Study of Swords MIGHT be wrong about Deconstruction

 A YouTube channel named Study of Swords has a video titled You Are Wrong About Deconstruction, and I have very uniquely mixed feelings about this video.  Sometimes I feel like I agree with it entirely and sometimes I feel like it’s led astray by a myopic perspective on the subject.  I certainly agree with the general annoyance at people calling everything even slightly subversive or dark a Deconstruction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiXzVaqdIgo&pp=ygUieW91IGFyZSB3cm9uZyBhYm91dCBkZWNvbnN0cnVjdGlvbg%3D%3D

The gist of the video’s thesis is that the modern Internet Culture understanding of Genre Deconstruction is entirely the invention of TVTropes and that it’s both unrelated to Derridean Deconstruction and not something that any work of fiction has ever truly done, certainly not intentionally.  And if one did it would be inherently bad.

Here’s the thing, all the specific examples of alleged Deconstruction they are annoyed by are Anime examples.  And their defense of that is that they are an Anime centric channel and that’s the discourse they are in dialogue with.  However the video isn’t titled “You are wrong about Deconstruction in Anime” or “Otaku are wrong about Deconstruction” and TVTropes didn’t build their concept of Deconstruction on primarily Anime examples, they built it primarily on Watchmen.

In 2003 The History Channel aired a documentary called Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked. I'd recorded it on VHS when it aired so I had watched the entire thing multiple times back then.  However I had gone years without rewatching it by the time I first discovered TV tropes in 2012 and still didn’t rewatch it again till after I’d watched this YouTube video.  It speaks to the unreliability of memory that I had basically incepted myself into thinking they actually used the word Deconstruction or Deconstruct in the segment on Watchmen when in fact they did not.  However the basic idea of what TVTropes means by Genre Deconstruction was there.

The quote they put at the start of their video is telling “Deconstruction is when a thing I like is a Genre I disrespect”.  Because within the Anime Community that definitely feels like it’s often the subtext, the community is now filled with Anti-Otaku like Noralities who can’t admit to liking an Isekai without going on about how it’s not like all the other Isekai, same with the Yandere.  And while this sentiment doesn’t get expressed much recently, there definitely were some early Madoka fans who were open about liking it and not the classic Shoujo Magical Girl shows.

Thing is that’s not really the case when it comes to Deconstruction outside of Anime.  No one who calls Watchmen a Deconstruction while explaining why they like it but hate the rest of the genre exists, rather everyone understands you need to love the genre in its standard forms to appreciate the Deconstruction.  Same with the relationship between GoT and Fantasy, or Scream and Slasher films.  Despite it’s technical etymological relation to the word Destroy it’s not actually meant to be malicious, it’s about taking it apart to assemble something new, like a Lego set.

Because I was a Normie Nerd for over a decade before Anime became my main interest, my perception of terms like Deconstruction isn’t as inherently filtered through Anime discourse.

Even among people using the word to describe an Anime they like I don’t think the intent is universally malicious.  I currently oppose labeling Madoka a Deconstruction, but early on I was different, I did defend calling it a deconstruction in the past, but it never went with some hostility towards other Magical Girl shows, rather I got into Madoka soon after I became mature enough to finally be willing to publicly admit I like Sailor Moon and always have.

This of course isn’t the only AniTube video that is in part about denying certain popular Anime qualify as a Deconstruction, others do know to make the comparison to Watchmen, and in so doing show their ignorance of the place Watchmen actually holds in the history of its Genre.  Like when Trixie The Golden Witch did a video on the subject arguing certain things aren’t Deconstructions because they didn’t do anything that hadn’t been done before, unlike Watchmen.  However Watchmen in fact did not do anything that hadn’t been done before, all through the 70s there were already Superhero Comics that were Dark and dealt with real world social issues and politics, there were already Antiheroes and Heroes turning into Villains and Villains turning into Heroes, already stories with moral complexity.  [Update: Even the specific world building plot point of the Golden Age Heroes being forced into Retirement or hiding by McCarthyism was done with the JSA in Adventure Comics #466 December 1979.]  Watchmen didn't do a single thing that was completely new, it was all in the complete picture it painted.  Madoka however did things that had rarely if ever been done before and that’s why it’s not a Deconstruction, none of what’s Dark about it feels like a commentary on prior stories because all of it is tied to what’s mechanically distinct about Madoka's universe.

But maybe this misunderstanding of how inherently critical a Deconstruction is supposed to be has seeped outside the Anime Community a little bit.  Consider all the Breadtubers who think it’s important to “Deconstruct” what’s Problematic about the Superhero and Fantasy genres. Consider the YouTuber Worm’s Hole who seems to think the Darker version of a Genre is always better because they expose what’s dark and ugly about the real world.

In discussions of both Watchmen and Game of Thrones I commonly see the phrase “Critique of Power” used to describe what both Alan Moore and George R. R. Martin are trying to do and that’s why no it isn’t Feminist to root for the Dragon Lady Girl Boss.  I don’t entirely agree with either side of those debates, but I do think the kinds of Leftists who put too much emphasis on critiquing Power as a concept need to rethink their priorities.  I’m neither a Tankie or an Anarchist, if I’m a Marxist at all I’m somewhere between Kautsky and Luxemburg.

We do not in the 21st Century need to worry about arguing against Feudal Style Monarchy anymore.  If anything the knee jerk reaction of many Liberals and even some Socialists to anything that even looks like Monarchy is a problem, whether Cuba or Vietnam qualify as a “Dictatorship” or not is irrelevant to if they are economically successful Communist experiments.  The Greek word Tyrant was not originally inherently derogatory, it was made derogatory by the same Laconophiles to whom the word Democracy was Derogatory.

So the title “You are wrong about Deconstruction” is probably increasingly correct when directed at a good number of people.  But the video’s understanding of why is flawed.

Anime Deconstructions and Subversions

Digibro did a video awhile ago about disagreeing with certain Anime being labeled Deconstructions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT6EdojMvUs.

Watchmojo is dumb for labeling Gundam a Deconstruction because it was simply the creation of a new Sub-Genre.

Most of the Anime mentioned I'm not familiar with. I want to disagree with Digi mainly on Evangelion and Utena (Utena is complicated).  But I will also talk about him being right that Madoka isn't a deconstruction, but for the wrong reasons.

Digi recommends Miragephan's video Madoka Magica is not a Deconstruction.  I liked that video when I first watched it, but now I realize it's kinda lame and saying nothing more then it doesn't have enough deep Philosophical discussions to be a deconstruction.

I agree that Madoka isn't a deconstruction (so ignore my post from December 2015).  But a lot of people are coming at it from a place that IF Madoka is a Deconstruction that somehow discredits the Magical Girl genre.

Superhero stories became better then ever after Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns came along.  That process involved some stories being weak for being seemingly nothing but a pale imitation of them, but in the long run it made the genre better.  Because after the Deconstructions came the Reconstructions.

The Magical Girl Warrior doesn't have a truly great Deconstruction yet, and I think that is what is holding the genre back.

Now onto Eva.

First Digi is arguing Eva isn't a deconstruction by comparing it to Gundam is misguided because TVTropes has a whole page for when the original of a Genre seems like a Deconstruction compared to what came latter.  It's called the UnBuilt Trope.  A genre Deconstruction is a reaction to what the genre has become more so then it's originator.  Not quite every Genre creator turns out to be like this, but quite a few have, from The Three Musketeers to A Study in Scarlet to several Anime genre creators, the page even lists Gundam if I remember correctly.  And Hell I'd say the Kanto Era Pokemon Anime seems like a Deconstruction of Digimon and YuGiOh.

But regardless, since I just watched the Gundam movies, there is in fact only one scene where Amuro refused to get in the Robot.  The series may have had more, but the overall plot considered it necessary only once.  At the start Amuro jumped into the cockpit with no hesitation, like many old school protagonists he's set up as someone who naturally runs towards danger rather then away from it.

But the greater flaw with comparing Eva to Gundam in this context is Eva is more a Super Robot show then the genre Gundam created.  But Gundam did still influence Eva, and Shinji was clearly written to be a much more (in Ano's mind) realistic example of someone in Amuro's situation.

Digibro says a few things about what makes a Deconstruction that are literally the opposite of how I or anyone else would define one.

1. He says Eva (and Madoka which I'll get to again later) "do nothing that hasn't been done before".  In my opinion an attempted deconstruction that does something that hasn't been done before has cheated.  It's more of what you don't do that makes it a Deconstruction.

Watchmen didn't do anything that hadn't been done before.  The Punisher was already a vigilante actually killing criminals, maybe also Wolverine.  The Golden Age stories also had some death.  And the 70s were filed with stories bringing real world politics into it in a similar way.  In fact Alan Moore originally wanted to just use the Charleton characters and that is exactly why Rorschach is a right wing conspiracy theorist like The Question.

2. He says Eva isn't even really part of the Mecha genre because of how irrelevant the "Robot" is to the story's final resolution.

But again it is exactly the same in Watchmen.  The world isn't saved by the Superheros, it's saved by a Supervillian's evil scheme.

A Deconstruction is about saying the fantasy this genre is built on isn't the real answer, if anything it could be the problem.  And that is exactly what Watchmen and Evangelion have in common.

Evangelion like Watchmen has improved it's genre, without it we wouldn't have Pacific Rim.

Now on to Utena.

Utena is a Deconstruction, but probably not a Genre Deconstruction, and certainly not of the Magical Girl Genre.  The Magical Girl aspects of the story are if anything the one thing it's not Deconstructing.  If anything the world Ikuhara really wants to deconstruct is the real world.  But it can also be read as a deconstruction of Fairy Tale archetypes and high school set Shoujo Manga/Anime conventions.

Now returning to Madoka.

Digibro said Madoka didn't do anything that hadn't been done before, and that is very wrong.  No prior Magical Girl Warrior show was predicated on Wish granting or the girls finding out they become the monsters they are fighting.

Ultimately I would say Madoka isn't a deconstruction for the same reason Gundam isn't, it's the birth of a new Sub Genre.  And it may well already be no longer the best of that Sub-Genre.  I'm not sure anymore how much I agree with my past declaring Yuki Yuna to be better, but it's definitely close to being at least equal in my mind.

A good example of what a Magical Girl Deconstruction could be is the first episode of the original Kaitou Twin Angel OVA, but the second episode restores things to normal.

I enjoyed Digibro's video on One Punch Man "Is there value in subverting Shonen Tropes?".  And I think he should create an equivalent "Is there value in suberverting Moe tropes?".

Because I've seen a lot of people recently praise shows like Galcochan as being somehow subversive of "Cute Girls doing Cute Things" by being "Cute Girls doing raunchy things", though it's really more talking about them then doing them.

But like what Digi says about Shonen stories that duality has always been there.  In the pinnacle of the genre, Lucky Star, Konata is described by Kagami as being like a dirty old man.  Not to mention the entire premise of Akira Kogami.