Ask John: Is 2012 Bringing Back Creativity?

Question:
You recently made approving- but passing- reference to Senki Zesshou Symphogear and the Black Rock Shooter anime. I’d be interested in knowing your take on both these shows, since you felt they were worth mentioning in a discussion of creative and ambitious recent releases.

Answer:
For the past several years, English speaking anime fans have regularly bemoaned a dearth of creativity and willingness to experiment in contemporary anime production. We’ve certainly had some unconventional anime over the past few years, including Katanagatari, Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Higashi no Eden, and Kuchu Buranko, to name a few, but the overall tone of contemporary anime has been dominated by moé and a feeling of “safe,” market-friendly productions. While I personally have little disagreement with the quality and variety of anime that’s appeared in Japan over recent years, even I do have to admit some excitement over a seemingly emerging trend from this year. The first half of 2012 has already given anime fans at least four praiseworthy TV anime that have, to varying success, at least tried to break out of current convention.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear can be called a redundant descendant of idol singer anime like Macross, Megazone 23, Idol Defense Force Hummingbirds, and Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri, and fighting magical girl anime such as Pretty Cure & Lyrical Nanoha, but Symphogear must be commended for its tremendous ambition. The series was clearly one of big ideas and powerful emotions including a villain motivation founded in the Biblical tale of Babel, the concept of a fighting girl forced to overcome the grief of the death of a close friend (reminiscent of the memorable 1999 anime D4 Princess), and a technical desire, reminiscent of the 2008 Kure-nai TV series, to animate elaborate sequences, unfortunately, with a budget that didn’t allow for such grand ambition. At heart Symphogear may be a conventional anime, but the thought put into its narrative development and the ambition to animate large-scale scenes including concerts with elaborate choreography and realistic martial arts fight sequences denote the show as one that didn’t settle for “safe” and easy as so many contemporary anime do.

The weak 2010 Black Rock Shooter OVA had plenty of potential viewers justifiably worried about the 2012 TV anime, but the two productions are black and white. While the TV series is loosely an expanded retelling of the OVA’s core concept, the TV series introduced a variety of shockingly unexpected morose and unsettling themes including emotional and psychological abuse, family disfunction, subtle child abuse, alienation, and humiliation present in earlier, flawed anime like Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Bungaku Shoujo. Like its predecessors, the Black Rock Shooter TV series wasn’t perfect, but the very fact that it dared to be so unpredictable and unsettling and dared to incorporate so much narrative and psychological depth, especially when it was based on a single meaningless fan created music video, was tremendously unexpected and highly rewarding. Furthermore, the TV series took the fantastic, visually dynamic fantasy sequences of the OVA and expanded on them exponentially, creating visual vistas in anime unlike anything viewers have seen in years.

The Lupin the Third: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna TV series veered from thirty years of established tradition by presenting a darker, more adult-oriented Lupin anime than even original creator Monkey Punch’s own 1996 feature, Lupin the Third: Dead or Alive. The Mine Fujiko TV series introduced the most hardboiled Inspector Zenigata so far, and introduced overt homosexual themes through the original character Oscar. The series also, for the first time, dived deeply into Fujiko’s back-story. The visual design of the Mine Fujiko TV series recalls nothing more than the 1973 erotic historical anime film Kanashimi no Belladonna; certainly nothing else from the 2000s resembles the Fujiko TV series. Not only did the Fujiko TV series break from the conventions of the Lupin anime franchise, it varied drastically from every other contemporary anime, contributing to the sense that early 2012 has introduced a number of anime that are pressing the envelope.

From a broad historical perspective, this year’s Moretsu Uchu Kaizoku really isn’t an unusual show. But within contemporary context, it is remarkably different. Moretsu Pirates may owe some stylistic inspiration to 2009’s Sora o Kakeru Shoujo TV series, and well before that, 2001’s Starship Operators, but unlike even those two shows, Moretsu Pirates was atypically focused on story development, being first and foremost a serious, albeit lighthearted, “hard” sci-fi tale rather than a show designed to promote characters and subsequent character merchandising. The anime industry hasn’t turned out a straightforward, dramatic, serious space opera anime since 2008’s Tytania. Suddenly, this year anime fans have been treated to Moretsu Uchu Kaizoku, and the brand new first episode of Muv-luv Alternative: Total Eclipse appears to promise a sort of serious teen mecha drama that viewers haven’t seen since 2003’s Gunparade Orchestra.

With the exception of Total Eclipse, which compromises an admirable narrative tone with weak character design, lacking characterization, and mediocre animation quality, the eleven summer season anime TV series that have premiered so far this July have yet to include any outstanding premieres. This year, so far, has also not entirely broken free of conventional complacency. For example, last season’s Haiyore! Nyaruko-san actually regressed, devolving from witty and unconventional earlier anime incarnations into a highly cliché, utlra-conventional typical harem comedy. So with only half of the year passed, it’s impossible to say this early whether ambitious productions like Symphogear and Black Rock Shooter will be able to guide anime out of the rut of redundant, predictable, uninspired productions. But beyond any debate, shows including Symphogear and the Black Rock Shooter TV series deserve great praise for being willing to indulge unpredictable creative ideas and goals within a production environment that’s primarily more focused on making marketable, franchise-able anime.