That's a very good point about the difference in fanservice when it comes to male and female audiences.

I'm glad you think so. I thought people would hate me for thinking it. ^^

No, it's a valid point. Like the difference in porn between Hentai and Yaoi. The first is about power games and humiliating the woman, while the latter is about mutual sexual pleasure. Completely different animals and I'm speaking as someone who's tried both mediums.

Congratulations on the tickets! ^^ How much did you end up paying? (If it was cheap, and you need to sell the other one, I might be interested in buying it off of you if you want ^^)

About 13,000 for the pair, including shipping. That's about half of what I paid for ONE last time!

It's okay! I'm perfectly happy going to two shows, even if they're in a row! :P Although if you want to bid yourself, weekday seats are pretty cheap.

Yeah, that's really cheap!!!

I want to go to another show, but I'm just going to try tojitsuken I guess. I don't want to pay more than 6000 yen for a seat, and that's even pushing it.

Good news on the writing front! ^.^

It is! Thanks!

Hmm... I just posed the mp3 question to my husband, and off of the top of his head he recommended a few industrial albums: Dismantled by Dismantled, PostNuclear by Dismantled, and Machines Are Us by Icon Of Coil. Unfortunately since about 80% of our cd collection is currently in storage until we move into the house next month, I can't rip mp3s to share or go through the cds to see if there are others. I know there's definitely more sci-fish industrial music out there, but it's eluding me at the moment. (Though the content would in some sense technically be sci-fi, I imagine you're not interested in anything off of Voltaire's EP Banned On Vulcan, unless "The Sexy Data Tango" and "The U.S.S. Make Shit Up" happen to run along your tastes. ^_~)

Thanks for looking! And yes, it's more of the former group than the latter. Although I do remember that "Star-trekin'" song being popular about 15 years ago...

It’s always surprised me that things like Silent Mobius or the Vampire Princess Miyu series never really seemed to do so terribly well. One is attractive women in uniforms beating down monsters while the other is schools girls, one of which regularly beats down monsters, so it’s surely a win/win situation audience-wise. Though I suppose at least Miyu and compatriots are a little too young for eye-candy since they’re younger school-aged. And I expect that things like Dirty Pair (at least in manga format rather than the anime) are a little too scantily clad for the audience who loudly like to exclaim that they don’t want hentai but instead prefer the brainless sort of romantic storyline where the hero falls into the heroine’s cleavage at least once per episode. Someone once leant me Please Teacher the result of which was that I still rather want to kick his head in.

Either way, that’s the perfect point you’ve made there and if I ever get through reading The reader, the author, his women and her lover I might even have something critical to contribute but since the text bores me to tears that may never quite happen. What it might easily boil down to is that some men like weak women or at least like to see weak portrayals of women because either they don’t like to admit that sometimes they like just the eye-candy alone (a.k.a. “Gosh, I’d never watch porn, it’s terrible”) or because they like to imagine that if the female character is stupidly weak and helpless, then they can reassure themselves of their masculinity (a.k.a. “I’d never let that happen to my girlfriend”). Of course there’s probably a third category in there too which has nothing to do with personal realisation and everything to do with the fact that unfortunately in our gender-coded society ‘ditzy girl falls over’ is about the only sort of romance that a guy can acceptably watch and enjoy.

Yes, well... not really an essay there, more like footnotes. Sorry about that, I seem to have an awful lot to say on the topic of gender from time to time. I’ll just head off to shore up my flagging masculinity with a cup of tea then...


Also, MP3-wise the Babylon 5 OST is never a bad thing.

Thanks for the recommendation!

I wish I could say something worthwhile about your comments on gender, but it:s almost 2am. I just think that media is the key that keeps the status quo alive and even little things slowly add to form an inaccurate picture of sex.

You’re absolute right. It’s just making sure that folks keep a good level of separation between fantasy and reality that’s sometimes the problem (I’ve known fanboys who were forever bewailing the fact that they could never find a girlfriend and yet dismissed the girls that they actually knew as not fitting some unrealistic ideal, and I’ve had many a laugh at their expense.), though gender-coded fantasy isn’t half annoying sometimes anyway.

Also, the Death Note movie OST doesn’t sound half bad as a rec at random there.

Everyone can think of many anime where the pretty boys are mysterious and strong, perhaps with military uniforms and equally everyone can think of many anime where the pretty girls are bubble-headed, cute and brainless, perhaps with maid outfits.

Well put.

This propensity does make life quite difficult for those of us blokes who have taken on board some pro-feminist ideas, but who are not puritans & just want to relax with escapist anime - the best we can usually hope for is the "Scully" archetype - a woman who can be strong & intelligent, so long as she is also a drop-dead gorgeous fantasy figure e.g. Manx, Kaoru, Faye Valentine, Hevn from Get Backers, Hawkeye from FMA, etc. etc.

The 'male gaze' remains a powerful force, enshrined in consumer power, but I'd hope that anime particularly aimed at female viewers might escape that.

In all honesty, it's not so much the fanservice that bothers me, but what it's slowly contributing to society's psyche. Media slowly influences us and reality reflects fiction rather than vice versa. But it's 2am, perhaps I don't make much sense.

I will say one thing about Scully -- she may've been the rational scientist of the pair... but she was always wrong!

Heh, definitely a boys show, then... ;-)