Lessons from Anime- Loving Parody in Ouran Highschool Hostclub and Assassination Classroom

Parody is a lot harder than you think.

It’s actually very hard to parody any movie, book, genre etc. in a consistently clever and interesting way. Films like ‘epic movie’ and ‘Scary Movie 1,000’ often beat the same jokes into the ground, throw in some gross humor and call it smart satire.

Often, poorly written parody can invoke eye rolls, especially if it doesn’t have a solid story of its own. If its just parody without a well written plot and characters, then it’s a house built on sand. One of the reasons I’m not that big a fan of the first Shrek movie is that at the base of its parody of fairytales is a plot that is predictable and old as time. Which makes it kinda boring.

But there’s another reason I’m not as big a fan of Shrek, and that’s the point about parody I really want to emphasize today. There are two types of parody. The most common, and often the easier to write, is hateful parody. This satire is biting and vicious to its original source material. It hates it. Many of the jokes are intensely mean spirited because of the deep seeded hatred on the part of the authors. In the case of Shrek? Well maybe Dreamworks wanted to crush Disney down to size after Jeffery Katzenberg broke ties with them. Maybe. Shrek 2 actually improves upon the first by being less intensely bitter.

But while hateful parody would seem the most likely, there is another form of parody that is just much harder to pull off. And that is the loving parody. Loving parody truly adores the genre or movie it is parodying. But that doesn’t keep it from making fun of its target at every turn. And at the end of the day, rather than trying to take the subject down a peg, they’re celebrating it for its tropes and its good qualities.

Ouran High school Host Club is one such satire of reverse harem and shojo manga, about a poor honor student who accidentally breaks an expensive vase and falls in debt to her school host club. Thinking she’s a guy because of her appearance, the host club promises to forgive her debt if she becomes a host herself and gets one hundred girls to ask for her. And of course half the guys end up falling for her, though especially Tamaki.

The main male love interest, Tamaki is obsessed with the role of being the main love interest but is cripplingly insecure about it. The rest of the guys are also embodiments of various tropes, but they manage to break out of them at various points for both comedy and drama. And the lead, Haruhi, has no interest in the guy’s vying for her attention and is the most down to earth of everyone.

This show has a great understanding of its trope but it’s not trying to break its characters down. It loves them. And at the heart of the anime is a lot of emotional sincerity. Melodramatic? Oh god yes, but that’s the fun of it. Its melodrama with enough fourth wall jokes and loving pokes to make it quality parody.

Then there’s Assassination Classroom which is a stellar parody of the ‘Teacher goes to a dead end class and inspires them to believe in themselves and go for their dreams’ narrative. Except for in this case, the teacher is a mutant balloon looking creature that blew up the moon and is going to blow up the earth in a year. And in between inspirational lessons, the students are trying to kill their teacher, honing their skills as assassins and trying to raise their grades.

And it’s just…its hilarious. The situation is treated rather casually and despite being constantly under fire, the teacher never stops believing in his students. At every episode he helps at least one of them step out of their shell and realize their strengths. It’s amusing to hear the lesson coming from a yellow, tentacle balloon monster, but also oddly emotionally heartwarming. The show isn’t condemning the subject of its parody. Its embracing it but flooding it with humor at the same time. And the show concludes with one of the most cry worthy scenes I’ve seen in any show.

Loving parody is just as funny as hateful parody (in my opinion more so) but it also manages to remain sincere. Because it cares about its characters, we care about them too when they’re in trouble. We don’t laugh at their pain we feel it with them. And then we laugh at them in the very next scene. It’s certainly a harder method to pull off, but it’s worth it and ultimately so much more rewarding.

Lessons from Anime: Why so Serious? (Baccano and Durarara)

Alright, we’re back with a new stretch of Lessons from Anime. I know some of you (many of you) aren’t anime watchers. I understand. Jumping into anime is as vague as jumping into movies. Because Anime is only a medium of Japanese animation and can cover every genre under the sun. Also, it has a tendency to explore some weird stuff. I usually don’t recommend people jumping into Anime without a world weary guide of sorts to give them recommendations.

However, once you’re into the anime craze, it’s hard to stop, and I’ve found that my writing has always been influenced by anime over everything else. Many of my favorite stories from any medium come from anime. So as we pick up this series again, we’ll be looking at why exactly I take so many different writing lessons from these shows and how you can too, even without watching them (Though I highly recommend many of the shows discussed on this series). With that said: Let’s jump in.

Ever heard the phrase ‘why so serious’? Of course you have. It’s hard to escape the Dark Knight or the legions of joker cosplayers that smear makeup on their face and call it a day. I love the Dark Knight, of course. Its one of the only Christopher Nolan films I remotely enjoy. That’s because Christopher Nolan films take themselves extraordinarily seriously to the point of being boring and melodramatic. The joker, the chaotic evil villain of the evening, is the only one to lend even a hint of humor, however dark. He brings up a good point in ‘why so serious’. Namely, why is it that violent, action movies have to take themselves so gosh darn seriously?

Baccano and its spiritual successor, Durarara, are two shows filled with dark concepts on paper. Baccano has mobster shootouts, torture, sadists and a whole lot of defingerings. Durarara has gangs, headless riders, suicidal thoughts and serial killers. It would be easy to make either series into a super serious battle to death sort of story.

Don't worry, he'll be fine

But that wouldn’t be in keeping with the ‘why so serious’ spirit, would it?

Both Baccano and Durarara are just so much fun. And not even in a dark sense of humor sort of way. Baccano has such an entertaining, light hearted tone that it would almost fit in with the other Saturday Morning Cartoons. You know, if not for the blood. Yeah, it could take itself more seriously, but when half of your characters are immortal and the other half are kind of nuts, why worry about stakes? Its about how these people bounce off each other. Thieves like Issac and Miria steal by their own strange moral code and spread happiness to everyone around them. Jacuzzi Splot cries, but then goes in and kicks ass with his pyromaniac girlfriend. Ladd Russo kills a lot of people but he’s just so filled with puppy like excitement, it’s hard not to love him.

This show isn’t about the black and whites of morals but rather all of those little greys in between. None of the characters fall on the lawful good section of the alignment spectrum--or the lawful spectrum at all--but that all makes them so much more fun.

Durarara has more of a point than Baccano (which exists for the purpose of being shallow fun), and has its share of serious topics. It explores the desire for power, the effect of social media on the modern world, and of course, suicidal thoughts. But it all operates under a more optimistic view of ‘life happens and you get through it’. The world isn't really so awful as it seems.

Characters you would think are irredeemable love and live and laugh. They all have comedic moments. They have dramatic moments too. But in your heart, you know that the show is going to take an optimistic spin. It’s not the sort of show to kill off its cast of thousands.

And on top of that it has some of the most ridiculous stuff. Durarara is not bound by the mechanics of reality and watching a man throw a fridge at another man has never been so funny. It has twisted love stories, many of which will even have you asking ‘why’? But you get the feeling Durarara is never making any moral judgments. It’s just showing a bunch of screwed up people living their lives.

But why does it matter? Why are shows like these ultimately more effective than the ‘everything is dark’ Christopher Nolan approach? Because humor, however dark or ridiculous, is often the real coping mechanism we need. And optimism, honestly, is so much more valuable than cynicism. Baccano asks ‘why so serious’ and Durarara insists ‘the world isn’t as bad as you think’ and honestly, I get so much more hope and enjoyment from both of them.

Never take your stories or characters too seriously. Give them room to enjoy themselves and breathe. Sometimes issues are best explored through a little humor. Sometimes a good laugh over the craziness of life is worth more than tears.

Villains and Villainy- The Joker

Whew! I'm back. I know I haven't been updating for the past couple of weeks. Ending the school year and moving back home has been crazy. But at last the summer has begun and we can continue our villain series where we left off.

This Wednesday, we're covering a villain type which can be easily lumped in with ‘The Crazies’ but is different in some ways. I call it the Joker. And yes, the Joker himself is a member of this little sect, but more on him in our villain spotlight Friday.

A villain can be a joker without being crazy. Though often the two do seem linked. I’ve talked about villains who have fun with their work and the joker is the epitome of that.

Joker villains have a twisted sense of humor about life. They’re often smiling and usually have a witty quip ready to go no matter how devious their actions. They take the heroes pursuit of them not as an offense to their power but rather as a fun game to play. Often times, the most psychopathic of villains fall into this group because they find humor in the darkest of things. They’re terrifying but always interesting to watch.

The joker is a very flexible villain type as well. They can be the mastermind, the henchman or an agent of chaos out for themselves, but they’re always intriguing. It is important however, to ground them. They can’t find everything funny. They have a method to their sense of humor. And there are probably some things they can’t laugh off. Making a joker that can laugh at anything makes them untouchable which dispels any tension between the hero and the villain. We want to have hope that the hero can get to them or we’ll detach from the conflict.

So go ahead, make your villain a comedian or a clown. Give them a sense of humor as black as pitch. But remember, there’s a human face behind the makeup that will make them all the more interesting.