Criticizing something for Missing The Point kind of Misses the Point

I started thinking about this more when I saw the title of a Cowboy Bebop video I didn’t watch, essentially saying the Netflix remake "missed the point".  But I have seen similar sentiments all the time about remakes and reboots and sequels and adaptations or even things not actually officially attached to the same brand but just being dismissed as a “shameless rip off”.

Even when such an accusation is accurate, I really don’t think it’s the deep meaningful criticism these people want it to be. Because to me part of the point of having a new take on older stories and characters is to have a different point, maybe a mutually exclusive or contrary one if that’s what the artist wants to do.  Heck the “Point” of Knights of The Old Republic II is that The Force is bad actually yet I don’t see a lot of Star Wars fans being morally outraged by that. 

I’ve already said most of my piece on Netflix Bebop in two posts I made last March.  The gist here is that the Netflix version has Points, some of them I like and the ones I don’t I can easily ignore.  If they are the same or not as the original Anime’s point means nothing to me, the Anime is still there for you to watch if you just want the exact same point, on the same Streaming App even.

Again the same criticism exists for everything that is perceived as a trend follower rather than a trend setter.  But I often like certain of the trend followers more precisely because they have a “point” that appeals to me more than the original.  In this context some people often don’t mean an ideological point but a misunderstanding of why the original “worked”.  But the same response applies, maybe for someone like me Maodka didn’t “work” as well as Yuki Yuna Is A Hero or Daybreak Illusion or Blue Reflection Ray.  

Of course I have a different opinion on what the difference between Madoka and its alleged Copycats are.  To me of the four “Dark magical Girl Shows” named above Madoka is the least optimistic and hopeful, and no that’s not because of Rebellion, even off just the original 12 episode series something still never sat right with me about its alleged Happy Ending.  The Madoka Clones I hype up are not ones being even darker and edgier than Madoka, they are the opposite from my perspective at least.

I also watched a YouTube video recently where someone (among many other things) complained about how often modern Hades and Persephone retellings vilify Demeter, because to her Demeter is the actual protagonist of the original myth.  The fact is the entire appeal of reclaiming this myth in the modern world is the desire to reframe Persephone's apparent “Abduction” as actually a liberation, and so reframing Demeter as an overbearing controlling parent is the natural outcome of that.  And I don’t even think there is zero basis for that reading in the original myth, it’s just not the most natural conclusion when Demeter is framed as the protagonist, the fact is no one bothered to ask Persephone how she felt about marrying Hades and that’s the oversight of the original myth these modern retelling want to fix, because other myths definitely present them as happily married.

Anime Neo-Westerns

I have little ability to enjoy actual proper Westerns and yet something about Neo-Westerns in Anime I’m able to enjoy quite a bit.

They have the ability to recreate what can be fun and entertaining about Westerns but while also feeling sufficiently divorced from what Westerns represent Socio-Politically in American Culture.  Westerns are generally loved by the right and loathed by the left for multiple different reasons.  And even the “Subversive” Westerns that some Breadtubeers seem to like reflect how what I want from left wing media is often the opposite of most of them.

There are native to the U.S. examples of Western Tropes being translated into Sci-Fi or Fantastical settings, but they usually bring the politics with them whether they want to or not.  I liked the recent Fallout series on Amazon Prime and The Mandalorian/Book of Boba Fett, but they aren’t the same as these Anime Westerns.

Spaghetti Westerns are the more well known example of the Western being taken on by another country.  However a lot of them still involve certain Hollywood figures like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.  And Italy is still part of the West.  

It’s not that I think these Anime westerns are “Apolitical”, they are always saying something about the internal politics of their own worlds at least.  But certain issues are so fundamentally different in Japan that an Anime couldn't do them the same way an American movie would, certainly not by accident, and if they tried I'd trust their external perspective to have some value.

This is a post I was thinking about writing at several points last year then semi-forgot about.  But I was inspired to return to the subject after watching Grimm Variations which recently went up on Netflix, where episode 5 the Town Musicians of Breman took this Neo-Western approach.  I'm not familiar with the original fairy tale so can’t judge it on that ground, but as a throwback to this niche Genre of Anime it was great.

And it is a throwback, the golden age of this particular Sub-Genre of Anime was the 2000s.  

El Cazador De La Bruja was my first exposure to it which I watched for its thematic connection to Noir and Madlax, and it was great, it still holds up to this day.

Burst Angel is another very fun mid 2000s Neo-Western that I recommend everyone check out.

Gun x Sword is a show I  haven’t finished yet but I like plenty of what I’ve seen so far.

Sands of Destruction has some western vibes going on at times but I wouldn’t necessarily say this is it’s main genre.  Same with Black Cat from 2005 but in a very different way.

I haven’t seen any of Gun Frontier yet but I plan to eventually, it’s annoying that it isn’t on any of the official streaming sites. (Most of the shows I just mentioned should be on Crunchyroll, but Sands is sadly one of those that was still only on Funimation when it died).

Now I know that many assume Cowboy Bebop should be one of the first shows mentioned when talking about Anime Neo-Westerns, but to me Bebop has little of the western in it, it is much more built on the Film Noir tropes.

Vampire Hunter D is a good example of an older Anime with Western influence, I like to describe it as a Sergio Leone film drenched in Goth.  The first movie is the only one I personally like, Bloodlust does some things with its Vampire lore that really grind my gears.

Update May 20th: I forgot to mention how this trend sometimes expanded outside of Anime itself, Pokémon Colosseum is also a good example.

I like when a Cool Intimidating Villain is Metaphorically Castrated in a sequel, adaptation, reboot or remake.

In the original 1997 TV Anime Revolutionary Girl Utena the character of Akio aka End Of The World is a very cool and charismatic villain, he needs to be for that original version of the Utena story to work the way it does.

But then Ikahara made a movie called Adolescence of Utena that was a reimagining of the entire premise of Utena but also maybe ambiguously a Sequel somehow???  Either way this more than any other Anime Film borne from a TV Anime it is not a stand alone work of art, every detail is wrapped up in the Symbolism codified by the original show.

In the movie Akio is no longer cool or charismatic, his first scene makes a Joke out of him and then later he’s presented as absolutely Pathetic.  And this was a deliberate artistic choice with deliberate meaning behind it.  VraiKaiser in their discussions of the movie breaks it down way better than I can.  

https://vraikaiser.com/2014/01/20/i-know-why-she-turns-into-a-car/

https://vraikaiser.com/2015/07/04/the-adolescence-of-utena/

Originally of course a good chunk of the fanbase had a negative reaction to this decision,
"how dare you take the coolness away from the cool character I liked". This sentiment was in Jacob Chapman’s review of the movie back when he was known as JesuOtaku.  However in this case continuing to feel that way has become more rare, WhiningAboutYuri on Tumblr was very critical of the movie but supported this specific choice.  And it wouldn’t surprise me if even Jacob himself has repented of that old bad take.

However The Joker is a different story, that character most people still want to see treated with respect.  JackSaint’s video on Suicide Squad’s take on The Joker argues that Leto’s Joker is supposed to be an uncool cringey edge lord, which is also independently hinted at in Josh McNamee’s Sixteen Attempts to talk to you about "Suicide Squad".  

It is a good idea to remind people that the real life Jokers of the world aren’t cool or charismatic but pathetic losers, and the same is true of Adult Men in positions of Authority who take advantage of teenagers.  That doesn’t actually make them not dangerous, but it does make them less glamorous.

However there is a certain kind of fan who identifies with such characters even if they would never approve of their actions in real life. And there is a not insignificant overlap between these fans and the kind who become Internet Neo-Reactionaries.

I’m not arguing the “cool” takes on these characters shouldn't exist, I do believe most people can separate fantasy from reality and those who can’t have deeper problems than how they read fiction.  I’m simply defending the innate value in taking that coolness away from them.  The intended message behind having a Pathetic villain is more potent when done with one previously seen as cool then it would be with one who was always depicted as pathetic.

Now for both of those examples I’ve already demonstrated that I’m far from the first to make this defense of them.  However as far as I’m aware I’m still the only person to read the Netflix Cowboy Bebop’s take on Vicious this way.  And even if I find out others have, I'm still confident I can claim to be among the first since I was reading him this way the day of the show's release. Largely because I was already familiar with the two above discourses, so I was prepared.  But if you’ve seen someone else talk about Vicious this way please link me to it because I would want read or watch it.

Netflix Vicious is entirely driven by how insecure he is in his masculinity, a problem that began with his daddy issues.  He is all through the show exposed to be a manchild who wants to be seen as intimidating far more than he actually is intimidating.  And the people who have that problem in real life who also watch Anime want to be like the Vicious of the original Cowboy Bebop or some other similar kind of Anime villain.  I’m not saying everyone who had a knee jerk negative reaction to this reinterpretation of Vicious did so because they are that kind of person, but I am saying this is why they should reconsider the value of this artistic choice.

Now it’s only with Ikuhara that I’m confident this reading was intentional.  Ayer and Leto have both said things that lead me to suspect that this isn’t what they intended.  With Netflix Bebop it does seem to be stated outright quite a bit that's what the message is, but you can never be certain with Netflix  But it doesn’t matter because the Author is Dead, this is a valid reading of the text whether those who wrote it like it or not.

And I want to see this done more.  As someone who’s devoted a chunk of their online identity to being a Star Wars Prequel Apologist I should show I’m not a hypocrite by saying I’d support Palpatine being given this treatment.  Of course I’m already Free from hypocrisy here, Batman is my oldest fandom and before I went full Weeb I considered The Dark Knight the greatest movie ever made. During the late 2000s and early 2010s I loved quoting Heath Ledger’s Joker to seem cool as much as anyone else did.  Yet I didn’t have a knee jerk negative reaction to Leto’s Joker, I didn’t in 2016 understand yet why I liked it, but I do think on some level this was always why.

In the context of Anime however I think the problematically Idolized Villain who needs to be taken down a peg the most is Light Yagami. And maybe to the fans of Netflix Death Note that’s why that movie works.  But the thing is there are lots of reasons I don’t like that movie, all three movies or shows I praised above have a lot more to like about them then just doing the thing I named this post after.

More importantly though the way in which Light Turner is Pathetic for most of the film functionally exonerates him of being fully culpable for most of his sins, his psycho girlfriend is the real monster and she is cool and charismatic (or at least the movie wants her to be).  The way the three villains above are Pathetic highlights how morally horrible they are.

But also the three examples I praised are not at their core entirely different characters from the prior versions that so many people found cool, we’re simply seeing them now from different angles, in different contexts.  They do act differently in ways that would make them hard to see as in the same continuity, but the most basic character description is the same, or at least can be.  Light Turner lacks any actual similarities to Light Yagami. I don't see him as a different interpretation of the same character, he simply is a different character.

Netflix Cowboy Bebop holds up on Rewatch

As one of the people who unironically loved it when it dropped in late 2021, I have decided to verify its rewatchability before doubling down on my defenses.  And I’m glad I did because I’m appreciating it even more this second time around over two years later.

I don’t love all parts of it equally.  The conversation about Faye not having an Orgasm before I find cringey, and since it’s not getting a season 2 the bleak way it ends doesn’t sit well with me.  I’ve said before that my preference for happy endings doesn’t mean I can’t respect the artistic choice to end a story more tragically, but in the case of Cowboy Bebop I really don’t find it justified.  So yeah I wanted Bebop to be Bowdlerized.  I agree with Mother’s Basement that Netflix Bebop is the less Woke version at least where its take on the Police is concerned, but MB is wrong in thinking Carol and Tuesday is Woke, its ending is fundamentally Centrist.

At least one of those complaints is the opposite of what most hate about this show.  To them Bebop is supposed to be gritty and dark and tragic.  The truth is the original also had its goofy and silly and kind of stupid elements and this remake also has real emotional resonance.  The exact balance between them is different and that’s good.  Batman fans have spent almost 20 years now learning to accept that different takes can have very different tones, much wider differences then these two Bebops have.

Cowboy Bebop was always an homage to old American genres like Westerns and Film Noir, and for many that comparison is the first thing they mention when explaining why this remake is so bad and insulting, but the thing is those Genres were never Highbrow or Respectable and they kinda still aren’t.

One specific proof that way too many Cowboy Bebop fans take the original way more seriously than it was ever meant to be taken is how this remake’s take on Faye is responded to. I criticized one scene involving her but the rest I love.  The haters hate how in the Netflix version Faye is an awkward Dork who’s actually very Bad at being a Femme Fatale, she is competent at other things but bad at that.  And that is exactly how I’d describe her in the original show too, like it’s really obvious to me that that’s always what they were going for.  But instead people wearing Nostalgia goggles decided that she actually unironically was the Fujiko Mine of our generation, which is a notion I can’t take seriously.

I think a big factor in why I’m more okay with this adaptation is that I have actually been into American Superhero Comics and their adaptations for longer than I have been into Anime even though now I’m into Anime the most of all my Nerdy interests.  Anime fans who are familiar with the source materials of Anime are used to relatively direct adaptations, where even if lots of changes are made it still essentially follows the same basic plot besides the occasional Filler Arc or dreaded Anime Original Ending.  Superhero fans are more used to adaptations that take the elements of the source material, characters and settings and lore concepts, and mixes them around, completely reimagining some, to create a fundamentally new story, but that still feels like a love letter to what came before.  And that’s what Netflix Bebop is, a new work of art still clearly crafted out of love for the original.

Netflix Bebop is fun, and that’s what Bebop always was, pure fun.  I do like the original show, but the Netflix Bebop is more the kind of Fun I enjoy.  It actually feels more like an Anime to me then the Anime did.

Now the thing I like most about the show I’m going to save for a different post since it’s kind of an entire thesis statement on its own.  So stay tuned.

What does "Mainstream" even mean anymore?

Once again I got into arguments on Twitter with people who think Anime is mainstream now.  Everything I said in the post over a year ago still stands.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2022/01/no-anime-still-isnt-mainstream.html

But obviously I have more to say so I'm making another post on it.

And again the argument that baffles me the most is people thinking the mere existence of Anime or Manga being sold at Walmart proves it's mainstream.  They don't get how something can be Niche but still sold in mainstream stores, Walmart's whole brand is based on the illusion that you can buy anything there, that you'll never need to go anywhere else.  I'm pretty sure my brother purchased Insane Clown Posse CDs there back in the day (I'm talking the first 6 Joker Cards era well before Miracles).

And it's not even every Walmart, my local Walmart has no Manga and an increasingly shrinking Anime section.  They just assume if their Walmart has it then it must be standard.  

The Internet has always facilitated Echo Chambers, but Social Media has allowed people to be in one while thinking they're not.  When you primarily talked with other Anime fans on old Message Boards or Yahoo Groups you also knew this was not the whole of society.  But now we talk with other Anime fans on the same website where we learn what new policy the United States President has announced.  Most people on Twitter actively avoid the people with Anime Avatars, so all the Anime Avatars mostly only interact with other Anime Avatars and trick themselves into thinking non Anime Avatars are going extinct.

I of course inevitably get the accusation that I'm arguing this because I don't want it to be mainstream, that I'm some kind of modern hipster.  I'm actually actively trying to get more people into the Anime that I like, I recommend shows to the people I know offline, I leave comments on non Anime YouTube videos recommending Anime that's relevant to whatever the topic was.  And that may be exactly why I'm acutely aware of how not Mainstream Anime still is.  If Anime were indeed now just as normal a medium of entertainment as regular Movies and TV shows I wouldn't have soo much trouble getting people who specialize in talking about Horror as a Genre to watch what is nearly universally considered the best work of Horror in it's medium.

The thing is the nature of the Internet has made it more difficult to tell the difference between what indeed everyone is into now or just all the people in your circle.  And I'm starting to realize some of these people who think Anime is mainstream now don't even think of "Mainstream" and "Niche" as mutually exclusive. 

And yes to an extent everything is Niche in that people hyper into it specifically will always be Niche, even with Star Wars it's still Niche to have actually read more then a handful of the old EU Novels, or maybe even to have read any.

And maybe that's my mistake, arguing that Anime isn't Mainstream while still assuming Superheroes and Star Wars do qualify as mainstream now, by acting like regular old Nerds are totally the élite ruling class now.  Everyone loves MCU movies, but being the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons who has opinions on how things were changed from the Comics will still get you mocked.

The difference is in how big and influential a percentage those hardcore fans are of the total viewership.  It used be if a Superhero movie was hated by most Comic Readers it would ultimately be considered a mainstream failure too because they were still most of the long term investment, they were still the vanguard who's opinions those less Nerdy would consider in deciding if something is worth watching, but now pleasing them has become less necessary.

People who wanted Modok to be taken seriously are considered joyless manchildren by the vast majority of people who are interested in seeing Ant-Man 3.  Netflix' Cowboy Bebop for all it's "hype" was still mostly watched by the people who care enough about the Original to be offended that parts of it weren't taken as seriously as they wanted.  Some of the same people who hated Netflix Bebop may also like Modok because they're Anime Fans who only recently started casually liking MCU movies like Trixie The Golden Witch.

I'm neither of those groups, I can enjoy both the silly and the serious versions of the things I care about. But that's not the point of what I'm arguing here.

And even Bebop is more mainstream then most Anime because for a certain generation there are a lot of people who've only seen a few Anime that put Bebop in that few.

Maybe not all the people who think Anime is Mainstream now are denying that those particularly into it still get socially stigmatized for it, but some definitely have.