Forum - View topicShelf Life - K-On Flux
|
Goto page Previous Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Sailor S
|
|
|||||||||||||
I've never understood people getting grossed out by minor things like that either. If you want to get over your easily grossed out stage, watch Princess 69 a few times. After that, most everything else is pretty tame. |
||||||||||||||
Kyoshinhei
 Subscriber Posts: 37 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Hi there, Shelf Obsessed shelves of the week owner speaking.
Seem like my pics got paired up with some nice trolling subject here  Can't complain though, I sent these almost exactly a year ago so I'm still glad they made it into the collumn at all.
I'm Ok with K-On making it to Shelf Worthy but haven't watched Chobits yet (or read, for that matter) so I can't argue with the outcome. Though I think from the premisces that this is probably the kind of story that is better read than watched. But even if that's the case, Perishable may still be a bit harsh, Rental Shelf would have been more diplomatic. Anyway thanks to all who took the time to have a look at my shelves and give them a little praise among the sea of wtfchobitsperishableraging. Let's comment a bit on them and if you find that I start sounding like an overly proud attention whore, well, you're probably 100% right 
Sorry, this Nadesico Complete Box was only released in Japan as far as I know. Well at least you can find the series in the states, for us Frenchies that's quite another story. A publisher bought the rights for the whole Nadesico franchise about a decade ago and only ever released Prince of Darkness. They never bothered to release the TV series at all and I rather doubt that they'll ever do it now 
Also you noticed that despite featuring many series there is quite a domination of Type-Moon related items on my shelves. Well that's mainly due to the fact that Type-Moon merchandise (and quality one) is quite easier to come across than, say, Nadesico merchandise which is almost non-existant in France. Since Nadesico is one of my favorite series (if not my favorite), i'd be all too happy if my shelves could sport a lot more of stuff related to it. But well, you make do with what you find. For example, that one Nadesico poster was found totaly by chance in the back of a small shop long after I'd given up on the hope of finding any Nadesico poster (or rather any that wasn't just Ruri or Yurika in a swimsuit) and it was the very last one, an exhibition one, complete with greasy dust and selotape stains... Pounced on it anyway  Hell, it even has Gai on it! I couldn't have hoped for so much.
Too true, I gathered that in the US the release of the Gunslinger Girl manga has been somewhat... excentric... Publication issues are a damn serious pain. In France we are not spared either. Look at the Excel Saga mangas on pics 2/4/5, you'll notice how the edition changes after volume 8, well that's about the time when the french publisher went bankrupt and nobody picked up the series after that. So what you see from the ninth volume onward is the US Viz edition. On the same note another publisher went bankrupt shortly after that, leaving Aria and Erementar Gerad Red/Blue orphaned. This time I even went so far as to buy the japanese edition to catch up (thank God they have furiganas...). Anyway I read that release of GSG would be resuming this year for you so cross you fingers and be patient, it only gets better in the upcoming volumes 
Well to be honest this 3m high ceiling is mainly what settled my choice on this flat (despite the ludicrous rent involved) just so I would be free to display all my stuff as I please. After my previous flat with the figures on a desk and mangas inside a cupboard, that was quite a change. For the record, I bought these Kingdom Hearts Cloud and Sephiroth figures after being totally won over by Rob Bricken's article. And these are MINE, Krauser and NecoArc are getting nowhere near them 
And Tylor rules! \o/ Shame though that there isn't more of this series. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
|
|||||||||||||
What it said to me is that Hideki is absolutely not a "sweet innocent good guy," but that he's a sexually repressed pervert. That's certainly not a crime, but my point was that he's not just some innocent rube who doesn't understand the ways of the world and women. I think its pretty undeniable that that particular scene was meant to evoke a sexual fantasy that some guys have, which is fondling a hot, incapacitated girl with absolutely no repercussions. No sexual harassment, no sexual assault, no consequences whatsoever. She wakes up, and she doesn't even know what happened, and even if she did she doesn't care. Her response is to be submissive to the guy that just felt her up and "learn" from him. I'm not saying it's wrong for people to enjoy the show. People enjoy sexually charged fantasies, and in a medium like this you can enjoy it without any real consequences. I think that's just fine. However I think it is also fine to recognize what is going on and understand that a lot of people might find that to be shallow, like soft-core porn. There are a lot of examples of this type of male fantasy in anime and so maybe the problem with Chobits is simply that it doesn't add anything new to the medium. On that point, as I was thinking about this edition of shelf life I was reminded of that show Kanokon. I remembered reading reviews on ANN that panned the show as terrible, and I watched it out of curiosity. The reviews were right, it was a debasement of all that is pure in the world, fan-service gone wild. However, despite the fact that I knew the show was awful, I did find that the core concept was very interesting - a concept which could have made a really good show (Birdy the Mighty, a fairly excellent show, had a similar concept of separate male and female protagonists joining in the same body). So even though Kanokon was an awful show, at least there was a pretty interesting concept which doesn't get used very often. I feel like Chobits is just one of many shows about guys living in a harem-esque society with ultra-hot ultra-subservient women at their command. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Yes, Hideki obviously had sexual desires but he never actually tried anything sexual with Chi. As littlegreenwolf pointed out, you're thinking about what could have happened in the story, as opposed to what actually did happen.
As for the on/off switch hidden her crotch; while it did allow Hideki to touch her in a naughty place, it's logically the safest place to hide a switch that you don't want turned on/off randomly on a female body replica. Few people would think to look, much less, touch there. Besides, if he were to touch her there again, she would turn off and he'd have to start all over from scratch. Speaking of which, he could have simply left her turned off and used her as a sex doll. No talking, no need to teach or care for her; but since he's a nice guy, he didn't do that. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
ArthurFrDent
 Posts: 466 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
rinmakie, while what you are saing is true about switch placement generally, Chii is configured that way specifically so that her whoever comes to be her only person will have to abide by what that switch means. I believe the intent was to show Hideki's love for her outweighed his lust for her. Or he would lose her, the thing that makes her real. They contrasted that with the hacker dude who got busted up for his interest in her. He had no idea where her switch was...
I find it inteesting that so many people see this in so many different ways... "but that he's a sexually repressed pervert" ChibiKangaroo interesting projection there, don't you think that describes the hacker dude better? For the moment we might imagine that these characters are actually somewhat more complex than just one note... but I guess if you have such a visceral reaction, you should just avoid it. Interestingly Gewürtztraminer doesn't attack the central themes of DearS either, nor how these two different shows have any similarity. How would you deal with a person genetically engineered to be a slave? And how is that different than a robot? Do you invalidate her choices because she didn't choose freedom? Esp. if she is the only one to make such a choice? What do you think about the DearS hiding their nature from earthlings knowing that it is frowned upon? You dismiss it all quite easily, didn't you think about it? |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
erinfinnegan
ANN Columnist
 Posts: 598 |
|
|||||||||||||
Good gravy. I think you've misunderstood. I'm not anti-sex or anti-nudity, I'm anti-slavery. I didn't mind the bikini babes in Cobra, for example, but they were also adult ladies (over 18, unlike the Strike Witches).
I think you're misreading me. Chobits is supposed to be a silly, romantic story (which you say later in your post). But I couldn't think of it as romantic. Chi exists in a world of other persocoms being used as sex maids. As someone said in the thread here, Hideki doesn't turn her off had have sex with her constantly. I don't think that the fact he chooses not to rape her (or train her as a sex slave) is terribly romantic. I realize that's subjective. I think CLAMP wants you to fantasize about the other possibilities not presented in the show. I think Chobits is supposed to be titillating because of the possibilities, and not because of acts we see fulfilled onscreen. In fact, it's probably supposed to be titillating by virtue of being chaste. It happens that I find the (otaku) fantasy of the unspoiled virgin in anime extremely annoying. Chi is the perfect fantasy girl precisely because Hideki can never have sex with her. She'll remained unspoiled forever and (bonus) never age. I'm horribly vexed by the concept that because a girl has had sex once she's ruined for all other dudes forever.
What you describe here sounds really cool. I assure you I watched all the way to the end of the series, but I think the ending was handled very poorly. None of the characters said anything like "OMG Skynet this changes robot and human relationships forever." Maybe if they'd played up that aspect a little more (and made it more clear) I would've been more forgiving in my review. It seems like only Chi had the love program installed, and I'm still not sure what the bad guys were trying to accomplish and whether or not they succeeded. Although I could understand the storybook segments (and those segments were a lot longer in the manga as I recall) I found them annoying and boring in the anime.
I think that the plot is written as such that we as viewers are just supposed to view persocons as people, as if the point is moot. One of the characters in the show married a persocon, and none of the characters in the show seem grossed out by that. His story is presented as a romantic tragedy and everyone in the series instantly accepts it. He is not presented as a freak, like that lady in love with a wall on that TV show about taboos. (I think it was that show.) Likewise, Hideki continually treats Chi as a human. I think Chi is presented in a way that isn't uncanny valley. She's got an AI that's better than any other persocons. I think Chi is like Lieutenant Commander Data on Star Trek; we're basically supposed to accept her as a near-human who is still struggling for human rights and acceptance but hasn't gained them just yet.
Chi is presented in the series as female. Chi dresses like a woman and has girly hair. We refer to Chi with the female pronoun. spoiler[The scientists who created Chi call her a daughter.] Hideki doesn't wonder if he's heterosexual or not when he falls in love with her. She even has female-like genitals, even if they're fake and/or incomplete. It's hard to say if Chi self-identifies as female, given her limited vocabulary. Interestingly, I've heard/read the phrase "life as a woman" come up in several anime/manga series, including a filler episode on the 2nd Fist of the North Star set. I wonder what they mean when they say that in Japanese. The manga example I have in mind is a Black Jack chapter where a woman has a hysterectomy and then lives life as a man on a boat. Black Jack is from the 1970's, but that still left me wondering...
Power always has the potential for abuse. It is the extreme skew of power that bothers me in Chobits. Their relationship is so uneven it upsets me. I don't think any relationship can be totally balanced, but I idealize relationships where the power is as equal as possible. The uke/seme relationship in yaoi is all about power and dominance, but it is rarely so skewed as Chi and Hideki's relationship. It's interesting that some of the forum readers put Chi and Hideki on equal ground because they are equally innocent, or equally stupid. Perhaps they are equally poor since they work similar jobs. In America, we don't have the same senpai/kohai relationships as they do in Japan, you know? |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Nayu
Posts: 676 |
|
|||||||||||||
Wait. You just compared Chobits to Kanokon? Seriously? I'm placing you in with Erin as another person who's chiming in without actually watching the show. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
|
|||||||||||||
Actually to be accurate I said I found Kanokon more interesting than Chobits. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
RoverTX
 Posts: 424 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
@Erin
People don't accept the bakers marriage. In the manga its clearler. The reporters ask far tougher questions, and his neighbors in the shopping center are a little more off when talking about him not having a perscom. Even in the show though there is a lot of uneasiness. ------- Also I think the chaste issues runs both ways in this show. I really don't think the story speaks on purpose to the desire of the pure, but rather that is a side effect. While I am sure CLAMP used this desire to sell units, I don't think that was their intended message. Rather it seems to me that the metaphorical castration of both characters, combined with the innocence, and lack of real world knowledge of both characters, seems to speak for a desire for the ability to engage in pre-sexual romance/love, rather then some testosterone driven desire for pureness for sexually pleasure and self destructive tendencies. In short, in Chobits, its not that not having sex brings pleasure, but rather it is that sex causes pain. I have actually thought about giving a copy of Chobits to my old College English Professor, who specialized in Freudian analysis of literature. Just to see what he would have to say about the writer of CLAMP. Edit: In addition if you take the ending to be sad, because Chi will never truly be in love because of the limitation of her emotions, there would seem to be an under lying slight at moe. Ie, if you want your love to be this kind of pure, then you must be this kind of pure, and even then its futile because of the limitation placed on both members. Thats why from the ending of the manga I thought that Chobits came off as a pinning for some type of pure non-physical, pre-sexual love. A pinning that in the end came to understand its own futility. The ending panel sums this up the best. Chi is wearing her ring on her ring finger like a wedding ring, Hideki has his on his key chain. I think in the end even Hideki understands that even if he loves Chi, she will never be human and that there relationship will never be that of lovers, even if they could do the nasty. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
maaya
Posts: 976 |
|
|||||||||||||
It's annoying, but to be fair, it's also a very common conception present in so many societies all over the world. And in this regard Japan and other asian countries simply are still a lot more traditional than others, which will reflect to a certain point in the media they create (for instance the USA also seem to me to be much more traditional than central Europe concerning this point). Girl and Women Manga are often a lot more modern than those aimed at male readers (except hentai), but actually I see this idea more reflected in the reactions of some fans and in real life in general, than in anime series (a guy and girl/s living together without being married, which we see in anime all the time, is still unthinkable for a majority of japanese). Well, things are changing gradually over there as well. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
erinfinnegan
ANN Columnist
Posts: 598 |
|
|||||||||||||
That adds way more meaning to the story than the anime provided! It's super-interesting, but it also pisses me off; his keychain?! Really?! 
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
|
|||||||||||||
To be fair to Hideki, BOTH his and Chii's rings are VERY girly/sparkly things with a big gem on them. His isn't a plain wedding band or something like that. They were a present that Chii bought for both of them, and honestly it's not something a guy would wear on his finger. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
enurtsol
 Posts: 14754 |
|
|||||||||||||
Hey, at least he's wearing one, unlike that Prince over there with some sort of wedding that nobody's heard about! 
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Northlander
 Posts: 901 |
|
|||||||||||||
The manga does what the anime doesn't. (And, thankfully, the manga doesn't what the anime does. Or at least does it a whole lot less.) |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Northlander
Posts: 901 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Just a few thoughts I had when reading forum posts.
Actually, they kind of go into this with the relationship between Shinbo and Miss Shimizu (his teacher, who is also married and, presumably, "ruined". Although nobody seems to be all that bothered by this, the biggest source of scandal being that it's a relationship between a student and his teacher, and not a virgin guy and a non-virgin girl.
The anime doesn't ever say so, but the manga points out that Chii is just like all other personcons. Then again, while both versions points out that Chii has a program, the anime has her run A program... possibly, while the manga's plot point is that she doesn't. (In the manga, we even learn what the program does, which means that it's certainly NOT the program she's running in the anime.) Then again, the manga also refers to the love starting up between Zima and Dita as more "pure" than any human relationship, or even -- possibly -- the human/personcom ones. So yeah....
I think that's giving Chobits too much credit. They wanted a love story out of this, and that's pretty much what we got. It's not a bad manga -- though the anime is a little bit worse for wear compared to it -- but anything that doesn't fit into the romance mold is severely abridged, if not left out completely. Edit: Ugh, sorry. I meant to copy this and paste it into my former post, but I ended up writing for so long that I completely forgot about it. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group