way to pursue change is anarchistic selfishness. There’s no nice guy to hang onto here, everyone is thoroughly messed up, and the 12 episodes just serve to explore the extent of their unpleasantries in necessary detail.

That universal psychosis is at least egalitarian, and also affects the female characters (who generally just spend the whole series getting abused). It’s a strong condemnation of a brutal society, although one which produces a rather dramatically monochrome series (my favourite episode was the one with the multiple assassinations - which granted a hint of range to the unpleasant cast). The emotional blankness of the cast is understandable, but quite wearing and about a subtle as a handful of snapped fingers.

The way Shigurui works its way into the minds of stable human beings is via unadulterated shock value, plunging us headfirst into cold shitty waters. The extremities of action are matched by extremes in lighting in what is a very well drawn environment. The show succeeds in being vivid even when it’s gloomy, of keeping itself right in your face even when relatively little is happening. Often it achieves this via daydreams, fantasies, time shifts - it disorients to grab attention. The plot is stable, even predictable, but the writers and directors control the pace tightly to stop the impact from fading. The upshot of this is a powerful experience for the duration of each episode, but a lag in the middle of the series as the plot proper doesn’t always carry so much weight as these short term mechanics.

On to the gore. Shigurui has its own gruesome obsessions, and the procession of trailing organs shtick can get a bit much. In general it is voyeuistic, it examines wounds in almost ridiculous close up slow motion captures. Head chopping, eyeball eating, skin slicing. It succeeds as a horrorshow, but still feels sordid. It’s worth comparing this obscenity to the (less frequent) bouts of (dirty) sex. Martial artists were not ascetic monks. In general I have more admiration for the sex scenes in Shigurui, because the act itself is so often avoided by various fighting shows. This is still sordid, and bondage plays a noticeable part, but sex contributes greatly to the warts and all feeling - and is often well directed.

Meanwhile, the direction of the fight scenes is highly distinctive - with a lot of those disorienting tricks. In following the samurai style we get a lot of the whole ‘take a stance, pause, strike, pause, bleed, die’ pattern. We also get a fetishised approach to the muscular male body alongside a creepy overemphasis on muscles and bones in the visuals which justifies the show as animation. The wounds are realistic, but the style wouldn’t suit live action. It’s dehumanising and explicit, with fights ending with arbitrary rapidity. It succeeds in being not much fun, but achieves hypnotic intensity to avoid boredom.

Yet that direct and forceful approach is married to a certain mysticism. There’s a distinctly preternatural edge to Shigurui - a show in which teams of Ronin are eliminated barehanded, blind men defeat seasoned killers. Not only do the combatants achieve unrealistic strength, they champion (and the show champions) the ritualistic honour of the samurai. When approached by a blinded assassin, one does not run round him in circles lobbing pebbles at his crotch - samurai go head to head. It’s a condemnation, but it persists in painting these old warrior heroes as supernatural - man as a gleaming dragon. That deliberate anatomical viciousness doesn’t undermine the mythologised samurai - it just puts him in his place, the mental asylum.

Mental Asylum Japan, that is. Where balding men murder loose lipped drunks, where local leaders scheme to fulfil solipsistic schemes whilst insane aristocrats play their games with human lives. Even the monstrous Kogan takes a turn as devious courtier. The warrior spirit of old Japan is made exotic, virile, hideous - it’s something Western shows couldn’t do with the same authority for the samurai. Shigurui reminds me of the anti-Western cowboy films, wherein American authors re-evaluated their approaches to their own mystical historical warriors. To show an entire civilisation at its very worst is judgemental, but in Shigurui the horror rings true.

Amidst the perpetual misery there are a couple of nods at the future of Japan. Most interesting is a vile little arse with a “barbarian sword”. The fact is, here in the seventeenth century, the time of the  gunner revolutionary hasn’t yet come. There’s a disturbing hint at new ways, new weapons, but the mythic swordsman, in all his superhuman power, is triumphant. And that doesn’t mean cool moves or mighty friendships, it means savagery. It’s the uncompromising vision of this savagery which makes Shigurui the worthiest show to obsess over the killers of yore, the most valuable pulp horror, the complete opposite of so much anime - and vital as such.

My default response when asked “why anime?” is to champion animation in general, and proceed to argue that Japan is where it’s at in terms of range and quality of product. This is somewhat deceptive. I don’t think anybody could, in practise, get all that into anime without having a penchant for certain factors common in these shows. They might be very specific conventions of style, narrative, or character - but it’s most likely a cocktail of magical bits and bobs which can only be found in Japanese cartoons.

But, unless one is very special indeed it is not possible to adore all the things to be found in anime. Somewhere out there is a being which derives equal and overwhelming pleasure from all yuri, yaoi, shota, loli, futanari, omarashi, guro, naruto etc. But this creature is possibly some kind of demi-god, and irrelevant here. So different strokes for different folks then. To get to the point, mecha does not do all that much for me.

I can see, to some extent, how a piloted giant robot might be so pleasing in and of itself. There’s a natural grandeur in the sheer scale of these creations - and this comes alongside the appeals of high technology and its merger with man. In addition to this, there are a number of mecha shows which I have enjoyed greatly - but not really because of the robots. Is this just because I never watched Transformers as a kid?

It’s been argued that the root appeal of mecha shows must be understood by taking into account that the robot is primarliy a stylistic growth from a heroic root. The appeal of the story itself is in its structure - the robot is a stylistic element. Which covers why I can like these shows without loving the robot - but not why I like swordfights more than robot-on-robot action. What exactly do the flowers of the mecha tree smell of?

There’s a distinction within the genre between the “super” illogical magical robots and the “real” scientifically logical ones, although neither really works for me. As far as I can see, these magnificent men in their walking machines are an inevitably contrived product - more decided by fantasy than science. The real robot is above all else a unique flavour within the non-sense spectrum of mecha - realism as a style of fantasy. What this “real” distinction does demonstrate is the importance of the manifestly mechanical aspect of mecha.

Now I’m not the worlds most mechanical man. I don’t like cars much, and factories scare me. Man transferred into machine is no fantasy for me. I wouldn’t deny the appeal of some sci-fi, but for me the technoerotic (lol) appeal requires certain shapes. The Major in GITS is clearly an acceptable shape. Most mecha are suits of armour - which to me spells out lumpen and blocky. In fact, in so far as I had preconceptions of mecha, they were of big clumpy plastic toys.

And so to my first ever mecha series - it was Evangelion. As it turned out Eva had little to do with the classic robot design (phew), or with robots really (yay). So my enjoyment of Eva (I am amongst those who persist in taking it seriously) didn’t change my mind. A few shows later, I found Gurren-Lagann. A series in which everything was so infused with joy that even the thunderous clunkings of the titular construction brought an automatic smile to my lips. Could it be, I pondered, that I had been a repressed mechnosexual all along?

If so, I was merely to retreat back into the hangar. No robot since then has quite brought the same excitement. The more I thought about the show the more I realised that the roots of my enjoyment were to be found elsewhere within it. I was basically ambivalent. And this neutrality goes both ways - just as I could venerate a mecha show which satisfied in a broader sense, the presence of large metal suits did nothing to persuade me to stick by the dull fantasy of Escaflowne.

For certain, the machines can’t really steal the show from other elements. When I first heard of Code Geass - dubbed “robots-with-rollerskates” I didn’t think “ooh, new robots!” I thought “wait.. rollerskates?”. Now here the robots were slightly more fun, being so kinetic in action. But the pleasure of the series (season 1 is all I’ve seen) was in the delirious excess of elements, the robot’s a nice flavour as backup, but I wouldn’t have wanted them predominant. For me the ideal Geass episode would be the school festival on ep21: silly drama, slightly unhinged Lelouch, bonkers plot twist, robot makes a pizza.

Bearing in mind the content of these last two series, I was interested to see a connection being made between the mecha hero and the knight. After all, when the man becomes the machine, the story becomes focussed on the armed individual above all else. If the mythos of knighthood derives from time when good equipment was bloody expensive, surely a mech age suggests the same thing? Only in the modern day fantasy the singular hero is a talented kid, a plucky oddball. Of course, I like Bleach, and can see much of the same chivalrous, heroic, mano-a-mano stuff in there. So my problem must be with the machines rather than the elitism.

For omo, the machine isn’t just a fancy costume, it’s definitively separated from the hero character. Perhaps that’s why mecha chivalry is different, because it’s more massively transparent that the knight needs his horse more than his nobility. Science, unlike a fighting code, is something that we and the hero meet on its own terms. The upstanding robot is in fact an idol, a concrete myth.

That myth is invested with the stylings of science, our external saviour, and our protagonist perfects their understanding of robotic theology. In this process the variant designs change with the function of the hero, so our god isn’t just technology in general - if it’s a mass produced realistic robot, then it’s less knightly and more democratic and so forth. So the mecha god is not a singular product of our age, the significance of the robot varies. Meaning that my problem is not really with an ideological construct inherent in mecha.

Of course this idea of godhead raises questions. The god of science, as shown here, is humanoid - it is the body on a grander (and, y’know, metaller) scale. Which is to say that the worship takes the form of a sort of transference. Entering the cockpit is kind of like drawing the magic sword - only it involves a body exchange. This aspect makes me think that worship is perhaps less relevant than aspiration, and that the key is the movement to this second body. In fact, for the hero, it’s not far from a formalised high-tech version of good old Super Saiyan.

The entire mecha process - the piloting, the entering of the machine, is formal. This formality decreases my excitement. Looking at my favourite ‘people fighting’ programs we see the heroic power as personal, internal - even imperceptible. But for me the appeal isn’t just in the fact that heroics are more about the hero in the flesh, it’s also in the ideals I bring to the table at any combat exhibition. I like the flesh, I like brutality. Not only do these fleshier visions appeal more as fantasy, they bring to the table conventions of combat which satisfy me more. And I think that’s the key to my preferences here - a combination of straightforward aesthetic preference, tastes in terms of the mechanics, and the nature of the deep-rooted appeal in the fantasy.

I suppose that it’s a bit silly to write a post which complains about an aspect of anime which, as it has turned out, doesn’t actually stop me from enjoying a given series. It’s an issue of realising that not all of my magic buttons are in sync with the ones that anime shows like to press. Which comes down to a slightly pessimistic take - that anime is after all not inherently good, my enjoyment is often superficial. And when it comes to shallow entertainment, my tastes may be rather more restricted than I had thought.

Druaga no To is slightly odd, and slightly good. A lot of the most fun ideas the writers threw in were nothing more than nifty baubles. Golfing wizards, 8-bit sidetracks, piss-take episodes - they kept me happy. But it’s a narrative medium, and Druaga should be judged as a story, not as a procession of inventions. Which would be why it rates as merely good, and not Roperlicious.

After the first few episodes I was worried about a gulf emerging between Druaga as parody and Druaga the heroic tale. At the end of the day I came round to the fact that the jokes were reasonably integrated, and merely added colour to the journey. And later, in a mood of mild contentment, I decided to afford it the same kind of po-faced treatment I gave to Soul Eater - and ask what precisely it is the show offers as a tale of heroes. Which would be, I think, a pretty decent protagonist, general competence in the writing/animation/music, and a bunch of good jokes - which make it pretty personable. Wait, “Personable”?

The reason I think of the show like that is probably because of the aforementioned idiosyncrasies. It mixes these comic baubles into a show which wears well-worn norms with comfort - and because it does this so naturally, the show has personality. Druaga does its level best to get in touch with the empathetic heart of these fantastical hero stories. It’s a show which knows that this stuff holds onto its viewers by providing a feeling of exploration, of being on a nice trip (or daydream) - not just by trotting out the comforting clichés. And because it’s specifically a heroes story, let’s take a look at our main man.

Jil is personable, he’s a slight variation on the swordsman-ascendant, but he’s not all that fascinating. The up-front point, the series slogan really (’aegis of Uruk’), is his wish to be “one solitary shield”, it’s an obsession with protection. At the same time, as far as his character make-up goes, the keystone appears to be the dishonour piled upon his dear departed daddy.

The journey really moves past this initial motivation (and if series two chooses to reveal that his pa was a true hero after all, then it’ll do its credibility no favours) to reveal Jil’s true personality, as an earnest heroic type. The key to his character, more so than that “shield” guff, is his self-reflexivity. He says to himself “I’m a wannabe hero”, he’s self-aware, self-critical, he constantly adjusts himself. That self-adjustment shows him as a true one for all and all for one bloke.

My thought on Jil is that he is, as one fellow in the pack of climbers, “other directed“. He’s obsessed with others, and with how they see him. His journey isn’t about any goal, it’s about what he wants to be. And that issue with how he is perceived explains his reaction to his father being painted as a “coward”. In a tale of heroes that’s a pretty rare characteristic - it’s often the one reserved for somebody who could be a hero, or who sits in the heroes shadow. But for Jil that aspirational courage is why he’s the hero.

Now if this were more of a classic shonen and less of a fantasy RPG, I’m sure his belief in friends would mysteriously empower him (as parodied in Druaga ep.1). But it doesn’t, his strength is his own, and rightly so - he just has to make the most of it, to constantly become more who he wants to be. If Jil wants to become something else, Neeba is eternally the same. He’s the inner-directed man - a man on a mission. Heroic, solitary, sexy, morally grey. A cowboy, a lone star, a bit of a dickhead.

Neeba has some cause (which I really wish we’d been granted a better idea of) that drives him up a bigger tower than Jil had envisaged. Because of this cause he mucks with Fatina in bastardly ways, and generally does what he has to. And this all-consuming motivation is shared by our heroine, Kaaya.

The thing is, she’s clearly sympathetic - but acts on the same grounds as Neeba. These are the two faces of ruthlessness - the reluctant and the unpleasant. They possess knowledge, but, invariably, because this is Jil’s story, this knowledge takes a slightly absurd role. It makes antagonists of them. Neeba and Kaaya don’t talk about it, but while their knowledge excuses their actions, it separates them. It’s that separation which seems to be their sin, which is a bit much when Jil’s quest is really to become a one man army.

If we look at their interactions with Jil, they’re both unsettled by him. In the series as a whole this is where the opposition lies, not with the enemies. Pazuz acts in mysterious ways, and Druaga is the worlds ugliest grasshopper, the actual character conflict is between heroes. Neeba comes out with “your friends will surely die”. He’s the informed pessimist. Meanwhile Kaaya looks for Jil selfishness - tries to convince herself he isn’t really one for all, that no guy can be that decent. And now, for series two, Jil gets his own cause - to catch up with the treacherous duo. But I’m sure he’ll be retaining the same priorities he brought to his quest to become a shield. That he’ll be both driven and personable. The iconic figure here is surely Ahmey

Ahmey is at once driven and sympathetic. She’s a gritty wise striver, who sees through Kaaya and gets a soppy played-up death scene. Looking at that deathbed scene, we get to see Ahmey achieve her goal in failing (lol, loser). And so we see quite clearly the kind of deceptions that a show like Druaga thrives on. Ahmey has her cake and eats it, she’s selfish as a climber and selfless as an exemplar - well, she never really gets the chance to screw everybody over for her goal. And, having been a good girl, she’s conveniently reunited in death.

Druaga offers us betrayals, conflicts, and contradictions between goals and personal ties. But it doesn’t actually want to explore this territory, it just wants to build a show around it. It isn’t conceptually designed, these personal conflicts feel like dramatic glue. But they seem to glue together some pretty nice stuff, stuff like gunner-mages, like battles on icy cliffs, like awesome cat impressions, the kind of stuff I like. So when I compare it to a show like Soul Eater, I can’t say that the core themes are so well managed or so worthwhile.

But nor is the style so brilliant. So how can it compete in the great beauty contest? It competes for our time because those vital dramatic roots are still there. They may feel, in their most artificial moments, like the constructions that glue together the baubles - but really there’s an equal relationship between the style and the substance. Without the heroic appeal nobody would feel the kind of ties that can (and will) bring the audience back for a second season. These here heroic roots ain’t the best in the business, but at least they’re there - and there in a distinctive enough form to give the show a feeling of personality that goes beyond the decorations.

The prominent OP and ED are pretty distinctive calling cards of anime in general, and seem to play a fair part in the mystique of certain shows. As such, it’s unsurprising that when the time comes for comparing and criticizing, we hand out our imaginary awards to the best of these sequences. Which at least leads us to think about what we like in OP/EDs - and since I’m still composing my thoughts on the recently concluded Druaga and Kurenai, that’s today’s topic. And since it’s a massive topic, I decided to arbitrarily narrow it down to EDs.

Anyway, when we think about what we want from the sequence, there’s a reconciliation to be made between atmospherics and the need to grab viewers. Not every show fits an enticingly poppy introduction after all. That conflict’s inevitably going to define the OPs - but the ED doesn’t have to entice the viewer in the same way. Perhaps that just leads to EDs being less striking?

One wonders, can you “sell out” at the end of an episode? If Kurenai seems to try to start each episode by tricking viewers into thinking it’s a kooky harem (when it’s really a kooky harem with beatings, incest, elegance and gratuitous theme-porn), why the pop ED? Is there any excuse for not using the ED to retain atmosphere, to conclude with a fitting tone?

What’s the ED really for? Making the (managed) transition from ‘fin’ -> life? It’s nice to have a period in which to reflect. The ED can provide an ambience, summing up the style of the show at the end. It’s like signing off at the end of a letter - an issue of tone. Not that we need to be thinking at the end, in fact it might be best not to. Perhaps that’s what Kurenai’s doing, making us forget how much shorter the episode would’ve been if only Benika had remembered to pack her gun. Pop as a slap in the face, a reminder that it’s just fun after all.

Certainly the issue of style makes the ED more than just a good or bad audiovisual sequence. Ideally it becomes part of the experience of being a regular watcher - whether or not we spend our spare time talking about it (except when a merciful Tadashi cut it from Kurenai). It’s something to feel fond of, something to slip into time after time. Or have jump out at you time after time, closing off each slice of show with neat regularity. It can make a good thing better.

The Natsukashii article I linked to above spoke of an emotional attachment to EDs, they were part of the experience. And the originals, in series with multiple EDs, came to hold a mystique - their style defined our idea of the series and our expectations. That idea of the series as a journey you go on - as something to feel nostalgia for, a memory which somehow excedes the sum of its episodes, that’s something which relies on attachment to certain things, sounds, characters - anything that’s repeated.

Let’s go back to Eds as thinking time. How far should the ED intrude? Mushishi and Shigurui have strikingly minimalist EDs. Mushishi’s ending allows us to sit and ponder the show. It serves a similar function to the soothing closing to Kino’s Journey (or Kabia, or Haibane Renmei) - melodicism can be as medititive as mimalism. Which couldn’t be further away from Shigurui’s stark closing - which has you left only with the cruel nihilism which preceded. It’s aggressively blank where Kino is comforting, it challenges the viewer to think (unsexy) thoughts.

Not that thinking time really = clever show. Many of the best shows are great fun. Gurren-Lagann just had to rock out at the end, Haruhi popped out legendarily, FLCL was the Pillows sound really (just like this blog is unnecessary italics). What these shows do is reassert the fun, give you the feeling that you could watch the episode all over again. That’s the joy of pop really, and shows which do achieve The Fun are right to go for it.

Perhaps those fun EDs work so well because it’s tricky to tie a repeated ED to episodes which go in different dramatic directions? Kino, Mushishi and Shigurui (although I’m only part-through the latter two) seem to have a unifying aesthetic. Kino’s world is always beautiful, Mushishi doesn’t drop a sudden cliffhanger, Shigurui seems unlikely to pander to its audience. The ED contributes to this feeling, but it also reflects the content. The tone is fixed over the series, but that isn’t always the case. Perhaps, if the tone of the episodes varies a fair deal (as in Kurenai), it’s really for the best to forget what just happened and dance our way out every week?

In the end, I’m left with very little to conclude with. ED’s can matter, they shape the experience in a small way, and are a pretty important piece of packaging to get right. The ED is still a part of every show I’ve liked or loved, except for the fansubbed Kurenai. They matter, they can be cool, cool things are cool, great insights are not forthcoming. Did you expect this post to go somewhere? Are you disappointed? Depressed? Suicidal? Good. Let us retain aesthetic unity.

Serious Motherfucking Business.

“a sound soul resides within sound mind and sound body” (Tadashi)

“a healthy soul, resides in a healthy mind and a healthy body” (Rumbel)

Before I proceed to ramble on pretensiously about the themes of a slick anime thrillride, let’s get some basics out of the way. Action series have meaning - not just in the minds of their self-centred viewers, but in their implicit worldview. If we look at the up-front motivational maxims which tend to reside within these shonen combat shows, it becomes apparent that different productions have different nuances. Take the idea that Soul Eater lacks the dynamic anti-authoritarian edge. What beliefs Soul Eater does offer the viewer are becoming more apparent as the show goes on.

Maybe these ideological factors don’t really decide why the show is good - which could be pretty much boiled down to having much interesting art, a solid narrative formula, BONES with a budget, great music. I’m on about about what Soul Eater is. Of course the reason that I care what it is would be because it’s so awesomely excellent at brilliance. It would be rather presumptuous of me to claim it as the best show of the still ongoing anime season, so whilst I’m doing that, I’ll go the whole hog: Soul Eater is the show of the year. (And even if it isn’t the best show of the year, it’ll probably define the year in anime for me as much as anything else will, by sheer length at the very least)

Soul Eater’s coolness can be tricky to write about. I was wondering a couple of weeks back if it was just too snarkyily self aware to have any accessible subtexts. But after a gorgeous but slightly dramatically blank introductory period the series gets progressively better about displaying its intents. So, for the following, spoilers through eps 1-11 will crop up.

Back to that quote I opened with - on the house of the sound soul. Doesn’t that really say everything about the ideal represented by so many of our heroes? To want to be right, healthy, a unified person every way. In comparison to the repeated thematic statement which preceded episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist, that introductory maxim might seem rather lightweight. But the simple ideal grows ever more resonant.

The idea of resonance is pretty much what Soul Eater has to offer. Lots of these fighting shows are really about companionship. Soul Eater stands in contrast to what I think of as the the democratic approach to combat. You know the deal, “the spirit of the team wills me on, I am the chosen face, the avatar of my social group - with them behind me I can do it all”. Soul Eater is more personal than that, about perfect partnerships as the amplifier of power. Partnership is about more than friendship and common purpose, it’s about trust and the will to put your life in somebody elses hands, even if they’re rather ridiculous.

To take an example, as Tsubaki prepares to fight her brother, Black Star (a widely loathed character, who has been closely involved with many of the best bits of Soul Eater) stops her from forcing herself to explain, and just commits. It’s a total faith which contrasts to that of Maka, who’s (understandingly) afraid to put Soul’s life on the line. What’s the lesson here, to be like the blue haired nut, to be a fool? Patty laughs maniacly at Death the Kids foibles - but she’s lethal when needed. Is this a celebration of being irrational, is that needed to have total faith in a person? Presumably what the series will show us is the rather more restrained Maka learning how to make the same commitment - to become like the more cartoony characters in this cartoon. That’s what resonance signifies, it’s more than just never-say-die, it’s faith.

And isn’t that cool? Not to believe in a romantic idea of friendship per se (SoulxBlack Star), or in great organisations, but in the very essence of another human being. Sure you could be wrong about them, and you can only go so far with the powers of two people, they’re only human and all. But it’s still glorious. Glorious in a way that those who “sell out”, who destroy individuality in becoming mighty demons, can’t be. It’s a glory only accessible to those who are “healthy”.

It’s a sign of the ideological coherence of Soul Eater that, in her personal showdown, Tsubaki apparently looses the fight, is left impaled and bleeding without laying a scratch on her opponent. That even though she’s gifted and determined and right, she isn’t magically made stronger. She takes the blow, she bleeds out, and her victory is in showing her brother what it is that lies behind her silence - and making him renounce his corrupted soul. It’s the clearest sign yet that Soul Eater can offer a Gurren-Lagannish combination of the stunningly exciting and the manly-tearesque.

So then, health. Is a healthy mind just a social one? What we know it isn’t, which would be a mind like Medusa’s. She couldn’t be much less healthy minded without entering some stage of undress. She’s a witch doctor with a doctorate, a genuine physician with a broomstick in the cupboard, a snake on her arm, and a grin like a smug cadaver. But, on the other hand, a hero like Stein is a wee bit nuts too - so a healthy mind isn’t a conformist one, it’s a moral one. Morality is in self-sufficiency, it’s in faith, it’s in selflessness.

That morality is based in a personal unity suggested by unity of body and soul. Not to be interested in consuming souls, but in knowing and being your best self - certainty, reliability. Not to use others but to resonate with one other. And yes, this is an idea we’ll all have often encountered elsewhere in one form or another. But in Soul Eater the focus is on partnership as the acme of soundness.

It’s probably best demonstrated by Masamune. In contrast to not-villains like Stein, characterless one-off villains like the Pharoh, and pathetic anti-villains like Chrona, he really gets the point across. Masamune consumed others, and he’s the clearest vision so far of a man gone wrong by degrees - misreading the world and his place in it. Masamune shows us the dark side with clarity, and shows us that the essence of a person lies in their relations and in finding a stable role. I’d agree then, that at its heart Soul Eater is not rebellious - the rebel in Soul Eater is self-centered, neurotic and unsound.

This ain’t complex, it isn’t very deep. But it is an approach with an internal coherence. Sound thinking backed by magnificent visuals, good music, fun comedy, distinctive style. And what’s more, Soul Eater still has space to move into - how will Maka learn? how does transforming into a monster progress? what motivates Medusa? what of witches in general? These aren’t just plot spaces in a killer action show, they’re opportunities to further that core belief which Soul Eater carries. A belief in the sound individual, in a heroism based in selflessness and partnership.

Amongst the many silly pronouncements of my early-90s glam-revivalist pop-fop of choice Brett “I see myself as a bisexual man who’s never had a homosexual experience” Anderson, my favourite remains his claim that on any given album the best song was track 7.

It’s an idea which rests upon the conventional structures of rock and pop albums, as derived from the 2-sides tradition of the LP and the tendency of pop writers to fill the sides with songs of roughly equal length. It suggests that the necessary dynamics of album structures make certain elements of the whole more important - and naturally direct the artists best work into a certain slot. It’s also an idea which revolves around The Album as the major form of expression, which plays up tensions between the whole and its constituent elements.

And anime series? Well, an album seeks to hold you rapt for x minutes, a TV series aims to stop you from losing interest over the months. Songs vary in length, and albums don’t have a fixed 13 part run. The diversity in narrative structures within anime is colossal, though Anderson’s idea only makes the slightest bit of sense within a very narrow conception of pop/rock anyway. So, yeah, an odd little throwaway statement with little direct relevance to anime - but will I let that stop me from pontificating?

The actual point of this post is the various subcurrents of anime series, the different functions of episodes within the whole. If track 7 doesn’t always do the same thing in pop albums (what’s the mood? how long was side1? is there a change in direction?), I can still see how one could build up a theory based on idolising a particular piece of a pattern, or a predictable moment in the flow of the whole. I don’t really agree with his Brettness on the importance of track 7, but I like his idea - and think it has some relevance to serial fiction in general. Because the constituent elements are different.

Dramatic necessities do ensure certain things in serials. I think it’s fair to say that we can see individual episodes providing very specific aspects of the whole story. And since most anime series are the same length, and fill equal timeslots, and share genres, certain conventions are to be expected in these divisions. We can expect shows to throw up very similar solutions to the problems of splitting the tale into blocks. Often the blocks the narrative is split into will be similar across genres. So, casually ignoring the vast disparities within anime, which bits of a series provide us with the best entertainment? Different can’t always be equal.

To select an example most obvious, let’s take beginnings. So far I’ve seen very few stunning beginnings in anime, ones which truly compelled me, were brilliant just taken on their own. Amongst the harlequin legions of rock fans there are people I think of as track 1 kinda people - they love the music, and when they think of it at its best, they’re imagining that perfect moment of the first drumbeat, the powerchord, the iconic line. The rest of the album is all an exercize in perpetuating that excitement. In anime we tend to start off with intrigue - above all else, the intro serves the series to come.

Now, being intriguing is often sufficient, and the benefits may well be reaped later on, but do we actually enjoy that first episode as much as those subsequent products of intrigue? I guess some poeple must do. So many fans start up with so many of the new shows each season, and surely it’s that feeling of inspection and introduction that makes it worthwhile? Personally I’m ever looking forward. When I pick up a new series I’m looking for suggestions that it’s going to provide something special further in, and the moments I treasure most are generally contained later on. Even dumb action series get judged according to this standard.

I think of that moment when the ultimate baddie makes an ostentatious entrance, of those token focussed character introductions in the early episodes, of the calm before the storm, of the comic filler. These things are introduced on a schedule, and provide a range of very different episodes. Surely we don’t like them all equally? And our varying enjoyment surely reflects personal taste as much as it does the show in question - but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t real substantive differences. I’ve always felt that endings naturally have a greater capacity to bring the win. They’re when that experience of characters allows the show to lift off, to use our earned knowledge to pursue its ultimate end - ends raise the stakes, that means they can be better.

Going through the process of watching currently airing shows for a first time is very different from that of acquiring the old shows. The idea of the series as a whole has become less important to me than the experience of the constituent parts. And I think that slow, or merely intriguing, openings fit better with the marathon than the TVcopyist. Week to week leaves me with so much spare time in which to think about their direction and intents. It makes me obsess over the endings even more. Is Kurenai’s lame evil son villain a bad sign for the whole? What of the “Kaiba” plant? The funometer score of each episode matters more.

Watching shows at the same time, over time, one sees key moments coinciding. Not just the endings, but the interim episodes. Dragging out the progression heightens its artificiality. I ask myself - who has the best pre-climactic tension builder? And I wonder, when there’s been a really good week for my crop, do I just like this stage of the stories? Now perhaps I just need to be watching more various sorts of shows. But the more I see repeated conventions in serial structures, the more I understand about what it is that I came to the party for, what it is I enjoy. Or maybe I’m just making my own silly patterns to pass the time between fansubs.