Spectacle and Perspective: Feeling Joy at Britney's Fall and Trainwrecked Anime

The only picture of her I will ever post, and only because of that shotgun.

Well I have to wait for my professor to e-mail the class all the lab data right now so seeing as how I can’t do my lab report now I felt very much like kicking the proverbial puppy into the street, and by puppy I mean Britney, because that was the word we’re all supposed to be discussing. The thing that strikes me about Ms. Spears and her so called career is that it involves two things first you need spectacle and perspective. Suffice to say you need a certain kind of perspective to see the spectacle that is her career and personal life as an oddly humorous train wreck rather than one woman’s ongoing tragedy. That was all I have to say about Ms. Spears, I don’t like her, I think she sucks, and I cannot help but find her plight somewhat amusing considering how a few scant years ago she was ridiculously successful by pandering to men with a fetish for high school girls.

The thing about every anime series that I have long ago come to realize is that we can all be watching the same series and each walk away with a different idea of what precisely occurred. Take for instance the Battle of Guadalajara a little known battle from a little known war unless you happen to be Spanish, or possibly Italian. At this battle Il Duce was like any anime studio today like Gonzo, Sunrise, Gainax, Kyoto Animation etc. He had spent lavishly on his new production and now was his chance to show the world what Italian arms could do. Such was his investment that he bet the veritable farm on his hunch that world war was about to come in the 1930s, but we all know he was about ten years off the mark… Nevertheless in 1930 Il Duce had the premier studio for warfare, he had tanks, infantry, a very good air force, and lots of special effects that were of an explosive and dangerous nature. He was about to beat up some ill-equipped Spaniards and their socialist allies who had to pay (under communism it is okay to gouge your socialist friends) the Soviets loads of money (about 2/3 of their gold reserve, or in 1930 $500 million USD right during the Great Depression, kind of like what Gonzo is doing at the moment) for heavy weapons, like planes, tanks, big guns, and the like. Il Duce didn’t think that he could possibly lose, he had more of everything and in this battle he would not only dominate, but would win a great victory which he could take all the credit.

Il Duce was a loser because he was emo and wore black.

Suffice to say Il Duce found that his mighty Italian Army and their attempt at making blitzkrieg first was full of lose and fail. It was the first time any one had attempted to use tanks on such a large scale, and the whole world was watching, the USSR, Germany, and France all witnessed the whole debacle, it was a veritable spectacle seeing what was the most powerful army in all of Spain at the time lose to a bunch of socialists who were expecting a picnic at the most quite sector of the front. Here’s where perspective comes in France sees Italy get chewed to pieces, their conclusion: infantry attacks will always beat out tanks, so let’s dig more trenches. The Soviets walked away thinking: tank attacks don’t work, cancel all the tank programs, and also let’s shoot all the tank officers while we are at it because they are stupid. The Germans see this train wreck and huff: tank attacks do not work when Italians are in charge, so let’s build better tanks and come up with better ways to use them. Same event, but three very different conclusions, and the same can be said when we all watch anime.

My standards for manliness are quite different from animu. This guy is the epitome of manliness, Takayuki is not.

Take for instance Kimi ga Nozomu Eien back in the ye olde days it was the hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread, an excellent drama, a shining example of what anime could be. Kind of like what True Tears is now except that Kimi ga was over hyped, sucked hard enough to get golf balls out of garden hoses, and loved only by people who were then in high school, emo, and probably in the school goth clique. It was a seedy tale of some douche bag named Takayuki who banged his first girl fairly early, girl gets into coma, he falls for the her best friend, his first fuck wakes up, crying and emo ensue. It was a drama where every character is a clueless emo dork who suffers from a third degree case of the stupid. The over all message is that: STICK WITH THE GIRL WHO GIVES THE MOST AWESOME BLOWJOBS AND LIKES TO COPULATE EVERY FIVE MINUTES WITH NO CONTRACEPTION. It wasn’t the most inspired message in the world, but hey who am I to argue about the amount of sense sex crazed man children and woman children should have as they go about life and fuck up the lives of every one around them in a very high school prickish sort of manner.

This clip embodies the amount of lulz that KGnE could have had without the amount of facepalming.

So a Singaporean sees it and declares: Takayuki is the noblest male protagonist in all of anime let’s all praise him for his good sense in the art of love! Also let’s all fap praise Akane for wearing a seifku three sizes too small! A Russian and her future Russian by marriage husband see it, the future bride says WTF I HAET Mitsuki; I want a Haruka end! The future groom sees it and proceeds some time later to play a sort of related eroge called Muv-Luv for a few days doing nothing in the least bit seedy, or so his version of events go. I saw this train wreck and went: what a waste of bandwith, these characters all sucked, I cannot wait to be given a license to hunt emo dorks such as these and rip out their guts to grease the treads of my tank. At least it was a spectacle of EPIC lulz. I then proceeded to watch Full Metal Jacket for the nth time to wash away the stench of lose, fail, emo, and suck. (Note I have a tendency to exaggerate and outright lie.)

I am sure the same can be said of any series we watch now this season. I doubt that any one can walk way with the right conclusion at the end of a series, but it pays to have an opinion once the final credits roll. That way if and when the sequel starts you’re expectations can be finer tuned, and you will be slightly more immune to the hype. In some cases you can avoid the second season all together and bypass the pain. There is probably one series out there that ended up as a major disappointment in your otaku career, so care to share?