Frieren and Goblin Discourse

As played out as this discourse may seem I feel like I have something different to say about it.

First, while I am of the opinion that it is problematic to have inherently evil fantasy races, I can be fine with it if it’s done passively, if it’s just there and never drawn attention to. But when you take the time to raise the question only to take the deterministic answer, that's when I’m bothered.  Freiren does do that, but it’s so far only directly relevant to one Arc of the Anime and not many more in the Manga from what I’ve heard so I can grit my teeth through those parts and just enjoy what I like.  Still doing this trope is the sole reason I can't give it a 10/10.

Freiren’s predecessor in the world of Anime in this discourse was 2018’s Goblin Slayer, that one I couldn't finish because it was too innate to the entire premise of the show.  

What really bugs me about a lot of the people so determined to attack those criticizing Freiren on this issue is not that they aren't bothered by it but that they are talking about those who are as Normie Tourists bringing Woke Politics into Anime.  Frieren and Goblin Slayer stood out to Anime fans because it is precisely in the context of Anime that this is unusual.  I’ve yet to see a high profile Western Medieval style High Fantasy Show or movie with Goblins that are good actually, even in Game of Thrones the White Walkers were soulless monsters.  It’s in Fantasy Anime where the default is to humanize even the enemy hordes. Bright is actually the only mainstream western example, and oddly enough in late 2017 it was viewed as a show the Left hated and the Right liked in contradistinction to TLJ.

Goblin Slayer aired the same season as the first cour of That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime which took the exact opposite approach to Goblins, that show has 3 seasons and a spin off now and a 4th is likely coming. We see a similar approach to conventional fantasy monsters in Tsukimichi Moonlit Fantasy, as well as So I'm A Spider, So What.  Mushoku Tensei is often alleged to be in its source material the origin point of the modern form of Fantasy Light Novels, and it has a major storyline about Demons not being evil. Even in Solo Leveling, a show recently bashed as mindless trash there is an arc where the Demons are revealed to not be all evil.  Hell, even Gate, a show I see a lot of Fascism in, does not depict any race intelligent enough to speak as immutably evil. 

It stretches beyond just conventional Fantasy btw, in Wedding Peach the antagonistic society literally referred to as Devils are ultimately proven to not be inherently evil, which is exactly how the Magical Girl genre always does it.  Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's fifth episode ends with exposition about how the guardians are mindless automatons who can only obey orders, while showing us that isn't true. 

There is a lot of strawmanning of what everyone on the “Woke” side of this debate is saying.  It’s not about saying you can never have a society or tribe that is in their current state opposed to the greater good, that is after all exactly what Leftists believe about Germany from 1933-1945.  No one is saying it’s wrong to kill the Goblins that are currently attacking you or your village.

There has been talk of what Frieren does as a “Subversion of the Subversion”, that saying Demons aren’t inherently evil has become so common now that subverting that is more subversive. But a Double Subversion that just goes back to a regressive status quo is not interesting beyond the initial shock value of it. But let me tell you how I think a Subversion of a perceived Subversion could be interesting. 

I am a bit tired of Frankenstein’s Monster being made completely innocent, where if he kills at all it’s always either self defense or an accident.  In the original novel he is a sympathetic character, who is driven to his monstrous actions by how he’s treated, but he still intentionally killed a child to frame an innocent woman and cause her to be hanged, as just one example. The fact is the Creature’s characterization in The Novel is both literally and connotatively that of what we’d today call an Incel. 

I definitely want the Creature to be redeemed of his sins by the end, but it'd be nice for people to stop pretending he was without sin. 

Frankenstein needs more Anime

My Halloween Anime recommendations post at the start of the month wound up being dominated by Vampires to a large extent, partly that may be the lingering influence of my personal involvement in the 20tween Vampire craze, but I think it's largely that Vampires and Pointy Hat Witches are the most popular iconic Halloween monsters in Japan.  

And a good number of Vampire Anime includes Dracula himself in some form.

It doesn't surprise me that Mummies are not as popular in Anime because Japan simply wasn't subject to the recurring bouts of Egyptomania that the West has had.  Japan knows enough about the popularity of Egypt to often use it as the basis for a generic desert setting which may include Mummy style enemies in video games.  But taking those Egyptian things outside of the desert isn't something Japan is as keen to do.

However the lack of Anime representation for Dracula's greatest rival does surprise me.  Frankenstein in Anime has had that Toei TV movie in the early 80s, a very unconventional insertion into Fate/ lore and similarly with some other more niche shows that also amalgamize a bunch of Victorian classic literature together.  Dracula in Anime has Frankenstein dwarfed and even Carmilla makes more appearances.

I am one of those who likes to observe that in the original Novel of Frankenstein in the grand scheme of things Victor's real Sin isn't artificially creating life but abandoning it right after he creates it for not being exactly what he expected or wanted. It's about the moral responsibility that comes with bringing life into the world.

And that is why the lack of direct Frankenstein adaptions in Anime surprises me, because that moral theme is in Anime frequently, in fact it's embedded into Anime as we know it from it's foundation.  Yes I am arguing that Umatarou Tenma is an echo of Victor Frankenstein in more then just the vague way every Mad Scientist gets compared to Frankenstein, as is Precia Testarossa.  And then of course there is how Mewtwo can be compared to The Creature.

So I would like to see Anime take it's distinct approach to these issues and apply it back to the original.

Penny Dreadful on Showtime

Now that Showtime is on Paramount+ I'm finally checking this show out, 4 episodes in at the moment.

In my repeated discussions of the Anime Community's Three Episode Rule I've at least once said that it maybe shouldn't even be limited Anime, that many Western shows also have Pilots that aren't exactly their best episode.  In the case of Penny Dreadful though I definitely see it even fitting the YGG's observation that it is often 3 episodes for a show's Premise to be clear.  In this case it takes 3 episodes for the main protagonists to officially form their little pact, and episode 3's take on The Creature managed to be both unique and surprisingly respectful to the original novel at the same time.

I was aware of this show as it aired, seeing some conversations about it on the old IMDB Boards.  I was annoyed that it named itself for this obscure medium of 19th Century Entertainment but then took it's characters from the usual 19th Century Novels, I wanted to see Varney The Vampyre finally get some Hollywood spotlight.

I also remember hearing that The Creature was using the name Caliban from The Tempest, so watching this soon after finishing The Witch Form Mercury is amusing

I'm not sure how much of it I'm gonna watch.  Sometimes it's been pretty Entertaining, sometimes it's boring.

Update: Episode 6 really draws my attention to how The Creature is kind of an Incel.

Frankenstein is a lot older then Dracula

Because of their Iconic Universal Films both coming out in 1931, and then Hammer doing their versions close to each other, then the 90s 'put name of book Author in film title' versions (and as a Weeb I should add their Toei Anime TV movies).  We tend to think of their histories as being parallel.  But they weren't always.

In 1931 Dracula was in the grand scheme of things still a fairly new addition to popular culture.  The same age Harry Potter and Pokémon will be in 2031, and about the same age Late 80s stuff is now, or Star Wars a decade ago when the Disney buyout first happened.  There were people alive in 1931 who remembered when the original book came out, who remembered a time before Dracula existed, in fact Bela Lugosi himself was a teenager then but not in the right region to have likely read it that early.  Also Stoker's wife was still alive when it's sorta sequel was made.

For Frankenstein however, 1931 was the same year as the Centennial of the Novel's THIRD edition.  There is still less time separating us from the Universal Film then separated the Universal Film from the original novel's publication in 1818.  The Creature being popularly thought of as a tall green skinned flat headed monster with bolts in his neck has been the case for less then half his existence thus far.

This fact is technically well known, but I don't think we often process the implications of that, we think of the Universal Film as still close to the beginning of Frankenstein's cultural legacy, even though it's very much not.

Between the novel's 1st and 3rd edition was a Stage version in 1823 called Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein.  A lot of the pop culture Frankenstein mythology not in the book which many assume began with the 1931 film is actually already in that 1823 play, like the Creature being created in a Castle.  Mary Shelly's own comments on the play cite a memorable moment being the Doctor shouting "IT LIVES!!!!!".  The actor who played The Creature in that version passed away 20 years before Boris Karloff was born.

Ya know the not in the Book trope of Dr. Frankenstein having a Hunchbacked assistant named Igor?  Well Igor being the name originated with Ygor played by Bela Lugosi in 1939's Son of Frankenstein.  In the 1931 Universal film that character was named Fritz and played by Dwight Frye, and that was also his name in the 1823 stage play.  Fritz was the name of this character for longer then Igor has been, it was Fritz for over a century but one Bela Lugosi performance changed it forever.

An 1826 French Play by Charles Nodier called Le Monstre et le Magicien (The Monster and the Magician) is considered an unofficial adaptation of Frankenstein by the people at BlackCoatPress.  Frank Morlock wrote an English translation and they published it alongside Hugo's own Notre-Dame de Paris stage version (the same one Lindsay Ellis talked about) in a volume called Frankenstein Meets The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the title being justified by a thrown in original short story by Morlock himself.

But guess what, Frankenstein and his Creature had even already encountered a Vampire a decade before Dracula was published in the 1887 musical burlesque Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim.  This YT video features a song from it.

That of course brings us to how if you defined Dracula by more then just the name and consider him him an evolution of Lord Ruthven, he can be considered exactly as old as Frankenstein being born from the same legendary Ghost Story competition in 1817, and did get a lot more Stage versions in between.  For more on that subject I recommend the book Stage Blood: Vampires of the 19th-Century Stage by Roxana Stuart, and also the translations of French Ruthven stories published by BlackCoatPress, the plays translated by Frank Morlock and a Novel by Brian Stableford.

Science Fiction is a Sub Genre of Fantasy

In the past I have been very pedantic about drawing a hard line between Fantasy and Science Fiction, especially in regards to Star Wars which I am not alone in considering Fantasy not Sci-Fi.

However my escalating indulgence in Anime over the last 5 years has increased my appreciation for how blurry the line can be.  But more importantly looking at the history of the Genre has made me realize that ALL Science Fiction is Fantasy but not all Fantasy is Science Fiction.

People Fantasize about many things, our more traditional definition of what a Fantasy story or world is comes from Fantasies about the Past.  Urban Fantasy is our fantasies about those elements of the mythic past surviving into the modern world just out of sight.  Fantasy's overlap with Horror is tied to our fantasies about what scares us.

But we also fantasize about the Future, and outer space, or alternate routes history could have taken.  We fantasize about what technology could achieve in the future as it continues to advance, or perhaps has secretly achieved already but is being kept secret by the government or other cabal of elites.  Or could have achieved long ago if certain mistakes were averted.  We also fantasize about finding things Scientists speculate could exist but that we haven't found yet.

When you look at the history of what's called Proto-Science Fiction, Sci-Fi tropes and ideas in works that predate the birth of Science Fiction as a distinct genre.  You'll notice that it's all Fantasy, the exact same works of the Ancient-Medieval past modern Fantasy authors look to for inspiration is exactly where the founders of Science Fiction drew their inspiration.  But when directly adapted today they are classified as just Fantasy not Sci-Fi.

From the Mahabharata & Ramayana, to a Second Century Greek novelist seeking to Parody the Odyssey, to the 1001 Arabian Knights to Japanese Folk Tales to 18th and 19th Century Gothic Romances. 

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is sometimes called the first Sci-Fi novel.  But the thing that surprises people reading the original book after entering it with assumptions driven by a century of Cinematic Adaptations, is just how Unscientific it actually is, the full title is referencing a Greek myth after all.  The 2nd and 3rd editions actually try to make it more Scientific, the reference to Galvanism for example was not in the original 1817 edition, the only basis in the Book for the trope of the Monster having anything to do with Electricity is a Greedo Shot First/Riddles In The Dark style retcon.  Science is only discussed at all in the book because of the Rationalism of those at Ingolstadt shutting down Victor's ideas.  Victor's actual inspirations come from late Medieval and Renaissance era Alchemists, Sorcerers and Magicians, and one of the author's inspirations may have been Conrad Dipple.

In a way this makes the development of Science Fiction not unlike the development of Science itself.  Chemistry emerged out of Alchemy, Francis Bacon arguably defined the modern "Scientific Method" but he was also an occultist, a student of John Dee.  Isaac Newton believed the mystical symbolism of the design of Solomon's Temple could somehow unlock the secrets of the Universe.

Whether or not Technology can be considered a form of Magick kind of depends on how you define Magick.  One definition used by some Occultists is that it's the manipulation of the energies that exist in nature.

That's why it makes sense that the roles played by Mages in RPGs are taken over by Scientists in more Science based adventures.  White Mages become Medics and Black Mages become Mad Scientists.

Jules Verne was also pretty open about how Genre wise most of his major works were attempts to create modern Odysseys.

My advice to Universal for reviving it's Monster franchise

I did a post about my thoughts on where the Dark Universe could go last year called The Temptation of Frankenstein.  Now it seems like the Dark Universe is clearly dead.  So I have some new advice that complements that advice pretty well actually.

My advice for how to start a New Universal Monsters Shared Cinematic Universe is..... don't.

You don't need to start one, just make new movies in continuity with the classic 30s and 40s films.

I know you're concerned it won't be comparable to Marvel if it isn't pre-planned from the start, and those old monster movies don't have a flawlessly consistent continuity.  But the MCU does have continuity issues of it's own.

Universal should take advantage of the fact that they already have a popular shared Cinematic Universe.  Don't listen to the people who say DC failed cause it didn't start with Origin stories, DC's issues are deeper then that.  Plenty of fans are tired of Origin films.

"But won't following the canon of the 30s and 40s movies hinder the ability to make things more diverse?"  No it won't, I'm saying make new stories bringing that canon into the present.  There is still room for new characters including new Monsters.

You can actually address the fact that Lucy was never dealt with in Universal's Dracula movie.  And fix the issue of Karloff's monster being able to survive the end of Bride but not the titular Bride.  And you can bring back Dracula's Daughter and explore her psychology including Bisexuality even deeper. And this time cast actual Coptic actors to play the Egyptians in the Mummy movies including Kharis and/or Imhotep under those bandages.

I would be fine with having a new character be the Werewolf of this saga.  Lawrence Talbot is the one character where, in the same continuity, I'd have trouble with an actor other then Lon Chaney Jr. playing him.  Let Talbot keep his happy ending from House of Dracula.  The guy who wrote The Wolfman was an immigrant fleeing the Nazis and that influenced him allegorically.  So in a modern setting have the new Werewolf be Mexican.

This is kind of the same advice I'd give Toho now that they've announced plans to make an MCU style shared Universe after Legendary finishes theirs in 2020.  Don't start from scratch, Shin Godzilla was special but for the most part I liked them always at least keeping the original Gojira as canon.  But now I'd say go further then that and outright revive the Sowa Universe.  Or if you don't want to bring back a fully heroic Godzilla, make Godzilla Vs Mothra the break off point.

Halloween Anime viewing Update

At the start of the month I gave a top 5 Halloween Anime recommendations based on what I’d already seen.  Here I’m gonna talk about what I’ve been watching.

I will talk more about Fate/Apocrypha at the bottom, after a spoiler warning.  The other stuff I’ll talk about here I’ll try to keep Spoiler free.

I’m not watching Code:Realize yet since I’m waiting for it’s Simuldub.  But it’s worth noting that it also has characters from both the Dracula and Frankenstein novels.

First I watched the Netflix Castlevania series as I said I would, even though it’s not technically Anime.  The four episodes up now are basically an extended prologue, but they were fun.  And Gaius Frakking Baltar is voicing Alucard, that should be a treat.

I watched Kyoufu Kaiki! Frankenstein (also known as Monster of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Legend of Terror).  An Anime movie from 1981 based on Frankenstein.  I watched the Dub that was made in 1984, so one of the older Dubs out there.  I gave it a 7, it’s the subject of my first My Anime List review.

I much later watched the 1980 Tomb of Dracula Anime (based on the 70s Marvel comic book series), which I can’t really recommend.  The Music was cool, but it felt like a decade of comics storylines crammed into 90 minutes.  And as someone notoriously easy on Dubs, it’s Dub was one of the worst.

Then I watched the first three episodes of Dusk Maiden Amnesia.  Which were kinda fun.

I watched the Fate/Grand Order: First Order OVA Dub as I said I was going to.  It was pretty fun, and for Halloween relevance, there is a sort of homage to certain classic Christopher Lee film.

I’m also revisiting some of what I already recommended. 

Back in September I watched the first 2 episodes of the Dub of Testament of Sister New Devil.  The rest of the Dub will drop on October 31st, but I probably won’t be able to get to them till after.

Fate/Apocrypha Spoiler Warning

The Temptation of Frankenstein

My desire to spend this month watching a lot more Horror Anime lead me to watching Kyoufu Densetsu Kaiki! Frankenstein, which I wrote a review of for MyAnimeList.  That movie felt very inspired by the Universal Frankenstein films, so I felt like watching a few of those again.  And I just re-watched Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman.

A movie that arguably marks the birth of the first Shared Cinematic Universe.  And with Universal now seeking to launch a new MCU style shared universe reviving their old monsters, it definitely put thoughts in my head.

If there was any type of overarching plot thread to the old Monster Mash saga.  It was the idea of other Scientists being tempted by Frankenstein's secrets when an opportunity to follow in his footsteps is provided, like it's an irresistible forbidden fruit to them.

Even Henry's actual children in Son Of and Ghost Of resist it at first but give in, with Ygor serving as their Serpent.  But this movie marks the beginning of other unrelated, sometimes at first perfectly normal, doctors following this arc.

But of course like many of the interesting things about these early films, it's not quite explored as in depth as it could be.  So that's something I'd like to see revisited.  Don't find some excuse to make Victor just as immortal as his Creation the way a lot of recent works have done, like Penny Dreadful.  Let it be other scientists playing that role each film after somehow stumbling upon Frankenstein's records and/or the Monster.

I know some might complain about the idea of repeating the same arc over and over again.  But just like how the One Ring's temptation of different people is different depending on that individual's personality, there are a lot of different characterizations this premise could explore.

Take Dr. Manning in this movie for example.  What's interesting about him is starting out as a normal medical doctor.  His decision at the end might have seemed less inexplicable if they actually verbalized more the subtext that he was basically being pressured into violating the Hippocratic Oath.  Talbot very explicitly wants to die, so that could have been easy to accept, but The Monster is basically a child who doesn't understand what's going on.

Analyzing this movie as Hollywood's earliest example of a film that is a sequel to two originally separates films continuity wise is also interesting.

As a Sequel to The Wolfman it works great.  As a Frankenstein movie though, it has unavoidable continuity issues from being torn between two different approaches.  There clearly was a draft of the script that tried pretty hard to work as a sequel to Ghost of Frankenstein, Lugosi's monster even spoke originally.  Yet there are also moments that just want to treat it as if this old castle was where the Monster was originally created.

Of all it's connections to Ghost.  The easiest to miss yet most important is that the man who's reputation lead Maleva to bring Talbot to this town was Ludwig Frankenstein's from before Ghost's story started, as someone who'd helped people.  She did not think "the guy who made a monster from dead bodies ought to know how to deal with a Werewolf", though that's what a viewer who watches the movie out of the context of the saga is inclined to think.  So that other scenes of the film seem to forget Ludwig existed, makes that confusion even worse.

Now people complaining about the new Shared Universe trend like to emphasize how it's more important for a film to work on it's own then tie in with other movies.  That's all well and good.  But this movie's inability to decide if it wants to be a sequel to Ghost or some unflimed Frankenstein reboot, made it inconsistent with itself.  And that caused the main flaws of an otherwise pretty good movie.