Chino Kafuu
Is the Order a Rabbit?
Art By Mio Kurosaka
57 #5
context for grasping the appeal of New Game!. Still, I personally enjoy many series that feature Japanese styled comedy, such as Gintama, which heavily uses the manzai dynamic to great success.
One of my favorite types of American television is the workplace situational comedy. While formulaic and perhaps done to death, I find that this particular subgenre is uniquely excellent at pulling out interesting plot points or humorous anecdotes from rather mundane situations. The likes of The Office, particularly the version broadcast in the United States, springs to mind. While the show gets rather goofy at certain points, with the last few seasons increasingly twisting the setting and characters to be more cartoonish, the majority of that show features characters that fit into believable archetypes which one could conceivably find in their average Northeastern American mid-sized paper company.
Of course, the main protagonist Michael Scott is portrayed as a strange bizarre man who, although well intentioned, has very immature ways of expressing himself. That’s kind of the reason why the show is still rather popular amongst a certain segment of the populace, particularly younger Generation Z viewers. In spite of the character’s somewhat eclectic quirks, I would argue that the comedy derived from Michael Scott’s actions still generally follow the formula of his actions defying expected norms. As the authoritative boss, at least a good chunk of the humor is still rooted in the fact that Michael is supposed to act in a certain way by social and professional convention. Therefore, I believe that the core of The Office’s humor, or at least the part that appeals the most to me, is its zany take on the American workplace, not the particular characters. The characters serve to accentuate the bizarreness of the setting, and not the other way around. One could perhaps apply the same line of thinking present in my Aria article towards the office of Dunder Mifflin Scranton. Therefore, while I appreciate The Office primarily as a slice of life series, a distinction rooted in the characters, when I consider what makes it funny, that primarily lies in the setting.
Now what does this have to do with Japanese animation? Not much, to be honest. But I find that this explanation of what I consider as The Office’s merits as a workplace situational comedy to be rather helpful in demonstrating what I find lacking in the same sort of media within Japanese animation. The most obvious distinctions one could immediately make between the type of media The Office is and an anime office sitcom like, say, New Game! is probably that New Game! is Japanese and animated. Regarding the cultural barrier, I will acknowledge the fact that as a non-Japanese person, I may possibly lack some basic Japanese cultural
There’s also the fact that Japanese work culture far more regimented and structured than American offices, and perhaps that leads to less possibilities as far as comedic writing goes.
However, that second point, the fact that animated office sitcoms are, indeed, animated, points towards the hurdle that I find is most difficult to reconcile within these types of shows. The settings aren’t real, and don’t feel real. Of course, there are certain anime like the previously mentioned Aria or K-On! that are animated and have real-feeling settings, but those don’t really portray traditional office sitcom dynamics in the way that a show like New Game! attempts to. Capturing a believable setting is also far more difficult in animation, and therein lies the issue. In contrast to a show like The Office, which manages to be humorous through its subversion of what one could reasonably expect of its setting, animated office situational comedies have a far harder time establishing their settings and therefore I find they aren’t as easy to make funny. There is the fact that a live action show has an easier time rearranging the set and capturing small details that make a viewer more immersed in the world. After all, that was a fundamental part of my article which better explained the core appeal of The Office. Minor things, like the presence of another office room, or seating arrangements, immediately signal what time period an episode takes place in, which does a lot in making me believe in Dunder Mifflin Scranton as a real place.
Perhaps that’s why the likes of New Game!, Working!!, or Servant x Service seem to opt for finding comedy in characters more so than the setting. Those shows feature far less focus on the actual world around the characters and how that world is strange, instead focusing on how the characters subvert one’s expectations in their personalities or actions. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as The Office, my favorite workplace comedy series, still does that to a degree. But the aspect separating an office situational comedy from being another situational comedy, the setting, is lost somewhere along the way. Those series lack focus on highlighting the comedy of the workplace that the characters exist within. Frankly, I can’t fault those aforementioned shows for taking the more character-focused approach, as it makes more sense for the medium that they exist within. However, they wander away from what I thought was their advertised appeal, as workplace comedies, because that type of media is perhaps harder due to cultural differences as well as limitations of the animated medium.
Writer
Tony T.
3rd Year, Philosophy
Think to Verdun in the midst of your final exam despair. It will bring no relief, but hopefully you will be a bit distracted.
There are jobs hated or loved for the level of stress, of pressure, and the height of stakes they do involve. There are not so many that are so more than army officer in times of war. Notwithstanding the losse though very specific and interesting way in which the lateral problems of religion and fate are tackled, the core of the series Saga of Tanya the Evil resides in the approach it provides of such a situation, within the framework of an international war, growing so as to become a global and in appearance everlasting one.
What is strategy? The coordination of goals and means with respect paid to the similar process as adopted by an adversary – or, in the very case of Tanya the Evil, several (and soon, plenty) adversaries. Neither goals nor means get well defined in times of war, although one tends to emerge very clearly in what looks like a strange mixture of First and Second World War: the annihilation of the opponent. It is as much an end, towards which all means are progressively redirected, as it is a means – that for an illusionary and cruelly temporary peace.
Tanya the Evil is a tale of power and of faith, not the slightest bit of greed, and rarely of pride. A World War leaves little place to such considerations in comparison to its more classical parents. It does not mean the disappearance of grandeur; but very often, this latter appears as hypocritical, and very much a pleasure of officers as remote as it is possible from the field.
This remoteness proves a dangerous characteristic of the organisation of the fighting armies, but hereafter a unique opportunity for the protagonist, who can discern how ill-defined and irrealistic the generals’ targets may be. He becomes once again ”the brilliant worker of the frontline”. It can indeed quite frequently be seen how nearer to the enterprise realm his death has forced him to leave than to our public sphere this war-asworkplace is.
What begins as a classical isekai very quickly distinguishes itself. A very important feature of the series is that the protagonist is not the usual teenager-who-met-camion-san. Rather, it is a full-grown adult, who has already experienced workplace as a salaryman – who was obsessed with his work, and whose death is even related thereto. It is not just, thus, someone who gets into a given work and performs it as a hero; it is a character with his methods, his conceptions of things and people, all strongly influenced by his former job, who tries to have them applied in the new one. Tanya the Evil can very well be conceived as an anime centered on the question of similarity and adaptability –between several workplaces, several worlds and so on.
It has major themes, of course. Two of them, perhaps, dominate all others: reason and strategy. Both are very easily connected. But more precisely, strategy here always gets played between two extremes – reason, of course, and folly. The latter does not merely play the role of that which disturbs and hinders the former, and subsequently, strategy as a whole: it is often part of strategy, and often strategy serves it much more than it tries to avoid it.
The very survival of the whole organised body is permanently under an existential threat – projects to guarantee it necessarily involve a great deal of audacity, and high risks being every time taken. They also involve direction, decisions – the “visible hand of managers” – and responsibility being taken, including for the most cruel acts. They involve administrators sometimes excessively demanding, with interests either different or downright misplaced. More than anything, perhaps, they involve stress, stress management – and they involve failure. The workplace can not always be where you shine.
Writer
In the opening scene of Uma Musume’s second season, the legendary “Triple Crown” runner Symboli Rudolf is asked what exactly is needed in order to become an athlete of her caliber. To this, the answer is given as, “To be like Rudolf, you’re going to need talent, effort, and luck. And you can’t afford to miss a single one.” This statement is interesting to me because of how straightforward it presents the idea of sports, and it’s not a particularly idealized one at that, but at the same time it manages to get at the more intriguing aspects behind sports as a narrative. In particular, the unpredictability, and that of the against-all-odds.
Racing, which Uma Musume depicts, kind of stands out against most other sports in that it’s really more about the competition that the athlete has with themself, rather than with their other competitors. This is something that is repeated many times, but for good reason: here, success primarily comes from self-discipline. Yet, at the same time, there’s always that one tiny little factor that crops up, that athletes always have to compete against: luck. Even if one is in the best condition, one unpredictable slip-up and mean the difference between being the winner and the forgotten, or worse, the end of a career.
Going back to the three aforementioned factors, Tokai Teio, the season’s lead character, has the first two in spades: her natural form and body lends herself to a gift in running, and she backs that up with tireless practice. The fact that Teio isn’t lacking in one or the other is what makes her immediately stand out: she doesn’t dismiss the importance of effort even in the presence of talent (arguably working harder than any of her less talented peers) yet natural talent being a key determinant to success isn’t denied with Teio at all, contrasting with the swaths
of hard-working leads for shows dealing with similar topics. Talent and effort is of equal importance, and that isn’t downplayed. Yet, the third factor, luck, is weighed equally as well. And just as luck would have it, Teio discovers that she has a potentially career-ending injury in her leg, one bad enough to cause her quick hospitalization. She puts on a smile and asserts that she will just work that much harder to get back on the field again, but it’s clear that the possibility of retirement looms over the approaching times of her career. From her talent to her personality to her approach, Teio seemed to have all the cards stacked up on her side, well-destined for all time success. But, just one little unforeseen development threatens to bring an end to it all, and even if not, she will never reach the same heights again. It’s not in her control. It’s not fair
Silence Suzuka, from the previous season, suffers a similar injury to her foot late into the series, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s treated as more of a speed bump, a last-minute hurdle, to her story. Here, Teio’s injury takes center stage to become the crux of the conflict through the series. Teio is forced to watch from the sidelines, left in the dust as all her friends and rivals continue to pursue their dreams without her. She can’t live up to others’ expectations, nor her own. She wants to retire. She can’t stand it anymore.
But still, Teio loves running. She loves the competition, the cheers from the crowd. And where she falls, she will pick herself back up. She will continue to work little by little to get better. Maybe she won’t be as good as what she could’ve been, but she can still run. This conflict is so fundamentally interesting to me because it doesn’t shy away from being overly idealistic about the sport, but it doesn’t come across as cynical in any way either. The struggles that Teio faces are difficult and not pretty to watch, but it’s still a story of optimism and passion that makes it so engaging.
In the final race of the show, Teio takes to the race once again, and in an unlikely miracle, she manages to win again for the first time. Because, just as luck shall taketh, it shall also giveth.
WAI 2nd Year, Molecular Cell Biology Run horse girl run
Managing Editor
RAHM JETHANI
The first manga I ever read was the manga adaptation of Kingdom Hearts II. I had found it in my elementary school library, and I would return every lunch period to read the first few sections of Roxas hanging out with his friends in the summer. I would continue this ritual pretty much every day, and I grew very close to his character. I felt Roxas’ confusion towards his contained life, I saw his longing for a never-ending summer vacation, and I was genuinely angry at the existence of Sora because it meant non-existence for Roxas. I wanted to know who he was, why his life never truly belonged to him, and to hopefully find some resolution to his story. I unfortunately would have to wait years for that resolution (Kingdom Hearts development times, am I right?), but I was able to discover the beauty of Roxas’ character much later through the prequel manga, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days has a reputation for being simultaneously both the most monotonous, yet emotional Kingdom Hearts story so far. Going into the manga, I was apprehensive about how Tomoco Kanemaki and Shiro Amano would translate this story in their unique style. Prior to this, I had read segments of their previous three adaptations of the Kingdom Hearts series, and had developed an opinion that these manga, while very faithful to the source material, were also quite comedic and lighthearted. And for the most part, it worked! However, I was worried specifically about 358/2 Days being adapted due to its tragic nature. I was also admittedly worried that this adaptation would remove a lot of the small yet important details like the official movie did. Needless to say, I actually ended up really enjoying this manga. This enjoyment was then followed by crying. Lots and lots of crying.
While there was plenty of silliness when it came to the humor and the general tone of the story, none of it took away from the emotional scenes. On the contrary, I think that the humorous tone in some moments helped flesh out minor characters, such as how Saïx got angry when people knew words he didn’t, Xaldin’s surprising fascination with nutritional health,
and Lexaeus’ interest in puzzles. For that matter, each Organization member had unique quirks and personalities, which made their small interactions and missions have some depth. It made each of them distinct side-characters, rather than just static background noise. In addition, the artwork, while simple at points, majorly contributes to the charm of these characters. The lighter tone of the story also allowed for small moments of worldbuilding, particularly within the main settings of Castle Oblivion and Twilight Town.
The theme of finding meaning is almost immediately brought up in the story of 358/2 Days. Roxas does meaningless missions every day for almost a whole entire year, and this repetition is essential in order to maximize the attachment that readers will have with Roxas and the central friendship between him, Axel, and Xion. Since the other Organization members always either brush him off or demean him, Roxas finds solace in the central friendship. Since he doesn’t have anything else to find meaning in, Roxas continues to carry out missions each day, using the motivation of eating ice cream with his friends after work to motivate him. And make no mistake, this is “work”, for both Roxas and the reader. 358/2 Days, maybe unintentionally, makes the apparent association between Roxas’ work and the feeling of boredom. This sometimes means that as a reader, you have to tolerate those slow moments to get to the happy ones, even if it isn’t something you want to do. Work, especially the tedious type that Roxas does, is hardly ever fun, but this manga clearly demonstrates that it’s the friends you have at work who make the experience tolerable. The manga also demonstrates the feeling that work can have when you remove all the friendship and the sense of connection, leaving only a meaningless waste of time. A slog, in other words. This intentional yet very present monotony is a main reason why people not only criticize the manga, but the original game as well, and this pains me. While it can absolutely be boring, or may seem like there’s no point, every single moment lends some weight to more impactful ones.
It would follow, then, that the parts of the story where I was the most uneasy were when this central friendship was shaken. If Axel or Xion was missing, or if there was tension between the trio, I would feel like I had lost my anchor to the story, as I’m sure Roxas felt towards his own existence. Roxas wanted, so desperately, for the moments of eating ice cream on the clock tower to last forever, and to watch the red sunset every day. More time without Axel and Xion meant more time alone,
doing pointless missions, going through the motions, and spending less time living a meaningful life. If it wasn’t obvious already, the initial worry I had over this manga minimizing the small moments was in every way unfounded (at least more so than the movie adaptation), and I was only more excited to keep reading after this revelation.
The way that this manga links silly, happy scenes with panels of character expressions can sometimes really bring gravity and a surprisingly serious tone to the moment, which reminds me of certain storytelling techniques found in the best moments of nakige. There are also a lot of plot details being kept secret from the characters, and yet the reader can plainly see the weight and strain of trust being broken. A lot of this is actually due to a decent amount of the story being shown from Axel’s side, which, while it could be said to ruin part of the mystery, is effective in building dramatic irony and a bond between him and the reader. All of these mixed up story threads and changing emotional tones led to me finding relief in the happy moments, again as I imagine Roxas felt as well. When I felt myself wanting those silly, simple moments to last forever, just so that I could avoid reading about the inevitable tragedy everyone knew was coming, I realized that this manga was achieving something far more precious than I’d hoped for. 358/2 Days has always had extremely strong themes of friendship and belonging, even more so than the other Kingdom Hearts stories, but these silly comics are somehow able to communicate this more than the original game. We see more character interactions, more joking around, more hilariously stupid stuff, and even more ice cream on the clock tower (which I count as a good thing). Roxas’ friendship with Axel and Xion is so much richer because there is meaningful context to oppose the more dramatic scenes. We get to see how devastating it is to have their friendship at risk, how every single one of these 358 days could go to waste, how there would
be no more meaning in their jobs and in their lives again. We understand how dearly important it is for Roxas to hold on to his friends while everything is crumbling down around them.
The ending of the manga was very impactful. I think it says a lot that despite the dreaded feeling I had that doom was inevitable, I couldn’t bring myself to look away. Despite my praise of this ending, I can’t help but feel that the final fight was lackluster. In the original game, the struggle against Xion felt hopeless regardless of whether Roxas won or lost. Either way, a dear friend would die. The game presents this message not-so-subtly through dialogue, but also subtly through the actual fight. In each phase of the battle, Roxas and Xion transport to a different Disney world where they had learned something about what it means to exist, and a bit of how to feel complete. And each time a phase is defeated, the vision of the Disney world breaks, showing how everything important in their lives is slipping away. It is a beautiful, tragic struggle.
Despite this flaw, many elements surrounding the fight were made better, such as the character expressions and the infamous “ice cream” line feeling more genuine and having a better translation this time, with Roxas instead pleading “I still want the three of us to have ice cream together! Didn’t we promise to go to the beach together?”
Normally, I’d recommend playing original games over reading their adaptations, as these interpretations often only have a partial piece of the whole experience. However, due to the repetitive and difficult nature of the original game, I can wholeheartedly recommend this manga as not only a replacement, but a genuinely great work of art. While it doesn’t encompass every detail, it’s not necessary to deeply appreciate and enjoy this story. Tomoco Kanemaki and Shiro Amano have shown their talent in adapting Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days into manga, and have told an amazing story fit for any fans of powerful, emotional stories.
