Blambo

Jake hounding Chris about his computer is the funniest thing I've heard all week!

I just rewatched Joshiraku, and it's made me reevaluate my moe enmity. My distaste for it is stemmed from (without saying too much more) its tendency to infantalize and idealize the perception of a character, its copious use in place of quality content, and the aesthetic/thematic rut that it puts the industry in. I still think these things are more or less true, present and correlated with the design/writing trope. But Joshiraku's non-moe content is actually really good. The characters arent written like moe characters, because they're essentially following a prosey joke script. The extremely dumb, pandering presentation is really dissonant with the smart writing and comedic timing, and for some reason that's actually enjoyable instead of grating, since it fits with the overall slightly surreal, dissonant joke logic of rakugo. The characters aren't really supposed to be people that you empathize with and care about because they're just recurring actors in a long, well written joke, and the use of moe makes it all feel intentional. Contrast this with shirobako, which seems to have the same quality of comedic writing but has a format that requires investment in its characters, to its own detriment. I guess what I'm saying is that it's kind of sad that this kind of interesting use of moe relies on it existing despite itself, but I'm more or less convinced that it's not always perfunctory. As long as it's there for a reason and it's effective, I'm (more or less) OK with it. If they remade Joshiraku except it was about middle aged men sitting at a bar telling jokes that bend the corners of reality, it would still be funny, though for other reasons too. Just kidding I'm full of shit. Joshiraku is impossible to enjoy without being Japanese, and I'm only watching it for the cute girl hijinks.

I've seen an inkling of the "squid-based" thing online.

The genuine thanks obamas are what makes this.

What if Chewie died and Han rescued another wookie from the pound.

This may not apply to you but if you think that big action serious arcs ruin what you like about it, be prepared to skip 130 out of the 261 episodes.

Yeah I feel like putting too fine a point on it destroys the conversation, and I've been kind of afraid of being overly dismissive. Still though.

The thing is I can't really put that aspect aside and it kind of ruins it for me because I really like every other part of the show. So I can definitely talk about other interesting bits but the most salient part of that show for me is the stylistic dissonance. My bad for exaggerating!

I'm not sure about shirobako, since all I have to say about it is my hating moe. Though granted I'm not very far into it.

Hey, that's... A Lot of Shit. Are some of the tasks delegatable?

A Procedural Procedural Content soon.

Learning it though is Legendary Ironman mode.

Fuck off that's too good

Wait what the hay, this jam is TWO WEEKS LONG? I'll definitely make something.

Something came up, and I won't be able to make anything this round. But I'll be in the IRC sometimes if y'all need art (?) advice or programming questions!

Gorm is taking that section where Chris imitates the rap and turning it into 2015's summer hip hop hit.

Thank god for this list. I'm sick of googling "artsy anime". I watched Joshiraku not knowing that it had the same director as Girls und Panzer, and I've only seen Joshiraku of the stuff this director's put out. I super duper liked Joshiraku and thought it was really smart, and didn't lean heavily on the moe thing. I felt like it was mostly due to the fact that the humor was too fast paced and verbal to devolve into horrible moe death. In places it directly played with the moe thing as a dry spectacle and less as a part of the presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCs94eksrY8 But on the whole it felt like the director was trying to have his cake and eat it too. I'm not sure if the rest of his portfolio is like this, but it kind of prevents me from seeing this kind of thing as a serious subversion of the trope.

Yeah, I definitely don't have a solid idea, so grouping up with somebody about now would be ideal.

Haha it's funny that my rant in any way helped you build a coherent thought because I typed it out in a blinding fit of nerd rage. You and Gorm would be awesome cogent core hosts to balance out my appearances as a blathering ideologue. I haven't, though a cursory google image search kind of makes me want to avoid it. I don't like the aesthetic in general, and making it gender equal won't faze that. But I think it's really funny to have guy-chan designs in the mix too.

Mouth Flaps is amazing, I second (third?) it.

I feel like moe has crossed the line from plausible abstraction of a human being into platonic ideal territory, since its defining features achieve more than let the audience project themselves onto the design. You can achieve the Understanding Comics effect without deliberately giving a character puppy dog eyes, a small mouth, a sexed up physique, and an arsenal of cute qualities. The most extreme moe design isn't solely an abstraction of the human figure to help the audience project onto the character. That effect can be achieved with the most minimal abstractions while retaining a sense that the design reflects specific human features. The reasons behind this probably have nothing to do with avoiding objectification.

So I feel like in the last few weeks I solidified my thoughts on moe. I think for any visual media, a character's appearance and design forms the bedrock of any person's understanding of the character as time goes on. When the audience has to reconsider or refactor the way that they interpret any character, they go back to first impressions and visual cues, along with all the unconscious baggage that those come with. This is unavoidable. My issue with moe is that it's an extremely strong visual trope designed to be disarming and endearing, which is going to be the touchstone for any moe character regardless of their actions or traits. A straight A honors student is smart and capable to offset the lack of intimidating features. A cold, quiet girl is so in contrast to her babyish looks. The most bloodthirsty, coldhearted, dangerous killer is going to be that despite the fact that she's adorable and looks like a high school girl. That modifier is going to exist no matter how hard you push on the former part. This base, immutable feature of the character taints every subsequent impression the audience has of that character, and the fact that it's used to disarm and endear so liberally, so perfunctorily, and almost exclusively on women, creates a situation where you can have a cast of extremely dynamic characters that have a variety of extreme traits, nuances, and strengths, and it all sums up to a set of characters that have no character weight and consequently no gravitas because of their base line of damning, disarming, adorable appearance and personality. It's a set of barbie dolls packed with all sorts of accessories. Moe does this because the design trope has way more characterizing weight than anything you can balance it out with. Making a character moe without looking at how it affects its impression just feels like overseasoning a dish. Even if you can make the most delicious fois gras in the world, coating it in paprika will make it only taste like paprika. But if you've had your tongue coated in paprika for the last ten years, you'll probably stop tasting it. It makes sense that it takes someone who's watched a lot of anime to be able to discern the subtle plots and interactions that could possibly be in there, and why it's so hard for people just getting into anime to see why it's not just lonely nerd bait. It's why it's so separate from what people would consider mainstream culture, and I think it's an example of an industry collectively racing to the bottom. It might be obvious but I think that the industry's reliance on merchandising and selling sex/moe is self perpetuating. Then there's the issue where it's only female characters that are given such a strong treatment, which makes male characters have a more liquid subconscious impression and seem more like actual human beings, the implications of which are just ugly. Anyway this is probably not universal to everyone and my rambling is probably too authoritative in tone so I'll apologize in advance. TLDR; moe is a really really really strong visual touchstone that can water down any subsequent personality trait if used gratuitously. EDIT: wow that was a long and abrasive post for something I could have summed up in a more compact, less pretentious sentence.

Hi I just started Shirobako, and I know this has been discussed in this thread before but: (huge image, had to spoiler it) VS: It doesn't bother me (as much) when all of the characters in an anime are dolled up or caricatured But having a mix of milquetoast people (usually guys) and hypermoe-one-body-type-buy-a-figurine dolls (usually girls) highlights the pandering character design choice in every anime that just feels exploitative and aggressively male oriented. The anime looks fun and really interesting but I would enjoy it 200% more if it gave care to overall aesthetics rather than focus grouped character designs. It furthers that feeling of regular looking people being the audience surrogate and the cute dolls (all the women, every woman) being the show, fulfilling roles and being cute rather than existing as autonomous characters, no matter how much agency they have in the actual plot. I would even be a little more okay with making all the women extremely attractive if it weren't that incredibly overdone look. I'm tooting a very tooted horn but I'm genuinely curious. Is the moe thing so integral to the financial success of a series that it must exist for anything to succeed? I've come off of the idea that moe is the devil itself, but it's the gratuitousness that bothers me. If it's used for an actual purpose, then fine.

Though to match the criteria of podcast topics you outlined above, I think a constant air of existential anxiety is perfect. By the way I'm preempting the inevitable "Hi I'm you're Host in the Shell" pun. Now nobody can soil history with that phrase.

Requesting position of person who hates anime and wants to talk about his self loathing for loving anime.