20 April

The Hypernatural and Supernatural in Madlax -- continued

Formulaic style and hyper natural representations of anime
Though it is rather surprising, in most anime shows that are created and accepted in a peculiar manner that they are aired every week as a TV program, some particular routine patterns are shared in compliance with strict formality. Their basic structure pattern would be modeled something like the following.
In the majority of televised anime, almost uniformly a skit called "avant", which functions as an introductory part to lead to the day’s episode, is provided preceding the start of the main part. Usually after this avant, series title and the day’s broadcast title are displayed as a “title back”, followed by the opening theme song against the background of the video clip that has an independent structure. After this preliminary formal procedure, the main part of the day is to be developed. The main part is also usually divided into the first half (A part) and the second half (B part), by the insertion of commercials in the middle of the broadcast, at which interruption, still images or short video clips called “eye-catching” are prepared to declare each of the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half. In this manner, the program content of a day’s show is presented in formalized two parts. Even after the main part comes to an end, followed by the eye-catching which declares the episode’s end, another ending theme song follows together with the production staff roll. In this way, the body of the anime is presented sandwiched between two versions of the theme music. Optionally after this, as an additional skit functioning symmetrically with respect to the avant, “ending bridge” part is sometimes attached. Most of the case, “next week notice” skits are added still after that. These announcements of the content of the next week are not only made by a narration performed by the neutral narrator, but often undertaken by one or some of the characters who appeared in the show, often alternately taking the role every broadcast time, commenting with respect to their own behavior and the fate of the people in the show, thus making metafictional statements from out of the world they actually exist.

In theater drama, as they had to provide intermission break in order to perform a background conversion for switching the scenes, they were able to devise peculiar performance effects called “interludes”, by adding unique metafictional twists utilizing the characteristic complex structure of the playing space. In anime works, specific formality of the genre is constructed autonomously out of somewhat different demands from such time and space constraints. This fact seems to provide us with an especially interesting instance to re-consider the specific representation of a fictional work, together with the pleroma nature suggested behind the fictional work, focusing on the method of presentation of the perspectives that intensify the reflexive consciousness of the work’s being a fictional work. Each of those basic units are not only strictly complying with the peculiar style of the televised program, but may function as an opportunity to illuminate the basis of the subject matter of the entire program from a variety of different angles, by devising arrangements of individual expression method for each independent component. Although many of these components that construct the anime work, should be emotionally tuned to conform to the atmosphere of the whole work; it is not at all impossible to introduce some individual parts in a reflexive manner that dare to overthrow the original tone. For example, comical expression can be sometimes picked up in the ending part, in a ridiculed manner to overthrow the seriously grave tone of the work itself. (note)

note:
In the ending of the anime Yosuganosora (directed by Takeo Takahashi, 2010), a dry caricatured burlesque tone is introduced with the characters’ proportion distorted so as to represent their demoniac nature inside, in contrast with the pure and serious atmosphere of the main story. As the anime was based on a game work of the same title, in which several story lines branch off according to the selections made by the player in the process of development, the storyline of the anime also branches off independently in each broadcast time, reflecting the juxtaposed structure of the original game. This style has already established a new category in many anime works, attaining a remarkable innovation in the fictional description.


It is one of the typical representations of anime conventions to deform the proportion of characters having extremely big heads and small bodies in such a case. In some cases, opening parts and ending parts are changed to ones of heterogeneous character, inverting the impression of the latter half of the show from the one assumed in the former half. This way, concomitant part elements sometimes can be effectively utilized as means of realizing ironically complex presentations that can irradiate the main subject matter from different angles. By skillfully utilizing the phase condition that a variety of formal attachments retain the extended semantic association as a convention, but actually there is essentially a break between each of them at the same time; contrivance of effective disposition of these components may suggest that potential reflective function of a fictional work can be achieved, omnidirectionally suggesting the meaning construction axes of the possible world. As a result, a peculiar “hyper-natural” world image can be attained, which one cannot easily incorporate into existing ideological category, being neither a faithful depiction of the natural world ruled by the laws of nature, nor the expression of the supernatural delusion where rational norms are excluded. (note)

note:
Typical example of the innovative directing technique is to be found in another anime directed by Koichi Mashimo. In Phantom ~ Requiem for the Phantom ~ (2009), the main story drops off its genre peculiarity in the middle of the progress of the series, and give the impression that it has transformed into another kind of genre production. This is remarkable evidence of intentionally adopted representation of genre concept dislocation.


But hyper-natural presentations allow the audience to confirm having extremely “realistic” experience of the supposed possible world where everything is nothing more than a concomitant.