Lovely Complex Episode 2

Rogue's Gallery
Koizumi Risa - the giant half of All Hanshin-Kyojin.
Otani - her shorter partner in crime.
Nobu - Risa's friend and Nakao's better half. She's the one with wavy hair and says "Dahling!"
Nakao - Nobu's quiet boyfriend and Otani's friend from middle school.
Chiharu - Risa's quiet and petite friend. She was the target of Otani's affection in Episode 1, but got together with Suzuki.
Suzuki - the tall boy that Koizumi liked, but got together with Chiharu.

Synopsis
Episode 2 "Love Triangle with the Ex-girlfriend" [1] repeats the rooftop scene where ep 1 ended; Risa and Otani declare a contest to see which one will be the first to get a significant other. The next scene cuts to the next day at school. Otani shows up with spiked hair and Koizumi wears lipstick. Under these cosmetic changes, they remain the All Hanshin-Kyojin comedy team. Koizumi can't help herself from gleefully mussing Otani's carefully gelled Sonic-do.

Otani vs Koizumi

After classes, the six hang out at an arcade and a burger joint. Risa and Otani feel odd as the fifth and sixth wheels. While eating, Nakao announces that he knows someone who has an extra pair of Umibozu tickets. It turns out that Risa and Otani share a passion this tweaked-out hip-hop group. The other four marvel at the pair's mirrored reactions, and Nobu gives voice to their speculation and suggests that All Hanshin-Kyojin pair up. The asymmetric duo reject the notion in stereo.

The lady (and the gentleman) doth protest too much, methinks.

Another day, another class. Risa renews her lament that she cannot find a guy. Nobu suggests Otani again. When Risa sneers at the suggestion, Nobu counters that Otani is quite popular with the ladies and brings Risa to the basketball team's practice as proof. Otani moves fluidly on the court to high quality animation and sinks a two-pointer. His fans go wild. Risa gets jealous of his "cuteness", complete with hairpins, and demands that the sociable Nobu supply her information on group dating.

Otani Flower Power

Risa braves the group date. The slim selection brings to mind an adage that I once heard in tenth grade: "All the guys are Taken, Gay, or Immature." I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which is which. Koizumi reports to school in defeat and realizes that her standards may be too high. Otani gatecrashes her pity party and announces that the Umibozu concert is on X-mas, which is a lovers' holiday in Japan. The pair pooh-pooh [2] the idea of spending X-mas together and deny Nobu's needling that love may blossom during the winter holiday.

It's looking a whole lot like Christmas.

Santas, snowmen, and wreaths decorate the duo's way home from class. Despite their cat and dog antagonism, they are good friends. Koizumi continues their discussion in class. They agree that love will not be born even during the romantic season. The conversation segues into their SO contest, which leads to their usual barbed exchange. However, the joking is interrupted by the appearance of Otani's ex-girlfriend Kanzaki Mayu.

Chiharu - Kanzaki
I think I'm a clone now
There's always two of me just a-hangin' around

The revelation stuns Koizumi. She gets the dirt from Nobu, who found out about Kanzaki from Nakao. Kanzaki was the basketball team manager in junior high and went out with Otani for 2 years. Risa feels left behind by Otani, who has more than her zero experience.

The next day, Risa digs for details. Otani reveals that Kanzaki left him for Baba the Giant. Though the memory oppresses him, Otani lets Risa know that he took her encouragement to heart. The mood of this scene is deftly plants seriousness after a moment of levity.

Risa is moved by his story. She declares "Be Happy! OK?" to Otani before charging off to be with her own thoughts and feelings. Otani is left confused. This will be far from the last time that Risa acts on her own thoughts without any warning to Otani.

At the end of the school day, Otani finds Kanzaki waiting for him at the school gates. It's obvious that the poor guy still burns a flame for his ex. The ex invites Otani to a Christmas reunion of the junior high basketball team. The implication is that she wants to get back with him.

Koizumi overhears them and releases Otani from his appointment with her at the Umibozu concert. She calls off the bet, and says it's because she's helping him. Dateless for X-mas, Risa asks Nobu and Chiharu to hang out, but the girls want to do couple things and leave her high and dry.

"Such is the friendship between females."

from Yamada Taro Monogatari by Morinaga Ai

Christmas rolls around. Risa waits for the concert alone by the light of the Christmas trees. She imagines the warmth couple-ly things that the others are reveling in; her morbid mind has already paired Otani with Kanzaki. She grows anxious at the thought of Otani being taken away from her, and gets down despite the concert A passerby knocks her down, cutting her leg and tearing her hose. This is nearly the final straw, when Otani comes running towards her.

He explains that he set a date with her first and that's just the way he operates. Risa gets emotional, which makes Otani awkward. He notices her leg and tows her off to get first aid. She comments that his hand is warm. Otani chalks up her tears to her cut. She feels better and they are able to enjoy a high octane concert together.

Ho, ho, ho! Merry X-mas!

The episode looks like it's going to close with the duo walking home cloaked in warm and fuzzy comradery. However, Koizumi gets ambushed at the last minute by a hug from a new character.

Enter New Challenger!

Commentary
This episode carries the pacing from episode 1. Twenty-five minutes of viewing time, which includes opening, ending and preview, brings the story from summer to winter. The rapid pacing matches the rapid fire lines in Osaka-ben. While fast, the anime still manages to keep a clean delivery by stream-lining the events to fit comfortably in the time constraints.

I emphasize comfortably, because the viewer can still digest the scenes in full. On a drawn or written page, this would correspond to the white space that relieve intimidating congestion and messy clutter.

The monthly manga chapter went into the group date in gory detail and featured Nobu in on the action. The anime omitted most of this side quest to emphasize the core story. What is different is the atmosphere and pacing, but the core story was preserved. As with episode 1, I believe that the manga is still worth reading after seeing the anime and vice versa.

The episode managed to advance Risa's feelings for Otani. By the end of the episode, Risa acutely feels Otani's absence on Christmas night. Kanzaki is introduced which sharpens her blues during this scene. Imagine the scene if Otana were just late without Kanzaki. He wouldn't have proven himself as a decent guy by keeping his original appointment with Risa. More importantly, she thought that Kanzaki was going to take him away on a long term basis.

The bet was also important. Koizumi still considered dating and boys as a part of a game. She even talked about RPG-style leveling up at the disastrous group date. After she heard Otani's story, she called off the bet, because it had become something more serious, and in the stories to come Risa finds out that love is anything but a game.

[1] Fansubbed by Bluestorm.

[2] According to the super-relaxed American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 4th ed., which is used by www.dictionary.com, this IS a real regular English verb.

Tao of the Otaku

"Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment."
- Ann Black from "State and Main"

This quote embodies how I approach anime. Anime in itself is a medium. Anime is a hobby as much as movies become a body's hobby.

What got me started on anime was "Voltron". What got me hooked was "Robotech" and three generations of epic story telling. From 6th grade to high school, the Post-Robotech drought relegated anime into two categories: "Akira" and other. "Macross Plus" was an oasis, no a Dubai luxury hotel, in the desert. When I got to college, I joined the campus anime society and a whole world unfolded before me.

Here were new science fiction and fantasy stories. Before there was a The Matrix and Lord of the Rings, special effects really were special, but a the vastness of space uses the same ink as a night sky over Tokyo. Here were stories with an Asian character. To an Asian-Ameican, animation from Asia shown in America was a cultural mirror unveiled. Here was a different artform. The image is created from the blank page; it was additive like a novel, not subtractive and simplifying like the eye of the camera.

I've also realized that there was also over 20 years of accumulated quality, half-quality, and buried gems waiting to be unearthed by the newcomer. At the club, we were thoroughly spoilt by Miyazaki, Evangelion, Escaflowne, and Serial Experiments Lain.

Now the current from Japan is wide and deep; episodes Kanon became available a week after their maiden broadcast. The increased throughput made the wider range of shows available, and I realized that most of anime is fluff. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I superimposed merchandising model and a marketing plan over the Kyoto story arc of "Kenshin". It still took a while to sink in that Sony, with their endless screaming Playstation ads, viewed the episode as a red shiny apple for their hard black seeds. This analogy becomes generous for many shows, because apples are actually nutritious.

There are still recent shows that I enjoy (Hanbun, Haruhi, Kanon), but new quality programming has become sparser after spending years mining the past. Familiarity breeds boredom, if not contempt. Boredom leads the mind to seek another mecha series, another Slayers sequel, and another game that features "a race against time set against a world in conflict between technology and mystic nature with a little romance" [1], and the search for newer and better leads to the question: "What's next?"

Relying on consumption to fill my time ultimately leaves me empty. The alternate to continually taking in is to push out, to create, to make your own fun. Otherwise, it's just entertainment.

To create, I muse about anime, write this blog, and write fanfiction (under another name). I suspect that many fans deepen their interest in the hobby with writing, drawing manga, fanart, cosplay, and other efforts. Creation challenges the creator. The effort to build brings reward. Mere consumption lacks this need to stretch, strengthen, and grow. These acts of risk taking, writ large and small, are fulfillment that can be brought back to the real three dimensional world.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[1] Read "Final Fantasy", which is perhaps the biggest case of false advertisement since the credits following the "Neverending Story". Joking aside, Michael Ende's original novel warned the reader against indulging too deeply in fantasy. Even if you've seen the movie, I urge you to pick up the book; the first movie tells less than half of the story and the less important half at that.

Lint Speed: Lovely Complex 1

- Lint speed, what's that?
- Well when you do your laundry, you check your pockets and you don't find lint, right?
- Well, I suppose.
- But after it comes out of the dryer, what do you find?
- Lint?
- That's correct!
- How did it get there?
- (shrugs in response)
- It's THAT fast!
As recalled from the Tick Animated series.

And that's the speed that the anime version of "Lovely Complex" starts at. The first episodes introduces the main characters at rapid fire. Koizumi (small spring) Risa is a tall high school girl who falls asleep in the assembly the last day before summer break. When her homeroom teacher confronts her, she makes a joke of it and gets sentenced to summer classes. In the same supplemental lecture is her short classmate Otani (big valley) Atsushi. Also in the class are Nakabi, who is on the basketball team with Otani, and Nobu, Risa's friend and Nakabi's other half. Chiharu and Suzuki round out their group.

The Young All Halfling-Giant comedic duo.

Throughout the school year, they were labeled as the All Halfling-Giant comedy duo and they continue their cat and dog antagonism and "in stereo" comedic delivery during the beginning of the summer. However, the duo team up to win the objects of their affection. Otani is after Risa's petit friend Chiharu, while Risa has her eye on the tall Suzuki. What anime would be complete without a summer visit to the water? Otani invites Suzuki and Risa brings along Chiharu as the crew hits the pools. Risa and Otani show their childish sides and indulge in rides, while the more sedate Suzuki and Chiharu get to know each other.

The next day, the Halfling-Giant duo get hit the the first shells. Chiharu could talk with Otani, though because he was short and therefore didn't seem like a guy. Otani capsizes from the hit, but is revived with Risa's rough encouragement. Suzuki reveals that he felt similarly about Risa, though for the opposite reason.

Risa demonstrates to Otani just what friends are for.

The duo make one last try during a summer festival. Chiharu and Suzuki show up together and glow with compatible chemistry; the duo gives up. Not a pair to stay down, they run amok playing games and pigging out to an upbeat tune and end up holding hands. The episodes ends with Risa and Otani standing on the school roof top. They challenge each other to a bet to see who will score a date first.

The first episode stayed faithful to the original concept and events of Nakahara Aya's original shoujo manga. The anime preserve the best jokes (esp. Otani saying "Call me Kotani") and managed to throw in a bit of the new material (e.g. puppet Otani). Just as importantly, the anime kept the awkwardness of being a Halfling and a Giant.

I had a friend who was a lot like Koizumi. She was 6'-1" and had a lot going for her in the brains and looks, so I was surprised when she told me that she had been taunted early and often for being tall. And I'm talking here, on these shores, between sea to shining sea. This sort of real life conflict gives the anime heart. Often shoujo heroines (Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi comes to mind) are place holders; Mary Sues labeled "insert otaku-ette here". Male otaku are at least equally guilty with harem series and gal-games. Risa and Otani are stung by the barbs thrown at them, but face the challenges with a mixture of humor and courage.

The character managed to keep Koizumi's gangly attractiveness. Not every heroine needs to be klasically kawaii.

Koizumi struts all 170 cm (5'-7") of her stuff.

The anime stayed focused on the plot and comedy with a rapid, but still coherent, pace. The manga was more painful. Otani talked up Risa to Suzuki and Risa talked up Otani to Chiharu, resulting in a head-on collision. More importantly, Otani let go of Risa's hand during the festival; this set back their relationship in the manga. The writer had to bridge the distance in their relationship, while the anime moves their relationship forward more linearly.

The stuff shoujo is made from.

I think that it was the right design decision. Motion is a forte of anime. Internal dialogue is better suited for manga than animation. The pacing was well used to create a comedic momentum that serves the storyline well.

The first episode gives the viewer good reason to follow the series.

PS. Here's a trick for rapidly estimating height in inches from centimeters.
Memorize these three bench marks:
30 cm is about 1 foot or 12 inches
150 cm is about 5 feet
180 cm is about 6 feet

If the height is above 150 cm and less than 180 cm, subtract 150 from the height and remember 5 feet. Take the remainder and put it over 30. Round it to the nearest convenient fraction like 1/6, 1/4, 1/2, etc and proportion against 12 inches.

Risa's height = 170 cm
170 cm - 150 cm = 20 cm
20/30 = 2/3 AND 2/3 of 12 inches is 8 inches
Risa's height is about 5'-8". Mathcad 2001 Pro converts it to 66.929 inches or 5 feet 6.9 inches, which gives me a 1.6% error. Not bad for a quick estimate.

Otani's height is 14 cm less than Risa's or about 1/2 of 30 cm, which is 6" difference, or 5'-2". Mathcad gives 61.417 in or a 0.9% error.

Alternately, you could use 2.5 cm ~ 1 inch, but I work better with fractions.


P.P.S. In an attempt to put Risa's height in perspective, I did a bit of searching and stumbled over this neat website: http://www.tallpages.com/uk/ukstatist.php. About 3/4 the way down the page, Koizumi's height was equaled or surpassed by 0.0002 fraction of the women between 18-30 in 1987 or 1 in 5,000 women.

According to http://www.heightincreasewiki.com/index.php?title=Average_Height, the average height has migrated up 2 inches in the intervening 20 years, so Risa's height is not quite as much as an anomaly, but you would still need to look through a few high school to find some one as tall as Risa.

Take 3 years x 9 classes x 40 students x 50% women ~ 500 girls per high school. So say, Risa is now a 1 in 1000 case, you would need 2,000 students on average to find another girl at least as tall or 4 high schools. Though 5'-6" might be close enough.

Hopefully someone can find better stats out there, but that's enough for me tonight.

Living Game: Concrete Technical Liner Notes

A small step in the quest to find a place to be in Hoshisato's "Living Game".

In Volume 7 Chapter 10 of Hoshisato's Living Game, Fuwa asks the architect Sugita about concrete. The Hawks translated the lines as

Fuwa: If you reduce the grain size in a concrete mix, you need to increase the quantity of the cement to reach the same hardness, right?
Sugita: No good. The problem isn't the hardness or durability of the concrete. As you reduce the grains, the melding contraction also increases.

The terminology in Japan might be different or the manga writer might have used the incorrect term or the terms got lost in translation, but what they are saying is correct. I would have used terms that are more familiar to American engineers.

Fuwa: If you reduce the stone size in a concrete mix, you need to increase the quantity of the cement to reach the same hardness, right?
Sugita: No good. The problem isn't the hardness or durability of the concrete. As you reduce the stone size, the shrinkage also increases.

The key ingredients for concrete are stone, sand, cement, and water. Cement is NOT concrete, it is a powder used to make concrete. The stone and sand make up the bulk of the concrete. The water and cement react to glue the stone and sand together. When the water and cement react, they form a compound; the water stays locked with the cement particle.

That's why engineers say that cement does not dry. Drying means that the water must leave for the hardening reaction to take place. This is not true; in fact, it is best to keep the concrete damp for at least a day after the pouring. For sidewalks and other small pours, this means damp burlap and plastic sheets. I'm not sure what builders use on large dams or foundations.

The cement-water paste is usually the weak component in the concrete, not the stone. Up to a certain point, increasing the amount of cement increases the strength of the concrete. Too much cement means that there isn't enough water to react with the cement.

Over the lifetime of a structure, water does leave cement-water compound, unless the concrete is in a highly humid environment or immersed. The water doesn't need to leave for the hardening reaction to take place, but the concrete starts out wetter than surrounding air and dries naturally. When the water leaves, the concrete decreases in volume. This is shrinkage. The process is slow and a tell tale sign are hairline cracks on the concrete.

Back to Fuwa's statement. By decreasing the size of the individual stones, the surface area increases. This increased surface area needs more of the cement-water paste to coat and glue the stones together.

An easy way to understand the increase in surface area is to imagine a square cake, whichever type you want. Now imagine putting frosting on the top and the four sides. Once you have that image in your mind, cut the cake down the middle. Once you push the two halves apart, you have two unfrosted sides, one on each half. These unfrosted sides are the increase in cake surface area. More frosting would be needed to cover these exposed faces.

Once you substitute stone for cake and cement-water paste for frosting, you should understand why Fuwa suggests increasing the amount of cement.

Sugita tells him that the solution is no good. The stone and sand won't change volume from water loss; the cement-water is the culprit. Increasing the amount of cement-water also increases the potential for volume change.

I was tickled by the exchange, because it's a fairly advanced topic. One prof told me that most engineers know 3 things about concrete:
1. It's gray
2. It's hard
3. The 28 day strength, that's found by breaking a sample in a lab.

From what I understand about Japan construction, most Japanese practicing architects are engineers as well. In America, the training for the disciplines have grown apart. Another growing separation is between the design professionals (architect and engineer) and actual act of construction.

The exchange between the owner and building contractor come frighteningly close to the truth in some instances. Owners, builders, architects, and everyone down the line insist that they are looking for value without compromising safety or performance. Sugita brings up an excellent point that cost is king to the renter. In theory, the market should be able to sort out the poor quality. However, if you read Dilbert you understand how efficiency and effectiveness can sometimes fall by the wayside in favor of bean counting, territoriality, and general incompetence. And then you reach situations that surreally resemble the Living Game.