Audiences the world over are highly anticipating “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea” (Gake no ue no Ponyo), the first new film in four years by renowned animation director Miyazaki Hayao. After a string of films employing digital techniques, Miyazaki, who has vocally criticized mechanization of animation, and Studio Ghibli deliver a fully hand-drawn, visual tour de force. Funding was abundant and the frame count is high, another hallmark of Miyazaki’s crusade against the often fragmented, still “limited anime” pioneered for Japan television. Movement is even more fluid than “Spirited Away.” As is by Ghibli standard, the environments and backgrounds are sumptuous and the creature designs breathtaking. Composer Joe Hisaishi even returns with an all-new cinematic score. All things considered, Miyazaki is sure to have another global hit on his hands. An original story, “Ponyo” has already made a strong showing at the Venice International Film Festival and is breaking box office records in Japan, earning $91 million in its first month of release, and surpassed 10 million viewers and $134.6 million as of September 28. That said, this is likely the least significant work by Miyazaki in decades, an utterly unchallenging and low-stakes showing that skirts the issues the great and socially engaged director has been struggling with since “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” in 1984. It is destined to be a forgotten addition to his extensive library, but taken in perspective there is a major shift in Miyazaki’s trademark style of which supporters and detractors will want to take careful note: Miyazaki is thematically returning to otaku anime.

Miyazaki has abandoned the pseudo-European settings and narratives that dominated his early career and works. What interests the great man now is not the romance and grandeur of a past Europe (what his son Goro tried unsuccessfully to capture in the throwback “Tales from Earthsea”), but a nostalgia for the pastoral vision and family of a Japan he dreams is once was. Like “Spirited Away,” he again sets the story in slightly familiar Japan of the near past and collapses the narrative with mythological themes and popular folk literature. This time it is basically a Japanese “Little Mermaid.” The beginning of the film is inspired – utterly silent for nearly 30 minutes as the wonder of a lush undersea paradise unfolds before the viewer. Here especially but elsewhere in the film as well the warm and fuzzy feeling of hand-drawn animation is demonstrated to the fullest, and the screen looks like a living, breathing storybook. From clouds of jellyfish to monstrous fish forms to miniature character fish in dresses that look like 1920s Disney characters with black eyes and squeak like Mickey Mouse, the classic Western “The Little Mermaid” animation simply pales by visual comparison. The pastel and earthy tones of the drawing above the sea is put in immediate contrast with the immediately vivid and lively sea environment. The centerpiece of the opening is a flying submarine vessel with a magician feeding the sea creatures, the “father” figure of the little fish-in-dress characters. One of the larger fish-in-dress characters escapes from the submarine, is caught up in a drudge with waste materials and washes up on the shore of a village. She is rescued from among the rubbish by Sosuke, and quickly becomes infatuated with the boy. Sosuke’s father (who he seldom calls that way) is away on a boat out in the ocean and seldom comes back to their home on the cliff by the sea. His mother (who he never calls that way), a working nurse and terrible driver, was his only company before the fish. Sosuke names her “Ponyo” and shuns everyone else in society to befriend her and care for her. Ponyo’s father, it turns out, is a human who gave up on dirty, vile human and their polluting ways and went under the sea to protect the environment with magic he ingests and spreads to the creatures. He wants to protect his daughter and so comes to save her ad succeeds getting her back with some very scary multi-eyed sea sludge magic.

After she is gone, Sosuke learns that if a fish of that type comes onto land to be with humans, a great flood will consume the world. Ponyo acts out, grows legs and arms and ingests all of her father’s magic, meaning she is a god that can reshape the world, just like her mother, the massive and beautiful spirit of the sea (looks very much like late Tezuka Osamu characters, but with the added trait of being the size of a building, brilliantly colored and refracted by the waters above her). Ponyo does just that, coming onto land to the house where Sosuke lives and sinking the entire world besides that under floodwaters filled with unusual, massive creatures. As the moon descends and the tides rise, there are a number of standout, surreal scenes, such as a graveyard of overturned ships jammed against a wall of water under the giant moon, when Ponyo’s mother makes her first grand appearance, and a sunken nursing home where old women blissfully play. The people of the sunken village suddenly appear in boats calmly and happily crossing to the “hotel on the mountain,” a metaphor for death completely beyond the two children who play isolated in this post-apocalyptic, Amazon-like primal water world. Her father tries to prevent further damage and Ponyo’s magic runs out, but ultimately Ponyo has to make a choice to become human or fish. She tells her mother she wants to be with Sosuke, her father declares the disaster has been prevented and suddenly the movie ends with a celebration scene reminiscent of the last episode of “Evangelion.”

Aside from the incredible presentation, interesting about all this is the complete absence of a coherent narrative, emotional risks, character development and engaging of larger themes. Gone is the eulogy for the society, culture and environment of the past that inspires and moves the hearts of the young and old alike. All that remains, actually, is a simplified story about a lonely boy and the fish girl with a crush on him. They play as the world comes down around them, and the director seems to see no problem with allowing this reckless and selfish behavior. He does not call for youth to save others and grow as he did with “Kiki’s Delivery Service” or “Spirited Away.” Miyazaki does not even ask his characters to go beyond their immediate selves, as he did so successfully in the eulogistic story of innocence lost in “My Neighbor Totoro.” That, too, was an original story with hand-drawn art and elements of a bedtime fairytale, but with the critical difference of fantastic elements coinciding closely with real events with real consequences in the lives of the two little girls, who tragically must eventually must face reality and grow past the innocence and freedom of a youth with spirits such as Totoro. Scenes when Satsuki and Mei wait for their absent-minded father in the rain and escape into Totoro fantasy, or cannot face their hospitalized mother and so turn to the gods of the forest, or leave the squalor of postwar Tokyo for the pastoral dream of Saitama, are moving precisely because they are juxtaposed with the minimalist narrative of two little girls growing up and adjusting to feelings and roles they don’t yet understand or want.

Miyazaki’s focus on the grand themes of a generation, on environment, war, the destruction of society, sharpened by his experiences in postwar Japan, anti-government movements and myriad environmental disaster is the elephant in the room and goes unrecognized throughout. Ponyo’s father is in point of fact right about how destructive human can be, as is frequently demonstrated in the film by scenes of massive corporate and private pollution, but his concerns are not answered. He just gives his daughter up and shakes Sosuke’s hand. It is almost as if the great director has finally grown tired of trying to grapple with these things and so instead indulges himself in emotional masturbation. “Ponyo” asks nothing of Sosuke, who does nothing and does not develop at all. Sosuke has an almost unhealthy attachment to Ponyo – he repeats “I will protect you three or four times in the course of the film – and his reliance on her youthful energy and magic mirrors his unhealthy dependency on his mother. Dressed as a captain and piloting a toy made into a full-sized boat by Ponyo’s magic, Sosuke seems to be growing up as he greets the other adult “survivors” and makes his way to the sunken nursing home thinking his mother might be there, but then the boat shrinks and he becomes a weeping child lead on by Ponyo. The film does not take the fantastic elements and impose them on reality, but leaves them as storybook clippings with impact or meaning. There are only two-dimensional “kyara,” no complete characters.

The movie is like an extended promotion video insofar as it is just pretty pictures matched with nice music to evoke a visceral emotional response, but this indulgence of affect cannot be called anything but moe. Yes, “Ponyo” seems to be Miyazaki’s first attempt at moe – indulgent play among depthless characters in a cute setting without context or meaning. Further, this is a classic example of sekai-kei anime, a genre beloved among otaku wherein the private emotions of characters are literally equated with the fate and well being of the world at large. That is, if Sosuke loves (in a prepubescent understanding of that word) Ponyo and she leaves the sea to become a human, then the world ends. Everyone in the town seems to be aware of this, and many, many people have died in the flood that ensues when Ponyo does recklessly decide to be with Sosuke, but the happiness of these two kids is more important than the fate of the world. At one point Ponyo’s father, the only rational character in the film cast as a villain and given a bogus seiyuu for vocals, comments that a prepubescent girl should not be given the responsibility to decide the fate of the world based on capricious emotions and a fragile state of mind. He is promptly shushed as some evil fishmonger without a heart. Indeed, that so many come out of the theater commenting on a sense of “darkness,” “uneasiness” or “dissatisfaction” surrounding is directly related to the absolute terror of a world without reason, consequence or context. There is a fear, but not one that is spoken; it is knowing something is terribly wrong with this selfish, interior worldview, but completely agreeing with the creator that it is better to just ignore such concerns and enjoy in this happy fantasy. The whole film reads like a storybook anyway, and it has the kinetic energy of a kid telling other kids about what kids do, but as an adult viewer it seems a little wrong at times. It is like a sickness in the film that all negative emotions are suppressed, all harsh realities ignored and only a peace and ease among people who have transcended to some weird place beyond worldly concerns remains.

Indeed, many viewers have commented that Ponyo comes off as a bit of a stalker, and scenes of her chasing after Sosuke on top of surging black storm waves are simply nightmarish. As cute as she may be struggling to learn to be human and fragmented Japanese such as “Ponyo loves Sosuke,” her snuggling down alone with him in a blackout to eat instant ramen is beautifully rendered but ultimately unsettling, as outside hundreds lay dead or dying because of her. Sosuke’s unnaturally strong attachment to this fish-girl child as his surrogate mother, possible girlfriend and only friend (he completely ignores all the other girls in the movie other than his mother) makes him seem pretty otaku himself. As a child, Ponyo of course feels no connection and no remorse, but the viewer is invited to also turn off his or her brain and just enjoy the warm and fuzzy time with Ponyo, and that is just messed up. That Ponyo changes shape (think Sophie from “Howl’s Moving Castle”) from a cute little girl in a diaper to a grotesque, hunched and twisted frog-like beast that bears a striking resemblance to Miyazaki’s old-lady witch characters makes her seem even more unstable and frightening. The frequent Miyazaki panchira on his little girl shojo characters seems somehow wrong, where it didn’t before. It is only when she becomes a deformed fish in a skirt, a soothing yuruchara exterior with a tsundere attitude, that she (it?) and the viewer can finally feel comfortable. That is because Ponyo seems very familiar indeed as an otaku anime character in this iteration.

As terrifying as this sounds, after watching this film one cannot help but think Miyazaki has completely become disengaged from reality and interested in only pleasing himself, or simply that he has returned back to the otaku days he was supposed to have left behind when he decided to make wholesome family movies with “Totoro” in 1988. That No Face character pandering to little Chihiro in “Spirited Away” trying to get her love and affection? That is Miyazaki, trying to pander to this “Ponyo” creature that is so saccharine sweet it rots. In what realm of the imagination can this film without depth or conflict be a satisfying experience for anyone over the age of six? Were it Miyazaki’s stated intension to target children, fine, but it is not. His objective is a “revolutionary” film that challenges conventions such as beginning, middle and climatic end. The packaging and critical acclaim says high budget film, not tripe for drooling preschoolers. Miyazaki talks of himself as the only true animation auteur in Japan making films for families that parents and children can watch together; he criticizes the empty motion of indulgent otaku anime producers and consumers. By his own estimation, Miyazaki has de-evolved. Unlike classic shorts from the nineties such as “On Your Mark,” there is no bigger picture in “Ponyo” to link the images up to, and the result is dissatisfaction. One goes in expecting Shakespeare and gets instead “Moetan,” flat characters seductively placed in narrative stasis.

The movie ends with the “climatic” Sosuke-Ponyo kiss, and then jumps suddenly into a jerky and rushed end roll with a stanza or two of that dangerously addictive, candy-coated, ear-worm “Ponyo” theme. It feels like the ending of a contrived “Sazae-san” episode, television anime of the sort Miyazaki hates, not the conclusion of a 100-minute feature film. The song itself comes off as Miyazaki’s parting shot for fans and attempt to brainwash critics with the vocals of an innocent child and unpolished guitar accompaniment. Perhaps that is how Miyazaki has come to see himself, the aged father giving children the voice to sing and bringing happiness to the world. Unfortunately what proceeds the credits makes at least this viewer fear for the future of children growing up on this drivel. Miyazaki was supposed to be the last one fighting to insert depth and thoughtfulness into a post-millennial world reduced to surface and primal affect – otaku and moe entertainment being the obvious example. Miyazaki has finally lived up to his word and retired, but from exhausting social engagement rather than film making. Like so many today, he has retreated into himself, and not even the most stringent of critics can be pleased to see it.

Doujinshi began in the ’70s with original stories, but shifted to parodies of established series and characters in alternative settings and “couplings.” The genre runs the gamut from academic writing to pornography, and much of it is as sexual and violent as it is artistic. Legally, fans can produce whatever they want insofar as it’s not blatantly for profit or obscene. In the beginning, large coteries managed costly and labor-intensive production, but the democratization of printing in the ’80s resulted in small, even single-member circles. Researcher Gunnar Hempel, 27, a Sophia University MA who wrote his thesis on the phenomenon, estimates there are 8,000 Japanese living off doujinshi, but stresses the number could be greater thanks to digital publishing. A “professional doujinshi” artist scrapes by on some 12,000 yen a month, but can gross 32,000 yen from large sales events.

And the biggest event on the doujinshi calendar is Comike, also known as Comiket or the Comic Market, which began in 1975 and now takes over the massive Tokyo Big Sight complex in Odaiba for three days twice a year. In 2007, 550,000 people and 35,000 clubs braved two-mile-long lines to exchange 1 billion yen worth of doujinshi. The next installation is December 28 to 30, and admission is free (a 2,000-yen catalog is recommended).

In between events, the organizers of Comike run B-Maniacs and Comiket Service, which sell new and used doujinshi. As the movement becomes more widespread and easier to access, producers and consumers have increased and (to some degree) normalized doujinshi. There were 2,496 new titles published in 2003, with an average circulation of over 13,000. Starting in 1994, Toranoana, K-Books and Melon Books started selling doujinshi on consignment throughout the year. Toranoana, which has the lion’s of the market, reports 14.85 billion yen in annual doujinshi sales. There were 2,496 new doujinshi titles published in 2003, each with an average circulation of 13,546.

Traditional manga publishers, licensors and distributors agree to look the other way as long as fans don’t go too far, make too much money or stop consuming official products. Daniel Pink, speechwriter to former US President Bill Clinton and a doujinshi enthusiast, pointed out in an October 2007 article for “Wired” that allowing fans to produce keeps them interested, provides free market research, and cultivates new talent. That was the case for four women who drew “Captain Tsubasa” doujinshi in the ’80s and became the international manga superstars known as Clamp.

“Japan has historically and culturally allowed copying in appreciation and to learn,” says Ichikawa Koichi, 41, an engineer who moonlights as one of the three chiefs of Comike.

However, this symbiotic balance is tenuous. In the fallout from the Miyazaki “Otaku” Murders, the “Seinen Comic” mark was adopted in 1991 to label manga that contained adult content, and all manga were required to blur out genitals. After doujinshi were found to be disobeying these rules, seven people were arrested and 67 taken into custody. A TBS announcer covering Comike proclaimed, “There are 100,000 Miyazakis here.” In March, the Chiba police put pressure on Makuhari Messe, and the event space subsequently refused to host Comike. The Harumi Tokyo International Exhibition Center welcomed the expo only after organizers agreed to screen all the content. In 1999, Nintendo sued the creator of a doujinshi featuring “Pokemon” in “unwholesome” ways, and in 2006, another creator was ordered to pay 93 million yen in back taxes and fines for unreported earnings on doujinshi.

But savvy corporations are more conciliatory. This year, Kadokawa made a landmark deal allowing “mad movies” of their “Suzumiya Haruhi” anime as long as fans marked posts on YouTube and Nico Nico Douga with Kadokawa logos. Haruhi remains their flagship series, in part because of internet support

It’s been a long wait, but finally moe moe Macross has made it to the big screen. Banzai! Before I get into the review – spoilers ahead – allow me a short explanation. I am writing this on the assumption that no one who watches “Macross Frontier The Movie: The False Diva” will do so for the story. “Macross Frontier” is about characters, so let’s talk about characters. The original Macross is itself an advert for the power of moe – what beats macho mecha and invincible alien invaders is young female idols who wear short skirts and sing. The Zentradi say “deculture,” I say “moe.” Hell, director Kawamori Shoji would probably agree with me. His “Macross Frontier” TV series has enough moe (and mecha) flying around to please otaku boys and fujoshi girls of all stripes. If possible, the movie takes this up a notch. The story has been seriously streamlined and deals more with relationships among Alto, Sheryl and Ranka. Alto and Ranka start off as best friends (Nanase does not appear in the movie), and Sheryl seems to know Ranka, or at least has pictures of her home planet and can sing “Aimo.”

One thing to note is that the first film is more geared toward fujoshi. We all know that passive leading man Alto is the queen of uke characters and is on the receiving end of relationships with everyone in the show. Granted, he is a lot cooler and more decisive in the movie. He comes to terms with why he ran away from a life playing women’s roles in kabuki (some existential stuff about not knowing who he was) and has some seriously bad ass urban dogfight scenes. But his manfriend Mikhail still sexually harasses him (including putting his arm around a blushing Alto when they are alone in the park at night). Brera, who is himself much cooler and less of an intrusion in the central love triangle, also covers Alto during a skirmish and gets the “you can be my wingman any day” treatment. You can cut the homoerotic tension with a knife. But all this pales in comparison to Alto becoming a girl. Literally. Alone in his room, he let’s his hair down, puts on Sheryl’s earring, looks in the mirror and becomes her. Any coolness points he might have earned just flew out the window.

In comparison, the loli tones have been muted. Klan only appears in chibi mode once at school, and she looks notably older. Panty shots in general at a minimum. Ranka is less the “little sister” she was in the TV series. In place of all this soft teasing is a whole lot of Sheryl lounging around her room in lingerie, her in the tub and some shower nudity from manger Grace. That said, some familiar gags are present, like Ranka holding meat buns suggestively over her breasts. Ranka also changes costumes about every two minutes, each one cuter than the last. Her rise to fame as an idol is much more detailed, starting with an awesome street live in Zentradi town and continuing with her singing jingle songs for natto (yes, the sticky fermented beans do end up on her face), a super robot series (promoted in front of what appears to be LaOX on “Deep Akihabara Street,” and she is cosplaying as a mecha musume) and the actual convenience store Family Mart. The music is, of course, awesome; Kanno Yoko shines when writing playful music. In comparison, the Sheryl’s concerts are bogus – absolutely heinous. In one, she dances on a giant clock with the springs as backup dancers (and a vampire Sheryl sucks her blood…), and in another she is running around on what appears to be an oil refinery. Not cute. Worst is when the stage is a pirate ship in the middle of a pond projecting images on its sails. Adrian Lozano calls this Fantasmic! meets Macross.

This wouldn’t be so bad if the movie wasn’t centered on these performances, but it is. The narrative tension begins with Sheryl coming from Galaxy for a concert in Frontier, which seems to be a front for her and Grace to engage in some good old-fashioned espionage, but it is canceled due to an attack by the Vajra. The story ends with Frontier saving the refugees from Galaxy and repelling the Vajra at Sheryl’s second concert. The result is a movie that is like an extended music video. Macross means a merger of mecha battles and pop music, but in this movie the battles are drowned out by an unending stream of May’n music. This is a real shame, as the dogfights are actually pretty intense, and the mecha are rendered a lot better than they were in the TV series. Overall, the story is also not well developed, for all the singing. Fine, I didn’t come for the story, but damn it all if no one outside the main three characters sees any significant screen time. Mikhail and Klan, Ozma and Ranka, Ranka and Brera – interaction is almost nil.

That said, the movie had its moments. She can’t compare to natto, but Sheryl was actually cute, especially during her date with Alto in the forest. She is actually developed as a character who seems to have problems, and her growing feelings for Alto are believable. The Frontier colony looks awesome. You can see clearly where Kawamori borrows from Akihabara, Sydney, Big Sight and San Francisco. It feels futuristic, but a kind of uncomfortable jumble that may well be in our near future. One great scene is Ranka riding through the richly imagined town on a scooter, a scene scored by “What ’bout my star?” The next movie, “Macross Frontier Movie: The Wings of Goodbye” promises more story development. As if anyone cares – Ranka’s “kira” idol concert and her major debut are still ahead. And the trailer shows Sheryl and Ranka both in wedding dresses, which is sure to create a buzz among the fanboys.

The verdict is unfortunately not favorable. Honestly, there was almost no emotional energy in this film. None of the main characters have died and no one, not even Grace and Brera, are bad. Sheryl and Ranka don’t seem to be rivals, and Alto has all but chosen Ranka already. The next movie better do something, anything, to move us. Just don’t add any more singing sequences. Seriously.

The man known only as “Bome,” 47, is the most famous figure sculptor in Japan, well known for his meticulous, even otaku depictions of bishojo, beautiful anime and videogame girls. But critics at their best see talent for what it is, and this otaku is now an internationally recognized artist at the fore of Japan’s $27.5 million figure industry. In honor of Bome’s 10 years in the contemporary art scene, Parco Factory in Shibuya will display an unprecedented 80 Bome bishojo pieces spanning the length of his career.

Bome appeared in the early ‘80s as one of the first amateur producers of “garage kits,” or resin pieces of a figure roughly molded and left for the buyer to put together, finish and paint. The high quality standards and creativity of these kits, mostly inspired by the “hobby” anime that dominated this the original animation video (OVA) era, formed the basis of the commercial figure market. Rising up through the ranks of amateur creators at Wonder Festival, Bome debuted professionally in 1986 with Kaiyodo, known for their innovative Choco Egg and ultra-real Japanese Animal Collection. At this point, however, the company is more known for the Mon-sieur Bome Collection imprint for bishojo figures than realistic dioramas of history and nature.

Collectors praise Bome for his accurate paintwork, fine detail and his ability to capture and represent characters in natural poses. He combines the sensual forms of popular media images with detailed, cute faces. What elevated Bome to “god status,” however, was his efforts to overcome the “three-dimensional contradiction,” or the fact that physically deformed bishojo as they appear in two-dimensional representations cannot possibility (or anatomically) exist in the real world. Bome toiled to make incredibly accurate molds and detailed character sculpts that approach precisely the imaginary form. Because of this, fans enjoy photographing his works, in turn prompting Kaiyodo to in 1995 release the first ever photo collection for a single figure sculptor, “BOME・EX.”

Bome has long been an inspiration to his more photogenic contemporary, Murakami Takashi, and collaborated with that giant of the Japanese art scene on the life-size bishojo figure “Project Ko2” in 1995. The humble model maker was then recognized as an artist and given his first exhibition at Feature Ink in New York in 1998. This set the stage for Murakami’s “Ero Pop Tokyo” in Los Angles that same year and the infamous “SuperFlat” installations in Tokyo and Los Angles in 2000 and 2001 – all three featuring Bome. Bome then stood alongside Murakami at “Popular Art” (un art populaire) held by the Cartier Contemporary Art Foundation in Paris in 2001, where the curator deemed Bome the “king of otaku.” As if this needed any further evidencing, the enigmatic genius decided in 2002 to craft the world’s largest solo-sculpted bishojo, a one-meter “Love Hina” character.

Bome still actively contributes garage kits to the biannual Wonder Festival, Japan’s largest outlet for unlicensed anime figure sales, but most of his works are limited to the day of the event and sell out immediately. His works are 1/4 scale (by now called “Bome scale”), about 50 centimeters, towering over standard 20-centimeter figures, and the delicate parts make the bulky pieces hard to move. To see a substantial collection of his works usually requires a day trip on the shinkansen bullet train trip to the Kaiyodo Figure Museum in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture. The Parco show is a blessing for longtime fans looking for a retrospective and dose of nostalgia, and for those interested in seeing what all the fuss is about.

The venue is everything one would expect: a grand entrance fit for an artist, flowers from Murakami and Kai Kai Kiki and a 1:1 scale “Oni-Musume I.” The interior is a single concrete room with bare floors and fashionably exposed overhead ventilation. It feels like an underground gallery – until the scene inside comes into view. Ambient background noise mixes with snippets of dialogue and cheesy guitar music from the looped Bome interview DVD, all of which clashes marvelously with the soft rap playing in the Parco retail shops outside. The exhibit itself begins with 24 varieties of Bome figures for sale, including rare gems such as the San Diego-exclusive metallic “Bunny Girl.” The centerpiece is a $290 set including a 1:4 scale, 288 x 400 cm “Oni-Musume Special” complete with the Bome interview DVD and “The Complete Works of Bome” artbook. It comes in a signed box.

Moving away from the sales rack to the proper displays, there is an island with all six color variations of the one-meter “Love Hina” figure. Beyond are completed examples of some of Bome’s best garage kits from 1983 to now, including Lum from “Urusei Yatsura” (1983), Deunan from “Appleseed” (1983), Takaya Noriko from “Gunbusters” (1991), Minki Momo from “Magical Princess Minky Momo” (1992), Nuku Nuku from “All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku” (1994), Hoshino Ruri from “Martian Successor Nadesico” (TV) (1994), Skuld from “Oh, My Goddess!” (1996), Lumiere and Eclair from “Kiddy Grade” (2004, 2005), KOS-MOS from “Xenosaga” (2005), Elis from “Asobi ni iku yo” (2006), Saber from “Fate/stay night” (2006), Hyuga Natsumi from “Sgt. Frog” (2006) and Kosaka Tamaki from “To Heart X-Rated” (2008). Sadly, classics such as “Magic User’s Club” are not on hand. The utter transformation of his tiny, rough works from the 80s to his supple current offering is astounding. One has to see it to believe it. Throughout, however, the trademark faces, poses and expressions retain the unique Bome touch. Some real standouts are a standing Misty May (1992), which is much more personable than the production toy, a huge, vivid Yomiko Readman (2006) and a cosplaying Haruhi (2007) captured in the moment she salutes and the sleeve of her oversized gakuran jacket flies up. It was released as a gatchapon, but it didn’t do the original garage kit justice.

The center table of the exhibition is a demonstration of the seven steps in Bome’s model making. It begins with a book and manga so the original character can be seen, then moves to rough body sculpting, head and clothes, smoothing with paper, putty and paint, molding in silicon gum, casting resin and finally painting. The final completed figure is the vision of the one seen in step one, like she stepped off the page and into the display case! This is a good point to stop and view one of the many monitors displaying the looped Bome interview DVD, where he explains his philosophy and inspiration. There are some revelations in there, for example he does no want to make art or choose his own subjects, but rather be inspired to bring other’s fantasy to life, and his rolemodel is Michelangelo. However, the biggest pleasure is to see the artisan at work, toiling away in his apron in a tiny home cluttered with materials, books and waste. To think that such wonderful figures could come from such chaos…

Finally, there is a wall of pictures taken from his art exhibitions around the world. (It is funny enough that an art and fashion department store such as Parco is plastered with posters of Bome bishojo.) Right next to this is a case devoted to Bome’s collaborations with Murakami, especially “Project Ko2.” There are 12 concept sketches of the blond maid Miss Ko2 full of personality; it is like she is an anime character with an inclusive story. It is from these that Bome crafted the infamous 1:1 work that sold for $567,000 at Christie’s in 2003. There are art books devoted to her, the miniature toys and two color variations of the completed garage kit. Surprisingly, the rarely seen “Nurse Ko2”completed garage kit is also on display, and she looks fantastic. The exhibition end with a white wall upon which are hung the 18 packaged figures in the Mon-sieur Bome Collection. This leaves the viewer seriously wondering the difference between these “figures” and the art sculptures displayed by Murakami. The mantra among defensive enthusiasts is, “At least figures are three-dimensional,” and now is the time to see the extraordinary works of the man who put those words in proper perspective.

Name: ボーメ～アーティストデビュー10周年記念展～ Bome: The 10th Anniversary exhibition Debut in the Contemporary Art scene
Venue: Parco Factory, Shibuya Parco, 1/6F
Time: 10/3/2008 to 10/20/2008, 10:00am – 9:00pm
Charge: 300 yen

Not everyone is happy about them, as the defacing of some posters demonstrates. In this example, the “prohibited” (kinshi) before the actions has been crossed out and replaced with “bring it on” (joutou).

Outside the station towards the UDX Building, the familiar sign stating rules such as no street performances (on which the police mascot has been defaced) has been joined by a sign on every lamp post stating new rules and codes of conduct, imploring everyone to cooperate for the good of the area.

 
Over by the Akihabara Town Management offices, the English slogan “Akiba Smile! Akiba is Beautiful, Peaceful and Happy” is posted above the vending machines, with accompanying Japanese, “Connecting with a smile, city planning.”

 
I have to attend a conference in Oita Prefecture, and so unfortunately won’t be able to make it to the reopening. Though I have a conditioned aversion to systems of control and surveillance, I still hope everything turns out all right… Aside from just wanting an area I love to prosper, Akihabara is playing an increasingly major role in the global imagination of Japanese popular culture (not to mention otaku). This point was driven home for me when at the airport in Tokyo the other day I saw a bustling shop selling Japanese toys. The word “Akihabara” was prominently displayed over the checkout counter, a beacon drawing in curious passers-by who parted with their money under the neon glow (in the shadow of the iconic RX-78-2 from “Mobile Suit Gundam”). That pretty much says it all! Click on the first image in the article to see details.

Encouraging tourism (not to mention rampant consumption) with images of cute anime girls is certainly nothing new, but here’s a double whammy: Shinto shrines in rural Ibaraki Prefecture. The advertisement is for hatsumode, the customary first shrine visit of the new year. Why not add a little moe and start 2011 with warmth in your heart?

Pop (“Moetan”):
 

Kei (Hatsune Miku):

Ito Noizi (“The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya,” “Burning-Eyed Shana”):

Murata Range (“Blue Submarine No. 6,” “Last Exile”):

The list goes on. Frankly, I was a little shocked (as much as when Hello Kitty went moe). Astro Boy as a shota character?! I knew “Marvelous Melmo” was hot, and “Yakeppachi no Maria” and certain portions of “Phoenix” had moments, but this was unexpected. Tezuka meets moe, and gets along surprisingly well.

I consulted an expert on moe, Honda Toru, famous for advocating that men marry characters from anime, manga and games and cast off the oppressive system of dating women.

“I think we can blame Tezuka Osamu for moe culture. Tezuka started making story manga after World War II, and it was a cheap, accessible outlet that spread quickly and continues to this day. The stories were interesting and the characters were extremely cute, and this tendency continued. For kids of all backgrounds, manga and anime are a part of growing up. Tezuka drew characters that appeared to be children, and they were small and cute. Even when Tezuka drew adults that look small and cute. If you compare these drawing to American comic books or Disney animation, you notice that even when the age setting is supposed to be the same, Japanese characters look much younger and more innocent. They also are more sexually appealing. This became a convention. People grow up with that and develop desires through that image. You get used to seeing cute characters. Many people learn to draw them.”

OK, so Tezuka got the ball rolling on the medium, but aren’t moe characters a fundamentally different breed than those in story manga?

With moe characters, “there is a focus on jingai [inhuman], such as animals, robots, aliens, angels and so on. This marks the character as not a normal human and not part of reality. They are ideal and pure. I personally think this comes from Tezuka, for example the story in ‘Phoenix’ where a man falls in love with a robot that looks like a beautiful girl. In the story, the protagonist’s brain processes robots to appear beautiful and humans ugly. I think that was an expression of Tezuka’s own view of the world.”

Honda adds that stock themes like gender bending also go back to Tezuka works like “Princess Knight,” and the heroine Sapphire has both male and female characteristics.

Ito Go, who suggests in his provocative book “Tezuka is Dead” that criticism focused on story manga is outdated, agrees that Tezuka manga is moe.

“The most moe of all Tezuka’s manga were released during the early to mid- 1960s, which originates in his power of circular lines. Moe is the discovery of the pleasure of these circular lines, which would not happen again until the 1990s. There were people in between, however. Azuma Hideo…is the person who exposed the erotic aspects of Tezuka’s drawings. Takahashi Rumiko and Fukuyama Keiko were also influential in their round lines and soft characters. There are a type of picture called ‘puni-e,’ which capture the feeling of squishy flesh, and it is the style that came out of the latent moe in Tezuka’s round lines. Once Natsume Fusanosuke [the famous manga critic] said that he does not understand moe, but he could connect it through the eroticism of lines in Tezuka’s works.”

There you have it. Over two decades after his death, Tezuka still is on the cutting edge. He tried his hand at virtually every genre, and were Tezuka alive he may well be working in moe.

Editor’s note: Helen McCarthy also traces the origins of moe to Tezuka. Check out her blog.

Momoi is full of surprises. In fact, she didn’t make her magazine debut in gravure, but as a writer. The Tokyo native recalls being totally into computers (her name, Halko, is a reference to HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey”) and coming to Akihabara as a grade schooler. She was a blogger before there were blogs, a novelty that got her the magazine writing gig. When the Net took off, Momoi was in high school (cosplaying as Ayanami Rei and Fujisaki Shiori), and started posting her diary on her homepage.

Her love for Akihabara didn’t wane. In the latter half of the 1990s, she started performing live under the name Moai Halko in Akihabara in an empty field where the UDX Building now stands. A label picked her up, and she made her singing debut with “Mail Me” in 2000 and seiyuu debut with “The Soul Taker” in 2001. Soon after, Momoi became famous for Under 17, among the first units not to use pseudonyms when performing music for bishoujo games. A fanatic following ensued, with a peak in 2004.

Momoi returned to her solo career in 2005, and even performed with techno-pop stars Perfume in 2005. Her voice is everywhere in Akiba; she sings a CM song for doujinshi dealer Toranoana, and the ring theme for moe otaku kick boxer Nagashima Yuichiro.

“He’s great and we hang out a lot,” Momoi says. When asked about his tendency to dress up as bishoujo, Momoi responds, “I think on some level it is the dream of all moe otaku to become women. Moe is like a third sex, a completely different orientation.”

Is that an insult or a compliment? Maybe a little of both. Momoi admits to a time when she was ready to forsake moe. “It was like, ‘The more times you squeak ‘Big brother!’ the better,” she muses. The shift to rock music in “Wonder Momooi” and more adult tones of San from “Seto no Hanayome” were part of that.

However, she started to rediscover her roots in the DVD release “Halko Update” (2007) and her autobiography, “Akihaba Love: I grew up with Akihabara” (2007), and travel abroad, for example Anime Expo in the United States and Connichi in Germany in 2007. “The fans there were so into moe that I started to reconsider it’s value,” Momoi says.

She since founded her own label, Akihaba Love Records, and promote moe at home and abroad. For her, it’s counter culture. It is hard to understand for some people, perhaps vaguely criminal. Despite all the hate, moe fans continue to do their thing. “Isn’t it a little like punk was in England?” asks Momoi, a professed fan of classic punk.

Maybe those perceived connections are why she contributed two tracks to “Pankore: Voice Actresses’ Legendary Punk Songs Collection” in 2009. Seiyuu, especially those associated with moe anime such as Goto Yuko, Shimizu Kaori and Kadowaki Mai sing classic songs of resistance and angst in high-pitched, saccharine sweet, broken English.

Momoi’s interpretation of “Sex and Violence” exemplifies her take on moe. It uses only the English words “sex” and “violence,” which are repeated over and over in cutesy, upbeat tones. At certain intervals, lines are read in Japanese: “Meow! I’m a cat, so it’s OK!” “Big brother!!” “It’s so much fun!” Male Japanese voices (performed by women) can be heard in the background, mumbling in a horny stupor, “Isn’t this awesome?” It’s like Momoi is turning anime from the last 10 years inside out and showing it to us.

Momoi Halko. An otaku. A mature idol. A seiyuu who knows her place in anime – playing sexy little girls – and actively questions it.