Gasaraki #1:
The Summoning
ADV
100 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
09/19/2000
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Gasaraki #1:
ADV
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I know there's one or two of you out there that prefer your entertainment of to be of a greater fare than cars filled with topless women flipping over and subsequently exploding, tossing said women free only to allow them to participate in the most mind boggling orgy of lesbianism the world has ever seen. Not many, maybe, but one or two. I would be proud to call myself one of them but it seems like every once in awhile something catches my stride. Much like how I enjoy the character design of .hack's Mimiru/Blackrose... loathe as I am to say it, it's true. And I take refuge in the point that it's not because I find myself sexually attracted to a cartoon but more the fact that I think they're an excellent putting together of a look only the style of animation can bring out. Regardless, the point still remains that people are going to see it as me having a crush on a cartoon character and that freakin' sucks. I don't want to be lumped into the same category as a bunch of porn watching pederasts who only go out to see the light of the day when they need to buy more EZ-lube. Please don't be so blasé as to lump me in with them, it's a rare failing of mine that looms its ugly head once in a blue moon. I need only to call on the defense that I've noted my enjoyment for many male character designs as well. So either I'm latently homosexual or it's really not an issue of fetishism.** |
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And this is why I pray every day that whatever gods the creators of this wonderful show deign necessary to worship reward them fully for making a TV series that is a metaphorical drought of sexuality. It's rare that something comes along where you can sit down and watch and not have the inkling in the back of your head that you're watching something two steps away from soft-core porn. Even Cowboy Bebop had its moments, though few and far between, where I found myself cringing and hoping against hope that nobody would choose that precise moment to walk into the room. Much like my watching of Mulholland Drive in the common room of my dormitory, literally every time the lesbian sexings would start someone would walk in. "No, it's not porn!" I would contest, as if I were Moses, decrying the grief of my people out to the heavens. But it was to no avail. Not only shameful enough that I was watching such a terrible movie, but half the inhabitants of my dormitory would come to think that I was a denizen of some sort of pornogprahic hell, for lack of a better term. |
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But as I've said before, Gasaraki affords me no opportunity to defend my manliness and for that I am eternally grateful. In no way does it cheapen anything, much less showing women off as sexual objects... a constant qualm of mine in regards to anime and video gaming in general. Friends will tell you gladly of my reluctance to play women characters in videogames simply because of the nagging doubt in the back of my mind that by doing what I'm doing I'm affirming that whomever said a woman's only use in the gaming subculture is to wear little to no clothes and behave much like a dog in heat is correct. There is nothing wrong with that fantasy, but the problem is by inserting into a world of fiction one finds his work effort towards getting that one, ultimate sex symbol of a woman ebbing away with every oversexed OVA he takes in. And that is the problem with anime today. Its message is not entirely wrong, per se. The problem is that it encourages people to take an easy way out. They get what they want, in a way, and receive no real reward. And for a bunch of dorks and geeks the world over that seems like the best way to go about things. Who wants to exercise and shower and buy flowers for a woman when they can just pop in Mitoko-chan's Titty Titty Bang Bang volume 4 and grab a box of Kleenex? |
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Well I do, for one! Dave Chappelle said it best, that a man's test in life is a woman. Men NEED women otherwise we would all be like Joe Schmo, captain of his anime club, masturbating to fansubs and then crying himself to sleep in his pillow. And I think Gasaraki director Ryuosuke Takahashi shares my sentiment. He knows of the serious dearth in good, wholesome shows about robots and war and political drama and that a story doesn't need to be driven along by the force of two, four, or even eight DD breasts. An anime can be excellent, almost cannot be without, using only things like a good story, good script, and excellent directing style. There's a power in these disks that I didn't understand the first time through, because this show is real, gritty. It shows people as people are and not what some social loser wishes everyone was like. But, I suppose you'll have to find that out for yourself because I literally didn't talk about the show at ALL during the entire review. You owe it to yourself to find out what myself and Mr. Takahashi already know. Buy Gasaraki, and don't let the nerds win. |
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