Cruel Angel Theses

You know what they say — when life gives you loli, you make lollipops an anime.

what hardcore lolicons must look like to the rest of the world

Or so would appear to be the premise of a show like Kurenai. Despite how the man on the street might have misgivings about the loli aesthetic, I prefer to think that much of its criticism stems from the inability of a fan to differentiate. Do we call Aishiteruze Baby loli? No, we call it a respectable shoujo series that we wouldn’t be ashamed to read in front of our family and friends. Do we call Card Captor Sakura and the Nanoha franchise loli? Yes. Why the double standards, then?

This illuminating post (very very NSFW) by Hemisphere yesterday comes at the right time, for I was mulling over how Kurenai fits in the bigger picture of things. deathkillz also wrote about this at length — it’s not a loli anime, at least not in the regular sense of the term, and you must have quite the atrophied brain to think otherwise. While I figured I could poke fun at the ever hysterical American Western attitudes towards how Japan handles this seemingly volatile subject while exhausting the thesaurus entry on “idiot“, why take the easy way out?

The problem lies with the statement “X anime”, where X is an aesthetic or genre (e.g. yuri, kemonomimi, moe, bishounen, harem, fighting, sci-fi, fantasy). It’s genetically flawed and immensely stupid in the sense that the statement reduces a show to a single component, usually for the sake of judging, and denigrating it. I’ve written about this at length with regards to Lucky Star, and while I’m sure that curing the fandom of this verbal disease permanently is impossible, I feel duty-bound to at least speak up about it.

this picture is obviously taken out of context

Take for example the statement “ef is a harem anime”. I’ve actually said something like this myself when I first heard about it on IRC, only to be severely chastised for it by fans of the game that were present, who corrected me by noting that a) it was a series of intertwined stories about 3 couples b) did not have a gender balance skewed in favour of a guy protagonist c) had none of the fanservice, rivalry, slapstick, or light-hearted feel that would otherwise accompany shows of such a genre. It was a pretty ignorant statement, and one that I made out of the knowledge that it was an eroge adaptation, and nothing else.

If you’re beginning to see where I’m coming from after that paragraph, congratulations! Otherwise, something like Ctrl+W or Alt+F4 would be appropriate at this point. I use this illustration not because I’m a great fan of ef or anything, but because it was a common statement to make in a season with several other famous adaptations like kimikiss and Clannad airing alongside it. The same holds true for Kurenai, which deserves more than just the misnomer “loli anime”, if it’s been called that already.

The problem with aesthetics like loli or moe in anime, however, lie in the fact that the context surrounding said series fashions it. If it’s placed inconspicuously alongside the many other elements that happen to make up the anime or manga, it blends in with the background and nothing else is said about it. If said element is given prominence, however, what results is a hasty labelling and pre-judging of what would otherwise be an entertaining piece of work, something that’s apparently not considered by many.

this one, however, occurs directly after the first picture and isn’t

There’s the weak arguments that critics of Kurenai will try to pull out of their ass in a bid to discredit what I’m saying, like the occasional scene of Murasaki changing or the bath scene that happens to take place in the second episode. There’s this unfortunately antagonistic Western attitude (overrepresented by Americans on the internet) of what I like to call “pseudo-paedophile hysteria” that always rears its ugly head whenever it comes to debating matters like these, but unfortunately, I’ve already taken that into account.

To pull out the fanservice card here is the worst argument against Kurenai that I can think of, and only because the scenes present so far have been carefully integrated into the storyline, happen as naturally and realistically as possible, and isn’t something tossed in as an afterthought to titillate any possible fans inclined towards that fetish. Then there’s the fact that bathing together with the opposite sex in Japan, if one or both of the people involved haven’t reached puberty, is perfectly acceptable and not at all a sexual thing, but anyone who’s watched a decent amount of anime probably knows about that.

It’s too bad that after the Seven Seas/Kodomo no Jikan controversy, separating loli from its sexualised counterpart is Sisyphean at best. Hemisphere puts it best when he says that there’s a difference between those who like it for the physical characteristics portrayed, and those who like it for the personality portrayed — a portrait of innocence personified; something that many people fail to grasp, resulting in widespread and frustrating Philistinism.

insert something about a balanced anime diet here

More importantly, what do I think of Kurenai? As far as the two episodes I’ve seen so go, it’s perfect. Those who have criticised it for its “ugly character designs” happen to be the same barbarians that bateszi called out not too long ago for refusing to accept anything other than the norm — I quote him not because I subscribe fully to his decidedly extremist view of eagerly embracing anything and everything that veers off the beaten path, but because it’s precisely this type of fan that irks me, the type that expects everything to look like something that stepped off the pages of a CLAMP work.

By “perfect” I mean that it’s first and foremost a solid character-driven work, an anime that puts emphasis on slowly developing the day-to-day life of our unwitting bodyguard Shinkurou and his latest assignment, Murasaki. One noteworthy element is how by the second episode we’re already party to what seems like a major theme that they’re going to explore, “Facets”, and the way in which they’re going to reconcile Shin’s visceral, inhuman side with the softer caregiver image that he presents to Murasaki is one I’m highly anticipating, if only for the ensuing drama and potentially heartbreaking tragedy factor.

Kurenai’s also a show that assumes that those watching it have the basic intelligence levels required to put two and two together without drowning them in exposition or backstory, a value that I hold in high regard in my anime. I really appreciate the way in which we’re thrown in the thick of things without a voice-over or scene that introduces the viewer to the world; rather, we’re treated to something more commonly found in written fiction than anime, where the setting is slowly pieced together like a stick of yakitori rather than laid out like items on a breakfast plate.

if it’s any consolation, he gets beaten to a pulp around a minute later

Rare? You bet. While you might appreciate a visual style that isn’t found in your everyday anime or a frenetic and engaging plot, the combination of a lack of hand-holding and strong emphasis on character more than anything else has attracted my attention, and two episodes is all it’s taken for Kurenai to leave such a strong impression on me. Moogy got it right when he said, albeit jokingly, that Kurenai was a mixture of Aishiteruze Baby and Darker than Black in his epic ANN satire post. As DtB happened to be the best anime of 2007 for me, it goes without saying that I’ll be anticipating this eagerly every week.