Azumanga Analysis: Kaorin

Of the students, Kaorin is definitely my least favorite.  She's awkward, and primarily defined by her crush on Sakaki.  On the other hand, she's at least more interesting than Nyamo (in my opinion, anyway).  The huge difficulty in analyzing her is that she's almost never doing anything that doesn't involve acting like an idiot in front of her crush.  We simply don't get to see her at her best, or know anything much about her.

Most fanfiction writers who pair like to pair her off with Sakaki, making it so that she achieves her lofty goals of catching her classmate's attention.  Why do people do this?  Maybe they feel sorry for Kaorin.  Maybe they just like gay fanfiction.  Or perhaps they identify with Kaorin, because her struggle reminds them of times in their past when they were too afraid to get what they wanted.  Maybe by giving Kaorin what she wants, it'll feel like a cathartic way of having that thing the fanfic writer missed out on.

But you know where they aren't getting this pairing from?  The show.

I mean, holy crap, Kaorin is the dictionary definition of awkward.  Do you see how she acts in front of Sakaki?  Sakaki is too reserved to do much about it, but do you really think she doesn't see how ridiculous Kaorin gets?  Kaorin is forever staring at her in class, and always freaks out if it looks like someone else is attracting Sakaki's attention.  She says weird things all the time, too.  Like when they were about to go on the third summer vacation, and apparently the thing Kaorin says to her when she arrives is something Japanese wives say to their husbands right after they marry.  And the folk dance, when she won't let go of Sakaki's hand?  What is Sakaki supposed to think about that?

The absolute worst was during the three legged race in the second sports fest.  Let's count all the ways Kaorin makes a fool of herself. 

1. freaking out when Sakaki is drafted into the event.

2. growling at her best friend when Chihiro suggests she could do the race after all.

3. making panicky promises of trying her best before the race starts.

4. completely losing her mind when they win.

5. suggesting they remain tied together afterwards.

Azumanga Analysis -- Kimura Sensei

I killed him.  The end.

Azumanga Analysis -- Tanizaki Yukari

Yukari is perhaps the hardest of all characters to properly analyze, because she's the least like a real person.  While most everything she does is fairly natural, a person with all of those flaws and willingness to give in to them at any point in the day is very absurd.  Especially since she hasn't lost her job or been involved in a bar fight.   Maybe Nyamo is serving a good purpose in taking all of Yukari's aggression: she's insuring that Yukari doesn't hurt other people. 

At the same time, Nyamo is a huge enabler.  Yukari is entirely dependent on her.  She requires Nyamo's companionship, immediately assumes she can sleep at Nyamo's house when construction workers are working near her own, constantly needs to shove her superior knowledge of english in Nyamo's face, and needs rides to different places.  If Nyamo would just put her foot down and choose other people to hang out with, Yukari's current life would fall apart -- and she'd try to make Nyamo's fall apart too. 

It's kind of amazing how much Nyamo lets her get away with it.  The story sort of implies that Nyamo sees the two of them as basically equals, as Nyamo, who despite criticizing Yukari's behavior, never calls Yukari a bad or immature person.  And in the spring episode, Nyamo calls them both childish, when she could have very easily only called Yukari childish.  The audience would have no reason to disbelieve her.  By including herself, Nyamo is making a statement about how she perceives her own flaws, flaws which by and large the audience doesn't get to see.  Nyamo, however, does see her own flaws, and thus is apparently incapable of viewing her own life as more advantageous than Yukari's.

Azumanga Analysis -- Kurasawa "Nyamo" Minamo

Y'know, until I started thinking about this analysis, I didn't realize how much Nyamo annoys me.  I don't really like her at all.  That is, of course, a purely subjective opinion.  Kurasawa Sensei is a well-defined character who serves her role in the story perfectly well.  It just so happens that I don't like her.  Something about her rubs me the wrong way, and it took me a while to figure out why.

The trouble with Nyamo is that she's kind of a wimp.  It's not simply a matter of her being steamrollered by Yukari (that is, someone with a steamroller-type personality), but being unable to to cope with anyone not clearly inferior to her in status.  Basically put, she's easily intimidated.  It doesn't take a lot for her to give in to other people's demands.  For example, take when Kimura was trying to watch the girls in the pool.  Any sensible person would have told Kimura to leave the pool immediately or be prepared to spend a very, very long time at the bottom of it.  But because Nyamo has a hard time pushing for her and her students' rights, she ended up allowing a predator to eye up the girls. 

This isn't the only example.  Nyamo can't tell Yukari to stop intruding and napping her apartment, can barely admit to the girls that she can't remember high school math or tie a yukata, and constantly fears any mention of her past.  You'd think that since both she and Yukari know things about each other they wouldn't like revealed, that they would be more or less equal.  But that's not how it works out.  Instead, Nyamo fears the slightest mention of what she's done, while Yukari casually sings "love letter" as she strolls down the hall.  Yukari, while not eager to reveal her own flaws, is able to casually dodge any mention of them.  Nyamo, when threatened in this regard, immediately cringes and screams. 

So...Azumanga.

Well, I said this blog was over.  I have to work on things that will help me earn money.  I have a lot of things to learn.  Heck, I have to get ready for an interview and work on my programming, also.  But, for some reason, I decided to do a character assessment for every character in Azumanga.  Because procrastination works that way.

Okay, so here we go, my Azumanga analysis.  Yes, I know that this anime/manga is an older one.  However, it is a classic franchise whose story will never really grow old.  Not even when technology and culture change.  When that happens, Azumanga will simply be a snapshot of the past, its value undiminished by the fact the world no longer resembles it. 

That and Azumanga is my favorite manga.  Dare I say, it's the best one out there.  Subjectively speaking, it represents exactly what I want from any given media: slow pace, heavy character emphasis, out of nowhere randomness, real world personality referencing, basically no violence or romance, and lots of cuteness.  The only thing I like that it doesn't have is some sort of science fiction bent or worldbuilding emphasis.  But that's okay, because a given media can only do so much.  I can always read Farmer in the Sky again for the sci-fi/worldbuilding aspect.

*imagines the Azugirls setting up a colony on one of Jupiter's moons.  Giggles incessantly.*

Anyway, I've always wanted to do a personality analysis of this show, because every single attitude on it, though cartoonized to various degrees, is a real attitude that a person can have.  Also, I want to make some estimates on what could have happened to the girls after the show took place. 

Note that any time that I say "Azugirls," I mean the circle of six friends: Chiyo, Osaka, Tomo, Yomi, Kagura, and Sakaki.  People use this term to refer to all the characters, but for the purpose of this analysis, it'll just mean the mains.  

Look forward to the first post Thursday!

It's Over

Hey y'all.  So I've enjoyed writing these blogs.  Too much, in fact.  I keep track of what I write, and my blog wordcount overwhelms the rest.  And it's the least important of my work.  There's so much out there in the world I want to do, including find a new job, learn a new language, and write things that are publishable.  This blog, quite frankly, is more of a self-serving place to vent my observations on things.  While I'm proud of some of the things here, most of it is just kind of there, at best ideas unpolished and not entirely coherent.

It's been a fun exercise, and has stretched me in ways I needed to be stretched.  However, the passion for it is gone, weighed down as I am with real world concerns.  I need to be able to express myself as either a way to gain in life or as a way to communicate with others, not simply put my own opinions out there into the void.  While having a popular blog would have been fun, I never had a consistent enough series of work on this site for people to have anything to expect -- again, it's all been pretty self-indulgent.

In any case, I'm stopping the blog now, with no plans to bring it back. It's just another thing on my plate causing me stress, and I need to simplify.  No nagging inner thoughts about keeping it up.  I like writing here a lot, but it's profitless for a variety of reasons.  Will I write more again later?  Perhaps.  Not sooner than a year, and no guarantees after that.  I don't want this to be a rant-fest, if it does.  I want to have consistent, good content, that's both clear and regularly posted.  Something I have neither the time nor inspiration for at this point.  That, and I'd probably want to put it on a different site. 

So, farewell.  I'm leaving things up, so browse through it, if you like. 

Nitpickery: MirrorMask

Hey y'all.  So I watched Mirrormask.  It was part of a three-pack including The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and my friend insisted that I see it.  We were having a discussion about old, classic fantasies, and so Mirrormask.

How is the movie, you ask?  It's a 5 out of ten, average.  It's the most 5 of any 5 I've ever seen.  That is, it's a combination of very good things and very weak things that all balance out in the end.  I do like it, because there's a level of thought in the film that a lot of modern films don't have.  The filmmakers obvious care, and if they care, I care.  All the same, there are several weaknesses in the film that could use work.  It's rather like an old, fancy house.  It's lovely, but we still have to break out the power tools before we can sell the place.

Nitpickery is spoilers.