Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou

Set in Shibuya, one of the hippest wards in all of Tokyo, Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou serves as a lighthearted and irreverent introduction to the fertile dance music scene that the area is globally recognized for. We’re given little time to get to know or understand its protagonist, Agetarou Katsumata, an unmotivated young man whose interests or passions are never explored before the story flings him into this world via a late-night delivery from his family’s tonkatsu restaurant to a hungry employee of a late night dance club. The encounter finds Agetarou instantly smitten with the scene, and over this series’ twelve episodes he gradually grows from being an astoundingly clueless outsider to a highly skilled DJ who’s organizing events with a moxy far beyond any of his more experienced peers. Agetarou’s journey from the bottom to the top is the kind of underdog story that’s reminiscent of countless other anime series but with a laser-like focus on cutting out anything that’s not essential to keeping the plot moving forward at all times. This is not an anime that pauses for moments of nuanced character development or introspective reflection. A sense of goofy optimism courses through every episode, but it’s hard to call it genuinely inspirational. It’s unrelentingly silly but never feels quite like a comedy anime, either. Failure to truly succeed in these regards could be leveled as a criticism against it, although it would be just as easy to praise the series for resisting simple categorization or whatever. I’m committing myself to neither judgement, and there’s plenty more fence-sitting to come!

Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou is based on an ongoing manga that bears the sort of “quirky” art style that rarely inspires anime adaptations or survives the process without radical revisions (consider the original One Punch Man webcomic compared to its manga remake and eventual anime, which surely isn’t the only example of this but certainly the best one I can think of off the top of my head). This 2016 animated adaptation sticks to its original visual approach pretty faithfully, playing out in a loose and unapologetically cartoon-y style that’s probably not going to appeal to many western viewers whose preconceptions of anime are predominantly formed by exposure to high-profile tentpole series with single episode budgets that probably dwarf Tonkatsu‘s entire cost. It feels like an anime that would naturally attract manga readers, although I can’t imagine what it would be like to experience this story without the musical soundtrack of its anime adaptation. The music of the series is surprisingly varied and often extremely catchy (although the appeal of certain musical motifs starts to wear thin after a great deal of repetition over the twelve episodes). It’s an enjoyable anime that, at least on the surface, doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously. And with a runtime of only nine minutes per episode, it never wears out its welcome. Would the story have been better served by full-length episodes? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of this anime felt incredibly rushed to me, and my biggest issues with it are inevitably a product of the episodes simply not having a single second to spare for any of the matters of character development that I’m so hung up on here. But I suppose complaining about that is missing the point completely, and asking Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou to be a completely different kind of show altogether.

About that character development: Agetarou’s rise from a wide-eyed novice to an expert DJ over the course of a few months (judging solely by the change of seasons over the course of the series) requires a suspension of disbelief that most anime fans should be able to muster, but the series never answers the basic question of why he wants to be a DJ at all. From his first exposure to dance music as he’s let through the back door of the Club Box, to purchasing a mixer and turntables, landing his first gig and slowly integrating himself into the scene, we almost never catch a glimpse of Agetaro actually working to perfect his craft or sacrificing anything meaningful in the process. We’re never given much evidence that he even enjoys music at all, outside of the thrill he experiences in the confines of a club fitted with a professional sound system, lighting and an enthusiastic crowd. He loves the sensory overload of the entire experience, but who doesn’t? His first foray into “digging” yields a fantastic “rare groove” record that experienced DJs marvel at; he chooses said record at random from a bin without even listening to it. The life-changing epiphany that leads him down this path begins immediately after first setting foot in the club, where he witnesses a surprise performance from DJ Big Master Fry, an American hip-hop pioneer who is totally not Kool Herc or Grandmaster Flash. In a daze, he is visited by a vision of Big Master Fry, who quickly notices Agetarou’s potential, spells out the many parallels between tonkatsu preparation and a the essential elements of a crowd-pleasing DJ set (a recurring theme that will help the protagonist out of any difficulties he encounters in his quest, while also providing a deeper subtext that may or may not be obvious to its intended audience), and personally anoints Agetarou’s place as a superstar DJ in the works long before he’s even touched a turntable. This cosmic coronation might be a bit tongue-in-cheek; nevertheless, it is the catalyst for the entire story.

It’s easy to criticize this series for not being the well-rounded shonen anime that, on the surface, it initially appears to resemble. Is it fair? Probably not. Like countless shonen-esque heroes before him who’ve set out to master a craft, Agetarou approaches his newfound calling with a preexisting and apparently unrelated set of skills and influences that give him an inherent understanding of how to DJ… despite showing zero musical aptitude, little determination to press through setbacks or any shred of willingness to really work hard and succeed where countless casual would-be DJs failed. When it comes to learning a new skill, this is every beginner’s dream and the delusion of countless fools. It’s also a shortcut I’ve forgiven many, many stories for taking. Establishing a sympathetic or likeable protagonist is usually all I need to excuse an anime from abusing this cliche. Admittedly, it’s easy enough for the viewer to identify with Agetarou as an unmotivated slacker, a much more relatable archetype than the straight-A student or relentlessly hard working underdog who refuses to quit no matter how difficult the circumstances he faces. But aside from some very brief stage fright before his gigs, we’re never privy to any fears or anxieties he experiences. I cannot imagine a viewer feeling emotionally invested in his journey, but if you view him as an inoffensive but necessary vehicle to explore Shibuya’s diverse nightlife from episode to episode, then perhaps there’s no need to “care” about him at all. There’s not a shred of arrogance in Agetarou’s character, but he still comes across as a vessel for the entitled dreams of the post-EDM generation. Even with zero preexisting curiosity or musical talent, the world is his oyster and his success is never in doubt. He is a gross and stupid idiot (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The coolest neighborhood in the world his is playground and he’s welcomed into it with the most open and eager arms I’ve ever seen in a supporting cast of characters. If I’m adamant that none of this bothers me, why would I focus on it so much?

Full disclosure: After graduating high school, I blew a very large chunk of my graduation money on a DJ starter kit: two turntables and a mixer. I did this in spite of the fact that I had no idea how to DJ, knew no one who could teach me, and just had a hunch that my interest in DJ’ing (or my vague understanding of what it actually entailed) would see me through to become a competent novice who would slowly but inevitably develop his skills over time. This plan was flawed from the very start, first and foremost because I was completely broke, having ignored the basic fact that the hobby required a steady disposable income and was just as much an act of constant consumerism as it was of musical self expression. Sure, the Internet is full of resources that everyone leans on to learn any skill whatsoever, but it would still be several years before it would eventually become such a helpful tool in this regard. Ultimately, DJing was and still is a very social pursuit that’s best learned and experienced in the company of other people. Living in the middle of nowhere, not knowing a single person who had any interest in mixing (and certainly no one who would take a total newbie under their wing, a necessity this series takes for granted), it wasn’t long before frustration set in and I lost all motivation to pursue it any further. The only lasting lesson I learned from the experience was that… DJing is hard. Tools, tutorials and software have definitely made it a lot easier since I last tried my hand at it, but like almost anything requiring a decent amount of hands-on practice, nothing beats having someone who knows their stuff just sit you down and show you how to do it. Am I being overly critical of this series because it overlooks this entire learning curve? Because its intensely dense goober of a protagonist and the success he experiences is a cringeworthy mirror of how I once sort of expected to sleepwalk my way to a certain level of admirable competency? Because watching a fictional character who never has trouble finding mentors eager to hold his hand through literally every step of the process just rubs me the wrong way? I mean, it doesn’t. Not really…

Considering the list of hang ups this review has constituted up to this point, it would probably come as a surprise to finally report that, overall, I mostly enjoyed this anime for what it was. No, is not a documentary about DJ culture, but at every point where the story and worldbuilding feels like it’s careening into a hyper dumbed-down depiction of the subject matter, it unveils just a little more nuance and complexity than you’d expect. While every new anime season brings a rash of cookie-cutter series that double down on previously-explored subjects and rarely take any creative risks that break from already established formulas, Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou refuses to pander to such temptations. It doesn’t merely dive into a specific setting and subject that break from the safe havens that most series are squarely planted in (including plenty of great ones, sure), but does so with a style that sets it apart from anything else released in 2016, let alone the rest of the decade. For its daring originality, it’s been all but consigned to the margins of anime fans’ collective consciousness. Perhaps it seems timely that I’m publishing this post now, particularly with the manga’s live action adaptation due to arrive in Japanese theaters this week. I actually had no idea that was a thing until now.

If you’re in the mood for a brisk and unpretentious series that isn’t striving to evoke the same old same old, you could do a lot worse than this anime. That’s the height of halfhearted recommendations, I know. Why bother to review something if you can’t form a solid opinion on it? Even if I sometimes come away with mixed feelings, maybe I just like to explore series that fly under the radar and don’t seem to get a lot of love on this side of the pond. Even as a huge fan of anime music videos, I struggle to recall if I’ve ever seen an AMV incorporate a single scene from this anime. That’s an unofficial test of any anime’s popularity if there ever was one, but I think it says something, especially when said anime is packed front to back with scenes of people dancing and spinning records. Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou is a niche anime if there ever was one. It’s a low-risk, quick watch of a series that doesn’t ask much of viewers. Go ahead and turn off your brain for this one, it doesn’t make much of a difference… and that’s fine. I doubt that its creators would be too offended by that suggestion. You could watch yet another high school anime or isekai light novel series (no, seriously, you should if that’s what you want to do!) or you could try something very different. It’s not a lost masterpiece, but it might be just what you’re looking for.

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest spits in the face of the endless untapped potential of animation, digging its heels deep into the most callous cynicism of our age as it grinds out one of the most breathtakingly vapid and ugly pieces of “media” that I have ever set my eyes on. It’s not an “anime” as much as a black hole from which astounding amounts of time and money were irretrievably drawn into; the untold stories the these resources could have made possible and the value they could have held to society or even to a single person are forever unknowable. It is so incompetent that it is almost above reproach; when it finally reveals its full hand, one realizes that it didn’t “fail” at telling a story or examining a single idea from more than a single angle. It just didn’t try. There is no discernible evidence of it even attempting to leave a single unique impression on viewers. Did its creators conclude that the material here was simply not worth the effort, that viewers would lap it up regardless of quality? As a matter of simple self-preservation on the part of overworked and underpaid staff, was there wisdom in this decision?

Arifureta is an egotistical power fantasy fueled by resentment, rage, a toxic expectation of unconditional servitude from the opposite sex and a laser-focused fixation on violence as a means of self expression. Arifureta‘s protagonist, Hajime Nagumo, is summoned into a distant world with his high school classmates and forced to battle monsters in labyrinthine dungeons–I won’t waste time dunking on this premise, it is not the problem here–in  the most rote entry in the Trapped In An RPG-style isekai story template that I’ve ever encountered. Hajime’s abilities are rather weak compared to his classmates. Moreover, he’s routinely ignored or taken for granted by most of his classmates on account of his withdrawn personality. From the very beginning, it’s presented as a given that their lack of appreciation towards Hajime is a Big Mistake that they will eventually regret, but we’re never given any glimpse into Hajime’s inner life to justify the notion that there’s anything to him that his peers are foolishly missing out on, nor any circumstances to explain why he’s such a gloomy person. If the original light novel presented the reader with any reason to empathize with him whatsoever, such details were left out of its anime adaptation altogether. In the midst of an intense battle, Hajime is betrayed by a classmate, cast into the depths of the dungeons and left for dead, a premise that immediately validates his status as a tragic victim for the ages. Through sheer determination and a fortunate discovery of power-up items that grant him immeasurable strength and god-like abilities, he begins his quest to escape the dungeon and ultimately become the greatest hero that this world has ever seen.

I don’t want to criticize Arifureta simply on the grounds of being just another isekai series, as I’ve certainly enjoyed more that a few anime that could be slotted into the same category. I actually… kind of loved this for a few episodes, for much the same reason that I loved Candidate For Goddess or Garzey’s Wing: describing these anime as “tone deaf” doesn’t quite do the experience of watching them justice. The over the top dub performances and inept direction provide an endlessly more entertaining experience than any anime that’s merely competent on a narrative or technical level but is clearly content to go through the motions. It’s incredibly rare to come across any work of media that’s the product of so many professionals–adults with decades of cumulative experience in the industry and presumably an honest passion for what they do–that genuinely feels like the product of a teenage narcissist who either ignored honest critiques of his work or was simply spared from the process by people who knew better than to waste their time. For the first four or five episodes, watching this lifeless, cliched trainwreck somehow fall deeper and deeper into the realms to pure edgelord fantasy is an experience that’s difficult to prepare for. It’s hilarious and a joy to watch… until the malevolence running through it all slowly reveals itself as the real thing.

Sourced from a successful series of light novels, Arifureta joylessly ticks the boxes of the most routine isekai cliches, running as hard as it can from the opening scenes to quickly confirm every criticism that people have ever made of the genre. There is no “worldbuilding,” just a collection of well-established concepts passed down from other anime series. The problem isn’t that the characters are one-dimensional but that it’s hard to find any evidence that the creative team even considered fleshing out a single one of them or any of their relationships beyond the most insultingly simple set of stock tropes. The animation sucks in ways that shouldn’t even be possible in 2019. Character design feels inspired by sketches from a middle school otaku’s algebra notebook. CGI animation and backgrounds are lapped by efforts as dated as Candidate For Goddess (2002) or even Blue Submarine No. 6 (1998). The main character is an irritating shithead, and both the story and the overall direction of each episode urges you to see the world through his eyes. He’s Lelouch on steroids, if Lelouch was also a school shooter. This is very naughty harem anime. It’s daring you to say it crossed the line!

Hajime is an inflamed delusion of a character, a celebration of pure masculine id, a brash edgelord incapable of reading any situation incorrectly, overestimating his abilities or ever being in the wrong at any moment during the thirteen episodes of this series. Is it possible that the creators of this series were presented with the idea of a character with “flaws,” misunderstood the entire concept and rushed to literally correct his every imperfection? Within minutes of the first episode, we see Hajime at his lowest, confused, vulnerable and alone. Once he’s granted a magical item that he did nothing to earn and spent no effort to discover, we’re off the races. Never again will Hajime express doubt or fear. Nothing he desires isn’t framed by the script and the direction to be rightfully his to begin with. He views his companions as dead weight and isn’t afraid to tell them so: at every possible turn, his self-centered judgements are wholly affirmed. Any man who questions his methods is either frozen in fear by his terrifying gaze or is given a beatdown that would put most humans on life support. Any female character who does the same is given a stern lecture until they see things his way or are reduced to tears (including his gentle high school teacher, a young woman whose protective instincts over her students would seem to set her up as the moral center of the story… Hajime destroys her with a passionate soliloquy that reaffirms him as the sole rational actor in a world filled with weaklings, cowards and traitors). Every interaction that any character has with Hajime is eventually escalated to its most intense extremes. His presence is exhausting. He is also far from the most irritating character in the show.

Women flock to Hajime. By and large, they are bafflingly stupid archetypes that he barely tolerates. Nevertheless, they amass around him and constitute the dumbest ensemble cast of characters I’ve ever seen in a television program. Hajime’s main squeeze, a lolicon vampire he rescues from the depths of the dungeon early in the series, is the only girl in his harem who isn’t constantly turned up to 10 every second she’s onscreen (her tolerable low key demeanor is her saving grace, in exchange she functions as a fanservice dispenser for viewers who have a thing for frequently-naked girls who look like they’re ten years old). She enables and supports every decision he makes with completely submissive devotion, but in that respect she is indistinguishable from the rest of her rivals for his affection. It’s never implied that Hajime desires most of these girls in any way whatsoever, but it’s a constant given that he deserves them all. The entitled incel subtext of Arifureta isn’t disguised as much as it is hidden in plain sight, bandied about so boldly that the series often feels poised to reveal itself as a satire on the juvenile attitudes about women it marinates in from the moment these characters are introduced. I’ll admit that it’s entirely possible that I’m just that unfamiliar with the tropes of harem anime and the depths to which they’ll routinely stoop to placate viewers’ basest desires. Are there actually lots of shows like this that I’ve simply missed out on?

There’s plenty of juicy details I’m leaving out here on purpose. At a certain point, compiling a laundry list of complaints actually becomes counterproductive. The more you complain about something, the more a certain kind of person will feel drawn to it. Did it feel like a given that reminding voters that Donald Trump was a racist, a misogynist, a tax cheat, a draft dodger, a serial adulterer, a serial rapist, an Islamophobe, a failed businessman, an aspiring dictator, an enabler and protector of the far right, an Internet troll, an adult with an incomplete and dishonest understanding of the Constitution, etc. would convince them to vote for someone else? Does rattling off reasons like this come across like wagging a finger in someone’s face? People are fed up with being told what’s good for them! I don’t honestly believe that this post will trigger someone to watch Arifureta just to spite some stranger with a blog who obviously believes he has better taste than they do. But crazier things have happened. As Trump’s election exposes flaws in Democracy ripe for future exploitation, a system that only works if citizens are educated and equally empowered to make informed decisions, Arifureta is a stark reminder that a creatively bankrupt property can still “succeed” in the marketplace of ideas. While thoughtful, artistic projects helmed by industry legends slowly die on the vine, this display of utter incompetence was just rewarded with a second season.

I understand that this series speaks to people. It has its defenders, half from the “so bad it’s good” school of thought, half from a place where Hajime’s Hot Topic-chunibyo style and persona is a breath of fresh air in a world of needlessly conflicted and pointlessly sensitive characters. If I was twelve years old, how would I not fall in love with this stupid show? How would this not fill me with the thrill of imminent forbidden pleasures?

For years, criticism of the wish fulfillment fantasy anime was aimed squarely at Sword Art Online, a tremendously mediocre, pandering and “problematic” anime that suffered under these criticisms… all the way to the bank! In hindsight, some of the backlash against it was a little overblown, but compared to Arifureta it reveals itself as a visually impressive series that went out of its way to sell viewers on its premise, and in the process, gave its world a shape and a grand scale you could feel in every episode. Characters weren’t “complex,” but they were easy on the eyes and had personalities that, true to their circumstances, felt like real people (some more than others, sure, just work with me here). There was a palpable sense of danger in every episode, a sense that death was right around each corner. Kirito was a nesting doll of a protagonist, an “ordinary” boy that the typical viewer could easily identify with (he’s a gamer just like you!), but whose “ordinary” qualities concealed layers upon layers of exceptional talent and impossible levels of casual coolness that would make James Dean look like Steve Urkel. Sure, it was a manipulative trick, but for all his crimes as a character, Kirito was never an asshole (not counting contrived and insincere moments like this) and was never an avatar to the idea that enduring enough unjust suffering gives you a free pass to be one whenever you wish. Kirito had his own harem of girls set up to compete for his affection, but at least he regarded them as actual friends and not lesser human beings. Arifureta borrows heavily from SAO every chance it can and fails to improve on a single aspect of it despite having seven years to observe and remedy its shortcomings. It single handedly redeems the legacy of SAO, actually making it seem nuanced and genuinely hip by revealing the hidden depths to which viewers never assumed the isekai genre could sink to.

Arifureta is a love letter to the darkest urges of the adolescent mind. It’s rude, in your face and desperate to have it both ways: eager to stomp on “politically correct” good taste via a viewer surrogate character that confirms the audience’s deepest conviction: that they and they alone are a truly special snowflake (any questions?). It’s a devastating rebuke of the idea that anime is an art form worth taking seriously. Its existence leaves us with a lone message of consolation. Your ideas may be unpolished or unoriginal, but as long as you put something of yourself into them, they can’t turn out worse than this.

AMV chronicles #38: Daicon IV

Created by several of the founding members of Gainax (about a year before their studio even formed) to commemorate the 1983 Japanese science fiction fan expo Nihon SF Taikai (AKA Daicon IV, Wikipedia explains it better than I can), this video is comprised of 100% original animation, so referring to it as a traditional AMV by any sense of the term wouldn’t really be correct, no matter how many people have surely done so over the years. But it is funny how, despite its status as both a commercial project and a legitimate piece of wholly original art, it still managed to fall victim to the classic downfall of thousands of AMVs that would follow in the decades to come. Set to the tune of Electric Light Orchestra’s “Twilight,” the creators’ failure to secure clearance to use the song would eventually cement their project’s legacy as a historical curiosity, hardly a “lost” classic but definitely an important work that was never able to take advantage of the proper VHS/DVD release it surely deserved in one form or another. Even as FLCL keeps going strong (nigh on fifteen years and counting), arguably its most noteworthy inspiration and point of reference remains virtually unknown to a lot of its biggest fans. Then again, it’s here on the Internet for all to watch today, which is surely a more efficient means of it finding an audience in 2015 than having any official DVD release… but I’m not holding my breath for those first million views to roll in any time soon.

Don’t confuse my fondness for this short film as any kind of tacit approval for the continued use of unnecessary on-screen lyrics in AMVs. Nothing could be further from the truth!