Fate/Stay Why?

Is it wrong to critique a show for failing to reach its lofty ambitions? Am I a horrible person for craving mindless action instead of the philosophical navel-gazing a certain show actually provides? Probably. But as it nears the end of its run, I feel compelled to shout from the rooftops that I don't like Fate/Stay Night.

Admittedly, my familiarity with the Nasuverse is limited. I watched the Fate/Zero prequel when it aired a few years ago, am currently watching Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works (obviously), and snuck in Garden of Sinners at some point in between. I have not and do not intend to partake of the visual novels or original anime series, which I'm sure damns me in the eyes of many fans. Yet as I hear more and more people praising this show, a show that's clearly succeeding in introducing many people to an already successful franchise, I almost feel I need to explain myself. To explore my own feelings and discover why this whole thing left me so cold.

First of all, the major characters aren't compelling. Not beyond a basic feeling of, “Gee, I hope the good guys get what they want and the assholes get punished”. Shirou stays more or less the same everyman with a heart of gold throughout the series' run, while Saber, despite having her own fairly complex motivation, is too passively honor-bound to do anything but whatever she's ordered to. Rin, although the brainiest of the three and fairly complex herself, feels like she's being injected with a syringe full of Generic Tsundere between shots. I don't envy whoever had to add layers to what was an interchangeable potential love interest in the VN, but we're supposed to take this world completely seriously; why does she feel like she came from an uninspired romantic comedy at times?

Unlike the Waver/Rider dynamic from Fate/Zero, there's no salvation in the secondary characters. At best you'll get your annoying, nosy, hard-drinking older female teacher freeloading at Shirou's place, contributing nothing to the plot. At worst you'll get a scene where a genki girl we'll never see again threatens Shirou with a vaulting pole until her stoic, emotionless friend (?) sits on her and apologizes for her companion's rudeness. That's relateable, right? Suffice it to say, if your character isn't the mouthpiece for a specific worldview who monologues in 5,000 words what could be stated in 50, you're doomed to be one hell of an insult to the viewers' intelligence.

Speaking of worldviews, one of the show's major themes contains a glaring flaw in my eyes. It pounds into our heads over and over that Shirou's goal of helping everyone, of becoming a hero of justice is unrealistic. The world is much too complicated for that, and by extension all such wishes are naïve and destructive, as shown by a malicious Grail and Shirou's “tragic” transformation into Archer. I use quotes because anyone past puberty should realize you can't solve all problems with a wish. There's a big, fat difference between a boy wanting to save everyone and a man letting greedy people manipulate him right to the gallows; it's a little insulting that the show would even compare the two seriously. Like Fate/Zero, it almost seems like the show is intent on punishing any and all idealism. Critics may call this a deconstruction, but I call it cynical and quite sloppy.

My final complaint is that the world of Fate, while initially interesting, does not work. You'd think a world exactly like ours but with magic would be both relateable and cool, right? Well, that's right until you realize the implication: magic affects nothing. There are people who shoot energy bullets and summon skeleton warriors, yet neither laws, politics, or people's everyday lives are affected. Hell, apparently five people have made wishes on the all-powerful, reality-warping Grail, and yet history remains unaltered (scratch that; if I'm reading a certain wiki right, the Grail has never actually granted a wish because reasons)! When magical battles hurt civilians or cause collateral damage (which is rare; so much fighting occurs in isolated locations or abandoned buildings), there's no appropriate response from the authorities afterward. No investigation that turns up anything. No manhunt for who's responsible, or preventive measures taken in case Cthulu is summoned again. Magic doesn't exist for the purpose of doing cool things, it exists so a few rich asshole families can maintain their personal power. Magic exists so the self-insert, everyman protagonist can discover a secret, “cool” world of mages hiding in the shadows of our own.

Oh, and there's no rhyme or reason to how the magic works. There are plenty of rules established, sure, and explained to us in detail right when the fight was getting good. But I kept having flashbacks to Nisemonogatari's brief and humorous mentions of the Unlimited Rulebook: a book of supposed rules that's really mostly exceptions. For example, at one point Caster prepares to summon the Grail early because there's actually a Lesser Grail, you see, that can be summoned early. Servants are supposed to disappear immediately after their Masters die, cutting off their source of Mana, but at least twice Servants stick around for days due to special circumstances. Caster literally has an ability called Rule Breaker. The list goes on.

And actually, I think that free-for-all attitude should have permeated the entire show. Past heroes being summoned to the present to duke it out? That right there is a fun premise. But so much effort is being wasted on convincing the audience that this is serious business, you guys. These issues are weighty and complex. These characters are nuanced and tragic. This world is detailed and functions realistically. This totally wasn't based on a porn game. In truth, there's only so much gravitas you can wring out of this source material before it becomes ridiculous to those who aren't already passionate fans.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works does plenty of things right, of course. The music's great and so is the action, when it's not being interrupted. The references to numerous heroic legends are a nice touch, can character designs have always been exceptional. There are good reasons so many fans of this exist, and I don't despise the fandom when acknowledging myself an outlier on this. But I can't help but marvel at how this show is so popular when it has so many problems I can't get over. The franchise will surely march on with or without my approval, but my overall impression remains negative, for whatever that's worth.

A Blind Stab in the Dark

Let's get the obvious question out of the way first: Why the hell would I subject myself to a Japanese children's cartoon from the 60s? Isn't that a bit unnecessary, possibly masochistic, even for a devoted anime fan? It turns out those questions become irrelevant roughly two seconds into Horus: Prince of the Sun, when we're treated to our hero having a sickass fight with a pack of wolves.

A little background. Horus was the 1968 debut of Isao Takahata, known most recently for The Tale of Princess Kaguya but best known for Grave of the Fireflies. Created during brutal labor disputes at Toei, this film went way over budget, was pulled from theaters after just ten days by the studio itself, and killed Takahata's career at said studio. This is a movie with stories behind it that I could go into, but won't because they aren't what initially impressed me. What's happening onscreen is impressive enough.

If I were to describe the appeal of Horus in a sentence, I'd say it takes your typical epic, fantasy-based adventure and populates it with unusually human characters. Sure, there's the evil wizard Grunwald who must be stopped. A handful of magical creatures must be defeated before the final battle can occur. There's no shortage of well-animated action scenes in this film, except for a few battles consisting of still frames even an inflated budget couldn't support. Even so, dynamic camera movement and some great art convey the scope of such scenes.

But it's the internal wars which keep Horus from being just an animator's playhouse. The title character must not simply work to defeat Grunwald, but to keep a town full of essentially good people from destroying itself through selfish fear. Grunwald himself betrays desperation and a strange loneliness at times. Hilda, the most interesting character by far, is constantly beset by inner turmoil. She practically hijacks the movie despite not appearing until the halfway point; it's pretty clear to see where the future tradition of strong, self-reliant, yet conflicted Ghibli heroines came from.

Sure, Horus: Prince of the Sun is pretty darn old at this point, but it still deserves more recognition today. Every aspect of the film just oozes ambition, meaning it's still impressive decades later. I wasn't sure what I was getting into when blind-buying the disc, but found myself

a lot richer after the viewing. Do yourself a favor and give it a shot.

And if you're still not convinced, Grunwald rides an ice elephant into battle at the end.

Yeah.

Art Attack

What's this? A book review on an anime blog? Damn right; I consider Helen McCarthy's 2009 book The Art of Osamu Tezuka possibly the best find of my splurge at the Anime Central dealer's room, so of course I'm going to post about it here. I'll assume (maybe mistakenly) that my readers at least know of Tezuka's existence. He was one of the first great manga authors/animators, and he created a lot of stuff. Fans of anime and manga can get by just fine with that basic knowledge.

It's fans who want to dig deeper for which this book is borderline required reading.

See, TAOOT clarifies “a lot of stuff” as about 700 different manga titles and over 70 animated titles, not counting the many adaptations of Tezuka's work after his death. He also wrote many scholarly essays, traveled often giving lectures, and apparently had an extensive network of influential friends not limited to figures in comics and animation. Oh, and was a graduate of medical school. There are just so many interesting details about this man and projects he was involved in, investigating his life is a daunting task, almost certainly doomed to a flaming wreck of confusion and amazement.

That's where this book comes in.

Its strength is in its simplicity and clarity. McCarthy divides her research mostly by chronological decade, and focuses on a few key themes for each. These sections are bookended by a brief synopsis of major works during that timeframe and a preface summarizing the major events which had an impact on Tezuka's art. I get the sense that McCarthy could have squeezed more information into each chapter's body, but as casual readers would no doubt be repelled by countless anecdotes of Tezuka's contemporaries or in-depth explanations of the animation process. TAOOT shoots for the Tezuka 101 approach instead of bombarding us with little-known facts; we're helpfully informed in the text when an event will have a payoff in the far future, for instance. Captioned pictures are everywhere, and my personal favorite section would have to be the visual guide of Tezuka's star system. A lot of finer details might be lost on readers unfamiliar with anime and manga, but I think this work is captivating enough from a purely biographical standpoint.

McCarthy is careful to treat Tezuka with respect instead of the reverence many scholars take when discussing him (or his supposed modern equivalent, Hayao Miyazaki). She emphasizes the central themes that run through his stories by examining how his personal life shaped that worldview. It's pointed out that even Tezuka could not fully control his own characters; Astro Boy's first incarnation was never intended as more than a side character until Tezuka responded to positive fan response, and fan response also prevented on-again-off-again villain Rock Holmes from crossing certain moral lines more than once. Ironically, I'm a little more inclined to reverence even after hearing about the man behind the myth. He just never stopped working, drawing, producing. His bad ideas and financial bombs could have (and probably did) numbered in the dozens, and they'd barely be a drop in the bucket of his life's work.

We get a better look at the man himself via a DVD accompaniment, containing an hour-long special aired on Japanese TV before Tezuka's death. Here, we get to see Tezuka interact with fans, friends, and co-workers as a manga deadline looms ever closer. To me, it almost seemed there were two sides of Tezuka: the outgoing social butterfly with a million connections and a fascination with everything, and the eccentric, somewhat brusque creator who must hide himself away to wrestle with his art. Although much too short to get a good feel for this guy, the disc serves as an unexpected cherry on top of the release.

The Art of Osamu Tezuka is a fascinating, informative, and wholly worthwhile read regardless of if you're a diehard manga or anime fan. By far my biggest complaint is that it's not part of a series; I'd love to wade through similar breakdowns of other important industry figures. As it stands, though, Helen McCarthy has done an admirable job with this book, and I strongly recommend you keep an eye out for her titles at your next convention.

All Aboard!

Despite trying my best to watch as many “auteur” works of anime as as I can, there are some creators I've really never grown to love. Rintaro is one of these; I've seen a good number of his films over the years, but none made much of an impression on me. On that note, I'd always respected Leiji Matsumoto, but felt his body of work was a bit of a relic. If I met the guy, would he start ranting about “kids these days” and how things were “in the old days”? I like to think so. So when I popped in Rintaro's two Galaxy Express 999 films, I was unsure what to expect. Didn't expect pure love.

Galaxy Express 999 is a hero's quest in its purest form: young Tetsuro gets whisked away on a journey by some mysterious figure, and changes along the way. It's been done many a time before, but mixing that formula with classic science fiction just hits a sweet spot for me; think the original Star Wars, and you have a pretty good idea of the film's vibe. Locations such as Pluto and Heavy Melder are every bit as imaginative and memorable as Tatooine and the Death Star. Ditto for the side characters. Most everyone Tetsuro meets seems to carry the weight of a well-developed personality and backstory. No, I don't just mean the Captain Harlock carry-overs. Everyone from Count Mecha to Claire to the Conductor was engaging to some degree.

It's these things aspects that keep the film's relatively slow pace from feeling oppressive. I also found myself focusing on said characters and locations rather than Matsumoto's super-conservative and somewhat destructive viewpoints, which until now had kept me an arm's length away from his work. You kinda have to accept that the heroes should never compromise on their beliefs no matter how much it may benefit the universe, and that all the lives and planets they destroy had it coming, somehow. Arguments could easily be made concerning how Tetsuro's and Harlock's actions are incredibly wrong, but I'm happy to push those out of my head and enjoy the show.

How, then, would Adieu Galaxy Express 999 follow up on such a fun, engaging adventure? By blowing the first film out of the water, right from the first scene. Now there's how you animate a brutal, uncompromising ground war against an implacable enemy. Although the plot may appear similar to the first movie in that Tetsuro must board the 999 on an adventure, the feel is quite different. It's shown early on that anyone can die, the 999 itself seems to be constantly in danger, and even the train's route remains a mystery. The strange world of adulthood Tetsuro discovered before is now re-examined, questioned. There aren't easy answers given to us like in the first movie; if Galaxy Express 999 was about finding your place in the universe, Adieu is about what we leave behind, never to be found again.

Generous . . . borrowing of certain elements from The Empire Strikes Back does little to diminish this movie in my eyes, nor do the opening measures of John Williams' Superman theme. Like its predecessor, Adieu Galaxy Express 999 may drag at times and wax melodramatic at others. I for one think these movies earn the emotional weight they go for. They take their characters seriously, do a good job with tried-and-true stories, and there's eye candy of every kind. Galaxy Express 999 is one ride that's definitely worth the ticket price.