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4... To all of the people who did this TESTICALES THAT IS ALL

0-1, awesome!

2.. and my friends say i´m sick.. i don´t know..

i got a 5 xD

ara-ara it seems i got a perfect score 16/16... what should i do now xD

14... I'm absolutely sure there's something wrong with me. -.-'

Nice blog!

Thanks for reading!

Re Hanairo, I must have missed its attempts at presenting a balanced view or at reconciling differences; I mean, we have a whole episode based on Ohana's mother basically selling her family for petty professional reasons, for example. Now of course there are also quite a few instances of the grandmother's behavior being scandalous by progressive standards (like her beating on employees and paying them slave wages), but in all of those, the presentation suggests that you're supposed to consider it a commendable attitude based on honest-to-god intentions grounded in respectable traditions (whereas the backstabbing by Ohana's mother is shown as anything but). What topped it off for me was the school trip arc: at the end of episode 14, Yuina delivers the first instance I found of a genuine statement of woman empowerment and freedom from arbitrary conservative constraints. So I approached the next episode with I think a quite high degree of benevolence. And yet it ended up being entirely devoted to beating some sense back into the rebellious bitch and prepare her to become a good caring wife.

But as I said I only watched up to episode 19. Conceivably, the ending could improve my bad impression somewhat. I might try to write something up if I end up finishing the show.

As for Takahata, it really depends on which movie we're talking about. As you can guess, I really can't stand Omohide poroporo. On the other hand, I'm mostly fine with the message in Pom poko, which makes a much more legitimate point than simply rejecting urban progressivism outright (it simply criticizes the way the somewhat reckless and occasionally corrupt way the urbanization of the Greater Tokyo area was carried out; it's difficult to argue otherwise); plus the presentation is upbeat dumb fun, as you say, and that's difficult not to enjoy.

Oh, and I do think Hotaru no haka is a masterpiece, but we're not talking the same kind of subtext.

I would be very interested in reading something on your view of Madoka in English; given the dearth of criticism available in English that doesn't focus on boring, barely relevant questions like how entropy really works I almost feel it's necessary.

Ah, Nadesico is up there with Utena on the list of anime from the 90s I really need to get around watching. (Also, Ruri).

I'd argue the show goes well beyond merely being targeted at a carnivorous audience as you say, though.

Take something like Cowboy Bebop, for example. I'm not a fan of that anime, partly because the dark hard-boiled hero type is something I don't particularly enjoy in my entertainment, but I sure as hell wouldn't say I hate the show, or try to level at it any of the criticisms above. It features carnivores (ok, maybe carnivores on a diet sometimes, but still, manly men), and it is probably made for carnivores as well, but it doesn't revolve around elevating their lifestyle as a recipe for a better world.

Evangelion was perhaps vaguely militant in that respect, in the sense that it dissed Shinji all the way through for being such a wuss, but at least it pointed to relatively realistic character flaws. And it was honest enough to acknowledge that the manly men can be just as fucked up.

Gurren Lagann, on the other hand, ostensibly opposes the super-virile and impotent worldviews, but it ends up identify those with that of heroes and villains with little perspective or distantiation. That's precisely propaganda (in support of the socially stronger and dominant group, at that, which is rather ugly).

Conversely, I think you'd be hard pressed to find the mirror image of that in an anime, of the bishoujo sort or otherwise. Shows about uplifting the egos of herbivores tend to be pretty self-derisive in a way Gurren Lagann is not. One of those shows, by the way, is the Gainax OVA Otaku no video!

(Incidentally, I find it a funny comment on the zeitgeist that the book that introduced the term soushoku danshi was published on the same year as Gurren Lagann premiered).

Also,

"shrug off really dodgy subtexts in the works they consume as long as the heroine is sufficiently kawaii"

Or in other words, Ron Paul's appeal.

(bah dum tish)