My Twitter has been on flames regarding PriPara, so I thoughy I’d see what it’s about. I doubted I’d get through more than three episodes, but instead have made it to #60 in a few weeks. There is plenty of funny anime, but rarely is a show as much fun to watch as PriPara. (Warning: this post contains spoilers for the easily spoiled.)

Even better, PriPara asks some interesting political questions. In the first season, it is stated several times that “only girls can enter PriPara”. But the question is, what is “girl”（女の子）in this case?

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I finally got around to watching Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass a while ago, since they seem to have become a part of “required reading”. I had previously dropped out on Fate/Zero and given up on Madoka while it was running, and come to the conclusion I seriously dislike Urobuchi Gen’s writing. After looking at these series in larger blocks, I’m still not a fan, but could see the gripping aspects. (Warning: grumbling follows.)

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Few anime series manage to put together a coherent point of view on a single philosophical theme. I had watched both Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series around the time they came out, but had little recollection of them. Marathoning through both seasons during a vacation, I noted that GitS:SAC manages to put together three themes in an admirable fashion: ghosts, governance and geopolitics.

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(Background: The inimitable Erica Friedman recently posted a review of the new-ish KC Morning manga series 彼女とカメラと彼女の季節 (“Kanocame”). I finally got my hands on the tankōbon and commented on in the review, but since the comment got kind of long I thought I’d post it here too. This version is somewhat cleaned up.)

The drama and yuri-ness of the first volume of this series were good, but I’d also give the author extra credit for taking up societal issues that have been pretty well kept out of popular culture (the previous season’s Noitamina anime Sakamichi no Apollon being a pretty hard-hitting exception with its references to 60s student movements and such).

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There has been some carping on various forums about the characters in Sankarea not being particularly interesting or original. Indeed, if the series were only a run-of-the-mill shōnen zombie-fest, they wouldn’t be much to write home about. But I would rather see Sankarea following the pattern of Andrew Niccol’s Lord of War; the point of the characters is not to be original or deep, but to act as representations or avatars of ideas and archetypes. Taking Sankarea’s characters as such representations, I’d say that it was among the best of the year.

Behind the zombies and potions, Sankarea’s main plot point is related to the existence or non-existence of an essential being. The questions are, can there be eternally continuing life and is there an essential “self” that can be brought back to life. These are also fundamental questions of Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine, which are exposed in (among many other texts) the Heart Sutra, which we see Mero copying at her desk in episodes 6 and 9.

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While Sailor Moon puts together a number of conventions and stereotypes for magical girls, director Ikuhara Kunihiko and perhaps his writer Enokido Yōji seem to have a penchant for simultaneously deconstructing various aspects of that role (Enokido also wrote the excellent Star Driver series, which plays with the “hero” and “good girl” archetypes). In Sailor Moon SuperS, there is an episode with little other point than investigating “what would happen if the Sailor Senshi had a battle in a kitchen”.

In a moment of work-avoidance, I started re-watching in Revolutionary Girl Utena (though based on the Japanese 少女革命, it could also be Girl Revolutionary or Girl Revolution) and it turns out that having seen Sailor Moon since the last time was enlightening. In what might be seen as a continuation of the deconstruction trend, the repeating duel scene takes the taking-apart to a more abstract level.

While Utena isn’t nominally a magical girl, I would see that the duel has the elements of a magical girl battle. Utena herself is the girl, while the magical artifact is personified as Anthy. During the transformation sequence, Anthy performs the transformation choreography, but it is Utena’s dress that transforms (just enough to give the idea of transformation from the mundane to the sphere of magic). I would argue that in Sailor Moon, the artifact-of-the-day is a conduit for a greater power (such as that of the Moon Kingdom), and not a major source of power in itself. In Utena, Anthy qua artifact is a conduit for the power of Dios.

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