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The Unfortunate & Necessary Art of Bouncing Off Television
🕑 Added 2023-10-12 21:43:13 +0000 UTCNote: this is a three part column. The first two parts are a general topic essay on the function of TV and its history. Then the final third becomes a mini “ani-me” column for my initial impression of a few shows including Revolutionary Girl: Utena and ONE PIECE (both anime and live action). If you’re not into anime, you can stop right before that part and then skip to the “last looks” epilogue. And if you are just here just on my thoughts on those anime shows, you can skip right to that, but everything that comes before sets up the context and reasoning for my impression, so I at least suggest it.
Either way, enjoy!
PART ONE - “I Just Can’t Get Into This”
I can’t tell you how much time I spend thinking about why people make this statement when it comes to the media they try to consume. Seriously, I think about it all the time. I know some folks love to throw up their hands at the problem and go “yeah, yeah, it’s a matter of taste and any person can have their druthers” and that’s certainly true! But underneath that, there are always these bigger reasons why certain things pop and become beloved or big hits, while others become flash in the pans, or even why some shows build a cult audience over time. At the root of everything, there are reasons WHY this happens. What is it that causes these things? What is it that makes us more invested in watching a TV show? What gets us hooked? What causes us to recommend it to people?
To use a broad example, here’s a pointed question: why are the Kardashian shows so popular? It’s not because “people like bad things,” I’ll tell you that much. Because there’s a lot WORSE versions of Trash TV. And more importantly, Trashy isn’t bad. Trashy is FUN. And a lot of Reality TV has a very specific way of functioning with audiences that’s actually closer to the dramatic mechanics of soap opera and all the years it came before. And even within the realm of reality, there is a high tier they are still at the top of. So what’s resonating about that show? Well, for one, I can tell you it’s because they often hire the best reality tv people in the business. Those who know how to foster interesting scenarios, mine dynamics from people for conflict, highlight ironies, and provoke the best possible responses in their subjects. But better yet, there is a question at the heart of this show: what are they selling?
My friend Laura once said the smartest thing I’ve ever heard on the subject (and did so off the cuff), namely that many viewers “subconsciously envy their broad familial support system of women. At this point in their career, they’re sort of a feminine fantasy? More money than god, can have as many kids and as much domestic staff as they want, men come and go, the feminine empire and the family is all that endures.” And of course, they do this with all the dalliances in trashy silliness along the way. It’s a powerful indulgence machine. And you can sit there and watch for five minutes of this and either 1. Get it completely or laugh along 2. Get it completely but be turned off by capitalistic excess or 3. Merely sense what’s going on and be unnerved by the low status of men within this system and doubly resent it for this reason (and you have no idea how many people think they’re in category number two when they got a lot of number three going on). But there’s just that basic appeal of the “empire enduring.” So it all centers around that question…
Why do we gravitate to shows? Why do we bounce off it?
Granted, a lot of this is a structural and delivery question. In theatrical movies, once you are in the seat the storytellers have all this room to tell a whole story and deliver a complete arc of an experience. But within the realm of television? Where the “immediacy” in compelling narrative is a bit more prudent? You have to ask: how do you grab someone, but not give the whole thing away? How do you pull someone along for the ride? What are the various forms of methodology that hook onto you and puts you in the mood to keep watching? And as a consumer, what is going on when you usually bounce off a show that you are just starting? Or worse, why do you bounce off when you have spent a lot of time already invested in it? Of course, there is so much that plays into all of this.
But answers lie in a little…
PART TWO - HISTORY SHMISTORY
So I’m going to break this all down by approach, but there’s also going to be a chronological flow because this is essentially a way question of walking you through what we had / what we liked / how it’s changed for good / how it’s changed for much worse / and most importantly, what we want now. But it all goes back to the beginning…
Appointments & Rituals - For years, television was based on the understanding that it was HARD to get someone to show up for a certain time and place. Even for the most devoted and die-hard fans, life would get in the way: a doctor’s visit, a birthday, a flat tire - whatever happened meant that you could just MISS that episode of your favorite show and it was seemingly gone forever (at least until it reruns in the summer). You have to understand, the networks considered you in the “heavy watching” demographics if you even watched HALF of the episodes in a season! But that’s exactly why TV was designed around this reality. They were designed so you could often miss an episode and not be completely lost. The stories were written so you hop on and hop off at any second. Dramatic procedurals would tell a single story of a murder or caper and those who solved it. And sitcoms had some small storyline, but usually each episode is about how all characters are trying and failing to do some new wacky scheme or going after something they want, then failing, then seemingly learning a lesson, and yet starting back at square one. The characters were effectively stuck in purgatory, always doing the same loops. But this wasn’t dramatically frustrating. In fact, it was part of the fun allure! Just like gaming loops today, it was part of the comfort. An easy way of joining your favorite characters, inviting them into your living room, and having a laugh or a thrill. It wasn’t about a short binge. It was about ritual. And often, it would last for years.
And when it came to the appeal of this ritual, what was most important was the dynamics. You would like the interplay between X character and Y character. You would like the way this person would make fun of that person, but empathize with the straight man trying to keep it together. Or you liked the way this person could often solve the problem or why another would get hoisted by their own petard. The various circumstances could be playful and all over the map, but the dynamics would almost always hold steady. With dramas, the writers would figure out how to create a dramatic situation again and again. But think about Law & Order’s ability to mine that territory ad infinitum. But you may ask, “if that’s all great, why would a viewer ever fall off?” Well, often they wouldn’t! A good show could keep the ball up in the air for YEARS, as long as the writing stayed sharp and no major players left the cast (even then, a great new actor could be a lifeline). I loved television like this. And turns out many people do still. I mean, there’s a reason people are STILL going through the ritual of watching Friends and Seinfeld in the modern streaming age (and how little we’ve been given alternatives, but more on that later). But things changed because then came “the age of serialization.”
The Golden Age Hybrids - To be clear, there were serialized shows back in the heyday, but they always felt like unicorns. They were either big event mini series like Roots, short-lived outliers like The Prisoner, or fun sci-fi shows that knew how to balance monster of the week adventures with the overall mythos episodes, like in Buffy and The X Files. But by the end of the late 90s it was really the rise of 13 episode HBO originals that serialized bigger plotlines (and was HALF a normal season order). More importantly, the burgeoning DVD market meant you could start watching shows on YOUR time, thus it was easy to binge and keep up. By the time DVRS came along, suddenly it was open season. And as the networks and advertisers were pearl clutching about losing live audiences (in retrospect, it’s amazing that they didn't get paid full for DVR views because those eyeballs are worth SO much more now). But the networks were also surprised that the ratings of those great, binge-able shows went UP with time. Because it just meant more and more people could get on the bandwagon. And there was a kind of really good storytelling that thrived.
Granted, it wasn’t THAT different from what came before. Because the idea was still to create a SATISFYING episodic story within a larger serialized framework. As loose and rambling as, say, Mad Men could feel. There was always a focus, an account, a brief of the day, or a character having a little storyline, and they could so elegantly lead you through something that would end up having a real thematic punch. But they never cliff hanger-ed you. Heck, the “next week on Mad Men” ads were famous for being hilariously vague. But that didn’t matter because you were so SATISFIED by what you just watched. Likewise, The Sopranos, for all the gangster bravado, operated much the same with personal storylines and little slights that turned bigger than the “mob conflict.” And The Wire would spin a web through a Dickensian cast of characters, all while always grounding you in the clear cause and effect of how the system was influencing them all at the same time (which made it all feel of a singular piece). But perhaps it was Breaking Bad that most exemplifies the “hybrid” storytelling of creating a satisfying story within the story . Every episode seemed to have a problem and you’d get this little epic mini-movie of how they try to deal with that problem. How clean up a dead body? How deal with a rival? How do we rob a damn train? And it would either go well or TERRIBLE, while they Inch by inch moved the whole story forward and changed the characters before our eyes. But while some shows were exceptional at it… some had growing pains.
Teasing to Audience Rebellion - Whenever I talk about it I always feel like I need to convey that I *like* LOST. And I like it a lot! But it’s just this super popular example of a TV show whose dramatic approach became both famous and infamous in terms of how they affected viewers over time. If you look at the shows above, all of them are based on straightforward dramatic evolution. You have characters in point A and you evolve them to point Z over time, letting them grow or face tragedy. But instead, LOST operated from the realm of curiosity. This air of vague mystery meant to draw you in so that you would want to come back. And there were ways the storytellers were EXCEPTIONAL at this. It’s like JJ and Lindelof had this almost supernatural sense of what could be alluring to a viewer. But more importantly, they understood the power of character. Every week it would concentrate on a person from the island, dig into their past, upend our expectations, and often lead to some sort of cathartic point that resonated with the story of what was happening on the island now. Lindelof says that whenever he’s writing a character, he asks, “what’s their secret?” and it creates this sense of depth and investigation that comes into the story from there.
The problem is twofold. Notice every time the show explored a new character we did not know much about, they would make a really good episode! But that’s because they had the most room to move. With time, this “secret” thing didn’t do much because people can’t be this endless pile of secrets. Once we knew them, we knew them. Which is why they talk about “the mystery of Jack’s tattoos” as this low point of the show. But to me, that’s just a tangible detail. The bigger problem was that they were trying to mine EMOTIONAL territory that was not that compelling, mostly because it was also repetitive. To create a sense of progress, you have to actually move the story FORWARD (like all the show’s did above). And instead there was this feeling of constant withholding. With every new development, another non-answer. As characters screamed, “I want answers!” Characters would yell back “I can’t tell you! You’re not ready!” and there was never a REAL reason, other than that the show couldn’t give the game away. All they had was the tease. And it made the later seasons of the show feel like it was endlessly treading water.
Because when you’ve created something they’re already invested in, that means they want a satisfying conclusion… and the simple reality that you are essentially building a time bomb. Because once at the end, all that expectation is going to blow with almost WHATEVER you could deliver if it’s not wholly cathartic. It’s true not only for LOST, but in many ways Game of Thrones suffered a similar fate. All those shock tactics, built and built, a big game like Lucy and the football - how would the final ending live up to that painful cycle with the audience? Well, turns out the final bits of catharsis were either weirdly pulpy OR weirdly regressive and out of line with the characters behavior. It felt like a big game musical chairs that delivered neither catharsis nor some kind heartbreaking ending (because no one bought a certain character’s mad downfall), But the final reactions to both shows speaks to a fundamental understanding: writing is about set-up and pay-off. You HAVE to understand where you’re ultimately going. It doesn’t matter if you create the most INTRIGUING expectation, it is far more important to set up the RIGHT expectation for the catharsis that follows. Otherwise? The audience rebels.
The Streaming Age Stretch - Notice how much of this relates to the way these shows are using airtime to tell their stories. Now, the streaming age promised something grand, didn’t it? No commercials! No time slots! The audience can watch all at once! But in the initial days of this, the streamers went to a lot of lower cost independent directors talking about how they wanted to make “an 8 hour movie” and the result was a fundamental problem. Because there were so many shows (even decent ones who had stuff going for them like Stranger Things) that just took two hours worth of story and streeeetched them out, only knowing how to use delay tactics to pad it out. It seemed true of everything, like the old Daredevil and their other marvel shows. The lack of constraints didn’t free them to hit the right points, it meant long, plodding, and unfocused episodes and then right before the old end of the episode’s title card hit, there was always some DUN DUN DUN thing or cliff hanger that happened so you start the next episode. It was a complete and total regression. Instead of fighting for your eyeballs with the attention grabbing of old television, episode running times SWELLED as they all tried to drag users further and further into the errant “hours consumed” statistic.
These things were boring. And they drove me nuts. And yet, some people more or less can roll along. The question is why? Well, this actually has a lot to do with the push / pull of a simple matter of “active watching” versus “passive watching” and how different people focus. Because there are some shows that require your full attention, and some shows that people like watching with their phone on - the question of which is which is incredibly loaded, but for me, it once again is about looking back.
Lacking Relaxers - The great thing about old TV is it could just be on. Whether watching reruns, a baseball game, or whatever other ritual morning show there was, you could do stuff and half pay attention. You could make breakfast, do laundry, or start to fall asleep to Letterman. It could be a part of routine. Likewise, the commercials BREAKS were important because they could feel like a break for the viewer, too. Now everything is a well-documented pile of choice fatigue where you are in charge of programming every little click you make (and the endless stream is part of why Tik Tok is dominating, honestly). But so much of the “relaxer” programming is about it just being on. Whenever I want something, do you know what I do? A friend turned me onto the “Barker Era” Price is Right channel on Pluto TV that is just a non-stop stream of his endless episodes. It’s like a damn balm. And do you know what my most watched Netflix show is, by far? The “Moving Art” still short montages I sometimes put on during writing time when I want a peaceful environment. I have thousands of hours logged of this. But what does that mean? Is this the same thing as making “good” tv? Does it keep me subscribed when I could pick a million other things like it? Does Netflix even really care? This general difference is why I (and many others) gravitate toward Youtube when it comes to my “relaxers.” Whether it's cooking creators, a power washer, or rusted axe restorers, it’s a guaranteed passive watch. But when it comes to narrative shows I really love and invest in? A simple fact about me is that I can’t passively watch those kinds of shows. And that’s where it gets tricky.
Personal Preferences & Writing Red Flags (Wred Flags? Yeah, let's go with that. New term!) - Beyond the shows with delay tactics, we all have shows that we could never get into because they hit our more personal places. For example, I’m gonna struggle with anything about Alzheimers and just nope out. Meanwhile, some people don’t like shows where the main character is a jerk. Others love to live vicariously through the jerk, etc. There’s so many key relational things. But a big problem for me is that watching television is SO central to what I do for a living that I can’t not constantly notice and react to it. It’s not that it prevents me from enjoying things (if anything, it allows me to enjoy good things ten billion times over because I can appreciate the finer details). But it means that I’m going to instantly notice what they’re doing. That is how they’re writing the story and what that will mean for the story going forward. It’s not distracting for me to do, either. It’s as easy and intrinsic as breathing. But what it does mean is that certain writing things are going to make me - perhaps more than another viewer - bounce right off it immediately - even though what I’m sensing will likely be a source of frustration on some level for the viewer eventually, too. Does that make sense? Essential thse the “wred flags” I’m seeing. Like, if I see a show plot blocking in the first couple of episodes I’m like “ALREADY oof, not a good sign.” Or if they’re writing scenes past their conclusion, or forcing conflicts from situations instead of character I note the flag because I know “this is going to be an issue going forward for” and nine times out of ten, that’s dead on. And a good example of this is how it once played out with a network at large.
It’s Showtime! - So as HBO was absolutely running full steam ahead, Showtime was like the punk little brother causing trouble. In the 2000’s they had a number of breakout shows like Dexter, Weeds, and Californication, which lurched forth in some trashy ways. And I don’t say that dismissively. I love trashy things! The problem is that all these shows enabled this thing I call “teeth first” writing, where everything was designed for this maximum aggressive effect - all the stories were just about enabling this. To wit, almost every interaction was this sliding scale where Character A would encounter Character B, who would say something bitchy to them and offend them. Then Character A would go into another situation and Character C would say something that would put them off, and then they would copy Character B and do the bitchy thing. Like, I cannot tell you how often this dynamic popped up again and again in these shows. It was downright WEIRD, but once you saw it you couldn’t unsee it. And the real problem was it was a perfect example of “situation that enables character.” I actually wrote a column on Todd Phillips’ Joker and framing devices that taps into a lot of this, but they were all about this weird slope of enabling bad behavior. But only in this weird way that it felt like it was bending over backwards to indulge “in good conscience” instead of just letting it all play out like fun trash opera. That all may seem hyper-specific, but it was a hyper-specific scenario. It was just this massive wred flag for me. And it’s part of the huge reason I couldn’t really sign up for later shows on the network like Homeland, The Tudors, and others that followed suit (with Twin Peaks: The Return being the obvious exception). And look, I’m sure much has changed, but we gravitate toward brands in certain ways. And for me, it’s just a perfect example of the kind of shows that would think about the affectation they wanted first, then work backwards to create the situation instead of working from character interiority first.
Top Down, Drag Out - Essentially what I’m criticizing above in the Showtime example is this kind of “top down” decision making from the programming heads, one where overarching needs of an enterprise dictate occurrence rather than coming out of the primary sources of the story. And another perfect example of another way this happened was The Mandalorian. For the most part, everything was COOKING with that show and we’d get a fun adventure of the week with our favorite tin man and baby alien (it had ups and downs, but it worked). Then came some absolutely BUGNUTS decisions of putting the conclusions to the second season randomly into the middle of Boba Fett’s bad season? Which then only added to all the ways things were getting overburdened with old Filoni lore on top of things. And as a result? The season three ratings jumped off a cliff. They genuinely didn’t understand the effect of these “world expanding” decisions and how it damaged the story they had been telling - and certainly had no idea how much it was spitting in the face of the audience that, you know, wanted to see that arc within the show they were actually watching.
Meanwhile, Andor is the first Star Wars thing I’ve adored in years precisely because it is so independent and disconnected from everything else. They took the time to tell their own wonderful story. Now, you may ask, “but wait, doesn’t Mandolorian get higher ratings?” And I’m like yeah, but that’s an established show that came out a few years ago and built a huge audience who adored it PRECISELY because of the way they built those first independent, endearing episodes (much like Andor is doing now). I feel like everyone got drunk on Marvel’s success, but you actually have to be SO careful about the great universe building. Because too much starts to feel like homework and now the directionless MCU TV universe is dealing with the same exact issue (cue the news today of them putting all their shows on hold - yes, it’s that dire precisely because of choices like this). And perhaps, it all speaks to something deeper…
Peak Peak Peak Overload - People were talking about “peak TV” like over a decade ago and now we have three times as many shows as we did then. The first problem with this is the simple matter of time. I love water cooler popular shows like Succession that I can talk to a lot of people about, but they’re increasingly rare. I mean, I’m so burned out on the Star Wars stuff and so when Ahsoka came along? I just can’t put my limited time toward that. There’s too much else to do. And then the second problem of the peak overload is it becomes so so so hard to find a way to reach people. As such, it feels like so many companies have given up even trying to advertise and they just throw up shows with no support and see if they sink or swim (most sink). This obviously isn’t the answer either and naturally, they’re starting to pay for this, which is largely things are going to be collapsing back in and getting more focused post strike (this is a good thing considering how much of the “expansion” was just union-busted wages). But there’s no denying that we are still in the middle of the peak peakness. So what is everyone to do?
The simple answer is you can’t CARE about the current climate, at least in terms of making excuses. Instead, you just go back to the lessons of what has always worked in terms of making good television. Because it ALL still applies in various ways. Don’t let the lazy options of this steaming age enable you. Understand that the key to ALL of this is hunkering down, making something GREAT and hoping that word of mouth can do the rest. To wit, did I hear about Yellowjackets from advertising? No. It was people talking about how great it was. Likewise, people started talking about how great Ted Lasso was and suddenly Apple TV became an award winning destination. Even now, the breakout hit for Peacock is Poker Face, which is a throwback to the “mystery of the week” procedurals you found in the era of Columbo and appointment television. So what is happening here exactly?
They are making things that are satisfying. People think binging means you have all the time you want to tell your story, but it’s weirdly the opposite. You have to bring the goods immediately. And I’m not talking about teasing / plot-blocking allure. I’m talking about bringing satisfying dramatic constructions immediately. Stop dragging and jerking people around. Create cathartic arcs within episodes. Remember, one of the longest running shows in the world is Doctor Who, which is always changing. Have a bad episode? That’s okay, onto a new adventure! (and the trouble only came when they couldn’t even deliver inconsistently). But talent can also come from unexpected places, too. There are so many podcasts turned shows that I followed from MBMBAM to Desus and Mero, or from youtube with Ziwe and Issa Rae. What powers so many of the attention to these properties? Watch those shows or anything on Dropout TV and you realize how, just like before, it's all about DYNAMICS. You can watch these people interact and they’re characters on a sitcom (or feeding into the pandemonium of beloved guests on The Match Game). Capture those great moments and the only “modern” thing about this is turning them into viral clips that help sell the show. Because I got turned on to Dropout TV purely from their omnipresence on TikTok. This is what modern “word of mouth” is - and it’s speaking to something that’s already functioning. It’s simply putting out good stuff and doing so with persistence. For all this talk about WHY people bounce off of and gravitate toward things, the notion of satisfying is at the dead center.
And it brings us to the final section of how anime ties into virtually all of it.
PART THREE - REVOLUTIONARY POSES AND PIECES
Watching anime has been one of the loveliest journeys over the last few years. When I think of the television highs I’ve experienced? My mind drifts to the existential despair of shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Chainsaw Man. I think about the delicate shows that took me on a journey of adventure, friendship, and grief like A Place Further Than The Universe. I think about the dramatic highs of competition faceoffs in Haikyuu! and Food Wars. I think of the fragility of youth and ambition and the way life can take us in so many directions in Kids on The Slope and Ping Pong: The Animation. And most recently, I think about how wonderful Sailor Moon was with those fun adventures every week. And maybe it’s just because I’m culling from the best works of the last forty years of animation, but there’s been so very little I’ve actually disliked. But if you look, you’ll notice that all these shows are radically different with radically different audiences. So what’s elevating them for me? Well, the thing that unites all those disparate shows I love is how well they use their time. Every single episode has a single focus. It always tells its little story. It finds the conflict of a given scene and explores the drama, whether for emotional or comedic effect. It doesn’t matter if there are 10 episodes or if there are 50. They all are great at getting right to the point of their own story and delivering satisfying little arcs episode after episode.
The shows I’ve had more trouble with are the ones that do not.
For example, if you’ve watched a lot of Shonen, you are probably hear me say this and are instinctively like “uh oh.” But that’s just because of how much these shows drag out from beat to beat. We’re talking about fight scenes and battles that span from episode to episode, and often they don’t even tell a little contained story, but instead just limp to some alternating beat that feels enough like a “rest point.” It’s over not because we’ve finally reached a satisfying conclusion for a story within a story, but just because it finally hit 22 minutes. And yes, I KNOW so many of these shows are working from long-running manga adaptations and have to simultaneously feed the beast of production while they wait for source material - I have great empathy for that, trust me - it’s just that I have so little patience for it when it comes to what I actually like watching. I genuinely loved FullMetal Alchemist’s first 11 episodes, but when it was dragging for the last fifty there were so, so many times I wanted to bounce off.
Perhaps a lot of this comes back to the “active watching” versus “passive watching” thing. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that you are doing either in your own consumption. It’s just that I’m a hyperfocus kind of person. When I’m writing, or watching something, or talking to someone, my brain zeros in on that thing and it's like it's the only thing that exists. Everything else goes away. I’m operating with the one thing that exists in front of me, which is exactly why I have to have a hyper-engaged relationship with what’s happening. Likewise, when my mind moves away from it? My concentration is REALLY broken. Which is also why my “passive watching” has to be a certain kind of (usually non narrative) video in or podcast in order for me to engage with it. I mention this because, by comparison, a friend of a friend was talking about how they caught up on One Piece while they were watching at work and I just can’t split focus like that. Even when it came to patience, they were talking about how they almost gave up after “a few bad seasons” and that’s just something I would have no ability to get through. But this comparison also finally brings us to the shows of the hour… Because I finally tried watching One Piece!
And my reaction was interesting!
ONE PIECE (Anime)
“Oooh, I get it!”
I want this reaction to take precedence over all else. Because I finally get what is so alluring about this show and I get it completely. Because the thing that I love the most is that it feels silly and fun! The pirate world is goofy and expansive and full of completely random weirdos! It is such a good alternative to what I hate in most world building instincts, which are largely about left-brain atlas recreation. Instead, it’s like “this is a fun world to just hang around in.” And at the center of it, you have a genuine anchor. Because like most of my favorite anime protagonists, Luffy is basically a likable idiot who zooms around with energy and barely a thought in his head except for his singular goals and devotion. And it even starts with a clear goal: get the one piece treasure! And by the end of episode three, it's off on its adventure with two people in tow (but not quite the group I imagined). Immediately I was like, “okay, here’s a solid basis!” (and that’s originally where I stopped, but I came back and watched more to better clarify my feelings on some things).
But I also, of course, had some of those pesky wred flags. I’m not just talking about the little weird misogynistic moments with Alvida the female pirate captain, but some other matters of approach. For instance, I talked about liking the loony toons aspect of the silly / stretchy energy, but so much of that is a tonal comparison. Because there’s an actual huge difference in the actual depiction because there’s so few actual jokes or gags. So much of what Chuck Jones was doing in those goofy stylings was this CONSTANT play on expectation where you expect X and then Y happens. You know, like, a joke? Especially the visible ones when it comes in the middle of action. Nobody was better at it! And it’s why the same set up / punchline propels most of the fun adventure storytelling through filmmakers like Spielberg / Wright / Genndy Tartakovsky, etc. But all of the action in One Piece is different. It has the look and feel and is doing silly things on the surface, but often the actual gag part isn’t there and I’m like ohhhhhhh no. Because it’s this thing where it's showing the clear love and influence it has for something, but not the technical understanding of what makes it work, which is always a BIG wred flag.
Likewise, there’s those infamous pacing issues, even evident now. Yes, we’re off on the adventure by the end of episode three, but internally I’m like “this ending would have been perfect for last episode!” And as I got further into the show we hit those pesky issues of “the episode is over because 22 minutes is up.” And when you combine this with a simple fact I was asking Landon about what generally happens to the show’s dynamics (not spoilery) when they find the One Piece at the end of the season or whatever and how does it change the focus of the show? And Landon was instantly like “oh they haven’t found it yet” and I’m like “… oh” and did a big facepalm. Because it’s just such an obvious problem that ties into that aforementioned “teasing to rebellion” dynamic I talked about above. Because with 1000 episodes, it puts the impossible pressure of the end game right on the sleeve.
I know people don’t really care right now and have been enjoying the show anyway, but once it comes they will have to deliver on what is the grand finale and answer to this essential mystery that’s been building. And the weight of that 1000 episode journey will hit no matter what. Yes, I know that unlike LOST, this show isn’t super concerned with this big goal and much more focused on enjoying the ride. It is essentially living the trope of “the REAL one piece was the friends we made along the way!” and all of that is so clear right from the start. But every single show that attempts this dynamic hits an existential problem because it’s IMPOSSIBLE to satisfy both impulses with such a structure (remember: The Prisoner was only 17 episodes). You are essentially cheating on BOTH halves of your promise, using the fact that people love the journey to justify it instead of the other way around. And this looming existential issue ties into my fears of a timesink, which then ties back into the peak peak peak problem.
Which is simply that I don’t have the time. I’m pulled in too many directions. I like it enough that I’m gonna watch a little bit more, but watching or reading ONE PIECE in its entirety and writing about it would mean… only doing that. Unlike so many, it wouldn’t be a fun break for my brain in the grind of everything else. This would be my job and the level of concentration and the way it would hit my hyperfocus would likely be maddening. And it would just completely over take everything I do here, but also actual job responsibilities. With the way my brain works and my life operates I just can’t. I knew I could dip a toe in and hopefully confirm what is both so appealing and also show why I ultimately have to bounce off of it. But then at the exact same time, a seemingly miraculous solution appeared! There was a new live action Netflix show! And people said it was good! So I decided to dive in to do this whole thing and…
Well, let’s see how that went.
ONE PIECE (Live Action)
Finally, I can talk about adaptation! Haha! But I know, but this is a bit of an odd duck. For one, I very purposely wanted to get ahead of the anime and see how it hit me as a work on its own, but then I later went back to the anime to see how they did a lot of those choices. But regardless of methodology, let’s start with each arena of focus, starting with the most important: casting. Because this is, of course, at the heart of so much live action work. But it is ESPECIALLY true with adaptation, where people are working off of previously established relationships with the character. You need to really nail it with actors who don’t just capture the look and behavior of a character, but are also, you know, good actors who will get you where you need to go when the story needs to go there.
On paper, Luffy seems impossible, no? He’s a literal-rubber faced optimistic idiot who bounces around walls and people with a can do spirit. A human cartoon. The second I saw it I was like, “oh, this won’t translate AT ALL the adaptation is doomed.” And low and behold? Iñaki Godoy is a damn home run. I kind of can’t believe it. Do not get me wrong, it’s not perfect. But the fact that he even works in this impossible role is a miracle. And it is the engine of everything that works about the live action adaptation and I’m certain, why people are so fond of it, too (we’ll get to how much the writing helps or hurts what’s around him, too). But somewhat less successful are the choices with Emily Rudd, an actress I really like, but they make the character go way too hard with the “annoyed to be here” kinda monotone sarcastic vibe. From the anime, Nami needs to be more of an actor! A full on embodiment of her flippancy and trickery (think of the “in performance” style of what Christina Hendricks pulls off in Firefly, for example). Without that, her dramatic mechanisms of fun and games fall more flat.
Far more troubling for me is the performance choices for Zoro. And yes, Mackeny is good at being stoic and hot as heck and this has a clear appeal, but so much of what I liked about his character in the anime was that he was a boastful raconteur with a ton of emotional modulation. But here they take the character in the same “detached” direction - an inclination which happens a lot in the “serious-ifying” of fun media because it means the adapters are trying to lend “groundedness” when in reality they are falling prey to the same tough guy showy theatrics that plagues the adaptation of most child-like fun things. Which plainly ignores what they also love about the fun nature of the anime series, too. But all this goes DOUBLE for the choices made with Buggy The Clown, which is probably the most “serious-ifying” of a character is basically a goofy Hamill Joker clone from Batman: The Animated Series in the anime. Simply put, I do not like a single choice they make in that regard.
But like so much with me, it comes down to the writing. At first I was actually really excited because they make some nice “show don’t tell” choices at the start by dramatizing the story of Gol D. Roger and the One Piece treasure. They also do the smart modern stuff of smoothing over a lot of the misogyny with Alvida and other female characters. They also push some scenes together and move things along in a nice way and I’m like “oooh okay!” But once it starts getting into non-direct adaptation and creating its own scenes - which, to their credit, are in the effort to streamline a lot of moving parts. But the problem is 1. I actually love all the moving parts of the anime banging around like fun farce and 2. The dialogue isn’t actually streamlining anything, but treading water and everything momentum-wise stops dead. With that, I’m like “uh oh” because that’s something you have to know how to do as storytellers.
I mean, think of the way Game of Thrones was very, very good when they were condensing existing stories, but struggled immediately when they went off-book with the overall construction. It’s wred flag for sure, and it’s one that becomes so much more noticeable in subsequent episodes where, instead of taking the anime’s fun bouncy intersecting stories, they put people together and opt for long exhaustive scenes. I can’t tell you how many times I was thinking “this scene should be one minute shorter” or “this scene should be three minutes shorter.” But the wred flag that really hit was when the pilot gives not one, but TWO cryptic ending scenes that hint at things, both in the exact same manner. And I’m like, you can’t hit the same “uh oh” threat scene twice! You have to figure out how to make them concurrent at least. It may seem small, but it’s so completely telling of the know-how involved in the core approach… But honestly, the biggest problem for me comes in the overall mandates of Netflix’s direction.
In case you’re unaware, there’s a RAGING behind the scenes battle where Netflix likes putting lighting mandates and the D.I. though a huge cranked standard so that everything is overlit and shows up good on phones (and only a few big filmmakers get to work around those standards). And look, I get that people watch things on phones, but to do so at the expense of what looks good on television (and even laptops to a degree) is just a case of biting off your nose to spite your face. Even among phone watchers, no one thinks it looks “better.” It’s just slightly better at handling some sunny situations. And as part of the modern digital age I’m sooooo tired of looking at wet cement colored skies and the complete lack of details in backgrounds. We’ve just completely abandoned texture. And to be clear, I see the directors of this show doing their damnedest to work around the constraints (and sometimes they do a really good job), but with them it’s so hard to make these environments feel lived in instead of like sets and cosplayers (also, this is super specific, but sometimes the camera work goes full on Tom Hooper with its “handheld, but with high horizon and dutch angle” to hide things and that is never ever ever want to use that tactic). And it makes me long for the anime itself. I mean, one of the most wonderful aspects of the original show is that bright BLUE sky and the way it works as an artful backdrop for almost everything. This show should be so wonderfully distinct in terms of wild composition and perspective! I mean it’s one of the WILDEST looking things I’ve seen form anime yet… And instead it looks like everything else.
So when you put it all together I bounced off the live action, as well. I just couldn’t make it. There’s good choices here and there, but it all comes back to that issue of how it uses time. Because it’s the thing I’m the most sensitive to again and again and again. But in trying to discuss the range of television and why we grab onto it, the last example of something I bounced off of is a bit more… complex.
REVOLUTIONARY GIRL: UTENA
On paper, I should love this show.
It’s metal. It’s progressive. It’s queer as hell. It takes place in a world and style that feels like it’s born out of a Final Fantasy game. They even have fucking swords! It’s all so cool! On the writing front, it has set episodic structures that lead to clear things, like duels or confrontations. Plus it doesn’t always get bogged down in the drama of the moment and tries to have fun (even with a cute mascot character). Even better, I know it’s a beloved work that was FUNDAMENTAL to so many people’s sense of self understanding, whether its queerdom or gender or whatever else. And to repeat, this show is COOL AS FUCK and that is something whose currency can not be unde-rvalued. Again, this is all wonderful stuff that I should eat up with a spoon and yet, aside from an incredible sequence involving a kangaroo, there is an essential problem where I am getting bored by literally almost every scene.
How the heck can that be?
The funny thing about Revolutionary Girl: Utena is that I am hard pressed to think of a show that represents the two extremes of my expressed interests. On one hand it is aiming toward EVERYTHING thing that I like. It is using structures I endorse and admire. In essence, we want the same exact things. But on the other practical side of things, it’s missing my essential ingredient when it comes to what I like about the core of dramatic writing. For instance, this is a show that is almost entirely about the characters’ posturing and cool disaffection (which, as an old, I have so much less patience for these days). Everyone is coming in and striking a pose and saying exactly what they are about! And don’t get me wrong, from a clarity standpoint, that’s good! But the problem is that clarity is just coming out just through demonstration and declaration. And drama is about people’s interiority being shown through behaviors that come out through the negotiation of conflict about what they want. Again, it’s the old Mamet rules: Who wants what? What happens if they don’t get it? Why now?
And as clear as this show can be in terms of where it’s going, what to expect, and telling you its themes directly in dialogue - the scene to scene mechanics lack that very dramatic urgency. Like, no matter how much lip service they pay, I don’t actually understand the nature of this world or what they want revolution either for or from? And outside of how they all feel about the main crux, there is so little to the interiority for each person and their place in the world. It’s a school full of shitty opponents, but they’re not uniquely shitty from each other, they’re all the same kind of shitty. Moreover, there’s so little negotiation within scenes. Meaning there’s so little things actually being fought over because everyone just defers to the big state of understanding that they are fighting over whatsherface and the end result of being the one to bring revolution - and thus it just endlessly circles back to how that is all going to happen at some point. Even the cute monkey (that looks like Ai Ai from Super Monkey Ball) doesn’t really cause problems for her. It just sort of exists. Essentially, it all becomes the very definition of one dimensional writing.
But I want to be clear that this doesn’t mean it has a one dimensional effect on a viewer! Again, the thing about postures and environments like this - particularly cool ones - is that it is so good at making room for something that you want to glom onto. And you can do so with all the loving wiggle room in the world. It’s a show practically MADE for internal projection - and I’m not necessarily saying that’s a bad thing. It’s kind of critical at one point. It’s just not what I’m interested in, especially at the age I am now. And I know I keep saying this with a lot of anime shows I’ve watched, but if I watched Utena when I was a teenager? Hoo boy. I bet there were a billion elements of this show that I would glom onto (and again, I adored Final Fantasy, which uses so much of the same mechanics). But now it’s just not built for what I’m interested in. And in the end, I think my most shocking realization is that I think that Kill la Kill - a show I was not crazy about, but I now see as being SO indebted to this one - somehow went at its core thematic idea in a better way? How bizarre!
But again, so much of this is about odd timing of when we consume things. I’m coming to so many of these shows WAY later in life and I know I would have different emotional reactions to them after different times. ESPECIALLY with the fact that something this unapologetically queer and cool came out in the wasteland of those 90s years. But that’s the nature of art and the arc of time. We’re all getting hit in a strange order. And that’s where we come to…
LAST LOOKS
I don’t think people realize how much I say all this stuff in order to listen.
Seriously, no matter how much I prattle on about a given subject I like, I’m only putting it out all there to get people thinking and to see how they respond. Because that’s where I clarify so damn much about what works / why / how / when and whether any of these thoughts are setting off lightning strikes in your own mind. It’s a process. And evergreen one. So I cannot tell you how much you’re all the reason I’m even talking about this stuff in the first place. And I especially want to hear from you with a wide-ranging, audience-centric column like this.
Also, it’s been three years, why can’t I ever tell anyone’s ages in anime?
Is there, like, an online guide or…
<3HULK
Comments
Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything, but thinking about it more, and reading what other people have said… Hulk, I honestly think your Utena take might be on par with "Finn has no arc in The Last Jedi".
Sincerest of thanks.
If it helps I think you do a very good job of coming across as if to listen. Funnily enough these days I find myself without the energy to jot down my own thoughts somewhere about your writings, but reading them is this wonderful little dipping of toes into the ramble of thoughts I would love to pull at to no end, without the mental energy and time investment. Thank you.
I'm a fan of One Piece but I totally get where you're coming from, the anime especially has real pacing issues and it's a huge commitment to get through. However I'm kind of shocked that this is the impression you got from Utena, I guess I forgot this is how the show can come off at the start! I'm not going to ask you to keep watching (I'm a rando on the internet, I have no say on how you spend your time!) but I want to defend Utena a little: It's not such an enduring and beloved show that modern anime shows still borrow from regularly (like Rebuild of Evangelion and the newest Gundam) just because lesbians with swords are cool. It's also not a case of fans projecting and finding depth in the story where there is none. The show does move on from "neat sword duels!!" to be a little more like The Handmaiden (2016) through a surrealist lens with a big dollop of social criticism. I don't want to spoil the show any more but like others have already said, Utena as a whole definitely isn't about "the characters’ posturing and cool disaffection".
