ANGER!
About OreImo 8. This episode, like all the others, is average at best in terms of entertainment value. Unfortunately it seems to have gotten quite a bit more flak from the aniblogosphere than the other episodes because nothing that happens is realistic. But you know, I’m actually surprised at how effective OreImo is as a commentary on the current state of the otaku industry (for lack of a better term). In fact, if you consider OreImo as more of a commentary than a romantic comedy, episode 6 is the odd one out. That’s the only episode as of yet that hasn’t dealt with some aspect of Otakudom. And to be honest, that’s the episode that I actually enjoyed the least. Crazy grandparents are interesting and all, but the focus from the show from episode 1 has been the Otaku obsession of Kirino, not some random romantic subtext between Kyousuke and Manami.
By reading OreImo primarily as a commentary, I think it puts episode 8 in a different light. Sure it’s completely implausible for a middle school girl to get a Light Novel published. Sure it’s completely implausible for that said Light Novel to get an anime adaptation, even if it’s just supposed to fill in a recently opened time gap. But let’s set aside the idea that OreImo operates on realism, because it doesn’t. It’s hard to imagine many of the situations in OreImo actually taking place. In fact, those crazy grandparents that I mentioned earlier have as much of a chance as existing as the possibility of Kirino getting a light novel published. Realism isn’t OreImo’s strong suit, nor will it ever be.
So let’s dive into episode 8 putting aside our realism goggles, even though I know that it’s really hard for some of us to take those off. Let’s start with the premise of episode 8. Who the hell in their right mind would publish a story of a strange post apocalyptic world in which some girls who are sisters magically live and one of whom gets trapped under a pile of rubble, allowing the main character to save her and thus… etc etc. Let’s face it, no one wants to read such a strange, random, and weird premise.
At the same time, who the hell wants to read a story about a weird school where people are apparently divided, for whatever reason, by grades into classes with varying facilities and people. And then somehow a smart person gets into a stupid class, and decides to lead a revolution against the rest of the school by fighting with their miniature-based avatars that they can summo-
Oh wait.
Let’s face it. A lot of anime stories have strange premises. Actually, a lot of successful anime stories have strange premises. Kirino’s story is no exception. In fact, it’s probably the strangeness that lead to its success in the first place. But the scariest thing about this entire affair is just how easily and quickly Kirino was able to write the story and get it noticed by a publisher. What does that really say? It says that people lap up the craziest and strangest things.
Just as an aside that I find interesting is that small comment about Kirino becoming famous because they heard of this “mysterious middle school writer”. There’s no actual need for the scriptwriters to include such a small line, especially if we’re talking about a show that’s apparently lacking in commentary of the anime industry, but that small line says a lot. Although that editor lady (or whatever she does) immediately attempts to correct herself, the idea is out there. Maybe the craze generated by Kirino’s story isn’t completely because of the appeal of Kirino’s story?
There’s something to be said about the association of Kirino’s story with the sensation of the “mysterious middle school writer”. These kinds of phenomenon die off extraordinarily quickly in the modern world. In the US, there was an incident of the “Balloon boy” incident a while back, where basically people thought that a small boy had lifted off in a hot air balloon by accident. This story captured the media attention for a week. A freaking week. But you know, Kirino’s situation isn’t really that different. Perhaps the success of her story is just like the Balloon boy incident. A meteoric rise and fall to and from fame.
Anyway, the entire plotline of the mystery of the success of Kirino’s story actually gets dropped until essentially the very end of the episode, when Kuroneko accuses that nameless adapter of changing the storyline in order to attain success himself.
Kuroneko has spent literally hours upon hours of research and writing to try and get one of her works noticed by a publisher. She’s poured so much effort into this, but Kirino gets her publication deal so quickly that it’s shameful for her. Now what does that say about the audience of the anime industry? It says that there is no “good” writing in Otakudom. People want to see an explosion get described by “BOOM!” rather than the intricate details of the effects of the explosion. The Otaku industry is a very sensual industry. It’s not a literary industry at all. Kuroneko doesn’t seem to understand that. She’s a niche within a niche within a niche.
You just don’t compete with Yuri Incest I’m afraid.
Kirino succeeds because she panders to your average Otaku. It’s no coincidence that the primary point of contention between the writer of the anime adaptation and Kirino is the gender of the main character. Kirino can’t describe exactly why that’s so important, but it’s just important to the text. While that may seem like a cop out for some, a reason to dismiss Kirino’s work, it actually highlights exactly what the literary writers don’t understand. Things in the Otaku industry don’t need to make sense in order to be successful. In fact, changing the gender of the main character so that it’s “relatable” ruins the entire thing. Yuri incest is not yuri incest if you make one sister a brother. Yuri incest isn’t supposed to be “relatable”. It’s supposed to be fanservice and exciting at its core (no, I don’t mean erotically exciting, even though it is for many, but I mean exciting as in it’s just so wrong by societal standards that people get a thrill out of seeing it).
I personally believe that this is commentary on the status of the modern Otaku fandom. Gone is any sort of appreciation for actual literary elements in writing. Gone is the appreciation for actually interesting stories with depth. Gone (or pretty much gone) is the subset of fans who love seeing things other than “cute girls doing cute things”. Interestingly, the show doesn’t take a definitive stance as to whether this is a good or a bad thing, but I believe that the show is already taking a subtle stance in favor of Kuroneko. Kirino is being villainized in the past few episodes, and I don’t think that anyone now thinks of her as anything other than a selfish bitch. On the other hand, we got a lot of Kuroneko in this episode. And I’d even argue that it’s not Kyousuke getting on the ground to beg that causes the anime staff to reconsider. It’s Kuroneko’s persuasion, speaking from one literary aficionado to another. The only thing Kyousuke does by getting on the ground is putting a shocked expression on the anime writer’s face. It’s Kuroneko’s words that makes him assume the thinking position and consider keeping the anime as it is. Kuroneko is the one who ultimately wins. We’re supposed to care more about Kuroneko’s point of view, and sympathize with her more. I mean by the end of the episode, we get that one shot of sad Kuroneko
and arrogant Kirino.
>:(
I think there’s also another, separate commentary being made in this episode, and that’s against the staff of anime adaptations. Some anime directors have already spoken out against this apparently misrepresentation of the inner workings of the industry. Ok, yes, the anime staffers were presented as being rather combative, but there’s something else here that I’m surprised the anime directors didn’t criticize in their tweets. Not once in the entire episode did the anime director voice his own opinion. The only one doing the talking was the writer, primarily, and then some minor input by the other two guys. What’s up with that? We define anime series by their directors. We always exclaim: “Oh that’s a Satoshi Kon work!” “You can clearly see Yuasa’s influence here.” Hell, “Shinboism” is pretty much how people describe SHAFT shows and their usually unique visual presentation. But here, the director is the most passive person on the entire table. Where the hell is his creative spirit? Is this perhaps a criticism that all anime directors of fanservice shows don’t give a damn about the work? Are they just in it to make money? Unfortunately in this line of criticism, Ore Imo doesn’t give any clear resolution.
For God’s sake you spoke literally one line, and the last shot in this scene wasn’t even of you!
Ore Imo is a piece of commentary on an industry that, in many regards, has gotten complacent. It’s not a great piece of commentary by any means though. In fact, it dilutes a lot of its message with random Kirino angst moments and such. That being said, it is walking a very fine line between commentary and fanservice. It’s trying really hard to capture the best of both worlds, but I feel that this goal is basically impossible. It’s kind of like the relationship between Kirino and Kuroneko. The two different sides can play nice at times, but it’s only because the commentary and the fanservice flair up in equal amounts and in equal intensities. At their core though, they’re two completely different things that are hard to reconcile into one cohesive product. That’s not to say it’s impossible, but OreImo’s failing is that it provides great commentary and great fanservice, while not really merging the two together. Instead, it’s just kind of smashing them both together, hoping that some things will stick. That’s just not the right way to go about this.
In the end, OreImo comes off as a really haphazard and confusing show because of these two conflicting elements that they put in. Episode 8, I think, serves as one clear example of this problem. Basically the entire episode is about the tension between the anime producers and Kirino. That’s 95% of it. And then at the very end, while the credits are rolling, they give us a scene that establishes Kirino’s bitchiness once more. Come on guys, that’s not the right way to do this. I was really close to criticizing the small bit about Kuroneko not having a brother, but I somehow get the feeling that OreImo has something to say about how Kuroneko actually became an otaku, and that it’s connected to that issue… And I’ll be REALLY interested to see that episode if it happens.
Oh, and a quick apology for not being consistent… umm… at all… with my posting. School is really taking its toll on me, but I’ll try to actually work something more consistent out. I’ll probably end up writing shorter posts in the future or something…. maybe :3
22 Comments
Just for reference, this episode is pretty much 90-95% anime original. Volume 3 of the OreImo novels, which this episode was SUPPOSED to have tackled, deals pretty much with plagiarism/intellectual property theft, where Kirino’s novel was literally stolen by the publisher-lady we saw in this episode (her role was re-purposed here; originally she was going to use the material under her own name, it seems), and Kuroneko with Kyousuke had to get back.
Funny that you mentioned BakaTest, as the plagiarism of THAT series by someone published by ASCII Media Works/Dengeki Bunko (same people who publish Index/Railgun and OreImo) apparently was a massive embarrassment for the company, and if you believe the rumors actually influenced the change of story of this episode. Probably because it hit too close to home.
You know, after learning of the actual topic of the light novels, I’m actually rather glad that they decided to change it to make it more relevant to the industry as a whole. Interestingly enough, I’m almost certain that if the goal of the show was pure entertainment, a straight up light novel adaptation would have been better. Hm it would be interesting if that was what happened to cause this change though. I’m almost wondering if the argument in this episode actually happened, where the adapters had an argument with the publishers, but lost… XD
I agree. This episode isn’t as much about whether Kirino succeeded as an author. It’s about using her story to shed light on the industry. I liked that about this episode a lot, and OreImo in general. The episode was kind of depressing in terms of what kind of stuff it brings up. What authors have to compromise. What others may potentially have to do to get their dreams achieved. Who gets left behind while the talentless propels to the top.
Yup I think it was especially poignant in this episode, though this episode especially focused on the industry in particular, as opposed to earlier episodes which dealt with the social impact of Otakuism. I think this episode did a great job of highlighting all of the difficulties that people actually have when making an adaptation of a light novel into an anime.
If they wanted to show the evilness of the anime industry, they failed for me because I actually found most of the suggestions of the anime staff sensible and agreeable. Kirino’s demands were unreasonable. She didn’t even bother to ask how many episodes the series was going to be! She wanted to hire specific voice actors, artists, animators, etc. She even wanted to change the opening and ending animation for each episode.
In the real world you can’t get everything you want, you must compromise. Kirino was conceited and deserved to be kicked down. Instead Kyousuke and Kuroneko supported her cause and the b*tch got what she wanted in the end.
Well I’m not really arguing that this episode was trying to show the evilness of the anime industry, but rather it played up some of the deficiencies of the anime industry. While I agree that a lot of Kirino’s demands were unreasonable, I think it was very Kirino-esque in terms of enthusiasm. I mean she isn’t a realist, but just a fangirl. Her reaction was actually really accurate in terms of what I would expect from an anime fanatic.
I think you do point out something else interesting about the show, it in that it actively denies us a bad end for Kirino. I mean at this point in the series it’s clear that they’ve successfully gotten everyone into the “Kirino hate Kuroneko love” camp, but she’s still getting everything she wants. I wonder how this will end…
Interesting points. I think it has to do with the pacing since novels that get popular in a snap. I still think that both parties are unreasonable. The producers especially want to change her character designs to a male lead since no males wont be interested in a female lead. That is BS right there since there are shows that have an all female cast is also popular.
I just don’t see why they haven’t adapted the source material plagiarism of Kirino’s book. I suppose that the amine industry has their motives to do so. Of course the show is just fiction, so I don’t think we shouldn’t talk too much about realism.
Lastly, Kyousuke bailing out Kirino’s is not a good idea. She will never learn anything from that. Sure the producers are aholes, but she isn’t doing any justice from that. What bothered me more is that they cave into Kirino’s demands! After that happened, I believe that they are treating her as a spoiled child. Spoiled children will always misbehave, but still receive material goods from their parents. It also don’t do any good as the child face the real world since it’s really harsh out there.
Well the primary reason why they wanted to change the main character was to make it more relatable. I think the point that the series was trying to make is that yes, it doesn’t make sense for the characters to randomly fall in love with each other, but that’s the reason why it’s so successful. It’s unreasonable, it’s irrational, but that’s the way the fandom works right now.
That part of the episode was really confusing, and I honestly can’t imagine why they would not tell Kirino other than to establish further Kirino hate. I mean the primary result of that action was that little scene in the end with smug Kirino. Contrasting that image of Kirino with the one from the previous episode where she was literally pining to get Kyousuke’s attention, and that’s some pretty powerful hate right there.
I think it has to do with her behavior that powers the hate… For me, I am a sucker for tsundere girls and I don’t care what people think… of course, tsunderes react violently to cover the lack of self confidence. Kirino is obviously acting like a jerk in front of her friend and her bother since of her insecurities about what people thinks about her hobby of playing eroge involving little sisters…
As for the hate, I could care less. I don’t watch a show to hate a character passionately, I watch it for entertainment value. Who care if it’s realistic or not, the plot is what matters most.
Oh come now. Give tsunderes some credit! Some of them act tsundere just to act tsundere (cough Kyou and Haruhi if you consider her one). But anyway, I don’t think we’re disagreeing. I mean tsundereism is a behavior, but the way Kirino pulls it off, it’s a much stronger form of tsundereism than we’ve seen before (or at least I think that’s so). And that’s generating a lot of hate from the general community. Even if you don’t hate her, I think most people will agree that she’s a generally unpleasant person to be around. Or basically, the creators are trying to make us not want to hang out with someone who has the personality of Kirino. And I think that says something… But I’m not exactly sure what yet.
I didn’t really like this episode, but I can actually get what you’re saying . . . to me, it seemed less about the compromise Kirino was threatened with (which was fairly ridiculous; the sad music during the suggestions scene cracked me up), and more about the situation animation studios are put in in the first place, where they’re adapting these garbage works and have to kowtow to the desire of a specific audience. This might just be me projecting, but I wonder if the episode is a big “HAAAAAAAALP!” from the studio, especially since there doesn’t seem to be any real reason, plotwise, for the OreImo novel’s story to have been apparently altered so much.
And about the director, I think at one point Kuroneko or Kyousuke or someone (can’t remember, I watched this too late last night) basically calls him a big pussy for not speaking up at all. Haha.
That said, even with the potential meta commentary, I can’t say I enjoyed the episode too much. The problem is mainly in what you’ve pointed out — the show is trying to have its cake and eat it, too, and the ideas just are not mixing.
I didn’t like this episode more than any of the others, but I didn’t hate it anymore than the others either. All of them equally have this really strange tension between meta-commentary and drama, and that usually gets in the way of the proper exposition of one or the other.
But you do bring up an interesting point about the animation studios. You just have to wonder to what extent they’re actually willing to animate terrible sources. Or if the problem isn’t that of the sources, but of strange decisions made from source to adaptation. I mean I think we all know of many series that got absolutely raped and came out worse than the original, but only a few (or one?) that got absolutely raped and came out better than the original. Maybe it’s a push against a trend of changing series for the worse?
This is one totally nice post, Mystlord. And yes, Kuroneko deserves my respect not just as a reader/writer, but also as an anime fan.
I think the reason as to why the episode was touchy in intricately discussing the real face of the anime industry is that because IT SHOULDN’T. Even though OreImo is a title that MUST tackle the issues of repurposing and making sudden changes in material, it must be diluted in order for it to NOT show the anime industry in an entirely antagonistic side, which is ironic in this case, especially since this is an anime-specific event.
Oh wow now that’s a really cynical take on the series. I mean implicit in your suggestion is that there’s a lot of shit that gets thrown around behind the scenes, or that the shit mainly comes from the anime industry and not the writers/creators. I don’t think I’ve heard too much news on this front, but it does make me wonder… Exactly how do negotiations between the creators of works and adapters of works go?
I think as far as adaptations go, as long as there is always room for negotiation, it’s most likely to change, regardless if everyone wants the adaptation to be exactly like the original material, or if the creator of the original material sucks, or if someone paid somebody to change the adaptation script, or if the director or the animation team wants to add a few episodes using ideas of their own, or if someone wants to destroy the popularity of the material in question, or if they just plan to use the idea as a scapegoat for brainstorming better ideas for the next show that is to come.
As long as something can be changed, as long as there is no strong objection to it, it will be changed. That’s just how it works.
Yeah I understand that, but what I’m wondering exactly is how negotiations go in terms of tensions between producers and animators. Do they have a confrontational standoff when the adapters want to change something from the original source? Did the writer of OreImo and the writing staff have a huge standoff when they wanted to change up episode 8? Stuff like this just makes you wonder how these things go. Sure we get to see the end result, but what is interesting is how we got there.
I can’t really say. Negotiations, volatile as they already are, come in all flavors, shapes and sizes. What can be considered as good in one type of visual material may not be in another, therefore standoffs and compromise based on each involved group’s propositions will dictate how everything’s going to work.
Yep I agree. So it’s nice to see at least one possible facet of what goes on behind the scenes. Whether it’s erroneous or not, I think the fact that the authors even conceived of this style of negotiations is possibly a slight jab at the anime industry.
>when Kuroneko accuses that Fate person of changing the storyline in order to attain success himself.
Fate was the woman.
Herp derp. Thanks for that. ^^
What really got me wasn’t the fact that they wanted to change Kirino’s drivel, buy why they made the decisions they did. I think they were under the assumption that whatever was gong to happen, it was going to suck, just because of time (and why the picked the hot right now thing to adapt). Even though they knew it wasn’t going to be good, they still wanted to make money (why they were still making a show in the first place). So they go with decisions that they hope will make money. I’m a capitalist, so I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is that they were, in part, mostly dumb decisions. Like basically changing the entire thing just to make it more identifiable with the target audience – even though the target audience is people who read the book, which made it a best-seller in the first place, who apparently already like what they have. That’s just pants-on-head retarded.
You know, when we get things changed to make things more relatable to the audience, that’s usually exactly what makes whatever it is suck and people hate it the most. Let’s just say, for example, that you had a show about an intergalactic war between transforming robots. But the target audience is young male humans; how are they going to relate to the story if it’s about robots? Let’s make a young human male the main character in the show about giant transforming robot wars. He’d be easier for the audience to relate to…
Now, it would have been another thing entirely if they said: “Well, this is basically self-insert Mary-Sue crap, so let’s change the character to male so the mostly-male audience can self-insert like the story intends.” But that wasn’t their reasoning. My guess is that the story was more “about” some super-powered girl than “is” the girl, making audience self-insertion not so much a deal, which is why it was successful. I don’t think most yuri ero-games are first person, in the sense where you have the stereotypical faceless male lead; guys don’t play those games because they want to be the girl, generally (I’d think).
Well here’s the thing about the anime industry. It’s always looking to expand their target audience, and we all know that a bigger audience means bigger bucks for the production industry. Let’s face it when we say that the yuri-incest portion of the anime industry isn’t that large, or at the very least they aren’t approving of rather irrational relations like the one described in Kirino’s story. If they’re looking for money, then it’s entirely reasonable to change the main character to a male so that it’s more identifiable. At least they have some sort of natural attraction element to play off of in this situation, whereas the writers would have to either find a way to make the relationship convincing, or just leave it unconvincing, which I feel wouldn’t attract as many people.
But the other element to this story is that anime writer himself. He’s like Kuroneko in that he praises the logical element of stories. I think this scene was intended to set up a conflict between the Kirino and Kuroneko views, kind of similar to what we saw in Episode 7 with the writing analysis. Then the main battle here is the conflict between the logical and the illogical; the emotive Kirino and the logical anime writer. The only thing is that neither side wins in terms of which is better in a writing style, but Kirino wins in terms of which style is better for marketing to the Otaku fanbase.
But getting back to what you said, I actually can’t think of an example where relatability has gotten in the way of an anime adaptation. Of course, I actually know next to nothing about the source material of a lot of works, but for the most part from what I can gather, major points like the gender or age of the main character are always left untouched from source to adaptation.
And on self-insertion, I actually don’t think the point of most shows is to allow the audience to self-insert. I mean animation as a medium just doesn’t work too well in that regard, especially in non-slice of life series. I mean I think there are plenty of situations in anime that someone absolutely doesn’t want to happen to them in real life, which (is supposed to) balance out any great situations that do occur.