Three Can Play At That Game

In honour of ‘The Semiotics of Skin‘, and Kaiserpingvin’s original deployment of this image, I append a few observations of my own.

Let’s look at what’s held in the hands. Headphones on the right and a book on the left offer a choice of diversions to Kyou, one modern (yet antique: that’s a CD player!), one old (yet hardly out of date). Both activities – reading and listening – cut one off from the outside world, though the headphones are a far more visible signal that, in common with Garbo (who was, like Kaiserpingvin, born where the word ‘ombudsman’ was invented) one vonts to be alone. Of course, we don’t know what’s written in the book, or what music might be playing in the headphones. Two unsolvable mysteries, unless there’s something I’m missing because I haven’t played Clannad or seen its anime adaption.

I note from Wikipedia’s information about Kyou that she frequently uses books as weapons, so perhaps this isn’t just a choice of diversions but also a choice between defensive retreat into the headphones and offensive action. If, however, a book in Kyou’s hands is a threat of attack, then it is a denatured threat: it’s a very flimsy book (the flowers on its cover reinforce this impression). Similarly, such large headphones strike me as utterly impractical for someone with that hairstyle. It may be significant that Kyou isn’t looking at what she’s holding, but rather out of the picture, at you/us. Are the threat of attack and the threat of retreat meant to be only a token resistance?

Passing Shot: Snipe Me! Author-tan

‘The numerical, quantitative nature of the points-based entrance exam is itself a symptom of the masculine desire to categorise, sort and restrict things – nowhere is this made clearer than in the save-game menu and the preferences menu. The overlap that Author identified is not a mistake but rather the replacement of the (female) Author-tan by something numerical and categorised (the list of saved games or options). Significantly, the menus only excise Author-tan, the female writer, from the shoulders up; her head, the site of her thought and personality, is removed but her hips, the site of her breeding potential (to the patriarch, her most important feature) remain on-screen.’

[Snipe Me! Author-tan courtesy of DiGiKerot. This is what you call over-analysis.]

Transient Guests Are We

As you may have guessed from the recent dearth of new entries, I’ve been struck down by some combination of apathy and a lack of new things to say, and I’m out of publishable drafts (while being up to my ears in unpublishable ones). So future posts may dry up, slow down or become much more impressionistic.

(No, the irony of my being mentioned here is not lost on me. The title, incidentally, was taken from Leahy’s translation of Vampire Hunter D, which oscillates unpleasantly between standard and (as here) faux-medieval English – it would be interesting to know if something similar happens in Kikuchi’s Japanese text. There: a drop of real content in a blogsturbation post.)

Auntie Beeb on Anime

In the absence of an appropriate image, I present an image of
the search for one.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I’ll begin.

I was intrigued to hear that BBC Radio 4 would be touching on anime briefly this Sunday evening, although I was rather less intrigued by the fact that the coverage would be on Radio 4’s concession to children’s programming, Go4It. As you can probably tell from the way the title is spelt, Go4It is trapped by two incompatible facts: to attract its target audience it needs to be cool, but it’s on Radio 4, which is not cool.

‘Crist Aras!’ ‘Crist Soþlice Aras!’: The Easter Imagepost

Christ has died,

Christ is risen,

Christ will come again.

A very happy Easter to you. [And apologies if your browser doesn’t support the thorn in the title.]

WordPress.com’s Global Tagcloud yesterday evening.
‘Anime’ is uncannily well positioned.

Theological Quandary for the Haruhiists

More confusing than a PIME TARADOX?

Suppose you’re a Haruhiist, and you desperately want to see this genderswapping gem animated (though it has already mutated into clipshow form).

So . . . is it acceptable to pray to God that She might change Her gender? And is She the same God when She’s a He? This is, of course, assuming that Haruhi can be God and gendered at the same time. I wonder if anyone’s actually given thought to an internally coherent theological system for Haruhiism yet?

[Incidentally, it was recently announced that Haruhi is getting a UK release. And not before time too, I might add.]

[Gimmick] KimiKiss 01 As Mecha

1. External forces arrive.