Sunred is based on one of the great staple’s of Children’s TV in Japan (and to a certain extent in the West as well) Tokusatsu shows. For those not in the know, I’m talking about things like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai shows which get re-packaged for Western Audiences as stuff like Masked Rider (see what they did there?) and Power Rangers. It’s a great example of something which encompasses so many things which are cool to kids, functioning as a basic hero-driven, good-triumphs-over-evil stories with special effects, action and Gattai. It’s also highly marketable, but that’s neither here nor there. Your normal tokusatsu series will embody a youthful energy, a sense of wonder at the world as the protagonist(s) typically undertake the Hero’s Journey, fights with a different monster every week and generally lives a wonderfully exciting life. Compare this to your average happy childhood: Waking up every day and going to school can be a fresh and exciting experience every single time it happens. You can run around your yard a hundred thousand times and it’s still fun. The energy of adventure in Tokusatsu series mimics the energy of wonderment in childhood.

One of the hilarious things about Sunred is how mundane it is. The bad guys do laundry, make dinner, have dinner, work their schedule out so they can have a battle every now and then, the protagonist Red himself even has a long-term relationship with a woman (the wonderfully put-upon Kayoko). A lot of the villains of Florsheim treat their job gunning for Sekai Seifuku as, well, an actual Job. Clock in, Fight Red, clock out. Red treats most of the battles in much the same way, and is royally pissed when they don’t make it on time. Red smokes, Red stays out playing Pachinko, Red worries about Kayoko bringing up the subject of marriage, Red is, in effect, a grown man living the life of a Tokusatsu hero. The humour comes from these fantastic characters living their mundane lives, but it’s more than the fact that they have lives. The energy of adventure and battle is replaced by the working ethic of a 9-5 job in this series. It’s not just the characters that are changed, it’s the entire ethic of a tokusatsu series being removed and replaced with what those kids who were running around Rider Kicking each other twenty years ago experience today.

Maybe that was really obvious, but that’s what I laugh at most in this series. It’s completely awesome when brings down a monster, but it’s hilarious when Florsheim and Red meet up and go through the motions.

Having said that, today I experienced a really grown-up moment.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of watching a child fail at something and not helping them because they have to learn. The only real way I could describe it was that it made me feel like an adult.

I now hold the torch and must light the fires.

So for the summer anime season I’ve been watching Ookami-san and her Seven Companions (amongst other things). I wasn’t going to watch it as it looked like an ungodly Toradora rip-off, but after someone I know recommended episode one and I watched it my general feeling was “May as well, doesn’t seem to bad”. Seasons are slim pickings these days anyway. I’m not so hot on it now for various reasons, mainly because it’s just not very well written, but one aspect of it caught my attention.

Ookami-san is made by JC Staff: the division of JC Staff that did shows like Toradora and A Certain Scientific Railgun, not the division that did Taishou Yakyuu Musume and the Kaichou wa Maid-sama! adaptation that left various fans of the Maid-sama manga in despair. If you took anything from that last sentence it’s that Ookami-san is not a badly animated show at all and I can’t actually think of a part of this show I thought was animated badly. It does, however, have a gimmick that caught my attention: at the end of every episode it shows a couple of seconds of a clip from the show repeated like an animated gif. The first time I saw it it was kind of interesting and as the show progressed I found I was looking out for what could be the gif. I’m generally wrong and something I didn’t expect gets picked which made me start looking at the scenes closer than I would have otherwise. As I mentioned before Ookami-san is a well animated show that never feels sparse or out of place but watching the gifs of frames that are otherwise unremarkable it made me wonder how much work went into them. It’s possible that they’re chosen randomly from whatever amuses the production team and not animated specially. I mean, the fact that I often can’t pick it from the rest of the show certainly points to this. If not, though, there are certainly some spots where their key animation is much more badly needed.

One of the things I dislike about Ookami-san is how it tries to do self-aware Otaku pandering like two loli-type characters arguing about, uh, being loli characters. To be honest I don’t often find this funny at the best of times. I tend to term it “HA KONATA SAID TSUNDERE” syndrome after one of the worst offenders. Ookami-san isn’t that bad even though it can come close to being that bad. The gif seems to be a continuation of that, like JC Staff are trying to make something that will get posted all over the internet like that damn cabbage that will always come up when talking about dodgy animation except on purpose and smacks a little bit of trying too hard. Having said that there isn’t any reason why it shouldn’t work as omake. I do enjoy omake even if we very rarely get things like Leave it to Kero-chan or, dare I say it, the Gunbuster science lessons. Even so it still feels like a cop-out.

***

A famous writer drifts from day to day in a state of comfortable, happy yet somehow unsatisfying existence. Her novels, both critically and commercially successful, deal with this similar theme of discord and not belonging in day to day existence. The author would describe herself as a piece of origami, thin paper pressed into shape by knowledgeable hands.

Author is pursued by her Doppleganger; A woman who is her, exactly. Here paranoia mounts but it is eventually revealed that this woman is her. Unsatisfied by her dull, worthless existence, the woman who is not an Author reaches back and touches her past to become a writer like she’s always wanted.

This story is cliche bullshit unfortunately. What did I say to begin this post?

Exhibit A
Small, dark hair, pale skin. Although her birthplace is far away, I don’t know if she’d look like she’d fit in even there. I could never tell what she was thinking, although she could and did become lost in thought as much as I am. Can you imagine two people sitting around a flat saying nothing, both lost in thought? Even if moodiness could be an issue, it was oddly comforting.

Nadeshiko serves as an adequate pseudonym.

Endless cups of tea. Pots and pans and bowls and stained tea towels, all the result of my hands and my ability and her apathy. “Make me some rice.” “Give me a hug.” “Can we go to the pub?”.

Sex. Treatises on differences between languages. Alcohol. Sex. Interesting sex, detached, raw, intimate like smiling at a stranger on a bus (because at the end of the day, what do you really know about them?).

Sitting in a park late at night. She sits in my arms illuminated by the glow of her cigarette; the gentle scent of warm tobacco defines her shape. “I’ve almost quit smoking because it’s so expensive here”. She said less than that, in reality, but it’s hard to imitate her patois without seeming rude. English was like a coat that didn’t quite fit but still kept her warm.

What did I know about you? What did you know about me? Two people at an arms length shouldn’t be so close, two people shouldn’t be at an arms length just because that’s just the way they both are. Distant. Maybe the comfort of closeness drew the dark thoughts to the surface like poison from a wound. Maybe that was just me.

Sitting in that goddamn cafe before you left. I watched you use the last of your cigarettes, all three, as the dark sky threatened rain. You blew smoke gently from your mouth and sipped your coffee. “Why the hell didn’t I get told earlier?” is what I wanted to say. Instead you just kind of went. I have your email address… somewhere. It would be nice to talk, but what would we say? “Will we ever see each other again?”

Maybe it’s for the best that you left. I think I was falling in love with you.

Exhibit B
Tall, dark hair, tan skin. Her birthplace was also far away, or at least I think it was. The tang in her accent says yes. Smiling and happy, always. I don’t know if anyone’s ever seen a different mood of hers. Or maybe it’s because she’s a saleswoman and it carries over, bolstered by her natural bubbly personality.

We shall call her Marisa; there is no reason for this.

Our parents knew each other years back. Yours, trained in medicine but not destined to practice. Years pass and again my mother and your parents meet. My female parent, ever determined to preside over a veritable horde of grandchildren, attempts to tie us together with the red string of fate. Thus it begins.

You’re starting at my uni. I’m nice and I talk politely and show you things. I see you once a week at least, we stop by your stall. Coffee. “This building is here. That building is there”.

“Oh, this? I’m into anime and stuff. Haha, no, it’s cool, it’s my hobby, I didn’t expect you to be into it.” Behind the scenes I’m not sure what my mother is doing or saying. Maybe nothing. Maybe promising my soul. Most likely something in between. From all this, a seed is planted.

“Doe eyes” describes it well. “I’m a bastard” describes it better.

I think I might just have simply misunderstood some of the time. Her confidence was lacking, and didn’t we have a habit of going for coffee?

Often I was with people who weren’t you, and I’d skip by. Often I was busy. Once I was drunk. I wasn’t quite sure why I ran into you sometimes twice a day, or why I’d be told what you were doing, when you’d be free and how much time you had. A lot of it is in the way you say it.

This is speculation that I draw from what I do know: Once she saw me sitting under that bridge with a small Asian girl. We talk, English mainly, but sometimes words that you think are exotic and confusing but I know are simple, almost childish. “Mendou.” “Hoshii.” “Urusai.” English disappears suddenly.
“ね…あの人はエッドを見てる”
“ええ、そうですか”
“ちょっと、見ていませにょ”
Marisa, Nadeshiko. Nadeshiko, Marisa. Marisa smiles. Nadeshiko eats a mouthful of rice. Marisa says “See you later” and means it, and I realise that I’ve been playing with someone’s left hand as her right holds chopsticks and she called me annoying.

A straw most final: Coffee, lunch, the cafe in the garden, relax before exams, how’d you like that which you bought at our stall, see you later.

University’s aren’t very big, and our two became five. Who are these people? Weren’t we having coffee together? Why do you talk about things I don’t understand and can’t talk about?

I don’t think I even noticed her walk out to be honest.

A new semester. More class. More markets. But now her doe-eyed look just looks hurt. I don’t think she knows what to say to me, and I’m damn sure I have no idea what to say to her.

Exhibit C
A man christened Edward. Somewhat unremarkable, somewhat insecure, afraid of feelings like nobody’s business. Runs a blog that nobody reads. Head in the clouds. Needs a cup of tea.

Why? When I was 15, all my 15 year old friends who were female had 19 year old boyfriends. They’d even confirm to me that 19 was the perfect age.

So… bring it on.

Also I really, really want a cigarette.

I cried and screamed constantly for about two hours or so. Nothing could stop me. Not being yelled at. Not being forced to walk around whilst being shushed. Not being apologised to profusely.

In the end I just stopped. I was just done. I felt like a husk, but pure and cleansed and broken.

I… I don’t know why I remembered that this morning. It just came.

Anyway. Just got back from Toy Story 3.

Fuck every single person in the marketing department who used the trailers to make this look like a shit film.

Thank you so much, Lasseter and everyone at Pixar. Sorry for doubting you. …please for the love of GOD don’t make a Toy Story 4. Actually, if you can make it as good as this, I don’t care.

Make something cool and crazy and wicked and out of the box now please.

***
Nine-year-old Edward: “You better not be a CONFORMIST! I HATE conformists!”
Present Edward: “I don’t even know, kid. I agree with you though.”
9yo:”..goddamnit, you’ve turned into an ADULT haven’t you?”
E:”Yeah. Sorry, kid. If it’s any consolation, I was dragged here kicking and screaming.”
***
Twelve-year-old-Edward:”So, has the Second Impact happened yet?!”
E:”er… no.”
12yo:”…so what exactly do you do all day?”
E:”Good question. Not much.”
***
16-year-old-Edward:”What’s uni like?”
E:”Pretty sweet.”
16yo:”Cool. Can’t wait.”
***
Edward from this morning:”Did I end up jerking off later today?”
E:”No, I had a nap instead.”

And, as promised a recipe:
SIMPLE AS FUCK VEGETABLE SOUP
Soup is one of the easiest things to make, and roast vegetable soup is pretty much one of the laziest things you can do and still say you made a home-cooked meal. Let’s do this.

Ingredients:
-In terms of vegetables, pretty much whatever you want. As little or as many or whatever the hell you have on hand. As a general rule, though, go light on strongger vegetables like turnips and okra (Who the fuck would use that in a soup anyway?) unless you want your soup to taste like ass. Pulses like lentils can give it a bit of body as well, but honestly? Go raid you vegetable drawer and use what’s there, it’ll turn out ok anyway.
-Enough stock to cover the vegetables, or more or less depending on how thick you want it.
-Spices. Again, whatever you like/have on hand but again don’t overdo it.

Preparation:
Peel, chop, do whatever to your vegetables (Soak pulses et cetera) and whack anything that needs to be cooked in the oven with some spices or even just a bit of garlic. When cooked, chuck it into a pan, cover with stock, bring to a boil and then simmer for an hour or so. I like to leave things overnight so the flavours have a chance to get to know one another, but if you’re really hungry and youve cooked everything beforehand, you probably don’t need to cook for more than half an hour or so. Remove from heat and blend the fuck out of it with a hand-blender. Or not, if you like broth+vegetables. Either way, cut a pice of bread and sit down to your hot, home-cooked meal.

Bleh. This is a horrible feeling.