SON OF A B****!!! PIECE OF S*** OF JOB!!! I QUIT!!! F***ING I DON´T KNOW!!!
Seriously... this is gonna be like... my last post in a very, very long time folks. Part of the reason is because after ending my my fourth semester I'm tired of writing this thing. It's pretty pointless considering that I've already passed my last level of english and I don't have any ideas to write about.
I want to dedicate my time to other stuff, and prove something else. I want to be a script writer and compose music, and I want to dedicate more time to those things instead of trying to come up with topics that nobody cares about.
It's a thing of personal tastes and priorities. I really feel that I complete a cicle with this blog but I can't dedicate my whole life to it. Nothing personal. I had good times though. Some of the stuff I wrote in this blog was so much fun and even helped me to express myself a little bit. Even though I felt really disapointed with Doug Walker and their new style, I could overcome thanks to this blog, so, this is gonna be like... goodbye to the blog, good bye to the good old times and hello to a new chapter in my life and stuff...
Enjoy this video and remember... never say never (unless you're forced to watch that god awful Justin Bieber movie)
Oh, well... sorry for the long time without post anything... it's just I've been really, really busy and I've lost all the inspiration to write. This is just a short messasge to indicate that I'm still alive. Maybe the next time I can come up with something huge to compensate.
Now that I
have time, the inspiration and after revisiting the first season of this show,
I decided to give me a chance to talk about it in a deeper and complex way.
With a group of genius like these: What could possibly go wrong? I'm talking about the actors, not the characters who screwed up so many times... especially Pete..
For those
who don’t know, Mad Men is a Period Drama that takes place in the 60’s in the
same fashion of shows like The Wonder Years or Happy Days. It’s about a very successful
advertising agency called Sterling Cooper located in New York City founded by
Roger Sterling Sr. (deceased), who had a son who is the actual partner (played
by John Slattery) and Bert Cooper (played by Robert Morse).
It focus in
the creative director called Donald “Don” Draper (played by Jon Hamm), who is smart,
creative and downright arrogant and manipulative but it has a dark twisted past
that is slowly revealed as we watch every episode.
Intro of the show, a perfect methafor of a man falling under a self-created world of lies until the point that he doesn't care about it anymore...
The pilot
episode (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes) is set in March 1960 and it’s about an
article of the Reader’s Digest Magazine that reveals the dangers of Smoking,
who became a problem for advertising agencies due the fact that they can’t sell
cigarettes and therefore, could cost the account with Luck Strike and loose
money.
Meanwhile,
a young woman called Margaret “Peggy” Olson (played by Elisabeth Moss) begins
their new career as the secretary of Don, and it’s introduced in the
advertising agency world by the office manager of Sterling Cooper: Joan
Holloway (played by Christina Hendricks) who is the stereotypical hot secretary
who is very self aware about her figure and uses it as an advantage. She is
like the antithesis of Peggy in some ways.
The third
plot in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is about another advertising executive called
Pete Campbell (played by Vincent Kartheiser) who is a young, arrogant
Draper-wannabe that is going to get married very soon with a woman named Trudy
(who doesn’t appear here), but when he met Peggy has a little crush on her and
despite make a snarky remark about her clothing, he gets somehow to have an
affair with her in the last third of the episode.
Draper,
being the enigmatic genius that he is, comes with a brilliant idea: instead of
selling the cigarettes under a “death wish” statement, suggested by a company researcher,
he comes with the slogan: “It’s Toasted” referencing the way they make it
because if they can’t say that smoking is healthy, neither can their competitors,
which leaves to use that phrase as a statement that while all the tobacco
companies produce poison, Lucky Strike is something different.
Lucky Strike, It's Toasted... any questions?
Now,
despite that the idea it’s brilliant and the execution it’s really well done,
the whole “It’s Toasted” thing pre-dates the 60’s, and for a show who is
critically acclaimed for his historical accuracy it’s a really weird
anachronism, and no, it’s not a mistake from Matthew Weiner, the creator and
writer of the pilot; the script was written in the 2000’s so this is completely
intentional.
But with
that said, the show is really well put together in terms of visual style,
writing, acting and directing. Jon Hamm as Draper is very cynical and eerie in
his performance, leading us to think who this man is and what makes him so
special.
The Answers
fall like pieces of a puzzle during the first run of the show, in scenes that
that, at first, seems so insignificant that you can easily overlook the first
time. Like in the third episode (Marriage of Figaro) where Don is traveling on
a train and a veteran from the war of Korea (in which Don is a veteran as well)
recognizes him as Dick Whitman who is the real name of Don, but at this point
we don’t know any of that we just simply assume that the guy just made a
mistake.
Another
important story arc in this season is the Nixon vs. Kennedy Campaign where
Sterling Cooper roots for Nixon due the fact that Bert Cooper itself is a
republican. The problems appeared when they realized that Nixon doesn’t have
the young appeal and charm of Kennedy, which happens to be the winner at the
end of the season against all the odds.
Of course,
because it’s a character-driven show, the focus on historical event take a backseat
in favor of the personal issues of the Sterling Cooper agency as well the
personal lives of these people. We know what´s the deal with Don, but if we
talk about character evolution during this particular season, Peggy is the one
who gets the cake. Starting as Don Draper’s shy secretary, she was smart enough
to get the attention of the men not because her body but her ideas and
conviction that made her stand over the rest of all the group of females.
In the sixth
episode (Babylon) they made a research of lipstick product using the secretaries
of SC as subject tests. Peggy was the only one who looked for a particular
lipstick and when the meeting it’s over she comes with the phrase “Basket of
kisses” that brought the attention of one of the ad men, Freddie Rumsen (Joel
Murray) who was working on the Belle Jolie lipstick campaign and ask her to
write a copy of the account, which turned out to be successful.
But because
not all the things can turn out to be okay, we had drama at the end of the
season when Peggy discovers that she’s is pretend for having the affair with Campbell
who, at this point, lost all interest on her.
And
speaking of which, we also got Pete Campbell as our Joffey-type of character in
this show. His arrogant, selfish and unwarranted self-important attitude makes
him one of the most obnoxious jerks in the history of television. But because
Mad Men is a show that doesn’t make distinctions in the morality of his
characters, we also have a little bit of insight of Pete’s life.
Campbell
belongs to one of the most important families that practically built up NYC
with their money: The Dykemans. And because pee always got what he wanted, he
never got the chance to became a self-made man like Draper and now that he’s
married with his wife Trudy (played by Alison Brie), the daughter of one of the
clients of SC, his life is under control of everyone, which it makes him feel
insignificant.
And at
last, but not least, we have Don Draper’s wife Betty Draper (played by January
Jones) who seems to be the most self repressed character in the show , living
under the shadow of a man who barely knows, trapped into a life of housewife
who can’t do anything that let her express her talents, like in the ninth
episode (Shoot) where it’s revealed that she used to be a model and almost gets
hired by an ad agency called McCann Erickson who rivalries with SC and they
wanted to have Draper working for them as well. But Don, being loyal to SC
rejects the opportunity and the rival agency fires Betty because she was just
the bait for Don.
But in the
end, the Draper arc it’s the one who gets the better progress, when we met Don
Draper’s Brother in 5G, a man called Adam Whitman that all he wanted was to
reunite with his older brother and the only familiar who still lives, but
Draper rejects him because he’s running from his past, which it makes Adam kill
himself because he lost the only thing that cares for him: his family.
The things
get darker when we discover that Dick Whitman was the son of a prostitute that
got pregnant by Dick’s father and was raised by him and her wife, that bit sort
of remind me the Jon Snow Story Arc in Game of Thrones, but the difference
between Jon Snow and Don Draper is that Don is a man who made himself with lies
and frauds to reach all his goals, and Jon is a man who made himself being
truth to himself and suffer a lot of torments for it.
But the
inflexion point is in the twelfth episode (Nixon vs. Kennedy) where it’s
revealed the origin of the name Don Draper, who was a Lieutenant that was
killed in an explosion in a Trent when he was covering Dick Whitman. He took
the chance and changes their name tags, which it makes Dick guilty not only for
desertion but phishing as well. It’s similar to the Simpsons episode “The Principal
and the Pauper”, the premise of a man who stole the other man’s identity during
a war. And then people say that episode was bad.
The deeper
we explore this world, the more dirtier things we found about these characters,
who live in a world where social standards are slowly changing but they have
problems with their own personal lives that affects the other ones around them,
and that’s because the world of Mad Men it’s like a big machine full of grinds
that works in just one way, but when of them presents some malfunctioning, it affects
everyone else.
Despite the
pacing of the show, which it’s kinda slow at times, it’s still very fun to watch,
very appealing with his visuals, very carefully written with its characters and
storylines, resulting in a perfect hell of a show that it just got better and
better, and it’s going to be sad when we get to the finale this next year, but
the legacy of this show will always live forever.
Okay, I'm not gonna lie... I have no inspiration to write something whatsoever, But don't worry because next time I promise to you that I'm gonna make something special for this month of October. And if you already guessed I'ts something related to Mad Men.
So, for now... watch this trailer and see you next time folks:
Okay, first
of all, If you don’t have any idea who is the Angry Video Game Nerd, you should
avoid Reading this because if you don’t you won’t probably get it. But if you
want to read it anyway let me give you a brief summary:
But first: here's the trailer of the movie:
The Angry
Video Game Nerd is an Internet comedy-review show starring James Rolfe. It’s
about a thirty-something guy who spends most of his time playing videogames of
the 80’s and 90’s (a retro-reviewer if you prefer) and makes fun of the games
pointing out his flaws such as bad programming, dreadful graphics, horrible
controls, unfairly challenging levels and overall concepts who makes him mad to
the point of swearing like a sailor.
It’s pretty
juvenile (features a lot of toilet humor, cursing and violence) but the guy it’s
so fun to listen and watch in his performance that you forget (and even forgive)
all that. It’s similar to what happen to South Park, people find the comedy
lowbrow and childish, but also features a lot of substance in their scripts you
don’t mind everything else.
And if you
read my other posts you’ve already familiarized with the Nostalgia Critic, who
is kind of like the nemesis of the Nerd, but only in a fictional way because in
real life Doug and James are very good friends. Both are very respected and influential
retro-reviewers (or at least they were) in the mid 2000’s and even if it seems the
end of the road for both of them in terms of fame and quality (the last bit it’s
more applicable for Doug) they still managed to make people laugh and leave
their marks on internet history.
But enough
exposition and lets jump into the topic for today: The Angry Video Game Nerd
Movie. That’s right, this guy made a movie about his internet review show and
it’s a real movie, not just an amateur experiment made by some random college
students, it’s an actual movie.
It took
around three years to been made and it was financed with fan-donations, proving
that the internet It’s the ultimate entrepreneur producer and let anyone with a
visionary plan of business accomplished those dreams. But we’re not here to
praise capitalism and globalization like a bunch of geeks; we’re here to talk
about if those dreams actually pay off nicely. So let’s take a look.
Good or not you got to give them credit for trying to give this low budget-independent film a professional look... I mean, the poster man THE POSTER
The film
stars with some exposition about the infamous ET: the videogame (named Eee Tee
in the movie) for the ATARI 2600. Then we cut to a company called “Cockburn
Industries” (I know, really mature), one of the executives, called Mandi (played
by Sarah Glendening) suggest to release an intentionally bad sequel of the game
to gain some profit due the cult following that the game has.
Meanwhile,
our main Character the Angry Video Game Nerd (played by Rolfe) feels
disenchanted with his life due the fact that he works on a game store called
GameCops promoting crappy games and feeling that all the anger for make his
review show was for nothing because his fans actually play those games that he
was trying to prevent instead of avoid them (Streisand Effect anyone?)
But when he
learns about the Cockburn Industries plan of releasing a sequel of ET, which
happens to be the most requested game of his fans, he enters on denial and try
to avoid reviewing it because it was “physically hurtful experience” play it as
a kid (and yet he can play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the NES), he wants to
stay away from the phenomenon as far as possible.
The
assistant, manager and personal friend of the Nerd, Cooper Folly (played by
Jeremy Suarez) encourages him to take the request and tries to convince him
that is a golden opportunity and also because he has a reputation to keep, but
the Nerd doesn’t care about that and just want to avoid the idea.
However,
after reflecting a little bit about it, he decides to take a chance and make
the review. But not only that, he also wants to find the 1 million copies of
the game that, according to the myth, are buried in the dessert of Alamogordo
New Mexico, near from the Area 51. The Nerd tells Cooper that if they actually
find the copies, he is going to play every copy because… he’s the FUCKING Nerd,
that’s why.
Mandi, who
knows the Nerd for his internet fame, approach to meet him and offer he and
Cooper a deal of promoting the sequel of ET for financial help to accomplish
the mission.
Now in the
dessert our heroes are threatened by the militaries of the Area 51, who
apparently protect the ground where the copies are buried. The general Dark
Onward (played by Stephen Mendel) and the female Sergeant McButter (played by
Helena Barrett) capture them under the belief that they’re terrorists trying to
make contact with aliens, but the Nerd and his friends manage to escape and the
general blow up his arm trying to throw a grenade.
On the
road, the trio decides to look up for the creator and designer of the game itself
Howard Scott Warshaw. Luckily for them, a worker from the Area 51, Dr. Zandor (played
by Time Winters) worked with Howard in the design of the game and,
coincidentally, lived in an abandoned house in New Mexico.
Even if he
tried to kill them first for trespass his property, he not only let them enter
to his house (after testing them with a video game challenge IRL) but also he
told them the secret behind ET the game.
It turns
out that the Dr. Zandor gave Howard a map to make a replica of the Area 51 and
disguise it as a horrible game in order to not only help him to complete the
time deadline (Atari gave him only 5 weeks to complete it), but also to get
revenge on the military for capturing and locking up an alien with his
spaceship that the Dr. tried to free.
Mandi, who
happens to be a double agent for Cockburn industries sneaks out of the house to
try to get a phone call from her boss and it’s captured by McButter, but she
fools them and leading them to Las Vegas in order to keep them away from the
Nerd and Cooper while they’re facing a long crowd of fans that wanted to
promote the new ET game and also want to see their hero playing the infamous
Atari game.
The things got
worse when the Nerd tried to convince his fans that they’re no copies buried
under the dessert but Howard Scott Marshaw himself appears and prove him wrong.
The Nerd
finally decides to go to Area 51 disguised as an Alien in order to sneak in and
find the alien (not a very good idea if you think about it) and gets captured
by Onward and he forces him to play ET as a form of torture. Oh, and also launch
a missile to the Mount Fuji in Japan that wake up a robot-like creature that
goes to America and destroy all the places where our main characters are. Well,
there are coincidences and then there’s… this movie.
Beautiful isn't it? and no... it's not a coincidence that it looks pretty similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles puppets... the guy who played Michelangelo in the saga from the 90's play this character.
But Cooper,
who is hiding in the wagon of Cockburn Industries, releases the Alien captured
in the Area 51 by playing the game (yea, I don’t know how that works either)
and when the General leaves the room (mutilating his remaining arm with the
automatic doors), the Aliens comes out and free the Nerd.
Then, both
escape from the base and after a really cheesy but kind of amusing fight with
robots, the Nerd and the alien steal a plane from the government and fly out of
the place.
The general
learns that the metal from the alien’s spaceship was replaced with tin foil by
the Dr. Zandor, who hide the rests in the copies of the ET game (how the flying
fuck did not analyze it and check it out if it was real in all those years?)
Meanwhile,
the Nerd, after recreate one of his most famous routines (trying to land the
plane like in the game Top Gun) both him and the Alien got into the Area 51.
Mandi, who
was captured by McButter in the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas manage to confront
and defeats the Sergeant in a catfight (who, unfortunately and for comedic
effect has too little screen time) until the Robot (called Death Mwauthzyx) and
captures her along with Cooper and takes them to Area 51 where the general gets
killed when he tried to confront the monster.
The Alien
finally is able to rebuild his spaceship with every cartridge of the ET game (including
the ones who are spread through the entire planet who led to several cameos),
and manage to confront the robot alien and defeat him shooting a laser on the
satellite on the top of his head, which it makes him to disappear him instead
of something cool like an explosion or something (it is just me or did I sound
like Michael Bay with that last sentence?)
And finally
after defeat all the bad guys and stuff the Nerd finally take the request and
review both ET games while the credits rolling.
And that
was the Angry Video Game Nerd. It is a great movie? Mmmm not really, it has
some flaws in the script and some jokes fall flat because they lack of good pay
off, like they got good set ups but the punch lines weren’t strong enough. And
also some of the acting wasn’t very convincing either, particularly Mandi and
Cooper who weren’t very memorable in their roles.
Now the
good stuff: the story is really creative and very complex with the whole ET
conspiracy, yes it could it been better if some of the inconsistencies were
worked a little bit more but, for what it is, is a pretty decent plot. And also
liked the fact that the Nerd and Mandy weren’t get together at the end of the
film, even when the trailers fool us to believe that in the first place, so
that was a clever move.
Overall, it’s
an okay film. If you’re a fan of The Angry Video Game Nerd like, you’re
probably goingo to find yourself entertained with the jokes and the story, but
if you’re an outsider know absolutely nothing about James and his foul mouthed character
better skip it because it’s not for all tastes, just see the trailer and you’re
going to figured out why.
And that’s
all for now, see you later and remember: Shitty games can teach us more than we
actually give them credit for. Don’t believe me? Ask to James Rolfe.
*Warning:
this is only for people who know who is The Nostalgia Critic, If you don’t know
who he is, the avoid reading this.
Oh, Doug, I
remembered the first time I saw you on YouTube like it if was yesterday. You
used to be one of the funniest mother*ckers I have seen in years. Your timing (Casper:
TIMING!), your deliverance, your jokes, even If they were 50/50 sometimes you’ve
still had that zany personality that made everything forgivable.
And now,
you became a sellout, a guy who just does what other people told you. I mean,
Nostalgia Critic was a character created with the one, single purpose of making
fun of the Nostalgia, and honestly, that’s the thing that I loved the most,
because It seemed (and still seems) that every time people talk about their
childhood memories, they can’t also spew some crap out their mouth and say that
everything from the past is better and there’s no future.
The dream of every outrage trash takling fanboy like me... at least when I was younger...
Doug
Walker, the man behind the Nostalgia Critic, for a long time (almost 4 years)
used to be my personal Jesus, my sacred holy grail of comedy and my inspiration
to make people laugh instead of depressed them with my awful and pessimistic
vision of the world. I still believe that mankind it’s a big pile of sh*t, but
at least I can laugh about it, I can see the world from a different point of
view and stop talking crap 90% of the time thanks to that.
But why
Doug became so fascinating to me in the first place? Because he was just a man,
a guy a camera who just got himself against the world expressing his opinion
and just doing what he thought it was funny, and manage to create a whole new
brand of internet reviewers that use their skills not only to gain their 5 minutes
of fame, but to inspire people to look at things with a whole new vision, stop
letting their Nostalgia get in the way.
But when he
decided to quit, I was devastated, I felt like one of the few things in this
world that meant so much to me disappeared and now I’ve got no direction
whatsoever. Everything fall apart that 2012, the same year I went to Law School
(fortunately I quit) and the NC, that was my only vacation during that time was
gone and from that moment it went just me and reality.
After
contemplate suicide several times and leave the Law School, I decide to go on,
forget TGWTG (because honestly, I’ve never give too much of a damn for the
other ones) and try to live my life, until he came back.
In
retrospective, I’ve got mixed feelings about his comeback and reinvention, for
one hand it feels so good and refreshing having the guy back in his chair and
his… new white wall, but in the middle of 2013 (of maybe a little bit before)
It started to change, it became more evident that he was doing all these new
things for money rather than personal satisfaction, he was sacrificing his
trademarked style in favor of zany antincs and lame pop culture references made
to attract the attention of a 13 year old brat.
His other
show Demo Reel Failed, but Doug doen’t want to assume that and instead, he is
insisting in sacrificing his dignity and create reviews with sketches that are
more pointless and awkward every time.
It’s really sad actually.
If you
still got respect for your old fanbase, you know, the ones who made you famous
in the first place, you should consider taking this job more seriously and try
to keep quality over quantity. I mean, your Son of the Mask review could it
been awesome if it weren’t for those god awful sketches with satan and his
daughter that… I don’t even want to talk about that, it is THAT stupid.
And all
this coming to age experience that I’m having now made me realize that maybe
Doug wasn’t that great to begin with. Sure it got his funny moments, memorable
jokes and overall proyects that make them unique (at least compared to other
reviewers), but he never evolved, he never tried to improve his routine and try
to prove in a more mainstram media like TV, Films or whatever, it seems like a
wasted opportunity and the only one that is responsible is Doug himself.
But you
know what? I don’t hate him, I mean, despite I hate some of his new Reviews (like
Disney Afternoon) I still got good memories with this guy, all the happiness
and joy that brought to my life was enough to keep me away to killing myself
and I’m always going to thank that to this guy.
But, I
still think that you sold your soul to the Devil in the moment that you started
to appeal to a younger crowd instead of evolve to a full comedian and internet
reviewer, but your story gave me an important lesson that I never going to
forget: No matter the circumstances, I will never going to sell my integrity like
you do, and with that said, I salute you Nostalgia Critic thaks for the good
times and I’ll always remember it even if you don’t have to.
You Know, I’m
going to admit it: I can’t stand Japanese animation for the most part. I don’t
know, it’s just not my thing okay? Because every time I’m trying to sit through
some anime, most of the time I need to pause it because the characters do
something too stupid and embarrassing to even look at it.
And don’t
get me wrong, I know that there are a lot of exceptions to this genre. People
like Hayao Miyasaki proved that Japanese animation can be unique, creative and
visually outstanding, but that is a very exceptional case, because for every decent
piece of art that is created in the land of the rising sun, other creations
tend to reuse from character designs, personalities, plotlines and jokes and
that makes you wonder how many time you can watch the same thing over and over
before you get sick of it.
But I
digress, what I’m talking about is a very specific genre, the kind of anime
that even the most hardcore fans of Japanese culture tend to consider terrible,
I’m referring to Ecchi Harem Anime, the most… I don’t even know how to describe
it because it’s so odd in the way it creates itself that you can’t really tell
the difference between what’s right or wrong or what the creators want.
And because
I don’t want to sound trashy but rather a nitpicking asshole, I’m going to
deconstruct an Anime that, in my opinion, sums it up everything that is right
and wrong about this. I'm talking of course about: To Love Ru (or trouble if you translate it)
I know there's something wrong with this picture, but I can't find out what it is... oh, I see, two of the girls are looking the other way round instead of focus on the main character... oh, silly me.
Now, I’m going to try to be the least negative and destructive
as possible and I’m just going to point out my theories about why this genre is
so successful between people despite the bad reputation.
The story
focuses on a 16 year old boy named Yuuki Rito, an average kid who is in love
with a girl from his school named Haruna Sairenji, a very shy and reserved
person who apparently corresponds his feelings as well, but because both of
them are so timid and socially awkward, they never got the chance to express
their mutual love. To this point, sounds like a really standard love story with
an overall cuteness and stuff. I, personally don’t feel especially attracted by
it, but at least I can understand the appeal.
But, the
things get weirder and weirder when an alien princess called Lala Satalin
Deviluke escapes from her planet to earth and magically teleport herself to the
bathroom of Yuuki (totally naked), just when he was taking a bathroom and coincidentally
raised his arms to touch her breasts. Yes, that is what happened, and trust me,
that thing is not the weirdest part.
The things
get even more complicated when we discover that touching her breasts was the
alien equivalent of asking for her hand, that’s right, Yuuki became the fiancée
of Lala for touching her knockers by accident, talking about plot conveniences.
And while the
story goes on we met other characters like: Yuuki’s sister who has some
feelings for him (awkwaaaaard), the space assassin girl who has no emotions and
got the mission to kill the main character, the control freak girl who sees
Rito as a pervert for some misunderstandings, the alien who can change his/her
gender by sneezing, Lala’s twin sisters and the medic, Rito’s best friend who
is jealous for his luck with women and the perverted director of the school
who, from some reason hasn’t been arrested for sexual harassment yet.
From all
the jokes in this show, the most overused is the one when the main character
accidentally (yes, accidentally) do something perverted to one of the girls (touch
her breasts, land on her panties or whatever) and eventually got beated the
crap out of him, which isn’t really funny but rather mean spirited and
repetitive.
Another
running gag is that Rito’s best friend of any other male character points out
how lucky he is for having so many women in love with him, who is
understandable but these guys act like there’s nothing more important to talk
about. It’s kinda sad.
And that’s
just a few summaries of characters that live in this surreal world when a 16
year old alien girl (Lala) is a professional engineer and inventor of many
things that are mostly plot devices, creepy old man can stalk all the girls
that they want it without learning any lesson and falling for the same over and
over, and where an average kid with no talents or personality can have a lot of
beautiful girls with colorful hairs and big boobies by himself.
Okay, sorry
for that part, but it’s just so mind blowing the fact that an idea this… weird
can be so successful. How this formula exactly works? It is because it’s animation?
Well, to be fair it’s a very cute, colorful and bright piece of work who is
very pleasant from a visual standpoint, but there’s a lot of other shows that
has this characteristic and aren’t that commercial. It is because how
sexualized everything is? Not really, a lot of other things can satisfy this
need for tits.
Well, I
think that, aside from how cute it looks and sounds or how formulaic the plot
is to the point you know what’s going to happen from the very beginning, shows
like these has a much more simple task to accomplish in order to be a hit. And surprisingly
it’s not the fan-service (term to refer the sexualization of the characters), I
mean, is one of the most important qualities of these kind of shows, but not
THE most important.
What I’m
talking about is the need of self importance in the viewer of the show. How? Well,
think about it, why the main character is so one dimensional and their way of
react to the situations around him is so repressed? Well, I think that the main
reason for this is because the main character is just a cardboard cutout for
the viewer. With most successful shows, fans usually tend to create a cult
around a character, quoting his lines, creating fanart about him, but heres the
thing: those characters are not a mirror for the viewership.
I mean,
sure there are a lot of people who literally fall in love with Breaking Bad
mostly because Walter White with his badass skills and overall personality, but
I don’t think those people want to get cancer, work in a lackluster job, being
persecuted by the DEA or being married with Skyler (God forbids you), they
admire the way he deals with this stuff but they don’t want to put themselves
in those situations.
Mmmm... let's see... being a guy in his forties suffering a midlife crisis and dying of lung cancer... or a 16 year old boy totally healty with a lot of girls who love him and want to make his dirtiest fantasies come true... let's get it on Heisenberg...
Here, is
the exact opposite, the more forgettable the main character is, the easier is
for the viewer to picture himself in that very fortunate and enviable position.
You don’t want to be LIKE Rito, you want to be Rito.
And the
fact that everybody else in this world exist with the one single purpose of
point out the advantage of the main character just reinforce this idea of
power. The feeling of have this fantasy all for you and everybody want to have
what you have. Even the Director of the school has an important role of remind
you how desirable the situation is. When you see somebody wishing for something
with so much passion, then you wanted as well and that’s why you look for an
interchangeable character to accomplish the dream.
And the
girls, of course have different personalities to accomplish every fetish as possible,
so the viewership can increase. Some people would prefer the shy girls, some
others the angry ones, some others the playful ones or the emotionless ones,
the clumsy ones the overly obsessed ones and so forth.
So, this is Harem Anime in a nutshell... any questions?
So, it is
bad to let fooling yourself by this formula? No, you can watch and follw
whatever you want, but it’s important to remember being aware of the silliness
and always remember not take these shows too seriously. So personally, I pass…
anime is not my thing and I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t
understand it too well, I’m just trying to theorize here.
So good
night my snipper-snapper fellows, I hope these rant doesn’t offend you and be
open-minded like I tried to be when I wrote this. Take care.
