Notes on G‘s Girls

When I watched G Gundam I was confused by my inability to pick out why Domon Kasshu should be Japanese. The other Gundam Fighters take on national characteristics, after all. He could, I suppose, be a ganbariya-san but I’d say every G character is that (including the villains and the horse). Then again, British novels about Brits interacting with foreigners don’t emphasise their heroes’ Britishness, they emphasise their heroes’ normality (as a contrast to Johnny Foreigner’s amusingly weird traits), so perhaps something similar is happening here. Or maybe I just missed some obvious clues.

Domon’s status aside, if someone were to ask (like Zero in the eighth episode of Geass R2) where the ‘Japaneseness’ in G Gundam is, I’d point to Rain.

Not Elevens, Allusions

The funny thing is, wildarmsheero is right: Code Geass doesn’t have a pretentious bone in its body. It’s the fans who are the pretentious ones. The show is just noise and pictures, and it’s the fans who shove the meaning on it. We’ve been here before, and we don’t need to say anything about Code Geass at all – it can just be enjoyed. Nevertheless, some of us find it even more enjoyable if we do say things about it, so, while we don’t need to talk about Kallen, I want to. It’s viewer’s prerogative time.

Master Asia’s Last Breath

This is probably my only chance ever to type this, so I’ll take it.

This blog of mine glows with some awesome DICTION! It’s burning prose tells me to convince you! Take THIS! My text, my pictures and all of my spoilers! SHINING BLOGGER’S WORRRRD! Go! GO! GO!!

It’s Allegory: The Decline and Fall of the British Gundam

Nothing adequately encapsulates the amount of awesome in this image
(full size)

‘Allegory’ is a word I hesitate to employ. Understandably, it is often used loosely on the internet, to mean something like ‘metaphorical’. I personally prefer to reserve it for a certain type of storytelling, and it’s a type which is relatively rare in anime. (Though perhaps more common in anime than in a lot of art after the ‘Rise of the Novel’.) It’s a kind of complex, extended and (over)developed metaphor or set of symbols which say something.

Frequently, allegory becomes so overtly symbolic that it ceases to feel like a normal story. The Bouge of Court, for example, has a set of characters named ‘Disdayne’, ‘Ryott’, ‘Suspycyon’ and so on, and it’s much more worthwhile to read their behaviour and speeches as examinations of the things they embody rather than as revelations of normal fictional character; Suspycyon’s eyes roll and his hands shake not because of some motive peculiar to him as a person (for he isn’t a person) but because (I think) the poem’s pointing out what suspicion does to anyone.

This sort of thing is, as I said, fairly rare in anime; Gluttony, Lust and Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist spring to mind, and Infinite Ryvius is (among other things) a sustained political allegory. (Is the Ryvius a Ship of Fools?) Another place where we can find something approaching allegory is Mobile Fighter G Gundam – yes, despite the fact that it’s a childish show about large robots, fighting. Or perhaps because it’s a childish show about large robots, fighting: allegory loves reductive simplicity.

Ending a Theme

After some thought, I have decided to switch from Contempt to Cutline. Cutline has the slightly wider main column and less cramped text that I was looking for. We’ll see how this works out; comments are welcome. The new theme comes with a new banner, of sorts, with added MANLY TEA, as well as the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster taken from the ninth episode of G Gundam. It’s a little rough-around-the-edges, but if I’m fitting in my blog’s title, my favourite beverage and my location, all in anime form, I can’t be going far wrong.