anyone familiar with the anime "real drive"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Drive

i have been watching this, and lets just say you take gits:sac, bump the tech a bit (skin link style data transfer between people for instance) and park it all out on a artifical island in the south pacific.

thing is that the tone (if follows a girl, 15) is very off from how appleseed and gits is. and i get a sense that its almost aimed at being a followup to gits, where the events happening in gits is now 2-3 generations behind (kinda like how ww2 is now). but it never comes out so say so, only that the latter episodes talks about tech and events that seems very familiar to anyone that know gits.

another interesting factor is that the girl is not equiped with a cyberbrain, while just about anyone else around her have near ubiqitous access to the net. instead she carries around a kind of phone (basically a small rectangular device with a touch screen interface), and has to wear a really oversized helmet at school.

so when others share data with a thought or a touch (watching someone walk over and hold a hand up, like a police officer telling someone to stop, as a act of initiating data transfer is interesting) she has to get them to touch the phone/terminal.

all in all, its about as thought provoking as dennou coil was about AR, and how it could seamlessly overlay reality.

i'll see if i can conjoure up this anime. thankies.

Honestly, the diving metaphor net access turned me off immediately. I had a lot of series on my plate at that time, so my drop conditions were extremely hairtrigger (in fact, they still are).

one do not see much of it, tho...

If a weak metaphors for the internet(and sci-fied descendants) is a drop condition for you does ANY cyber-punk make it through your filters?

The conditions that evaluate for my continued watching of a series are complex. In that case it caused me to drop it. I factor in the social relevance of the work, for example, which is why I've read Neuromancer and Count Zero (and about half of Mona Lisa Overdrive, which was dropped on nothing much happening in the first quarter of the book). Also of note is my current schedule load (perpetually high since I've got a major media junkie habit) and how interesting the material I've already consumed has been. Interesting is evaluated partially as a function of how it deviates from previous media I've experienced in the area.

The way I handle the Matrix in Shadowrun is to ignore it.

Also, when Heath and I first sat down with ep 1 of Real Drive we had about 20 different series we were evaluating at the time. I believe that was the same season that also gave us Kaiba, Macross Frontier, Kurenai, Code Geass R2, Soul Eater and Druaga. There was kind of a lot going on at the time (even those last two turned out to fail utterly). Compared to just how mind-blowingly awesome the first episode of Kurenai was (IMO), Real Drive just didn't measure up. To be honest, I'm seriously thinking of going back and watching all of it now that's finished (or nearly finished, I forget). It looks interesting, and I've not got nearly as much on my plate now (I just dropped Ga-Rei Zero after the creepy and moody gave way to random gay jokes and bad shounen fightan. Series had so much promise too).

Speaking of Kaiba, anyone who likes their sci-fi weird, dark, and thinky should give this a watch. It's not exactly very Shadowrun, but it's worth a look all the same. It's very strange, and it plays heavily with the idea of memory as a commodity that we can exchange. There's a lot of stuff about moving your mind from body to body, and the effects that it would have on society. The art is pretty surreal, but you start to realise just how well it works for the series.

Also worth looking up right now is Casshern: Sins. Again, it's not very Shadowrun, but it's an interesting post-apocalyptic world where only robots remain, slowly dying from a kind of cybernetic disease called the 'ruin'.

Which makes it just like every other anime series exported to the West. I like GitS precisely because it doesn't use pre- or post-pubescent teens for its protagonists. The whole Japanese lolita thing, exemplified in Gunslinger Girl which I tried very hard to like, creeps me out. Masumane Shirow comics are good but this sounds rather mediocre at best.

Why?

It's worth pointing out that Gunslinger Girl is supposed to be creepy. It's a deliberate commentary on the Japanese fetishisation of prebuscent girls being forced into violent circumstances. If you can watch even a single episode of Gunslinger Girl and not feel seriously disturbed by the content then there would be something very wrong with you. The manga is even more unpleasant; it directly addresses several of the issues that the anime has to dance around, such as Triela's background.

Gunslinger Girl is an amazing series, because it assaults your sense of reason with a situation that is at one and the same time idyllic and horrific. The fact that the girls don't see anything wrong with their circumstances; the way they can go from playing with teddy bears to gunning people down in cold blood; is all part of the central theme of the story.

I also feel the need to point out that GSG very explicitly refuses to in any way sexualise its characters. There are no panty shots or swimsuits, or any of the other BS that you would usually expect from an anime.

Sorry, it's just that I'm a massive fan of GSG, and whilst I agree with you entirely on the "Japanese lolita thing", Gunslinger Girl in no way exemplifies it; in fact it deliberately responds to it, deliberately tearing back the curtain and reminding its audience, with a cold brutality, just how utterly horrifying this concept really is.

so GSG tries to do the same as neon genesis evangelion or watchmen?

this has more or less been put on the same page as cp in german laws recently i think . .

More or less. Basically it takes the whole "Sailor Moon" idea of "Young girl gets given amazing powers and told that only she can save the world from the evil monsters" and then transplants it into an almost modern day setting with some slightly better tech (a world that is on the cusp of becoming cyberpunk). So instead of "magical powers" you have cybertech, and instead of fighting evil monsters the girls are assassins who help the government kill terrorists. Suddenly everything stops being shiny and happy, and becomes creepy and disturbing instead.
Morally, it paints an incredibly complex picture. Ostensibly what they're doing is good and right (stopping terrorists from killing people), but it doesn't feel that way. On the one hand the girls have been conditioned and brainwashed into being utterly loyal to their handlers. On the other hand they're all "damaged goods", and the conditioning destroys the memories of their tortured pasts. Henrietta, for example, was the victim of multiple rapes, and was forced to watch her family being murdered by her attackers (all off camera, but it's still not a series for the squeamish). When the "Social Welfare Corporation" finds her she is in a catatonic state, dying from the physical and mental trauma. They erase her memories, repair her body with cyberware, and give her a new life as a government assassin. On the one hand it's horrific, but on the other hand the relationship she develops with her handler is incredibly close, as they begin to see each other as brother and sister. In the Social Welfare Corporation she finds love and friendship, and seems entirely happy with her lot.

The point of the series is to confront you with situations that defy any clear moral judgement. You can't just point at what the SWC is doing and say that it is manifestly evil, but you can't feel good about it either. A lot of the series focuses on the feelings of the handlers, and how they cope (or fail to cope) with the psychological challenges of their work.

It's a brilliant series, and anyone who is a fan of cyberpunk should watch it; it's a fascinating exploration of the dark side of transhumanism and the possible abuses of such technology. It was the basis for the best game of Shadowrun that I've ever put together.

funfrock, bravo on the wonderful "reading" of GSG. you sound like me in college trying to convince my comp-lit professors of the relevance of japanese animation ^_^

and since you mentioned it, have you watched Code Geass? while not very CP-ish, I especially found the strict class-based system in "occupied japan" and the various ghettos full of second-class citizens to be very intriguing for the way i try to envision life in the barrens/as SINless in SR.

Yeah, that pretty much summed up my college days too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

To be honest I got half-way through Code Geass before dropping it, mostly because the other stuff I was watching held my interest more. I thought it was a reasonably fun mecha series, and the strategy stuff was fun, but it wasn't earth shattering. Given that Gurren Lagann was coming out at the same time, I kind of got my mecha fix there instead. What I saw was good, but not good enough to make me really want to go back and watch it again.

I've never subscribed to the whole "I'm commenting on violence in movies by making a violent movie" style of film-making that directors like Quentin Tarantino harp on. Not that I don't like Tarantino movies, I do, but I find the argument faulty. If the Japanese are attempting to bring to light the fetishism of underage girls in their society, tacking that on to an action/sci-fi series doesn't push the idea hard enough. The gunfights are too "cool". And while there were no deliberate panty-shots or the like, the girls were all portrayed as cute, flawless and doll-like in their non-killer modes. Not a nose-picker in the bunch and they were all paired with older male/fratelo handlers.

I will agree that GSG is probably trying to make some kind of point about inappropriate sexual attitudes. But until a Japanese filmmaker actually comes out and states, "Hey, you know how we portray women and girls in the majority of our media? It's pretty fucked up" I'm always going to cast a leery eye on most anime. I rather prefer outright adult sexualization as seen in the Faye Valentines and Major Motokos of the anime sci-fi genre as it feels more honest and the characters aren't treated as victims. Despite the outfits and boobage.

OKAY FAIR WARNING
this post contains GitS spoilers and I can't find my spoiler tag...

art is not so effective when the artist comes out and explains what is supposed to be going on. people resent being told by the creator of an object what sort of emotions/thoughts it is supposed to evoke in the observer.

ya know i never felt major kusanagi was sexualized - the whole point of the character (and i did see GitS the movie as my first exposure to the character, so that might have SOMETHING to do with it) was that she was barely human. Perhaps, more succinctly, the "overt sexualization" of her physical image combined with the almost non-existence of sexualization of her CHARACTER merely served to prove the point that she had traversed so far from what we as the viewers could understand as "human" (the only thing i can think of is in the opening of the first movie where she blames static from her sim-feed [or whatever it was, it's been a couple years] on it being "that time of the month"). Art thrives on those sorts of dichotomies, where the "real" as the viewer understands it is apparent from observation, but the "real" of the fiction of the art is bombarded into the viewer by sheer force of its presence in the piece...

japanese animation has suffered this sort of fate since practically as long as i have been aware of it, and almost assuredly far longer - what a western viewer may see as overt sexualization from her point of view might not necessarily be the response that the creators intended. which is of course not to say that all japanese people have a highly attuned sense of "art vs. smut," but that while the visual cues we may be accustomed to from our upbringing could evoke particular responses in us, one must always consider an artistic creation not just in the paradigm in which WE view it, but also in the paradigm in which it was created.

...*cough*ahem*

Spoilers can be done thusly ...

Couldn't there be an easier explanation for why so many animes are about heroic teenagers or younger kids? Maybe that these animes are for teenagers or younger kids? And these viewers enjoy stories about people their own age? Not every portrayal of a young person has its roots in pedophilia, people (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

yes, to a very large extent a lot of these shows about children/teenagers have them as their target demographic. but "youth" is also very iconic, which is why, as FF pointed out, that shows like Gunslinger Girl and Neon Genesis Evangelion use the age of the characters as one of the primary thematic elements. NGE especially was HIGHLY aware of the elements of its storytelling and its relationship to other popular series. but if you don't grow up with these shows, then you aren't really trained to separate the iconic elements that inform the viewer of the conventions (for example, teenage characters, robots with guns, transforming girls) from the thematic elements unique to that show which break the conventional mold (japanese animation, generally, tends towards, if not postmodernity, at least a high level of self-awareness).

as an aside, i am rather fond of youth as a thematic tool. it was why i really dug SR3 otaku - ex pacis and overwatch were both a bunch of children being manipulated on both a macro (the "metaplot") and a micro (the tampering with their bodies) level. i never could quite grok why they took so much flak for being "autistic decker babies" or whatever

In the case of a lot of the more iconic stuff, like Sailor Moon and it's descendants, very true, but I've also got to agree with Shuya that stuff like NGE is very, very, "not for kids" (NGE remains one of the few examples of a non-hentai anime series that actually includes a sex scene).

What also remains true, and what Yu Aida (creator of Gunslinger Girl) and other artists are clearly commenting on is a definite fetishisation of youth within Japanese culture. It's there, and the Japanese largely tend to ignore it. It has always been the place of artists, in any culture, to stand up and point out that the emporer has no clothes.

And to respond to Wesley's arguments, whilst I understand your point about the apparent incongruity of commenting on violence using violence, it's important to understand that the effects on the viewer are often far more profound. Take Natural Born Killers as an example. The film doesn't just portray violence; it portrays it in such a way that you are lured into percieving a pair of psychotic killers as the heroes of the piece, just because of the cinematographic techniques used to portray them. The sense of realisation that comes at the films end when you wake up and think "Holy crap, I actually wanted them to win" has a far more meaningful impact than someone just saying "Violence is bad, mmmkay?"
As for the portrayal of the girls in Gunslinger Girl, yes, they are perfect little dolls. They're supposed to inspire an overwhelming feeling of protectiveness in the viewer. You should want to look after them, keep them safe, the same way you'd want to protect a real child in a dangerous situation. This is vital part of the series, because as Shuya points out it creates dichotomy. You see them as something sweet, perfect and innocent, something you need to protect, but then you find that they're the ones protecting the big scary ex-military nutjobs that they're partnered with. In part this emphasises the uncomfortable situation that the series portrays, and in part it explores the vulnerability of the handlers. It's a series where strong, independent, self-reliant adult men are put into psychologically challenging situations that reveal their real weaknesses.

Sometimes I think people tend to read too much into things like art and literature, instead of just enjoying the story.

See, people say that to me a lot (perils of being an English Lit grad) but I just don't see it. Where does this "instead" of yours come from?

Look at it this way; Wesley indicated that he did not enjoy Gunslinger Girl. I explained how my reading of the underlying themes makes it one of my favourite series. Who is getting more enjoyment here?

(Not having a go at you or anything Wes, it just seemed like a good example for the point I'm trying to make).

I didn't actually say I didn't understand the phenomenon. I merely made a comment on it based on my observations and experiences. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I think a story (or piece of art, etc.) should be able to stand on its own merits as a story, without having to rely on other factors such as social commentary. If the story is good, and also contains such commentary, then far enough, but the story is more important than the commentary. The fact that Wesley disliked the story upon first being exposed should not be brushed aside with responses to the like of 'but it's important social work', or 'there are deep underlying statements about society' and the like. If the story is bad (or in this case disliked), then the author failed in his primary task of entertaining the reader, despite any semi-hidden or oblique cultural commentary.

Hmmm is it the objective of the author to entertain or to teach?