Summer 2010: Occult Academy

In 1894, a book was written by Percival Lowell that chronicled some of the first American perceptions of Japanese religion. Lowell referred to his writings as Occult Japan or The Way of the Gods: An Esoteric Study of Japanese Personality and Possession, pointing out some of the mystics behind Shintô, especially its miraculous ritual performances and shamanic possessions. It is a reminder to us that we have barely known Japan for very long and that the country has such distant roots to its own millennial descent into the occult.

Perhaps that has led to the state of personal mysticism that anime has provided. It is that deep-rooted attachment to the pantheism of Shintô that allows for the imagination of the world around the spiritual believer. However, with the gradual attachment to the rest of the world, it could be said that the imagination of the occult in Japan has also been influenced by the Western world's own image of mysticism. Uri Geller's spoon-bending psychokinesis is likely more well-known in Japan than some of the rituals still run in Shintô shrines.


It is this connection to the Western arts of mysticism that brings Occult Academy (Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin) to the television screen. The first shots we get from the third installment of the "Anime no Chikara" partnership between TV Tokyo and Aniplex involve a situation that's more Fringe than Onmyôji—a member of a shadow organization is devoured by a monster before he can be completely transported back to his base, forcing the group to contemplate the transferal of Fumiaki Uchida, their last "Minoru Abe" agent.

Meanwhile, time easily rewinds to 1999 during an uneasy turn of the millennium. At the Waldstein Academy in the mountains of Nagano, the student body are attending the unexpected wake of the academy's founder, only for his daughter, the steely-eyed Maya Kumashiro, to storm the proceedings. When the teaching staff plays his final audio recording, the unintentional incantation from the founder himself ends up being a chant for raising the dead, suddenly reanimating Principal Kumashiro into an undead lamia. Although Maya is quick to label the entire occurrence as a hoax, she is also quite aware of the situation and is determined to shut the Academy down for what it has done to her family.


The intersection between Maya and Fumiaki's existences brings up a very interesting dynamic in Occult Academy. While the series is built on a very solid fear of the unknown through haunting dialogue and well-crafted background animation, the show doesn't appear to be afraid of laughing at itself. Maya is quite the steadfast character one moment with her stonefaced expressions, but her nervous reactions to typically non-comedic situations (especially during the WTF?! moment when Fumiaki appears Terminator-2 style) make the show palpably bipolar.

Occult Academy seems to be happy with turning the idea of the occult on its head. Japan has typically been a country that has either embraced its own appreciation for mysticism or focused on the oddities that come with the more bizarre cults (i.e. the Pana-wave Lab from 2002). By introducing a believer in Maya, who wishes the occult ceased to exist, and combining her with an active member of a secretive organization in Fumiaki, we have a definite Scully/Mulder dynamic in play. While we have yet to see Fumiaki's reactions and role in the show, it definitely could introduce an uneasy alliance between the two.


So far, Anime no Chikara has provided some insight with So Ra No Wo To and a disappointment in Senkô no Night Raid. Judging from the plot and artwork exhibited in Occult Academy, it seems that this trend could change very soon and that the experimental animation is on its way to a clever success. Occult Academy should be pushed as the best of the new anime shows that Crunchyroll has to offer at the moment, and I hope that the show lives up to its billing.

Maegaki: The Top 10 Most Influential Manga-ka

In the past week, Oricon Entertainment Inc., well-known for their weekly rankings, released the results of a poll that recently asked for Japan's ten most influential mangaka artists that had changed the history of manga. The three-day poll asked 841 men and women all over Japan between the ages of 10 and 40, and the results were posted on their website. (H/T: Silicon Era)

1. Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy, Black Jack)
2. Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump)
3. "Fujiko F. Fujio" (a.k.a. Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motou Abiko - Doraemon)
4. Eiichiro Oda (One Piece)
5. Takehiko Inoue (Slam Dunk, Vagabond)
6. Shigeru Mizuki (GeGeGe no Kitaro)
7. Fujio Akatsuka (Tensai Bakabon)
8. Machiko Hasegawa (Sazae-san)
9. Hayao Miyazaki (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind)
10 (tie). Osamu Akimoto (Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kôen Mae Hashutsujo)
10 (tie). Naoki Urasawa (Monster, 20th Century Boys)

Not a bad selection, but I have a few things to say about this ranking in terms of its operation:

1. The sample size seems to be rather small. Asking only 841 people for this survey seems to sell the influence of manga immensely short. I have a hard time believing that Oricon could cut the pool to such a small cross-section; that's 0.00067% of Japan's population!
2. The sample size seems rather restricted to the younger generation. If you assume the oldest to be in their 40's, then we're likely talking about manga fans who are more biased towards titles written after 1975. I'm not saying that there were no influences after 1975, but it does seem to tell us that Oricon doesn't consider the older generation to have a say in the matter.
3. There is an obvious bias towards shônen manga. Yes, we foreigners may be a little more biased in our approach of manga, but the closest you get to shôjo manga is Tezuka's Takarazuka-influenced Ribon no Kishi, and the only female mangaka listed (Hasegawa) didn't quite change the style of manga as much as she proved a woman could compete in the manga industry. More importantly, considering that four of the authors have written specifically for Shônen Jump, I tend to believe that more of the interviewed subjects read that anthology more than others.

Perhaps the last entry is how the poll is to be read: this isn't as much a poll about influence on style as it is about influence on manga's history. Of course, influence on style tends to alter the direction of future manga artists. Still, I feel that some important names are missing from the chart:

• Rumiko Takahashi. How is it that arguably the biggest female shônen-manga author got left off this list? How is it that the creator of Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha, and Maison Ikkoku was dissed? Perhaps this image of Takahashi as a dominant domestic mangaka is an illusion; after all, in 2006's Japan Media Arts Festival, Urusei Yatsura was ranked 31st in the 100 Best Manga ranking, behind the likes of Hunter X Hunter and Ushio and Tora.
• Monkey Punch / Takao Saito. Considering that both Golgo 13 and Lupin the 3rd are two action icons that still exist in print and film to this very day, it's a wonder if these two don't cancel each other out in terms of influence. Then again, maybe we're looking at a niche market, when manga itself is such a broad industry.
• Riyoko Ikeda. Considering just how influential the entire Year 24 Flower Group was on shôjo manga, Ikeda deserves to be a representative for the group's power. While some may argue Naoko Takeuchi is more deserving of entry, The Rose of Versailles could be argued as the real precursor to both the starry-eyed style of shôjo manga and the gender confusion we see in many manga over the past fifteen years.
• Leiji Matsumoto. A giant in science-fiction manga doesn't even get a nod for his work in Space Battleship Yamato, Galaxy Express 999, and Captain Harlock? Again, we're probably looking more at his immense influence in anime, but Matsumoto is also quite the manga historian, having composed a referential book that chronicles manga from the 1920s to the late 1950s with Hidaka Bin.
• [Other possible entries: Katsuhiro Ôtomo (Akira), Go Nagai (Devilman), Seiji Matsuyama (just kidding).]

If the rankings were to be rewritten?

1. Osamu Tezuka
2. "Fujiko F. Fujio" (a.k.a. Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motou Abiko)
3. Akira Toriyama
4. Rumiko Takahashi
5. Shigeru Mizuki
6. Machiko Hasegawa
7. Takehiko Inoue
8. Riyoko Ikeda
9. Leiji Matsumoto
10. Hayao Miyazaki
(Akatsuka, Ôtomo, Saito, Nagai, and Monkey Punch would be knocking on the door, in that order.)

Am I biased? Certainly. I still think that Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kôen Mae Hashutsujo is horribly overrated and that One Piece is too recent to be ranked. Am I Japanese? Certainly not. My opinion is obviously corrupted by my ethnicity and my Western influences.

But I'm still crying foul about this survey.

Summer 2010: Ôkami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi

Every culture and society has its handful of fairy tales and their famous storytellers. Mother Goose, the Brothers Grimm, Aesop, Hans Christian Anderson, Uncle Remus—whether the folktale creators were real or as fictional as their stories, we've all been intrigued by the concept of anthropomorphic characters dealing with their concerns through the use of human emotions and perception.

With all of the exposure to Western stories and Disney films, Japan has received many versions of these fairy tales. The old-school anime fans in Japan probably have knowledge of the Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics (グリム名作劇場, Gurimu Meisaku Gekijou) show that ran in the 1980s. Of course, Japan has offered its own plethora of otogibanashi (fairy tales)—everyone and their sibling has heard of Momotarô and his quest to destroy all oni.

Here's the interesting twist to all those fables and adventures that the new anime Ôkami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi ("Ôkami-san and Her Seven Companions") poses: what if the direction was reversed? Instead of animals gaining human qualities to them, what if the human characters adopted zoomorphic qualities to them in order to tell the stories?


The general concept of the Ôkami-san light-novel series and the current show directed by Yoshiaki Iwasaki (Love Hina, Zero no Tsukaima) revolves around the city of Otogibana-shi and its citizens, most of them derived from various fairy tales. The episodic plot centers on the actions of the "Otogi Bank", a school organization that works to "fix" the sticky situations the main academy's students get into. Our main heroine, Ryôko Ôkami, is the tomboyish muscle for the Bank, a tall "Yankee" delinquent who boxes with gloves that look like cats. While she often works with her friend Ringo Akai, a derivation from Little Red Riding Hood with a blackmailing streak, the Bank itself has various characters from Aesop's fables ("The Grasshopper and the Ant") and Japanese folklore (Urashima Tarô, Tsuru no Ongaeshi).

It's Ryôko's rough lupine nature that links her to her wolfish image and the eventual first meeting with Ryôshi Morino, a soft-speaking boy from her class. Raised as a hunter outside of the city, he is tested by the Bank for admission, although his reason for tagging along is more due to his confession to Ryôko and admiration for her tsundere nature. While Ryôko is more disgusted by his weak nature and his immense phobia of being stared at, Ryôshi appears to be braver than he looks, but is Ryôko also "crying wolf" about her true self?

Possibly the best thing that Ôkami-san has going for it is the various overlapping interpretations of the tales. After all, while we know how Cinderella and the Prince are united and how the Tortoise beats the Hare, it's actually fun to see how the characters interact in this modern retelling of past stories. While there is nothing too special about the character designs and the shows may border on episodic natures, the characters themselves benefit from the numerous past tales—the Otogi Bank's members overlap into other stories gives each character secondary characteristics. The Wolf not only worked with Red Riding Hood, but was involved with the Three Pigs and various hunters (which is what ryôshi ends up translating into). Even the narrator (Satomi Arai) seems to be having fun with snide comments on Ryôko's lack of a chest and acting as the censoring "bleep".


Ôkami-san's use of common anime devices actually gives the show a fresh look at both the older otogibanashi and general anime plots. Normally, the tsundere Ryôko, conniving Ringo, and wimpy Ryôshi would be cardboard characters in their own show, but the situations makes Ôkami-san worth it for now. The story likely will never reach the epic outreach of the likes of the fairy tales it is comprised of, but why not just live for the enjoyment of today? Ôkami-san is silly in its story, but memorable in its presentation.