Lucky Star as better Slice-of-life than Hidamari Sketch: The macro v.s. the micro

June 10th, 2008 | Categories: Anime | Tags: Lucky Star

You can thank Pontifus for this. I’ve been sucked headlong into that nether realm otherwise known as Real Life ever since my last post, and while this blog isn’t dying any time soon (not when I’ve just been accepted into 9rules!), university and the lack of internet due to an absence of phone lines can only mean that my internet life, what little there was to it, has been unceremoniously cut short.

In any case, what I want to present here is both simple in concept and difficult to grasp: Lucky Star is slice of life first, and comedy second; no matter how you want to argue it, the chances are high that you’ll never enjoy it unless you approach it from that angle, and there’s no exceptions to that rule. It’s the lens by which LS was made to be seen, and if you’ve difficulty in swallowing my argument at this point, well, you’ll find plenty a spoonful of sugar waiting for you after the jump.

since everyone liked the slice-of-life/comedy spectrum so much, I got Roxas to make another, revised version

First of all, it’s definitely a false dilemma to say that all because there’s pandering (and note here that it isn’t so much character shallowness as it is pandering that’s the issue here) involved, the slice of life factor disappears completely, for they aren’t mutually exclusive, and to make it to seem like it’s an either/or case is misleading. It all goes downhill from here: while up to this point I’d have to say that Pontifus still had a point, from this line onwards it was just like watching a group of Britannian soldiers playing into Lelouch’s request for an honourable battle:

The effectiveness of slice-of-life depends in large part on how recognizable its characters are to us.
How does Lucky Star hold up in that regard? Not so well, I’d say. At long last, let’s take a look at Konata.

With regards to the spectrum, it’s only fair to say that from Manabi Straight onwards, most of the cast in each anime are nigh unrecognisable; an eclectic mix of surreal pandering. Be it a cast of five high-school (but looking very very underage) girls in the distant future or five elementary school girls or four art-school girls right out of the moe catalogue or even a bunch of… gondoliers, there isn’t one of them in the blue spectrum that’s either realistic or not pandering. In other words, fault one, and you’ve got to fault them all for not being as true to life as they should.

It certainly begs the question: Where is the value of slice of life, then? Surely not in the form of a character, that’s for sure. We’ve long established that realism is a rarity in anime; in fact, I’d suspect that the only form of English-speaking anime fans prone to questioning the coloured hair of a cast in a given show would be those of the R1 variety, but the less said about them the better. Here’s a hint: it’s not in how a character’s designed, but how a character behaves; the words coming out of their mouths, do they ring true? Do they behave like I would in a given situation?

This brings me to Hidamari Sketch. It’s an anime well know for its slice of life pedigree; no one debates that, no one has ever debated that, and even after I’m done with this post, I suspect that no one will ever debate it again, not in such a manner at any rate. What I’m about to tell you now, however, is that HS isn’t as slice of life as you thought it was. LS is all of that, and more. How so? To do that, we’ve got to reverse-engineer it, deconstructing slice of life in the process, and how it entertains us with tales of everyday living to great effect.

HS, for all purposes, was spectacular. Take this order of events for example:

Yuno internalises A.
Miyako internalises B.
Yuno and Miyako talk about C with their understood meaning of A and B respectively.
Hilarity/realism ensues when they realise that they’re not on the same frequency.

Simple? Quite. Realistic? Very. I’ve lost count of how many times everyday conversation treads along those lines; a common, innocent error in conversation that makes us aware of our imperfections as people; how we fail to get simple meaning across to another person despite how they might be an arm’s length away. We revel in HS and its ilk and laugh at it, but not because it’s funny; when I am laughing at how Yuno, Miyako, and sometimes Sae internalise their thoughts before bringing them together in an explosive conversation, I am not laughing at them per se; rather, I am laughing at myself, having gone through the same experiences as they have.

this picture is pandering as it plays to the desire of Touhou fans for an anime

This is the crux of slice of life — to mirror the viewer’s reality as he or she knows it, albeit through a slightly more polished veneer, and with all the familiarity of an inside joke. This isn’t done through how a character looks, but what a character does. To have that moment, or moments of truth where I see myself reflected in a character’s thoughts, hopes, fears, or actions, and to be able to recognise that I see the reflection — that’s what slice of life’s all about.

All good (and bad, to some extent) anime is necessarily reactive; that is to say, we have a reaction towards whatever is being presented, be it emotional or intellectual. Slice of life differs in that it isn’t so much reaction as it is reflection we’re looking for, and of this HS provides in spades. In the span of a single cour and two OVA episodes, we’re treated to many an everyman conversation, predicament, or situation, and at the end of it all, we’re sated, having gorged ourself on a steady diet of life through rose-tinted glasses.

Is the same reflective nature present in LS? I’d have to say yes, there is, and the quality of it is what matters, not the quantity. Of quantity HS has by the truckload, and if we’re going to debate about exactly how many slice of life moments each show has, then HS wins hands down, no contest. It’s definitely got several weaknesses, though, one of which being that its modus operandi is painfully formulaic to anyone slightly familiar with the series. Take this for instance:

Yuno wakes up.
Theme/mood/motif of the day is established.
This theme/mood/motif is repeated throughout the day.
Yuno’s day begins.
Conversation happens.
Things happen.
Slice of life moment.
Repeat #5, #6, and #7 for the duration of the episode, in any order.
The only exception to #8 would be that occasionally, surreal things happen.
At some point or various points throughout the day the daily theme/mood/motif is repeated, occasionally with irony, but always bringing Yuno back full circle.
Yuno retires, her day ends.
Yuno reflects aloud in the bathtub.

How’s that for repetitive? “But that’s how life works!”, you say. I know, I know. The truth is that with all slice of life stories the focus lies on the micro rather than the macro. It’s life under the microscope; a boring, everyday life just like the one we all face at some point or another in our lives, but a boring life with a difference — the difference here being that on the screen, under intense scrutiny, life begins to take on that moment of truth and beauty, and suddenly living becomes a lot more bearable, even meaningful due to what we’ve seen.

The problem with the micro focus commonly attributed to slice of life is that it tends to take on a farcical pattern, a monotonous repetition that isn’t any less pandering than Kanokon or To Love Ru. Slice of life porn? Yes, we can! In a sense this is no more different than a Key work or any of its derivatives that seek to make you cry; there’s just a different set of aesthetics involved, and as the incredibly biased humans we are, we’ve made harem fanservice out to be this heinous crime while singing praises of slice of life fanservice to everyone who’ll listen.

Let’s face it, slice of life as we know it is just as inherently paint-by-numbers as any harem flick out there. Herein lies the difference, though — while harem more often than not uses fanservice as an end unto itself, slice of life uses its own brand of fanservice as a means to an end; the portrayal of numerous familiar conversations, identifiable mannerisms, and a cyclical task of living gently guides us to a corner to make us sit down and think, or, assuming we can’t spare the mental faculties for that act, then just plain sit until we’re a little more removed from our daily hustle and bustle. No one ever watches slice of life in a hurry.

this picture isn’t pandering as it articulates the sexual tension subtext present in Konata’s character

I see many slice of life shows, those further along the blue spectrum in particular, as possessing what I call “fanservice” due to how it just immerses you in the monotony of life until you’re awash in a sea of drudgery; it’s a very pretty and coherent drudgery, to be certain, and this immersion doesn’t require finesse so much as it does minor variation. Kanon (the musical piece, not the anime) makes for a great analogy in lieu of a proper explanation; the same piece, played over and over again with minor variations each time.

This is where LS steps in and breaks the mould through its macro, rather than micro focus that bears more than a passing resemblance to Martin’s zoom lens love v.s. wide-angle romance theory. I’m consciously tarring many a show with the same brush by saying this, but why bother praising what’s been done so many times before under a different name? I’m sure there’s only so many episodes of Aria one can take. Rhetorical statement aside, however, the moments in conventional slice of life can sometimes reek of as much artificiality as a doe-eyed girl stricken with Hereditary Hysterical Herpes does, and LS makes the transition process from moment to moment infinitely more natural.

How does it do so? By weaving in its slice of life moments quietly, never drowning the viewer in more than it should. Through a series of (supposedly boring and pointless) conversations the foundation for the characters are laid, brick by brick. When the moment finally arrives, it’s not the last tile on the roof being laid in place so much as it is it applying cement that glues each brick together, and when it’s all over and done the impact packs a punch unlike anything seen before.

Konata and the afterglow of a concert; fireworks at a festival; Kagami, the school trip, and the pseudo-confession; the Hiiragi sisters have a fight; the Izumis reminisce about Kanata — all of these are breathtaking, even heartbreaking moments that HS never comes close to, for its micro focus prevents it from achieving greatness; familiarity breeds contempt, and what’s a little piece of slice of life when you’ve got five more due in the next 20 minutes? In LS, however, these scenes are far and few in-between, and when we see them they confirm what we otherwise wouldn’t usually know, drawing us closer to the characters as a result.

The effect this has on the viewer is like an epic 10 minute post-rock song. Post-rock employs a structure distinctly different from your conventional music genre in that there can be continuous climaxes throughout the song, or even one grand finale to cap it off after layers of instruments have been peeled back minute by minute, and this latter example is what LS stands for; an intricate process of balancing humour with slice of life that pays off at the very end by having it come together as a cohesive whole.

Contrary to what Pontius thinks about Konata (and her misunderstood father by extension) being mere pandering to otaku and nothing else, I’d have to say that he’s missed the point by a mile. Surely it doesn’t matter what characters start out as so much as what they are when the show ends? Do we hold Simon to being a wimpy digger for the entirety of the show? No, we don’t, but that’s because his development as a character is both internal and external — we see him grow both mentally and physically, and as they occur in tandem, no one will ever accuse him of being static.

The same goes for Konata. As the 24th episode draws to a close, do I think of her as just the same bubbly girl she was back in the pilot, complete with six-minute conversation of chocolate cornets? No. From the many bits of small talk that I’ve witnessed her being party to, she’s more than the sum of her parts. She grows in our eyes; not physically or mentally, as Simon does, but a different type of growth marked by us knowing more about her than we have at the beginning; definitely appropriate considering the genre. It’s not a whole lot, but when you scale it down and take into consideration the fact that the same could be said of real life acquaintances, then things start to make a lot more sense, fast.

this picture is pandering as it caters to Tomoya fans who want to see him in twintails

On revisiting Pontius’ post, I can now note somewhat wryly, emphasis mine, that

But slice-of-life shows have to earn that label somehow. The setting doesn’t have to demonstrate flawless Earth science and sociology, but the characters should at least resemble Earthlings in more ways than not, or else the show becomes a slice of something that isn’t recognizably human life. If Lucky Star were only comedy, it might be able to get away with Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei’s absurdism — but it isn’t, so it can’t.

this is probably the only part of his post that I can agree with, for what’s not to love? Each and every character is more than just their perceived archetype, for they’ve got their ups and downs, that bright spark of vivid humanity that allows me to identify with them with ease. Whether it’s an achievement or an oversight; a stray thought or purposeful intent; being caught up in the action or wrapped in a moment of solitude — I’ve been there. To say that it’s a show with a distinctly otaku flavour is true, but LS doesn’t stop there, and neither should you, for it’d be like eating all of the icing on a cake but stopping short of eating the cake itself.

In slice of life it isn’t so much what a character seems to be as it is what a character does. What a character feels, says, thinks, or does — is that true? Does it resonate within? Appearances are but a mirage in this medium, and to whine and be anal, to nitpick and fuss about the trappings of a character while failing to see what he or she’s really made of is akin to missing the forest for the trees. It’s a tragic mistake if I ever saw one, and with any luck, this post will go a long way towards correcting that popular misconception.