Welcome to Maid Spin, the personal website of iklone. I write about about otaku culture as well as history, philosophy and mythology.
My interests range from anime & programming to mediaevalism & navigation. Hopefully something on this site will interest you.
I'm a devotee of the late '90s / early '00s era of anime, as well as a steadfast lover of maids. My favourite anime is Mahoromatic. I also love the works of Tomino and old Gainax.
To contact me see my contact page.
I just finished reading Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, a 2005 manga by Satoshi Mizukami, and it was such a fast paced, satisfying experience that I wanted to write a thing on it. So I tried to work out what exactly it struck thematically, rather than anything technical. For on that side Mizukami's art is not as polished at what you'd see in Jump or in animation, especially early on, but it's emotional highs and payoff scenes were above the level of your average Jump Shounen.But the more I thought about the story thematically, the arcs the story goes through and the role of the main character (Yuuhi), the more it seemed to fall into a manga plot template I've been noticing appear a lot; often much more explicitly than in Biscuit Hammer: I call it the "Inside Outside" character / story arc, and it is an upgrade of the basic "Hero's Journey".
Split into two acts, the first, "Inside", deals with the hero fighting to understand himself, to work out what it is exactly that he wishes to achieve. Often the MC will start as either an innocent child (Simon from Gurren Lagann for example) or a disillusioned fool (Yuuhi), he will learn from those around him who have already worked out their place in the world. Eventually he will discover his true self and be able to overcome the enemy, thus ending act one.
HOWEVER! And here is the twist: discovering one's self, the original big bad, turns out actually to not be the final boss! At this point the identity of the true enemy is revealed. The outside world. In Biscuit Hammer this is subverted somewhat, with Yuuhi's realisation that he wishes to save Sami not being said outright, but implied (although this is explained fully at the climax), but often it is much more explicit, such as the revealing of the Anti-Spirals in Gurren Lagann. Team Dai-Gurren have defeated Lord Genome, he whom they believed to be the cause of all their ills, thus solving their internal problems. But once this was solved, it was realised that the Beastmen were the least of their problems. The true enemy was outside. Throughout act two, the hero will steel his resolve, mature as a person and finally accomplish his goal. In Biscuit Hammer through the most engagingly complex finale since the ending to Twilight Princess. (TL note - HOWEVER! means SHIKASH!)
With the second act over, the appendix of the story often includes abnormally protracted "what happened afterwards" scenes, giving closure to all the characters and plot points built up over the series. At least a common trend from the examples I'm going from.
This story structure works for one main reason, the twist allows the story to go through the most engaging part of the "Hero's Journey" twice, thus extending the best part of the story and allowing for two "final battles". Especially for a story distributed over a long period of time, ie. a TV show or monthly comic, this allows the audience to think that the final is closer than it really is, building tension and getting a great payoff both for the middle and end of the story. If you take the basic hero's journey [link], it manages to house two "Death & Rebirths" (climaxes).
Examples are boundless, with some more explicit versions being Gurren Lagann or Kill la Kill where the template fits almost too obviously. These shows, or at least the first two, are often praised with being huge inspirations to people, and I think this fits into the basis for the model in the first place. Fixing up yourself before you fix up the world. Or "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world", one of Jordan Peterson's "12 Rules for Life". Which is itself stolen (lol) from Buddha with his "One should first establish oneself in what is proper; then only should one instruct others". This isn't something I just came up with, it's been psychological mantra for hundreds of years.
Since apparently all my examples except Biscuit Hammer were Gainax (you know what I mean), let's carry on that wagon. FLCL is a perfect example of how this cycle is achieved more subtly, with Naota working himself out and his transition into adulthood, before he becomes his own man and decides on his own fate on his own.
Evangelion actually subverts the model. Shinji spends the entire series working himself out, attempting to reconcile his own stubbornness with those around him. The finally in End of Evangelion he defeats the first boss, realising that he desires to connect with others around him on his own terms, thus rejecting instrumentality. But the tragedy is that he is too late. In the course of him finding his resolve the world has crashed down around him. Leaving him stranded without any human contact. Except Asuka. And so his first (and last?) act of his own volition is to strangle her. Amazing right?
Also Mahoromatic. Watch Mahoromatic.
This is, alas, not the perfect formula for all stories. It requires a competent writer to pull of. The problem with having two climaxes, is that if the first seems undeserving or underwhelming, the audience won't wish to stick around for round two. A midway twist can very easily become an asspull. A story can easily fall apart over ramping up the tension just a bit too high. An example is last season's Darling in the Franxx. It's the plot of Gurren Lagann with teen drama. Not necessarily a bad premise. Although tacky, the first act holds up pretty well, with the interpersonal relations being realistically complex. But when the final final boss appears, the story falls apart. It turns into a bizarre collapse as weird unexplained things just start to happen. And then it's over. I'm not going to go fully into it right now but basically it failed to make the audience engaged enough over the first arc to carry it through to the finale.
That's it. Bye.