SGMS, Day Two

[tsukikage]

From 10-12 I went to the junior scholar paper presentations. The "Anime/Manga - A Turning Point for Art" was probably the most interesting of the three for me. It was basicallyl about how the anime/manga art style is the first global art style EVAR, basically entirely because this is the first generation with the internet, and anime/manga "happens" to be the style most popular with this generation - there was significantly more to it, but I can't remember it that well. ^^; The "Superman versus Ultraman: Localizing superheroes in Japan and America" presentation was also interesting, although slightly less thought provoking. "Ronin vs. Cowboy: Two Cultures, One Hero" made some interesting points, but since I'm not really interested in samurai or cowboy movies... Meh. In any case, I realized way too late that one (two? three?) of the people presenting was one of tiernsshadow's friends. Small world.

The otaku bazaar had lots of Abe (damn it, Semagic, stop lowering the case on the B!) doujinshi and art books. That I don't currently have the money for. And that sold out damn quickly. Poo. But I did have lunch with akaneko and cendalire, which I enjoyed.

The presentation on Abe's works was decent, but when you have a 1.5 hour presentation (which I think actually ended up being cut down to closer to an hour), but at least a half hour of that time was showing clips of a series you've already seen, well... That's that much more time that isn't spent sharing your unique ideas. But I suppose I was grateful for the pimpage. :)
"Keitai Shojo: Girl Mobilized": Honestly, my first thought was "Okay, you sound like you're pronouncing most of this Japanese right, and you even seem to have a grasp of the actual language... So why do you keep pronouncing "keitai" as "ketai", or even "kettai". But at least he wasn't pronouncing it like Frenchy (sp?) was: "kaitay". Moving beyond that, um... Fansubbed video had crappy vertical kanji karaoke, and the actual dialog wasn't subbed at all (wtf). But again that has nothing to do with the presentation itself. Ummm... Honestly, I don't remember this one too well either. He was basically talking a lot about how cell phones create both a physical and time boundary (esp. in works like Hoshi no Koe/Voices of a Distant Star), and stuff like that. Anyways, I liked the presentation.

"Angels, Ghosts, and Haunted Histories in the Work of Oshii Mamoru." The guy clearly knew his shit. However, and I feel like a hypocrite for saying this since I have a cherished and signed copy of Susan J. Napier's book "Anime: From Akira to Princess Mononoke" on my shelf... I have a lot of trouble with this sort of literary/film analysis stuff. Once again, I can't remember the details, but when you talk about how Motoko's jumping from the roof in the beginning of GitS is about our own fears of... God, I can't even remember, but all I remember was whatever he said about that particular scene struck me terribly as grasping at academic straws, and the rest of it wasn't much better. But maybe this is just something I need to have a more developed schema in that area to really understand, or maybe academics really sometimes are so absorbed in their academic worlds that they have to reach for straws.

And a short mini-sidetrip here: after that presentation, the group next to me started commenting about how that was the best presentation all day, and that it had both excellent content and an excellent presentation. Granted, I shouldn't say anything about whether the content really was better or worse, but they were clearly more receptive to that degree of film analysis than I was. But honestly, that was probably the second least captivating presentation of the whole bunch. He really had very little charisma, too.

But the worst presentation of all was definitely the last one: "I-Phone and GoComics: Manga in New Media." What can I say? It was a Tokyopop guy with lots of slides of comics being viewed on cell phones or iPhones. The most amusing thing of all of this was probably how he directly contradicted the guy who presented two slots earlier. While the first guy said when the iPhone came out and was hailed as the most advanced cell phone ever, it was basically way behind what had already been coming out in Japan. While the Tokyopop guy said that the iPhone blew the Japanese phone capabilities out of the water. However, I will grant that their capabilities are probably more different than anything. And again with me having a shitty memory and probably not getting this stuf right anyway.

Dinner was relaxing. Ate my tuna salad, then finished reading the prologue to the Fafner light novel (go me!).

The screening decisions made me very happy: Serial Experiments Lain (2 eps), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Dennou Coil (2 eps), Nana (2 eps), Hana Yori Dango (the live action, 1 ep). However, I ended up following akaneko and cendalire's lead and leaving before Dennou Coil, partly because by the time they started that it was 10:30, and I wasn't going to watch that anyway, and I just wasn't interested enough in re-watching Nana and HanaDan after sticking around for an hour, and then miss the bus that would get me home by 1.
By the way, have I mentioned how much I love Toki o Kakeru Shoujo/The Girl Who Leapt Through Time?

Yes?

Too bad. You're hearing it again.

Toki o Kakeru Shoujo is an absolutely WONDERFUL movie, and anyone who hasn't seen it already needs to. Now. Or on November 18th when it comes out on DVD.

And while I'm on the subject, I realized that I really like how that movie portrays gender roles in terms of Makoto. She's a girl, who plays baseball with her friends, isn't particularly feminine, who isn't particularly masculine, who just is. And I love that. Even Fujioka Haruhi didn't have that level of naturalness to her.

And for those of you who read the entirety of this and realized just how vapid my thoughts on the lectures are, forgive me. ^^;

I need a TokiKake icon.

Comments

[tiernsshadow.livejournal.com]

Yep, all three of the presentations you mentioned in that first paragraph are friends of mine (and members of my comic group). The "Superman vs. Ultraman" presenter is my roommate. :)

[akaneko.livejournal.com]

Actually, having listened to Christopher Bolton's talks in previous years, I've always felt that he seems to stretch a bit too far in the symbolisms he proposes. A really good analysis of something should not only be consistent with the data presented - and he does okay on the whole consistency thing - but should make you feel like it gives you a deeper understanding of the work in question. The thing with his commentary is, it seems that the elaborate symbolisms he proposes are 1) either consistent with themes you could discern from other aspects of the various series and movies, in which case it seems odd to hang it all primarily on the visual ones, or 2) NOT consistent with the themes you could discern from other aspects of the various series and movies, in which case it would seem a little hokey to make such claims.