#algorhythm or just the art quality.....??????

[psychopompoi]

hyena girl doodle

[kansetsukiss]

Himote House - a review / explanation

cross-posted from MAL - my first submitted review! wish me luck...

As a recent but devoted follower of this creative team, it’s been quite an experience watching the Crunchyroll community reacting to Himote House in real time. CR’s simulcast (and its delightful key visual) attracted a wave of unprecedented attention towards this strange little show - one that left a violent wake of criticism, endless comments about ‘lazy writing’ and ‘godawful CGI.’ Even the other positive reviews on MAL so far are couched in the self-effacing language of ‘so bad it’s good.’ While this is expected, it’s honestly kind of heartbreaking. I think Himote House is thoroughly misunderstood, and I want to do my best here to not so much /review/ it, but to clear up some misconceptions the average viewer might have about it that will hinder them from enjoying it for the charming goofball comedy that it is.

THIS SHOW DOES NOT SHARE YOUR VALUES. This is the key insight I have to offer. I’ve put it near the top in shouty capitals, it's that important. I’ll say it again. This show, and really what I mean is this production team, does not care about the things that the General Western Anime-Watching Audience (GWAWA for short) cares about. The majority of comments on Himote House’s (HH) debut were about the cheap CGI animation (which, if you’ve watched the rest of Studio Bouncy’s catalogue, is actually looking better than ever). Among the many beefs I have with GWAWA, predominant is the persistent conflation of budget and quality. Criticism, in its most literal sense, is obviously warranted, but I get the impression time and again that GWAWA will stop engaging with a show as soon as the animation drops below some arbitrary level of pizazz. How many needless comments about Budget™ plague well-meaning shows made without the finances of Shaft? How many GWAWA made those same snide remarks over Kill la Kill during shots that intentionally dropped detail for effect? It’s a fixation that not only detracts from the potential for enjoyment of any given work, but actively fosters hostility to independent productions. Creativity so often comes from constraint - if you’re only going to watch shows with a AAA budget, you’re going to miss out on a damn lot of thought-provoking, interesting and challenging anime. Mind you, it’s a valid question whether Studio Bouncy has no budget or just doesn’t care about one. Why should they? Their shows are not at all based on visuals - they are pure comedies, equal parts manzai and improv. The beating heart of the show is its voice actresses, and when you have six of the funniest seiyuus around ad libbing about worn-out panties and philosophy, what need is there for flashy artwork? As long as the models are expressive enough to convey the beats and punchlines. Most of these shows would even work just as well as live stand-up sets - and here I’ll bring up the tragically underrated Mahou Shoujo? Naria Girls, in which the seiyuus *actually did improvise live* to Whose Line-style cues, and had their actions motion-captured into MikuMikuDance. The result is a level of jank so ridiculous it only adds to the already absurd improv comedy underneath it; and, predictably, one of the lowest MAL ratings I’ve encountered. The improv sections, traditionally announced by the toll of a bell, seem to confound many viewers who comment about the “extremely loose script.” It’s an easy mistake to make - it’s so unexpected, it might be hard to think of it is as intentional. As a fan of live comedy, these parts delight me to no end. At times the framework of the show’s ‘story’ and characters feels like a concession to expectations, merely a setting to allow for the ad-lib segments. Live and unruly comedy is another core value of this team: not only is improv a component in all of their scripted shows, they’ve even delved into fully live-broadcast anime (again using mo-cap and MMD models) with the exceptionally batshit Minarai Diva and Chokkan x Algorhythm. (But that’s a review for another time and place.) It baffles me that the same GWAWA that lauded Pop Team Epic for its surreal humour and intentionally cheap aesthetic are now so enraged by Himote House doing something similar. I understand that this is a style that can take some getting used to; my first encounter with Naria Girls was extremely cynical, and I thought I’d found something truly awful. But by the second episode, the gleeful abandon of the production team became self-evident, and I could appreciate it for what it is: just a bunch of comedians f**king around. I hope that any GWAWA reading this as they cautiously approach HH can do the same - let down your guard! Hang up your hang-ups! Remember that your value set is not an objective measure of anything. You will constantly encounter art that challenges you, but it won’t always be Deeply Serious Art - you can be challenged by fun. This, too, is philosophy.

[coreybass84]

Social Media Bodycounts and the Arts

Gonna rant.

Assuming the algorhythm is on your side however it’s on your side, Social media does help you get exposed to a lot of people.  And having a high bodycount does make it easier to get hired, especially if the people hiring need you to have a social media presence to get attention to whatever product they’re selling or because they’re counting on using your high bodycount to convert to sales for their product in the short and long term.    But having a high bodycount is not an indication of how good you are as an artist, and it’s not a shield from a company using and throwing you away at their discretion or a means of preventing artistic stagnation or even a decline in abilities.

Because social media, especially apps like Instagram, aren’t made for art and artists.  They’re made for quick and easy consumption of the terabytes of information being posted on it daily.  So your art ends up in the same manner.  A thing that gets looked at for a quick second and disappears, whether it gets a like and a follow or not.  And even if it does, because the app is so focused on quick and dirty interaction, the follower is less likely to understand and enjoy the nuances of your work in full, seeking a quick hit to make their eyes go OOOOH and move on to the next.  Which makes it easier for you to get into that mode where producing art for the OOOOH’s and AAAAH’s is the metric, regardless of the quality of the work or whether the concepts within it represent what you wish to convey as an artist.

And then there’s the matter of converting that to a reliable customer base that will come back again and again because they truly love your work.  Because while a high social media bodycount gives you more chances of creating a customer base that will buy, it also increases the chances of an audience that sees your work as disposable and will only buy because it’s the thing to do in the moment.

I don’t know.  I wish the enjoying the arts wasn’t so focused on so few things in such a limited way.  I wish there was an actual, direct way to patronize the arts and artists that is easily accessible and formatted to enjoyment of the arts and artists.  Or maybe there is and I am just ignorant of it and how things actually work.

Something like that.  I don’t know.