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"Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety – then all within the four seas will be his brothers." – Analects 12.5

Often, when trying to interpret anime, explaining it through the framework of pre-existing -isms or specific artistic styles is something that may be useful as an immediately understandable way to explain the feeling of a work, but rarely does it facilitate the sort of in-depth thought that would make that work interesting and worth thinking about critically. Space Pirate Captain Harlock marks an exception to this rule, it indisputably ... and comprehensively carries the DNA of the Romanticist movement in every aspect of its design, tonally and ideologically. Popular thought may have moved past Romanticism and many of its underlying ideas, but Captain Harlock manages to firstly demonstrate their relevance into a modern context, while also expounding upon them with an originality that leaves it incomparable to even the most ideologically and philosophically minded of anime.

Especially for something to have come from the 1970s, Captain Harlock is unprecedentedly evocative and audacious in its editing. Being mindful of Osamu Tezuka’s comments that he disliked the ‘aesthetic of stillness’ created through the cost-saving techniques he personally introduced, Captain Harlock demonstrates that, while making use of these techniques due to inevitable budgetary constraints, the presence of stillness does not have any currency when it comes to making an immersive and emotionally powerful work that uses every point of visual characterisation and metaphor to convey its ideas. In fact, the reason Tezuka’s aesthetic of stillness works is for the specific reason that the editing process, not the number of keyframes in animation, is the defining element in making a work engaging and visually memorable.

As concerns the editing process, Captain Harlock’s is its own unique specimen, one that grows in response to its own environment, accepting and embracing warmth, and retreating when it sees the cold. The real schwerpunkt that comes through in this stylised form of editing is that it manages to be ingrained into psychedelia and its heightened sensations, but not to a distortive effect. In terms of visual direction, it is deeply unlike Tetsuya Nakashima, whose method appears vaguely similar on a surface level, but Nakashima sets out to produce an extra layer of hyperreality on the visual plane to create a further degree of separation between character, viewer, and narrative. Captain Harlock’s editing engages with different motives, creating a coalescent sense of poetics that comes from experience, using the hyperrealised form of editing that brings attention to itself, to remove alienation and disparity between character and setting, rather than to enhance it. This also extends to smaller scenes, even the opening episode titles are put against an episode-specific background of movement and music that ensures it is kept interesting. Even in the most celebrated of anime, the opening title cards are almost always put onto a simple black background, but Captain Harlock moves beyond this arbitrary simplicity, which is representative of its editing process as a whole – they could have gone for a more standard ‘invisible’ continuity editing, but as they have demonstrated, it creates a far more poignant experience when they choose not to. Even still, it is not an overbearing part of the visual production, but it is always there, and each episode manages to make itself distinct by ensuring the editing maintains a field of visual layering and poetics that prevent it from feeling formulaic.

Likewise, the sound design in the series manages to be of the utmost quality, whether through the ambient soundscapes, or the layered tones of screams and deoxygenated flames that appear when the Mazone are killed (which is itself complemented by a dissociative and hyperrealised visual accompaniment of sharp, coloured lighting), creating a pronounced and poignant effect on the viewer. The same is true of the orchestral soundtrack, which appear both in diegetic and non-diegetic forms on a regular basis, conveying the operatic scale of action. Rather than using straightforwardly bombastic and high-energy tracks, its action sequences use music evocative of Samuel Barber, conveying the sense of danger and scale, but also the underlying sadness that permeates it. That is really the point that makes Captain Harlock exemplary, it may nominally be a space opera series about fighting alien invaders, but it retains an emotional core that is uncharacteristic of the genre – one episode ends with Harlock sitting at the oceanside as Kei plays the shamisen, a moment that carries distinct feelings to Harlock, Kei, and the viewer alike, but all of whom manage to recognise the sublimity in the distinctiveness and individuality from that one moment and experience.

As a character himself, Harlock is deeply elusive. A melancholic and Byronic hero, at least only in certain respects, he doesn’t adhere to the standard template of the Byronic hero, nor the more classical image of a hero (he may be on a nautical odyssey, but there is nothing Homeric in his character), and he has perhaps even less commonality with the more modern concept of a morally ambiguous anti-hero one may expect from his outlaw status. Ideologically, the series chooses to invoke nostalgia, taking place in a future in which “the impostume of wealth and peace that inward breaks” (as was once conveyed by an earlier writer) has prevailed, leading to an Earth which has been gripped by a Hobbesian conception of all the ills and insecurities of a pre-societal state, doubled with all the worst elements of corporate and government control that characterise a more contemporary life experience. Put up against this background, Harlock is questioned on why he would even choose to fight for an Earth that is so corrupt and hostile to his own existence, and though he gives various answers at intermittent periods, none of them are ever comprehensive. To return to the earlier conception of Romanticism, that is what Harlock is, as a series, and as a character. Harlock fights against modernity and technology, his ship carries a mixture of features of vintage, ancient, and new. It has all the futuristic radar and laser missiles necessary for its own survival, but no more, with other parts of the ship being made from wood, and carrying a similar triple turret formation to the IJN Yamato. Further, seeing as his enemy, the Mazone, is an alien race that may be characterised by two major traits, being an invading foreign force, and consisting entirely of women (tall women with hime cuts, to be exact), it can be extrapolated that the series also stands as an affirmation of pre-Showa social attitudes in this respect. Harlock is ultimately concerned with the sentimentality of Romanticism, in all its forms, fighting for one’s self, purely for its own sake, there is reference to his crew “fighting under the flag of freedom”, but the ship’s flag is a Jolly Roger, a symbol of death, not freedom. As a sort of ronin, Harlock is compelled to fight, not for an allegiance to Earth, but for an inherent Romanticist notion of fighting for its own sake, and for the love of the poignancy that being freed of all obligation and allegiance manages to carry, on its own terms. In its very structure, Harlock manages to show the impact of the loss of the grand narrative found in a deeply corrupt humanity, in which only the self may remain, and the series manages to demonstrate both the great sublimity that comes from a space-faring outlaw life, and the implicit melancholy, and longing sadness that comes from that very situation.

The Colours Within is in many ways an unconventional approach to a standard and understood subject matter. Director Naoko Yamada’s best known works (A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird) operate under the Aristotelian currency of pain and catharsis, which marks a clear separation to her work within TV anime, which closer resemble similar moves towards the means of catharsis, but without the pain or dramatic grandeur that other narratives choose to incorporate. In consideration of these two categories, The Colours Within fails to fit into either, it includes base-level resemblances to iyashikei works like K-On, but it is wholly disinterested in providing the ... same sort of narrative structure as any such example within that genre. It is a remarkable instance of a work that values and emphasises a heightened sense of interiority, without moving towards overt expressionism or metaphor.

One significant point that can facilitate interpreting The Colours Within comes from the philosopher Taki Koji, who stated that the act of photography is “an attempt at overcoming vision itself.” Rather than taking the approach of a more standard form of continuity editing, the film is immediately recognisable for its embedding of its cinematography via its first-person narrator of Totsuko, whose specifically idiosyncratic interpretation of the world around her is reflected by the fact that she is able to see a select few people as embodied by certain, specific colours, unique to each individual. It is an ability that is only ever dealt with in relatively abstract terms (and does not lead to a trite apocalypse plot where she has to use her special powers, as with the later works of Makoto Shinkai), but it is only one of several ways in which the film’s visual language and tone articulates itself. On a structural level, compositing (and by extension, proxemics and use of colour tones) is the material essence that defines animation, and it is in this area that The Colours Within is most effective in its direction; for a film that deals with relatively few locations, it is nonetheless able to create an expansive sense of scale within its cinematography, and to make each individual shot evocative and interesting to look at. The colour palette within the film’s backgrounds and locales makes an extensive use of lighter pastel tones, representing a form of lighting that is stylised but naturalistic in its form, a point that specifically contrasts the natural lighting within most scenes to the colours produced from Totsuko’s own perspective. Though long-time Yamada fans will be delighted to find that the film does include leg shots, added to the standard directorial mode is an uncharacteristically large number of establishing shots of still life or empty buildings that do not contain any characters within the frame. Although this may seem to be a form of homage or reference to Yasujiro Ozu, it remains distinct in its own right due to the differentiating context between the two. Ozu’s work is more presently occupied with the mechanisms of domestic drama, and he specifically makes use of quieter moments to serve as a form of contrast, deliberately drawing attention to the fact that the camera chooses to focus on a specific area that seems unrelated to the given scene.

More critically, to interpret this specific technique as either a direct reference, or a means of moving the same method into a new context to try and achieve the same effect, would be a reductionist approach. The specific intentions of The Colours Within, and the manner in which it conveys and executes those ideas, is something that does not permit a simple comparison, especially when Koji and Ozu’s works both came from the Shōwa era, with its completely separate understanding of shared values and the master narrative compared to the 21st century. But the element of greater importance as concerns The Colours Within’s hyperspecifity is that it operates on a subterranean level. Unlike most works that try and incorporate more unconventional narrative forms, it is not an exercise in postmodernity or Brechtian thought, but rather, a means of using the sublime and all that it encompasses to create a contained iconography that is able to operate without the constraints that typically accompany a more standard form of narrative structure. Further, instead of taking a somewhat standard approach of utilising the environment (particularly as concerns the establishing shots) to be viewed purely as an extension of the main character and their current emotions, the film manages to produce a world that is clearly being interpreted and seen through Totsuko, but with a more multi-layered approach to introspection that extends beyond their own singular perspective, and the convergence of both the inner self and the outside world, each with distinct visual language, manages to enhance the feeling and cinematic strength of both items. While there are some films in which the city it takes place in can be seen as a character in its own right, The Colours Within takes this premise and moves it in a different direction, as the mere presence of colour itself is akin to a character, one with its own mood and feeling that changes in response to the other characters. With all this in mind, although there is plenty that can be said about the use of colour and cinematography, and it is inarguably the film’s most striking and evidently focused element, the film’s general characterisation is one point that should not be overlooked. Naturalistic is the descriptor that is most appropriate for the characters in the film, but within this general framework, it is significant that it manages to be a film about character that contains values, rather than the other way around – it is too often the case that even dramatists working under this deliberate framework think about values, and how characters are meant to fit into and represent those values, before thinking about how they are supposed to exist as properly realised individuals. The Colours Within manages to avoid this issue by virtue of the aforementioned colour scheme and cinematography, forming a representation of the disorder that comes from adolescence, and trying to adhere to the value systems of all sorts of different people, whilst still trying to figure yourself out in the process. It has elements of humour, thoughtful intensity, and all the points in-between that characterise the moments of any portrait of domestic life, and is able to navigate through these points with remarkable finesse, maintaining this tonal consistency by never growing overbearing with its moves towards character development, it is a film that clearly demonstrates a recognition of the fact that what isn’t said is just as important as what is. The focus on body language and proxemics across the film allows these disparate elements to coalesce with and complement the emotional impact of each other, rather than acting as points of tonal contrast or difference.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said that “To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived”, which is a point that seems to perfectly encapsulate The Colours Within and its overarching philosophy, a film in which there is as much to be gathered from any number of establishing shots as there is in any moment of poignant character development. It is a work largely unconcerned with most the points of character and narrative convention, and correspondingly most pre-existing theories of narratology and film studies are of limited applicability, it is plainly a work that does not operate under the same framework that most films use. But, for those that can look past the basic expectations of genre convention, they will find a greatly rewarding and engaging work that manages to integrate narrative, cinematographic presentation and character writing in such a manner that each specific aspect of form, performance and perspective manages to inform and enhance the overarching whole, in a manner that allow it to occupy its own specific position. Unlike the aforementioned genre films, it is a work that cannot be copied or replicated, nor easily categorised into a Hiroki Azuma-esque database of elements that explain what makes it effective, and this is the precise reason that The Colours Within is effective, and worth seeing – it is a film that acts on its own terms, and manages to operate on a visual language that allows it to be incomparable to any other.

According to an old saying, "the times change, and we too change with them." Excluded from this 'we', however, are isekai authors, a peculiar group with a soldierly manifest in their refusal to change anything, so that they can retell the same story in exactitude for as long as the light novel industry and the recognisability of the video game RPG will allow them to sidestep having to engage with any form of creativity. But, rather than address the entire genre that it belongs to, my only purpose is to speak only and specifically about Konosuba. To open with, its setting is, as with all ... its genre contemporaries, deliberately generic, offering very little for a viewer to be immersed with or engage with, it is antithetical to those made by the likes of Tolkien or Martin which implore a sense of wonder and curiosity, Konosuba’s world doesn’t want you to peer through the curtain to see what you’ll find, because there is nothing there. A vaguely European, vaguely medieval village, where people still eat onigiri, characters will show up in an office lady/flight attendant outfit for one scene without explanation, and others will be dressed like Japanese delinquents with pompadour haircuts. But despite the aforementioned, there’s also a scene in which the main character has to explain what football is, which only points towards a real lack of commitment, there is the incidental line in which the characters reveal that they are aware they are in a video game, but for the most part, it is just the facade of a medieval setting, an author taking a medieval setting, and rather than thinking about how this would affect or change things understood from a modern perspective, they simply and carelessly add those modern elements without any consideration of how it actually impacts the world they have created.

Although Konosuba would like to produce a setting in which some isolated village seemingly in the middle of nowhere is the only place that matters (with that said, if they ever travelled to a separate one, I don’t think anyone would notice), there is no escaping from the interconnected nature of the world at large, and it is in this area that the issues with the writing reveal themselves. For one thing, it becomes obvious early on how much they rely on the same basic principles, basic in the sense that they do not allow for any real sense of expansion or development. The most prominently featured of these is the fact that a character's level of confidence is directly disproportionate to the likelihood of them actually being correct – when the knight says "a low-level adventurer like you will never be able to even hurt me", that is when you know he will be defeated immediately. Elsewhere, this lack of creativity is evident, as while the level of narration is kept to a minimum, an exception to this is made, when the main character will invoke the classic isekai moment of Aristotelian anagnorisis, only for a fake-out, i.e. "I thought I wanted my old life back, but I’m actually glad to have my friends and I care about them, except not really this shit sucks and I hate them." I counted 3 instances of them reusing this same exact setup, and considering the fact this sort of character realisation can’t occur until a few episodes have passed, that’s basically once every other episode, which really points to the lack of imagination. There’s a way of writing subversive comedy, and this isn't even a resemblance of what that looks like. Across the rest of its runtime, it is similarly uninspired, taking the approach of making sure all of its characters, rather than just one minor one, are gag characters, people with only one trait to their credit (as it so happens, all three of them share the same unifying trait of stupidity), as though they are working backwards, to create a flanderised non-entity, and then slowly try and incidentally add some moments of them displaying competence, before of course reversing that course to return to the standard sitcom baseline. Among these, Darkness manages to set herself apart as having some of the most egregious dialogue, either she directly announces and reminds the viewer of her one trait in her speech, or if not, her vocal performance is enunciated in such a way that it is obviously there to only invoke and again remind them of that fact. Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei was able to balance a whole classroom of trait-based characters, by turning them into people whose personalities were reflected by their traits, not defined by them. How Konosuba failed to even manage with a mere 3 is a testament to its overwhelming lack of care, but of course, the dialogue doesn't matter – watching any episode makes it apparent that the actual words spoken are not the point of attention, that would be the reaction shots. Thomas LaMarre spoke of how anime typically produces an aesthetic of stillness, a sense of movement even when there is none, through clever framing and shot techniques, something Konosuba chooses not to do and instead depict extras in the shot with full prominence, so the viewer is able to view their complete lack of movement via the refusal to animate more than one character at a time. It’s all in the reaction shots, the dialogue is only there to facilitate them, and every other aspect of design and production isn't there to facilitate anything, but that doesn't matter either, because nobody cares about having an interesting setting or good dialogue, or anything. If they can add viral-worthy reaction shots, then that’s all they need.

To summarise, I believe this quotation from Christopher Bolton perfectly encapsulates Konosuba's framework: "While Lyotard hoped that modernity's received grand narratives would give way to a more conscious (more critical) choice between the numberless little narratives of postmodernity, Blood+ is arguably the worst of both worlds: the same trivial script replayed endlessly without any room for self-awareness or choice. This seems to be a risk inherent in television anime. Even as the extended time frame allows for more involved plots, the formulaic quality that often characterises television can quickly undermine any sense of critical perspective." Bolton may be talking about another series in another genre, but I would not be able to contest a word of its poignancy as concerns this particular series. Konosuba include incidental moments of Brechtian self-awareness, but critically, it is only the appearance of being as such. It is not an exercise in anti-intellectualism, but rather, something arguably worse – a series that demonstrates a conceptual ignorance of intellectualism, not understanding why poetics, aesthetics, or anything at all manifests itself within the arts. It turns a skull back to look upon itself, but without the eyes to assess any of what it has created.

Speaking about The Tempest, Samuel Johnson wrote that "whatever might be Shakespeare's intention in forming or adopting the plot, he has made it instrumental to the production of many characters, diversified with boundless invention, and preserved with profound skill in nature, extensive knowledge of opinions, and accurate observation of life." Although much has changed from the days of either Johnson or Shakespeare, Cardcaptor Sakura manages to establish its own form of genre hyperspecificity. With this in mind, traditional English theatre should not be viewed as directly comparable to anime, owing to the lack of production value and choreography (as it is understood within a cinematic ... context) in the former case, and while Cardcaptor Sakura is certainly no exercise in trying to imitate Shakespeare, nor even to integrate it with the more kinetic forms of Japanese artforms such as noh or puppet theatre, it carries a significant point to remain aware of. Especially when considering an episodic format, Johnson’s comment is crucial, as it is not the machinations of plot that define an exemplary work, nor the action set pieces that characterise later cinematic works, as Cardcaptor Sakura operates and functions via hyperspecificity and the interconnection of multiple areas of design, it is all in the psychology, character, and location that coalesce to produce a work that manages to reiterate a familiar episodic format that balances its disparate elements in such a way that they enhance and enrich the whole atmosphere.

Compared to other contemporary mahou shoujo characters, even those of CLAMP’s own design such as Magic Knight Rayearth, Sakura’s design is notable in how subdued it is, with Sakura choosing to present herself to the world at large without the sort of extravagance that shoujo character design makes itself known for. As a furtherance, Sakura’s own demeanour is also modest, especially when viewed in contrast to that of Kero, Meiling or Tomoyo – Sakura’s own psychology is that of the superego, but lives in a world populated by the id. Navigating this world, and the simultaneous search for self and love for others within that world, is what exemplifies Cardcaptor Sakura. As with The Tempest, it is not a timeline or graphing of plot elements that are of defining importance, it is the establishment of character and atmosphere, a recognisable iconography of a world at large, all of which move in formation to create something meaningful. Across a wider generic scale, theorist Thomas Lamarre has stated that viewers are "encouraged to see shojo as a metaphysical construct with cosmological implications, precisely because she/it is a woman that is not one", and this is the defining struggle of Cardcaptor Sakura, to acknowledge the cosmological aspects of a world that is governed by the id (certainly, it would be impossible to define any semblance of authority or power structures otherwise), and to see through one’s own sense of growing confidence and understanding via apotheosis.

Escapism is an overused word. Escapism, pandering, or fan service all cover similar territory in their attempt to appeal to certain desires and expectations of an audience, but I elect to instead call it the viewer’s own id. The character of Tomoyo is central here, firstly through her recording of Sakura, making her a viewer-director in her own right, and by providing Sakura with elaborate costumes for her to wear, and these two points merge to provide a metafictional depiction of the viewer’s id. Significantly, doubly so for something released so soon after Perfect Blue, Tomoyo’s id is not framed or articulated in a negative manner, there is nothing nefarious or voyeuristic (avoiding an echo of a Hitchcock-De Palma sensibility by specifically watching Sakura as she is in danger) within her behaviour, and by extension the series itself. The viewer’s id demands to be presented with its own unique and exciting audio-visual experiences, and it is in this respect that Cardcaptor Sakura is perhaps most notable. Sakura’s apotheosis may be unlike that of a typical warrior or hero, in part due to the lack of apocalyptic implications typical of many anime, but the combination of an original iconography, kinetic action and inventive use of the opportunities created by the setting all share one commonality, remarkable in how controlled they all are. By extension, they may not appeal to the sort of psychedelia or pure disregard of standard form that characterises some of the most intricately directed and choreographed action sequences, De Palma’s included, but the consistently retained control is what elevates CLAMP’s direction. The use of stillness is emphasised, but it is through a continued use of forward motion that a sense of energy is created, the feeling of movement even when the frame remains still, orchestrated in such a way that while the frames often remain still, they do not repeat or reverse themselves, and the points of movement themselves are typically quick, making each moment and decision crucial to any given situation.

The embedded nature is the point that is perhaps of the highest importance. Sakura embeds herself onto others, who reflect back onto her, and this is also the basis for most magical encounters, finding the correct means of breaking through, as failure to do so only results in ricochet and reflection. The embedded nature also extends to the world itself, which harnesses its own magical properties (or ‘presence’) at certain times in certain areas, and it is at these junctures that a recognition of the self within this world becomes crucial. Rather than a purely introspective approach, Cardcaptor Sakura understands the importance of recognising the ontological status of all that one engages with, and it is for this reason that it manages to be so engaging as it develops twofold: Sakura understands her superego, the viewer understands their id, and both of them manage to find the sublime by the process.

SPT Layzner occupies its own position within the overarching (if not overbearing) market of 1980s mecha with a political and military focus. Within the decade, director Ryosuke Takahashi’s other works prior to Layzner included VOTOMS, with its focus on a deeply rotten and outright malignantly corrupt military bureaucracy, while Dougram adopted a more domestic sociological perspective, examining the way common people were affected by the colonisation of space. As the most popular franchise within the mecha genre, Gundam would have been the most direct market competitor, with its own thematic and narrative elements broadly comparable to both of these shows, but there is one specific ... area in which Layzner retains a distinct identity from either Takahashi’s other works, or Gundam, and that is in its tone. More so than any specific details of narrative development, Layzner emphasises and materialises a harsh tone and atmosphere within its world, creating a pervasive sense of danger and insecurity at every moment, without reprieve. Sometimes within the mecha genre, the inside of the cockpit is treated as a safe retreat, a position for the pilot to assert their own authority and retain a sense of self, while exerting that will upon others, other times it is within the domestic setting that comfort is found, but Layzner makes the distinct decision to avoid providing comfort within any location in its universe.

In its approach to worldbuilding, Layzner is remarkably subdued, infusing its Cold War setting with an appropriate sense of realism, an aspect which also applies to its technological design, most prominently seen through items like computers and radar systems, missiles and ships, all of which have a consistent and uncompromisingly rectangular, blocky form. This effectively encapsulates the post-detente era and its indefinite extension as depicted within the story, and secondarily it is able to add to the plausibility of the situation, not just in the design of its mechs but in all aspects that inform them. With this in mind, Layzner is not directly concerned with realism, it is only the byproduct of an intelligently restrained use of its setting. On a narrative level, the robots are a mechanism used for achieving goals, not a means unto themselves, and the overarching goal that Layzner is principally concerned with is inducing a sense of pure terror. Not in the sense of the horror genre, which centralises its entire sense of fear and danger through a single character, consequently relying on profoundly stupid characters, and even stupider strings of cliches in order to function. Layzner moves a step in the right direction, by instead endeavouring to make the very environment itself outright hostile to its characters’ survival, with dust storms on the surface of Mars completely obfuscating any sense of direction or vision, and the complete absence of any organic life on the planet can hardly be viewed as a reassuring omen. The only inorganic life found on the planet would be human life, and considering that the only other people are already dead, killed instantly with no possibility of escape, this too compounds the predicament and does little for the fighting spirit.

As a furtherance of this hostility, the robotic weaponry used for humanity’s survival carries its own first-person identity. Hiroki Azuma has invoked the idea that science fiction anime depicts a classic philosophical grand narrative within circumstances that make its realisation impossible, and likewise, Layzner’s pursuit of scientific achievement, predominantly done within the context of geopolitical conquest and great power games, builds a universe in which this pursuit of scientific perfection is initiated, but with inherent qualities that make perfection an impossibility, and with far-reaching consequences. The computers that control the mechs within the series have their own thinking processes, giving information to the pilot, and recommending specific courses of action, with the unstated caveat that they are programmed in such a way that their decision making is deliberately limited and biased, at times counter to the pilot’s intentions, making the specific mecha on which humanity entrusts its own survival, unreliable and untrustworthy for that purpose. Found along this trajectory are the unmanned robots who hunt down the unarmed survivors of humanity, which only exemplifies the pure hostility inherent within the machinery. The unmanned robots (whose designs are inarguably the absolute coolest thing within the series) are not used to support a squad, they offer no tactical advantage, they are only used out of pure genocidal hatred, to kill unarmed survivors in the depths of the underground. Naturally, this sort of genocidal hatred is not limited to robots, in that respect the most deranged behaviour is found within the select few who infuse their organic bodies with wire and metal a la Giger, an option only accessible enough to those psychotic enough to accept their own destruction because they value the death of others more than their own sense of self. Christopher Bolton suggested that the fear of integrating with technology eroding the essence of humanity is one of the main concerns exhibited within the science fiction genre, but the character of Gosterro disregards that idea, outright enthused in himself when he says “I’m not even sure how much of me is human at this point”, spoken through a visage that lacks the elegance of Robocop, looking more like if an IED were a person, with metallic armour smashed into his face and eyes, with other parts of tissue and wire exposed openly as they contort in purely inhuman ways.

This generally applied use of technology as a means to invoke its warlike terror is present throughout the entirety of the series, as it moves from Mars to the alien occupation of Earth, as the survivors begin a resistance movement in New York City, which has since been reduced to a deprived slum, with its black skyscrapers looking condemned and its citizens living in abject misery – aliens haven’t erected a giant pyramid outside Yankee Stadium yet, but apart from that they did accurately capture what it’s been like since Rudy Giuliani retired as mayor. Since the 1980s, which happens to be when Layzner was aired, the notion of high concept film has permeated the industry globally, and it is much easier to find something that fits into the concept of high concept than the opposite. In that respect, it’s difficult to truly find an area in which Layzner could be considered high concept, as it lacks the purely adrenaline-driven emotionally charged protagonists of other action franchises, nor the sort of deep examination of minutiae and internal lore that is designed to appeal to dedicated otaku. Layzner has one thing to its credit, and that is its tension and atmosphere, which is unrelentingly carried across each of its episodes. It may not be a popular thing to have such an uncompromisingly hopeless atmosphere, the lack of popularity of Takahashi’s later Blue Gender, which doubled down on injecting horror into a mecha setting would seem to corroborate the idea, although in this respect Layzner would be seen as ahead of the post-Lost Decade zeitgeist that facilitated that sort of narrative direction. It’s certainly not high concept in the manner in which it is typically understood, but Layzner, which may not have done much to help reassure or comfort any of its audience about their fears of MAD, did at least manage to orchestrate a poignant sense of insecurity within all that encapsulates its visual and narrative design and structure, creating an emotionally engaging piece that contrasts with the genre’s established conventions, and the asphyxiating pressure and fear that defines Layzner as a series is idiosyncratic and incomparable.

Around the time of the First Great War, when many others had come to similar conclusions, Hemingway spoke out against the notion of patriotic sacrifice, saying that “in modern war, you will die like a dog for no good reason.” But as far as Zeta Gundam is concerned, Hemingway’s comment is missing one piece of critical context – having to live through a war is not much of an improvement.

As a direct sequel, Zeta Gundam makes no hesitation in reaffirming itself within familiar territory, establishing a new war from the perspective of an isolated ship, whose mobile suit pilot, Kamille, is inexperienced in combat, ... a point only matched by his inexperience with regulating his emotions. Although motivated in part by the death of his parents, Kamille’s newtype abilities allow him to innately sense anguish from seemingly anyone within his vicinity. This makes him not directly comparable to a Hamlet-like figure haunted by the ghost of his father, but more of a burdened and cursed being, haunted by the fabric of Death itself. In particular, this aspect of Kamille’s character relates to Harold Bloom’s comments on Hamlet and his resentment that comes from being placed within a ‘cosmological drama’. Kamille may grow more comfortable and free with his movement inside the Gundam, but the zero-G environment can deprive him of that control at any moment, and further, while Kamille may have a certain level of autonomy when it comes to controlling the Gundam itself, he is entirely helpless when it comes to anything external, with his attempts at persuasion or communication with others only leading to further frustration and upset, due to his inability to properly help or change anything. Through this framework, Zeta Gundam develops a tragic backdrop that encapsulates the core of each of its individual episodes, as Kamille may be endowed with the means to acquire apotheosis, the godlike power to decimate any enemy with his own will, but he is an isolated being, held back by his own conscience and desire for a better world – love, another of Kamille’s driving desires, is also left unfulfilled, which as with so much else that happens to him, ends up in failure due to his inability to change the circumstances of the world he lives in.

Kamille may be the most important character in terms of drama and psychology, but Char, who carries with him a level of sorrow and heaviness, is the driving force in many of the episodes that take an inside look at the political and sociological elements of the Gundam story. These episodes manage to be some of the strongest of the series, most prominently by showing ordinary life within the colonies, which could not accurately be labelled as retrofuturism or its contemporary atomic age ideas of futurism, but nonetheless feature a distinctively individual portrait of a lifestyle that has taken in certain cultural notions and technologies of a changing world, while rigidly sticking to others. More critically, the wider context these episodes establish gives them some of the greatest depth, as while Kamille may be frustrated by his inability to move the world in a more peaceful direction, these episodes that step away from the confines of spaceships and the space battles that carry no distinct landmarks apart from asteroids, elaborate on the many individuals within the military bureaucracy, some who are princely ideologues that want to change the world (much like a certain Prince Hamlet), and others who are ‘just following orders’.

Its wider ideas of tragedy notwithstanding, Zeta Gundam is a carefully orchestrated and directed affair, and the reason it is able to effectively implement its thematic ideas is through a proper understanding of the episodic format, knowing when to focus on individual characters and their thoughts, or to allow their actions speak for themselves. Its episodes are able to feel conclusive in their own right, whilst at the same time generating intrigue with the extra context they add to the story and universe, emphasising this story with a mounting and expanding action. Kamille is a figure who is significant as the centrepiece of this story because he doesn’t develop in the way typical of the genre, Amuro included, he does not become battle hardened so much as he simply becomes familiarised with the sight of battle and its expectations. Desperation, his emotional response, remains the same, and while the outside world may be a cacophony of colour, explosives and lasers and whatever a Minovsky particle is, his internal perception is always familiar – the shots of Kamille’s introspection are marked visually by the dull blue tint of his visor, and auditorily by his persistent screams.

Zeta Gundam is a finely produced work, one that is not overbearing with its characterisation or tone, but is able to, with remarkable pace, produce a gripping tragedy, in which ambition and belief are held at the mercy of a rapidly changing world that cares little for the individual. To return to Hamlet, he lamented that despite having “cause, will and strength”, he was still held back by his own inaction. Kamille, comparatively, had all of these characteristics, but external factors prevented him from acting in a way that had any real meaning. I would not be able to declare which of the two circumstances is worse.

Superficially, Joshiraku presents itself as the lesser cousin of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, making sure to incorporate many of author Koji Kumeta’s previously established elements into its repertoire: traditional iconography, heavy emphasis on kanji puns and cultural references, and Ionescian dialogue. But while it does includes many aspects already present in Zetsubou-sensei, it also omits plenty of the points that made it especially effective, most critically by replacing its large cast of trait-based characters in favour of the more standard treatment of 5 main characters, all of whom meet the expected archetypes within the standard anime comedy format.

The most notable aspect of Joshiraku is perhaps its formatting, ... which is much closer to that of a 4koma manga, rather than an anime episode with a standard A-plot and B-plot – for that matter, it lacks any real conception of a plot at all. Exhibiting a narrative in any capacity is firmly rejected, as they take a much looser interpretation, which is perhaps exemplified by its first chapter title, "Usual Conversation", which appropriately enough leads to a meta-discussion about what constitutes 'usual', and ends with nothing being resolved. Despite the title of the series, it has very little to do with rakugo, as while its main cast are all performers of the artform, this aspect of their lives is rarely discussed or even acknowledged, and the only time any actual rakugo is seen is at the start of each episode, wherein only the closing moments are shown, and naturally there is little to infer from a story that the viewer is only able to capture one sentence from. This technique may appear comparable to Seinfeld, but it remains distinct, as Seinfeld's use of a narrated monologue to open its episodes carried significance by remaining at least tangibly related to the episode as a whole, and sometimes retained an extra purpose as it was at times used again as a segment to end the episode, to conclusively wrap it all together. Joshiraku de-emphasises its own existence, which is also exhibited in that its rakugo receives very limited applause, which alongside the fact that its characters are all deeply removed from any conception of the Yamato-nadeshiko, may seem to suggest that Joshiraku advances some form of argument about the erosion of Japanese tradition, in culture, in language, and in attitude. Alistair Swale once stated that "There is arguably a point where aesthetic ideals from classical literature, for example mono no aware or wabi and sabi, engender a certain awkwardness; it is something of a struggle to employ such concepts usefully in relation to cinema without drifting into a certain pastiche of cultural references." This is where the core of Joshiraku lies, through the disconnect in attempting to transfer meaning and ideas from one medium to another. Rakugo does not provide much of a recognisable framework in the story it establishes for a modern Tokyoite audience, and while Joshiraku may seem to display elements in its imagery that appear distinctly Japanese, including in sections where the characters make visits to classic landmarks like the Sensoji Temple or Tsukiji fish market for no given reason (in the latter case, going to the fish market, proceeding to talk about fish, and then going to buy ramen instead), it neither contains a cohesive integration of this classical iconography, nor does it accept it wholesale in a nostalgic manner.

With this in mind, Joshiraku does manage to operate effectively as a firm consolidation of all the conventions and ideas that have come to be expected from a modern comedy anime. Particularly, it avoids the rakugo notion of developing a singular, long story with a simplistic punchline. Instead, its dialogue is equal parts manzai, Irvine Welsh, and Eugene Ionesco, allowing it to retain the same sort of tenacity and idiosyncratic particularities exhibited in Zetsubou-sensei. Of the above influences, Ionesco holds a specific connection, due to the fact that The Bald Soprano was originally planned to end via the audience being shot by a firing squad. The confusion from the Ionescian dialogue becomes familiar, and thereby in a sense it grows comforting, before it creates a violent upheaval which destroys this established idea, and resets it again. This is a point that Joshiraku makes use of, by establishing situations that are entirely Ionescian, creating a semblance of understanding with the points of discussion, and likewise, a similarly violent upheaval, which also evokes a similar tradition seen within manzai, as this sudden change is used for comedic effect, rather than to punctuate a philosophic or linguistic idea as Ionesco chose to. In this area, it is undeniably effective, the sound design and animation keep these moments impactful, providing a sense of weight and power with these movements. Even so, one detriment that Joshiraku holds is that even with the strengths of its dialogue acknowledged, its main characters do not appear to have the same level of thought put into their creation, being a largely standard array of genre archetypes, without offering much new insight into the prevalence of these archetypes: the glasses-wearing otaku, the quiet one, and the comparatively normal one who barely even has any lines. There aren’t any other recurring characters, meaning this main cast is all the viewer has to engage with, and so to have produced more original, or at least evocative characters would have done a lot to elevate the series.

Although it may present some interesting points, Joshiraku is undeniably an entry into the comedy anime genre – as idiosyncratic as its dialogue may be, it is not a series that is immune to simplistic labelling or categorisation. R.G. Collingwood once suggested that requiring artists to create work that is able to be sold and enjoyed to a mass audience contradicts the fundamental nature of what art is, and with this in mind, perhaps if Joshiraku were developed for the purpose of providing some further exploration of the historic and aesthetic ideas it presents, it may have been a much more interesting work. But nonetheless, it is able to be easily categorised, and as with any comedy, part of this categorisation lies on the inevitable and fundamental question, "is it funny?" It manages to be funny enough, Zetsubou-sensei, Ionesco, manzai, and Seinfeld have all had much greater comedic moments than Joshiraku, but it is consistently funny across its runtime, which by any metric makes it a successful work.

Mobile Suit Gundam is a work that understands and applies the principles of Aristotelian tragedy, although in contrast to many later works that borrowed its iconography, it is not a tragedy. It may have tragic elements, but it does not overbear in emphasising the victimhood status of its main character, which may be Gundam’s greatest strength. It contains a mixture of many elements – action, comedy, tragedy, and political intrigue, which it is able to deftly flow between, while always maintaining the emotional core that makes each of its components effective and engaging on an individual level.

The DNA of Space Battleship Yamato runs through Gundam, ... which manages to evidence itself in several ways, an influence that becomes most readily apparent through the frequent use of nautical terminology, but it is also retained through the editing and approach to the episodic format, particularly with regards to its action sequences. Herein lies a critical difference, as while Yamato also made use of land, naval and aerial combat to provide much-needed variety to familiar set pieces, Gundam offers a more potent ability to provide new forms and variations in context, and more significantly, variation in scale. It is able to put forth a convincing level of scale, portraying a large and chaotic battle in which the main characters only occupy a small part of the overall picture, although its earlier episodes do manage to be more self-contained, but still effective. While many of these episodes are set in space, they do not portray it as a vast emptiness, instead utilising a Frankenheimerian sense of wholeness via the editing to provide it with a consistent sense of background and placement, which allows it to keep the movement at least somewhat grounded, and this also allows it to avoid the trap of making its mechs move so effortlessly that they feel floaty or weightless. In this regard, it is also remarkable for managing to offer as large a variety of unique mecha designs as it does, with both sides upgrading and developing their units as the series progresses, which also manages to further accentuate their individual features – the sluggishness of the Zaku is a minor point that allows for the action scenes to take on a slower paced style of combat towards the beginning, and in the final arc, when the Zaku is fighting alongside newer mechs with both better firepower and mobility, that slowness ends up being exemplified, being an example of one of many idiosyncrasies that begins as a point of minutiae that ends up rising to the surface.

Within its writing, one of Gundam's principal strengths it its ability to introduce a large number of concurrent aspects of its universe at once, without falling into exposition or otherwise coming across as overbearing with its delivery of new information. In particular, its tonal framework approaches the concept of war with a remarkable level of originality, by making it an accepted part of life in which its insidious psychological effects are always present in the background, and when the right circumstances fall into place, it can lead to a mental breakdown in any of its possible characters at a moment’s notice, giving Gundam's depiction of war more commonality with the soul-consuming barbarity of Apocalypse Now than the simplistic soapboxing of The Deer Hunter.
Though this aspect of its writing is true for its tone and thematic elements, the final arc of the series does not manage to follow through in this area. Foreshadowing is one specific technique that this concurrent approach uses, and Gundam is uncharacteristically patient with its foreshadowing – the encounter between Amuro and his father, and then Sayla and Char, happen in the first and second episodes respectively, and these narrative threads are not expanded upon until the closing 6 or so episodes. It is for this reason that the introduction of the concept of Newtypes, also in the final 6 episodes, comes across as disappointing in its execution, as they do not adhere to the same writing principles that the rest of the series does. The word Newtype is not mentioned, nor is their existence so much as alluded to until this point in the series, which coincides with the introduction of a new character, who exists to be a plot device rather than an individual. As a furtherance of this issue, these episodes are marked by a considerable increase in exposition, with people having to directly explain what Newtypes are and how they work, contrasting it heavily with the rest of the series which was able to effectively and naturally introduce plot elements without having to put the brakes on the story’s pacing, which is precisely what the introduction of Newtypes does.

In its entirety, Gundam is able to orchestrate and balance character, worldbuilding and action into a comprehensive package, creating a series that is able to layer and compound intrigue and tension to keep it consistently interesting. Although its concluding arc is not up to the standard set by the rest of the series, its ability to continually move forwards and provide new forms of context and imagery with its set pieces, together with its solidly interconnected characterisation, makes it a series worthy of its canonicity.

Flag is a bold venture, committing entirely to its realistic pseudo-documentary style, which means omitting an emotionally charged main character, elaborate robot-vs-robot battles, or any of the other genre conventions that would typically serve as points to sell the series on. In that regard, it is a series that can’t be easily sold or summarised via a poster or tagline, but it can at least be summarised accurately with a familiar phrase: it is boring. For that matter, it is very committed to being boring, and it is respectable in its endeavour to reject almost every narrative convention that it is expected to perform, but ... while its willingness to be different may be respectable, that doesn’t mean much when its outcome suffers for it. It may do some interesting things when viewed in a wider context, but as a product on its own, the series itself often fails to generate interest.

The most significant part of Flag is its visual approach, which is immediately striking, as it applies a Brechtian form of spectatorship via its camera, in which every moment of its runtime is seen through a disconnected interface, predominantly via the lens of a physical camera, a point also reflected in its cinematography which is unflatteringly naturalistic, with the camera typically placed in such a position that people’s faces are obscured from the frame as they have a conversation, or the camera’s operator will decide to move around and look at the scenery, which as may be expected for something that takes place in a desert country, is rarely bursting with features. This technique has echoes of Gasaraki, a prior work also directed by Ryosuke Takahashi that Flag shares many similarities to, but in many ways it is used to greater effect in Gasaraki. In Flag, the camera filter is something that becomes familiar, and by having it appear all of the time, it ends up diminishing its effect, and when this conscious form of spectatorship becomes assumed and understood, it ends up wrapping all the way around to being a detached and uninvolved form of cinematography, leaving it with the same resultant outcome as standard continuity editing. In Gasaraki, distortion and camera filters are used frequently, with scenes depicting news broadcasts, monochrome helicopter camera feeds, and views from the mechs themselves, which were subject to varying degrees of static. However, one key difference is that this often appeared in contrast to the scenes from the perspective of its main character, providing forms of exposition, a different form of imagery and also generating worldbuilding by showing how the events of the story affected different groups of people. Flag’s use of this method does end up losing some of the Brechtian impact through its overuse, but it is an issue seriously compounded by the fact that it does not come anywhere close to approaching the same range in its use that Gasaraki does. Gasaraki shows many real cameras held by different people and machines, being used for different purposes, leading to a fundamentally and immediately visible difference based upon the origins of each specific form of camerawork. Instead, Flag is composed of two perspectives, a photojournalist, and another photojournalist who also provides narration, and this fundamental lack of difference also contributes to to the sluggish pace and feel of the series, as it does not feel like its episodes occupy a typical A and B plot, but rather a single A plot that is dragged out to double its appropriate length.

One point that this idiosyncratic approach does have to its benefit is its immersive quality, particularly through the POV sequences which provide diegetic graphs and infographics, allowing it to convey information in an efficient manner that is nonetheless still visually inventive and engaging, which is especially helpful when the information in question is drier than the desert it's set in, whether it be discussions on the limits of gun depression, or looking at a blurry photograph and trying to match it to a particular SAM model, which as far as most viewers will be concerned, all look basically the same and do basically the same thing. Gasaraki was similarly dry, taking the issue of food security and Japanese economic autarky to drive its plot, concepts that have been noted as being relevant factors in a potential US-China war in the Pacific, but rather than speculate on a potential war, Flag decides to adopt the motifs, factors and subsequent consequences from a pre-existing contemporary war, the GWOT, with its story focusing on an invasion of an undeveloped country that serves as an amalgamation of Afghanistan and Vietnam. But despite the subject matter, it is a remarkably apolitical work – in one episode, a character alludes to the Rwandan Genocide, which is a line that seems to come out of nowhere, as while superficially and aesthetically allegorical, Flag is entirely disconnected from the outside world, which limits its ability to develop and immerse itself in its own story, much less one with significant subtext as one may expect from the setting. Takahashi’s works do often exhibit a Frankenheimerian interest in politics and power, but what contrasts Flag with both Gasaraki and VOTOMS is this political element is not centralised through a single figure. As such, the wider political implications of its story, which should be emphasised when it is a story specifically about politics and political conflict, are nowhere to be seen. Why, for instance, do the UN conferences always insist on the violence in the country not being an issue to further their plans for the ceasefire? Is it an act of individual bravado, ignorance of the issue, the result of manipulation from higher-ups to force the ceasefire to be completed by a certain date? This is all conjecture, as there are no answers to be found, for either the viewer or the characters. The UN don’t know what they are doing, nor what the enemy is doing, and this could be argued to contribute to a sense of realism. Even if it does get some great ratings, war doesn’t usually end in a cinematically dramatic fashion, and as per Jean Baudrillard, is so heavily misrepresented and manipulated through its media coverage that any sense of reality is lost by the time it reaches the public eye. For that matter, if one considers the historical precedent of the constructed image of Saddam Hussein as a megalomaniacal dictator, along with President Bush’s frequent invocation of fighting a Christian form of evil, Flag actually makes less of an attempt to present an oversimplified and fictional depiction of international conflict than real life does.

Flag is capable of supplying tension at times, but it is a work that is idiosyncratic more than it is interesting, and in many ways it is interesting directly because of those idiosyncrasies. Alongside Gasaraki, it stands as a work that goes as far as possible to try and emphasise realistic elements within the inherently fantastical mecha genre, seeming to deliberately test the limits of just how much realism could be put into a work like this, but even Gasaraki contained a grand narrative. Flag has plenty of unique design elements, and it is a work that is more than adequate for studying within the wider context of either Takahashi, the 2000s, or mecha as a whole. But as a work to be watched and enjoyed, it is largely hollow, its deeply understated characters and plot development will alienate general audiences, and its lack of action will likewise leave hardcore mecha otaku with a lack of content to keep them engaged, especially seeing as its mech has more in common with the motorbike from Tron than any other Sunrise mecha before or since. It defies conventions and common sensibilities of writing, as it chooses to take Brechtian principles, not to advance any idea, but to simply confront the viewer with its own simultaneously empty and original existence.

The first season of Yuru Camp was remarkable for two predominant reasons – its authoritative and confident audio-visual direction, and the clear intersection of its activity/subculture as a point that directly relates back to its main characters, a technique that enhanced both aspects of the production. However, in many areas, its second season does not feel like an extension or even a sequel, but a step backwards, foregoing any points of interest to retread the same iconography but without approaching any significant ideas in doing so.

Nebulous concepts notwithstanding, it is at least consistently competently made, and never outright generic. The direction displays an understanding of ... the slice of life genre, what makes it work, and how to condense its motifs efficiently into the confines of a 25-minute episode. But when it comes to the issue of addressing its own concepts, that is where it can end up feeling less refined. Specifically, one point that the first season of Yuru Camp was able to make use of was interconnectivity, whereby the act of camping was its central (and viewed in a wider context, seemingly arbitrary) conceit, but one that was always purposeful, and managed to provide emphasis in relation to its two main characters. Although not parabolic or even necessarily conventional in its underlying intentions, it was able to accentuate its characters via the camping, which manifested itself as an extension of its two protagonists, exhibited through their behaviour and dialogue. As for the second season, this aspect seems to have been foregone, which is also seen in its reduced focus on its two main characters, utilising the wider cast more frequently, providing less opportunity for them to have a sense of poignancy or importance. The idiosyncrasies that were once present have been diminished, and its dialogue feels a lot less particular to the ideas that it initially presented, and more in line with the conventional character types and character conversations that could have perhaps come from any other writer, or any other series.

This lesser focus is apparent in other areas, one visual difference being that far less of the series is set during night or early morning, and of those scenes that are, the impact on the lighting is less pronounced than in comparative scenes from the first season. This also lessens the level of immersion, as the characters do not occupy as prominent of a position within a particular frame, being one object in a wider area, rather than the focal point that the lighting is specifically framed around. As a furtherance of this, using the opening scene of each episode as a reference, the average shot length of the first season comes in at 5.38 seconds, whereas for the second season, this ended up being reduced all the way down to 4.59, from which it can be inferred that the visuals manage to diminish the immersion and significance of the characters through the use of lighting, and through the editing, the environment and atmosphere are simultaneously diminished in turn.

It is more often the case that sequels fail to accentuate the points of an original work and provide an overall better experience, and to this end, the second season of Yuru Camp performs as expected, wherein the problem lies. It is not a bad series by any means, but it performs as expected – it has a large cast of archetypal characters, moments of manzai-style comedy, points of drama, and every other element that typically comes out of a slice of life series. But with a prior season that went beyond expectation to provide moments of true clarity, and a more consistently detailed sense of place, emphasised by a soundtrack that is this time around used more sparingly, it is a series that feels restrained, which while never ineffective, is also never as effective as it has previously demonstrated it has the capacity to be.