I’ve always found it interesting that the heroines in anime are often strong, independent, and motivated. Whilst, the male heroes are often indecisive, reckless, and incompetent. The presumption is that this is because of the predominance of male anime fans. I’ve heard speculation that male characters are designed so that male fans can put themselves into the story in place of the male leads. This is more natural selection than design, IMO. (Specifically, I’m thinking about harem comedies, but I think it affects other genre.) The fact that these male characters do relate to so many anime fans is telling.

However, the fact that the female characters are often more popular than the male characters tells us something else. It isn’t always what one would think.

It has often been mentioned that the least interesting character in a harem comedy is the male character. This makes sense, if taken from the perspective of a male viewer experiencing the show through the male lead’s eyes. The other (female) characters play off the male lead to progress the story. The male isn’t as important as the female characters, in that sense.

Moreover, it doesn’t matter what the male character is supposed to be or be thinking in the context of the story as much as what the viewer is experiencing through his eyes (what the viewer is thinking). Thus, again, the story must progress through the use of the female characters. Because the story has to utilize the female characters to move the plot along. These characters become more defined, more human, and more relatable.

What happens when there are no male characters? Can you just give all the girls super powers, big guns, no pants, and mecha?

Will it be enough? Apparently.

Strike Witches is at its heart a magical girl show. There is nothing spectacularly different from any other magical girl show (aside form the striker units). But, like many others of its ilk, it proves that when it comes to anime you don’t need guys when you have a bunch of girls. You just need to give them big guns, independence, intelligence, and the ability to kick ass.

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I almost didn’t post this because there are a lot of contradictory examples that appose the arguments I made here. However, most of the ones I could think of have to do with the female lead being indecisive or incompetent.

I finally got around to watching what the subbers called the “pre-air” version of Tamayura. It’s a cute little show about a girl who likes to take photographs and her friends.

It’s only sixteen minutes long. We learn absolutely nothing about the characters besides their initial traits/fetishes (likes pictures, likes smells, likes to whistle, likes cute little boys, etc).

Fu isn't all there, if you know what I mean.

As some of you may know, I live in the bastion of dirty hippie liberalness that is Austin Texas. For the longest time, I’ve been meaning to go out to the capitol and take some pictures of the renovation on the dome. I had some stuff to do downtown this morning. Because of that, I figured I would kill two birds with one stone (no birds were harmed in the process of taking these pictures).

(click to enlarge)

Here is a picture from the top of a parking garage. I’m not totally sure when they started work on the dome. I visit the Capitol quite often, though. My guess is that they put it up really fast.

Here is a picture from across 15th street on the north side.

Here we see the view from the south side, about mid way up the walkway to the entrance.

Here is a view from the middle of the walkway facing south down Congress Ave. It’s Sunday. There is almost no traffic (because nothing is open).

Here is a picture of the “pit” (that’s what I call it) on the North side of the Capitol. I’d say it’s about twenty feet across and two stories down. It drills right through the underground extensions and is accessible from both the E1 and E2 levels.

When members of the House or Senators can’t come to terms on legislation they are put in the pit to fight to the death. You should have seen it during the last session with the Voter ID stuff. We called it bloody Tuesday.

There is also a dance group that practices down there.

There is never a flat chested teenage girl in a zombie movie. It’s a rule.

HotD doesn’t break any new ground when it comes to the zombie genre. The most unique aspect of the show is that it is probably the first “classic” zombie themed anime I’ve seen, ever. The basics are all normal. Some unknown pathogen is turning everyone into a mindless flesh eating killing machine. It is contracted through a bite. Everyone and their mother is being turned into a zombie. The whole world has gone to hell.

If you look closely, there is a bullet dodging some boobs

HotD is blazing new ground in the field of boob-physics, though. I’ve never seen breast move, in an anime, as they do in HotD. It isn’t just bouncing. These things have minds of their own. There is (literally) a scene where boobs dodge a bullet, individually. Yeah, you read that right. One boob moves out of the way. Then the other boob moves out of the way.

The scene where we see shock wave dissipation through boobs is very interesting. I think they could have done better. Obviously, they decided to animate that scene though simple assumptions about how boobies would react to short high-frequency shocks. Personally, I would have started with a computer simulation, followed by some experiments with high-speed digital cameras and ballistics gel, then animated based on the available modeling.

But, that’s just me. Nobody cares about what I think, anyway.

Also, little girls supplying ammo seems to be another level of adorable.

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Why didn’t I use “breast” instead of “boobs.” Well, “breast” is too mature of a word and “titties” is too immature. I decided on a happy medium.

I was talking with a co-worker the other day about nescient youth and eventual bumpy rise to a professional career.  I’m probably one of the youngest among my team of co-workers and even the larger organization. I’ve always felt older than I am. So, it’s a bit odd to be surrounded by people who have two or three times the life experience. In some cases, those co-workers have decades more work experience (in the same field), than I.

While talking to my fellow worker, it happened that we had similar stories about working our way through university, about leaving friends behind, and about moving forward. One striking similarity came up that has stuck with me, from that conversation. Neither of us had anything we could consider a mentor or role model.

At the time, when I was younger, it never occurred to me that I needed someone to offer direction.  In my mind I was capable enough. I knew the direction I wanted to go, and I was headed that way. Be that as it may, looking back on my younger days I can’t really say that I was all that directed or all that motivated. Explicitly, I lacked any real direction or drive. It was something I had to find later.

It isn’t like I’m all that experienced now, either. There are differences, though. I have more history, knowledge, and have grown much since that time. As a youth, I lived life as it was presented to me and mistook making choices of the options given to me as directing my own path. But, flowing through life like the winding trails of rain water is not to be mistaken for making important life decisions. It is a childish way of living.

Now that many of the decisions that I had made as a younger me have largely played out their resultant effects. I can reflect on the outcome. The time spend wisely and wasted is clearly visible to me know.  The bad decisions as well as the good are so much more distinct from each other. More than anything, I’ve come to the point that I know that there is so much more that I don’t know. Truly understanding that concept took too long in my opinion.

Now, I can honestly say, I wish I had a mentor when I was younger. I really do. My pride, probably, would have never let me say something like that not too long ago. For a time, I saw my solo adventure through colleges, jobs, and relationships as a badge of honor. Those things were a testament to my talent and drive. It was a big “fuck you” to all those people who tried to hold me back or didn’t think I could do it.  I can see that it merited very little for me.

Life is all about choices. One absolutely has to make those choices on their own, or it isn’t really worth living. Life is also about making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and using that knowledge later. However, it isn’t a bad thing to have a map of the possible troubles along life’s routes.

That’s what a mentor should be. They are the map. Not necessarily, a map of the route from A to Z. They are a map for any direction or road you wish to take. They can tell you were the bridges are or where the rivers run. You can visit the mountains or the plains, and your map will help you get there. It can’t and won’t tell you the best way or the only way, but it will help get you there.

The younger me really wishes for a mentor.

Last time on How to H, we learned about enemies. This post has nothing to do with that.

At some point in your life someone told you that everyone is special in their own way. The thought was reassuring because it meant that conformity was impossible. Yet, the drive to be the same or similar to those around you was so strong that to some degree you complied. Maybe, it was wearing a certain style of clothing. Maybe, it was using a certain style of slang. Maybe, it was an attitude.

Most people are more utterly similar than they are different.

Perhaps, it’s our differences that make us “unique.”

But, it’s our similarities that make us human.

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I’m a little behind on these posts, since the goal was to do about one per episode. I’ve still got B Gata H Kei episode 8 to do. Episode 9 is currently in the backlog.