You do something often or long enough and eventually you have to succumb to insanity or ask the question as to why you do it. It has taken me a while but, for now, I have a grasp on why I write about anime. That reason however is tied to why I started writing about it.
You, with your opinions, your desires, passions and language
The first canonical post I wrote on anime was in September 2007 and was on the Lucky Star TV series which had finished airing just over a week before. I say canonical because I have written about anime before, however those are locked away as protected posts under the category fearfully titled: "Deadjournal". At the time I had decided to set out my stall as someone who wrote eruditely about anime, something which at the time I believed was lacking in anime blogging. "This aniblogosphere deserves a better class of blogger!" How arrogant.
Punks have been a staple of anime for as long as it's been around. The 2012 spring season alone features at least two shows - Accel World and Medaka Box - featuring them prominently in the opening episode and with the upcoming Kids on the Slope sporting a central character who fits the definition.
At the heart of the punk idea is a rebellious youth, whether part of a gang or standing alone, a delinquent or just misunderstood, there exists an endearing quality to them that crosses countries and societies. These are far from the 70's and 80's image of Sid Vicious and The Sex Pistols and closer to that of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
would Kamina and subsequently Simon be treated as anything other than delinquents in today's society?
Not all of their depictions in anime are rosy though: often they're used as disposable antagonists, school bullies or street thugs, that tromp around in eclectic gangs. All brightly coloured barnets and sneered remarks, they're present simply to endure a beat-down or perhaps galvanise the resolve of the protagonist. This is where Accel World, Medaka Box and any number of other anime fit in, even Kara No Kyoukai has them in both Remaining Sense of Pain and Spiral Paradox.
I came to Tamaki Saitou's Beautiful Fighting Girl with the expectation that it would answer the question I have pondered on for a while now: why does anime have so many "combat" girls? I left somewhat disappointed. The unfortunately abbreviated BFG was, if the translator's opening blurb is to be believed, the first in a opening salvo of critical academic writing on the subject of anime, manga and the subculture of otaku, much of it yet to be translated.
when the last remaining human component, the voice actor, is virtualised, the desirability remains
This book is unfortunately academic in the worst possible way. The author evidently expects nothing less than enthralment and in the same way a narcissist babbles endlessly into a microphone, he is content to fumble and meander across a hundred and sixty pages. Compounded by dense language - understandable for a high-level text - and vast swathes of superfluous text, a tip for wide eyed, enthusiastic reader: skip the opening prelude if you want to avoid a barrage of vocabulary smackdowns like: "Insofar as their repetition perpetuates a libidinal attachment to a fictional construct". Suffice to say, if you don't have at least a cursory knowledge of the psychiatrist Lacan and his theories, prepare to persevere as I did or at least gird yourself for further research.
A few years ago I almost lost the hearing in my left ear. The gory details are best omitted, but I was left with (what the doctors claimed) was 20-30% hearing and only two thirds of the bones I should. For all intents and purposes I was deaf in that ear, a lopsided and mono world where car alarms didn't exist (a boon at 3am) but wearing headphones was painful.
Two years and two operations on I have most of my hearing back. All of this is just context for me to say: my hearing is precious to me and I am precious about it. It is a cliché to say that you don't know what you've got until you've lost it, but when it's personal it really brings it home.
