げんしけん / Genshiken

When the first season ended, back in March 2005, I didn’t think all that much of Genshiken. It was culturally interesting, I said, and had some classic pieces of character-based comedy, but I didn’t really see myself in the characters and was more amused by the parody anime-within-an-anime Kujibiki Unbalance, fleshed out into three OVAs and later a full series. By the end of the second season, though, I had a real affection for the characters and their club, and care enough about them to snap up every new manga ‘Genshiken II’ chapter, still released sporadically after the title’s official end.

Genshiken, quite simply, is the story of a ‘visual culture’ club in a Japanese high school. Everyman Sasahara at first wants to come over as fairly normal, but the rest of the club soon get his true otaku nature out in the open. The rest of the series follows the various members of the club as they attend cons, put together a doujinshi comic of their own and struggle to justify the club’s existence alongside existing manga and gaming societies.

Turning the camera – or, perhaps, manga artist’s brush – onto its primary audience is nothing new, and in many ways Gainax’s Otaku no Video is the predecessor to this. Other recent series have heavily focused on anime fans and shut-ins, from Welcome to the NHK and Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei to Eden of the East. Of all these, though, Genshiken is the most accessible and consistent, not attempting to make an epic story or satirical statement, but focusing on strong characters and their relationships. And the characters are great.

At first, the other men in the club seem daft caricatures: Madarame is a lizard-like oddball with delusions of grandeur. Tanaka is scruffy and laid-back. Kugayama is drawn almost like he’s in a newspaper gag strip, overweight and stammering. Then there’s feminine, slightly overly-perfect Kousaka, who is the quintessential geek but with a very pretty face and nice clothes, making for some great juxtaposed comedy when his girlfriend Saki tries to fit in with him. Later on come cosplay obsessive Ohno and prickly Ogiue, as well as other funny, odd characters like Kuchiki and Suzie. The latest manga introduces a new set of first-years, who have yet to grow on me and are a little harder to believe in.

The simple set-up gets developed in really interesting ways, mostly in conventional soap opera directions. The otaku element is the delicacy that brings the customers in, but what keeps them returning is the twisty relationship drama that could be in almost any soap opera. But the spice of seeing the characters go to cons, being awkward in very typical otaku ways or poor Saki trying to participate in her boyfriend’s hobbies – these make me care, and as a result this ended up a favourite.

ワーズ･ワース/ Words Worth

There are people who take animated porn seriously, it’s true. But even amongst them I doubt anybody genuinely thinks Words Worth anything but a joke. I can't even imagine most fans consider it erotic. Certainly the reason I saw it was as a joke between friends, and the horse-headed Stallion has become a bit of an internet meme with his memorable line ‘Your resistance only make my penis harder!’

While it mostly involves an idiotic central male character stumbling about and finding girls who are vulnerable, then having his way with them – often finding them in this state because someone else has just raped them – it is worth remarking that Words Worth at least attempts to elevate itself with an ambitious fantasy plot.

The story takes place in a high fantasy world where the Tribe of Light and the Tribe of Darkness are at war. The prince of the Tribe of Darkness, Astral, works hard to become a swordsman, and despite apparently being in a world where everyone is constantly raping everyone else, has never before had sex. Then in a few hours he has sexual encounters with two women – a prisoner who he rapes and his childhood friend. Going off to fight, he goes up against the king of the Tribe of Light, who is of course busy with some rape, but he is then hit by a spell from the woman he had previously raped. He is blasted away and loses his memory, returning twenty years later to the Tribe of Light, where they take him as one of their own. But what is his true lineage, and what will happen to his child, bourn by the childhood friend? And what of the Words Worth tablet, which when reassembled may reveal the words of God and put an end to centuries of conflict?

If this sounds like an epic tale, though, it’s really incidental. Because Words Worth is about putting fantasy elf-girls and cat-girls into positions where they can have sex. Mostly the girl is unwilling, which presumably for the sake of fantasies of dominance seems to be preferred in anime porn – because girls going ‘No, stop, I don’t want this!’ is apparently erotic. Ick. And if it sounds like Astral getting blasted away as revenge for the rape is supposed to be didactic and teach him a moral lesson – nope. He carries right on doing it, and the gaiden just has more of the same.

It’s all stupid masturbatory fantasy, and honestly extremely unpleasant to look at, with all sorts of nasty close-ups and a preference for making the women really subjugated by having them violated by increasingly disgusting men, so really, a viewer must either take it as hilarious or despair of it. Either way, this has become one of the most widely-known and widely-mocked pieces of animated porn, and for that has a cult following. It’s just definitely not my thing.

女子高生 / Joshi Kousei / Girls High / High School Girls

The first episode of High School Girls nearly put me off entirely – only Moetan has this many panty-shots and blushes, and that’s parody. High School Girls is Azumanga Daioh without the zaniness, and much more openly perverted. It’s about a group of six girls who become friends as they enter high school, whose silly antics get them into comic scrapes and usually involve them getting scantily-clad and using their sexuality to get what they want. Most of it’s just brainless, but occasionally there are some funny situations and amusing backstories, and the little loli one, while really there for comic relief and to be adorable, is very cute indeed.

Look elsewhere for substance, look elsewhere for cleverness, and look elsewhere if you want to show other people a series that won’t embarrass you by being nothing but fanservice. Look here only if you want lots of obvious bishoujo being sexualised, if you want to see comedy archetypes or if you need an example of gross-out humour outside America…because this is the only anime I’ve ever seen that tries to get laughs from menstrual blood.

On the other hand, while this is certainly not a place anyone should start familiarising themselves with anime, but for those who understand its tropes and clichés, it will at least amuse in passing.

(originally written 3.5.08)