Television Series Overview - Welcome to the NHK

This is your happy ending.

Wikipedia tells us  "in Japan, "NHK" refers to the public broadcaster Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai" - it's more or less the Japanese BBC. Sato, the main character of Welcome to the NHK, however, thinks it is more than just that. The NHK is also a conspiracy. Take a look at his life: he's unemployed, friendless and harbours an acute fear of even leaving his untidy apartment. All things which are exaggerated problems that come with being an otaku (Japanese geek), and don't the NHK show things like anime that drag people into such categories in life? Ergo, the purpose of the NHK is to turn people, most specifically Sato, into the urban hermit. One day he meets a girl and everything changes, but trust me: that sentence isn't what it sounds like.

Some more background is, perhaps, required: Sato's specific situation is actually a recognised sociological condition in Japan, affecting young men. They lock themselves away, don't seek out education or employment, and spend all their time gaming or on the internet. Romantically and socially they struggle, and often it overlaps with depression. Last year, there was an estimated 700,000 of them, wikipedia informs me.

Welcome to the NHK is an entry in the slice of life genre, a drama about the happenings of every day life of a man who suffers from this. In truth, it feels a tad disingenuous to call NHK a show about normal life: even when it's not taking into direct visual metaphors of Sato's very unusual mind, it deals with people who are suffering from rather extreme personal and social problems. Watching our maladjusted cast try to cope with life is more or less the entire premise of the show.

What the show does very well is to balance tones. Taking what is a pretty dark and cynical view on the world could have lead to a serious and frowny show, heavy with self-importance, but there's a manic energy to the show which counter balances the depressing elements. We get moments of absurdity, strange and perhaps disturbing viewings directly into Sato's mind; we get moments of comedy that give the show a sitcom-esque feel at times; we get moments of quite tenderness, where suddenly the show seems like romantic story; we get moments of drama that reveal the show's angst ridden characters. That all of these elements keeps the others in balance makes the show a real treat.

The animation and music are both top notch, and the writing is all sharp as far as I can tell - it being translated, I'm not really qualified to comment on the dialogue, but the story is certainly brilliant. The core cast are engaging in there oddness, and very much relateable because, although things are taken to an extreme, their insecurities are, on a fundamental level, something that pretty much everyone has to cope with at some point.  The perhaps predictable message that we are all screwed up on some level is well delivered and not at all forced. And the show does acknowledge that some people are definitely screwed up worse than others.

Welcome to the NHK is two opposing things at once: very cynical, yet oddly uplifting, and in that contradiction there is a humanity that is difficult to resist. It's an absurd, funny, dramatic, touching journey that is very much worth taking.

I screwed up...

Television Review - Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Boy in the Iceberg

Not so long ago I was a massive anime fan, wasting hours of my life in front of the computer, back when things like Naruto and Bleach and Full Metal Alchemist were available on Youtube. Amongst my favourites has to be one that, technically, isn't really an anime. Avatar: The Last Airbender is a western cartoon made in the style of anime, inspired by the whole gamut of East Asian cinema on top of Japanese animation. A few days back I found the first series for cheap, so here goes a rewatch. I've no idea how many episodes I will blog about, but here are my thoughts on the first:

The title sequence is an expository affair. There are people called benders that can manipualte the four elements of this world: water, fire, earth and wind. To each element there is a corresponding society of people, and the Fire Nation are rather an unpleasant lot. There is one man, however, with complete mastery of all four elements, the Avatar, who is able to keep them in check. Unfortunately, nobody has seen the bugger in a century. Now, the Fire Nation has almost won the war.

We are introduced proper to the series with a squabbling brother and sister. Katara and Sokka, two out of our protagonist trio, are out hunting fish in the ice and sea of the South Pole. This is a tightly written scene, with a lot of exposition and characterisation being delivered at the same time. We learn a lot about the plot and the setting and the characters all in a manner that is fairly subtle. Unfortunately, there is one reason that this scene is not a good opening: it's slow and kinda flat. The actors have yet to really settle into their roles, so can't carry the scene, and nothing is really happening.

This trend carries on throughout the episode. What is going on here is good stuff, but needs to have had some action to hook the viewers in, or maybe a mystery or two. Everything, more or less, is put on the table. We know who these characters are and where they stand in relation to one another. Without any action or mystery, this episode doesn't work as a way to hook people in.

The humour, more often than not, doesn't really work. It's too predictable and cliche, and seems to be there out of a fear that children wouldn't like the series otherwise. Maybe that's me being a bit unfair on the series, but knowing how good this series is, it's a bit frustrating.

For all that's it's not a great hook episode, it is very effective in giving you a good feel for the characters and the world. Certainly, you get a good feeling of the fun that's to be had and the heart that the characters' possess. It's not a bad way to open the series, but it's not necessarily something that is gonna compel someone to watch on. If you come across the series, don't let this stop you. When the series finds its feet, it's really excellent.

A Nostalgic Moment - Bleach

It's been awhile now since my descent into anime. It pretty much coincided with a transition point of my life, and has had massive effect in shaping how the last four or so years of my life have played out. Not that the material itself was in anyway enlightening or taught me anything: I'd go so far as to say that out of all the particular media I've consumed, manga has the lowest average quality of story-telling and depth. Nonetheless I used to enjoy it a great deal, and still do, albeit less frequently. More, it effected the kind of people I found myself spending a lot of time with and the crowds that I'd end up with.

And they were even less inclined to be complimentary of shows like Bleach and Naruto than myself. These, really, were two of the big three alongside One Piece, a manga I never quite acquired the taste for. I enjoyed both Naruto and Bleach for a good deal longer than I should have, and since I find myself catching up with Bleach at the moment, rather inexplicably, I feel inclined to reflect on it.

Bleach is the story of Ichigo Kurosaki who can see ghosts. He encounters a giant monster ghost - a Hollow - and then not long after, a warrior sent to track down the Hollow, Rukia. Rukia explains that she is a Shinigami (can't remember what that translates as at the moment) and tells Ichigo that normal humans can see neither her nor the Hollow. As if it resented them talking about it behind it's back, the hollow then turns up and a fight ensues. Ichigo saves Rukia's life and allows her to kill it, but he is mortally wounded in the process. In order to save his life, Rukia then makes Ichigo a Shinigami.

The series continues in an episodic style, with Hollow after Hollow turning up to threaten this Japanese town, and Ichigo and Rukia fighting them off. It's typical shonen (popular manga/anime aimed at younger boys: Dragon Ball Z being the eponymous example) and it's fun. Before long, Kubo Tite, the writer and artist, decides to change the game and introduces the city of the Shinigami. At the time it was very much a welcome change, and an escalation that was always going to happen, and it sets the status quo of Bleach, laying down an overarching storyline as opposed to episodic stories.

Not the most welcome status quo however; it's packed with ill-developed characters and repetitive and convoluted plot points. The dialogue spends much of the time hammering home the same concepts and Tite's pretentions early on of subverting traditional manga is left behind and forgotten. The pacing is sloooow, power structures weird, and it has one of the most boring protagonists I've ever come across.

But you know what? I still enjoy Bleach, even after giving up Naruto, which had always been a far better written affair. There is still at least one epic character, it has an enjoyably feel to it and there have been moments of incredible hilarity. Really, the crowning moment of Bleach was one of the latter. On a forum I frequent, there had been a running joke that one of the characters who, really, was nothing more than a comedy relief was actually the most powerful enemy. Then, what a twist!, that happened in the manga. It was one of the best moments of unintentional hilarity I've come across. He was then beaten comprehensibly and easily off-panel. It was something of an incomprehendible turn of events.

Bleach is just good fun. I could bitch about it's problems all day, and struggle for hours to come up with positives poitns about the series, but all of this is ultimately immaterial. So long as it continues to entertain, I'll continue to read.