Xam'd Lost Memories

     Xam’d Lost Memories is a 26 episode sci-fi action anime that was released over Sony on the PSN network. The series is an original creation by design studio Bones and ‘aired’ from fall of 2008 until winter of 2009.

    In an alternate world there are two great nations in ever changing states of conflict, the Northern Government and the Southern Continent Free Zone. A small free zone island known as Sentan is caught in the middle of the currently brewing conflict after a mysterious white haired girl blows up a school bus leading to an invasion by Northern Government bio-weapons. In the bus explosion a high school student named Akiyuki is injured by a foreign object included in the bomb known as a Hiruko, the Hiruko embeds it’s self within his body. The Hiruko are symbiotic creatures cherished by a cult like sect in the Northern Government who wish to bring about world change by creating more Hiruko/human symbiotes known as Xam’d. As the bio-weapons rain on Sentan Island, Akiyuki transforms, against his will, into the Xam’d, a powerful mutant creature, and fights the invading weapons.
 

    An independent postal ship gets caught up in the action and one of it’s crew, a member of a disgraced Northern Continent tribe, named Nakiami, sense’s the Xam’d in the city, she rushes to stop him from going berserk. Nakiami’s people, the Tessikan, are experienced in the ways of the Xam’d and know how to control them. She quickly subdues Akiyuki and brings him aboard the postal ship leaving the military to continue defending the city. Akiyuki is now captive on the ship as Nakiami works to prevent him from being consumed by the Hiruko and turning to stone. He must find himself and what the Xam’d inside him seeks, trying to become one with the Hiruko in order to survive it.

    While Akiyuki is traveling the world, his home is under constant threat by the Northern Continent. The Southern Continent Free Zone military has moved to using the island as a staging ground for its renewed fight against the North. Akiyuki’s friends end up joining the military out of a sense of duty and become entangled with a secret experiment to create Xam’d for military use on the island. As the war progresses and everything is thrown into chaos Akiyuki and the rest of the crew of the postal ship find themselves in danger from both sides.   He must find his own path and discover the truth behind the Xam’d.

    This is probably the most original and engrossing anime since Ergo Proxy and the more I watched the more I enjoyed it. The series reminded me of a cross between Nausicaa and Last Exile. The animation is middle of the road compared to today’s standards. The character designs are cartoonish and simple as opposed to realistic. The animation is nice though and does well with the story which is funny, dramatic and lonely at the same time. A large theme with many of the characters is solitude. The story is large and complex with much of the background left to hints and whispers. You never get a sense of the whole picture and some of the details are never truly explained, especially in regards to the bio-weapons and the wars. You are thrown into the mix right away in the first episode and things are slowly explained as the series progresses, so at first many things are confusing. There are many characters, some of which are barely explained, but each is easily identified so there is little confusion about who is who. It would have been nice to know more about the history of the world.

    What might be interesting would be a movie or a short OAV set that tells about events from the previous war that are hinted at and touched upon in the series by Akiyuki’s father and others his age. There is much more potential in this world to expand and create spin-off’s. A nice side story dealing with a band of freedom fighters that show up near the end of the series would be entertaining as well. Whether that would be a good idea is up to debate, but it is unlikely there will ever be more of the series.

    My biggest complaint with the series is some of the unnecessary and rote sappiness as the climax unfolds. Love can only carry you so far, but to have that be a catalyst in the build up to the end seemed to be a bit cheap and lazy.  Considering the quality of the rest of the series up until that point, but it is what it is, it still ends up finishing strong.

Akitaku

In light of my growing disdain for the most rabid of otaku fan-boy’s I have recently coined a term that I feels best labels them when talking with other like minded individuals. This term is Aki-taku or Akitaku. By combining the, once derrogative, term otaku (essentially obsessive fan) with a condensed version of the name of their hallowed ground, Akihabara in Tokyo, I feel that I have sufficiently titled this particular member of the otaku group. This also is a poke at the otaku shortening of their haven, Akiba, which irks me to no end.

Time for a bit of a history lesson;

    Otaku traditionally means inside. I’m not sure at what point the term was utilized as an insult but I can definitely pinpoint it being widely used by the early 80’s. You may wonder why a word meaning inside, as in inside of ones house, came to be used to label obsessed fans. Until the 21^st century the true Otaku have been an incredibly anti social lot. They are known to spend much of their time indoors, in their rooms, locked away from everything else except for their obsession. Thus the term actually fits perfectly.

A few years ago I read a manifesto by a long time professed otaku and notable manga-ka (manga artist/writer) who assaulted the current flock of otaku who crowd the streets of Akihabara as being posers and dangerous pedophiles. Stating that any true otaku, her self included, would not be out in public, hanging out in maid cafes or street performances.  They would be locked away in their secret domains, because their obsession is the only thing that matters, everything else is useless and unnecessary. The traditional Otaku chooses their passion over contact with other human beings. Many traditional Otaku are also hikikomori (extreme anti-social shut-in, sometimes plain agoraphobics).

In western cultures otaku is a term associated with anime and manga, but otaku is a blanket reference to any one with a dangerously consuming hobby. Next to manga and anime otaku (manga otaku outweigh the anime ones) one of the next largest otaku tribes are military otaku. Another large faction are train otaku, who obsess about everything train related. A train otaku restaurant recently opened in Akihabara, amid concern that it would cause problems with the anime/manga otaku.

The common theme is for the otaku to be holed up in their tiny room surrounded by any and everything related to their hobby; to breathe it in, live it, dream of it and fantasize about it. The traditional otaku is socially defunct and extremely single minded as well. They usually tend to have poor social interaction skills due to not caring for anything other then their obsession and even tend to chafe each other when they meet. True otaku tendencies can be very dangerous if their obsession is something such as with idols. This can lead to very unhealthy and dangerous thoughts and actions towards the idols or facsimiles. What makes this extremely troubling is that many idols are underage girls. So an overly obsessed idol otaku could be prone to not only attacking the idol but other underage girls who could be used as a substitute. What has been troubling lately is that the idols are getting younger and younger, leading to more dangerous possibilities, let alone the exploitation factor. Now, this does not mean that all idol otaku will attack a young girl; I’m not implying that in the slightest. What I am stating, which has been stated many times before, for many different cases, is that when the sole, obsessive, focus of one individual is aimed at a minor, even in a socially acceptable format, there is a higher chance of it leading to some form of assault. It’s just common sense that any magnified obsession can be more prone to planting the seeds of action.

I, like most westerners, refer to otaku almost exclusively within the realm of anime, manga and everything associated with such. I feel that there are different levels of otaku as well. I will use the term in a non-offensive way, but I will also use it as an insult and will fight anyone who try’s to call me an otaku. Although by some definitions I am an otaku, I still refuse it. There are Law and Order otaku out there but no one points that out…there are different, American, terms for those people..

             In the modern, public, definition of the label otaku, images of poorly dressed, socially inept, single, virgin, males comes to mind. They fawn over characters from their favorite series, buy up every bit of specialized merchandise related to a particular title, obsess over things such as voice actor habits and schooling. A comparable western fan would be a Trekkie.

The anime and manga industries have also been heavily courting the otaku since they have emerged as a major economical force. This means that a larger percentage of titles produced are aimed more specifically at these niche groups, as opposed to broader audiences. To the industry they would rather target the otaku, who will spend all of their money on any merchandise related to a favorite title, than the average viewer, who will watch the show semi-regularly as it is broadcasting and maybe buy the DVD’s when they come out. The otaku, easily lured by phrases such as ‘limited edition’ will buy every single piece of trite merchandise, related to their fandom, possible. It is easy to repackage something, add a small amount of flare, call it special, charge double what the original cost and sell out 10 minutes after launch. Case in point; when Evangelion: You are not Alone was released into theaters. It did phenomenally well. Soon they will be issuing a different edit of the movie and re-releasing that into the theaters. I guarantee it will make more than half of what the first version made in the box office, even though probably little was changed in the movie, which is just a remake of the first few episodes of the original TV series.

          The current otaku awakening has also brought about the moe-revolution. Moe (pronounced 'Mo A') is a term of endearment said when something touches your heart or is just too damn cute to exist. One thing that moe represents is the otaku view of women. Most otaku men don’t have the confidence to talk with women, let alone other men, yet they have desires and urges like everyone else. More often then naught the otaku will depend on imagined women to fill his needs, as best as possible. This idea, which is as old as the otaku themselves, leads many of them to actually shun physical relationships with real women, preferring to sustain themselves on their fantasies, than deal with the troubles of reality. Moe can represent the ideal otaku woman, which can fall in a number of categories, depending on someone’s predilections.

It’s hard to say which came first, the dating sim or the female stereotypes that appear in them. One thing for certain though is that the dating sims have greatly enhanced the presence of very refined stereotypes. Through the many years and trials of the galge (erotic dating sim games, lit 'Gal/Girl Game') industry trends have been set into place and certain things have taken the main stage. Among the most universal type is the subservient girl, the one who will do everything in her abilities to please the man as much as possible. Gentle, shy, innocent to worldly evils, ready and willing, but not a flusey. She will, with the proper timing, consent to anything, but she must be courted in the proper fashion. This is a very general stereotype found in the sims that can be broken out into sub categories; the book worm, the transfer student, the childhood neighbor, etc. Another prominent type is the tough girl or tsundere. The tsundere will also consent in time, but first you must crack through the rough, tomboy exterior to reach the shy, timid woman inside. One thing that the female’s in galge all have in common is that ultimately they are weak and need a mans guidance and direction in life. This idea fits snuggly with the still held view of a woman’s role in Japan, that of the dutiful wife, the idealized woman, yamato nadeshiko. Things have been changing and there are some independent, powerful women in Japan, but the classic ideas still exist and women in many ways are still 2^nd class citizens.

Many of these stereotypes have derived from the otaku fear of confrontation. That is one of the reasons so many of them are as reserved as they are. It’s not just an otaku trait, Japan as a whole has issues with confrontation, making it ease for the alpha type personalities to take control in most situations. The typical Japanese person would rather bow down, beg forgiveness and pay retribution than cause any form of protest from mistreatment. This is one of the things that make’s the Yakuza so effective; it’s easier to cow the masses with intimidation and the threat of confrontation than to actually use violence, although violence is par for the course with the gangsters as well.

A woman that is on your computer who will, after a prescribed course of actions, that are usually predictable, give her self to you again and again, without any form of payment required, is the most desirable woman for the socially awkward otaku. Many of them are content enough with their emotional needs being satisfied by the game that they easily can shed off any outright want for the real thing. This is a sort of self perpetuating cycle that only digs the hole deeper.

           From this reliance on the dating sim games to meet their psychological needs, the industry noted the draw for comic and animation versions of the sim game experience to achieve the same result with little to no user input. A slacker way of satisfying your needs, by sitting back and just watching the show or reading the manga, putting yourself in the place of the main character who represents your personality; timid, unsure, unconfident, but with an incredible animal magnetism that draws your most desired woman to you and only you, forever. With this arose the harem genre of anime, in which a main male lead would be flocked by a number of female co-leads who all represented different stereotypes. The female characters would all fight for the leads attention, in the hopes that he would ultimately choose her over the others (akin to reality TV shows like the Bachelor). All the while the viewer/reader is both carrying out voyeuristic tendencies and vicarious living. The system feeds upon it’s self and continues to churn out more series that refine the details. Tenchi Muyo spawns an entire industry of it’s own that has taken off and come to categorize anime as a whole. You have more and more harem anime being produced that feed off of the galge dating sim structure due to the overwhelming customer demand, or supposed customer demand. As the popularity of this type of exhibition grows, so does the fan base, which fuels the flames and generates more series’.  In the need to express the feeling that the viewer gets from such a series they have latched onto the word moe, which, for a time, has become the otaku catchphrase.

           With the anime/manga otaku fan base becoming an economical force to be reckoned with in the 21^st century everyone has been trying to cash in. This has given rise to physical representations of the moe galge fantasy, the most prominent and recognizable being the maid café. Places where awkward otaku can have interactions with real life girls who are being paid to pretend to fit their stereotypical needs. You can go and have a conversation with Eri-chan, the quiet bookworm maid, for 1000 yen an hour. It is the otaku version of the hostess bar, where the salaryman goes to unwind after a rough day at the zaibatsu. A place where he can buy the kind of conversation with a woman he wants as opposed to dealing with his nag of a wife and unruly children. It is a non-sexual, at least physically sexual, real life fantasy, which brings in money hand over fist. The maid café has paved the way for all sorts of hostess club type establishments that cater to the inept otaku crowd, filling the most desired fantasies. The current hot trend in this scene is for the hostesses to be bandaged, as if they received grievous injuries(2009). This elicits the otaku urge to care for them; the girl exudes that image of helplessness that the otaku, and other Japanese men, feed off of, the void that only they, the strong lead, can fill.

           Akihabara is on the eastern side of Tokyo. Tokyo it’s self is divided into 26 wards, or ku, Akihabara is in one of the wards with in the central hub that is skirted by the Yamanote loop train line. Until the 21^st century Akihabara has been know for being the center for commercial electronic goods. Its nick name is Electric Town, and it has earned the title. The main areas are that around the train station and the main road way just a block away. In both of these areas the streets are lined with multi storied buildings crammed to the gills with stores selling anything and everything electronic. Everything from small street venders to mega retailers such as Loax, which run a number of highly visible buildings through out the area. You can find any thing you would ever want that is electronic…if it wasn’t there is probably didn’t exist.

         Through out the shopping district there have been a number of anime, manga and video game shops, but they tended to be in the minority. Some of the otaku geared businesses were little more than cramped retail spaces packed with merchandise, making maneuvering in them a practice in patience. Across the street from the Electric Town exit of the station there is (or was) a large and spacious manga/anime discount store that occupied the 4^th floor of a building. By and large the stores dealt with manga and related anime/manga merchandise. During the night, on specific days, many shops would set up street side stalls in which they could hawk more goods. Many of these stalls dealt in the ecchi (hentai, porno) and eroge titles. This was a prime spot to pick up homebrew ecchi game and low quality hentai on the cheap. With all of this Akihabara was mainly known for offering a stunning variety of electrical goods. Everywhere you turned you would run into computer stores or cell phone kiosks, the appliance stores would have all of their demo air conditioner units on full bore and the sales staff tried to show you the newest vacuum cleaner. The more upscale establishments offered the newest high def TV’s and the biggest names in laptop technology. Sony has a retail location here as well, but their multistoried demo building located in Ginza, further south on the Yamanote.

    Something changed in the beginning of the 21^st century, something I have not quite been able to pin down yet, but I can at least pin down an event that made it bigger. In 2001/2002 a supposed real life story spawned one of the biggest dramas of the year, Densha Otoko (Train Man). The story originally spawned on the massive BBS system 2 Ch., about a hapless otaku who went to the network of like minded otaku for advice on love after saving a beautiful, non-otaku, girl from being assaulted by a drunk on the train. The series of forums spawned by this love struck otakus' need for help ended up generating a massive online myth and a novel. The novel in turn spawned a movie which spawned a live action drama series. The Densha Otoko franchise pushed the quest of geek love into the main stream and opened up the chided otaku to the world (Japan). The franchise was so successful that it helped push the marketing brains to realizing the potential goldmine these awkward hobbyists represented. Overnight it was the IN thing to be an otaku, and Akihabara had become their holy land, their sacred ground, where they could be themselves in public and indulge in their desires. Pretty soon more and more businesses catering exclusively to the otaku were popping up all over the area, increasing the presence of the tribe. More and more people flocked to the otaku banner as the new hot thing to do, much to the chagrin of many 'traditional' and 'authentic' otaku.

Soon the streets of Akihabara were flooded with street performers and hawkers luring in the hordes of otaku, with Sunday’s being the most crowded when one of the streets ends up being restricted to anything but foot traffic and performancess. Now the Electric Town exit of the train station is flooded with people, including groups of scantly clad sign girls and the ravenous picture snapping otaku surrounding them. Most people don’t care what the girls are hawking; they just want to fill up their cell phones memory with pictures of their cleavage. Otaku is big business in Akihabara, which used to be known for the best place to get the newest TV in the world, now it is known as the anime and manga geek holy land, filled to the brim with maid cafés and cosplayers.

    The term Akitaku has thus come about by combining both the tribe and their vaunted Mecca. These ravenous hordes of perverted, self righteous otaku demonstrate the worst things about being an otaku. They help to perpetuate the acceptance of being a socially awkward introvert who views the world through a pinhole lens. It has helped in reverting the standards of women by praising and selling subservient attitudes. Above all it has helped to dilute the very genre that spawned them by churning more productions out to make some quick cash through recycled plots and over the top merchandising ploys.