New Year, New Accost

    To begin the year of the Ox by being accosted with a horrible new anime is not an ideal start. In an attempt to organize my thoughts in regards to the current anime I am viewing and the anime that will begin airing for the mid season I came across a new title that originally seemed to be a direct descendant of my favorite anime movie, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. On Monday January 5th Sunrise (everything Gundam, Keroro Gunso, Escaflowne, Cowboy Bebop) will be airing it's new shojo anime, The Girl Who Leapt Through Space. After some digging I discovered that this is just a play on the title of the previous series and is not related in any way to the Tokikake stories. Before this fact was discovered I scanned over the offending anime's website for a preview of this supposed follow up. What I found was an akitaku nightmare of fan service and overly ornate cosplay primed characters.

    I can't stress how much I abhor fan service pandering garbage like this. Unfortunately since the boom of the hapless otaku as a major economical force in Japan this kind of senseless commercialism has increased significantly, pushing aside the chance for creative and interesting stories that might not come from the big names in the industry. As in all businesses when you have companies that are more interested in turning the highest profit margin over integrity and building some sort of legacy you find attempts to artificially tap into the base targets emotions. It happens all the time in all aspects of the entertainment industry. A small group of executives puts some data together and figures out the perfect formula for tapping into the fan base allowing them to capitalize on the fans feelings. A perfect case in point is the success of the maho shojo title Precure 5 Go GO. They consistently have audience shares in the top 10 of TV anime week after week. This isn't due to it being a quality, engaging product. This is due for the fact that the producers of the show know that one of the top draws for the reclusive otaku crowd are flashy, over produced maho shojo titles. These numbers aren't because legions of raving 5-10 year old Japanese girls are watching this show week in and week out, although they do make up part of the audience. It's because every single garage kit obsessing socially inept 20 something male who hangs out at the maid cafe's in Akibahara dvr's each episode so they can study all of the complex movements in the transformation sequence as well as the correct dimensions of the apparel for their next cosplay project. They also inhibit borderline pedophelic feelings shrugged off as platonic relations, with said shows pubescent/pre-pubecent characters. This tongue in cheek reference to Tokikake is nothing but the next attempt by a production company to blatantly tap into the akitaku wallet. Hell, they even include all of the characters measurements in the shows website. When will everyone stop calling them 'shojo' titles and instead call them what they really are; 'relationship inept adult male pedophile shut in' titles? Or is that too blatant?