I stumbled across, played, and completed Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (a far cry from its Japanese title, which I never bothered to learn) last semester, finding it strangely addictive (and way too short).  I thus waited with bated breath for the second installment, Phoenix Wright: Justice For All, which just came out this month, vowing to relish the experience more slowly than I did its predecessor.

I began watching Keroro Gunsou with no delusions about what it is: a children's show with a nice splash of parody and otaku innuendo that has endeared it to the akiba-kei crowd (or, at least, the TV version of Densha Otoko).  From this understanding, the show as of episode 63--as far as its fansubbed incarnations have gone thus far--has remained fresh and entertaining, and from the few raw episodes I've bothered to collect, it seems like it'll remain that way for quite some time.  I think there's always something to be said about a dramatic/comedic work that delivers a consistent, "safe" storyline--one without the dramatic twists and permutations of what I'd classify as "serious" fiction, the kind that leaves you breathless and exhausted and exhilarated all at the same time, and yet wanting more.  The latter is the kind of fiction I've always endeavored to create in my writing, but I've always enjoyed "safe" fiction as a form of unwinding.  If the artist's premise promises a good clean mix of light drama/comedy with a family-oriented tinge, and delivers said experience, I'm happy.

NHK in Youkoso is a slightly different matter.  The premise deals with a real-life issue--the shut-ins known in Japanese parlance as "hikikomori"--in a dramatic/comedic/parodic context.  The milieu of NHK is essentially the real world, and the story is, ostensibly, that of a real-life hikikomori.  There are--and necessarily so--plot aspects that border on the unlikely, such as the Misaki character and her mysterious background, but arguably the story meant to be told is an earnest one.  This puts NHK on a different standard of assessment: the standard against which all "serious" fiction must be measured.

Implicit in this standard is the character arc--a path of growth and revelation for the protagonist(s).  This is by necessity a gradual and deliberate process, for nothing can shatter willing suspension of disbelief faster than drastic growth in a causal vacuum (or, as I like to think of it, deus ex machina in a can).  The lack of growth, meanwhile, intimates a lack of plot on the one hand, and a likewise deterioration of WSoD on the other, insofar as the lack of growth sorely points out the fact that the character(s) portrayed are, in fact, fictitious constructs merely assuming the semblance of real individuals.  No seriously dramatic work can hope to function without verisimilitude--the distinct impression, in the reader/viewer's mind, that the events and people in a story are real, or at least real enough to be worth caring about. 

NHK's main character began pathetic.  His foil (the fore-mentioned Misaki) began as a mystery, a mildly angelic apparition who served as a point of interest for the view.  After a brief period of minor improvement, the main entered a period of regression (largely as a result of a conflux of unfortunate events) which is no real problem in a dramatic work, only so long as the character grows from the experience.  At the end of the Offline Meeting segment (which should have reached its culmination by the main's actions, not those of an insignificant side character), it seemed as if the main had, in fact, attained some measure of growth.  Moreover, some of the mystery behind the Misaki character was unveiled, to the effect of humanizing her, ultimately deepening her character beyond a largely conceptual level.

The main, however, immediately falls into a pattern of behavior that is markedly worse than before, evincing that his near-death encounter made no lasting impact on his character, ultimately culminating in yet another potentially revelatory climax.  Yet the main absorbs the shock of the revelatory scene and continues about his merry (and, at this point, sickeningly pathetic) way without a shred of growth.  He lumbers his way into yet another ugly situation, and, just when he seems to have made the barest fraction of progress, incongruously reassumes his role as the perennial chump. 

This sort of character development (or lack thereof) does two things: it reduces the main to a mere caricature in the viewer's eyes, which in turn destroys any empathic ties between the viewer and the main.  The implicit requirement of serious fiction is that the audience cares about the main--enough to continue to watch over them through all the trials and tribulations thrown at them by a heartless and cruel god (i.e. the Almighty Author).  There is something inherently noble--and thus interesting--about an individual who perseveres in the face of adversity, either giving their best shot and failing, or, against all odds, succeeding in bringing about some change or development that changes their world for the better, and people, as human beings, will always find stories centered around such individuals and their struggles mesmerizing.  The kind of character development in NHK runs askew of this principle in two ways.  First, by denying the main even the barest semblance of growth, he sinks below the level of individual to that of mere concept.  Second, watching such a conceptualization continually try to succeed and subsequently fail has all the appeal of watching an automaton run itself into a brick wall, because the stakes have been diminished to the point where there is no human jeopardy: When "characters" are mere shadows on a wall, who cares what happens to them?  They can exist for one moment and not for another, and all the world remains unaffected, whether they ever reappear or not.  Nothing about them matters--there is nothing to care about.

On a brighter note, Ringworld and Dune, two classics of science fiction, are good examples of serious dramatic fiction done right, though perhaps not without their own respective flaws.  Ringworld manages to tell a compelling story despite a plot with a somewhat formulaic overtone, and a greater emphasis on milieu, as opposed to character, development.  Dune by contrast tells an epic on the scale of Lord of the Rings, but with a main whose character arc enhances the grandness of the plot, though his tendencies toward godhood--with nigh superhuman physical conditioning from the onset and near prescience by story's end, Paul Atreides pushes the envelope of believability, but not, I think, too far.

The (few, and ultimately unimportant) deficiencies of Ringworld are, I think, more a sign of its times--and the state of the genre--than anything on Larry Niven's part.  And although it might have been stronger had the reader been allowed to witness Paul's transformation from boy to more-than-human (in almost every conceivable way), Dune might not have withstood the backstep it would have taken to do so, despite being the epic that it is.  In many ways, my own main's arc mirrors that of young Paul, although the path I delineate begins with a (largely) ordinary boy, and ends--through the troubles and twists of plot--with an individual with knowledge and abilities far beyond ordinary, but who has unquestionably paid dearly for their acquisition.  I suppose that's what's missing from Dune in the end: the price Paul pays for his "terrible purpose" is never, in the first novel, at least, fully realized.

Jaa,

~Tensai Ja Nai, Minding the Price

Oh well, too late...I've already given the law school the tuition check.  Suppose I could still become a law school prof with a J.D., though.  And speaking of which...


Updates will probably be more sparse from now on, with Law School work clogging up my schedule.  I am, however, generally free after 12:40 pm on Wed through Fri weekly, if anyone wants to go out to lunch.

Jaa,

~Tensai Ja Nai, Juris Fictus