#speculation and thoughts on how this character functions in the plot and the larger narrative

[centaurianthropology]

What LeeBeeBee does for the Story of ‘Murderbot’

So we’ve finally met Blonde Lady in the series (her name is LeeBeeBee), and I think she’s filling a really interesting and important role plot-wise and worldbuilding-wise, and doing so in unexpected ways that are surprising even book-readers.  She’s wholly original to the show, so no one knows what precisely the writers have planned for her.

But I certainly have thoughts and predictions. 

I figured I’d break my thoughts on her up into two sections.  The first section is for all the folks who are show-only, and I’ll only be examining her role in S1E5, without any additional speculation pulling from book knowledge and what I think the writers are doing with her in the longer term.  The second part will speculate on the upcoming episode, and how I think it could play out.  No idea if I’m right about everything (or anything!), but it’s always fun to speculate!

FUNCTION IN S1E5 (SPOILERS FOR E1-5)

Let’s kick it off by talking about LeeBeeBee in isolation in this episode, what her function in this particular episode was, what she does for the plot, the larger world, and what she does for the storytelling format. 

Let’s start with her plot function, the most obvious part of her role in this episode.  She appears at the beginning as the sole survivor of DeltFall, makeup smeared and uniform dirty.  This immediately sets her apart from the PresAux gang.  She’s apparently the indentured cleaner that DeltFall rented for the hab along with the SecUnits, and this cleaner is wearing makeup despite having a physically laborious job in a field unit on a mostly-uninhabited planet. 

This small bit of visual storytelling sets DeltFall up as a very different society to PresAux.  PresAux deliberately only took one (cheap) SecUnit, which is understandable given their objections to using constructs as slave labor.  None of them wear makeup in the field, and they certainly don’t have a cleaner.

But DeltFall not only had multiple constructs, but also an indentured servant to do housekeeping, and there is either an expectation or a cultural norm that she be made up while she do her indentured job.  They feel, from this introduction, very Corporation Rim. 

LeeBeeBee herself acts as a personification of the Corporation Rim on a level we haven’t been able to dig into with the limited screentime of the Company Tech Bro sales reps.  From her first scene on the hopper, she feels like she’s from a completely different world to the empathetic and sweet Preservationers.  She almost immediately objectifies SecUnit in a way that is openly offputting to both the audience and clearly to the Preservation crew, who likely don’t say anything both out of shock and out of some belief that this woman has to have some sort of brain damage to say something like that.

But this level of objectification, I think, lies at the heart of the Corporation Rim.  It’s not that constructs are objects, but their workers are valued.  LeeBeeBee is an indentured servant.  She has no more free will than SecUnit.  She objectifies it because she sees herself as a step above a construct, and in the CR hierarchy, you’re likely encouraged to objectify anyone beneath you.  And that comes around to something equally uncomfortable when she finds out it’s got a hacked governor module and is a rogue.  She views it as a person now, but what does that mean? 

She objectifies herself for it. 

And doesn’t that make the worst sort of sense on a survival level for a person in her position?  She’s fully adapted to doing what she has to do to survive.  She views sex in an incredibly transactional and exploitative way.  When she thinks SecUnit is an object, she has the power and she immediately speculates about using it as a sex toy.  When she shifts into thinking of it as a person, she also knows how dangerous it is, and reverses their power dynamic, offering sex as a transactional way to protect herself. 

It’s awful, deliberately so.  But I think it’s a great and visceral way to get into the Corporation Rim mindset: constructs aren’t special; everyone who isn’t wealthy or powerful is an object.  You don’t get to be a person with fully autonomous choices until you’re one of the elite.  Until then, sex is just another way of trying to get a slight advantage in an endless rat race.

Having LeeBeeBee represent this deeply uncomfortable aspect of an end-stage capitalist hellscape like the CR also does something on a storytelling level.  This addition of an outsider character fully shifts the POV in the show.  Up until her introduction, the PresAux crew felt like the strange outsiders that MB was judging, but by introducing the worst possible representation of the CR, our alignment completely shifts.  We are not only on Preservation’s side, but we are insiders with them.  They now feel normal and lived in, and she feels like the outsider.  And this reflects the shift going on in Murderbot.  Even before it’s willing to acknowledge it, through the framing of LeeBeeBee we subconsciously know it has realigned itself with the PresAux crew. 

So that’s why I think she was an effective addition in this episode.  If you’re interested in some book spoilers and speculation for the next episode, jump below the cut.

FUNCTION IN S1E6 AND BEYOND (SPECULATION, SPOILERS FOR ‘ALL SYSTEMS RED’)

Are they gone?

Groovy.  Let’s get under the hood and talk about all the ways she’s working on multiple levels, not just embodying all the worst parts of the CR as I previously mentioned, but playing it up as a means of camoflage.  Because LeeBeeBee is almost certainly a GrayCris plant, precisely what SecUnit and Mensah were worried about, and the crew absolutely did take her in despite the danger because they are good people.  And they would do the right thing, even if Murderbot objected.

It’s so nice to get to see exactly how DeltFall might have been infiltrated, which we didn’t get to see in the book.  And so many of her lines read differently when you think of her as a plant.  Did DeltFall call PresAux ‘the Amateurs,’ or was that GrayCris?  Did DeltFall actually have an indentured servant, or is that GrayCris?

I think that a lot of what she’s saying is truthful, or is just a slight twist on the truth.  I do think she’s likely indentured.  I do think she views others and herself as objects to be used and exploited and discarded.  She’s suffering under one of the cruelest practices in the Corporation Rim, but she’s still fully bought into the CR propaganda and mindset.  Rather than defecting and embracing freedom the way Gurathin likely did, she’s almost certainly looking at getting years shaved off her indenture by acting as an infiltrator and assassin

That’s so perfectly horrid.  She would rather still be indentured but get in better with her bosses than accept real freedom.  It’s a cowardice I think we can all see in our world, that she would take the safe misery and be willing to hurt others to do it, rather than take a major risk and step outside the system.

She’s also dialing up her inherent objectification of others to a level that makes her deliberately off-putting, so the PresAux crew want to look away from her rather than examining her too closely.  If they just want to sort of ignore her, then they’re not going to dig too far into her actions.  If she runs off to communicate back to GrayCris regarding a rogue SecUnit they’re not going to follow her, and are going to be glad to get a break from her.

Her distraction tactics work particularly well against Murderbot, who she makes wildly uncomfortable to the point it’s very glad to get away from her, and is likely deliberately trying not to think of her.  If you watch who she’s targeting with this barrage of unpleasantness, she does it first as a blanket with the crew to gauge reaction, then targets it at SecUnit once she realizes that it’s not being controlled by the combat override, and that it’s fully rogue.  There’s no easy way for her to control it (as I suspect she was controlling the DeltFall SecUnits), so she had to improvise, because as far as she’s concerned, this independent SecUnit is the #1 threat to her plan to kill the PresAux crew.  She must have been so relieved when it went with Mensah to trigger the beacon, because she knew the beacon was rigged to explode, and she had a good chance of getting rid of both the biggest threat and the team leader, and she didn’t even have to do anything!

Which, to her mind, only leaves the rest of the PresAux team to deal with.  After SecUnit, she almost certainly considers Gurathin the next biggest threat, because she would certainly underestimate the Preservationers, but he’s ex-corporate, so she would respect the threat he posed.  So after Mensah and SecUnit are gone, she zeroes in on Gurathin.

I think she almost certainly has a dossier or some other large amount of personal and professional information about him from his days in the CR.  What did she do when she first talked to him after Mensah and Murderbot were gone?  She offered him a stimulant.  I’m now convinced that his therapy modules were—in addition to being for generalized trauma (why did you learn to be quiet, Gurathin??)—meant to treat a stimulant addiction he struggled with after using them to work whatever insane hours he was required to work when he was in the CR. 

I think this next episode is going to be Gurathin-heavy.  The writers are setting up deliberate contrasts between the die-hard-to-a-horrific-level Corpo LeeBeeBee and Defector-with-Trauma ex-Corpo Gurathin.  I wonder if he won’t try to sort of reach out to her in the next episode (was he indentured too?), convince her to defect too, only to have her turn it all around on him and use his backstory against him.  If he was indentured, did he break contract to run to Preservation?  Is there a bounty on him?  Is there a bounty on his AUGMENTS, body not needed in return?

I sort of have an image of the next episode playing out like a horror film, where we realize that LeeBeeBee is the exact infiltrator that took out DeltFall, that GrayCris SecUnits are incoming, MB and Mensah may already be dead, and the person who was responsible for the DeltFall massacre is inside the hab right now.

Especially if we don’t know what happened to MB and Mensah for the majority of the episode, instead focusing on the rest of the group.  Without the snarky voiceover, the terror of the situation could really get hammered home.  Again, this is fully speculation of how it might play out next episode, but my guess is that the big cliffhanger next episode is going to be LeeBeeBee attacking Gurathin.  Previews have shown him with a bandage on his leg, and holding a cane, which some people have pointed out looks like a blind walking cane.  That makes me wonder if she manages to not only disable him with a shot to the leg, but damage visual augments he might have, rendering him partially blind.

I think we’ve also been getting a lot of background work with Gurathin being terrified of rejection and abandonment throughout this season.  He and MB parallel one another in not wanting to share Mensah, because they both are afraid the other will manage to take her from them (completely ignoring that Mensah has two fucking hands, and more than enough love in her to love her family, and both of these idiots too).  If LeeBeeBee really wants to twist the knife in him, she’s going to tell him that if the others are going to survive, they have to abandon him.

And Pin-Lee, Arada, Bharadwaj, and Ratthi are almost certainly going to refuse.  Much like Mensah refused to abandon MB when it was damaged, they’re going to refuse to leave their friend behind.  Because they can disagree with him, they can think he’s wrong about SecUnit, but they still love him and won’t leave him.

This sets up E7 to be the big turning point between the nadir of act 2 (MB and Mensah may be dead, Gurathin is injured, and the others are in direct danger because they won’t leave him behind), and the start of act 3 (MB and Mensah return and save everyone!  They can all come together, defeat GrayCris and escape alive!). 

And all of this gets facilitated because of the introduction of LeeBeeBee, who acts as a face for GrayCris (and likely a way to give us information about them) and for the whole vicious corporate people-as-objects theme that consumes the Corporation Rim.  It’s so much easier to loath GrayCris when we can see the sorts of people it creates, and she is such a great example of that.

[thessaliah]

The reunion with someone you love,  thanking someone who was unrewarded,  saving of the pitiful who cry for help: universal themes in events and their connection to Roman and Olga

Benienma's charming New Year event ended and there were lots of good moments. Specially for Fionn fans who finally got their favorite to take the spotlight. Fionn is in Ireland, the equivalent of King Arthur, just like Cu Chulainn is the equivalent of Herakles, so the way FGO has handled him was horrible so far but he came around in this event and got impressive feats on his own. But I won't talk about Fionn, others have done before this. When this event dropped years ago, I and a lot of japanese players felt certain uncanny emotional parallel with Beni's old man and Mash's situation with Roman. A man who never knew happiness for themselves and always thought about the happiness of others, cloaking themselves in big lies, misunderstood alive but grieved in death. Who still died smiling because others were saved and happy, yet still they want to thank them and set things right, even if it's an impossible wish.

Mash is the one who speaks up, while she doesn’t overtly voice her parallel, we know it exists.

If I am to only fulfill my role between larger gears, There isn’t much to worry over, If “only” is good enough.

I’d like to try living, in the time I was granted. I don’t fight to suffer, Just like you said. Please, let the gentle rain fall upon me, upon our will. When I depart, I’d like for you to quietly see me off.

When I was done crying, I could no longer hear your voice. That’s how you urge me on, I see, telling me that there’s no road back.

I was born into this world to live. There is no other definite reason. I don’t need a mission or a meaning. I will live! I don’t want to Let my memories with you end in sorrow. Just like you said, The conclusion can be repainted, always.

Cut for length.

This is the song for her mental and emotional state after what she lost at the end of part 1 (Roman). It’s called Blank Space, it shows that, like Benienma, she’s continued her duty for the chance to see Roman again. This post isn’t about Roman, but also about Olga, since the prologue of Part 2 there are two heavy losses that weight Mash’s heart (also the player but Mash’s more vocal about it): first is her guilt of being unable to save Olgamarie (which was discussed and was the reason they went to save Goredolf) and the other is her sorrow with the separation with Roman whom she didn’t even properly thank for everything he did for her (was hinted how she is comforted by his room in Missions before being tore apart from it in the prologue where she had a breakdown and refused to leave). Events in FGO sometimes don’t exist in isolation, they connect to major plot arcs: Ooku continues CCC and is about the major plot of the Beasts, for example, Oniland and Christmas 2020 with Karna supply dragon lore which surely will be important in Britain Lostbelt or when Arthur confronts the Beast of Revelations. Plenty of events to build the Greek Pantheon and characters. As such, there are these small emotional catharses of events that are sometimes connected to the main characters (Mash and Guda) own desires and wishes. The desire of Guda meeting the one(s) he loved and lost again is ever-present, even in interludes:

(Abigail interlude)

The person singled out for this is always Roman. Aphrodite's song illusion in Guda's heart led toward Roman and is a mere possibility he was around (even without a blank without body, even without understanding what he's saying) what broke in Guda's defenses. It was always when they gave in about the doctor when the loop was allowed to continue. It was also the source of strength to break out of this. Because Guda can't face Roman unless they are proud of their answer and path, in death or life, they can't thematically meet again (exceptional events aside) until Guda is satisfied with their actions. Events sometimes feature this Roman-loss theme, or rather about being reunited with someone you separate from and lost what is the conclusion of one's journey: Sitonai reunites with that Berserker in Oniland, Beni with the old man, and there's that movie singularity that was all about a man who was misunderstood and made a villain by people who after his death realised their mistake and understood he loved his foster daughter's future and would protect it with his life. Mash was personally touched by that  script (so was Roman, who was included by Nasu changing the original novel that was going to be published, to help the cast reshoot the movie for Mash's sake) and wanted to ensure to preserve it, the end of the movie is the daughter living well while the father is watching over, apparently alive, but with a different appearance who one day might meet his daughter again.

The other point of emotional struggle is to help or save those who pitifully want to be saved. While the reunion is nearly always involving a man (sometimes a father figure or someone who was a guardian), the saving part is almost always about a girl, usually, a girl who is doing evil actions and needs to be put down for the sake of others but Guda and Mash (if she’s around) refuse. Imaginary Scramble features two of them: "Gogh" (Clytie) and  Yang Guifei.  The Olga factor goes tacit in all but the male exception, Goredolf was a man, but the Olga connection was brought up explicitly in his case. This plot-line might have started with Ereshkigal Christmas event and Salem (on that note, Abigail's search and longing for her dead friend also connect and echos with Guda's losses). This started after part 1, because during Observer, those who were twisted or darkened or made villains were disposed of instead of saved (Ushiwakamaru in Babylonia for example, or all the Servants affected by madness in Orleans). Because it was not important during part 1, but it is for part 2.

(in a nonsubtle way).

IMO, the Greek Lostbelt was also a climax to voice what Mash’s (and Guda’s) wants. Mash finally breaks out and says she wants to meet Roman again and thank him for everything after the Person of Chaldea appears. They aren't speculating about his identity or his warnings, rather they are emotional about how he can't be the Doctor because his eyes are different and wish to meet him again in an emotional My Room scene. Olympus was for Olga, after U Olgamarie appears and they are left confused by her actions, that is Olga but she's their enemy, a Beast, but still they want to help her. Because that's always been one of their biggest regrets. Greek Lostbelt kicks the course of their personal emotional catharsis arc: Olga is there, but she's an enemy; an ally who resembles Roman appears but he's not their doctor. Man of Chaldea and U-Olga have the same function: to be different kinds of emotional hurdles Mash and Guda face, aside from their role in the plot (obviously they are more important than just angsty plot devices). So it begins their personal goal: meet Roman again, save Olga. Atlantis and Olympus also have a little of both. Olympus with that dream which had an emphasis Guda's feelings toward Roman, among all their losses, while Atlantis with the subplot of Corday and the nanomachines (which the priestess witnessed).

To wrap up, this is merely tangential, but this scene was translated at last, so I might give context to those who don't know it:

This weaver is "Miss Crane", who appears in Waltz in the Moonlight Lostroom, a special game released on anniversary with the plot by Nasu. Just to show how tied is Roman's story and Benienma's event narrative. The doctor created the Moonlight Room, that became a harmless singularity that exists linking past and future, similar to the Inn. Crane manages it by his request and one of Crane's goal is to reward him, even with the little she could do for him. Roman gets the broadcast of the Ball Crane arranged for him in the game’s ending. This foreshadowing that leads back to Roman was included in the same chapter Beni tells us her backstory and her wish to thank and meet that man again. And she did, in the very end, as a personal reward for her efforts, and his.

(Fate/Grand Order is a story of many meetings and departures, and meetings again).

Note that because I interpret that Mash’s and Guda’s emotional catharsis arc require: needing to help Olga (to exercise their regrets), and meeting Roman in the end (as reward), it doesn’t mean that Olga or Roman will be alive or playable in the end. Olga could sacrifice herself as Corday or Ophelia did after being saved (her choice is going to be important, because it seems build up for her to finally make a stand she wants), Roman can be met in a death-state or in the Lostroom/Moonlight room as connection of past and future. It’s just that those things needed to happen for the emotional closure and they have had a built up before the Greek Lostbelt.

[moriganstrongheart]

On Firefly, Mediocrity and Problematic Media

When I first set to writing this, I intended to write a review of Firefly. I had recently rewatched Firefly and its tie-in, semi-sequel movie Serenity with my fiancée, and I wanted to express my thoughts on it. But I put the original first draft aside after writing two sentences and did not revisit it until months later. By then, I found I was no longer interested in reviewing Firefly, opting to explore issues of underlying misogyny and mediocrity in media instead. I think that Joss Whedon’s work is a good case study for these problems, as he exists simultaneously as a folk hero of sorts when it comes to speculative fiction, and as the harbinger of the now divisive Marvel Cinematic Universe. And Firefly being so beloved by its fans, I think it's worth diving deep into its problems to illustrate my points.

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate Firefly’s problems is in how it appeals to its fans. While I find the character interactions the best aspect of the show, I’m sure that quite a few fans—primarily young, white males—are attracted to the space western setting of the show and all the trappings that come with it. The Verse is filled with guns, alcohol, rape, savages and prostitutes—everything a new frontier needs, or so I expect is the intent. I don’t think these are ever the focus of the show, nor are they something Whedon ever places on a pedestal as ideals to strive for. But they are a part of the worldbuilding, and so were included with intent. There has been a debate for several years among fans of speculative fiction on whether worlds inspired by historical periods or specific cultures should include these so-called “less favourable” aspects of that period or culture, or if the speculative nature of the fiction should allow for their exclusion. I want to make it clear that I am in the second camp; I don’t believe that just because a fantasy world is set in a medieval time period that women shouldn’t be allowed to be knights, or that aliens or people of colour have to necessarily be slaves in a colonial space opera. It is speculative fiction after all, and we are under no obligation to hold ourselves to any supposed cultural or historical accuracy.

This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the cultural and historical accuracies being strived for have flawed origins, having been decided by academics with their own bias, or even maybe their own agenda. I would make further arguments that historical fiction and literature are themselves often coloured by the author’s intent, and so certain aspects are accentuated while others are ignored or downplayed in order to tell a specific story—often to the detriment of minority groups. It’s impossible to divorce bias from one’s work, no matter how objective the work claims to be. This has been proven time and again, evidenced by the revision of textbooks throughout the years.

Regardless, counter arguments to the exclusion of “less favourable” elements are normally that doing so waters down the source material, diminishing its authenticity and, more interestingly, it represents a disagreeable emotional sensitivity on the part of the opposition. This point of view assumes that the opposition is averse to certain perceived realities in the world, and that the narrative they want to ascribe themselves to would be unrealistic and, as such, not entertaining. In reality, all parties are involved in some form of escapism. The outcry for realism is a smokescreen for the desire to keep a specific form of escapism, one which can only be described as a violent, misogynistic power fantasy. The source of this outcry—again, predominantly young white males—sees the inclusion of bigotry and sexual violence as essential to their viewing experience, as they take enjoyment out of them. That isn’t to say that having violence, sexual themes or social inequality don’t have a place in fiction; they just need to have a purpose. Without purpose, they are only there to service the twisted fantasies of the target audience.

For an example that brings us back to Firefly, it never really feels like Irana’s career as a courtesan serves any other purposes than as an excuse for partial nudity, sex scenes and for Malcolm to call her “whore” on the regular. There are times where her position as a high-ranking courtesan opens doors for the Firefly crew, but this is a contrivance of how courtesans work within the Verse, and not a part of the skillset she has accrued to become a courtesan. The only true exception to this—that I can remember—is her role in grooming the magistrate’s son in the episode Jaynestown, which directly affects the primary conflict. Apart from this instance, none of her meaningful contributions to the plot necessitate her being a courtesan. She could have just as easily been someone with social or political clout. However, this wouldn’t have allowed for her to be the ship’s prostitute, there only to drive Malcolm up the wall and have someone he could call “whore” without guilt. As such, it became necessary for Whedon to not only make her a sex worker, but to create an entire system around her which would give her importance to the plot. In essence, he wanted his cake and eat it too. It’s disappointing, as the idea of having a sex worker being an important member of the main cast is interesting enough as a concept to explore. Ideally, this person would be treated with respect by others for their work, and their value should come from them as a person, not from a fabricated social status.

As a side note, I acknowledge that most people in the show respect Inara, but it is because of her fabricated social status and not because of who she is as a person. The only people who respect her for who she is and what she does are women and the one person of colour on the crew.

There are a lot of other small decisions within Firefly that show Whedon’s intent, such as the characterizations of River’s mental illness and Jayne as a character. I can’t help but wonder if Firefly were produced today on HBO or Netflix, if the showrunners would have allowed the inclusion of far more sexual violence and bigotry in hopes of attracting a larger audience. Because while we have collectively become much more cognizant of issues like diversity and the portrayal of women in media, shows with portrayals of sexual violence and bigotry tend to perform better overall. Unfortunately, the vocal minority shouting their preferences on social media only helps to reinforce this trend.

However, I don’t want to make the wrong impression. Sexism, racism, violence and bigotry are not the focus during Firefly’s runtime. In fact, Whedon generally does a good job of representing healthy relationships, strong female characters and positive representation of people of colour. For example, Zoe and Wash’s relationship is very admirable, and Kaylee is perhaps the best character on the show. The problems exist beneath the surface, informing everything from story conflicts to character motivations. Whedon comes off as a guy just wanting to have some fun, someone who is cool and trendy, just rude enough to be interesting, but knowing where to draw the line. Really though, he’s just the best of a bad lot within the entertainment industry. A lot who are, unsurprisingly, white men catering to their younger selves.

As a white man myself, I am constantly checking myself and the works I create to ensure I am providing a compelling story while avoiding trappings indicative of a male power fantasy. Because of the environment I grew up in, it can be easy to rely on tired old tropes instead of thinking of meaningful and interesting things to write. Does that mean that catering to the needs of a diverse audience is too difficult, and as such, is detrimental to the creative process? I don’t believe so, despite what many may believe. If anything, it forces writers to think of novel, more captivating stories that don’t rely on tropes and power fantasies to work. I believe that the reason people have become so weary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and similar works is because they all rely on a power fantasy to function. I myself have grown tired of seeing the same story over and over, and it is only in the last decade that I realized the reason for this is that most people behind the works I consume are—again—white males catering to their younger selves.

This has led me to question if it’s right for me to have my voice heard at all. Would I not just be another straight, white male entering a space already filled with the same? Perhaps, but I don’t think the intent of fostering diversity in media is to exclude white people. In fact, if people like Whedon were the worst in terms of what white males have to offer the entertainment industry, I think we’d be in a better place. The problem is that the majority of the media we consume today is problematic and doesn’t allow for any variance from what’s trending among a young white male audience. All I can do is hope that shows like Firefly can be used as a learning experience for creating more compelling and varied stories. Stories should rely on interesting characters, worlds and the interactions in between them to be entertaining, and not on fulfilling the twisted power fantasy of the audience under the guise of realism.

[rebelsofshield]

From Spark to Flame: Predicting the End of Star Wars Rebels

In just a day the fourth and final season of Star Wars Rebels will be upon us. What began as a spark of rebellion has grown into an odyssey following the journeys of a diverse ensemble of heroes and villains spanning years, battles, generations, and a galaxy. It’s hard to believe that in less than a year’s time this series will conclude and close the book on a unique chapter of the franchise’s history and likely pave the way for the next iteration of this universe on the small screen. What should we expect in the series’ final season? In many ways, this final installment is a mystery, but because I love speculating and critiquing I’m diving in any ways. The following is my long, and I stress long, breakdown of my thoughts, opinions, and predictions going in. Who lives? Who dies? Who shacks up? Who cameos? How gratuitous will the wolves be? All here. Well kinda.

(There are potential spoilers below. Nothing not readily available to the public, but if you want to go in entirely clean, maybe stay out.)

Part I: What We Know

Something that Rebels shares with its parent series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is that it in many ways functions as a prequel to a large chunk of the franchise. While there are certainly climactic events and character arcs that are unique to the series, Rebels takes place in a period of the Star Wars timeline that is bookended by existing media. This has become even more apparent with the release of Rogue One in 2016. As a result, going into season four there are a few concrete facts that can help shape our expectations of how Rebels’ final season may play out.

Hera and Chopper Live

We know that the Ghost crew’s pilot, captain, and resident maternal figure, Hera Syndulla and her cantankerous droid, Chopper, are the only two members of The Ghost crew that are confirmed to survive the events of the series. Hera receives a literal shoutout line in Rogue One and Chopper has a now famous cameo in the background of the Yavin Base. This is not to say that the other members of The Ghost crew may perish, more on that later, but as of The Battle of Scarif, only two members are known for sure to be active members of the rebel alliance. We also can safely assume that at the very least Ezra Bridger and Kanan Jarrus are no longer active Force-users in the Alliance. The dialogue between Mon Mothma and Bail Organa regarding Obi-Wan strongly indicates that there are no Jedi present in the rebellion at the time of the film. Now, there are many ways that Dave Filoni and crew could cheat this, but I would bet against having Ezra and Kanan swinging lightsabers by Hera’s side by the time this season ends.

The Battle of Lothal will most likely be a loss for the Alliance

Rogue One also reaffirms a statement in the opening crawl of the original 1977 Star Wars by stressing that the Battle of Scarif and the theft of the Death Star plans is the first major military victory for the Rebel Alliance in their war against the Galactic Empire. By this logic, it is unlikely that by the time the series closes its narrative Lothal remains under the sway of the Empire. Now, it seems unlikely that the series will end in a complete downer with our heroes failing in their mission, it is possible that Lothal proves a more symbolic victory, but more on that later.

Thrawn’s TIE Defender Plan is a Failure

One of the plot threads we see shown in the final trailer for the fourth season is the internal conflict between the development of Grand Admriral Thrawn’s TIE Defender fighters and Director Orson Krennic’s Death Star. Tarkin begins to suspect that Thrawn’s pet project may not be in the Empire’s best interest moving forward given its expensive cost and lack of proven success. What is presented to us is a scenario where the TIE Defender likely has a short lived life-span with a premature death. While Star Wars has retroactively inserted vehicles, technology, and lore into the Original Trilogy period since the Prequel Trilogy, it seems confirmed here that Tharwn’s attempt to update the Imperial fighter squadron machine is fruitless.

Part II: What We’ve Been Told/Shown

In the months following the end of Star Wars Rebels season three, we have gained quite a few kernels of information from both the cast and crew of the series. Before I jump into full on speculation, I wanted to take a moment to show and extrapolate on other information we’ve gained for the series.

The season will be shorter and more serialized

One of the major complaints leveled at the second and third season of Star Wars Rebels is the focus on anthologized storytelling at times lead to episodes that seemingly did not tie back into the overarching plot or felt like diversions. Season four, intentionally or not, will somewhat address this issue. It runs shorter than the second and third season, clocking in at 16 22 minute segments, several of which form two part 44 minute episodes. Also, according to Dave, the first several episodes wrap up disparate plot threads before converging on one long story that feed into a narrative that covers the thrust of the last chunk of the season. Conventional wisdom seems to hint that we will spend much of this season on Lothal as the liberation of the planet becomes a priority for the rebellion and our cast.

Mandalore is in Civil War

Ever since Ursa Wren slayed Imperial Viceroy Gar Saxon to protect her daughter, Mandalore has broken apart with the various houses and clans vying for control of the planet with the Empire backing the remnants of Saxon’s house. This conflict takes center stage in the season premiere “Heroes of Mandalore,” which was partially screened at Celebration Orlando and then in its entirety at FanExpo. (I saw the first half myself and it’s pretty great. No spoilers, but it left me with a pretty huge cliffhanger that I’ve been anticipating the conclusion to since April.)

Rebels seems to be pulling out all the stops in putting this conflict to screen. Not only do we get a wide variety of Mandalorian characters and factions, numerous characters from this series’ past as well as The Clone Wars are due for an appearance. After teasing her return to Star Wars animation last year, Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica fame is due for a reprise of her character Bo-Katan and appears to be wielding the legendary Darksaber (perhaps Sabine hands it over to the rightful ruler of the planet?). In addition to the return of Sabine’s mother and brother, the Rebels Season Three Blu-Ray also reveals that Sabine’s father will be making his debut in the premiere. Having seen part of the episode I can confirm that he plays into Sabine’s character in a fun fashion, it’s very apparent about how his and Ursa’s personalities mixed to create their daughter. Shots of Mandalorian soldiers being turned to dust also seem to hint that the terrible weapon developed by Sabine will be deployed by the Empire.

That being said it seems unlikely that the Mandalorian conflict will spill over into the greater galactic conflict with the Empire. While Sabine and some of her close allies may take part in the battle on Lothal (Sabine can be glimpsed in the final shots of the second trailer with the rest of the Ghost Crew), the lack of Mandalorian presence in Rogue One seems to make this an unlikely possibility.

The Clones Are Back

After sitting out season three, Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo confirmed that clones Wolffe and Gregor would be seen on screen once again before the end of the series at Celebration Orlando earlier this year. Similarly, Dave cryptically dropped concept of Captain Rex wearing camouflage armor seemingly hinting at the popular fan theory that an older extra in Return of the Jedi may be the famous clone veteran.

Saw Gerrera and the Partisans

We also have been informed that Forest Whitaker will be reprising his role as Saw Gerrera in the early portions of the season. In addition to confirmation that his alien partner, Edrio Two Tubes (or maybe it’s Benthic. I honestly didn’t even know there were two of them. Did you know that?), will be joining him. The final trailer and Filoni have both hinted that this season widens the gap between Gerrera and the rest of the Alliance and may explain why he is no longer a part of the larger rebellion by the time Rogue One rolls around. He also seems set to butt heads with some key characters in the ensemble. Ezra in particular seems drawn in by Saw’s no nonsense results oriented strategy. Ezra has often been marked equally by both his compassion and his desire to see the Empire and Sith defeated. It seems likely that he will be used as a vantage point for the viewer allowing them to see both the allure and danger of a more dangerous and fanatical battle against The Empire.

Space Married

One of the most widely popular and to many the most consistently playfully frustrating aspects of the Rebels ensemble has been the frequently hinted at but never explicitly shown relationship between Hera Syndulla and Kanan Jarrus. According to clips shown at Fan Expo and the first and second trailer for this season, fans may finally get their wish and see the symbolic mother and father of The Ghost crew commit to some form of romantic relationship. Whether this has a happy ending is a whole other thing, but for a few happy moments we are more than likely to see this couple finally, maybe, kiss…or something. At least an emotional forehead touch.

Rukh

Thrawn’s Noghri bodyguard from Timothy Zahn’s classic trilogy of novels is set to make his first canon appearance this season voiced by the legendary Warwick Davis. While his role appears to have been reshuffled to be more of a special agent/assassin in Thrawn’s employ rather than the almost enslaved bodyguard in his Legends appearance, it is unclear just how much Rukh borrows from his original role. Most importantly, is he the one to place once again place the killing blow on The Empire’s blue skinned Admiral? I’m inclined to think not.

Space Wolves

Dave Filoni loves wolves. Like, he really really likes wolves. What would the final season be without a whole lot of giant magical space wolves? The Loth-Wolves so far have remained a mystery, but their importance and almost mystical presence have been stressed throughout season four’s marketing campaign. While we can rest easy knowing that Ahsoka isn’t pulling a Sirius Black and transforming into a wolf like some fan’s speculated, Filoni has stressed that the large white predators are a Bendu-like creature that border the light and the dark. What connection do they really have to the planet of Lothal and the series as a whole? Who knows, but it will be nice to finally get a sense of how they fit into the planet’s culture.

Ahsoka Lives !(?!)

Oh yeah, Ahsoka is back. How? Why? Where? Who knows, but Dave Filoni has confirmed that we will see Ashley Eckstein’s fan favorite former-Jedi at least one more time before the series ends.

Part III: Rampant Speculation

So what does this all mean? Where are we going? Who is that? Where am I? Before I start jumping into the general end game for the series, let’s get a few more pieces of speculation out of the way. Let’s talk characters. Let’s talk deaths. Let’s talk why Nick keeps using repetition to spice up this segment of his article.

Kallus and the Rebellion

While Alexsandr Kallus (yes, that’s officially his first name now) has been a rebel operative for about a full season now, this season marks the first time that the former Imperial operative is an active participant in the Alliance. Sporting a snazzy new outfit and set to make a change in the galaxy, Kallus is sure to be one of the more intriguing aspects of this season going into its start. I highly doubt that Kallus’s assimilation into the rebellion will make for a clean transition. In particular, Kallus seems primed to be a key source of antagonism with Saw Gerrera. As we learned in “The Honorable Ones,” Saw’s partisans were responsible for the deaths of Kallus’s men on Onderon. Similarly, Saw’s own fanaticism makes it seem likely that he won’t be keen on having a former Imperial Intelligence officer enter the Alliance. The two seem primed for a confrontation and Dave Filoni and the creative team would be smart to capitalize off this. The idea of having David Oyelowo and Forest Whitaker face off is too great an opportunity to pass up.  

Thrawn will survive

Grand Admiral Thrawn’s survival is one of the most hotly debated aspects of the series. The iconic Legends turned canon Chiss admiral has been a fan favorite on and off screen. While he more or less came out on top at the conclusion of season three, Thrawn’s fate is a bit more ambiguous this season. Like many iconic Rebels characters, he does not play a role in the original trilogy and for a character of his stature and in-universe importance, it seems unlikely that he is still an active participant in the Imperial war machine at the time the series concludes. We may have actually been given our first clue to the fate of Thrawn at New York Comic Con last weekend. Timothy Zahn, the original creator of the blue skinned villain, announced that he would be writing a sequel to his canon novel, Thrawn, tentatively titled Alliances, which would feature the character teaming up with Darth Vader himself. While this inherently may not seem like a dead giveaway that Thrawn makes it out of the series alive, the original Thrawn novel concluded just before the character’s introduction in the season three premiere episode “Steps into Shadow.” While it is possible that the sequel novel may function as a pseudo-prequel or even a mid-quel, this seems to indicate that Thrawn’s narrative continues past what is seen on screen. Similarly, the final novel in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy appears to hint that Thrawn spent much of his later career stationed in the Unknown Regions, although the language is vague and inconclusive.

Expect Lots of Cameos

With the Ghost Crew now firmly a part of the larger rebellion, it seems inevitable that we will be seeing at the very least cameo appearances from numerous famous characters. Bail Organa, Jan Dodonna, and Mon Mothma all seem like givens for speaking roles, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see various others as well. With the continued attempts to establish creative synergy between Rebels and Rogue One, I think it is highly likely that characters such as Admiral Raddus will appear, especially given that Stephen Stanton is already a regularly employed member of the Rebels voice cast. I also wouldn’t be surprised if we got a few more notable cameos such as Cassian Andor or K-2SO. Having two Fulcrum agents such as Cassian and Kallus interact seems like another relationship that would be key to exploit. I also would be very surprised if we finished the series out without seeing Leia or Darth Vader again. Both characters made a splash in their first appearances in the series’ second season and it seems like both characters still have something to contribute to the narrative, Leia in particular.

Only one Ghost Crew member will die

While Hera and Chopper are proved to make it out of the series, Rebels will not pull a Rogue One and end with the death of the majority of its cast. We may not know what fates may befall Ezra, Sabine, Kanan, and Zeb but a massacre seems off the table. For a simple and almost logistical reason, Rebels is a series that is at its heart tonally optimistic and targeted at a mature but younger audience. It isn’t afraid to kill characters, good or evil, this is true, but Rebels is a series that is most concerned with exploring family and the importance of standing up for a larger cause in difficult times. I do not see Dave Filoni, Lucasfilm, and especially Disney XD, sanctioning an ending for the series that reinforces such a bleak understanding of sacrifice and familial bonds. It may be a good ending, but it’s hardly the best and certainly not the route that Rebels will take. That being said, it seems just as unlikely if the entirety of the Rebels cast is to survive. Heroic sacrifice and the cost of war are a theme of Star Wars and Dave Filoni at times has been all too aware of this. I am willing to go on the record and say only one member of the Ghost Crew will perish and there are two likely candidates.

Sabine seems least likely out of the four non-confirmed survivors of the series to perish. Her fate at this point is almost more connected to the Mandalorian struggle than to the rebellion itself. While it may be a poignant end for her story to have her sacrifice her life to bring liberty to her people and reunite her family, it feels out of place and, again, overly bleak for the series to take this route for her character. Besides, with the media blitz that Sabine has received since her involvement in the Forces of Destiny toyline and animated shorts, I doubt we’ve seen the last of our graffiti inspired Mandalorian warrior.

Ezra is this series’ biggest question mark. Rebels is at the end of the day about him and his journey from street rat to Jedi apprentice to freedom fighter. Does the story end in his death? I’m inclined to think not. Why? Well, again, on a practical level, I cannot recall a single television series aimed at a preteen to teen age demographic that ended with the death of its child protagonist, even if, yes, Ezra is pushing the age boundaries for that term at this point. Rebels has to keep in mind both its adult and child viewers and killing off the hero in the hero’s journey may not be the move that best placates both audiences. That being said, in terms of canon, Ezra does create a problem. He is simply too prominent and powerful a figure to be left around in the universe by the time we reach the events of Rogue One and A New Hope. Well, where is Ezra then? I’m getting to that, I promise.

That leaves our two likely death candidates being Garazeb Orrelios and Kanan Jarrus. Zeb is the character I’ve spoken the least about in this write up and frankly there is a reason for this. While he began the series as one of the show’s more compelling and entertaining characters, season three proved just how stagnant a character the Ghost Crew’s Lasat had become. In two strong episodes in Rebels’ second season, Zeb’s character arcs had effectively resolved themselves. Zeb had not only found out that he was not the last surviving member of the Lasats, in fact there is a whole planet of them, but had also reconciled with his longtime nemesis, Agent Kallus. With Kallus now a willing member of the rebellion, this relationship also seems to have reached its natural conclusion. While there is certainly opportunity to develop this dynamic further, it almost feels as if Zeb’s purpose is to function as an extension of Kallus’s character rather than his own. Unfortunately, this makes Zeb the most dispensable and cleanest death for the Rebels team to pull off. Zeb has been with the viewer long enough for his passing to have an emotional impact both in and out of the series, while at the same time avoiding any long term damage to the series dynamics if he were to be taken off the table. Perhaps he sacrifices himself to save the Ghost Crew or Kallus? Or maybe him and Kallus go out together in a blaze of glory? It could go either way.

And then there’s Kanan. This is the hard one, because Freddie Prinze Jr.’s blind Jedi Knight and resident Ghost father figure has been not only one of the strongest characters in Rebels’ ensemble but also one of its most beloved. There is a genuine affection for Kanan. I’m sure a very large portion of the fanbase would love to see him and Hera happily settle down together and raise some Twi-Lek/Human hybrid babies (I mean we know that can happen thanks to The Clone Wars), but, man, things just don’t look good for him. Like Ezra, Kanan’s continued participation in the Alliance creates a massive problem for the larger lore of Star Wars. A practicing Jedi Knight being a participant in the Alliance would surely be noticed and would have come up in conversation, especially considering the addition of Luke Skywalker to their ranks following the Battle of Yavin. Kanan has to be removed from the playing field somehow. While it is possible he could join Ezra on my big series end theory, it is just as likely if not plausible that he becomes one with the Force. This would undoubtedly be the most emotional route the crew could take and it is a very likely possibility.

Part IV: The Ending

So how does Rebels end? How does this saga conclude in a manner that resolves its various plot points but also moves us towards an emotionally satisfying conclusion that capitalizes off the series’ themes? In all honesty, I’m taking a stab in the dark, but it’s one that I am confident in.

Lothal is the key. Not only is it central to the conflict at the series’ conclusion and is it the home at which Rebels began, but there is something about the planet that is special. Hinted at way back in “The Siege of Lothal” by Minister Tua, there is a secret reason for The Empire’s interest in Lothal as a planet. While this has become lost in the dozens of climactic events that have occurred in the seasons since, the secret for the Empire’s presence on the grassy planet has never been answered.

We know for a fact that this cannot be related to the strip mining of Lothal’s resources as Tua confirms that this isn’t the case. Similarly, Thrawn’s use of the planet as a staging ground for the development of the TIE Defender didn’t come to fruition until after he had been relocated to the planet at the start of the third season. Whatever secret lies buried beneath Lothal has been there for quite sometime and has barely if ever been touched upon.

So what is it? We do know that Lothal is a planet filled with hidden Force secrets. From the lost Jedi Temple seen in the first season to the Lothwolfs, Lothal has a rich secret Force culture. We know from the novels and comics that Emperor Palpatine has been stockpiling Force and Sith artifacts to use in outlook stations to observe some strange threat in the Unknown Regions, which is maybe probably Snoke or something . My theory is that there is some secret Force artifact, temple, or object/place of similar significance that The Empire is actively in search of located on Lothal. Dave Filoni has stressed repeatedly that this season will be delving into a great deal of stranger imagery that is not unlike some work they’ve done in The Clone Wars in the past. While he keeps it vague, it is not hard to call to mind images of the Mortis Trilogy or Yoda’s strange walkabout to learn the secrets of the afterlife.

I believe that while much of the Battle for Lothal will remain a military campaign, Ezra and likely Kanan’s story will take a swerve into the search and discovery of what this Force secret may be, and the Lothwolves are likely the first step to finding this. While we do not know enough regarding this secret to truly learn much about it as of yet, my guess is that this artifact sends Ezra to or leads him into the unknown regions and he is forced to abandon the rest of rebellion to follow his quest. Ezra leaves the rebellion war effort to focus on a task that is possibly even more important and even dangerous.

While I believe that this will occur towards the end of the series, my thinking is that perhaps the Force grants Ezra a brief glimpse into the future. He is able to see key events in the rebellion and will learn that the future, while always in motion, will lead to freedom. I suspect that this is where Rebels will show the fates of most of our cast in how they tie into the original trilogy, such as showing Captain Rex fighting on the moon of Endor. It will be vague and likely not mean much out of context to Ezra, but fans will be able to discern where and what is occurring.

With Ezra out of the picture, we end the series with him a new environment and seemingly unknown. We know for a fact that only a scant few voice actors and production supervisors have worked on the final scene of the series and that it has been top secret. I believe we end the series with a conversation between Ahsoka and Ezra. Dave has hinted for a while that we will see Ahsoka Tano again, but the nature of her reappearance has always been vague. We do know that Ahsoka disappeared into the depths of Malachor following her duel with Darth Vader. The promotional TOPS cards (shown above) released in 2016 seem to hint at this as well, even showing Lothwolves. It seems her fate lead her onto the same path that Ezra now finds himself. It ends with both eras of Star Wars animation joining forces to find a common future.

Well, that’s how I see it anyways. I may be completely wrong, but I feel confident that the end will be something at least slightly similar to this.

We will know soon enough. What are your opinions? Where and how do you think Star Wars Rebels will conclude? I would love to hear your thoughts and critiques and predictions.

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ESSAY: The Shōjo Heroine - Vaulting Geographic Barriers in Japan & Beyond

...The shōjo heroine, despite exemplifying fluid, nearly ephemeral identity, holds a multicultural allure seldom seen in Western works—one that allows her to straddle different cultures and continents while remaining quintessentially Japanese.

X-Posted at Apollon Ejournal

Within the dynamic realm of Japanese pop culture, the mediums of animanga have burgeoned into a fascinating contemporary phenomenon. What began as an obscure niche met with disparagement at best, dismissal at worst, has since then permeated markets on an international scale: from the cutesy craze of Pokemon to quintessential girl-power staples like Sailor Moon to critically-acclaimed masterpieces like Miyazaki's Spirited Away. The genre enjoys colorful permutations, raunchy or artistic, violent or thoughtful—sometimes in the same breath. Yet one of its most salient aspects is its recurrent use of young girls as both storytelling motifs and cultural icons. Their manifestations are nearly as kaleidoscopic as the source material they spring from: doe-eyed lolitas in frothy Victoriana, spunky schoolgirls in sailor uniforms saving the world, flame-haired spitfires wielding outsized swords, magical girls whose psychedelic transformation sequences carry the visual fanfare of a butterfly erupting from its chrysalis—the list goes on, often coexisting and overlapping in a disjointed medley that functions in equal parts as a paean to, and a pastiche of, femininity. Sometimes these girls serve as one-dimensional eye-candy within the mise-en-scène. Other times, they are the protagonists and the key players upon whom the plot itself pivots—at once powerful exemplars of gender-identity and Derrida-esque deconstructions of it.

Of course, one might argue that Western media is steeped in similar portrayals of femininity that either defy or mold themselves to patriarchal presuppositions. What, then, lends the figure of the archetypal animanga girl such transnational allure? Some argue that she represents female empowerment in its most multi-layered and triumphant form. She subverts pervasive stereotypes of Japanese women as submissive and sweet, while resonating with female audiences globally by shedding light on uniquely personal facets of 'girlhood' left unexplored by Western media. Others argue the opposite: that she holds such salacious sway largely because she is so fetishized and objectified as to become a ghastly chimera of borderline, if not outright, pedophilia—not to mention a damaging perpetuation of Japan itself as a bizarre wonderland of sexual vagaries.

However, one might just as easily argue that her appeal is rooted neither in gender boundaries, or their subversion. Rather, it is in the shadowy lacuna she occupies in the middle, as a liminal fantasy-figure of both transformation and possibility, whose struggles toward selfhood are at once uniquely Japanese and universal. At home she embodies the attractive nexus of nostalgia and hope: the bittersweet stage of girlhood that must yield inevitably to adult responsibilities of marriage and motherhood. Abroad, she epitomizes the classic stage of youth that is the threshold to something greater, but which in itself can never be recaptured—the ideal metaphor not only for coming-of-age, but for finding within that ephemeral space the freedom to discover oneself in a globalized sphere.

By themselves, of course, anime and manga increasingly occupy a critical space within the larger framework of non-diasporic globalization. Surfing a wave of popularity across different peer-to-peer platforms; fervently discussed and dissected on public and private forums across the Internet; pirated, scanlated, fansubbed and widely shared across networks—the mediums have engendered their own subcultures within a free-flowing landscape unbound by both legal and geographic constraints. According to Japan's Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, anime outrivals the rest of the nation's TV exports at a shocking 90%. Similarly, manga sales in the US alone have witnessed exponential growth, skyrocketing from $60 million in 2002 to $210 million in 2007 (Suzuki, 2009). The sheer saturation of these mediums across global markets has lent them the term "meta-genre," raising compelling questions about the crux of their appeal (Denison, 2015). 

A number of scholars have weighed in on the subject, with many arguing that the je ne sais quoi of animanga lies beyond conceptual occurrences such as synecretism and (pop) cultural osmosis. Rather, it is in the vacuity of the genre itself, not as a quirky emblem of 'Japaneseness' but as its total negation. Koichi Iwabuchi, in his most celebrated monograph Recentering Globalization, refers to this as "cultural odorlessness," or mukokuseki. In Iwabuchi's view, the critical markers of 'Japaneseness'—whether racial, cultural, symbolic or contextual—are absent from animanga, allowing for their easy diffusion throughout the world (2007, p. 24). Similarly, in her work Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society, sociologist Sharon Kinsella equates the ubiquity of manga to 'air,' owing as much to the diversity of the genre as to its scope of dissemination—one that nearly verges on cultural dilution (2005, p. 4). 

Charged within the non-quality of 'odorlessness,' however, are compelling historical undercurrents. Scholars such as Hiroki Azuma argue that the cultural nullity of manga and anime is rooted as much in Japan's humiliating defeat in WWII as it is in its desire to reinvent itself on the global stage. Similarly, Joseph S. Nye equates the easy circulation of animanga with the careful crafting of a frictionless "soft power." Indeed, he speculates that the strategy proved imperative for a nation that had renounced its militaristic ambitions, and whose past was already embroidered with rich narrative threads of cultural eclecticism and fusion (2009). Similarly, in his article The Other Superpower, journalist Douglas McGray remarks that, "At times, it seems almost a strange point of pride, a kind of one-downmanship, to argue just how little Japan there is in modern Japan.  Ironically, that may be a key to the spread of Japanese cool" (2009). Of course, the very notion of "soft power" belies the apparent frivolity of animanga's commercial success. After all, Nye avers that the concept of soft power is entrenched in two-thirds statist influence, in particular political ascendancy and the assertion of foreign policy. The underlying purpose is to enhance the nation's scope of influence by lulling foreign audiences with appealing values, whether genuine or simulated, that the nation allegedly embodies. 

Naturally, this is no guarantor that the strategy will prove lasting or effective. As Nye notes, "Excellent wines and cheeses do not guarantee attraction to France, nor does the popularity of Pokemon games assure that Japan will get the policy outcomes it wishes" (2009, p. 14). However, there is no denying, either, that the mediums of anime and manga, while perceived as 'odorless,' are nonetheless imbued with a distinct whiff of Japaneseness. This proves apparent in everything from their production to their absorption. Despite transcending national borders, their characters attractively packaged in ambiguously 'Western' skin-tones, hair-colors and attitudes, their realms of storytelling blatantly divorced from superficial signifiers of Japan, they still carry within them undeniably Japanese themes and ideologies.  Series such as Blood+ blend trenchant international intrigue with a vampiric appetite for gore, yet tie the value of family to a poignantly Okinawan catchphrase—Nan-kuro-naisa, or It will all work out (2006). Similarly, the technologized labyrinth of Ghost in the Shell boasts a polyphonous, fragmented and multi-ethnic universe that practically embodies the liminal edge of cyberspace itself, yet within which Japan asserts its presence as a shadowy nation state, as well as through characters with patently Japanese monikers such as Makoto Kusunagi, Batou, Saito etc (2002).  In his work, Paradoxical Japaneseness: Cultural Representation in 21st Century Japanese Cinema, Andrew Dorman stresses that such narrative elements of Japaneseness are not accidental but deliberate, remarking:

As a method of successfully adapting films for a wider, more diverse audience, cultural concealment softens the impact of Japan's cultural presence in the global marketplace. Yet this does not constitute an erasure of Japaneseness, as indicated by Iwabuchi's concept of cultural 'odorlessness.' In anime's case, Japaneseness is inherent rather than explicit... Rather than disappearing, Japan asserts its presence in ways that are paradoxical, contradictory, and, as anime demonstrates, disorienting. 'Japaneseness' is very much fluid... there can be a distinctly Japanese method of appearing culturally ambiguous with Japanese exports (p. 45).

Similarly, in his book, Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America, Andrew C. McKevitt points out that, "...Cultural odor is relative to the nose of the smeller, what seem[s] denationalized to a prominent anime director could smell a lot like Japan to a young person in California" (p. 182). Indeed, even a cursory examination of Japan-centric scholarship—both among Western academia and otherwise—yields a fascinating oeuvre concentrated entirely on animanga: proof in itself that despite being lauded as hybrid marvels of transnationalism, within these works lingers a manifestly Japanese identity. To alight upon the genre as a stillborn phantom of Japan's ambitions for global leverage, only to then trivialize it because of the chameleon-like mutability of its nature, is missing the point entirely. The more Japan sheathes its cultural specificity within an aestheticized facade of multicultural ephemera, the easier it is to forget that this decontextualization is deliberate, and that it is part of Japan's broader efforts to re-situate itself within a fluctuating globalized sphere—on its own terms.

What better figurehead, then, for a metaphoric yacht of such intangible yet undeniable force than a young girl on the cusp of maturity?  Her faces and personalities are kaleidoscopic; yet in her essence she is singular, precisely because she is always amenable to transformation and transmutation, accretion and erasure—much like modern Japan itself. Anime and manga abound with her image: whether as a dreamy Miko resplendent in a white kimono and red hakama, the breeze stirring her hair alongside delicate drifts of cherry blossoms, to a bratty Yakuza princess complete with a chauffeur-driven car and a Chanel handbag, to a shy high-school girl with a pleated sailor fuku and tragic secrets lurking behind her guileless eyes.  From warrior to idol singer, magical girl to maid, she has no fixed personae. Instead, she enjoys numberless variations of tropes, numberless ways of veering between cute and cutthroat, dark and light. Her character design is often seamlessly entwined to a target audience: a playful vixen from a bishōjo, or "beautiful girl," series aimed largely at men, a voluptuous sidekick from a seinen (young boys) manga, or a cutesy superheroine hailing from the shōjo (young girls) demographic.

The treatment of the shōjo heroine in animanga is of particular interest, owing as much to the wild popularity of works such as Sailor Moon as to the prevalence of young female leads in renowned films such as Princess Monoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, Blood: The Last Vampire, and The Girl that Leapt Through Time.  Embraced by audiences both in Japan and abroad, she appears to be as much a national emblem as a state of being. In her work, Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination, Anne Allison notes that, "...The shojo (as both subject and object) has come to stand as counterweight to the enterprise society: a self indulgent pursuer of fantasy and dreams... shojo have been given a cultural and national value of their own (p. 187)."

What, however, does the term shōjo encompass? At its simplest, the word is used in Japan's publishing industry to refer to a female target-demographic, typically pre-or-post adolescent. However, at its most complex, shōjo has evolved as a genre unto itself, spanning multiple styles, from romance to sci-fi, as well as accruing viewership both young and old. Far from a notch on the proverbial totem pole of social development, the shōjo protagonists of animanga have come to represent an intriguing hybrid space. They are defined as feminine, yet not: the badge of true womanhood naturally bestowed upon wives-and-mothers, with their would-be lofty goals of childbearing and nurturance. The shōjo heroine, however, is unfettered by such constraints. She exemplifies within herself the endearing nativity and brash independence of childhood. 

The history of the shōjo's intriguing cultural construct can be traced back to the Meiji period, when the nation's efforts to promote female literacy led to the creation of the Higher School Order in 1899, and the subsequent establishment of all-girls' schools.  The era also saw a plethora of text-based and illustrative magazines aimed specifically at young girls—originally to enculture them on government-sanctioned ideals of chastity and domesticity. With the passage of time, however, these girl-oriented communities increasingly became a space to explore femininity through a polychromatic lens, as opposed to a narrowly monochrome beam of patriarchy. Freed from the masculine aegis, this was one arena where young women could unlock otherwise stymied voices and discover their true selves. 

Novelists such as Yoshiya Nobuko gained particular renown for heroines who wore the fabric of empowerment so daringly yet delicately, celebrating rather than denying their femininity. The theme of Nobuko's works seldom revolved around marriage; rather, they cast a soft focus on the hidden worlds of the feminine, from navigating the complex waters of sexuality to bittersweet lessons in friendship and heartbreak. Indeed, a number of Nobuko's stories, such as Hana Monogatari (Flower Tales), have wielded considerable influence on contemporary shōjo classics, from Chiho Saito's Revolutionary Girl Utena to Ai Yazawa's Nana, both of which chronicle, not the protagonists' relationships with men, but the curious and complicated lives of the women at the heart of each narrative (Abbott, 2015; Robertson, 1998). 

As expected, the shōjo genre's blithe subversion of gender standards did not sit well with Japanese society.  In her work, The Human Tradition in Modern Japan, Anne Walthall remarks that, "The treatment of ... the shōjo period by the popular media in turn-of-the-century Japan reveals a Janus-faced object and subject of scrutiny... [It] began to grow into a life-cycle phase, unregulated by convention, as more and more young women found employment in the service sector of the new urban industrializing economy" (2004, p. 158-159). By the time of the Taishô democracy, the ranks of shōjo were graced by another, more contradictory feminine aesthetic— the flirty, flapper-esque "modern girl," or moga. Outgoing and brazenly occidentalized, the moga was cast by popular media as the antithesis of ryōsai kenbo (good wife and wise mother). She represented, in many ways, Japan's uneasy, almost bipolar relationship with Western modernity. With her sleekly bobbed hair and the swish of her short skirt, she trod carelessly over the sacred orthodoxies of gender and tradition. In spurning the conventions of marriage and motherhood, she was deemed aimless, vapid, and, in her own way, deviant. Indeed, it was not long before the very notion of shōjo, originally a benign emergent space within a modern but quintessentially Japanese framework, became perceived as its Ruben-Vase opposite: a symbol of Western decadence and disorder. The shōjo heroine, toppled from her pedestal of pure and timorous girlhood, came to occupy a freakish position outside the gender binary.  In her work, Transgendering Shōjo Shōsetsu: Girls' Inter-text/Sex-uality, Tomoko Aoyama likens the shōjo girl to almost a third sex, describing her as "free and arrogant, unlike meek and dutiful musume [daughter] or pure and innocent otome [maiden]" (2005, p. 49). 

Both daughter and maiden are, of course, patriarchal determinants. By providing a rebellious counter-note to these traditional roles of sweetness and submissiveness, the shōjo heroine distinguishes herself on yet another level—she is so profoundly Othered as to become an abstraction. This makes her nearly the ideal mascot of any genre in animanga: action, horror, comedy, romance. It is easy to either deify or eroticize an abstraction; like a blank slate, she can be inscribed with whatever values, or lack of them, that her creators (or the nation itself) wish to promulgate. Similarly, audiences can project on to her dreams and desires, whether empowering or exploitative, depending on their lens of scrutiny.

This duality of interpretation has been observed frequently, with the shōjo heroine being lauded simultaneously as a feminist icon, and as a lurid object of fetishization. On the one hand, many have argued that, far from being powerful assertions of the female body's agency, these girls are merely trapped within misogynist narratives. Even in instances when they appear to wield force against their foes, the angle and framing render them objects of male desire, rather than subjects with the freedom to pursue their own (Brazal & Abraham, 2014). Series such as Cutey Honey and Kill La Kill, for example, feature fierce warrior girls battling against insurmountable odds, yet are peppered with cheeky fanservice; diegetically, the girls may be the 'stars' of the show, but in terms of textual construction, they serve as the prurient centerpiece of a visual buffet. On the other hand, it has been argued that, far from depersonalized chess pieces within the plot, such characters are the embodiment of the modern girl's dreams, with the freedom to be both strong and self-indulgent, both desirous and desirable. If they flaunt skin or flout the maxims of modesty, it is because their interpretation of empowerment is a playfully Sadean paradigm, with desire as an act of transcendence.

Whether one interpretation deserves merit over the other is beside the point. The fact remains that animanga's treatment of the shōjo heroine is too self-reflexive to pigeonhole as sexist or feminist, largely because her portrayals play intensely with narrative traditions of reality and fantasy, strength and subjugation. In his forward of Saito Tamaki's book, Beautiful Fighting Girl, J. Keith Vincent notes that people often assume that the animanga heroine is " ...in some sense a reflection of the status of girls and women in Japan... What these analyses often miss, however, is that [she] is also a fictional creature in her own right, and one capable of fulfilling functions other than straightforward representation" (p. 4).  One might argue, of course, that the same can be said of any character in popular culture.  Good fiction, after all, necessitates a degree of abstraction; characters must be hyper-specific and nuanced enough to seem human, yet deindividualized enough as a walking vacant space so that audiences can slough their skins on and off, say the things they are saying, do the things they are doing. When done correctly, these characters resonate across different social and cultural spectrum, while remaining firmly rooted in their own particular narratives, enabling the audience to achieve a twofold sense of safety and discovery. When done wrong, these characters become bland placeholders who dissolve as little more than white-noise within the narrative itself. 

Yet the shōjo heroine, despite exemplifying fluid, nearly ephemeral identity, holds a multicultural allure seldom seen in Western works—one that allows her to straddle different cultures and continents while remaining quintessentially Japanese. In that sense, she almost personifies the essence of Japan's 'soft-power:' disarmingly sweet yet imbrued with all the fluid symbolism of the nation's past, and all the hopeful reinvention of its future. Certainly, Japan's national identity has often seemed a paradoxical blend of East and West, technology and mythology, tradition and innovation, apocalypse and rebirth. The shōjo heroine reflects this cultural propensity by amalgamating within herself these disparate elements in order to create a fresh and unexpected identity of her own.  In his work, Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential: How Teenage Girls Made a Nation Cool, Brian Ashcraft remarks that she represents:

...both gruff samurai, strong and powerful, and demure geisha, beautiful and coquettish. Decked out in her Western-influenced uniform, she brings these elements together into a state of great flexibility—the ability to be strong or passive, Japanese or Western, adult or child, masculine or feminine. At home and abroad, she is a metaphor for Japan itself (p. 3).

However, one might argue that, beyond a metaphor for Japan, the archetype of the shōjo heroine proves effective as both a cultural exemplar and an international ambassador because she gives center stage to the realms of fantasy and freedom. This goes considerably beyond puerile leaps of fancy or shallow substitute worlds; she is neither a proxy nor an escape hatch, and for all her trappings of feminism, her narratives are often noticeably depoliticized (although there are exceptions). 

Yet within that conspicuous absence of political semiotics, she is hailed as an icon of free-flight on a multiplicity of levels. Part of it has to do precisely with her femininity; otherwise, it could be argued that a young boy would function just as well as a diegetic symbol. Essayist Carmen Maria Machado remarks that being a woman, for better or worse, is intrinsically tied to the uncanny. "Your humanity is liminal; your body is forfeit; your mind is doubted as a matter of course" (Kuhn, 2017, p. 1). This unfixed and mutable image allows for a platform of reinvention and dissolution wherein anything goes, and where dreams or nightmares can be made or unmade.

The shōjo heroine takes full advantage of this transformative capacity. Her different personae allow her to bring something meaningful to extant social reality, by inviting audiences to delve into multifaceted territories and unfamiliar modes of being. Through her, mundane reality acquires a sheen of novelty and mystery; once-unshakeable truths are challenged as the porous constructs they are. The human condition itself is thrown into riveting relief against a larger backdrop, both global and cosmic. Her diverse manifestations offer, as Roland Kelts states in his book Japanamerica, an "increasingly content hungry world with something Hollywood, for all its inventiveness, has not yet found a way to approximate: the chance to deeply, relentlessly and endlessly immerse yourself in a world driven by prodigious imagination" (2006).

The shōjo heroine's cutesy facade does not hinder this approach, but instead enhances the experience for audiences, largely because her character becomes a nucleus of empathy. The formula is successfully employed in several renowned shōjo-genre works. The heroines in series such as Sailor Moon, Princess Tutu and Revolutionary Girl Utena, for instance, approach with insightfulness and sensitivity the agonies of growing up, using their female leads as loci of identification. Equal parts naive and resilient, these heroines exude an endless capacity for hope; although superficially childlike, their warmth becomes a source of strength for other characters, and by proxy the audiences. At the same time, each series employs magic as both a narrative vehicle on the journey toward selfhood, and as a leitmotif of covert psychological meanings.  In her work, Magic as Metaphor in Anime, Dani Cavallaro notes that anime employs fantasy tropes, magic and the supernatural as a stylistic vehicle of communication, revealing,

... an increasing tendency to articulate subtly nuanced psychological dramas, pilgrimages of self-discovery and, fundamentally, mature speculations about the nature of humanness and the meaning of living as humans... magic ... by recourse to a paradox, [becomes] a form of obscure illumination: the revelation, by cryptic means, of powerful but often unheeded forces swirling at the core of existence (2010, p. 1-5). 

Of course, in Japanese tradition, magic and the human condition have never existed as binary opposites, but as facets of a single quantum spectrum. The fact can be evinced in the nation's culture, both contemporary and historic, within which both Shinto animism and Buddhist values dance hand-in-hand, absorbing into themselves the more recent rhythms of Western occupation, the better to compose astonishing fusions of both indigenous fantasy and fluctuating global trends. The animanga heroine, by virtue of her 'unformed' and 'incomplete' shōjo status, neatly functions as a meta-triage of these forces. However, her true talent is for fusing her self and the audience together through an honest exploration of human experience at its simplest—and its most vulnerable—as well as in her ability to embrace the deficiencies, cracks, and inconsistencies as part of a reassembled whole (Chee & Lim, 2015).

Taken in that sense, one could almost describe her as a microcosm in feminine wrapping. Through her, audiences worldwide witness a smooth synthesis of overarching global vicissitudes and personal instabilities. Sometimes this is achieved lightheartedly, almost hilariously—such as in Cardcaptor Sakura or Kill La Kill, both of which employ a visual extravaganza of mess and mayhem to tartly parodize the everyday pathos of coming-of-age. Other times, her character occupies an ontological penumbra that spans both individual griefs and grave social issues, such as in Madoka Magica or Hell Girl, both of which highlight the particular dangers of transitioning from girlhood to womanhood in a modern era.

Considering the shōjo heroine's history, there is a certain delightful irony to this fact. Originally, as mentioned, the very premise of shōjo arose out of rigidly parochial system in Meiji-era Japan. Yet, within the very space meant to subdue her, she has paradoxically been transformed into an icon of magic and mystery, transgression and self-discovery. At once a pop-cultural emblem of Japan and an international superstar, her true appeal, however, lies in the shadowy lacuna she occupies in the middle—as a liminal figure of possibility, whose struggles echo the more universal themes of reinvention and imagination. At home she is the sprightly figure of a girlhood lost, an epoch of innocence that seems at once eternal yet eyeblink-brief. Abroad, she is imbued with the fleeting transience that practically epitomizes the traditional Japanese aesthetic: a stage of youth that is the threshold to something greater, but which in itself can never be recaptured—the ideal metaphor not only for coming-of-age, but for finding within that amorphous space the freedom to dream, and to grow both roots and wings in a volatile globalized backdrop.  

References

Abbott, L. (2015). Shojo: The Power of Girlhood in 20th Century Japan. Honors Theses - Passed with Distinction, Washington State University. Retrieved September 14, 2017, from http://hdl.handle.net/2376/5710

Aoyama, T. (2005) ‘Transgendering Shôjo Shôsetsu: Girls’ Inter-text/sex-uality’, in McLelland, M. and Dasgupta, R. (eds.). Genders, Transgenders and Sexuality in Japan. London: Routledge.

Allison, A. (2006). Millennial monsters: Japanese toys and the global imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ashcraft, B., & Ueda, S. (2014). Japanese schoolgirl confidential: how teenage girls made a nation cool. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.

Azuma, H. (2009). Otaku: Japan's database animals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

Brazal, A. M., & Abraham, K. (2014). Feminist cyberethics in Asia: religious discourses on human connectivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cavallaro, D. (2010). Magic as metaphor in anime: a critical study. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.

Chee, L., & Lim, E. (2015). Asian cinema and the use of space: interdisciplinary perspectives. New York: Routledge.

Denison, R. (2015). Anime a critical introduction. London: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.

Dorman, A. (2016). Paradoxical Japaneseness: cultural representation in 21st century Japanese cinema. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fujisaku, J. (Director and Producer). (2006). Blood+ [Television Series]. Tokyo, Japan: Production IG.

Iwabuchi, K. (2007). Recentering globalization: popular culture and Japanese transnationalism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Kamiyama, K. (Director and Writer). (2002). Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. [Television Series]. Tokyo, Japan: Production IG.

Kelts, R. (2006). Japanamerica: how Japanese pop culture has invaded the U.S. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kinsella, S. (2005). Adult manga: culture and power in contemporary Japanese society. London: Routledge Curzon.

Kuhn, L. (2017, September 27). 'Being a Woman is Inherently Uncanny': An Interview With Carmen Maria Machado. Retrieved October 13, 2017, from https://hazlitt.net/feature/being-woman-inherently-uncanny-interview-carmen-maria-machado

McGray, D. (2009, November 11). Japan’s Gross National Cool. Retrieved September 14, 2017, from http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/11/japans-gross-national-cool/

McKevitt, A. C. (2017). Consuming Japan: popular culture and the globalizing of 1980s America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

Otsuka, E and Nobuaki, O. (2005) "Japanimation" Wa Naze Yabureruka [Why Japanimation should be Defeated]. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten. 

Richie, D. (2007). A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press.

Robertson, J. E. (1998). Takarazuka sexual politics and popular culture in modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Saitō, T., Vincent, K., Lawson, D., & Azuma, H. (2011). Beautiful fighting girl. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Suzuki, Y. (2009) "ROK promotes TV dramas." Daily Yomiuri. June 20: 4.

Walthall, A. (2004). The human tradition in modern Japan. Lanham, MD: SR Books.

[jira-chii]

Thoughts on the Shoumetsu Toshi anime after it aired

This post is probably overdue because the anime finished...a while ago. 

*Warning for long post and spoilers for the Shoumetsu Toshi anime*

Also, I didn’t rewatch the anime for this; I read the scripts.

So, before the Shoumetsu Toshi anime aired in April, I had written some initial speculations, mainly outlining three key challenges of adaptation the anime would have to face. Now that I've finished the anime, I would like to revisit that post and elaborate on how they handled those challenges.

Tldr on my og post: the anime had to find a way to not include too many of the (very loveable) characters from the game, had to be able to tell a complex story in a clear way within a 12 episode limit, and they had to do it in an interesting way without too much exposition. I definitely feel like the anime staff had these goals in mind, as there is evidence in the anime that they put in a lot of effort to solve them. But they may have fallen just short of that goal. 

Before I continue further though, I would like to say that I maintain my belief that making an anime adaptation from a source material as complex as Shoumetsu Toshi is incredibly difficult, and I admire the anime production team for tackling the challenge head on (putting in actual effort to make the anime a standalone-product, as opposed to shoehorning in an exact copy of the game’s storyline as so many other adaptations do for some quick marketing).

That said, the final product did not quite match my expectations (my bad for having my hopes up that high in the first place), and while I would love to chalk most of it up to episode constraints, time restrictions, budget limitations, and other factors outside the production team’s control, the truth is my issue is probably at a much more fundamental level.

Let's go through the order identified in my original post. 

Too many characters 

After watching the anime I am sure the producers were acutely aware of this challenge, and knew they had to be selective in who to choose to include in the production: characters who could not only propel the plot forward, but had interesting stories of their own to tell. 

Fan favourites like Tsubasa and Yoshiaki were an obvious choice, and including a mix of both frightening tamashii like Suzumebachi, and less violent ones such as SPR5, I can understand. The only real tamashii choice I can’t justify is Rou. Apart from looking slightly menacing, he does nothing, says nothing (maybe just one word. He gets a mention in the credits), and even worse he appears in episode one. 

My primary issue with Rou is that his character's design has too much...character. He’s a friggin’ monk. Flying around in a highway tunnel. It’s bound to raise questions. Which are never answered. If you introduce a character that flashy you've got to give him a backstory (he has one btw, but it's too complex to fit into this already packed anime). 

One could argue Rou's only purpose was to act as a weapon for the enemy, but I would think sticking with Suzumebachi would have been better? They serve the same role, and I feel having Takuya and Yuki resolve the conflict with Suzumebachi over the span of two episodes instead of just the one would make him seem like more of a threat and upped the tension. 

On the other end of the spectrum I have complaints about characters they didn't include, namely Lisa. How could you have Kouta without Lisa, that is just such a foreign concept to me? This could be due to the availability of the seiyuu themselves but, honestly, I would have rather they removed Kouta altogether. Don’t get me wrong. I love Kouta to bits, but for the purposes of the anime, it feels like he doesn't do anything at all. 

In fact, if you think about it, Kikyou, Yumiko, Eiji, Kouta, and Geek to an extent, basically all serve the exact same purpose. Which means having all of them at once is a waste of space. I know they made an effort to make it seem like Eiji and Kikyou are from a different organisation to Yumiko and Kouta. But really, what's the point? So what if Yumiko and Kouta used to work for the enemy? The impact of that to the main thrust of the story is minor; there are probably less convoluted ways to get to the same result. We could have had just Yumiko and Eiji and I’m pretty sure the story could be the same. Introducing just two of these characters instead of like, five, in episode one alone no less, also relieves the cognitive load on the audience (we can only take in so much information in those 20 minutes).

The actual problem though, is not so much there being too many characters, but that they were not used to their maximum potential.

For instance, if we broke down the explanatory purpose of just the tamashii that appeared in the anime, we would get something like this:

SPR5 explains that tamashii can materialise alternate possibilities;

Tsubasa shows AFs can be used to enhance the powers of the orphans who awakened powers as a result of human experimentation; 

Orphans reinforce what we learned from SPR5, including that the way to escape the alternate dimension is to fulfil their wish; 

Rou and Suzumebachi do nothing but seem threatening...; 

Akira protects Yuki and gets guilt tripped by Souma... 

One way of judging whether a character was “used” well, is to look at the narrative purpose they serve, and its correlation with the ending. You can probably see that, by themselves, with the exception of maybe SPR5 and orphans, these don't contribute much to understanding the ending of the anime. But that’s not to say they are useless filler. Some serve a functional purpose (for example, Yuki needs Akira to fight). Others contribute to the overall "core message" in their own way. Which seems to be: even though life is tough you have to move on. You can't change the past because then you would be denying the futures of those living in the present (More on this message later. Also, this exact theme appears in Souma's arc in Shoumetsu Toshi 0, but it’s done better).

However, even if a character’s or concept’s narrative purpose is not “useless”, that is not to say they couldn’t be made more “useful”. For example, AFs are basically never mentioned again after Souma dies. I only realised looking back retrospectively, but what was the real point of all that? Did we really need AFs in this story at all? Was there a way we could get to the same conclusion without the AFs? Alternatively, could we alter the ending to make the AFs more relevant?

Part of this involves altering the structure and flow of the story. Another part of this would be giving more strategic time for the important characters to make clear their narrative purpose. It is not easy to do that with a cast as big as Shoumetsu Toshi’s, but as a rule of thumb, the more important a character, the more screen time they should get.

I’ll use SPR5 as an example. In my original post, I was concerned they would get too much screen time, and in a sense they did. But it wasn't useful extra screen time, and this is a problem because the plot point that the anime uses SPR5 to explain is incredibly complex for just one episode. For that same reason, it seems reasonable to give them that extra screen time; but it could have been utilised better. For example, we could use their early cameos to make it clear they were victims of Lost. Before we formally meet Geek, why not show him mourning over SPR5 like everyone else did for the victims on the third anniversary of Lost, then show him binging their old videos. While you’re at it, why not throw in a comment lamenting that the idols will never have another live performance again? 

The advantage of this is that it is a much more clear and direct method of conveying information (compared to just the ambiguous montage we had at the very start of the anime). Additionally, having the audience know this stuff in advance, means it is more likely they will make an instant connection when they formally see Yua’s tamashii. Which means less time needs to be spent clarifying things we should already know (that SPR5 should be dead), and more time can be used productively on progressing the story (or apportioning more screen time to other important characters later in the show, like poor Ryouko).

Of course, this relies heavily on these pieces of knowledge being displayed in a clear enough way, or leaving a large enough impact, that we are able to link them in our minds almost instantaneously, even after several episodes.

Complex storyline

This was definitely where I thought the anime failed the hardest but was admittedly also the most difficult to pull off. 

First of all, the pacing was awful. The anime went for a 4-4-4 split for their twelve episodes, involving four episodes to set up the main plot, followed by four episodes focusing on stories of tamashii, and then a final four episodes resolving the main conflict. The problem with this is that major events are not given the time they need to make an impact. Like I mentioned, just introducing Ryouko earlier and keeping her around for more than one episode is a simple solution that would do wonders to fix the pacing. Therefore, I would suggest a better ratio for the split would have been 2-6-4.

It was clear that the anime was focusing on a linear story, and tried to link plot points to tamashii where possible (some with more success than others). It is very much plot-driven (as opposed to character-driven), and I honestly don’t have a problem with that. Except that using character-focussed side stories as a vessel to connect to a larger plot is undeniably one of the game’s greatest strengths, and it really shows. The anime’s best episodes were arguably the middle four, which focused on tamashii’s side stories. After the orphanage arc wrapped up, the anime honestly just went downhill from there.

But even then, some very deliberate decisions regarding the overall feel of the show seriously limited the potential of even those four episodes.

For instance, did anyone else feel something was missing with the Kaitodan? And I don't just mean the omission of some very important members, but the overall feel of the team. They were lacking charisma, and, while this is mainly due to not having enough time to develop, it is also a result of purposefully making them behave in a way that fit the story.

Essentially, the anime tried fitting all their characters into a very similar narrative pattern. Everyone needed a tragic character arc, whether it was losing someone dear to them, or losing their dreams and futures. The aim was to depict a truly horrible reality, to contrast against the ideal in an alternate reality, a parallel world. 

But the result of this was losing a lot of the core characteristics that made these characters beloved in the first place. Characters aren't given the full scope to showcase their personalities. Rui definitely felt a lot less playful, Sumire seemed to use a gun more than her signature chainsaw, and I fear this was also part of the reason Yayoi, Kouji and Saori got cut out. Their natural state was just too...positive, for the atmosphere the anime was going for. And I think this is a missed opportunity.   

What I am saying is essentially, this anime needed a better balance of positive and negative. While watching the show, there were times where I really thought it would have been better if the anime didn’t try so hard to be dark and dramatic and gloomy. One could argue that the core message of the anime relied on Yuki feeling miserable almost the whole time, but that doesn't mean you have to subject your audience to never-ending despair as well. Especially when another core message is that this world is worth living in. 

The key scenes in particular that I think could be leveraged are the "parallel world" scenes within Lost. These moments are so important as a reference point to understand the implication of Yuki's final decision. We need to know there is an alternative, and see how good life "could" have been. Yet these pivotal scenes are only given a brief couple of minutes. And that's such a waste, because I really think Lost was the most interesting setting in the whole anime. That's, like, literally where the tamashii are supposed to be. It's also where most of the surreal Observer symbolism happens, which is what 90% of the game's fans were looking forward to. And yet we're only in it for (not even) two episodes! What's the point of calling this anime Shoumetsu Toshi if they're not even in said Shoumetsu Toshi for half the time??

Anyway, my point is, Yuki makes a very big decision at the end of her journey, with huge implications. But, up until then, there was very little to actually guide her (and us) in that direction. Why, after everything she has been through, would she choose to reject resetting the world? We could probably come up with some answers if we tried (meeting Takuya being one of them), but these answers are never made obvious enough. And while this could have been done on purpose to put the “correctness” of Yuki’s final decision into question, it also risks jeopardising the message of the entire anime. Because there’s not enough evidence to convince us that her decision was the right one, and too much evidence making us believe it was the wrong one. And there’s no pay-off to either. 

As a result, despite the very strong core message, I could not help but feel that not much was resolved in the end. It was quite unsatisfying in that there wasn't enough closure for our main characters, but at the same time the ending felt surprisingly closed and final - there's no real hint that they want to make a sequel? Which is disappointing.

The biggest disappointment though was that there was no plot twist. There were so many interesting concepts they could have explored more. The source material by itself gives a heap of options around parallel worlds alone. What if inside Lost we actually dropped Takuya and Yuki into one of those ideal alternate parallel worlds? And had them live it out more fully? And gave Yuki more time to explore it, and give her some concrete reason to believe that keeping her world as it is, despite its flaws, is actually the best decision? 

You might accuse me of trying to fit more into an already packed anime but I am strongly of the opinion that a story's conceptual potential should be explored to its fullest wherever possible, even if it means not wrapping up everything perfectly by the end of twelve episodes. I would argue the anime could have, and should have, spaced out its events more to end on a cliffhanger, with a potential for a sequel (regardless of whether or not a sequel would even be feasible). Because saying this is the end, is just sad. 

Exposition 

This was the one thing the Shoumetsu Toshi anime probably spent the most effort addressing. The anime attempts to follow, for the most part, a show, don't tell approach. This is especially evident in the first few episodes, which are full of action. And well done on them for trying that. Key word being trying, because I don't think they actually successfully pulled off the show, don't tell. Because there is still a heap of exposition (sometimes they try to dress it up by having a news crew exposit instead of Eiji, or Yumiko. But don't be fooled). And even worse, a heap of missing exposition, which becomes apparent when you realise they needed an entire episode of just flashback to explain some key concepts (episode 9), because they couldn't do it in the eight whole episodes prior. Even worse, we were still left with so many questions about what happened in episode 11.

I guess what they needed was more strategic exposition, which should have been tied into the way the story was told and its pacing (see what I mentioned about the narrative purpose of the tamashii earlier). Sadly, the character who needed to utilise strategic exposition the most, but epically failed to do so, was Yuki herself.

Yuki’s poor character development was one of the things I definitely did not expect. She's the main character! But her personality is so...flat. Or rather, it doesn't make much sense.

Yuki’s perspective is the one we primarily view the anime from. She is shown to us at the very start of the show. Yuki is meant to be relatable to us. In the first half at least, we actually know more about her than Takuya does. We get to see flashbacks of her past that she doesn’t reveal to anyone else. We experience the same confusion she does when Takuya busts her out. We are meant to feel as betrayed as she does when Takuya calls her a “package”. If the anime continued on this trajectory, we are actually supposed to fully understand why Yuki makes the decision she does at the end. Except they completely broke our suspension of disbelief when Yuki basically develops complete trust in Takuya by the end of episode 2, and is even confident enough to enable someone else to move forward in episode 3. Something happened to Yuki that we weren’t a part of. And now she is no longer relatable because for some reason we weren’t on that journey with her.

Even worse, Yuki’s biggest character development happens off-screen, when Takuya is off at the orphanage doing an entire investigation without her. Isn’t it kind of sad, that Yuki gets more character development out of talking about Takuya to Yumiko, rather than actually interacting with him. This is also part of the reason the events of episode 11 are just baffling. Because the fact of the matter is, for the entire first half of the anime (possibly even the first three-quarters), Yuki and Takuya just don't seem to trust each other enough to make their relationship believable.

When even your main characters lose credibility, it becomes difficult to feel invested in the rest of the show. This feeling is exacerbated in Shoumetsu Toshi because the anime relied so much on drama. How many times did we see/hear the gunshot cliche? Gunshots serve as an effective way to transition between scenes, while creating a cliffhanger effect. The problem with this, though, is doing it too much, especially within a short span of time, results in high-tension scenes losing impact. Even worse, when you’re not even invested in the characters enough to care whether or not they die, the whole scene just feels cheap and ridiculous.

Basically, there were milestones we needed to see to make Yuki’s development seem natural and credible. Specifically, her development involved her gradually trusting in Takuya, and growing more confident in herself. These require at least one of two things happening: Takuya does something to make him worth trusting, or something happens to make Yuki come to the decision that she wants to go to Lost. I think the anime tried to go for the former in episode 1 (by having Takuya persist on taking Yuki to Lost despite his injuries), and the latter in episode 2 (symbolically through Yuki jumping onto the scooter with Takuya). But I'm not sure this is the best way to depict such a relationship convincingly to the audience. 

Wouldn't it make more sense to do it the other way? To have the two cooperating because they each have different motives to go to Lost (Yuki to find her father, Takuya to fulfil his contract), and then have Takuya do something outside his contract to finally get Yuki to trust him? 

Yuki probably did have a glimmer of hope when Takuya rescued her, but those hopes were dashed when he called her a literal package. I don't see why she should continue to trust him. Is it because he decided to look for her, and convince her to go to Lost? But that's not a particularly satisfying reason. Because the implication right now is, regardless of whether or not Yuki trusts Takuya, he is going to take her to Lost, even by force. Because of his dedication to his contract. 

Likewise, Yuki doesn't even get to the point of telling Takuya what traumatised her, even though she was ready to tell Ryouko everything after she brings up her father. Ryouko makes Yuki realise she really does want to find her father and is the first person she opens up to about the experimentation she was subjected to. This could have been a great opportunity to let Yuki decide for herself that she wants to go to Lost, regardless of whether or not she trusts Takuya. 

My point is basically: have Ryouko be Yuki's emotional crutch, while Yuki decides whether or not Takuya is trustworthy. Keep Ryouko around for a while longer to get us emotionally invested, and lull Yuki (and us) into a false sense of security. Eventually, it should get to the point where, if Ryouko died and Takuya comforted Yuki, we would know it was not just out of sympathy. Capitalise on Ryouko’s death. Show how bad Takuya is at comforting, but also that he's willing to try. Then, contrast this to what he does after Souma's death. He goes through all the rubble (basically Souma's corpse) to find the choker. Because he understood how important that was to Yuki. The two didn't need to say a word to each other to understand how the other was feeling. Takuya didn't even need to see Yuki. Just silently hands over Souma's choker, as he keeps his eyes on the road ahead, never looking back. 

If one could naturally see the progression in their relationship until this moment, almost everything that follows in the anime starts to make a lot more sense: especially the seaside scene and the Lost scene. 

The frustrating thing is, I could see signs of this in the anime, but they weren’t explicit enough. It is absolutely crucial to just nail that transition in their relationship: from cooperation, to dependence, to actual trust. It needs to happen in that order, and it needs to be incredibly obvious. Going for subtlety for something as important as this, is definitely not a good idea. 

Anyway, this post has become very long and messy so I’ll stop now, but I am definitely not going to stop talking about this topic. I think the key to theoretically fixing this anime is a stronger integration of plot and character. I've already given a bit of an idea into how this could be done, but it's probably a little hard to visualise from just what I’ve written here. In the future I do plan to go the whole way and actually write up a pseudo episode-by-episode potential outline of an alternate way to do the anime. So look forward to that.

In the meantime, you can see the prequel to this post here.

Or my thoughts on just episodes 5 and 6 (the Kaitodan-Tsubasa-Yoshiaki arc) here (including another way I would have done it)

[tunaforbernadette]

No Humans Required: Exploring the Possibility of Computer Generated Fiction

Guest post by Wil Forbis

“It’s not hard to generate a story. It’s not hard to tell a story. It’s hard to tell good stories. How do you get a computer to understand what good means?”

Mark Riedl, associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Lately, I’ve been playing around with self-editing apps such as AutoCrit, ProWritingAid and SlickWrite. These tools, all of which offer some functionality for free, scan a user’s text and flag common literary transgressions like poor word choice, word repetition, improper sentence length and passive verbs. The apps aren’t perfect and tend to be biased towards a modern, no-frills writing style (the work of Lovecraft would caused their circuits to overload) but they can be helpful. They have caught errors that I would have otherwise missed.

The robust feature set of these apps makes the point that writing is not a single process but many. Proper word choice, balanced sentences and good grammar are key to successful writing as are larger concerns about structure, style and narrative. A good writer ties these skills together though no one masters them all. Some writers are known for excellent pacing but banal vocabulary. Others earn acclaim for great plotting while being damned for wooden dialogue. 

These editing apps do not, of course, make editing decisions for you; they simply offer suggestions. Still, I find myself wondering whether they could be used to automate the editing process. Then the question arises: will software eventually write? Will computers create works of fiction out of nothing, no humans required?

This question might seem premature. The apps I’m playing with are helping with the more mundane, technical aspects of writing but they aren’t anywhere near the creative side. They aren’t developing plots or characters, or exploring the emotional symbolism of colors or religious icons. And it’s hard to imagine they could.

Still, we recognize that creativity is not magic; it is a process that can be studied and deconstructed. Bookstores are filled with volumes about using the right side of the brain, or developing creative “flow”, or finding a step-by-step process to awaken the muse. And employing process-oriented steps is exactly what software is good at.

Additionally, creative computers are not science fiction. In the world of music, computers have been composing for some time. Programmer/musician David Cope has used software to generate thousands of hours of classical pieces. Several tech start-ups such as Amper and Jukedeck have been automating the creation of background music used in online videos and films. The quality of the music varies---nothing has yet appeared to make hit songwriters nervous---but it’s credible enough.

Computers are also getting into the writing game, specifically journalism. The “natural language generation” technology of a company called Automated Insights has been used by the Associated Press to write finance articles. A competing tech company, Chicago based Narrative Science, has been generating sports and other statistics heavy news stories for years. Jeff Bezo’s Washington Post is using an AI bot called Heliograf to massage raw data about politics into human readable text.

Of course, journalism is not fiction (well, not all of it) and fiction is the kind of writing that requires the most creativity. Even there progress is being made. A European academic project, the What-If-Machine (WHIM), constructs basic plot premises by analyzing data on the web. (The WHIM software teamed up with another program, PropperWryter, to write the plot structures for a musical that recently ran in London.  ) Another software tool, Scheherazade, developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology, writes original short fiction after analyzing human penned stories. These tools haven’t produced anything that’s going to put authors out of work but we are at a point where speculation on how computers could create stories and novels is valid.

As mentioned previously, writing is really many different skills, and exploring every function software will need to obtain to pen fiction is beyond the scope of this article. I’m going to consider the possibility of software tackling three tasks inherent in narrative writing: plotting, pacing and word choice.

Plotting Let’s define a plot as the “who, what, when, where, how and why” of a story. The form of it can vary between a one-paragraph synopsis or a ten-page story breakdown.

Automated plot development is not new; classic pulp fiction authors often used primitive plot generators. Erle Stanley Gardner employed a “plot wheel” to randomly combine story elements for his Perry Mason stories. Lester Dent swapped out elements in his “master fiction” plot to create stories for his Doc Savage novels.

Those early efforts were crude compared to what today’s technology offers. We now have computers with incredible processing power and the ability to parse written material and learn to correlate meaning to words. Computers are starting to “understand*” that Sweden is a place and bound to the various restrictions that places are bound to, or that dogs are living creatures and subject to various canine behaviors. As this capability expands in the future, software should have no problem filling in the “who, what, when, etc.” required for plot development.

* I realize I’m on tenuous philosophical ground when I imply computers can “understand” meaning, a feat that would presume they have some kind of consciousness. This is merely a writing shortcut: I make no claims about computers being able to think.

Early attempts will doubtless be underwhelming. (The WHIM software mentioned above already does this kind of plot development but only rarely creates gems.) Computers will need to not only understand what plots are, but what good plots are. How can this happen?

Two possibilities come to mind. One is that computers submit their plots to human reviewers. Via a crowdsourcing platform, plots could be ranked by engagement. As good plots are highlighted and bad plots down-voted, the data could then be fed back into machines that could analyze the differences. For example, computers might learn that lots of action or exotic locales are important to a good plot. (At least as defined by some readers.)

Another possibility hinges on a technique gaining ground in the world of artificial intelligence: deep learning. In this process, computers digest large amounts of data and observe trends and correlations in that data that might be missed by humans. Via deep learning, computers could analyze the text in every fiction book ever digitized*, as well those books’ sales figures and critical reception. This could lead to numerous observations about what makes plots good or bad. That data could then be used to aid a WHIM type tool in plot development.

* This kind of analysis is already occurring. Recently, scientists at the University of Vermont ran computer analysis on hundreds of stories and confirmed Kurt Vonnegut’s theory that most stories follow one of six plot outlines.

Pacing Pacing can be thought of as the flow of a story, the speed with which it progresses. Action scenes (battles/break-ins/romantic encounters, etc.) speed up the pace while expository scenes (dialogue/ruminations/descriptions etc.) slow things down. Good stories balance these two elements, though there’s no single, perfect formula.

Can computers automate the task of setting a story’s pace? To do so, they would need to be able to identify action scenes and expository scenes within text.

One way to define a scene’s nature is by identifying word types. Action scenes have a lot of action or emotion words like “scream,” “break,” “shoot,” “stab” and so on. Expository scenes have a lot of cerebral and calm words like “considered,” “wrote,” “says,” “mused” and so on.

Sentence length also indicates a scene’s character. Action scenes tend to have short, curt sentences that capture the frantic pace of what is being described. Expository scenes move more languidly and flesh things out over longer sentences.

These are two of many attributes that can be used to identify the pacing of text. With these tools in hand, computers could analyze stories and move scenes around to achieve a good balance between action and exposition.  

There’s much more to pacing than described here, but this provides a high level view of how computers might tackle this writing challenge.

Word Choice The need for variety drives good word choice. Readers don’t want to see the same word echoed over and over. All of the self-editing apps mentioned above already flag repeated words.

Of course, choosing word substitutes is not about blindly swapping out synonyms.  Several factors affect our choices. They include…

• Alliteration We sometimes take advantage of the sound of language when finding a word. Say you’ve already used the word “snake” and now want to refer to it again prefaced it with the adjective “repulsive.” Instead of saying "the repulsive snake" you may choose "the repulsive reptile" to play off the alliterative properties.

• Syllable Count Sometimes a you want a word that has some beef to it. You may be referring to a “reprise” but instead choose “recapitulation” as a meatier substitute. In other situations you may seek shorter words to balance a sentence correctly.

• Genre/Style The nature of the work will always have an effect on the words used. In a period detective story, a female character might be a “dame” or “moll,” while in a high society novel she may be a “lady” or “ingénue.”

• Intended Audience Every author must writer for his or her readers. Complex words should be avoided in kids’ novels but embraced in the fiction section of The New Yorker magazine.

There are many additional factors. Each of these could be thought of as a rule that could then be applied by software in the writing process. Via deep learning, computers could analyze existing stories and suss out the delicate ways these rules interoperate and influence each other. Computers may even develop new “styles” of word choice that humans find unique and engaging.

Summing it up I don’t want to make any of this sound easy. Efforts to automate writing will likely evolve in fits and starts, and the road to progress will be littered with failures. I suspect much of the development will not be in the interest of replacing human authors but aiding them. Who wouldn’t want a “pacing recommendation engine” or an “automatic thesaurus”?

There’s also the possibility that there is some unique property, some tic of the human brain, that grants a magic spark to the best human created fiction. Computer authors may never replicate this. But it’s a mistake to think they have to. Computers don’t need to write like Shakespeare to be competitive in the marketplace since most published human authors don’t meet that standard. Sometimes “good enough” is fine.

When all this could happen is hard to say. According to the science fiction of yesteryear, we should all be flying around in jet packs right now. Predicting the future is a fool’s errand but I’m enough of a fool to claim that within 20 years we will have an automated writing tool capable of generating readable fiction. And in 50, 100, 500 years? Who knows?

[artrn]

Through the use of puppets both computer-generated and hand-made, the recent work of Andrew Norman Wilson stages inescapable narrative scenarios in which rational thought becomes contradictory and human exceptionalism unravels. Drawn from the popular imagination, the videos’ anthropomorphized characters mimic our emotions and behavior while exploiting the illusory and uncertain qualities of puppetry. In the words of the artist, “Being a person means being paranoid that you might be a puppet of some other force, like economic networks or algorithms or genetic coding.” Divided, replicated, transposed, and multiplied, Wilson’s puppets are subjected to biological and computational functions within infinitely looping narratives where perceptual play reigns and human reason offers no escape.

The Unthinkable Bygone (2016) was the first project Wilson developed in collaboration with the animator Vlad Maftei, whose experience includes realistic simulations of vital organs for the healthcare industry as well as the limitless elasticity of a 4D Spongebob Squarepants film. For Wilson, such overlaps of scientific visualization and popular cinematic technique are a key site for understanding science as a cultural practice that offers information about matter without revealing a consciousness-piercing truth. Together Wilson and Maftei created a 3D model of Baby Sinclair from Jim Henson’s animatronic puppet TV series Dinosaurs (1991-94) and subjected him to varied forms of scientific analysis, including simulation, dissection, reflection, and endoscopy. What emerges is an infinite loop in which speculation on an organism’s intelligence, experience, and points of view inevitably reveal the influence of cinematic and televisual convention, and leave us knowing less than we did at the beginning of the experiment.

Reality Models (2016) is a shot-by-shot recreation of a scene from “Peppermint Park,” an educational home video series produced in the 1980s by a group of investors seeking to profit off the narrative models that “Sesame Street” invented for educational children’s entertainment. A s the artist recounts, “Growing up, a family friend had several copies of the VHS tapes and I remember being terrified of an unexplained dance sequence by a breakaway puppet dressed to look like a scarecrow. A few years ago, clips from the show resurfaced online, and my relationship with the dancing scarecrow has shifted from horror to obsession.” Wilson added a backstage scene that reveals the puppet as h is own puppeteer. Inspired by a 2010 experiment by the physicist Aaron O’Connell, the scene dramatizes the discovery that an object visible to the naked human eye can be in two places at once, thus demonstrating the influence of quantum physics on objects larger than atoms. In his essay on the video, Wilson writes, “From here it starts to seem like existing means being inconsistent, while dying means becoming consistent. Or that classical logic – where things are either A or B , but never A and B at the same time – is being replaced by a quantum logic which says t hat all future possibilities exist i n the p resent.” O ne could say t he narrative operates analogically to that idea. Or, it’s a demonstration of how, in cinema and literature, narrative closure occurs when plot and story arrive at a 1:1 ratio: consistency. At its most basic, it’s the s tory of an artist torn between their public persona and the private struggle of day-to-day survival. Whatever it means, Reality Models is about just that: whatever it means. In the words of O’Connell, “People have models of reality, and those models are descriptions, but they d on’t get you any closer to the truth.”

Ode to Seekers 2012 (2016) was the second project Wilson developed in collaboration with Maftei and was initially conceived during treatment at Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg New York, which contains the abandoned children’s ward seen in the video. Loosely based on John Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820), the work emerges from a translation of the formal techniques of Keats’ textual ode to an infinitely looping video. Ekphrasis – the graphic, dramatic description of a visual work of art – shifts from Keats’ urn and the celebratory scene it depicts to an abandoned children’s ward at a mental institution and a computer-generated scene composed by Wilson and Maftei. “What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?” The questions that Keats asks of the images on the urn are visually translated for the viewer of Seekers , transposing the poet’s queries to a scene in which a mosquito, a syringe, and an oil pump all thrust their piercers into a surface that looks at once like human skin under a microscope, desert salt flats, and potato casserole. Sifting through the artist’s experiences with mosquito-borne illness, drug addiction, and climate change, the work operates as both a questioning of and a testament to the choice to continue to make art, or do anything at all, when every attempt to love, desensitize, or survive inevitably entails traumatic destruction.

A sculpture entitled Robin Williams Window Shade (2015) is mounted in the former cinema. The artist bought a resin cast of Robin’s head from a Hollywood prop studio that was made when the actor was still alive. Face casts seem to anticipate a person’s death – they not only require the person to “play dead” during the making of the mold, but they also outlive the person, turning their form into a replicable commemoration. Wilson 3D-scanned the cast and worked with a 3D modeler to open its eyes and make it grimace in the way Robin Williams was known to do. He also 3D-scanned an alligator clip that the modeler used to pinch his eyebrow within the software. The clip, but not its effect, was then removed and the model was 3D printed and thrust through a hole in a piece of faux leather. As with the baby dinosaur from The Unthinkable Bygone , Wilson picks up traces of forms, copies of copies, and attempts to reanimate the affect of their source towards atypical ends. He writes, “With the face print in my hands, I am ecstatic. Then, a feeling that something was always absent, regardless of the fact that it’s a faceprint of a faceprint of a faceprint of a face. Like any object itself, Robin himself was never an adequate expression of his actual existence. In person, he sparkled with the same mysterious absence as this powder print in my hands, or as in the projection I saw of Mrs. Doubtfire’s face, covered in cake icing, yelling ‘toodaloo’ from behind a refrigerator door. The object is mournful – it holds on to the feeling of something slipping away. It’s about being respectful, being true, but knowing that you are losing something. Treasuring an illusion, while kissing it goodbye.”

Mosquito Computer (2015-2017) is a custom computer case that has been modified to house multiple generations of mosquitoes over the course of an art exhibition. Inside the case is a mosquito colony, a hard drive enclosure with a small pond inside for larvae to grow, and another hard drive enclosure filled with tree resin that serves as both a food supply and a preservation medium for dead mosquitoes. The multi-generational family drama On Golden Pond (1981) is projected onto the case to serve as visual stimuli for the mosquitoes. Over the course of the exhibition, the female mosquitoes are fed blood meals sourced from the artist’s veins to afford them the protein they need to make their eggs. These blood meals also allow the artist to store his genetic information temporarily in the mosquitoes’ bodies, and permanently in the tree resin once it becomes amber. According to the narrative of Jurassic Park (1993), this could allow for clones of the artist to be produced in the future.

[micaramel]

Artist: Andrew Norman Wilson

Venue: Human Resources, Los Angeles

Exhibition Title: Pretense

Co-presented by: Document, Chicago

Date: October 6 – 20, 2017

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of video, images, press release and link available after the jump.

Video:

Andrew Normal Wilson, Reality Models, 2016, HD Video and VHS, 5 min 40 sec loop

  Andrew Normal Wilson, The Unthinkable Bygone, 2016, HD Video, 2 min 18 sec loop

  Andrew Normal Wilson, Ode to Seekers, 2012 – 2016, HD Video, 8 min 30 sec loop

  Images:

  Images courtesy of Human Resources, Los Angeles

Press Release:

Through the use of puppets both computer-generated and hand-made, the recent work of Andrew Norman Wilson stages inescapable narrative scenarios in which rational thought becomes contradictory and human exceptionalism unravels. Drawn from the popular imagination, the videos’ anthropomorphized characters mimic our emotions and behavior while exploiting the illusory and uncertain qualities of puppetry. In the words of the artist, “Being a person means being paranoid that you might be a puppet of some other force, like economic networks or algorithms or genetic coding.” Divided, replicated, transposed, and multiplied, Wilson’s puppets are subjected to biological and computational functions within infinitely looping narratives where perceptual play reigns and human reason offers no escape.

The Unthinkable Bygone (2016) was the first project Wilson developed in collaboration with the animator Vlad Maftei, whose experience includes realistic simulations of vital organs for the healthcare industry as well as the limitless elasticity of a 4D Spongebob Squarepants film. For Wilson, such overlaps of scientific visualization and popular cinematic technique are a key site for understanding science as a cultural practice that offers information about matter without revealing a consciousness-piercing truth. Together Wilson and Maftei created a 3D model of Baby Sinclair from Jim Henson’s animatronic puppet TV series Dinosaurs (1991-94) and subjected him to varied forms of scientific analysis, including simulation, dissection, reflection, and endoscopy. What emerges is an infinite loop in which speculation on an organism’s intelligence, experience, and points of view inevitably reveal the influence of cinematic and televisual convention, and leave us knowing less than we did at the beginning of the experiment.

Reality Models (2016) is a shot-by-shot recreation of a scene from “Peppermint Park,” an educational home video series produced in the 1980s by a group of investors seeking to profit off the narrative models that “Sesame Street” invented for educational children’s entertainment. A s the artist recounts, “Growing up, a family friend had several copies of the VHS tapes and I remember being terrified of an unexplained dance sequence by a breakaway puppet dressed to look like a scarecrow. A few years ago, clips from the show resurfaced online, and my relationship with the dancing scarecrow has shifted from horror to obsession.” Wilson added a backstage scene that reveals the puppet as h is own puppeteer. Inspired by a 2010 experiment by the physicist Aaron O’Connell, the scene dramatizes the discovery that an object visible to the naked human eye can be in two places at once, thus demonstrating the influence of quantum physics on objects larger than atoms. In his essay on the video, Wilson writes, “From here it starts to seem like existing means being inconsistent, while dying means becoming consistent. Or that classical logic – where things are either A or B , but never A and B at the same time – is being replaced by a quantum logic which says t hat all future possibilities exist i n the p resent.” O ne could say t he narrative operates analogically to that idea. Or, it’s a demonstration of how, in cinema and literature, narrative closure occurs when plot and story arrive at a 1:1 ratio: consistency. At its most basic, it’s the s tory of an artist torn between their public persona and the private struggle of day-to-day survival. Whatever it means, Reality Models is about just that: whatever it means. In the words of O’Connell, “People have models of reality, and those models are descriptions, but they d on’t get you any closer to the truth.”

Ode to Seekers 2012 (2016) was the second project Wilson developed in collaboration with Maftei and was initially conceived during treatment at Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg New York, which contains the abandoned children’s ward seen in the video. Loosely based on John Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820), the work emerges from a translation of the formal techniques of Keats’ textual ode to an infinitely looping video. Ekphrasis – the graphic, dramatic description of a visual work of art – shifts from Keats’ urn and the celebratory scene it depicts to an abandoned children’s ward at a mental institution and a computer-generated scene composed by Wilson and Maftei. “What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?” The questions that Keats asks of the images on the urn are visually translated for the viewer of Seekers , transposing the poet’s queries to a scene in which a mosquito, a syringe, and an oil pump all thrust their piercers into a surface that looks at once like human skin under a microscope, desert salt flats, and potato casserole. Sifting through the artist’s experiences with mosquito-borne illness, drug addiction, and climate change, the work operates as both a questioning of and a testament to the choice to continue to make art, or do anything at all, when every attempt to love, desensitize, or survive inevitably entails traumatic destruction.

A sculpture entitled Robin Williams Window Shade (2015) is mounted in the former cinema. The artist bought a resin cast of Robin’s head from a Hollywood prop studio that was made when the actor was still alive. Face casts seem to anticipate a person’s death – they not only require the person to “play dead” during the making of the mold, but they also outlive the person, turning their form into a replicable commemoration. Wilson 3D-scanned the cast and worked with a 3D modeler to open its eyes and make it grimace in the way Robin Williams was known to do. He also 3D-scanned an alligator clip that the modeler used to pinch his eyebrow within the software. The clip, but not its effect, was then removed and the model was 3D printed and thrust through a hole in a piece of faux leather. As with the baby dinosaur from The Unthinkable Bygone , Wilson picks up traces of forms, copies of copies, and attempts to reanimate the affect of their source towards atypical ends. He writes, “With the face print in my hands, I am ecstatic. Then, a feeling that something was always absent, regardless of the fact that it’s a faceprint of a faceprint of a faceprint of a face. Like any object itself, Robin himself was never an adequate expression of his actual existence. In person, he sparkled with the same mysterious absence as this powder print in my hands, or as in the projection I saw of Mrs. Doubtfire’s face, covered in cake icing, yelling ‘toodaloo’ from behind a refrigerator door. The object is mournful – it holds on to the feeling of something slipping away. It’s about being respectful, being true, but knowing that you are losing something. Treasuring an illusion, while kissing it goodbye.”

Mosquito Computer (2015-2017) is a custom computer case that has been modified to house multiple generations of mosquitoes over the course of an art exhibition. Inside the case is a mosquito colony, a hard drive enclosure with a small pond inside for larvae to grow, and another hard drive enclosure filled with tree resin that serves as both a food supply and a preservation medium for dead mosquitoes. The multi-generational family drama On Golden Pond (1981) is projected onto the case to serve as visual stimuli for the mosquitoes. Over the course of the exhibition, the female mosquitoes are fed blood meals sourced from the artist’s veins to afford them the protein they need to make their eggs. These blood meals also allow the artist to store his genetic information temporarily in the mosquitoes’ bodies, and permanently in the tree resin once it becomes amber. According to the narrative of Jurassic Park (1993), this could allow for clones of the artist to be produced in the future.

Andrew Norman Wilson is an artist from suburban Massachusetts. After studying journalism and communications, he worked on various activist and documentary projects while employed as a commercial video producer. In 2008, he decided to start making art, and since then his work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, Centre Pompidou, the Gwangju Biennial and the Berlin Biennial. Lectures include Harvard University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, UCLA, and Cooper Union. His work has been featured in Artforum, e-flux, Frieze, the New Yorker, and Wired.

Co-presented by Document, Chicago

Link: Andrew Norman Wilson at Human Resources

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